Recently I was interviewed on Lance Tamashiro‘s podcast on the topic of Reputation and Authority Positioning

Listen to the interview

Transcript:

Lance Tamashiro:             Hey everybody, welcome back to the Lance Tamashiro show. I am glad that you made it here today. I have a fantastic guest lined up for you. One of the things that we talk about a lot on this show is positioning yourself as an authority, increasing your reputation so you can not only make more sales and get more traffic, but so that you can leverage that into all sorts of other things that happen in the business world besides just selling that book. What I’ve lined for you guys today is an awesome guy named Mike Saunders who’s an actual authority in positioning you and building up your reputation around the internet and everywhere else. He’s got some great strategies that he’s going to share with you. One of the real reasons, one of the neat things why I reached out to him to try to get him to share what he knows with you guys is that he knows how to help you become a best selling Amazon author quickly.

His big claim, and we’re going to hold him to this, is how he can help you do that without you having to write one word. I think that that’s really important because I know a lot of you have a ton a passion, have a ton of knowledge but there’s just that hump you got to get over to actually getting that book out there. It’s a piece that you need, it’s something you have to have. Mike I’m super glad that you’re here. Is there anything else that people need to know about you before we dive into this and start talking about your cool system that you’ve got? Also this whole idea of reputation marketing and positioning for people that are trying to sell products online.

Mike Saunders:                Hey Lance, thank you so much. It was a great intro, I won’t add anything to it. I was impressed hearing all that about myself.

Lance Tamashiro:             It’s always good when you impress yourself.

Mike Saunders:                Yeah, that’s right. Hey, so you said a mouthful and I would like to just start off by saying, gone are the days when people come to you as a business owner or service professional, or solo-preneur and say, “I can help you with SEO, with Facebook ads, with social media marketing, with pay-per-click marketing.” If you are hearing that you are talking to people that are removed from the marketing world in the sense that marketing has changed. What consultants like myself provide the clients has really, really changed and it really is antiquated to say SEO. It really is all about Google positioning and how people are perceiving you online and in your market. It really does come down to that building that authority and credibility. When you hear some of these things and you go, “Oh yeah. You mean I’ve got to write and do,” no ones going to do that. Anyone I would hire is going to charge 10 grand or more.

What I will show you is some really easy ways that you can do some of these on your own or access these for really low services. It really is about the word positioning and part of my bio is that I have an MBA in marketing and I teach marketing strategy and branding for 3 different universities. The academic definition of positioning, and that’s an actual word, marketing phrase and marketing term, it’s how your prospects perceive you and how your brand is perceived in the mind of your target audience. It’s not what your saying and how great you’re saying it, and how your copyrighting skills are, it’s how you’re perceived by your target audience. Many times that reputation precedes you even before the prospect picks up the phone, clicks on your website, or agrees to meet with you.

Lance Tamashiro:             You know there’s something interesting that you said about the whole SEO, Facebook, all of this stuff is becoming antiquated and there’s this perception in the marketplace as far as positioning and stuff goes. I know, for me personally, if I see something that I’m going to buy or I hear about a new company, or I hear about this guy Mike Saunders what I want to do, the first thing that I do personally, and I think this is what you’re talking about. The first thing I do is I go to Google and I type in your name. What I want to see is not that you have a blog. I hope that you have a blog, that’s cool, and you did. I’m also looking for, is there 1 result or is there 20,000 results. It makes a big difference in my mind because I think that as far as … With me, when I buy stuff, I’m really nervous about buying from somebody I don’t know of. If I do a search on them and there’s nothing there, I feel like it’s a scam.

