Latest / The Life-First Solopreneur / 05. Top Tips for Creating a Stellar Website For Your One-Person Business With George B. Thomas
Transcript
- George B Thomas (00:00): That you will go from, I think I'm doing this good as a One-Person business to "I'm on fire" Intro (00:08): Bigger. Doesn't always mean better. Welcome to the One-Person business podcast where people who are flying solo in business, come for specific tips and advice to find success as a company of one, here are your hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries. Joe Rando (00:25): Hello and welcome to the One-Person business podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Joe Rando. Carly Ries (00:31): I'm Carly Ries. Joe Rando (00:33): And today we have a show that I'm just so excited about. This is a person that I feel like I know him, because I've been watching his YouTube videos for a long time, and he's just fantastic, passionate about what he does. He is going to really blow people away with regard to his insights into developing websites. He does website work for large companies, but is also very capable of talking about the One-Person business. His name is George B. Thomas. He is currently an inbound evangelist at Impulse Creative. He's a HubSpot certified trainer with 13 certifications, which is a lot. Carly Ries (01:17): More than that, right? George B Thomas (01:19): Yeah. It's more than that. Now it's actually a 34 at this point. Joe Rando (01:23): You gotta update your LinkedIn, then 34 George B Thomas (01:26): I'm too busy getting certifications to update my LinkedIn Joe Rando (01:34): He likes teaching and developing solutions for companies who want to work hard and grow. Before that he was at the Sales Lion with Marcus Sheridan, a name that I'm sure a lot of you have heard. He was a HubSpot, Inbound Video Jedi. So using the force, which is awesome. And, I do have it on good account that he is also known as Big Easy. George B Thomas (02:01): Oh, wow. Joe Rando (02:03): Again, your LinkedIn profile tells a lot. He is just a really great person to help you understand your options, opportunities and gotchas with respect to developing a website for your One-Person business. So with that lengthy introduction, say hello to George B. Thomas. George B Thomas (02:24): Yeah. I'm excited to be here. Joe and team, you guys did great. I love the LinkedIn. I am gonna go update that for sure. But Big Easy, I haven't heard that in so many years. That was a little nickname back in Wild Boy Design which was the beginning of my journey into HubSpot, which is funny, but also, the fact that you brought that up is when I was a designer and a developer, before I turned into a marketer. So that's kind of going to give some context to the rest of our conversation and websites and development and being a One-Person business and what you should focus in on. Joe Rando (03:07): Very good. Why don't we just get started here and dig into some of the questions and things that we'd like to talk about today. To start with George, can you talk a little bit about what are the most important things that solopreneurs and freelancers specifically need to think about when addressing, building and hosting their website? George B Thomas (03:27): First of all, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the number one thing as a solopreneur you need to think about is security. At the end of the day, if you were to get hacked, if your site was to go down the amount of time that you would have to spend on getting it back up or talking to the company that built it for you, or if you built it yourself, actually finding the files that you hopefully backed up, not to mention the stress level of what would be happening in your life. So security is definitely the number one thing that you need to think about . If you're hosting on a cheap platform, if you're not paying attention and updating plugins on a CMS that you may be using, none to be named at this point, maybe later in the podcast episode. Joe Rando (04:17): Just to clarify, CMS stands for content marketing system. George B Thomas (04:22): Beautiful, content management system is a CMS. Yes. I, I have fallen prey to the acronym beast, have I not? So yes, a content management system, something that you're using to build your website. Hopefully your past just a regular HTML based, hopefully you're using something that enables you to, as I go into my next point, scalability. Meaning something that you can create pages and scale your business as needed with ease. Something that is a content management system is going to allow you to do that versus having to hard code something the entire time. So we have security, we've got scalability and then ease of use, is definitely going to be something that is very, very important. So again, some content management systems are gonna give you plugins or systems that you can use that make things like drag and drop. You're gonna be able to add additional modules. As a one man band, male or female, you're gonna want to be able to be creative, be flexible, be able to build what