#this is for my system which is full of mlm who use different words but this same flag

[ix-c-999]

MLM-related identities with the ocean gay flag

[this post has no DNI other than not to involve it in discourse, mockery, or other harassment]

[mitchelldailygames]

Tiny Library: Modern Fantasy Live on Gamefound

I have a game in the latest project in the Tiny Library series which is now crowdfunding on Gamefound.

Tiny Library: Modern Fantasy is a collection of 51 MOSAIC Strict cards from 51 different designers that could be combined together to build a modern fantasy ttrpg.

My card in the deck called Multi-Level Magic, which provides rules for buying into a magical MLM and passing that curse on to others to enhance your own magical potential. Like real life MLMs, the lofty promises of the card will remain unfulfilled for most. You can check it out here.

I'll talk more about the project and some of my favorites below!

What Is MOSAIC Strict?

MOSAIC Strict is a design constraint. I'm just going to talk about the basics and what a consumer would need to know. If you want the full explanation, check it out here.

Basically, MOSAIC Strict texts present a single rule, system, or concept. They are not full games by themselves and they make no assumptions about the rest of the game they might be slotted into. They might be able to be combined with other MOSAIC Strict texts, other games, or whatever rules players come up with. Players can take or leave them depending on how they fit into the play experience they want.

Now, is it possible to form a cohesive game from some combination of some of the 51 cards in TL:MF? I honestly don't know, but with 51 different systems and bits of lore, I'm confident you can get pretty close. That's also, absolutely, not the only way to engage with these cards. You can use them however you want. Bring a favorite to your dragon game session. Use the cards as pretty decorations for something of your own creation. Use them solely as inspiration for stories of your own telling.

What I can say, is the cards offer a wide range of visual styles, tones, and concepts. They are inventive, intriguing, and striking (especially all spread out in front of you).

Personal Favorites

No Words, Save Death is a beautiful, wordless death save mechanic. The mechanic itself is communicated effectively through evocative imagery.

Arcane Underground imagines magic in utilities waiting to bestow power and consequences on any who harness it. It looks good, and I can immediately imagine how it will come up in a game.

Trash Companion gives you a shape-shifting animal companion. It shifts between a raccoon and a pigeon, each with upsides and downsides. I don't know who would play with these cards and not include this one. It's delightful.

You can check out all of the cards I've mentioned in this post, but remember, there are 47 more cards in the deck! I hope you check them out, support the Gamefound, and enjoy.

Oh! And one of the options is to get a card printed on a mug.

Until next time.

--Daily

[duckprintspress]

Ten Things We Hate About Trad Pub

Often when I say “I’ve started a small press; we publish the works of those who have trouble breaking into traditional publishing!” what people seem to hear is “me and a bunch of sad saps couldn’t sell our books in the Real World so we’ve made our own place with lower standards.” For those with minimal understanding of traditional publishing (trad pub), this reaction is perhaps understandable? But, truly, there are many things to hate about traditional publishing (and, don’t get me wrong - there are things to love about trad pub, too, but that’s not what this list is about) and it’s entirely reasonable for even highly accomplished authors to have no interest in running the gauntlet of genre restrictions, editorial control, hazing, long waits, and more, that make trad pub at best, um, challenging, and at worst, utterly inaccessible to many authors - even excellent ones.

Written in collaboration with @jhoomwrites, with input from @ramblingandpie, here is a list of ten things that we at Duck Prints Press detest about trad pub, why we hate it, and why/how we think things should be different!

(Needless to say, part of why we created Duck Prints Press was to...not do any of these things... so if you’re a writer looking for a publishing home, and you hate these things, too, and want to write with a Press that doesn’t do them...maybe come say hi?)

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1. Work lengths dictated by genre and/or author experience.

Romance novels can’t be longer than 90,000 words or they won’t sell! New authors shouldn’t try to market a novel longer than 100,000 words!

A good story is a good story is a good story. Longer genre works give authors the chance to explore their themes and develop their plots. How often an author has been published shouldn’t put a cap on the length of their work.

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2. Editors assert control of story events...except when they don’t.

If you don’t change this plot point, the book won’t market well. Oh, you’re a ten-time bestseller? Write whatever you want, even if it doesn’t make sense we know people will buy it.

Sometimes, a beta or an editor will point out that an aspect of a story doesn’t work - because it’s nonsensical, illogical, Deus ex Machina, etc. - and in those cases it’s of course reasonable for an editor to say, “This doesn’t work and we recommend changing it, for these reasons…” However, when that list of reasons begins and ends with, “...because it won’t sell…” that’s a problem, especially because this is so often applied as a double standard. We’ve all read bestsellers with major plot issues, but those authors get a “bye” because editors don’t want to exert to heavy a hand and risk a proven seller, but with a new, less experienced, or worse-selling author, the gloves come off (even though evidence suggests time and again that publishers’ ability to predict what will sell well is at best low and at worst nonexistent.)

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3. A billion rejection letters as a required rite of passage (especially when the letters aren't helpful in pinpointing why a work has been rejected or how the author can improve).

Well, my first book was rejected by a hundred Presses before it was accepted! How many rejection letters did you get before you got a bite? What, only one or two? Oh…

How often one succeeds or fails to get published shouldn’t be treated as a form of hazing, and we all know that how often someone gets rejected or accepted has essentially no bearing on how good a writer they are. Plenty of schlock goes out into the world after being accepted on the first or second try...and so does plenty of good stuff! Likewise, plenty of schlock will get rejected 100 times but due to persistence, luck, circumstances, whatever, finally find a home, and plenty of good stuff will also get rejected 100 times before being publishing. Rejections (or lack there of) as a point of pride or as a means of judging others needs to die as a rite of passage among authors.

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4. Query letters, for so many reasons.

Summarize all your hard work in a single page! Tell us who you’re like as an author and what books your story is like, so we can gauge how well it’ll sell based on two sentences about it! Format it exactly the way we say or we won’t even consider you!

For publishers, agents, and editors who have slush piles as tall as Mount Everest...we get it. There has to be a way to differentiate. We don’t blame you. Every creative writing class, NaNoWriMo pep talk, and college lit department combine to send out hundreds of thousands of people who think all they need to do to become the next Ernest Hemingway is string a sentence together. There has to be some way to sort through that pile...but God, can’t there be a better way than query letters? Especially since even with query letters being used it often takes months or years to hear back, and...

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5. "Simultaneous submissions prohibited.”

No, we don’t know when we’ll get to your query, but we’ll throw it out instantly if you have the audacity to shop around while you wait for us.

The combination of “no simultaneous submissions” with the query letter bottleneck makes success slow and arduous. It disadvantages everyone who aims to write full-time but doesn’t have another income source (their own, or a parents’, or a spouse’s, or, or or). The result is that entire classes of people are edged out of publishing solely because the process, especially for writers early in their career, moves so glacially that people have to earn a living while they wait, and it’s so hard to, for example, work two jobs and raise a family and also somehow find the time to write. Especially considering that the standard advice for dealing with “no simultaneous submissions” is “just write something else while you wait!” ...the whole system screams privilege.

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6. Genres are boxes that must be fit into and adhered to.

Your protagonist is 18? Then obviously your book is Young Adult. It doesn’t matter how smutty your book is, erotica books must have sex within the first three chapters, ideally in the first chapter. Sorry, we’re a fantasy publisher, if you have a technological element you don’t belong here…

While some genre boxes have been becoming more like mesh cages of late, with some flow of content allowed in and out, many remain stiff prisons that constrict the kinds of stories people can tell. Even basic cross-genre works often struggle to find a place, and there’s no reason for it beyond “if we can’t pigeon-hole a story, it’s harder to sell.” This edges out many innovative, creative works. It also disadvantages people who aren’t as familiar with genre rules. And don’t get me wrong - this isn’t an argument that, for example, the romance genre would be improved by opening up to stories that don’t have “happily ever afters.” Instead, it’s pointing out - there should also be a home for, say, a space opera with a side romance, an erotica scene, and a happily-for-now ending. Occasionally, works breakthrough, but for the most part stories that don’t conform never see the light of day (or, they do, but only after Point 2 - trad pub editors insist that the elements most “outside” the box be removed or revised).

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7. The lines between romance and erotica are arbitrary, random, and hetero- and cis-normative.

This modern romance novel won’t sell if it doesn’t have an explicit sex scene, but God forbid you call a penis a penis. Oh, no, this is far too explicit, even though the book only has one mlm sex scene, this is erotica.

The difference between “romance” and “erotica” might not matter so much if not for the stigmas attached to erotica and the huge difference in marketability and audience. The difference between “romance” and “erotica” also might not matter so much if not for the fact that, so often, even incredibly raunchy stories that feature cis straight male/cis straight female sex scenes are shelved as romance, but the moment the sex is between people of the same gender, and/or a trans or genderqueer person is involved, and/or the relationship is polyamorous, and/or the characters involved are literally anything other than a cis straight male pleasuring a cis straight female in a “standard” way (cunnilingus welcome, pegging need not apply)...then the story is erotica. Two identical stories will get assigned different genres based on who the people having sex are, and also based on the “skill” of the author to use ludicrous euphemisms (instead of just...calling body parts what they’re called…), and it’s insane. Non-con can be a “romance” novel, even if it’s graphically described. “50 Shades of Gray” can sell millions of copies, even containing BDSM. But the word “vagina” gets used once...bam, erotica. (Seriously, the only standard that should matter is the Envelope Analogy).

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8. Authors are expected to do a lot of their own legwork (eg advertising) but then don't reap the benefits.

Okay, so, you’re going to get an advance of $2,500 on this, your first novel, and a royalty rate of 5% if and only if your advance sells out...so you’d better get out there and market! Wait, what do you mean you don’t have a following? Guess you’re never selling out your advance…

Trad pub can generally be relied on to do some marketing - so this item is perhaps better seen as an indictment of more mid-sized Presses - but, basically, if an author has to do the majority of the work themselves, then why aren’t they getting paid more? What’s the actual benefit to going the large press/trad pub route if it’s not going to get the book into more hands? It’s especially strange that this continues to be a major issue when self-publishing (which also requires doing one’s own marketing) garners 60%+ royalty rates. Yes, the author doesn’t get an advance, and they don’t get the cache of ~well I was published by…~, but considering some Presses require parts of advances to get paid back if the initial run doesn’t sell out, and cache doesn’t put food on the table...pay models have really, really got to change.

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9. Fanfiction writing doesn't count as writing experience

Hey there Basic White Dude, we see you’ve graduated summa cum laude from A Big Fancy Expensive School. Of course we’ll set you up to publish your first novel you haven’t actually quite finished writing yet. Oh, Fanperson, you’ve written 15 novels for your favorite fandom in the last 4 years? Get to the back of the line!

Do I really need to explain this? The only way to get better at writing is to write. Placing fanfiction on official trad pub “do not interact” lists is idiotic, especially considering many of the other items on this list. (They know how to engage readers! They have existing followings! They understand genre and tropes!) Being a fanfiction writer should absolutely be a marketable “I am a writer” skill. Nuff said. (To be clear, I’m not saying publishers should publish fanfiction, I’m saying that being a fanfiction writer is relevant and important experience that should be given weight when considering an author’s qualifications, similar to, say, publishing in a university’s quarterly.)

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10. Tagging conventions (read: lack thereof).

Oh, did I trigger you? Hahahaha. Good luck with that.

We rate movies so that people can avoid content they don’t like. Same with TV shows and video games. Increasingly, those ratings aren’t just “R - adult audiences,” either; they contain information about the nature of the story elements that have led to the rating (“blood and gore,” “alcohol reference,” “cartoon violence,” “drug reference,” “sexual violence,” “use of tobacco,” and many, many more). So why is it that I can read a book and, without warning, be surprised by incest, rape, graphic violence, explicit language, glorification of drug and alcohol use, and so so much more? That it’s left to readers to look up spoilers to ensure that they’re not exposed to content that could be upsetting or inappropriate for their children or, or, or, is insane. So often, too, authors cling to “but we don’t want to give away our story,” as if video game makes and other media makers do want to give away their stories. This shouldn’t be about author egos or ~originality~ (as if that’s even a thing)...it should be about helping readers make informed purchasing decisions. It’s way, way past time that major market books include content warnings.

Thank you for joining us, this has been our extended rant about how frustrated we are with traditional publishing. Helpful? No. Cathartic? Most definitely yes. 🤣

*

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[jadelotusflower]

Roundup: August 2021

This month: Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Don’t Call it a Cult, The Secret Garden, Showbiz Kids, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Lucifer.

Reading Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) - I’ve been meaning to read the Wide Sargasso Sea for a long, long time, but first I thought I’d revisit the source material. I find my opinion hasn’t much changed - I still love the prose, still love Jane as a character, and still find Rochester extremely unappealing. The section with Jane at school is the most engaging for me, and her early time as a governess at Thornfield, but as soon as Rochester shows up I just find him so irritating I have no idea why Jane loves him so much (other than he was the first man to ever show her a scrap of attention). I mean, I know to an extent - I've read the Takes, and part of fiction is accepting what you want for the character as a reader and what they want for themselves can be two different things, and that's not the fault of the text. I can be satisfied by the ending because Jane gets what she wants, I just can’t help but wonder about a Jane who was found by John Eyre before she went to Thornfield, or who took her inheritance and made her own way after Moor House. Byronic heroes just aren't my thing I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys) - The first Mrs Rochester of Jane Eyre strikes an uneasy tone to a modern reader; she does not utter a word in the novel, is depicted as animalistic and almost demonic, her story only told in a self-serving manner by Rochester, and conveniently disposed of so Jane can return to claim him. Rhys reimagines Bertha as Antoinette, a “white Creole” of Jamaica in a postcolonial take on the racial/social prejudices and hierarchy only hinted at in Eyre, where Bertha being Creole primarily an aspect of her Otherness, and in which Rochester describes himself as being desired as a husband because he was "of good race" . In Sea, although Antoinette is white (passing, perhaps), he sees her "not English or European either" and this contributes to his rejection of her (and perhaps his willingness to believe she is mad). The novel is surprisingly short - it skips over the meeting and courtship of Antoinette and Rochester (tellingly unnamed in the novel) entirely, jumping directly from her childhood/coming of age to the couple already married, and over much of Bertha's (renamed by Rochester) sad life in the attic. Still, there's a density to the writing, much is implied beyond the sparse use of words and recurring imagery - subjugation, reflection, and of course, fire - when freed slaves (Rhys changes the timeframe to after the passing of the Emancipation Act of 1833) set fire to Antoinette's family plantation, a pet parrot whose wings have been clipped by her English step-father Mason, cannot flee and falls to a fiery doom, in a grim omen of Bertha's fate. It did, however, leave me wanting more - I understand Rhys' stylistic choices and restraint, but in her effort to give voice to the voiceless, Antoinette/Bertha remains somewhat an enigma. Don’t Call it a Cult: Keith Raniere and the women of NXIVM (Sarah Berman) - I continue to be disturbed but intrigued by the NXIVM case, not only because of my abhorrence of MLMs/pyramid schemes, but my bafflement as to how this thoroughly unremarkable man was able to hold sway over so many women. My mild criticism of the two documentaries on this subject was that they tended to jump around in time so you never really got a good idea of what happened when. This book provides a well researched, detailed summary of events and linear chronology of Raniere’s perverse pathology reaching all the way back to childhood, and so is both an excellent supplement to the already informed, and broad overview to those new to the case. Berman is a Vancouver-based journalist who was present at Raniere’s trial and gives insight into witness testimony, supported by her own interviews and extensive research. There's less of a focus on the sensationalised celebrity members, with greater emphasis on the lesser known victims - including the three Mexican sisters who were all abused by Raniere, one of whom was kept confined to a room for years. It's difficult reading, consolation being the

knowledge that Raniere is rotting in prison and that his crimes finally caught up with him. Watching The Secret Garden (dir. Marc Munden) - Spoilers, if one needs a spoiler warning for a 110 year old novel. One of those stories that is adapted every generation, and generally I have no problem with this, since new adaptations can often bring something new or be a different take on old material (see Little Women 2019). But a part of me can’t help feel why bother with this when the perfect 1993 version exists. There is an Attempt at something new with this film, moving the setting forward to 1947 (Mary’s parents having died during the Partition), and turning the garden from a small walled secret to a mystical, huge wonderland full of ferns and flowers and endless sun. But in doing so, the central metaphor is lost - rather than Mary discovering something abandoned and run wild, gently bringing it back to life with love and care, she merely discovers a magical place that requires no effort on her part. There’s also less of a character arc for Mary, remaining unpleasant far into the proceedings, forcing Colin to visit the garden instead of it being his true wish, and generally succeeding by imposing her will on everyone else. In many ways she’s more like Burnett's other child heroine Sarah Crewe - the film opens I’m with her telling stories to her doll including Ramayana, which is eerily reminiscent of Alfonso Cuaron's (also perfect) 1995 adaptation of A Little Princess. But I suppose a sliver of credit where it's due - Julie Walters' Mrs Medlock is less of an antagonist, with Colin Firth's Lord Craven being Mary's primary obstacle. There's also a subplot with Mary's mother's depression following the death of her sister being the reason for her neglect (and Merlin alum Rupert Young shows up briefly as Mary's father) but like shifting the time period, there just doesn't seem to be a point to it. The climax of the film involves the Manor burning down (writer Jack Thorne stealing from Rebecca too, lol), with Mary and Craven have a very calm conversation as fire and smoke surrounds them. It’s all very bizarre, but also…rather dull? Don't bother with this, just watch the 1993 film again. Showbiz Kids (dir. Alex Winter) - a really interesting documentary on the titular subject - Winter was himself a child actor on Broadway before his film career kicked off in The Lost Boys and Bill and Ted, and has been able to assemble a broad range of interview subjects - Mara Wilson, Evan Rachel Wood, Wil Wheaton, Jada Pinkett Smith among others - former child actors, those still in the business, and some up and comers like Disney star Cameron Boyce (who I was sad to see in the coda has passed away). We also follow two young hopefuls - Marc, attending acting classes and auditioning in pilot season, yet to book a job but his parents are invested in "his" dream, and Demi, already established on Broadway but having to start to make choices between a career and a childhood. There's no voiceover, no expert opinions in this, letting the actors speak for themselves, but there is a telling juxtaposition of Marc returning home, jobless but having fun in the pool with his friends, while Demi has to cancel the summer camp she had been so looking forward to because she has booked a new role. The film is fairly even handed, but ultimately I took away that there just seems to be more harm than not in this industry, and abuses of many kinds. It does make you wonder about the ethics of child acting, at least in the current system where the cautionary tales are plentiful. Masters of the Universe: Revelation (episodes 1-5) - Mild spoilers I guess? I was never really into He-Man as a kid, other than the Secret of the Sword movie, so most of the in jokes and references in this went over my head. I have to admit, it was actually seeing all the outrage that made me want to check this out and see what all the complaining was about. I actually…really enjoyed it?!? I’m sympathetic to the complaints of a bait and switch (creators really need to learn to say

“just wait and see”), but other than that in my view the rest seemed completely unfounded. Adam/He-Man being killed in the first episode and the impact that has on Eternia and those left behind is actually a really interesting premise. This isn’t a TLJ situation; in contrast everyone (except Evil-Lyn) is always going on about how much they miss Adam, and the whole point of the first arc is him coming back. There’s also a nice little detail of Adam in Preternia (heroes heaven) choosing to remain as he is rather than as He-Man where all his predecessors have chosen their “ultimate” forms. I love him and his Magical Girl transformation. As for Teela - female characters can’t win, it seems. If they are perfect, they’re Mary Sues, if they have flaws, they’re unlikeable. Teela is Going Through things and is on a journey, but I often feel (and it seems the case here) that people confuse a character arc with author intent. No! Just because a character says/does something it doesn't mean you're supposed to agree with them! Some of Teela's actions may be petty and her demeanor less than sweet, but people make bad choices as a response to grief, and I actually thought her anger over Adam never telling her his secret and how that manifested was a pretty interesting take. I'll be interested to see the next half of the season, and ignore the ragebait youtube commentary. One more thing - Evil-Lyn (perfectly voiced by Lena Headey) was an absolute delight. Lucifer (season 5 part 2): They’ve basically given up on the procedural side of things by now and are leaning heavily into the mythology, which works for me since the case of the week is always the least interesting part of any show. It also struck me this season that there’s gender parity in the main cast (Lucifer, Amenadiel, Dan and then Chloe, Maze, Ella, Linda) - and actually, that’s more women than men. How often does that happen?!? I can’t say I’m particularly engaged with the Lucifer/Chloe pairing, but am happy to go along with it since that’s where the whole plot revolves. The best scenes for me this season were with God’s Dysfunctional Family, even if the lead up to the finale felt rushed (I understand the need to wrap things up in case of cancellation but still). I would have liked to see more of the sibling dynamics between the angels and less romantic drama, but hey. The character death got me, as well. I didn't see it coming and I didn't realise how much I had enjoyed that character until they were gone and well...it got me. I see the last season is coming soon, I'm not exactly sure where they can go from here, but looking forward to it nonetheless. Writing I was actually quite sick this month with a throat infection, so wasn't in the best frame of mind to get anything finished like I had planned to. I'm going to hold off posting the word count this month and roll it over to September when hopefully I've actually posted things.

[echodrops]

I just read your post about shipping and energy and I finished it with an interesting question in mind. A los of the examples you use to defend the theory the "tension" Or energy beetwen the characters have some Interactions that could be consider "Toxic" Así a relationship, but because of that tensión that just make more fans ship it. Emotions of jelaously, hate, self worth bla bla. I would like to know your opinión on Toxic relationships on shipping and the difference (1/2?)

And the difference of how people Accept it depending if the ship is Slash or het. Dont get me wrong. What I try to exploin in My crappy English is that sometimes I have seen shippers calling Toxic and unhealthy het ships (I can give you plenty of examples) but at the same time drowning in feelings about the exact same concept on Slash. It can be domination, bickering, power dinamics etc.   Please a dont send this ina negative context its just something I have notice (2/2)

No worries, I got you. I think your point is really valid and there are a lot of discrepancies in how people ship when it comes to het versus slash.

In this case, my answer to this has three different parts to it:

1) I am always very, very cautious about applying the term “toxic” to a fictional relationship because--and I am aware this is not a popular opinion to have on tumblr--I do see a clear distinction between fiction and reality. Can systemic, widespread efforts in media to normalize something have impacts on public perception? Sure. Japan’s thing for twelve-year-old girls in anime is fucked up, my dudes. But in terms of fictional relationships, would any sane person look at things like, say, a psychopathic villain and hero ship and go “Oh man, Sephiroth/Cloud is such relationship goals; can’t wait to find me a serial killer!”? “Yeah dude, I really hope my next girlfriend is a yandere who will stab me sixteen times in non-vital places for fun!” “I can’t wait to engage in armed combat with my evil boyfriend who has enslaved my best friends and won’t give them back unless I let the rest of the world perish!” ...said no real person ever. Lots of things happen in fiction that we--as readers and viewers--can fully appreciate would never be okay in the real world. (And yes, this does extend even to more realistic things like jealousy, bickering, bullying--I like Bakugou as a character, but I’d never be able to tolerate a person who acted like him in real life.) 

I wholeheartedly believe that, outside of illegal things which should obviously be reported, each person has responsibility only for their own fandom experience, and I highly encourage people to make full use of the blocking and filtering features available in fandom spaces to avoid any content that makes them feel uncomfortable or any ships they find to be unhealthy.

So: My opinion on toxic ships is that virtually any ship in this world could be perceived as toxic by someone, and that the alternative--a world in which the ONLY ships we’re allowed to write about or draw or even just like are those which are perfectly healthy pure pure love-fests--sounds horrible to me.

2) Very few people ship without an endgame in mind. I can’t think of anyone who looks at two characters who absolutely hate each other and thinks “Wow, I can’t wait to write a 100,000 word fic in which their relationship does not evolve in the slightest and they end the story hating each other exactly as much as they did on Day 1!” JK, maybe I can, I was in the Durarara fandom, after all. When people ship “toxic” relationships, it is almost always with the idea of character growth and change in mind--the idea is “They are not healthy for each other now, but the whole point of my story or art is that they’ll become healthy for each other over time.” The power of love can heallll peopleeee.

Are the characters jealous of each other now, aggressive toward each other now, enemies right now? Obviously in the shipper’s mind, these are challenges that can be overcome in time by the characters learning and developing into better versions of themselves. Perhaps this is an overly optimistic worldview that leads people to make bad choices in real life--awful people in real life rarely change as much for the better as characters in fiction are capable of changing, but that’s the beauty of fiction: it doesn’t show us people as they are, but people as we wish they could be. We want to believe that the toxic pair of characters can find common ground and heal each other. That the people who are jealous of each other will instead come to appreciate each other by the end. That the misunderstandings will be cleared up. That mistakes will be forgiven. People typically aren’t shipping a toxic ship because they love toxicity--they’re shipping that relationship specifically because they see potential beyond that tension.

We typically ship with “happily ever after” in mind, with the understanding that the life is too hard and people too flawed for that road to always be an easy one.

3) I think you are right that there is a discrepancy in the way that people view het ships and slash ships; namely, there is a discrepancy between the way het ships and mlm ships are viewed.

There are probably a lot of long and complicated sociological explanations for this that someone with more research in the field could explain better, but my first thought on this is that the discrepancy is based primarily on how fans understand male and female dynamics versus male and male dynamics.

For example, society is coded strongly to view a man who hits, dominates, or is aggressive to a woman as a very, very bad guy. (Perhaps this is something widespread media depictions have normalized?) Whereas “dude kicks another guy’s ass” has a whole different connotation in modern views. It is certainly a double standard, and part of the reason that so many male victims of abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, etc. go ignored. Men are viewed as “too strong” to be victims; therefore, even many of the “wokest” fans can accept two male characters having a violent dynamic, when they would never accept that scenario between a male and female character.

That said, I think we also need to recognize that the way female characters are portrayed in media contributes to this problem. A preponderance of female characters in media are limited in what they can do and the situations they are allowed to engage in. As with BNHA, for example, “good” women are not allowed to be violent, jealous (other than over boys), aggressive, etc. Women are simply treated as not eligible for a wide variety of the dynamics that fictional men are written with. A male character having a superiority-inferiority complex over his also-male rival? Not surprising in the least. A male character having a superiority-inferiority complex over a female rival? Pshhh, yeah right. A female character bitterly jealous over a male character’s power, leadership, or skill? Surely she just admires his ability. Through a combination of misogyny and toxic masculinity, the stories themselves tell readers that unhealthy dynamics are commonplace and acceptable when they happen between two males, while “good” female characters should only be a source of healthy, supportive dynamics.

If we’re talking about unintended messages that writers send readers/viewers when it comes to character dynamics, this is definitely one of them!

tl;dr: Writers train their readers to expect and want certain things, but often do so carelessly or while unaware of the ways their own stereotypical societal views and cliche genre conventions will be taken and transformed by fandoms.

[sneakerdoodle]

in honour of the third @glimadora-week being an au one and today being a free day here comes my superhero au that i came up with like half a year ago. the gist of it is 

“a local not-well-known young superhero (Glimmer) gets a huge crush on other superhuman girl’s alias (She-Ra) and dreams of teaming up with her and kicking ass together, until she accidentally meets the girl in question (Adora). she is flustered and embarrassed and stops her fangirling, only to realize she’s actually falling for her now friend and teammate, this time for real”

a more detailed summary follows

Glimmer is a second-gen superhuman (teleportation powers obviously); her mom’s a first-gen with an impervious immune system who worked closely with a group of scientists to figure out the nature of her and other superhumans’ powers, which is how she met Micah (a scientist)

Glimmer juggles being a vigilante behind her mom’s back and attending college (tho skipping classes quite a lot). she exhausts and stresses herself out but refuses to quit because she wants to actually use her powers and make a difference. her and Bow are a hero duo (Bow is a regular human but is smart as fuck and one heck of an archer) and have matching costumes. they mostly watch over the protesters on rallies making sure cops or provocators don’t bother them. very occasionally there are actual criminals they get to stop, but usually nothing serious, just stolen bags and stuff. Glimmer is antsy and wants to do something big

one day a new superhero catches everyone’s attention. she’s strikingly different from everyone else: she doesn’t hide her face, she doesn’t talk to press, she vanishes from the scene as suddenly as she appears, and people only know her supposed name from the letters engraved into the massive blade she carries: SHE-RA

Glimmer gets a very obvious huge crush on her, which Bow won’t stop teasing her about. but it’s not only that ’girl pretty’ (altho, yes, that too): Glimmer is also absolutely enamoured by She-Ra’s seeming courage and confidence. while she has to hide her powers from everyone, wear contact lenses to mask her eye color and unnatural glitter, avoid other college students because she can’t trust herself to not accidentally blurt her secret out over lunch, while she feels like the whole world (and most often her own mother) is telling her to be ashamed of herself, She-Ra’s walking the streets without a mask on. Glimmer won’t stop dreaming about finding her and teaming up with her - until she bumps into a homeless blonde girl in some shady bystreet and the oh so familiar sword falls out of the girl’s backpack

Adora is a subject of an organization that experiments on kidnapped orphaned kids, trying to artificiality enhance their DNA and raising them to fight superhumans who are deemed dangerous. the organization considers itself kind of like a counter-force to the growing population of people with mutated genes and wants them under governmental control

being one of the most resilient and strong trainees, Adora is chosen for the project “SHE-RA”, gets injected with the DNA of a deceased superhero which gets triggered through the exposure to radioactive materials in She-Ra’s sword (specifically the stone). during the procedure things get out of hand, Adora is overwhelmed and loses control over her body, goes full berserk She-Ra mode, crashes the lab in a frenzy and escapes with the sword; she finds her way to the nearest city and, suffering a temporary memory loss, wanders its streets scared, confused and alone, only vaguely remembering that the sword is important and clinging onto it

she finds herself near sites of accidents more frequently than she would like to, and in these moments feels the sword responding to her emotion and desire to help. she doesn’t like the feeling of it almost forcing itself into her hands and is pretty scared of her powers - but can’t seem to let go of the blade. until it’s forcibly taken away from her by a total stranger (who apparently can teleport?), and the stranger is very angry and demands to know who Adora is and how she got her hands on a superhero’s property

Adora’s pretty angry too - both at the accusations of her stealing the damn thing and at the yelling girl herself. and wary of her, ready to take her down. she still can’t recall how she got where she is now but she does remember her childhood, her training and the things she was told: superhumans are unstable and dangerous

they both immediately dislike each other out of various prejudices and are this close to throwing hands while Bow is desperately trying to mediate the conversation. after somewhat diffusing it he asks Adora about her situation and offers her help. she, altho reluctantly, accepts it: she doesn’t have any better options, and these two seem... nice? Glimmer too starts feeling quite empathetic towards her very soon, finally noticing that Adora’s tired and clearly hungry, completely anihilating Glimmer and Bow’s lunch subs in under a minute. however she is still not entirely sure she trusts her, especially since Adora herself can’t really explain how she got She-Ra’s sword - that is until Glimmer get to see the transformation with her own two eyes, and is. quite overwhelmed. she’s only seen She-Ra on tv before, and now she is right here in her full radiant glory and that is a bit too much to handle

the squad of three starts their investigation trying to figure out what happened to Adora, at first unaware that the Horde is on their tail looking for their project

actually meeting Adora and getting to know her better makes Glimmer stop unconsciously idealizing She-Ra; she finally gets over her fangirly crush. eventually tho Glimmer catches herself developing actual deep feelings. the thought of Bow’s a) intensified teasing, b) happy excited meddling is terrifying

Adora is going through a lot. she doesn’t want to fail people who helped her, and Glimmer, not fully understanding the complicated feelings Adora has about her powers, comes off as a bit pressuring when she talks about the asses the three of them are going to kick together, now that She-Ra is on their side. they go through some communication issues, but eventually through her actions Glimmer manages to get it across that she genuinely cares about Adora’s well-being, making it easier for her to open up, so they can finally work it out. Adora in her turn learns about Glimmer’s complicated feelings about her powers and capabilities, how she desperately wants to be herself unapologetically and prove that she is worth something and use whatever power she has to make the world a better place. over time they both get to really know each other and learn how to help and support each other, growing closer and closer and developing warmer and warmer feelings. it’s a nice and cozy slowburn

Some other not glimadora-centric stuff:

Bow started his hero training before realizing he was trans, and ‘Bow’ was his first alias, kind of like a working title; being addressed by it instead of his deadname made him very happy, so he just adopted it as his actual name once he came out

‘Glimmer’ is also Glimmer’s actual name; Angela’s just Like That

the two have a freaking. Patreon page with 10 whole patrons. all of whom are gay college students who joined after Glimmer and Bow showed up at the local pride in their hero costumes carrying a huge banner with their team’s logo against the bi flag. ‘local teenage leftist heroes’ is kind of their whole thing

Bow lies to his dads about working towards his bachelor degree in history, while in reality he spends his days working on tech hoping to get a scholarship from Entrapta, a state-famous superhero and a brilliant inventor, quite wealthy and so influential she doesn’t need to hide her identity. she sponsors autistic kids and kids of colour who want to get into expensive STEM programs and holds regular engineering contests looking for candidates. Bow’s a huge fan

George was a part of the scientists’ group Angela worked with; after a horrible accident that costed them lives of superhumans and scientists alike (including Micah) he quit and cut off everyone he knew from it; the only exception is Spinerella and Netossa, because wlw/mlm solidarity. he and Lance needed another gay couple of their age to have brunch with

Spinerella and Netossa (that have. other names. normal ones) also helped Angela raise Glimmer and were her cool gay aunts. they had to move cities when Glimmer was 5 or 6 tho which Angela was quite happy about: it was painful and unnerving being around people from her old team, and she didn’t want her daughter following them on their path since the couple continued being superheroes. it was too late for that tho because her aunts were Glimmer’s biggest inspiration both through coming out and starting her vigilante business

Angela herself quit being a hero after losing Micah and currently works as a doctor, and is brilliant at her job. she often volunteers to work in quarantined areas, putting her immunity to a good use. it is possible that she doesn’t age and is immortal, they never got around to defining the exact limit of her powers

Angela, Micah, Casta, Spinerella, Netossa and George all knew Mara and worked with her. she died before the team fell apart, her sword and body were preserved by her friends. Weaver was a part of the research group as well and left when things started going south. she took (i.e. stole) some samples, including Mara’s sword and DNA, which she then used to bargain for a higher position in the Horde. project “SHE-RA” was her initiative

needless to say, everyone who knew Mara was deeply shocked by the new She-Ra suddenly appearing on the news. which makes Glimmer double as unwilling to let her mom in on what’s been going on in her life: Angela clearly doesn’t want to hear a single word about the new super in town

[stillinglanier0]

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[motorcyclegirlfriends]

it's about the pattern. not JJ's pattern, all shows and f/f ships. we've seen actors/producers do this many times. everyone thinks they're special and should be judged on their life of goodness. no. an action can be judged against the systemic pattern too. "not the story we're telling, just friends, i don't see it, won't happen, family show"-- this constitutes a visible pattern. the pattern is homophobic, i don't care what your feefees were at the time. also "ignorance of the law..."

