#(anyway know that i got screenshots because fuck those people. theres a reason why i blocked them)

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

OKAY. SO. i'm going to be directly pulling from the wiki + ttrpg text & abridging some of it. here we go. little bowl of seeds for u!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so. the circumstances leading up to the trigger event influence the power granted. half the state of mind, and half the scenario that they're in. taylor was in a situation where she was isolated, blind and powerless and felt like everyone was conspiring against her-- either directly (planning for fucking weeks to get her into the locker) or indirectly (ignoring her inside, not letting her out) etc. she triggered as a master, someone who can see everything and control so many things so exactly and specifically and she has something (her bugs) there for her, in some sort of fucked up companionship, in response to that. the overview is as follows!!

^this is the gist of it!!!!!! the ttrpg also goes into more in depth on many of these-- i won't send u 1 billion screenshots Now (spoilers in the gdocs u r Not allowed in there) but. here r a couple irt the nhw for flavor :}

also holy shit now i can be so so so fucking annoying about Why i gave the nhw the powers i did... i kind of got into it w/ the trigger events. but like. still..!!!!!!!!!!!

OHHHHHHHH MY GOD. HOLY SHIT. YEAH UR RIGHT I WAS THINKING ABOUT IT FROM THE WRONG ANGLE. OH MY GODDDD DUDE . THIS IS SO FUCKING TASTY. MY MIND IS GOING ABT A BILLION MILES AN HOUR RNNNN ohhhh god this got so long i gotta out it under a cut. im having so many thoughts dude

i would LOVE the essay about each of the nhw triggers btw. i can SEE your vision i can FEEL your vision. william feeling so fucking isolated in his hometown leading him to have master powers. his. idk weird relationship with ghosts/monsters/death coupled with his EXTREME near death experience manifesting in his breaker powers. UGHHH thats so good. TRUMP POWERS BEING CAUSED BY DIRECT INVOLVEMENT BY ANOTHER CAPE IN THE TRIGGER EVENT. VIRION WATCHING HIS DAD SLAUGHTER THEIR ENTIRE PARTY/FRIENDS/FAMILY. dakota being lost in the crowd after losing his parents, knowing something bad is happening but not knowing exactly what, catching glimpses of the fight and the blood and the horror but still not fully understanding, not knowing how or if he'll ever find his parents again and that manifesting in his thinker powers. also that zone/quick/farsight thing holy FUCK thats so failsafe. "loss of autonomy, being situationally restricted/overwhelmed" manifesting as sensing people in his immediate environment. "results from tunnel vision in views/character, incorrect perceptions" (can we say dakota damascus hero worship!) manifesting as powers that go beyond the usual senses (fear/pain sense!). i honestly think the Quick part would come more from his second trigger, which is what gives him the Mover powers right? "panic, frantic inability to solve problems, rushed errors" <- not being able to catch katori in time, making the split second decision to fall after her, manifesting as his mover/thinker powers. being able to make those split second decisions midair and Actually Accomplish them, but by the time he triggered they were already too close to the ground and he couldnt save her anyway (<< and theres the tragic irony)

ohhhh i didnt mean to go off so much about failsafe but that just gave me a lot of feelings about his triggers :( ANYWAY THINKING ABOUT ASHE NOW. GOD. OKAY. right now. how are we feeling about Shaker/Breaker. ok ok im having a lot of thoughts here bear with me. idk if u have a more clear trigger for him in mind but the thing ive been thinking about all day since u sent me that first ask is. the call going out to evacuate because simurgh is coming. ashe's mom has to go get him from school and its a mad rush with all of the other parents trying to do the same thing. instead of immediately leaving, they go back to the house for some reason (she forgot something important? maybe her phone so she had no way to contact mark/see if he was okay? idk i havent worked that out yet.) and shes just. running around frantically grabbing things getting ready to leave and ashe is standing in the doorway not knowing what to do or how to help. and its like an earthquake hits. (i just keep thinking about chris's death and how fucking. sudden and brutal it was it has stuck with me for some reason). something big or heavy falls on her and just . immediately crushes either one or both of her legs. totally unable to move. and ashe starts panicking and shes obviously panicking but trying so hard to keep it together not to scare ashe anymore than he already is. and she tells him to go, tells him to follow the other people who are leaving, maybe find one of their neighbors and go with them. (side note here. if she got her phone. i want her to text mark here and tell him to come home. something really short and terrifying and panic inducing that breaks him out of his hesitation. "need help, come home, cant leave" something like that. worlds most miserable man these are the last words he has of his wife aha) ashe doesnt want to leave his mom! hes just a kid he doesnt know what the endbringers are or why theyre so scary or why THIS ONE IN PARTICULAR is so bad!! she keeps telling him not to worry, that dad will meet him there when hes safe, ashe immediately asks something like "but what about you?" and its very. disney movie parent dying level of tragedy. he triggers when she eventually cant hold it together anymore either from the pain or the panic and just starts. screaming at him. ashe you need to go you cant stay here you need to leave me im not coming with you etc etc etc.

ANYWAY. ALL THIS TO SAY. shaker powers come from environmental/ambient danger. i.e. a literal endbringer attack. maybe the house isnt structurally sound anymore but he doesnt want to leave his mom. breaker powers come from . well this is more of me maybe forcing the issue but i want the trickster to be a separate form or something. the abstract stressors here being. he knows something bad is happening but he doesnt know exactly what. he knows his mom cant move but he wants her to be able to so she can leave with him, shes yelling at him telling him to go, he doesnt know where his dad is, he doesnt want to go by himself. etc etc do you feel the vision here. taking this directly from that last paragraph about breakers too but like "knowing a situation is dangerous but not wanting to leave" yknow!!!!! i dont know exactly how this would manifest yet but goddd just. imagining it as something like. his shaker powers are the ones he can actually control and use normally but the trickster/breaker powers is what he turns into in situations similar to his trigger, where someone he loves is in danger. but the irony of it is that he cant really control his actions as the trickster and he just kind of. goes berserk on whatever is around him. absolutely brutal, maybe a little sadistic; its kind of perfect for situations like overlord where they do actually need to kill someone to get out of the situation, but with things like his trigger. well. the only living thing around him was his mom. so . wasnt pretty. is this anything . im in so much pain about this

final FINAL side note. i know we have mark as a cauldron cape but even if we didnt i think both his classifications working so fucking well ESPECIALLY tinker "solutionless problems over long periods, resulting in a crisis moment" what is more of a solutionless problme than knowing you and your son have been marked by the simurgh and deciding that instead of following protocol youre going to say fuck it all and get the two of you out of there by. nuking your entire lives and faking new identities and struggling to bounce back from somehting like that all while knowing the inevitability of. the fact that youve BEEN MARKED BY THE FUCKING SIMURGH. (also striker "results from an immediate threat, usually a single object or individual" hello? coming home to find your son in some demonic berserk state and your wife a bloody mess on the floor all while theres this overbearing scream/singing in your head ??? okayyyyy)

[wooahaes]

i don’t like the idea of people calling fics and people who read them “delusional” since you’re hopefully engaging with it purely as an act of fiction. i think it’s okay to have celebrity crushes, especially if you’re in the same boat as me (trust issues, but i can indulge myself in the idea of a relationship when it’s something literally impossible). i think it’s okay to write/read about them as long as you aren’t crossing that line into thinking its real.

you can daydream about being held by someone without expecting to be a reality. you can read reactions of having your first kiss with someone without thinking it’ll happen someday with that exact person. fiction is something comforting to a lot of people, and sometimes using someone’s likeness (like i and other writers do) can help. i don’t claim to be writing the “real” svt or trsr or anything because i don’t know them. i gauge reactions based off what they’ve shown us of themselves.

i think it’s genuinely fine to engage with content like this as long as you’re separating fiction from reality. basically i feel like i’m writing ocs that are based off the public personas we’re shown. i can feel safe while writing these things because i know they’re not really going to happen. maybe other people feel the same way, too, or maybe they just want to escape from reality for a bit via a free medium. nothing wrong with that.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Reviews: The Trickening!

Halloween Havoc continues! Louie’s greed and lack of concern for his brother’s feelings or well thought out schedule leads them to a real life haunted house with vampire clowns, dummies, a scary well lady and a gelatinous cube. Because there’s’es always room for gelatinous cube. Meanwhile Della wants to use Launchpad’s dangerous misconceptions about halloween to traumatize children for funzies and Donald had a problem with that for some reason. Also Scrooge is kind of an asshole on Halloween it turns out. No one is suprised. Ghosts, goblins, and full review with spoilers under the cut. 

Happy halloween month everybody! Halloween Havoc, aka my spate of halloween reviews continues as I roll into my first actual halloween episode review of the season! Yeah weird but so far we’ve covered demons getting exorcisims, little girls thinking they can raise the dead, and a horrifying plauge guided by the human incarnation of all that is evil, but not the actual holliday itself. Weird ain’t it? Well that changes with this so as always pitter patter. 

It’s HALLOWEEN here in duckberg, and the mansion kids are planning Trick or Treating. Natural given Huey’s OCD, he has everything planned out a and naturally the kids all have unique and adorable costumes. Huey is gizmoduck, though with a GK instead of  GD, a nice nod to “New Gizmokids on the BLock’ From the original series, an episode I haven’t seen but have heard of so theres that. It’s also because he likely wants to be Fenton’s kid sidekick which.. yeah please do that show. It’d be so fucking adorable. Plus Huey needs to be happy for once without having to go through a gauntlet of misery first. Let my boy be happy. +

Anyways Dewey’s is rather disapointing as it’s a “pirate on vacation” which while hilarious and very dewey, is kind of an anti-climax after months of speculation. Webby is some kind of ancient demon king as apparently in the duckverse the origins of halloween are based on appeasing various monsters, and this is so she can hide from them effectively. And Louie.. is Huey. Which means putting on Huey’s hat and a terribly insulting impression of him. 

Meanwhile Donald and Della are an angel and a devil, with, which I didn’t realize until a tumblr post, Della’s costume being the one one of the boys wore in the classic disney trick or treat short. So that’s a nice nod. Donald wants to nicely give out candy while Della wants to terrify the children. Both end up disapointed as Scrooge instead boots everyone from the house and locks the mansion gates, as he doesn’t like giving out handouts which.. yeah that tracks. 

As it turns out Scrooge also has his own plans.. which are gloriously ludicrous, sounding like something Glomgold would do: He’s going to go trick or treating himself, as when he was a boy, this was the one time of year a poor lad like him could get treats and he worked his tail off to do so and wants to prove he’s still got it. And as we see later SOMEHOW he still gets candy. It’s like if THIS was actually sucessful. 

I would genuinely not be suprised if Scrooge too hadn’t tried to get an oil well from an elementary school this way. As for leaving candy out he leaves out an empty take one bowl which is as clever as it is douchey. So in other words Scrooge in a nutshell. So with handing out treats and scares at the house a non-option, Della and Donald go to see what Launchpad’s doing since Beakly.. is.. I have no fucking idea. NO I really don’t, she shows up for the ending, but before that? If they mentioned where she was I clearly missed it because she’s just.. missing for most of the episode and given every other member of the main cast is accounted for this episode, it’s VERY noticable. Give her more to do dangit!

So yeah we get our two plots, which i’ll cover seperately, then cover the ending where they dovetail together. Kay? Kay. 

The Kid’s Plot centers around Huey and Louie.. specifically Louie wanting to go to a real life haunted house while Huey, as mentinoed has heavily established plans for their night. As for why Louie would go into danger, well as usual for when he does that theirs something in it for him: Rumor has it no kid has ever made it out with their candy.. thus leaving decades worth of candy just waiting to be nabbed and thus never having to trick or treat again. One big score for a payoff.. which didn’t make a lot of sense on first thought and my best guest is whatever preservative Gyro used for Oxy Chew, since it was still edible decades later, was probably spread to other candies since there’s no way in hell Scrooge would pass up a zillion dollar invention like that. Either way works.  Huey is outvoted as Dewey naturally wants the excitment and Webby wants to see if her demon costume works on actual demons. However things quicklky go wrong as they ecoounter a dewey dummy and a killer dummy, as well as a monster clown and a gelatonous cube, which yes. I may not play DnD but I love these things. 

The kids escape the house by accident while tryign to escape and Louie, still being a dick about things, finds out Huey DID know abotu the stash btu avoided it and Louie lays into Huey.. a bit much honestly, feeling he was agaisnt it purely because it wasn’t on schedule.. when you know, Louie could’ve asked to put it on schedule or actually given a damn about this, especially since Huey’s planned their trick or treats EVERY YEAR, so he’s had a full year to ask for this insane idea, or even the short time he’s known about it if shorter. Sure huey might of sputtered a bit, but Louie knows his other siblings, Webby and Dewey could convince him to loosen up and include the house. Louie’s just being kind fo a selfish dick here.. however i’ts not so overwhelming as to overpower the episode, as he has been before and while he should know better about risking his family’s lives after “Timephoon!” it is in character for him to protiize a big score like this over other people’s feelings and it’s not even the first time this season he’s done that. So fair enough. 

But we soon get the second best reveal of the episode: As the kids are backed into a corner by monsters.. they grumble theres no candy and it turns out the monsters.. ARE REAL.. but their traditional monsters like frankenstein, dracula, and the bride of frankenstein, just dressed up like this to scare kids. As it turns out the WHOLE THING is an elaborate yearly scooby doo hoax to get kids candy, with the brilliant twist it’s done by actual monsters> As the vampire points out they can’t exactly shop during the day.. or he can’t at least, so this is how they get candy for the year.. at tribute if you will. Also the Gelationous Cube gets a nice hat as you see above. It’s a REALLY clever twist and I absolutely love it. I DID NOT see it coming and even with some spoiler screenshots I thankfully did not have it spoiled for me. REALLY good stuff. 

As for why Huey’s been so obessed with his planning.. it’s actually really clever and really good character stuff: Huey simply got really into it because back when they were with donald this WAS their adventure for the year: the one time he let them cut loose and have fun, and he got a real kick out of it.. and Louie getting candy for life kind of destroys that. And that’s why Louie still works here.. because he instnatly realizes from this that was the problem and apologizes in his own way. It’s a nice bit of character from both: We’ve rarely had their pre-mansion lives factor in and it’s nice to see it for a change, and it’s nice to see Louie isn’t all dick, just like 20% dick. Unforutnately having no candy dosen’t appease the monsters who are pissed and descend on the kids.. until.. well for the until we have to back up a bit.  So onto the adult plot we go! Della and Donald go to Launchpad whose dressed in a jason mask and ash williams/jason coveralls, weilding a power sander and having barricaded his place. After he scares some children, a bit too much, and Della and Donald are reallyd amn confused, he explains.. and we get the best reveal of the episode.. which given the above is saying something but it’s clear like the “blath” gag in “Astro BOYD” and the non-anthro ducks gag last week, this is one of those things Frank has been keeping under his hat all series.  So as a boy Launchpad crashed his tryke into the mansion, ran into the monsters after reading off a candy wrapper.. and now assumes he unleashed a horde of monsters onto the world every halloween.. and tha’ts what he assumes the trick or treaters are. I just .. dont’ have a lto of words. This is pure comedy gold and easily the best gag of the episode and oen fo the best of the series. It’s clever, fresh, and really fits the character. Naturally Della wants to exploit this to terrify children ebcause she has underlying issues to adress while Donald tries to stop her. Thankfully before Della can get launchpad to scar children for life, Scrooge shows up and fights launchpad.. it’s part of why I also find scrooge’s dickery acceptable as launchpad beats the shit out of him.. it’s still an even fight, as not to suspend disbelief, but Scrooge still looses. I mean he gets out of being trapped in his candy bag easily because scrooge btu still, props to launchpad. So Launchpad decides to go face his fears and Donald and Della decide to stop him before he doesd a muder on a child.  Which leads to an AMAZING climax as Launchpad scooby doo chases the scared monsters around as they have no idea what the fuck’s going on and hte monsters end up really enjoying his scar eof htem and bowing to the master. It’s a good way to end it. After Della explains what’s going on, Louie and Huey decide to explain halloween to Launchpad by taking him to the once house he hasn’t been: the Manor. Scrogoe has finally opened it up, with a line of kids no less, the monsters bond with some kids in line. As for why.. as Webby sadly figures out Scrooge is charging admission, thakns to dewey who thought an all night candy store was a good idea which.. yeah it is. So everyone gets a happye ending and the monsters hang a photo of hte night up in the mansion. A really sweet ending, pun uintended but eh it’s welcome. 

Final Thoughts.  Easily one fo the series best. While the characters are a bit exagerated in places, i.e. della, launchpad , scrooge and louie, it works for the plot well enough and the jokes well enough to make it okay. My only real complaint is a lack of even a cameo from Lena and Violet, as it feels weird to not even have htem in the ending, much less trick or treating with their friends. It just feels odd and could’ve used a throaway line. I get WHY not , as Lena even pre-blue would’ve destoryed the tension with the monsters, but it still feeels really weird to not have them. But it’s a minor quibble in an otherwise REALLY funny and creative episode and a fun halloween treat to revist every year from now on. Really good work.  That does it for this week. For more halloween treats, follow this blog throughout october. So far i’ve done reviews of Demonicsim from Star Vs The Forces of Evil for Tomtober, Croaked, the Casagrandes day of the dead Special and the first of Marvel’s mini-series adapting Stephen’ King’s epic novel The Stand. And until next monday, or sooner if you decide to check any of that out, happy halloween!

[trixiesouphanes]

Okay so this isnt a cool quote just the really fucked up dream I just had

So I was in the pool alone after browsing instagram all day and I was thinking about this one account that just posted a bunch of absolutely beutiful pictures and I was sad cuz I might be only to be that pretty if I had as good as a photographer/camera as them

So I went to the pool and for some reason it was night and there were a lot of other people there trying to figure out the puzzle answer for a door and I couldnt figure it out either

The next day I hopped back in the pool and there was no one there at like a really pretty sunset and at the time I was thinking about the pretty pictures on instagram I just had my arms on the side of the pool and my head down staring at the sunset

I decided to go inside when I catch a glimpse of a dude and for the stupidest reason looked like Vance waggoner but like the bojack horseman version... yeah

But also this other lady about the same age holding like a tablet I think? There were both smiling crazy as hell so I just rushed inside

I didnt think much of it thinking they were just playing a game and then it skipped to the next day, I went back in the pool

I was still alone, just kinda chillin and swimming around, then I wanted to back inside again cuz it was sunset again. But i turned to get out and my top had unhooked itself. Outside of dreams, my pool is in my backyard, surrounded by a million trees, so no one would see me put it back on

I was walking towards the stairs and i didnt realize that 'they' were still out but I was putting them back in so I didnt matter

But as soon as I started walking towards the stairs I see the man and the woman, both staring at me with these horrible smiles. The dude is behind the woman, and the woman is behind the tablet she was holding, a large tablet but somehow I knew that the camera was open. I tried to jump so I could swim away but I was too late...

I heard the sound of a camera starting to record and my jumping did not help me, I tried to say something like "IM TEN" to get them to stop or at least get the video taken down from wherever they post it, but they had stopped the recording by time I did, and they started running as fast, as fast as they could away from me and I just stood in the pool and cried.

I went back inside and who was waiting for me there? The man and the woman. In the dream my parents werent home, late shifts I think

They started trying to lecture me about how pretty I actually looked and I might feel ugly but the problem is the camera all the time

I cant rememeber word for word what they said except for this one quote I cant get out of my mind,

"You think you need a lot of makeup, but you've got it. We took this in the pool and you looked stunning anyway" and then he took the tablet and showed me the picture they took from the first day of being alone in the pool

The lighting, the aura, the angle, and just the general sound of the image was all amazing. For once, *I* was amazing. I didnt want to but they had started to change my mind slightly. I was sitting on the poolside with my head on my arms staring at the sunset with long, beautiful, wavy hair stretching out in all directions behind me.

And then, they showed me the short video

I had jumped at the second I saw the guy take a screenshot of me, my tits were perked up but you couldnt see the look of horror creep onto my face yet

And for the most horrible reason, they were out, up, and I had looked so... grown. From behind me the sunset had not only pretty colours but also did that thing where the sun had those pretty shapes from a line that always happens in movies

I hated it. I hated how much I loved it. It was so pretty, *I* was so pretty and I was exposed. At a shot, I tried to take the tablet from him but he was too fast and ran off, driving away.

I then turned to the woman. She told me her name was sherry, so at least that was good to know, I checked my phone after getting a notification of them posting something and I checked

It was me, the first picture was my long hair out, and the second made me cry.

I saw hundereds, if not, THOUSANDS of comments of people telling eachother my age, my school, my address, and worst of all, my profile

In seconds to minutes, I immediately started getting spammed with dms telling me how pretty I was, and that they wanted to see more, others telling me I was a slut, more telling me if I wanted to do "photography" with them...

I was sobbing. I had how real it all seemed. Then for some reason I wasnt in the same house anymore. I was upstairs looking down at a staircase and I saw the woman

I pushed her, obviously, she was threatining me with a taser if I said anything to anyone. So I pushed her

I took the cord she had the laser powered with and ripped it apart, and then started smashing glass on her wherever I could find it.

She was knocked out by now, and I ran and sat down screaming about why I had done this, and why this was happening

And in that moment of absolute helplessness, that desperation for something to stop going wrong, something to stop it, I rememebered theres a landline in the house

Ya know brain, I couldve gotten a dm from someone saying how they knew this was all something horrible happening, and that they wanted to help me. That would have been something really nice, brain. But no, you had to make me fill up with white hot rage and stomp to the landline phone

(This is where it gets worse)

I saw the woman was up and she was going to tell people that j was insane and was going to check me into a mental institution so no one could fight against her

I was trying to call 911 but I kept not getting the numbers right, because dreams suck like that. While I was doing this, she too, was calling the cops

I finally got the numbers right and waited for them to pick up but I heard nothing. It rang and rang for what felt like at least two whole minutes but... *nothing*

That's what did it. That's what made me feel like my life was over and I was going to throw up. Nit the picture, that would somehow eventually go away. But a mental institution? I would never get out to live

Then I heard sirens, and i wanted to destroy her

So I got up and grabbed everything I could to knock her unconscious again, and whatever didnt it still felt a little good to beat the shit out if her

I went outside and for some reason, dream reasons probably, the cops werent there anymore, it was my mom

It was dark as hell outside, and I had forgotten about how I was still wearing my swimsuit. My mom was trying to be angry, thinking that I had been swimming at dark, then she saw me crying and covered in bruises and broken glass.

I told her that sherry was still inside after showing people porn of me, "bastards"

I watched my mom call the police and when we both went inside, the Vance guy was there looking at what had happened to his partner

My mom tore him to shreds with screaming, and I could see he was about to start running, so I slowly creeped back outside and was going to grab him from the side door

I heard his footsteps going fast so I quickly opened up the door and grabbed him, threw him to the ground, and bit his neck. With my jaw chomped down, I jumped up, with a gory mess surrounding me

The police arrived and while I was thinking about how I was going to say something like "temporary insanity" in court, I woke up

Like I said, that dm could have saved me. If you see this happeneing, just tell them that its *okay* that everything is going to get better, that their life isnt over.

But I'm awake now, no swimsuit, no glass in my arms, not a slice of someone's jugular clamped down with blood filling my cheeks

Just a few tears and the hate for my brain

[jadecringecomp]

jade, of course, is still trying to deflect rather than own up to anything at all. im too lazy for screenshots so youre going to have to deal with text for this one. you can see their post here though. and if receipts are needed they are most likely on the callout blog or you can come to me if you cant find them.

“uses their own dead grandma as leverage out of nowhere literally months after the original argument”

jade are you really that braindead. like youre still just proving my previous point. youre still practically shitting on me for it. i gave a reason as to why that night was so traumatic for me because you keep trying to make it seem “like it wasnt that bad” by your own words!

also like uh, jade. you yourself have used your aunt having cancer as a reason to just... excuse every single action youve done. so again, take that and choke.

“abuses their own bf/ex but its fine because he abused her first lolololol!!!”

jade i... honestly have no words. youre still defending a pedophile, and you even admit he abused me. like, yes, i cheated on him. but how does the fact he is a pedophilic abuser not process through your head. why are you so set on defending that. a genuine question.

“flips back and forth on whether they were actually abused or not whenever it benefits her“

theres... nowhere that even says that in the link you posted. are you posting that to still try and imply i lied about the abuse you inflicted upon me or...?

“refriends their own ‘abuser’”

ok well one jade, you still have no actual proof ive befriended broden at all. all you have is a like on a fucking post. really how braindead is it possible to be at this point.

and regarding bailey, i never called her my abuser. you were the one to do that. you said she abused me after i showed you screenshots of what went down between us. and whats worse after i even came to you and showed you the screenshots and you got involved with that mess?? you still wanna try and say what happened was fake. like you wanna call me two-faced, yet youre so quick to change your mind once you realize that person doesnt benefit you anymore. 

also! for someone whos a survivor of abuse, you sure as hell dont realize a common thing between us survivors is literally going back to those who’ve hurt them right?? like you keep bringing this up as if im fucking lying about the whole thing when im not since again, i came to you while we were friends with the proof. i can even post them if need be. and honestly it doesnt even fucking matter anymore ive broken contact with her after shortly realizing my mistake.

“denies other ppls abuse just because they doesnt like them and a few vent discord messages means they knows literally everything abt it“

i can admit to saying i denied your abuse because there is actual proof that you werent abused two years ago, not because i dont like you. do you really just think nobody will believe proof right in front of them jade??? do you think youre some perfect princess who can do no wrong???? like jade the proof is right @deeancie, @estweri, @honeykeis-callout, and even here. you really expect me to just not believe it if i didnt hate you. you honestly need some real fucking help if thats the case jade.

and really like. if you say your bf clams up when you go to him... what else am i supposed to believe. sure i can be wrong, but reading that shit can really make you wonder what is going on between you two. and jade you wanna say that like you yourself dont do that shit. remember all the times you read vague text posts and would go on a tangent as if you knew every little thing about what was going on in my life. yeah kinda what i thought.

“says grooming minors is talking to people One time“

i love how you fail to leave out the fact that these people were minors and that youre practically defending loli. so if youre still talking to these minors and since youre still defending loli, then yes youre grooming minors into thinking loli is ok.

“straight up let a minor into their porn server on discord (they can go as rabid about this as they want but they still straight up showed an actual minor graphic porn but IM a pedophile bc i rb anime sometimes lmfao)”

again its been resolved. like ive acknowledged it was wrong of me to do and ive changed it. and how can you say you just rb anime sometimes when. you literally are reblogging this kind of fuckshit. like do you not remember reblogging that obviously naked child in a collar or what. the difference is i realized my wrong and changed it while youre still rbing actual loli.

“lied about the relationship (the one where they abused each other and she cheated on him with her other abuser???) having elements of pedophilia because they lied about her age”

this is so... ive told you i forgot. the ages. i was literally an age off for the both of us. like what else do you want me to do about this.

“has sketchy as fuck ocs, including one thats physically ten who would force their adult self insert to be naked around them and also drew them being physically beaten“

while the first was true (but i dont have that oc anymore), where in the fuck did i draw them being physically beaten lole??? are you pulling this out of your ass to deflect you yourself rbing beaten children????

and i swear to god if you bring up this comic, im going to scream.

“is a stalker and an abuser. by their own logic“

ok like. a couple of things to this. jade when are you going to get it through your thick skull i didnt give a shit if you were lurking or not, it was the fact you would comment on my every move. which is stalking by the way and incredibly creepy like get a life!

and an abuser “by my own logic”. the link you shared, again, doesnt show that anywhere. also with how badly of a hypocrite you are, thats you. you told me it was abusive to call people delusional. you started doing that once i realized my wrong and stopped. you told me it was abusive. you told me making people relapse was abusive. yet once i relapse you still didnt give a shit and somehow that makes you in the clear (though i still dont give a shit we both literally did that to ourselves the point is youre an abuser too to your own logic). you said trying to gaslight people is abusive (which it is). look at the stacks of proof i have of you gaslighting me. like i could go on but all the proof if here on this blog.

