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Intro…
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in Florida now –> Minnesota
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Kids — 5, 2.5, 4 months
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Plug current work
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Modus8 open sometimes
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Story — bulk of pod
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Didn’t say when he was a kid that he wanted to be in SEO
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6 years old…1st taste of entrepreneurship
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magician…volunteer…balloon octopus
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Magic books/kits –> doing paid gigs @ 9 years old
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top hat
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roofing company book him for a party…$25 + tip –> another party
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Performing at a restaurant every Friday 13 – 18 years old
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learn how to be adaptive
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College: Minnesota –> Florida
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right after high school
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didn’t do magic for about 1.5 years
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some entrepreneurial dabbling: eBay arbitrage
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“that’s the real world”
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did graduate
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Marketing internship…Classified Ads vs Google…–> Paid
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–> having to be in the office doing a lot of stuff he didn’t enjoy
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like showing properties, etc
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felt trapped
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he liked marketing
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~2 years
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still doing magic gigs on weekend
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per gig: ~$150-$250 –> $250 – $4,000
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making $14/hr – $20/hr @ real job
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driving/travel lot of the time — max 45 min
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total show time ~ 1-2 hours
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making more than the professors by the end of college!
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felt he “should be doing it”
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night and weekend company calls
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very stressed out
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Father was a biz owner
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expected to join his biz
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Getting advice from others…Beware!
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Finished up school…quit “real” job @ 2007
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everyone at college thought he was insane
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finance degree use
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turned down post college jobs
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fellow students thought he was nuts
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a bit scary
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some family thought he was nuts
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Magician Biz
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~ 40 shows a month from about 2007 – 2014/2015 ish
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A lot of the best gigs were from the internet
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Took his little website & expanded it out to more areas
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added pages for every city in Florida
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Consider growing your side gig expanding beyond where you are now…
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$4k Exxon 1.5 hour gig
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A lot of his growth came from taking what worked and expanding
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transition from magician to business owner mindset…
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started referring extra biz from friends…
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on the phone all day coordinating performers
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didn’t want to be a coordinator…fallen into another job
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Asked himself: “where was the value here?”
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getting the leads was the value
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burned out with coordinating all magicians
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large magician agency spending $30k-$50k/m on adwords…
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sent him an email…offered sample leads…responded right away…
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first day sent him 100 leads…blew him away
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lasted for several years
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cherry picked the shows he wanted to do himself
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ended up selling the website to this magician agency
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Has applied the city page strategy over and over again
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“service area mindset”…
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started taking SEO Clients @ ~2013
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SEO Only?
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…to start just SEO services provided
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…did a little bit of Adwords — didn’t like it
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likes the art and science of SEO
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started taking on clients when sending leads to the magician agency
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slowed down shows heavily…
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referral business…
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“Aren’t ranked #1 in Google? Then we haven’t talked yet.”
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Didn’t really take on a lot of clients…
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Exploring and having fun with SEO…
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Loves testing things…
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~2015 ~ 2 years into agency –> ~ 30 clients
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fallen back into the grind…
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spending a lot of time on the phone…
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wasn’t setting boundaries…
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web design/web tech
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Son was born…
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shift in mindset…
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didn’t enjoy the agency…
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let go of most agency clients…forward them to students
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transitioned back into lead gen
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+ teaching & training — what he really likes
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VA taking on a lot of his work
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he was doing all the work himself before!
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Now
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don’t take on new clients
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have a few large lead gen sites
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passion is on teaching & training
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working with outsourcers…platform to use his formulas + pair with people who he’s trained to work those formulas
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the means to buy the nicer things in life…improve health
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effectively buy back some of your time
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Future Plans? 3-5 years
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NOT the agency
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Training & Teaching — expanding Modus8
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First Full Time USA team member in July 2019
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coordinating a lot of his stuff
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Goal: bring people together that have formulas that work
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bring the formulas onto the platform
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If you had to start all over/other people starting now…
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Find something that works
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gigs @ a restaurant
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SEO in a city
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copy that working something…
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in a way that others can do it
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“formulas” — systems, documentation
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Hiring Gig you know vs Gig you don’t know
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systematize self vs using others who already know
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taking into account the costs of building your own systems…
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if can plugin and get it right now, will buy it from someone else
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Modus8 development
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~$50k over about 10 months
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–> scrapped code and started completely over ~ early 2017
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invested 6 figures in the development
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GMB’s affecting city page strategy?
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city page strategies by itself isn’t the only thing that will drive
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best is GMB + city page
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Outro
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Thank you!
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Local SEO Show podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Really enjoyed this interview, David and Fletch! I also got Modus8 recently and so far find it very very useful. Very cool to hear Matt’s story and the excellent questions asked. Thanks!
Thanks Brent!
I’m glad you enjoyed the interview.