Mike Kamo

NP Digital

Growing companies through innovative digital strategies.

Co-Founder

Ubersuggest

HelloBar

Legion Works

Strideapp.com

Co Founder

Westcott Mazda

General Manager

Over the past 15 years, I've driven growth for multiple ventures: scaling one company to $100M+ in revenue, two to $10M+, and several from $1M to $5M+. 

In 2012, I teamed up with Neil Patel, soaking up his expertise as we launched four businesses together. 

While some ventures failed, our successes far outweighed the losses. Those wins, and the mentors who guided me, shaped my path.

Now, I pay it forward. I thrive on mentoring, strategizing, and helping others succeed—whether it's brainstorming ideas, refining marketing, or navigating business sales.
 
Need a second opinion or a sounding board? Let’s connect."

Stop overbuilding your content team.

You can scale creative work without film days or heavy crews.

On a call, I laid out a simple model for creator videos. By creator, I mean an independent person who makes videos for your brand.

You don't have to go and do a film day. A film day is an in-person shoot with a crew. Send it to the creator and give them instructions.

Record yourself saying all these things. You need to be in this outfit. You need to be in this setting. Walk up to this guy on the street.

Then your internal team does editing. No videographers. Margins are a beautiful thing because there are no production costs.

Build one lean pod to service many clients. Pod means a small fixed team that works together. It is a creative strategist, a project manager, and a video editor. They plan content, manage deadlines, and edit footage fast. With one pod.

This keeps overhead low and speed high. Founders can scale creative services quickly with fewer full-time hires.

Source creators externally, focus your pod on strategy, project management, and editing. You maximize margin and throughput per headcount. Throughput means output per person.

Co-Founder @ NP Digital & Ubersuggest. Entrepreneur / Investor.

The hobby that most improved my leadership? Pickleball and table tennis.

The lessons translated directly to running teams.

I played table tennis for fun. A 75-year-old beat me badly, so I got serious.

I hired a coach, practiced, and trained. I got so good friends stopped playing me. Then I entered competitions.

I picked up pickleball, a paddle sport like tennis, and improved fast. Same approach, same result.

I’m a learner. I study how to learn, build an action plan, and enjoy getting better every week.

Most people just play for fun. My fun is the improvement process and daily progress.

This mindset changed how I run the company. Early on, I was terrible at recruiting, and I made painful mistakes.

I hired the wrong people, had to fire them, and it felt awful. So I studied, practiced, and sought expert help.

I read a recruiting book, consumed as much content as I could, and talked to recruiters. After months and hundreds of interviews, I got really good and hired great talent. I use the same approach across the business.

When a business is slowly declining, bigger ads won't save it. Fix the product first.

In our 2026 budget review for Ubersuggest, our SEO tool, we set a profit floor. That is the minimum profit we will keep.

It gives us enough hiring capacity to ship key features without overexposing the business.

The focus is product and engineering to reverse a multi-year decline caused by product stagnation.

The product sat mostly unchanged for two to three years. The first new feature was AI Brand Visibility, and it finally made noise. It shows where your brand appears inside answers from AI assistants like ChatGPT.

So we are going all in on product to reverse the decline. Marketing and ads follow, not lead.

Neil and I will review performance every month. We will adjust ad spend and engineering hires based on results.

Firing a top performer at the first sign of toxicity is almost always a mistake.

Someone asked how I choose coach versus exit, and what my first steps look like.

I never start with exit. They were a high performer, and those are hard to find.

Coaching starts with a human conversation. Ask what changed in their life, not just at work.

Often the cause is personal. A breakup, family stress, or health issues, not your culture. If your culture is the problem, fix that first.

Showing you care can flip performance back. People improve when they feel heard, it’s why therapy is so popular. Most return to high performance.

If months of effort change nothing and the business is hurting, then it is time to change.

My simple seven step plan to restart momentum:

1. Private, human check in. Ask what changed and listen fully

2. Restate expectations and impact. Define what good looks like again

3. Agree on two commitments from them and one from you

4. Offer support. Time, flexibility, or professional help if needed

5. Quick check in. Praise progress and restate expectations

6. Observe key moments. Meetings, deadlines, and responses to feedback

7. Decide. Continue coaching if trending up

Scheduling kills momentum.

