Running the Bases with Small Businesses

Kyle Roof - Page Optimizer Pro

June 14, 2021 Randy Rohde & Kyle Roof Season 1 Episode 30
Running the Bases with Small Businesses
Kyle Roof - Page Optimizer Pro
Show Notes Transcript

Running the Bases today with Kyle Roof the Founder at High Voltage SEO, Page Optimizer Pro and Internet Marketing Gold - the man is busy!  Kyle and his partner operate their business across four countries with 30 team members - and still growing.

Kyle is responsible for the development and implementation of all SEO techniques used by the SEO agency High Voltage SEO and the SEO tool PageOptimizer Pro. Kyle is also the co-founder of Internet Marketing Gold, a global community of 3000+ SEO professionals who test and prove cutting-edge SEO techniques. Kyle is also the co-host of SEO Fight Club a weekly YouTube show that covers a multitude of SEO topics. Kyle’s SEO techniques and discoveries are followed by many SEO professionals and business leaders, he has been featured in many respected publications and is a regular speaker on SEO and SEO testing at conferences throughout the world. 

Selecting the right team member, investing in development, and building the team is crucial to delivering the customer experience necessary for success and achieving your end goal.  As Kyle states - know where you want to end up - and then work backward from there.

We have a great time discussing SEO and how Kyle started, how give Google what it needs for ranking and some fun talk about the A’s and baseball!

Grab a great discount on Page Optimizer Pro HERE - use Coupon Code:  RUNNINGTHEBASES - to get 15% OFF

The Algebra of Happiness by Scott Galloway:  An unconventional book of wisdom and life advice from renowned business school professor and New York Times bestselling author of The Four Scott Galloway.

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Randy:

I'm Randy Rohdeand I'm fascinated with entrepreneurs and small business owners. Plus I love baseball. Every show I sit down with the small business owner and we discussed there running the basis of entrepreneurship. We throw the ball around on strategy management, execution and innovation, plus a little fun baseball tag. Hey, thanks for joining us today. Settle in, grab your cracker jacks and you know what they say? Right. It is a great day for April ball game. And here we are, we're right in the midst of spring, we've got a spring training is underway and, you know, I love spring training because it's just, I don't know, reminds me. It's just renewal. It's a season of renewal. I was just thinking about this the other day was that, um, what a great thing that we actually need coming through 2020 and the pandemic and everything. 2021, we need renewal and baseball is the cure. There we go. That's my, that's my theory. I'm sticking with it. Hey, listen. We've got a great show today. We've got lined up a real king in the digital marketing industry. Super excited to have this guy on board. Let me give you a little bit of rundown on him. He operates three separate businesses in the digital marketing space. We're going to touch on all of those across. Multiple international cities. He's offices everywhere has his J D is Juris doctorate. And wasn't a trial attorney for four years and really is regarded as one of the top on page SEO specialists in the industry. I mean, this guy is incredible, super excited to have on the show today. Kyle Roof. Kyle. I don't know what to say. I'm so glad you're you're on that. You said. Yeah, sure. I'll join you guys. Uh, thanks, Roger. I'm just going to roll through the companies that you have page optimizer pro, which I am a user high voltage SEO, which is your agency. And then you also have a mastermind group, educational instructional group called internet marketing gold, which is also terrific. And we're going to, I'm going to give you a chance. I want to hear all about all of those, but before we even get into that, though, you're an attorney or I didn't do you call yourself a recovering attorney? What do you say to that?

Kyle:

Yeah, probably. Yeah, I guess that's probably accurate. I I'm, I'm still licensed. Um, but I have absolutely no intention of stepping foot into another kind of other court.

Randy:

I had an attorney on the show a couple of episodes ago and I asked him, so do you have a favorite lawyer joke?

Kyle:

Yeah, actually I, I listened to that episode. Um, and I think it was either his comment. It was something that's in, it tells you, have you noticed that most lawyer jokes involve lawyers dying? Yes. Yes. That does seem to be the, uh, the running theme. I imagine this is a PG show. So, um, my favorite one, I won't say, and I'll, I'll tell you later, but I, one that I do really like a guy goes to a lawyer and asked, Hey, what's your feet? And the lawyer says, um, it's a it's $500 for three questions. The guy's like 500. Isn't that a bit steep. And the lawyer is like, yeah, it is now. What's your third question.

Randy:

That's good. All right. That's good. I don't have what I was going to use a lawyer joke that my former guests put on, but you've already heard that one so we can roll that out. What was his, the, uh, the, the bottom of the ocean. Exactly. Yeah. What do you call a hundred attorneys at the bottom of the ocean and that's a good start. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. So, well, thank you for humoring me on that anyway. All right. So here you are. Kyle, there is so much stuff that I want to, uh, pursue with you in the world of both digital marketing, what you do with your businesses, how you operate all of this kind of stuff. So you really are known around the world in the SEO industry. You frequently speak at international conferences. I mean, you've been called all kinds of incredible things. SEO, legend, SEO geek, probably a few names from the folks at Google that we won't get into. Maybe

Kyle:

I was just about to say, I think I've been called a lot worse.

Randy:

Yeah. Yeah. Um, inducted and documented, just hundreds of Google SEO based tests. So how did you go from trial lawyer to med scientist, SEO guru? How did you make that jump there? There's gotta be a great story involved in this.

Kyle:

So, as you mentioned, I was a trial attorney. I did, um, divorce, custody and support, and I really decided that I'd rather chew on shards of broken glass and be one more divorce. My wife is also an attorney and she is also a trial attorney and she was doing, , uh, violent crime, uh, defense. And I came home one day and, and, um, she had actually just gotten promoted and, uh, that was good for me because, , I was ready to quit my job and she goes, you know what? I think I want to quit. And I was like, okay, that's fine. Uh, you've just gotten this promotion. Why don't we save a little money? And then we'll be good. And she goes, let me rephrase. I quit my job. And I was pretty upset. That was my plan. My plan was to quit. So she beat me to the punch there, but, um, We really just decided to, , it wasn't anything that we wanted to do as our kind of long-term career. And, um, on a Lark, we ended up moving to South Korea, as I think most people do, uh, to teach English. And while there the one-year plan turned into five , I ended up building a website for a business and it was a very complex website. And I had to go through a lot of developers in order to get a team that could build a, maintain the site. And then I realized, you know, this is a pretty talented team. I could probably start doing, , kind of general contracting on websites. And so that's what I did. And I brought my brother in to the business. Uh, he does web design and development and, uh, things are going pretty well and we didn't get the bread idea. I was like, you know, we've got all these people who were employing from India. Wouldn't it be just smarter. We just go to India and open up a company there. So that's, that's what we did. at that time I had just heard about this thing called SEO. And I was like, this is brilliant. We could probably make, I don't know, a hundred dollars extra a month or 150 a month because we've already built these websites and these people like us. So we got a little SEO team together. And then, uh, we kinda got a shake down from the police, which we were expecting. But the part we weren't expecting was that my brother was thrown in jail and I was in the U S at the time., he was given the option of, uh, leaving town tomorrow, or he could stay in jail and wait for the magistrate to come to sort out our papers. And my brother asked, well, when does the magistrate come? And the chief of police said, I don't know. So he goes, I think I'm leaving town tomorrow. So, uh, he grabbed his what, what he could. We get them back to the U S and obviously our employees have fled that need to be involved in whatever's going on. And we start hemorrhaging clients., my brother said, I can take these four clients because he could do design development. And that left me with I don't code. So that left me with the SEO clients that we had just. Uh, signed and I didn't know anything about it. And in order for me to pay my rent next month, I had to learn SEO that day. And that's basically what I did, you know, and I was like, so it was, it was, um, I'm figuring this out or we're in trouble, you know, kind of a situation. And then, um, from there learning how to do SEO and then building out the agency with my business partner and kind of growing into the businesses that we have today.

