You Need to Date your Business Process! with Damon Burton

Foreign.

What is up? What is up? All right, so I'm excited for this. You're going to love the guest. And as I started working on the interview, I realized that the guest coming up and I have a ton in common. And it only makes sense for me to start off by walking you down memory lane a little bit. Like, so you've probably wondered like, how did Todd get his career started? And there's a good chance you don't know this story about me, but back to back in 1999, way, way back in the day, yo, I became a talk show host on the number one station in Arizona and it sounded a lot like this. Hi, and thank you for joining me right here. Newsradio 92.3 KTAR. And it was an honor to be on the biggest station in my state. I've always listened to it. But at the same time, I started a website and I started my digital marketing career. And there wasn't even a name for digital marketing back then, but I started trailblazing and content marketing and in search engine optimization while I was on the radio. I didn't even really wasn't anybody to learn from. Just kind of figured it out as I went along. And by 2003, my SEO had started paying off incredibly well for me and my news site was generating 36 million visitors a year on 0 AD dollars and a career was born. And iHeartRadio hired me away from the radio so I could go out to la. And you know, I've been around a lot of wildly successful members of the media. I ran Digital for seven of their largest nationally syndicated talk shows at iHeartrad. And I was raised by two business owners, a fourth generation entrepreneur, and even my sisters are business owners today. And you know, that may sound like we've got a major head start on people, but far too often I've heard business owners apologize more and celebrate less with their staff and with their family. And I got a great story coming up in just a few moments. Damon Burton, SEO guru, father, husband, 17 year SEO agency owner to mom and pops and billion dollar brands with a fascinating story about perseverance, about payoff, about family celebrations is coming up after these words.

This podcast is brought to you by the Wire Buzz team. Now, if that name sounds familiar, it's because I've spent the past decade growing wirebuzz into a digital marketing powerhouse designed to maximize clarity in complex sales processes so we can help accelerate revenue. And we do this in three phases. Phase one, we transform your website to function like your best salesperson and then also incorporate persuasive on demand sales videos. Now your entire team is aligned on messaging and they're injecting massive clarity into your prospect's head. So your site looks great, but it also has engaging content that helps your team sell on demand 24. 7 the next phase phase two we train your sales and marketing teams to sell remotely or in person to expand the impact of your sales team. And the third phase is we develop and run targeted ads to your prospects. Scale those ads to help you achieve more business results. Sign up for the Wirebuzz Company newsletter to learn more about effective and simple ways to improve your company messaging, attract more digital attention, and ultimately make more.

Sales nearly 20 years ago, Damon Burton beat a billion dollar company by outranking their website on Google. And since then he knew he was onto something and went on to build an international SEO marketing company that worked with NBA teams and Inc. 5000s and Shark Tank featured businesses and well, we've become buddies over the year. Damon, thanks for joining me on the toddcast.

Todd, it's a pleasure. I'm excited. You know you said we've known each other for a minute but we haven't got to revisit in a while and you're a good dude. So I'm looking forward to chatting.

Yeah, I love it dude. I love it. All right, so there's so much to unpack with you. I think what gets me the most excited, like I want to get into SEO and I'm a friggin nerd for that and got started on doing the whole SM X events and speaking on their stages. And so like you and I probably have a lot of the same friends in the SEO world, but SEO is like a really foreign concept for people. Like it's another world where when you're working on somebody's website you're kind of thinking about like as you're doing it, what does the search engine need and how do I communicate to the search engine? Like just how did you get started in SEO? And then we're going to unpack a little SEO and talk about. I also want to get into your celebrations because nobody's been celebrating like you have, bro. So we'll get into that in just a moment.

