Episode 365 – John Vuong
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody it's Tom here with episode three hundred and sixty five, a Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with John Vuong and he says he's had too many jobs to even count, but he found his calling. He's got a local echo company he's going to tell you about. And and I've never specialized in that at all. As long as I've been doing this, I always farmed out that work if it was a local deal.

[00:00:51] And then, of course, I always try to talk him into making ebooks and sell things globally. But if you need local customers, then you want to listen up to this episode. All right. Make sure you get a copy of our Free Automation book we give you for listening to the show. It's called How to Automate Your Business. And it's at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. It saved me millions of keystrokes and just makes me lightning fast. Taking care of things saves me enormous amounts of work. We have cell phone tips and all kinds of tips for your computer that really, really save you a lot of work. So that's at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. While you're over there, take a copy of our podcast app and you can put it on your cell phone and tablet and do all kinds of cool things with it. Like if the phone rings, it'll pause the podcast. You can talk on the phone as soon as you hang up. The podcast starts right up where it was. So just lots of stuff like that. And you can save your favorite episodes. And we have complete instructions, video and screen capture so you can learn how to use it. screwthecommute.com/app All right. Now, I know everybody's still freaking out with the pandemic, and I'm certainly cognizant of the pain and suffering that's been going on all over the world because of it.

[00:02:12] But it's not been as bad for myself and my students because we know how to sell online.

[00:02:19] I've been preaching this for twenty years, but it couldn't be any more prevalent now than it is with this pandemic and lockdowns. And you never know if it's locked down. And today it is, and tomorrow it isn't and vice versa. So I don't like that kind of chaos. So I've been sitting here the whole time. I get people calling me, have known me for twenty years, say, hey, Tommy, OK, are you doing alright in this pandemic?

[00:02:42] And I'm like, what? What do you mean?

[00:02:44] I've been sitting here the whole time anyway. So so that's what I want for you and I.

[00:02:50] I've been teaching this over twenty two years, hit multimillionaire status twenty years ago and formalized the training. You know, there were so many scammers out there. I said, you know, I'm going to set myself apart. So I went through three years of living hell to get the license for my school. It's the only license dedicated Internet marketing school in the country, probably the world. It's a distance learning school. It's certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's true. Good quality distance learning. So we have students making 6000 dollars a month as a side hustle after their parents spend a fortune on their regular college. Then they got into my school and they started making money right away. So it's at IMTCVA.org. And a little later I'll tell you how you can get a scholarship to the school that you can either use or gift to someone if you are in my mentor program. So I'll tell you a little bit more about that later.

[00:03:55] All right. Let's get to the main event. John Vuong is the owner and founder of Local CEO Search. It's a boutique agency that helps small businesses dominate their local market on Google. And John focuses really on more than just ranking online. He really tries to help his clients grow and succeed. John, are you ready to screw?

[00:04:18] Yes. Yes.

[00:04:21] Good. Good to talk to you again. I was on John's podcast. He has local CEO today, I think it's called then we had a good time there. And I said, this is a perfect guy to have on. Screw the commute. So. So tell me a little bit about what you're doing now, and then we'll take you back and see how you how you got here.

[00:04:37] Yeah, definitely. Seven years ago, I started this agency. It's called Local Search, and we specialize in small, medium sized businesses helping them transform their business to become more visible on search, primarily Google and dominate their niche. Right, become experts, thought leaders, authoritative figures in their domain. And really, that's what we've been doing in the last seven years.

[00:05:04] Yeah. And and I said I never.

[00:05:07] Concentrated on local search, it's a different animal than national or international search, and, you know, when I did have clients that had local business, I would talk them into writing books and teaching what they do around the world.

[00:05:23] But if you want clients, it's a different thing. Tom some of the differences in some of the tricks of the trade to to get local customers.

[00:05:33] Yeah. So local is a little bit different than international. Right. Because majority of the people are online doing searches, but majority of the traffic that actually translate to a transaction are the ones that you do on a regular basis. You shop at your local restaurant, you shop at your grocery store, your coffee shop, your local dental provider, your chiropractor, your physiotherapist. These are all localized search results. And typically these are keyword driven intented keywords, but also focus on a local community, a street corner. And that's how a majority of the traffic resides today. When when if you think about it, Google is understanding this more than ever. And that's why they are tracking your behavior, right. From mobile smartphones to desktop, understand your cash history cookies. And then they're translating it to the map. Search results right on Google.

