How John Vuong Build Canada’s Leading SEO Company

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Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

All right, we are here with John Bond and John has his own SCO company and I believe that is. Well, I'll let him explain that to you, those of y' all that are not operating on the Internet. But anyway, he's got a company and he's in the Internet world. But if you're in business, all the rules apply of things you've got to do, lessons you got to learn and obstacles you have to overcome. So John has been in the industry a long time, but he started his own company called Local SEO Search, which is a full service digital agency. Started that 2013 and has been recognized as a top SEO agency in Canada. And so welcome John. Glad to have you. Congratulations on your success so far with your new business.

Thanks a lot, Larry. I'm excited to share insights with your audience members.

You talk about this a lot and with a lot of other people because you have your own podcast, right? Local SEO today.

That's right. I have my own. I've been doing it for a couple of years now. Over 200 episodes and enjoying every minute of it.

Yeah. And when you get great people talking about great ideas, great things can happen. And if you talk to knuckleheads, then nothing good can happen except stupidity. But. But if you get some people that have they're motivated to do great things, have had some great effort and have been fortunate enough to have some great results, when you get together and talk with those kind of people, it's very stimulating. This is going to be a stimulating day for everybody today. And John has where what would people be most impressed about the success you and your company have had so far? How from the outside, looking at you, people who want to be know your industry and want to get into the digital world, what would be the most impressive thing to them about what you've been able to accomplish so far?

When I first started, I didn't know anything about SEO and I'm not even technical.

And SEO is what?

Search Engine optimization.

That's what Google uses to find you with keywords and things like you type in. I'm looking for turnips, I'm looking for roses, I'm looking for horses. Yeah, this is a search and optimizing that to where when they're looking for that they find your website is you optimize that in other words, show people how to position themselves to be one of the ones that comes up first or on the first page anyway of Google. Where did you start in it? But basically just go ahead and answer the first question. How far. What do people from the outside look at you and what are they most impressed by?

Yeah. So when I first started, didn't know anything seven years in. Actually a couple years ago, I started getting more recognition, I started getting more exposure and really just by doing good work. Right. I think majority of it is referrals and word of mouth, but I think just being one of the top recognized agencies is a big thing.

Now is that top because you know how to maximize your search engine recognition, but. Or is that because of things you've done? What do you do to be recognized as a top?

Yeah, dealing with hundreds of clients over the years, getting good repeat customers, spreading the word and getting good results. Ultimately like saying what I do, but actually proving it.

Yeah. There's a lot about the Facebook advertising and advertising marketing, but the best marketing is friend to friend. We have all this marketing going on and you need to be focused on getting new clients as a primary thing. Either you're not going to grow because you're always going to have clients leaving you and always have people you deal with. Maybe you deal with them one time. Everybody, if they're going to grow, they're going to be primarily focused on number one, getting new clients, but with the existing clients doing a good enough job where people say good things about you and you're not making things harder and harder to get people in. So you did that well. And how did you notice that you were moving up the ladder and things that you were getting bigger stature in the industry?

I think just understanding retention, attrition, understanding what value I'm bringing to the table and differentiating myself from other agencies, but focusing on my own to really get better, adding more value and helping customers achieve their success.

That's one the fifth thing I've got in my, the fifth step in my book about serial winning that winners, people who win regularly do after they have a victory, they go through and immediately put their mind on what's the next biggest opportunity. But also how can I improve to do it again quicker, faster, better. Because right when you finish, that's when the things that maybe didn't go right or the kind of help you support you needed that you didn't have before you get into the middle of another project, you can go bam, bam, bam and get those things in place while it's fresh on your mind where otherwise you might forget it. And you need to seize the moment for improvement as soon as you finish the project. And you've been doing that again and again. You know, there's a thing, John, I want to get you to comment on. It just came to me. There's a thing that you hear from a lot of people who are in business startups and that is to keep your head down. I don't know if you've heard this about your podcast, but keep your head down, keep working like a dog, get better, and don't really worry too much about your results compared to others and everything. Don't worry. You always got to worry about your results. That tells you if you're doing the right things. But don't beat yourself down that you don't have the results you want because it may take until the third year to where things really start to take off. You have to flap your wings as a new business for about real hard for about three years before you can get liftoff, is what people say most of the time there are exceptions, it takes less time or longer time. But did you find that in your business when you started?