Randy:

Incredible. I, I do want to give back to that story in India. I had it actually in my notes as well. I'm like, there's gotta be more to that. And that is a good, good story. So there you are. So now you're in, you know, I don't want to say accidental, but you know, you definitely kind of pushed into, I am doing SEO and almost out of necessity, and that is quite interesting. That's a funny story about both you and your wife kind of attorneys and jumping ship out of there. So now you have three., successful businesses and really what I think, kind of touching on multiple facets of the digital marketing world. Why don't you give us a rundown on the organizations and how you kind of landed and developing, uh, each of those

Kyle:

what's interesting. And I would like to pretend that there was a master plan, like this was all mapped out for years, but we kind of fell into it in a way and that, uh, so we had the agency , agencies going quite well. And we had developed a internal tool, uh, to, to do on-page SEO. And, uh, initially we were doing it by hand and then, uh, we were doing it through Google sheets and then we wrote a little Python script and it kind of grew into something that we had. And then I actually showed this to some SEO friends of mine. Like, would you be, would you pay for this? They were like, yes, yes I would., so that is where the idea was born to, um, To build out the software that we have, uh, page optimizer pro initially though, it was just on the backend of our agency website. It was just a, one of the pages. And you'd put in, um, your keyword and your email and we, we emailed you a spreadsheet and we did that for free for seven months. And that actually allowed us to really figure it out, you know?, we then decided it was a good idea to separate that from the agency brand so that it would be its own thing. So that's then when we created the separate website and then turned it into a SAS tool. So yeah, there was a dashboard and all that, and, and it became its own brand from there. We needed support for it and we needed a kind of a community to develop. And it was about two years later after that. And then that's where then I am G becomes born is with the idea of, uh, having. A community to support the tool. Then also getting like-minded people, people that are interested in, in doing SEO this way that want to learn things this way. And IMG has gone through a couple of iterations, but in what we have now, it is a place where, um, we run SEO tests. And that's actually where initially kind of in full circle, the agency was born out of doing the tests, doing tests on Google's algorithm, because I realized if you search for like, is this a ranking factor or should I do this? You get three yeses, three nos and three maybes. And I was like, well, that's not any way to learn SEO. Right. And then I was like, oh, you know what? Everyone's running their own tests. And I was, well, how are they running their own tests? And so then I worked out a few ways to do some scientific, , as close as you can, single variable tests on Google's algorithm and be like, okay, this is a ranking factor or this isn't, then that kind of turns into what pop became. And then those concepts then turn into IMG and again, separating as a separate brand. So although it's really support for page optimizer pro it is also a whole separate entity, uh, for people that those concepts resonate. Now, the idea of testing the algorithm of taking courses and learning about things within a certain framework, and then having a community to kind of bounce ideas off or ask questions. And so there's a synergy between all three things. They all kind of spawned out of each other, but we decided to do them all as separate brands so that we could hit different kind of segments or different audiences. Like somebody could just use pop and not. Care about the agency, uh, or worry about that, or, or even, you know, the community group or anything, like somebody could be a client and not care at all about those other things. So then what we realized that we kind of backed ourselves into, and then things became a lot more intentional was that we can hit people at different price points, uh, but also different needs, you know, do they want to do SEO themselves or they want to learn SEO? Do they just want an agency to do it? Do they need custom this or that? And then that's kind of how the plans and the packages and all that then kind of go across those three different brands, but then they're all very, very connected to each other.

Randy:

I love how you pull all of this together. And I especially enjoy how you really kind of describe the three entities and really how they were born in this kind of symbiotic kind of relationship, so to speak that they feed off of each other. And now they're all, , I'm still, I'm sure they're probably still connected, but, , essentially grow and are independent of one another. And we have so many of our, uh, guests and listeners that are growing businesses that are building. And we talk about scale when we talk about doing different kinds of things, but. I think the roadmap that you've just described and laid out really is, uh, I think just classic. you've have ideas in, instead of just trying to focus on one, how do I scale this business specifically? You also began to create other relative services or our product that helps support maybe your core business, but eventually could stand alone and become its own core business. And by doing that, you really create a much more stable organization as that umbrella organization as a whole., that's terrific., so I haven't used your agency services, but all of your other stuff you have out there is, is terrific. And I've been using page optimizer pro for, I don't know, months and months now at this point. And by the way, I do want to be sure. I, I want our listeners to know that, uh, Kyle is offering a lovely discount on the, uh, uh, monthly plan of page optimizer pro. So we will have that coupon and link down in the show notes. So be sure that you, uh, check that out, uh, for your own use, if you want to do, uh, kind of do it yourself, SEO a little bit. So with this kind of self-taught SEO and really where you are now, and I think where your reputation is now in the industry is that you have this specialty focus of. On page optimization where you kind of just drawn to that. There's so many different aspects of SEO, but this very specific focus was that something that just really kind of tweaked your curiosity and you went that direction.

Kyle:

Well, the one thing in SEO that you control the most is your own website. You have complete control over your own site and what you're putting on your pages and, uh, and how you're presenting yourself to Google. Uh, there are a lot of other signals, of course, in SEO, backlinks being the most obvious thing, but you have very little control over that. I mean, you can build them, you can create them, uh, but is Google gonna like them? You know, how long will Google like them? Will. They last there layer a lot of extra variables there, but the one thing that you control entirely is, is your own site. And then it occurred to me early on that if, um, if you can tune that to as well as can be, uh, you probably limit your reliance on things that you control less of. Uh, and if you're risk adverse, it's a, a way to, to mitigate risk, you know, where if you can then focus in on the thing that you can control the most and do that well. Then you're less susceptible to other variables within the, within all of SEL. The other thing that I found is that it's easier to test on page. You can put pages together and see sometimes within minutes of, of launching a page, you can see a result, and then you can repeat that result to make sure that what you're seeing is, is accurate. Uh, and then you can put that into play. So it's one of those things where I think you control the most, but then you can also get the, um, you can learn it the quickest and you can test things quickly as well, too, in order to say like, yeah, this will or will not work and they can put it into play and go. So I think those are things that kind of drew me to, uh, doing on-page as, as I guess, then to become the expert in automation. I think. That other than I am now,

Randy:

the guru, you are the guru. So all of that, I've never personally called myself a guru, but I do think that no, I think I'm pretty good at OnPage. I'm probably better than most you can call yourself. So it's interesting, especially as you say, that is that you think in SEO, the thing that you can control most is your website and which is a great segue into a topic I wanted to touch on that really has some, uh, an interesting story as well. In 2018, you are a part of a Facebook SEO group, and they kind of threw down the gauntlet of a 30 day ranking challenge where you would take everybody would take the term rhinoplasty. Plano, which is meaning Plano, Texas. And then the contest was to rank it on first page of Google. And so, uh, you kind of, uh, went with it and, uh, discovered a few things on your own, in a special kind of a twist. Why don't you give us a little bit of the background on that competition and what was the, uh, the outcome.