Yeah, well it depends on how far back you want to go. So I'm going to take a shot in the dark at a reasonable story and then there's countless other stories before, after, and in between. I got into SEO because I had a passion for cars. You know, much like many young guys in their 20s I followed. I was big in the car industry, so I started a hobby website. And so I started a passion play where I started an online community. And you got to think this is before Facebook groups, right? And so before that was forums and message boards. So I had a message board based website for a community and it picked up and I started getting thousands of active users. And so then I said, well, how do I make this better? And that's how I started to learn into design more. And there's some more stories before that. I had some initial experience, but that's when I got intentional about it and I said, okay, let's make this better. And then as it continued to grow, I said, how do I monetize this? And so that's where I started to explore marketing and with our similarities in radio. I would sit in the studio and if you don't know anything about radio, but in between doing your breaks, when you're talking on the mic, you're just kind of sitting there. And for me, I had a computer in the studio and so I would work on my car enthusiast website. And so I started to build it up that way. And then I think many of us in the entrepreneur journey we end up being, especially in web design, you become the guys, friends, cousins, neighbors, kids, kids that does web design. And so I was that guy for a while. Built up enough clients on the side where I came to a pivotal moment. And I'm going to leave a cliffhanger there because that opens up a whole other story. But I was forced to make a decision if I would bet on myself or, or go find another nine to five. And I bet on myself. And 17 years later and 50, 60 team members later, here's where we're at.

Alright, so you bet on yourself and let's get into the pivotal moment and then let's get into betting on yourself and the feeling that you've got inside. We'll get to that in just a second, but talk to me about this pivotal moment in your life where.

There.

Was a decision you had to make. Bring me back to that.

So I had a 9 to 5 job. We're all often talked, those of us who do podcast interviews, we're often asked, who did you learn from? Who was your mentor? And for me it was more. I learned a lot by seeing what other people did wrong than being guided to what to do right. The two employers I had before I started my agency, the second to last gentleman was really successful. He'd do one to two million dollars a month. I was his only full time employee. Got paid peanuts, really toxic drugs, cheating, all sorts of things, right? And so I learned very quickly, like, don't do that. Don't create an environment, work environment, home environment, like that. And so when I left that position from the toxicity, the last gentleman I worked for was largely the opposite. What was attractive to him was he married his high school sweetheart, he was the captain of the baseball team, she was the head cheer leader. It was like the storybook thing. But what I didn't know is the business he had started now was on the heels of a business that just got shut down. And so it just got shut down because he was greedy. Now he had a civil suit, but not a criminal suit. And then what ended up happening is the criminal suit caught up. And I was working from home. His business was in Las Vegas. One day, I can't get a hold of anybody. And I get a message on AOL Instant messenger right before we had slack.

You've got mail.

Yeah. And so I get this message that says, sir, did you hear? And I said, did I hear what? I can't get a hold of anybody. Well, what had happened was the atf, the sheriffs, everybody, movies, kind of style, kicking in the doors, shut down the business. So this is where the criminal suit caught up. Business gets shut down. And I was left with a decision. I was told I was in a different department, that department would live on and I'd get a paycheck later. So I had three choices. It was either wait for the paycheck, go get another 9 to 5 job, or take the few clients that I had on the side and bet on myself. And so I did the math. I had enough that losing the day job would cut my income in half. But between my income that was left over and my wife's income, at the time, all we had was a mortgage and a car payment. I did the math and we could.

Oh, those were the days, brother man.

Yeah. For real. Well, before we hit record, I talked about now my 40s. I feel like I'm. I know less about life now than at any point before. And, you know, it's crazy looking in retrospect about how life evolves, but so in that moment, it was, I can still pay my bills, right? And that seemed as calculated as a risk as I would ever get. You think about, like, all this perfect timing, right? I'll do this later. I'll do that later. Whether it's a business decision or personal decision, you never get more time. You get less time. Constantly you get more responsibilities. And so I made the leap of faith then. And if I remember correctly, only took me about three months to make that income back after having freed up the time to focus on my own clients. And then I think I had my first six figure year, maybe by year two, and then 15 years after that second year, you know, now I run a huge team.

It's beautiful. I love betting on yourself. Like you'll outperform when you bet on yourself. And that also says that you've got an instinct and a faith and the ability to add value into people's lives. And you're, well, you're doing what few people are willing to do. Most people are only willing to sit back and allow other people to go out and hunt for them. And when you roll the dice, I mean, that's serious. There's no other safety net underneath you. At, at what point did you look around, you go, wait a minute, maybe I think I, I got something here, something valuable that is sustainable. When did that happen?

