I got a lot of hate because we ran ads for the Golden State Warriors for five and a half years. I had all these “friends” saying, “You know I’d love a ticket,” and I said no. Then they would say, “But I’m a millionaire.” No. Why would I give a random dude tickets? In the first year we ran ads, they hired a new head of marketing named Kenny Lauer, who was the new CMO. He said, “Dennis, I’m starting this new job and you’re the first person I’m calling because a lot of other marketing people have tried to do social media and run ads but couldn’t get it to work. I’m staking my reputation on this, so I’m really counting on you, buddy, to come in and work some magic here.” I said, “I don’t promise magic, but I promise we do what we do really well, which is find what’s working and amplify it. By looking at the analytics and setting up what we call digital plumbing, we figured out who was buying tickets and who the best fans were. If you build lookalike audiences, even a 1% lookalike audience based on people who buy, provided you have a custom audience pool of at least 200 really high-quality people—not just people who visited the website, but people who’ve actually bought tickets—the work has been done for you because you started with the right initial ingredients.” In that first year, we spent a million dollars and drove $38 million in Ticketmaster revenue, provable in the system. We didn’t care about how many fans, likes, or followers we had. We cared about revenue measurable inside the Ticketmaster system. Ticketmaster had to make several changes to their system because they didn’t have the kind of tracking we were looking for. For example, Ticketmaster had to implement secondary revenue tracking because of us. This meant distinguishing between resale tickets and those sold for the first time. Our games were all sold out, but tickets can be resold multiple times. We tracked the revenue from resale tickets, making significant money. We earned 15 cents on every dollar of resale revenue and remained profitable. We simply amplified what was already working, partly because the team was doing really well, winning NBA championships and similar achievements. I got hate from other agencies saying, “It’s easy for Dennis to be a successful social media agency because he has the Golden State Warriors as a client.” I would respond that we show incremental revenue because of our efforts. The revenue is going up because the team is winning and ticket prices are increasing—which makes it harder for us to sell tickets since the revenue team is raising the prices. When you have a lot of attention, and we had the winning team, the cheerleaders were making videos for us. We got sponsors like WingStop, United Airlines, and Uber; they did all kinds of unique things. I was hoping for Buffalo Wild Wings, but we got WingStop. They initially gave us terrible creatives: coupons like “buy 10 wings, get four free,” and wanted us to run them on our site, Facebook, and other social media channels. I told them it wasn’t going to work. The first year, we did it their way because their brand team wanted to use us like a commercial—we just pushed it out there. The click-through rate was about 0.2%. I said, “You know what we should do? We should have each of the players say what their favorite flavor is—zesty garlic, habanero chili, or honey mustard. Just have each of the players hold up a wing with their favorite flavor, and then you can run your coupon: buy 10 wings, get four free.” It took me two years, but finally, I got them to agree because I showed them the results of the stuff they put out there. I ran it their way because I didn’t want to argue, and we had a contract with them. Then we ran it my way. We got a 2% click-through rate, which was 10 times higher. We were also able to measure how many more people went into the store because we had digital plumbing set up. With Google and Facebook, you can measure how many store visits you have when you run ads, which we were able to tie back to the point of sale. This allows us to see how many repeat customers they are able to get, not just people who came in for the coupon, but also how many people continued to come back. We were running a quasi-agency for several big brands sponsoring the sports team. This was great because I had access to some huge companies’ databases. I got access to them because they wanted to match their CRM, which is called a custom audience, also known as offline conversions, which Facebook and Google still have. For some reason, no one seems to know about this but in retail it’s huge. We did it for Ashley Furniture, the world’s largest furniture manufacturer. We matched these custom audiences and ran offline audiences, measuring store visits. We found that every dollar spent on ads drove $28 million of revenue for Ashley Furniture. And we’re tying to their goals, which is revenue. In the first year of their reports, the Facebook reps said that “you will need to spend $1.5 million – $2 million,” and they did. They ran a bunch of 4th of July blowout sale furniture ads like “come in for free hot dogs’ ‘ and RC Willey kinds of ads. I said those are terrible ads. I even went to RC Willey one time. I’m sure the meat they were using is not even real meat. I told them the reason people buy at Ashley is not because there’s a blowout sale; they buy because of the stories. All of these furniture stores jack up their prices and then offer big discounts, pretending it’s a sale. So,

We had World Gym as our client. They’re the original gym for bodybuilders like Frank Zane and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and they were running professionally shot corporate ads. Their ads weren’t working on TikTok. So I did a search on TikTok for World Gym and saw a bunch of regular people working out at World Gym. They were doing leg raises, stretching, talking about their diet, and even doing exercises the wrong way to make fun of others. These were regular people of all different shapes and sizes—not Mr. Olympia, perfect bodybuilding magazine types—just actual normal people who go to this gym. We took their posts and started boosting them. It brought in new members, just like those people in the videos. Is that a surprise? No, because people will buy from people they trust. This has nothing to do with the internet. So why wouldn’t you leverage that? It’s just another way of saying social amplification. The Social Amplification Engine Our whole six-phase process is called the Social Amplification Engine.   You’re amplifying the social proof and the goodness of what your customer is doing. The better job your clients are doing the easier it is to amplify. So if you’re an agency your biggest issue is choosing the right clients. When you choose clients that are already doing well, amplification is easy.

