You Can't Afford Me
You Can't Afford Me
Navigating the Intersection of Engineering and Entrepreneurship: Andrew Jenkins' Masterclass in SEO and Digital Marketing Success
Embark on a journey with the multifaceted Andrew Jenkins, where the intersecting paths of engineering and entrepreneurial flair converge to chart a course in digital marketing. Andrew's transition from a stable corporate job to the unpredictability of running his own business in SEO and web development is nothing short of remarkable. His story unfolds in this episode, revealing the critical moment his personal venture's earnings eclipsed his corporate salary, showcasing the power of turning necessity into a profitable and innovative solution.
As we navigate the twists and turns of local SEO, you'll grasp the importance of a perfectly aligned Google Business Profile and website. Discover the art of consistent citations and the profound impact they have on your digital footprint. We're handing out practical nuggets on the value of customer reviews and strategies to encourage their flow. The conversation crescendos with an eye-opener: for many local businesses, a robust Google Business Profile might just be the linchpin in their customer acquisition strategy.
We round out the episode with a deep appreciation for sales skills and the transformative power of mentorship in the entrepreneurial realm. Sharing tales of personal growth through multi-level marketing experiences, we underscore the indispensable nature of resilience and community building. We further celebrate the spirit of collaboration over competition, particularly within the web design and digital marketing industries. This is more than just a podcast—it's a treasure trove of insights, charting a course for success in the ever-evolving digital landscape, with Andrew Jenkins as our guide.
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Sam:Hey guys, thanks for joining us on another episode of the you Can't Afford Me podcast Today. I have a buddy in the room with me today. If you are interested in SEO, website stuff, this is what we're talking about today. It's super important to your brand and we got just the guy for you today. We got Andrew Jenkins in the studio today. Andrew. How you doing, buddy, great man, thank you for having me. Absolutely man. So for those who don't know. You give us in 60 seconds who you are and what you do.
Andrew:Definitely so. My main focus is on helping contractors develop increased lead flow, develop new websites, make sure that they're showing up in the Google right Everything that they need pay-per-click ads, web development, seo, all of that kind of stuff.
Sam:Yep, nice. So talk to us about why you first decided to get into the space.
Andrew:Sure yeah, so that's an interesting story. So my background is in engineering. I grew up working in the I would say home improvement space, so to speak. My dad owned a handyman business and I spent my childhood falling off of ladders, spilling paint all over myself and getting the cobwebs all over my face and stuff like that.
Sam:Let me pause right there. I'm so envious of guys like you who know how to fix stuff with your hands, because if anything breaks in my house, I just have to call the guy. I'm never the guy.
Andrew:Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. I didn't say I know how to fix stuff, so I grew up doing that. I had a little bit of experience, got my engineering degree, started working and I just never really felt the connection to the whole corporate arena and I always wanted to find something else. And you know there were a number of different things that I did along the way, from, you know, mlms to starting a clothing line that didn't go anywhere. You know, you name it landscaping company, a little bit of everything, yep. And through that process I ended up, kind of just by accident, helping a it was actually my ex-wife, helping her with a website. After we got married she purchased a new domain name. She lost what I would describe as street cred with Google and stopped getting a lot of the lead flow and I was like, eh, I'll figure out how this whole SEO thing works and just kind of took off from there.
Sam:Love that. Love that Because so many people I don't think many people realize how often a business is created just simply by someone who may not even consider be thinking about entrepreneurship at the moment. It's just oh, here's a problem, let me come up with a solution. And then you get the solution and you realize holy crap, I think people will pay me for this. Yeah, let's go back a little bit in your story. So you said you majored in engineering. Where'd you go to school at?
Andrew:So I went to school at Virginia Commonwealth University. That's kind of how I ended up in Richmond specifically, and I just I grew up in the middle of nowhere and once I got to the much man.
Sam:So with that, you posted something the other day I want to get into Correct me on this, because I'm sure I'm going to put you this how long are you into your business now?
Andrew:So originally, officially from the date that I got my LLC I think that was September 2022. But from the point where I started actually treating it like a business and it generating a significant amount of income, it's been about a year to a year and a half, and then officially leaving my job was in December this past year.
Sam:Okay, so you left your job in December and you made a post the other day. As we sit here today, we're in the month of April. Yep, you made a post the other day saying that last month was the first month you made more in your business than you did working full time in corporate America. Talk to us about the feeling of that, because that is a very invigorating feeling for an entrepreneur. Once you make the decision to go out on your own, a lot of us know, starting out, I'm not going to see the type of money I was making in corporate America go out on your own. A lot of us know, starting out, I'm not going to see the type of money I was making in corporate America. But once you get to the point where you exceed that and you've realized, hey, this was all me, I didn't need a corporation backing me up to do this. So explain those feelings, like when you first realized, hey, I exceeded what I was able to do in corporate America on a monthly basis.
