Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Digital Marketing with Andy Seeley
Transcript
- 0:00Think a lot of people get into the weeds when they're trying to please everybody.
- 0:03You wanna please a specific group.
- 0:06You have a lot more access with that and then build your content around that group and how
- 0:10they speak and how they want to see and hear.
- 0:14Hi.
- 0:15This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady host the small Bishop podcast.
- 0:19I want to serve you.
- 0:20This pandemic has been so hard on America's small businesses and on just America in general
- 0:26If you're ready to start your dream business, boy, do I have a great offer for you?
- 0:30I am giving away 1000 copies of my best selling book, become your own boss in 12 months.
- 0:36Over a hundred thousand people have this book.
- 0:39It has been printed in multiple languages around the world.
- 0:41And I wanted to find a way to serve America's small businesses in this pandemic.
- 0:46And so I am giving away a 1000 copies of my book All you have to do to get your copy is
- 0:52head over to beginmybiz.com/freeoffer to, you know, sign up for your copy all you have to do
- 0:59is pay shipping, and we will mail one out to you.
- 1:02I am so excited about this.
- 1:04I wanna serve you.
- 1:05Grab your copy today.
- 1:07Left off.
- 1:09Ending small business failure.
- 1:11Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with the number one small business expert Melinda
- 1:17Emerson.
- 1:18Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
- 1:22you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
- 1:26Now here's the small Biz lady herself.
- 1:29Melinda Everson.
- 1:32Hi, everybody.
- 1:33I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady, America's number one small business expert, and I'd like
- 1:38to welcome you to the small biz chat podcast.
- 1:41The small business owners a peer to peer interview show.
- 1:44They give small business owners a way to get invaluable business advice the mission of small
- 1:50business chat is to end small business failure.
- 1:53The goal of the small business audience the opportunity to hear sage advice from multiple
- 2:01angles so that you can take your business to the next level.
- 2:05Alright.
- 2:06It is time for me to introduce my guest.
- 2:09His name is Andy Sealy, and he is a master in sales and digital marketing having led a number
- 2:15of companies and helped clients achieve success.
- 2:19Andy leads a team of digital marketing Maven as the CEO and co founder of his firm creatively
- 2:25disrupted.
- 2:26Andy's previous experiences have taken him from retail to the publishing world.
- 2:31The Addition's role as CEO, he actively mentors other business owners.
- 2:35More information about him, you can check him out at creatively disruptive dotcom.
- 2:41Andy, welcome to the small business chat podcast.
- 2:44Thank you.
- 2:45Pleasure to be here.
- 2:46Excited.
- 2:46Alright.
- 2:47Where is that at?
- 2:48Sense, Rob.
- 2:49What is your origin story?
- 2:50How did you get to the United States?
- 2:53It's a it's a deep, deep southern accent.
- 2:56It's originally New Zealand.
- 2:58And I arrived here in 1999, April 1999, and met a girl.
- 3:04I was supposed to be here for 6 months and met a girl and 21 years, 22 years later, I'm still,
- 3:11you know, she's now my wife, and I'm still here.
- 3:15Supposed to be on my way to England.
- 3:17It was like a a 6 month stop off in the United States, and it turned into a 22 year 1.
- 3:22Okay.
- 3:23Well, hey.
- 3:23Nothing nothing will make you stay longer than of the girl of your dreams.
- 3:27That's for sure.
- 3:28So tell me, how did you become a sales and marketing guru?
- 3:32It's not something that you kinda, like, decide to do.
- 3:35I think it's more of a communication thing.
- 3:38Right?
- 3:38So I think one of my one of my first job, I I don't like like, using my hands.
- 3:42I like my I have very, very, like, nice, little hands that don't have any calluses and stuff on
- 3:47them.
- 3:48Those sales probably is is is the best space to go.
- 3:52My first job ever actually was a car sales guy.
- 3:55My dad was a ran a car car dealership, and I actually sold some cars.