Kyle:

And that definitely was the, uh, that sort of will be with me till I die. I think people always ask about it and it is still a kind of a source of conversation. Um, but as you said, it was a public group. Um, I think there were, at that time, I think there were about 40,000 people and SEO signals lab. And I think there are a lot more now, but it was, uh, it was open to anybody in the group. I think 27 people that felt like they knew what they were doing, entered the competition and you only had 30 days. So that's a sprint. It had to be a brand new domain. So it couldn't be a domain that you've done anything to, which is also very, very difficult. So at the end of the 30 days, days, I think only seven sites actually even got a page to, to rank. And at the end of the 30 days, nobody was lighting the world on fire. The person that officially won, he was on, I think he was running around 82. Uh, we took fifth technically, uh, or at the end of the competition. And we were like at 95, so nobody's really crushing it. And again, uh, the vast majority of people don't even have a page in the game. Right. About two weeks later, uh, the site went to page one, it hit number seven and people in the group really started to take a lot of interest in that. And about two weeks after that, it went to number one, organic and number one in the maps. And then about two weeks after that, we wiped out the maps and we were the knowledge panel. So. For rhinoplasty plan a week, we were a rhinoplasty planner, let's say, was it right? And, uh, at that point, people really lost it. And the reason that they lost it is that we built the site entirely and lorem ipsum. So lorem ipsum is his fake Latin text. And what we did is we determined how many words we needed. So basically copy and paste and Laura MIPS, Mondo page. And then we did the math. We did the math for, uh, how many times to put the exact keyword in, in specific places it's variations and contextual terms, and then just copied and pasted them into the lorem. Ipsum in very specific places, meaning like within paragraph text, uh, within your title, that kind of stuff, and doing so to show that Google can't read, you know, Google is, is wildly powerful and, and, and absolutely amazing. But at the end of the day, Google has an algorithm and the algorithm is looking at things through the lens of math. And so if you give the algorithm, the math that it wants, you can rank very, very well. And that's, that's what we, that's what we demonstrated. That was going along. Great. And then, uh, search engine journal decides to do an article on it and they didn't contact me about it. You know, they didn't ask me for a quote. Um, but in it they said, and you can still look it up. It says like Google ranks site written in Latin is the name of, uh, of the article. And, uh, they basically said that I did this to make fun of Google, which couldn't be further from the truth. I did it to make fun of people that say that you need to write good content. That's that's who I was going after, because this wasn't the first time we had done this. We, you know, we run these tests all the time. And so I've done this previously. And so, you know, that's, that's that's I knew this would work. I was surprised at how well it works to be perfectly honest, but, um, I knew, I knew it was quite doable, but so about six hours later, after that article goes, my sites de-indexed. Which is, yeah, that's fair game. Right. But the thing that was not fun was that that night from like 1:15 AM to like 1:27 AM I get all these notices from Google and they took down a little over 20 of my test sites and the test sites had nothing to do with the competition site. They were not related to at all. It was just completely punitive of, um, Google going after. Things that I use to figure out how the algorithm works. And what's great about that though, is that it was completely validated if I was talking nonsense and just got lucky, they would have rolled their eyes and moved on. Right, right. They would have, they would have taken the site out of the index that they didn't like, but they would have just moved on with it. But instead they went after me personally, which I think I might be the only person that's ever been attacked by Google for doing good on-page. But this year I did a, um, a course on white hat SEO. And so I had to re going through the guidelines so I can do the course and the, in the no-no list, there's, um, uh, automated generated content. And there's this thing that says, uh, you're not allowed to have content that doesn't make any sense to the reader, but may contain search terms. And I was like, well, when did that go into play? I don't remember that at all. Cause I know that that wasn't a rule when. When I did the test. So I put the URL into the way back machine and you can see in like February of the year, the rule doesn't exist. Seven days after my site went live, after the competition ended, that rule appears. And then two and a half months later, uh, the, the search engine journal article comes out and I get punished for it. So they created a brand new rule for this and then punish me for it later. It's the Kyle roof rule. It was unbelievable. Um, but you know, what's really great about it too, is that. Google's job isn't to help you convert. Right. Right. If I write a page that doesn't make any sense to my readers, that's on me. You know, that that's, that's me writing a bad page. That can't be Google's job to, um, to force you to write a better page. Right? So really what they're concerned about is what I did, you know, that this actually shows a way to figure out how the algorithm works. And so not just invalidating my ideas, they actually validated the entire testing concept that this is a way that you can actually figure out how the algorithm works. And while they on one hand say always, yeah, you should test things. You should figure it out. This actually is a way to do it. And they don't really like that very much. And, um, and have written a rule to try to stop you from doing it. Yeah.

Randy:

I love how you said, you know, you did the math because I think I read a quote. I think this is attributed to you, actually, Google can do all the updates at once to do, but at the end of the day, it's just an algorithm. And if you give the algorithm, the math, it needs, you will succeed in SEO. Isn't that you for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle:

Every time I love updates for that reason, because you can simply do a before and after evaluation. If you have benchmarks. You know, if you've run popper or a number of tools to do, as you can see what Google liked, you see the new sites that come into to page one, rerun the tool and they have a pretty good idea of what this update did. And then you give Google that math and you do pretty well. Yeah.

Randy:

So all of this stuff is you'd like describe all of this in your process. I guess. I don't know. I don't know a lot of trial attorneys, but I'm thinking, wow, this is a really interesting kind of facet of, and I don't know if very many trial attorneys take this kind of approach, but it really is. And I kind of goes into my next question. Do you specifically kind of take a scientific method approach to your SEO testing?

Kyle:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, that was, that was the whole beginning of it was how can we narrow this down to one thing, you know, and then create a hypothesis, you know, this, this will work, this won't work, create a test environment and then run it and then get the results and then try to repeat it was the whole, the whole thing. And I think I use my law degree significantly. When you think in terms of like the analytical thinking to, to be an attorney, by the way, I think, um, you, uh, asked for some advice for your, your daughter is thinking about, yes. See you did listen. Yes, my daughter, I haven't, I haven't been an attorney. I can't remember what the person said, so I don't want to say something that was not what they the opposite, but, um, you know, when people will always say like, oh, you know, my kid loves to argue. I'll make a great attorney. That couldn't be further from the truth. You have to be able to like to read very boring things. But then you also, I think have to have the mindset that you're gonna do everything you can to not argue and then become tenacious when you have to. But so like you have to have that mindset of how can we solve this problem? Without actually going to court, right. Or without actually kind of. And so there's a real problem solving element. And so if you really like dense issues where you can try to problem solve, that's where I think you can become a good attorney. And that's actually what I think I do every day. You know, I'm looking at very complex systems that have a lot of moving parts and I don't need to understand everything. I need to understand part of it. And if I can do that, if I can problem solve that part of that can probably get to a solution that'll end up with a good outcome. And I think that part of my law training, and then also being a trial attorney and doing those types of things, I think that's, what's been extremely beneficial towards the SEO that I do. And then the, and the testing that I run.