If you don’t know how to network and you’re afraid of meeting people or you’re getting nervous. You’ll want to know how Jack Wendt networks with high-value people and is now going to become the head of Strategic relations at Caleb Guilliam’s company Better Wealth. He graduated high school last year and went straight to the Army National Guard. He’s in aviation intelligence. He did basic training and learned all the crazy, top-secret stuff. Just 12 days after he graduated, he had no job offer. So, he flew down to the event, hoping to figure something out. And he did. He was with Caleb in Nashville, learning on the job. He told Caleb he wanted to help and learn from him, aspiring to be like Caleb. He wanted to combine his strengths with Caleb’s and improve. It worked out. They created a position for him in Caleb’s company. Jack Wendt says it’s about asking the right people the right questions. A lot of life’s hardships is figuring out who to ask and what to ask. Jack didn’t know Caleb and was at a random event with high-profile business connections. He liked that Caleb is young, innovative, a genius communicator, and great at networking. He wanted to learn how to do that. Once he completes the trial period, his title will be Head of Relations, Operations. It was about asking the right person the right question, focusing on humility, ability, and connection. We’re moving into a world dominated by AI, losing personal touch. That’s why strategic partnerships and personal connections will always matter. AI can’t replicate this unless we have humanoid robots like in Ex Machina. Maybe that will happen someday, but that’s far off. I can Imagine being 19-year-old Jack, trying to build real relationships with high-value people. Seeing someone as high-profile as Caleb would be intimidating. We live in a world that encourages us to be consumers. On TikTok, scrolling is a comfort zone where there’s no judgment or rejection. But to get ahead, you can’t fear rejection. Take the salespeople in Salt Lake City, for example. They spend two years on missions, facing constant rejection. This makes them the best in the world because they learn to embrace rejection and overcome it. Overcoming fear and putting yourself out there is crucial. Everyone has a little voice in their head holding them back, but sometimes you need to push that voice forward. Think about it—what’s the worst that can happen? You have to be more like a missionary. But what if you’re an introvert? What if you don’t have the charisma that Caleb and I have? Are you doomed to fail at building relationships with high-value people? I believe everyone has something to offer. While Caleb and Jack rely on charisma, those traits are learned, not innate. It’s harder for some people, but it’s all about trial and error. Failing is how you grow and learn. Is building high-value strategic relationships better than focusing solely on selling? One of the best ways to scale sales is through word of mouth and personal connections. Having someone vouch for you is invaluable. This is where strategic partnerships come in. Many people have loyal fan bases in niche markets. For example, Jack is currently looking at popular YouTube channels in the fly fishing community. Jack sells life insurance, and many fly fishing enthusiasts are in their target audience. It may seem unusual for a 19-year-old in a life insurance company to collaborate with a fly fishing YouTube channel, but there’s a lot of value in it. By leveraging these partnerships, you can tap into existing communities and build trust with potential clients in ways traditional selling often can’t. Jack’s fascination with watches started at 13. His grandpa had some watches and said, “Jack, I’m about to buy a $4,000 watch. Any money you save me, I’ll give you half.” Jack found that watch for $3,500 and made $250. For a 13-year-old, that was amazing. He thought, “I could do this for people.” At 15, during quarantine, he started flipping watches. He bought a few at a time, starting with a $150 watch. The first watch he bought and sold cost $150. Two weeks later, he sold it for $375. He kept doing that, parlaying his success like in the book Smart Cuts. He didn’t know the concept yet, but he kept growing his money and increasing his margins. With more money, he bought more watches and continued to grow his business. He took a break while he was at basic training, but now he’s working with a partner to launch an e-commerce company. This helps Jack with strategic partnerships because he can approach high-worth individuals and identify their watches. Today, Jack walked up to a guy and said, “Hey, I love your Rolex. Is that a Daytona or a Rolex Explorer 2?” It instantly breaks the ice and gets them interested in what he has to say. It’s an actual conversation where you exchange stuff. There’s so much small talk today, and people are on autopilot, having the same conversation over and over again. Breaking that gets their attention. It doesn’t have to be about watches; it just needs to be something you’re genuinely interested in. Start with a hobby or something you love. Jack didn’t figure out what he wanted to do until halfway through his senior year. He had no clue whether he should go to college, join the military, or go straight to the workforce. All these options felt daunting. He applied to colleges and got into a few, but it didn’t make sense to him. So many people go to college, put themselves in six figures of debt, and not many end up successful. Jack realized that college isn’t always necessary. Education is not bad, and he might still get a college degree, possibly online while working full-time. He just needed options. He joined the Army National Guard. He always wanted to serve, partly because his dad