Andrew:Sure, yeah. So I think in the beginning my mentality is put my head down and just kind of run through whatever challenges kind of come your way. So it. Actually I didn't realize that I had made that amount of money until a couple of days into the next month, and it was kind of interesting just reflecting back. I think that's one of the things for me that I need to get better at is looking back and reflecting and say you know, this is where I was and this is where I'm at now. But it it gave me a sense of confidence personally that now I feel like, hey, I've, I've done something that you know, a lot of people are striving to do and something that I originally set out striving to do. But it's not just a, you know, it wasn't a goal specifically, it's just a point along the way of getting to my big goal, if that makes sense.
Sam:So I want the entrepreneurs listening to this right now to really take note of that. So he went from December leaving his job, to in March. So in the three-month period you exceeded what you. So some of you have to understand that it is a matter of just like, putting your nose down and getting to work, but it doesn't take five years for everyone to start seeing the money that they need to make. Like, if you're strategic and I think a lot of that has to do with the way that you've niched your business Sure, so I've always said you know if you're marketing everybody, you're marketing nobody. Like, you have to have a specific area that you're looking at. So talk to us about the niche that you've kind of carved out when it comes to, like, web development and SEO.
Andrew:Yeah. So I think that there's kind of two pieces to the niche that I'm focused on. The first one is contracting, and again I started my business and I was working with anybody and everybody this was before I left my job, even my first client was a estate planner that came through a referral and I learned more about estate planning end of life, like that whole situation than I thought I would ever know which was really-.
Sam:That's also a very cool thing about being an entrepreneur, because you start learning about stuff that you would never have learned in another life.
Andrew:Absolutely. And then, directly after that, there were a handful of like little, small, one-off projects. But another big client came on needed a new website. They're an escape room and again, I mean, I've done an escape room before, but I'm not, like, I'm not an escape room expert.
Andrew:So now, I'm learning this entirely new niche learning, all these different things that I have no idea about. And I started to realize, if I keep building my business in the same way, I'm going to be reinventing the wheel every single time that I build a new client, and that's an incredibly slow way to scale a business Absolutely. So I just thought back hey, what am I familiar with what? What experience do I have? That would kind of build that connection better with somebody, and you know the whole contracting thing. So that's kind of my. My tagline is we've walked a mile in your boots, right, so I like that.
Sam:I like that, like that.
Sam:But clients will respect that when you've worked in that space, I know every client that you're working with you haven't specifically done that, that type of work, but knowing that background. So, like you know, before I became an entrepreneur, I worked in the health field for 10 years and it's a lot easier for me to approach a mental health agency about doing their marketing because I've lived that world before and people can respect that. But people really need to understand how niching your business because we often think like, oh well, if I close my window of people that I'm going to serve, that's limiting my income yeah, no, you're actually doing the opposite. You're expanding the growth that you could be at, because if you're trying to be everything to everybody, this doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't work.
Sam:But to be able to focus in on that niche and see the income being generated that you're looking at now, I mean that's a huge accomplishment. In terms of SEO let's talk about, let's dive into this a little bit more. If someone listening to this now is like I've never, you know, paid for Google ads or I've never tried to get ranked higher with SEO and things like that, what are some tips you can give people in order to kind of clean up, like their Google, my Business and things like that like to get recognized a little bit higher on the search engine.
Andrew:Definitely so. Here's the.
Andrew:Here's the the concepts that you have to consider with SEO, search engine optimization, anything that's related to Google is you have to look at marketing in that search engine realm as holistic, right, you can't just try and change a couple little things on your website and hope that you're going to magically rank higher, right, you have to design everything together, and I think that's the biggest issue that most people have, whether they're trying to DIY their marketing or they're trying to even work with an agency, and that's kind of the second thing that works into my niche even is there's a lot of agencies out there that maybe they mean well, but they don't necessarily understand how to move the needle, and I think that's a big issue, because people are very big on saying, hey, you know the over-promising and under-delivering I guess is the best way to put that.
Andrew:But you know, if you're doing things holistically, your website and your Google business listing, google business profile, doing things holistically, your website and your Google business listing, google business profile, google, my Business there's a million names for it, right? Those two things should match and mirror one another. So, if you have a service that you offer, it should have a page on your website that should be optimized specifically for the location that you're in, and it should have a matching equivalent on your Google business profile.
Sam:And don't if you don't have all of your information lined up. Google hates that. Like. If you have a different phone number on your Facebook, then you do your website. That'll screw up your SEO.
Andrew:Yeah, so there's um, there's some value in making sure that you have they're called citations this is what it is called in the SEO realm at least any kind of directories that you're listed in any of that kind of stuff. You want to make sure that you have matching phone numbers, addresses, names, all of that stuff throughout everything, and there's a lot of easy, simple ways that you can do that without having to manually go in and change 400 different places your information list.