Randy:

So now you brought it together. Now the trial attorney and the SEO they've come, you've joined them. You know, you're no longer a split personality. All right. And I loved it. And I think you said something about this, about reading a boring material. And I think I read somewhere I was on a string in a group or something that somebody was like, what's your super power? Was this you that said you can read very boring things. Yes. That was your super power, no

Kyle:

fiction fiction or nonfiction I've found. Um, I'll get into like a series, like a book series, like a fiction series and I'll hate it. But, um, I really dislike learning new characters. So I'll just finish the series, you know, I'll just like, I'll just buy all the books and I'll just read through it just because I don't want to take the time to learn. New characters or a new world or a new setting or anything like that. And I'll, I'll just read the boring thing just, just because I'm there and I can, I can get through, right? Yeah, no, I know Jack Reacher and I'm following him till, uh, I read those types of books and they're terrible. Right. It's just absolutely awful, but I'll just stick with it.

Randy:

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so you kind of touched on this a little bit in regards to kind of the crossover with your trial lawyer days. I was just wondering if there was anything else that potentially applied to your attorney trial lawyer as you do SEO as well?

Kyle:

Well, the, the, the most obvious thing are these types of situations in that, you know, being a, uh, a public speaker, I can tell you on my worst day as an SEO, no one has gone to jail. Uh, it hasn't happened yet. Nobody's lost their kids or they've lost financial assets or any kind of money to like did that. None of that has happened. And so. You know, when, when, when I go out on stage. You know, I, I beat myself up beforehand five minutes before I'm getting on stage. I'm just really beating myself up like, oh, everybody wants to hear what you have to say, God, you could be in the audience right now, hung over and having a great time or, you know, no, you gotta be on stage. Um, but having the ability to get on stage, knowing that nobody's going to jail, you know, is, is, is a nice, it's a comfort. Yeah, no, it's an easier public speaking situation. And as a result of having very difficult public speaking situations, to be able to take this and then take the knowledge that I have and be able to express it in a way. And I am in a way that I also hope is interesting because when I do my talks, I try to make them not your standard SEO talk, or we're just running through slides that just want to put a bullet in your head, but trying to make it in a way that is interesting. And also we provide a framework. So I usually, when I'm in my talks, they should try to. Talk about some historical figure and it usually in science or philosophy that you might not know a lot about, but you might've heard some names or they might be friends with somebody that, you know, um, like Edmund Halley is my favorite scientist of all time. And he was, um, good friends with Newton. Uh, so like everybody knows Newton, but you probably don't know Haley, but, um, he's done. He did a lot of amazing things and actually his most, his biggest talent was he was actually friends with Newton cause nobody was cause Newton was an asshole. So, um, like that was, that was probably his superpower was actually smart enough that Newton gave him the time of day. But then telling stories about him, this kind of fun, right? Cause then you, you know, Newton, but there's this other guy going and doing his thing and how it impacts, you know, things that we do today. And. And then kind of tie it into doing SEO or thinking about SEO in a certain way or marketing or business that's yeah. Yeah.

Randy:

I would be a miss, I think, , especially to those folks in the agency, world or digital world, not to ask you this question. So I'll, I'll try to do it, well as purposeful as I can SEO today. What are your thoughts? So we just went through that big, uh, December algorithm update and, uh, and especially affiliate sites really took a beating. It seemed a lot there. What are your thoughts? Where do you think, where does SEO sit today and where do you think, what's the direction, you know, if you've got a crystal ball, right.

Kyle:

The biggest thing that I see with an SEO is that a lot doesn't change. And that's because I think it's cost prohibited for Google to make massive changes to the algorithm. The only people that complain about SEO results by and large are SELs, right? The people that use Google on a regular basis, they're, they're happy. They're very happy with it. Obviously Google's market share is what 90%, right? That's not an accident. It's because somebody types in information and they have a very high likelihood of getting the answer they're looking for. And as a result, Google does not have a lot of incentive to change what they're doing, because they're doing a great job. What I find when an update happens is you have you think of a bell curve. There's 10 to 15% on each side of that. That's what they're going after. Now. The people that are trying to game it, but that kind of middle section the stuff, that's the core part of the algorithm. A lot of that does, it's not changed much at all. And so I think the first thing I always like to tell people is don't. Out-think it don't overthink the situation, stick to the things that are foundational, uh, make sure to get, get those numbers. A lot of you like to skip that and go right to some technique that they heard or some fancy new this or that, or we're in a click through rate this, or we're going to, you know, whatever that, and that's the stuff that gets tagged on, on the outside because you're gaming the system a little bit, or it's not quite within that core. So first of all, I would say within the course, the second thing where I think affiliates run into problems is that I think Google has a, they want real businesses. You know, they want businesses that are verifiable to show. And I think the reason for that is that if you have a problem with a product, who do you go to for redress? You know, how can you get a refund or how can you do a return? Or what if you're harmed? You know, you, you did this product, you took this thing, you did this program. And, and you're actually harmed who is actually responsible and real businesses are responsible, but a lot of affiliate sites, they they're, they're difficult to contact intentionally. You know, they don't have a local phone number. They don't have an address. You can't walk to them to, to, to their office to see what's going on there. And so when you think about, if you were to give results so that your consumers can have the best experience and when they search something comes up and at the end of the day, when things go bad, they can still have a good experience with that. It's going to be with a company that Google can verify. So that's where I think of Kelly it's run into problems. So what advice that I always give to affiliates is make yourself a real company, right. And affiliates always say like, well, you know, I work out of my home. Well, you know, a lot of people work out of their home, especially now. Right. Figure that one out, figure out a business address. Yeah, sure. It costs a little more money. Yes, it's a little bit, a little inconvenient, but real companies do that. Right. That's part of being a real company, you know, they have support lines and I would also recommend having, not just one contact form without an email address, you know, it's just some random conduct form. And so when you look at those things that Google would be looking at to verify if you're real or not, it's not just one thing. It's, there's probably a list of 200 things and you need to tick enough boxes to show that you're a real thing. And I think if you do that, you are much more protected from, from those types of things. The last thing I would mention on, especially on this most recent one is, uh, are you selling something on every page of your site because it's unlikely that, um, real sites do that. Yeah, a lot of sites have affiliate links, but not on every page. And so I think a lot of people talk about like best of sites were hit. I don't know that it's necessarily because they had best in, in all the pages it's that every page was selling something. And so it identifies itself as a site that is just simply an affiliate site and it's not selling its own products. You know, it's not, you're not Amazon, so you're not set up that way. And you're not Walmart or target or those sites where you're selling your own stuff. You're clearly selling other people's things on, on all of your pages. So I would limit the amount of times you do that. Make yourself real as I just whacked balletic. Um, uh, did you know that Google has a whole guidelines on, on affiliate sites? No, I wasn't aware of that. I would imagine 98% of all affiliates. I had no idea. You can go into developers.google.com and there's a whole section on affiliate sites. And they basically say we hate affiliate sites. I mean, that's like, that's a paraphrase, but not too far off, but it also lists the things that they hate and what they identify as like a thin site, uh, sites with this, that, or the other. If you, if you're in the affiliate game, you might want to check that out because you're going to figure out, like there are things that we could probably do to, to make our sites better. But one of them in particular is are you building a community? Are you building something that people want to come to, uh, in order to get information? And so that would be a site that has a lot of UGC user generated content, where people are asking questions and they're getting answers. Meaning it's a, it's a good place for them to go. Well, the one thing, most affiliate sites don't have any of that. They turn off comments and understandably, but you know, those are all small little things. And again, it's not one thing, that's the be all to end all, but it's probably an accumulation of a lot of things. And I would definitely check out the guidelines to see where your sites are at to see how many of those boxes you can actually tick to create sites that Google likes better than just what it would deem as a straight affiliate site, which they clearly do not like.

