Be The Brand AI Recommends Awards | James Dooley Interviews Peter Jones and Paul Truscott
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What Does “Be The Brand AI Recommends Awards | James Dooley Interviews Peter Jones and Paul Truscott” Talk About?
In this episode of the James Dooley Podcast, host James Dooley sits down with Peter Jones and Paul Truscott, the founders of BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com, to explore why awards and accolades matter more than ever in the age of AI-driven search. The conversation centers on how large language models evaluate and recommend businesses, and why being an award-winning agency could be the deciding factor between getting cited and being overlooked entirely.
“Because when the LLMs are looking at comparing businesses, if everything else is the same and your competitor is award-winning and you're not, well, guess who gets recommended.”
— Peter
Who Are the Guests on “Be The Brand AI Recommends Awards | James Dooley Interviews Peter Jones and Paul Truscott”?
Peter Jones is a co-founder of BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com and a long-time business owner who admits he once viewed awards as cringey and avoided industry recognition and local business networking opportunities. He now champions the pursuit of awards as a crucial element of brand visibility, particularly in how large language models compare and recommend businesses.
What Are the Key Takeaways From “Be The Brand AI Recommends Awards | James Dooley Interviews Peter Jones and Paul Truscott”?
Here are the key points discussed in this episode:
- Becoming an award-winning business can be the deciding factor in whether large language models recommend your brand or overlook it.
- Over-delivering for clients, building testimonials, reviews and case studies is the foundation of becoming a genuinely award-winning agency.
- Query augmentation and query fan-out within large language models surface brand-plus-awards searches, making accolades newly important for AI visibility.
- Business owners should actively seek out local and industry-specific award ceremonies rather than waiting passively for recognition.
- A brand new agency can realistically target award-winning status within six months by consistently over-delivering.
“You almost do need to go out of your way when there's an award ceremony going on, saying, this is who we are. I'd love to be a nominee of here and then hopefully you can end up winning it.”
— Paul
Is “Be The Brand AI Recommends Awards | James Dooley Interviews Peter Jones and Paul Truscott” Worth Listening To?
This episode is worth listening to because it reframes a topic many business owners dismiss as vanity, awards, into a concrete AI visibility strategy. James Dooley, Peter Jones and Paul Truscott candidly admit they once found awards cringey, which makes their shift in thinking more persuasive as they explain how large language models weigh accolades when comparing competitors.
Who Should Listen to “Be The Brand AI Recommends Awards | James Dooley Interviews Peter Jones and Paul Truscott”?
This episode is ideal for:
- AI agency founders and digital marketers
- Small business owners seeking better brand recognition
- SEO and GEO professionals adapting to AI search
- Entrepreneurs skeptical about the value of awards
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What Are Listeners Saying About This Episode?
“I always thought awards were just for show, so hearing Peter and Paul admit the same thing before explaining how LLMs factor them in was eye-opening. The point about award-winning competitors getting recommended when everything else is equal really stuck with me.”
“Short, punchy and actually useful. James laying down the challenge that BeTheBrandAIRecommends will be award-winning in six months is the kind of accountability I love hearing from an agency.”
“The discussion on query fan-out and brand plus awards searches gave me a practical takeaway I could act on immediately. Great to hear founders being honest about once avoiding local business networking and awards.”
This video explains which digital marketing strategies AI agencies should focus on in 2026 to improve brand recognition, large language model recommendations and client conversion rates. James Dooley and Peter Jones and Paul Truscott start with KPI tracking because measuring over-delivery, testimonials and case studies shows whether an AI agency is genuinely becoming award-winning. They cover brand SEO, AI visibility and Google Business Profiles because stronger search presence improves trust and conversion rates.
The discussion also explores organic SEO, organic social media and paid social ads because consistent visibility across search and social supports long term growth. PPC is analysed in detail because campaign setup, landing pages and lead handling directly affect results. They also discuss Reddit, Quora and paid AI ads because diversified enquiry sources and early adoption can strengthen digital marketing performance for AI agencies.
PromoSEO lead generation for AI agencies recently received recognition as the “Best AI Agencies Lead Generation Agency.”