So, this data leak on the API came out that there are 14,000 variables that Google looks at to determine whether your local service business is Googleable and whether you’re lying in SEO.  As a result, all the “SEO experts” have gone nuts trying to deconstruct the clickstream data, saying things like “the overall domain matters, not just the page,” and “Google’s lying about this and that.”  They think using keywords a certain way, posting on social media frequently, using hashtags, or specific tools will fool Google. They might buy links, use triangular links, cloaking, PBNs, and other tricks. They act like liars trying to appear honest. But think of it as a lie detector test. You and I are honest. We’re not worried about trying to trick the lie detector test. If you’re a plumber in San Antonio and you’re honest about actually doing what you say you do, Google will recognize it and it will manifest in great reviews and an increased number of people visiting your site. The way Google picks up on your signals is outlined in their 170-page document that is updated regularly. It’s called the Search Quality Raters Guidelines. Reading this document can be enlightening. It explains what E-E-A-T means and how to demonstrate experience, expertise, authority, and trust. Showing evidence of your work, like videos of your team performing tasks, reviews, and other activities, supports your authenticity. This evidence should be visible on various platforms like blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more. Google’s Knowledge Graph connects all these elements. It’s a vast database where everything is connected. In Google Analytics, you can track user behavior, such as the content they click on, the videos they watch on your YouTube channel, and their interactions with your social media presence. All these signals will be consistent if you’re a genuine business. When we are honest, we don’t have to worry about the constant changes: it’s timeless. Google has simply become more sophisticated in approximating these different signals. Danny Leibrandt discussed this in a podcast with Greg Gifford, who also confirmed our views – it’s all about signal analysis. It involves combining all these elements rather than trying to trick the lie detector test with how you breath, how you blink, the words you say, how often you say certain words, your movements, and more.  Just be honest, if you want your SEO to be timeless. Now, here’s how you can understand the impact of AI:  We see new technology every ten years or so. For example, there has been the word processor, WordPress, PHP, or something like a calculator that allows you to do more things. These tools don’t eliminate jobs – at least, not at first.  Because when you have a calculator, it means that people who understand math or accounting can do their jobs better. With the right tools, someone who’s already competent can work ten times better and faster. But if you don’t know accounting, having all the tools and calculators won’t help you at all.  Similarly, if you are an agency using AI tools to generate content without the necessary expertise in SEO, digital marketing, or video editing, you’re in trouble. I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. Agencies that are just in it for the money will eventually find themselves out of business. You need hands-on experience doing a certain thing, before AI can make your work more valuable.  So, what does this mean for all of us?  It comes down to the same timeless principles. Look at the Vatican Museum here.  This place has items on display that date back over 2,000 years.  We were at the Colosseum yesterday, which was built around 80 AD, roughly 50 years after Jesus. That place has practically been here forever.  So, what is timeless about SEO and digital marketing? If you do good work – fixing toilets, roofs, lawns, buying and selling houses, taking care of pets, and other local services – you need someone to collect those signals. This is essential for gathering more reviews and increasing conversions from systems like CallRail, Service Titan, Angie’s List, Housecall Pro and Salesforce.com. All these systems pull in CRM data that needs to be pushed back to platforms like Facebook, Google, and TikTok. There is a technical component and a process component in your operations to collect all this content. This includes training your technicians to take photos of their jobs and more. Ironically, in the world of AI, there’s an even greater need for agencies.  However, these agencies shouldn’t just act like sales bros, focusing 90% of their efforts trying to close more deals without delivering.  Instead, they should shift 90% of their focus to delivery – actually getting the work done through a sophisticated process involving VAs who use technology. So, what I’ve been working on as a search engine engineer over the last couple dozen years is: How do we automate this at scale? We have lots of agency owners working under industry figureheads like Roger Wakefield for plumbing, Glenn Vo for dentists, or Jeremy Newman for restoration companies.  Because all the restoration companies will trust a “Jeremy.” All of the pool builders will trust Nilson Silva because he’s one of them – at the top of their industry.  Below the industry figure head is an agency owner or multiple agency owners. Below them is an army of VAs who use our tools and follow our processes, which we openly share and to which anyone can contribute. It’s not a secret sauce. I am working on building the necessary tools to empower local business owners, allowing them to see their stats.  For instance, if you’re a landscaper like Anthony Hilb, running a $10 million landscaping company, you should be able to see all your stats instead of just trusting a marketing company’s word. You should have access to your data just like a doctor has access to an MRI or a person uses a scale. I want everyone to see