Mike Saunders:                Yeah and that’s a really good point. I would add to that a layer of recency. Meaning if you go to someone’s Facebook page and you saw a post they did 2 and a half years ago or their last blog post was a year and a half ago, all of a sudden now it’s like, “Wait a minute, are you still doing anything?” Or is everything that they’re doing like their WordPress blog still has the Hello World on there and now all of a sudden you’re way wet behind the ears and you’re way too new. I think that in whatever your business is, if you are a business owner, a brick and mortar business owner, or you’re a coach or consultant, or author … Here’s one thing you have to keep in mind, do you want to wait and hope that the media, the external media, the CBS and the NBC news affiliates out there might talk about you some day because you know that …

I’m sure you Lance are familiar with Dan Kennedy and many of your listeners hopefully have read a lot of his books, but he has made a statement recently that if you’re not systematically or rapidly expanding and establishing yourself as a celebrity yourself, at least to your clientele and target market, you’re asleep at the wheel. Ignoring the entire economy around you and neglecting development of a measurably valuable asset. That’s from one of the marketing guru’s out there that is saying you have to do that yourself. It’s not a matter of twiddling your thumbs waiting to get noticed and recognized because there’s a lot happening around you. You should be the expert right now because the media is talking about you today and there are ways to do that.

Lance Tamashiro:             That brings up a good point because I think that a lot of people that whether or not they’ve been successful in their tiny little niche or they’re just getting started online, this sounds like a daunting task. Where people are thinking, “I’m not that important, I’m not a celebrity, I’m not these things.” How do you go, not only the mind shift but the actual implementation to making that to actually becoming something? I know you mentioned media outlets and getting noticed on all of these things which you will crush your competition especially if you’re in a small niche and you get noticed by these people. I’ve also been noticing that it’s not uncommon these days for small solo-preneurs, small info-preneurs to be on some major news outlets, major TV shows, major radio shows, major media blogs because they’re interested in these small niche celebrities.

Mike Saunders:                Yeah, you’re exactly right and we could do a whole master class on how to find your target market and focus on that target market because you cannot be all things to all people. You’ll drive yourself nuts and even just in the deliverables of what you’re offering to every customer, if you’re doing one customer that has whatever their needs are one day, and then a whole other customer, you’re recreating your content and that’s a whole other discussion. When you can target, laser target that niche, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “You get rich in the niche.” You focus on that vertical and that doesn’t mean you never take on a new customer from another vertical but you become that authority in that niche because authority positioning is about being about being and educator and advocate for your prospect and their success. When you share value and authoritative, and unique ways, so keyword sharing value, right? Your prospects and clients take notice and they call you the expert or the authority and you never have to.

There’s a neat quote that I’ve heard from Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank and she says, “I became larger than life for one reason.” When you’re quoted in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or any media people assume you’re a lot bigger than you are. Then she had to run like crazy to catch up with her own image. When you say that you are the expert in drain unclogging repair as a plumber and you say, “I’m the guru.” People go, “Whatever.” Third party endorsements like As Seen On, As Featured On, and guess what, just putting that logo out on your website means nothing. Imagine, let’s just use that example as that plumber just came to mind, imagine if you were receiving that phone call from an incoming inquiry and they were asking about your plumbing services and you said to them, “Hey, are you in front of computer?” They’re like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am.” You shot them a quick email and said, “Hey let me shoot you this email or go to this website.” Maybe it’s your website on the news page. Maybe on the website there’s a page called News or Media.

All of a sudden you go, “Hey you see that link there where it says CNN? See that link where it is says Denver Post, Wall Street Select, Boston Globe? If you notice there there’s a hotlink article and you don’t need to look at it right now, but when we’re done I want you to click through a few of those because that’s where some of the places we’ve been mentioned with our services.” Now all a sudden that local customer is seeing you get national attention and they don’t care that it’s in the Miami Harold and you’re in Poughkeepsie, it doesn’t matter at all. The fact is, you were being mentioned by third party reputable sites and that solidifies and seals the deal like nothing else.

Lance Tamashiro:             I mean, I love that. The whole thing about that is what most people teach at least in the circles that I see as … Figure out how to get your stuff on the NBC site so you can use their little logo but first of all that’s easy to get done especially the way that they teach but it’s a whole different way when it’s a third party actual validation and actually something that you leverage having it done.