Sam:Thankfully, how important is Google my Business? Because I think a lot of business owners kind of overlook that and they go straight to their Facebook and Instagram accounts, focus on the website, things like that, and they can completely neglect Google my Business. How important is it to make sure you're getting reviews, uploading photos and videos, making sure that that content is updated?
Andrew:Sure, yeah. So if you are a local business owner, typically when you when you search for any kind of service in a near me fashion, let's say you're looking for an emergency plumber right, You're going to type emergency plumber into Google, the first thing you're going to see that's all pay to play. That's how you show up. Those are the ads. The next thing that you see, those are all Google business profiles. Right, those are. It's a picture of a map.
Andrew:It's called the map pack or the three pack, and most of the clicks are going to end up there, versus trying to rank your website, which is what comes up third in organic search. So if you don't have a Google business profile, you're missing out on probably two thirds to three quarters of the clicks.
Sam:So the Google business profile is even more important. I'm not saying website isn't important, every business needs a website but you're saying, in terms of priority, in terms of people finding you, that Google, my Business is more important than a website.
Andrew:Right, and even with that, there's a limited number of levers that you can pull to increase rank. But what you mentioned before making sure that you're getting reviews, which for many business owners can be very, very difficult, and there are definitely ways to fix that.
Sam:You can play Abdul in India. Write your review.
Andrew:Good A lot of times. Google is getting very, very good at and, frustratingly, also worse in certain ways but they're getting good at figuring out algorithms on how they can make sure that people are not trying to shortcut the system. Now, sometimes those algorithms falsely cause problems for people that are not trying to circumnavigate Kind of like my pen being moved.
Sam:So Andrew was coming to our office for a meeting last week and it took him completely to a different side of town. I've been dealing with Google trying to get my pin pushed to the right spot. They had me do a video. I'm still waiting on it.
Andrew:I almost walked into someone else's house. It was crazy yeah.
Sam:Google, get your shit together.
Andrew:Yeah. So I think you know, between what you mentioned getting reviews, making sure that you're active I mean there's 100%. There are tips and tricks, and I could talk for four hours about that. But, just being active within the Google business profile and making sure that it's set up properly and that your category that you choose is reflective of the type of business that you run. Gotcha, that covers a lot of it.
Sam:What do you think is the minimum amount of reviews any business should have on Google?
Andrew:That's a great question. So in my experience there is a bit of what I would describe as a sandbox. Once you get past that 10 review mark, you're going to see that the areas that you rank highly in it's going to expand significantly. So minimum, you want 10.
Sam:That's a very easy number for most business owners to hit.
Andrew:Yeah exactly if you have any kind of regular client base, um, or you have. I didn't tell you to do this, but if you have friends and family that are in your service area, I mean they probably would use your service, maybe I don't know but it's doing that, that push of we've done little things like in our uh weekly newsletter.
Sam:At the end of every newsletter we have a if you wouldn't mind leaving us a five-star review on google, that type of thing. Um, I'll sit down every now and then I'm like, oh, I need to beef off stuff on my google business, so I'll email some clients that we may have worked with in the past I know enjoyed our services and just like hey, would you mind? And here's a key thing is sending them the link to do the review. If you ask them just to go search you on Google and write a review, they're probably not going to do it. If you give them the link and make it easier for them, where they just have to click one button and it takes them exactly to where they need to review, you're much more likely to actually get those reviews.
Andrew:Yeah, people are much better at scrolling than they are clicking buttons, for whatever reason.
Sam:Yes.
Andrew:Make it easy on people than they are clicking buttons for whatever reason. Yes, make it easy on people, and then you know. Like you said, focusing on just because you're running a business in a specific niche doesn't mean you have to only get reviews for a specific advertised service. You know what you described was a great example.
Andrew:You know you're putting out a newsletter. If somebody is getting value from things that you are doing right and this wasn't some, you know, exchange solely designed to get a review then getting those reviews is perfectly fine and within the terms of service with Google.
Sam:That's a good one, because we do. I'll do social media classes here that are open to the public every other Thursday. Hadn't even thought about reaching out to the people that have been attending those classes and be like, hey, can you write a review for us? Let's backpedal a little bit. What made you want to become an entrepreneur? Now, I get that, like you identified a problem, you solved it, but I've always said I believe entrepreneurs are born, they're not made. I think we definitely have to build up our skill set and there are some things we have to fine tune, but I don't believe anybody goes in the business for themselves that doesn't have that bone in their body. So what was it? What moment was it where the light switch clicked and you're like you know what? I really don't want to work for anybody else anymore.
Andrew:Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I agree 100 percent with what you said, in that you are born an entrepreneur. I think and I can take this as far back as I can actually remember when I was in school every single time I was given instructions. My immediate question if y'all, if y'all have kids like you, get a toddler, they, they ask the same question it's why, non-stop right and so, as I was growing up, that just never left, I never really understood the reason behind.