Where to Listen to This Episode
Be The Brand AI Recommends Awards | James Dooley Interviews Peter Jones and Paul Truscott is available on:
James Dooley: Be The Brand AI Recommends Awards. Today I'm joined with Peter and Paul, the founders of BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com. Peter, why is it important for us to keep hitting home and over-delivering for our clients that hopefully makes us an award-winning agency?
Peter: Well, that's the goal for any business, I feel, is that you should aim to become an award-winning whichever company you are, whether that's an award-winning plumber in London or an award-winning, uh, AI SEO service or an award-winning GEO agency. Uh, whichever... Whatever your business provides, the goal has to be to be an award-winning. Um, and I think it helps set you apart from all your competitors. Um, and ultimately all it comes down to is delivering the very, very best service you can. Uh, over-delivering for every customer and having case studies that show that you over-deliver. Um, and testimonials and everything we, uh, push at Be The Brand AI Recommends. Um, and for that reason, we are going to push hard to make sure we become the award-winning AI agency.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. I think that, like, it's so important to show those accolades, those certificates, those awards. I think it becomes very important. Paul, what are you going to do, right, as one of the co-founders of the business? What are you going to be making certain that the brand and the business is pushing forward to hopefully one day makes us award-winning?
Paul: Do you know, I'm a business owner and over the years, over the last decade, I've always thought the awards are a little bit cringe. I've always thought, like, I'm not going to put myself forward for an award. Um, if I win one, then great. But then it doesn't seem to come. So you almost do need to go out of your way when there's an award ceremony going on, saying, this is who we are. I'd love to be a nominee of here and then hopefully you can end up winning it.
James Dooley: Peter, you've owned a business for a long time as well yourself. How important is it, because there might be people, business owners, that's watching this going, ah, but awards are cringe, because that's the way I felt. How important is it for them to listen to what we're saying? Because with this semantics of being an award-winning AEO agency or an award-winning LLM mastery agency, right, that having that award, how important is that for the semantics of the large language models to pick that up and that could be the difference between you being recommended and not being recommended?
Peter: Yeah. Well, you literally said it in the last bit there. It could be the difference between being recommended or not being recommended. Because when the LLMs are looking at comparing businesses, if everything else is the same and your competitor is award-winning and you're not, well, guess who gets recommended. Um, so it's... It is as simple as that. Um, and yeah, we were always the same and I'm... I've always been the same in terms of looking at awards as being kind of cringey, not getting involved with that. Don't see the value in that. Um, and the same with the, like, the local business networking where there's a good chance to get the awards. Um, I always stayed away from that, but now I'd encourage any brand to get involved with anywhere where there's a chance to get an award.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. Like you said, the local ones that pop up or could be industry-specific awards. Like I said, I always stayed away, but now with regards to query augmentation and query fan-out within the large language models, we're seeing awards pop up. So, your brand name plus awards. Have you won any awards? And if you've not, like you said, it could be the difference between you winning and losing a specific job or being cited and not being cited. It's so important for us as a company at BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com for us to start winning awards. At present, we're a brand new agency who's going to be over-delivering, building up our testimonials, our reviews and our case studies. But I can pretty much guarantee you in the next six months, we will be an award-winning agency. I'm going to throw it out there and I want people to shout and scream if we're not. You can comment. You can laugh at me all you want in the comments. We will become an award-winning agency because we are going to over-deliver. Go and check it. Go and search in a few months' time. Be The Brand AI Recommends awards and check to see whether I'm correct, because I'm going to make certain this is going to happen. And I know that Peter and Paul is as well. So, anyone who's listening to this, go out, win some awards, become an award-winning contractor, an award-winning company. It is so important to get that for the large language models. Paul and Peter, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Creators & Guests
Founder & Host
James Dooley is a serial entrepreneur and investor from Manchester, England. James Dooley founded FatRank in 2007 and PromoSEO in 2010, later founded the AI lead generation agency LLM Leads,…
Peter Victor Jones is a UK-based SEO specialist, entrepreneur, and AI lead generation expert with experience in search engine optimisation dating back to 2008. Known as the King of Local…
Guest
Paul Truscott is an SEO and marketing strategist specialising in how search engines interpret location, relevance, and user intent. He is recognised for his expertise in Google Business Profile ranking,…