Early days? I feel like I was spending a lot of time, definitely I was putting my head down and just going out there selling, getting clients, but not knowing my ideal type of client. And I was chasing and trying to get as much revenue and sales and keeping afloat because again, this is me bootstrapping. And it wasn't VC funded or anything that was funded by anyone, it was myself. And I wanted to ensure that I was sustainable. I had growth, I had revenue, I had sales. In order to then build a team behind me to then put systems and processes in place.

Yeah, that's the sequence. That's a successful sequence. You start with yourself. It's really good early on not to have enough money or a lot of extra money because that makes you lazy and that makes you rush into decisions rather than think it through. And a lot of times because you don't have the venture capital money behind you, you're forced to come up with solutions or even better and more duplicatable. And so it basically forces you to do the work rather than just hire a bunch of people and turn it over to them and like they already know how to do it. I'll just hire them. And how many times in my life have I done that? And I've never been happy that I did that. Somebody comes in, well, I can do that for you. Yeah, sure. And then Months later I realized, well, that was just money down the drain. I should have done it myself. But when you do it yourself, then it and you start to get some sustainability, you start to get some clients, you start to get your methods down, your conversations, your answers to questions, you start to get things in place, even on your website and your toolkit together, all your support materials and people in play. Then now you can add people on and they're going to be productive because you're teaching them to do what you've done. You're not just adding them on and hoping they know how to do it because they said they do. No, you're hiring people that are willing to be taught and willing to follow the pattern that you set down. So that's the time that when you add on people and put in systems in place that you really can kick it into another gear in terms of growth and get more done out of 24 hour day cycles. You got a comment on that?

Yeah, I totally agree. I think understanding distinguishing your avatar, which is your ideal type of client, early days because at the beginning I was scrambling, I was trying to figure that out. Once I understood their exact needs and answering all the problems and situation, their personality trait, where they reside, what their interests and groups are, then I could then put together a framework SOP process hire people to cultivate people just like them. And that took time to develop, but I think it's much more rewarding when you do it slow and steady and actually you get a better retention rate. Knowing exactly who you want to target and who you you want to work with.

Yeah, your ideal client. And SOP meaning Standard operating Procedure, which is basically a military term where you can get everybody knows what they're supposed to do at all times. You know there and that way the more you can standardize, the more the routine task, the repetitive task if it's in a house, washing and folding the towels, the more you can those jobs sweeping the floors, washing the dishes, the more you can standardize the sequencing on that, the more you can free your mind up and your time up for more fun or productive or innovative type things.

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And when you started though as a kid would were you always wanting your own business when you started? You're in Canada now. Where in Canada?

I'm in Toronto, Canada.

Uhhuh. I've never heard of it. Just kidding.

So I grew up an hour outside of Toronto and my upbringing was I'm the fourth child of immigrant family from Vietnam. They escaped the war and so we came from pretty much leaving a country of war and my parents didn't know English and I was born two weeks later and basically just started in government housing. Didn't really have much growing up so foundationally all I knew was we had each other, we had a family, we had dinner together and we had shelter in government housing. We got a lot of support from food banks and Salvation army and stuff that actually helped us get ourself on the ground. So I know what it feels like when people are starting from nothing and therefore that's how I take on any project. Knowing and having good perspective in every aspect of where people's situation in life events are in business.