- 3:59I didn't really do very well, and I wasn't very wasn't very excited about it.
- 4:05But then I got into sports science with a focus on team development and team building.
- 4:09And I learned that sales, you know, sales or convincing or or bringing people along on your
- 4:16plan and understanding what your trying to accomplish is a a real critical part of of team
- 4:21building and and and leading a team.
- 4:23You know, I I do believe any anybody who's a CEO needs to have an element.
- 4:27Any successful one has to have an element of sales and gift of the gap to be able to
- 4:31communicate effectively what the vision is and what your mission is.
- 4:35My first real job in the United States was working for Carmax as a sales manager, And
- 4:40obviously, I learned a lot of stuff from their their processes way back in the day.
- 4:45This is like in, in the early 2000s, when CarMax was still kinda like getting their feet
- 4:50in Circuit City was still around, which Circuit City owed to own them back then.
- 4:53And then I got into some sales training with an amazing sales training process that was all
- 4:59about consulted to the communication, which basically helped people convince themselves
- 5:04needed to do business with you rather than you convincing them of anything, just helping them
- 5:08through, like, consulting them like a, I guess, like, a psychiatrist, through to the decision
- 5:14that you wanted.
- 5:15And and it's just grown through that through all the different businesses that I've run and
- 5:19operated, and I I see it as a critical part of just success, regardless of whether or not
- 5:23you're trying to sell a product, communicating, and explaining yourself in a way that the kids
- 5:28people's buying, I think, is critical.
- 5:31I agree.
- 5:31I agree.
- 5:32So a lot has changed about online marketing, right, especially since the pandemic.
- 5:37Everybody's buying everything online.
- 5:38I mean, even my mom, like, we use this to cart now to get groceries, which is, like, amazing.
- 5:43So tell me how that has complicated things for, you know, the small business owners that are
- 5:48still trying to sort of, like, finish their digital pivot, if you will.
- 5:52I actually think, the pandemic was the best thing that ever happened to online marketing.
- 5:57But, you know, if you wanna call the pandemic a good thing in any way.
- 6:00It's really forced a lot of people because, you know, when we were locked down, we were stuck
- 6:04in our houses, when we couldn't move, our connection with the world are sometimes our way
- 6:09of getting our groceries was through online.
- 6:11And, you know, we we decided following enough last year as one of our small business niches
- 6:16that we wanted to try to see if we could do well at.
- 6:19And it was a little bit of a challenge for my team was I said to the team, I wanna work with
- 6:23California based restaurants, right, during the pandemic, that might seem like a crazy thing.
- 6:30But the reality is those are restaurants that we work with, and we work with probably we
- 6:33ended up working with You know, them all of them did very well with their takeout, and they
- 6:37never sold the takeout.
- 6:39And they would argue that that takeout business that we're able to generate for them kept their
- 6:44heartbeat done whilst they, you know, the majority of their revenue was closed down due
- 6:48to being closed.
- 6:50And, you know, I think basically, if you're not online right now, you're not being seen back in
- 6:56the day, right, you'd see, you know, AAA 111 carpet here, And the reason why people would
- 7:02name themselves that is they wanted to be on the first page on the topic here in the yellow
- 7:06pages.
- 7:07Google in a very real sense is our new yellow page If you if you're looking for something
- 7:11like Melinda, you break out your phone, you probably Google it.
- 7:13Right?
- 7:14So if you're not there, you're not gonna be seen.
- 7:16And I I would say right now, the pandemic, if anything, especially with ecommerce, our
- 7:21ecommerce clients doubled tripled.
- 7:23One of them ten times their revenue during the pandemic, our clients that were more brick and
- 7:29mortar based.
- 7:30Obviously, they struggled because the majority of the revenue was through brick and mortar
- 7:33that was through live interaction with people.
- 7:36But the ones that pivoted to actually find a way to actually produce an online product
- 7:41actually did much better than those.