Andrew:You know, hey, you have to do it this way yeah and I never agreed with it because I could, most of the time uh, I could do it faster or more effective or better in my own way that's why I hated when math teachers were like show your work.
Sam:I'm like well, as long as I got the right answer, what difference does it make If?
Andrew:you need to see the work, then that's your problem.
Sam:Yeah.
Andrew:I don't know what to tell you there, man, but yeah, I think I've. I kind of grew up like that and then partially working with my father you know he's just like every other parent that you know kind of went through that struggle and they're like, hey, you got to go to school because it's going to set you up to be successful. But at the same time you know, once you get in that arena and you start working, I think it's very quick for a lot of people to realize, like whether they put it down inside of them and they push it off. I think it's very quick for people to realize like I don't belong here.
Sam:Yep.
Andrew:You know and it's a it's it sometimes lives beneath the surface until you build up that courage to decide what you're going to do. But yeah, I just, I've always been a terrible, terrible employee and a great business owner, I think.
Sam:So I think you're the second guest I've had on the podcast that we were both in Quickstar, yeah, Talking about MLM, and again, as the second guest on this podcast that was participating in Quickstar, you made more money than me in that system. What was it that you learned? And I may start changing this I used to tell entrepreneurs or people that wanted to be entrepreneurs like, hey, if you just want to be an entrepreneur and you have no idea what you want to do, go join MLM, the biggest thing you'll get. Number one the sales piece of it. I believe that's the skill set that everybody needs. It doesn't matter what profession you choose to go into. If you can sell something, you will never go broke.
Sam:But number two, it was the education I got. It was the mentorship. Like back then you would have had to put a gun to my head to force me to read a book. But once I got involved in that and I realized, oh, there are books out that will teach me how to be successful, how to make more money, how to do X, Y and Z, I got really into it. So I had to make Jack from Quickstar. Like I made a few bucks here and there, but like nothing on the level of like what you guys did. How did that play a role in your journey as an entrepreneur?
Andrew:Sure that. So my original idea was very similar to what you had said just now. I planned on getting started doing it for a year or two, trying to you know. Hey, this is pretty low cost. I'll treat it as like a a second college degree, sort of. I'll get some experience with selling soap and you know it what happened.
Sam:Soap is a lot easier to sell. Seo. Oh, absolutely, yeah, you can sell soap.
Andrew:You're good. My biggest takeaway, I think, from that entire experience was that I did have a group of people that pushed me out of my comfort zone. Yes, so for you know, most people may not be able to tell this, but I'm incredibly introverted, just by nature. So, yeah, going after we're doing all this talking, I'm going to go, you know, sit in the rain and just be quiet.
Sam:Are you one of those people that can drive without music playing in your car?
Andrew:Yeah, it's scary, I can't do that.
Sam:I can't go to sleep without noise. Dude, I have to have the TV on to go to sleep.
Andrew:Yeah, not an introvert, so that's just my background, naturally. And so getting involved in any type of business where it was like you have to learn how to build relationships, communities, like understand team dynamics, you have to all of that stuff was terrifying at first but it over the period of time that I was involved with the, the companies I built up that skill set of you know you point to somebody in a target and I can go start a conversation. I'm not scared of them are you an aspiring entrepreneur?
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Andrew:Prenuer, empowering your entrepreneurial spirit. Now, today, I can still do that same thing, but without you know alternative, ulterior motives, basically. So I think that's been a huge skill set for me. Now that I've started my business and I'm in that period of time where I'm scaling, I'm confident that if you put me in a room of 10 contractors, I can connect with one to the point where, if I need a new client, I can talk to one of these people and I can build a good connection and build that trust that they're like they let the walls down and they don't look at me the same way that they would look at the 50,000 emails that are in their junk.
Sam:Absolutely. And when you talk about going up to somebody randomly at target like number one, as long ago as I was in quickstar, that pitch hasn't changed. I think you and I were joking about this. Or dude, if a dude ever comes up to you in walmart or target and says hey man, you look familiar, uh, he's part of an mlm shoes or watch yeah, you got shoes.
Sam:They're not very creative, oh yeah and then it's always like, oh man, I was in the army, did you serve? And I'm like no, then they go down this whole rabbit hole. But that was more fearful to me and I'm extremely extroverted. It freaked me the hell out going up to a random person in the store and just being like, hey man, like what you shopping for today, or you look familiar, or like blah, blah, um, that was more scary to me than going up to a girl in the club in my single days and, like you know, you know, as guys like all the memes are out Like guys will just sit in the corner and play on their phone looking at the weather app or something like that.
Andrew:I was dancing man. I don't know what you're talking about?