should be an experience for your readers, for your prospects, for your customers. So security, scalability, ease of use. Those are things that I would be paying attention to if I was a one man band or one woman band when it comes to my website. Joe Rando (05:57): Also, I'm sure most people, especially the ones getting started, are going to be looking at cost as a factor. And there are some very affordable solutions out there. And there are some more expensive solutions, but I have a feeling that like most things in the world, there is going to be a little bit of, you get what you pay for. George B Thomas (06:15): Yeah. I definitely agree with that. And I'll tell you, there are places to save money and there are places not to save money. Let me just throw this in here real quick. Just so everybody knows that the intro talked about how we develop websites for large companies, medium companies. I have my own personal website, right? Because in essence, I am also a One-Person business when it comes to the speaking side of what I do. You can go to GeorgeBThomas.com and you can see that I do speaking and emceeing and that type of stuff. That's totally separate from what we do at Impulse Creative as far as agency services and things like that. So I want everybody on this episode to realize I play in both sides of the field here. George B Thomas (07:12): So when I say there's a time to save money and a time to not worry about saving money, when it comes to your website, you have to realize that this is your 24 7 conversation starter. This is your 24 7 sales representative. This is your 24 7 user experience educational content machine. That is not the place where you save money. It is the place where you want to make sure that it's secure, that it's always there for you, that you can be creating content, you can be helping people, they can be contacting you. So trust me, I lived in the world where I was like, oh, I'm gonna pay for $9 and 99 cent hosting. I'm going to get this free template. I'm going to get this $14 thing. I don't live in that world anymore because of things that I talked about earlier, security, scalability. I literally, as an individual, as a One-Person business on the speaking and emceeing side, I'm willing to pay hundreds of dollars a month to have a secure website that is easy to manage, easy to create a process, easy to communicate with those who are looking for the services that I provide Carly Ries (08:38): Joe, during the postproduction of this podcast. Can we insert an applause clip to go behind George, as he's speaking that whole time or switch to a video podcast so people can see my standing ovation right now. Joe Rando (08:52): Amen. George B Thomas (08:53): To be honest with you, people should be applauding. People should be having a standing ovation because what I don't want people who are listening to this episode to think of when they think of their website is, oh, I gotta get a brochure up. I gotta get a one and done up. I've got to get this thing out there. Your website should always be growing. It should be this thing that as you grow, as you educate yourself, you're educating your community. As you educate yourself you're providing new services, new products. Think of it like you're on a journey to 1% better each and every day. You should be on a journey to make your website 1% better each and every day. And by the way, on the cheap option of this, it's gonna be very hard to AB test, to know how you're gonna make that website better. George B Thomas (09:53): It's gonna be very hard to have the analytics, the data that you can make the right decisions on what color that button should be. Trust me, just because you like green, doesn't mean that that button should be green. There's data that will tell you what that button will convert at a higher rate. So again, like applaud stand, pay attention to data, pay attention to testing, pay attention to spending enough money that allows you to do all of these things that I'm painting that your website should be doing for you versus just a static brochure website. Joe Rando (10:29): That's really interesting. The whole concept of AB testing. You're saying having the same webpage with a red button and a green button and seeing which one gets more clicks is the kind of thing that you're referring to here. Is that correct? George B Thomas (10:43): Absolutely. I want everybody who's listening to this to know that I'm going way past a color of a button, right? Maybe it's a title as a question versus a title as a statement. Maybe it's bullet points as a features or bullet points as benefits. Maybe it is the color of the button. Heck maybe it's actually the image that you use in your hero section. If somebody sees you smiling and pointing or somebody sees you kind of frowning and a thumbs up, maybe that image actually makes a difference for the conversion on that page. Or, by all that is holy in 2021, 2022 and beyond, maybe it's AB testing a video versus an image on a landing page for your ebook guide, checklist, webinar, insert, whatever offer you're creating here