[00:06:35] Yeah. When you say cash, tell everybody what you mean by it.

[00:06:38] So what's happening is Google. We're not talking about money here, folks. Now they're storing your history, right?

[00:06:45] Storing your behavior of what? What you're searching for up to 30 days. And the more information, more intel that they have, the more catered results you're going to get based on your search history, your behaviors, which sites you tend to reside more on. Right. And that's why it's important to understand what Google is after, which is primarily ads where they serve up different ad spots so that you can, you know, generate some leads at the top of search results page. But ultimately, as a business owner, if you don't click on the ads and majority of their customers don't click on ads, where do they go? They click on the map, the three pack or below the map. Right. And that's where I would say 60, 70, 80 percent of the traffic resides. So that's what we help business owners achieve. Right. Visibility on search on the first page without paying for ad.

[00:07:48] Tell them what the three pack is. And it used to be a seven pack and it was a ten back. And it was like, I don't think it was ever a six pack like your abs, but tell them what that is.

[00:07:58] Yeah, definitely. So the Google three pack is really if you are mobile device, it's becoming much more important because it's prime real estate. Right. People want to shop local and usually depending on the category that you search under, say, for instance, restaurants and there's hundreds of restaurants in a large city, you're going to have restaurants within a couple hundred meters radius.

[00:08:25] Right, because it's going to pick up the signal where that cell tower is.

[00:08:31] And it's really based on relevancy and proximity to where you are. So there's different ways to search. But ultimately, what Google is after is providing the best user intent with the search query that you're after and there's ways to outrank your competitor and also appear more frequently and often for different search queries so that you as a business owner can capitalize and optimize for the users that potential prospects are customers of yours.

[00:09:05] Yeah, and and I've always said about Google since the beginning, Google is kind of like the Wizard of Oz, like knows all sizzle. And that's why you're getting these things when you start the type of search like I typed in junkyard and immediately it said near me in the results because it knew where I was and it knew I wanted to go to a junkyard. So so they just knew. And then they gave me the results that made the best sense for me.

[00:09:34] Yeah. And these are all auto suggests keywords, right? Google has a lot of volume. They have a lot of traffic, a lot of queries. A lot of people are searching. And for myself, I'm a I guess a high, heavy user of Google. So I maybe use Google twenty times a day and every Eversole, that's all.

[00:09:56] Probably more than that.

[00:09:58] But every time I search, if I don't find the results I'm looking for, I'm going to rewrite the search term with more refined.

[00:10:06] Query and it's going to be longer tail, right, than the broad term junkyard near me, right? Well, it might be looking for a specific scrap metal part for my car.

[00:10:20] Yeah, I was looking for a used 20 inch wheel for a suburban 12 and 13. Exactly. That's long tail Seedfolks for the search junkyard is like a regular long tail. Was all that detail in it?

[00:10:37] Exactly. So there's a difference with the user intent when you're going after a broad term, which a lot of business owners want to dominate for. For instance, a dentist in New York, every dentist wants to be appearing for that term. Right. However, their customers, the users, the clients are not typing, just dentists. They're typing in. I'm looking for a root canal at the corner of 47 Eighth Street, you know, I mean, like very specific. And I'm looking for a root canal for my five year old son, for instance. Right. Or say your specific case and scenario. So you have to answer the queries of what you believe your customers are actually searching for. And that's where user intent comes into play when it comes to not just optimizing your website for search, but understanding how you can position yourself as a leader in your market.

[00:11:37] Yeah, and that's what you help people with, right? That's correct. Yeah. And then one thing that people have to you know, newbies do this all the time.

[00:11:45] They you know, their name is Yoseph because Wolinsky and they said, oh, I come up first and Google for Yoseph cause it's like, oh is that right. I wonder how many people are typing use.

[00:11:58] Of course, Wolinsky and the and then you said something earlier about, you know, caching and see, the thing is, as people think, oh, my site's doing great because they type it in a hundred times a day looking at it.