“oh and dont forget they foamed at the mouth that i didnt instantly know when they changed their pronouns but has been proven to have Actually knowingly misgendered me for weeks“

jade the fact you were lurking should make it fucking obvious you should have known my pronouns. and for weeks?? jade i misgendered you in your callout, which i immediately changed once pointed out. will you please stop lying to make yourself look victim and just tell the truth for once in your life.

“also apparently i can call them rae and its not deadnaming because its not their birthname so“

oh my god youre literally fucking braindead it hurts to watch at this point. no rae isnt my deadname. but i do prefer not going my that. the whole point of that was that you tried screaming transphobia because someone called you by a previous name you went by. you fucking dumbass.

“claims to have bpd but doesnt even know what cluster b is holy shit!!!“

what do i even say to this jade?? what does the fact i didnt know what that was at first matter to me having bpd??? also are you just gonna shrug off the fact that you first claimed you got misdiagnosed with autsim, then suddenly you do? you claimed to have bipolar disorder, then later you suddenly decide you have bpd??? kind of sketchy if you ask me!

“tries to send anons under my name but forgot that their friend levi doesnt even have me blocked so why the fuck would i go on anon if i would ‘sign’ it anyway hm“

a....... are you implying i was the one to send those....? is it because you realized once you did so it backfired?? jade for someone who wanted to claim i was the one making up conspiracies, you sure make up a lot of them.

in conclusion: jade you still are just deflecting! you still havent defended any of the shit me or my friends have called you out for! the fact you still havent admitted to them or so much as even defended the claims sure does speak a lot! stop deflecting and lying and just fucking come out about it!

[idothisforfunx]

It’s Finally Here- Heather’s Top Ten Thighs of Fire Emblem Heroes (As of July 2018)

This is a long post so everything is under the cut! (I went on my computer to make this post!! :O) It took HOURS to sort out and make it look pretty, so please enjoy it!

First of all, I would like to give a shoutout to the people over on @hopusbopus‘s server!!! Without their help and contributions, I would be quite lacking in my information about the thighs of Fire Emblem! (Units like Christmas Chrom and Eldigan have evaded me!) It was hard ranking these beautiful works of art, and even now I’m unsure of some of the positions I’ve given them. But, it’ll do for now!

EDIT: I’ve also noticed I missed quite a few people. I changed the list around last minute quite a few times cause I forgot people/realized stuff, and I even forgot Camoo and Bruno! isujhbisdubflijeb sorry X3

Also.... to a certain few people, and one specific person (Totodiles. That’s all I have to say)..... Please don’t judge me for this list. It had to be done. With all the talk about them on the discord server, and all the screenshots I had piling up.... I had to do it to ‘em.

I would also like to mention that this is a males only list. I may make a female one in the future, but for now, lets get to it!

Honourable Mentions

1. Ares has some damn good thighs. However unfortunately, he just got overshadowed by the people on the list.

2. Jakob actually did make it onto the list! However, last minute as I was writing an honourable mention for the 10th spot, I realized that he had better thighs then dear old Jakob here. So, I quickly switched the two. Sorry Jakob. Your thighs are just a biiiit too shiny and smooth. Nice shape, though.

3. Regular Chrom is our final honourable mention (I have more but I decided against putting them here)! Chrom... we know you have them. We know you have the Good Stuff™. Show it to us. Chrom. Please. Show us. We know.

Now, onto the list!

10. Eldigan

Eldigan is, unfortunately, one of the units I do not have, and I got this screenshot from the amazing people at Hopus Bopus’ server! ;) Eldigan’s thighs are... lacking. They’re a bit on the slim side, but they look pretty muscular.

9. Niles

Niles barely managed to get to the 9th spot, despite being my husband. Jakob was originally going to be in the 10th place, but I replaced him with Niles, and then realized quickly that Niles does in fact have better thighs then Eldigan! BUUUTTT anyway... Lets get down to the details. Niles has some nice thick thighs; they have a nice shape and look pretty strong. They don’t look too muscular though (actually- they don’t look muscular at all!), which is a nice plus. Those are some solid thighs you got there, my love. 👌 👌 👌 👌 👌 There’s just a few people with better thighs then you....

8. Christmas Robin

I had some trouble with this boy. He looks like pretty well off- I nearly put him quite high on this list, until I got down to the technical details. The thing here is, his pants are poofy. We can barely see his thighs! That one rip in his art is all we have, and it leaves one to imagine. And that is exactly why I put him this low on the list. He looks like he could have some amazing thighs- but that’s just speculation. Entirely speculation. In fact, that’s the main reason why he’s higher on this list then Niles. For all we know, especially from how skinny he appears to be, his thighs could be quite skinny and lackluster. It’s just.... he’s got quite a few things working against him. Sorry Robin.

7. Valter

I feel like I’m doing him an injustice by putting him here. He’s got some nice thighs, for sure! The dirt on them is a nice touch for his damaged art. Honestly, they look super nice. They look muscular, but not too muscular, and they look pretty thick, but not too thick.... His thighs look like they’ve seen combat before. His left thigh maybe even looks like it has a scar on it? Maybe? Anyway, they look like some battle hardened legs. Good legs.

But uhh.... the only reason he’s not higher is the same reason as Niles: other people have better thighs.

6. Alfonse

The Askran prince himself! He’s got some pretty nice thighs. They look untouched. Smooth. They’re not too thin, and they aren’t muscular at all. Alfonse’s thighs are pure, pristine. Theres just something about them that makes them look super nice.... And as Niles says, he looks like a pretty bit of porcelain. He may indeed look nicer with a few chips, but he looks pretty damn good to me right now.

5. Gerome

Damn. Those thighs tell stories. He’s got a lot of cuts and scrapes, and I’m not sure if it’s just because of him getting hurt, or if it’s because those are indeed scars. But I’m pretty sure at least some of those are scars. And like I said: those thighs (and the scars that come with them!) tell stories man. Stories of how he’s been hurt, his struggle, the armies of risen he’s had to fight, his past.... everything. His thighs aren’t very thicc, but they aren’t too skinny either. I’d say they’re pretty muscular, which gives him an adequate amount of thickness. But I feel like you could plant kisses on every one of his scars and he could tell you the story behind each and every one.

4. Legendary Ephraim

Legendary Ephriam is THICC. He’s got some DAMN nice thighs and they look DAMN nice for resting your head on. They actually look more fat then muscular, surprisingly, despite the fact you can see a glimpse of a 6 pack a bit further up and to the right. 👀 👀 👀 And look- I am not complaining. In fact, I don’t think I need to say much else. These thighs are just.... Legendary.

3. Christmas Chrom (ft. Spring Chrom)

Ok, so this spot was originally going to JUST go to Christmas Chrom, but as I was thinking about Chrom, I remembered his spring form! Who I literally have in my barracks!!!! How could I forget him??? But I pulled up this bad boy on my computer and confirmed Chrom DOES have some damn nice thighs (AND a nice body.... *ahem*)

Christmas Chrom’s thighs seem a bit thicker then Spring Chrom’s. But Spring Chrom is practically in a skintight outfit- how could I not have him be on this list? Anyway, I was going to talk about how Chrom doesn’t seem to have any art in Heroes that reveals his thighs too much, and that Christmas Chrom was the best one to portray the thighs we all know he has. ;) They’re nice and thick; not too muscular but not too fat either. But Spring Chrom negates this comment entirely, so uh... yeah.

2. Ephriam

I can’t fucking believe it either. Normal Ephriam makes it to second place on this list with these vanilla thighs. They’re skinny, too! But if you look closely, you can see a hint of muscle on the one on the right. His thighs are sooo vanilla, but they look amazing. There’s just something about them that makes me love them. Maybe they’re not very good for laying your head on, and maybe they don’t tell stories like Gerome’s, but.... Naga Damn Me if I said No to these thighs.

And the Number 1 spot on this list goes to....

1. The Prince of Darkness: Berkut

Ok ok ok ok ok ok.... so hear me out. First, look at this art. Only the finest for our evil prince! Second, this is a good angle! You get to see them from the sides AND the top! Third!!! They’re perfect!!! They look like strong, thicc thighs. BUT! Not too muscular (which would be nasty), and not too thicc! They’re just right! Legendary Ephriam had huge thighs: thicc. But they were too thicc. Gerome had muscular thighs: it made him too skinny. But! Berkut has the perfect size: they aren’t too big, nor too small. You can easily and comfortably rest your head in his lap, or even sit on it if you wish. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) And, I’d like to think that once he gets more attached to you, he may be more willing to let/make you sit on his lap.

[heavyyhearts-blog]

actually heres my side

“ first, before getting to real stuff, aya has done this to other people in the past too. when she talked about them to me she said they abused her or abandoned her suddenly. i’ve only talked to one of these people, but they confirmed that aya actually abused, and then stalked them when they cut her off. i don’t have permission to post these logs so out of respect i won’t put them here. “

ive never been very clear in talking about my past experiences with most people. you make this sound as if every person that's ever "abandoned me" were all "abused" by me, when that's not the case. have i acted in shitty ways to some people? yes, but it never had anything to do with me being abandoned, at any point. one of these people, actually straight up disappeared from my life, and i have no idea why. they disappeared off skype and i havent seen them since. we had no problems between eachother whatsoever. a different example i can think of for someone i was talking about? they left because i was too stressful to be around. as in, i always complained too much and that kind of thing and it was too much to be around. i didnt even know them very long.  another example of a person i mentioned with that: they had really bad schizophrenia and like, trauma issues, and what happened there? they'd randomly like? actually start basically splitting on me and getting extremely angry at me out of nowhere for no reason, which i tried to be really tolerable of, until things basically got too much for either of us to handle and after a bit of dumb drama, we separated with , i believe, no hard feelings.

my point being? when i say "ive been abandoned by a lot of people" or whatever, im not literally claiming that i was abused by literally everyone and im some huge victim, lol. that last example? you could probably say i was abused due to the level of pent up anger they were throwing at me, , unprovoked

“ i’ve only talked to one of these people, but they confirmed that aya actually abused, and then stalked them when they cut her off “

first of all, this happened literal years ago. second of all, this person is still full of shit and i can't believe they still insist all of these bullshit lies. "aya stalked me" i hadnt visited your blog for months, i'd literally forgotten about you, yet you somehow still had it set in your head that i was "stalking" you. i wanted to remake my blog for a multitude of reasons, and one of them being, a more back of my mind thing, was, i didnt want you viewing my blog. so i remade. and, like, 2-3 days later, i got paranoid that you had somehow found my new blog, entirely new, so i asked my friend to go see if my new url was on there, because i didnt want to go back on your blog myself. and sure enough, there it was, my new url, even though i hadn't given it out to anyone or posted it anywhere, meaning you literally searched through notes of a post or something along those lines to find it. yeah ive explained this so many times now its fun :) not to mention your shitty friend(s) that would constantly twist my words around and lie saying i was doingthings that i didnt. and your only "proof" was logs of talking shit about me behind my back to one of my friends, you had no screenshots of me doing anything, because guess what, i never did it. wow. "i dont have screenshots because i deleted them all" okay bud. anyway

and now here's my main issue with everything: you are "calling me out" for things we have already personally talked about, that we either resolved, or i apologized for/said that i would try to stop doing so i can better myself which i have actually done? so i literally do not understand why youre calling me out for shit as if im some malicious person trying to hurt people that's just completely incapable of getting better or whatever. lets start

“i’ve tried to cut her off several times, both by trying to talk and express my want to stop talking to her first and by just blocking/ignoring her on everything. i made it clear i wanted to stop talking the first couple of times. she will spam and beg me and make new accounts if she has to. once ive added her back however she’s used that against me”

okay youre calling me out for this but you admitted what you did was fucked up too? and i dont know what else to even say to this other than im going to try to stop getting so attached to people like that so i maybe dont have such bad mental breakdowns every time i thnk someone close to me is leaving like sorry i cant. help feeling that way or control this thing specifically unless i just dont get attached like that at all, which is my fault.

[x] [x] [x]

here, you post a completely out of context rant from me, where i got mad at something you did that you literally admitted was fucked up. full context!

[x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

you even told me you had no idea what you were talking about with any of it.

“ one of the times that we weren’t talking she DMd my twitter mutuals asking them to screenshot my recent tweets. “

i told you my reason for it. i was extremely paranoid that you were talking shit about me behind my back and i wanted to know if you were or not, even though i did it in a really shitty way. i instantly felt so beyond terrible that i had done that. i was sobbing the entire time i was trying to apologize for how fucked up and wrong it was of me to do that, and even apologized for it again later after it had happened already. because i wanted to make sure you knew how sorry i was for it. i cant take something like that back.

[x] [x]

“recently, after getting so upset with me for doing the same thing in the past, she randomly blocked me on everything and refused to talk to me. i would understand if she hadn’t previously gotten so mad and upset at me for the exact same thing. “

?? i split really bad just like i already have been, due to , as i've already exlpained, the nonstop bad things we've had between us for months, to the point i havent been able to talk to you like normal anymore, because just seeing you pisses me off and everything you say/do will just piss me off. i cant help that. its not my fault. i cant just not split like that because we've had fucked up problems for months, that, guess what, shouldnt even be public here for all reasons ive already stated! but i also did it just because ive been deciding i need to get away from you for good, that i dont WANT to talk to you at all anymore. sucks to be treated the way you treat others right.

“ i posted on my twitter saying i wanted to drink and she instantly messaged me begging and spamming me not to “

and everything else like stalling, pressuring you etc. this is still. we talked about this. i said sorry. i got better about it. why do i have a callout.

[x] [x]

like this is literally all just trying to make me look bad in ways that i'm not. nice try, though!

“ when i cc’d bakugou and she tried to make me explain my trauma to make it Valid “

you're trying to make me look bad again. i was just asking because i was anxious wanted to know the reasoning for it and im sorry for pressing it at all but that doesnt mean i was trying to make you explain it so it could be "valid" shut the fuck up lol i even explained to you afterwards why it made me so uncomfortable and that it didnt bother me anymore, that i thought you were just blindly cc'ing him for no real reason like i just assumed it wasnt a coping thing or anything and thats my fault but??? youre trying to make me look bad for it so??? i'd even keep sending you fanart of him like.

[x]

“ she was extremely dependent on me and would spam me if i fell asleep before she woke up, she’d got upset and started splitting on me because i didn’t return her feelings of attraction. “

wat...

“ second, she’s blaming everything on her BPD and “not being able to help it,” or “can’t control herself” “

well, as you can clearly see, ive been anything but that??? but if you wanna keep telling yourself that, go ahead. have i said things LIKE that before? yes, when i was freaking out, over certain things i actually can't help, for example: abandonment trauma??? and like i said before: i need to try to not get so attached to people in the first place so that doesnt happen anymore! otherwise, should some sort of situation like that happen again, i can't handle getting that level of upset. so i prevent that by not getting that level of attached at all. like sorry but theres certain things nobody can help, even you. you're just trying to make it sound like this entire thing has been nothing but "i cant help it"

and lastly, we can't forget the fact that, for a long time, you wouldn't tell me anything. literally anything. i would repeatedly ask you. "what do i do that bothers you what am i doing wrong" etc and all you'd ever say was "idk" 95% of the time. i had absolutely no idea that for the longest time, i had been saying a lot of manipulative, shitty things and acting bad and etc, slash i had no idea that some of my episodes were actually affecting you that badly until way too late.

when you first told me that i had been acting so shitty, through a jpeg meme that was making fun of me, did i realize how awful i was being. i honest to god never had any idea and i explained this to you countless times. that i was  oblivious/i can be oblivious to shitl ike that and that i need you to tell me, otherwise I WONT KNOW.

nice meme. :) but yeah clearly this is still an accurate representation of me, right?

[x] [x]

yeah, you got me though. im a toxic, abusive piece of shit that will never get better, all i do is hurt others, i can't change, ive never apologized, ive never gotten better. totally

and since we're playing this game,

and now that i've said all this, i have nothing else to say. i can't make anyone believe me, but if you do, thanks.

[brendajhensonblog]

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

Click on the video above to watch Episode 224 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

 Announcement

Bradley: Okay. Now we’re live. This is screwing me up. Hey everybody! This is Bradley Benner with Semantic Mastery. This is Hump Day Hangouts Episode 224. It is February 20th, 2019. I’m sorry I don’t have my camera today. For some reason Google Hangouts decided it did not wanna recognize my camera at the last minute. You guys would probably appreciate the fact you don’t have to look at my face. I’ve only got two people on with me today because Adam and Hernan are out at the Funnel Hacking Live event. They’re out having fun while we’re hard at work.

Let me say hi to Chris. What’s up, Chris? How are you?

Chris: Doing good. Great to be here.

Bradley: Marco.

Marco: I made it, man. I’m here.

Bradley: Good. I don’t really have any announcements specifically, except that we’ve got a Mastermind webinar tomorrow, for those of you that are in the Mastermind. We’re gonna be covering several things that I’ve been tracking for the last few weeks now as far as doing some off-page tests for ranking GMBs, doing a whole bunch of different types of off-page tests and isolation.

In fact, let me se, for one moment, I’ve got pause the screen for a minute. Marco, do you have any announcements while I do that?

Marco: No. But I’m so glad you’re gonna talk about this because my write-up for the Mastermind, which I’m finishing up today by the way, is about that, testing, whether it’s single variable testing or whether it’s testing in isolation, or what it actually is that you’re trying to do.

What you’re trying to do is gauge whether there’s an effect. You’re not trying to show that something doesn’t work. It’s crazy going in and trying to test that something doesn’t work. The test should be, what does it do? You should get the data. The data should speak for what the tests. You’re testing a variable, but does the variable move the needle? No, it doesn’t. Okay, onto the next thing, which is what you’re doing, you’re testing all of these different variables and you’re isolating so that you can do whatever it is that you’re doing to each one.

I’m really glad that you’re talking about this. I’m gonna go a little bit more in-depth in the Mastermind newsletter about testing and how people are being misled by so-called, all of these are expert testers that don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. So I’ll just leave it at that.

Bradley: Yeah. I’ve been tracking, well, about a month ago was. It was around January 21st when I started setting these tests up. I’m testing every one of these methods and isolation. In other words, they’re GMB or Google My Business profiles that had the initial on-page stuff done and what my standard operating procedure is for optimizing a new profile, and then from there, all I’m doing is specifically one of these methods.

I’m testing across multiple properties per methods so that I can see if we get positive results or negative results or no results on any one method, I want to see if that occurs across more than one property for the same type of method. Because if we get positive results on two properties, if I’m only doing two tests or testing on two locations per method and they’re both positive, then that’s a really good indication that that’s a viable method or something that moves the needle.

Like he says, that’s actually funny you said that because that’s the title or the subtitle of the actual test that I’m doing Which Method Moves the Needle the Most? These different tests that I’m doing, and like I said, if a positive result occurs on two properties, two separate locations, then I know that it’s a good method to use and that it will continue … It will be duplicatable, in other words.

I will obviously set it up and see if I can repeat it again across other properties. If I get two no changes, or two negative changes, then it’s probably the case also. But if we get one that’s positive and one it’s neutral, or one that’s positive, one is negative, then it’s obviously gonna have to require further investigation.

So that’s essentially what I’m doing. I’ve tried several these things and I’ve got some really super good results back with one of these methods in particular. I’m not gonna tell which one here, guys, you got to join a Mastermind for that. But I’m gonna be covering it tomorrow because I’ve got really, really good results from one method in particular. It’s actually one of the easiest methods and that’s what I love about. I’m pleasantly surprised. Actually, I was not surprised that the method works because of what I know about that method, but I’m glad that it’s one of the easier methods for any one of us to achieve, or to implement, I should say.

Again, I’m gonna be covering that in the Mastermind webinar tomorrow as well as I’m also gonna be covering some questions about PR stacking from some of our members. I’m also gonna be talking about setting up display ads for remarketing using the Google Display Network because it’s a much, much easier process now and it’s very, very effective.

So that’s what I’ve got to tease with for tomorrow. It looks like we don’t have that many questions. But I’m gonna get right into it.

Chris: I got a question, man.

Bradley: Go ahead.

Chris: I scrolled through my Facebook feed today, people are literally scared of GMB and Google all of a sudden. You just were talking about, yeah, which method is the most potent or the biggest needle move of them. Anybody, you wanna share your insights on that, Marco or Bradley?

Bradley: I’ll start. Yeah. Armageddon is coming, right? The sky is always falling, Chicken Little type stuff. By the way, that screenshot that you’re looking at there, guys, that’s the tease for tomorrow’s webinar in Mastermind because those are the movements that I’ve seen occur just in the last few days from that one particular method I’m gonna be covering.

Anyways, Marco and I, well, we’ve been around long enough to know that shit changes all the time. It’s SEO. For the last several months we’ve been pushing really hard on GMB stuff because it’s been working so well and I’ve been saying all along it at some point Google’s gonna shut it down. I don’t necessarily think that existing properties are gonna be taken down. What I think is gonna happen, and this is just my assumption, guys, my educated opinion about this or my educated guess, prediction I should say, is that it’s gonna become damn near impossible to register new GMB profiles. I think that’s how it’s gonna be shut down.

That’s why I’ve been pushing for people to build, build, build for the last several months, and to build your ass off and to build a team for scaling your build processes so that you can secure as many location as possible prior to what I think is going to happen, which is going to be damn near impossible to register new businesses.

I don’t know exactly what they’re gonna do to shut it down, but it’s likely going to be something like having to take photographs at a storefront or at the business location. It could also be requiring … Again, guys, just speculation, but it could also require you to send corporate documents in or something that shows proof of address with the business name on it, so like a utility bill or something. I know because I’ve actually had to call Google Support before to get help moving a legit business for a client of mine to get the Maps listing updated. That was one of the things required, was a bank statement, the account details and everything could be blurred, but it had to show the company name and the mailing address and all that.

Those are things that I assume or that I predict are going to happen. But we always find workarounds and we always find ways to continue to make money. That’s really the name of the game, guys. Don’t freak out. Don’t go into panic mode. Relax. Know that you’re gonna have other options. We’re gonna figure them out eventually and other people will figure them out as well, and you can too. But it’s about keeping your head cool and realizing that this is a cat-and-mouse game that we play and that’s the business that we’re in.

Marco, what are your thoughts?

Marco: I get a little bit more basic, man. Yeah, I don’t care. Why? I say basic because there’s basic web principles. The foundational stuff that we teach is based on web principles, right? We’re in the semantic web. We all know that, right? We talked about ART, activity, relevance, trust and authority, and how to generate all that. But there’s foundation of principles. You can only code one way. If you write spaghetti code, you’re writing garbage that nobody’s ever going to be able to tell what it is if someone needs to come and take over. So there’s international standards that are set.

There are basic principles where the guidelines are not set by Google. Google’s Terms of Service and Google’s guidelines are determined by Google, but coding standards are set by other people. In order for Google to mess with that, Google has to go and push at a higher level where there’s a bunch of other people pushing back. I’ve been talking about this since Semantic Mastery began. Google is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Correct, but there’s others on the web. Google can’t just go and do whatever the fuck they want to do. There’s some stuff that they just can’t touch.

While that goes on we’ll just keep going and getting the results that we get. That’s what you saw. The test that you’re shown, which is beautiful because it’s based on basic foundational principles, that’s what we work from. Now all of these other stuff, yes, they’re hacks, guys. We manipulate. That’s our job. We’re in this to make money. We’re not here to make people happy. We’re not here to make Google happy. I’m in this to make money. I don’t care. They can’t tell me that it’s wrong to do what I’m doing, well then, Google should go and change their whole scheme for making money online because it’s all based on lies and it’s all based on moving people into their funnel and keeping them there as long as possible; they don’t care how they do it, they just want to do it. Well, that’s fine. That’s their business model. I have mine.

Just to get back to this, basic principles, they still work. Why? Because everyone has to adhere to the same standards no matter what. That’s my rant for today – well, hopefully.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree with that. Let’s get into questions, guys. Not a whole lot of questions and I’m surprised. Maybe it’s this new platform that’s scaring people off, the discus platform. All right.

Chris: The sky is always falling.

Bradley: What’s that?

Chris: The sky is always falling. Some people say it’s …

Bradley: Chicken Little, yeah. Okay. Ben’s up. He says, “Hey Bradley, thanks for our call last Thursday.” Okay. Ben’s one of our Mastermind members and I’d been doing Mastermind calls. I opened up an opportunity for our Mastermind members to schedule a 30-minute call with me. It started the first week in January and this is the seventh week that I’ve been doing those calls. Next week, I’ll wrap it up and then it’ll be closed down until June. In June, I’m gonna open it back up again.

I encourage our Mastermind members that even scheduled to call with me in this first round to call schedule a second call with me in June because in six months you will have hopefully overcome some of the issues that we discussed on our call, and hopefully you have a new set of issues. I really want to continue to find out what’s going on with our members. It’s been super insightful for me to learn more about what’s going …

Well, first, to get to know our members on a more personal level. It’s been great. It really has been. I’ve really enjoyed the calls. Number two, it’s given us a lot of insight as to what’s going on, and in our Mastermind, which is our top level program, what’s going on in our members’ businesses, so that we can develop better tools and resources and training to help them overcome their obstacles. It really has been beneficial to me as well as, hopefully, to others.

Is Local GMB Pro Included In The MasterMind?

That’s what Ben is referring to here. He says, “Thanks for our call last Thursday. It was good to talk to you and I got a lot out of it.” Well, thank you, man. I appreciate that. He says, “A couple of questions. Number one, is Local GMB Pro included in the Mastermind? Not that I need it. Local Lease Pro is looking pretty comprehensive as I go through it. I’m just curious as it doesn’t recognize my username.”

Yeah, I know. We had Rob Beale collaborate on that with us and so there is an additional charge for that. But as a Mastermind member you get it at a silly ridiculous discount from what the advertised price is, if you look at the sales page publicly. Just contact Support when you’re ready for that, Ben. But since I did talk with you, trust me, you’re not ready for that yet. Go through Local Lease Pro, start implementing those strategies, provided that they’re still going to work, depending on what happens with the GMB stuff going forward.

As it stands right now, it’s still working just fine. But just keep in mind that you should be implementing that right now and then the Local GMB Pro training would really be more about assets that need the additional push, or if you’re in super competitive areas, that’s where you’re going to want to implement Local GMB Pro. But again, that’s not something that I would recommend you start with right now, you’re gonna be overwhelmed. I know you and I talked about that. Do not overwhelm yourself with too much training. I’d rather you take action and Local Lease Pro is set up with actionable data, actionable information for you to go out and implement immediately to start building, and that’s the most important thing. Okay.

Good question. But, yeah, as a Mastermind member, you’ll get a significant discount on that when you’re ready. But I can tell you right now you’re not ready for that. Okay.

How Do You Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome?

Number two, he says, “You said you were a former shiny object syndrome sufferer.” Yes, I was. That’s absolutely true. I think most of us in this industry or in this space are or have suffered from that, and maybe still do at this point. As SOS is so clearly at the root of my lack of progress to this point, I was wondering what it was that helped you turn the corner. You are clearly totally recovered and in control today.”

Yeah. You know what it was, honestly, it was kind of a perfect storm in that I was trying to do too many things and trying to not only teach on too many different topics as far as digital marketing, but I was trying to do too many things for my agency and provide too many services. What happens is I became overwhelmed with chasing different methods and trying to implement every method that I could learn about. So every time I saw a marketing email come through, and you guys know, I’m sure you are all on a million email list too, I would get the same type of emails, you guys would about new methods, about new tools and processes and things like that and I would get sucked in. The grass is always greener, right? I would see the opportunity that I thought, as an entrepreneur, I would see opportunity and I’m want to go after it, I want to chase it.

But what happened was over time things started to accumulate and accrue to the point where I had 15 projects going on and none of them were really progressing because I was spread too thin across too much. We, as a corporation, Semantic Mastery kind of suffered that for a period of time too and in part, I’m the face of the company, I should say, not to discredit my partners or anything, but in part because I was doing that in my own business as well. So we were kind of going that way with Semantic Mastery, trying to be too many things to too many people.