Late ass reply, and I honestly hate to bring the topic up, but here we go:

“Family show” is different, actually homophobic. Has the secret meaning of “seeing gay people living their lives is harmful to children”. (This is what I mean by an innately homophobic phrase)

“Not the story we’re telling” is shady to me, because it feels like “we’re not being activists, we’re telling normal stories” which is offensive, but it might just actually be their way of saying “we’re not gonna go that direction” ? Depends on if my vibes about it are right.

“They’re only friends” is just alerting us to whether or not they’re gonna get together.

This isn’t a package deal. Saying one of these things doesn’t mean you mean or think the others, regardless of what other people have said in the past.

And the way they emphatically said it wasn’t, “you’re crazy for thinking it’s a possibility!” 

It seemed more like, “everyone is going crazy for this thing that’s not actually gonna happen.” Like a half put-on exasperation. Exasperation that we have no reason to believe exists because the ship is gay. 

(The common theory is that Jeremy’s reaction had to do with the fandom’s intensity. It’s both eclipsing of the canon content that they’re actually working on on purpose, and has been historically aggressive. Personally, I think Melissa was just kinda going with it for humor.)

And just in case anyone was wondering: these writers deciding not to make both of their leads wlw just isn’t homophobic.

There is indeed a pattern of not having representation in the media, not including diversity in shows over and over and over again, when writers who aren’t a minority should still be able to relate to these people enough to tell stories that include them. They should be able to see themselves in these people.

If they can’t, that hints at a larger issue within them...

But shipping is different. 

Someone can’t force themselves to ship something different than their orientation. A straight writer wouldn’t feel pleasure in writing a gay relationship any more than a gay writer would feel pleasure in writing a straight relationship.

Any more than a gay person would feel pleasure in watching a straight relationship.

Expecting a straight person to change their lead- who is often their favorite character and who they most relate to- so that they start dating someone of the same sex, when they themselves aren’t of that orientation and can’t feel the emotion of the relationship, is expecting too much. 

If that decision were made, it would be specifically for the benefit of the fans, for the cause, and maybe because they’re logically interested in the prospect. But they would not feel it in a romantic, emotional way. Not the way we do.

And writers write things they want to see more than they write for other people to see it.

If you’ve written fanfiction, you know that you don’t want to write for a ship you don’t ship. You might do it from time to time, in small doses for people who request something about them, but your main focus is the ship that you do like. (Side note: imagine your frustration if the ship you do like to write about is massively less popular than the one you don’t.)

This might be why most lgbt+ characters are side characters. Because the writers can’t relate to them in that way, and they want the most important character to also be their favorite character. 

They can’t project themselves onto the characters and feel like they’re experiencing the romance. 

And if the story is romance-focused, then it is especially unlikely that they’d have the main character be gay. Not unless there is some degree of fluidity in their sexuality. 

The solution is to have writers who can relate. 

Lgbt+ writers.

When writers see that the fans like something a lot, they take a second look at it, and if they agree, they might change the story. 

But straight writers will never agree about gay chemistry, because they can’t feel it.

And so we need more wlw/mlm/etc. writers out there, so that when we show a writer that this other ship has chemistry, they’ll be able to feel it and then possibly turn the story in that direction, instead of only advancing the gay ships that they had designated from the beginning. 

This is where Supergirl has gone wrong, in (what it looks like) pushing Ali Adler, lesbian writer, off the show. That’s what we should be raging about. 

That a writer who might have seen the chemistry is gone. 

Not that these writers don’t personally see the chemistry of a specific ship.

Also, you can’t say “let’s compare it to the rest of society” and then leave out the fact that they have an actual canon lesbian ship. 

That’s the full picture. 

And not just because they have some positive track record that absolves them, but because it means that this isn’t “give us a gay character!” to which they respond with “~We don’t want to tell that story~.” 

(Or show us that, in never having a gay character or only having one for five minutes)

This is, “Make this specific character gay!” 

And then they respond with, “No, actually, we plan to keep that one straight.”

So if this is the reason that what they said is homophobic, then you’re also mad at the actors for just knowing what the writers are doing.

If I had gotten a lot of asks sent to me saying “Lena and Kara might actually end up being canonically together!” I might have responded in the same way.

“They’re not gonna get together, they’re (canonically) only friends.”

Now, I’d have more tact than Jeremy, because I know people’s real feelings are involved in this, but even if I were blunt about it, it wouldn’t make me homophobic. 

And your “ignorance of the law” argument just doesn’t apply to the fandom’s “feefees”.

Because that’s what's happening. 

It’s not that the cast was ignorant that what they were saying was homophobic (because it wasn’t), it’s that they were ignorant that lgbt+ fans’ feelings would be hurt because they hold the ship close to their heart.

It’s like if someone called the rainbow flag ugly, not realizing that people are very emotionally attached to it’s image. 

It’s kind of like, “They should probably know that people might feel that way...” but calling the flag ugly isn’t actually homophobic.

Now, if they think it’s ugly because it reminds them of gay people, that’s homophobic. 

If they called it ugly to purposefully hurt gay people, that’s homophobic.

But we can’t know that that’s what they’re thinking from just that statement alone, just like we can’t know what Jeremy and Melissa were thinking from just their statements. 

(This is where examples of their past “allyship” come into play. It’s not “Melissa was on glee so she can’t be homophobic.” It’s “Hey, because of their track record, we have no reason to think there was anything secretly nefarious behind what they said. They just didn’t realize how seriously wlw take their non-canon ships.”)

And yet people have been automatically projecting homophobia onto what they said.

They’re placing mockery of gay fans or feelings of disdain for two women being together onto the event when it just isn’t there.

If anything, I think if Jeremy and Melissa were actually uncomfortable with Supercorp, they’d have been exponentially more careful with their words.

[simplemlmsponsoring]

New Post has been published on http://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/mlm-sponsoring/final-thoughts-of-2018-unsubscribe-from-our-emails-amazon-gift-cards-just-in-time-learning-concept/

Final thoughts of 2018 (Unsubscribe from our Emails, Amazon Gift Cards & Just in Time Learning Concept)

Merry Christmas!

I just want to take a minute and thank all of our customers, clients, podcast listeners, MLM Training Club, Programming Your Mind for Success, and Network Marketing Leadership Development Academy Members for making 2018 a great year for Calvert Marketing Group. 

In spite of a very disrupted fire at our office in June, we learned a lot this year.  Because of your support and feedback and we are entering 2019 with more excitement and anticipation than I can ever remember having,  going into a year in a long time.

Around this time of the year, people always asks me what they can expect in their business in 2019?  My response is the same.  It will be about the same as 2018.  The only person that can make a difference is you.  If you get better, so will your business, it is really that simple.  The challenge is people are not CLEAR on the steps they personally need to take to get better.  I hope this article will help you.

I have shared with you how I am feeling about 2019. What about you?  Do you know in your heart and soul that you will move your life and your business forward in 2019?  If you don’t have that assurance, I would invite you to check out.PROGRAMMING YOUR MIND FOR SUCCESS WORKSHOP There is nothing you can do that will have a more positive impact on your 2019 than going through this free workshop.  It comes down December 31st, so don’t even read the rest of this post until you click the link above and get registered.

Daily we have been reading testimonies like this since we opened up the free workshop the middle of December.

PLEASE UNSUBSCRIBE to our emails

During the month of December I make it a point to unsubscribe to every email list that I don’t get value from.  I believe we should all eliminate as many voices from our life as possible.  If I don’t provide you real, wisdom of the ages, value then you should unsubscribe.

Those of you that have been on our email list for years, know we don’t bombard your email box.  If we send something to you , we believe it provides real value and is something we are personally using in one of our businesses.

Our commitment is to entrepreneur minded people in any niche, period. Our loyalty is not to a particular niche, business model or company, it is to you our entrepreneur minded readers.

Many of you are network marketing leaders, some market products and services through Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Facebook Market Place and other channels.  Some of you are authors and information product publishers, some are affiliate marketers, internet marketers, own mom & pop businesses, and the list goes on and on.

We respect you, we believe in you and your entrepreneurial spirit. 

However if you are a person who got bit once by the entrepreneur bug, and today have lost interest, we don’t want to waste your time and fill your inbox with insights you don’t find valuable.  Please hit the unsubscribe button at the bottom of any email that comes from our office.  No hard feelings, we will always be here, if and when the bug bites again!

FOCUS

I believe the most important entrepreneurial trait you must develop at this point forward in history is FOCUS.  I am not going to go much more into that here, because I recently did an entire podcast episode on the subject of Focus that you can hear right here:

https://mlmhelp.podbean.com

This brings me to the next topic which I have mentioned in several podcast this year, you are probably going to hear me talk more and more about, it is a concept called.

JUST IN TIME LEARNING CONCEPT

I did a webinar training on this topic, it is probably available at www.MLMSuccessWebinars.com .   What does JITL ?   There is an old Chinese Proverb that says:

“When the Student is Ready, the Teacher will Arrive”Click To Tweet

I recently read that the average American is exposed to 5,000 different ads a day.

If you spend anytime online, those numbers are probably even higher.  As it relates to the entrepreneur markets it is the same thing over and over.  

I HAVE A SECRET THAT WILL MAKE YOU MONEY QUICKER AND FASTER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE, SO BUY MY FU FU FU DUST!

The headline sucks us in, we think they seem sincere, and we buy the fu fu dust expecting to easily add six figures to our bottom line in no time at all.  Remember what Jim Rohn told us “Never mistake sincerity with truth, because some people are sincerely wrong”

AT SOME POINT YOU HAVE TO REALIZE IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.  If there were a secret software is making them millions, why are they trying to sell it to you for $197.00?

I believe your gut instincts are normally right, but there are many people in the market place who have one goal.  Extract as much money from newbies as possible.  They are awesome at telling ½ truths and tugging on people’s emotional triggers.  They believe sell to everybody at all cost, even if they don’t really need what they are selling.

This is why I am constantly trying to remind our readers to look behind the curtain, and never purchase anything from anyone who doesn’t have a documented track record of success. 

With all that said, I believe you learn how to be product in a business sequentially, piece by piece, concept by concept.   You cannot teach Algebra to someone who hasn’t learned basic addition yet.

The entrepreneurial world is full of people that want to be Noble Prize Mathematicians who have never learned how to multiply 5X5.  During this holiday break it may be a good time to review the 5 Core Fundamentals of network marketing and ask yourself, how many of these have you MASTERED?

Mastering these fundamentals will take you as far as you desire to go in the network marketing  business model.  Most people find themselves fifteen years down the road in network marketing with one mediocre year repeated fifteen times.

Their impatience put them into a pattern of constantly looking for the magic product, company, or hack that would make them successful and never accepting the fact the real answer was starring them back in the mirror.

It absolutely starts with getting your mind right, and removing the limiting beliefs you have about yourself. The good news is this removal process can be done!  This is one of the reasons I only open up the Programming Your Mind for Success workshop once a year.  Otherwise, I would be talking about mindset science and programming all the time.

There is no part of developing a network marketing team that I cannot guide you through.  However I cannot give you the proper mindsets, or do the work for you. You must do that, and do that consistently and patiently knowing that when you are ready to move to the next level the information and support will be here for you.   You can always click the ASK DALE button in the top right hand corner of this website and I will respond.   You can’t learn everything you need in a few months, so don’t try.   Find ONE MENTOR, and plug into their systems, and MASTER THEM based upon your personal strengths, and talents.

Systems can be duplicated, personality cannot be!

So one more time I would ask.  As you move into 2019  What is the one thing that can help you move your life and business forward more than any other?

I have asked myself that question, and I have my answer.  Do you?

Whatever it is, focus there, stay there and MASTER that aspect of the business before you give too much attention to other skill sets and mindsets training.  Find a mentor that can help you, and get totally plugged in.   If you are really not sure how to answer that question then my suggestion is that you WATCH THIS TRAINING ASAP: 27% Success System.

I promise this platform will give you the foundational knowledge you need to become all you can become, I can’t recommend this highly enough, especially if you feel confused and have no idea where you need to start in 2019 and what skill set our mindset you should be mastering.

Last thought.   AMAZON GIFT CARDS

This time of the year those of us that people say are hard to buy for end up with Amazon Gifts Cards.   It is a sad but true fact that a high number of gift cards that are purchased are never used.

So if you end up with an Amazon gift card or two this year.  Ask yourself what is the one skill set or mindset I need to master this year to move my life and my business forward?   There is a good chance you will find a book or course on Amazon by clicking here that will help you.

If you are not crystal clear about your answer my suggestions are simple. If you have self-limiting belief and doubt holding you back, or have a team that needs help with doubt this is your answer:   PROGRAMMING YOUR MIND WORKSHOP

If you are not sure what the One Thing you need to Master in 2019 this book will help:

If you know where you need to focus, you will probably find a book or course that will help you by clicking here.

I just want to encourage you to GET SERIOUS.  Life is not a practice session this is the real thing.  You must Run When You Can Run!

I talked to two friends this week, both younger than me that are going through some serious, major health challenges.

Wistful Regret is the scariest state any of us can end up in.   Make the very best of 2019 and we will always be here to support and encourage entrepreneurs every way we can.  If you are not familiar with the concept of “Wistful Regret” you can listen to the podast  here.

NO FLUFF Session 76: Wistful Regret

I hope 2019 is a wonderful year for you and yours. Expect great blessing to flow your way.

You are appreciated by Dawn and I and our staff at Calvert Marketing Group more than we  can communicate in words.  If we have never met personally, I hope our paths will cross  this year!

Dedicated to Your Success!

PS  You can stay in the loop daily at our Facebook business  page here:  www.Facebook.com/DaleCalvertPage  Stop by and say hi!

***

Read more: mlmhelp.com

[sluttyshakespeare]

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You can set up a sms mobile number from any PC, laptop, tablet or smart phone. So long as you have a wi-fi connection, you're good to go. In fact, we even provide to you free Mp3 recording tools that you can use to record your marketing messages.

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Imagine you did a voice broadcast or ringless voice drop to 1,000 prospects on a Tuesday afternoon. The C.T.A. (Call To Action) is to call your personal cell phone for a "free" 1:1 consultation. Now, take a wild GUESS as to what will happen if you did this?

You'd get every 'Tom, Dick and Harry' blowing up your phone, asking you every possible question under the sun about who you are, what's this about, what company are you with, how much does it cost, is this a job, etc...?

It'd be a complete NIGHTMARE!

You and I both know it would be! Well, the SOLUTION is to put automated information between YOU and your PROSPECT. So lets do the same voice broadcast or ringless voice drop to 1,000 prospects on a Tuesday afternoon but this time around, you use your (NEW) sms mobile number as a "buffer" between YOU and the PROSPECT. In other words, they have to go through your SMS marketing platform BEFORE they can get a chance to talk to you.

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Here's how this works, in 3 simple steps...

Step 1: Sign Up

Once inside SMS Phone Leads, you'll want to sign up for a (FREE) Stripe account. If you have an existing Stripe account, you can use it. Otherwise, you'll need to sign up for an account, which takes about 20 minutes to activate.

Step 2: Collect

Each sale our system tracks and completes for you, you collect 100% of the $20 payment. You can learn more information here on Youtube. This means if Bob buys from you, you get the $20, paid directly to you, even if it's 4 AM.

Step 3: Get Paid

Your money typically shows up inside of 2 business days from Stripe, automatically. There are no configurations, installs or downloads required.

Act Now And Instantly Qualify For The Following (3) Bonuses...

Bonus #1: 100 Text Message Credits

We'll give you 100 text credits so you can set up and configure your new sms enabled virtual number without spending a dime of your own money. When you're ready, you can add more credits to your account for as little as .02 cents per message! Now that's CHEAP marketing.

Bonus #2: New Report - How A Group Of Underground Marketers Are Leveraging The PHONE To Make $80,000 + Per Month From High Ticket Sales, All While "Goofing" Off! (Trust me, this report is worth 10 X the price of entry by itself!)

Bonus #3: Custom "Bridge Page" That Connects You To Your Prospects

No need to pay someone a couple hundred dollars to make you a bridge page. We'll give you one for free, inside of SMS Phone Leads. It's a page that you can customize with your own story based video, social media channels and even allows your prospects 1-click access to you via Facebook Messenger.

What IS a Bridge Page, You Ask?

It's simply a page that's "sandwiched" between your lead capture page and your primary programs info page.

First, you collect the opt-in, which 9 times out of 10 will be a 'cold lead', ie., someone (NOT) familiar with you or what you represent. So instead of immediately going into full-on presentation mode, which isn't good for you or your prospect, you create a buffer where the prospect can learn more about YOU in a safe space. The reason this is important nowadays is because your prospect is more interested in you, your story and why you choose to align with your primary program, even more so than his or hers interest in the biz opp itself.

Having this bridge page in place allows you to connect with your prospects and helps you position + pre-qualify + pre-sell, all at the same time.

NEW Bonus #4: Exclusive "Behind The Scenes" Peek At A Conversation I Had With A SMS Phone Leads Customer Who Sent 400 Texts For $3.80, Got 200 Clicks And Collected 10 New Opt-Ins For A Per Lead Cost Of Only .38 Cents!

Q: Is the virtual sms phone number difficult to set up?

A: No! Not at all. Everything is laid out, in a step by step format. Average set up time from start to finish is about 15-20 minutes. If you need help, we do offer email as well as phone support.

Q: I heard that you need credits? Can you explain that?

A: Yes, absolutely! Every text messaging product, be it ours or anyones for that matters, runs off credits. Think of text message credits as the "FUEL", ie., like a car engine needs gasoline. With gas, your engine will run. Without gas, the engine will shut off. Same concept applies with your virtual mobile number.

What is mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing is marketing activity designed for shipment to cell phones, cell phones and other handheld gadgets, typically as an element of a multi-channel project.

Now, don't get freaked out over any of that stuff, As that's all normal and it's (NOT) expensive at all. In fact, we've priced our text messaging credits to be very competitively priced, as low as .0095 per credit. For example, 1 text message = 1 credit. 1000 credits = $9.50.

Q: Is SMS Phone Leads available to users (OUTSIDE) the U.S.?

A: Yes, we have many international friends using and leveraging the SMS Phone Lead platform.

Q: Can I get additional sms phone numbers?

A: Yes, you can. They are $3/mo per number. Each number can be set up to run different campaigns. So for example, say you have 2 sms phone numbers. You can run 2 different numbers on 2 different campaigns. This way you can see where the leads (prospects) are coming in from.

SMS Number #1: Use it on a postcard campaign

SMS Number #2: Use it with ringless voice drops

Q: Why can't I just 800link?

A: You can! No one is stopping you. The main difference between us and 800link is that they charge a monthly fee and they don't have auto text message enabled. Nor do they give you a customizable bridge page that promotes you.

Q: I'm interested in the ringless voice drops? Where can I get more info?

A: Inside your SMS Phone Leads account, there is a detailed training on how to maximize lead flow leveraging RVM (ringless voice mail).

Q: Is there an affiliate program for SMS Phone Leads?

A: Yes! You can collect 100% of the commission ($20 + optional order bump @ $10) via Stripe.

Q: What exactly am I getting for my $20 one time?

A: Sms Phone Leads gives you your own 24 hr (VIRTUAL) mobile number with instant auto text reply that you can use to advertise any program, system, product, service or opportunity. This is a powerful marketing tool used by newbies and top earners, alike!

Q: Do I need any technical skills?

A: The quick and direct answer is NO! You do (NOT) any technical skills. If you can copy-n-paste, then you can set up your mobile number within minutes.

Q: Are there any monthly fees?

A: There are (NO) monthly fees. The $20 is one time.

Q: I see you offer a sms blaster. Can you provide more details please?

A: Yes, an an upsell item inside the SMS Phone Leads funnel, there is the option for a $33/mo sms blaster. That account includes the leads (business opportunity only) as well as the ability to do 200 per day. We offer larger sms accounts as well, upon request, butonly to existing customers.

REVIEW

With the sudden surge and development of online businesses, there comes a need for businesses, organizations and individuals to create smart ways to respond to prospects, queries, and leads. This need is even more pressing when it comes to businesses with so much traffic. SMS Phone Leads is exactly what it sounds like.

This website offers you the option to automate your SMS phone leads conversations, responses and replies to clients and prospects while allowing you to keep a tab on other aspects.

On the home page, it has the claims of being the “secret mobile marketing weapon revealed” and “how to get the leads coming to you”. If you are experienced in digital marketing, you definitely would agree that a lot of businesses that sell products seem very convincing and even while they may not often deliver the exact product as expected, they sure do a good job at selling themselves.

In this review, we will take a look at the product being offered, explain the benefits and give you a chance to decide for yourself if it is legit.

The product

Just like the name implies, SMS Phone Leads offers you the chance to bring automation and efficiency into your business for text message marketing softwareby setting up recorded messages, pre-arranged text that gets sent after the set prompts and a few other benefits. Needless to say, this definitely fills a need in the marketing business as it could be difficult to keep track of all conversations and inquiries when your business begins to experience a surge in growth. The idea is to help you increase personal growth without increasing the amount of effort being put into it.

How does mobile marketing work?

Mobile marketing includes advertisements that appear on mobile smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices. Mobile marketing ad formats, personalization, and designs can differ, as many social networks platforms, sites, and mobile apps use their own unique and customized mobile ad choices.

According to the website, there are 7 good reasons why you will love this program. They include;

    Instant auto text message reply- This feature allows you to create automated voice messages and text pieces that are sent instantly when prospective clients or leads dial/text your phone lines.

    24-hour voicemail prospecting system- With automation, your prospects can receive information at any time of the day as information is delivered automatically.

    Click call back for voicemail messages

    Promote whatever you want

    Easy setup…average set up time is less than 15 minutes.

    Offline and online use

    Screen and prequalify your prospects to save time.

There is no doubt these are really innovative and much-needed tools for a lot of businesses. With the cost it may take to hire customer care representatives to respond to client calls, an automated system sure sounds like a good idea.

When you register, you get your own personal number which you can use as business numbers and conduct all automation and settings on the website. It’s quite easy and straight-forward.

Aside from all of the 7 reasons listed above, we can definitely agree that it would save cost to take up a new automated system that gets the job done and allows you to get high quality and serious leads that are ready to patronize you.

SMS Phone Leads support

The company offers a 24-hour support system where all your questions can be resolved quickly. Members are encouraged to send all emails of inquiries to support@SMSphoneleads.com or place a direct call to 330.787.7285. The company is based out of SALEM OHIO.

SMS Phone Leads price and affiliate programs

The program starts off with a one-time membership fee of $20. However, you may need to purchase additional text credits from $15-$50 assuming the bonus 100 text credits you are given is insufficient for the actions you want to perform.

You can also get additional SMS Leads if you wish to run different campaigns and each of these come with a fee of $3 per month. It is important to state clearly that SMS Phone Leads does not charge a monthly fee for a single number and this is one of the features that differentiate it from its counterparts.

The affiliate program allows you to refer people to benefit from the system and gives you 100% commission on their sign-up fee.

This means that you get $20 for each member that signs up through you. The affiliate program is priced at $9.97 and allows you to earn extra while coordinating your leads.

My final opinion of SMS Phone Leads

There is no doubt a real opportunity here. Aside from being a good way to earn extra through the affiliate program, you can definitely utilize this tool to handle your numerous prospects.

[mlmcompanies]

Monat is like the “doterra” of hair products.

They “get it.” They understand that the only way a direct sales company has success is by the value created by their products.

In other words, would anybody buy these if there wasn’t an “opportunity” involved?

For 99% of MLMS, that answer is “no.”

Why would I know?

Well, I’ve studied the space for years and run two of the biggest network blogs in the world.

Monat is on my short list of companies that actually have a product that is innovative and provides market value…

If only they weren’t embroiled in a rash of heavy-hitting lawsuits. Keep reading to learn more.

FAQ

1. What does Monat sell? Monat focuses exclusively on hair care. Product lines include Hydration, Volume, Densify Duo, Stylized, Power Boost, Magnify, Monat Junior, Monat Black, Colour Enhance, Effortless Style, R3, Advanced Hydrating, and Restructuring.

2. What are Monat’s most popular products? The Smoothing Deep Conditioner works on all hair types to nourish, control frizz, and add brilliant shine. The Rejuveniqe Oil Intensive adds 13+ natural plant and essential oils, antioxidants, and nutrients to your scalp and hair for instantly healthier hair and shine.

3. How much does it cost to join Monat? You can join for $99 USD or $125 CAD, with an annual $19.95 renewal fee.

4. Is Monat a scam? No, they’re a legit business that’s been well-regarded in the industry. They’ve been awarded the 2018 Making a Difference Award and the 2017 Journey to Success Award by the DSA of Canada; the 2016 Gold Stevie Award, Silver Stevie Award, and Bronze Stevie Award from the American Business Awards; and the 2016 Silver Stevie Award and Bronze Stevie Award by the Stevie Awards for Women in Business. They’ve also been featured by NBC, ABC, and the Hallmark Channel.

5. What is Monat’s BBB rating? D

6. How long has Monat been in business? Since 2014

7. What is Monat’s revenue? $314 million

8. How many Monat distributors are there? 120,000

9. What lawsuits have been filed? In the first five months of 2018, Monat racked up nine lawsuits. The cases related to misleading marketing about the safety of their products, failure to warn consumers that the products may cause hair loss or damage, and several alleging they operate a pyramid scheme. (That one’s to be expected, right?) [1, 2, 3] Amid all this legal trouble, two women tried to shut down Monat from defending themselves with defamation lawsuits. In April 2018, a federal judge ruled in favor of Monat, giving them freedom to protect themselves from online attackers intent on defaming the company without evidence. [4]

10. Comparable companies: Arbonne, Pure Haven Essentials, Oriflame, Perfectly Posh

They’ve been an impressive company, but the sudden onslaught of lawsuits doesn’t look good.

The truth is, if they weather them, they’ll be stronger than ever, much like Amway and other MLM big names. So should join them?

Not necessarily. There are still better ways for ladies to make “side money” from home.

Business opportunity-wise, there are much better out there.

Click here for my #1 recommendation

(Doterra, Scentsy and Jeunesse are other product-first examples of MLMs that provide value…but the vast majority are overpriced and provide little value to the marketplace.)

Beauty is a crowded space in network marketing. Monat is more of the “up-and-coming” in this category, and definitely has the most “buzz.”

Overview

Monat does everything that most MLMs try to do but fail at miserably.

They are classy and forward-thinking. Their products are naturally based and backed by tons of research. Their home parties are actually sort of fun.

And they’re trendy AF:

//

Monat was launched just a couple years ago in 2014 by Luis and Rayner Urdaneta. They’re headquartered in Miami, Florida. Monat stands for Modern Nature.

Within just one year of launch, Monat was already pushing $25 million in annual revenue. They hit the ground running fast, and it’s really no wonder.

For starters, brother-son duo Luis and Rayner had already run one very successful direct sales company in the cosmetics niche: L’eudine. They’re a massive ($200+ million in annual revenue) MLM in Latin America that has recently started to expand into the United States.

What’s more, Monat is a subsidiary of parent company Alcora, also founded by Luis. So they already had some massive capital and experience to work with when they finally started up Monat.

By 2016, annual sales for Monat was already at $41 million. All this won them the 2016 Gold Stevie award for Startup of the Year.

How much does Monat cost? Monat has a $99 start-up fee that includes a kit filled with marketing materials and training information.

Products

Monat sells naturally-based (vegan and cruelty-free) hair care products at a premium price, and it’s working well for them. Their products are scientifically tested and very popular among their loyal following.

One of the reasons Monat has done so well is that they’ve formulated products that combat specific hair care issues that many people suffer from such as hair loss, aging, dandruff, and thinning/breakage.

Some have reported an itchy scalp at the beginning, but this is part of the repair process. Something must have gone wrong in early 2018, though, because the sores didn’t go away, and some people experienced hair loss or hair damage.

You’ve got products like Head & Shoulders for dandruff, but they’re full of parabens and harmful chemicals. Monat isn’t supposed to have those type of products, so the rash of lawsuits over their harmful ingredients is surprising. We’ll see how whether they can come out on top.

In spite of the bad press, the concept of their hair products remains good.

You’ve heard of anti-aging creams and foundations (see the top cosmetic and skincare MLMs), but have you heard of anti-aging hair care products?

Probably not, because Monat is the first company to develop products that fight hair aging.

Yes, hair ages. According to a study done by the University Hospital of Zurich’s Department of Dermatology and Hair Clinic, aging causes weathering of the hair shaft and aging of the hair follicle. Aside from graying, this also causes your body to decrease its hair production greatly over time, and it causes hair loss.

The primary formula that Monat uses to combat these effects is their Rejuvinique oil, which can be found in most Monat products. It’s composed of a patented blend of 11 different oils that are designed to keep your hair follicles healthy and promote hair growth by restoring your hair’s essential oils and nutrients.

Monat products are made from high-quality botanicals and essential oils, and they don’t contain sulfates, silicone, parabens, harsh fragrances, and other fillers. Unlike most hair products, Monat’s aren’t a short-term fix that will damage your hair with harmful chemicals in the long run.

Their most popular product is their intense care shampoo:

As well as their intense care conditioner:

They aren’t cheap, at all. Don’t expect drugstore prices. However, if you compare them to high-end salon products, the pricing is about the same. Most products range from $30-$60. Their Magnify Treatment System, meant to increase volume, comes with a shampoo, conditioner, and mousse for $99.

Compensation Plan

Of course, if you enroll as a distributor, you get pretty generous discounts on these products.

There are 5 ways to earn with Monat:

Sales Commissions

Sponsor & Develop

Builder Bonus

Advancement Bonuses

VIP Customers Sales

Sales commissions range all the way up to 40%, which is very generous.

It’s pretty much as high as it gets in MLM, with the exception of a select few that offer up to 50% commission. You do have to work pretty hard to reach that 40% commission rate though, as it requires you to sell a lot of product on a monthly basis.

Sponsor & Develop is the bread and butter of this plan. This is where you get rewarded for building up a large, successful downline, and it’s where you’ll make most of your money if you do well with Monat. Aside from a $100 fast start bonus and a $150 fast builder bonus, you can also earn up to 12% in unilevel bonuses, 4% in generational bonuses (up to 5 levels deep), and a 5% network bonus.

Builder Bonus is for folks who move up quickly to Silver or Platinum status and help their team members do the same. You can earn a $500 or a $1,000 bonus.

Advancement Bonuses are matching bonuses that you can earn on the achievements of your direct recruits. They range from $150 to $500.

VIP Customers Sales are customers that have signed up for the VIP program, which puts them on a recurring monthly autoship for their favorite products. You’ll earn a 15% commission on their monthly purchases without even lifting a finger.

Recap

Honestly, I think these guys have some great things coming in their future…

If they can weather the lawsuits they’ve been hit with, that is.

They’ve got an innovative product, a pretty decent compensation plan, and solid leadership.

Product-wise: excellent.

Opportunity-wise: great, considering they’re a multi-level marketing company.

I’ve been involved with network marketing for almost ten years so I know what to look for when you consider a new opportunity.

After reviewing 200+ business opportunities and systems out there, here is the one I would recommend:

Click here for my #1 recommendation

[antionetterparker]

Monat: Innovation and value gone very wrong [Review]

Monat is like the “doterra” of hair products.

They “get it.” They understand that the only way a direct sales company has success is by the value created by their products.

In other words, would anybody buy these if there wasn’t an “opportunity” involved?

For 99% of MLMS, that answer is “no.”

Why would I know?

Well, I’ve studied the space for years and run two of the biggest network blogs in the world.

Monat is on my short list of companies that actually have a product that is innovative and provides market value…

If only they weren’t embroiled in a rash of heavy-hitting lawsuits. Keep reading to learn more.

FAQ

1. What does Monat sell? Monat focuses exclusively on hair care. Product lines include Hydration, Volume, Densify Duo, Stylized, Power Boost, Magnify, Monat Junior, Monat Black, Colour Enhance, Effortless Style, R3, Advanced Hydrating, and Restructuring.

2. What are Monat’s most popular products? The Smoothing Deep Conditioner works on all hair types to nourish, control frizz, and add brilliant shine. The Rejuveniqe Oil Intensive adds 13+ natural plant and essential oils, antioxidants, and nutrients to your scalp and hair for instantly healthier hair and shine.

3. How much does it cost to join Monat? You can join for $99 USD or $125 CAD, with an annual $19.95 renewal fee.

4. Is Monat a scam? No, they’re a legit business that’s been well-regarded in the industry. They’ve been awarded the 2018 Making a Difference Award and the 2017 Journey to Success Award by the DSA of Canada; the 2016 Gold Stevie Award, Silver Stevie Award, and Bronze Stevie Award from the American Business Awards; and the 2016 Silver Stevie Award and Bronze Stevie Award by the Stevie Awards for Women in Business. They’ve also been featured by NBC, ABC, and the Hallmark Channel.

5. What is Monat’s BBB rating? D

6. How long has Monat been in business? Since 2014

7. What is Monat’s revenue? $314 million

8. How many Monat distributors are there? 120,000

9. What lawsuits have been filed? In the first five months of 2018, Monat racked up nine lawsuits. The cases related to misleading marketing about the safety of their products, failure to warn consumers that the products may cause hair loss or damage, and several alleging they operate a pyramid scheme. (That one’s to be expected, right?) [1, 2, 3] Amid all this legal trouble, two women tried to shut down Monat from defending themselves with defamation lawsuits. In April 2018, a federal judge ruled in favor of Monat, giving them freedom to protect themselves from online attackers intent on defaming the company without evidence. [4]

10. Comparable companies: Arbonne, Pure Haven Essentials, Oriflame, Perfectly Posh

They’ve been an impressive company, but the sudden onslaught of lawsuits doesn’t look good.

The truth is, if they weather them, they’ll be stronger than ever, much like Amway and other MLM big names. So should join them?

Not necessarily. There are still better ways for ladies to make “side money” from home.

Business opportunity-wise, there are much better out there.

Click here for my #1 recommendation

(Doterra, Scentsy and Jeunesse are other product-first examples of MLMs that provide value…but the vast majority are overpriced and provide little value to the marketplace.)

Beauty is a crowded space in network marketing. Monat is more of the “up-and-coming” in this category, and definitely has the most “buzz.”

Overview

Monat does everything that most MLMs try to do but fail at miserably.

They are classy and forward-thinking. Their products are naturally based and backed by tons of research. Their home parties are actually sort of fun.

And they’re trendy AF:

// <![CDATA[ trends.embed.renderExploreWidget("TIMESERIES", {"comparisonItem":[{"keyword":"monat","geo":"","time":"today 12-m"}],"category":0,"property":""}, {"exploreQuery":"q=monat&date=today 12-m","guestPath":"https://trends.google.com:443/trends/embed/"}); // ]]>

Monat was launched just a couple years ago in 2014 by Luis and Rayner Urdaneta. They’re headquartered in Miami, Florida. Monat stands for Modern Nature.