- 7:42It didn't.
- 7:43And and more importantly, when they reopened, It was like a springboard to get that business
- 7:48back on top quickly.
- 7:50Mhmm.
- 7:51What about b to b folks?
- 7:52Is it is it just about LinkedIn?
- 7:54Like, what what should be to be folks?
- 7:56Because they're used to going out calling on customers, having these sort of, like,
- 8:01introductory meetings where they're listening and finding out the problem.
- 8:04I mean, one of those guys, you know, how his online, you know, really changed for them?
- 8:10I'll give you ourselves as an as an example.
- 8:13We have B2B.
- 8:13Right?
- 8:14Our clients are small businesses.
- 8:15Our clients are ecommerce.
- 8:16Our clients, you know, our our businesses, we get probably 95% of our incoming inquiries, and
- 8:23we don't do a lot of outreach, cold outreach, through Facebook and Instagram.
- 8:28And the reason why that works is the targeting system and audience building that you can do on
- 8:33Facebook and Instagram, Melinda, you're on Instagram.
- 8:36Right?
- 8:36You're on Facebook.
- 8:38You know, most people who are running and operating companies have some kind of Instagram
- 8:42or Facebook account, And I can put my message in front of them every time you go on there
- 8:47just to, you know, tickle you up and get you excited about working with us.
- 8:51And LinkedIn, I think there's still got a little way to go where it will work for
- 8:56everybody with certain types of businesses.
- 8:58I think it's quite effective.
- 8:59The beauty of Facebook is the the flexibility in the in the content driven marketing that it
- 9:07is in a very real sense can really build a brand and really build a sense of what that
- 9:12company is all about.
- 9:13And so from a business to business standpoint, I love Facebook and and Instagram done
- 9:18correctly.
- 9:20Tell me about how you suggest that people make their website into a conversion machine?
- 9:27Think about your audience.
- 9:29I think a lot of people get into the weeds when they're trying to please everybody.
- 9:33You wanna please a specific group.
- 9:36They have a lot more success with that and then build your content around that group and how
- 9:40they speak and how they want to see in here.
- 9:42Right?
- 9:43They The best clients that we have are very specific, and they speak the language of the
- 9:48audience that they're trying to win, you know, the the people that we end up not working with
- 9:52which, you know, the incoming inquiries where there's somebody who started a drop shipping
- 9:56account or something can and are selling tire irons next to car audios next to, you know,
- 10:03lingerie next to cooking equipment, they struggle because there's too many audiences,
- 10:09too many knee too many people, too many different ways of communicating that you need
- 10:13to put together.
- 10:14So I would say think about your niche.
- 10:16Think about who the audience is.
- 10:18Good copy, good content that inspires that specific audience.
- 10:22I think being audience centric is is probably the the the the magic source.
- 10:28I love it.
- 10:29I love it.
- 10:29Alright.
- 10:29So I'm gonna give you 7 marketing terms.
- 10:34And I want you to rank them in order of importance, and I want you to tell me why.
- 10:41Alright?
- 10:42Each one.
- 10:43Each one.
- 10:44Alright.
- 10:44So I'm gonna give you SEO, website, content, social media, Email, mobile, and online ads.
- 11:02SEO is a difficult one.
- 11:03SEO is very different.
- 11:06It's changed over the years.
- 11:07SEO to me is just a well built website.
- 11:09So I'm gonna put that a little bit further down on the category list.
- 11:14I would say I would lead with probably content.
- 11:16If you're not actually speaking the language of your audience, if you're not actually have
- 11:21something that people are interested in, if you're not presenting it away, that's gonna
- 11:24excite them, it's all the rest of it's gonna struggle.
- 11:27Right?
- 11:27So you kinda, like, need to make sure that you've got your I'm gonna say content, that's
- 11:31photography, that's your copy, that's the way you presented, all that good stuff.