so that you can see, what does my audience resonate with. Joe Rando (11:45): That's awesome. It's so true because you just don't know what's going to work for the masses. I, in my later years, have come to understand that things that I like don't necessarily translate into things that most people like. It can create the perfect whatever for me, but it's only gonna be for me. So great advice. Thank you. Joe Rando (12:13): The next question is what are some common mistakes you see people make most specifically in One-Person companies? I think you've kind of covered some of that. I'm guessing security is one of them. Is there anything else you see people doing wrong that maybe we haven't talked about yet? George B Thomas (12:30): Definitely. By the way, in this next section, I am not trying to be a Debbie downer on anything that you're doing with your website, but if you go to your website and you start to read the copy. By the way, this is my starting point. We'll probably talk about more things that you're doing wrong, but it's alright. I believe in you. If I mention these things, you'll be able to fix them in the future. But if you go to your website and you start to read the copy and it's talking about what we do and I can do this thing, and it's talking more about you and less about them, meaning if you don't see the word you and your, we help you and your company do these things for your growth for your strategy because you... Speaking of that, if you don't have at the top of your website, who you do business for, like your ultimate X, Y, Z, for this, in this place, like a you statement, so people immediately know they're in the right place. George B Thomas (13:36): What I'm all leaning into here is the copy of your website has to be focused on the reader, the prospect, the user. Everybody on the planet lives by, what's in it for me. If your website doesn't tell them, this is what's in it for you, This is why you want to use my One-Person business to fix your ABC, X, Y, Z, that's broken, then change your copy yesterday. Use you and your, tell story, add value, and really lean into being passionate about servant. What I'll call servanthood, when you're enabling those humans to start a conversation with your business. Joe Rando (14:32): Awesome. It's so true. You see so many websites and it's I, me, and it doesn't resonate to the reader. The other thing you're saying that is kind of coming back to some stuff we've talked about in other programs is, this notion of defining who it is that you're really talking to and who you're making your offer to. Because if it's too broad, you get no one. George B Thomas (14:57): Yes. Joe Rando (14:57): You have to basically define your market position and who is your customer and who isn't. The more you can do that in a way that makes sense for the market and for you, the more wins you're gonna get. George B Thomas (15:11): Let's go a little deeper in there. By the way, I have about two other things that I want to try to hit in this section before we move on. Let's go deeper in that number two thing that I see people doing wrong. They don't know who they're talking to, right? So they're talking about themselves and they don't know who they're talking to. I want everybody to realize when I say that, what I'm saying is you don't have either an ideal client profile company level in place that you know, that you help these types of companies, or even down to the level of, you don't have a buyer persona. Some people will call it an avatar. I don't care what you call it, but you should know that you're helping Mickey, the marketer or Sammy, the sales guy with these three problems with your products and services. George B Thomas (16:00): It should be that level. You should know that you're helping IT Ivan with this problem. IT Ivan is so stressed out because all of the bank tellers are always asking him to help fix this problem that they have, that he's actually educating himself in the back alley while he is trying to smoke a cigarette so he can have five minutes of peace. If you don't have five minute content that Ivan can actually lean into, how do you even think you're gonna get on his radar as a One-Person business? You've gotta know these people at an intimate level. The second thing I want to hit, and I'm sure we'll probably dive back into that whole persona thing, but I have to say this because it's the worst thing that I see happening on websites in marketing and sales strategies. George B Thomas (16:50): At one point , a One-Person business is gonna be, "You know what, if I just run some ads to my website, then everything's gonna be okay and they're just gonna come flooding in." Then we'll see them run ads and they'll run ads to their homepage, or they'll run ads to their about page or to a product page. But yet that product page or service page doesn't have a form where somebody can convert and start a conversation. So the third thing that if you're listening to this right now, if you are running ads, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and you are running that ad to a