I was with Darryl when he got a $10 million trucking accident case. It was 2:00 AM. We were hanging out when he got a message on Facebook. It was from a mother whose one-year-old child had been killed by a truck. She was distraught. She didn’t know what to do, but she had seen Darryl on TV and messaged him on Facebook. He actually replied, saying, “I’m so sorry. What happened? How can I help?” They got on the phone, and she explained the whole situation. Darryl said, “Ma’am, don’t worry about the legal thing. We can take care of that next week. Right now, I want to make sure you’re okay. Can I send you some food? Can I take you to the hospital? Can I do something for you? Can I send one of my people to help you right now?” And it’s 2 in the morning. Can you imagine somebody else doing this? “I understand your grief and that all this stuff is happening.” He added, “How can I be of service to you?” In that Facebook message, he said, “Here’s my personal cell phone number.” That’s when they got on the phone and started talking. Imagine that—something like that is worth $10 million. But she wasn’t calling all the other personal injury attorneys. She called Darryl because she said, “I feel like I know you. We’ve never talked before.” And I’ve seen Darryl give out his cell phone number dozens of times. He shows me his screen time on his iPhone and he averages 20 hours and 3 minutes a day, meaning he sleeps less than 4 hours a night. And it means he has the worst phone addiction I’ve ever seen. Over the last 30 years, his firm, Isaacs & Isaacs, has helped 60,000 people through some of the worst moments of their lives. “Hey, I’m nobody special. I’m just Darryl,” he says. He calls me when I’m on the way to his house, saying he’s going to the grocery store. “What can I get you?” he asks. And when I get to the house, the fridge is full of yummy things I like to eat. He got everything on the list, even asking the clerk to find my favorite junk foods. He’s one of the best-known attorneys on the planet. Even the lawyers that have done billions clamor to get coaching in his group.  I Googled him before meeting (don’t we all do that?) and saw he had a bunch of Super Bowl commercials, some with 15 million organic views. They were cheesy  When we went to the University of Kentucky basketball game, the head coach and players came up to him to chat. We got to go to the locker room, see the facilities in a way that fans can only dream of. I have spent months trying to figure out his secret. Is this just a big act? Maybe he’s putting on a good show like your favorite actor. But it turns out, his strategy is just to make everyone feel special.

I used to get super frustrated when I put out a killer podcast episode, but it didn’t get any views. So I tried getting fancy cameras and microphones, but it didn’t help. I tried hiring video editors of all types– short-form agencies, VAs, and consultants– did little. I thought maybe my guests weren’t high profile enough– nope. I’ve interviewed “A” list of celebrities and the top people in multiple industries. Maybe I needed killer copywriting or social media experts—nada. They just took my money and promoted more coaching and courses. Finally, I figured it out. You need to repurpose that Podcast episode into YouTube, blog posts, and social media snippets. And then run Dollar a Day against that guest’s audience. So, if I do a podcast with Roger Wakefield, who is well-known among plumbers, I’ll boost that episode for $1 a day against people who follow Roger Wakefield. What channel should you boost to, you ask? The one where he has the most traction—so the answer is not always Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever. The main point here is to amplify against an already engaged audience instead of trying to build from zero. I’m a nobody, relative to my guests– so it’s so much less effort and frustration to boost to their audiences. If you’re a “nobody” and trying to sell services to a particular niche, why pursue the “money bro” path of spamming the planet with big promises when you can build relationships with the LIGHTHOUSE that folks in your niche respect? Here’s how I test whether my co-created content (aka, podcast) is working. I Google that guest’s name + my name. Then see what shows up– the YouTube, article link, tweets, Instagram, etc… Whatever is doing best, I put more effort into (create related content, chop up more pieces) and also boost for $1 a day. But most of you are so busy trying to produce more content (stage 1 of the 4-stage Content Factory) that your content never gets to repurposing (stage 2), posting on multiple channels (stage 3), or boosting (stage 4). If you’re too busy to handle stages 2-4, then hire a VA to do it (who is qualified via our training) or have a young adult who runs an agency do it for you. Hint: your time and my time is worth more than $3 an hour, so we should stay within stage 1– to be making videos with key people in our community, while delegating out stages 2-4. Do you have your Content Factory in place? If showing up in Google is important to you… And you are in home services? And you are doing at least $80,000 a month? And you have at least 100 reviews at 4.5 stars? I can recommend agencies who can help you. Each one specializes in one vertical– pest control, plumbing/HVAC, pool building, landscaping, roofing, and so forth. If you are not in a Google LSA category, you can still go through our training and learn how, plus buy coaching from me.