Sam:You ain't man, you ain't all the way introverted? You're right there on the border probably, but to develop that skill set where you almost become numb to hearing no, yeah, and if I didn't have that skill set today, I wouldn't have been in business for myself for the last 10 years. Like being able to walk up to somebody and not fear rejection, because at the end of the day you walk up to somebody and pitch them on something, what's literally the worst they can do is say no.
Andrew:Okay, cool.
Sam:And just because someone says no, no, it doesn't mean no forever. It means no right now, like I have. I literally just wrote up a contract this morning for a lady that heard me at a talk a year ago and immediately after talk she ran up to me. She said I need your services, blah, blah. I was like all right. Cool started talking to her. She's like, ah, I don't think it's gonna work out now. Cool, never thought about again. Then she's in my DMs the other day like, hey, somebody else approached me about doing video for my brand. I don't really like them. I like you. When can we talk? And then she should be signing a contract today.
Sam:But to be in that moment where you can put yourself out there, people recognize you, people know who you are, what you do. She said no to me then, but 12 months later she comes back to me and that's also a testament to like SEO and marketing and things like that Cause, when people see that you're still cooking and you're rolling and that your business didn't fall off, like they're going to want to work with you. But I encourage anybody that's trying to be an entrepreneur or you currently are an entrepreneur. If you hate sales, you need to get over it. Like I understand, there's a point where you can bring in other people on your team to do X, y and Z, but if your business isn't making money, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. Yep, you got to go out there and make those sales. Let's talk about expansion. Where do you see yourself in the next five years with this business?
Andrew:So we talked a little bit about this the other day. I think long-term, originally, my plan was to do this myself, without bringing on any additional help, and I think sometimes we can get in our own heads about wanting to bring on other people and the hassles that come with that. Long term, I want to use this as a stepping stone to fund bigger goals. Yeah, right, so maybe I'll bring on some more people, you know, up to that point, maybe I'll continue running the brand, but long term, what I want to do is I want to for lack of a better word make marketing great again. Right, the?
Andrew:The thing that I alluded to before with you know, everybody's got that, that junk mailbox folder full of people that are in some other country, that have been spam messaging everyone, and even people in the United States. I mean, I got rid of like four or five emails before I came over here and you haven't figured out marketing, trying to market, yeah, right, and I think because of that, there's a lot of a lack of trust in marketing in general, and so my whole idea is building a community and empowering other people and basically sharing the stuff that I've learned and how to treat people and how to approach people and how to build that trust and that connection so that people can trust that you know marketing isn't basically a scam. Yeah, which is, I think, how a lot of people look at it today, specifically in the contractor space.
Sam:Oh yeah, I'm not just the president man, I'm a customer. Like this stuff works. I heard somebody say in a podcast the other day she said you need to sell the sizzle, not the steak. So give away the sizzle for free and sell them the steak. And I think that's probably the biggest area that most brands screw up when it comes to marketing. Is they? All these people today think you know they start generating three grand a month and think they can start running expos and conferences and workshops and all this stuff? No, you haven't reached a level in order to educate people at a high level yet. So I think there's a lot of that.
Sam:People just see like, well, hey, if I just market myself well enough, I can do this. But it boils down to just what everything else is is relationships. Like you may have met someone in my industry that you don't trust, but hopefully, after a conversation is sitting with me, you're like, okay, I can trust this guy. And just because it hadn't worked for you for a period, because the majority of people out here are saying, oh, this marketing thing doesn't work, those are the people that tried it for three months and quit. Nothing works in a matter of three months If you're trying to build a home and it's not done in three months, you're just like, oh, this is getting nowhere, I'm just going to quit. Oh, the home would have been up in another six months, if you just give it a time. So I think, looking at it from from that perspective man, you said something else there. Man, I keep lately like I have a thought in my head and immediately goes out of my head, like I Carrots, yeah, carrots.
Andrew:I kept telling everybody I need to eat bananas.
Sam:It could be bananas.
Andrew:All right, I'll eat carrots and bananas.
Sam:They're both good right, I'll mix it up, but I think it was along the lines of like with expansion. Oh, that's what it was. I love this is one of the biggest things I love about entrepreneurship is everybody doesn't have to be the same Right. So my goal is world domination Like I is everybody doesn't have to be the same right. My goal is world domination like I want enzo, media, firm and states across the country. Um, and for a brief time, I had like this short mastermind. It was very short-lived mastermind where it was three of us in the group. We're all in the marketing space, primarily videography, but we all wanted a completely different thing, like this one guy he has a great brand.
Sam:He's here, local, he has no intention of ever hiring anyone else. He makes his six figures, he does video and editing by himself. That's all he wants. Another guy was just like, yeah, I'd be happy, I'm just happy with like three employees, like that's the max that I want to handle and I just want to dominate this area. And then you got me where I'm like, put a pin in every spot on the map Like I want to go there.