Really what happened was, and fortunately, my partner Adam, he’s not here today, but he introduced us to a book by Gino Wickman, I think it is, called Traction. It’s a program for really zeroing in on a singular focus and purpose for a company, for any organization. We’ve been working through that now, guys. What are we, over a year now into that, Traction? Are we on our fifth quarter now? Somebody would comment on that?

Marco: Yeah. I can’t remember exactly what quarter we’re on.

Bradley: I think we’re on our fifth quarter now. Anyways, we do everything now. It’s kind of a combination of various methods, but the 12-week year is one of the books that we provide to our Mastermind members when they come join. Another one is That One Thing. That’s another book that where it teaches you how to really focus in on one thing to get results and find out what is the most important thing, the one thing that I can do such that everything else becomes irrelevant or less important or irrelevant, or something like that. It’s a great book. Then there’s the 12-week year, which is about taking 12-month goals and boiling them down into 12 weeks, which is a 90-day period. What we call them 12-week Sprints. It’s a quarter every year.

We started implementing these strategies and then traction really kind of started giving us the organizational structure as a corporation to start developing our goals, figuring out what our primary focus was going to be, zeroing in on that, and then building out our processes and systems to achieve those goals. Like I said. I think we’re on our fifth quarter of that process now. That’s why over the last probably six months or so, you guys have been following us and probably noticed we’ve really shifted to just local marketing stuff. Not that we don’t still talk about and teach and share and present information in the Mastermind about all types of marketing, but our primary push is local.

That’s because I needed to do that in my own business in order for me to get better results for my clients to increase my own income and to get some of my time and my sanity back because I was just all over the place and it was overwhelming and, honestly, it was exhausting. Also, as you guys know, shit’s changing all the time in the digital marketing space, so having to stay on the cutting edge of everything is incredibly difficult.

So I really wanted to shift my focus into something that I preferred, which was local marketing. I also feel that that’s one of the quickest ways to earn revenue, is local marketing. So I kind of shifted to that. We took several surveys of you guys, our members, to find out that that’s what the vast majority of our audience was doing, was local marketing or lead generation, that kind of stuff. So we really shifted all of our focus to that.

Again, Ben, to answer your question, how I got over it was kind of a combination of recognizing the fact that I was really spinning my wheels and not making any progress in a lot of different areas because I was going after too many things, my attention was spread too thin, and then also, again, when the student is ready the teacher appears.

Adam kind of presented us or brought to our attention like this, Gino Wickman’s Traction program and they call the EOS, I guess the employee operating system, and all this stuff. Just get the book, guys, it’s inexpensive, and go through it. It’s a lot of work. We’ve been at it for five months now-, or excuse me, five quarters now, I think five quarters, and it’s a lot of work. But it’s totally worth it because we’re seeing the benefits and the fruits of the work that we’re putting in.

So a combination of those two things for me really kind of got me to stop … Guys, I’m not kidding, I’ve unsubscribed from just about every single email list. I got one specific email that I would always sign up for stuff and now, because over the years I’ve subscribed to so many lists, I’ve unsubscribed from just about everything. But yeah, I still get emails for internet marketing products and stuff all the time, from stuff that I’ve never even subscribed from. You guys know how that goes, people sell lists and your name gets passed, your email gets passed around from one list to another, whether you subscribed or not.

I’m not gonna lie, every single day now when I get a marketing email unless it’s from somebody that I want to be on their list, I go find the unsubscribe button. as soon as I open an email, hit the unsubscribe button, and then I come back and hit the spam button. I do it every fucking day every single day. Some days I might only get one email now, other days I might get five or six spam type marketing emails. But I do the same thing. I open them up, I don’t even read them, I just go right find an Unsubscribe button, click Unsubscribe, and then I come back it’s hit the Spam button. What it’s done is it’s really reduced the amount of junk that I see on a daily basis.

I was telling this to Ben when we had our call, our Mastermind call, it’s like being an alcoholic and going to a bar. Right? When you open your email account, if you know you have shiny object syndrome and you’re not getting any traction in any one area of your business because you keep chasing opportunity, stop, stop going in your email box and reading these emails, guys. Stop. It’s like get yourself out of the bar if you’re a recovering alcoholic, right? It’s the same principle. You need to avoid the shit that’s detracting from you being able to get make progress in your business.

So for me, it was just eliminating the marketing messages. I’m a marketer so I’m susceptible to marketing messages, right? For me, it was just avoiding them. Out of sight, out of mind. Putting blinders on. Putting my nose down. Working through what I knew I needed to do and that was local marketing. Right now it’s about building a lead gen business and developing processes but I’m not doing all the work and then teaching our members about what I’m doing and how we’re doing it. So that’s what’s worked for me.

Any of you guys have comments on that?

Chris: Yeah. You probably should read the latest Mastermind issue, for February, because what I wrote about was pretty much what you’ve just talked about, but in steroids. It’s like if you’re struggling with that there’s something really, really valuable in there for this month.

Bradley: It’s awesome.

Chris: Not to reveal everything, so from Masterminding members, you can be looking forward to some really sweet stuff. I recommend you check it out as well, Bradley.

Bradley: I sure will. Marco?

Marco: Well, the way that I stopped is I realized that we’re producing better shit than most people out there. So I focus on our own things and I know that you focus, we, the Mastermind’s focus is local. But I’m still in the lab looking at manipulation methods for national, global, just whatever, because that’s just how my mind works. I can’t just do the local thing and be happy. I have to be able to see where all of the algorithms are going, where Google is going, where it’s taking us and why, and then try to intercept at the right time, which is kind of like how RYS Academy was born, then RYS Reloaded, Local GMB Pro, as a matter of fact, came through because of that. It was just looking to see where Google was going and why. So I’m constantly after that, where is Google going, why?

As long as I’m on that, I don’t care about somebody else’s shit because I’m too busy with my own shit. That’s how I was able to overcome. We’ve all been there. If you’ve been online for any length of time, it could be a week, you bought something. Yeah. That’s just the way it is.

Are Both G+ Personal And Business Profiles Be Shut Down By Google?

Bradley: Yeah. That’s a great question, Ben. I really appreciated that question. Hopefully, that was helpful. Ken. What’s up, Ken? He says, “Are both G Plus personal and business profiles going away or is it just personal?” I believe it’s all Google Plus. I think the only Google Plus that’s going to remain, and I could be wrong about this guys, but I’m pretty sure that they’re all being killed off unless you’re what they call Google Plus Enterprise, which is only for like, it’s like internal Google Plus for large organizations. I don’t even know anything about it. I just read somewhere about it.

So as far as I know, Google Plus is being completely killed. I think in April it’s gonna be down completely. You won’t be able to access even your old stuff. I got notifications, dozens and dozens of notifications about it where they say if you got any photos in Google Plus, the notifications, you got to download the photos and all that kind of stuff because in April they’re gone. That’s it. They’re extinct. Whatever. Good riddance. No big deal. Move on.

Which, by the way, guys, we covered the Google Plus … Oh, yeah, guys, if you’re in the Syndication Academy and you didn’t watch the update webinar from last week, go back and watch it. I mean, literally, as soon as Hump Day Hangouts is over, go watch it because it’s super, super powerful what I was talking about, because one of the things I was covering was Google Plus being shut down. We had a lot of people comment and question about, “What’s going to happen? Because Google Plus is down and that’s one of our main social hubs.” Yeah. So what? We find others.

I shared exactly what I’m using now, which is so much more effective anyways, and it’s really, really powerful. If you’re in Syndication Academy, guys, go watch the update webinar that was just recorded last week. It’s in the archives area, the updates area along with all the notes and everything in there. Super powerful and it’s easy to do. Okay. AlL right. I’m gonna keep on moving.

What Photo Selection In GMB Is It That Dictates Which Image Is Displayed In Google Maps?

Jay says, what’s up, Jay? “Inside the GMB, what photo selection option is it that the dictates which image is displayed in Google Maps? I’ve tried several options there but it won’t change.” Yeah. I’ve had that issue in the past too, Jay. I don’t know, maybe Marco has an answer. I’ve tried in some cases to get an image to change too and not been able to get it to change. I just don’t even care at this point. I know some clients do, but it’s not been a major issue for me so I haven’t dug into it that much.

Marco, do you have an idea as to what you can do to get Google to display what you want?

Marco: No. I don’t have an answer for that. It sometimes displays the latest one, it sometimes displays what it wants to, I don’t know. If you have GMB that is legit, that is tied to a company or whatever, you might wanna get in touch with a Google rep and see if they can help you out. If you act really ignorant, if you act really stupid, like you don’t know what’s going on, they’ll really help you out. They’ll go out of their way to help you out. I found that the more ignorant you act and the more that they … “I don’t know …” “Oh, you mean like Chrome?” I mean they go that deep into … Just totally being blissfully ignorant about everything online.

Because you’re a business owner who doesn’t have time for all of this. The only people who have time for this are marketers who are in there trying to manipulate every day, who are the first ones that find out what doesn’t work and what does. So you wanna try to avoid being that know-it-all marketer because if you do that you’re gonna get nuked, your IP is gonna get tagged, and you’re in for a lot of trouble.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree. If it’s a legit business, man, just contact the Google My Business Support. Again, if it’s legit verifiable business, guys, I don’t have any problem contacting Support anymore. I found them to be quite helpful when needed. Again, don’t be afraid to do that. I remember years ago it was damn near impossible to get support help from Google and it was only via email and it would be sometimes days or even weeks before they would reply and it was just a bitch. But now it’s a lot easier to get in touch with Google Support. Again, if it’s for legit business, don’t be afraid of trying.

What Are Your Most Successful Tactics In Getting Client Response From Cold Emails?

Okay. Jeff says, a minute, I still got to get used to this platform, guys. Jeff says, what’s up, Jeff? He says, “Two questions. What is the record for most F-bombs dropped by Marco in one rant?” Well, apparently, Ken’s been counting, he says 87.

Chris: Did you see the RYS Academy sales video, the webinar, the very first one? I bet it goes higher.

Marco: Guys, listen, I don’t do it purposely. It’s just when I get excited I get really animated and it just flows. Please excuse me, I don’t mean to offend. Well, I have meant to offend people in the past, let me change that. You guys, in general, I don’t intend to offend you. If you are, please excuse me. Please understand that that’s just … My partners know that that’s me because they have to deal with me on a daily basis, so they know. They know Marco.

So you guys, just please excuse me. Next time if you come to my webinars or whatever, please put the kids away and you might not want the wife, girlfriend, boyfriend or whatever around while you’re listening to me talk.

Bradley: Yeah. I remember we had a Mastermind webinar about three years ago, maybe three and a half years ago, and Marco and I, we’re a little loose with our lips as far as some of the things we were saying. One of the members posted like “I’ve got kids in the room.” It was so funny because immediately after that I put a parental guidance suggested explicit language, image, or whatever, graphic on the bottom of the header image for the page that we were hosting the webinars on. In that point forward, we always kept it to be like, hey, keep your kids out. It’s not safe for work-type stuff. I think it was really funny. I think Carolyn was her name.

Anyway, so to carry on with the real stuff here, guys. Jeff says, “I know you mentioned this previously, but I couldn’t find it when researching out-, or excuse me when reaching out to business owners. In an effort to sell them the leads we were generating, what has been your more successful tactics for getting them to respond? This is primarily a cold email question.” Jeff, that’s a great question. That’s something we’re going to be covering a lot in depth in actually going through real live tests in case studies and such for monetizing GMB assets. We’re gonna be doing a lot of outreach stuff in the Mastermind coming up over the next several weeks. In fact, that was supposed to be started this week. I’m a little bit delayed, but I’m gonna be working on that a lot next week. I’ve got several assets that I need to start doing outreach for too.

But to answer your question, what I found and I spent a lot of time last year, in 2018, doing prospecting and trying to do sales for traditional agency services. I got really good at prospecting, getting the conversation started. As far as sales, I failed miserably. I think we spent like $18,000 between our salesperson and our VA staff which was handling the cold email outreach and all that stuff. I think we made like $6,000 in sales. It was ridiculous. That in part is just because I think that the local business market is so saturated with solicitation calls from marketing and advertising agency.

So long story short, that’s part of the reason we shifted back to the lead generation model because it changes the dynamic entirely, and I know that’s what you’re asking about. But when it came to prospecting, I found the easiest thing to do is, are quick question type emails.

There’s a great book by the guy that the developer of quickmail.io. If you go to quickmail.io, it’s a service that you can subscribe to, it’s like an email tracking service and all that. I personally like gmass.co better as an email marketing platform, but I started out with using quickmail.io. There’s a book by the developer. It’s a real short book. You can get it on Amazon, Kindle. I think you can get in paperback too, but I got it on Kindle. It’s a real short book, it’s only like 30-some pages I think, really inexpensive. I think it might only be $1 or $2.99 or something like that.

Go get it. Go to quickmail.io and probably click through some of the links and you’ll find the guy’s name, the developer’s name, and then you can find the book on Amazon. Pick that book up. Guys, I tested last year multiple types of cold email outreach methods for prospecting. Out of everything that I tested, and I tested David Sprague stuff, David Sprague’s got some really good tools, guys, there’s no question, but as far as his cold email outreach programs and stuff, I just had miserable success and we gave it full on effort.

I mean, for months, not just his program but all different types of outreach methods. What I found that produced the most success, especially dealing with contractors, was the quick question type emails. That strategy is outlaid perfectly in that short little book by the developer quickmail.io. His name is Jeremy something, I think. Anyways, just go pick it up, read through that book, and then start testing. That’s what I did and it worked really, really, really well.

We’re actually gonna be testing in the Mastermind. I’m gonna be using a combination of the more mass email approach, which is what I was talking about with the quick question type emails, which all you’re trying to do is solicit a response, a reply, that’s it. No, you’re not asking them to click through any links, you’re not getting diarrhea of the mouth and dumping a whole bunch of information and doing an email. You just ask them a simple question that’s kind of disguised like a lead for them. It’s a little bit misleading, but not so, because you’re gonna present them with an opportunity.

Again, it’s not unethical. Like I said, it’s just a way to ask questions. For example, maybe if I got a tree service site or assets that I need to monetize, I might contact 10 or 15 different … When I was doing the mass prospect, I would contact 50, 60 tree service contractors with these quick question type emails. Now I’m going to be doing a hybrid model that it incorporates the video email process, which is, we have a training program that I developed that I’ve used for years to get results for prospecting and sales and that’s called the video lead gen system.

It’s how to use video emails to get people’s attention. It’s a bit time-consuming because you got to record videos that are personalized to each person you reach out to. I’m trying to templatize that now to where it’s going to be a lot easier and more efficient and have a team that does the video editing and all that kind of stuff so that we can turn it into more of a process. Like an assembly line to where we can do 10 or 15 videos in a short period of time and then targeted emails out.

But I’m still going to be using those quick question type emails where I might say like, “Quick question, are you guys accepting or are you guys providing estimates for tree removal right now?” When they reply yes, that’s the conversation starter. “Okay, great. Would you mind if I sent you a video explaining what it is that I’ve got?” Then if they reply yes again, now you they’ve given you permission to send them a video. Then you send them the damn video, which is a personalized video explaining what you got.

“Hey, look, I got these leads coming in right now.” You don’t show your assets, guys. You show call volume or you show the fact that you’re generating leads. Show proof. Say, “Look, I really need somebody who can take these leads. If you’re interested, let me know I’ll send a few of them to you for the next week, or I’ll send you five leads or 10 leads or whatever, whatever your business model is good for. You say to them, “I’ll send you five leads for free,” and then, “I’ll follow up with you after that to find out if you’re if you like them. If they were good genuine valid leads that you’d like to continue that service, we can talk then,” stuff like that. Just real simple little questions, guys.

I’ve tested all kinds of processes and what I found was those quick questions where you don’t drop a link in it, you don’t ask them to click, you don’t ask them to go to a landing page and fill out a survey, or watch a video on the first email, none of that, you just ask them to reply. That’s a conversation starter. That starts the dialogue. Once the dialogue starts, then you ask permission to send them a link for them to click, which is just a video essentially. You say, “Can I send you a video to explain what I’ve got?” If they say yes, now they’re giving you permission.

Then you send them the video link, and then they’ll click on it, and now watch the video. Then sometimes they will reply, sometimes they won’t. But that’s really the whole point. Again, video lead-gen system was the course that we did on how to use video email. Then I’m going to be kind of mixing that with the more … I’m trying to templatize that and make it towards a process to where it’s not so time-consuming to do those emails, although they’re very, very effective. Okay?

Again, this is stuff that in the Mastermind, guys, were gonna be covering over the next several weeks. Okay. Those were great questions, Jeff.

Does anybody else have-

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second.

Bradley: I’m sorry?

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second. I already got it.

What Are Your Thoughts On WebFire 3.0 Tool?

Bradley: Okay. Cool. Yeah, it’s a great little book. All right, moving on. Martin says, “Have you any experience with the WebFire 3.0 tool?” No, Martin. When you said that, I clicked on it and I looked, I don’t, so I can’t really comment on that. I don’t have time to look through it right now. Perhaps, if you remind me, next week I will take a look at that before. I might look through that thing when we’re off this webinar today.

Marco: Hey Bradley, those are all like, those are click … Well, what do you call that, the auto traffic-

Bradley: It’s like a click-through spambot?

Marco: Yeah. Tons of websites like that.

Bradley: Okay.

Marco: The problem that I’m seeing, and by the way, they’re working. Some are working better than others. I’m not gonna say which one because then everyone will run there and ruin it for me. I don’t want you guys messing with my money. At any rate, they are working, go and test them out. But interestingly enough, what I found works the best is … You did a course on it, it’s only available in the Mastermind.

Bradley: Yeah.

Marco: The way that you teach it becomes actually cheaper than most of these click-through spams or spam traffic networks, which is really interesting because you’re targeting real people to come and visit your stuff. These real people have a genuine interest in whatever it is that you’re doing right and they’re going to ask way-, they’re going to act, excuse me, way differently than the people that have to click on your link. Does that make sense? They pay for it. Well, you paid for it, they go, they click, then they get credit. It just becomes crazy because they’re not really interested in your stuff, they’re only interested in theirs.

Now since we’re targeting real people with the real interest, through Bradley’s training, it becomes that much better. Guys, activity, relevance, trust and authority. We’re in trusted and authoritative to the max because were inside Google.

Bradley: That’s right.

Marco: Relevance because we’re targeting whatever it is that we’re targeting. I’m not gonna say anything because it’s something that’s right now only available in the Mastermind. Then, activity on that link. It’s relevant activity. People clicking on that link going and acting the way that real people do. Some might not like it and bounce back, many will. But that’s what real people do and that’s what we’re after.

Bradley: Yeah. I’m not gonna reveal the method here either, but exactly what Marco was saying, because that is real genuine traffic that Google knows has an interest in what you’re sending them to. So guys, when you’re talking about activity and engagement, which is one of the primary ranking signals now, is engagement, it’s not just blind engagement.

Again, if you are trying to rank something locally and you’re getting clicks from China and Russia and Korea and UK, and I’m talking about in the US, I’m just using this as an example, guys. But if you’re getting a bunch of clicks from things that are non-relevant either geographically especially for local stuff or non-topically relevant, in other words it’s just kind of like random traffic coming, do you think Google counts that traffic as an engagement signal, the same type, and gives it the same amount of weight as somebody that is in the local area that’s clicking from a local IP, likely from a mobile device that is intimately connected to them at all times, that they have a history of being interested in that particular type of content or service or product? Think about that guys, which click, which engagement signal is gonna be given more weight by Google? You already know the answer to that.

It’s not that these kind of tools and stuff can’t produce some nominal results, they can, but if you wanna get really good results and do it within terms of service, there are alternative ways to do it and it’s super, super effective. I mean, super effective. So it’s absolutely true.

Marco: I just want to be clear, Fiverr geeks, Fiverr traffic geeks, they get some results. These types of websites, the spam traffic, they get some results. But when you compare them all and compare them to the course that we have, it’s night and day. it’s just totally different because it’s just targeted traffic, people that are targeted to the geolocation so that they interact with whatever it is that you’re doing at that level, if that’s necessary. If not, then you can adjust to whatever it is that you’re doing and get traffic for pennies on the dollar, guys. That’s what it’s all about.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, topical relevance and geographic relevance, and you can combine both and get super, super good results. It doesn’t take a lot of traffic to get good results when you have heavily weighted engagement signals, which is what that is. It only takes a few engagements to get significant results when you have a really targeted audience that Google knows about. All right.

Anyways, we’re gonna keep moving. Sorry, I can’t give you a better answer on that. Bryan says, “What is the backlog on GMB listings in MGYB purchases. I’m out about four weeks.” Bryan, you’d have to contact support. I don’t manage any of that stuff, I’m sorry. Just contact support or send us ticket to support@mgyb.co and we’ll get it answered for you. Okay?

Marco: I was just talking to Rob about this to make sure. We have to deal with whatever it is that Google decides. I mean, they were on the show, we don’t control them. So we can’t say it’s definitely this or definitely that, or we’ll have it in a day, in seven days or whatever. It takes however long it takes. Some of them are nearly impossible. I believe that Bryan has already contacted Support and gotten an answer.

Now my thing is if you go through Support and then you come here, it just slows the process because then I have to go reach back to support, ask what’s going on, track it down, and then they all go and track it down and try to see what’s going on when it has already been answered.

The only thing that I can add to this is, guys, we’re not in control of this. We’re trying to do what we can. Bryan, you’re welcome to request a refund. If it gets too long, you’re welcome to request a refund and try to find someone who stands behind the product like we do 60-day guarantee replacement. If it gets suspended within those 60 days, we offer a legitimate guarantee. Now how long it takes to get it for you, that’s another question altogether.

Bradley: What’s up, Daniel? Hey man, the question you asked two weeks ago on Mastermind that we didn’t get to because the training went so long, please repost that for tomorrow because the Mastermind webinar is tomorrow and I didn’t want to spend some time on that. It was about a GMB question you had. We’re gonna have time. I’m gonna be covering specific training tomorrow, but it will be a lot shorter because I just did the Mastermind newsletter entry specifically about that. So that we’re gonna do some video training on it tomorrow, but you guys will have the written process.

You guys know how I do my process stocks. Well, you’re gonna have the written processes, the newsletter entry that you’re gonna get in about two or three weeks, whenever you get the next newsletter. That means my training tomorrow, the video training, will be a bit more streamlined so I should be able to get to your question. All right. I apologize I didn’t get to that, man, and it’s been weighing on me for almost two weeks now.

Is It A Good Idea To Leverage A Popular Family Name Or Brand To Get Press And Media Attention?

Anyways, Quentin’s up. He says, “Hello my name is Quentin Ravenel. I’m a full-time musician based in Charleston, South Carolina. Arthur Ravenel Jr. is a staple here. We’ve named a bridge after him that gathers 25,000 people every year in April to run or walk on the Ravenel Bridge. Is there any way to use my last name as leverage?”

That’s a really good question. Yeah. I would think Press Releases would probably be a great way to kind of piggyback off of that name recognition because that’s essentially … It’s a brand, right? Ravenel is a brand, right? If you can use that … There’s a strategy called newsjacking. Look into that, Quentin. Look in the newsjacking. In fact, you could just do a Google search for newsjacking and find plenty of resources, Amazon books, whatever that can teach you the strategy of newsjacking that I think would be perfect for that, for what you’re saying here because you have the same last name-, excuse me, as a brand that’s well-known in that area. I would use that newsjacking strategy as a way to get some press and some media. It’s almost like click bait but in a proper way, in an ethical way.

Again, I don’t do a lot of that stuff, I just haven’t had the opportunity to, but I’m familiar with that strategy. That’s something that I think you could implement here.

Marco, do you have any suggestions for that?

Marco: Entity relationship, man. That’s what he’d have to do. Relate his name to the Ravenel Bridge name so that when it comes in the, what they call, the Google auto predict, autosuggest, so when people go looking for the Ravenel Bridge walk, or a Ravenel Bridge run, Ravenel Bridge weekend, all of that stuff, your name comes up in there too. I mean, we’ve done that, right? Social conditioning?

Bradley: Yeah, social engineering.

Marco: Yep.

Bradley: Newsjacking, go check it out. There’s tons of information about it. There’s the book, David Meerman Scott, I think is the pioneer of that or whatever, at least the most well-known, but you can find all kinds of information about this free and paid. Just spend some time researching that newsjacking because it’s something that I think you could implement and get some significant results that way. Okay. By the way, go to mgyb.co to purchase Press Releases and we’ll publish them for you, they’re really, really nicely done. Okay.

Gregg. What’s up, Greg? You and I got a Mastermind call tomorrow, Gregg. Looking forward to it. We got a lot to catch up on.

Urban Towing says, “Does SerpClix work well for traffic to RYS or is there something else you would recommend?” Again, I’m not familiar with SerpClix. If it’s another CT spambot or crowd search, click-through thing-

Marco: It is.

Bradley: -which I imagine it would be. Yeah, I would probably produce some results, I don’t know how much. But I would recommend finding some better methods where you can actually buy or get real targeted traffic from real people that may have a genuine interest in your potential product or service. Guys, paid traffic is a good way to do that kind of stuff.

Marco: I actually went to SerpClix and did the math. It’s 14 cents per click. We can beat that through your method, can’t we, Bradley?

Bradley: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Marco: And this is real people. Real people targeted, remember that. Activity, relevance, trust, authority, that’s what you’re after.

Bradley: Yeah. Guys, we did … for years, Dan Anton had a product called crowdsearch.me. It works like gangbusters for a long time. Click-through spam was an engagement signal … I call it click-through spam. But that’s when somebody does a search on Google for example, keyword search, it could be a brand search, which is called a navigational search.

Guys, you can go to our YouTube channel. You can just go to Google and search crowdsearch.me and you’re gonna find this Semantic Mastery webinars. I’ve done two of them because we did one webinar and I think two years later we did another webinar because it was still working so well. I explained in that webinar, and both of those webinars and great length what click-through spam is and why it works so well.

It was actually a method that I learned way back in 2011 from Ivan Budimir, who was my most influential mentor in the local marketing, digital marketing space. It was Ivan Budimir. He’s no longer in the space, but he was absolutely amazing. I learned so much from that guy. He actually introduced that method to me back in 2011 and showed the Google patent. It’s not the actual official name of the Google patent, but he always called it site weight.

Site weight. In other words, if all things being equal, if there were two sites that were identical, which we know is impossible, pretty much, but theoretically, if two sites were equally authoritative, like they had the same amount of on-page optimization, the same amount of off-page optimization but one site got navigational search queries, which now in the semantic web is incredibly important, what is a navigational search query?

That’s a brand search or a variation of a brand search, like brand plus keyword, or brand a plus phone, like for somebody looking for the phone number of a company, or brand plus location, or brand plus map so that people looking for how to get to that location or get to that company or that store or whatever the case may be. Those are called navigational queries. If all things being equal, there were two identical sites competing brands and one had navigational queries and the other did not, the navigational query site would outrank the other, one hands down, two to one every time. Every time and it was tested over and over and over again. That was because of the site weight algorithm, or filter, or whatever you call that shit. Again, I’m not the patent nerd like Marco. Marco, that’s a term of endearment, by the way.

He introduced that way back in 2011 and the strategy then was to hire microtask workers to set up these little gigs. You would pay microtask workers two or three cents or something like that to go do a particular search, preferably with the brand dimension. Then find the link that you told them to find, click through, and then you would tell them, “Go find copy and paste the third word of the seventh paragraph on that page into the answer box,” and the answer box was their proof that they did the task that you assigned.

The reason why you wouldn’t just tell him to go click the link and copy because you want them to dwell on the page. That dwell time counted as an engagement signal, right? They would land on the page and then they’d have a hunt for that specific word or phrase or whatever it was that you told them to do that would make the answer. That would be the answer that means they solved the task that you gave them to do. That would create the dwell time, potentially scroll, you might ask them to click through to another page, whatever the task might be, click through to the link, then click through to the contact page, and then leave a message or whatever the case may be. You could set it up multiple different ways, but those were engagement signals way back in 2011 guys and it moved the needle like almost overnight.