Mike Saunders:                Yeah and I think the keyword is leverage because you can put the As Seen On anywhere on your logos and profiles, and all that. That’s nice for some people but it’s getting a little over done. What you have to do is think about your sales process and it doesn’t matter if you’re an info-preneur or a solo-preneur, or you run company. Somehow someway you talked to a prospect. A prospect emails you or they call you, or they set up a call, or you do a webinar. Somehow someway these authority positioning media mentions, these nuggets, these online pieces of real estate literally, right? Those need to be used in your sales process. Imagine when, like the example I gave where it’s just real time and you’re like, “Hey go over to this. Hey you see that?” Now all of a sudden they’re like, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I see that.” Then when you’re talking about your drain unclogging service or your whatever product that you’re selling, now all of a sudden you don’t need to say, “I’m so awesome.” You’re just talking from an authoritative position.

Now, how do you get that? That’s a whole other ball game because you can start Googling around and find PR agencies that’ll charge 2 and 3, and $5,000. One of the services that I provide is called Brand Boost. Where I boost your brand with this type of stuff that we’re talking about. If you wanted just a one time package that’s 250 whole dollars, whoopty doo, right? What we do is we bring you on my radio interview show called Business Innovators Radio, do a 20, 30 minute interview and now all of a sudden that, it becomes … It’s a really unique process because it’s so ingrained well that when people search for your name and maybe your business, that interview becomes indexed by Google. Now when, what you said earlier, you talked to someone and say, “Okay, look forward to seeing you next week.” They’re going to hang up the phone and Google you even before your meeting. What do they see, well maybe they see that you were interviewed on Business Innovators radio show and they listened to that interview.

Then from that interview we do a media release campaign where we get you in dozens of online media sites. Here’s this nice 2, 3, 4 page report with all of the media logos and you can click right on it and see your media release and then use them in your marketing. Because you cannot assume that just because it happened one time that it’s going to establish the level of authority you want. You want to have that pattern of authority and you want to use some humble brags, casually mentioning in your blog or your email newsletter, or your social media, “Hey, you know, I was just interviewed on,” or, “Hey I was just mentioned in whatever, here’s a link to the recent news release that just came out.” Now all of a sudden you’re laying those breadcrumbs for people to come find you and maybe someone that was on the fence about buying your product is going, “Dog gone, that other guy that’s been selling whatever they’re trying to sell, his competitor, her competitor they’re just pushing and going buy, buy, buy, coupon, coupon and here’s this person really being elevated.”

Lance Tamashiro:             You know and I actually … I was looking around at you stuff, just like how I mentioned before and I mentioned to you before we started this interview, we were just chatting that your show reads like a who’s who of business people. I mean it really does. If you guys haven’t seen that, go check that out. Look up his podcast because it really is … You want to be impressed about some people that are on here and so my point of even bringing all of this up is, as part of positioning and being an authority, one of the things that I’ve always tried to do is I want to align with myself with people like Mike. People that are on his show. One of the best ways that you can do that is if you know of a celebrity that’s been interviewed by Mike and you get on that same show, all of a sudden you’re positioned by people that go and look at it as, “Wow, this guy runs in those circles. This guy got on this show this exact same way.” That power of positioning really works to your advantage as well.

Mike Saunders:                Yeah, you’re exactly right. I was just talking to … That makes me think of another point which you and your products offer a Kindle publishing course and we could talk for hours and hours on why you should become a published author. One of the main reasons is this, Dan Kennedy said to me in another comment he says, “Sales people have brochures, experts have books.” Then Chet Holmes, the late Chet Holmes … If anyone’s ever read his book called the Ultimate Sales Machine, he is just spectacular. You’ve got to read that book, so go to Amazon and buy it today. He said, “Experts close 3 times as many deals as sales people.” If that’s the case and sales people have brochures and experts have books, IE, you need a book. Guess what, you might be nodding your head going, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heard that 10 times last year. It’s on my bucket list. I’m going to do it, I’ve got this burning topic that I want to have published. I just can’t get started.” Here’s the breakdown, the breakdown is you’re thinking of this project as the one and only spotlighted, award winning, grammatical piece of awesomeness and it doesn’t need to be that initially.