- 11:35Second, I I would say making sure that it's very mobile operate.
- 11:40So very mobile friendly.
- 11:42If we got off a bat, we're all on our phones walking into brick walls as we're walking on
- 11:45the street.
- 11:46And we're walking and falling in into manholes and so forth.
- 11:50But we're on our on our mobile phone.
- 11:52If you're not executing well on mobile, you're struggling.
- 11:55So I'd probably put mobile next.
- 11:57I would say your website would be would probably be 3rd on that list.
- 12:01And, obviously, that would be a mix of mobile and, you know, website friendly, you know,
- 12:05desktop friendly and so forth, making sure that the website as well put together and fills
- 12:09people with confidence, confidence is massive, people, if you're gonna ask somebody to give
- 12:13you your credit card number or give them give you a data, they need to trust where that is
- 12:18and and if that's correct.
- 12:19So I'd say website probably in there would be and it would probably be in the website.
- 12:24It would be SEO, but from the point of view of a well built website that the engines are gonna
- 12:28like and and and do business with would be there, then I'll probably go with social media
- 12:34online ads, you know, social media and online ads.
- 12:36So I kinda, like, think of it as kind of where it's hand in hand.
- 12:40One of the beauties of online ads nowadays is our ability, especially with Facebook and
- 12:46Instagram, is how how accurately we can go after the correct audience.
- 12:51So all of that rest of all of the rest of it works best.
- 12:54I can drive a 100,000 on the same kind of person that is really interested in the Linda,
- 12:59it's gonna make it much more likely that you get conversions, right, rather than me just
- 13:03driving a hundred thousand people that don't know anything about you and aren't interested.
- 13:06That's not gonna drive conversion.
- 13:08So online ads, I I would say would kind of be online ads, social media, social media because
- 13:13you kinda need to be on there.
- 13:14If you're not on there, you're not being seen.
- 13:15It's the the billboard.
- 13:17It's the cheapest billboard for a personal business to be a part of, if I'm honest with
- 13:21you.
- 13:21And that's kind of where most small businesses are making their money, I would say, on social
- 13:26media with with online ads.
- 13:29I don't think you generate sales without that online ad component.
- 13:33If I'm honest with you, you need to be getting those consistent online sales through your your
- 13:39online ads.
- 13:40I mean, the email and I don't want email to be diminished because email's really important
- 13:45from an ongoing relationship standpoint.
- 13:48And in reality, it's kind of like a mixture.
- 13:50We don't do business with customers just doing their Facebook ads.
- 13:54We typically will do Facebook ads, Google ads, email marketing, and conversion rate
- 13:59optimization, which is really the new CEO.
- 14:02Master CEO, SEO.
- 14:04And we have them all working together, and they work as a machine that actually can produce
- 14:09massive results.
- 14:10I would always urge people to not just do, say, Google ads without Facebook ads.
- 14:16Google ads is like implore, high intent clients, and Facebook ads can capture them and
- 14:21continue the relationship.
- 14:22So there's there's a whole machine that you need to build.
- 14:25So all of them are very important, but that would be my ranking.
- 14:28Okay.
- 14:28Well, I think that's helpful.
- 14:30Right before we go to break, I gotta ask you, short form video I think is, like, starting to
- 14:35take over social media.
- 14:37What are your thoughts on that?
- 14:38Yeah.
- 14:39Video full stop, long form, short form, short form, because A lot of the platforms are
- 14:45rewarding that kind of stuff, which means the algorithm's gonna give you a little bit more
- 14:49love, but also people just just I mean, I wish it was different.
- 14:53I I love long form conversations.
- 14:56I'm a bit long winded oftentimes.
- 14:58But the reality is, especially on our cell phones, I'm prepared to give you 15 seconds.
- 15:03Right?
- 15:04You're you're absolutely right.
- 15:05I think it's a game changer.
- 15:06And if you can distill what you're trying to get and 15 seconds in lots of different
- 15:11creative ways.