The problem was as soon as you would stop paying in microtasks workers within just a few days your rank positioning start falling again because it was all about those engagement signals. Guys, again, this was eight years ago. Well, now, we’ve just been talking on this webinar alone about how important engagement signals are. So engagement signals are weighted even more now than they were back then.

Now the engagement signals are weighted more because Google can track and knows its users and the users’ behavior and their history. That’s what I was talking about. If you can get engagement signals from people that are locally and/or topically relevant to the content that you’re having them engage with, then that’s going to be weighted so much more.

What I’m saying is, again on a local level, if you can get people from a local geographic area that have a history for having an interest in that topic or that product or service as well as being local, a handful of clicks from them can produce better results than dozens or hundreds of click from non-relevant and non-non topically and non-geographically relevant clicks. Does that make sense?

So the click-through spam, and that’s what I called it because we were literally spamming click-throughs, isn’t as effective as it is when you can get relevant audience to engage because Google understands its audience, guys. Google knows its audience because everybody’s connected to Google all the time, right? So it knows what their history is and what their interests are and where they’re located and all that kind of stuff.

So that’s what I’m getting at. As far as the click-through spam stuff, for a long time it was working really well. Dan Anton’s, I think the best bot that came out, which was crowdsearch.me and for I think three, four years, I mean, I used it heavily. I was getting 50,000 credits per month and I was using every bit of them. It worked like gangbusters. But over time, it slowly started to stop working as well. I know that service is still out there. There are potential uses for it but it’s not something that I would do to direct to money site anymore. There are better alternatives now in my opinion, which is what we we’ve been talking about. We did some training about that in the Mastermind a few weeks ago.

It was a good question though. I was worried we’re not gonna have enough to talk about today, man, and look, we’re almost up. It’s awesome. Let’s see. “Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.” That should actually be how stupid the median person is, right? It’s awesome. Thanks, Greg.

Okay. Grant says, “It might be easier to just close/delete designed junk email accounts ThAn unsubscribe endlessly.” Yeah. I know what you’re saying, Grant, but this is an email account that I’ve had for, God, 15 years, so it’s not something I wanna get rid of. But, yeah, I know what you mean.

By the way, I did all the heavy lifting. Now it’s just a daily maintenance thing. If I see an email come in, if that’s from something that was unsolicited, I open it, unsubscribe, and then as soon as the unsubscribe is successful, I go back and hit the spam button. Again, most days now guys, I might only get one or two spam emails. There are some days where I’ll get five or six or whatever, but almost every day now it’s just a bare minimum. So it’s manageable now. It just took a little bit of time.

Also, there’s a service called unroll.me. Guys, go check it out. Go to unroll.me, especially any of you suffering from shiny object syndrome. Type in your email and it’ll take a few minutes to run and it’ll come back and show you how many lists you’re subscribe to, and tell me it doesn’t take your breath away. It’s like, holy shit, how did I get subscribed … It’s just over the years, you accumulate, you get added to so many subscription lists either voluntarily or involuntarily, a combination of both really.

If you go to unroll.me, it’s amazing. It’ll just take your breath away when you see how many email lists you’re on, and you can start to systematically unsubscribe. Okay.

Chris: You’re the nightmare of every email marketer.

Bradley: Yeah. Well, now, I am, yeah. But trust me, a lot of email marketers made a lot of money from me too. All right. Let’s see, Walt says, “Not an affiliate link.” Okay. This is the quick, probably the quick … There you go, Grow Your Business With Cold Emails, Jeremy Chatelaine. That’s correct. He’s got an accent or whatever. It’s awesome, guys. Really short book. Look at that, it used to be cheaper, but 10 bucks, buy it, guys, it’s worth it. 100% worth it, buy it, and read it. It’s a great book for anybody’s doing prospecting. Guys, hands down, that has been the best strategy for me that I’ve ever found. Okay.

I’ll keep moving. Grow Your Business With Cold Emails: Everything You Need to Know. Go, perfect. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.

Daniel, awesome. “Guys, I’m not whining about the GMB question, and I do have faith in SM.” Bryan, I think he took offense to which you said, Marco. Just looking to start implementing building out the local strategy and certainly anxious to get moving.” I totally get it, Bryan. I totally get it.

Marco: Yeah, so do we. I didn’t expect or intend again to offend. I just come across that way. I was just explaining that it just takes time. We try to get as quickly as possible. We know all you guys were anxious, but there’s only so much we could do when the beast keeps changing shit around.

Bradley: Correct. Yeah. That’s one of the issues, guys. Again, we all have to keep changing our methods to get these things done verified and such. I don’t even know what they’re doing to do it. I don’t care. Bryan, I’m just like you. I placed my orders too. I’m not kidding. Guys, I placed my orders just like you do now. I do have a little bit of pull sometimes, most of my orders are in queue still now because they’re not critical. But sometimes, for clients, for example, that have requested maps expansion, then I pull some strings to get them pushed forward a little bit. So that’s one of the benefits I guess of the CEO.

But for the most part, guys, I’m in queue just like you guys. It’s not you guys aren’t waiting because I’m getting all mine done. Trust me. I’m waiting too. Awesome. Unroll.me, You’re welcome, Grant

All right, guys. We gotta wrap it up. “Marco, you didn’t drop an F-bomb on me so I was unsure about the love.” It was Bryan again.

Chris: It’s coming.

Bradley: Marco, you got to say fuck just to make everybody happy once.

Marco: Yeah. Let me just close this off with this: fuck Google.

Bradley: All right, there you go. ‘Nuff said. All right everybody. Thanks for being here. Mastermind webinar tomorrow, don’t forget. If you did not check out the Syndication Academy update webinar from last week, do it, guys. Super, super powerful stuff. I showed you how to use RSS feeds there with geo-tagging.

By the way, I’m doing a lot of testing with I have it … No, I must already closed it down. No, there it is, RankFeedr. I’ve got it open. I’m not gonna show my projects. But Lisa Allen’s RankFeedr, guys. I know the coupon has expired now. She actually extended it because of the Syndication Academy update webinar that I did last week. I talked about it in there. Although the method that I showed was how to use Feedburner feeds to create local geotag feeds and they’re super powerful too, not as powerful as the RankFeedr feeds though because RankFeedr you can splice together and create static or sticky items and you can add the geotag and not just a specific geo coordinate but you can add what’s called a geo box, which is like a service area business. Super powerful stuff, guys.

I’ve been testing really hard for the last week now with the RankFeedr stuff and I’m seeing good results. Again, I know the coupon that she gave is expired, but it’s still totally worth it. It’s super inexpensive guys for the elite subscription, which I think allows you to create eleven hundred RankFeedr feeds.

Guys, it’s a set and forget. You set up a RankFeedr feed one time and you let it go. It just runs for as long as you keep your subscription active and you don’t have to do anything else. It will help to create co-citation geographic and topical relevancy on autopilot, guys. I’m telling you and for the elite service the elite subscription level, which again I think is 1,100 feeds, it’s $47 a month. It’s a no-brainer.

So if you haven’t already picked it up, guys, go watch the Syndication Academy update webinar, and go pick up the RankFeedr subscription service, which is how you create those things. I’m only telling you guys, we don’t pimp other people’s products unless we truly believe in them and I’m endorsing this because it’s such a good product and you can go to our website SemanticMastery.com I think it’s RSS-authority-sniper-3 I think. You could find the webinar replay and go through that process, if you want to watch the webinar where she talks about it.

But honestly, you don’t even need to watch the webinar, just go pick up the damn service because it’s really powerful. All right. With that, we’re gonna close it out. See you all next week. Thanks everybody. Thanks, Marco. Thanks, Chris.

Marco: Bye everybody.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224 posted first on your-t1-blog-url

[makironata-blog]

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

Click on the video above to watch Episode 224 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

  Announcement

Bradley: Okay. Now we’re live. This is screwing me up. Hey everybody! This is Bradley Benner with Semantic Mastery. This is Hump Day Hangouts Episode 224. It is February 20th, 2019. I’m sorry I don’t have my camera today. For some reason Google Hangouts decided it did not wanna recognize my camera at the last minute. You guys would probably appreciate the fact you don’t have to look at my face. I’ve only got two people on with me today because Adam and Hernan are out at the Funnel Hacking Live event. They’re out having fun while we’re hard at work.

Let me say hi to Chris. What’s up, Chris? How are you?

Chris: Doing good. Great to be here.

Bradley: Marco.

Marco: I made it, man. I’m here.

Bradley: Good. I don’t really have any announcements specifically, except that we’ve got a Mastermind webinar tomorrow, for those of you that are in the Mastermind. We’re gonna be covering several things that I’ve been tracking for the last few weeks now as far as doing some off-page tests for ranking GMBs, doing a whole bunch of different types of off-page tests and isolation.

In fact, let me se, for one moment, I’ve got pause the screen for a minute. Marco, do you have any announcements while I do that?

Marco: No. But I’m so glad you’re gonna talk about this because my write-up for the Mastermind, which I’m finishing up today by the way, is about that, testing, whether it’s single variable testing or whether it’s testing in isolation, or what it actually is that you’re trying to do.

What you’re trying to do is gauge whether there’s an effect. You’re not trying to show that something doesn’t work. It’s crazy going in and trying to test that something doesn’t work. The test should be, what does it do? You should get the data. The data should speak for what the tests. You’re testing a variable, but does the variable move the needle? No, it doesn’t. Okay, onto the next thing, which is what you’re doing, you’re testing all of these different variables and you’re isolating so that you can do whatever it is that you’re doing to each one.

I’m really glad that you’re talking about this. I’m gonna go a little bit more in-depth in the Mastermind newsletter about testing and how people are being misled by so-called, all of these are expert testers that don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. So I’ll just leave it at that.

Bradley: Yeah. I’ve been tracking, well, about a month ago was. It was around January 21st when I started setting these tests up. I’m testing every one of these methods and isolation. In other words, they’re GMB or Google My Business profiles that had the initial on-page stuff done and what my standard operating procedure is for optimizing a new profile, and then from there, all I’m doing is specifically one of these methods.

I’m testing across multiple properties per methods so that I can see if we get positive results or negative results or no results on any one method, I want to see if that occurs across more than one property for the same type of method. Because if we get positive results on two properties, if I’m only doing two tests or testing on two locations per method and they’re both positive, then that’s a really good indication that that’s a viable method or something that moves the needle.

Like he says, that’s actually funny you said that because that’s the title or the subtitle of the actual test that I’m doing Which Method Moves the Needle the Most? These different tests that I’m doing, and like I said, if a positive result occurs on two properties, two separate locations, then I know that it’s a good method to use and that it will continue … It will be duplicatable, in other words.

I will obviously set it up and see if I can repeat it again across other properties. If I get two no changes, or two negative changes, then it’s probably the case also. But if we get one that’s positive and one it’s neutral, or one that’s positive, one is negative, then it’s obviously gonna have to require further investigation.

So that’s essentially what I’m doing. I’ve tried several these things and I’ve got some really super good results back with one of these methods in particular. I’m not gonna tell which one here, guys, you got to join a Mastermind for that. But I’m gonna be covering it tomorrow because I’ve got really, really good results from one method in particular. It’s actually one of the easiest methods and that’s what I love about. I’m pleasantly surprised. Actually, I was not surprised that the method works because of what I know about that method, but I’m glad that it’s one of the easier methods for any one of us to achieve, or to implement, I should say.

Again, I’m gonna be covering that in the Mastermind webinar tomorrow as well as I’m also gonna be covering some questions about PR stacking from some of our members. I’m also gonna be talking about setting up display ads for remarketing using the Google Display Network because it’s a much, much easier process now and it’s very, very effective.

So that’s what I’ve got to tease with for tomorrow. It looks like we don’t have that many questions. But I’m gonna get right into it.

Chris: I got a question, man.

Bradley: Go ahead.

Chris: I scrolled through my Facebook feed today, people are literally scared of GMB and Google all of a sudden. You just were talking about, yeah, which method is the most potent or the biggest needle move of them. Anybody, you wanna share your insights on that, Marco or Bradley?

Bradley: I’ll start. Yeah. Armageddon is coming, right? The sky is always falling, Chicken Little type stuff. By the way, that screenshot that you’re looking at there, guys, that’s the tease for tomorrow’s webinar in Mastermind because those are the movements that I’ve seen occur just in the last few days from that one particular method I’m gonna be covering.

Anyways, Marco and I, well, we’ve been around long enough to know that shit changes all the time. It’s SEO. For the last several months we’ve been pushing really hard on GMB stuff because it’s been working so well and I’ve been saying all along it at some point Google’s gonna shut it down. I don’t necessarily think that existing properties are gonna be taken down. What I think is gonna happen, and this is just my assumption, guys, my educated opinion about this or my educated guess, prediction I should say, is that it’s gonna become damn near impossible to register new GMB profiles. I think that’s how it’s gonna be shut down.

That’s why I’ve been pushing for people to build, build, build for the last several months, and to build your ass off and to build a team for scaling your build processes so that you can secure as many location as possible prior to what I think is going to happen, which is going to be damn near impossible to register new businesses.

I don’t know exactly what they’re gonna do to shut it down, but it’s likely going to be something like having to take photographs at a storefront or at the business location. It could also be requiring … Again, guys, just speculation, but it could also require you to send corporate documents in or something that shows proof of address with the business name on it, so like a utility bill or something. I know because I’ve actually had to call Google Support before to get help moving a legit business for a client of mine to get the Maps listing updated. That was one of the things required, was a bank statement, the account details and everything could be blurred, but it had to show the company name and the mailing address and all that.

Those are things that I assume or that I predict are going to happen. But we always find workarounds and we always find ways to continue to make money. That’s really the name of the game, guys. Don’t freak out. Don’t go into panic mode. Relax. Know that you’re gonna have other options. We’re gonna figure them out eventually and other people will figure them out as well, and you can too. But it’s about keeping your head cool and realizing that this is a cat-and-mouse game that we play and that’s the business that we’re in.

Marco, what are your thoughts?

Marco: I get a little bit more basic, man. Yeah, I don’t care. Why? I say basic because there’s basic web principles. The foundational stuff that we teach is based on web principles, right? We’re in the semantic web. We all know that, right? We talked about ART, activity, relevance, trust and authority, and how to generate all that. But there’s foundation of principles. You can only code one way. If you write spaghetti code, you’re writing garbage that nobody’s ever going to be able to tell what it is if someone needs to come and take over. So there’s international standards that are set.

There are basic principles where the guidelines are not set by Google. Google’s Terms of Service and Google’s guidelines are determined by Google, but coding standards are set by other people. In order for Google to mess with that, Google has to go and push at a higher level where there’s a bunch of other people pushing back. I’ve been talking about this since Semantic Mastery began. Google is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Correct, but there’s others on the web. Google can’t just go and do whatever the fuck they want to do. There’s some stuff that they just can’t touch.

While that goes on we’ll just keep going and getting the results that we get. That’s what you saw. The test that you’re shown, which is beautiful because it’s based on basic foundational principles, that’s what we work from. Now all of these other stuff, yes, they’re hacks, guys. We manipulate. That’s our job. We’re in this to make money. We’re not here to make people happy. We’re not here to make Google happy. I’m in this to make money. I don’t care. They can’t tell me that it’s wrong to do what I’m doing, well then, Google should go and change their whole scheme for making money online because it’s all based on lies and it’s all based on moving people into their funnel and keeping them there as long as possible; they don’t care how they do it, they just want to do it. Well, that’s fine. That’s their business model. I have mine.

Just to get back to this, basic principles, they still work. Why? Because everyone has to adhere to the same standards no matter what. That’s my rant for today – well, hopefully.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree with that. Let’s get into questions, guys. Not a whole lot of questions and I’m surprised. Maybe it’s this new platform that’s scaring people off, the discus platform. All right.

Chris: The sky is always falling.

Bradley: What’s that?

Chris: The sky is always falling. Some people say it’s …

Bradley: Chicken Little, yeah. Okay. Ben’s up. He says, “Hey Bradley, thanks for our call last Thursday.” Okay. Ben’s one of our Mastermind members and I’d been doing Mastermind calls. I opened up an opportunity for our Mastermind members to schedule a 30-minute call with me. It started the first week in January and this is the seventh week that I’ve been doing those calls. Next week, I’ll wrap it up and then it’ll be closed down until June. In June, I’m gonna open it back up again.

I encourage our Mastermind members that even scheduled to call with me in this first round to call schedule a second call with me in June because in six months you will have hopefully overcome some of the issues that we discussed on our call, and hopefully you have a new set of issues. I really want to continue to find out what’s going on with our members. It’s been super insightful for me to learn more about what’s going …

Well, first, to get to know our members on a more personal level. It’s been great. It really has been. I’ve really enjoyed the calls. Number two, it’s given us a lot of insight as to what’s going on, and in our Mastermind, which is our top level program, what’s going on in our members’ businesses, so that we can develop better tools and resources and training to help them overcome their obstacles. It really has been beneficial to me as well as, hopefully, to others.

Is Local GMB Pro Included In The MasterMind?

That’s what Ben is referring to here. He says, “Thanks for our call last Thursday. It was good to talk to you and I got a lot out of it.” Well, thank you, man. I appreciate that. He says, “A couple of questions. Number one, is Local GMB Pro included in the Mastermind? Not that I need it. Local Lease Pro is looking pretty comprehensive as I go through it. I’m just curious as it doesn’t recognize my username.”

Yeah, I know. We had Rob Beale collaborate on that with us and so there is an additional charge for that. But as a Mastermind member you get it at a silly ridiculous discount from what the advertised price is, if you look at the sales page publicly. Just contact Support when you’re ready for that, Ben. But since I did talk with you, trust me, you’re not ready for that yet. Go through Local Lease Pro, start implementing those strategies, provided that they’re still going to work, depending on what happens with the GMB stuff going forward.

As it stands right now, it’s still working just fine. But just keep in mind that you should be implementing that right now and then the Local GMB Pro training would really be more about assets that need the additional push, or if you’re in super competitive areas, that’s where you’re going to want to implement Local GMB Pro. But again, that’s not something that I would recommend you start with right now, you’re gonna be overwhelmed. I know you and I talked about that. Do not overwhelm yourself with too much training. I’d rather you take action and Local Lease Pro is set up with actionable data, actionable information for you to go out and implement immediately to start building, and that’s the most important thing. Okay.

Good question. But, yeah, as a Mastermind member, you’ll get a significant discount on that when you’re ready. But I can tell you right now you’re not ready for that. Okay.

How Do You Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome?

Number two, he says, “You said you were a former shiny object syndrome sufferer.” Yes, I was. That’s absolutely true. I think most of us in this industry or in this space are or have suffered from that, and maybe still do at this point. As SOS is so clearly at the root of my lack of progress to this point, I was wondering what it was that helped you turn the corner. You are clearly totally recovered and in control today.”

Yeah. You know what it was, honestly, it was kind of a perfect storm in that I was trying to do too many things and trying to not only teach on too many different topics as far as digital marketing, but I was trying to do too many things for my agency and provide too many services. What happens is I became overwhelmed with chasing different methods and trying to implement every method that I could learn about. So every time I saw a marketing email come through, and you guys know, I’m sure you are all on a million email list too, I would get the same type of emails, you guys would about new methods, about new tools and processes and things like that and I would get sucked in. The grass is always greener, right? I would see the opportunity that I thought, as an entrepreneur, I would see opportunity and I’m want to go after it, I want to chase it.

But what happened was over time things started to accumulate and accrue to the point where I had 15 projects going on and none of them were really progressing because I was spread too thin across too much. We, as a corporation, Semantic Mastery kind of suffered that for a period of time too and in part, I’m the face of the company, I should say, not to discredit my partners or anything, but in part because I was doing that in my own business as well. So we were kind of going that way with Semantic Mastery, trying to be too many things to too many people.

Really what happened was, and fortunately, my partner Adam, he’s not here today, but he introduced us to a book by Gino Wickman, I think it is, called Traction. It’s a program for really zeroing in on a singular focus and purpose for a company, for any organization. We’ve been working through that now, guys. What are we, over a year now into that, Traction? Are we on our fifth quarter now? Somebody would comment on that?

Marco: Yeah. I can’t remember exactly what quarter we’re on.

Bradley: I think we’re on our fifth quarter now. Anyways, we do everything now. It’s kind of a combination of various methods, but the 12-week year is one of the books that we provide to our Mastermind members when they come join. Another one is That One Thing. That’s another book that where it teaches you how to really focus in on one thing to get results and find out what is the most important thing, the one thing that I can do such that everything else becomes irrelevant or less important or irrelevant, or something like that. It’s a great book. Then there’s the 12-week year, which is about taking 12-month goals and boiling them down into 12 weeks, which is a 90-day period. What we call them 12-week Sprints. It’s a quarter every year.

We started implementing these strategies and then traction really kind of started giving us the organizational structure as a corporation to start developing our goals, figuring out what our primary focus was going to be, zeroing in on that, and then building out our processes and systems to achieve those goals. Like I said. I think we’re on our fifth quarter of that process now. That’s why over the last probably six months or so, you guys have been following us and probably noticed we’ve really shifted to just local marketing stuff. Not that we don’t still talk about and teach and share and present information in the Mastermind about all types of marketing, but our primary push is local.

That’s because I needed to do that in my own business in order for me to get better results for my clients to increase my own income and to get some of my time and my sanity back because I was just all over the place and it was overwhelming and, honestly, it was exhausting. Also, as you guys know, shit’s changing all the time in the digital marketing space, so having to stay on the cutting edge of everything is incredibly difficult.

So I really wanted to shift my focus into something that I preferred, which was local marketing. I also feel that that’s one of the quickest ways to earn revenue, is local marketing. So I kind of shifted to that. We took several surveys of you guys, our members, to find out that that’s what the vast majority of our audience was doing, was local marketing or lead generation, that kind of stuff. So we really shifted all of our focus to that.

Again, Ben, to answer your question, how I got over it was kind of a combination of recognizing the fact that I was really spinning my wheels and not making any progress in a lot of different areas because I was going after too many things, my attention was spread too thin, and then also, again, when the student is ready the teacher appears.

Adam kind of presented us or brought to our attention like this, Gino Wickman’s Traction program and they call the EOS, I guess the employee operating system, and all this stuff. Just get the book, guys, it’s inexpensive, and go through it. It’s a lot of work. We’ve been at it for five months now-, or excuse me, five quarters now, I think five quarters, and it’s a lot of work. But it’s totally worth it because we’re seeing the benefits and the fruits of the work that we’re putting in.

So a combination of those two things for me really kind of got me to stop … Guys, I’m not kidding, I’ve unsubscribed from just about every single email list. I got one specific email that I would always sign up for stuff and now, because over the years I’ve subscribed to so many lists, I’ve unsubscribed from just about everything. But yeah, I still get emails for internet marketing products and stuff all the time, from stuff that I’ve never even subscribed from. You guys know how that goes, people sell lists and your name gets passed, your email gets passed around from one list to another, whether you subscribed or not.

I’m not gonna lie, every single day now when I get a marketing email unless it’s from somebody that I want to be on their list, I go find the unsubscribe button. as soon as I open an email, hit the unsubscribe button, and then I come back and hit the spam button. I do it every fucking day every single day. Some days I might only get one email now, other days I might get five or six spam type marketing emails. But I do the same thing. I open them up, I don’t even read them, I just go right find an Unsubscribe button, click Unsubscribe, and then I come back it’s hit the Spam button. What it’s done is it’s really reduced the amount of junk that I see on a daily basis.

I was telling this to Ben when we had our call, our Mastermind call, it’s like being an alcoholic and going to a bar. Right? When you open your email account, if you know you have shiny object syndrome and you’re not getting any traction in any one area of your business because you keep chasing opportunity, stop, stop going in your email box and reading these emails, guys. Stop. It’s like get yourself out of the bar if you’re a recovering alcoholic, right? It’s the same principle. You need to avoid the shit that’s detracting from you being able to get make progress in your business.

So for me, it was just eliminating the marketing messages. I’m a marketer so I’m susceptible to marketing messages, right? For me, it was just avoiding them. Out of sight, out of mind. Putting blinders on. Putting my nose down. Working through what I knew I needed to do and that was local marketing. Right now it’s about building a lead gen business and developing processes but I’m not doing all the work and then teaching our members about what I’m doing and how we’re doing it. So that’s what’s worked for me.

Any of you guys have comments on that?

Chris: Yeah. You probably should read the latest Mastermind issue, for February, because what I wrote about was pretty much what you’ve just talked about, but in steroids. It’s like if you’re struggling with that there’s something really, really valuable in there for this month.

Bradley: It’s awesome.

Chris: Not to reveal everything, so from Masterminding members, you can be looking forward to some really sweet stuff. I recommend you check it out as well, Bradley.

Bradley: I sure will. Marco?

Marco: Well, the way that I stopped is I realized that we’re producing better shit than most people out there. So I focus on our own things and I know that you focus, we, the Mastermind’s focus is local. But I’m still in the lab looking at manipulation methods for national, global, just whatever, because that’s just how my mind works. I can’t just do the local thing and be happy. I have to be able to see where all of the algorithms are going, where Google is going, where it’s taking us and why, and then try to intercept at the right time, which is kind of like how RYS Academy was born, then RYS Reloaded, Local GMB Pro, as a matter of fact, came through because of that. It was just looking to see where Google was going and why. So I’m constantly after that, where is Google going, why?

As long as I’m on that, I don’t care about somebody else’s shit because I’m too busy with my own shit. That’s how I was able to overcome. We’ve all been there. If you’ve been online for any length of time, it could be a week, you bought something. Yeah. That’s just the way it is.

Are Both G+ Personal And Business Profiles Be Shut Down By Google?

Bradley: Yeah. That’s a great question, Ben. I really appreciated that question. Hopefully, that was helpful. Ken. What’s up, Ken? He says, “Are both G Plus personal and business profiles going away or is it just personal?” I believe it’s all Google Plus. I think the only Google Plus that’s going to remain, and I could be wrong about this guys, but I’m pretty sure that they’re all being killed off unless you’re what they call Google Plus Enterprise, which is only for like, it’s like internal Google Plus for large organizations. I don’t even know anything about it. I just read somewhere about it.

So as far as I know, Google Plus is being completely killed. I think in April it’s gonna be down completely. You won’t be able to access even your old stuff. I got notifications, dozens and dozens of notifications about it where they say if you got any photos in Google Plus, the notifications, you got to download the photos and all that kind of stuff because in April they’re gone. That’s it. They’re extinct. Whatever. Good riddance. No big deal. Move on.

Which, by the way, guys, we covered the Google Plus … Oh, yeah, guys, if you’re in the Syndication Academy and you didn’t watch the update webinar from last week, go back and watch it. I mean, literally, as soon as Hump Day Hangouts is over, go watch it because it’s super, super powerful what I was talking about, because one of the things I was covering was Google Plus being shut down. We had a lot of people comment and question about, “What’s going to happen? Because Google Plus is down and that’s one of our main social hubs.” Yeah. So what? We find others.

I shared exactly what I’m using now, which is so much more effective anyways, and it’s really, really powerful. If you’re in Syndication Academy, guys, go watch the update webinar that was just recorded last week. It’s in the archives area, the updates area along with all the notes and everything in there. Super powerful and it’s easy to do. Okay. AlL right. I’m gonna keep on moving.

What Photo Selection In GMB Is It That Dictates Which Image Is Displayed In Google Maps?

Jay says, what’s up, Jay? “Inside the GMB, what photo selection option is it that the dictates which image is displayed in Google Maps? I’ve tried several options there but it won’t change.” Yeah. I’ve had that issue in the past too, Jay. I don’t know, maybe Marco has an answer. I’ve tried in some cases to get an image to change too and not been able to get it to change. I just don’t even care at this point. I know some clients do, but it’s not been a major issue for me so I haven’t dug into it that much.

