Unscripted Small Business Interview with Drew Carmichael

May 09, 2025•7 min read

In a recent episode of the Unscripted Small Business Podcast, host Daniel Hill interviewed Drew Carmichael, a 19-year-old entrepreneur who runs The Cultivator, a marketing agency serving businesses across Australia and internationally. Drew shared his inspiring journey from school-based side hustles to building a successful marketing agency, offering valuable insights for small business owners along the way.

Meet Drew Carmichael: Young Entrepreneur with a Vision

Drew Carmichael started his entrepreneurial journey while still in school, initially selling collectibles on eBay before moving to Amazon FBA and eventually launching a Shopify store focused on interior design products. This early experience gave him firsthand knowledge of the challenges small businesses face when it comes to marketing.

"I started my first business when I was actually in school and got a little bit frustrated with, with just, you know, messing around during school and I wanted to expand and learn a little bit outside the box," Drew explained. "From there everything's just taken off and honestly being open to opportunities is the biggest thing that I can really attribute to my success."

The Birth of The Cultivator

Drew's marketing agency, The Cultivator, emerged from his personal experiences running small businesses and encountering frustrations with other marketing agencies.

"When you first think of a marketing agency, personally, since I've run small businesses before starting it, I didn't really like marketing agencies personally because I've had so many negative experiences," Drew shared. "I thought there was so much opportunity to sort of really be down to earth with individuals."

The Cultivator operates with two main focuses: helping e-commerce businesses scale through paid ads, branding, and SEO, and helping service-based businesses increase their leads. What sets them apart is their pod system, which limits the number of clients each team member works with to ensure focused attention.

Choosing Entrepreneurship Over University

When Daniel asked about Drew's education path, Drew revealed he chose to forego university despite having done well in school and coming from a family background in the car dealership business.

"I did fairly well at school and all of my mates that were doing well as well have gone to uni. And my entire family is in the car industry," Drew said. "When I was graduating school, that was the point at which I had two people turn up in my messages, in my emails, while I was running these e-com stores saying, 'Hey Drew, I wanna pay you to do my marketing.'"

Faced with this opportunity alongside the prospect of university debt, Drew made his choice: "I'm 100% dedicated to the marketing agency and our awesome clients. Every client we have, we only sign clients on if we're 100% convinced that they have a solid business and we treat them as a friend."

SEO Insights: The Long-Term Strategy

Drew shared valuable insights about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), describing it as a long-term strategy that complements immediate paid advertising efforts.

"SEO is really a long-term strategy. When we start working with clients, we do pitch them the idea of SEO, but we also get them started on paid ads because if we're looking at ranking on Google... we find that to get the instant satisfaction of a client working with us, we do have to start with giving Google a little bit of money to put us in the sponsored window."

Matt Brooks of SEOteric offers an important perspective on the SEO industry: "We do need to have a serious talk about how SEO is being sold. We have influence, not control, and you can't guarantee what you can't control. We can guarantee that we'll provide impactful changes that are going to help you with rankings and user engagement, but you can't guarantee an outcome of a system you don't control. Some of the stuff we have to compete with in the sales process is ridiculous to have to refute."

Brooks continues, "Heard just this week: 'AMP pages are really important,' 'We have Google certified SEOs,' 'We won't have to change your content,' 'Guaranteed 1st position for your keywords.' It's sad. Either the people selling don't have a clue, or they are pandering to an audience that they know doesn't know any better. And I'm not sure which one is worse."

Drew's "Secret Sauce" for E-commerce SEO

Drew generously shared some of his agency's strategies for e-commerce businesses:

"There's this one software that we use for e-comm and it's called Simprosis and it essentially allows really, really sophisticated product feeds to be filtered through to Google. And in any recommendation, if you want to have a really effective SEO ranked e-comm site, I would always go with Shopify."

He explained that while Shopify might be more expensive than alternatives like WooCommerce, it allows integration with apps like Google and YouTube app and Simprosis, which help products rank better in the shopping tab due to effective Google Merchant Center feeds.

Data-Driven Decision Making

One of Drew's key recommendations for small businesses is to focus on collecting and analyzing data to make strategic decisions about where to focus marketing efforts.

"Realistically, when it comes to, when we work with the business, the first thing we do is try collecting as much data as possible because there are so many different platforms that quite frankly can get overwhelming to try and conquer all of them at once."

Drew recommends that small businesses:

Install Google Analytics to track traffic sources
Use Microsoft Clarity (a free tool) that records visitor behavior on your website
Focus first on optimizing the platform that drives the most conversions

"I would highly recommend to get Google Analytics installed... After a week or so, you can check back and then have a look at where your most popular referrals are coming from and optimize that platform."

Great Quotes From Drew Carmichael

"Being open to opportunities is the biggest thing that I can really attribute to my success."
"Those businesses were my baby and I expect the marketing agency to treat my business like a baby as well. And that's exactly what we do at The Cultivator."
"A lot of people that I find don't really mind with all that funky jargon. As long as they're making money, that's the biggest thing that matters, right?"
"Right now, I'm 100% dedicated to the marketing agency and our awesome clients."
"Every client we have, we only sign clients on if we're 100% convinced that they have a solid business and we treat them as a friend."
"I would try and start collecting as much data as possible to work out where our customers that are coming from are converting from. And then I would focus on that one platform to improve that."
"Clarity is 100% free and I'm genuinely surprised that not more business owners know of it because it's built by Microsoft and it essentially records every single person that visits your website."

Key Takeaways

Start where you are: Drew began with simple side hustles that evolved into larger businesses, learning and adapting along the way.
Experience beats theory: Drew's firsthand experience running businesses gave him the insights needed to create a marketing agency that truly understands client needs.
Focus on client results: The Cultivator emphasizes making money for clients rather than confusing them with industry jargon.
Combine short and long-term strategies: Use paid advertising for immediate results while building SEO for long-term benefits.
Data drives decisions: Collect data to identify where your customers are coming from, then focus your efforts on optimizing those channels.
Utilize free tools: Tools like Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity provide valuable insights without adding costs.
Relationship-based business: Treating clients like friends and being selective about who you work with can lead to stronger partnerships.