Sam:So you don't have to feel that you have to fit a certain mold when it comes to building your business. If you just want to be a solopreneur and make some really good money and be your own boss, it's a great place to be. But then, on the other side of the spectrum, if you want to grow, my whole thing with developing a team and bringing on employees was I don't want to do everything that's involved in building a business, whether I just build it to where I'm paying myself six figures or once I get into the seven-figure mark. You can't get there on your own. You just can't Like there's a cap, just like there is with a job.
Sam:Ultimately, there is a cap with your business if you're a solopreneur and that's cool If you're fine with it, if you set in your head like man, I will be my most happiest if I can make $175,000 a year that allows me to save, invest, go on vacation where I want to go, blah, blah, blah. Cool, do that. But I think it's important that when you first dive in entrepreneurship, that you identify where you want to be at, because I think we talked a little bit about this the other day. Do you have an extra strategy with your business? Is this something that you want to hold on to for a lifetime? Do you have a number in your head that you're like? If somebody would offer me this, I'd step away.
Andrew:Yeah, I don't. I don't think so much um from that perspective as far as like exiting.
Andrew:I know it's kind of a an interesting thought, but I was talking to one of my clients the other day and his goal is to also scale, and a lot of times in most industries, when you're training somebody to essentially replace you, there's that fear that, hey, this person is going to go out and they're going to become my competition Absolutely Right. And I think that there's a different approach that you can take, and I've I've heard of a handful of different people that have done this.
Andrew:You know, you can empower that person to basically leave, knowing that that's going to happen, and in the end you can build out systems to where you guys leave. And now it's almost like a franchise right, you guys share work.
Andrew:you guys share everything but this person has the responsibility that they want and the ownership that they want within their own company. And if you've established a really, really strong brand, like you talk about, right, you can feed work to this person and you can generate an income stream. And you know for a fact that, because you trained this person, they're going to do work to the standards that you have. So now you're creating an entirely new income stream and you're doing almost no work other than passing work off. So I think, long-term, my goal would be to move in that direction Now, whether the brand catalyst in itself stays synonymous with hey, we do SEO, we do this, we do this Um, I'm not a hundred percent sure if that's the, the you know 10 year plan or whatever.
Andrew:Uh, but for now, capacity wise, if I can bring on one other person that can help me with web design Scaling is it's going to be very limited on what's going to stop me from scaling to more income than one person should have.
Sam:Here's what I need the entrepreneur community to stop doing is stop viewing everybody as your competition. You said something interesting there. I've had people that have come here to work and I've given them the blueprint on how to go start their own business, and I got nothing but love for them. They left on great terms. We've actually talked in the past Like they get into a pinch. They know I have a bigger team. They'll call me and be like hey, I don't have a videographer who can cover this event. Do you have somebody? I'll pay X, y and Z. Cool, no problem.
Sam:But this idea that there is no cap on success, yeah, if everyone in your area. Think about this. I want this to really hit home for someone. I'm talking to somebody right now. Think about this If every person in your area that needed your service came to you now, could you handle all that business? The answer is a resounding no, right. So then why are you bitching about somebody else getting the client? That client wasn't yours. That client was never going to work with you. Right, there, there is no cap on that. So I got no qualms about. I've told people before in an interview setting hey, if you just want to come here to pick up game and I pay you for six months and you get what you need and you move on to the next thing. Hey, I'm with it and I'm. I'm probably actually more likely to hire somebody that tells me something like that up front than someone that's like oh no, like you know, I want to be yeah, I want to be here for the next few years and blah blah.
Sam:No, like, give me real. Like, if you're really just trying to pick up game because you want to go start your own thing, cool. But the other thing with that is that those people that break off from you will typically find a different niche, like just because the service that you were providing while they were working for you is probably not going to be the niche that they go into post, leaving you. Like that guy that I'm speaking of specifically, he focuses way more on live events. He does a little work with nonprofits here and there, but his demographic that he's going after is not my demographic, so why would I be scared of giving this guy some knowledge? Like, I will openly welcome the opportunity to speak to anyone else in the marketing space, even if they offer the exact same services as us, because there may be things that we pick up on.
Sam:Like you and I are looking to do some things together because you do SEO and web development. I know you're an aspiring videographer and editor and you do some pretty awesome videos on your YouTube page, but in terms of you being able to do that for all of your clients, that may be a task that's a little bit difficult for you. So it's like find these ways that you can partner because the work becomes less so, instead of you sitting down writing all these cold emails networking every 10 seconds of the day. If you have partners out there that, have you in mind that when they go talk to a client saying, hey, have you thought about this? I have a company that I work with and we can get you taken care of on this end, like the money just starts to flow.