[00:12:11] And Google is going to give you what you just, as you said, what you're used to typing and what you want. And so they think everybody in the country or the world sees their site come up really high when that's they're the only ones.

[00:12:26] Exactly. I think you nailed it on the head at the beginning where you mentioned people know you with your exact match domain name or your name brand it. Right. Right. It's very similar to before Google, before digital marketing existed. It's like you build a store of a storefront and you put a sign out there and they're all going to flock to your business. Well, that doesn't happen, all right. I know right now in traditional businesses, you still need to market yourself.

[00:13:03] You need to bring awareness. You need to get out there and let people know what you're all about. They don't know who you are. Right. So it's the same thing digitally. You build a website, you, you know, launch it on, you know, search engines so that it can be indexed and crawl. You put it on all these different social pages or whatnot, create different asset pieces. The challenge is how do you bring awareness to all the products and services that you offer? Because there's millions, if not billions of websites out there competing with what product and service you offer. Right. So what makes you different? How do you set yourself apart? And that's where Ezio comes into play, because we as an agency, we understand where there's opportunity. We understand what your competitors are doing. We know how to really outrank your competitors so that you can actually become more visible, have it be an option so that you can potentially win them over. Right. Because if you're not even there visible, you have no chance to win them over.

[00:14:09] Yeah, and here's a million dollar lesson that I learned, folks, and I'm talking an actual million dollars out of my pocket.

[00:14:18] Ok, so with knowing what John knows, if you're a local business, you can locate yourself in a cheaper area. I paid a million dollars extra in rent. This is because I didn't know any better. This was 12 years ago being on a highway that I thought the sign is going to have forty thousand cars going by a day and is going to bring just people flocking in the door. We did get we did not get one student. This was my school, by the way. We did not get one student from that traffic on the highway, OK?

[00:14:59] Not one. We had a couple of drunks slobber in a couple of days. There were laws. But but I could have rented a a school building in a much cheaper area way.

[00:15:13] I mean, of less than a third, it would have cost me and then use certain local search all that money to put in, not even all of it, a part of it into a local search, somebody like John or have John do it. You could do it anywhere, really. And then saved all that money and still had and gotten more traffic out of it. So if you're local, you do what John tells you and you could save an enormous amount of money on rent.

[00:15:43] And that's the problem. A lot of business owners come into this new entrepreneurial journey where they believe they invest a lot of money on bricks and mortar storefront renovation, make it look pretty inside, put huge signage. They have real estate. Right. I made all those mistakes right. And then they forget to allocate budget for actual amplification, exposure, marketing, advertising to get awareness out there.

[00:16:14] Right. So they invested all their money are debt ridden by the time they they start really opening up grand opening and no one's going to show up. Right. I would advise the opposite, because without customers paying you for your product and service, you're not going to survive long. Right. And this is where I find like as an entrepreneur, I talk to a lot of business owners and they just don't get it right because they feel like in school this is what you were taught.

[00:16:48] You know, usually by professors that the definition of a professor is somebody that can talk about but can't do exactly and, you know, real life example is when was the last time a business owner actually went to business school to run a business.

[00:17:07] Right. And be successful? I'd rather have someone with real life experience. Maybe it is mentors, coaches, people that actually failed a couple of times, running businesses, see what they did and then do exactly what they did. Right. Like real life will always supersede anyone that school taught, right?

[00:17:29] Exactly. And you'll you'll learn what you need to learn rather than be forced to learn things you don't need to learn. That's I mean, now my school is different because it comes from a guy like me who's been through all the hard knocks and I only give you the stuff you need. You don't have to take art history to make a fortune online. So exactly.

[00:17:52] Someone that's tried, tested and true and lived it with real experience is so far ahead. Then someone that school taught with a Ph.D. that only lived in the scholar educator world.

[00:18:08] Right. Like university.

[00:18:09] I actually bought the website recently called Highly Educated Idiots, because some of these people I mean, the things that they do are just just ridiculous to an entrepreneur. I mean, so so. OK, cool.

[00:18:26] So let's take you back a little bit to your your biggest expertise, drawn from what I understand is that you can man a fryer at a football stadium and make great stuff.

[00:18:42] So you had lots of jobs coming up. Tell us about how you came up.

[00:18:46] I know your family is from Vietnam and and you worked hard from a from a little kid, right?