Within just one year of launch, Monat was already pushing $25 million in annual revenue. They hit the ground running fast, and it’s really no wonder.

For starters, brother-son duo Luis and Rayner had already run one very successful direct sales company in the cosmetics niche: L’eudine. They’re a massive ($200+ million in annual revenue) MLM in Latin America that has recently started to expand into the United States.

What’s more, Monat is a subsidiary of parent company Alcora, also founded by Luis. So they already had some massive capital and experience to work with when they finally started up Monat.

By 2016, annual sales for Monat was already at $41 million. All this won them the 2016 Gold Stevie award for Startup of the Year.

How much does Monat cost? Monat has a $99 start-up fee that includes a kit filled with marketing materials and training information.

Products

Monat sells naturally-based (vegan and cruelty-free) hair care products at a premium price, and it’s working well for them. Their products are scientifically tested and very popular among their loyal following.

One of the reasons Monat has done so well is that they’ve formulated products that combat specific hair care issues that many people suffer from such as hair loss, aging, dandruff, and thinning/breakage.

Some have reported an itchy scalp at the beginning, but this is part of the repair process. Something must have gone wrong in early 2018, though, because the sores didn’t go away, and some people experienced hair loss or hair damage.

You’ve got products like Head & Shoulders for dandruff, but they’re full of parabens and harmful chemicals. Monat isn’t supposed to have those type of products, so the rash of lawsuits over their harmful ingredients is surprising. We’ll see how whether they can come out on top.

In spite of the bad press, the concept of their hair products remains good.

You’ve heard of anti-aging creams and foundations (see the top cosmetic and skincare MLMs), but have you heard of anti-aging hair care products?

Probably not, because Monat is the first company to develop products that fight hair aging.

Yes, hair ages. According to a study done by the University Hospital of Zurich’s Department of Dermatology and Hair Clinic, aging causes weathering of the hair shaft and aging of the hair follicle. Aside from graying, this also causes your body to decrease its hair production greatly over time, and it causes hair loss.

The primary formula that Monat uses to combat these effects is their Rejuvinique oil, which can be found in most Monat products. It’s composed of a patented blend of 11 different oils that are designed to keep your hair follicles healthy and promote hair growth by restoring your hair’s essential oils and nutrients.

Monat products are made from high-quality botanicals and essential oils, and they don’t contain sulfates, silicone, parabens, harsh fragrances, and other fillers. Unlike most hair products, Monat’s aren’t a short-term fix that will damage your hair with harmful chemicals in the long run.

Their most popular product is their intense care shampoo:

As well as their intense care conditioner:

They aren’t cheap, at all. Don’t expect drugstore prices. However, if you compare them to high-end salon products, the pricing is about the same. Most products range from $30-$60. Their Magnify Treatment System, meant to increase volume, comes with a shampoo, conditioner, and mousse for $99.

Compensation Plan

Of course, if you enroll as a distributor, you get pretty generous discounts on these products.

There are 5 ways to earn with Monat:

Sales Commissions

Sponsor & Develop

Builder Bonus

Advancement Bonuses

VIP Customers Sales

Sales commissions range all the way up to 40%, which is very generous.

It’s pretty much as high as it gets in MLM, with the exception of a select few that offer up to 50% commission. You do have to work pretty hard to reach that 40% commission rate though, as it requires you to sell a lot of product on a monthly basis.

Sponsor & Develop is the bread and butter of this plan. This is where you get rewarded for building up a large, successful downline, and it’s where you’ll make most of your money if you do well with Monat. Aside from a $100 fast start bonus and a $150 fast builder bonus, you can also earn up to 12% in unilevel bonuses, 4% in generational bonuses (up to 5 levels deep), and a 5% network bonus.

Builder Bonus is for folks who move up quickly to Silver or Platinum status and help their team members do the same. You can earn a $500 or a $1,000 bonus.

Advancement Bonuses are matching bonuses that you can earn on the achievements of your direct recruits. They range from $150 to $500.

VIP Customers Sales are customers that have signed up for the VIP program, which puts them on a recurring monthly autoship for their favorite products. You’ll earn a 15% commission on their monthly purchases without even lifting a finger.

Recap

Honestly, I think these guys have some great things coming in their future…

If they can weather the lawsuits they’ve been hit with, that is.

They’ve got an innovative product, a pretty decent compensation plan, and solid leadership.

Product-wise: excellent.

Opportunity-wise: great, considering they’re a multi-level marketing company.

I’ve been involved with network marketing for almost ten years so I know what to look for when you consider a new opportunity.

After reviewing 200+ business opportunities and systems out there, here is the one I would recommend:

Click here for my #1 recommendation

  via https://mlmcompanies.org/monat/

[lawrenceseitz22]

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 198

Click on the video above to watch Episode 198 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

Adam: All right. We are live. Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangout episode of 198. We are inching closer and closer to the four-year mark. So, we’ve got a special guest with us today but real quick we’re going to give us some good announcements, a little bit of updates and say hello to everyone, and then I will do a little bit of introducing. So, real quick, let’s see who we got on my far left. We’ve got Chris. How’s it going man?

Chris: Good. Good deal.

Adam: Good deal. Hernan about yourself, are you freezing your ass off in the southern hemisphere?

Hernan: Hold on just a minute. Just going to drop this key here. I don’t know if you guys can see that, maybe it’s the other way around but it says POFU live 2018. That’s what-

Adam: That’s the actual banner that we’re going to hang at our [crosstalk 00:00:46].

Hernan: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. [inaudible 00:00:48].

Bradley: We spared no expense.

Hernan: Yeah, I need to scratch the logo right there but yeah. I’m super, super excited man. I’m super excited for today and for POFU live. I’m super excited for what’s coming for Semantic Mastery. So, yeah.

Adam: Awesome.

Hernan: That’s more important than the cold. I don’t care about it.

Adam: Yeah. I’ll drop the link on there if you haven’t yet, please check it out. We’re obviously interested in having as many people find out about the live event in October, but it is limited. There’s only going to be 25 seats. We’re already getting close to halfway full so don’t wait too long to pull the trigger because we’re looking like this one’s going to get full up. Marco, how are you doing? How’s the weather? I mean, we got to check in with you. How’s the weather?

Marco: We haven’t had any rain for like three days. It’s beautiful.

Adam: [inaudible 00:01:33].

Marco: 80 degrees, sunny, hitting the pool. That’s how it goes in Costa Rica man.

Adam: Good deal. Bradley, how about you? You’re not being blown away or washed away or anything?

Bradley: No, it’s good for the moment, but yeah and I’m excited to be here guys. At POFU live, we’re really excited about that. I’ve been working on kind of developing out what I’m going to be training on and also just an aside but there’s a method I’ve been testing in the last three weeks that I shared in the mastermind and actually just drafted the mastermind newsletter installment for next month that the mastermind members will get. We sent out a physical newsletter every month to our members.

I’m sharing the process in a written form in the newsletter for what I’ve been doing, but getting the three pack listings for like I call it sniping three pack listings because it’s within 24 hours I’m able to take a brand-new GMB profile and get it to rank in the three pack and it’s freaking fabulous. So, I’m going to be talking about some of that at the POFU live event too. Mastermind is getting a taste of that now, but I’m going to go much more in the depth on kind of a strategy and method for building an empire of maps sites or maps profiles. So, that’s part of one of the things I’m going to be talking about at POFU live and you have to be there to hear it.

Adam: Boom! Good deal. Well, I think Hernan’s dropping or dropped the link so please check it out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Contact us at support@semanticmastery.com. We’re happy to talk through this, but on that page, you’ll find event dates, event details where we’re going to be covering other good things like that.

Marco: Before we-

Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marco: … move on to our VIP, can I just drop a little tease because I’m still-

Adam: Go for it.

Marco: … working on doing away with not having to do anything at all with Google and forcing Google to rank you because they feel left out. I mean it’s killing … guys if you’re an affiliate and if you’re in local, it’s killing it. It’s crushing it. It’s like if I showed you the numbers, you wouldn’t believe it because it makes so much money so quick. You guys saw the profile that I posted, right? It’s getting like one million viewers, that profile one million monthly, one, one profile, that’s the traffic that it’s getting one million people. Come on man, it’s about to go down. I’m about to once again turn the SEO world on it’s fucking ear and I’m the one that did it.

Bradley: You heard it here first.

Adam: Real quick, just saw a question from somebody about the live event. So, I did want to say that it is going to be in DC. It’s not going to be at a hotel. We limited it to 25 plus us and our guest speakers so it’s going to be a small group and hotel. I’m sure there would’ve been some hotels maybe a smaller event spaces, but we’ve gone with a specific event space. We’re still getting that locked down. So, we’re not going to give out the address but it is in DC. So, worst case scenario, when you get to your hotel, you’re just going to have a short Uber or maybe a walk or ride the train, but it’s going to be in the downtown area. So, yeah.

Bradley: Yeah, guys. We’re going to be trying to stay like right in town and right in the city. Adam and I were actually chatting about that yesterday. Just find a spot in town or even outside of the main city that is within Metro … has easy access to Metro which is the basically subway system or whatever for DC, because there’s a lot of really nice places you can stay right outside of the city too that are just a short Metro ride in. So, I would suggest looking … just go on hotels.com or one of those apps something like that and try to find something close by because we don’t have … it’s a small enough venue or event for us that we don’t have like a block of rooms reserved anywhere.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah, we’re going to be getting Airbnb and going from there.

Bradley: Right. We’re getting an Airbnb which is what we typically do. By the way, that’s a great idea because it’s so much cheaper that way too if you can double up with some people.

Adam: Yeah, and for me, I’d rather stay in an Airbnb than a hotel. I like having a kitchen and all that jazz, having a deck or something. So, well without further ado our very important person today is Eric Christopher. You might also know him as ERock. So, he’s been an entrepreneur for well nearly two decades. You might know him from several different areas. I’m going to let him talk a little bit about himself after we do the introduction, but I believe Bradley, you first met Eric at the SEO Rockstars, right?

Bradley: Well, I met him in person there. I’ve known of ERock or Eric for a long time because he did some training. I think he was also a student of Ivan Budimir many years ago and Eric, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but then you ended up collaborating with Ivan on some different projects. So, you became kind of a mentor to me as well by proxy because you were with Ivan. Ivan, I’ve said this many, many times publicly but Ivan Budimir had the most influence on my career as a local marketer hands down. So, again, I’ve got much respect for both Ivan and Eric.

Adam: Good deal. I’m just going to mention this because I think people might know Eric from different places but localbusinessrockstar.com or BizFamous Media Group. Then, Eric, can you tell everyone just a little bit about how you got started online, a little bit of your background? I think you could tell it better than any one of us could.

Eric: No, I think you could do a better job Adam.

Adam: All right, here we go.

Eric: So, yeah, at first I want to say thanks for inviting me on, and I really appreciate it. I’m honored that you guys have had me on. Congratulations on coming up on four years. That’s an impressive feat that a lot of people aren’t able to do. So, congratulations to you guys on that. Bradley, thank you for the kind words. So, I got my start … I’ll try to keep this as short as I can, because I hope to provide value to your audience as opposed to just talking about me. I used to think I didn’t matter but it does because now that I’ve become more influential in the world, really being able to tell your story matters.

So, please if you’re out there watching this, don’t discount your story because it’s how people will ultimately identify with you and decide if they want to do business with you or somebody else with all things being equal. So, I got my start years ago when I was in the multi-level marketing industry, right? Like, “MLM, oh my god!” Well, it paid us six figures in revenue over a few years. We made a full-time living at it. I used to have a strength training business. I used to teach people how to work out. I used to be about 20 pounds more muscular than I am today, but my business started to fail because I didn’t know how to market. So, I decided, “Well, I need to find something I can learn the art of marketing.”

So, I started doing multi-level marketing on a part-time basis because all I had to worry about was marketing. I didn’t have to worry about fulfillment, any of that crap. So, we built a multi-thousand person organization the globe and we did it all through like old-school methodology without using any really online strategies, just kind of the good old telephone, but then we started messing around with Google. I started messing around with Google Local. I was able to get a local map listing to rank in my geography. Still to this day even though it’s been over a decade, I’d get an occasional phone call or two every single month for people looking for the actual product. So, we were in LegalShield or prepaid legal services. They just actually cut us a $14,000 residual income check recently which is really badass. So, anyway, started messing around online stuff.

I was like, “How do I do more online stuff?” I just realized after a little while multi-level marketing wasn’t going to build me something with equity that I could potentially sell later. So, I was like, “You know what, I’m going to start doing some local SEO stuff.” So, I bought a course. Imagine that, I invested in a course and I was like, “Man, I hope this works.” I was leading an industry that was doing pretty well but I thought I could grow something in the internet marketing space. So, I launched a company called Local Business Rockstar and the way I got my start as I went out to some local networking events and I basically connected with a few people. I said, “Hey, I’ll sit down and offer to help you just kind of with some free stuff.” I basically had a carpet cleaning guy that said, “Hey I’ll give you my business.” So, we decided to optimize six locations in the Phoenix area.

I have no idea if I could actually fulfill. So, hopefully that’s lesson number one is like ready, fire and then aim. So, I basically sold this guy on a four figure monthly deal that I hopefully I could get him local SEO results. I was all predicated on the fact that I was going to implement what I was learning in this course. So, I could have wound up with just egg on my face really bad but long story short, in about two months, it worked. We rank them. We ended up ranking them in multiple locations. They stayed with us for six years until they sold their business and that’s kind of how I got my start in the industry. Then along the way, I ran into Ivan Budimir who had a really cool image optimization hack that they leveraged.

Basically, it was pretty cool. It still kind of works to this day just not in the same level, but that’s how I got my start. So, we started this as kind of like increase our influence. I actually got a cease and desist letter from a company that was claiming that we were infringing on their national registered trademark. So, that’s lesson number two, learn from my mistakes. If you’re planning on building a successful business, make sure you do a little bit of intellectual property to make sure you protect yourself. So, that’s ultimately the genesis of why I created the brand of BizFamous.

One, because we were expanding outside the world of local anyway. So, we work with some national brands. We help one of our clients become the number two bestselling book on all of Amazon for a day across the entire planet. Number two book all of the Amazon, not for the category, the entire planet. So, now today, like I write for entrepreneur.com. I’ve written for Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Business, newswire.net and so that’s kind of where we’re at today. Excited to hopefully share some great information with you guys and look forward to launching a couple of information products and software coming soon, a couple softwares maybe.

Adam: Nice. Yeah and I think this is a good time to for everyone watching if you already had or if you now have questions for Eric, be sure to pop them on to the event page. As time allows, we’ll relay those over to him. Also, on Monday, we’re going to be having … you’re invited to a webinar. We’re going to be sending out some emails shortly to find out what Eric’s been working on recently which … Do you want to tell people a little bit about this? I think people from our mastermind might already know this, but again, I’ll let you describe it.

Eric: So, the last few years like again I would discount my story. I would really kind of like, “Hey, if I just cut to the meat and just deliver some amazing content like that will make a difference.” It does of course, but in today’s age my wife has a business called Biztuition and she teaches business owners how to overcome the challenge of infobesity. So, I don’t know if any of you guys have heard of the word infobesity before, but information overload. So, it’s like, “Oh my god everybody and their mothers coming into the digital marketing space. There’s really no barrier to entry.” It’s become like … when I first got started like man it was so easy to rank. You could do so many different tricks and hacks and tactics and strategies and make things happen overnight.

Today, it’s just not as easy as it used to be. In a way it’s good because it gets rid of the people that don’t have skills. In a way it’s bad because it makes it harder to get started. So, during my journey, I was able to help to understand like neuropsychology, how to create influence, because ultimately I knew no matter how good I was at SEO, if I couldn’t get and especially it depends on what your objective is. If you’re doing affiliate marketing, it’s not that big a deal to be able to necessarily know how to sell, right? I still think it does because you still need to be able to communicate the value proposition, why someone should buy your affiliate program versus someone else.

Adam: Definitely. Yeah, getting the traffic there is part of the battle. Then you got to convert it.

Eric: Right. That comes back to you influence, how do you create influence. So, over the last half decade, I’ve really invested a lot of my education in developing influence that’s why I decided to actively seek out how I was able to get people like Arianna Huffington and invite me to write for Huffington Post. Then the folks at Entrepreneur and ultimately which is a really cool store. I don’t even know … I think I might have told you this Bradley maybe not but I was actually just on the set of Shark Tank about actually two months today. It’s my two-month anniversary where I was invited onto the set of Shark Tank and got to interview all the sharks, all the guest sharks and we’ve had to keep it kind of under wraps just because we signed an NDA until the new season premieres, all that good stuff.

So, ultimately what are we doing in the world of marketing, what are we doing in the world of SEO is we’re trying to create influence. So, the project that I’ve been working on now for quite some time and that we’re finally decided to do like publicly releasing it is how to influence Google to recommend your brand to people who are actively searching for your products and services online. So, I’ll kind of get into more of that as we get on to the end because I just want to make sure that like I want to ask … hopefully ask or answer questions if anybody has questions or just talk at a little bit of a macro level on like we’re kind of SEO and marketing is going.

Adam: Cool. Well, I mean that’s basically what was on my mind. So, let’s kind of roll into that. Where do you see and this is a free-form question and anyone else that feels like chiming in, feel free but Eric, what do you see as you know there’s so many sub topics, but between SEO and digital marketing in the next couple of years, what do you see like an area of being that you think people should pay attention to or something that they should know or something like that? I’m always curious of what people see as like a coming trend or what they think is important.

Eric: Well, I think we’re all starting to experience that already with RankBrain. For those of you that are more hardcore SEO folks and really that’s just Google’s fancy branded way of saying artificial intelligence, virtual reality. So, ultimately like that’s the path where it’s going and a lot of the practices of traditional SEO are slowly being phased out in my opinion by Google and other search engines. Other search engines will probably hopefully catch up someday or they’ll get acquired by Google which Mozilla did, but it’s going to progress to where in my opinion like my big prognostication, not that it’s really like epically like insightful but Google’s been … ever since it started it was easy to kind of gain the whole link industry, right? Basically, I remember when I was able to rank back in the day local internet marketing we were ranked number five nationally in the United States for it. We were outranking Yodel which at the time was like a $253 million company.

At the time, it was just me, myself and I out ranking them. All we did was just kind of like the exact match anchor text back links. You do that today, you’re toast. So, Google is slowly shifting its emphasis away from anything that can really be manipulated or orchestrated, and it’s moving more into the realm of artificial intelligence based on signals that it’s getting from users. I just see that in the next 5, 10 years of it. I don’t know if Google will ever get completely away from links. I think they still use links as a way to kind of connect the dots in its algorithm, but ultimately like and maybe you guys are seeing this or maybe you guys want to interject your thoughts on this as a group of fellow experts of how much have you seen over the last couple of years where backlinks are becoming less and less as a ranking factor and you’re seeing user metrics becoming more and more important in terms of results.

Bradley: I absolutely 100% agree with that. One of the things that we’ve seen especially in the last year alone is how you can rank almost entirely with just engagement signals. We proved that with YouTube videos. That’s kind of been known for quite some time but now even so with especially since the mobile first index took over which was just last month in July. With our local GMB Pro methods and what we teach in that course and we’re also developing a done-for-you service for that right now. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re speaking directly to the mobile first algorithm with or giving it signals and activity which then Google serves to users and gives exposure to that business to mobile users that are in close proximity that are doing any sort of related type of search. Whether we’re showing in rank trackers or not, it doesn’t make any difference. We’re still getting exposure and activity engagement from mobile device users again whether ranked tracker show it ranking or not. It’s independent or regardless of ranking.

The only way to explain that is because it’s Google going more and more towards engagement and user signals as opposed to like what Eric just said which was backlinks and some of the old more traditional stuff. It’s been quite incredible to see the kind of results that we’re able to get with an absence of backlinks. We’re not even needing to use backlinks. A lot of times what we’re using for backlinks now are other Google properties. We’re using Drive Stacks or Google Drive files and folders and such to backlink. Obviously press releases are still my preferred backlinking method at the moment and in just content syndication which usually has an attribution link that points back to the original source. Those are pretty much the only three link voting methods we really teach and it works.

Eric: Oh and I’m just so glad you talked about syndicating content. Today, actually I don’t even know if I’ve actually shared this really kind of publicly, but I’m going to totally dispel the whole myth of the duplicate content penalty.

Bradley: Oh god please do, because you know how many times we have to answer that question right here on Hump Day Hangouts.

Eric: Can I do a quick screen share and I’ll actually show you an example?

Bradley: Please.

Adam: Yeah, let’s do it.

Bradley: Please.

Eric: All right. Let me open up a new incognito window here. All right. So, hopefully I can just remember this off the top of my head because this wasn’t necessarily on my agenda. So, how to treat infobesity. Okay, how to treat information overload in three simple steps, right? So, it’s ranking number one. This is my wife who wrote the article who’s a successful entrepreneur in her own right. You can see here I’ll just kind of highlight some of this. So, if you’ve ever been on blah, blah, blah, blah. So, I’m going to cut and copy that and then I’m going to come here and do another search. The search query is … Oh I know what it is. Infobesity epidemic, right? So, the only thing different is the title. Everything else is exactly the same.

Now I’m not sitting here saying that you can like replicate these results because one of this is on Huffington Post. The other article is on Entrepreneur, right? So, super high authority trustworthy websites, but basically just by changing the title only, we were still able to rank number one and again that’s not super competitive keywords. It’s not like weight loss or anything like that. So, for those of you that are going to sit there and be like, “Ooh.” Like in a more competitive marketplace, sure it may be harder to rank but it’s not being penalized, that’s my whole point. So, hopefully that dispels that myth. [crosstalk 00:22:40]

Bradley: That’s because it’s on a different domain, right? That’s the thing. People say duplicate content and duplicate content does exist but that’s typically when it’s on the same domain. If you have the same article posted on a domain like for example that’s how tags guys can get you into trouble with WordPress sites, because if you have a unique tag on a blog post, then WordPress by default will create a tag page. If you have those set to index, then Google … the tag page will index and the tag page looks … it’s the when you click on the tag archive page for that particular tag, if it’s a singular tag that’s only been attached to one blog post, that tag URL will be an exact replica of the post itself. Depending on the theme, sometimes it’ll be a snippet but most of the time, it’ll be the entire article, the entire post. The only difference is the URL.

Everything else will be the exact same and that can cause duplicate content penalties or issues for a site if you don’t know how to use tags. Either set your tags to no index or make sure that you’re using more common tags that occur on more than one post, and that way when the tag archive page gets pulled up, it’s like a blog index page. It shows all of the posts that contain that or have that same tag. So, that wouldn’t be duplicate content, but when you have a singular tag, it can be. So, again, that’s where duplicate content issues come up not on different domains. Otherwise, press releases wouldn’t work and that’s typically … by the way, Eric that’s what usually what we use as the go-to example for duplicate content because press releases we all know work incredibly well and it’s the same damn article getting picked up by 300, 400, 500 different syndication partners.

Eric: Yeah, we’re huge fans of press releases as well. One of the ways actually we ended up working together with Ivan beyond the initial course was he ended up going and doing some work with a news release company called newswire.net which is still a super powerful way to be able to get good links on there. I think that they still charge for access to it, but it’s a great solid platform in addition to some of the other resources that I know you guys make available to your community. So, even though I don’t get a chance watching every Hump Day Hangout, I do sneak in every once in a while to smile [crosstalk 00:24:55].

Bradley: Lurk in the background.

Eric: Cyberstalking, right?

Adam: It’s good. It’s always nice to hear that. It’s funny we talk to a lot of people and I mean I think all of us do the same. You’ve got shows or podcasts you listen to. Then it’s funny sometimes to have people on like, “Oh yeah, I’ve been listening this off and on for years.” Like, “Wow, okay. Hey, good.” Well-

Marco: Yeah. Just some of our beginners don’t get mixed up back on the backlinking thing. Traditional or old-school backlinking is what we’re differentiating. We’re not saying that that Google doesn’t look at links because everything that the latest distance graph algorithm update did was talk about links, but it talked about what Bradley and Eric mentioned which is it measures activity on the link. It measures relevance on the link and it measures trust and authority. Again, you guys have heard me say this it takes place on the source of the link and on where the link is directed. So, it takes a look at both and it takes everything that’s linking to that. So, it’s not that links are obsolete, it’s now the way that Google is looking at links and the value that Google is placing on links that are untrusted and authoritative websites.

I’m not talking about third party metrics of course. I’m not talking about trustful or I’m not talking about the domain authority. None of that garbage. Everything is out the window. Only Google knows what Google measures but we know generally what it measures, because we have the math. We have the math on the patent. We have everything that they say about the patent and what they’re looking at. So, I’m glad that this is being brought up and that we’re differentiating, right? Link building still works, but you have to go further out. You have to go out and into tiered link building. I don’t want to get into that because that’s higher level, but again, ART, activity, relevance, trust and authority. That’s what you need to be looking at when you’re looking at links going to your website and going from your website to wherever. That’s where you have to be really careful and pick into the links that you’re getting.

Adam: Definitely.

Eric: Yeah, one of the biggest mistakes that I think I see a lot of people make is that they don’t emphasize link building in the natural order of things. That’s something that I’ll be talking about in greater detail in the webinar on Monday and why you … because I’ve always looked and this is going back years ago, but I’ve always looked at Google from a perspective of Google is a girl. If you haven’t heard anybody else say that, I’m telling you now Google is a girl. She loves to dance. All right. She wants to know that she can trust you. She’s going to basically give you favor if you’re more popular than not. So, Google’s a girl and you have to basically influence her to want to date you and then hopefully end up marrying you.

Adam: This is a great analogy. I’ve actually somehow never heard this.

Eric: You’ve never heard this before? Oh my God!

Adam: I haven’t. Have you guys? I literally haven’t.

Bradley: Yes. Accordingly woman, yeah.

Eric: So, if you move too quick, you’re going to get the slap. So, I can go on into this whole … like I’ve had arguments with girls who are like, “No, Google is a man.” and they’re done. I’m like, “Okay, you’re right. Google is a girl.” So, the whole point of influencing Google is if you do things in the right order and the way that Google wants it and if you’re smart about it, you can do some of the black hat things that can basically … that are like the dirty stuff. It’s like I’m public. In public, we do the white hat stuff. When we’re in the bedroom, we want to do some of the black hat stuff, the naughty stuff, right? So, the key is, how do you get that progress in the right order? That’s a great analogy for I’m going to talk about in the training. If you go out on the first date and even if you get to go back and you do get to go back to the house on the first date and you get in the bedroom room, you better watch out when doing the super kinky stuff because then like that girl’s going to kick out.

We all know that’s common sense and Google’s the same way. So, I think one of the biggest mistakes that people are making is not looking at it from a kind of like a 30,000 foot view of how the progression would look. So, we get caught up in tactics and there’s amazing amount of cool tactics that are out there, but it needs to blend in with an overall strategy, and that’s one of the things that I appreciate about you guys is that you test off and then the tactic … there’s a lot of people doing like single variable testing type stuff in the marketing world and that’s great, but again as a tactic it works, but what it’s not accounting for is dependencies. Just because something works in a single variable test in it of itself doesn’t mean when it’s combined with two other algorithmic factors, it’s going to have the same effect.

Bradley: Right.

Eric: Right? I don’t want to get on any specifics on this because there’s a lot of smarter people with scientific backgrounds than me. I just know if I do the things that I think that Google is looking for and you talked about like Google Drive Stacks. I’ll I’m putting it out there. I’ll argue with anybody but I would consider myself to be the godfather of custom my maps. I was able to get a custom my maps to rank on my own. No one taught it to me. I discovered it purely on accident just by testing stuff out and it was back in the day when you could get do follow links, you could put exact match anchor text in it. Unbelievable, right? I didn’t share it with anybody for years until actually the first SEO Rockstars that I shared it with, and then after that, another group who was supposed to be secret but it ended up getting out.

I’m sure there’s other people might have discovered it too, but I was doing that stuff back in 2011. Why? Because I knew … Hey, here’s a good example. If you look at Google as like a bunch of sisters, well hey, if you do things and you’re super nice to one of the sisters, is the other sister going to like you too? “Oh, he’s so handsome. He’s so nice. He’s so gentlemanly. He does such nice things and says nice things.” So, Google loves its own properties. We were using Google for different properties years ago like over half a decade ago before I would call it a little bit more commonplace.

Adam: Got you.

Eric: So, my whole focus is like that whole Wayne Gretzky thing if you’re familiar with Wayne Gretzky. It’s like good players know where the puck is. The great players know where the puck is going and right now the thing that I want to train on and talk about like on the session on Monday is where’s the puck going to be going and how can you position your business to take advantage of that so that you can be ahead, literally a lot ahead of other people that are in the space, because that’s what it’s going to take. I’m also making another prediction. My other big prognostication is that if all you do is SEO, you’re going to struggle to grow a big business if you’re trying to build an agency.

Bradley: Well, SEO is kind of encompassed like we use that kind of more like a overall encompassing term now, because to be effective in SEO, you need to do content marketing. You need to know about content marketing and social media and engagement and PPC and PR marketing and reputation. There’s so many components now to being an SEO. It’s not just search engine optimization anymore, right?

Eric: Yeah. I mean I 100% agree. I actually have an article, I’m sure it’s probably still there.

Adam: Real quick while you’re looking for that, I’m the timekeeper today. So, we got to wrap this up in a minute or two, but while you’re looking for that Eric, I just want to let everyone know if you got any questions for Eric, go ahead pop them on the event page. I know there’s a little bit of a delay and then in a minute or two, we’re going to hop over and we’ll start going through [crosstalk 00:33:24] questions.

Bradley: Well start on questions. I do want to expand this very briefly on what Eric was saying about the Wayne Gretzky analogy and where the puck is going to be like where is it going. That’s kind of what we’re trying to accomplish with POFU Live guys is really identify where some people’s business should be going and where it should be heading in order to position. That’s what … POFU Live, position to fuck you, it’s all about positioning. So, that’s entirely what the event is going to be about is how to position your business to be in a really good place to scale with all the changes coming. I’m sorry. I got it locked on you. What were you about to show?

Eric: No, I was just going to show an article that I wrote. I think it’s from almost … Oh it was updated 2017. This is before they kicked everybody off the Huffington Post platform. Actually the original article was almost three years ago. I was sitting there talking about how like SEO is changing and like usability is and this is a software that helps you to measure heat maps and usability on sites. I was talking about this stuff three years ago as far as like where stuff was going. So, I’m just sharing this with you because one of the things that I hope to do in the training coming up is show you how to create influence and you guys are watching this right now. You guys should be like just hanging on these guys’ arms and be on their coattails because what they subtly have done with you, I should get rid of this, is they over the last four years have exhibited and have been eating their dog food not just by like learning SEO tactics and strategies but by building a community.

Before you could do certain things that would allow you to get clients and you could do some out each type stuff and that some of that stuff still works, but it’s just a lot harder, right? So, one of the big takeaways that you’re going to want to do and my wife talks about this a lot is that if you really want to grow a successful business of any kind, you’re going to want to create a community. I know that’s like, “Oh, that’s not magical.” It’s tough, right? So, it goes back to like, “Hey these guys have been doing this for four years to be able to build a momentum, to be able to like continue to go through that.” One of the things that I’m going to teach on the training on Monday is if you’re brand new or you feel like you don’t have a lot of experience in terms of like getting clients or building a successful business, one of the things I’m going to talk to you about is how to coattail off of other people’s authority to build your authority so that you can take your business to the next level.

Why am I showing you articles that I’ve written for Huffington Post and for Entrepreneur and why am I talking about the fact that I have pictures of me with Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner because I’m leveraging their authority. By default, if you respect those people, hopefully you respect me too hopefully as a result. Hopefully you respect me that the fact that I’m here with the Semantic Mastery team hopefully imparting some minor wisdom to those of you that are participating, and so, I’ll show you how you can leverage that step by step to help you get where you want to go. Then I’m also going to as we’re … because we kind of need to wrap this up, right?

Adam: Yeah, just move into the Q&A. Yeah, if there’s anything else to-

Eric: [crosstalk 00:36:49] Q&A and then I’ll highlight what I was going to talk about a little bit at the end kind of like what the big sexy is, right? I’m to show you some-

Bradley: [inaudible 00:36:57] Go ahead.

Eric: I’m going to show you something that’s going to get Google that want to take you to bed.

Bradley: What I’m going to question … So, I’m going to grab the screen, lock it on and then we’ll jump into that. Just take a few minutes because we don’t have that many anyways.

Eric: Well, that’s too bad for them because I love engagement.

Bradley: Well, it must be that everybody just enthralled. So, Sam’s up first.

Adam: Yeah, several good comments on Google being a girl though. So, yeah, I think I’m not the only one that hadn’t heard of that or that agrees.

Do You Recommend Recapturing The Power Of The Backlinks Pointing To The Aged Domain By Redirecting To A New Page?

Bradley: That’s funny. So, Sam’s up first. He says, “I’m starting a new money site on an aged domain. The domain has backlinks pointing to old pages. Do you recommend trying to recapture the power from those links by redirecting to a new page or something or is that not really necessary? Thanks.” Yeah, you can. Well, it depends Sam. If you are rebuilding on an old domain that was relevant like it was in the same category, it might be worth recreating those pages. Even if you set them to no index, still recreating those pages. So, go to the Wayback Machine archive.org and pull up snapshots of the site in its previous state. If it was relevant, I would say go ahead and recreate those pages and just set them to no index, but then you can … because then all those inbound links pointing to those pages, that original content, it’s likely that those links won’t be taken down if discovered by webmasters where those links exist, because it’ll still be linking to that original content or what it was originally linking to I mean, but then you can always put a contextual link from that page to that inner page to wherever you want to push the juice to.

That’s a great way to do it, but otherwise, yeah you could just create a redirect, but just remember that it’s likely that redirect or the link from the original source of the inbound links could be edited out if a webmaster catches it, sees that it’s not pointing to what it was intended to point to. Also, if it wasn’t relevant content, then if you’re redirecting inbound links that was pointing to something that wasn’t relevant, then that could actually end up causing you harm. So, there’s a lot of different factors you have to take into consideration there, but absolutely, if it was relevant, I would say recreate the pages. That’s pretty powerful. I would just set them to no index. What do you guys say?

Eric: I would agree. I think that it’s challenging to answer that question without more context.

Bradley: Right.

Eric: We’re just basically making a best guess. It’s like saying, “Hey doctor, my stomach hurts. Can you tell me you if I should take this medicine?” It’s like … but I would say that overall the philosophical answer that you just gave would be spot on.

Do You Have A Contract Template For Rank And Rent Video Services?