Marco, do you have an idea as to what you can do to get Google to display what you want?

Marco: No. I don’t have an answer for that. It sometimes displays the latest one, it sometimes displays what it wants to, I don’t know. If you have GMB that is legit, that is tied to a company or whatever, you might wanna get in touch with a Google rep and see if they can help you out. If you act really ignorant, if you act really stupid, like you don’t know what’s going on, they’ll really help you out. They’ll go out of their way to help you out. I found that the more ignorant you act and the more that they … “I don’t know …” “Oh, you mean like Chrome?” I mean they go that deep into … Just totally being blissfully ignorant about everything online.

Because you’re a business owner who doesn’t have time for all of this. The only people who have time for this are marketers who are in there trying to manipulate every day, who are the first ones that find out what doesn’t work and what does. So you wanna try to avoid being that know-it-all marketer because if you do that you’re gonna get nuked, your IP is gonna get tagged, and you’re in for a lot of trouble.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree. If it’s a legit business, man, just contact the Google My Business Support. Again, if it’s legit verifiable business, guys, I don’t have any problem contacting Support anymore. I found them to be quite helpful when needed. Again, don’t be afraid to do that. I remember years ago it was damn near impossible to get support help from Google and it was only via email and it would be sometimes days or even weeks before they would reply and it was just a bitch. But now it’s a lot easier to get in touch with Google Support. Again, if it’s for legit business, don’t be afraid of trying.

What Are Your Most Successful Tactics In Getting Client Response From Cold Emails?

Okay. Jeff says, a minute, I still got to get used to this platform, guys. Jeff says, what’s up, Jeff? He says, “Two questions. What is the record for most F-bombs dropped by Marco in one rant?” Well, apparently, Ken’s been counting, he says 87.

Chris: Did you see the RYS Academy sales video, the webinar, the very first one? I bet it goes higher.

Marco: Guys, listen, I don’t do it purposely. It’s just when I get excited I get really animated and it just flows. Please excuse me, I don’t mean to offend. Well, I have meant to offend people in the past, let me change that. You guys, in general, I don’t intend to offend you. If you are, please excuse me. Please understand that that’s just … My partners know that that’s me because they have to deal with me on a daily basis, so they know. They know Marco.

So you guys, just please excuse me. Next time if you come to my webinars or whatever, please put the kids away and you might not want the wife, girlfriend, boyfriend or whatever around while you’re listening to me talk.

Bradley: Yeah. I remember we had a Mastermind webinar about three years ago, maybe three and a half years ago, and Marco and I, we’re a little loose with our lips as far as some of the things we were saying. One of the members posted like “I’ve got kids in the room.” It was so funny because immediately after that I put a parental guidance suggested explicit language, image, or whatever, graphic on the bottom of the header image for the page that we were hosting the webinars on. In that point forward, we always kept it to be like, hey, keep your kids out. It’s not safe for work-type stuff. I think it was really funny. I think Carolyn was her name.

Anyway, so to carry on with the real stuff here, guys. Jeff says, “I know you mentioned this previously, but I couldn’t find it when researching out-, or excuse me when reaching out to business owners. In an effort to sell them the leads we were generating, what has been your more successful tactics for getting them to respond? This is primarily a cold email question.” Jeff, that’s a great question. That’s something we’re going to be covering a lot in depth in actually going through real live tests in case studies and such for monetizing GMB assets. We’re gonna be doing a lot of outreach stuff in the Mastermind coming up over the next several weeks. In fact, that was supposed to be started this week. I’m a little bit delayed, but I’m gonna be working on that a lot next week. I’ve got several assets that I need to start doing outreach for too.

But to answer your question, what I found and I spent a lot of time last year, in 2018, doing prospecting and trying to do sales for traditional agency services. I got really good at prospecting, getting the conversation started. As far as sales, I failed miserably. I think we spent like $18,000 between our salesperson and our VA staff which was handling the cold email outreach and all that stuff. I think we made like $6,000 in sales. It was ridiculous. That in part is just because I think that the local business market is so saturated with solicitation calls from marketing and advertising agency.

So long story short, that’s part of the reason we shifted back to the lead generation model because it changes the dynamic entirely, and I know that’s what you’re asking about. But when it came to prospecting, I found the easiest thing to do is, are quick question type emails.

There’s a great book by the guy that the developer of quickmail.io. If you go to quickmail.io, it’s a service that you can subscribe to, it’s like an email tracking service and all that. I personally like gmass.co better as an email marketing platform, but I started out with using quickmail.io. There’s a book by the developer. It’s a real short book. You can get it on Amazon, Kindle. I think you can get in paperback too, but I got it on Kindle. It’s a real short book, it’s only like 30-some pages I think, really inexpensive. I think it might only be $1 or $2.99 or something like that.

Go get it. Go to quickmail.io and probably click through some of the links and you’ll find the guy’s name, the developer’s name, and then you can find the book on Amazon. Pick that book up. Guys, I tested last year multiple types of cold email outreach methods for prospecting. Out of everything that I tested, and I tested David Sprague stuff, David Sprague’s got some really good tools, guys, there’s no question, but as far as his cold email outreach programs and stuff, I just had miserable success and we gave it full on effort.

I mean, for months, not just his program but all different types of outreach methods. What I found that produced the most success, especially dealing with contractors, was the quick question type emails. That strategy is outlaid perfectly in that short little book by the developer quickmail.io. His name is Jeremy something, I think. Anyways, just go pick it up, read through that book, and then start testing. That’s what I did and it worked really, really, really well.

We’re actually gonna be testing in the Mastermind. I’m gonna be using a combination of the more mass email approach, which is what I was talking about with the quick question type emails, which all you’re trying to do is solicit a response, a reply, that’s it. No, you’re not asking them to click through any links, you’re not getting diarrhea of the mouth and dumping a whole bunch of information and doing an email. You just ask them a simple question that’s kind of disguised like a lead for them. It’s a little bit misleading, but not so, because you’re gonna present them with an opportunity.

Again, it’s not unethical. Like I said, it’s just a way to ask questions. For example, maybe if I got a tree service site or assets that I need to monetize, I might contact 10 or 15 different … When I was doing the mass prospect, I would contact 50, 60 tree service contractors with these quick question type emails. Now I’m going to be doing a hybrid model that it incorporates the video email process, which is, we have a training program that I developed that I’ve used for years to get results for prospecting and sales and that’s called the video lead gen system.

It’s how to use video emails to get people’s attention. It’s a bit time-consuming because you got to record videos that are personalized to each person you reach out to. I’m trying to templatize that now to where it’s going to be a lot easier and more efficient and have a team that does the video editing and all that kind of stuff so that we can turn it into more of a process. Like an assembly line to where we can do 10 or 15 videos in a short period of time and then targeted emails out.

But I’m still going to be using those quick question type emails where I might say like, “Quick question, are you guys accepting or are you guys providing estimates for tree removal right now?” When they reply yes, that’s the conversation starter. “Okay, great. Would you mind if I sent you a video explaining what it is that I’ve got?” Then if they reply yes again, now you they’ve given you permission to send them a video. Then you send them the damn video, which is a personalized video explaining what you got.

“Hey, look, I got these leads coming in right now.” You don’t show your assets, guys. You show call volume or you show the fact that you’re generating leads. Show proof. Say, “Look, I really need somebody who can take these leads. If you’re interested, let me know I’ll send a few of them to you for the next week, or I’ll send you five leads or 10 leads or whatever, whatever your business model is good for. You say to them, “I’ll send you five leads for free,” and then, “I’ll follow up with you after that to find out if you’re if you like them. If they were good genuine valid leads that you’d like to continue that service, we can talk then,” stuff like that. Just real simple little questions, guys.

I’ve tested all kinds of processes and what I found was those quick questions where you don’t drop a link in it, you don’t ask them to click, you don’t ask them to go to a landing page and fill out a survey, or watch a video on the first email, none of that, you just ask them to reply. That’s a conversation starter. That starts the dialogue. Once the dialogue starts, then you ask permission to send them a link for them to click, which is just a video essentially. You say, “Can I send you a video to explain what I’ve got?” If they say yes, now they’re giving you permission.

Then you send them the video link, and then they’ll click on it, and now watch the video. Then sometimes they will reply, sometimes they won’t. But that’s really the whole point. Again, video lead-gen system was the course that we did on how to use video email. Then I’m going to be kind of mixing that with the more … I’m trying to templatize that and make it towards a process to where it’s not so time-consuming to do those emails, although they’re very, very effective. Okay?

Again, this is stuff that in the Mastermind, guys, were gonna be covering over the next several weeks. Okay. Those were great questions, Jeff.

Does anybody else have-

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second.

Bradley: I’m sorry?

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second. I already got it.

What Are Your Thoughts On WebFire 3.0 Tool?

Bradley: Okay. Cool. Yeah, it’s a great little book. All right, moving on. Martin says, “Have you any experience with the WebFire 3.0 tool?” No, Martin. When you said that, I clicked on it and I looked, I don’t, so I can’t really comment on that. I don’t have time to look through it right now. Perhaps, if you remind me, next week I will take a look at that before. I might look through that thing when we’re off this webinar today.

Marco: Hey Bradley, those are all like, those are click … Well, what do you call that, the auto traffic-

Bradley: It’s like a click-through spambot?

Marco: Yeah. Tons of websites like that.

Bradley: Okay.

Marco: The problem that I’m seeing, and by the way, they’re working. Some are working better than others. I’m not gonna say which one because then everyone will run there and ruin it for me. I don’t want you guys messing with my money. At any rate, they are working, go and test them out. But interestingly enough, what I found works the best is … You did a course on it, it’s only available in the Mastermind.

Bradley: Yeah.

Marco: The way that you teach it becomes actually cheaper than most of these click-through spams or spam traffic networks, which is really interesting because you’re targeting real people to come and visit your stuff. These real people have a genuine interest in whatever it is that you’re doing right and they’re going to ask way-, they’re going to act, excuse me, way differently than the people that have to click on your link. Does that make sense? They pay for it. Well, you paid for it, they go, they click, then they get credit. It just becomes crazy because they’re not really interested in your stuff, they’re only interested in theirs.

Now since we’re targeting real people with the real interest, through Bradley’s training, it becomes that much better. Guys, activity, relevance, trust and authority. We’re in trusted and authoritative to the max because were inside Google.

Bradley: That’s right.

Marco: Relevance because we’re targeting whatever it is that we’re targeting. I’m not gonna say anything because it’s something that’s right now only available in the Mastermind. Then, activity on that link. It’s relevant activity. People clicking on that link going and acting the way that real people do. Some might not like it and bounce back, many will. But that’s what real people do and that’s what we’re after.

Bradley: Yeah. I’m not gonna reveal the method here either, but exactly what Marco was saying, because that is real genuine traffic that Google knows has an interest in what you’re sending them to. So guys, when you’re talking about activity and engagement, which is one of the primary ranking signals now, is engagement, it’s not just blind engagement.

Again, if you are trying to rank something locally and you’re getting clicks from China and Russia and Korea and UK, and I’m talking about in the US, I’m just using this as an example, guys. But if you’re getting a bunch of clicks from things that are non-relevant either geographically especially for local stuff or non-topically relevant, in other words it’s just kind of like random traffic coming, do you think Google counts that traffic as an engagement signal, the same type, and gives it the same amount of weight as somebody that is in the local area that’s clicking from a local IP, likely from a mobile device that is intimately connected to them at all times, that they have a history of being interested in that particular type of content or service or product? Think about that guys, which click, which engagement signal is gonna be given more weight by Google? You already know the answer to that.

It’s not that these kind of tools and stuff can’t produce some nominal results, they can, but if you wanna get really good results and do it within terms of service, there are alternative ways to do it and it’s super, super effective. I mean, super effective. So it’s absolutely true.

Marco: I just want to be clear, Fiverr geeks, Fiverr traffic geeks, they get some results. These types of websites, the spam traffic, they get some results. But when you compare them all and compare them to the course that we have, it’s night and day. it’s just totally different because it’s just targeted traffic, people that are targeted to the geolocation so that they interact with whatever it is that you’re doing at that level, if that’s necessary. If not, then you can adjust to whatever it is that you’re doing and get traffic for pennies on the dollar, guys. That’s what it’s all about.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, topical relevance and geographic relevance, and you can combine both and get super, super good results. It doesn’t take a lot of traffic to get good results when you have heavily weighted engagement signals, which is what that is. It only takes a few engagements to get significant results when you have a really targeted audience that Google knows about. All right.

Anyways, we’re gonna keep moving. Sorry, I can’t give you a better answer on that. Bryan says, “What is the backlog on GMB listings in MGYB purchases. I’m out about four weeks.” Bryan, you’d have to contact support. I don’t manage any of that stuff, I’m sorry. Just contact support or send us ticket to support@mgyb.co and we’ll get it answered for you. Okay?

Marco: I was just talking to Rob about this to make sure. We have to deal with whatever it is that Google decides. I mean, they were on the show, we don’t control them. So we can’t say it’s definitely this or definitely that, or we’ll have it in a day, in seven days or whatever. It takes however long it takes. Some of them are nearly impossible. I believe that Bryan has already contacted Support and gotten an answer.

Now my thing is if you go through Support and then you come here, it just slows the process because then I have to go reach back to support, ask what’s going on, track it down, and then they all go and track it down and try to see what’s going on when it has already been answered.

The only thing that I can add to this is, guys, we’re not in control of this. We’re trying to do what we can. Bryan, you’re welcome to request a refund. If it gets too long, you’re welcome to request a refund and try to find someone who stands behind the product like we do 60-day guarantee replacement. If it gets suspended within those 60 days, we offer a legitimate guarantee. Now how long it takes to get it for you, that’s another question altogether.

Bradley: What’s up, Daniel? Hey man, the question you asked two weeks ago on Mastermind that we didn’t get to because the training went so long, please repost that for tomorrow because the Mastermind webinar is tomorrow and I didn’t want to spend some time on that. It was about a GMB question you had. We’re gonna have time. I’m gonna be covering specific training tomorrow, but it will be a lot shorter because I just did the Mastermind newsletter entry specifically about that. So that we’re gonna do some video training on it tomorrow, but you guys will have the written process.

You guys know how I do my process stocks. Well, you’re gonna have the written processes, the newsletter entry that you’re gonna get in about two or three weeks, whenever you get the next newsletter. That means my training tomorrow, the video training, will be a bit more streamlined so I should be able to get to your question. All right. I apologize I didn’t get to that, man, and it’s been weighing on me for almost two weeks now.

Is It A Good Idea To Leverage A Popular Family Name Or Brand To Get Press And Media Attention?

Anyways, Quentin’s up. He says, “Hello my name is Quentin Ravenel. I’m a full-time musician based in Charleston, South Carolina. Arthur Ravenel Jr. is a staple here. We’ve named a bridge after him that gathers 25,000 people every year in April to run or walk on the Ravenel Bridge. Is there any way to use my last name as leverage?”

That’s a really good question. Yeah. I would think Press Releases would probably be a great way to kind of piggyback off of that name recognition because that’s essentially … It’s a brand, right? Ravenel is a brand, right? If you can use that … There’s a strategy called newsjacking. Look into that, Quentin. Look in the newsjacking. In fact, you could just do a Google search for newsjacking and find plenty of resources, Amazon books, whatever that can teach you the strategy of newsjacking that I think would be perfect for that, for what you’re saying here because you have the same last name-, excuse me, as a brand that’s well-known in that area. I would use that newsjacking strategy as a way to get some press and some media. It’s almost like click bait but in a proper way, in an ethical way.

Again, I don’t do a lot of that stuff, I just haven’t had the opportunity to, but I’m familiar with that strategy. That’s something that I think you could implement here.

Marco, do you have any suggestions for that?

Marco: Entity relationship, man. That’s what he’d have to do. Relate his name to the Ravenel Bridge name so that when it comes in the, what they call, the Google auto predict, autosuggest, so when people go looking for the Ravenel Bridge walk, or a Ravenel Bridge run, Ravenel Bridge weekend, all of that stuff, your name comes up in there too. I mean, we’ve done that, right? Social conditioning?

Bradley: Yeah, social engineering.

Marco: Yep.

Bradley: Newsjacking, go check it out. There’s tons of information about it. There’s the book, David Meerman Scott, I think is the pioneer of that or whatever, at least the most well-known, but you can find all kinds of information about this free and paid. Just spend some time researching that newsjacking because it’s something that I think you could implement and get some significant results that way. Okay. By the way, go to mgyb.co to purchase Press Releases and we’ll publish them for you, they’re really, really nicely done. Okay.

Gregg. What’s up, Greg? You and I got a Mastermind call tomorrow, Gregg. Looking forward to it. We got a lot to catch up on.

Urban Towing says, “Does SerpClix work well for traffic to RYS or is there something else you would recommend?” Again, I’m not familiar with SerpClix. If it’s another CT spambot or crowd search, click-through thing-

Marco: It is.

Bradley: -which I imagine it would be. Yeah, I would probably produce some results, I don’t know how much. But I would recommend finding some better methods where you can actually buy or get real targeted traffic from real people that may have a genuine interest in your potential product or service. Guys, paid traffic is a good way to do that kind of stuff.

Marco: I actually went to SerpClix and did the math. It’s 14 cents per click. We can beat that through your method, can’t we, Bradley?

Bradley: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Marco: And this is real people. Real people targeted, remember that. Activity, relevance, trust, authority, that’s what you’re after.

Bradley: Yeah. Guys, we did … for years, Dan Anton had a product called crowdsearch.me. It works like gangbusters for a long time. Click-through spam was an engagement signal … I call it click-through spam. But that’s when somebody does a search on Google for example, keyword search, it could be a brand search, which is called a navigational search.

Guys, you can go to our YouTube channel. You can just go to Google and search crowdsearch.me and you’re gonna find this Semantic Mastery webinars. I’ve done two of them because we did one webinar and I think two years later we did another webinar because it was still working so well. I explained in that webinar, and both of those webinars and great length what click-through spam is and why it works so well.

It was actually a method that I learned way back in 2011 from Ivan Budimir, who was my most influential mentor in the local marketing, digital marketing space. It was Ivan Budimir. He’s no longer in the space, but he was absolutely amazing. I learned so much from that guy. He actually introduced that method to me back in 2011 and showed the Google patent. It’s not the actual official name of the Google patent, but he always called it site weight.

Site weight. In other words, if all things being equal, if there were two sites that were identical, which we know is impossible, pretty much, but theoretically, if two sites were equally authoritative, like they had the same amount of on-page optimization, the same amount of off-page optimization but one site got navigational search queries, which now in the semantic web is incredibly important, what is a navigational search query?

That’s a brand search or a variation of a brand search, like brand plus keyword, or brand a plus phone, like for somebody looking for the phone number of a company, or brand plus location, or brand plus map so that people looking for how to get to that location or get to that company or that store or whatever the case may be. Those are called navigational queries. If all things being equal, there were two identical sites competing brands and one had navigational queries and the other did not, the navigational query site would outrank the other, one hands down, two to one every time. Every time and it was tested over and over and over again. That was because of the site weight algorithm, or filter, or whatever you call that shit. Again, I’m not the patent nerd like Marco. Marco, that’s a term of endearment, by the way.

He introduced that way back in 2011 and the strategy then was to hire microtask workers to set up these little gigs. You would pay microtask workers two or three cents or something like that to go do a particular search, preferably with the brand dimension. Then find the link that you told them to find, click through, and then you would tell them, “Go find copy and paste the third word of the seventh paragraph on that page into the answer box,” and the answer box was their proof that they did the task that you assigned.

The reason why you wouldn’t just tell him to go click the link and copy because you want them to dwell on the page. That dwell time counted as an engagement signal, right? They would land on the page and then they’d have a hunt for that specific word or phrase or whatever it was that you told them to do that would make the answer. That would be the answer that means they solved the task that you gave them to do. That would create the dwell time, potentially scroll, you might ask them to click through to another page, whatever the task might be, click through to the link, then click through to the contact page, and then leave a message or whatever the case may be. You could set it up multiple different ways, but those were engagement signals way back in 2011 guys and it moved the needle like almost overnight.

The problem was as soon as you would stop paying in microtasks workers within just a few days your rank positioning start falling again because it was all about those engagement signals. Guys, again, this was eight years ago. Well, now, we’ve just been talking on this webinar alone about how important engagement signals are. So engagement signals are weighted even more now than they were back then.

Now the engagement signals are weighted more because Google can track and knows its users and the users’ behavior and their history. That’s what I was talking about. If you can get engagement signals from people that are locally and/or topically relevant to the content that you’re having them engage with, then that’s going to be weighted so much more.

What I’m saying is, again on a local level, if you can get people from a local geographic area that have a history for having an interest in that topic or that product or service as well as being local, a handful of clicks from them can produce better results than dozens or hundreds of click from non-relevant and non-non topically and non-geographically relevant clicks. Does that make sense?

So the click-through spam, and that’s what I called it because we were literally spamming click-throughs, isn’t as effective as it is when you can get relevant audience to engage because Google understands its audience, guys. Google knows its audience because everybody’s connected to Google all the time, right? So it knows what their history is and what their interests are and where they’re located and all that kind of stuff.

So that’s what I’m getting at. As far as the click-through spam stuff, for a long time it was working really well. Dan Anton’s, I think the best bot that came out, which was crowdsearch.me and for I think three, four years, I mean, I used it heavily. I was getting 50,000 credits per month and I was using every bit of them. It worked like gangbusters. But over time, it slowly started to stop working as well. I know that service is still out there. There are potential uses for it but it’s not something that I would do to direct to money site anymore. There are better alternatives now in my opinion, which is what we we’ve been talking about. We did some training about that in the Mastermind a few weeks ago.

It was a good question though. I was worried we’re not gonna have enough to talk about today, man, and look, we’re almost up. It’s awesome. Let’s see. “Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.” That should actually be how stupid the median person is, right? It’s awesome. Thanks, Greg.

Okay. Grant says, “It might be easier to just close/delete designed junk email accounts ThAn unsubscribe endlessly.” Yeah. I know what you’re saying, Grant, but this is an email account that I’ve had for, God, 15 years, so it’s not something I wanna get rid of. But, yeah, I know what you mean.

By the way, I did all the heavy lifting. Now it’s just a daily maintenance thing. If I see an email come in, if that’s from something that was unsolicited, I open it, unsubscribe, and then as soon as the unsubscribe is successful, I go back and hit the spam button. Again, most days now guys, I might only get one or two spam emails. There are some days where I’ll get five or six or whatever, but almost every day now it’s just a bare minimum. So it’s manageable now. It just took a little bit of time.

Also, there’s a service called unroll.me. Guys, go check it out. Go to unroll.me, especially any of you suffering from shiny object syndrome. Type in your email and it’ll take a few minutes to run and it’ll come back and show you how many lists you’re subscribe to, and tell me it doesn’t take your breath away. It’s like, holy shit, how did I get subscribed … It’s just over the years, you accumulate, you get added to so many subscription lists either voluntarily or involuntarily, a combination of both really.

If you go to unroll.me, it’s amazing. It’ll just take your breath away when you see how many email lists you’re on, and you can start to systematically unsubscribe. Okay.

Chris: You’re the nightmare of every email marketer.

Bradley: Yeah. Well, now, I am, yeah. But trust me, a lot of email marketers made a lot of money from me too. All right. Let’s see, Walt says, “Not an affiliate link.” Okay. This is the quick, probably the quick … There you go, Grow Your Business With Cold Emails, Jeremy Chatelaine. That’s correct. He’s got an accent or whatever. It’s awesome, guys. Really short book. Look at that, it used to be cheaper, but 10 bucks, buy it, guys, it’s worth it. 100% worth it, buy it, and read it. It’s a great book for anybody’s doing prospecting. Guys, hands down, that has been the best strategy for me that I’ve ever found. Okay.

I’ll keep moving. Grow Your Business With Cold Emails: Everything You Need to Know. Go, perfect. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.

Daniel, awesome. “Guys, I’m not whining about the GMB question, and I do have faith in SM.” Bryan, I think he took offense to which you said, Marco. Just looking to start implementing building out the local strategy and certainly anxious to get moving.” I totally get it, Bryan. I totally get it.

Marco: Yeah, so do we. I didn’t expect or intend again to offend. I just come across that way. I was just explaining that it just takes time. We try to get as quickly as possible. We know all you guys were anxious, but there’s only so much we could do when the beast keeps changing shit around.

Bradley: Correct. Yeah. That’s one of the issues, guys. Again, we all have to keep changing our methods to get these things done verified and such. I don’t even know what they’re doing to do it. I don’t care. Bryan, I’m just like you. I placed my orders too. I’m not kidding. Guys, I placed my orders just like you do now. I do have a little bit of pull sometimes, most of my orders are in queue still now because they’re not critical. But sometimes, for clients, for example, that have requested maps expansion, then I pull some strings to get them pushed forward a little bit. So that’s one of the benefits I guess of the CEO.

But for the most part, guys, I’m in queue just like you guys. It’s not you guys aren’t waiting because I’m getting all mine done. Trust me. I’m waiting too. Awesome. Unroll.me, You’re welcome, Grant

All right, guys. We gotta wrap it up. “Marco, you didn’t drop an F-bomb on me so I was unsure about the love.” It was Bryan again.

Chris: It’s coming.

Bradley: Marco, you got to say fuck just to make everybody happy once.

Marco: Yeah. Let me just close this off with this: fuck Google.

Bradley: All right, there you go. ‘Nuff said. All right everybody. Thanks for being here. Mastermind webinar tomorrow, don’t forget. If you did not check out the Syndication Academy update webinar from last week, do it, guys. Super, super powerful stuff. I showed you how to use RSS feeds there with geo-tagging.

By the way, I’m doing a lot of testing with I have it … No, I must already closed it down. No, there it is, RankFeedr. I’ve got it open. I’m not gonna show my projects. But Lisa Allen’s RankFeedr, guys. I know the coupon has expired now. She actually extended it because of the Syndication Academy update webinar that I did last week. I talked about it in there. Although the method that I showed was how to use Feedburner feeds to create local geotag feeds and they’re super powerful too, not as powerful as the RankFeedr feeds though because RankFeedr you can splice together and create static or sticky items and you can add the geotag and not just a specific geo coordinate but you can add what’s called a geo box, which is like a service area business. Super powerful stuff, guys.

I’ve been testing really hard for the last week now with the RankFeedr stuff and I’m seeing good results. Again, I know the coupon that she gave is expired, but it’s still totally worth it. It’s super inexpensive guys for the elite subscription, which I think allows you to create eleven hundred RankFeedr feeds.

Guys, it’s a set and forget. You set up a RankFeedr feed one time and you let it go. It just runs for as long as you keep your subscription active and you don’t have to do anything else. It will help to create co-citation geographic and topical relevancy on autopilot, guys. I’m telling you and for the elite service the elite subscription level, which again I think is 1,100 feeds, it’s $47 a month. It’s a no-brainer.

So if you haven’t already picked it up, guys, go watch the Syndication Academy update webinar, and go pick up the RankFeedr subscription service, which is how you create those things. I’m only telling you guys, we don’t pimp other people’s products unless we truly believe in them and I’m endorsing this because it’s such a good product and you can go to our website SemanticMastery.com I think it’s RSS-authority-sniper-3 I think. You could find the webinar replay and go through that process, if you want to watch the webinar where she talks about it.

But honestly, you don’t even need to watch the webinar, just go pick up the damn service because it’s really powerful. All right. With that, we’re gonna close it out. See you all next week. Thanks everybody. Thanks, Marco. Thanks, Chris.

Marco: Bye everybody.

Nguồn chia sẻ:

Nguồn chia sẻ: https://ift.tt/2SJXUsl

[pledje]

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224

Click on the video above to watch Episode 224 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

  Announcement

Bradley: Okay. Now we’re live. This is screwing me up. Hey everybody! This is Bradley Benner with Semantic Mastery. This is Hump Day Hangouts Episode 224. It is February 20th, 2019. I’m sorry I don’t have my camera today. For some reason Google Hangouts decided it did not wanna recognize my camera at the last minute. You guys would probably appreciate the fact you don’t have to look at my face. I’ve only got two people on with me today because Adam and Hernan are out at the Funnel Hacking Live event. They’re out having fun while we’re hard at work.