Through your course that you offer or through a package that I offer where, like you said at the beginning you’re going to hold me to it, so I’m going to tell you how this could happen. We’ll tie all together the media message and the positioning. Imagine this, when you talk to that person, that prospect, or that strategic alliance … and again, maybe some of your listeners would like to speak at some local events, the chamber, the rotary, the whatever, well who are you? When they Google you what do they see? If they start seeing some of these news releases or ding ding Amazon best selling author and now all of a sudden they’re like, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Your book is on XYZ.” The title and the topic need to be about the target audience that solves a problem that they have, and this speaking engagement would have a lot of your target audience there. This meeting organizer would love to bring in an expert right? Expert. That expert needs to be able to bring some value. If you speak to a group of 5 or 10, or 25 people and they’re your target audience and you’re just speaking out of your expertise and you’ve got a few books in the back of the room or you can say, “Hey, it’s available on Kindle at a reduced price.” Now all of a sudden … Selling a book is not even the point.

Let me tell you something really interesting. A lot of people think, “Oh published author and royalties.” Uh-huh (negative). I’m not talking about getting paid for writing a book. You will get paid because you wrote the book and that’s a massive difference. You remember I told you about the example of, “Hey when you can point someone in the direction of your press release.” That’s wonderful but then when you meet with them, could you imagine shaking hands going, “Hey, let’s follow up next week. We’ll talk about that proposal about whatever.” Maybe a phone call. Could you imagine handing them a copy of your book or email them a link to your Kindle book. Now all of a sudden, is the deal a given? No nothings ever given, but is that going to dramatically raise your credibility and the chances of closing that deal? Good gracious yes.

Lance Tamashiro:             You know, one of the things that I always like to say is I want to be the guy who wrote the book on whatever that thing is because that’s a phrase that’s ingrained in our society. He wrote the book on that. Why not literally be the person who wrote the book on whatever it is. I love … even you example, it doesn’t matter what niche your in or what thing that you do. First of all there’s books on everything that you could ever imagine out there so you may as well have yours. Even like the plumber thing and then following that up with Chamber of Commerce, if you are in a business like plumbing or building repair, or whatever, you know who your best customers are if they’re at the Chamber of Commerce. You don’t come in as, “I’m a plumber.” You come in as, “Here’s some maintenance stuff, or however that you need to take care of in your business. If you don’t here’s what it’s going to cost you and here’s how you do it.” I think that’s a wonderful lead in and I think a lot of these smaller guys that do stuff like that are missing out on huge opportunities with this.

Mike Saunders:                You got it in using the plumber as the example just because that’s a … you wouldn’t think of a plumber being the media mogul or the book author. Guess what, that’s why it’s effective. Too many times you hear the big Tony Robins type speakers or the Brenda Bershards all of those guys, they’ve got these life changing stories. Guess what, at one point they were sitting in a small apartment room at their laptop just like many of us have started. What happens is too many people have this big brain block of, “I don’t have a big story. I don’t have and I can’t do and I can’t write some book.”

In fact there was a guy that I interviewed on my show about 3 weeks ago and he’s a New York Times best selling author and I said, “Hey what’s your process for writing a book?” He goes, “Well let me tell you exactly what I do.” He goes, “I’ve got a condo in Hawaii and I literally every time I’ve a written a book,” and I think he’s done 3. “I fly out to Hawaii for 3 weeks and I write for 15 hours a day for 3 weeks.” I’m like, “Wow.” Nobody’s going to do that, now he can because he’s multiple best selling author and that’s his deal, and that’s his gig. That gets him speaking in all of these things. Most people … The Joe’s of the world, the plumbers that are hearing this in that example, they’re not going to do that and they’re going to know where to start.

Here’s the secret sauce, and here’s what I offer to people. I say if you’ve got that little burning ember in the back of your mind that you’ve got that life story, that cause, that thing that you want to write about one day work on it. Write a page or two here or there and in a few years keep on plugging away. Guess what, guess what we do right now? Let’s not wait for that thing to come out in 5 or 10 years. Let’s get something right now happening online with the media mentions, online with all of the “celebrity” you’re creating for yourself in your own sphere, and let’s get a book written now. I’m going to tell you exactly how to do it and maybe this ruins it for some people but I’ll tell you exactly what the secret sauce is. Still you know how it is, you can tell people exactly what to do and many people don’t do it, they still need the help.