Bradley: Right. Next designed2framework. “Hi, I have a few questions. Nobody ever talks about the actual close of clients. I did not close clients ever but this is the aim. Okay. Because I’m going for rank and rent videos, do you have a contract template for that? I just want to put my details, client’s details, amount and that’s it.” Well, yeah, you can, but I mean for like rank and rent video, I mean guys, Marco and I both talked about this often. Contracts are not something I typically work on. It depends on the size and scope of the project. Typically much larger projects do require contract either from the person that hired me or from me to protect me and my effort. It’s either one or the other, but typically for most stuff like rank and rent videos, that’s a small enough engagement with a client, a small enough commitment that I don’t work on contracts. I just work on it month to month. It’s like, “Look, this is how much it’s going to cost.

If it’s producing results, you’re going to be happy to pay me. If it’s not producing results, you should be able to cancel or stop paying me.” That’s it. That’s why I’ve always worked that way unless a contract was required, because of the particular circumstances, but for the most part, I do everything on a month to month, because again, I know I can produce results. As long as I’m producing results, they should be happy to pay me. If I don’t produce results, they should be able to walk away. Just the same as if I decide that I don’t like working with that client for whatever reason, I should be able to walk away. If I was in a contract, I might not be able to leave either. So, again for rank and rent videos, don’t overcomplicate shit. You start bringing contracts out for rank and rent video stuff, you’re going to lose a lot of potential closes because people don’t like contracts, right? Somebody else want to comment on for the next one.

Eric: I’ll interject here. So, one, if you ever decide that you do want to implement some sort of agreement on a long term basis, number one, don’t use the word contract because again like Bradley said that people don’t like the word contracts. Agreements are a lot better, sound a lot nicer. Again, it goes back to the context. It depends on what you’re charging for and what the work is going to be required for you to actually implement. So, if you’re working with like a five figure monthly client and you’re going to have to front-load a bunch of work on the front end to try to recoup a positive investment on the back end, then it might seem worthy to you to be able to put together some sort of agreement.

We talk about a lot with our students about how to close clients and just how to position everything, but if you’re doing stuff for like a minor amount of money, a few hundred dollars or a low four figure deal, I work in the same vein as Bradley as that we typically will say to any brand new client like, “Hey, everything is month to month. We asked for a 90-day commitment so that you can see how effective this is and then based on the progress that we make, will determine if we continue to move forward.

I can even offer you a way to be able to lock a long-term deal if you like, but everything that we do is based around that we’ll have the freedom to leave.” Even if we are in an agreement with a company and they decide they want to leave, we’re not going try to take them to court or any bullshit like that. We’re just going to let them go, but there is a value if the dollar amount is worth it to get that on paper that they made a longer-term commitment because there’ll be a lot less likely to cancel. Again, that’s totally based on context.

Bradley: That’s right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: No, because I’m with you. No contracts unless the company is so big that their legal requires it. I’m going through that now. It’s why I hate contracts because it’s been dragging on. They know they want to work. They already agreed. They said yes but now legal it’s going to my attorney, it’s going to theirs, then it comes back to mine and then it just drags on. I’m spending money. It’s just stupid because just let me do what the fuck I do and get out of the way. I mean that’s how I treat it. If that’s not good enough, if you can’t get out of the way and you’re not going to get out of the way, then just leave me alone. I don’t want any part of it.

How Do You Charge Clients For Rank And Rent Video Services?

Bradley: Here you go. So, how do you charge clients? What about recurring payments? Do you send PayPal requests, get the client’s credit card or some sort? I do almost all of my clients I just put them on PayPal. I know I’d pay a shit ton on PayPal fees. It’s ridiculous. I could spend less on fees if I used like my own merchant account. I get all that but I like the ease and convenience of PayPal. I’ve run my business that way ever since I opened it. So, basically, I send an invoice for any one off services like setup fees and that kind of thing, but then I send PayPal subscription link which I just go right into PayPal, generate a new subscription button, set the terms and then it spits out a link and then I just send it via email. That’s typically how I charge all my clients and I get paid. It works. I have some clients that actually send me paper checks in the mail every month, believe it or not. I still have clients that do that, but for the most part, whenever I can, I try to get everybody on a PayPal subscription because then I know it’s done and it’s just an automatic withdrawal, okay?

How Do You Sign Clients For Rank And Rent Video Services?

How do you sign clients? Do you signature online software? No. Most the time because I’m not doing contracts, I don’t need signatures. So, I don’t do that. What I do is I send a proposal via email that’s in PDF form. So, I draft a proposal. I typically just do that in Google Docs and then I save it as a PDF and I send that as a proposal. Then if they agree to the proposal, then all I do is send them … and all I need is a positive reply via email in other words saying yes I agree via email. When they agree, then I say, “Okay, I’m going to send you the payment links.” Again, if it’s a one-off or like for setup fees or whatever, then I’ll send them a PayPal invoice. If it’s for a subscription or recurring service, then I send them a PayPal subscription link. So, again, I don’t need signature software. If I do need something signed, then typically I just send a contract or an agreement or whatever it may be via Scan It In and send it to him via email. They’ll sign it and scan it back and send it back to me, okay?

Adam: Real quick too and I think that’s totally fine and I wouldn’t go out of your way whoever is asking this to add another expense, but something I’ve really been using a lot, I think Hernan has been using it too, is the AppSumo Briefcase. They keep adding stuff. It’s AppSumo, right? They’ve got a ton of the stuff and they’ve got a billing app. I think it’s called literally Billy app, but that’s pretty slick when you can hook up to different banks. You can issue invoices so people could pay by card or PayPal or different methods. So, anyways, if you’re into that, it’s like a flat monthly fee for all the apps they have in the Briefcase and it’s like 50 bucks a month or something. So, if you’re going to use it anyways, there’s some extra I guess utility you could get out of that.

Marco: A word of warning if I can. Sorry, ERock.

Eric: No, go ahead.

Marco: Not start working until you’ve got that scratch in your account man. You can get burned. So, make sure you got that money because that’s the yes. A yes on paper is useless until you got that money then you can start working.

Eric: Hallelujah! I was just going to share the same thing. Don’t ever, ever, ever work on invoice, do work upfront and if you guys want, we could talk about it in the training on Monday if anybody cares, but you absolutely should get it. Get everybody to pay you up front. You should get people to pay you on a recurring basis so that you can make more … this is one of the things that I’ll tell clients. Like, “Hey, one you don’t want us to where we’re have to like pause work on your account and then have to spend time trying to make sure that we’re getting paid because then we’re wasting time not getting any results, meaning you have to wait on you getting more paychecks and more customers for your business.

Two is … and I totally forgot where my momentum was going on this. Oh, you can also make more intelligent decisions like right there Adam is like, “Hey go pick up Briefcase.” Well, if you don’t know when checks are coming in or when stuffs going to get paid and you don’t have recurring revenue, then you don’t know how much you can really spend and budget for different expenses every single month. Then, three, if you ever decide that you want to grow a business and an agency and you ever want to sell it for later, a bigger business that might want to acquire your agency is going to want to see that all of them are on automatic payment too.

So, really if you have clients that are like, “Well, I don’t want to get on automatic payment.” It’s not that they don’t want to get on automatic payment, it’s that they don’t trust you to be on automatic payment or because they had a really bad experience before and that’s all stuff that you should have addressed before you’re even getting close to like getting married or going out on the date with the client. All the objections should have been done so they have no problem. They should want to pay you on autopayment every month.

How Do You Communicate With Your Rank And Rent Video Clients?

Bradley: Good advice. All right. I’ve got to run through this length. This was very long. So, by the way, designed2framework only because we didn’t have a lot of questions. Am I answering all these? Typically, we ask guys to limit your questions in one post to like one or two questions only because otherwise that’s not fair to everybody else, okay? So, how do I talk to clients? I talk to them either on the phone or if I need to create a presentation like have them online. I typically send them a join.me link because that’s easy for them. Typically Skype, it depends on what kind of industry you’re targeting, but I deal with a lot of contractors so a lot of contractors aren’t on Skype. They don’t understand how to use Google Hangouts. So, trying to get people on to conferences and stuff like that is typically very difficult. That’s why I just use the phone. I also do a lot ton of video email stuff. So, a lot of times I’m able to convey my messages through sending an email with a video attached or an embedded video or what looks like an embedded video so that all we need to do is chat via email or on the phone if that makes sense, okay?

Marco: I love this question. WhatsApp, don’t ever give him the phone number. You’ll get calls at 3:00 in the morning because their rankings drop one spot. Don’t ever do that. Don’t ever give them your phone number, ever.

Bradley: Yup. Also, just think about buying a virtual phone number. I don’t know because I’m in the US so I don’t understand some of the probably challenges that you’re facing, but you could use something like vumber. I love vumber.com. I use that very specifically for phone numbers for some of my companies. You can use vumber as far as I know with international numbers so that you can originate calls from within the US even though you’re doing it from an international phone number. So, I would look into something like that, finding a phone service. Last-

Eric: Another resource that you can look at that I think offers something as a freemium is Dialpad and then you just go from there.

Can You Still Sell Video Lead Generation Services For Remote Clients Even If You’re Not Physically In The Same Locality As Them?

Bradley: All right. So, the last part of this. In VLS, you said it’s better to target local clients, and he’s talking about video lead gen system guys, clients in my local area but I live outside the US and I want to target US clients because my area has shitty payments. I will need 30 clients to get some return. In the US, I can lay down five clients and have a business. Can I still go for that? Yeah, that’s fine. Listen, I just talked about specifically I’m telling people that are just getting started that it’s often easier for you to land the clients that are in your local area because that gives you something in common with them as opposed to reaching out from across the country or from out of town or from across the globe and trying to sell them on something. When you have something in common with somebody, it builds … that’s like instant rapport.

So, being able to contact people that are in your local area essentially your backyard. You can say, “Oh, hey, I live in the same town. I’m a local guy.” That helps to close sales. I found that to be something that helps closing especially when you’re first getting started, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sell remotely or provide services in the US. It doesn’t mean that at all. It just might … that’s the only reason why I was saying that. What I recommend that you do is niche down. So, focus on one particular industry or vertical and do that.

Instead of like targeting one area and multiple businesses within one area, I would target one business type and cover more locations, because that way you become educated and you learn the vocabulary of that industry, you know what their pain points are, you get to know the keywords, you get to know the traffic, where the traffic comes from, all that kind of stuff and you become an expert marketer in a particular industry. It’s much easier to scale a business that way guys than it is to have to relearn or start from scratch with every new business type that you take on as a client because you don’t know their industry. Does that make sense?

Adam: [inaudible 00:52:59]

What Is The Best Way To Incorporate A Comment Section In A Website?

Bradley: Okay. We’re going to move on. PeterfromPoland. What is the best way I can incorporate a comment section on my website? I don’t use comment apps very much anymore on any other websites but I’ve always obviously turn off WordPress comments. They suck, but I’ve used the Disqus app or Disqus, D-I-S-Q-U-S I think it is as a plugin. That seems to work well just because it connects through various social media and stuff like that, but that that’s the only one I ever use. Anybody else have any suggestions?

Eric: Live Fire is a good one that you can use or depending on what your objective is, you could even potentially … Well, I guess it depends on what you’re trying to use, but if you’re like trying to sell something and you want social proof, you can use Facebook comments too.

Bradley: There you go. All right, we got to wrap up here in a minute. So, I’m going to run through Nigel’s question guys. I think we’re going to have to stop it at that, but I think most of the rest are just comments. So, I think we’ll be okay. Wow! Nice Greg. I’ll plus one.

Adam: Awesome Greg. Send me back man.

What Is The Best Software To Blur Images To Cover Sensitive Info?

Bradley: I will plus on that. Google’s a girl and that’s her. She’s attractive. All right. So, good day gents, working on my POFU. Awesome. Nigel, he says, the best software to blur images to cover sensitive info. I mean I just use Snagit. They have a blur function.

Adam: Snagit, it’s awesome.

Chris: Snagit.

Bradley: Yup. Snagit is cheap. It’s inexpensive. It works.

How Not To Offend A Referral Client With Lots Of Influence But Is Ignorant On The Cost Of Service?

So, the best advice on how to close or at least not offend a referral client with lots of influence but unrealistic on … how to close or at least not offend a referral client with lots of influence but unrealistic or just ignorant of the cost of services. I want to rank for every term Google first position for HVAC and Google. Go easy, Marco. The referring party is a dear friend and I actually believe I can help him and in pitching in social ordeals to start. Okay, so I just went through this with a client referral from somebody that I highly respect. He referred a potential client to me and I spent literally about eight hours doing a complete digital presence audit for this company. I generated multiple reports, multiple videos explaining what I saw, where I saw an opportunity because this guy spends $20,000 a month on AdWords alone. So, it was a really big client for me. So, I spent literally eight hours doing all this work generating reports and audits and all that and in creating a proposal and sending it to him.

Because it was a client referral from somebody that I really respect, I don’t come in with high numbers and then plan on negotiating. When I have a client referral, I come in with my best price that’s it. There is no room for negotiation. The only thing that could be negotiated on is potentially terms, not pricing. When I come in with a client referral, I give my best price. It’s the rock-bottom price and so I did that. I spent all this time and the guy came back with an absolutely insulting counterproposal. I was pissed but fortunately, I bit my tongue and I handled it with some tact very diplomatically. When he sent back the counter-proposal, I replied to him with a very short email that just said, “Thank you for your counter-proposal. I must say what you proposed was unreasonable for the amount of work that you’re requesting, so therefore I’m going to pass on this project. I wish you and your business much success.” That was it. I walked away from it.

That’s how you do it, Nigel. Be in a position of fuck you. Be in a position of power where you control the negotiation. In other words, come in with your best offer, if they come back with a stupid counter proposal, walk away. Just do it with some tact. Leave the door open for them to contact you because the moral of this story guys, just to let you know, was about three weeks past from the time that I sent that email saying exactly what I just mentioned and guess what, I started getting text messages and emails from the guy asking me to reinitiate the conversation. So, I did and I ended up meeting with him two weeks ago for coffee to meet him face to face. Guess what? He signed the original proposal that I sent out.

It’s one of my biggest clients that I’ve landed and this was just two weeks ago. No shit and it was because I was willing to walk away from that. It left him thinking about it for three weeks, and eventually, he came back and said, “No, I really want to work with you. Okay, let’s go ahead and proceed with the original proposal.” So, I got everything that I wanted out of that just from being able to walk away. So, I highly recommend that you do that. Like you just very diplomatically say, “I’m sorry but this is not a project I want to pursue any further because some of the things that you’re requesting are unreasonable.” and say, “I wish you and your business much success.” So, what do you guys have to say about that? I know we got to wrap-up but that was a great question.

Eric: I’ll interject a few thoughts. One, the guy’s lucky you didn’t come back and say, “Hey, I’ll work with you now but the price went up 20% because you didn’t like the first offer.” So, there’s one thing. The other thing is that you could have potentially … obviously, you landed the contract. Like I talk about some different pricing strategies depending on your competency and I’ll just kind of give this as like a freebie thing. We can go into more detail on it because like my Monday training is going to be very much geared on like how to close clients and how to sell services because we have a lot of respect from that. I don’t like coming in with just one yes or no offer. What I’ll typically do is I will offer two different packages if you will and it’s either a really high flat monthly fee or a reduced monthly fee and some sort of percentage of revenue or profits. Guess what they take 95% of the time?

Bradley: Offer B.

Eric: They take the flat monthly fee because they’re so scared you know what the hell you’re doing that you’re going to take their future money and their future revenue. Either way, now it’s which one am I going to get, right? So, you have to be conscientious that if you’re going to offer like a performance package, that you’ve got all your legal stuff in place because you’re going but it’s kind of the really the dummy offer. You really aren’t wanting them to get that. You just want them to buy your bigger price point package that gets people to want to spend more money with you, because when you offer something of like here’s my four grand a month deal or here’s my three grand a month and I want it like 10% of any additional revenue above your base revenue, one, you’re telling them I really know I can get you results and two, they’ll be again so scared that you’re going to take future revenue from their table and from their kids’ mouths that they’ll pay you more monthly because they don’t want to have to worry about it and now they’re like, “Which one am I going to pick?”

Bradley: It’s a great strategy.

Marco: Yeah, I really like that. What I would only add to that client has unreasonable expectations. They want to rank for every Google term first position organic three pack. They want everything. Well, go to AdWords and put together some kind of presentation on what people are paying for Adwords in HVAC in the location and show them what the monthly cost would be just for Adwords, don’t put in there. With the proper budget, we can absolutely go after this and this is what it would cost plus your management fee of course or what we could do and this is when you hit them because I love that ERock alternative. You give me a flat monthly fee or you give me a lower fee plus percentage, but first, show them how unrealistic and ignorant they’re being to want every first position that you could possibly get in Google for 500 bucks a month. Fuck that.

Eric: Yeah. Here’s my favorite thing is always use analogies and put it back on their business. So, if it’s they’re an HVAC, say, “Great. Here’s what I want.” Go to their website and be like, “Hey I want an AC tune-up. I want a new A/C. I want heating services. I want whatever else that they offer and I want it all done for the cost of one service.”

Bradley: Yeah.

Eric: Is that something that you would be willing to do for me if I was your customer?

Bradley: Right.

Eric: You know what they’re going to say? “Well, hell no.” So, why would you ask me to do the very same thing that you wouldn’t do for me. How am I supposed to do that? A great book everybody should read is never split the difference. It’s called Never Split The Difference. Fantastic book. Everybody who wants to improve their negotiating skills should do it, should read that book, but just put it back on them. Just turn around and try to get them to see themselves in your shoes and why their request is unreasonable so you don’t have to tell them they’re being unreasonable. They’ll come to their own conclusion and they can’t argue against themselves. If they don’t come to that conclusion, do what Bradley said, run screaming into the forest.

Do You Have Any Premade Marketing Materials For Serp Space Or MYGB?

Bradley: That’s it. All right. I’m going to very quickly because we got to go. We’re already two minutes over guys. Last Nigel says, lastly any premade marketing materials for SERP space or MGYB? Also, is there an affiliate program for SM? I think on our next quarterly planning, we’re going to be developing out some sales materials guys for people that want to resell our services for MGYB or whatever. So, that’s something we’ve talked about. It just wasn’t in our current like we didn’t have the bandwidth currently for it, but it is something we are planning to be able to provide you guys especially because of the local GMB Pro stuff guys.

I personally have been working on developing a sales strategy for that service alone and also like lead development autoresponder emails and all of that like a whole on sales and marketing approach for local GMB pro services. So, that’s something. That’s probably going to be one of the very first things that we launch as like affiliate collateral or assets that you guys will be able to use to go out and resell GMB pro services, okay? Last thing, ERock, I think you had something you wanted to mention?

Eric: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that they’re invited to participate in the free training class that I’ll be having next Monday 4:00 p.m. Eastern. One of the things that we’re going to be doing is inviting you guys to learn what I believe is a critical component for the future of SEO or just marketing, in general, is we talked about influence. So, I’ll just show you one thing that I can show you guys publicly, but if someone is in the area and looking for this specific chiropractor, does anything stand out on the page when people type in the term chiropractor port s, anything stand out or stick out or looks unusual to you guys?

Bradley: Go ahead and reveal it because I’m not going to answer. I already know the answer.

Eric: All right. So, as I continue to type, what do you guys notice that sticks out, out of the blue? So, basically we have discovered a proven way, consistently systematic way to influence Google’s autosuggest results not in multiple ways to do it and so instead of people going and looking for a diversity of results, they come to this page here and they’re overwhelmed with the branded page of results. It’s made a huge impact on this chiropractor’s business and every business that we’ve done it. Bradley beta tested this, was able to get some amazing results for some of his clients. I think he said one of your clients that you went through this with said turn off the leads and handle it.

Bradley: One of my roofing clients, yeah.

Eric: Right? So, I’m going to go into like a free training on how to how to sell SEO services, how to brand your business, how to become a thought leader for helping you to get clients and then I’m going to invite you to learn how to actually influence Google. I call it G hypnosis, how to hypnotize Google to recommend this company’s products and services for people that are looking for that solution or looking for those products and services that’ll solve their problems. So, I’m honored Bradley that you would offer to invite your students and your following to participate in that. I hope it’s going to be a fantastically fun event and we’ll show you how to undress Google.

Bradley: That’s it. So, guys, last I saw a question say … somebody was asking about being able to come to that webinar. Yeah, just if you’re subscribed to any of our email list guys, you’re going to be getting emails from us over the next … between now and Monday inviting you to the webinar. So, just be on the lookout for that, okay? So, listen, hey thank ERock so much for being here man. We really appreciate you coming on and spending an hour with us. We’re really looking forward to hosting you for the webinar on Monday as well.

Eric: Awesome. Thank you, gentlemen.

Marco: Adam says thanks by the way. He’s got internal noise on his end so he cannot mute. For me, thanks a ton man. I learned a whole bunch today. I hope the rest you did too.

Eric: Awesome. Hey, I appreciate that coming from you sir. Your reputation precedes you as well.

Bradley: So does his mouth.

Eric: Yeah. I want to see where the one million profile is.

Bradley: All right guys, thanks everybody for being here. We’ll see you all later. Oh, by the way, mastermind webinar tomorrow for those of you in the mastermind. We got a lot to go over so be there. All right guys, see you.

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 198

Click on the video above to watch Episode 198 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

Adam: All right. We are live. Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangout episode of 198. We are inching closer and closer to the four-year mark. So, we’ve got a special guest with us today but real quick we’re going to give us some good announcements, a little bit of updates and say hello to everyone, and then I will do a little bit of introducing. So, real quick, let’s see who we got on my far left. We’ve got Chris. How’s it going man?

Chris: Good. Good deal.

Adam: Good deal. Hernan about yourself, are you freezing your ass off in the southern hemisphere?

Hernan: Hold on just a minute. Just going to drop this key here. I don’t know if you guys can see that, maybe it’s the other way around but it says POFU live 2018. That’s what-

Adam: That’s the actual banner that we’re going to hang at our [crosstalk 00:00:46].

Hernan: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. [inaudible 00:00:48].

Bradley: We spared no expense.

Hernan: Yeah, I need to scratch the logo right there but yeah. I’m super, super excited man. I’m super excited for today and for POFU live. I’m super excited for what’s coming for Semantic Mastery. So, yeah.

Adam: Awesome.

Hernan: That’s more important than the cold. I don’t care about it.

Adam: Yeah. I’ll drop the link on there if you haven’t yet, please check it out. We’re obviously interested in having as many people find out about the live event in October, but it is limited. There’s only going to be 25 seats. We’re already getting close to halfway full so don’t wait too long to pull the trigger because we’re looking like this one’s going to get full up. Marco, how are you doing? How’s the weather? I mean, we got to check in with you. How’s the weather?

Marco: We haven’t had any rain for like three days. It’s beautiful.

Adam: [inaudible 00:01:33].

Marco: 80 degrees, sunny, hitting the pool. That’s how it goes in Costa Rica man.

Adam: Good deal. Bradley, how about you? You’re not being blown away or washed away or anything?

Bradley: No, it’s good for the moment, but yeah and I’m excited to be here guys. At POFU live, we’re really excited about that. I’ve been working on kind of developing out what I’m going to be training on and also just an aside but there’s a method I’ve been testing in the last three weeks that I shared in the mastermind and actually just drafted the mastermind newsletter installment for next month that the mastermind members will get. We sent out a physical newsletter every month to our members.

I’m sharing the process in a written form in the newsletter for what I’ve been doing, but getting the three pack listings for like I call it sniping three pack listings because it’s within 24 hours I’m able to take a brand-new GMB profile and get it to rank in the three pack and it’s freaking fabulous. So, I’m going to be talking about some of that at the POFU live event too. Mastermind is getting a taste of that now, but I’m going to go much more in the depth on kind of a strategy and method for building an empire of maps sites or maps profiles. So, that’s part of one of the things I’m going to be talking about at POFU live and you have to be there to hear it.

Adam: Boom! Good deal. Well, I think Hernan’s dropping or dropped the link so please check it out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Contact us at support@semanticmastery.com. We’re happy to talk through this, but on that page, you’ll find event dates, event details where we’re going to be covering other good things like that.

Marco: Before we-

Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marco: … move on to our VIP, can I just drop a little tease because I’m still-

Adam: Go for it.

Marco: … working on doing away with not having to do anything at all with Google and forcing Google to rank you because they feel left out. I mean it’s killing … guys if you’re an affiliate and if you’re in local, it’s killing it. It’s crushing it. It’s like if I showed you the numbers, you wouldn’t believe it because it makes so much money so quick. You guys saw the profile that I posted, right? It’s getting like one million viewers, that profile one million monthly, one, one profile, that’s the traffic that it’s getting one million people. Come on man, it’s about to go down. I’m about to once again turn the SEO world on it’s fucking ear and I’m the one that did it.

Bradley: You heard it here first.

Adam: Real quick, just saw a question from somebody about the live event. So, I did want to say that it is going to be in DC. It’s not going to be at a hotel. We limited it to 25 plus us and our guest speakers so it’s going to be a small group and hotel. I’m sure there would’ve been some hotels maybe a smaller event spaces, but we’ve gone with a specific event space. We’re still getting that locked down. So, we’re not going to give out the address but it is in DC. So, worst case scenario, when you get to your hotel, you’re just going to have a short Uber or maybe a walk or ride the train, but it’s going to be in the downtown area. So, yeah.

Bradley: Yeah, guys. We’re going to be trying to stay like right in town and right in the city. Adam and I were actually chatting about that yesterday. Just find a spot in town or even outside of the main city that is within Metro … has easy access to Metro which is the basically subway system or whatever for DC, because there’s a lot of really nice places you can stay right outside of the city too that are just a short Metro ride in. So, I would suggest looking … just go on hotels.com or one of those apps something like that and try to find something close by because we don’t have … it’s a small enough venue or event for us that we don’t have like a block of rooms reserved anywhere.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah, we’re going to be getting Airbnb and going from there.

Bradley: Right. We’re getting an Airbnb which is what we typically do. By the way, that’s a great idea because it’s so much cheaper that way too if you can double up with some people.

Adam: Yeah, and for me, I’d rather stay in an Airbnb than a hotel. I like having a kitchen and all that jazz, having a deck or something. So, well without further ado our very important person today is Eric Christopher. You might also know him as ERock. So, he’s been an entrepreneur for well nearly two decades. You might know him from several different areas. I’m going to let him talk a little bit about himself after we do the introduction, but I believe Bradley, you first met Eric at the SEO Rockstars, right?

Bradley: Well, I met him in person there. I’ve known of ERock or Eric for a long time because he did some training. I think he was also a student of Ivan Budimir many years ago and Eric, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but then you ended up collaborating with Ivan on some different projects. So, you became kind of a mentor to me as well by proxy because you were with Ivan. Ivan, I’ve said this many, many times publicly but Ivan Budimir had the most influence on my career as a local marketer hands down. So, again, I’ve got much respect for both Ivan and Eric.

Adam: Good deal. I’m just going to mention this because I think people might know Eric from different places but localbusinessrockstar.com or BizFamous Media Group. Then, Eric, can you tell everyone just a little bit about how you got started online, a little bit of your background? I think you could tell it better than any one of us could.

Eric: No, I think you could do a better job Adam.

Adam: All right, here we go.

Eric: So, yeah, at first I want to say thanks for inviting me on, and I really appreciate it. I’m honored that you guys have had me on. Congratulations on coming up on four years. That’s an impressive feat that a lot of people aren’t able to do. So, congratulations to you guys on that. Bradley, thank you for the kind words. So, I got my start … I’ll try to keep this as short as I can, because I hope to provide value to your audience as opposed to just talking about me. I used to think I didn’t matter but it does because now that I’ve become more influential in the world, really being able to tell your story matters.

So, please if you’re out there watching this, don’t discount your story because it’s how people will ultimately identify with you and decide if they want to do business with you or somebody else with all things being equal. So, I got my start years ago when I was in the multi-level marketing industry, right? Like, “MLM, oh my god!” Well, it paid us six figures in revenue over a few years. We made a full-time living at it. I used to have a strength training business. I used to teach people how to work out. I used to be about 20 pounds more muscular than I am today, but my business started to fail because I didn’t know how to market. So, I decided, “Well, I need to find something I can learn the art of marketing.”

So, I started doing multi-level marketing on a part-time basis because all I had to worry about was marketing. I didn’t have to worry about fulfillment, any of that crap. So, we built a multi-thousand person organization the globe and we did it all through like old-school methodology without using any really online strategies, just kind of the good old telephone, but then we started messing around with Google. I started messing around with Google Local. I was able to get a local map listing to rank in my geography. Still to this day even though it’s been over a decade, I’d get an occasional phone call or two every single month for people looking for the actual product. So, we were in LegalShield or prepaid legal services. They just actually cut us a $14,000 residual income check recently which is really badass. So, anyway, started messing around online stuff.

I was like, “How do I do more online stuff?” I just realized after a little while multi-level marketing wasn’t going to build me something with equity that I could potentially sell later. So, I was like, “You know what, I’m going to start doing some local SEO stuff.” So, I bought a course. Imagine that, I invested in a course and I was like, “Man, I hope this works.” I was leading an industry that was doing pretty well but I thought I could grow something in the internet marketing space. So, I launched a company called Local Business Rockstar and the way I got my start as I went out to some local networking events and I basically connected with a few people. I said, “Hey, I’ll sit down and offer to help you just kind of with some free stuff.” I basically had a carpet cleaning guy that said, “Hey I’ll give you my business.” So, we decided to optimize six locations in the Phoenix area.

I have no idea if I could actually fulfill. So, hopefully that’s lesson number one is like ready, fire and then aim. So, I basically sold this guy on a four figure monthly deal that I hopefully I could get him local SEO results. I was all predicated on the fact that I was going to implement what I was learning in this course. So, I could have wound up with just egg on my face really bad but long story short, in about two months, it worked. We rank them. We ended up ranking them in multiple locations. They stayed with us for six years until they sold their business and that’s kind of how I got my start in the industry. Then along the way, I ran into Ivan Budimir who had a really cool image optimization hack that they leveraged.

Basically, it was pretty cool. It still kind of works to this day just not in the same level, but that’s how I got my start. So, we started this as kind of like increase our influence. I actually got a cease and desist letter from a company that was claiming that we were infringing on their national registered trademark. So, that’s lesson number two, learn from my mistakes. If you’re planning on building a successful business, make sure you do a little bit of intellectual property to make sure you protect yourself. So, that’s ultimately the genesis of why I created the brand of BizFamous.

One, because we were expanding outside the world of local anyway. So, we work with some national brands. We help one of our clients become the number two bestselling book on all of Amazon for a day across the entire planet. Number two book all of the Amazon, not for the category, the entire planet. So, now today, like I write for entrepreneur.com. I’ve written for Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Business, newswire.net and so that’s kind of where we’re at today. Excited to hopefully share some great information with you guys and look forward to launching a couple of information products and software coming soon, a couple softwares maybe.

Adam: Nice. Yeah and I think this is a good time to for everyone watching if you already had or if you now have questions for Eric, be sure to pop them on to the event page. As time allows, we’ll relay those over to him. Also, on Monday, we’re going to be having … you’re invited to a webinar. We’re going to be sending out some emails shortly to find out what Eric’s been working on recently which … Do you want to tell people a little bit about this? I think people from our mastermind might already know this, but again, I’ll let you describe it.

Eric: So, the last few years like again I would discount my story. I would really kind of like, “Hey, if I just cut to the meat and just deliver some amazing content like that will make a difference.” It does of course, but in today’s age my wife has a business called Biztuition and she teaches business owners how to overcome the challenge of infobesity. So, I don’t know if any of you guys have heard of the word infobesity before, but information overload. So, it’s like, “Oh my god everybody and their mothers coming into the digital marketing space. There’s really no barrier to entry.” It’s become like … when I first got started like man it was so easy to rank. You could do so many different tricks and hacks and tactics and strategies and make things happen overnight.

Today, it’s just not as easy as it used to be. In a way it’s good because it gets rid of the people that don’t have skills. In a way it’s bad because it makes it harder to get started. So, during my journey, I was able to help to understand like neuropsychology, how to create influence, because ultimately I knew no matter how good I was at SEO, if I couldn’t get and especially it depends on what your objective is. If you’re doing affiliate marketing, it’s not that big a deal to be able to necessarily know how to sell, right? I still think it does because you still need to be able to communicate the value proposition, why someone should buy your affiliate program versus someone else.

Adam: Definitely. Yeah, getting the traffic there is part of the battle. Then you got to convert it.

Eric: Right. That comes back to you influence, how do you create influence. So, over the last half decade, I’ve really invested a lot of my education in developing influence that’s why I decided to actively seek out how I was able to get people like Arianna Huffington and invite me to write for Huffington Post. Then the folks at Entrepreneur and ultimately which is a really cool store. I don’t even know … I think I might have told you this Bradley maybe not but I was actually just on the set of Shark Tank about actually two months today. It’s my two-month anniversary where I was invited onto the set of Shark Tank and got to interview all the sharks, all the guest sharks and we’ve had to keep it kind of under wraps just because we signed an NDA until the new season premieres, all that good stuff.

So, ultimately what are we doing in the world of marketing, what are we doing in the world of SEO is we’re trying to create influence. So, the project that I’ve been working on now for quite some time and that we’re finally decided to do like publicly releasing it is how to influence Google to recommend your brand to people who are actively searching for your products and services online. So, I’ll kind of get into more of that as we get on to the end because I just want to make sure that like I want to ask … hopefully ask or answer questions if anybody has questions or just talk at a little bit of a macro level on like we’re kind of SEO and marketing is going.

Adam: Cool. Well, I mean that’s basically what was on my mind. So, let’s kind of roll into that. Where do you see and this is a free-form question and anyone else that feels like chiming in, feel free but Eric, what do you see as you know there’s so many sub topics, but between SEO and digital marketing in the next couple of years, what do you see like an area of being that you think people should pay attention to or something that they should know or something like that? I’m always curious of what people see as like a coming trend or what they think is important.

Eric: Well, I think we’re all starting to experience that already with RankBrain. For those of you that are more hardcore SEO folks and really that’s just Google’s fancy branded way of saying artificial intelligence, virtual reality. So, ultimately like that’s the path where it’s going and a lot of the practices of traditional SEO are slowly being phased out in my opinion by Google and other search engines. Other search engines will probably hopefully catch up someday or they’ll get acquired by Google which Mozilla did, but it’s going to progress to where in my opinion like my big prognostication, not that it’s really like epically like insightful but Google’s been … ever since it started it was easy to kind of gain the whole link industry, right? Basically, I remember when I was able to rank back in the day local internet marketing we were ranked number five nationally in the United States for it. We were outranking Yodel which at the time was like a $253 million company.

At the time, it was just me, myself and I out ranking them. All we did was just kind of like the exact match anchor text back links. You do that today, you’re toast. So, Google is slowly shifting its emphasis away from anything that can really be manipulated or orchestrated, and it’s moving more into the realm of artificial intelligence based on signals that it’s getting from users. I just see that in the next 5, 10 years of it. I don’t know if Google will ever get completely away from links. I think they still use links as a way to kind of connect the dots in its algorithm, but ultimately like and maybe you guys are seeing this or maybe you guys want to interject your thoughts on this as a group of fellow experts of how much have you seen over the last couple of years where backlinks are becoming less and less as a ranking factor and you’re seeing user metrics becoming more and more important in terms of results.