Sam:Yeah, and a big piece with that, too, is that when you focus on the client experience, this has been a very hard lesson for me, because there are times in business where you're like yo, I need cash flow, like yesterday, right, but when you can get yourself in a position where you can kind of alleviate a little bit of that pressure and just focus more on the value that you're giving the clients, it's funny how the money starts chasing you, yep, and you can stop chasing the money. Um, so that's one thing I want to nail home and make sure that people get from that that piece that you were speaking about. Um, all right, so in terms you said, in terms of an exit, like doing that. But like, have you thought if there's a number in your head, like if I came to you right now and I said, andrew, I'll pay you $10 million for your brand? Like, what's your number? Everybody has a number.
Andrew:I don't know, man. So I'm looking at this right now as a case study. So long-term, you know the whole direction I'm going in, as far as empowering other people to be able to run an agency from an ethical and moral high ground. This being a case study, it's hard to put a value on it. But yeah, if someone said hey, I'll give you $10 million.
Sam:I mean I would take it and I'd change the name of my company and I'd start another one. That's what I thought Like if and when I sell Enzo Media Firm, I'm going to go into another marketing space.
Sam:It's just going to be a different name. But, like, that's the thing with branding, if you're branding yourself along with the business, when you make those pivots, your followers will follow you to whatever it is that you're doing so like. It's a very important thing there. Let's touch real quick on on websites, because there I was just sharing a story with you before we started recording. Um, in case you guys haven't heard, I have a massive sneaker collection and andrew was checking out some of the shoes, um, and asked me which pair was my favorite, and I picked out the sean weatherspoon. It was a 97 air maxes, um, and I was telling you their brand when he started round.
Sam:Two, they didn't have a website, they didn't have a phone number. All they had was an Instagram page and that's how you knew what they had on their shelves. What's your thought in terms of? Maybe this is a generalized percentage because it's different based on what industry you're in how important in today's market is it having a website? Because there are businesses that are just operating from a social media account. So I get, if you have, like, a Shopify account or something like that, you may not necessarily need a website, but in your professional opinion, what percentages of businesses, would you say, website is an absolute need.
Andrew:So I love this question because there's two ways you can approach this, and what I like to tell people when they ask this version of question is there's two different types of companies that have a website. Type one they have a box. They have a box that they put stuff in and that stuff is on the internet and it's cool. And if someone decides to search for their brand, they find that box and they're like that's a nice box, yeah Right. And then there's option number two no-transcript.
Andrew:So the people that are out there leveraging the websites from that perspective, they're not getting any benefit of even having the website realistically, other than they exist on the internet and they have a presence, right. But the people that are leveraging their website as a lead generating mechanism, those are the people that you know. A huge percentage of their, their lead flow, could be coming from websites. That being said, in my opinion and I don't think a lot of SEO people or marketing people are going to tell you this because it doesn't benefit them but your best source of business will always be referrals if you do a good job.
Andrew:Like if anybody's telling you anything different than that you should run from them, because referrals are the lifeblood of any business that does a good job like that.
Sam:And that's the important part. But if you have a clean presence online, when someone refers you and they send the website, they send it to to your social media like that person's word, along with a clean brand, that's credibility yeah that's gonna get you closing definitely so.
Andrew:I I think that's the. The biggest thing is there's there's tiers, right, you got to figure out. Do you want that? Do you want the box that's sitting next to the lake or do you want to have a bunch of fishing poles that could potentially land you a lead that could turn into you know, money to help pay your employees, money to scale your business. I mean, there's no negative to having too much business coming in.
Andrew:No Right. It gives you the opportunity to choose who you want to work with and if you're smart and you build strategic partnerships like we talked about, it gives you the opportunity to use those leads to help fund someone else's business, right? So you're you have to look at again marketing more holistically instead of just I'm going to get mine, I'm going to catch my three fish and then I'm going to put them in the cooler and go home.
Sam:So you just said something there in terms of using a website for lead generation. What do you mean by that?
Andrew:Yeah, so essentially every page that you have. If I'm designing a service page for a landscaping client and they do mowing and they have 50 services, every single one of those pages should be designed as a entrance to a website as a entrance to a website. What most web designers will do is they'll design a really, really cool homepage, assuming everyone's going to go in to the website through the homepage Gotcha.
Andrew:But that's not actually how most people are going to navigate a website. They're going to end up on a service page. If it's optimized properly, they're going to scroll. If they don't immediately. I mean, people are. Let's be honest, people are lazy. They find what they want. You give them a form, they can fill it out and they become a lead. If they don't, they scroll down. They see a couple of things they need to see and then they fill out a form. But most people, in my opinion, are mistaken with how people will leverage a website, because they assume everyone's coming in through that homepage and in that example you do have the box and it's not doing anything.
Sam:So, just as a real world example, like Enzo Media Firm offers podcasting services. So you're saying a percentage of the people coming to our website. They're searching like local media company for podcast services and then that's coming up enzomediafirmcom backslash podcast website. They're searching like local media company for podcast services, exactly, and then that's coming up enzomediafirmcom backslash podcast, yep. And they're going to that page first before they see the homepage.