- 15:11I think you have an advantage.
- 15:14Alright.
- 15:14Well, listen.
- 15:15I have really been enjoying talking to you, Andy.
- 15:17We will When we come right back, we're gonna talk more about does everybody need ads?
- 15:23And we will be right back.
- 15:27Hi.
- 15:27I'm Melinda Emerson, small biz lady, and I'm known as America's number one small business
- 15:32expert.
- 15:33I know a thing or 2 about how to run a successful business.
- 15:36I've been running my own for over 20 years, and I'm often asked, how do I actually become my
- 15:42own boss?
- 15:43It starts with knowing what you want and why.
- 15:46Then you need to figure out how you're fun your dream business.
- 15:49Next, you must research your idea and make sure you understand everything that's involved.
- 15:55Next, you must determine your target customer, then complete your business plan.
- 15:59And finally, it's time to start your business as a side hustle first, if you can.
- 16:05I wrote my best selling book become your own boss in 12 months to give you a road map to
- 16:09business success.
- 16:10And over a hundred thousand people in multiple languages around the world have been helped by
- 16:14this book.
- 16:15And now to support people affected by this pandemic, I'm giving away a 1000 copies of
- 16:20becoming our boss in 12 months for free.
- 16:23All you need to do is pay the shipping and handling fees.
- 16:27If you're ready to turn your calling into income, claim your free copy of my book today.
- 16:33Don't delay.
- 16:33This offer is only good while supplies last.
- 16:36Click the button below and get yours before they're all gone.
- 16:41Hi, everybody.
- 16:41Welcome back to the small business chat podcast.
- 16:43I'm here with my guest, Andy Sealy, and we're talking digital marketing.
- 16:48Alright, Andy.
- 16:49You made a comment a few minutes ago that I I had to call you out on.
- 16:52You said that you're really not gonna make sales online unless you're doing ads.
- 16:57So are you saying everybody needs to be buying ads?
- 17:00Is that which is it?
- 17:01You standing on your platform to say that?
- 17:03It's it's about consistency.
- 17:05For me, I'm not into the I'm gonna make a 100,000 this month, and then I'm, and then I'm
- 17:09okay with making 20,000.
- 17:11If I if we get you to a 100,000, we want it to be the month.
- 17:14We want it to be a 110 in the month 120 the month after it's about scaling and consistency.
- 17:20And what we see about online ads is our ability to constantly flow a audience into our machine,
- 17:28right?
- 17:28And, you know, to build our email lists to make sure we've got that traffic on on our pages,
- 17:34you know, having a mixture of Google ads and Facebook ads.
- 17:37So Google is bringing the high intent act of seeking something right this moment, and
- 17:42Facebook being able to remarket and keep capture that audience and keep it in your
- 17:47system for up to, like, 6 months and keep recycling until they buy from you.
- 17:51Only gonna be able to start using those parts of those platforms if you pay, unfortunately.
- 17:56You you got you you're to be able to use the true strength of those platforms you gotta pay.
- 18:00That's how they pay their their people.
- 18:02Right?
- 18:02Google wants you to pay.
- 18:04And that can lead to tremendous assistant results.
- 18:08And when you say everybody need to, like, you know, we've we have clients from ballerina
- 18:14dance schools that just wanna have a 120 kids involved to all the way up to multi $1,000,000
- 18:19online ecommerce clients that are doing, you know, a 1,000,002,000,000 a month in revenue.
- 18:25And All of them are benefiting from it.
- 18:28And, you know, the the difference is the ecomm guy, you know, when he's maybe starting out and
- 18:32testing, he's gotta be spending, you know, a hundred bucks a day or whatever.
- 18:36The little ballerina who's they only wanna market to a little five mile radius around you,
- 18:41which you can do with Google and Facebook and Instagram, They only maybe need to spend 10 to
- 18:45$20 a day to get things going, and it's about getting that interest and getting things going.