You're the first person that's ever asked that. And that's something that I often have to get to in a roundabout way of, you know, what's the evolution of being an entrepreneur? So it's fascinating to actually be, to be asked that directly. It was about a year into it, so the first year it was cool to just be self employed. It was great to wake up when I wanted. I would often wake up early because at the time my wife, she worked at the hospital and so she'd get up three, four in the morning. So I would be like, why not get up and take advantage of those extra hours? And it was about a year into it where I remember telling myself, I said something along the lines of, grind it out now so I don't have to later. And that was knowing that my wife and I would have kids at some point. And so we waited five years before we had kids. But it was like, that's such a, an amazing window to maximize your time. And so during the first year, it was really just, I call it dating the phases. Right. So the first phase was just enjoy being self employed. Like embrace it, learn from it.

But there's something about dating the phases. This is like courting the moment or being intrigued by it. And fascinating. Is that where you're going? Like when I hear people say, like always be dating your, your partner, your spouse, this is like dating where you are in your business. So you still value the moment.

Totally. Yeah. I was never in a hurry to grow at the expense of my sanity. And so during the first year, it was figure this out. Like, enjoy this. And then it was about after that first year where I. It's. You nailed it perfectly. It was, wait, I actually have something here. And it wasn't that I was neglecting it. I just wasn't maximizing it. And then I realized I could maximize it and amplify it. And so from there, I said, well, why don't I get a team member or two? And so then the next phase that I dated was having two to four team members. And then about a year or two after that, I was listening to two books around the same time frame. One was E. Myth Revisited, which tells you how to build a business dependent on processes, not people. And then the second book, book was four Hour Workweek. So between the two, in a similar time frame, it was, hey, document processes. Scale this. But also, here's how you can compress time while you're doing it. And so then at that moment, I had another aha. Where it was, why don't I have more people do it? Why am I doing all this stuff? Why don't I delegate more of this? So that's when the next phase went from two to four team members to eight. And then throughout each of these phases, for newer entrepreneurs, there's a big difference between a solopreneur and having a team member or two, and then having a team member or two to having five, and then five to 10, 10 to 15. Massive difference. And I think the biggest difference for me was 15 to 20. Like, that 20 mark was just a whole other ball game. And so through each of those, it was like, how do I sustain this comfortably and as realistically as possible without losing your sanity and pulling your hair out through the ups and downs of entrepreneurs? And so I just dated each of those phases and figured out what I liked and didn't like from each of it and then applied it to the next phase.

That's great, bro. I pulled out all my bangs. Maybe you can see, like, they're gone. And there's something about learning from, as you mentioned, maybe a negative role model. Like, I love that you bring that up. I don't think a lot of people in our culture discuss the value that a negative role model can have. Like, I grew up idolizing Pete Rose. Like, he was my dude and I knew everything about his career and blah, blah, blah. And then before I knew it, my whole identity was wrapped up in him. Like, I only wore the outfits, you know, clothes from his teams. And. And then when he got in trouble with gambling. I was like, maybe 13, something like that. And that was one of the best lessons of my life because I watched somebody that I admired throw it all away and then be ostracized. And still to this day, I never gamble. I mean, there's like a value to that. And the fact that you went through a bit of a crisis with your previous employer and it pushed you knowing that you could do better is a remarkable thing.

Yeah, no, totally. It was in business and personal. It's, you know, when I was younger, grew up lower middle class, alcoholic stepdad. And so it's like, don't do those things. And then I think that's where you learn it. And then in. In business, it's like, don't run a toxic environment like that. Here's. Here's how to have good retention by not having bad retention.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, that's a tricky thing, is creating a culture. And you talked about some breakthrough moments earlier, like developing processes. Like everybody that I've ever spoken to, when I talk about breakthrough moments, they've never mentioned process.

So there's got to be something here worthy of unpacking.

But are you telling me that the process gave you, as a business leader, greater freedom and a way to organize before you deputized and supervised?