Randy:

I mean, these are like nuggets of gold coming from Thai again. Wow. Thank you, Kyle. That's good stuff. All right. So we've got the SEO question out of the way. Now we can move on to the more important stuff, because it is time. Kyle are you, and it's time for the Now folks, I do Canada crap, every guest, a little bit about the seventh inning, stretch him. Like, do you like baseball now? Thankfully kale actually is a bit baseball fan. Um, and, uh, does like to go out and hit games, uh, as well, uh, when he's here in the states. So, which is very fun. All right. So Kyle, here we go. So in today's world of baseball, well, actually I'm going to roll this the other way. So I know that you are a, , Oakland A's fan and for most people, even a, if they're just on the periphery of baseball, they've. Heard of the A's and especially kind of the money ball, the Billy Bean, you know, kind of concept of money ball and what he was doing there, building teams, looking at other kinds of metrics on players. And I thought, and our, and our team kind of thought, oh, this is interesting. You know, this guy, he's doing all these testing and kind of running,, algorithms and things, you know, he's, he may enjoy a little bit of this money ball conversation. And, uh, but that's not my question for you as far as the seventh inning stretch, but I am kind of curious to get your input though, in regards to,, what Moneyball was like, I don't know, in the late eighties, early nineties kind of timeframe, is that about right.

Kyle:

Does that sound familiar that season, that the movie was like, what was that like 94, 95 somewhere around there. Yeah.

Randy:

And so, yeah, compared to then, and if you think about whether the movie or you've read the book that. You know, the A's, were it kind of one of the first teams to really kind of dive into this kind of look at these metrics and now you begin to flash forward and you'll look at the MLB in like they've got stats and they're using metrics in, you know, we ran across an article about using cluster algorithms to identify pitcher release points. Right. And what that would mean. And I'm like, oh my gosh. So just crazy stuff. So I don't know anything in any thoughts about the way that stats and algorithms and math is being used in baseball today compared to 20 years ago?

Kyle:

Well, I feel like, I mean, baseball has always been built for stats, right? Isn't that the whole point of it? Like, I mean, that's honestly, I think that's the whole point of the game. I mean, the game happens simply for numbers, . And then that's why I think people who like baseball, like it just for that particular reason, uh, by the way, can I, nobody, if somebody is like, oh, I want to get into baseball and don't become an A's fan. Um, I mean, the only reason I liked them is just for levels of self hate. I mean, that's, that's the only reason.

Randy:

Now you guys, now you had your moment, so in 89, you guys like a series swept the giants and four, which also had to be like fantastic to beat the other bay area team. Right.

Kyle:

For sure. So I was, um, when we lived in the bay area, I was six or so 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, right in that age range. And, um, uh, when you walk into the Oakland Coliseum, you come out of the, you come out of Bart and then there's this, this long cement bridge that you cross over. And I have a distinct memory of holding my father's hand and him leaning down to me and saying, we hate the giants. It wasn't that we liked the eighties. It was more so that we hate the giants. And that's why we have a, we're a family of, of A's fans. And at that point, Ricky Henderson is starting to do his thing. It was very successful. And apparently, um, when I, when asked what I wanted to grow up, I would say I wanted to be Ricky Henderson. Not that I wanted to play baseball. It was that I wanted to be Ricky, Ricky. That was it. But then it was after that era, after they won. And then they went through the series of, of losing that's when Moneyball came in, because then the AEs went through a whole series of, they spent all that money. They won the world series and we were quite successful and then really couldn't do it anymore. Right. But I think, and I'm, I'm just pulling this out of the air, but I think for, um, the amount of wins per dollar spent, I think the A's that have been the best team in the league for like the last 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. They, you know, they, and I think they're one of the few teams that actually made it money without the TV money. You know, they, they actually turn a profit, which is true. And just because as we were talking about before the show, I've been to games where there've been like 55 people at a game and that's just not sustainable. Some butts they're somehow making money. And one of the ways that I think they're able to do that was through the Moneyball concept of if we can put stats into play where we're not necessarily looking at players as players, but as like what they can produce, you know, then, then that's pretty cool. And that was that's fun. And that's great where I think stats have gone well, way off base or like when you see the shifts and stuff like that. I think that's kind of ruined the game. Or what I think is exposed is that players. Because maybe of this data becomes so one dimensional that they're not playing as a complete player because they know my job is this one thing, you know, that's probably what they're groomed for now, as they're coming up through college and then into the minor leagues and they're groomed for one stat essentially. And as a result, they're not complete player so that when they shift everybody somehow, why can't they hit to third base? I feel like that's something you learn in little league, right? How to hit across all the different, how to take a pitch into different directions. And somehow that is completely gone and, and I'm perplexed by that. So in a way, maybe that's where the stats have taken things, maybe a, into a bad direction. I think baseball would do itself a favor by trying to fix that and probably also speed up the game a bit. There are plenty of stats that can probably speed up the game just a little bit. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Randy:

That's interesting. You talk about that as the one dimensional players and I think that's. Probably why over the last, I don't know, uh, several years, maybe I've, I've really become a big fan of the w what is called the utility player. This guy that can kind of roam the field and play multiple positions, all but probably pitcher. But, so I'm a big Cubs fan and, you know, we've always had this, , one or two of these just really good utility players that, you know, they can play second base or third or short to go out in the outfield. They have speed to do that. And so, like the, that is a player in my mind that that guy is really,, exercising, , all facets of the game. And, uh, so I've, I don't know, over the last several years, I've, I've really come to appreciate those guys instead of that. I think what you're saying as well, kind of that one dimensional aspect. So. All right. So here's the question. Okay. For when we get there yet is a question. Yes. Well, I can talk baseball right for a while, but, so here's the question. So according to Vegas insiders or the, this seasons, a world series that 20, 21 world series, what are the odds for the AEs to win the world series? Oh God, it's gotta be like plus 5,000.

Kyle:

Yeah, I dunno. Plus 1500.