Let me say hi to Chris. What’s up, Chris? How are you?

Chris: Doing good. Great to be here.

Bradley: Marco.

Marco: I made it, man. I’m here.

Bradley: Good. I don’t really have any announcements specifically, except that we’ve got a Mastermind webinar tomorrow, for those of you that are in the Mastermind. We’re gonna be covering several things that I’ve been tracking for the last few weeks now as far as doing some off-page tests for ranking GMBs, doing a whole bunch of different types of off-page tests and isolation.

In fact, let me se, for one moment, I’ve got pause the screen for a minute. Marco, do you have any announcements while I do that?

Marco: No. But I’m so glad you’re gonna talk about this because my write-up for the Mastermind, which I’m finishing up today by the way, is about that, testing, whether it’s single variable testing or whether it’s testing in isolation, or what it actually is that you’re trying to do.

What you’re trying to do is gauge whether there’s an effect. You’re not trying to show that something doesn’t work. It’s crazy going in and trying to test that something doesn’t work. The test should be, what does it do? You should get the data. The data should speak for what the tests. You’re testing a variable, but does the variable move the needle? No, it doesn’t. Okay, onto the next thing, which is what you’re doing, you’re testing all of these different variables and you’re isolating so that you can do whatever it is that you’re doing to each one.

I’m really glad that you’re talking about this. I’m gonna go a little bit more in-depth in the Mastermind newsletter about testing and how people are being misled by so-called, all of these are expert testers that don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. So I’ll just leave it at that.

Bradley: Yeah. I’ve been tracking, well, about a month ago was. It was around January 21st when I started setting these tests up. I’m testing every one of these methods and isolation. In other words, they’re GMB or Google My Business profiles that had the initial on-page stuff done and what my standard operating procedure is for optimizing a new profile, and then from there, all I’m doing is specifically one of these methods.

I’m testing across multiple properties per methods so that I can see if we get positive results or negative results or no results on any one method, I want to see if that occurs across more than one property for the same type of method. Because if we get positive results on two properties, if I’m only doing two tests or testing on two locations per method and they’re both positive, then that’s a really good indication that that’s a viable method or something that moves the needle.

Like he says, that’s actually funny you said that because that’s the title or the subtitle of the actual test that I’m doing Which Method Moves the Needle the Most? These different tests that I’m doing, and like I said, if a positive result occurs on two properties, two separate locations, then I know that it’s a good method to use and that it will continue … It will be duplicatable, in other words.

I will obviously set it up and see if I can repeat it again across other properties. If I get two no changes, or two negative changes, then it’s probably the case also. But if we get one that’s positive and one it’s neutral, or one that’s positive, one is negative, then it’s obviously gonna have to require further investigation.

So that’s essentially what I’m doing. I’ve tried several these things and I’ve got some really super good results back with one of these methods in particular. I’m not gonna tell which one here, guys, you got to join a Mastermind for that. But I’m gonna be covering it tomorrow because I’ve got really, really good results from one method in particular. It’s actually one of the easiest methods and that’s what I love about. I’m pleasantly surprised. Actually, I was not surprised that the method works because of what I know about that method, but I’m glad that it’s one of the easier methods for any one of us to achieve, or to implement, I should say.

Again, I’m gonna be covering that in the Mastermind webinar tomorrow as well as I’m also gonna be covering some questions about PR stacking from some of our members. I’m also gonna be talking about setting up display ads for remarketing using the Google Display Network because it’s a much, much easier process now and it’s very, very effective.

So that’s what I’ve got to tease with for tomorrow. It looks like we don’t have that many questions. But I’m gonna get right into it.

Chris: I got a question, man.

Bradley: Go ahead.

Chris: I scrolled through my Facebook feed today, people are literally scared of GMB and Google all of a sudden. You just were talking about, yeah, which method is the most potent or the biggest needle move of them. Anybody, you wanna share your insights on that, Marco or Bradley?

Bradley: I’ll start. Yeah. Armageddon is coming, right? The sky is always falling, Chicken Little type stuff. By the way, that screenshot that you’re looking at there, guys, that’s the tease for tomorrow’s webinar in Mastermind because those are the movements that I’ve seen occur just in the last few days from that one particular method I’m gonna be covering.

Anyways, Marco and I, well, we’ve been around long enough to know that shit changes all the time. It’s SEO. For the last several months we’ve been pushing really hard on GMB stuff because it’s been working so well and I’ve been saying all along it at some point Google’s gonna shut it down. I don’t necessarily think that existing properties are gonna be taken down. What I think is gonna happen, and this is just my assumption, guys, my educated opinion about this or my educated guess, prediction I should say, is that it’s gonna become damn near impossible to register new GMB profiles. I think that’s how it’s gonna be shut down.

That’s why I’ve been pushing for people to build, build, build for the last several months, and to build your ass off and to build a team for scaling your build processes so that you can secure as many location as possible prior to what I think is going to happen, which is going to be damn near impossible to register new businesses.

I don’t know exactly what they’re gonna do to shut it down, but it’s likely going to be something like having to take photographs at a storefront or at the business location. It could also be requiring … Again, guys, just speculation, but it could also require you to send corporate documents in or something that shows proof of address with the business name on it, so like a utility bill or something. I know because I’ve actually had to call Google Support before to get help moving a legit business for a client of mine to get the Maps listing updated. That was one of the things required, was a bank statement, the account details and everything could be blurred, but it had to show the company name and the mailing address and all that.

Those are things that I assume or that I predict are going to happen. But we always find workarounds and we always find ways to continue to make money. That’s really the name of the game, guys. Don’t freak out. Don’t go into panic mode. Relax. Know that you’re gonna have other options. We’re gonna figure them out eventually and other people will figure them out as well, and you can too. But it’s about keeping your head cool and realizing that this is a cat-and-mouse game that we play and that’s the business that we’re in.

Marco, what are your thoughts?

Marco: I get a little bit more basic, man. Yeah, I don’t care. Why? I say basic because there’s basic web principles. The foundational stuff that we teach is based on web principles, right? We’re in the semantic web. We all know that, right? We talked about ART, activity, relevance, trust and authority, and how to generate all that. But there’s foundation of principles. You can only code one way. If you write spaghetti code, you’re writing garbage that nobody’s ever going to be able to tell what it is if someone needs to come and take over. So there’s international standards that are set.

There are basic principles where the guidelines are not set by Google. Google’s Terms of Service and Google’s guidelines are determined by Google, but coding standards are set by other people. In order for Google to mess with that, Google has to go and push at a higher level where there’s a bunch of other people pushing back. I’ve been talking about this since Semantic Mastery began. Google is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Correct, but there’s others on the web. Google can’t just go and do whatever the fuck they want to do. There’s some stuff that they just can’t touch.

While that goes on we’ll just keep going and getting the results that we get. That’s what you saw. The test that you’re shown, which is beautiful because it’s based on basic foundational principles, that’s what we work from. Now all of these other stuff, yes, they’re hacks, guys. We manipulate. That’s our job. We’re in this to make money. We’re not here to make people happy. We’re not here to make Google happy. I’m in this to make money. I don’t care. They can’t tell me that it’s wrong to do what I’m doing, well then, Google should go and change their whole scheme for making money online because it’s all based on lies and it’s all based on moving people into their funnel and keeping them there as long as possible; they don’t care how they do it, they just want to do it. Well, that’s fine. That’s their business model. I have mine.

Just to get back to this, basic principles, they still work. Why? Because everyone has to adhere to the same standards no matter what. That’s my rant for today – well, hopefully.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree with that. Let’s get into questions, guys. Not a whole lot of questions and I’m surprised. Maybe it’s this new platform that’s scaring people off, the discus platform. All right.

Chris: The sky is always falling.

Bradley: What’s that?

Chris: The sky is always falling. Some people say it’s …

Bradley: Chicken Little, yeah. Okay. Ben’s up. He says, “Hey Bradley, thanks for our call last Thursday.” Okay. Ben’s one of our Mastermind members and I’d been doing Mastermind calls. I opened up an opportunity for our Mastermind members to schedule a 30-minute call with me. It started the first week in January and this is the seventh week that I’ve been doing those calls. Next week, I’ll wrap it up and then it’ll be closed down until June. In June, I’m gonna open it back up again.

I encourage our Mastermind members that even scheduled to call with me in this first round to call schedule a second call with me in June because in six months you will have hopefully overcome some of the issues that we discussed on our call, and hopefully you have a new set of issues. I really want to continue to find out what’s going on with our members. It’s been super insightful for me to learn more about what’s going …

Well, first, to get to know our members on a more personal level. It’s been great. It really has been. I’ve really enjoyed the calls. Number two, it’s given us a lot of insight as to what’s going on, and in our Mastermind, which is our top level program, what’s going on in our members’ businesses, so that we can develop better tools and resources and training to help them overcome their obstacles. It really has been beneficial to me as well as, hopefully, to others.

Is Local GMB Pro Included In The MasterMind?

That’s what Ben is referring to here. He says, “Thanks for our call last Thursday. It was good to talk to you and I got a lot out of it.” Well, thank you, man. I appreciate that. He says, “A couple of questions. Number one, is Local GMB Pro included in the Mastermind? Not that I need it. Local Lease Pro is looking pretty comprehensive as I go through it. I’m just curious as it doesn’t recognize my username.”

Yeah, I know. We had Rob Beale collaborate on that with us and so there is an additional charge for that. But as a Mastermind member you get it at a silly ridiculous discount from what the advertised price is, if you look at the sales page publicly. Just contact Support when you’re ready for that, Ben. But since I did talk with you, trust me, you’re not ready for that yet. Go through Local Lease Pro, start implementing those strategies, provided that they’re still going to work, depending on what happens with the GMB stuff going forward.

As it stands right now, it’s still working just fine. But just keep in mind that you should be implementing that right now and then the Local GMB Pro training would really be more about assets that need the additional push, or if you’re in super competitive areas, that’s where you’re going to want to implement Local GMB Pro. But again, that’s not something that I would recommend you start with right now, you’re gonna be overwhelmed. I know you and I talked about that. Do not overwhelm yourself with too much training. I’d rather you take action and Local Lease Pro is set up with actionable data, actionable information for you to go out and implement immediately to start building, and that’s the most important thing. Okay.

Good question. But, yeah, as a Mastermind member, you’ll get a significant discount on that when you’re ready. But I can tell you right now you’re not ready for that. Okay.

How Do You Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome?

Number two, he says, “You said you were a former shiny object syndrome sufferer.” Yes, I was. That’s absolutely true. I think most of us in this industry or in this space are or have suffered from that, and maybe still do at this point. As SOS is so clearly at the root of my lack of progress to this point, I was wondering what it was that helped you turn the corner. You are clearly totally recovered and in control today.”

Yeah. You know what it was, honestly, it was kind of a perfect storm in that I was trying to do too many things and trying to not only teach on too many different topics as far as digital marketing, but I was trying to do too many things for my agency and provide too many services. What happens is I became overwhelmed with chasing different methods and trying to implement every method that I could learn about. So every time I saw a marketing email come through, and you guys know, I’m sure you are all on a million email list too, I would get the same type of emails, you guys would about new methods, about new tools and processes and things like that and I would get sucked in. The grass is always greener, right? I would see the opportunity that I thought, as an entrepreneur, I would see opportunity and I’m want to go after it, I want to chase it.

But what happened was over time things started to accumulate and accrue to the point where I had 15 projects going on and none of them were really progressing because I was spread too thin across too much. We, as a corporation, Semantic Mastery kind of suffered that for a period of time too and in part, I’m the face of the company, I should say, not to discredit my partners or anything, but in part because I was doing that in my own business as well. So we were kind of going that way with Semantic Mastery, trying to be too many things to too many people.

Really what happened was, and fortunately, my partner Adam, he’s not here today, but he introduced us to a book by Gino Wickman, I think it is, called Traction. It’s a program for really zeroing in on a singular focus and purpose for a company, for any organization. We’ve been working through that now, guys. What are we, over a year now into that, Traction? Are we on our fifth quarter now? Somebody would comment on that?

Marco: Yeah. I can’t remember exactly what quarter we’re on.

Bradley: I think we’re on our fifth quarter now. Anyways, we do everything now. It’s kind of a combination of various methods, but the 12-week year is one of the books that we provide to our Mastermind members when they come join. Another one is That One Thing. That’s another book that where it teaches you how to really focus in on one thing to get results and find out what is the most important thing, the one thing that I can do such that everything else becomes irrelevant or less important or irrelevant, or something like that. It’s a great book. Then there’s the 12-week year, which is about taking 12-month goals and boiling them down into 12 weeks, which is a 90-day period. What we call them 12-week Sprints. It’s a quarter every year.

We started implementing these strategies and then traction really kind of started giving us the organizational structure as a corporation to start developing our goals, figuring out what our primary focus was going to be, zeroing in on that, and then building out our processes and systems to achieve those goals. Like I said. I think we’re on our fifth quarter of that process now. That’s why over the last probably six months or so, you guys have been following us and probably noticed we’ve really shifted to just local marketing stuff. Not that we don’t still talk about and teach and share and present information in the Mastermind about all types of marketing, but our primary push is local.

That’s because I needed to do that in my own business in order for me to get better results for my clients to increase my own income and to get some of my time and my sanity back because I was just all over the place and it was overwhelming and, honestly, it was exhausting. Also, as you guys know, shit’s changing all the time in the digital marketing space, so having to stay on the cutting edge of everything is incredibly difficult.

So I really wanted to shift my focus into something that I preferred, which was local marketing. I also feel that that’s one of the quickest ways to earn revenue, is local marketing. So I kind of shifted to that. We took several surveys of you guys, our members, to find out that that’s what the vast majority of our audience was doing, was local marketing or lead generation, that kind of stuff. So we really shifted all of our focus to that.

Again, Ben, to answer your question, how I got over it was kind of a combination of recognizing the fact that I was really spinning my wheels and not making any progress in a lot of different areas because I was going after too many things, my attention was spread too thin, and then also, again, when the student is ready the teacher appears.

Adam kind of presented us or brought to our attention like this, Gino Wickman’s Traction program and they call the EOS, I guess the employee operating system, and all this stuff. Just get the book, guys, it’s inexpensive, and go through it. It’s a lot of work. We’ve been at it for five months now-, or excuse me, five quarters now, I think five quarters, and it’s a lot of work. But it’s totally worth it because we’re seeing the benefits and the fruits of the work that we’re putting in.

So a combination of those two things for me really kind of got me to stop … Guys, I’m not kidding, I’ve unsubscribed from just about every single email list. I got one specific email that I would always sign up for stuff and now, because over the years I’ve subscribed to so many lists, I’ve unsubscribed from just about everything. But yeah, I still get emails for internet marketing products and stuff all the time, from stuff that I’ve never even subscribed from. You guys know how that goes, people sell lists and your name gets passed, your email gets passed around from one list to another, whether you subscribed or not.

I’m not gonna lie, every single day now when I get a marketing email unless it’s from somebody that I want to be on their list, I go find the unsubscribe button. as soon as I open an email, hit the unsubscribe button, and then I come back and hit the spam button. I do it every fucking day every single day. Some days I might only get one email now, other days I might get five or six spam type marketing emails. But I do the same thing. I open them up, I don’t even read them, I just go right find an Unsubscribe button, click Unsubscribe, and then I come back it’s hit the Spam button. What it’s done is it’s really reduced the amount of junk that I see on a daily basis.

I was telling this to Ben when we had our call, our Mastermind call, it’s like being an alcoholic and going to a bar. Right? When you open your email account, if you know you have shiny object syndrome and you’re not getting any traction in any one area of your business because you keep chasing opportunity, stop, stop going in your email box and reading these emails, guys. Stop. It’s like get yourself out of the bar if you’re a recovering alcoholic, right? It’s the same principle. You need to avoid the shit that’s detracting from you being able to get make progress in your business.

So for me, it was just eliminating the marketing messages. I’m a marketer so I’m susceptible to marketing messages, right? For me, it was just avoiding them. Out of sight, out of mind. Putting blinders on. Putting my nose down. Working through what I knew I needed to do and that was local marketing. Right now it’s about building a lead gen business and developing processes but I’m not doing all the work and then teaching our members about what I’m doing and how we’re doing it. So that’s what’s worked for me.

Any of you guys have comments on that?

Chris: Yeah. You probably should read the latest Mastermind issue, for February, because what I wrote about was pretty much what you’ve just talked about, but in steroids. It’s like if you’re struggling with that there’s something really, really valuable in there for this month.

Bradley: It’s awesome.

Chris: Not to reveal everything, so from Masterminding members, you can be looking forward to some really sweet stuff. I recommend you check it out as well, Bradley.

Bradley: I sure will. Marco?

Marco: Well, the way that I stopped is I realized that we’re producing better shit than most people out there. So I focus on our own things and I know that you focus, we, the Mastermind’s focus is local. But I’m still in the lab looking at manipulation methods for national, global, just whatever, because that’s just how my mind works. I can’t just do the local thing and be happy. I have to be able to see where all of the algorithms are going, where Google is going, where it’s taking us and why, and then try to intercept at the right time, which is kind of like how RYS Academy was born, then RYS Reloaded, Local GMB Pro, as a matter of fact, came through because of that. It was just looking to see where Google was going and why. So I’m constantly after that, where is Google going, why?

As long as I’m on that, I don’t care about somebody else’s shit because I’m too busy with my own shit. That’s how I was able to overcome. We’ve all been there. If you’ve been online for any length of time, it could be a week, you bought something. Yeah. That’s just the way it is.

Are Both G+ Personal And Business Profiles Be Shut Down By Google?

Bradley: Yeah. That’s a great question, Ben. I really appreciated that question. Hopefully, that was helpful. Ken. What’s up, Ken? He says, “Are both G Plus personal and business profiles going away or is it just personal?” I believe it’s all Google Plus. I think the only Google Plus that’s going to remain, and I could be wrong about this guys, but I’m pretty sure that they’re all being killed off unless you’re what they call Google Plus Enterprise, which is only for like, it’s like internal Google Plus for large organizations. I don’t even know anything about it. I just read somewhere about it.

So as far as I know, Google Plus is being completely killed. I think in April it’s gonna be down completely. You won’t be able to access even your old stuff. I got notifications, dozens and dozens of notifications about it where they say if you got any photos in Google Plus, the notifications, you got to download the photos and all that kind of stuff because in April they’re gone. That’s it. They’re extinct. Whatever. Good riddance. No big deal. Move on.

Which, by the way, guys, we covered the Google Plus … Oh, yeah, guys, if you’re in the Syndication Academy and you didn’t watch the update webinar from last week, go back and watch it. I mean, literally, as soon as Hump Day Hangouts is over, go watch it because it’s super, super powerful what I was talking about, because one of the things I was covering was Google Plus being shut down. We had a lot of people comment and question about, “What’s going to happen? Because Google Plus is down and that’s one of our main social hubs.” Yeah. So what? We find others.

I shared exactly what I’m using now, which is so much more effective anyways, and it’s really, really powerful. If you’re in Syndication Academy, guys, go watch the update webinar that was just recorded last week. It’s in the archives area, the updates area along with all the notes and everything in there. Super powerful and it’s easy to do. Okay. AlL right. I’m gonna keep on moving.

What Photo Selection In GMB Is It That Dictates Which Image Is Displayed In Google Maps?

Jay says, what’s up, Jay? “Inside the GMB, what photo selection option is it that the dictates which image is displayed in Google Maps? I’ve tried several options there but it won’t change.” Yeah. I’ve had that issue in the past too, Jay. I don’t know, maybe Marco has an answer. I’ve tried in some cases to get an image to change too and not been able to get it to change. I just don’t even care at this point. I know some clients do, but it’s not been a major issue for me so I haven’t dug into it that much.

Marco, do you have an idea as to what you can do to get Google to display what you want?

Marco: No. I don’t have an answer for that. It sometimes displays the latest one, it sometimes displays what it wants to, I don’t know. If you have GMB that is legit, that is tied to a company or whatever, you might wanna get in touch with a Google rep and see if they can help you out. If you act really ignorant, if you act really stupid, like you don’t know what’s going on, they’ll really help you out. They’ll go out of their way to help you out. I found that the more ignorant you act and the more that they … “I don’t know …” “Oh, you mean like Chrome?” I mean they go that deep into … Just totally being blissfully ignorant about everything online.

Because you’re a business owner who doesn’t have time for all of this. The only people who have time for this are marketers who are in there trying to manipulate every day, who are the first ones that find out what doesn’t work and what does. So you wanna try to avoid being that know-it-all marketer because if you do that you’re gonna get nuked, your IP is gonna get tagged, and you’re in for a lot of trouble.

Bradley: Yeah, I agree. If it’s a legit business, man, just contact the Google My Business Support. Again, if it’s legit verifiable business, guys, I don’t have any problem contacting Support anymore. I found them to be quite helpful when needed. Again, don’t be afraid to do that. I remember years ago it was damn near impossible to get support help from Google and it was only via email and it would be sometimes days or even weeks before they would reply and it was just a bitch. But now it’s a lot easier to get in touch with Google Support. Again, if it’s for legit business, don’t be afraid of trying.

What Are Your Most Successful Tactics In Getting Client Response From Cold Emails?

Okay. Jeff says, a minute, I still got to get used to this platform, guys. Jeff says, what’s up, Jeff? He says, “Two questions. What is the record for most F-bombs dropped by Marco in one rant?” Well, apparently, Ken’s been counting, he says 87.

Chris: Did you see the RYS Academy sales video, the webinar, the very first one? I bet it goes higher.

Marco: Guys, listen, I don’t do it purposely. It’s just when I get excited I get really animated and it just flows. Please excuse me, I don’t mean to offend. Well, I have meant to offend people in the past, let me change that. You guys, in general, I don’t intend to offend you. If you are, please excuse me. Please understand that that’s just … My partners know that that’s me because they have to deal with me on a daily basis, so they know. They know Marco.

So you guys, just please excuse me. Next time if you come to my webinars or whatever, please put the kids away and you might not want the wife, girlfriend, boyfriend or whatever around while you’re listening to me talk.

Bradley: Yeah. I remember we had a Mastermind webinar about three years ago, maybe three and a half years ago, and Marco and I, we’re a little loose with our lips as far as some of the things we were saying. One of the members posted like “I’ve got kids in the room.” It was so funny because immediately after that I put a parental guidance suggested explicit language, image, or whatever, graphic on the bottom of the header image for the page that we were hosting the webinars on. In that point forward, we always kept it to be like, hey, keep your kids out. It’s not safe for work-type stuff. I think it was really funny. I think Carolyn was her name.

Anyway, so to carry on with the real stuff here, guys. Jeff says, “I know you mentioned this previously, but I couldn’t find it when researching out-, or excuse me when reaching out to business owners. In an effort to sell them the leads we were generating, what has been your more successful tactics for getting them to respond? This is primarily a cold email question.” Jeff, that’s a great question. That’s something we’re going to be covering a lot in depth in actually going through real live tests in case studies and such for monetizing GMB assets. We’re gonna be doing a lot of outreach stuff in the Mastermind coming up over the next several weeks. In fact, that was supposed to be started this week. I’m a little bit delayed, but I’m gonna be working on that a lot next week. I’ve got several assets that I need to start doing outreach for too.

But to answer your question, what I found and I spent a lot of time last year, in 2018, doing prospecting and trying to do sales for traditional agency services. I got really good at prospecting, getting the conversation started. As far as sales, I failed miserably. I think we spent like $18,000 between our salesperson and our VA staff which was handling the cold email outreach and all that stuff. I think we made like $6,000 in sales. It was ridiculous. That in part is just because I think that the local business market is so saturated with solicitation calls from marketing and advertising agency.

So long story short, that’s part of the reason we shifted back to the lead generation model because it changes the dynamic entirely, and I know that’s what you’re asking about. But when it came to prospecting, I found the easiest thing to do is, are quick question type emails.

There’s a great book by the guy that the developer of quickmail.io. If you go to quickmail.io, it’s a service that you can subscribe to, it’s like an email tracking service and all that. I personally like gmass.co better as an email marketing platform, but I started out with using quickmail.io. There’s a book by the developer. It’s a real short book. You can get it on Amazon, Kindle. I think you can get in paperback too, but I got it on Kindle. It’s a real short book, it’s only like 30-some pages I think, really inexpensive. I think it might only be $1 or $2.99 or something like that.

Go get it. Go to quickmail.io and probably click through some of the links and you’ll find the guy’s name, the developer’s name, and then you can find the book on Amazon. Pick that book up. Guys, I tested last year multiple types of cold email outreach methods for prospecting. Out of everything that I tested, and I tested David Sprague stuff, David Sprague’s got some really good tools, guys, there’s no question, but as far as his cold email outreach programs and stuff, I just had miserable success and we gave it full on effort.

I mean, for months, not just his program but all different types of outreach methods. What I found that produced the most success, especially dealing with contractors, was the quick question type emails. That strategy is outlaid perfectly in that short little book by the developer quickmail.io. His name is Jeremy something, I think. Anyways, just go pick it up, read through that book, and then start testing. That’s what I did and it worked really, really, really well.

We’re actually gonna be testing in the Mastermind. I’m gonna be using a combination of the more mass email approach, which is what I was talking about with the quick question type emails, which all you’re trying to do is solicit a response, a reply, that’s it. No, you’re not asking them to click through any links, you’re not getting diarrhea of the mouth and dumping a whole bunch of information and doing an email. You just ask them a simple question that’s kind of disguised like a lead for them. It’s a little bit misleading, but not so, because you’re gonna present them with an opportunity.

Again, it’s not unethical. Like I said, it’s just a way to ask questions. For example, maybe if I got a tree service site or assets that I need to monetize, I might contact 10 or 15 different … When I was doing the mass prospect, I would contact 50, 60 tree service contractors with these quick question type emails. Now I’m going to be doing a hybrid model that it incorporates the video email process, which is, we have a training program that I developed that I’ve used for years to get results for prospecting and sales and that’s called the video lead gen system.

It’s how to use video emails to get people’s attention. It’s a bit time-consuming because you got to record videos that are personalized to each person you reach out to. I’m trying to templatize that now to where it’s going to be a lot easier and more efficient and have a team that does the video editing and all that kind of stuff so that we can turn it into more of a process. Like an assembly line to where we can do 10 or 15 videos in a short period of time and then targeted emails out.

But I’m still going to be using those quick question type emails where I might say like, “Quick question, are you guys accepting or are you guys providing estimates for tree removal right now?” When they reply yes, that’s the conversation starter. “Okay, great. Would you mind if I sent you a video explaining what it is that I’ve got?” Then if they reply yes again, now you they’ve given you permission to send them a video. Then you send them the damn video, which is a personalized video explaining what you got.

“Hey, look, I got these leads coming in right now.” You don’t show your assets, guys. You show call volume or you show the fact that you’re generating leads. Show proof. Say, “Look, I really need somebody who can take these leads. If you’re interested, let me know I’ll send a few of them to you for the next week, or I’ll send you five leads or 10 leads or whatever, whatever your business model is good for. You say to them, “I’ll send you five leads for free,” and then, “I’ll follow up with you after that to find out if you’re if you like them. If they were good genuine valid leads that you’d like to continue that service, we can talk then,” stuff like that. Just real simple little questions, guys.

I’ve tested all kinds of processes and what I found was those quick questions where you don’t drop a link in it, you don’t ask them to click, you don’t ask them to go to a landing page and fill out a survey, or watch a video on the first email, none of that, you just ask them to reply. That’s a conversation starter. That starts the dialogue. Once the dialogue starts, then you ask permission to send them a link for them to click, which is just a video essentially. You say, “Can I send you a video to explain what I’ve got?” If they say yes, now they’re giving you permission.