Totally, yeah. And a lot of times you have these crises that you have these huge moments that make or break you. And because of my proactive hesitancy in doing things wrong, I've never had this huge dramatic failure. But I have had opportunities that I could have amplified things quicker. And so one of them was processes. And so this was about the year 8 mark in running the agency, and it was listening to the E myth, and it was now having something that I could better visualize what I was missing. So, of course we all hear document processes, procedures, blah, blah, blah. But until you understand what you're missing, like, you can't. You can't quantify it. And so I started to get some insights into quantifying that in the book. And then I. Then it was, okay, I need to do this. And let me tell you something. Documenting processes sucks. Like, if you want to do it the right way. It took me two or three hours every other day for a year because I didn't want to Just mental. I didn't want to do it just enough that I could mentally check it off the list knowing I half assed part of it. And so I took the time to document things so granularly that as long as the team member Could A, read and B, follow directions. Anybody that had next to no experience in the world of SEO could still complete those processes. And so now the business was dependent on processes. So your aha moment or what made this become a thing that I realized the value in it was by the time I finished that documenting processes, we had our first client that was over $10,000 per month that we had the opportunity to bid on. And there's no way I would have felt comfortable bidding on that without having processes to fulfill it. But then had I, let's say I did, let's say I just bid on it knowing we couldn't properly fulfill it, then your reputation's at stake.

Absolutely.

And so for me, it was, it was, it was almost an instantaneous reward where I went, ah, this is why I did this. Now this makes sense. And now it's, you can. The gift that keeps on giving now is that you can maintain quality control at scale.

Right. And most, by the way, I want to just applaud you on that. Most founders are not people that are gifted in handing off all the secret sauce so other people can execute. And you, by creating process, develop scalability because you now got removed from having to be the one to check all the process.

Yeah. And you asked about, you know, freedom. There was one example where my office is ground level at home and my kids will sneak in the window when they're outside playing tag and they'll cheat and they'll sneak in through my office window to hide. And so one time I snuck out with him and was hanging out and there was a moment where it sounds so cliche and cheesy, but you kind of pause and things seem a little slower and you get a little moment of clarity. And I realized how much flexibility I had afforded myself in that moment where I just walked out unscheduled and hung out for however long and everything was fine.

Right. Company's still running. You know, my, my mom's husband runs a very large direct consumer business, distributes his products and his competitors products, has a factory, has been doing this for 40 something years. Whenever I'm sitting with him in the car in LA traffic and I'm trying to pick his big brain, he always brings it back to, even though you're the founder, you still have to organize, you have to create the organization structure, which is the process that you did. You have to organize, then you have to give it to somebody and deputize them and then you have to supervise it. So what I've noticed is like wherever I stub my toe. It's usually in the fact that I either I didn't organize, deputize or supervise and or somebody beneath me didn't do that. And it's so interesting when you create a process that other people can just go and execute on. And I find it fascinating because I just don't see a lot of founders that have that level of execution in their brain besides being the trailblazer part. Now I know that you mentioned to me in our pre interview that joining masterminds was a valuable advancement in your career. What is it about masterminds that helped your career take off?

Bro, that's exactly where I was going to take this. When we, when you talk about where you stub your toe and, and when you talk about seeing founders, right. And so usually there's, I think they say visionaries and implementers, they basically distill business founders and entrepreneurs into those. So you either have the amazing ideas but you can't bring it across the finish line or you take an idea that you didn't come up with but you realize how to bring it across the finish line. And you are so right. And this is where I started to see this way more was in these different masterminds. So I'm in several high end Masterminds that are $50,000 a year. And so you get exposed to these people, these other types of entrepreneurs. I mean if you're joining groups at that price level, A, you have to have some level of success, B, you have to have a level of confidence in yourself to be able to invest that yourself. And so it's this whole other marketplace of other entrepreneurs. And so that's what I realized I was missing. I used to, I used to skip all these like local business meetups and things like that because I just felt like I was on a different playing playing field. And then I realized price is a quality filter. And so you have these people at that price that do big things and in these groups it's one or two of those people and the majority of the people are the trailblazers. But they come into these groups and then they realize that they need an implementer. And so I kind of found out in reverse. And I didn't realize until kind of seeing that, that I'm somewhere in the middle, right. And I didn't realize how unique that was because I like processes. I obsess over processes. Once I understood the value of them, I became intentional about them. But I've always been more organized than I've noticed my peers. But now in these groups, it's like where you talk about deputize. In a lot of these groups, they talk about leave a man behind. And it's the same thing, right? Deputize, leave a man behind to run those operations once you define them. And that's really what I've noticed is in these groups, these people with a tenth of the staff that I have as far as team volume are doing 10 times more. So effectively, they're doing 100 times more things than I'm doing because they just go, I want to do that thing. And then they get out of the way. They get out of their way as fast as possible.