Randy:

You know what, actually, you're pretty darn close to that. It's a, they're 18 to one. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Actually better than my Cubs or the Indians who are both at 35 to one. So yeah,

Kyle:

I had a bit of a gambling hobby, so, oh,

Randy:

well there you go. Uh, well, you know, 18 to one is none, you know, too bad, a little above the, the middle of the back though. You wouldn't take that. Now, come on. That A's, that's your team.

Kyle:

There was only one year where they ever spent the money to try to do, and they bought the wrong guys anyway. So you can't count on them. You know, like let's say they do a push and they have an opportunity and then they, they go and buy a couple of guys. Can you count on them to buy the right guys?

Randy:

So I think that's hard to go do that anyway, because it really takes chemistry. It really takes, , that, that whole everybody's there at the right moment at the right time and pull it together kind of thing. I think it's hard to run a team and to win. Um, anyway, so, all right, well that was fun. Did you have fun? Definitely. All right. Well, let's get back into it. So did you always have a sense of entrepreneurship? So in thinking about, you know, where you are now, and as you've described kind of building the organization that you have now, you know, that really is an entrepreneurial spirit behind it. What do you think that you were kind of an accidental entre?

Kyle:

No, I I've always been thinking about how to make money and how to like. Optimize making my money. Um, I can distinctly remember when I started cutting lawn in the neighborhood at like 14 or so, riding my bicycle around our neighborhood and be like, you only know, I can only do one lawn at a time, but what if I got five people and I just took like a dollar or two, like, I seem to remember having those thoughts and then kind of crunching those numbers and then like how to make that happen. So I think I've always been the kind of like, oh, when I went after graduating law school, my father is an attorney and I was able to do an officer with them, but I've hung my own shingle out and went for it. And again, that's just, that's another form of entrepreneurship and I just starting on business. So those kinds of that kind of risk I've always been pretty comfortable with. And also then trying to think about how to make money through business or through different ventures and stuff like that.

Randy:

Okay. So I want to go back to your story of your. Early digital marketing company back in, uh, in India, uh, right in 2012. And thankfully your brother got out of jail, which is good. You don't know that's until maybe they're sending him fruit cakes, every holiday season, but kind of stepping from that. I mean, that is a crazy story and crazy experience. And who knows what in the world GKS were doing to get the attention of the local constables, but what did you learn from that experience that you carry forward today?

Kyle:

Huh? What did I, uh, well, I mean, so what all had happened was that we were just there, we, we, uh, didn't do anything. Inappropriate or we had all our business papers. We were friends with our neighbors., the first floor was the business and the second floor were apartments. And, um, our neighbors, uh, had the exact same setup and we were friends with them. And what we found out is, as soon as my brother left, the police came in and took all of our stuff, all of our computers, all the furniture, generator, all that kind of stuff. And then our landlord had a new tenant in two days later., for a mixed use space, you had to do a six month deposit and we just paid the rent for that month. So basically they got seven months worth of rent and they had a new tenant in and we help the it department at the local police department. And that that's basically what, what ended up happening there. The one problem that I did have with that is that that was a time of my life. I mean, I invested maybe about$30,000 into that and I've probably only had about $31,000. Um, so like one of the things where it's like, yeah, that was a risk for sure. But, um, Perhaps that was a bigger risk than I even thought it was because you can't predict, you know, natural disaster. No, you can't predict the police gang up with your landlord and in some random place in India, you know, those are things that are just a little bit beyond your control, but you can maybe put yourself into a situation that's not quite as risky.

Randy:

Do you feel like, do you take risks today in your businesses? Do you feel,

Kyle:

but I'm in a different position though. The riskiest of the three things we've had, it was the agency getting that off the ground, where myself and my business partner are the ones doing it. That was the riskiest of the ventures. But the other things that have come out of it, for example, pop pop was cashflow positive in month three, but we had the cash reserves to pay for the initial development of the tool, you know, and we ran the tool for free for about seven months. And then we started taking payments. And it was really month, three month, four right in there is when it was paying for itself. But we were comfortable enough with the agency that while we're taking a risk, we're not, nothing's going to be terrible. If, if, if it dies same with the, um, with the community, you know, that, that takes a lot of money to build a platform and put that down. And there's a lot of time and there is risk involved in that. But at this point we have two very successful companies that, um, are generating revenue for us that can, can sustain that. So while it is a risk, it's not the kind of thing that can end you in the same way that, you know, the India thing ended me. Right. That the store. Yeah. That was the end of that business. That that's that's that? Yeah. So maybe that was the big takeaway was that there is risk, but you also need to think about what is the worst case scenario. Now, if this all dies, you know, like where are we at? And so with the companies that we built out of what we've done, one of them could have died and it would not have impacted the other companies. I would still have revenue coming in and still have clients and still have means to pay their rent.

Randy:

Well, one of the things that I really appreciate and I think is a great example for how to grow and expand a business is really what you did with pop or page optimizer pro, which is you really took that and developed it while you were running. What we'll say at that time, your core business, and you saw it as an extension as a, as an extended service or product you were using it internally. The, uh, the very early stages of it, we'll say, and you began at some point to recognize, there might be some legs in this to run a full standalone entity. So you were getting value out of it because you were using it yourself and you were having success with it and success with your clients, but then you began the development made it better, which obviously increase the value of your, uh, of your own use. And then when you did launch it, it was, as you said, within a few months became very successful. So, but I think I love that formula though, where you developed, you had the idea, you had immediate value to your own core business. And so, you know, that was great motivation to continue to make it better. Because you saw the, you were experiencing the value and you know, it helps your agency continue to be successful, but I just think that's a great formula though, for other business owners when they're thinking about, well, how do we scale? And they get, sometimes they get a little myopic on, this is my core business. How do I expand this thing in particular? When sometimes you have to just think a little bit what is something that can also compliment maybe that you're doing, but can compliment, and then that you could sell as a standalone service or product. And I think what you guys have done with pop is a, is a great example of that. And it's a great entrepreneurial aspect you've come to really enjoy some good success with it. And it's a piece of software that has great, , reputation. A lot of people I know, use it.

Kyle:

Well, thanks. And then we're, we're in development every day on that too. Like that's most of the money that comes in for pop actually goes right back out to development. But so kind of to that point, it occurred to me that we've got features that we can add. And I was like, you know, we kind of gets away from our core in the same way that, um, it doesn't really make any sense for an agency to sell a piece of software., even though they're connected, it's really a, it's a disconnect. So like if we had tried, I think to say that this piece of software is the agency software, it really wouldn't make a lot of sense. And that's why it became its own entity. There are things we've talked about building into pop on ideas that we've got for pieces of software and it's complimentary, but I'm realizing now that they don't, it doesn't make the same amount of sense. It gets away from the core concept of an OnPage tool. It's complimentary. And it is for say something that's on base, but it's not quite the same thing. And we're realizing that those should become their own brands so that as we're even developing pop in the same way that like there's the agency and its sprouts. Page optimizer pro pay dot. My reserve pro is not going to sprout other little companies and grow them out because it, you don't want to get away from your core, right? So it is complimentary and we are using it. And it's validating because we can take this company, this company is successful using this thing, but then once you want to promote it, I think it's a really good idea. Need to look at expanding into another company, you know, that it, it becomes its own thing to stand on its own and you can promote it, you know, and then yeah. And whatnot. But that is a separate entity, I think, is a wise, when you, when you're looking at that, these things scaling your company doesn't necessarily mean scaling that one company, right. Multiple companies, as you mentioned, that are under kind of the same umbrella, there's a lot of synergy energy between them. Right. But a good way to scale and in a way that makes sense because you don't want, um, And there, there are different customers, you know, that might like one thing and not the other thing. And if you had them together, you might lose both customers. So the idea is that, you know, you have people that you have people that might like them both, but you can have different types of customer types at different price points, different needs with separate concepts.. Randy: And, and I, and I guess probably drill down as well as just to expand people's perception about that term, scaling your business, because I think too often, they think it's just that business. And in reality, you really need to think much broader and think out of the box and think what are the things that are complimentary to your existing, that you can grow or develop, and then let that. As what you've done, let that stand alone on its own, but it's part of the larger organization, the umbrella organization, and all of a sudden now you've got, and because of that, you've actually have kind of mitigated the risk a little bit then too, you've spread it out, , your assets and your interest around that. So, so here you are. You've got offices in Melbourne for Lynn, I think still in Phoenix. Yeah. Yep. We do that. And now the facto office. Yeah. And you live in Thailand, you, you, you have 30 minutes employees across the three companies. What are the challenges that you're facing running the offices like that? Yeah. We were instantly remote company and we're instantly multinational. Then that was just because of where I was at, where my business partner Andy was at. That was, it wasn't that there was no plan. There was just like right now we're a multinational company. I always sounds a lot sexier than it is, but it looks good on business cards. The thing that you have to have, and this is all Andy, by the way, the, the work that he has done to make us successful is tremendous. And if it were left up to me, we would have $0 in the bank and be struggling to, to, to do anything. And he is a phenomenal when it comes to the organization of the company and, um, I can't tell you how to look. So step one, find Andy, you know, that's, I need, I need a handy, that's a big step, but it is a good step one. But you do have to have people that are motivated enough that they can work on their own without complete supervision, but then something that, that actually I need to put into place, which was really excellent for us is that especially on the agency side, there is a task for everything. Like all processes are cast out to very specific details. So that the idea is that when you have somebody new that comes in, it's not easy to train somebody that isn't sitting next to you. Uh, and so you have to have ways that they can be trained in. And one of the best things to do is just like you just follow this list, like exactly. Like, and what that means though, is that you have to do a one-time yourself, or you have to have somebody that's high level enough to do it themselves. So they know exactly how long it should take, uh, and what all the actual steps are, because what you'll find is you end up losing money. When people, uh, take too long to do something. And the reason that they're taking too long to do something, as, you know, the it's not clear enough in that list. And you also need to know it's too long, you know, you need to have somebody that's done it. So they'll get this task should only take this long. And then when somebody turning in time sheets and it's that long, and you know, there's a problem. We, they, there either needs to be some training that's done or the list needs to improve. And those types of things I think are extremely, extremely important. If you're gonna try to run a remote company, It's it's so spread out that type of organization is necessary if you can't get that deal. And by the way, that is not me. Um, if we wouldn't have this company in this form, uh, uh, if it were left to me, that's all Andy, and that's the tremendous work that he's done.

Randy:

How do you stay focused on what's important in the business rather than getting kind of caught up in the weeds? You know, I had meds singer on, uh, I'm sure you probably know, Mads Mads is great about, business and business management , probably a, a strong thread that, that rolls through his speaking and his instruction is really about. Teaching others. Uh, once don't answer questions, I was listening to the show with my kids and my daughter, I think even asked me, what do you mean? Don't answer any questions, but really it was like, you don't have time to get caught up in the weeds in running your businesses. You have to step out and let others do it., how do you do that with all of the stuff and the wheels that you have, the plates spinning in the air?

Kyle:

Well, you have to have people that you trust and I think you trust them. If you train them, you know, that they know they're doing it. It kind of goes back to the, to the list, right. You know, that there's the list for people getting the work done, but there's also management lists as well. And those processes all have to be defined even to, to how you hire. We're actually going through this right now with, um, how to properly hire, because we've had some people that we hired that didn't perform at a level that we thought that they could, or, you know, didn't stay with us that long, you know, Did they were looking to stay with us for a little bit and then, and then, and did just fine with that, but then kind of go down and that's not great for your business, if you have a lot of turnover like that. And so looking at how can we refine this process to find somebody that fulfills exactly what we're looking for, and that requires going and making these processes and then trusting somebody to put that into place. So kind of maybe that promotion with, within. Demonstrating that they can get to certain areas, but something else that I realized, you know, the Peter principle and the idea that, um, somebody does something really well, and then they get promoted to another job. And then they do that well, and they get promoted, but that is, they get to a spot where they suck and they don't get promoted anymore. And then what happens is that all of the people in upper management are terrible. So that's something that we really try to avoid so that as people are advancing, making sure that they're in a role that they can Excel in, you know, it's something that we try to be very mindful of. So we have a leadership team. That does not include myself or Andy there, there's our us manager, our EU manager, and then our CTO. And those three people are the ones that are kind of with the idea of, and I might have the vision or the framework, and then they're really responsible for how we can get this done. And then they're also responsible for the hiring and firing and those types of things. So, and again, this was Andy's idea as well. Again, this wasn't me at all, but the idea of having this separate set that was kind of outside of the ownership, That, but then this also gives them stakeholding in how this company is going to work and how we're going to move forward. And so when we need to make those types of decisions, like how is this company going to function? You have a leadership team set up. And that was also very, very beneficial to us. And that really kind of moved us forward in a big way is by having. People that kind of there to say, okay, this is how we can take this vision or these concepts, and this is how we can practically do it. And then once you've got that set up, those are people you're going to trust right now that when those decisions have to be made, how we're going to do this or that they can they're in a position to actually do it.

. Randy:

When it all boils down, you really, it comes down to the people hiring the right people, training them to be successful, allowing them to be successful and letting them run with it then.

Kyle:

We're uh, we're taking a page out of Matt's book actually on doing personality tests. We haven't done that before. No. What was hilarious is that we, you know, we basically gave a personality test to everyone in the company. We all got the same personality or like one of two, like yeah. Kind of within band. And I was like, oh, okay. Maybe we need to hire people like this, you know, like kind of, instead of getting off track on other things.

Randy:

So a little different, maybe a little different thinking could help. So what's on the horizon for you and the, uh, the organizations. How do you plan to get there?