What you do is you put your mindset on who is my true target audience, who would I love to help? Who is my best client in the last year or 2 that I would love to get 10 more like that. It’s like, “Shoot I sure have been enjoying working with Joe because Joe is a whatever and I was able to give great results and Joe paid. He didn’t complain and boy Joe was a great guy.” What you do is you come up with just one problem and one solution that fixes Joe. Who’s the next Joe? How can you clone Joe? What you do is you think, “Okay, well Joe’s problem was that he had X and my solution was I provided Y and the result was Z, and we all highfived and that was a great deal.” That becomes now your book and so I bring you on my radio show and we do a pre-call for about an hour, hour and a half and we run through all of these questions and the strategy of the one problem, one solution so that we are speaking to Joe.

Guess what happens? We come on the show and I interview you. It is a 20, 30, 40 minute interview and it becomes a number 1, a show, on the radio show so there’s a piece of authority. We do a press campaign around the interview. We take that interview and guess what? I’ve asked so many people this and Lance can you confirm? You got someone, “Hey how’d you like to write a book?” “Love to.” “Can you get it started tomorrow?” “I don’t know where to start, I could never write … ” Then when you say this, “Well you know your business is XYZ, could you jump on the phone in about 20 minutes and let me interview you on what you do? How long could you talk about that?” “Oh, I could talk for hours. I know my business … ”

Lance Tamashiro:             All day long.

Mike Saunders:                … inside and out.” Guess what? On this interview when I give you the prep and we talk about how to solve that problem and what our solution is, you can talk without any prep at all and you are going to be stellar because you know your business. Guess what happens after the call? I have this nice little service that sends me an mp3 and now I transcribe that call and it is now an interview style book. You become a co-author in an interview style book or if you selected a different package where it’s your solo book and it’s you, and it’s your face on the cover and all that. A lot of people don’t have the investment for a solo book project because that builds out a little bit more.

I’ve got a group of authors that I work with where you become now a co-author in this book and your names on the cover, and your chapters all about you. It’s solving one problem and one solution, and it’s got all your contact details. We do the media campaign around that. Now all of a sudden guess what? Wow, when you talk to your prospects and say, “Here’s this press release talking about me becoming an Amazon best selling author. Here’s my link to buy it on Kindle or here’s this PDF I’ll send you a copy of it.” Now do you think when you go meet with them to talk about your whatever product or service, are they positioned a little bit better than if you just send them some spammy email?

Lance Tamashiro:             Yeah and you know what I like about this and you kind of mentioned this off hand and in my head I’m going, “Wait a minute.” You said it’s an interview style book and you’re co-authoring with somebody else or you can go and do it yourself. The first thing that came to my head is, “If it was my first book, having it co-authored is almost better.” The reason is, is I get to leverage somebody else’s name. It’s like what I said with the brand boosting is anytime that I can associate my name with somebody that I respect, somebody that I know the marketplace respects, that’s good for me. When I hear that I’m thinking, “Man. What a great way to actually jump start your business and get your first book out there and get those clients in, then do your solo book.”

Mike Saunders:                Then do your seminal piece of work. Now that really gets your juices flowing and you’re like, “Okay, now I’m going to take and interweave in my life story and my this and my that. Bring in some of these techniques and whatev-” Now, you can work on that because now you see what it could do. Maybe then that takes you a year or 2 to do and maybe you do a follow up book. As an example, a lot of clients might feel this way, “You know what? I love it, I’ve got to do it. I don’t have 10 grand,” and you know what? If you Google around for some of these packages, they literally and I save them because I love seeing this. There are packages from consultants that will charge 10 and 15, and $20,000 …

Lance Tamashiro:             20,000 yes.