Andrew:They may not ever go to the homepage. Yeah, they may end up on that service page and that's why, when we design websites the way that we do it, every single service page or product page that you have on your website it's almost like a website within your website it's a single landing page that should answer everything that that person needs to know, so they don't have to go to another page. That's a good point there.
Sam:Last question, let me ask you this what is one thing you wish you knew before you went into business for yourself?
Andrew:wish you knew before you went into business for yourself One thing that I wish I knew before getting into business. Okay, so this might be a little bit contradictory, because I think there's two different types of people. There are people out there that have they have struggles with not quitting things, and then I think there are other types of people that struggle with the exact opposite and saying they don't have patience.
Andrew:Well, no, it's. Sometimes, if something's not working, it's okay to reflect and to pivot, Like for myself my story before I told you that I was, you know, in the Amway business for 10 years. If I had pivoted in year two, right, I would have already smashed through the goals that I've had set for myself for like the last decade, as far as like income goals and things that I wanted to accomplish and do. If I had pivoted when stuff wasn't working. I mean, there's something to be said and I think a lot less people have that issue versus the opposite, which is people quit before they actually gain the experience they need to grow in a certain area. But there's something to be said about not banging your head on the same wall and, just you know, turning to the left and walking through the door instead.
Sam:You've got to look at the numbers and see what works and what doesn't, because there was a time with Enzo specifically, where you know now we offer like about six services. There was a time I was offering like 15 different services and I'm spending all my time marketing this one area of our business that after I sat down and looked at the numbers, it was generating like 5% of our revenue and it's like, why am I spending so much? So I started hacking services. Nope, don't need that. Nope, don't need that. Nope, don't need that.
Sam:But you make a good point there in terms of that point. Where you get through the storm is where that breakthrough comes Like. I'm always reminded of this meme it's two guys underground and they're digging for diamonds and one guy is like an inch away. If he strikes with that axe one more time, there's going to be a flow of diamonds coming after him and right before that he turns away and starts walking the other way. The other guy has a big smile on his face. He's still probably like a mile away from this, but he knows like, hey, if I just keep going, I'm going to get to this.
Sam:And people don't realize like we pray for things, like I want a million-dollar business, or I want 15 employees, or I want my income to be this, that or the other, but not realizing the tests that you have to go through in order to become the person that can handle that. If you can't manage yourself I'm sorry, boo-boo you can't manage 15 people, absolutely. If you can't manage $5,000, god's not going to bless you with $5 million. So it's understanding that you have to go through these heartaches to build yourself up to the person the CEO, the president of your company that you need to be. Without those hard times, you're going to pick up lessons from mentors and people online and things like that, but, like the best lessons are learned firsthand. I agree, because if you burn your hand on the stove, you don't have to do it twice to remember oh, that thing's hot, it's going to hurt me.
Andrew:Yeah.
Sam:Yeah, so I think having that mentality of it's interesting, the way you bring that up, because there is a time to know it's not quitting, but like I'll use a way to said pivoting. You're not quitting on that. It's just like. Hey, let me redirect this huge, successful entrepreneur that I follow on YouTube. He did a video the other day and he said he went through nine businesses before he found the one that was like the home run for him yeah just like explode him on another level.
Sam:So I tell people all the time you never know it could be. You could be one post away from your life changing, your business changing. You'd be one connect away. You'd be one phone call away, like you never know how close you really are. And I think a lot more people in this world would be successful. And I think a lot more people in this world would be successful if they didn't just stop like right before yeah, like there's a lot to learn in that process.
Sam:Man, this was awesome. Yeah, some good info on just entrepreneurship in general, web development, seo stuff. This was a good talk. So if people want to get a hold of you, they want to follow. You've got some great content online that's giving free information. He's not charging you all. You can go to his Instagram. Where can people find you online if they want to get a hold of you?
Andrew:So any social media account you can follow me at. Catalystrva for Richmond Virginia.
Sam:Spell Catalyst out for people, make sure they get that right. That's on my hat C-A-T-A-L-Y-S-T-R-V-A. There you go, there you go Well, man appreciate you being here today.
Andrew:Thank you for having me, man, it was awesome.
Sam:Absolutely, and we'll see you guys on the next episode. Dream of launching a business that combines innovation with social impact. Legacy Vending Machines Entrepreneur Program is a gateway to make it happen. I'm Sam Anderson, co -founder, inviting you to join a movement reshaping the future of vending. With personalized coaching, access to prime locations and a unique model that supports nonprofits, we empower you to start a profitable vending operation that truly gives back. Whether you're new to entrepreneurship or looking to expand, we're here to guide you every step of the way. Be more than an entrepreneur. Be a legacy builder with Legacy Vending Machines. Apply today to take the first steps towards a business that makes a difference. Visit our website now at wwwlegacyvendingco. Your legacy starts here.