[00:18:54] Yeah, exactly. So I was raised born in a small town outside of Toronto, Canada. So I'm Canadian, an hour outside of Toronto in a city called Hamilton. My parents left the Vietnam War and we arrived here. I was a fourth child of immigrants, family. And, you know, for us, that's survival, right? We take care of each other. We didn't have much growing up.

[00:19:22] We scraped and we ensured that we had meals together with food, water, shelter. So during when I was growing up, I was a newspaper boy. That was my first job. And then I probably had like dozens of jobs up until finishing high school right before I started college university. So everything from landscaping to bookkeeping to again, fast food to factory jobs to odd jobs, you name it. I probably did it. I probably worked at all the major landmarks in Hamilton because, you know, it's a fairly smaller city than Toronto. But I enjoyed that. Right, because it was more about, like curiosity.

[00:20:09] I wanted to find my mode in terms of like what I really wanted to do.

[00:20:14] And you're big on relationships, too.

[00:20:17] Exactly. And I feel I found that from what my upbringing was right. Not only was I a hard worker, I really focus on family and being surrounded by my parents, my siblings and having dinner together. And that's all we we knew, right? We did have birthday parties. We didn't go for sleepovers or any travel events. Right. Like that was just not a part of our upbringing. So we just had each other. And over the you know, during college university time as well, it's like when I first started my working career, it was all about like harvesting real trusted relationships that made me really want to uncover, you know, I had a lot of, like, curiosity, right, when I was very, very interested in people's lives, because I never I felt I was missing a huge gap or huge component of my life, from travel to buying stuff at will without, you know, being able to, you know, having a car like stuff that now you would think people would take for granted. Right. Right. But at that time, for me, I didn't know better because that's all I knew. Right. Like, we were surviving.

[00:21:43] We were really just taking care of one another. Right. And making sure we had food on the table and. A place to live, right?

[00:21:51] Yeah.

[00:21:53] Wow, and you studied in England for a while, right?

[00:21:56] Yeah. So University College, I studied business finance and I did one year exchange program in a city called Lancaster University out in the Lake District. So northern part of England. And that was my first foray of going abroad, traveling, flying, living on my own, meeting new cultures, new people. Just it was a great experience. Right. And that really molded me to become more of a world traveler like I was always after that experience, I was hooked. I was like, I need to now venture off to different countries. Different cultures, love the different foods, love the different people, and very curious on how they lived. Right. And wondered more about, like, what their upbringing was wanting to help and support and understand how how people just survived. Right. Because I felt I had my own story, but everyone else had their own as well. Right. So I was always curious.

[00:23:05] Yeah. And I was just thinking, when you were talking about people take a car for granted of this, the story of is this Asian person came over and saw a bike rack on the back of a car.

[00:23:19] And he said, if you have a bicycle, why would you need a car?

[00:23:26] That's exactly right. So when you're in a different culture, that's all you know and see right right now, we would correct me if I was looking at your body or you work for the Red Pages instead of the Yellow Pages, right?

[00:23:41] Yeah, that was my first job, actually. So I finished school. I got my business there first.

[00:23:47] More paycheck kind of job, not, you know, papers and stuff.

[00:23:50] Yeah, yeah. This was my first career type job, right. Nine to five finished my university college degree and it was a role in sales and marketing, sales, advertising, sales, traditional media and read pages was a knock off of the Yellow Pages. But it was a great concept and idea. It was before Google really took off. It was a printed directory of all websites delivered to all businesses, homes and storefronts for free, just like the Yellow Pages. But it was only website.

[00:24:23] And so instead of telephone packages, you still have a copy of one of those letters? Yes, of course. I used to take a picture and put it in the show notes because I kind of remember that happening.

[00:24:33] But but I don't have one.

[00:24:35] I don't remember that specifically. But he loved to see one of those.

[00:24:40] Yeah. The reason why I thought it was going to take off was at that time, the Internet wasn't as fast as it is today. Right. It was dial up. Right. Took five minutes to boot up because it was Pentium 2s, a web browser. Even email took a couple of minutes to write browsers, which is a lot of people don't even have websites that were fast loading right now.

[00:25:07] That was not even a thought that those days.