If you’re an SEO geek, you’ve probably been buzzing and gossiping about Google’s latest core update, which completed its rollout on March 20, 2024, after its initial release on March 5, 2024. Some people’s sites were destroyed or even completely delisted. There are many interesting technical tidbits to discuss regarding what happened — fodder for hours of discussion. But if you’re a business owner, let me tell you that you can safely ignore every single one of these updates. Why?  Because these updates are about how Google is getting smarter at detecting spam, such as expired domains, scaled content, and other techniques used by some SEO “experts” attempting to trick Google. They’ll argue about how Google inconsistently enforces the rules. And one prominent SEO expert even claims that everything Google says is a lie. Of course, that’s click bait to attract his fellow SEO experts, as they adjust their techniques to evade Google’s spam traps. The Power of Authentic Content For the rest of us, publishing “helpful content” is enough. “Helpful content” is a deep phrase that Google uses, consistent with their EEAT guidelines, where the first “E” stands for “Experience.” It genuinely demonstrates that we actually do what we say we do, in the city we say we do it. Having a strong personal brand is important. It’s not about what you say about yourself, but about highlighting the expertise and success of customers and team members through real stories.  These stories ideally start as pictures and videos and are accessible on social media and websites. This approach positions your company as trustworthy in Google’s eyes, since you’re generating “EEAT” content. When these authentic stories of your experience are repurposed across multiple channels and promoted, as we teach in the Content Factory process, Google receives a legitimate signal of who you are. Google records click behavior to determine whether users like your content—and even how long they watch your videos. “CTR manipulation”is when someone uses bots from disguised IPs that repetitively perform searches and click on your links, to make it appear as though humans prefer your content in the search results) So, while the SEO “experts” play those tricks thinking they are smarter than the AI, we, on the other hand, have real traffic from real humans who actually find our content useful and relevant to their searches. I hope this simplifies SEO for you—since there are a lot of people confidently selling a lot of nonsense, making you believe that it’s some mystery that only an expert like them can help you with. Source: LinkedIn Post (March 6, 2024)

Here’s my super quick and powerful method to test the effectiveness of my podcast. >>For any guest that I’ve ever interviewed, I search for their name. If my article appears in multiple ways (YouTube, articles, social snippets), then we’ve repurposed it correctly. >> If it doesn’t show up, then search for that person + my name. If they are well-known or prolific, we may be competing against thousands of other videos and pieces of content. But if our SEO is strong, we should still rank near the top of their name. See the screenshot below of me and Shep Hyken, the #1 customer service speaker. I have him on my Topic Wheel since I want to be topically associated with him. As you can see, here are examples of podcasts I did with him that show up after a search; >> If the content still doesn’t show up in Google, then troubleshoot where things went wrong in the 4-stage Content Factory. Usually, if it’s not there, it’s because a VA sat on the content and didn’t publish it. Maybe it got held up in QA because of grammatical errors, quality issues, or us not reassigning to someone else (if that VA was fired). >> If your content is doing really well, then it will rank on the keyword that makes you money. For example, Kim Butler (Founder, Prosperity Thinkers) ranks on “Dave Ramsey” related terms to sell more whole life insurance policies. So, we help her get more traffic on such searches by creating more content like this and linking to our existing winners (to push them up). The 4-stage Content Factory is the way forward to producing content that drives business results– not the “old way” of producing as much content as possible, but being able to focus on what’s working and getting more out of existing winners. Most people are so busy trying to keep up with producing content that they don’t evaluate content performance, troubleshoot why, and then continue to optimize winners. What do you think?