Then you send them the video link, and then they’ll click on it, and now watch the video. Then sometimes they will reply, sometimes they won’t. But that’s really the whole point. Again, video lead-gen system was the course that we did on how to use video email. Then I’m going to be kind of mixing that with the more … I’m trying to templatize that and make it towards a process to where it’s not so time-consuming to do those emails, although they’re very, very effective. Okay?

Again, this is stuff that in the Mastermind, guys, were gonna be covering over the next several weeks. Okay. Those were great questions, Jeff.

Does anybody else have-

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second.

Bradley: I’m sorry?

Chris: I’ll post a link to the book in a second. I already got it.

What Are Your Thoughts On WebFire 3.0 Tool?

Bradley: Okay. Cool. Yeah, it’s a great little book. All right, moving on. Martin says, “Have you any experience with the WebFire 3.0 tool?” No, Martin. When you said that, I clicked on it and I looked, I don’t, so I can’t really comment on that. I don’t have time to look through it right now. Perhaps, if you remind me, next week I will take a look at that before. I might look through that thing when we’re off this webinar today.

Marco: Hey Bradley, those are all like, those are click … Well, what do you call that, the auto traffic-

Bradley: It’s like a click-through spambot?

Marco: Yeah. Tons of websites like that.

Bradley: Okay.

Marco: The problem that I’m seeing, and by the way, they’re working. Some are working better than others. I’m not gonna say which one because then everyone will run there and ruin it for me. I don’t want you guys messing with my money. At any rate, they are working, go and test them out. But interestingly enough, what I found works the best is … You did a course on it, it’s only available in the Mastermind.

Bradley: Yeah.

Marco: The way that you teach it becomes actually cheaper than most of these click-through spams or spam traffic networks, which is really interesting because you’re targeting real people to come and visit your stuff. These real people have a genuine interest in whatever it is that you’re doing right and they’re going to ask way-, they’re going to act, excuse me, way differently than the people that have to click on your link. Does that make sense? They pay for it. Well, you paid for it, they go, they click, then they get credit. It just becomes crazy because they’re not really interested in your stuff, they’re only interested in theirs.

Now since we’re targeting real people with the real interest, through Bradley’s training, it becomes that much better. Guys, activity, relevance, trust and authority. We’re in trusted and authoritative to the max because were inside Google.

Bradley: That’s right.

Marco: Relevance because we’re targeting whatever it is that we’re targeting. I’m not gonna say anything because it’s something that’s right now only available in the Mastermind. Then, activity on that link. It’s relevant activity. People clicking on that link going and acting the way that real people do. Some might not like it and bounce back, many will. But that’s what real people do and that’s what we’re after.

Bradley: Yeah. I’m not gonna reveal the method here either, but exactly what Marco was saying, because that is real genuine traffic that Google knows has an interest in what you’re sending them to. So guys, when you’re talking about activity and engagement, which is one of the primary ranking signals now, is engagement, it’s not just blind engagement.

Again, if you are trying to rank something locally and you’re getting clicks from China and Russia and Korea and UK, and I’m talking about in the US, I’m just using this as an example, guys. But if you’re getting a bunch of clicks from things that are non-relevant either geographically especially for local stuff or non-topically relevant, in other words it’s just kind of like random traffic coming, do you think Google counts that traffic as an engagement signal, the same type, and gives it the same amount of weight as somebody that is in the local area that’s clicking from a local IP, likely from a mobile device that is intimately connected to them at all times, that they have a history of being interested in that particular type of content or service or product? Think about that guys, which click, which engagement signal is gonna be given more weight by Google? You already know the answer to that.

It’s not that these kind of tools and stuff can’t produce some nominal results, they can, but if you wanna get really good results and do it within terms of service, there are alternative ways to do it and it’s super, super effective. I mean, super effective. So it’s absolutely true.

Marco: I just want to be clear, Fiverr geeks, Fiverr traffic geeks, they get some results. These types of websites, the spam traffic, they get some results. But when you compare them all and compare them to the course that we have, it’s night and day. it’s just totally different because it’s just targeted traffic, people that are targeted to the geolocation so that they interact with whatever it is that you’re doing at that level, if that’s necessary. If not, then you can adjust to whatever it is that you’re doing and get traffic for pennies on the dollar, guys. That’s what it’s all about.

Bradley: Yeah. Again, topical relevance and geographic relevance, and you can combine both and get super, super good results. It doesn’t take a lot of traffic to get good results when you have heavily weighted engagement signals, which is what that is. It only takes a few engagements to get significant results when you have a really targeted audience that Google knows about. All right.

Anyways, we’re gonna keep moving. Sorry, I can’t give you a better answer on that. Bryan says, “What is the backlog on GMB listings in MGYB purchases. I’m out about four weeks.” Bryan, you’d have to contact support. I don’t manage any of that stuff, I’m sorry. Just contact support or send us ticket to support@mgyb.co and we’ll get it answered for you. Okay?

Marco: I was just talking to Rob about this to make sure. We have to deal with whatever it is that Google decides. I mean, they were on the show, we don’t control them. So we can’t say it’s definitely this or definitely that, or we’ll have it in a day, in seven days or whatever. It takes however long it takes. Some of them are nearly impossible. I believe that Bryan has already contacted Support and gotten an answer.

Now my thing is if you go through Support and then you come here, it just slows the process because then I have to go reach back to support, ask what’s going on, track it down, and then they all go and track it down and try to see what’s going on when it has already been answered.

The only thing that I can add to this is, guys, we’re not in control of this. We’re trying to do what we can. Bryan, you’re welcome to request a refund. If it gets too long, you’re welcome to request a refund and try to find someone who stands behind the product like we do 60-day guarantee replacement. If it gets suspended within those 60 days, we offer a legitimate guarantee. Now how long it takes to get it for you, that’s another question altogether.

Bradley: What’s up, Daniel? Hey man, the question you asked two weeks ago on Mastermind that we didn’t get to because the training went so long, please repost that for tomorrow because the Mastermind webinar is tomorrow and I didn’t want to spend some time on that. It was about a GMB question you had. We’re gonna have time. I’m gonna be covering specific training tomorrow, but it will be a lot shorter because I just did the Mastermind newsletter entry specifically about that. So that we’re gonna do some video training on it tomorrow, but you guys will have the written process.

You guys know how I do my process stocks. Well, you’re gonna have the written processes, the newsletter entry that you’re gonna get in about two or three weeks, whenever you get the next newsletter. That means my training tomorrow, the video training, will be a bit more streamlined so I should be able to get to your question. All right. I apologize I didn’t get to that, man, and it’s been weighing on me for almost two weeks now.

Is It A Good Idea To Leverage A Popular Family Name Or Brand To Get Press And Media Attention?

Anyways, Quentin’s up. He says, “Hello my name is Quentin Ravenel. I’m a full-time musician based in Charleston, South Carolina. Arthur Ravenel Jr. is a staple here. We’ve named a bridge after him that gathers 25,000 people every year in April to run or walk on the Ravenel Bridge. Is there any way to use my last name as leverage?”

That’s a really good question. Yeah. I would think Press Releases would probably be a great way to kind of piggyback off of that name recognition because that’s essentially … It’s a brand, right? Ravenel is a brand, right? If you can use that … There’s a strategy called newsjacking. Look into that, Quentin. Look in the newsjacking. In fact, you could just do a Google search for newsjacking and find plenty of resources, Amazon books, whatever that can teach you the strategy of newsjacking that I think would be perfect for that, for what you’re saying here because you have the same last name-, excuse me, as a brand that’s well-known in that area. I would use that newsjacking strategy as a way to get some press and some media. It’s almost like click bait but in a proper way, in an ethical way.

Again, I don’t do a lot of that stuff, I just haven’t had the opportunity to, but I’m familiar with that strategy. That’s something that I think you could implement here.

Marco, do you have any suggestions for that?

Marco: Entity relationship, man. That’s what he’d have to do. Relate his name to the Ravenel Bridge name so that when it comes in the, what they call, the Google auto predict, autosuggest, so when people go looking for the Ravenel Bridge walk, or a Ravenel Bridge run, Ravenel Bridge weekend, all of that stuff, your name comes up in there too. I mean, we’ve done that, right? Social conditioning?

Bradley: Yeah, social engineering.

Marco: Yep.

Bradley: Newsjacking, go check it out. There’s tons of information about it. There’s the book, David Meerman Scott, I think is the pioneer of that or whatever, at least the most well-known, but you can find all kinds of information about this free and paid. Just spend some time researching that newsjacking because it’s something that I think you could implement and get some significant results that way. Okay. By the way, go to mgyb.co to purchase Press Releases and we’ll publish them for you, they’re really, really nicely done. Okay.

Gregg. What’s up, Greg? You and I got a Mastermind call tomorrow, Gregg. Looking forward to it. We got a lot to catch up on.

Urban Towing says, “Does SerpClix work well for traffic to RYS or is there something else you would recommend?” Again, I’m not familiar with SerpClix. If it’s another CT spambot or crowd search, click-through thing-

Marco: It is.

Bradley: -which I imagine it would be. Yeah, I would probably produce some results, I don’t know how much. But I would recommend finding some better methods where you can actually buy or get real targeted traffic from real people that may have a genuine interest in your potential product or service. Guys, paid traffic is a good way to do that kind of stuff.

Marco: I actually went to SerpClix and did the math. It’s 14 cents per click. We can beat that through your method, can’t we, Bradley?

Bradley: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Marco: And this is real people. Real people targeted, remember that. Activity, relevance, trust, authority, that’s what you’re after.

Bradley: Yeah. Guys, we did … for years, Dan Anton had a product called crowdsearch.me. It works like gangbusters for a long time. Click-through spam was an engagement signal … I call it click-through spam. But that’s when somebody does a search on Google for example, keyword search, it could be a brand search, which is called a navigational search.

Guys, you can go to our YouTube channel. You can just go to Google and search crowdsearch.me and you’re gonna find this Semantic Mastery webinars. I’ve done two of them because we did one webinar and I think two years later we did another webinar because it was still working so well. I explained in that webinar, and both of those webinars and great length what click-through spam is and why it works so well.

It was actually a method that I learned way back in 2011 from Ivan Budimir, who was my most influential mentor in the local marketing, digital marketing space. It was Ivan Budimir. He’s no longer in the space, but he was absolutely amazing. I learned so much from that guy. He actually introduced that method to me back in 2011 and showed the Google patent. It’s not the actual official name of the Google patent, but he always called it site weight.

Site weight. In other words, if all things being equal, if there were two sites that were identical, which we know is impossible, pretty much, but theoretically, if two sites were equally authoritative, like they had the same amount of on-page optimization, the same amount of off-page optimization but one site got navigational search queries, which now in the semantic web is incredibly important, what is a navigational search query?

That’s a brand search or a variation of a brand search, like brand plus keyword, or brand a plus phone, like for somebody looking for the phone number of a company, or brand plus location, or brand plus map so that people looking for how to get to that location or get to that company or that store or whatever the case may be. Those are called navigational queries. If all things being equal, there were two identical sites competing brands and one had navigational queries and the other did not, the navigational query site would outrank the other, one hands down, two to one every time. Every time and it was tested over and over and over again. That was because of the site weight algorithm, or filter, or whatever you call that shit. Again, I’m not the patent nerd like Marco. Marco, that’s a term of endearment, by the way.

He introduced that way back in 2011 and the strategy then was to hire microtask workers to set up these little gigs. You would pay microtask workers two or three cents or something like that to go do a particular search, preferably with the brand dimension. Then find the link that you told them to find, click through, and then you would tell them, “Go find copy and paste the third word of the seventh paragraph on that page into the answer box,” and the answer box was their proof that they did the task that you assigned.

The reason why you wouldn’t just tell him to go click the link and copy because you want them to dwell on the page. That dwell time counted as an engagement signal, right? They would land on the page and then they’d have a hunt for that specific word or phrase or whatever it was that you told them to do that would make the answer. That would be the answer that means they solved the task that you gave them to do. That would create the dwell time, potentially scroll, you might ask them to click through to another page, whatever the task might be, click through to the link, then click through to the contact page, and then leave a message or whatever the case may be. You could set it up multiple different ways, but those were engagement signals way back in 2011 guys and it moved the needle like almost overnight.

The problem was as soon as you would stop paying in microtasks workers within just a few days your rank positioning start falling again because it was all about those engagement signals. Guys, again, this was eight years ago. Well, now, we’ve just been talking on this webinar alone about how important engagement signals are. So engagement signals are weighted even more now than they were back then.

Now the engagement signals are weighted more because Google can track and knows its users and the users’ behavior and their history. That’s what I was talking about. If you can get engagement signals from people that are locally and/or topically relevant to the content that you’re having them engage with, then that’s going to be weighted so much more.

What I’m saying is, again on a local level, if you can get people from a local geographic area that have a history for having an interest in that topic or that product or service as well as being local, a handful of clicks from them can produce better results than dozens or hundreds of click from non-relevant and non-non topically and non-geographically relevant clicks. Does that make sense?

So the click-through spam, and that’s what I called it because we were literally spamming click-throughs, isn’t as effective as it is when you can get relevant audience to engage because Google understands its audience, guys. Google knows its audience because everybody’s connected to Google all the time, right? So it knows what their history is and what their interests are and where they’re located and all that kind of stuff.

So that’s what I’m getting at. As far as the click-through spam stuff, for a long time it was working really well. Dan Anton’s, I think the best bot that came out, which was crowdsearch.me and for I think three, four years, I mean, I used it heavily. I was getting 50,000 credits per month and I was using every bit of them. It worked like gangbusters. But over time, it slowly started to stop working as well. I know that service is still out there. There are potential uses for it but it’s not something that I would do to direct to money site anymore. There are better alternatives now in my opinion, which is what we we’ve been talking about. We did some training about that in the Mastermind a few weeks ago.

It was a good question though. I was worried we’re not gonna have enough to talk about today, man, and look, we’re almost up. It’s awesome. Let’s see. “Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.” That should actually be how stupid the median person is, right? It’s awesome. Thanks, Greg.

Okay. Grant says, “It might be easier to just close/delete designed junk email accounts ThAn unsubscribe endlessly.” Yeah. I know what you’re saying, Grant, but this is an email account that I’ve had for, God, 15 years, so it’s not something I wanna get rid of. But, yeah, I know what you mean.

By the way, I did all the heavy lifting. Now it’s just a daily maintenance thing. If I see an email come in, if that’s from something that was unsolicited, I open it, unsubscribe, and then as soon as the unsubscribe is successful, I go back and hit the spam button. Again, most days now guys, I might only get one or two spam emails. There are some days where I’ll get five or six or whatever, but almost every day now it’s just a bare minimum. So it’s manageable now. It just took a little bit of time.

Also, there’s a service called unroll.me. Guys, go check it out. Go to unroll.me, especially any of you suffering from shiny object syndrome. Type in your email and it’ll take a few minutes to run and it’ll come back and show you how many lists you’re subscribe to, and tell me it doesn’t take your breath away. It’s like, holy shit, how did I get subscribed … It’s just over the years, you accumulate, you get added to so many subscription lists either voluntarily or involuntarily, a combination of both really.

If you go to unroll.me, it’s amazing. It’ll just take your breath away when you see how many email lists you’re on, and you can start to systematically unsubscribe. Okay.

Chris: You’re the nightmare of every email marketer.

Bradley: Yeah. Well, now, I am, yeah. But trust me, a lot of email marketers made a lot of money from me too. All right. Let’s see, Walt says, “Not an affiliate link.” Okay. This is the quick, probably the quick … There you go, Grow Your Business With Cold Emails, Jeremy Chatelaine. That’s correct. He’s got an accent or whatever. It’s awesome, guys. Really short book. Look at that, it used to be cheaper, but 10 bucks, buy it, guys, it’s worth it. 100% worth it, buy it, and read it. It’s a great book for anybody’s doing prospecting. Guys, hands down, that has been the best strategy for me that I’ve ever found. Okay.

I’ll keep moving. Grow Your Business With Cold Emails: Everything You Need to Know. Go, perfect. Thanks, guys. I appreciate that.

Daniel, awesome. “Guys, I’m not whining about the GMB question, and I do have faith in SM.” Bryan, I think he took offense to which you said, Marco. Just looking to start implementing building out the local strategy and certainly anxious to get moving.” I totally get it, Bryan. I totally get it.

Marco: Yeah, so do we. I didn’t expect or intend again to offend. I just come across that way. I was just explaining that it just takes time. We try to get as quickly as possible. We know all you guys were anxious, but there’s only so much we could do when the beast keeps changing shit around.

Bradley: Correct. Yeah. That’s one of the issues, guys. Again, we all have to keep changing our methods to get these things done verified and such. I don’t even know what they’re doing to do it. I don’t care. Bryan, I’m just like you. I placed my orders too. I’m not kidding. Guys, I placed my orders just like you do now. I do have a little bit of pull sometimes, most of my orders are in queue still now because they’re not critical. But sometimes, for clients, for example, that have requested maps expansion, then I pull some strings to get them pushed forward a little bit. So that’s one of the benefits I guess of the CEO.

But for the most part, guys, I’m in queue just like you guys. It’s not you guys aren’t waiting because I’m getting all mine done. Trust me. I’m waiting too. Awesome. Unroll.me, You’re welcome, Grant

All right, guys. We gotta wrap it up. “Marco, you didn’t drop an F-bomb on me so I was unsure about the love.” It was Bryan again.

Chris: It’s coming.

Bradley: Marco, you got to say fuck just to make everybody happy once.

Marco: Yeah. Let me just close this off with this: fuck Google.

Bradley: All right, there you go. ‘Nuff said. All right everybody. Thanks for being here. Mastermind webinar tomorrow, don’t forget. If you did not check out the Syndication Academy update webinar from last week, do it, guys. Super, super powerful stuff. I showed you how to use RSS feeds there with geo-tagging.

By the way, I’m doing a lot of testing with I have it … No, I must already closed it down. No, there it is, RankFeedr. I’ve got it open. I’m not gonna show my projects. But Lisa Allen’s RankFeedr, guys. I know the coupon has expired now. She actually extended it because of the Syndication Academy update webinar that I did last week. I talked about it in there. Although the method that I showed was how to use Feedburner feeds to create local geotag feeds and they’re super powerful too, not as powerful as the RankFeedr feeds though because RankFeedr you can splice together and create static or sticky items and you can add the geotag and not just a specific geo coordinate but you can add what’s called a geo box, which is like a service area business. Super powerful stuff, guys.

I’ve been testing really hard for the last week now with the RankFeedr stuff and I’m seeing good results. Again, I know the coupon that she gave is expired, but it’s still totally worth it. It’s super inexpensive guys for the elite subscription, which I think allows you to create eleven hundred RankFeedr feeds.

Guys, it’s a set and forget. You set up a RankFeedr feed one time and you let it go. It just runs for as long as you keep your subscription active and you don’t have to do anything else. It will help to create co-citation geographic and topical relevancy on autopilot, guys. I’m telling you and for the elite service the elite subscription level, which again I think is 1,100 feeds, it’s $47 a month. It’s a no-brainer.

So if you haven’t already picked it up, guys, go watch the Syndication Academy update webinar, and go pick up the RankFeedr subscription service, which is how you create those things. I’m only telling you guys, we don’t pimp other people’s products unless we truly believe in them and I’m endorsing this because it’s such a good product and you can go to our website SemanticMastery.com I think it’s RSS-authority-sniper-3 I think. You could find the webinar replay and go through that process, if you want to watch the webinar where she talks about it.

But honestly, you don’t even need to watch the webinar, just go pick up the damn service because it’s really powerful. All right. With that, we’re gonna close it out. See you all next week. Thanks everybody. Thanks, Marco. Thanks, Chris.

Marco: Bye everybody.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 224 published first on your-t1-blog-url

[samanthasroberts]

Southern Charm Recap: Flamingo-ing Crazy

Evening, party people. Smiling faces, beautiful places, welcome back to another week of . Lets see what bat shit craziness this week has in store.

Cameran solidifies her role as the unofficial protagonist of the show, narrating the opening sequence (and even saying the word bitch. Well, I do declare!) My familys about to make fun of me for debasing myself by watching this show for yet another week. Suck it, dad, this shits entertaining and makes me feel like a very accomplished adult in comparison to these 35-year-old train wrecks. On a side note, Im kind of getting into this theme song. As an extra side note, my TV is broken and everything is green tinted, which is fitting, I feel.

We open with Thomas on the phone with JD, the former bitching about Kathryn (what else is new?). He rolls up to JDs house and cant even say yes to a cup of coffee without breaking out the French. Ugh, I thought that was a one-episode thing. Thomas apparently told Kathryn he wasnt cosigning her lease (after the whole polo fiasco, if you’ll recall) and she went so nuts that she ended up IN THE HOSPITAL AND MAY HAVE GONE INTO LABOR PREMATURELY. Jesus fucking Christ. So now, what does Thomas do? He agrees to cosign.

JD is like, wait, so you call Kathryn and tell her youre not cosigning, she gets upset, and now youre cosigning anyway because you feel bad for her

JD: I upset my wife plenty of times when she was pregnant but she didnt end up in the hospital over it.

Thomas is like, Wow, everybody was righthomegirl really does know how to manipulate.

Apparently Jennifer is the ultimate shadester, she used to date Thomas and screenshotted everything and sent it to Kathryn just to stir shit up. Taking it a bit far, don’t you think?

Thomas: If I can handle prison for six months, I can handle this bullshit for two more months.

Hold up, like actual prison or just being with Kathryn? Maybe that random Facebook commenter was right and I do need to go back and watch the show from season 1.

Cameran is one of those white people who answers the phone with, Yello! and we promptly learn she was up all night with diarrhea. Gross. Shep goes to watch Craig turn in his application for the bar exam because hes so full of shit that nobody believes him unless they see it with their own eyes. Thats gotta hurt, Craig.

Shep rolls up to good ol Gentry HQ and asks Craig how business is doing. Craig starts talking about some BS I zoned out pretty quick listening to, something about a bourbon side and a hotel side of something.Damn, and youre not gonna let Landon get in on this bourbon business? Thats cold, Craig.

Craig has one more step to nail before he can take the bar, and if he doesnt complete it in time he wont be able to take the test. I feel a setup coming on

These guys are literally arguing over which type of adhesive Craig should use to affix his passport photos to his application.

Cameran meets up with Danni, the roast thief from the earlier episode, and another friend for lunch. One of their friends orders a sweet tea instead of wine and they all jump on her immediately to ask if shes pregnant. Like…a girl can’t order a damn sweet tea in the middle of the day without everyone assuming she’s got a bun in the oven? Cameron is SO OBVIOUSLY not ready to be a mother and these bitches wont leave her the fuck alone about it. Newsflash: This is 2016! Women can aspire to more nowadays than just being a mother. Leave Cameran alone!

Cameran has anxiety too, she reveals, and this show is becoming one giant therapy advertisement. Just goes to show you, money cant solve all your problems. Spinoff idea: What if they all go to the same therapist? Also, Cam’s friend is like, because thats totally a cure for a legitimate mental illness. WTF is wrong with you. What decade do these people live in.

Only 15 minutes in and my fingers are already tired from all this ranting. Gonna be a long episode. Also, wtf happened to Whitney? Is he still alive?

Its finally (almost) time for the flamingo party. Yay! Patricia will be photographing this party for her entertainment book whcih, Im sorry, Im definitely buying. They’re going to have a ros tower and idk what that is, but I know I want one. Patricia is explaining those champagne tower things where you pour the champagne in the top of the pyramid and it spills into all the ones at the bottom and is like, No its not. Its basically 3D beer pong without the balls. Just chill.

Wait ok the Gentry is a hotel?? I feel like an idiot but if they wouldve just explained this shit at the beginning we wouldnt be here. Anyway, Landon and Craig are prepping for the party and going to a spa.

Landon: Part of being a Southern belle is being well-kept, which makes you a good person.

Yeah, maybe on the outside. Im not convinced any of you except Cameran are good people on the inside. And maybeee Craig. He seems pretty earnest.

Craig is aiming for Gatsby-ish pink in terms of outfit color and Landon is like, Im sorry, bitch what? Don’t be over there acting like your Southern asses did not fucking invent salmon pink shorts as a menswear item. Yeah, you THOUGHT you could insult us Yankees.

Jennifer called Craig to let him know Kathryn literally made herself sick and is in the hospital, and he of course feels super bad for her. Meanwhile, Landon does not give one shit!

Landon: Ugh here we go with the drama. People go to the hospital every day. Calm the fuck down.

Okay, people also die everyday, does that make dying any less shitty?

Landon: Did she really almost die? Doubt it. TTYL, DGAF, going to the spa.

Jennifer tells Craig that Thomas didn’t visit Kathryn in the hospital. This detail is important later, so keep it in mind.

Landon: Im tired of Kathryn controlling and manipulating everyone with this child, Im not gonna be manipulated by this psychopath.

Landon literally thinks Kathryn got a slight headache and rushed to the ER. Not sure if this is warranted or not but I’m semi impressed by the fact that she can’t even pretend to be mildly concerned.

We see Kathryn and she explains she basically gave herself such high blood pressure that it affected the baby. IDK how you can personally know what your own blood pressure feels like unless youre constantly taking it, but ok.

Kathryn: All this baby and I need is a stable place to live in a not-stressful environment and if Thomas wont help me get a huge-ass house he doesnt deserve to be in my babys life as far as Im concerned.

Bonus round: Kathryn manipulates Thomas into helping her move, too.

Kathryn: Cosigning on this house is the least he could do for me at this point. YOU MEAN ASIDE FROM THE LIKE $2500 YOU GET A MONTH? YEAH, I REMEMBER THAT FROM LAST EPISODE, IM NOT A FUCKING IDIOT.

Back at Patricias house where shes still setting up for the flamingo party. God damn, they are milking it.

Patricia: I grew up in the 50s. Mothers wore dresses and high heels and had their hair and makeup done. Ive always maintained you have to put on the dog and try to ge as glamorous as you can.

IDK what putting on the dog means but thats gonna be my next getting ready Instagram caption.

Sligthly disappointed there are no real flamingos at this flamingo party. I was definitely holding out for some exotic birds to be present.

Thomas saying yeah, pop that is the most uncomfortable Ive been all evening, even if they are referring to a bottle of wine.

Thomas is setting Landon up with some dude with a ponytail who I feel like is probably her kryptonite since he seem like the type of dude whod call himself an artist, too. Landon also greets everyone with bonsoir. Can we fucking stop pretending we’re European?

Patricia has a fortune teller at her party. What a rager. I am very sad I did not get an invite. Patricia, if youre reading this, I can clean up really well and I wont get belligerent drunk, which is more than I can say of at least half your guests. Hook a girl up.

This is the first/most weve seen of Whitney in like, two weeks. Some girl said hi to Shep and called him babe and I can see the smoke coming out of Landons ears. OMG JUST HIT ON HIM ALREADY, THIS IS SO PATHETIC TO WATCH.

Craig got Patricia this gaudy flamingo-decorated martini glass and Patricia just HAS to drop that she has 18th-century porcelain. Calm down, Patricia, nobody doubts that you have class. You don’t need to be so ostentatious.

Whitney: Trying to watch Thomas flirt with girls is like trying to watch your horny drunk uncle.

YES. SPOT ON. Somebody give Whitney more screen time!

Cameran shows up poss wasted and with a huge flamingo hat. Cameran is me in college, committing to the theme so hard she doesn’t care if she looks ridiculous.

Five seconds into the party, and Shep is already naked and in the pool. Don’t you know this is a classy affair??

Craig confronts Thomas about Kathryns hospital visit and asks if he saw her. Thomas is likeand Craig is like *sips wine*

Shit-starting Jen may or may not be lying about Thomas not going to visit Kathryn. It’s about to get real.

Craig: One of the reasons Thomas hates Jen so much is because she was supposed to be the fun mistress and wasnt supposed to stick around and meddle in his affairs.

THE PLOT THICKENS. Who can we trust? Nobody, really. Everybodys conniving af. Except Cameran. Im really liking her. Can you tell?

Some girl Bailey asked Landon if she and Shep have ever fucked, or even kissed.