place where they cannot convert immediately on something that adds value to their life, PAUSE. Ask yourself why you're doing that, and if it would make more sense to at least test only running ads to a page where they can convert, start a conversation, and you could do some type of communication afterwards, 1, 2, 3 emails after that, to get them to look at your homepage, to look at your about page, to be like a tour guide, if you will, or to even dive deeper into the product of service that you provide around that place, where they convert it again. Maybe it's an ebook guide, checklist, webinar, add your offer in that you're doing here. George B Thomas (18:19): That's the thing. Personas, ideal client profiles, paying attention to the ads are going to pages for conversion. Those are some pieces I would hope that they're unpacking the problems that they might be making that I've seen historically. Joe Rando (18:34): Just to talk about that concept of the conversion, these offers aren't just engaging people. They're building trust, right? I mean, people go in and you give them an ebook or something that makes their life easier, gives them information that they were seeking, now they look to you with a more positive bent, right? George B Thomas (18:53): Joe, you are hitting on the magic secret sauce of doing business in the world that we live in right now. It's funny at the beginning of the intro, you're like, I feel like I know him, YouTube videos. There is a magical thing about creating content, whether it has a conversion point on it or not, that builds reciprocity and with reciprocity comes trust and what everybody needs to realize, by the way, these are not my words. I heard this for the first time when I worked for Marcus Sheridan at The Sales Lion, we are all in the business of trust. If you can gain the trust, you can sell any product or service that you have to provide. Joe Rando (19:38): Let's keep moving on here. I just want to ask you if you had one thing, just pick one of these things that you want a person flying solo in business to take away today, what would that be? I know there's probably 10, but if you had to pick one, what would be the one big one? George B Thomas (20:00): It's like asking me to choose my favorite child right now. It's really difficult. There are so many things that one needs to think about, but I will tell you, I'm gonna go in a little bit of an even different direction than what we've talked about. I think all the things we've talked about are important, but I want to lean into, I hope the one thing that people would do is realize that they need to be as human as possible. If there is a way that they can focus on themselves being the most human as possible and making their website feel as human as possible, then they're gonna be able to lean into actually helping the humans that will end up on those pages. What I mean, if I drill down to a very finite point here is, when most people, One-Person business owners, hear the word form, they hear the word conversion and conversion is a cold marketing term. Conversion equals metrics and analytics and data and insights. George B Thomas (21:21): And it's not really that human. I hope when I say, think about how you can be the most human One-Person business, think about how you can have the most human one-person website that when I say you have the most human forms, instead of conversions, you think of conversations because these eBooks, these guides, these checklists, these webinars are conversation starters that allow you to get people into your ecosystem, that you can build a relationship with. They can see how human you are. They can then trust you and they want to lean in and have you provide the mentorship, the servanthood, the product, the service, the journey that they need to fix, the problem that is stopping them from being successful at this point, Joe Rando (22:25): You're reminding me of something I'm going through right now. I'm working with, I think it's a One-Person business, not a hundred percent sure, but a gentleman that produces a template for HubSpot. He's just incredible, his website, his interactions via email is also human. I have such a positive view on this guy. I've only been dealing with him for probably a week and yet I'm a big fan already. And what you're saying speaks right to that. The aspect of having a website that, you know it's a person, you know it's somebody that cares about what they're presenting and what they're doing and their work. And then to have that kind of responsiveness that shows you're really passionate. It just makes such a difference in terms of building that trust that you were referring to earlier. George B Thomas (23:19): Here's the thing, I want everybody to know that being human, it's hard. It's not easy, especially in a digital space that we're in. Right? Think about this. Everybody portrays perfection, social media, perfection. You want your website not to launch until it's perfect. We're all trying to be shiny and polished. Being human is not shiny and polished. Being human is like real, and down