Yes. It's admirable, isn't it?

Yes. And frustrating.

I know, because when Damon and I got started, guys, he asked me how I was doing. I'm like, dude, I'm like running like three businesses. I'm like a juggling circus clown. I've got a never ending list of things I gotta knock down. And I admire the people and I get to see this a lot at, you know, with being around Tony Robbins and around his highest paying clients. And these are all people that birth ideas and then organize it and then deputize it and get the hell out of the way and move on to the next one. And I want to applaud those people like they're heroes of mine. And I also want to learn as much as I can from them. And there's something about being in masterminds that have, to your point, has a barrier for entry.

Because when there's a barrier for entry.

And even if your brain is saying, well, that's just too much, it doesn't have to be 50,000, okay, it could be a $30,000 mastermind. They're all different and everybody's in different economic place. But you have vetted the entire group and the group is they're all people that could be customers. Because everybody in that room has the money to go and invest in not only their education, but if they can invest in their education, they're probably investing in things like SEO and other services.

Yeah. And you great point. When you get into these groups, they want to do business with people that they trust. And by the nature of you being in that group, you've already checked off half of the trust list just because of your accomplishments and financial stability and willingness to invest in yourself. So a lot of times these groups, you make your money back just from being amongst peers that need your service. But then you amplify it multiple volumes in which you learn and Take away from the skill sets and education and curriculum in the groups.

Now, when you got out of your own way, did you hire somebody to come in like a COO and help you become still the visionary, but somebody went and executed and implemented?

Yeah, so I. That was. So I hired a COO about two years ago. And that was. That's tricky because you need somebody that has a certain level of skill set, but you also need somebody that is passionate, that wants to manage your baby as if it were their baby, but it's. But they didn't create it. So, you know, how did they have that. That intimacy with something that they didn't create? And then they. They have to be aggressive in wanting to take things further. But then they also have to be. They have to align with your company culture. They have to grow this in a way that. That protects the baby, you know, the culture that you've created. And so that's a lot of really specific things that are hard to find. One of them are hard to find, but. But a combination of them are super hard. And so I had needed that person for a while, but I didn't want to screw it up. And so I had, you know, call it faith or whatever, that if I waited and had my radar up, eventually I would find that person. Now, I've since learned also through masterminds, that there are websites that help you find the implementers or the visionaries. And so there are. There are headhunting kind of sites that will go find whichever one you're not the opposite that you're missing. But what had happened, happened is I ended up finding somebody that. He was actually the gatekeeper to a client of mine. He was a freelancer for them. And so I ended up getting the contract. He quickly saw my work ethics and transparency and morals in marketing, which are often missing in other agencies. Reach, brother.

Thank you.

I had found his work ethic and integrity admirable as well. And after that contract was done, we. I was actually walking in my. I remember I was walking in my front yard and I was trying to solve this problem of coo. Coo. Coo. And I realized his name is Vlad. Vlad checked off all the things I needed because he had been. He'd now been with me for six months at the time. He'd been exposed to the processes. He started doing design overflow. But then I made him like a project manager. And then he was vocalizing his pros and cons of freelancer and entrepreneurship and his instability in clients that actually pay on time. And the Moral things that we talked about. So I solved his problems and he solved mine. And so we dated as a coo, I guess you'd say, and dude, he freaking killed it. And as of last week, I just took the. The next big evolution in the company is I completely removed myself from all internal meetings and now he runs everything.

It's great. Wow, what a blessing that is. I'm in the process right now. I do have a COO and who's my cfo, but functions in our organization as the coo and it helps me tremendously. And they also have visibility into the other businesses that we're building out. So they know it's just great to have another person that you can trust that can help you execute and it gives you the distance that you need to be the visionary. And hey, I think that's wonderful. I know that there are, as I've been following you over the years, I noticed that as your business has started to hit new plateaus, you've also had new celebrations that are coming for you and your family. And you've been sharing these cool moments with your wife or the family and going and doing things that are experiences. Can you share some of the experiences that you've been doing with the family and, and how that has helped you celebrate more often and be able to appreciate the moments and the hard work that you're doing?