Yeah, in every area of life. The people that do it all the time have their little terms they use and acronyms, sop, things like SEO. If you get in the army there's a million of them. But it's real easy on the entry level into any industry to feel like an outsider because you just don't know. It's not the language, you don't know the jargon, you don't know these abbreviations, you don't know what they're meaning. I had a degree in building construction from Georgia Tech. I started architecture then switched once I found out you had to be weren't going to make any money until you're 35 years old in architecture. I said I got to make money quicker than that. So I switched into building construction. I had a degree from a first class institution, Georgia Tech, Bachelor of science in building construction. And I didn't know anything about construction and I went out on the job site and was hired by a guy to be the field superintendent and they were taught we'd walk through a house and he would order the doors and the windows. We need six three by six three six by four six casings for this and we need a three zero panel here and a case all, all of this Crown molding here. And I didn't know what anything was and nothing stuck in my head. And two days later, I was like an old pro. Because you learn to ask questions and then you. What you learn is it's not all that hard because most things in life, it's just people working in one area or another and they've worked a way to where they know how it goes. And then depending on your motivation, you can get familiar and the questions you ask, you can move up pretty quick. You beat half of the people just by working hard. And we noticed that in our business, when we have staff people come on, if they're a hard worker, it doesn't take them a whole long much time before all of a sudden they're making contributions to the team and they're making life easier for us. But now, as you came up and grew up and started to think beyond food, shelter, clothing, the next meal, what was going on in your mind with your friends, your family, community? What were the conversations? What was the outlook for the future like at home?

My parents really grounded us. They basically made sure that we studied hard, get a good education, and really focused on school, good education. Outside of that, I had a lot of friends from sports. There's different crowds, right? People that were very disciplined in terms of hard work, putting in the time and effort, and get excelling in sports realm. And then there's other ones that were really about fast money, get quick rich, try to do some underground activities to earn money so that they can buy nice clothes, buy nice cars, whatever, and drop off. So it was more about which crowd did I want to gravitate towards? And I stuck with what my parents told me, stay in school and also with my friends that stayed in sports. So that really helped me guide me through the next stage of my life, which was post education as well as my career.

Did you have any grandiose vision for the future, whatever, but. Or were you focused? I'm thinking, like, how would have I answered this question back when I was that age, when I was growing up, I was focused. Like you said, the family was solid, hardworking, and I was focused on doing well in the situation I was in. And I wasn't a genius by any means, but if you go to small schools, you can look like a genius. You know, I wound. Always was at the top of the class, president of the school, and this and the other. But that was mainly because of the size. Schools I went to were small. There weren't a lot of possibilities there. And who should we get oh, let's get Larry. That's how I explain that. But when it came even to going to school, I didn't have this vision of I want to make hundreds of millions of dollars. I didn't even know you could make hundreds of millions of dollars. I was out in Long island, the Hamptons, when I graduated from high school. It's a good thing all the hedge funders had not come out there. And I heard that you could get make billions of dollars by the hedge funds. Or I might have gone to Wall street, but the possibilities were like, do something you love. I was always chasing something I loved. And then I could, after two years of the architecture, I put the idea, well, also something you love that you can make money on sometime before you die. And so that's why I said, I got to get out of, yeah, I got to get my degree. I'm not going to quit, but I got to get something where I can make money faster. But I didn't really have a vision of I want to be a concert pianist, I want to be the greatest anything. It was just a matter of I want to make a mark, I want to build up a thing. And the main thing that drove me, I've said on this podcast before, was I wanted my own freedom and I didn't want to be low paid because I did those labor jobs growing up in high school and I learned that the lowest paid person usually gets treated the worst and is paid the worst. And I said, whatever I've got to do to not be on the bottom of whatever it is I'm doing, where I can be closer to the top, I'm going to do that. And so did you have any formative type ideas happening in your mind? Playing in sports allows you to, if you've got good coaching, especially playing in sports, can cause a lot of these things to form in your mind. The kind of person you want to be on a team. Do you just want to be on the team and maybe score some points and be the occasional hero? Or do you want to be the main guy or go higher, to a higher level or something like that? Talk about that.