and dirty. And you've got the scars and all the stuff that's being human, right? It's not needing to have a persona or a facade. It's like, no, this is who I am. So for instance, when I talk about your website being human, it's being vulnerable. You, especially as a One-Person business, have to enable your ability to be a vulnerable and authentic. I'm not using those as buzz words, I'm using those as actual things that you need to do. George B Thomas (24:34): For instance, if you were to go over to GeorgeBThomas.com, and this is all about professional speaking and emceeing, and you'd think it has to be really polished. Of course, this guy has communication background. And you just want it to be all of these things, right? If you go to the about page and you read the copy, you're gonna see that it simply says, I've spoken at events with thousands of attendees. I've trained corporations who have gone on to earn millions of dollars. I have 30, Hey, I need to update my website too. Joe, I have 30 HubSpot certification from some HubSpot academy. Almost everyone they offer. I've created thousands of marketing and sales videos. And, I'm a high school dropout. Hi, I'm George. That right there is like, oh my God, who is this person? I know I'm talking about myself, but if One-Person businesses can lean into who they truly are, if they can evoke an emotional response by the people who hit their pages, it will far outweigh anything else they try to do from a tactic or a strategy because they hit them in the heart Joe Rando (26:00): Again, building trust. I mean, when someone is vulnerable with you, when they open up to you, you trust them more. I love this. I knew this was gonna be good, I didn't know it was gonna be this good. Carly Ries (26:16): I've been quiet this whole time because I've been looking for the applause track. George B Thomas (26:20): That's funny. I love it. Joe Rando (26:22): So George let's get specific. Can we talk a little about platforms? What are the alternatives, the realistic alternatives for a One-Person business. This could be anyone from a solopreneur trying to do something they're going to eventually sell for a lot of money to, you know, someone like my sister, that's a freelance photographer. And, she does weddings and bar mitzvahs. She's not trying to get rich. A lot of our listeners are just people that are trying to live the life they want to live. Be their own boss and make a decent living. Can you talk a little bit about the specific platforms and what they might want to consider as alternatives and maybe some that they should not want to consider as alternatives. George B Thomas (27:07): Yeah. I'll be careful, right? Because you might be listening to this and, we've already leaned into the fact that I'm HubSpot guy and is HubSpot for everybody? No. Well, not the CMS HubSpot itself. If you're trying to run a business and you need a customer relationship manager, CRM. Yeah, HubSpot is for you. If you need some tools for sales, marketing service, Yeah, HubSpot is for you. But when we talk about the content management system, the CMS, is HubSpot for everybody, maybe not. When I think about this journey that I've been on for over the last 20 years, God, that makes me feel old. But on this journey of 20 years of being a designer, developer turned into marketer, I see there's a reason for Wix. I see that there's a reason for SquareSpace, things like that. George B Thomas (28:06): Out of those, like on the internet, build it on your own. I'm cool with Squarespace. You can do a lot of really cool things with that. Would it ever be my platform of choice? No. I feel like I may have graduated from that. I feel like many of the listeners as a One-Person business may be at a point where they're thinking about graduating from that. Notice I didn't say that I would ever use Wix. That's where I'm gonna leave that conversation alone. Wix doesn't even have a great integration with HubSpot to be able to use HubSpot forms. If I did want to use that as my marketing tool, Squarespace I at least can. Anyway, when I think of the two platforms I would even start to pay attention to as a One-Person business, by the way, I'm not going into, if I'm enterprise and all of the content management systems I could use as an enterprise user or as a small to medium size business, there's a different level here. George B Thomas (29:04): But as a small One-Person business, for me, there are two options and there are some micro options in one of those main two options. Number one, WordPress is not a bad gig. I You can get up and running. You can use something like Elementor and you can easily design in a drag and drop system inside of WordPress. A couple of things you'll wanna pay attention to is you might want to use WP engine for a decent hosting. That's gonna be more secure. One of the things you're going to want to think about is, have as minimal amount of plugins as you can. You're gonna want to think about how can I make sure those plugins are always up to date because that's where the vulnerability lies. You're going to want to