Bradley: I absolutely 100% agree with that. One of the things that we’ve seen especially in the last year alone is how you can rank almost entirely with just engagement signals. We proved that with YouTube videos. That’s kind of been known for quite some time but now even so with especially since the mobile first index took over which was just last month in July. With our local GMB Pro methods and what we teach in that course and we’re also developing a done-for-you service for that right now. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re speaking directly to the mobile first algorithm with or giving it signals and activity which then Google serves to users and gives exposure to that business to mobile users that are in close proximity that are doing any sort of related type of search. Whether we’re showing in rank trackers or not, it doesn’t make any difference. We’re still getting exposure and activity engagement from mobile device users again whether ranked tracker show it ranking or not. It’s independent or regardless of ranking.

The only way to explain that is because it’s Google going more and more towards engagement and user signals as opposed to like what Eric just said which was backlinks and some of the old more traditional stuff. It’s been quite incredible to see the kind of results that we’re able to get with an absence of backlinks. We’re not even needing to use backlinks. A lot of times what we’re using for backlinks now are other Google properties. We’re using Drive Stacks or Google Drive files and folders and such to backlink. Obviously press releases are still my preferred backlinking method at the moment and in just content syndication which usually has an attribution link that points back to the original source. Those are pretty much the only three link voting methods we really teach and it works.

Eric: Oh and I’m just so glad you talked about syndicating content. Today, actually I don’t even know if I’ve actually shared this really kind of publicly, but I’m going to totally dispel the whole myth of the duplicate content penalty.

Bradley: Oh god please do, because you know how many times we have to answer that question right here on Hump Day Hangouts.

Eric: Can I do a quick screen share and I’ll actually show you an example?

Bradley: Please.

Adam: Yeah, let’s do it.

Bradley: Please.

Eric: All right. Let me open up a new incognito window here. All right. So, hopefully I can just remember this off the top of my head because this wasn’t necessarily on my agenda. So, how to treat infobesity. Okay, how to treat information overload in three simple steps, right? So, it’s ranking number one. This is my wife who wrote the article who’s a successful entrepreneur in her own right. You can see here I’ll just kind of highlight some of this. So, if you’ve ever been on blah, blah, blah, blah. So, I’m going to cut and copy that and then I’m going to come here and do another search. The search query is … Oh I know what it is. Infobesity epidemic, right? So, the only thing different is the title. Everything else is exactly the same.

Now I’m not sitting here saying that you can like replicate these results because one of this is on Huffington Post. The other article is on Entrepreneur, right? So, super high authority trustworthy websites, but basically just by changing the title only, we were still able to rank number one and again that’s not super competitive keywords. It’s not like weight loss or anything like that. So, for those of you that are going to sit there and be like, “Ooh.” Like in a more competitive marketplace, sure it may be harder to rank but it’s not being penalized, that’s my whole point. So, hopefully that dispels that myth. [crosstalk 00:22:40]

Bradley: That’s because it’s on a different domain, right? That’s the thing. People say duplicate content and duplicate content does exist but that’s typically when it’s on the same domain. If you have the same article posted on a domain like for example that’s how tags guys can get you into trouble with WordPress sites, because if you have a unique tag on a blog post, then WordPress by default will create a tag page. If you have those set to index, then Google … the tag page will index and the tag page looks … it’s the when you click on the tag archive page for that particular tag, if it’s a singular tag that’s only been attached to one blog post, that tag URL will be an exact replica of the post itself. Depending on the theme, sometimes it’ll be a snippet but most of the time, it’ll be the entire article, the entire post. The only difference is the URL.

Everything else will be the exact same and that can cause duplicate content penalties or issues for a site if you don’t know how to use tags. Either set your tags to no index or make sure that you’re using more common tags that occur on more than one post, and that way when the tag archive page gets pulled up, it’s like a blog index page. It shows all of the posts that contain that or have that same tag. So, that wouldn’t be duplicate content, but when you have a singular tag, it can be. So, again, that’s where duplicate content issues come up not on different domains. Otherwise, press releases wouldn’t work and that’s typically … by the way, Eric that’s what usually what we use as the go-to example for duplicate content because press releases we all know work incredibly well and it’s the same damn article getting picked up by 300, 400, 500 different syndication partners.

Eric: Yeah, we’re huge fans of press releases as well. One of the ways actually we ended up working together with Ivan beyond the initial course was he ended up going and doing some work with a news release company called newswire.net which is still a super powerful way to be able to get good links on there. I think that they still charge for access to it, but it’s a great solid platform in addition to some of the other resources that I know you guys make available to your community. So, even though I don’t get a chance watching every Hump Day Hangout, I do sneak in every once in a while to smile [crosstalk 00:24:55].

Bradley: Lurk in the background.

Eric: Cyberstalking, right?

Adam: It’s good. It’s always nice to hear that. It’s funny we talk to a lot of people and I mean I think all of us do the same. You’ve got shows or podcasts you listen to. Then it’s funny sometimes to have people on like, “Oh yeah, I’ve been listening this off and on for years.” Like, “Wow, okay. Hey, good.” Well-

Marco: Yeah. Just some of our beginners don’t get mixed up back on the backlinking thing. Traditional or old-school backlinking is what we’re differentiating. We’re not saying that that Google doesn’t look at links because everything that the latest distance graph algorithm update did was talk about links, but it talked about what Bradley and Eric mentioned which is it measures activity on the link. It measures relevance on the link and it measures trust and authority. Again, you guys have heard me say this it takes place on the source of the link and on where the link is directed. So, it takes a look at both and it takes everything that’s linking to that. So, it’s not that links are obsolete, it’s now the way that Google is looking at links and the value that Google is placing on links that are untrusted and authoritative websites.

I’m not talking about third party metrics of course. I’m not talking about trustful or I’m not talking about the domain authority. None of that garbage. Everything is out the window. Only Google knows what Google measures but we know generally what it measures, because we have the math. We have the math on the patent. We have everything that they say about the patent and what they’re looking at. So, I’m glad that this is being brought up and that we’re differentiating, right? Link building still works, but you have to go further out. You have to go out and into tiered link building. I don’t want to get into that because that’s higher level, but again, ART, activity, relevance, trust and authority. That’s what you need to be looking at when you’re looking at links going to your website and going from your website to wherever. That’s where you have to be really careful and pick into the links that you’re getting.

Adam: Definitely.

Eric: Yeah, one of the biggest mistakes that I think I see a lot of people make is that they don’t emphasize link building in the natural order of things. That’s something that I’ll be talking about in greater detail in the webinar on Monday and why you … because I’ve always looked and this is going back years ago, but I’ve always looked at Google from a perspective of Google is a girl. If you haven’t heard anybody else say that, I’m telling you now Google is a girl. She loves to dance. All right. She wants to know that she can trust you. She’s going to basically give you favor if you’re more popular than not. So, Google’s a girl and you have to basically influence her to want to date you and then hopefully end up marrying you.

Adam: This is a great analogy. I’ve actually somehow never heard this.

Eric: You’ve never heard this before? Oh my God!

Adam: I haven’t. Have you guys? I literally haven’t.

Bradley: Yes. Accordingly woman, yeah.

Eric: So, if you move too quick, you’re going to get the slap. So, I can go on into this whole … like I’ve had arguments with girls who are like, “No, Google is a man.” and they’re done. I’m like, “Okay, you’re right. Google is a girl.” So, the whole point of influencing Google is if you do things in the right order and the way that Google wants it and if you’re smart about it, you can do some of the black hat things that can basically … that are like the dirty stuff. It’s like I’m public. In public, we do the white hat stuff. When we’re in the bedroom, we want to do some of the black hat stuff, the naughty stuff, right? So, the key is, how do you get that progress in the right order? That’s a great analogy for I’m going to talk about in the training. If you go out on the first date and even if you get to go back and you do get to go back to the house on the first date and you get in the bedroom room, you better watch out when doing the super kinky stuff because then like that girl’s going to kick out.

We all know that’s common sense and Google’s the same way. So, I think one of the biggest mistakes that people are making is not looking at it from a kind of like a 30,000 foot view of how the progression would look. So, we get caught up in tactics and there’s amazing amount of cool tactics that are out there, but it needs to blend in with an overall strategy, and that’s one of the things that I appreciate about you guys is that you test off and then the tactic … there’s a lot of people doing like single variable testing type stuff in the marketing world and that’s great, but again as a tactic it works, but what it’s not accounting for is dependencies. Just because something works in a single variable test in it of itself doesn’t mean when it’s combined with two other algorithmic factors, it’s going to have the same effect.

Bradley: Right.

Eric: Right? I don’t want to get on any specifics on this because there’s a lot of smarter people with scientific backgrounds than me. I just know if I do the things that I think that Google is looking for and you talked about like Google Drive Stacks. I’ll I’m putting it out there. I’ll argue with anybody but I would consider myself to be the godfather of custom my maps. I was able to get a custom my maps to rank on my own. No one taught it to me. I discovered it purely on accident just by testing stuff out and it was back in the day when you could get do follow links, you could put exact match anchor text in it. Unbelievable, right? I didn’t share it with anybody for years until actually the first SEO Rockstars that I shared it with, and then after that, another group who was supposed to be secret but it ended up getting out.

I’m sure there’s other people might have discovered it too, but I was doing that stuff back in 2011. Why? Because I knew … Hey, here’s a good example. If you look at Google as like a bunch of sisters, well hey, if you do things and you’re super nice to one of the sisters, is the other sister going to like you too? “Oh, he’s so handsome. He’s so nice. He’s so gentlemanly. He does such nice things and says nice things.” So, Google loves its own properties. We were using Google for different properties years ago like over half a decade ago before I would call it a little bit more commonplace.

Adam: Got you.

Eric: So, my whole focus is like that whole Wayne Gretzky thing if you’re familiar with Wayne Gretzky. It’s like good players know where the puck is. The great players know where the puck is going and right now the thing that I want to train on and talk about like on the session on Monday is where’s the puck going to be going and how can you position your business to take advantage of that so that you can be ahead, literally a lot ahead of other people that are in the space, because that’s what it’s going to take. I’m also making another prediction. My other big prognostication is that if all you do is SEO, you’re going to struggle to grow a big business if you’re trying to build an agency.

Bradley: Well, SEO is kind of encompassed like we use that kind of more like a overall encompassing term now, because to be effective in SEO, you need to do content marketing. You need to know about content marketing and social media and engagement and PPC and PR marketing and reputation. There’s so many components now to being an SEO. It’s not just search engine optimization anymore, right?

Eric: Yeah. I mean I 100% agree. I actually have an article, I’m sure it’s probably still there.

Adam: Real quick while you’re looking for that, I’m the timekeeper today. So, we got to wrap this up in a minute or two, but while you’re looking for that Eric, I just want to let everyone know if you got any questions for Eric, go ahead pop them on the event page. I know there’s a little bit of a delay and then in a minute or two, we’re going to hop over and we’ll start going through [crosstalk 00:33:24] questions.

Bradley: Well start on questions. I do want to expand this very briefly on what Eric was saying about the Wayne Gretzky analogy and where the puck is going to be like where is it going. That’s kind of what we’re trying to accomplish with POFU Live guys is really identify where some people’s business should be going and where it should be heading in order to position. That’s what … POFU Live, position to fuck you, it’s all about positioning. So, that’s entirely what the event is going to be about is how to position your business to be in a really good place to scale with all the changes coming. I’m sorry. I got it locked on you. What were you about to show?

Eric: No, I was just going to show an article that I wrote. I think it’s from almost … Oh it was updated 2017. This is before they kicked everybody off the Huffington Post platform. Actually the original article was almost three years ago. I was sitting there talking about how like SEO is changing and like usability is and this is a software that helps you to measure heat maps and usability on sites. I was talking about this stuff three years ago as far as like where stuff was going. So, I’m just sharing this with you because one of the things that I hope to do in the training coming up is show you how to create influence and you guys are watching this right now. You guys should be like just hanging on these guys’ arms and be on their coattails because what they subtly have done with you, I should get rid of this, is they over the last four years have exhibited and have been eating their dog food not just by like learning SEO tactics and strategies but by building a community.

Before you could do certain things that would allow you to get clients and you could do some out each type stuff and that some of that stuff still works, but it’s just a lot harder, right? So, one of the big takeaways that you’re going to want to do and my wife talks about this a lot is that if you really want to grow a successful business of any kind, you’re going to want to create a community. I know that’s like, “Oh, that’s not magical.” It’s tough, right? So, it goes back to like, “Hey these guys have been doing this for four years to be able to build a momentum, to be able to like continue to go through that.” One of the things that I’m going to teach on the training on Monday is if you’re brand new or you feel like you don’t have a lot of experience in terms of like getting clients or building a successful business, one of the things I’m going to talk to you about is how to coattail off of other people’s authority to build your authority so that you can take your business to the next level.

Why am I showing you articles that I’ve written for Huffington Post and for Entrepreneur and why am I talking about the fact that I have pictures of me with Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner because I’m leveraging their authority. By default, if you respect those people, hopefully you respect me too hopefully as a result. Hopefully you respect me that the fact that I’m here with the Semantic Mastery team hopefully imparting some minor wisdom to those of you that are participating, and so, I’ll show you how you can leverage that step by step to help you get where you want to go. Then I’m also going to as we’re … because we kind of need to wrap this up, right?

Adam: Yeah, just move into the Q&A. Yeah, if there’s anything else to-

Eric: [crosstalk 00:36:49] Q&A and then I’ll highlight what I was going to talk about a little bit at the end kind of like what the big sexy is, right? I’m to show you some-

Bradley: [inaudible 00:36:57] Go ahead.

Eric: I’m going to show you something that’s going to get Google that want to take you to bed.

Bradley: What I’m going to question … So, I’m going to grab the screen, lock it on and then we’ll jump into that. Just take a few minutes because we don’t have that many anyways.

Eric: Well, that’s too bad for them because I love engagement.

Bradley: Well, it must be that everybody just enthralled. So, Sam’s up first.

Adam: Yeah, several good comments on Google being a girl though. So, yeah, I think I’m not the only one that hadn’t heard of that or that agrees.

Do You Recommend Recapturing The Power Of The Backlinks Pointing To The Aged Domain By Redirecting To A New Page?

Bradley: That’s funny. So, Sam’s up first. He says, “I’m starting a new money site on an aged domain. The domain has backlinks pointing to old pages. Do you recommend trying to recapture the power from those links by redirecting to a new page or something or is that not really necessary? Thanks.” Yeah, you can. Well, it depends Sam. If you are rebuilding on an old domain that was relevant like it was in the same category, it might be worth recreating those pages. Even if you set them to no index, still recreating those pages. So, go to the Wayback Machine archive.org and pull up snapshots of the site in its previous state. If it was relevant, I would say go ahead and recreate those pages and just set them to no index, but then you can … because then all those inbound links pointing to those pages, that original content, it’s likely that those links won’t be taken down if discovered by webmasters where those links exist, because it’ll still be linking to that original content or what it was originally linking to I mean, but then you can always put a contextual link from that page to that inner page to wherever you want to push the juice to.

That’s a great way to do it, but otherwise, yeah you could just create a redirect, but just remember that it’s likely that redirect or the link from the original source of the inbound links could be edited out if a webmaster catches it, sees that it’s not pointing to what it was intended to point to. Also, if it wasn’t relevant content, then if you’re redirecting inbound links that was pointing to something that wasn’t relevant, then that could actually end up causing you harm. So, there’s a lot of different factors you have to take into consideration there, but absolutely, if it was relevant, I would say recreate the pages. That’s pretty powerful. I would just set them to no index. What do you guys say?

Eric: I would agree. I think that it’s challenging to answer that question without more context.

Bradley: Right.

Eric: We’re just basically making a best guess. It’s like saying, “Hey doctor, my stomach hurts. Can you tell me you if I should take this medicine?” It’s like … but I would say that overall the philosophical answer that you just gave would be spot on.

Do You Have A Contract Template For Rank And Rent Video Services?

Bradley: Right. Next designed2framework. “Hi, I have a few questions. Nobody ever talks about the actual close of clients. I did not close clients ever but this is the aim. Okay. Because I’m going for rank and rent videos, do you have a contract template for that? I just want to put my details, client’s details, amount and that’s it.” Well, yeah, you can, but I mean for like rank and rent video, I mean guys, Marco and I both talked about this often. Contracts are not something I typically work on. It depends on the size and scope of the project. Typically much larger projects do require contract either from the person that hired me or from me to protect me and my effort. It’s either one or the other, but typically for most stuff like rank and rent videos, that’s a small enough engagement with a client, a small enough commitment that I don’t work on contracts. I just work on it month to month. It’s like, “Look, this is how much it’s going to cost.

If it’s producing results, you’re going to be happy to pay me. If it’s not producing results, you should be able to cancel or stop paying me.” That’s it. That’s why I’ve always worked that way unless a contract was required, because of the particular circumstances, but for the most part, I do everything on a month to month, because again, I know I can produce results. As long as I’m producing results, they should be happy to pay me. If I don’t produce results, they should be able to walk away. Just the same as if I decide that I don’t like working with that client for whatever reason, I should be able to walk away. If I was in a contract, I might not be able to leave either. So, again for rank and rent videos, don’t overcomplicate shit. You start bringing contracts out for rank and rent video stuff, you’re going to lose a lot of potential closes because people don’t like contracts, right? Somebody else want to comment on for the next one.

Eric: I’ll interject here. So, one, if you ever decide that you do want to implement some sort of agreement on a long term basis, number one, don’t use the word contract because again like Bradley said that people don’t like the word contracts. Agreements are a lot better, sound a lot nicer. Again, it goes back to the context. It depends on what you’re charging for and what the work is going to be required for you to actually implement. So, if you’re working with like a five figure monthly client and you’re going to have to front-load a bunch of work on the front end to try to recoup a positive investment on the back end, then it might seem worthy to you to be able to put together some sort of agreement.

We talk about a lot with our students about how to close clients and just how to position everything, but if you’re doing stuff for like a minor amount of money, a few hundred dollars or a low four figure deal, I work in the same vein as Bradley as that we typically will say to any brand new client like, “Hey, everything is month to month. We asked for a 90-day commitment so that you can see how effective this is and then based on the progress that we make, will determine if we continue to move forward.

I can even offer you a way to be able to lock a long-term deal if you like, but everything that we do is based around that we’ll have the freedom to leave.” Even if we are in an agreement with a company and they decide they want to leave, we’re not going try to take them to court or any bullshit like that. We’re just going to let them go, but there is a value if the dollar amount is worth it to get that on paper that they made a longer-term commitment because there’ll be a lot less likely to cancel. Again, that’s totally based on context.

Bradley: That’s right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: No, because I’m with you. No contracts unless the company is so big that their legal requires it. I’m going through that now. It’s why I hate contracts because it’s been dragging on. They know they want to work. They already agreed. They said yes but now legal it’s going to my attorney, it’s going to theirs, then it comes back to mine and then it just drags on. I’m spending money. It’s just stupid because just let me do what the fuck I do and get out of the way. I mean that’s how I treat it. If that’s not good enough, if you can’t get out of the way and you’re not going to get out of the way, then just leave me alone. I don’t want any part of it.

How Do You Charge Clients For Rank And Rent Video Services?

Bradley: Here you go. So, how do you charge clients? What about recurring payments? Do you send PayPal requests, get the client’s credit card or some sort? I do almost all of my clients I just put them on PayPal. I know I’d pay a shit ton on PayPal fees. It’s ridiculous. I could spend less on fees if I used like my own merchant account. I get all that but I like the ease and convenience of PayPal. I’ve run my business that way ever since I opened it. So, basically, I send an invoice for any one off services like setup fees and that kind of thing, but then I send PayPal subscription link which I just go right into PayPal, generate a new subscription button, set the terms and then it spits out a link and then I just send it via email. That’s typically how I charge all my clients and I get paid. It works. I have some clients that actually send me paper checks in the mail every month, believe it or not. I still have clients that do that, but for the most part, whenever I can, I try to get everybody on a PayPal subscription because then I know it’s done and it’s just an automatic withdrawal, okay?

How Do You Sign Clients For Rank And Rent Video Services?

How do you sign clients? Do you signature online software? No. Most the time because I’m not doing contracts, I don’t need signatures. So, I don’t do that. What I do is I send a proposal via email that’s in PDF form. So, I draft a proposal. I typically just do that in Google Docs and then I save it as a PDF and I send that as a proposal. Then if they agree to the proposal, then all I do is send them … and all I need is a positive reply via email in other words saying yes I agree via email. When they agree, then I say, “Okay, I’m going to send you the payment links.” Again, if it’s a one-off or like for setup fees or whatever, then I’ll send them a PayPal invoice. If it’s for a subscription or recurring service, then I send them a PayPal subscription link. So, again, I don’t need signature software. If I do need something signed, then typically I just send a contract or an agreement or whatever it may be via Scan It In and send it to him via email. They’ll sign it and scan it back and send it back to me, okay?

Adam: Real quick too and I think that’s totally fine and I wouldn’t go out of your way whoever is asking this to add another expense, but something I’ve really been using a lot, I think Hernan has been using it too, is the AppSumo Briefcase. They keep adding stuff. It’s AppSumo, right? They’ve got a ton of the stuff and they’ve got a billing app. I think it’s called literally Billy app, but that’s pretty slick when you can hook up to different banks. You can issue invoices so people could pay by card or PayPal or different methods. So, anyways, if you’re into that, it’s like a flat monthly fee for all the apps they have in the Briefcase and it’s like 50 bucks a month or something. So, if you’re going to use it anyways, there’s some extra I guess utility you could get out of that.

Marco: A word of warning if I can. Sorry, ERock.

Eric: No, go ahead.

Marco: Not start working until you’ve got that scratch in your account man. You can get burned. So, make sure you got that money because that’s the yes. A yes on paper is useless until you got that money then you can start working.

Eric: Hallelujah! I was just going to share the same thing. Don’t ever, ever, ever work on invoice, do work upfront and if you guys want, we could talk about it in the training on Monday if anybody cares, but you absolutely should get it. Get everybody to pay you up front. You should get people to pay you on a recurring basis so that you can make more … this is one of the things that I’ll tell clients. Like, “Hey, one you don’t want us to where we’re have to like pause work on your account and then have to spend time trying to make sure that we’re getting paid because then we’re wasting time not getting any results, meaning you have to wait on you getting more paychecks and more customers for your business.

Two is … and I totally forgot where my momentum was going on this. Oh, you can also make more intelligent decisions like right there Adam is like, “Hey go pick up Briefcase.” Well, if you don’t know when checks are coming in or when stuffs going to get paid and you don’t have recurring revenue, then you don’t know how much you can really spend and budget for different expenses every single month. Then, three, if you ever decide that you want to grow a business and an agency and you ever want to sell it for later, a bigger business that might want to acquire your agency is going to want to see that all of them are on automatic payment too.

So, really if you have clients that are like, “Well, I don’t want to get on automatic payment.” It’s not that they don’t want to get on automatic payment, it’s that they don’t trust you to be on automatic payment or because they had a really bad experience before and that’s all stuff that you should have addressed before you’re even getting close to like getting married or going out on the date with the client. All the objections should have been done so they have no problem. They should want to pay you on autopayment every month.

How Do You Communicate With Your Rank And Rent Video Clients?

Bradley: Good advice. All right. I’ve got to run through this length. This was very long. So, by the way, designed2framework only because we didn’t have a lot of questions. Am I answering all these? Typically, we ask guys to limit your questions in one post to like one or two questions only because otherwise that’s not fair to everybody else, okay? So, how do I talk to clients? I talk to them either on the phone or if I need to create a presentation like have them online. I typically send them a join.me link because that’s easy for them. Typically Skype, it depends on what kind of industry you’re targeting, but I deal with a lot of contractors so a lot of contractors aren’t on Skype. They don’t understand how to use Google Hangouts. So, trying to get people on to conferences and stuff like that is typically very difficult. That’s why I just use the phone. I also do a lot ton of video email stuff. So, a lot of times I’m able to convey my messages through sending an email with a video attached or an embedded video or what looks like an embedded video so that all we need to do is chat via email or on the phone if that makes sense, okay?

Marco: I love this question. WhatsApp, don’t ever give him the phone number. You’ll get calls at 3:00 in the morning because their rankings drop one spot. Don’t ever do that. Don’t ever give them your phone number, ever.

Bradley: Yup. Also, just think about buying a virtual phone number. I don’t know because I’m in the US so I don’t understand some of the probably challenges that you’re facing, but you could use something like vumber. I love vumber.com. I use that very specifically for phone numbers for some of my companies. You can use vumber as far as I know with international numbers so that you can originate calls from within the US even though you’re doing it from an international phone number. So, I would look into something like that, finding a phone service. Last-

Eric: Another resource that you can look at that I think offers something as a freemium is Dialpad and then you just go from there.

Can You Still Sell Video Lead Generation Services For Remote Clients Even If You’re Not Physically In The Same Locality As Them?

Bradley: All right. So, the last part of this. In VLS, you said it’s better to target local clients, and he’s talking about video lead gen system guys, clients in my local area but I live outside the US and I want to target US clients because my area has shitty payments. I will need 30 clients to get some return. In the US, I can lay down five clients and have a business. Can I still go for that? Yeah, that’s fine. Listen, I just talked about specifically I’m telling people that are just getting started that it’s often easier for you to land the clients that are in your local area because that gives you something in common with them as opposed to reaching out from across the country or from out of town or from across the globe and trying to sell them on something. When you have something in common with somebody, it builds … that’s like instant rapport.

So, being able to contact people that are in your local area essentially your backyard. You can say, “Oh, hey, I live in the same town. I’m a local guy.” That helps to close sales. I found that to be something that helps closing especially when you’re first getting started, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sell remotely or provide services in the US. It doesn’t mean that at all. It just might … that’s the only reason why I was saying that. What I recommend that you do is niche down. So, focus on one particular industry or vertical and do that.

Instead of like targeting one area and multiple businesses within one area, I would target one business type and cover more locations, because that way you become educated and you learn the vocabulary of that industry, you know what their pain points are, you get to know the keywords, you get to know the traffic, where the traffic comes from, all that kind of stuff and you become an expert marketer in a particular industry. It’s much easier to scale a business that way guys than it is to have to relearn or start from scratch with every new business type that you take on as a client because you don’t know their industry. Does that make sense?

Adam: [inaudible 00:52:59]

What Is The Best Way To Incorporate A Comment Section In A Website?

Bradley: Okay. We’re going to move on. PeterfromPoland. What is the best way I can incorporate a comment section on my website? I don’t use comment apps very much anymore on any other websites but I’ve always obviously turn off WordPress comments. They suck, but I’ve used the Disqus app or Disqus, D-I-S-Q-U-S I think it is as a plugin. That seems to work well just because it connects through various social media and stuff like that, but that that’s the only one I ever use. Anybody else have any suggestions?

Eric: Live Fire is a good one that you can use or depending on what your objective is, you could even potentially … Well, I guess it depends on what you’re trying to use, but if you’re like trying to sell something and you want social proof, you can use Facebook comments too.

Bradley: There you go. All right, we got to wrap up here in a minute. So, I’m going to run through Nigel’s question guys. I think we’re going to have to stop it at that, but I think most of the rest are just comments. So, I think we’ll be okay. Wow! Nice Greg. I’ll plus one.

Adam: Awesome Greg. Send me back man.

What Is The Best Software To Blur Images To Cover Sensitive Info?

Bradley: I will plus on that. Google’s a girl and that’s her. She’s attractive. All right. So, good day gents, working on my POFU. Awesome. Nigel, he says, the best software to blur images to cover sensitive info. I mean I just use Snagit. They have a blur function.

Adam: Snagit, it’s awesome.

Chris: Snagit.

Bradley: Yup. Snagit is cheap. It’s inexpensive. It works.

How Not To Offend A Referral Client With Lots Of Influence But Is Ignorant On The Cost Of Service?

So, the best advice on how to close or at least not offend a referral client with lots of influence but unrealistic on … how to close or at least not offend a referral client with lots of influence but unrealistic or just ignorant of the cost of services. I want to rank for every term Google first position for HVAC and Google. Go easy, Marco. The referring party is a dear friend and I actually believe I can help him and in pitching in social ordeals to start. Okay, so I just went through this with a client referral from somebody that I highly respect. He referred a potential client to me and I spent literally about eight hours doing a complete digital presence audit for this company. I generated multiple reports, multiple videos explaining what I saw, where I saw an opportunity because this guy spends $20,000 a month on AdWords alone. So, it was a really big client for me. So, I spent literally eight hours doing all this work generating reports and audits and all that and in creating a proposal and sending it to him.

Because it was a client referral from somebody that I really respect, I don’t come in with high numbers and then plan on negotiating. When I have a client referral, I come in with my best price that’s it. There is no room for negotiation. The only thing that could be negotiated on is potentially terms, not pricing. When I come in with a client referral, I give my best price. It’s the rock-bottom price and so I did that. I spent all this time and the guy came back with an absolutely insulting counterproposal. I was pissed but fortunately, I bit my tongue and I handled it with some tact very diplomatically. When he sent back the counter-proposal, I replied to him with a very short email that just said, “Thank you for your counter-proposal. I must say what you proposed was unreasonable for the amount of work that you’re requesting, so therefore I’m going to pass on this project. I wish you and your business much success.” That was it. I walked away from it.

That’s how you do it, Nigel. Be in a position of fuck you. Be in a position of power where you control the negotiation. In other words, come in with your best offer, if they come back with a stupid counter proposal, walk away. Just do it with some tact. Leave the door open for them to contact you because the moral of this story guys, just to let you know, was about three weeks past from the time that I sent that email saying exactly what I just mentioned and guess what, I started getting text messages and emails from the guy asking me to reinitiate the conversation. So, I did and I ended up meeting with him two weeks ago for coffee to meet him face to face. Guess what? He signed the original proposal that I sent out.

It’s one of my biggest clients that I’ve landed and this was just two weeks ago. No shit and it was because I was willing to walk away from that. It left him thinking about it for three weeks, and eventually, he came back and said, “No, I really want to work with you. Okay, let’s go ahead and proceed with the original proposal.” So, I got everything that I wanted out of that just from being able to walk away. So, I highly recommend that you do that. Like you just very diplomatically say, “I’m sorry but this is not a project I want to pursue any further because some of the things that you’re requesting are unreasonable.” and say, “I wish you and your business much success.” So, what do you guys have to say about that? I know we got to wrap-up but that was a great question.

Eric: I’ll interject a few thoughts. One, the guy’s lucky you didn’t come back and say, “Hey, I’ll work with you now but the price went up 20% because you didn’t like the first offer.” So, there’s one thing. The other thing is that you could have potentially … obviously, you landed the contract. Like I talk about some different pricing strategies depending on your competency and I’ll just kind of give this as like a freebie thing. We can go into more detail on it because like my Monday training is going to be very much geared on like how to close clients and how to sell services because we have a lot of respect from that. I don’t like coming in with just one yes or no offer. What I’ll typically do is I will offer two different packages if you will and it’s either a really high flat monthly fee or a reduced monthly fee and some sort of percentage of revenue or profits. Guess what they take 95% of the time?

Bradley: Offer B.

Eric: They take the flat monthly fee because they’re so scared you know what the hell you’re doing that you’re going to take their future money and their future revenue. Either way, now it���s which one am I going to get, right? So, you have to be conscientious that if you’re going to offer like a performance package, that you’ve got all your legal stuff in place because you’re going but it’s kind of the really the dummy offer. You really aren’t wanting them to get that. You just want them to buy your bigger price point package that gets people to want to spend more money with you, because when you offer something of like here’s my four grand a month deal or here’s my three grand a month and I want it like 10% of any additional revenue above your base revenue, one, you’re telling them I really know I can get you results and two, they’ll be again so scared that you’re going to take future revenue from their table and from their kids’ mouths that they’ll pay you more monthly because they don’t want to have to worry about it and now they’re like, “Which one am I going to pick?”

Bradley: It’s a great strategy.

Marco: Yeah, I really like that. What I would only add to that client has unreasonable expectations. They want to rank for every Google term first position organic three pack. They want everything. Well, go to AdWords and put together some kind of presentation on what people are paying for Adwords in HVAC in the location and show them what the monthly cost would be just for Adwords, don’t put in there. With the proper budget, we can absolutely go after this and this is what it would cost plus your management fee of course or what we could do and this is when you hit them because I love that ERock alternative. You give me a flat monthly fee or you give me a lower fee plus percentage, but first, show them how unrealistic and ignorant they’re being to want every first position that you could possibly get in Google for 500 bucks a month. Fuck that.

Eric: Yeah. Here’s my favorite thing is always use analogies and put it back on their business. So, if it’s they’re an HVAC, say, “Great. Here’s what I want.” Go to their website and be like, “Hey I want an AC tune-up. I want a new A/C. I want heating services. I want whatever else that they offer and I want it all done for the cost of one service.”

Bradley: Yeah.

Eric: Is that something that you would be willing to do for me if I was your customer?

Bradley: Right.

Eric: You know what they’re going to say? “Well, hell no.” So, why would you ask me to do the very same thing that you wouldn’t do for me. How am I supposed to do that? A great book everybody should read is never split the difference. It’s called Never Split The Difference. Fantastic book. Everybody who wants to improve their negotiating skills should do it, should read that book, but just put it back on them. Just turn around and try to get them to see themselves in your shoes and why their request is unreasonable so you don’t have to tell them they’re being unreasonable. They’ll come to their own conclusion and they can’t argue against themselves. If they don’t come to that conclusion, do what Bradley said, run screaming into the forest.

Do You Have Any Premade Marketing Materials For Serp Space Or MYGB?

Bradley: That’s it. All right. I’m going to very quickly because we got to go. We’re already two minutes over guys. Last Nigel says, lastly any premade marketing materials for SERP space or MGYB? Also, is there an affiliate program for SM? I think on our next quarterly planning, we’re going to be developing out some sales materials guys for people that want to resell our services for MGYB or whatever. So, that’s something we’ve talked about. It just wasn’t in our current like we didn’t have the bandwidth currently for it, but it is something we are planning to be able to provide you guys especially because of the local GMB Pro stuff guys.

I personally have been working on developing a sales strategy for that service alone and also like lead development autoresponder emails and all of that like a whole on sales and marketing approach for local GMB pro services. So, that’s something. That’s probably going to be one of the very first things that we launch as like affiliate collateral or assets that you guys will be able to use to go out and resell GMB pro services, okay? Last thing, ERock, I think you had something you wanted to mention?

Eric: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that they’re invited to participate in the free training class that I’ll be having next Monday 4:00 p.m. Eastern. One of the things that we’re going to be doing is inviting you guys to learn what I believe is a critical component for the future of SEO or just marketing, in general, is we talked about influence. So, I’ll just show you one thing that I can show you guys publicly, but if someone is in the area and looking for this specific chiropractor, does anything stand out on the page when people type in the term chiropractor port s, anything stand out or stick out or looks unusual to you guys?