Yeah. In the sports realm, I always wanted to be a captain. So I wanted to lead by example and be the best I can in terms of what I wanted to be when I was growing up, I definitely wanted to be the top, like CEO. I wanted to drive that nice car, it was an Audi at the time. And live in a big mansion and have a private jet because I saw that on TV as well. As magazines. That's how I live my life. I was surrounded by people that wasn't doing that. So I was always imagining what it would be like having all those things. And throughout my early years, I had 20, 30 different jobs, just like yourself, from factory laborers to working in restaurants, working as a fryer. You name it, I've done it. And these are things that you gotta live to really understand what it means by being treated like crap and getting paid like nothing, because that's what they do there. So you just have to understand what situation you're at and where you're at in your life and what you don't want in your life. So moving up in life was a big thing for me and my family, and I wanted the best for myself and my parents, and family was really out to guide me properly. And with sports, it's all about making sure that you have the proper training, the proper mental focus, the proper repetition, the hard work, the discipline. All these things, I think, molded me to become really good at sales. I was listening to Zig Ziglar's Brian Tracy, all going to conferences on sales, even though I wasn't hardcore sales. But I wanted to be the best my first year of sales.

Yeah.

And therefore I started getting better and learning as much as I can and just being admired by other successful salespeople. Yeah.

And the point here with everybody is not that everybody has to have their own company and be the leader and be in charge, but the deal is behind this podcast and behind everything I do is to help people reach the potential of what's important to them. What do they think they're supposed to do? What do you feel most energized by thinking about or seeing, you know, where do you want to see yourself? That you want it bad enough that you'd be willing to work like a dog to make it happen. And that could be the head of something, the head of a company, head of a charity, head of a volunteer organization, a foundation. I could be, heaven forbid, a politician or something, but I can't relate to that. But whatever it is that's in you, you got to realize that was put in you for a purpose. And already at a young age, you're seeing that. That probably wasn't an accident that you had those your mind set on being the captain of the team or this, that and the other, because your mindset was forming early on about what you were destined to be. Don't you believe now that I reflect.

And I look back? Definitely, because I've always wanted better I was always curious to live a life that I was not living in right now. So watching these TV shows, looking at these magazines and all these things, I just wanted a car. I wanted my own house. Like, not huge goals, huge aspirations. But then I wanted to travel. I never flew in my life. So for me, it was like just these little baby steps to eventually mold my way to what I am today.

Yeah. And the thing that I would say, and I'm going to wrap up this episode, is that if I had to say anything to anybody, is pay attention to these things going on inside your mind about where you are today, where you. You're thinking about. Don't let people hold you back because you can't take a dog and make it into a cow or a cat, because a dog's a dog. A leader's a leader, someone who is a great support person. They don't want the spotlight. It's like in football or did you play, what, soccer or whatever. The thing is, like, a goalie's a goalie. A quarterback is a quarterback. In football, if you take the greatest quarterback, Tom Brady in the NFL and you stick him at center, he's going to get destroyed. First of all, he'll be lifetime injured on the first play. That would be the end to him. So the thing is, you've got your first job in reaching fulfillment in your life is get yourself in the right place or get yourself moving towards the right place. And the way you do that is to override what other people are telling you, what, what you think life, society would say is right for you. But go down deep into the mare of your bones and say, what do I inside feel like is right for me? And follow that because you're never going to be anything but who you are. Do you have kids yet?

Yes, I do.