think about how can I have a system that every week or every month is backing up that website. George B Thomas (29:55): So God forbid anything happens. I do have a plan. There's a method to my madness. If I do end up in that crazy world of being hacked, that it's back up in minutes, not back up in days. Because the amount of money you lose in days is not even something you ever want to measure. So WordPress it's doable. I did it for years. I used WordPress four years and one of the things I love about WordPress is there is a really deep, great integration with HubSpot, the sales, marketing service, CRM tools, to be able to use WordPress. I love that you can blog on WordPress. There's just so much that you can do there. So that's option one. If I'm a One-Person business and I'm thinking about my website and being able to do some really cool stuff, I might go in that direction. George B Thomas (30:48): The other side of this is HubSpot CMS and there are really three different levels to that conversation. It's funny cuz you mentioned your sister, who's a photographer and just trying to live a life of I just need a place where I can start those conversations. I just need a place where I can build a couple of pages that tell my story. That type of thing. You literally have the CMS starter for those super small websites. One-Person business just need to get the basics done. Need only a single blog. By the way, when I say blog, I don't care if you blog. I do care if you educate your prospect, I do care if you educate your customer. I hate the word blog. So just know, a place where you can educate the humans around the things that you do and how you make their life easier. George B Thomas (31:45): Then you could do HubSpot CMS starter. What I want everybody to know out of the box is that immediately means you've got an entire security team behind you. That immediately means you have a system that has drag and drop capability. It means you have a system where you could use one of HubSpot's themes or you could buy inexpensive or some expensive, depends which one you pick, themes that allow you to do all of your website design. Zero code needed. It's all drag and drop. It's all change the colors here, change the fonts there, very user friendly at this point, which is a brand new conversation in the last year to year and a half that we can have around HubSpot that we couldn't have before. Zero code and super easy. Now me personally, I think most of the people that are gonna listen to this are going to be, Hey, you know what? George B Thomas (32:45): I'm already paying 20, 30, $40 for hosting. I'm already paying this a month for this plugin or this thing. They might be up in the 150 $200 range a month to have their website rolling. If that's you, if you're listening to me right now and you're like, yep, check. Got it. Then the CMS pro HubSpot CMS pro might be for you,. It's literally like $300 bucks a month, maybe 400 by the time you listen to this. I don't know how the shelf life or like you're just stumbling across this podcast cuz you're just starting a business and it's 2024. But at the time of this recording, $300 a month and you've got that security. You've got that ease. You've got that scalability. You've got those conversation starters. You've got that blog or blogs. You've got those call to actions. You can build that journey. All of the things that I historically talked about that you'd want to do right there. Again, authentic vulnerable, let's have a conversation George. As a One-Person business doing speaking and emceeing, I literally have HubSpot professional CMS. I've got marketing starter, sales starter and service starter because with those three starter packages and the pro CMS, it gives me everything that I need as a One-Person business. Joe Rando (34:10): And I think that starter bundle is like $45 a month or something. George B Thomas (34:16): And here's the thing, what they should do listening to this is, you should actually see if there's the starter grow suite. When you're talking to sales by the way, always ask for a discount. People no matter who you're talking to or where you're trying, always always ask. I mean, all they can do is say no. But I would say, "Hey, if I was to purchase Mr. HubSpot sales rep, the CMS pro and I wanted to get the sales marketing and service starter packs, what's the best you could do for me?" That's the conversation I would have. If you buy them out of the box, I think they're like 50 bucks a pop. If you start to buy them in combination, I think you're right Joe, maybe 45 or something like that. But I know I've seen it lower. That's what I'll say. Joe Rando (35:06): Always ask George B Thomas (35:08): without a doubt. Joe Rando (35:10): So very good. I guess it sounds a little bit like a HubSpot commercial, but I want to step back. We are not being sponsored by HubSpot, but they have saved my life a number of times and here's a quick story. I was working on a project and we decided to launch five months early for some opportunities. We didn't even have a website developer around. I jumped