[00:25:10] Yeah, people just wanted a website to say I have something digital out there. Right. But they didn't understand the convenience factor.

[00:25:19] And you're talking around 2003, right? Exactly.

[00:25:22] A year ago, John, I started in 1994. So if you took the slowness that you're talking about now, you know, divided by ten for nineteen ninety four.

[00:25:36] Exactly right. So at 94 versus 03, things were still really in the infant stages.

[00:25:43] There was no blogging, there was no Facebook, there was no none of this stuff.

[00:25:48] And they were simply HMO website or JavaScript websites. And it didn't have like right now, you know, speed is so fast, 4G, 5G, Internet speeds of a terabyte at home. Like all these things, people take it for granted. Right.

[00:26:08] But when we were starting off my my career, it was more like I thought it was a great concept. So I was out there selling. I learn as much as I can about sales.

[00:26:21] Right. I was watching and not watching, but listening on audiotapes because I didn't have a laptop at that time. It was more about listening to audio from Zeigler's by Treacy's, you know, Tony Robbins and all the ones that helped me guide me to be a better salesperson.

[00:26:41] Yeah, and what cracks me up is, you know, because I like to talk about how people transitioned from their work to their business now, and I know, you know, Yellow Pages and Pages all faded away by the time you left, but it cracked me up.

[00:26:56] You know, when people say, well, you can't start a business. I don't have this. I don't have that. So it cracks me up is, you know, people saying all the time they can't do this because they don't have this and that and the other. You didn't even have a laptop when you first got your first customer, right?

[00:27:11] When I started the business. Yeah, I. I was bootstrapping everything. I wanted to make sure that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to make sure that I know how to sell this. I'm going to be owning it. And before I start investing into any technology or any equipment, I got to make sure that I'm a true believer and there's people that are willing to pay for it.

[00:27:35] Yeah, that's so good. And I did. Now, did you were you already out of your job at that point or were you still at the job?

[00:27:43] Yeah.

[00:27:44] So Redtails, just like my first job, I worked in a couple other companies and the longest Ferrey before I started, my own agency was working at the Yellow Pages.

[00:27:56] Oh, so you did make it to the Yellow Pages?

[00:27:58] I did, because they were still the dominant player, right. And they had the largest book of business. They had good client relationships and a good training sales environment as well.

[00:28:10] So, OK. But what I liked about this is, if you remember the what they call the dot com bust or bubble, people were throwing millions of dollars at young kids to the startups and then they all just spent it on pool tables and having fun and they all went under under. So you did it the right way. You made you know, you kept your costs low and made sure the concept was working, made sure people would give you money before you invested. Right.

[00:28:37] Yeah, and I think I learned this from just meeting with so many business owners right over the years working at YellowPages, I met with thousands of small and medium sized businesses. What a great experience. And I felt like that was more when our mentor sessions for me and it was going on like if I had four to five meetings a day, I got to really connect with real business owners that understood how to take care of the customers.

[00:29:07] What was important to them, you know, family, community, relationships now understanding the products inside out, the competitive analysis, unique selling proposition, how they differentiated all that stuff like core foundational business stuff. Right. And I just to get paid to do it.

[00:29:28] Yeah. And I just I was so curious. Right. So every meeting was all about factfinding. I was asking asking questions and they were all telling me everything about the whole life. Right. Because again, I was delivering it all and then come when it was time for me to start my own thing, I, I, I noticed that YellowPages was kind of, you know, going under or just not as prevalent. Right.

[00:29:55] Like a lot of people were just just weren't needed as much. And the pay the payback from the ads. Who goes to the Elbaz anymore, you know.

[00:30:03] Exactly. So at that time it was like people are spending more than ever. They were getting less in return. Users were now pivoting away from traditional media, moving to this new digital age with smartphones, with Google, with, you know, social media, all that was starting to take off. And for me, I just wanted to just be in play with a product or service that was more in need. And I pivoted.

[00:30:32] But were you still employed when you got your first customer or, you know, you were Dirth YellowPages?

[00:30:38] Yeah, so I laughed because it was noncapital.

[00:30:40] How long was it until you got your first customer?