Bradley: Go ahead and reveal it because I’m not going to answer. I already know the answer.

Eric: All right. So, as I continue to type, what do you guys notice that sticks out, out of the blue? So, basically we have discovered a proven way, consistently systematic way to influence Google’s autosuggest results not in multiple ways to do it and so instead of people going and looking for a diversity of results, they come to this page here and they’re overwhelmed with the branded page of results. It’s made a huge impact on this chiropractor’s business and every business that we’ve done it. Bradley beta tested this, was able to get some amazing results for some of his clients. I think he said one of your clients that you went through this with said turn off the leads and handle it.

Bradley: One of my roofing clients, yeah.

Eric: Right? So, I’m going to go into like a free training on how to how to sell SEO services, how to brand your business, how to become a thought leader for helping you to get clients and then I’m going to invite you to learn how to actually influence Google. I call it G hypnosis, how to hypnotize Google to recommend this company’s products and services for people that are looking for that solution or looking for those products and services that’ll solve their problems. So, I’m honored Bradley that you would offer to invite your students and your following to participate in that. I hope it’s going to be a fantastically fun event and we’ll show you how to undress Google.

Bradley: That’s it. So, guys, last I saw a question say … somebody was asking about being able to come to that webinar. Yeah, just if you’re subscribed to any of our email list guys, you’re going to be getting emails from us over the next … between now and Monday inviting you to the webinar. So, just be on the lookout for that, okay? So, listen, hey thank ERock so much for being here man. We really appreciate you coming on and spending an hour with us. We’re really looking forward to hosting you for the webinar on Monday as well.

Eric: Awesome. Thank you, gentlemen.

Marco: Adam says thanks by the way. He’s got internal noise on his end so he cannot mute. For me, thanks a ton man. I learned a whole bunch today. I hope the rest you did too.

Eric: Awesome. Hey, I appreciate that coming from you sir. Your reputation precedes you as well.

Bradley: So does his mouth.

Eric: Yeah. I want to see where the one million profile is.

Bradley: All right guys, thanks everybody for being here. We’ll see you all later. Oh, by the way, mastermind webinar tomorrow for those of you in the mastermind. We got a lot to go over so be there. All right guys, see you.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 198 posted first on http://beyondvapepage.blogspot.com

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 198

Click on the video above to watch Episode 198 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

Adam: All right. We are live. Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangout episode of 198. We are inching closer and closer to the four-year mark. So, we’ve got a special guest with us today but real quick we’re going to give us some good announcements, a little bit of updates and say hello to everyone, and then I will do a little bit of introducing. So, real quick, let’s see who we got on my far left. We’ve got Chris. How’s it going man?

Chris: Good. Good deal.

Adam: Good deal. Hernan about yourself, are you freezing your ass off in the southern hemisphere?

Hernan: Hold on just a minute. Just going to drop this key here. I don’t know if you guys can see that, maybe it’s the other way around but it says POFU live 2018. That’s what-

Adam: That’s the actual banner that we’re going to hang at our [crosstalk 00:00:46].

Hernan: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. [inaudible 00:00:48].

Bradley: We spared no expense.

Hernan: Yeah, I need to scratch the logo right there but yeah. I’m super, super excited man. I’m super excited for today and for POFU live. I’m super excited for what’s coming for Semantic Mastery. So, yeah.

Adam: Awesome.

Hernan: That’s more important than the cold. I don’t care about it.

Adam: Yeah. I’ll drop the link on there if you haven’t yet, please check it out. We’re obviously interested in having as many people find out about the live event in October, but it is limited. There’s only going to be 25 seats. We’re already getting close to halfway full so don’t wait too long to pull the trigger because we’re looking like this one’s going to get full up. Marco, how are you doing? How’s the weather? I mean, we got to check in with you. How’s the weather?

Marco: We haven’t had any rain for like three days. It’s beautiful.

Adam: [inaudible 00:01:33].

Marco: 80 degrees, sunny, hitting the pool. That’s how it goes in Costa Rica man.

Adam: Good deal. Bradley, how about you? You’re not being blown away or washed away or anything?

Bradley: No, it’s good for the moment, but yeah and I’m excited to be here guys. At POFU live, we’re really excited about that. I’ve been working on kind of developing out what I’m going to be training on and also just an aside but there’s a method I’ve been testing in the last three weeks that I shared in the mastermind and actually just drafted the mastermind newsletter installment for next month that the mastermind members will get. We sent out a physical newsletter every month to our members.

I’m sharing the process in a written form in the newsletter for what I’ve been doing, but getting the three pack listings for like I call it sniping three pack listings because it’s within 24 hours I’m able to take a brand-new GMB profile and get it to rank in the three pack and it’s freaking fabulous. So, I’m going to be talking about some of that at the POFU live event too. Mastermind is getting a taste of that now, but I’m going to go much more in the depth on kind of a strategy and method for building an empire of maps sites or maps profiles. So, that’s part of one of the things I’m going to be talking about at POFU live and you have to be there to hear it.

Adam: Boom! Good deal. Well, I think Hernan’s dropping or dropped the link so please check it out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Contact us at support@semanticmastery.com. We’re happy to talk through this, but on that page, you’ll find event dates, event details where we’re going to be covering other good things like that.

Marco: Before we-

Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marco: … move on to our VIP, can I just drop a little tease because I’m still-

Adam: Go for it.

Marco: … working on doing away with not having to do anything at all with Google and forcing Google to rank you because they feel left out. I mean it’s killing … guys if you’re an affiliate and if you’re in local, it’s killing it. It’s crushing it. It’s like if I showed you the numbers, you wouldn’t believe it because it makes so much money so quick. You guys saw the profile that I posted, right? It’s getting like one million viewers, that profile one million monthly, one, one profile, that’s the traffic that it’s getting one million people. Come on man, it’s about to go down. I’m about to once again turn the SEO world on it’s fucking ear and I’m the one that did it.

Bradley: You heard it here first.

Adam: Real quick, just saw a question from somebody about the live event. So, I did want to say that it is going to be in DC. It’s not going to be at a hotel. We limited it to 25 plus us and our guest speakers so it’s going to be a small group and hotel. I’m sure there would’ve been some hotels maybe a smaller event spaces, but we’ve gone with a specific event space. We’re still getting that locked down. So, we’re not going to give out the address but it is in DC. So, worst case scenario, when you get to your hotel, you’re just going to have a short Uber or maybe a walk or ride the train, but it’s going to be in the downtown area. So, yeah.

Bradley: Yeah, guys. We’re going to be trying to stay like right in town and right in the city. Adam and I were actually chatting about that yesterday. Just find a spot in town or even outside of the main city that is within Metro … has easy access to Metro which is the basically subway system or whatever for DC, because there’s a lot of really nice places you can stay right outside of the city too that are just a short Metro ride in. So, I would suggest looking … just go on hotels.com or one of those apps something like that and try to find something close by because we don’t have … it’s a small enough venue or event for us that we don’t have like a block of rooms reserved anywhere.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah, we’re going to be getting Airbnb and going from there.

Bradley: Right. We’re getting an Airbnb which is what we typically do. By the way, that’s a great idea because it’s so much cheaper that way too if you can double up with some people.

Adam: Yeah, and for me, I’d rather stay in an Airbnb than a hotel. I like having a kitchen and all that jazz, having a deck or something. So, well without further ado our very important person today is Eric Christopher. You might also know him as ERock. So, he’s been an entrepreneur for well nearly two decades. You might know him from several different areas. I’m going to let him talk a little bit about himself after we do the introduction, but I believe Bradley, you first met Eric at the SEO Rockstars, right?

Bradley: Well, I met him in person there. I’ve known of ERock or Eric for a long time because he did some training. I think he was also a student of Ivan Budimir many years ago and Eric, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but then you ended up collaborating with Ivan on some different projects. So, you became kind of a mentor to me as well by proxy because you were with Ivan. Ivan, I’ve said this many, many times publicly but Ivan Budimir had the most influence on my career as a local marketer hands down. So, again, I’ve got much respect for both Ivan and Eric.

Adam: Good deal. I’m just going to mention this because I think people might know Eric from different places but localbusinessrockstar.com or BizFamous Media Group. Then, Eric, can you tell everyone just a little bit about how you got started online, a little bit of your background? I think you could tell it better than any one of us could.

Eric: No, I think you could do a better job Adam.

Adam: All right, here we go.

Eric: So, yeah, at first I want to say thanks for inviting me on, and I really appreciate it. I’m honored that you guys have had me on. Congratulations on coming up on four years. That’s an impressive feat that a lot of people aren’t able to do. So, congratulations to you guys on that. Bradley, thank you for the kind words. So, I got my start … I’ll try to keep this as short as I can, because I hope to provide value to your audience as opposed to just talking about me. I used to think I didn’t matter but it does because now that I’ve become more influential in the world, really being able to tell your story matters.

So, please if you’re out there watching this, don’t discount your story because it’s how people will ultimately identify with you and decide if they want to do business with you or somebody else with all things being equal. So, I got my start years ago when I was in the multi-level marketing industry, right? Like, “MLM, oh my god!” Well, it paid us six figures in revenue over a few years. We made a full-time living at it. I used to have a strength training business. I used to teach people how to work out. I used to be about 20 pounds more muscular than I am today, but my business started to fail because I didn’t know how to market. So, I decided, “Well, I need to find something I can learn the art of marketing.”

So, I started doing multi-level marketing on a part-time basis because all I had to worry about was marketing. I didn’t have to worry about fulfillment, any of that crap. So, we built a multi-thousand person organization the globe and we did it all through like old-school methodology without using any really online strategies, just kind of the good old telephone, but then we started messing around with Google. I started messing around with Google Local. I was able to get a local map listing to rank in my geography. Still to this day even though it’s been over a decade, I’d get an occasional phone call or two every single month for people looking for the actual product. So, we were in LegalShield or prepaid legal services. They just actually cut us a $14,000 residual income check recently which is really badass. So, anyway, started messing around online stuff.

I was like, “How do I do more online stuff?” I just realized after a little while multi-level marketing wasn’t going to build me something with equity that I could potentially sell later. So, I was like, “You know what, I’m going to start doing some local SEO stuff.” So, I bought a course. Imagine that, I invested in a course and I was like, “Man, I hope this works.” I was leading an industry that was doing pretty well but I thought I could grow something in the internet marketing space. So, I launched a company called Local Business Rockstar and the way I got my start as I went out to some local networking events and I basically connected with a few people. I said, “Hey, I’ll sit down and offer to help you just kind of with some free stuff.” I basically had a carpet cleaning guy that said, “Hey I’ll give you my business.” So, we decided to optimize six locations in the Phoenix area.

I have no idea if I could actually fulfill. So, hopefully that’s lesson number one is like ready, fire and then aim. So, I basically sold this guy on a four figure monthly deal that I hopefully I could get him local SEO results. I was all predicated on the fact that I was going to implement what I was learning in this course. So, I could have wound up with just egg on my face really bad but long story short, in about two months, it worked. We rank them. We ended up ranking them in multiple locations. They stayed with us for six years until they sold their business and that’s kind of how I got my start in the industry. Then along the way, I ran into Ivan Budimir who had a really cool image optimization hack that they leveraged.

Basically, it was pretty cool. It still kind of works to this day just not in the same level, but that’s how I got my start. So, we started this as kind of like increase our influence. I actually got a cease and desist letter from a company that was claiming that we were infringing on their national registered trademark. So, that’s lesson number two, learn from my mistakes. If you’re planning on building a successful business, make sure you do a little bit of intellectual property to make sure you protect yourself. So, that’s ultimately the genesis of why I created the brand of BizFamous.

One, because we were expanding outside the world of local anyway. So, we work with some national brands. We help one of our clients become the number two bestselling book on all of Amazon for a day across the entire planet. Number two book all of the Amazon, not for the category, the entire planet. So, now today, like I write for entrepreneur.com. I’ve written for Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Business, newswire.net and so that’s kind of where we’re at today. Excited to hopefully share some great information with you guys and look forward to launching a couple of information products and software coming soon, a couple softwares maybe.

Adam: Nice. Yeah and I think this is a good time to for everyone watching if you already had or if you now have questions for Eric, be sure to pop them on to the event page. As time allows, we’ll relay those over to him. Also, on Monday, we’re going to be having … you’re invited to a webinar. We’re going to be sending out some emails shortly to find out what Eric’s been working on recently which … Do you want to tell people a little bit about this? I think people from our mastermind might already know this, but again, I’ll let you describe it.

Eric: So, the last few years like again I would discount my story. I would really kind of like, “Hey, if I just cut to the meat and just deliver some amazing content like that will make a difference.” It does of course, but in today’s age my wife has a business called Biztuition and she teaches business owners how to overcome the challenge of infobesity. So, I don’t know if any of you guys have heard of the word infobesity before, but information overload. So, it’s like, “Oh my god everybody and their mothers coming into the digital marketing space. There’s really no barrier to entry.” It’s become like … when I first got started like man it was so easy to rank. You could do so many different tricks and hacks and tactics and strategies and make things happen overnight.

Today, it’s just not as easy as it used to be. In a way it’s good because it gets rid of the people that don’t have skills. In a way it’s bad because it makes it harder to get started. So, during my journey, I was able to help to understand like neuropsychology, how to create influence, because ultimately I knew no matter how good I was at SEO, if I couldn’t get and especially it depends on what your objective is. If you’re doing affiliate marketing, it’s not that big a deal to be able to necessarily know how to sell, right? I still think it does because you still need to be able to communicate the value proposition, why someone should buy your affiliate program versus someone else.

Adam: Definitely. Yeah, getting the traffic there is part of the battle. Then you got to convert it.

Eric: Right. That comes back to you influence, how do you create influence. So, over the last half decade, I’ve really invested a lot of my education in developing influence that’s why I decided to actively seek out how I was able to get people like Arianna Huffington and invite me to write for Huffington Post. Then the folks at Entrepreneur and ultimately which is a really cool store. I don’t even know … I think I might have told you this Bradley maybe not but I was actually just on the set of Shark Tank about actually two months today. It’s my two-month anniversary where I was invited onto the set of Shark Tank and got to interview all the sharks, all the guest sharks and we’ve had to keep it kind of under wraps just because we signed an NDA until the new season premieres, all that good stuff.

So, ultimately what are we doing in the world of marketing, what are we doing in the world of SEO is we’re trying to create influence. So, the project that I’ve been working on now for quite some time and that we’re finally decided to do like publicly releasing it is how to influence Google to recommend your brand to people who are actively searching for your products and services online. So, I’ll kind of get into more of that as we get on to the end because I just want to make sure that like I want to ask … hopefully ask or answer questions if anybody has questions or just talk at a little bit of a macro level on like we’re kind of SEO and marketing is going.

Adam: Cool. Well, I mean that’s basically what was on my mind. So, let’s kind of roll into that. Where do you see and this is a free-form question and anyone else that feels like chiming in, feel free but Eric, what do you see as you know there’s so many sub topics, but between SEO and digital marketing in the next couple of years, what do you see like an area of being that you think people should pay attention to or something that they should know or something like that? I’m always curious of what people see as like a coming trend or what they think is important.

Eric: Well, I think we’re all starting to experience that already with RankBrain. For those of you that are more hardcore SEO folks and really that’s just Google’s fancy branded way of saying artificial intelligence, virtual reality. So, ultimately like that’s the path where it’s going and a lot of the practices of traditional SEO are slowly being phased out in my opinion by Google and other search engines. Other search engines will probably hopefully catch up someday or they’ll get acquired by Google which Mozilla did, but it’s going to progress to where in my opinion like my big prognostication, not that it’s really like epically like insightful but Google’s been … ever since it started it was easy to kind of gain the whole link industry, right? Basically, I remember when I was able to rank back in the day local internet marketing we were ranked number five nationally in the United States for it. We were outranking Yodel which at the time was like a $253 million company.

At the time, it was just me, myself and I out ranking them. All we did was just kind of like the exact match anchor text back links. You do that today, you’re toast. So, Google is slowly shifting its emphasis away from anything that can really be manipulated or orchestrated, and it’s moving more into the realm of artificial intelligence based on signals that it’s getting from users. I just see that in the next 5, 10 years of it. I don’t know if Google will ever get completely away from links. I think they still use links as a way to kind of connect the dots in its algorithm, but ultimately like and maybe you guys are seeing this or maybe you guys want to interject your thoughts on this as a group of fellow experts of how much have you seen over the last couple of years where backlinks are becoming less and less as a ranking factor and you’re seeing user metrics becoming more and more important in terms of results.

Bradley: I absolutely 100% agree with that. One of the things that we’ve seen especially in the last year alone is how you can rank almost entirely with just engagement signals. We proved that with YouTube videos. That’s kind of been known for quite some time but now even so with especially since the mobile first index took over which was just last month in July. With our local GMB Pro methods and what we teach in that course and we’re also developing a done-for-you service for that right now. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re speaking directly to the mobile first algorithm with or giving it signals and activity which then Google serves to users and gives exposure to that business to mobile users that are in close proximity that are doing any sort of related type of search. Whether we’re showing in rank trackers or not, it doesn’t make any difference. We’re still getting exposure and activity engagement from mobile device users again whether ranked tracker show it ranking or not. It’s independent or regardless of ranking.

The only way to explain that is because it’s Google going more and more towards engagement and user signals as opposed to like what Eric just said which was backlinks and some of the old more traditional stuff. It’s been quite incredible to see the kind of results that we’re able to get with an absence of backlinks. We’re not even needing to use backlinks. A lot of times what we’re using for backlinks now are other Google properties. We’re using Drive Stacks or Google Drive files and folders and such to backlink. Obviously press releases are still my preferred backlinking method at the moment and in just content syndication which usually has an attribution link that points back to the original source. Those are pretty much the only three link voting methods we really teach and it works.

Eric: Oh and I’m just so glad you talked about syndicating content. Today, actually I don’t even know if I’ve actually shared this really kind of publicly, but I’m going to totally dispel the whole myth of the duplicate content penalty.

Bradley: Oh god please do, because you know how many times we have to answer that question right here on Hump Day Hangouts.

Eric: Can I do a quick screen share and I’ll actually show you an example?

Bradley: Please.

Adam: Yeah, let’s do it.

Bradley: Please.

Eric: All right. Let me open up a new incognito window here. All right. So, hopefully I can just remember this off the top of my head because this wasn’t necessarily on my agenda. So, how to treat infobesity. Okay, how to treat information overload in three simple steps, right? So, it’s ranking number one. This is my wife who wrote the article who’s a successful entrepreneur in her own right. You can see here I’ll just kind of highlight some of this. So, if you’ve ever been on blah, blah, blah, blah. So, I’m going to cut and copy that and then I’m going to come here and do another search. The search query is … Oh I know what it is. Infobesity epidemic, right? So, the only thing different is the title. Everything else is exactly the same.

Now I’m not sitting here saying that you can like replicate these results because one of this is on Huffington Post. The other article is on Entrepreneur, right? So, super high authority trustworthy websites, but basically just by changing the title only, we were still able to rank number one and again that’s not super competitive keywords. It’s not like weight loss or anything like that. So, for those of you that are going to sit there and be like, “Ooh.” Like in a more competitive marketplace, sure it may be harder to rank but it’s not being penalized, that’s my whole point. So, hopefully that dispels that myth. [crosstalk 00:22:40]

Bradley: That’s because it’s on a different domain, right? That’s the thing. People say duplicate content and duplicate content does exist but that’s typically when it’s on the same domain. If you have the same article posted on a domain like for example that’s how tags guys can get you into trouble with WordPress sites, because if you have a unique tag on a blog post, then WordPress by default will create a tag page. If you have those set to index, then Google … the tag page will index and the tag page looks … it’s the when you click on the tag archive page for that particular tag, if it’s a singular tag that’s only been attached to one blog post, that tag URL will be an exact replica of the post itself. Depending on the theme, sometimes it’ll be a snippet but most of the time, it’ll be the entire article, the entire post. The only difference is the URL.

Everything else will be the exact same and that can cause duplicate content penalties or issues for a site if you don’t know how to use tags. Either set your tags to no index or make sure that you’re using more common tags that occur on more than one post, and that way when the tag archive page gets pulled up, it’s like a blog index page. It shows all of the posts that contain that or have that same tag. So, that wouldn’t be duplicate content, but when you have a singular tag, it can be. So, again, that’s where duplicate content issues come up not on different domains. Otherwise, press releases wouldn’t work and that’s typically … by the way, Eric that’s what usually what we use as the go-to example for duplicate content because press releases we all know work incredibly well and it’s the same damn article getting picked up by 300, 400, 500 different syndication partners.

Eric: Yeah, we’re huge fans of press releases as well. One of the ways actually we ended up working together with Ivan beyond the initial course was he ended up going and doing some work with a news release company called newswire.net which is still a super powerful way to be able to get good links on there. I think that they still charge for access to it, but it’s a great solid platform in addition to some of the other resources that I know you guys make available to your community. So, even though I don’t get a chance watching every Hump Day Hangout, I do sneak in every once in a while to smile [crosstalk 00:24:55].

Bradley: Lurk in the background.

Eric: Cyberstalking, right?

Adam: It’s good. It’s always nice to hear that. It’s funny we talk to a lot of people and I mean I think all of us do the same. You’ve got shows or podcasts you listen to. Then it’s funny sometimes to have people on like, “Oh yeah, I’ve been listening this off and on for years.” Like, “Wow, okay. Hey, good.” Well-

Marco: Yeah. Just some of our beginners don’t get mixed up back on the backlinking thing. Traditional or old-school backlinking is what we’re differentiating. We’re not saying that that Google doesn’t look at links because everything that the latest distance graph algorithm update did was talk about links, but it talked about what Bradley and Eric mentioned which is it measures activity on the link. It measures relevance on the link and it measures trust and authority. Again, you guys have heard me say this it takes place on the source of the link and on where the link is directed. So, it takes a look at both and it takes everything that’s linking to that. So, it’s not that links are obsolete, it’s now the way that Google is looking at links and the value that Google is placing on links that are untrusted and authoritative websites.

I’m not talking about third party metrics of course. I’m not talking about trustful or I’m not talking about the domain authority. None of that garbage. Everything is out the window. Only Google knows what Google measures but we know generally what it measures, because we have the math. We have the math on the patent. We have everything that they say about the patent and what they’re looking at. So, I’m glad that this is being brought up and that we’re differentiating, right? Link building still works, but you have to go further out. You have to go out and into tiered link building. I don’t want to get into that because that’s higher level, but again, ART, activity, relevance, trust and authority. That’s what you need to be looking at when you’re looking at links going to your website and going from your website to wherever. That’s where you have to be really careful and pick into the links that you’re getting.

Adam: Definitely.

Eric: Yeah, one of the biggest mistakes that I think I see a lot of people make is that they don’t emphasize link building in the natural order of things. That’s something that I’ll be talking about in greater detail in the webinar on Monday and why you … because I’ve always looked and this is going back years ago, but I’ve always looked at Google from a perspective of Google is a girl. If you haven’t heard anybody else say that, I’m telling you now Google is a girl. She loves to dance. All right. She wants to know that she can trust you. She’s going to basically give you favor if you’re more popular than not. So, Google’s a girl and you have to basically influence her to want to date you and then hopefully end up marrying you.

Adam: This is a great analogy. I’ve actually somehow never heard this.

Eric: You’ve never heard this before? Oh my God!

Adam: I haven’t. Have you guys? I literally haven’t.

Bradley: Yes. Accordingly woman, yeah.

Eric: So, if you move too quick, you’re going to get the slap. So, I can go on into this whole … like I’ve had arguments with girls who are like, “No, Google is a man.” and they’re done. I’m like, “Okay, you’re right. Google is a girl.” So, the whole point of influencing Google is if you do things in the right order and the way that Google wants it and if you’re smart about it, you can do some of the black hat things that can basically … that are like the dirty stuff. It’s like I’m public. In public, we do the white hat stuff. When we’re in the bedroom, we want to do some of the black hat stuff, the naughty stuff, right? So, the key is, how do you get that progress in the right order? That’s a great analogy for I’m going to talk about in the training. If you go out on the first date and even if you get to go back and you do get to go back to the house on the first date and you get in the bedroom room, you better watch out when doing the super kinky stuff because then like that girl’s going to kick out.

We all know that’s common sense and Google’s the same way. So, I think one of the biggest mistakes that people are making is not looking at it from a kind of like a 30,000 foot view of how the progression would look. So, we get caught up in tactics and there’s amazing amount of cool tactics that are out there, but it needs to blend in with an overall strategy, and that’s one of the things that I appreciate about you guys is that you test off and then the tactic … there’s a lot of people doing like single variable testing type stuff in the marketing world and that’s great, but again as a tactic it works, but what it’s not accounting for is dependencies. Just because something works in a single variable test in it of itself doesn’t mean when it’s combined with two other algorithmic factors, it’s going to have the same effect.

Bradley: Right.

Eric: Right? I don’t want to get on any specifics on this because there’s a lot of smarter people with scientific backgrounds than me. I just know if I do the things that I think that Google is looking for and you talked about like Google Drive Stacks. I’ll I’m putting it out there. I’ll argue with anybody but I would consider myself to be the godfather of custom my maps. I was able to get a custom my maps to rank on my own. No one taught it to me. I discovered it purely on accident just by testing stuff out and it was back in the day when you could get do follow links, you could put exact match anchor text in it. Unbelievable, right? I didn’t share it with anybody for years until actually the first SEO Rockstars that I shared it with, and then after that, another group who was supposed to be secret but it ended up getting out.

I’m sure there’s other people might have discovered it too, but I was doing that stuff back in 2011. Why? Because I knew … Hey, here’s a good example. If you look at Google as like a bunch of sisters, well hey, if you do things and you’re super nice to one of the sisters, is the other sister going to like you too? “Oh, he’s so handsome. He’s so nice. He’s so gentlemanly. He does such nice things and says nice things.” So, Google loves its own properties. We were using Google for different properties years ago like over half a decade ago before I would call it a little bit more commonplace.

Adam: Got you.

Eric: So, my whole focus is like that whole Wayne Gretzky thing if you’re familiar with Wayne Gretzky. It’s like good players know where the puck is. The great players know where the puck is going and right now the thing that I want to train on and talk about like on the session on Monday is where’s the puck going to be going and how can you position your business to take advantage of that so that you can be ahead, literally a lot ahead of other people that are in the space, because that’s what it’s going to take. I’m also making another prediction. My other big prognostication is that if all you do is SEO, you’re going to struggle to grow a big business if you’re trying to build an agency.

Bradley: Well, SEO is kind of encompassed like we use that kind of more like a overall encompassing term now, because to be effective in SEO, you need to do content marketing. You need to know about content marketing and social media and engagement and PPC and PR marketing and reputation. There’s so many components now to being an SEO. It’s not just search engine optimization anymore, right?

Eric: Yeah. I mean I 100% agree. I actually have an article, I’m sure it’s probably still there.

Adam: Real quick while you’re looking for that, I’m the timekeeper today. So, we got to wrap this up in a minute or two, but while you’re looking for that Eric, I just want to let everyone know if you got any questions for Eric, go ahead pop them on the event page. I know there’s a little bit of a delay and then in a minute or two, we’re going to hop over and we’ll start going through [crosstalk 00:33:24] questions.

Bradley: Well start on questions. I do want to expand this very briefly on what Eric was saying about the Wayne Gretzky analogy and where the puck is going to be like where is it going. That’s kind of what we’re trying to accomplish with POFU Live guys is really identify where some people’s business should be going and where it should be heading in order to position. That’s what … POFU Live, position to fuck you, it’s all about positioning. So, that’s entirely what the event is going to be about is how to position your business to be in a really good place to scale with all the changes coming. I’m sorry. I got it locked on you. What were you about to show?

Eric: No, I was just going to show an article that I wrote. I think it’s from almost … Oh it was updated 2017. This is before they kicked everybody off the Huffington Post platform. Actually the original article was almost three years ago. I was sitting there talking about how like SEO is changing and like usability is and this is a software that helps you to measure heat maps and usability on sites. I was talking about this stuff three years ago as far as like where stuff was going. So, I’m just sharing this with you because one of the things that I hope to do in the training coming up is show you how to create influence and you guys are watching this right now. You guys should be like just hanging on these guys’ arms and be on their coattails because what they subtly have done with you, I should get rid of this, is they over the last four years have exhibited and have been eating their dog food not just by like learning SEO tactics and strategies but by building a community.

Before you could do certain things that would allow you to get clients and you could do some out each type stuff and that some of that stuff still works, but it’s just a lot harder, right? So, one of the big takeaways that you’re going to want to do and my wife talks about this a lot is that if you really want to grow a successful business of any kind, you’re going to want to create a community. I know that’s like, “Oh, that’s not magical.” It’s tough, right? So, it goes back to like, “Hey these guys have been doing this for four years to be able to build a momentum, to be able to like continue to go through that.” One of the things that I’m going to teach on the training on Monday is if you’re brand new or you feel like you don’t have a lot of experience in terms of like getting clients or building a successful business, one of the things I’m going to talk to you about is how to coattail off of other people’s authority to build your authority so that you can take your business to the next level.

Why am I showing you articles that I’ve written for Huffington Post and for Entrepreneur and why am I talking about the fact that I have pictures of me with Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner because I’m leveraging their authority. By default, if you respect those people, hopefully you respect me too hopefully as a result. Hopefully you respect me that the fact that I’m here with the Semantic Mastery team hopefully imparting some minor wisdom to those of you that are participating, and so, I’ll show you how you can leverage that step by step to help you get where you want to go. Then I’m also going to as we’re … because we kind of need to wrap this up, right?

Adam: Yeah, just move into the Q&A. Yeah, if there’s anything else to-

Eric: [crosstalk 00:36:49] Q&A and then I’ll highlight what I was going to talk about a little bit at the end kind of like what the big sexy is, right? I’m to show you some-

Bradley: [inaudible 00:36:57] Go ahead.

Eric: I’m going to show you something that’s going to get Google that want to take you to bed.

Bradley: What I’m going to question … So, I’m going to grab the screen, lock it on and then we’ll jump into that. Just take a few minutes because we don’t have that many anyways.

Eric: Well, that’s too bad for them because I love engagement.

Bradley: Well, it must be that everybody just enthralled. So, Sam’s up first.

Adam: Yeah, several good comments on Google being a girl though. So, yeah, I think I’m not the only one that hadn’t heard of that or that agrees.

Do You Recommend Recapturing The Power Of The Backlinks Pointing To The Aged Domain By Redirecting To A New Page?

Bradley: That’s funny. So, Sam’s up first. He says, “I’m starting a new money site on an aged domain. The domain has backlinks pointing to old pages. Do you recommend trying to recapture the power from those links by redirecting to a new page or something or is that not really necessary? Thanks.” Yeah, you can. Well, it depends Sam. If you are rebuilding on an old domain that was relevant like it was in the same category, it might be worth recreating those pages. Even if you set them to no index, still recreating those pages. So, go to the Wayback Machine archive.org and pull up snapshots of the site in its previous state. If it was relevant, I would say go ahead and recreate those pages and just set them to no index, but then you can … because then all those inbound links pointing to those pages, that original content, it’s likely that those links won’t be taken down if discovered by webmasters where those links exist, because it’ll still be linking to that original content or what it was originally linking to I mean, but then you can always put a contextual link from that page to that inner page to wherever you want to push the juice to.

That’s a great way to do it, but otherwise, yeah you could just create a redirect, but just remember that it’s likely that redirect or the link from the original source of the inbound links could be edited out if a webmaster catches it, sees that it’s not pointing to what it was intended to point to. Also, if it wasn’t relevant content, then if you’re redirecting inbound links that was pointing to something that wasn’t relevant, then that could actually end up causing you harm. So, there’s a lot of different factors you have to take into consideration there, but absolutely, if it was relevant, I would say recreate the pages. That’s pretty powerful. I would just set them to no index. What do you guys say?

Eric: I would agree. I think that it’s challenging to answer that question without more context.

Bradley: Right.

Eric: We’re just basically making a best guess. It’s like saying, “Hey doctor, my stomach hurts. Can you tell me you if I should take this medicine?” It’s like … but I would say that overall the philosophical answer that you just gave would be spot on.

Do You Have A Contract Template For Rank And Rent Video Services?

Bradley: Right. Next designed2framework. “Hi, I have a few questions. Nobody ever talks about the actual close of clients. I did not close clients ever but this is the aim. Okay. Because I’m going for rank and rent videos, do you have a contract template for that? I just want to put my details, client’s details, amount and that’s it.” Well, yeah, you can, but I mean for like rank and rent video, I mean guys, Marco and I both talked about this often. Contracts are not something I typically work on. It depends on the size and scope of the project. Typically much larger projects do require contract either from the person that hired me or from me to protect me and my effort. It’s either one or the other, but typically for most stuff like rank and rent videos, that’s a small enough engagement with a client, a small enough commitment that I don’t work on contracts. I just work on it month to month. It’s like, “Look, this is how much it’s going to cost.

If it’s producing results, you’re going to be happy to pay me. If it’s not producing results, you should be able to cancel or stop paying me.” That’s it. That’s why I’ve always worked that way unless a contract was required, because of the particular circumstances, but for the most part, I do everything on a month to month, because again, I know I can produce results. As long as I’m producing results, they should be happy to pay me. If I don’t produce results, they should be able to walk away. Just the same as if I decide that I don’t like working with that client for whatever reason, I should be able to walk away. If I was in a contract, I might not be able to leave either. So, again for rank and rent videos, don’t overcomplicate shit. You start bringing contracts out for rank and rent video stuff, you’re going to lose a lot of potential closes because people don’t like contracts, right? Somebody else want to comment on for the next one.

Eric: I’ll interject here. So, one, if you ever decide that you do want to implement some sort of agreement on a long term basis, number one, don’t use the word contract because again like Bradley said that people don’t like the word contracts. Agreements are a lot better, sound a lot nicer. Again, it goes back to the context. It depends on what you’re charging for and what the work is going to be required for you to actually implement. So, if you’re working with like a five figure monthly client and you’re going to have to front-load a bunch of work on the front end to try to recoup a positive investment on the back end, then it might seem worthy to you to be able to put together some sort of agreement.

We talk about a lot with our students about how to close clients and just how to position everything, but if you’re doing stuff for like a minor amount of money, a few hundred dollars or a low four figure deal, I work in the same vein as Bradley as that we typically will say to any brand new client like, “Hey, everything is month to month. We asked for a 90-day commitment so that you can see how effective this is and then based on the progress that we make, will determine if we continue to move forward.

I can even offer you a way to be able to lock a long-term deal if you like, but everything that we do is based around that we’ll have the freedom to leave.” Even if we are in an agreement with a company and they decide they want to leave, we’re not going try to take them to court or any bullshit like that. We’re just going to let them go, but there is a value if the dollar amount is worth it to get that on paper that they made a longer-term commitment because there’ll be a lot less likely to cancel. Again, that’s totally based on context.