Yeah, this is a good question and this is something I'm more deeply exploring. I've always been intentional about creating moments for my wife and kids. And you know, part of that's back to what we talked about earlier, learning from what other people did wrong and what I witnessed when I was a kid. And so it started as simple as that. And it was, you know, I want to provide stability for my family. So when I was younger, it's like, okay, when I'm a grown up Damon, you know, don't do these things. And when I'm a grown up Damon, put roots down. And when I'm a grown up Damon, expose them to things and travel. And so my wife had never been on a plane until we started dating. So she had never flown until she was 22, I think she was. And. And so it's like we just got back from Mexico last week, we leave in two days to South Dakota. My father in law passed away last year and he's a Native American. And so he's buried on all this, like sacred ground and all this cool, unique stuff that we can take our kids and show. You know, here's grandpa's history and origins. And like, last month was Costa Rica. And so for me, like, probably a better way to answer this is I'm not a materialistic person. I have a nice house and that's about it. I don't have a nice car. I don't have nice watches. For me, it's always about memories or legacy. And so it's like those two things I'll throw all my money at. And so we have a lake property that we just went up to last weekend. I built a pirate ship on there for my kids. So, like, I'm all more about experiences. Built a pool house. Yeah. Pool house, yeah. So that's been awesome because all the holidays have migrated to our house, and so now it's. I'll often during the holidays get a moment of gratitude where it's rewarding for me to go, okay, this is an environment that I've created to not just for myself, but for everybody else here to foster an environment and circumstance where we can get together and memories can be made. And, you know, maybe, maybe. My wife always talks about how when she was younger, she always remembered going to grandma's for the holidays. And so in my mind, I'm like, okay, that's going to be our house. Right? I always remember going to Uncle Damon's or Cousin Damon, whatever. And so for me, it's always about memories or legacy and just trying new things. That's super, bro. I'm super.

I just love watching you have those moments. I think I recalled a Vegas trip, maybe even a trip with some Lamborghinis or Ferraris and a day of driving or something like, that's awesome. You know, a lot of people just continue the grind and. And the fact that you're able to celebrate and share those experiences is priceless. I'm so proud of you for doing that. I just think that's an important element that a lot of people don't ever do and. And talk to me about. About where. Where are we headed with SEO? I know there's a lot of conversation out there about SEO and AI, and it feels like that AI can do some parts, but not a vast majority of. Is the AI integration into SEO mostly a content play so far?

Yeah, for sure. So I tend to play devil's advocate in the discussion of AI and SEO because there's countless other people telling you all the amazing reasons to embrace it. And so I don't know if it's the instantaneous hesitation to join a bandwagon that I have to force myself to take the other side. But so I'm not here to preach all the reasons you should consider AI. I think everybody gets that concept. And so the discussion I've had about it is quality control liabilities because it is a content opportunity. So maybe the first thing to think about is content at scale. Using tools is not new to SEO. AI is new. AI doing content at scale is better than the previous options. But scraping content, spinning content, there's been countless other ways to do it at scale. So this is not a new game for search engines to figure out. In fact, I would be really surprised if Google didn't already have what's theirs called, Bard. I would be really surprised if Bart didn't already exist five years ago, because there's no way that Chat GPT comes out at the end of 2022 and by the first or second quarter of 2023. Bard rol out. I think what happened is, hey, do.

Me a favor, give a little backstory on Bard.