Kyle:

Well, I mean, now we want to, I don't, I don't know how old you are, but I'm not playing. I'm not planning on working for I'm in my early forties. Uh, I could see by 50 and some change, I don't think I want to work anymore or at least not as much. Right. So I think at this point, we're looking at how to exit, you know, and I'm looking at like a five-year plan or seven year plan on how we could be at a point where if we're not at an exit that it's also, the company is set up. Very very well. Have you always in the companies that you've run, I've always been concerned that you're you're, you've just got a well-paying hobby and like not an actual business, like I've always been concerned like, uh, is this just a hobby? And it's just paying pretty well, but I'm actually then trying to like set things up to, like, this is an actual business that could be acquired, you know? And I think as maybe people that are just getting started as, as things become more mature, they're probably stepping stones and like, what is an actual company and, , kind of getting to yourself to the point that you could be acquired, I think is probably one of those top levels. Even if you, if you're not right, but the year at the point that you could be that that's a real mature, uh, company. And so I think you kind of started that those levels of hobby, a big turning point for us was, um, being able to take a salary, uh, and be a salary employee in a, in a, uh, digital marketing agency, I thought was a massive step for us, uh, to say like, you know, so if we lose a client or gain a client that doesn't really affect me in terms of. My livelihood, right. Um, that's very freeing and very comforting. And so those are kind of the stepping stones. And now we realize we're realizing that being able to be acquired, even if we don't want it to be, but to be in that position is, is, is the next level. And so that's probably what we're gonna be working on over the next several years is for each entity that we develop. Even something from small now up to the stuff that we have Brian's very well is to be in a position to where we could do that, where we could exit, if we would like,

Randy:

Often I have these conversations with folks and, um, you know, really of trying to understand, you know, what is over the horizon a little bit, and it's so difficult, I think sometimes. And it's, it takes a real discipline. It's like force yourself to begin to think in those terms. People don't always think that way every day, right. They come to the office, it's like, okay, well, you know, what's going to happen seven years from now, but you do have to take time though. You have to pause and like discipline yourself to say, what can we do? What is that next phase for the organization? And, you know, for you guys to lay it out, like, Hey, you know, how can we position the company, uh, as a, uh, uh, an acquisition target, you know, it would be, you know, that's great. That's something that, you know, on our show on this podcast, we're just always encouraging, you know, the small business owners always to try to have that plan, right? Think down the road a little bit. And because your business and your organization is so much more than just today and your success and long time success really requires you to think over the horizon a little bit,

Kyle:

you know, like you have to think about what is your company. Right. You know, if somebody were to acquire you, what are they acquiring? Right. A problem that agencies have is they're just acquiring a book more than anything, and that's probably not very valuable. So there have to be, as you become more attractive, you have to think about like your sales funnel. Do you have something that you could step away from? And, um, you know, you'd still get clients, right. You know, and if you step away from it, are you still going to service those clients? Are you going to, you know, those kinds of things have to happen and that's where if you can. Get to that point, then I think you are something that can be acquired because you're an actual business, an actual business doesn't need one person to make it happen. uh, the key performance type person, you know, try to get away from that discount on the price by making it so that you don't have.

. Randy:

Yeah. That's the, and that's another great page out of, uh, Mads books, right?, if, if, uh, your business cannot operate without you, then you don't have a business, right?

Kyle:

Yeah. That's very true. I mean, obviously there needs to be. Somebody at the, at the, at the helm, you know, got appointed the director, but you should, I think you can feel like that's one of those milestones that if you could step away for several months and the business can continue, you know, then, then I think you've got something.

. Randy:

All right. Well, Hey, here we are. We're at the bottom of the ninth. You probably thought, dang, this is the longest. This really is a baseball game. You're going to have to trim this one. This one's too long. Nobody wants to listen to that. So here we are. Bottom of the ninth. Uh, what advice do you have for rookies in the game? You know, so guys, folks, you're thinking about starting out in business, it doesn't regardless digital or not, or maybe those who already have their business and what kind of guidance, what are the Kyle words here that you can,

Kyle:

so for people just starting out the rookies has that what you call them? Yeah. Yeah. I call them the rookies of the game. Right? You gotta stick with baseball and hold it. You know, I was, I was, that was because you, you know, You're a professional. So you send questions ahead of time, which is great. And that makes for much better. Yeah. Well, thank you for the careful nice. Well, you know, like, you know, I think this needs to be said because not every podcast does this, um, and it doesn't make mean, I was actually like hoping inspiration would hit me on this one because it wasn't exactly sure what it would be like some real amazing take home advice to, to change somebody's life. I think I've just recently read a book that I really, really like, uh, and it's called, um, the algebra of happiness by Scott Galloway and I strongly recommend reading it , he talks about kind of what really means to be happy in terms of, of being a success, uh, in, in, in a business setting. And what do you need to do to get there? And it kind of runs through a lot of things. And I really, a lot of we talked about was really resonating with, with me and kind of, of where you're going, but. Within that kind of a framework there are a lot of different ways to be happy. I think if you put yourself into a position that you could say no, you know, to something, you know, so like that's, I think maybe the, in my mind, that's, that's where you might want to get to, like, if you don't have to take a client, that's the ideal. And so it doesn't, it's not necessarily a certain amount of money that you need to make or a certain lifestyle you need to live. But the, in a, in a situation where you can give yourself that freedom is probably the goal. And, uh, one of the best ways to hit goals is to work your way backwards from them. So find the position where you can say no to something, and I want to do this and then work your way backwards from there. And so it doesn't matter what industry you're in, where you're going to, but probably where happiness lives is in that. Ability to self-determine and that doesn't require a lot of money. It might require a certain lifestyle changes or certain decisions, but it's very attainable. I think once you can get to that spot, I think you can be very successful. And I think if you're entrepreneurial minded, there's probably a way for you to get there. You know, it's something that you're doing. So that's where I would go with. I do like where, where do you want to end up? I mean, it's, it's one thing to have an idea and to cultivate it and to grow it. And there's a lot to that. But when you think about it at the end of the day, what's, what's real. What are we really trying to do? You know, and it's not necessarily build a better widget. It's probably to have a certain lifestyle. And so I'd probably work my way there and there's probably different paths to it and it could be. Being an entrepreneur, it could be starting a business. It could be investing, it could just be working in the job that you have. So maybe that would be where I would think about things. If I'm just getting started. I think about where do I need to get to? And then is actually being an entrepreneur, the path that I should go with, should I take this risk? Is the risk worth it to get to that point of happiness? So that's my philosophical thought for the day. That's where I would, I would say a page we haven't heard yet.

Randy:

Too much yet at that stage of the show,

Kyle:

so I think that's the goal. So work your way backwards from that. And then, and then build your business around that and build your business so you can get to that position.

Randy:

Good stuff. All right. Well, listen, Kyle, thank you so much for being on the show., page optimizer pro uh, and again, folks we'll have a coupon, a discount code, and a link in the show notes. Uh, so go chase that highly recommend the product high voltage, SEO, internet marketing gold. You also do podcasts, video channels. You've got your, uh, do you do this weekly SEO fight club? You do that, is that a,

Kyle:

we like the sound of this voice. There's plenty online and you're like, wow, I need to hear more of that.

Randy:

That's good. All right, Kyle roof. Well, thank you so much, Cal for being part of the show today. And, uh, it's been just a real, real pleasure to get to know you and spend some time with you.

Kyle:

Thank you so much for having me. This has been great. I appreciate it.

Randy:

All right. And as we like to say, that's the ball game. So, Hey, thanks for joining us today. Folks, if you like our show, please tell your friends subscribe and of course review and we'll see around the ballpark. Running the basis with small businesses is brought to you by 38 digital marketer, a digital marketing agency, committed to client growth with lead generation higher conversions and increased sales connect with us today@thirtyeightdigitalmarket.com.