If someone wants to talk now, make it happen now.

On a leadership call, I told our team to stop relying only on "find a time" links and try an option where people can talk right now.

Our agency uses Chili Piper for the call scheduler, and it has a feature where someone can request for the team to call them now instead of scheduling a call.

You can set your hours, even just for the next couple weeks, and let them talk to you right now, whoever on your team handles these calls.

You'll have a much higher show rate because when they schedule, it's top of mind in that moment, but then they get busy, life happens, and they end up missing later. Also you are striking the iron while it’s hot. 

What do you think someone does after they schedule a call with you for 3 days from now? They continue searching the web for a solution and find your competitors. 

God forbid your competitor is available to talk RIGHT NOW. 

Cut the friction, capture intent, and connect immediately for fewer no-shows and more conversions.

Don't promise your clients outcomes you can't control.

Someone asked what promise NP Digital refuses to make.

We never guarantee results or position #1 on Google.

I've seen other agencies do it. I don't know how anybody could be willing to do that. We don't own Google, and we don't control the algorithms that decide rankings.

Algorithms Google uses to sort results change without warning.

So we just won't promise guaranteed rankings to clients.

A sales rep put it best when asked for guarantees.

"The only thing we can guarantee you is this. If you do no marketing, you'll be in the same place six months from now that you are today."

Stop teaching sales with slides.

Show people what great looks like in 60 seconds.

On a call, I asked a seasoned sales operator to record herself with Loom doing a mock intro of how you set the agenda: “hey, nice to meet you, all right, this is how the call today is going to go.”

If they actually see you and hear you do it, I think they're going to learn better than putting it on a slide.

Then do the same for the next parts, record yourself going over problem/solution so the team can model the tone, confidence, and flow.

I’m using her knowledge and sales skills to give recorded demos to the team.

Founders, codify your top performers into a short video library to onboard faster and keep call quality consistent across the team.

Instead of more content, consider translating your best performing content in more languages.

On a sales call, the team discussed using webinars to attract new customers.

I suggested a simple move. Use our translator, who already translates our social media videos, to translate our best webinars.

This repurposes proven content, expands reach fast, and gives local teams more qualified leads.

It boosts marketing ROI, the return you get from your spend, without heavy new production.

Stop spending big before you know it works.

On a call with a startup, I pushed this hard.

You see people raise $2 million or pour money into a website.

Why?

Go spend $100 and get someone on fiverr.com to build it.

Validate whatever you're doing first, in the cheapest way possible.

Prove demand before investing in systems, software, or a large team.

This saves cash, speeds learning, and prevents sunk-cost traps.

If the $100 version fails, the $2 million version will too.

Stop paying for activity. Pay for outcomes.

On a call with a startup planning referral incentives, I said, "don't give them the $10 just for booking an appointment. Only pay if the prospect shows up for the call."

Why pay $10 for a link click or a quick intro when someone can schedule and never show up? (their show rate is 60% btw)

The incentives are totally not aligned. Only pay when a prospect actually attends the consult.

Founders, align compensation to the measurable behavior that drives revenue to prevent gaming, cut wasted acquisition spend, and improve referral quality.

If you need case studies or testimonials, ask your customers to share their story.

It's a simple way to gather social proof fast. Of course you need a product that actually gets results 😃

It also makes all of your marketing more effective when you display them on your sales pages.

taplio

Mike Kamo's Linkedin Analytics

Mike Kamo

Performance ScoreMike Kamo's LinkedIn Performance

What is Mike talking about?

Mike Kamo's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

.css-6ytdur{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39, 43, 72, 1) 0%, rgba(33, 47, 183, 1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Mike Kamo's Linkedin Analytics

Mike Kamo

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Mike Kamo's LinkedIn Performance

What is Mike talking about?

Mike Kamo's Best Posts .css-1emoo84{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:400;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);}(last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Mike Kamo's Linkedin Analytics

Performance ScoreMike Kamo's LinkedIn Performance

Mike Kamo's Best Posts (last 30 days)