Landon: I’m not gonna lie, theres sometimes I wonder if Shep and I could be in a relationship but I dont wanna risk getting hurt.

Landon. OMG. You are more transparent than every Kardashian PR stunt ever. You clearly wonder ALL THE TIME if you and Shep could be in a relationship, why youre not, when hes going to wake up and realize youre the one for him

Shep gets his fortune told and the fortune teller is like and Sheps like and everyones like Shep is just making a bunch of thats what she said jokes like the mature gentleman he is. Landon, you picked a real winner.

The gay dude who visited Kathryn earlier in the first episode (idk his name, go cross-reference my other recap if you really care that much) pulls Patricia aside to be like

Patricia: I think its very unattractive that hes friends with Kathryn Dennis. Its very low-rent to me. (Yes, she actually used the words “low-rent.”)

Dude whose name I 100% forgot: Its very clear what Patricia sees in Kathryn that she doesnt like: she sees herself.

Patricia calls this dude a knockoff Truman Capote. I gotta say, the South has got their shit-talking on point.

Jen shows up and we already know its going to be good. Thomas is not pleased and calls her a piece of trash. HERE WE GO.

Thomas: Tell this chick Im going to throw her in the pool. JD: You dont need another assault charge, homie.

One things for sure: some type of confrontation is about to go down.

JD is talking about doing another polo match. Jen is likeaka,

Thomas is watching Jen talk to Elizabeth and JD and hes just seething over there. FWIW, Elizabeth seems like a very nice woman. Jen does not, really. Thomas pulls Jen aside.

Thomas: Craig told me you told him I didn’t see Kathryn in the hospital Jen: I meant you didnt stay overnight

Cut to: Jen definitely in plain English saying that Thomas wasnt there at all.

Then Jen criticizes Thomas for only being there for two hours. Like, splitting hairs much? Youre just looking for a reason to shit on him.

Jen: If Thomas is criticizing me for putting Kathryns health at risk, he needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and then go play in traffic.

Thomas: A blind person could see through these lies.

They have a lie vs. misunderstanding argument for like 30 seconds before Thomas tells Jennifer to fuck off.

Jennifer: Im the only friend Kathryn trusts. It would be nice if the father of her kids was the other one.

Thomas thinks its Jens mission in life to wreck his life and make him out to be the enemy.

Jen: Im torn between completely cussing him out and telling him how I really feel, or just feeling sorry for him because hes truly delusional.

AKA how I feel watching this show.

Jens like, and Thomas is like And I’m like:

Patricia is not going to like this argument. Very not luxe.

Just when you think punches are about to fly, they both walk away from the argument. Phew, dodged a bullet. Or like, an assault charge.

JD: Thomas and Kathryn have enough problems, Jennifer doesnt need to add to them. This dams gonna break.

Exciting news tidbit: Thomas pronounces water like wooder.

Whats the first thing Jennifer does after being accused of starting drama? She fucking calls Kathryn from the porch of Patricias house! Whitney is like because his mom has to fight his battles. Everybodys gathered to watch while acting like theyre too classy to watch. Jennifer leaves on her own accord, fuck this show for being anticlimactic AF. I wanted an eviction!

Jennifer: I know what Kathryns going through because now I’m the one nobody likes.

Thomas: I can take a lot. Imprisonment, false political allegations, but do not mess with my family. It’s only okay when I treat Kathryn like shit.

Jennifer leaves yelling and once again this show is so fucking anticlimactic! You built up this party for three fucking episodes and what did we get? A heated argument from which both adults walk away on their own accord, and not even one person gets thrown out? Give me some damn drama, give me a fucking cliffhanger! Come on, Bravo! Do better.

div.body_middle_part_right .bodypart:nth-child(n+2), a.prevBody{display: none;}

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/05/27/southern-charm-recap-flamingo-ing-crazy/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/05/27/southern-charm-recap-flamingo-ing-crazy/

[adambstingus]

Southern Charm Recap: Flamingo-ing Crazy

Evening, party people. Smiling faces, beautiful places, welcome back to another week of . Lets see what bat shit craziness this week has in store.

Cameran solidifies her role as the unofficial protagonist of the show, narrating the opening sequence (and even saying the word bitch. Well, I do declare!) My familys about to make fun of me for debasing myself by watching this show for yet another week. Suck it, dad, this shits entertaining and makes me feel like a very accomplished adult in comparison to these 35-year-old train wrecks. On a side note, Im kind of getting into this theme song. As an extra side note, my TV is broken and everything is green tinted, which is fitting, I feel.

We open with Thomas on the phone with JD, the former bitching about Kathryn (what else is new?). He rolls up to JDs house and cant even say yes to a cup of coffee without breaking out the French. Ugh, I thought that was a one-episode thing. Thomas apparently told Kathryn he wasnt cosigning her lease (after the whole polo fiasco, if you’ll recall) and she went so nuts that she ended up IN THE HOSPITAL AND MAY HAVE GONE INTO LABOR PREMATURELY. Jesus fucking Christ. So now, what does Thomas do? He agrees to cosign.

JD is like, wait, so you call Kathryn and tell her youre not cosigning, she gets upset, and now youre cosigning anyway because you feel bad for her

JD: I upset my wife plenty of times when she was pregnant but she didnt end up in the hospital over it.

Thomas is like, Wow, everybody was righthomegirl really does know how to manipulate.

Apparently Jennifer is the ultimate shadester, she used to date Thomas and screenshotted everything and sent it to Kathryn just to stir shit up. Taking it a bit far, don’t you think?

Thomas: If I can handle prison for six months, I can handle this bullshit for two more months.

Hold up, like actual prison or just being with Kathryn? Maybe that random Facebook commenter was right and I do need to go back and watch the show from season 1.

Cameran is one of those white people who answers the phone with, Yello! and we promptly learn she was up all night with diarrhea. Gross. Shep goes to watch Craig turn in his application for the bar exam because hes so full of shit that nobody believes him unless they see it with their own eyes. Thats gotta hurt, Craig.

Shep rolls up to good ol Gentry HQ and asks Craig how business is doing. Craig starts talking about some BS I zoned out pretty quick listening to, something about a bourbon side and a hotel side of something.Damn, and youre not gonna let Landon get in on this bourbon business? Thats cold, Craig.

Craig has one more step to nail before he can take the bar, and if he doesnt complete it in time he wont be able to take the test. I feel a setup coming on

These guys are literally arguing over which type of adhesive Craig should use to affix his passport photos to his application.

Cameran meets up with Danni, the roast thief from the earlier episode, and another friend for lunch. One of their friends orders a sweet tea instead of wine and they all jump on her immediately to ask if shes pregnant. Like…a girl can’t order a damn sweet tea in the middle of the day without everyone assuming she’s got a bun in the oven? Cameron is SO OBVIOUSLY not ready to be a mother and these bitches wont leave her the fuck alone about it. Newsflash: This is 2016! Women can aspire to more nowadays than just being a mother. Leave Cameran alone!

Cameran has anxiety too, she reveals, and this show is becoming one giant therapy advertisement. Just goes to show you, money cant solve all your problems. Spinoff idea: What if they all go to the same therapist? Also, Cam’s friend is like, because thats totally a cure for a legitimate mental illness. WTF is wrong with you. What decade do these people live in.

Only 15 minutes in and my fingers are already tired from all this ranting. Gonna be a long episode. Also, wtf happened to Whitney? Is he still alive?

Its finally (almost) time for the flamingo party. Yay! Patricia will be photographing this party for her entertainment book whcih, Im sorry, Im definitely buying. They’re going to have a ros tower and idk what that is, but I know I want one. Patricia is explaining those champagne tower things where you pour the champagne in the top of the pyramid and it spills into all the ones at the bottom and is like, No its not. Its basically 3D beer pong without the balls. Just chill.

Wait ok the Gentry is a hotel?? I feel like an idiot but if they wouldve just explained this shit at the beginning we wouldnt be here. Anyway, Landon and Craig are prepping for the party and going to a spa.

Landon: Part of being a Southern belle is being well-kept, which makes you a good person.

Yeah, maybe on the outside. Im not convinced any of you except Cameran are good people on the inside. And maybeee Craig. He seems pretty earnest.

Craig is aiming for Gatsby-ish pink in terms of outfit color and Landon is like, Im sorry, bitch what? Don’t be over there acting like your Southern asses did not fucking invent salmon pink shorts as a menswear item. Yeah, you THOUGHT you could insult us Yankees.

Jennifer called Craig to let him know Kathryn literally made herself sick and is in the hospital, and he of course feels super bad for her. Meanwhile, Landon does not give one shit!

Landon: Ugh here we go with the drama. People go to the hospital every day. Calm the fuck down.

Okay, people also die everyday, does that make dying any less shitty?

Landon: Did she really almost die? Doubt it. TTYL, DGAF, going to the spa.

Jennifer tells Craig that Thomas didn’t visit Kathryn in the hospital. This detail is important later, so keep it in mind.

Landon: Im tired of Kathryn controlling and manipulating everyone with this child, Im not gonna be manipulated by this psychopath.

Landon literally thinks Kathryn got a slight headache and rushed to the ER. Not sure if this is warranted or not but I’m semi impressed by the fact that she can’t even pretend to be mildly concerned.

We see Kathryn and she explains she basically gave herself such high blood pressure that it affected the baby. IDK how you can personally know what your own blood pressure feels like unless youre constantly taking it, but ok.

Kathryn: All this baby and I need is a stable place to live in a not-stressful environment and if Thomas wont help me get a huge-ass house he doesnt deserve to be in my babys life as far as Im concerned.

Bonus round: Kathryn manipulates Thomas into helping her move, too.

Kathryn: Cosigning on this house is the least he could do for me at this point. YOU MEAN ASIDE FROM THE LIKE $2500 YOU GET A MONTH? YEAH, I REMEMBER THAT FROM LAST EPISODE, IM NOT A FUCKING IDIOT.

Back at Patricias house where shes still setting up for the flamingo party. God damn, they are milking it.

Patricia: I grew up in the 50s. Mothers wore dresses and high heels and had their hair and makeup done. Ive always maintained you have to put on the dog and try to ge as glamorous as you can.

IDK what putting on the dog means but thats gonna be my next getting ready Instagram caption.

Sligthly disappointed there are no real flamingos at this flamingo party. I was definitely holding out for some exotic birds to be present.

Thomas saying yeah, pop that is the most uncomfortable Ive been all evening, even if they are referring to a bottle of wine.

Thomas is setting Landon up with some dude with a ponytail who I feel like is probably her kryptonite since he seem like the type of dude whod call himself an artist, too. Landon also greets everyone with bonsoir. Can we fucking stop pretending we’re European?

Patricia has a fortune teller at her party. What a rager. I am very sad I did not get an invite. Patricia, if youre reading this, I can clean up really well and I wont get belligerent drunk, which is more than I can say of at least half your guests. Hook a girl up.

This is the first/most weve seen of Whitney in like, two weeks. Some girl said hi to Shep and called him babe and I can see the smoke coming out of Landons ears. OMG JUST HIT ON HIM ALREADY, THIS IS SO PATHETIC TO WATCH.

Craig got Patricia this gaudy flamingo-decorated martini glass and Patricia just HAS to drop that she has 18th-century porcelain. Calm down, Patricia, nobody doubts that you have class. You don’t need to be so ostentatious.

Whitney: Trying to watch Thomas flirt with girls is like trying to watch your horny drunk uncle.

YES. SPOT ON. Somebody give Whitney more screen time!

Cameran shows up poss wasted and with a huge flamingo hat. Cameran is me in college, committing to the theme so hard she doesn’t care if she looks ridiculous.

Five seconds into the party, and Shep is already naked and in the pool. Don’t you know this is a classy affair??

Craig confronts Thomas about Kathryns hospital visit and asks if he saw her. Thomas is likeand Craig is like *sips wine*

Shit-starting Jen may or may not be lying about Thomas not going to visit Kathryn. It’s about to get real.

Craig: One of the reasons Thomas hates Jen so much is because she was supposed to be the fun mistress and wasnt supposed to stick around and meddle in his affairs.

THE PLOT THICKENS. Who can we trust? Nobody, really. Everybodys conniving af. Except Cameran. Im really liking her. Can you tell?

Some girl Bailey asked Landon if she and Shep have ever fucked, or even kissed.

Landon: I’m not gonna lie, theres sometimes I wonder if Shep and I could be in a relationship but I dont wanna risk getting hurt.

Landon. OMG. You are more transparent than every Kardashian PR stunt ever. You clearly wonder ALL THE TIME if you and Shep could be in a relationship, why youre not, when hes going to wake up and realize youre the one for him

Shep gets his fortune told and the fortune teller is like and Sheps like and everyones like Shep is just making a bunch of thats what she said jokes like the mature gentleman he is. Landon, you picked a real winner.

The gay dude who visited Kathryn earlier in the first episode (idk his name, go cross-reference my other recap if you really care that much) pulls Patricia aside to be like

Patricia: I think its very unattractive that hes friends with Kathryn Dennis. Its very low-rent to me. (Yes, she actually used the words “low-rent.”)

Dude whose name I 100% forgot: Its very clear what Patricia sees in Kathryn that she doesnt like: she sees herself.

Patricia calls this dude a knockoff Truman Capote. I gotta say, the South has got their shit-talking on point.

Jen shows up and we already know its going to be good. Thomas is not pleased and calls her a piece of trash. HERE WE GO.

Thomas: Tell this chick Im going to throw her in the pool. JD: You dont need another assault charge, homie.

One things for sure: some type of confrontation is about to go down.

JD is talking about doing another polo match. Jen is likeaka,

Thomas is watching Jen talk to Elizabeth and JD and hes just seething over there. FWIW, Elizabeth seems like a very nice woman. Jen does not, really. Thomas pulls Jen aside.

Thomas: Craig told me you told him I didn’t see Kathryn in the hospital Jen: I meant you didnt stay overnight

Cut to: Jen definitely in plain English saying that Thomas wasnt there at all.

Then Jen criticizes Thomas for only being there for two hours. Like, splitting hairs much? Youre just looking for a reason to shit on him.

Jen: If Thomas is criticizing me for putting Kathryns health at risk, he needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and then go play in traffic.

Thomas: A blind person could see through these lies.

They have a lie vs. misunderstanding argument for like 30 seconds before Thomas tells Jennifer to fuck off.

Jennifer: Im the only friend Kathryn trusts. It would be nice if the father of her kids was the other one.

Thomas thinks its Jens mission in life to wreck his life and make him out to be the enemy.

Jen: Im torn between completely cussing him out and telling him how I really feel, or just feeling sorry for him because hes truly delusional.

AKA how I feel watching this show.

Jens like, and Thomas is like And I’m like:

Patricia is not going to like this argument. Very not luxe.

Just when you think punches are about to fly, they both walk away from the argument. Phew, dodged a bullet. Or like, an assault charge.

JD: Thomas and Kathryn have enough problems, Jennifer doesnt need to add to them. This dams gonna break.

Exciting news tidbit: Thomas pronounces water like wooder.

Whats the first thing Jennifer does after being accused of starting drama? She fucking calls Kathryn from the porch of Patricias house! Whitney is like because his mom has to fight his battles. Everybodys gathered to watch while acting like theyre too classy to watch. Jennifer leaves on her own accord, fuck this show for being anticlimactic AF. I wanted an eviction!

Jennifer: I know what Kathryns going through because now I’m the one nobody likes.

Thomas: I can take a lot. Imprisonment, false political allegations, but do not mess with my family. It’s only okay when I treat Kathryn like shit.

Jennifer leaves yelling and once again this show is so fucking anticlimactic! You built up this party for three fucking episodes and what did we get? A heated argument from which both adults walk away on their own accord, and not even one person gets thrown out? Give me some damn drama, give me a fucking cliffhanger! Come on, Bravo! Do better.

div.body_middle_part_right .bodypart:nth-child(n+2), a.prevBody{display: none;}

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/05/27/southern-charm-recap-flamingo-ing-crazy/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/161120493767

[allofbeercom]

Southern Charm Recap: Flamingo-ing Crazy

Evening, party people. Smiling faces, beautiful places, welcome back to another week of . Lets see what bat shit craziness this week has in store.

Cameran solidifies her role as the unofficial protagonist of the show, narrating the opening sequence (and even saying the word bitch. Well, I do declare!) My familys about to make fun of me for debasing myself by watching this show for yet another week. Suck it, dad, this shits entertaining and makes me feel like a very accomplished adult in comparison to these 35-year-old train wrecks. On a side note, Im kind of getting into this theme song. As an extra side note, my TV is broken and everything is green tinted, which is fitting, I feel.

We open with Thomas on the phone with JD, the former bitching about Kathryn (what else is new?). He rolls up to JDs house and cant even say yes to a cup of coffee without breaking out the French. Ugh, I thought that was a one-episode thing. Thomas apparently told Kathryn he wasnt cosigning her lease (after the whole polo fiasco, if you’ll recall) and she went so nuts that she ended up IN THE HOSPITAL AND MAY HAVE GONE INTO LABOR PREMATURELY. Jesus fucking Christ. So now, what does Thomas do? He agrees to cosign.

JD is like, wait, so you call Kathryn and tell her youre not cosigning, she gets upset, and now youre cosigning anyway because you feel bad for her

JD: I upset my wife plenty of times when she was pregnant but she didnt end up in the hospital over it.

Thomas is like, Wow, everybody was righthomegirl really does know how to manipulate.

Apparently Jennifer is the ultimate shadester, she used to date Thomas and screenshotted everything and sent it to Kathryn just to stir shit up. Taking it a bit far, don’t you think?

Thomas: If I can handle prison for six months, I can handle this bullshit for two more months.

Hold up, like actual prison or just being with Kathryn? Maybe that random Facebook commenter was right and I do need to go back and watch the show from season 1.

Cameran is one of those white people who answers the phone with, Yello! and we promptly learn she was up all night with diarrhea. Gross. Shep goes to watch Craig turn in his application for the bar exam because hes so full of shit that nobody believes him unless they see it with their own eyes. Thats gotta hurt, Craig.

Shep rolls up to good ol Gentry HQ and asks Craig how business is doing. Craig starts talking about some BS I zoned out pretty quick listening to, something about a bourbon side and a hotel side of something.Damn, and youre not gonna let Landon get in on this bourbon business? Thats cold, Craig.

Craig has one more step to nail before he can take the bar, and if he doesnt complete it in time he wont be able to take the test. I feel a setup coming on

These guys are literally arguing over which type of adhesive Craig should use to affix his passport photos to his application.

Cameran meets up with Danni, the roast thief from the earlier episode, and another friend for lunch. One of their friends orders a sweet tea instead of wine and they all jump on her immediately to ask if shes pregnant. Like…a girl can’t order a damn sweet tea in the middle of the day without everyone assuming she’s got a bun in the oven? Cameron is SO OBVIOUSLY not ready to be a mother and these bitches wont leave her the fuck alone about it. Newsflash: This is 2016! Women can aspire to more nowadays than just being a mother. Leave Cameran alone!

Cameran has anxiety too, she reveals, and this show is becoming one giant therapy advertisement. Just goes to show you, money cant solve all your problems. Spinoff idea: What if they all go to the same therapist? Also, Cam’s friend is like, because thats totally a cure for a legitimate mental illness. WTF is wrong with you. What decade do these people live in.

Only 15 minutes in and my fingers are already tired from all this ranting. Gonna be a long episode. Also, wtf happened to Whitney? Is he still alive?

Its finally (almost) time for the flamingo party. Yay! Patricia will be photographing this party for her entertainment book whcih, Im sorry, Im definitely buying. They’re going to have a ros tower and idk what that is, but I know I want one. Patricia is explaining those champagne tower things where you pour the champagne in the top of the pyramid and it spills into all the ones at the bottom and is like, No its not. Its basically 3D beer pong without the balls. Just chill.

Wait ok the Gentry is a hotel?? I feel like an idiot but if they wouldve just explained this shit at the beginning we wouldnt be here. Anyway, Landon and Craig are prepping for the party and going to a spa.

Landon: Part of being a Southern belle is being well-kept, which makes you a good person.

Yeah, maybe on the outside. Im not convinced any of you except Cameran are good people on the inside. And maybeee Craig. He seems pretty earnest.

Craig is aiming for Gatsby-ish pink in terms of outfit color and Landon is like, Im sorry, bitch what? Don’t be over there acting like your Southern asses did not fucking invent salmon pink shorts as a menswear item. Yeah, you THOUGHT you could insult us Yankees.

Jennifer called Craig to let him know Kathryn literally made herself sick and is in the hospital, and he of course feels super bad for her. Meanwhile, Landon does not give one shit!

Landon: Ugh here we go with the drama. People go to the hospital every day. Calm the fuck down.

Okay, people also die everyday, does that make dying any less shitty?

Landon: Did she really almost die? Doubt it. TTYL, DGAF, going to the spa.

Jennifer tells Craig that Thomas didn’t visit Kathryn in the hospital. This detail is important later, so keep it in mind.

Landon: Im tired of Kathryn controlling and manipulating everyone with this child, Im not gonna be manipulated by this psychopath.

Landon literally thinks Kathryn got a slight headache and rushed to the ER. Not sure if this is warranted or not but I’m semi impressed by the fact that she can’t even pretend to be mildly concerned.

We see Kathryn and she explains she basically gave herself such high blood pressure that it affected the baby. IDK how you can personally know what your own blood pressure feels like unless youre constantly taking it, but ok.

Kathryn: All this baby and I need is a stable place to live in a not-stressful environment and if Thomas wont help me get a huge-ass house he doesnt deserve to be in my babys life as far as Im concerned.

Bonus round: Kathryn manipulates Thomas into helping her move, too.

Kathryn: Cosigning on this house is the least he could do for me at this point. YOU MEAN ASIDE FROM THE LIKE $2500 YOU GET A MONTH? YEAH, I REMEMBER THAT FROM LAST EPISODE, IM NOT A FUCKING IDIOT.

Back at Patricias house where shes still setting up for the flamingo party. God damn, they are milking it.

Patricia: I grew up in the 50s. Mothers wore dresses and high heels and had their hair and makeup done. Ive always maintained you have to put on the dog and try to ge as glamorous as you can.

IDK what putting on the dog means but thats gonna be my next getting ready Instagram caption.

Sligthly disappointed there are no real flamingos at this flamingo party. I was definitely holding out for some exotic birds to be present.

Thomas saying yeah, pop that is the most uncomfortable Ive been all evening, even if they are referring to a bottle of wine.

Thomas is setting Landon up with some dude with a ponytail who I feel like is probably her kryptonite since he seem like the type of dude whod call himself an artist, too. Landon also greets everyone with bonsoir. Can we fucking stop pretending we’re European?

Patricia has a fortune teller at her party. What a rager. I am very sad I did not get an invite. Patricia, if youre reading this, I can clean up really well and I wont get belligerent drunk, which is more than I can say of at least half your guests. Hook a girl up.

This is the first/most weve seen of Whitney in like, two weeks. Some girl said hi to Shep and called him babe and I can see the smoke coming out of Landons ears. OMG JUST HIT ON HIM ALREADY, THIS IS SO PATHETIC TO WATCH.

Craig got Patricia this gaudy flamingo-decorated martini glass and Patricia just HAS to drop that she has 18th-century porcelain. Calm down, Patricia, nobody doubts that you have class. You don’t need to be so ostentatious.

Whitney: Trying to watch Thomas flirt with girls is like trying to watch your horny drunk uncle.

YES. SPOT ON. Somebody give Whitney more screen time!

Cameran shows up poss wasted and with a huge flamingo hat. Cameran is me in college, committing to the theme so hard she doesn’t care if she looks ridiculous.

Five seconds into the party, and Shep is already naked and in the pool. Don’t you know this is a classy affair??

Craig confronts Thomas about Kathryns hospital visit and asks if he saw her. Thomas is likeand Craig is like *sips wine*

Shit-starting Jen may or may not be lying about Thomas not going to visit Kathryn. It’s about to get real.

Craig: One of the reasons Thomas hates Jen so much is because she was supposed to be the fun mistress and wasnt supposed to stick around and meddle in his affairs.

THE PLOT THICKENS. Who can we trust? Nobody, really. Everybodys conniving af. Except Cameran. Im really liking her. Can you tell?

Some girl Bailey asked Landon if she and Shep have ever fucked, or even kissed.

Landon: I’m not gonna lie, theres sometimes I wonder if Shep and I could be in a relationship but I dont wanna risk getting hurt.

Landon. OMG. You are more transparent than every Kardashian PR stunt ever. You clearly wonder ALL THE TIME if you and Shep could be in a relationship, why youre not, when hes going to wake up and realize youre the one for him

Shep gets his fortune told and the fortune teller is like and Sheps like and everyones like Shep is just making a bunch of thats what she said jokes like the mature gentleman he is. Landon, you picked a real winner.

The gay dude who visited Kathryn earlier in the first episode (idk his name, go cross-reference my other recap if you really care that much) pulls Patricia aside to be like

Patricia: I think its very unattractive that hes friends with Kathryn Dennis. Its very low-rent to me. (Yes, she actually used the words “low-rent.”)

Dude whose name I 100% forgot: Its very clear what Patricia sees in Kathryn that she doesnt like: she sees herself.

Patricia calls this dude a knockoff Truman Capote. I gotta say, the South has got their shit-talking on point.

Jen shows up and we already know its going to be good. Thomas is not pleased and calls her a piece of trash. HERE WE GO.

Thomas: Tell this chick Im going to throw her in the pool. JD: You dont need another assault charge, homie.

One things for sure: some type of confrontation is about to go down.

JD is talking about doing another polo match. Jen is likeaka,

Thomas is watching Jen talk to Elizabeth and JD and hes just seething over there. FWIW, Elizabeth seems like a very nice woman. Jen does not, really. Thomas pulls Jen aside.

Thomas: Craig told me you told him I didn’t see Kathryn in the hospital Jen: I meant you didnt stay overnight

Cut to: Jen definitely in plain English saying that Thomas wasnt there at all.

Then Jen criticizes Thomas for only being there for two hours. Like, splitting hairs much? Youre just looking for a reason to shit on him.

Jen: If Thomas is criticizing me for putting Kathryns health at risk, he needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and then go play in traffic.

Thomas: A blind person could see through these lies.

They have a lie vs. misunderstanding argument for like 30 seconds before Thomas tells Jennifer to fuck off.

Jennifer: Im the only friend Kathryn trusts. It would be nice if the father of her kids was the other one.

Thomas thinks its Jens mission in life to wreck his life and make him out to be the enemy.

Jen: Im torn between completely cussing him out and telling him how I really feel, or just feeling sorry for him because hes truly delusional.

AKA how I feel watching this show.

Jens like, and Thomas is like And I’m like:

Patricia is not going to like this argument. Very not luxe.

Just when you think punches are about to fly, they both walk away from the argument. Phew, dodged a bullet. Or like, an assault charge.

JD: Thomas and Kathryn have enough problems, Jennifer doesnt need to add to them. This dams gonna break.

Exciting news tidbit: Thomas pronounces water like wooder.

Whats the first thing Jennifer does after being accused of starting drama? She fucking calls Kathryn from the porch of Patricias house! Whitney is like because his mom has to fight his battles. Everybodys gathered to watch while acting like theyre too classy to watch. Jennifer leaves on her own accord, fuck this show for being anticlimactic AF. I wanted an eviction!

Jennifer: I know what Kathryns going through because now I’m the one nobody likes.

Thomas: I can take a lot. Imprisonment, false political allegations, but do not mess with my family. It’s only okay when I treat Kathryn like shit.

Jennifer leaves yelling and once again this show is so fucking anticlimactic! You built up this party for three fucking episodes and what did we get? A heated argument from which both adults walk away on their own accord, and not even one person gets thrown out? Give me some damn drama, give me a fucking cliffhanger! Come on, Bravo! Do better.

div.body_middle_part_right .bodypart:nth-child(n+2), a.prevBody{display: none;}

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/05/27/southern-charm-recap-flamingo-ing-crazy/