Yeah, bard is the AI tool that Google rolled out to compete with ChatGPT. So it's a chat interfacing assistant that you can ask questions and it gives responses or takes actions. So it's Google's version of ChatGPT. So I think what probably happened was they already had it, but they couldn't release it because it would negatively impact the revenue model, because their revenue model is people going to Google and asking questions. And so if now all sudden you can get the questions in a chat interface, less links, less clicks, less ads. And so they didn't release it until they had to release it. So they've already had these things, in my mind, they've already had these tools for a while or highly likely that they had them. So therefore they've already had other things to analyze the results of these tools. So I think that, you know, it's not new and as far as like the liability discussion is, that's to be determined. But Chat GPT has only been out for eight months, nine months, something like that. And the liabilities are starting to just come out of the woodwork. I mean the FTC is knocking now even within the first couple months. Like I think it was Italy that temporarily banned it out of concern all the major tech players that you think would adopt it and embrace it. Elon Musk's those type of people are saying we need a six month moratorium to understand what that we're walking into. But ultimately I think the question is if you want to use it for content, that makes sense, but do you own the output and I think liabilities are going to evolve, but the chances are you probably don't commercially own the rights to the output because you didn't create it.

Right. It's such an interesting conversation. I remember being at Google in their headquarters, 2012, 2013, something like that, and having them show me how they can instantly tell if content is who the originator is and if you are stealing content and the way that it shows up inside of their, inside of their evaluation process. And I think it'll be, I'm sure they already have it, the ability to evaluate content that's written by AI compared to a human. And Google always rolls out updates that are like solutions to the latest marketing problem that got out of control. Like we saw it with, well, we saw it with everything. There's no reason for me to rattle them off. But it's content created by a human will always be preferred and always be overvalued. So it feels like there's like a mad dash into AI generated content without thinking about what the long term setback will be.

Yeah, it's do you want short term rewards at the expense of long term reputation? There's a huge opportunity with AI in the opposite perspective. And it's storytelling. Like if you think about all the major brands that have survived over the decades, if not centuries, let's say super generic, obvious example, Coca Cola, right. They always win because they're always telling stories. And so when you look at the opportunity between mass produced content at scale that's missing the human element through AI, or less volume, but higher quality because you get more intimate and tell stories. The loyalty resides with the brands that tell stories and build an audience always.

And here's how I phrase it, stories are the glue that binds your audience's attention into your solution. And they're sticky. It's almost like a story's like when you go to the Circle K and you reach in to grab a six pack, the story keeps all the pieces together. And at the end of the day, when you reunite with your wife, you don't go home and tell her all the facts or the data of the day. You give her a story that connects the pieces. So when businesses in their content use stories, it allows people to pick it up and then share it with other people. And it's sticky. It remains in their head. They'll be able to tell that story forever. And so I think you're right. There's a lot of businesses that undervalue story. But when you look at the big juggernauts, they over Value stories for a reason.

Because they work. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, that's super cool. Damon, what's coming up next for you? Like what is the. I know you have a free SEO book. Tell me about that.

Yeah, I wrote a book called Outrank a couple years ago, largely out of passion to help the little guys. I don't think it's too often the entrepreneurs write books with no intention to commercialize it, but was a great learning experience. Writing a book is something else. And. But I wrote it because. I wrote it because I wanted to, you know, you get the credibility out of it. That's nice. But I got it helped answer a lot of questions for small businesses. So in my mind it was like, alright, either you, if you don't have the budget to compete with the big guys, but you're willing to put in the time, then I was able to create a book that I could give out as a blueprint. So now I can help all types of people. So if they come in and if the budget doesn't fit or whatever, then I can go, I can still help you. Here's a book. And so I spend thousands of dollars a year coming out of pocket to give that away for free in the physical copy. So I give it away online for free, but I physically mail it. I still mail a copy or two a week to anybody that asks. So it's just more of a huge passion thing to. I think you get to a certain point in entrepreneurship where if you're fortunate enough to find a reasonable level of success, you just want to give back. And that's, you know, one way I can just go, all right, you know, good luck entrepreneur, and I hope you make it.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I totally agree with you. Like the, the whole secret is giving and the reward that comes from that along the way is ginormous. And yet it also has a exponential impact, like a magnet that attracts more people your way. And I applaud you for doing that. People can go to free SEO book.com that's free SEO book.com or damon burton.com Damon, thank you so much for joining me on the Todcast, for sharing your stories, for talking about the perseverances, but also how you've liberated and freed yourself up along the way as you continue to help people.

It's great.

It's just great to reconnect with you, my man.

Yeah, good to catch up. Thanks, Todd.

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