Isn't it funny how kids, when kids are born, they are the way they are. Some are neat, some are a mess. And you're never going to change. You can modify it for a period of time, but they're going to be the way they're going to be. And the ones that naturally are smiling and look in the positive, they're just going to be that way. And then the others are a little bit reserved and held back. They're going to be that way. So our job is to help people reach their potential. I think everybody can be smiling, regardless of what their personality type is, if they are on track or they have arrived at the place they're supposed to be in life. I want to get into how you made that transition from launching out of your preparation phase. There's a preparation phase phase for all of us. But the deal is try and get some preparation and the things in line with what you want to do. And if you're not really sure what that is, get a good widespread foundation that gives you the options to move in different areas. As I'm saying this, I wanted to make this point, John, for those of y' all that are older and have kids growing up, realize they're going through these things too, and this is the kind of counsel you should be giving them rather than saying, I'm an attorney, my son's going to be an attorney, I'm a artist, my son's going to be an artist, or that type thing. You got us. Let them become what they're supposed to become, and that will be what they're most interested in. A lot of us want our own business, but you got to position yourself first. And it's good to tuck yourself under people that are already successful in that area or that general area to where you can learn everything they know about it. And then you can be developing without the spotlight and the pressure on you can be developing the skill sets, experience relationships you need, and get yourself strong enough to have a successful launch when you get ready to go out on your own. And so, John, tell me about how you got into the SEO world.

So started seven years ago, but prior to that, 10 years of advertising sales, and again, a lot of sales learning, coaching, mentoring, and going to conferences and reading. However, I actually worked at Yellow Pages for five years, and that really pivoted me to make a transition to more digital as opposed to traditional advertising sales. And that was a big pivotal moment while working at Yellow Pages to really define where I wanted to go with my life, my career, and my business.

What attracted you to sales?

I think for me, it was just a part of what I enjoy doing. I'm very much a extrovert. I love people, I love talking to people and helping others. And as opposed to, I worked in finance, I did a lot of accounting, bookkeeping, and that's why I studied business finance. For me, I hated working in the office in that environment, and I had to figure out what I enjoyed more. And that's where the face to face meeting customers and really offering up a product or service that really compelled and people actually enjoyed consuming attracted me. Yeah.

And so sales is also the way that you make money. Most people back. I'm not sure exactly today how it works, but when I started 85% of the people that made above average income, they were in sales. And so that got my attention right away. The other 15% were all of the highly educated doctors and people like that, lawyers. But for the average person coming up who wanted to make their money above average income, they had to get in sales. The trouble is in corporate sales they give you a territory. If you're good, you make the you, you build the territory up. And they say, wait a minute, the president of the company will say, wait a minute, that guy's making more money than me. We don't need him, let's get rid of him and hire two or three cheap kids out of college and let them, you know, we still save money and then it's hard to have stability if you're just a corporate salesperson. So we designed our company where we could go into sales management. We could build sales teams, in essence, go into business for ourselves in sales and then have somebody else do the common support for all of us. And so you've got a similar thing where you're in sales but now you have a sales management team that you're building with this service. So when did you say the time is right for me to launch?

It was a pivotal point in my life. I think timing is everything in terms of the journey of life. And, and at that time, after working at yellow pages for five years, I was frustrated with just every client telling me that they were not getting good roi. User behavior has shifted. They were no longer consuming traditional media with their product and servant ad spend and they were consuming on Google or digital formats. So for me I had to make a decision. I either continue with the shipping sinking ship, go to another corporate company and do sales again, or start something brand new. And at that time it was also life events like I got married, got home, all these other things. So for me it was more timing and support from my wife to allow me to take on the new challenge.

And ROI's return on investment, which I'm sure I'm explaining that unnecessarily but just want to make sure people don't get stalled out by ad spend is what you're spending on ads and all. And people would be, in other words, they would be spending money for ad placements in yellow Pages and you sold a lot and they weren't getting a lot of business from that and you got complaints and you couldn't control. It was basically more or less a dead system, a dead horse or dying horse and you could not go in single handedly and change the Industry, there was no green pages. You could go to purple pages. It was yellow pages, that was it.

So the medium itself was deteriorating. Right. Like users, user ship was pivoting. Mover people's behavior was changing. It's very similar to what's going on today. Going to a bricks and mortar store is not the same as someone shopping online. So there's been a transformational shift of users behavior and I had to either continue doing that or make a decision to pivot.

