Part 1 - How John Vuong Built A Top SEO Agency From Scratch

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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, 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? 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've got 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'm going 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'd say 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 audio 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 want, who 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 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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