Bradley: That’s right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: No, because I’m with you. No contracts unless the company is so big that their legal requires it. I’m going through that now. It’s why I hate contracts because it’s been dragging on. They know they want to work. They already agreed. They said yes but now legal it’s going to my attorney, it’s going to theirs, then it comes back to mine and then it just drags on. I’m spending money. It’s just stupid because just let me do what the fuck I do and get out of the way. I mean that’s how I treat it. If that’s not good enough, if you can’t get out of the way and you’re not going to get out of the way, then just leave me alone. I don’t want any part of it.

How Do You Charge Clients For Rank And Rent Video Services?

Bradley: Here you go. So, how do you charge clients? What about recurring payments? Do you send PayPal requests, get the client’s credit card or some sort? I do almost all of my clients I just put them on PayPal. I know I’d pay a shit ton on PayPal fees. It’s ridiculous. I could spend less on fees if I used like my own merchant account. I get all that but I like the ease and convenience of PayPal. I’ve run my business that way ever since I opened it. So, basically, I send an invoice for any one off services like setup fees and that kind of thing, but then I send PayPal subscription link which I just go right into PayPal, generate a new subscription button, set the terms and then it spits out a link and then I just send it via email. That’s typically how I charge all my clients and I get paid. It works. I have some clients that actually send me paper checks in the mail every month, believe it or not. I still have clients that do that, but for the most part, whenever I can, I try to get everybody on a PayPal subscription because then I know it’s done and it’s just an automatic withdrawal, okay?

How Do You Sign Clients For Rank And Rent Video Services?

How do you sign clients? Do you signature online software? No. Most the time because I’m not doing contracts, I don’t need signatures. So, I don’t do that. What I do is I send a proposal via email that’s in PDF form. So, I draft a proposal. I typically just do that in Google Docs and then I save it as a PDF and I send that as a proposal. Then if they agree to the proposal, then all I do is send them … and all I need is a positive reply via email in other words saying yes I agree via email. When they agree, then I say, “Okay, I’m going to send you the payment links.” Again, if it’s a one-off or like for setup fees or whatever, then I’ll send them a PayPal invoice. If it’s for a subscription or recurring service, then I send them a PayPal subscription link. So, again, I don’t need signature software. If I do need something signed, then typically I just send a contract or an agreement or whatever it may be via Scan It In and send it to him via email. They’ll sign it and scan it back and send it back to me, okay?

Adam: Real quick too and I think that’s totally fine and I wouldn’t go out of your way whoever is asking this to add another expense, but something I’ve really been using a lot, I think Hernan has been using it too, is the AppSumo Briefcase. They keep adding stuff. It’s AppSumo, right? They’ve got a ton of the stuff and they’ve got a billing app. I think it’s called literally Billy app, but that’s pretty slick when you can hook up to different banks. You can issue invoices so people could pay by card or PayPal or different methods. So, anyways, if you’re into that, it’s like a flat monthly fee for all the apps they have in the Briefcase and it’s like 50 bucks a month or something. So, if you’re going to use it anyways, there’s some extra I guess utility you could get out of that.

Marco: A word of warning if I can. Sorry, ERock.

Eric: No, go ahead.

Marco: Not start working until you’ve got that scratch in your account man. You can get burned. So, make sure you got that money because that’s the yes. A yes on paper is useless until you got that money then you can start working.

Eric: Hallelujah! I was just going to share the same thing. Don’t ever, ever, ever work on invoice, do work upfront and if you guys want, we could talk about it in the training on Monday if anybody cares, but you absolutely should get it. Get everybody to pay you up front. You should get people to pay you on a recurring basis so that you can make more … this is one of the things that I’ll tell clients. Like, “Hey, one you don’t want us to where we’re have to like pause work on your account and then have to spend time trying to make sure that we’re getting paid because then we’re wasting time not getting any results, meaning you have to wait on you getting more paychecks and more customers for your business.

Two is … and I totally forgot where my momentum was going on this. Oh, you can also make more intelligent decisions like right there Adam is like, “Hey go pick up Briefcase.” Well, if you don’t know when checks are coming in or when stuffs going to get paid and you don’t have recurring revenue, then you don’t know how much you can really spend and budget for different expenses every single month. Then, three, if you ever decide that you want to grow a business and an agency and you ever want to sell it for later, a bigger business that might want to acquire your agency is going to want to see that all of them are on automatic payment too.

So, really if you have clients that are like, “Well, I don’t want to get on automatic payment.” It’s not that they don’t want to get on automatic payment, it’s that they don’t trust you to be on automatic payment or because they had a really bad experience before and that’s all stuff that you should have addressed before you’re even getting close to like getting married or going out on the date with the client. All the objections should have been done so they have no problem. They should want to pay you on autopayment every month.

How Do You Communicate With Your Rank And Rent Video Clients?

Bradley: Good advice. All right. I’ve got to run through this length. This was very long. So, by the way, designed2framework only because we didn’t have a lot of questions. Am I answering all these? Typically, we ask guys to limit your questions in one post to like one or two questions only because otherwise that’s not fair to everybody else, okay? So, how do I talk to clients? I talk to them either on the phone or if I need to create a presentation like have them online. I typically send them a join.me link because that’s easy for them. Typically Skype, it depends on what kind of industry you’re targeting, but I deal with a lot of contractors so a lot of contractors aren’t on Skype. They don’t understand how to use Google Hangouts. So, trying to get people on to conferences and stuff like that is typically very difficult. That’s why I just use the phone. I also do a lot ton of video email stuff. So, a lot of times I’m able to convey my messages through sending an email with a video attached or an embedded video or what looks like an embedded video so that all we need to do is chat via email or on the phone if that makes sense, okay?

Marco: I love this question. WhatsApp, don’t ever give him the phone number. You’ll get calls at 3:00 in the morning because their rankings drop one spot. Don’t ever do that. Don’t ever give them your phone number, ever.

Bradley: Yup. Also, just think about buying a virtual phone number. I don’t know because I’m in the US so I don’t understand some of the probably challenges that you’re facing, but you could use something like vumber. I love vumber.com. I use that very specifically for phone numbers for some of my companies. You can use vumber as far as I know with international numbers so that you can originate calls from within the US even though you’re doing it from an international phone number. So, I would look into something like that, finding a phone service. Last-

Eric: Another resource that you can look at that I think offers something as a freemium is Dialpad and then you just go from there.

Can You Still Sell Video Lead Generation Services For Remote Clients Even If You’re Not Physically In The Same Locality As Them?

Bradley: All right. So, the last part of this. In VLS, you said it’s better to target local clients, and he’s talking about video lead gen system guys, clients in my local area but I live outside the US and I want to target US clients because my area has shitty payments. I will need 30 clients to get some return. In the US, I can lay down five clients and have a business. Can I still go for that? Yeah, that’s fine. Listen, I just talked about specifically I’m telling people that are just getting started that it’s often easier for you to land the clients that are in your local area because that gives you something in common with them as opposed to reaching out from across the country or from out of town or from across the globe and trying to sell them on something. When you have something in common with somebody, it builds … that’s like instant rapport.

So, being able to contact people that are in your local area essentially your backyard. You can say, “Oh, hey, I live in the same town. I’m a local guy.” That helps to close sales. I found that to be something that helps closing especially when you’re first getting started, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sell remotely or provide services in the US. It doesn’t mean that at all. It just might … that’s the only reason why I was saying that. What I recommend that you do is niche down. So, focus on one particular industry or vertical and do that.

Instead of like targeting one area and multiple businesses within one area, I would target one business type and cover more locations, because that way you become educated and you learn the vocabulary of that industry, you know what their pain points are, you get to know the keywords, you get to know the traffic, where the traffic comes from, all that kind of stuff and you become an expert marketer in a particular industry. It’s much easier to scale a business that way guys than it is to have to relearn or start from scratch with every new business type that you take on as a client because you don’t know their industry. Does that make sense?

Adam: [inaudible 00:52:59]

What Is The Best Way To Incorporate A Comment Section In A Website?

Bradley: Okay. We’re going to move on. PeterfromPoland. What is the best way I can incorporate a comment section on my website? I don’t use comment apps very much anymore on any other websites but I’ve always obviously turn off WordPress comments. They suck, but I’ve used the Disqus app or Disqus, D-I-S-Q-U-S I think it is as a plugin. That seems to work well just because it connects through various social media and stuff like that, but that that’s the only one I ever use. Anybody else have any suggestions?

Eric: Live Fire is a good one that you can use or depending on what your objective is, you could even potentially … Well, I guess it depends on what you’re trying to use, but if you’re like trying to sell something and you want social proof, you can use Facebook comments too.

Bradley: There you go. All right, we got to wrap up here in a minute. So, I’m going to run through Nigel’s question guys. I think we’re going to have to stop it at that, but I think most of the rest are just comments. So, I think we’ll be okay. Wow! Nice Greg. I’ll plus one.

Adam: Awesome Greg. Send me back man.

What Is The Best Software To Blur Images To Cover Sensitive Info?

Bradley: I will plus on that. Google’s a girl and that’s her. She’s attractive. All right. So, good day gents, working on my POFU. Awesome. Nigel, he says, the best software to blur images to cover sensitive info. I mean I just use Snagit. They have a blur function.

Adam: Snagit, it’s awesome.

Chris: Snagit.

Bradley: Yup. Snagit is cheap. It’s inexpensive. It works.

How Not To Offend A Referral Client With Lots Of Influence But Is Ignorant On The Cost Of Service?

So, the best advice on how to close or at least not offend a referral client with lots of influence but unrealistic on … how to close or at least not offend a referral client with lots of influence but unrealistic or just ignorant of the cost of services. I want to rank for every term Google first position for HVAC and Google. Go easy, Marco. The referring party is a dear friend and I actually believe I can help him and in pitching in social ordeals to start. Okay, so I just went through this with a client referral from somebody that I highly respect. He referred a potential client to me and I spent literally about eight hours doing a complete digital presence audit for this company. I generated multiple reports, multiple videos explaining what I saw, where I saw an opportunity because this guy spends $20,000 a month on AdWords alone. So, it was a really big client for me. So, I spent literally eight hours doing all this work generating reports and audits and all that and in creating a proposal and sending it to him.

Because it was a client referral from somebody that I really respect, I don’t come in with high numbers and then plan on negotiating. When I have a client referral, I come in with my best price that’s it. There is no room for negotiation. The only thing that could be negotiated on is potentially terms, not pricing. When I come in with a client referral, I give my best price. It’s the rock-bottom price and so I did that. I spent all this time and the guy came back with an absolutely insulting counterproposal. I was pissed but fortunately, I bit my tongue and I handled it with some tact very diplomatically. When he sent back the counter-proposal, I replied to him with a very short email that just said, “Thank you for your counter-proposal. I must say what you proposed was unreasonable for the amount of work that you’re requesting, so therefore I’m going to pass on this project. I wish you and your business much success.” That was it. I walked away from it.

That’s how you do it, Nigel. Be in a position of fuck you. Be in a position of power where you control the negotiation. In other words, come in with your best offer, if they come back with a stupid counter proposal, walk away. Just do it with some tact. Leave the door open for them to contact you because the moral of this story guys, just to let you know, was about three weeks past from the time that I sent that email saying exactly what I just mentioned and guess what, I started getting text messages and emails from the guy asking me to reinitiate the conversation. So, I did and I ended up meeting with him two weeks ago for coffee to meet him face to face. Guess what? He signed the original proposal that I sent out.

It’s one of my biggest clients that I’ve landed and this was just two weeks ago. No shit and it was because I was willing to walk away from that. It left him thinking about it for three weeks, and eventually, he came back and said, “No, I really want to work with you. Okay, let’s go ahead and proceed with the original proposal.” So, I got everything that I wanted out of that just from being able to walk away. So, I highly recommend that you do that. Like you just very diplomatically say, “I’m sorry but this is not a project I want to pursue any further because some of the things that you’re requesting are unreasonable.” and say, “I wish you and your business much success.” So, what do you guys have to say about that? I know we got to wrap-up but that was a great question.

Eric: I’ll interject a few thoughts. One, the guy’s lucky you didn’t come back and say, “Hey, I’ll work with you now but the price went up 20% because you didn’t like the first offer.” So, there’s one thing. The other thing is that you could have potentially … obviously, you landed the contract. Like I talk about some different pricing strategies depending on your competency and I’ll just kind of give this as like a freebie thing. We can go into more detail on it because like my Monday training is going to be very much geared on like how to close clients and how to sell services because we have a lot of respect from that. I don’t like coming in with just one yes or no offer. What I’ll typically do is I will offer two different packages if you will and it’s either a really high flat monthly fee or a reduced monthly fee and some sort of percentage of revenue or profits. Guess what they take 95% of the time?

Bradley: Offer B.

Eric: They take the flat monthly fee because they’re so scared you know what the hell you’re doing that you’re going to take their future money and their future revenue. Either way, now it’s which one am I going to get, right? So, you have to be conscientious that if you’re going to offer like a performance package, that you’ve got all your legal stuff in place because you’re going but it’s kind of the really the dummy offer. You really aren’t wanting them to get that. You just want them to buy your bigger price point package that gets people to want to spend more money with you, because when you offer something of like here’s my four grand a month deal or here’s my three grand a month and I want it like 10% of any additional revenue above your base revenue, one, you’re telling them I really know I can get you results and two, they’ll be again so scared that you’re going to take future revenue from their table and from their kids’ mouths that they’ll pay you more monthly because they don’t want to have to worry about it and now they’re like, “Which one am I going to pick?”

Bradley: It’s a great strategy.

Marco: Yeah, I really like that. What I would only add to that client has unreasonable expectations. They want to rank for every Google term first position organic three pack. They want everything. Well, go to AdWords and put together some kind of presentation on what people are paying for Adwords in HVAC in the location and show them what the monthly cost would be just for Adwords, don’t put in there. With the proper budget, we can absolutely go after this and this is what it would cost plus your management fee of course or what we could do and this is when you hit them because I love that ERock alternative. You give me a flat monthly fee or you give me a lower fee plus percentage, but first, show them how unrealistic and ignorant they’re being to want every first position that you could possibly get in Google for 500 bucks a month. Fuck that.

Eric: Yeah. Here’s my favorite thing is always use analogies and put it back on their business. So, if it’s they’re an HVAC, say, “Great. Here’s what I want.” Go to their website and be like, “Hey I want an AC tune-up. I want a new A/C. I want heating services. I want whatever else that they offer and I want it all done for the cost of one service.”

Bradley: Yeah.

Eric: Is that something that you would be willing to do for me if I was your customer?

Bradley: Right.

Eric: You know what they’re going to say? “Well, hell no.” So, why would you ask me to do the very same thing that you wouldn’t do for me. How am I supposed to do that? A great book everybody should read is never split the difference. It’s called Never Split The Difference. Fantastic book. Everybody who wants to improve their negotiating skills should do it, should read that book, but just put it back on them. Just turn around and try to get them to see themselves in your shoes and why their request is unreasonable so you don’t have to tell them they’re being unreasonable. They’ll come to their own conclusion and they can’t argue against themselves. If they don’t come to that conclusion, do what Bradley said, run screaming into the forest.

Do You Have Any Premade Marketing Materials For Serp Space Or MYGB?

Bradley: That’s it. All right. I’m going to very quickly because we got to go. We’re already two minutes over guys. Last Nigel says, lastly any premade marketing materials for SERP space or MGYB? Also, is there an affiliate program for SM? I think on our next quarterly planning, we’re going to be developing out some sales materials guys for people that want to resell our services for MGYB or whatever. So, that’s something we’ve talked about. It just wasn’t in our current like we didn’t have the bandwidth currently for it, but it is something we are planning to be able to provide you guys especially because of the local GMB Pro stuff guys.

I personally have been working on developing a sales strategy for that service alone and also like lead development autoresponder emails and all of that like a whole on sales and marketing approach for local GMB pro services. So, that’s something. That’s probably going to be one of the very first things that we launch as like affiliate collateral or assets that you guys will be able to use to go out and resell GMB pro services, okay? Last thing, ERock, I think you had something you wanted to mention?

Eric: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that they’re invited to participate in the free training class that I’ll be having next Monday 4:00 p.m. Eastern. One of the things that we’re going to be doing is inviting you guys to learn what I believe is a critical component for the future of SEO or just marketing, in general, is we talked about influence. So, I’ll just show you one thing that I can show you guys publicly, but if someone is in the area and looking for this specific chiropractor, does anything stand out on the page when people type in the term chiropractor port s, anything stand out or stick out or looks unusual to you guys?

Bradley: Go ahead and reveal it because I’m not going to answer. I already know the answer.

Eric: All right. So, as I continue to type, what do you guys notice that sticks out, out of the blue? So, basically we have discovered a proven way, consistently systematic way to influence Google’s autosuggest results not in multiple ways to do it and so instead of people going and looking for a diversity of results, they come to this page here and they’re overwhelmed with the branded page of results. It’s made a huge impact on this chiropractor’s business and every business that we’ve done it. Bradley beta tested this, was able to get some amazing results for some of his clients. I think he said one of your clients that you went through this with said turn off the leads and handle it.

Bradley: One of my roofing clients, yeah.

Eric: Right? So, I’m going to go into like a free training on how to how to sell SEO services, how to brand your business, how to become a thought leader for helping you to get clients and then I’m going to invite you to learn how to actually influence Google. I call it G hypnosis, how to hypnotize Google to recommend this company’s products and services for people that are looking for that solution or looking for those products and services that’ll solve their problems. So, I’m honored Bradley that you would offer to invite your students and your following to participate in that. I hope it’s going to be a fantastically fun event and we’ll show you how to undress Google.

Bradley: That’s it. So, guys, last I saw a question say … somebody was asking about being able to come to that webinar. Yeah, just if you’re subscribed to any of our email list guys, you’re going to be getting emails from us over the next … between now and Monday inviting you to the webinar. So, just be on the lookout for that, okay? So, listen, hey thank ERock so much for being here man. We really appreciate you coming on and spending an hour with us. We’re really looking forward to hosting you for the webinar on Monday as well.

Eric: Awesome. Thank you, gentlemen.

Marco: Adam says thanks by the way. He’s got internal noise on his end so he cannot mute. For me, thanks a ton man. I learned a whole bunch today. I hope the rest you did too.

Eric: Awesome. Hey, I appreciate that coming from you sir. Your reputation precedes you as well.

Bradley: So does his mouth.

Eric: Yeah. I want to see where the one million profile is.

Bradley: All right guys, thanks everybody for being here. We’ll see you all later. Oh, by the way, mastermind webinar tomorrow for those of you in the mastermind. We got a lot to go over so be there. All right guys, see you.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 198 posted first on your-t1-blog-url

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 198

Click on the video above to watch Episode 198 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

Adam: All right. We are live. Welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangout episode of 198. We are inching closer and closer to the four-year mark. So, we’ve got a special guest with us today but real quick we’re going to give us some good announcements, a little bit of updates and say hello to everyone, and then I will do a little bit of introducing. So, real quick, let’s see who we got on my far left. We’ve got Chris. How’s it going man?

Chris: Good. Good deal.

Adam: Good deal. Hernan about yourself, are you freezing your ass off in the southern hemisphere?

Hernan: Hold on just a minute. Just going to drop this key here. I don’t know if you guys can see that, maybe it’s the other way around but it says POFU live 2018. That’s what-

Adam: That’s the actual banner that we’re going to hang at our [crosstalk 00:00:46].

Hernan: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. [inaudible 00:00:48].

Bradley: We spared no expense.

Hernan: Yeah, I need to scratch the logo right there but yeah. I’m super, super excited man. I’m super excited for today and for POFU live. I’m super excited for what’s coming for Semantic Mastery. So, yeah.

Adam: Awesome.

Hernan: That’s more important than the cold. I don’t care about it.

Adam: Yeah. I’ll drop the link on there if you haven’t yet, please check it out. We’re obviously interested in having as many people find out about the live event in October, but it is limited. There’s only going to be 25 seats. We’re already getting close to halfway full so don’t wait too long to pull the trigger because we’re looking like this one’s going to get full up. Marco, how are you doing? How’s the weather? I mean, we got to check in with you. How’s the weather?

Marco: We haven’t had any rain for like three days. It’s beautiful.

Adam: [inaudible 00:01:33].

Marco: 80 degrees, sunny, hitting the pool. That’s how it goes in Costa Rica man.

Adam: Good deal. Bradley, how about you? You’re not being blown away or washed away or anything?

Bradley: No, it’s good for the moment, but yeah and I’m excited to be here guys. At POFU live, we’re really excited about that. I’ve been working on kind of developing out what I’m going to be training on and also just an aside but there’s a method I’ve been testing in the last three weeks that I shared in the mastermind and actually just drafted the mastermind newsletter installment for next month that the mastermind members will get. We sent out a physical newsletter every month to our members.

I’m sharing the process in a written form in the newsletter for what I’ve been doing, but getting the three pack listings for like I call it sniping three pack listings because it’s within 24 hours I’m able to take a brand-new GMB profile and get it to rank in the three pack and it’s freaking fabulous. So, I’m going to be talking about some of that at the POFU live event too. Mastermind is getting a taste of that now, but I’m going to go much more in the depth on kind of a strategy and method for building an empire of maps sites or maps profiles. So, that’s part of one of the things I’m going to be talking about at POFU live and you have to be there to hear it.

Adam: Boom! Good deal. Well, I think Hernan’s dropping or dropped the link so please check it out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Contact us at support@semanticmastery.com. We’re happy to talk through this, but on that page, you’ll find event dates, event details where we’re going to be covering other good things like that.

Marco: Before we-

Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marco: … move on to our VIP, can I just drop a little tease because I’m still-

Adam: Go for it.

Marco: … working on doing away with not having to do anything at all with Google and forcing Google to rank you because they feel left out. I mean it’s killing … guys if you’re an affiliate and if you’re in local, it’s killing it. It’s crushing it. It’s like if I showed you the numbers, you wouldn’t believe it because it makes so much money so quick. You guys saw the profile that I posted, right? It’s getting like one million viewers, that profile one million monthly, one, one profile, that’s the traffic that it’s getting one million people. Come on man, it’s about to go down. I’m about to once again turn the SEO world on it’s fucking ear and I’m the one that did it.

Bradley: You heard it here first.

Adam: Real quick, just saw a question from somebody about the live event. So, I did want to say that it is going to be in DC. It’s not going to be at a hotel. We limited it to 25 plus us and our guest speakers so it’s going to be a small group and hotel. I’m sure there would’ve been some hotels maybe a smaller event spaces, but we’ve gone with a specific event space. We’re still getting that locked down. So, we’re not going to give out the address but it is in DC. So, worst case scenario, when you get to your hotel, you’re just going to have a short Uber or maybe a walk or ride the train, but it’s going to be in the downtown area. So, yeah.

Bradley: Yeah, guys. We’re going to be trying to stay like right in town and right in the city. Adam and I were actually chatting about that yesterday. Just find a spot in town or even outside of the main city that is within Metro … has easy access to Metro which is the basically subway system or whatever for DC, because there’s a lot of really nice places you can stay right outside of the city too that are just a short Metro ride in. So, I would suggest looking … just go on hotels.com or one of those apps something like that and try to find something close by because we don’t have … it’s a small enough venue or event for us that we don’t have like a block of rooms reserved anywhere.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah, we’re going to be getting Airbnb and going from there.

Bradley: Right. We’re getting an Airbnb which is what we typically do. By the way, that’s a great idea because it’s so much cheaper that way too if you can double up with some people.

Adam: Yeah, and for me, I’d rather stay in an Airbnb than a hotel. I like having a kitchen and all that jazz, having a deck or something. So, well without further ado our very important person today is Eric Christopher. You might also know him as ERock. So, he’s been an entrepreneur for well nearly two decades. You might know him from several different areas. I’m going to let him talk a little bit about himself after we do the introduction, but I believe Bradley, you first met Eric at the SEO Rockstars, right?

Bradley: Well, I met him in person there. I’ve known of ERock or Eric for a long time because he did some training. I think he was also a student of Ivan Budimir many years ago and Eric, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but then you ended up collaborating with Ivan on some different projects. So, you became kind of a mentor to me as well by proxy because you were with Ivan. Ivan, I’ve said this many, many times publicly but Ivan Budimir had the most influence on my career as a local marketer hands down. So, again, I’ve got much respect for both Ivan and Eric.

Adam: Good deal. I’m just going to mention this because I think people might know Eric from different places but localbusinessrockstar.com or BizFamous Media Group. Then, Eric, can you tell everyone just a little bit about how you got started online, a little bit of your background? I think you could tell it better than any one of us could.

Eric: No, I think you could do a better job Adam.

Adam: All right, here we go.

Eric: So, yeah, at first I want to say thanks for inviting me on, and I really appreciate it. I’m honored that you guys have had me on. Congratulations on coming up on four years. That’s an impressive feat that a lot of people aren’t able to do. So, congratulations to you guys on that. Bradley, thank you for the kind words. So, I got my start … I’ll try to keep this as short as I can, because I hope to provide value to your audience as opposed to just talking about me. I used to think I didn’t matter but it does because now that I’ve become more influential in the world, really being able to tell your story matters.

So, please if you’re out there watching this, don’t discount your story because it’s how people will ultimately identify with you and decide if they want to do business with you or somebody else with all things being equal. So, I got my start years ago when I was in the multi-level marketing industry, right? Like, “MLM, oh my god!” Well, it paid us six figures in revenue over a few years. We made a full-time living at it. I used to have a strength training business. I used to teach people how to work out. I used to be about 20 pounds more muscular than I am today, but my business started to fail because I didn’t know how to market. So, I decided, “Well, I need to find something I can learn the art of marketing.”

So, I started doing multi-level marketing on a part-time basis because all I had to worry about was marketing. I didn’t have to worry about fulfillment, any of that crap. So, we built a multi-thousand person organization the globe and we did it all through like old-school methodology without using any really online strategies, just kind of the good old telephone, but then we started messing around with Google. I started messing around with Google Local. I was able to get a local map listing to rank in my geography. Still to this day even though it’s been over a decade, I’d get an occasional phone call or two every single month for people looking for the actual product. So, we were in LegalShield or prepaid legal services. They just actually cut us a $14,000 residual income check recently which is really badass. So, anyway, started messing around online stuff.

I was like, “How do I do more online stuff?” I just realized after a little while multi-level marketing wasn’t going to build me something with equity that I could potentially sell later. So, I was like, “You know what, I’m going to start doing some local SEO stuff.” So, I bought a course. Imagine that, I invested in a course and I was like, “Man, I hope this works.” I was leading an industry that was doing pretty well but I thought I could grow something in the internet marketing space. So, I launched a company called Local Business Rockstar and the way I got my start as I went out to some local networking events and I basically connected with a few people. I said, “Hey, I’ll sit down and offer to help you just kind of with some free stuff.” I basically had a carpet cleaning guy that said, “Hey I’ll give you my business.” So, we decided to optimize six locations in the Phoenix area.

I have no idea if I could actually fulfill. So, hopefully that’s lesson number one is like ready, fire and then aim. So, I basically sold this guy on a four figure monthly deal that I hopefully I could get him local SEO results. I was all predicated on the fact that I was going to implement what I was learning in this course. So, I could have wound up with just egg on my face really bad but long story short, in about two months, it worked. We rank them. We ended up ranking them in multiple locations. They stayed with us for six years until they sold their business and that’s kind of how I got my start in the industry. Then along the way, I ran into Ivan Budimir who had a really cool image optimization hack that they leveraged.

Basically, it was pretty cool. It still kind of works to this day just not in the same level, but that’s how I got my start. So, we started this as kind of like increase our influence. I actually got a cease and desist letter from a company that was claiming that we were infringing on their national registered trademark. So, that’s lesson number two, learn from my mistakes. If you’re planning on building a successful business, make sure you do a little bit of intellectual property to make sure you protect yourself. So, that’s ultimately the genesis of why I created the brand of BizFamous.

One, because we were expanding outside the world of local anyway. So, we work with some national brands. We help one of our clients become the number two bestselling book on all of Amazon for a day across the entire planet. Number two book all of the Amazon, not for the category, the entire planet. So, now today, like I write for entrepreneur.com. I’ve written for Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Business, newswire.net and so that’s kind of where we’re at today. Excited to hopefully share some great information with you guys and look forward to launching a couple of information products and software coming soon, a couple softwares maybe.

Adam: Nice. Yeah and I think this is a good time to for everyone watching if you already had or if you now have questions for Eric, be sure to pop them on to the event page. As time allows, we’ll relay those over to him. Also, on Monday, we’re going to be having … you’re invited to a webinar. We’re going to be sending out some emails shortly to find out what Eric’s been working on recently which … Do you want to tell people a little bit about this? I think people from our mastermind might already know this, but again, I’ll let you describe it.

Eric: So, the last few years like again I would discount my story. I would really kind of like, “Hey, if I just cut to the meat and just deliver some amazing content like that will make a difference.” It does of course, but in today’s age my wife has a business called Biztuition and she teaches business owners how to overcome the challenge of infobesity. So, I don’t know if any of you guys have heard of the word infobesity before, but information overload. So, it’s like, “Oh my god everybody and their mothers coming into the digital marketing space. There’s really no barrier to entry.” It’s become like … when I first got started like man it was so easy to rank. You could do so many different tricks and hacks and tactics and strategies and make things happen overnight.

Today, it’s just not as easy as it used to be. In a way it’s good because it gets rid of the people that don’t have skills. In a way it’s bad because it makes it harder to get started. So, during my journey, I was able to help to understand like neuropsychology, how to create influence, because ultimately I knew no matter how good I was at SEO, if I couldn’t get and especially it depends on what your objective is. If you’re doing affiliate marketing, it’s not that big a deal to be able to necessarily know how to sell, right? I still think it does because you still need to be able to communicate the value proposition, why someone should buy your affiliate program versus someone else.

Adam: Definitely. Yeah, getting the traffic there is part of the battle. Then you got to convert it.

Eric: Right. That comes back to you influence, how do you create influence. So, over the last half decade, I’ve really invested a lot of my education in developing influence that’s why I decided to actively seek out how I was able to get people like Arianna Huffington and invite me to write for Huffington Post. Then the folks at Entrepreneur and ultimately which is a really cool store. I don’t even know … I think I might have told you this Bradley maybe not but I was actually just on the set of Shark Tank about actually two months today. It’s my two-month anniversary where I was invited onto the set of Shark Tank and got to interview all the sharks, all the guest sharks and we’ve had to keep it kind of under wraps just because we signed an NDA until the new season premieres, all that good stuff.

So, ultimately what are we doing in the world of marketing, what are we doing in the world of SEO is we’re trying to create influence. So, the project that I’ve been working on now for quite some time and that we’re finally decided to do like publicly releasing it is how to influence Google to recommend your brand to people who are actively searching for your products and services online. So, I’ll kind of get into more of that as we get on to the end because I just want to make sure that like I want to ask … hopefully ask or answer questions if anybody has questions or just talk at a little bit of a macro level on like we’re kind of SEO and marketing is going.

Adam: Cool. Well, I mean that’s basically what was on my mind. So, let’s kind of roll into that. Where do you see and this is a free-form question and anyone else that feels like chiming in, feel free but Eric, what do you see as you know there’s so many sub topics, but between SEO and digital marketing in the next couple of years, what do you see like an area of being that you think people should pay attention to or something that they should know or something like that? I’m always curious of what people see as like a coming trend or what they think is important.

Eric: Well, I think we’re all starting to experience that already with RankBrain. For those of you that are more hardcore SEO folks and really that’s just Google’s fancy branded way of saying artificial intelligence, virtual reality. So, ultimately like that’s the path where it’s going and a lot of the practices of traditional SEO are slowly being phased out in my opinion by Google and other search engines. Other search engines will probably hopefully catch up someday or they’ll get acquired by Google which Mozilla did, but it’s going to progress to where in my opinion like my big prognostication, not that it’s really like epically like insightful but Google’s been … ever since it started it was easy to kind of gain the whole link industry, right? Basically, I remember when I was able to rank back in the day local internet marketing we were ranked number five nationally in the United States for it. We were outranking Yodel which at the time was like a $253 million company.

At the time, it was just me, myself and I out ranking them. All we did was just kind of like the exact match anchor text back links. You do that today, you’re toast. So, Google is slowly shifting its emphasis away from anything that can really be manipulated or orchestrated, and it’s moving more into the realm of artificial intelligence based on signals that it’s getting from users. I just see that in the next 5, 10 years of it. I don’t know if Google will ever get completely away from links. I think they still use links as a way to kind of connect the dots in its algorithm, but ultimately like and maybe you guys are seeing this or maybe you guys want to interject your thoughts on this as a group of fellow experts of how much have you seen over the last couple of years where backlinks are becoming less and less as a ranking factor and you’re seeing user metrics becoming more and more important in terms of results.

Bradley: I absolutely 100% agree with that. One of the things that we’ve seen especially in the last year alone is how you can rank almost entirely with just engagement signals. We proved that with YouTube videos. That’s kind of been known for quite some time but now even so with especially since the mobile first index took over which was just last month in July. With our local GMB Pro methods and what we teach in that course and we’re also developing a done-for-you service for that right now. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re speaking directly to the mobile first algorithm with or giving it signals and activity which then Google serves to users and gives exposure to that business to mobile users that are in close proximity that are doing any sort of related type of search. Whether we’re showing in rank trackers or not, it doesn’t make any difference. We’re still getting exposure and activity engagement from mobile device users again whether ranked tracker show it ranking or not. It’s independent or regardless of ranking.

The only way to explain that is because it’s Google going more and more towards engagement and user signals as opposed to like what Eric just said which was backlinks and some of the old more traditional stuff. It’s been quite incredible to see the kind of results that we’re able to get with an absence of backlinks. We’re not even needing to use backlinks. A lot of times what we’re using for backlinks now are other Google properties. We’re using Drive Stacks or Google Drive files and folders and such to backlink. Obviously press releases are still my preferred backlinking method at the moment and in just content syndication which usually has an attribution link that points back to the original source. Those are pretty much the only three link voting methods we really teach and it works.

Eric: Oh and I’m just so glad you talked about syndicating content. Today, actually I don’t even know if I’ve actually shared this really kind of publicly, but I’m going to totally dispel the whole myth of the duplicate content penalty.

Bradley: Oh god please do, because you know how many times we have to answer that question right here on Hump Day Hangouts.

Eric: Can I do a quick screen share and I’ll actually show you an example?

Bradley: Please.

Adam: Yeah, let’s do it.

Bradley: Please.

Eric: All right. Let me open up a new incognito window here. All right. So, hopefully I can just remember this off the top of my head because this wasn’t necessarily on my agenda. So, how to treat infobesity. Okay, how to treat information overload in three simple steps, right? So, it’s ranking number one. This is my wife who wrote the article who’s a successful entrepreneur in her own right. You can see here I’ll just kind of highlight some of this. So, if you’ve ever been on blah, blah, blah, blah. So, I’m going to cut and copy that and then I’m going to come here and do another search. The search query is … Oh I know what it is. Infobesity epidemic, right? So, the only thing different is the title. Everything else is exactly the same.