Yeah. And of course that takes a certain amount of, well, experience happens on that, you know, helps on that. And the hours that you had in the industry and the effort you'd made, you had to take a risk. But it wasn't that much of a risk because you were talking to people all day long. You, you could see how nothing's guaranteed in life. But I mean certain things are obvious. And as much this was obvious to you, it was you're betting your future on an irrefutable trend in the industry and how business was going to be done, how people were going to find people. And so you made the move to position yourself in front of that. Even though you didn't have any really experience, any knowledge of it, you felt like it could be learned. Am I saying that right?

Yes, exactly. And I feel just by talking to thousands of business owners while at yellow pages, they educated me enough to understand that as long as there's an opportunity or there's a need in the marketplace and people are willing to spend money for the product or service and, and you fill that gap and need, you have a business. And that's why I did. I filled a gap in need where people are willing to pay for expertise and I just have to deliver on the promise.

Yeah. As you've gone into that, what does your growth chart look like?

Yeah. So first couple years I was sales and I was growing at a pretty fast rate, couple hundred percent. The challenge was I was getting wrong clients. And it was not the ideal type of clients because they were very much not the professional services type clients that I deal with today. They were an early stage business that were not real businesses. They didn't know how to run a business and I had to figure it out for them. And that's not who I wanted to work with because I was early stage. I didn't know who I wanted to target either. I learned, I made a lot of mistakes early days.

And the thing is that's not unusual because a lot of times that's the only way to learn. There's Nobody, Nobody. Rarely do we have somebody who's exactly the same state or gone through exactly the situation that we're going through. And a lot of these things you have to figure out by doing. But also you said you had new wife, new house, new obligations and you needed money. And early on, the people who will do business with you are not as critical. The fact that they don't really know how to run a business is the fact that they didn't really check you out. You had a good idea. I'll go with John. Whereas maybe if that gives you traction when you're starting out, beggars can't be choosing. A lot of times you have to get what you can get. But the main thing is get some traction, stay alive, keep move forward however you can. In fact, that's what they say about employees. You know, like we all need if we're going to have great companies, people that are like 8, 9, 10 out of 10 on the skill scale. However, when you're starting out, a lot of times all you can give is somebody who's a five or a six and then help them grow into a more qualified type person. And then the check on that. If you get somebody who's not that talented, the one thing they must have is a total belief in what you're doing because that will allow them to take you very seriously and to have the mindset to improve and to be conscientious. Even though they might not be the greatest, they're at least conscientious to the extent they know how to work and how to do it. And when you tell them things, they'll listen and they'll improve. When we're beginning, you're kind of stuck to get through, get something going. And so you did that. But that's why I go back to this thing of, I call it the ABI principle. Always be improving. Things can always be better. And as you're doing something, you're also evaluating what could make this better. One thing is a better clientele, another thing is a better system. Another thing, better tools, better support, better website, better apps to support the different pieces of the service you're offering them. And that's what you were doing. And I don't really think there's any shortcuts to that. So where did your business start to become a mature type thing? What are things? Did you notice about that?

Once I started hiring good employees, managers, people that actually had same, very similar core values as me, it's more. And then implementing more systems in place because the Challenge at the beginning was again doing everything yourself, understanding who you want to attract as clients, getting some revenue and traction and then starting to build upon that. Right. Take it to the next level. So for me it was more hiring the right people.

Who did you, how did you hire the right people? What did you look for and what did you tell them?

Operations person. Someone that molded to me and understood my value proposition, which was be as similar as me in terms of my values. Someone that was family oriented, hard working, understanding. Like just keep learning, constant learning. Yes. You're going to make mistakes. It's okay. Keep evolving.

Yeah. And how did you find those kind of people? Did you have to sort through a lot?

Early days, it was both trial and error. I made a lot of hiring mistakes. Eventually I got to a point where I was able to pick and choose some good key employees that I used to work with because I work with them. Right. I knew their experience, skill set and mindset. And what really helped me was surrounding myself with good people that I can trust, I can bounce off information, ideas with and they'll give me an honest answer because again, sometimes I throw a lot of tangents. They organize me, they keep me focused, they get me in line and they'll tell me the truth. And that's why I need most often.

