Marty Bate Free AI check

Marty Bate · business owner, not a guru

Your customers are asking AI.
Do you show up?

Most business owners I talk to say the same thing: "No idea. I need to talk to someone." I've spent 20 years running an online business. I'm rebuilding it with AI right now, in public, receipts and all. Let me show you where you stand.

Get a free AI check → no pitch. one owner to another.
20+ years in businessMega Office Supplies · DymoOnline · PoscARTTweed Heads, NSW
Marty Bate smiling on the beach at sunrise
me, sunrise beach walk
my old agency bill, running while you read$0.00
Sack the agency

$15,906 a month back. And counting.

Real invoices from my own business, Mega Office Supplies. I'm not naming the agencies. This is about the model, not the people in it.

MEGA THING PTY LTDAGENCY SPEND · PER MONTH · INC GST
ADS MANAGEMENTGoogle, Microsoft, Meta$9,350.00gone!
SEO RETAINERNow an expert council$4,400.00$2,200.00−50%
EMAIL MARKETINGCut by 66%$6,600.00$2,244.00−66%
WAS / MONTH$20,350.00
NOW / MONTH$4,444.00
SAVED / MONTH$15,906.00
SAVED / YEAR$190,872.00

*** UPDATED 25 OCT 2026 ***
THANK YOU FOR YOUR BUSINESS

$190k a year,
back in the business.
All three agencies dealt with.

From real invoices, rounded, inc GST. Smaller invoices for my other brands aren't counted. Updated every time one goes.

The free AI check

When someone asks ChatGPT for what you sell, does it name you?

A car dealer told me half his buyers will soon start with ChatGPT. I asked him his plan. "No idea, I need to talk to someone." That's most businesses right now. So here's what I'll do.

1

I ask the AI about you

The questions your customers ask ChatGPT and Google's AI. I show you who it recommends: you, or the bloke down the road.

2

I find what's tripping it up

Thin pages, numbers that contradict each other, your name spelled three ways, reviews nobody answers. The stuff AI uses to decide if it trusts you.

3

You get a one-page fix list

Plain English, most important first. Do it yourself, hand it to your web person, or have Headland Studio rebuild it. That's my son Rylan's studio, and I keep an eye on every job.

I ran it on my own business first. My own website was telling Google and AI that we're a company that doesn't exist. Twenty minutes to find, twenty to fix. Now it's right.
Book your free AI check →
One free check a month, in exchange for a case study I can share. After that it's a fixed fee. No retainer, ever.
The 10 · 80 · 10 rule

AI does the 80%. Humans own the first and last 10.

I'm not anti-people. I'm anti-bloat. AI does the heavy middle. A human sets the direction at the start and checks the work at the end. AI is 80% of the answer, not 100%.

humansets the direction

AIdoes the work, day in, day out

humanchecks it, calls the next move

One month on a ruler: days 1 to 3 human, 4 to 27 AI, 28 to 30 human.

Agencies become an expert council.

That's where agencies have to go: from doing the work to advising on it. It's a pay cut for them, and better value for everyone else.

“My SEO agency took the deal. Half the fee. They bring the skills, me and my AI do the heavy lifting.”
A father's hand and his son's hand pressed on a beach rock at sunrise
every beach walk, we touch the rocks
The turnaround

Life threw its punches. This is the comeback.

Twenty-odd years in, everything hit at once. COVID. A marriage breakdown. The business, the savings, the money I'd put away for my kids, all on the line at the same time.

Running three brands like that was too hard. Too many dashboards, too many people to chase, not enough hours in the day.

AI saved me. The work that used to break me now runs in the background. It gave me back my time and the headspace to be a dad. Now it's coming for the agency bills.

now I'm white-knuckle excited about what's coming.

Why now

The two walls are gone.

For twenty years, two things kept owners paying agencies: you didn't have the knowledge, and you couldn't afford to buy it. AI knocked both down. What's left is the part nobody can do for you: deciding to back yourself.

In 2009 I had nineteen tabs open and no time for anything else. Now I ask, and AI works across them for me.

The knowledge

WasLocked inside agencies and specialists you paid by the hour.
NowOn tap, in plain English, the moment you ask.

The cost of using it

WasFive-figure retainers before you'd sold a thing.
NowOne to two grand for tools that do more.
The team

Nobody's getting sacked but the agencies.

My team's worried AI will replace them. It won't. It's taking the repetitive jobs off their desks so they can do what people do best: looking after customers.