into HubSpot and spent a weekend and had a pretty decent website launched on Monday. I could not have done that with WordPress. I manage a WordPress site for a nonprofit that we have and I could never have done that nearly as well with WordPress. So there's something to this that's just about trying to help you do better. George B Thomas (36:05): Yeah. And by the way if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, this is a HubSpot commercial. No, I'm literally telling you what I, as a One-Person business, I, as a human being, I journeyed from going from WordPress and chose to do Hubspot because I wanted to be able to sleep at night, not worry about being hacked. Here's the last thing I'll say about this and I'm just gonna give it pause on purpose. I want you to contact WordPress support or I want you to contact HubSpot support. Chat, email, phone call, there is a team of people waiting to help you with an issue. Or like I said, you can contact WordPress support Carly Ries (36:58): And not just a small team of people. They have a big team of people over at HubSpot. So you get instant contact back, large chat . Joe Rando (37:08): And it's crazy good. I always get good answers quickly Carly Ries (37:15): I sometimes call just to listen to the whole music because even their whole music is good, even though you're only on for like 10 seconds George B Thomas (37:27): The fact that we've gone to talking about hold music, baffles me. I love me some music. And I will agree, HubSpot does have some pretty good hold music, but here's the thing when you are listening to that hold music and you're able to talk to HubSpot, I want you to think back to this episode and go, you know, I'm so glad that the One-Person business podcast team enabled me to even be sitting here listening to this music right now and helped me make a smart decision. Joe Rando (38:09): I think that kind of wraps up the platform talk. I just want to move on to getting toward the wrap up here. Any resources you think would be helpful for people going it alone with regard to developing or maintaining or managing or updating their websites? George B Thomas (38:27): Yeah. If you're on WordPress, the Elementor blog and the content that the company Elementor, which by the way, it's a plugin that you can design WordPress websites very easily. They have great content. They're amazing. Two, if you're a One-Person business and we haven't even talked about this the entire time, by that all that is holy, I hope you're using video to communicate whether it be on your website or it be one to one personalized video. For that, I would leave you with, you need to check out WIX or VID blogs for content and content that they're creating. Not to be self promotional, but if you do dip your toes into this world, that is HubSpot and you're like George mentioned CRM, CMS sales, marketing service. Oh my God. How do I get started? George B Thomas (39:27): I would tell you to go over to YouTube and just check out the Sprocket talk YouTube channel. We have created over 1200 how-to tutorials when it comes to using the CMS or the service or the sales tools. The other piece I would be remiss, I don't care if you use WordPress, I don't care if you use Squarespace, heck I don't even care if you don't have a website and you're just listening to this because you like the content, HubSpot academy has great content. The amount of certifications that I've gotten, the lessons that I've watched and just the person that I am today because of their content is dramatically different than who I was 10 years ago. And by the way, I've really kind of laid out my educational journey other than the fact that I haven't said another great place that I would lean into. This used to be linda.com, but now it's LinkedIn learning. Between LinkedIn learning, HubSpot academy, Wistia, Vidyard and Elementor, you'll have enough education that you will go from, "I think I'm doing this good as a One-Person business" to, "I'm on fire. " Carly Ries (40:50): That's so true. And all of those resources will be in the show notes. Joe Rando (40:55): Also just to point out that HubSpot Academy, there's a lot of information, a lot of courses about HubSpot, but a lot that aren't specific to HubSpot, just general good practices for Inbound marketing. And I'm sure there's a lot of other stuff like that, just generally available and free, correct? George B Thomas (41:12): Yeah. Free. And one of my favorites, by the way, that might be a great fit for this community is the social media certification. If you're a One-Person business, you gotta have your social media strategy on point. I've been in the business for years and there are things that I learned in the social media certification. I was like, wait, what? That's a thing? Who knew there was a thing called link tree for Instagram where you could actually have multiple links for your Instagram account. Things like that. Certification for a One-Person business, or if you want to start to have a conversation around sales process and force and friction, just dive in and learn from Kyle