Lighting for Profits - Episode 222

Step inside the mindset of a builder, leader, and marketing powerhouse. In this episode, Victor Hubbard - Owner and Sales Manager of Performance Driven Marketing - shares how a small side gig evolved into a results-obsessed full-scale agency. From his early days in Yellowbook to launching his own ventures, Victor breaks down what truly drives ROI, why personalized marketing beats one-size-fits-all strategies, and how passion, data, and client care fuel long-term success.

Whether you're a business owner, marketer, or creative thinker, this is your roadmap to performance-driven growth.

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Episode Transcript

Today's show will focus on how to generate more leads for your lighting business

Welcome to Lighting for Profits.

All light. All light.

All light.

Powered by EmeryAllen.

Here is your host, Ryan Lee. A lot.

A lot. All light. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the number one landscape lighting show in Utah. I can't tell you how stoked I am to have a fellow Utahn on the show. Today we're gonna mix it up. One of my favorite topics. We're going to be talking about how to generate more leads, which means more business, which means more profits for your lighting business. So excited for today's show we got Victor Hubbard. He's co owner of Performance Driven Marketing and can't wait to really get this show kicked off because like I said, it's one of my favorite topics and in fact most of the people that I talk to when I ask them, what's the number one thing holding you back? Like, I need more leads. And so, after today's show, I'm confident that we're going to share some strategies that'll help you guys get more leads and help you grow your business. So really excited to have Victor on and he'll be joining us in just a few minutes. as always, want to thank you guys so much for your support, truly. it's an honor, it's a privilege to be able to do this show and thank you to Emory Allen, thank you to everyone for your support. it's awesome. So we're still trying to crack the 100 reviews. So we're still at asking you to go to Apple, and go give us that five star review, write something nice about one of our, one of our guests, for coming on the show and sharing so much value. hey, by the way, you may have seen, we've really been starting to promote Light it Up Expo. And it's coming up March 4th through 6th in Orlando, Florida. And I, was actually talking to my team earlier and I was like, hey, what's something that we could do? Something special? I was like, what could I do? How could I give a Christmas gift to the entire lighting industry, the exterior illumination industry? And I was stumped. But luckily I got an awesome team. And Darcy, goes, hey, I got an idea. What if you gave away this thing? And I was like, I like this. So we've decided as a team that we're going to give you guys something amazing. Okay. It's a Christmas gift that I'm going to give everyone in the exterior illumination industry. And I'm giving away a free training to either landscape lighting, holiday lighting, or Permanent lighting. This is a completely free training. It's a one day, maybe one and a half days. We still haven't finalized that, but at least a one day training on either landscape lighting, permanent lighting or holiday lighting. Now here's the specifics, here's the details. I have people that reach into my DMs every single day, pretty much at this point asking, when is your next training? I want to get into landscape lighting. Where do I learn more? I want to learn permanent lighting. How do I get trained? I want to do Christmas lights, I want to get better, whatever. Or sometimes they're like, hey, I'm good on it. But I've got a new hire, a new team member, where do I get them training? And I've just been telling people like I don't know what to tell you. I don't have anything planned, I'm not doing that anymore. But we've decided to give you guys an amazing gift for Christmas where, when you invest in a ticket to Light It Up Expo, where we're going to bolt on an extra day. So March 3rd is going to be our pre show classes where when you buy a ticket to Light It Up Expo, you will get for free, no extra cost, a free training to either landscape lighting or permanent lighting or holiday lighting. Isn't that epic? Isn't that awesome? So, now when you send me a dm, this is what I'm going to tell you. Register, for one of these classes and basically once you get your ticket for Light Up Expo, we'll send you a link and then you'll be able to register for one of these classes. Now we're going to, we don't have unlimited spots in these classes so it will kind of be first come, first serve. So if you're interested in one of those, make sure to get it signed up sooner than later so you can guarantee your spot in one of the classes. Again, this is for anybody that purchases a ticket to Light It Up Expo. So if you're bringing like one of your main guys and they need, they want to, maybe you're considering bolting on landscape lighting or permanent lighting or holiday lighting, then send them to that class and you can each go to one. Like if you want one, go to one. And divide and conquer, you can totally do that. So that's pretty exciting news. so we've extended a Lighted Up Expo. It's not just March 4 through 6, of course, if that's the only time you can come, then do that. But if you want to get into one of these other industries, come attend the completely free training to one of these industries. So I'm really excited about that, guys. and like I said, once you get your ticket, we'll send you the sign up link. You can reserve your spot, 100 free. Thanks awesome team at LLS for putting together, putting that together. Thank you, Darcy. Thank you, Jerrica. okay, and so by the way, you probably know it's called Light It Up Expo. So you just go to lightitup expo. com to get your ticket and then you can actually secure your pre show class completely free, which is amazing.