“Agentic is here. Throw a harness on it and ride it.”Marty, to the Mega crew
HANDOVER SHEETMEGA OFFICE SUPPLIES

Moving to AI

  • Product data
  • Supplier stock updates
  • Pricelist checks
  • Chasing late orders

Staying human

  • Customer service
  • Real conversations
  • Judgement calls
Proof

The apple doesn't fall far. My 12-year-old builds websites.

His name's Rylan. Over the school holidays, between mountain bike rides, he sat down with AI and built panelacoustics.com.au: a real, working store, the kind an agency quotes five figures for. Now he's launched his own web design studio, Headland Studio, building sites for local shops, tradies and cafés, and adds to his portfolio every week. He's twelve. If the blocker was ever knowledge or budget, it isn't now.

Marty and his son Rylan smiling together on the beach at sunrise
Rylan & me, beach walk
His own studioheadlandstudio.co Built solopanelacoustics.com.au Affiliate sitewhatfitsmybike.com.au
Shipped & livePublished Roblox game
Coming soon: Rylan tells this one himself on episode one of the podcast.
Who is Marty?

Not a consultant. An operator who's still standing.

Twenty-odd years in business, online since 2009, and I still run three brands every day. Everything on this page, I do in my own businesses first.

  1. First

    Operating theatres

    I started out as a registered nurse in theatre. You learn fast what matters when it counts.

  2. Family

    Born into office supplies

    Mum and Dad were among the founding members of Office Brands, the group behind Office National.

  3. Tweed

    Office National Tweed

    We bought the Tweed Heads business and ran it as Office National Tweed.

  4. The leap

    "A falcon in a canary cage"

    That's what I told them when I left Office National for ASA, a buying group for bigger, independent dealers.

  5. 2009

    First online store

    Early omnichannel. Nineteen dashboards. It grew into Mega Office Supplies, DymoOnline and PoscART.

  6. The hard years

    Life threw its punches

    COVID and a marriage breakdown, at the same time. It nearly took the business.

  7. Now

    Rebuilding with AI, and sharing it

    Cutting $20k a month of agency spend in public, and helping other business owners build their profitability the same way. Still running all three brands.

Mega Office SuppliesB2B office supplies, national
DymoOnlineLabelling specialist
PoscARTMarkers & creative supplies
20+ yrsIn business, still trading
2009Selling online since
3Brands run on Shopify Plus
28,000+Products enriched with AI, not an agency

Recognised by the Australian Business Awards (ABA100 Winner, Business Excellence 2025), the She-com Awards and the Tweed NSW Business Awards.

Stack swap

Show me yours. I'll show you mine.

This is the actual tech stack that runs three brands, and the one I'm using to replace $20k a month of agencies. No secrets. Send me yours and I'll tell you what I'd keep, cut or swap.

StorefrontShopify PlusAll three stores, one platform. Procurement & stockCin7Purchasing, stock and supplier orders, linked to Shopify.referral ShippingStarshipitLabels and tracking without the copy-paste. EmailKlaviyoFlows that sell while I sleep. Help deskGorgiasEvery customer message in one place. AccountsXeroThe numbers, kept honest. ReportingWindsor.aiAd and web data pulled into one view.referral AdsRyzeAI across Google and Meta ads.referral CreativeHiggsfieldImages and video for this very page.referral The brainClaudeWorks across all of the above. The bit that's replacing the agencies.

The ones marked referral earn me a small fee. I only list what I pay for and use every day.

Get my full stack breakdown

What each tool does for me, what it replaced, and the setup mistakes I made so you don't. Then tell me what you run, and I'll send back what I'd change.

What are you running now? Tick any.
What a yarn gets you

I find the bloat. You keep the plan.

1

We look at your actual stack

Every tool, every subscription, every retainer. What you pay, and what you get for it.

2

I show you what to cut

What's duplicated, what AI can absorb, and what to kill. In plain English, with the real numbers.

3

You walk away with a plan

Keep it and run it yourself, or have me help. Either way it's yours.

The yarn is free. If you want the full teardown, that's a fixed fee. No lock-in, no monthly retainer. Charging you one would make me a hypocrite.
Straight up: I earn a referral fee on some of the tools I recommend. I only ever recommend what I run in my own business, and you'll always know which ones.
Book a yarn

Let's have a yarn.

Two small business owners going through your numbers over a coffee or a video call. Twenty minutes.

It'll be me on the call. Not a sales team, not a VA.

Bring your worst invoice. We'll work out together whether it's earning its keep.

Marty

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