- 18:50You gotta think to yourself where do people spend most of their time?
- 18:54Most people who aren't watching TV are not reading, looking at coupon books, they're
- 18:58spending on Facebook, Instagram, and Google.
- 19:01That's where 95% of the eyeballs are.
- 19:03Right?
- 19:04And my wife, I remember once said to me, do you think social media is kinda like the new
- 19:09referral kind of system?
- 19:11And I'm like, you know, as in That's the way people can share information and share, hey,
- 19:15look at this cool thing that I've got.
- 19:17Oh, hey, here's a really cool business.
- 19:18I'm like, absolutely, that's basically what it is.
- 19:20And and it allows us to have some absolute control over our destiny.
- 19:26Most small businesses, I'll wrap it up with this one, most small businesses say to me when
- 19:30they begin, oh, I do really good refer referrals.
- 19:33The best form of advertising is a good referral from a good customer.
- 19:37And I'm like, great.
- 19:38But you're playing in the same pool.
- 19:40What are you doing to build that pool?
- 19:42The way to build that pool is with digital paid advertising in my mind.
- 19:47Alright, Andy.
- 19:47What's the best business advice anyone's ever given you?
- 19:51The best business advice anybody's ever given me would be to never give up.
- 19:56You lose when you've when you give up.
- 19:58Right?
- 19:59You can re strategize.
- 20:01You can pivot.
- 20:02You can change, but don't give the moment you lose is when you give up.
- 20:05I've seen so many businesses through the proverbial digging in the coal miner.
- 20:10Now that far away from the diamonds and they give up because it's just too hard.
- 20:13When if they just stated it a little bit longer, worked at it a little bit harder, they
- 20:17would have broke through.
- 20:18And I don't know anybody that's successful that hasn't had tremendous difficulties that they've
- 20:23had to overcome at some point.
- 20:25And the difference between those that were successful and those that weren't were the ones
- 20:29that just decided I'm gonna knuckle down, and I'm not gonna give up.
- 20:33I'm gonna push through
- 20:34Alright, Andy.
- 20:34What's your favorite podcast?
- 20:36Well,
- 20:37very similar answer to Dory, but I
- 20:39would I actually like
- 20:39long winded, long discussion and I really enjoyed Joe Rogan.
- 20:44I really do.
- 20:45I knew you were gonna say Joe Rogan when you started that.
- 20:49A lot of people on this show have said that What is your favorite business app?
- 20:54My favorite business app business app.
- 20:58Gosh.
- 20:58I don't use a lot of business apps on my phone if you were talking about a phone app.
- 21:02If we're talking about a online SAS type app, I would say what a graph.
- 21:09Watagraf.
- 21:11Okay.
- 21:11Sounds really stupid to say that, but it's a wonderful reporting system that allows you to
- 21:15just do the reporting that the client wants and focus on the things that they need.
- 21:20We're talking about phone apps.
- 21:21I love Facebook and Instagram.
- 21:23Listen.
- 21:24Thank you all for joining me for this episode of the Small Bishop podcast.
- 21:28If you're still working on your digital pivot, be sure to grab my new book, become your own
- 21:32boss in 12 months revise and expand it.
- 21:35I've got all of the great stuff in there that you need, like, how to sell on Amazon, how to
- 21:40buy ads, and how to develop a sales process.
- 21:43You can get your copy today.
- 21:46Head over to become your own boss book dotcom, and I've got some amazing bonuses over there.
- 21:52Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the small business chat podcast.
- 21:57The mission of small business chat is to end small business failure.
- 22:00I'm Melinda Emerson, small business lady, your host.
- 22:03Until next time, remember you never lose in business, either you win or you've learned.
- 22:07Good night, everybody.
- 22:10Thank you for listening to the small biz chat podcast.
- 22:13With Melinda Emerson.
- 22:15For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss dot
- 22:21com.
- 22:22Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.