As a business, when you start a month, what are you focused on doing? Focusing the team on in a month.

Again, there's KPI metrics. For me it's the two folds, right? Revenue growth as well as retention growth as opposed to there's a lot of side projects on the going ongoing. But two most important metrics is revenue. How much is coming in, how much growth potential and less churn. How do we retain as many and add more value by offering up more or providing more services and getting the.

Idea of a better quality firm is they're going to be successful, they're going to follow through on the things you give them and they're going to become somebody that will need monthly services, ongoing types, so you can build a steady revenue rather than one time revenue from these people. Is that a good way of saying it?

Yeah. So I started my company right at the beginning on one year contracts. And that's why I learned at yellow pages recurring business model, maintenance model, offering up services so that people see value on a monthly retainer. And that's how I built my business so that it's sustainable for many, many years. As opposed to a one time website update or of charge where you're always constantly getting new customers all the time.

Yeah. And what is the main thing that you could tell people about getting to this point in their business as we wrap up this episode? What is the main thing you could tell people about going through? Because it's not, we're not getting in the horror stories and everything here, but it's not. There's things where you have to. You second guess yourself and you go through the tough times and there's highs and lows in business because there's highs and lows in the economy. And how would you describe to people the kind of outlook they would have to have that you've learned, you have to have had to have as you went through that? Because when you're on the start, you're going through, you don't know what you're going to face. Now you're looking back and what was the outlook you had that you think brought you through? And how could you describe that to someone who's getting ready to go through.

It, have a long term perspective.

Right.

Really have goals in mind and vision. And for me it was more about having small little achievable targets on a monthly, quarterly, semiannually and annually target, 5 year plan, 10 year plan and have it with the team on a regular basis and make sure there's clarity and everyone's on the same page. Everyone is contributing, adding value and offering up their contribution on a regular basis. Because without that, without the team, if you're doing it solo, it's very difficult for you to grow and scale at whatever speed or rate you want to.

How do you have them make those contributions?

Monthly get togethers, team building events, just community build right within your team, internal process.

Now how do they go? How do you get the feedback from your people? And what's a example of really great feedback? You got that right off the top of your head. Was difference maker for us.

We usually do weekly training and also monthly calls as well. Q and A where anyone can ask anything. So during those discussions for us it was more about adding more value by adding a whole division to our team link building team. We've never really added that and we did it two years ago, I believe. And that really helped us solidify our client base by adding way better results. Not only that, but retention has been great and then we also are able to add more to the product offering.

So when you have regular training, what is that training on sales training or.

No, because we're in the SEO space. The there's a lot of different training, keyword research, content optimization. There's always Updates going on. Yeah. So for me to stay on, off of the communities of SEO, I'm a part of a lot of different communities and I absorb it, then I pass it on to the team so that the team can all get on the same level playing field.

Because Google is always changing their algorithms because they don't want any of you guys to figure them out.

Right, exactly. So that's the reason I'm in a space that is always needed. You have to look at a marketplace where, yes, it's challenging and it's not for everyone, but I chose this as a profession, I chose this as a business. And I'm excited to help business owners so they don't have to worry about it. They hire an expert or an agency to take care of all that for them, even though they can do it themselves. They can hire people in house, they can hire freelancers. But again, it's choice. Business owners have a choice to either figure it out, excel, propel on this digital landscape, or work with someone that actually enjoys what they're doing.

Yeah, because you can have strategies that were fantastic six months ago and they're not going to work at all now.

Well, because we work with hundreds of clients, we do a lot of AB testing as opposed to you try to do it, you lose three or six months, and that could be life or death for a lot of business owners.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much, John. Appreciate you sharing. And I know it's going to mean a lot to people that are going through this process themselves. Thanks so much.

Thanks a lot, Larry.

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