Jepson. I'm just saying I'll get off my soapbox now. Joe Rando (42:05): Yeah. But it's free. So it's, you know, why not George B Thomas (42:08): Everybody likes free stuff. I'm just saying. Joe Rando (42:11): So, next question. What is your favorite quote about success? Or do you have one? George B Thomas (42:18): I do. One thing that not a lot of people know about me is I am, I hate to even just go here but, I'm an inspirational motivational nerd. I wake up in the morning and my YouTube channel is David Goggins or Jim Rohn or Les Brown, or I'm listening to something because I need to get the fire in the belly. Today's a new day, let's get 1% better and be a catalyst for those around. So when you're like one quote, I'm like, dang it. I have multiple. I'm going to share maybe a couple here, but I'm gonna start with one. Here's the thing I want every One-Person business individual to know is that it's about the small steps you take, right? George B Thomas (43:15): The quote is "success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out." It's Robert Collier. When I think about this, I think about a motivational video that I love. It's Will Smith and it's about building a wall and how his dad had him and his brother build a wall, one brick at a time. You're gonna build your website one page at a time. You're gonna build your content marketing educational machine one piece of content at a time. It's not, how do I get this all up and be done? It's how can I build the best wall, the best website, the best process to have my best life, one step at a time. Now with that, I have to lean into a second one because right now, as humans, what we have a hard time doing is anything that's difficult. We are programmed to stay away from pain, but I love this Les Brown quote that says, "If you focus on doing what is hard, life will be easy. But if you focus on doing what's easy, life will be hard." So listen, put in the work, hashtag GSD, get stuff done, build your website and your content marketing machine and those conversation starters one at a time. In two years, five years, 10 years, whatever, you'll sit back and go WooH! George B Thomas (44:42): I have achieved my goal. Joe Rando (44:46): Wow. That that's inspirational, George. I love it. So that brings us to the end. I guess it's just time to ask you, if you can tell the audience the best way to kind of connect with you or see your stuff. You mentioned Sprocket talk. And you mentioned your own website, the website was GeorgeBThomas.com. George B Thomas (45:15): Yeah. Joe Rando (45:16): And it will be in the show notes. George B Thomas (45:17): I'll tell you the easiest way that you can communicate with me is you can email me. Some of the conversations you might want to have isn't gonna be on the socials. Just trust me. I get it. So there are two emails. It's George@GeorgeBThomas.com or George@impulsecreative.com. I don't care which one you use. They both work. They both get to me now past that. If you do want to lean in and learn more about who is this guy on social, you can go Facebook. If that's your platform or choice, you can go Mr. George B. Thomas, if your platform of choice is Twitter @GeorgeBthomas, if it's LinkedIn, it literally is, George B. Thomas. So those are the social platforms. And darn it for the person who has George B. Thomas on Facebook, but it's all, I'll be Mr. George B Thomas George B Thomas (46:11): I can handle it. But here's the thing, email, social, the website, I don't care, but what I will extend to everybody listening to this is don't just jot down the information. Don't just come and stalk what I'm saying. Engage. For me, my fuel is the questions that I get, which allow me to give the answers. And again, if you go to my website, you'll see George B. Thomas speaker, trainer catalyst. My mission in life is to be a catalyst to those around me. So ask your questions so that I can give you information or the answer that will help you take the next right step to growth for your One-Person business. Joe Rando (47:05): That's really a great offer. George. To be able to communicate with someone like you, particularly with regard to things about marketing and web development and websites. I mean, that's a great deal. Thank you so much for offering that to people. George B Thomas (47:21): Absolutely. Joe Rando (47:23): Well, we've reached the end of another episode of the One-Person business podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes, because there'll be a lot of information there that you didn't have to write down while you were listening to this driving and we will be back again with another show soon. Thank you all for listening and don't forget to subscribe. Take care, Carly Ries (47:42): George, thank you so much. George B Thomas (47:44): Oh, you're welcome. Appreciate it. Speaker 5 (47:47): You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a One-Person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures. At LifeStarr, we're creating a One-Person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversation at community.lifestarr.com.