About
I’m Michael. Hi.
Marketer in San Diego since 2010. Mostly Ensenada these days, with regular trips north for in-person meetings, BNI, and family.
I’m a second-culture-kid version of an adult. The kind who grew up in one place, built something there, and then realized the place was optional. So I optionalized it.
What I do for work
I run MRB Media, a digital marketing agency I founded in 2010. We do strategy, websites, SEO, marketing automation, and AI-powered content for small businesses. Most clients are service businesses or professional practices in the $500K to $10M range.
I also run AI Guy Mike for AI consulting and CRM work, and Soar Portal, a productized marketing platform.
How I figured this out
From graduation in 2010 until 2022, I was based in San Diego. But I was traveling three or four months a year. Work mostly. Increasingly just because I could.
I built everything intentionally portable from the start. The agency runs on systems, not my physical presence. My team works remotely. Clients are mostly over video. None of this requires me to be in any specific city on any specific day.
In 2022 I started spending real time in Mexico. Now I’m mostly in Ensenada, with regular trips north. San Diego is two hours up the road.
I’m not writing this because I think Mexico is some life-changing destination. It isn’t. Ensenada has good days and bad days like anywhere else, and the romantic “expat finds himself in paradise” thing is mostly nonsense. I’m in Ensenada because the math works. Cost of living, weather, proximity to San Diego, decent food. That’s it.
The point is: you can build a business that runs from anywhere. Then you can go anywhere. Most people don’t, because nobody tells them they can.
What I write about
Essays about running a business across borders, AI that’s actually useful for small business, the unromantic reality of expat life, networking and referrals, and recipes I’ll send you whether you asked or not.
The Falling In, Falling Out series is about a chunk of my life when I fell in love with a place and a person at the same time, and then had to figure out which parts were real once the dust settled.
What I speak about
AI that small businesses can actually deploy this quarter, not next year. How to build a referral practice that compounds. Why most marketing stops working and what to do about it.
I speak to BNI chapters, business associations, and conferences. The talks are practical. No theory-only keynotes. No “AI is the future” without showing what to do Monday morning.
Where I show up
Longtime BNI member in the South San Diego area. If we’ve done a 1-2-1, you already know how I work. If we haven’t: I show up prepared, I refer people I’ve actually vetted, and I follow through every time. That’s the whole game.
What I give back
Every Tuesday in Ensenada, my team and I cook and serve dinner at Albergue San Vicente, a shelter for migrants and displaced people. We call it Everybody Eats on Tuesday. Between 50 and 100 meals a week. Some weeks the shelter has donations. Some weeks we’re buying half the meal ourselves. Worth it either way.
Why this site exists
Because I do more than one thing, and the lazy version is to make people pick which Michael they want. This site doesn’t do that. The agency, the speaking, the writing, the cooking, the shelter work. It’s all the same person. It all lives here.