Now I’m not sitting here saying that you can like replicate these results because one of this is on Huffington Post. The other article is on Entrepreneur, right? So, super high authority trustworthy websites, but basically just by changing the title only, we were still able to rank number one and again that’s not super competitive keywords. It’s not like weight loss or anything like that. So, for those of you that are going to sit there and be like, “Ooh.” Like in a more competitive marketplace, sure it may be harder to rank but it’s not being penalized, that’s my whole point. So, hopefully that dispels that myth. [crosstalk 00:22:40]

Bradley: That’s because it’s on a different domain, right? That’s the thing. People say duplicate content and duplicate content does exist but that’s typically when it’s on the same domain. If you have the same article posted on a domain like for example that’s how tags guys can get you into trouble with WordPress sites, because if you have a unique tag on a blog post, then WordPress by default will create a tag page. If you have those set to index, then Google … the tag page will index and the tag page looks … it’s the when you click on the tag archive page for that particular tag, if it’s a singular tag that’s only been attached to one blog post, that tag URL will be an exact replica of the post itself. Depending on the theme, sometimes it’ll be a snippet but most of the time, it’ll be the entire article, the entire post. The only difference is the URL.

Everything else will be the exact same and that can cause duplicate content penalties or issues for a site if you don’t know how to use tags. Either set your tags to no index or make sure that you’re using more common tags that occur on more than one post, and that way when the tag archive page gets pulled up, it’s like a blog index page. It shows all of the posts that contain that or have that same tag. So, that wouldn’t be duplicate content, but when you have a singular tag, it can be. So, again, that’s where duplicate content issues come up not on different domains. Otherwise, press releases wouldn’t work and that’s typically … by the way, Eric that’s what usually what we use as the go-to example for duplicate content because press releases we all know work incredibly well and it’s the same damn article getting picked up by 300, 400, 500 different syndication partners.

Eric: Yeah, we’re huge fans of press releases as well. One of the ways actually we ended up working together with Ivan beyond the initial course was he ended up going and doing some work with a news release company called newswire.net which is still a super powerful way to be able to get good links on there. I think that they still charge for access to it, but it’s a great solid platform in addition to some of the other resources that I know you guys make available to your community. So, even though I don’t get a chance watching every Hump Day Hangout, I do sneak in every once in a while to smile [crosstalk 00:24:55].

Bradley: Lurk in the background.

Eric: Cyberstalking, right?

Adam: It’s good. It’s always nice to hear that. It’s funny we talk to a lot of people and I mean I think all of us do the same. You’ve got shows or podcasts you listen to. Then it’s funny sometimes to have people on like, “Oh yeah, I’ve been listening this off and on for years.” Like, “Wow, okay. Hey, good.” Well-

Marco: Yeah. Just some of our beginners don’t get mixed up back on the backlinking thing. Traditional or old-school backlinking is what we’re differentiating. We’re not saying that that Google doesn’t look at links because everything that the latest distance graph algorithm update did was talk about links, but it talked about what Bradley and Eric mentioned which is it measures activity on the link. It measures relevance on the link and it measures trust and authority. Again, you guys have heard me say this it takes place on the source of the link and on where the link is directed. So, it takes a look at both and it takes everything that’s linking to that. So, it’s not that links are obsolete, it’s now the way that Google is looking at links and the value that Google is placing on links that are untrusted and authoritative websites.

I’m not talking about third party metrics of course. I’m not talking about trustful or I’m not talking about the domain authority. None of that garbage. Everything is out the window. Only Google knows what Google measures but we know generally what it measures, because we have the math. We have the math on the patent. We have everything that they say about the patent and what they’re looking at. So, I’m glad that this is being brought up and that we’re differentiating, right? Link building still works, but you have to go further out. You have to go out and into tiered link building. I don’t want to get into that because that’s higher level, but again, ART, activity, relevance, trust and authority. That’s what you need to be looking at when you’re looking at links going to your website and going from your website to wherever. That’s where you have to be really careful and pick into the links that you’re getting.

Adam: Definitely.

Eric: Yeah, one of the biggest mistakes that I think I see a lot of people make is that they don’t emphasize link building in the natural order of things. That’s something that I’ll be talking about in greater detail in the webinar on Monday and why you … because I’ve always looked and this is going back years ago, but I’ve always looked at Google from a perspective of Google is a girl. If you haven’t heard anybody else say that, I’m telling you now Google is a girl. She loves to dance. All right. She wants to know that she can trust you. She’s going to basically give you favor if you’re more popular than not. So, Google’s a girl and you have to basically influence her to want to date you and then hopefully end up marrying you.

Adam: This is a great analogy. I’ve actually somehow never heard this.

Eric: You’ve never heard this before? Oh my God!

Adam: I haven’t. Have you guys? I literally haven’t.

Bradley: Yes. Accordingly woman, yeah.

Eric: So, if you move too quick, you’re going to get the slap. So, I can go on into this whole … like I’ve had arguments with girls who are like, “No, Google is a man.” and they’re done. I’m like, “Okay, you’re right. Google is a girl.” So, the whole point of influencing Google is if you do things in the right order and the way that Google wants it and if you’re smart about it, you can do some of the black hat things that can basically … that are like the dirty stuff. It’s like I’m public. In public, we do the white hat stuff. When we’re in the bedroom, we want to do some of the black hat stuff, the naughty stuff, right? So, the key is, how do you get that progress in the right order? That’s a great analogy for I’m going to talk about in the training. If you go out on the first date and even if you get to go back and you do get to go back to the house on the first date and you get in the bedroom room, you better watch out when doing the super kinky stuff because then like that girl’s going to kick out.

We all know that’s common sense and Google’s the same way. So, I think one of the biggest mistakes that people are making is not looking at it from a kind of like a 30,000 foot view of how the progression would look. So, we get caught up in tactics and there’s amazing amount of cool tactics that are out there, but it needs to blend in with an overall strategy, and that’s one of the things that I appreciate about you guys is that you test off and then the tactic … there’s a lot of people doing like single variable testing type stuff in the marketing world and that’s great, but again as a tactic it works, but what it’s not accounting for is dependencies. Just because something works in a single variable test in it of itself doesn’t mean when it’s combined with two other algorithmic factors, it’s going to have the same effect.

Bradley: Right.

Eric: Right? I don’t want to get on any specifics on this because there’s a lot of smarter people with scientific backgrounds than me. I just know if I do the things that I think that Google is looking for and you talked about like Google Drive Stacks. I’ll I’m putting it out there. I’ll argue with anybody but I would consider myself to be the godfather of custom my maps. I was able to get a custom my maps to rank on my own. No one taught it to me. I discovered it purely on accident just by testing stuff out and it was back in the day when you could get do follow links, you could put exact match anchor text in it. Unbelievable, right? I didn’t share it with anybody for years until actually the first SEO Rockstars that I shared it with, and then after that, another group who was supposed to be secret but it ended up getting out.

I’m sure there’s other people might have discovered it too, but I was doing that stuff back in 2011. Why? Because I knew … Hey, here’s a good example. If you look at Google as like a bunch of sisters, well hey, if you do things and you’re super nice to one of the sisters, is the other sister going to like you too? “Oh, he’s so handsome. He’s so nice. He’s so gentlemanly. He does such nice things and says nice things.” So, Google loves its own properties. We were using Google for different properties years ago like over half a decade ago before I would call it a little bit more commonplace.

Adam: Got you.

Eric: So, my whole focus is like that whole Wayne Gretzky thing if you’re familiar with Wayne Gretzky. It’s like good players know where the puck is. The great players know where the puck is going and right now the thing that I want to train on and talk about like on the session on Monday is where’s the puck going to be going and how can you position your business to take advantage of that so that you can be ahead, literally a lot ahead of other people that are in the space, because that’s what it’s going to take. I’m also making another prediction. My other big prognostication is that if all you do is SEO, you’re going to struggle to grow a big business if you’re trying to build an agency.

Bradley: Well, SEO is kind of encompassed like we use that kind of more like a overall encompassing term now, because to be effective in SEO, you need to do content marketing. You need to know about content marketing and social media and engagement and PPC and PR marketing and reputation. There’s so many components now to being an SEO. It’s not just search engine optimization anymore, right?

Eric: Yeah. I mean I 100% agree. I actually have an article, I’m sure it’s probably still there.

Adam: Real quick while you’re looking for that, I’m the timekeeper today. So, we got to wrap this up in a minute or two, but while you’re looking for that Eric, I just want to let everyone know if you got any questions for Eric, go ahead pop them on the event page. I know there’s a little bit of a delay and then in a minute or two, we’re going to hop over and we’ll start going through [crosstalk 00:33:24] questions.

Bradley: Well start on questions. I do want to expand this very briefly on what Eric was saying about the Wayne Gretzky analogy and where the puck is going to be like where is it going. That’s kind of what we’re trying to accomplish with POFU Live guys is really identify where some people’s business should be going and where it should be heading in order to position. That’s what … POFU Live, position to fuck you, it’s all about positioning. So, that’s entirely what the event is going to be about is how to position your business to be in a really good place to scale with all the changes coming. I’m sorry. I got it locked on you. What were you about to show?

Eric: No, I was just going to show an article that I wrote. I think it’s from almost … Oh it was updated 2017. This is before they kicked everybody off the Huffington Post platform. Actually the original article was almost three years ago. I was sitting there talking about how like SEO is changing and like usability is and this is a software that helps you to measure heat maps and usability on sites. I was talking about this stuff three years ago as far as like where stuff was going. So, I’m just sharing this with you because one of the things that I hope to do in the training coming up is show you how to create influence and you guys are watching this right now. You guys should be like just hanging on these guys’ arms and be on their coattails because what they subtly have done with you, I should get rid of this, is they over the last four years have exhibited and have been eating their dog food not just by like learning SEO tactics and strategies but by building a community.

Before you could do certain things that would allow you to get clients and you could do some out each type stuff and that some of that stuff still works, but it’s just a lot harder, right? So, one of the big takeaways that you’re going to want to do and my wife talks about this a lot is that if you really want to grow a successful business of any kind, you’re going to want to create a community. I know that’s like, “Oh, that’s not magical.” It’s tough, right? So, it goes back to like, “Hey these guys have been doing this for four years to be able to build a momentum, to be able to like continue to go through that.” One of the things that I’m going to teach on the training on Monday is if you’re brand new or you feel like you don’t have a lot of experience in terms of like getting clients or building a successful business, one of the things I’m going to talk to you about is how to coattail off of other people’s authority to build your authority so that you can take your business to the next level.

Why am I showing you articles that I’ve written for Huffington Post and for Entrepreneur and why am I talking about the fact that I have pictures of me with Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner because I’m leveraging their authority. By default, if you respect those people, hopefully you respect me too hopefully as a result. Hopefully you respect me that the fact that I’m here with the Semantic Mastery team hopefully imparting some minor wisdom to those of you that are participating, and so, I’ll show you how you can leverage that step by step to help you get where you want to go. Then I’m also going to as we’re … because we kind of need to wrap this up, right?

Adam: Yeah, just move into the Q&A. Yeah, if there’s anything else to-

Eric: [crosstalk 00:36:49] Q&A and then I’ll highlight what I was going to talk about a little bit at the end kind of like what the big sexy is, right? I’m to show you some-

Bradley: [inaudible 00:36:57] Go ahead.

Eric: I’m going to show you something that’s going to get Google that want to take you to bed.

Bradley: What I’m going to question … So, I’m going to grab the screen, lock it on and then we’ll jump into that. Just take a few minutes because we don’t have that many anyways.

Eric: Well, that’s too bad for them because I love engagement.

Bradley: Well, it must be that everybody just enthralled. So, Sam’s up first.

Adam: Yeah, several good comments on Google being a girl though. So, yeah, I think I’m not the only one that hadn’t heard of that or that agrees.

Do You Recommend Recapturing The Power Of The Backlinks Pointing To The Aged Domain By Redirecting To A New Page?

Bradley: That’s funny. So, Sam’s up first. He says, “I’m starting a new money site on an aged domain. The domain has backlinks pointing to old pages. Do you recommend trying to recapture the power from those links by redirecting to a new page or something or is that not really necessary? Thanks.” Yeah, you can. Well, it depends Sam. If you are rebuilding on an old domain that was relevant like it was in the same category, it might be worth recreating those pages. Even if you set them to no index, still recreating those pages. So, go to the Wayback Machine archive.org and pull up snapshots of the site in its previous state. If it was relevant, I would say go ahead and recreate those pages and just set them to no index, but then you can … because then all those inbound links pointing to those pages, that original content, it’s likely that those links won’t be taken down if discovered by webmasters where those links exist, because it’ll still be linking to that original content or what it was originally linking to I mean, but then you can always put a contextual link from that page to that inner page to wherever you want to push the juice to.

That’s a great way to do it, but otherwise, yeah you could just create a redirect, but just remember that it’s likely that redirect or the link from the original source of the inbound links could be edited out if a webmaster catches it, sees that it’s not pointing to what it was intended to point to. Also, if it wasn’t relevant content, then if you’re redirecting inbound links that was pointing to something that wasn’t relevant, then that could actually end up causing you harm. So, there’s a lot of different factors you have to take into consideration there, but absolutely, if it was relevant, I would say recreate the pages. That’s pretty powerful. I would just set them to no index. What do you guys say?

Eric: I would agree. I think that it’s challenging to answer that question without more context.

Bradley: Right.

Eric: We’re just basically making a best guess. It’s like saying, “Hey doctor, my stomach hurts. Can you tell me you if I should take this medicine?” It’s like … but I would say that overall the philosophical answer that you just gave would be spot on.

Do You Have A Contract Template For Rank And Rent Video Services?

Bradley: Right. Next designed2framework. “Hi, I have a few questions. Nobody ever talks about the actual close of clients. I did not close clients ever but this is the aim. Okay. Because I’m going for rank and rent videos, do you have a contract template for that? I just want to put my details, client’s details, amount and that’s it.” Well, yeah, you can, but I mean for like rank and rent video, I mean guys, Marco and I both talked about this often. Contracts are not something I typically work on. It depends on the size and scope of the project. Typically much larger projects do require contract either from the person that hired me or from me to protect me and my effort. It’s either one or the other, but typically for most stuff like rank and rent videos, that’s a small enough engagement with a client, a small enough commitment that I don’t work on contracts. I just work on it month to month. It’s like, “Look, this is how much it’s going to cost.

If it’s producing results, you’re going to be happy to pay me. If it’s not producing results, you should be able to cancel or stop paying me.” That’s it. That’s why I’ve always worked that way unless a contract was required, because of the particular circumstances, but for the most part, I do everything on a month to month, because again, I know I can produce results. As long as I’m producing results, they should be happy to pay me. If I don’t produce results, they should be able to walk away. Just the same as if I decide that I don’t like working with that client for whatever reason, I should be able to walk away. If I was in a contract, I might not be able to leave either. So, again for rank and rent videos, don’t overcomplicate shit. You start bringing contracts out for rank and rent video stuff, you’re going to lose a lot of potential closes because people don’t like contracts, right? Somebody else want to comment on for the next one.

Eric: I’ll interject here. So, one, if you ever decide that you do want to implement some sort of agreement on a long term basis, number one, don’t use the word contract because again like Bradley said that people don’t like the word contracts. Agreements are a lot better, sound a lot nicer. Again, it goes back to the context. It depends on what you’re charging for and what the work is going to be required for you to actually implement. So, if you’re working with like a five figure monthly client and you’re going to have to front-load a bunch of work on the front end to try to recoup a positive investment on the back end, then it might seem worthy to you to be able to put together some sort of agreement.

We talk about a lot with our students about how to close clients and just how to position everything, but if you’re doing stuff for like a minor amount of money, a few hundred dollars or a low four figure deal, I work in the same vein as Bradley as that we typically will say to any brand new client like, “Hey, everything is month to month. We asked for a 90-day commitment so that you can see how effective this is and then based on the progress that we make, will determine if we continue to move forward.

I can even offer you a way to be able to lock a long-term deal if you like, but everything that we do is based around that we’ll have the freedom to leave.” Even if we are in an agreement with a company and they decide they want to leave, we’re not going try to take them to court or any bullshit like that. We’re just going to let them go, but there is a value if the dollar amount is worth it to get that on paper that they made a longer-term commitment because there’ll be a lot less likely to cancel. Again, that’s totally based on context.

Bradley: That’s right. Marco, you want to comment on that?

Marco: No, because I’m with you. No contracts unless the company is so big that their legal requires it. I’m going through that now. It’s why I hate contracts because it’s been dragging on. They know they want to work. They already agreed. They said yes but now legal it’s going to my attorney, it’s going to theirs, then it comes back to mine and then it just drags on. I’m spending money. It’s just stupid because just let me do what the fuck I do and get out of the way. I mean that’s how I treat it. If that’s not good enough, if you can’t get out of the way and you’re not going to get out of the way, then just leave me alone. I don’t want any part of it.

How Do You Charge Clients For Rank And Rent Video Services?

Bradley: Here you go. So, how do you charge clients? What about recurring payments? Do you send PayPal requests, get the client’s credit card or some sort? I do almost all of my clients I just put them on PayPal. I know I’d pay a shit ton on PayPal fees. It’s ridiculous. I could spend less on fees if I used like my own merchant account. I get all that but I like the ease and convenience of PayPal. I’ve run my business that way ever since I opened it. So, basically, I send an invoice for any one off services like setup fees and that kind of thing, but then I send PayPal subscription link which I just go right into PayPal, generate a new subscription button, set the terms and then it spits out a link and then I just send it via email. That’s typically how I charge all my clients and I get paid. It works. I have some clients that actually send me paper checks in the mail every month, believe it or not. I still have clients that do that, but for the most part, whenever I can, I try to get everybody on a PayPal subscription because then I know it’s done and it’s just an automatic withdrawal, okay?

How Do You Sign Clients For Rank And Rent Video Services?

How do you sign clients? Do you signature online software? No. Most the time because I’m not doing contracts, I don’t need signatures. So, I don’t do that. What I do is I send a proposal via email that’s in PDF form. So, I draft a proposal. I typically just do that in Google Docs and then I save it as a PDF and I send that as a proposal. Then if they agree to the proposal, then all I do is send them … and all I need is a positive reply via email in other words saying yes I agree via email. When they agree, then I say, “Okay, I’m going to send you the payment links.” Again, if it’s a one-off or like for setup fees or whatever, then I’ll send them a PayPal invoice. If it’s for a subscription or recurring service, then I send them a PayPal subscription link. So, again, I don’t need signature software. If I do need something signed, then typically I just send a contract or an agreement or whatever it may be via Scan It In and send it to him via email. They’ll sign it and scan it back and send it back to me, okay?

Adam: Real quick too and I think that’s totally fine and I wouldn’t go out of your way whoever is asking this to add another expense, but something I’ve really been using a lot, I think Hernan has been using it too, is the AppSumo Briefcase. They keep adding stuff. It’s AppSumo, right? They’ve got a ton of the stuff and they’ve got a billing app. I think it’s called literally Billy app, but that’s pretty slick when you can hook up to different banks. You can issue invoices so people could pay by card or PayPal or different methods. So, anyways, if you’re into that, it’s like a flat monthly fee for all the apps they have in the Briefcase and it’s like 50 bucks a month or something. So, if you’re going to use it anyways, there’s some extra I guess utility you could get out of that.

Marco: A word of warning if I can. Sorry, ERock.

Eric: No, go ahead.

Marco: Not start working until you’ve got that scratch in your account man. You can get burned. So, make sure you got that money because that’s the yes. A yes on paper is useless until you got that money then you can start working.

Eric: Hallelujah! I was just going to share the same thing. Don’t ever, ever, ever work on invoice, do work upfront and if you guys want, we could talk about it in the training on Monday if anybody cares, but you absolutely should get it. Get everybody to pay you up front. You should get people to pay you on a recurring basis so that you can make more … this is one of the things that I’ll tell clients. Like, “Hey, one you don’t want us to where we’re have to like pause work on your account and then have to spend time trying to make sure that we’re getting paid because then we’re wasting time not getting any results, meaning you have to wait on you getting more paychecks and more customers for your business.

Two is … and I totally forgot where my momentum was going on this. Oh, you can also make more intelligent decisions like right there Adam is like, “Hey go pick up Briefcase.” Well, if you don’t know when checks are coming in or when stuffs going to get paid and you don’t have recurring revenue, then you don’t know how much you can really spend and budget for different expenses every single month. Then, three, if you ever decide that you want to grow a business and an agency and you ever want to sell it for later, a bigger business that might want to acquire your agency is going to want to see that all of them are on automatic payment too.

So, really if you have clients that are like, “Well, I don’t want to get on automatic payment.” It’s not that they don’t want to get on automatic payment, it’s that they don’t trust you to be on automatic payment or because they had a really bad experience before and that’s all stuff that you should have addressed before you’re even getting close to like getting married or going out on the date with the client. All the objections should have been done so they have no problem. They should want to pay you on autopayment every month.

How Do You Communicate With Your Rank And Rent Video Clients?

Bradley: Good advice. All right. I’ve got to run through this length. This was very long. So, by the way, designed2framework only because we didn’t have a lot of questions. Am I answering all these? Typically, we ask guys to limit your questions in one post to like one or two questions only because otherwise that’s not fair to everybody else, okay? So, how do I talk to clients? I talk to them either on the phone or if I need to create a presentation like have them online. I typically send them a join.me link because that’s easy for them. Typically Skype, it depends on what kind of industry you’re targeting, but I deal with a lot of contractors so a lot of contractors aren’t on Skype. They don’t understand how to use Google Hangouts. So, trying to get people on to conferences and stuff like that is typically very difficult. That’s why I just use the phone. I also do a lot ton of video email stuff. So, a lot of times I’m able to convey my messages through sending an email with a video attached or an embedded video or what looks like an embedded video so that all we need to do is chat via email or on the phone if that makes sense, okay?

Marco: I love this question. WhatsApp, don’t ever give him the phone number. You’ll get calls at 3:00 in the morning because their rankings drop one spot. Don’t ever do that. Don’t ever give them your phone number, ever.

Bradley: Yup. Also, just think about buying a virtual phone number. I don’t know because I’m in the US so I don’t understand some of the probably challenges that you’re facing, but you could use something like vumber. I love vumber.com. I use that very specifically for phone numbers for some of my companies. You can use vumber as far as I know with international numbers so that you can originate calls from within the US even though you’re doing it from an international phone number. So, I would look into something like that, finding a phone service. Last-

Eric: Another resource that you can look at that I think offers something as a freemium is Dialpad and then you just go from there.

Can You Still Sell Video Lead Generation Services For Remote Clients Even If You’re Not Physically In The Same Locality As Them?

Bradley: All right. So, the last part of this. In VLS, you said it’s better to target local clients, and he’s talking about video lead gen system guys, clients in my local area but I live outside the US and I want to target US clients because my area has shitty payments. I will need 30 clients to get some return. In the US, I can lay down five clients and have a business. Can I still go for that? Yeah, that’s fine. Listen, I just talked about specifically I’m telling people that are just getting started that it’s often easier for you to land the clients that are in your local area because that gives you something in common with them as opposed to reaching out from across the country or from out of town or from across the globe and trying to sell them on something. When you have something in common with somebody, it builds … that’s like instant rapport.

So, being able to contact people that are in your local area essentially your backyard. You can say, “Oh, hey, I live in the same town. I’m a local guy.” That helps to close sales. I found that to be something that helps closing especially when you’re first getting started, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sell remotely or provide services in the US. It doesn’t mean that at all. It just might … that’s the only reason why I was saying that. What I recommend that you do is niche down. So, focus on one particular industry or vertical and do that.

Instead of like targeting one area and multiple businesses within one area, I would target one business type and cover more locations, because that way you become educated and you learn the vocabulary of that industry, you know what their pain points are, you get to know the keywords, you get to know the traffic, where the traffic comes from, all that kind of stuff and you become an expert marketer in a particular industry. It’s much easier to scale a business that way guys than it is to have to relearn or start from scratch with every new business type that you take on as a client because you don’t know their industry. Does that make sense?

Adam: [inaudible 00:52:59]

What Is The Best Way To Incorporate A Comment Section In A Website?

Bradley: Okay. We’re going to move on. PeterfromPoland. What is the best way I can incorporate a comment section on my website? I don’t use comment apps very much anymore on any other websites but I’ve always obviously turn off WordPress comments. They suck, but I’ve used the Disqus app or Disqus, D-I-S-Q-U-S I think it is as a plugin. That seems to work well just because it connects through various social media and stuff like that, but that that’s the only one I ever use. Anybody else have any suggestions?

Eric: Live Fire is a good one that you can use or depending on what your objective is, you could even potentially … Well, I guess it depends on what you’re trying to use, but if you’re like trying to sell something and you want social proof, you can use Facebook comments too.

Bradley: There you go. All right, we got to wrap up here in a minute. So, I’m going to run through Nigel’s question guys. I think we’re going to have to stop it at that, but I think most of the rest are just comments. So, I think we’ll be okay. Wow! Nice Greg. I’ll plus one.

Adam: Awesome Greg. Send me back man.

What Is The Best Software To Blur Images To Cover Sensitive Info?

Bradley: I will plus on that. Google’s a girl and that’s her. She’s attractive. All right. So, good day gents, working on my POFU. Awesome. Nigel, he says, the best software to blur images to cover sensitive info. I mean I just use Snagit. They have a blur function.

Adam: Snagit, it’s awesome.

Chris: Snagit.

Bradley: Yup. Snagit is cheap. It’s inexpensive. It works.

How Not To Offend A Referral Client With Lots Of Influence But Is Ignorant On The Cost Of Service?

So, the best advice on how to close or at least not offend a referral client with lots of influence but unrealistic on … how to close or at least not offend a referral client with lots of influence but unrealistic or just ignorant of the cost of services. I want to rank for every term Google first position for HVAC and Google. Go easy, Marco. The referring party is a dear friend and I actually believe I can help him and in pitching in social ordeals to start. Okay, so I just went through this with a client referral from somebody that I highly respect. He referred a potential client to me and I spent literally about eight hours doing a complete digital presence audit for this company. I generated multiple reports, multiple videos explaining what I saw, where I saw an opportunity because this guy spends $20,000 a month on AdWords alone. So, it was a really big client for me. So, I spent literally eight hours doing all this work generating reports and audits and all that and in creating a proposal and sending it to him.

Because it was a client referral from somebody that I really respect, I don’t come in with high numbers and then plan on negotiating. When I have a client referral, I come in with my best price that’s it. There is no room for negotiation. The only thing that could be negotiated on is potentially terms, not pricing. When I come in with a client referral, I give my best price. It’s the rock-bottom price and so I did that. I spent all this time and the guy came back with an absolutely insulting counterproposal. I was pissed but fortunately, I bit my tongue and I handled it with some tact very diplomatically. When he sent back the counter-proposal, I replied to him with a very short email that just said, “Thank you for your counter-proposal. I must say what you proposed was unreasonable for the amount of work that you’re requesting, so therefore I’m going to pass on this project. I wish you and your business much success.” That was it. I walked away from it.

That’s how you do it, Nigel. Be in a position of fuck you. Be in a position of power where you control the negotiation. In other words, come in with your best offer, if they come back with a stupid counter proposal, walk away. Just do it with some tact. Leave the door open for them to contact you because the moral of this story guys, just to let you know, was about three weeks past from the time that I sent that email saying exactly what I just mentioned and guess what, I started getting text messages and emails from the guy asking me to reinitiate the conversation. So, I did and I ended up meeting with him two weeks ago for coffee to meet him face to face. Guess what? He signed the original proposal that I sent out.

It’s one of my biggest clients that I’ve landed and this was just two weeks ago. No shit and it was because I was willing to walk away from that. It left him thinking about it for three weeks, and eventually, he came back and said, “No, I really want to work with you. Okay, let’s go ahead and proceed with the original proposal.” So, I got everything that I wanted out of that just from being able to walk away. So, I highly recommend that you do that. Like you just very diplomatically say, “I’m sorry but this is not a project I want to pursue any further because some of the things that you’re requesting are unreasonable.” and say, “I wish you and your business much success.” So, what do you guys have to say about that? I know we got to wrap-up but that was a great question.

Eric: I’ll interject a few thoughts. One, the guy’s lucky you didn’t come back and say, “Hey, I’ll work with you now but the price went up 20% because you didn’t like the first offer.” So, there’s one thing. The other thing is that you could have potentially … obviously, you landed the contract. Like I talk about some different pricing strategies depending on your competency and I’ll just kind of give this as like a freebie thing. We can go into more detail on it because like my Monday training is going to be very much geared on like how to close clients and how to sell services because we have a lot of respect from that. I don’t like coming in with just one yes or no offer. What I’ll typically do is I will offer two different packages if you will and it’s either a really high flat monthly fee or a reduced monthly fee and some sort of percentage of revenue or profits. Guess what they take 95% of the time?

Bradley: Offer B.

Eric: They take the flat monthly fee because they’re so scared you know what the hell you’re doing that you’re going to take their future money and their future revenue. Either way, now it’s which one am I going to get, right? So, you have to be conscientious that if you’re going to offer like a performance package, that you’ve got all your legal stuff in place because you’re going but it’s kind of the really the dummy offer. You really aren’t wanting them to get that. You just want them to buy your bigger price point package that gets people to want to spend more money with you, because when you offer something of like here’s my four grand a month deal or here’s my three grand a month and I want it like 10% of any additional revenue above your base revenue, one, you’re telling them I really know I can get you results and two, they’ll be again so scared that you’re going to take future revenue from their table and from their kids’ mouths that they’ll pay you more monthly because they don’t want to have to worry about it and now they’re like, “Which one am I going to pick?”

Bradley: It’s a great strategy.

Marco: Yeah, I really like that. What I would only add to that client has unreasonable expectations. They want to rank for every Google term first position organic three pack. They want everything. Well, go to AdWords and put together some kind of presentation on what people are paying for Adwords in HVAC in the location and show them what the monthly cost would be just for Adwords, don’t put in there. With the proper budget, we can absolutely go after this and this is what it would cost plus your management fee of course or what we could do and this is when you hit them because I love that ERock alternative. You give me a flat monthly fee or you give me a lower fee plus percentage, but first, show them how unrealistic and ignorant they’re being to want every first position that you could possibly get in Google for 500 bucks a month. Fuck that.

Eric: Yeah. Here’s my favorite thing is always use analogies and put it back on their business. So, if it’s they’re an HVAC, say, “Great. Here’s what I want.” Go to their website and be like, “Hey I want an AC tune-up. I want a new A/C. I want heating services. I want whatever else that they offer and I want it all done for the cost of one service.”

Bradley: Yeah.

Eric: Is that something that you would be willing to do for me if I was your customer?

Bradley: Right.

Eric: You know what they’re going to say? “Well, hell no.” So, why would you ask me to do the very same thing that you wouldn’t do for me. How am I supposed to do that? A great book everybody should read is never split the difference. It’s called Never Split The Difference. Fantastic book. Everybody who wants to improve their negotiating skills should do it, should read that book, but just put it back on them. Just turn around and try to get them to see themselves in your shoes and why their request is unreasonable so you don’t have to tell them they’re being unreasonable. They’ll come to their own conclusion and they can’t argue against themselves. If they don’t come to that conclusion, do what Bradley said, run screaming into the forest.

Do You Have Any Premade Marketing Materials For Serp Space Or MYGB?

Bradley: That’s it. All right. I’m going to very quickly because we got to go. We’re already two minutes over guys. Last Nigel says, lastly any premade marketing materials for SERP space or MGYB? Also, is there an affiliate program for SM? I think on our next quarterly planning, we’re going to be developing out some sales materials guys for people that want to resell our services for MGYB or whatever. So, that’s something we’ve talked about. It just wasn’t in our current like we didn’t have the bandwidth currently for it, but it is something we are planning to be able to provide you guys especially because of the local GMB Pro stuff guys.

I personally have been working on developing a sales strategy for that service alone and also like lead development autoresponder emails and all of that like a whole on sales and marketing approach for local GMB pro services. So, that’s something. That’s probably going to be one of the very first things that we launch as like affiliate collateral or assets that you guys will be able to use to go out and resell GMB pro services, okay? Last thing, ERock, I think you had something you wanted to mention?

Eric: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that they’re invited to participate in the free training class that I’ll be having next Monday 4:00 p.m. Eastern. One of the things that we’re going to be doing is inviting you guys to learn what I believe is a critical component for the future of SEO or just marketing, in general, is we talked about influence. So, I’ll just show you one thing that I can show you guys publicly, but if someone is in the area and looking for this specific chiropractor, does anything stand out on the page when people type in the term chiropractor port s, anything stand out or stick out or looks unusual to you guys?

Bradley: Go ahead and reveal it because I’m not going to answer. I already know the answer.

Eric: All right. So, as I continue to type, what do you guys notice that sticks out, out of the blue? So, basically we have discovered a proven way, consistently systematic way to influence Google’s autosuggest results not in multiple ways to do it and so instead of people going and looking for a diversity of results, they come to this page here and they’re overwhelmed with the branded page of results. It’s made a huge impact on this chiropractor’s business and every business that we’ve done it. Bradley beta tested this, was able to get some amazing results for some of his clients. I think he said one of your clients that you went through this with said turn off the leads and handle it.

Bradley: One of my roofing clients, yeah.

Eric: Right? So, I’m going to go into like a free training on how to how to sell SEO services, how to brand your business, how to become a thought leader for helping you to get clients and then I’m going to invite you to learn how to actually influence Google. I call it G hypnosis, how to hypnotize Google to recommend this company’s products and services for people that are looking for that solution or looking for those products and services that’ll solve their problems. So, I’m honored Bradley that you would offer to invite your students and your following to participate in that. I hope it’s going to be a fantastically fun event and we’ll show you how to undress Google.

Bradley: That’s it. So, guys, last I saw a question say … somebody was asking about being able to come to that webinar. Yeah, just if you’re subscribed to any of our email list guys, you’re going to be getting emails from us over the next … between now and Monday inviting you to the webinar. So, just be on the lookout for that, okay? So, listen, hey thank ERock so much for being here man. We really appreciate you coming on and spending an hour with us. We’re really looking forward to hosting you for the webinar on Monday as well.

Eric: Awesome. Thank you, gentlemen.

Marco: Adam says thanks by the way. He’s got internal noise on his end so he cannot mute. For me, thanks a ton man. I learned a whole bunch today. I hope the rest you did too.

Eric: Awesome. Hey, I appreciate that coming from you sir. Your reputation precedes you as well.

Bradley: So does his mouth.

Eric: Yeah. I want to see where the one million profile is.

Bradley: All right guys, thanks everybody for being here. We’ll see you all later. Oh, by the way, mastermind webinar tomorrow for those of you in the mastermind. We got a lot to go over so be there. All right guys, see you.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 198 this post was syndicated