Mike Saunders:                … to do this. Now all of a sudden you’re like, “Well that’s what I thought. No, can’t afford that.” All these good things, that’s fine but come on now. What I do is I do this co-author book project and make it simple. The way that I say it is give me 60 minutes and 60 days. In 60 minutes we got that pre-interview and we got the main interview done. Then in 60 days I’m doing all the work on the background with my team of transcribing, formatting, getting it in, getting it published, running the best seller campaign. Doing the media and all of those things behind that. Guess how much that is? $995 one time, done.

Lance Tamashiro:             Wow.

Mike Saunders:                From there, that becomes a wonderful positioning piece. Then the next logical step could be a few months later or the following year they go, “You know what, I’m going to build that out because I thought of that one problem, one solution. I got like 6 or 7, or 8 more problems and solutions for my target audience. Let’s do that solo book.” Then guess what we do? We do a solo book and just build out each one of those problems, solutions the same way the interview style. Then I do all the work on the back end but now that book has your name only, your picture only. Your problem, your solution, everything. Now it’s only you and then that’s a little bit more. That gets into the 3, 4, $5,000 range but it’s certainly isn’t 20 or 30.

Lance Tamashiro:             No, I mean I was expecting you to say 10,000.

Mike Saunders:                Yeah, yeah. I just think that too many people, they’re looking over the fence going, “Ah, I get it. I got it right, but who’s got that. I’m not going to take a chance on 10 or 20,000 and hope that it works for me. $995 I can do that.” With that package you get, not only the interview on the show which becomes a marketing piece anyway and I’d be happy to email this to you. I’ve emailed 2 or 3 people recently that were past guest and I’m like, “Hey, you know how people when they hear about you they Google your name and your business? Look at this Google search result when you Google your name and your business.” Right there on Google page 1 and this is the disclaimer, it doesn’t happen for everybody right away. Man it happens very frequently, bam is their name and their business name on the Business Innovator radio show and people that are their prospects Googling them and their business because it happens every day, they see that. Now in this package whether it’s the Brand Boost for 250 or whether it’s the author, you’re getting all of these online digital assets and actually here comes Amazon best selling author on Kindle and telling your story. It really is something that becomes a massive sales leveraging tool when you are creating your brand and your credibility.

Lance Tamashiro:             Where can people find out about these 2 programs. I mean the Brand Boost, I think without a doubt, everybody listening should sign up for that one but if you’re really thinking about taking it to the next level with the book thing, where can people find out about that?

Mike Saunders:                My website is marketinghuddle.com and that’s marketing H-U-D-D-L-E .com and right on there on the home page is information about the Brand Boost. You can click on that link. You can show all the details and the price. For the book project I do … You typically don’t hear a 20 minute interview and go, “Got it, where’s the buy button?” You want to talk, right? I’ve got a few slots set aside in the next few weeks for your listeners where I will set up a time and talk for about 15, 20 minutes on the phone and you can schedule that up and that’s marketinghuddle.com/amazonauthoritybranding. Marketinghuddle.com/amazonauthoritybranding and right there is my schedule, it shows what’s available. You can select time and book in and we’ll get on the phone and talk about your business, what works, what doesn’t. What you’re trying to accomplish and then how this package could benefit you.

Lance Tamashiro:             How much is that?

Mike Saunders:                The call is free, it’s just learning more information.

Lance Tamashiro:             No obligation, you’ll get on the call, talk with them about their business, their specific situation, figure out if it’s right or not for them and if it is great, and if it’s not great too?

Mike Saunders:                Exactly. The worst thing is is you spend 20, 30 minutes on the phone. I’m not hard sale because it is what it is and I’m certainly not going to fit a square peg in a round hole. You walk away or you hang up the phone with maybe some great tips or techniques, or something that we come up with together on a brainstorming session and I spend years consulting with the small business development centers and what have you know 2 and 3, and 4 people back to back to back coming in and it doesn’t matter what the business is we can always come up with something really fun and exciting like, “Oh, have you thought about and did you know, and did you realize?” Whether you buy now or later, or not. It really does get down to if you have something that helps people and that resonates with someone, you can’t pressure people. That’s not going be a good business model.