[00:30:43] So actually, I was transitioning for a couple of months because I didn't know if I wanted to start business or I wanted to work at another. I say company right. In sales. So I was applying. And fortunately or not, fortunately, I was just in a different space right where I just got married. I moved to a new city and I was kind of looking to see where my next move would be, either work for somewhere else or start my own thing. And I had my full support from my wife and she had a stable income. She basically gave me the go ahead to try something right and give it at all. And she knew I was more like gung ho about like just helping and doing something different. And so that's why I did it.

[00:31:35] Are we going to take a brief sponsored break? When we come back, we'll see what a typical day looks like for John. I know he he shuts things down because he's got a four year old kid that needs him and he's all about family. So he's created a lifestyle business for himself. So so, folks, about 20 years ago or time is now, it's been about 22 years ago, it kind of turned the Internet marketing world on its head in that guys like me were charging 50 or 100 thousand dollars up front women to not not as many, but to teach this stuff. And I and I knew a lot of these people were rip offs. They'd never teach you if you did give them the money. So I said, you know, that's not right. I'm a small business advocate. So I said, I'm going to charge us an entry fee and then time my success to their success. So for me to get my fifty thousand, you have to make two hundred thousand. Well, people just love this. And seventeen hundred plus students later, it's still going strong and it's, I call it and then nobody else has challenged me ever on this is that it's the most unique, most successful, longest running mentorship program of its kind in the Internet marketing field ever.

[00:32:45] And I even triple dog dare people to bring another program and put it feature for feature next to mine and see what happens. And nobody has the guts to do it because you have an immersion weekend here at the retreat center where you actually live in the biggest state home. With me, we have our own TV studio where we shoot high definition videos for you, Adam them put the graphics on, give you a finished products. Some of those go for 700 to 1500 dollars for just one. And we've never had anybody get out of here with less than ten. And we had one couple do 53. Right. So so that that alone is unique. Then it's one on one. We don't do any group coaching except when you're here at the retreat center and it's only about five people, it's one on one, because if I'm talking to an advance person, the beginners are lost. And if I'm talking to a beginner, the advanced people are bored. So that's not efficient. And there's no way for me to get my fifty thousand or for them to get their two hundred thousand. So we do one on one myself and my entire staff will make appointments with you, will take over your screen, show you where to click. I mean you get total attention from us and then you get a scholarship to my school.

[00:34:02] If you're in my mentor program, you get a scholarship to my school, which you can either use yourself for extra structured training or gifted to someone. And that's where the guy he had spent eighty thousand bucks on his daughter's crappy education and she's working some pitiful job. And so he joins the mentor program, gives the school to his daughter, and after four months, she was up to 6000 dollars a month as a side hustle, you know, so and we even put it had her create an elective for the school to teach the new students how she did it. And it's very, very easy when you see how it's done, especially with the high demand for this skill. I mean, every business on Earth needs shopping carts and and blogs and text marketing and chat bots and all the things, the email marketing, all the things that we do. And it's all nuts and bolts. So check the mentor program out at great Internet marketing, training, dotcom, great Internet marketing, training, dotcom. And then all the stuff that we have, including John's great stuff, will be in the show notes.

[00:35:09] All right, let's get back to the main event. John Vuong is here. He is the chief cook and and your operator at a local CEO today.

[00:35:21] And he's a great guy out of Toronto, Canada.

[00:35:24] But I'm sure he services all over lots of places, UK and and the U.S. and all that. So the John. It's a typical day look like for you.

[00:35:34] Yeah, so right now I've like you mentioned, I'm now a lifestyle kind of business, right, where I focus on the nine to five. But prior to the 9:00 day, I would wake up at 5:00.

[00:35:49] I would do my, I guess, Robin Shyama or Zeva meditation, which is all about, you know, gratitude, meditate, just stay present and live a very enjoyable life. And then I would read I would actually spend some time not worrying about the day, but really learning, educating myself on where I need to improve before I have a healthy breakfast with my son. And I would then get on with the actual day. So at nine o'clock I would start with my meetings. I have a full schedule, usually booked solid of things to do, tasks to be completed and meetings with a lot of them.

[00:36:38] Where is your son during this? During your high school schoolwork? So, yeah. So he's in school right now and it's been great because I can actually work because that earlier this year, during this pandemic, it was the hardest thing to have a young child at home while trying to ruin your wife's working down, right? Yeah, exactly.