In just a few minutes we're gonna have Victor Hubbard on with Performance Driven Marketing

So again guys, in just a few minutes we're gonna have Victor Hubbard on with Performance Driven Marketing. So if you're looking to get more leads for your business, you're wondering, like, why have I hired this digital marketing agency and they're not working out? Or like, how come I'm, getting low quality leads? How can my, like, what's wrong with my website? Is it converting as much as it should? We're going to answer those questions today, so make sure you guys stick around. And then honestly, like right before I hit record, I decided to call an audible. I have, you know, I prepare, a lot for these shows and I had an outline and I was like, hey, I'm going to talk about this and this and this. But honestly, I've got something on my mind that has, has. It's been with me now for almost two weeks and I can't shake it. And, and the only thing I can think of is the only way I can shake it is by telling you about the story and sharing with this with you. I honestly feel inspired that I'm supposed to share this on this podcast so that at least one of you, hopefully at least one of you can learn from this. So maybe if this is you, pay attention.

One thing that separates most lighting companies is inability to make decisions

So I've interviewed at this point, hundreds, maybe, maybe a thousand, maybe maybe 2000. I don't know, I don't keep track exactly, but I know hundreds. Let's just say I've interviewed hundreds of business owners. I've figured out one of the top things holding people back. Okay? And the one thing that separates the majority of lighting companies and preventing them to get to seven figures and beyond. And this one thing that separates those that are gaining traction and momentum in their business to those that are still stuck at 2, 3, 4, 5, 600,000, this one thing is the inability to make decisions. Okay, so a couple weeks ago I was on a strategy session and for Landscape lighting secrets. We have strategy sessions. Anyone can go at any time. Landscapelightingsecrets. com Click Start. Now watch a little case study. If you feel like you're a good fit, we get on a phone call and we. And we give you this strategy session. And with a strategy session, we guarantee you're going to walk away with two or three things that you can take and apply in your business, even if you're not a good fit for our program, and even if you decide you don't want to be in the program, Right? So I'm on one of these calls, and we have several questions that we ask. So we go and I go down the checklist, and I'm, asking questions like, how long you been in business? What's your revenue? What's your profit? How much do you charge? What do you do for marketing? What do you do for lead gen? What's your sales process like? And I'm doing that because I want to see if I can add value. And if people have really good answers and really good questions, it's like, I don't know if I can help them. Now, most people that get on these calls usually need some type of help, otherwise they wouldn't be on the call. If they had fat bank accounts and, you know, a $10 million lighting business, they're probably sending me a link to join their program, right? So most people that get on the calls recognize they have some type of problem. But again, I want to make sure it's a good fit. So we're asking some of these questions. Well, I'm going down the list. I'm like, check, check, check. I mean, this guy's a stud. He's like, checks all the boxes. And I'm like, he would fit so well in our program. And this is a big deal, too. His wife was also on the call. And I share that because a lot of times we'll have people that want to be in landscape lighting secrets, but then all of a sudden, like, their spouse will be like, oh, you know, like, couldn't we do something else with that money? Or, like, is it the right thing? And to be honest, they're ignorant, okay? And ignorant, not in a negative way. It's just ignorance to me is someone who doesn't have enough information to make an educated decision, okay? So they just don't have the same information. They don't. They don't understand it in a way that they can make a qualified, educated decision. So it makes sense. I don't get mad at them. I'm like, yeah, you don't know enough to make the right decision for your. For your family. And so this was different. The husband and wife were both there. I asked him all these questions, like, do you. Do you think this would be something that you would want to do? Do you think it would be a good fit? Would you have time? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'd be great.

So.

So I go ahead and I make him an offer, which not everyone even gets an offer, because, again, if they're not a good fit, I'm like, well, you know, did we add value? Did we give you two or three things that you can do? Absolutely. Okay, cool. And I just don't make an offer. But this time, I made an offer, and I felt really good about it. And, I was surprised because the guy goes, you know what? I really like everything you said, but, let us. Let us talk it over. And I'm like, excuse me. Like, I was so thrown off because I wouldn't have made an offer if I didn't think he was a good fit. And if. And I didn't think he was going to say yes. I like to close 100. Okay? I don't want to ruin my, my closing ratio here. So he goes, yeah, we got to think it over. We got to talk it over. I'm like, is it. Could I. Could I ask you something? Like, is it okay to provide some coaching here? Like, I want to ask permission, because I don't just want to assume, right? It's like, absolutely. I love what you're doing and everything I said.