Lance Tamashiro:             I really appreciate you first of all being here and second of all, these are some amazing packages that you’ve put together. Here’s the thing that I noticed is, when we started this off we talked about SEO, Facebook, all of these traditional things that we hear about when we’re trying to market our businesses online as becoming antiquated. One of the things that as you’ve been describing this and as things have been coming together for me is that I spend money on AdWords. I spend money on SEO people. I spend money on Facebook people and it’s not uncommon for me to drop $1,000 on AdWords in a week or 2. It’s not uncommon for me to hire somebody to write me a bunch of articles at 50 bucks a pop and then post those things.

My problem with them is I never really have any guaranteed result, in fact AdWords is a lot of testing mostly, articles. I mean it’s one and it’s done. What I’m thinking about as you’re telling all of this is this $250 Brand Boost product is an absolute no brainer for a couple of reasons. They get on your show, they get on your website, they get all of the media stuff and it’s that long term residual effect that is out there and actually doing something for you. If you think about all of the things in your business that you spend 250 bucks on, there’s no quicker or better way to spend something like that if you really sit back and look at what have I been doing? What are the results I’m getting versus what will I get if I do this?

Mike Saunders:                Yeah and that’s a huge point because you know the phrase shelf life, you know S-H-E-L-F, shelf life. What’s the shelf life of a Google AdWords campaign?

Lance Tamashiro:             I mean as long as you’re willing to put money into it.

Mike Saunders:                Hey, yeah. Guess what? It’s like a week or 2, or a month and you drop a grand on that campaign and now it’s gone. Nobody sees it because the ads and the impressions aren’t being displayed. You drop that money and hope that you capture their attention number 1. They click on the ad and hope that the page that you sent them to isn’t your home page where people get confused. Hopefully it’s a high converting landing page where you maybe get their email address and they don’t unsubscribe. Now all of a sudden you couple that with something that has longevity for shelf life and like you mentioned credibility and authority, and all of that. I’ll end my talk with this one comment, SEO’s not bad it’s just you don’t want to lead off with it. Let me show you a technique that you can use because maybe a lot your listeners know how to do some SEO and back link building, right? What if you have this link to this highly credible and authoritative interview radio show that you were spotlighted on and by the way, I didn’t mention this but my producer also will take the interview on the radio show, convert it to mp4 and put it out on YouTube.

I literally have had guests where we Google their name and their business and the show link is there and the YouTube, the thumbnail is showing. What if you take those 2 URLs to the radio show interview and to the YouTube, and what do you want to do with those?

Lance Tamashiro:             Market them everywhere.

Mike Saunders:                Market the daylights out of them and build back links to them for your keywords and your brand name. Now, if you have this … For instance I’m in Colorado and my CPA is up the road from me, and I’ve got him on a few of these programs. In fact I’ll tell you this, he didn’t want the Brand Boost and I’ll tell you exactly why. Because I’ve got another product and I’m not going to even go into it here but it is an automated review and reputation marketing platform that literally set it and forget it, and I’ve got him on that. We in 90 days got so many of his clients giving reviews that then filtered out and got over to Yelp and Google that guess what happened? Now all of a sudden he’s in the Google Snack Pack, he’s on page 1 and I did this little review commercial thing for him where we green screened in the backdrop of his office and had a professional actress. Now when you Google his keyword, the local area he’s in and CPA, not even his business name because a lot of SEO’s out there are like, “Oh, of course you can rank for your name and your business name,” but if you Google the local town and CPA, that’s pretty broad.

When you do that in my area, in his area, you see his Yelp listing with the 5 star reviews. You see him in the Snack Pack and you see a YouTube thumbnail video all with his name on it. He owns page 1 of Google. I said to him, “Hey I’ve been getting these great results on the interview show and you get this. Do you want to do it?” He emails back, “I don’t think so because I’m almost to the point of not taking new clients because of the review system.” I said, “Hallelujah, can I use that quote?” He’s like, “Of course.” I lost business because of one other product that was so good. The point is, if you want to couple some of this authority marketing with some old school SEO you take the YouTube link, you take the interview link, you take the press release link that you got on whatever news outlet and put that into your SEO and build back to links to those and social signals to those, and now when people are Googling you and your name they’re seeing all of this not just your main website.

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