[00:37:00] So both of us are home base, but he he's very demanding. Like, he doesn't see us as teachers. He sees us as parents and parents mean plain. And therefore, when we're both at home, he expects full attention. And it was challenging.

[00:37:18] But now that's what I pretty soon he'll be handling customers. Customers for you?

[00:37:24] Well, not not anytime soon. But it's all about like just having a good balance. Right.

[00:37:31] And what I find is being present. So making sure that you work hard when you need to work, but when you're done work, you turn everything off and really focus on what's most important. Why are you doing what you're doing? It's to spend more time with the people that you love, form great relationships and do things that really you enjoy doing.

[00:37:55] Right. I love my business. I love my clients. I love my my staff. But I would say I love my wife and son more.

[00:38:02] Oh, that's good to say. Especially in front of thousands of people on this book. So. So that's great. You have a lifestyle business, take care of family. And that's what you came from, was a family that depended on each other. So I can see that, you know, I'm more fanatic because I didn't really like my family that much other than my dad, you know. So I'm day and night, you know, this is all I do basically, other than, you know, my hobbies.

[00:38:30] The point is you can make this however you want, you know, with being able to sell from home.

[00:38:36] Right, exactly. And seven years ago, I started this agency really just focus on providing good value, taking care of my clients, but also all my staff, all my clients understood that we're all remote, we're all home based, even at YellowPages at the time. We worked in the office for a couple of years and then we transition to be. So I was getting used to, you know, that whole meeting online, working from home. The set of everything was already slowly ingrained in my habits and it just had to expedite when I started my agency. And really, it's been a lifesaver during this pandemic because, you know, we I have a lot more experience. And someone that just started the last couple of months and I've been doing this for many, many years. So I actually do workshops and webinars on how to set up your home base. All right. Because I actually have real life experience doing it. So stuff like that, it really fast tracks a lot of what we've done. And it's more important than ever to have a digital presence.

[00:39:47] If you're a business owner and if you haven't really looked at it, really consider it because more and more people are absorbed in front of a computer, spending more time on their smartphone devices, navigating, searching, because they don't want to be in a store. They don't want to go. All right. They'd rather do everything at their fingertips, doing their own research, understanding how to monetize and optimize. All this is very important, right, as a business owner. So SEO is really a core foundation of advertising online. And there's so many different ways to advertise from email to social to video to podcasts to, you know, online courses to. Eventbrite meetings, communities, there's so much out there. But when it comes to search, there is always going to be search engines like Google and the type of buyer who goes to search engines are very qualified.

[00:40:48] It's user intent focus, and they're very far down the line of the buying cycle.

[00:40:56] Where there? Well, it's out there ready to go.

[00:41:01] Very similar to YellowPages when someone picked up that phone book 20 years ago or 30 years ago, they knew they needed a plumber and they knew they needed a dentist, window repair or whatever it was. Same as when someone goes to Google. Now, you know, someone who's typing in a keyword, that intent is there. So you want to at least be an option for that customer for.

[00:41:24] So tell everybody how they get a hold you so you can check out my website.

[00:41:28] It's W-W local SEO search dot seet. The reason this dossier is because we're originally operated in Canada. We also own the dot com. We also have a podcast called Local SEO today, and it's really the education process and informative process of how to start a business because we, me and my VPE work with thousands of business owners at YellowPages. He was there for over 30 years and I was there for oh, I don't know that.

[00:42:03] Yeah.

[00:42:05] So we collectively work with over 10000 business owners, real localized business owners, and that's what we bring to the table that's different than a lot of different companies. And we really focus on long term relationships because without that, CEO campaigns will not derive a really good result and wise for customers. So we really focus on harvesting good customers with long term relationships that derive the best return on your investment for your advertising.

[00:42:36] Awesome telling the website again and we'll have it in the show.

[00:42:39] W w w dot local s e o search dot see.

[00:42:44] All right. So thanks so much, John, for coming on. Glad to cross paths with you. I was on his podcast.

[00:42:51] I don't know if it went live yet or not, but. But make sure you check it out, get subscribe to his podcast and and there you go.

[00:42:59] So thanks a lot, buddy. And we will catch everybody on the next episode. See ya later.