Learning to make decisions is probably one of the biggest overlooked skills

Okay, well, maybe I'm wrong, but your spouse here seems like she's bought in. Like, she's ready to go. Am I mistaken? And she's like, oh, no, I think this would be good. I'm like, do you really believe that this would be the tool, the community, that would help you get to the level that you've been trying to get for all these years, that you haven't. That would help you get unstuck? I absolutely do. Like, okay. I'm like, husband. I'm, gonna just call him M. Husband and wife. I don't want to use names, but husband. Do you. Did you hear what your wife just said? Yeah. Yeah. Like, so then what is it that you need to talk about? Because this is crazy, because I've. I've literally, this is the only time this has ever happened. It's usually, like, the husband making an excuse, trying to blame his wife to say, let me go talk to her. And then the reason he does that is because you want to blame someone else and you want to be like, yeah, well, I would have been successful if my wife would have let me join that program. But she held me back. Okay, that's a lot easier than making a decision, stepping up, being a man and making that decision and changing the trajectory of your family. Right? So that's what normally happens. In this case, she's like, yeah, let's go. And he's like, we need to talk about it. Like, what? This is insane. Like, what do you mean? Like, I've rarely see this where you have this supportive wife who's willing to bet money on her husband, who is supportive and, and wants him to succeed and is willing to sacrifice. and I told him this. I'm like, dude, your wife's amazing. Like, she's sitting here supporting. That's not easy for a spouse to do. considering that you've been in this exact same position for the past six, seven years. Right. That's hard to do. But she's supportive. She's with you, she's encouraging you. That's amazing. Right? And that was so frustrating for her. It was frustrating for me because I know what his future looks like if he doesn't join our program. And it's not that I'm a prophet, it's not that I'm a fortune teller, but we have evidence, like, if you keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over that you've done the last six or seven years, what do you think is going to happen the next year? Right. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this stuff out. And so it's like, okay, well, you can continue on that path or you, you can make a decision right now. The reason I'm bringing this up is not to make this individual feel bad. It's not to shame them. It's not to make them, make fun of them or anything like that, because this is a real situation that people encounter in their business, in their real life, every single day, every single week. This is the real world stuff. And learning to make decisions is probably one of the biggest overlooked skills. Right? And it's easier for him at this point. And maybe, maybe I'm speaking to you. Maybe you're the one person that I'm going to help learn to make decisions. It's easier in most cases, short term to just kick the ball down the field. I'm not going to decide right now. And why is it that we're so afraid to make Decisions. Why is it easier to kick the ball down the field? Comes down to one thing. It comes down to certainty, okay? Because we, we. We want certainty. And I understand that. I want certainty. I want to know if I'm going to show up to a call, then I'm going to get value out of it. I want to know if I'm going to show up to a homeowner and I'm going to present a $25,000 lighting design, then I'm going to get a check, right? And I want to know. I'm going to get paid on time. And I want to know that my, my team members are going to show up every morning at 7am and they're going to put a full day's work and they're not going to steal from me. I want to know, I want every. Of course I want certainty, right? We want to know that our spouse is going to be loyal to us. We want to know that our kids are going to love us. We want certainty in all areas of our life. And I get that. I get the need and desire for it. But we're going about acquiring that certainty the wrong way. I actually learned this from Tony Robbins several years ago, and, at the time it made sense to me. But I've got so much more experience now that I've been able to apply this framework that he taught. And, it's awesome because it makes sense that you want certainty.

As entrepreneurs, you have to learn to make decisions without having certainty

But understand this, as entrepreneurs, you've taken on the, identity of one who takes risks, who has to learn to make decisions without having certainty. So how do we do that? Well, most of us need results, right? We need results in order to see certainty. And so we go, okay, well, how do I get certain results, right? Well, those results require some type of action, right? And so what happens is, as you take action, you'll get a result, right? Which that result then develops certainty. And when you get that certainty, now you start to believe. Now you start to believe in yourself more. You start to believe in your. Like, I'm better at making decisions than I thought, right? I'm a better leader than I thought. I'm a better person than I thought. And so it's this, it's this endless flywheel of belief taking action, getting results that then feeds your certainty, okay? Belief, action, results, certainty. So I can't give someone certainty. I can't tell them. If you join Landscape Lighting Secrets, it's going to work out exactly as you think it's going to. Like, I can't do that. They have to believe, they have to take action. They have to get results. From those results is where they develop the certainty, right? And this framework is true in any area of your life. I'm talking about it specifically right now for landscape, lighting, secrets, but doesn't matter. It could be around hiring your first admin, could be hiring your first salesperson, could be hiring your first gm. It could be, you know, anything. Any decision has to go through this framework. We all want certainty. And so most people, because they demand certainty, put off the decision, which, interestingly enough, is actually making a decision in and, of itself, it's the deciding to not decide, right? So if you're, if you're already, making a decision to not decide, why not just grow up, be a man, make the decision? That's what this is about, right? And trust me, there's going to be times where you make the wrong decision. Maybe it was the right decision, the wrong time. Maybe it was the right time, wrong decision. Like, these things can happen. It's called risk. And if you are willing to take risks and know that you're willing to take the necessary actions to get the necessary results to build the certainty, you can minimize the risk of all your decisions. Okay? And again, I don't expect you to just, like, hear this and comprehend it and be like, boom, I got it. I learned this from Tony Robbins probably five years ago, okay? And I learned, and it helped me, like, it helped me move a little bit further. But now I'm more advanced because I've applied that framework, I've experienced it, and now I make decisions as fast as possible. I mean, I paid a sales, coach, I can't remember how much it was 14 or $16,000 a couple months ago. And it was just a one phone call. It was like, hey, yeah, this is what we charge, $16,000, okay? Like, and I might be wrong. Like, there was certain things that I went through. I'm like, was this really worth 16? You know, but then I decided, you know what? I'm gonna find the value if I can just convert one, area of teaching and apply that to my life, where I can earn an extra thousand dollars a month for the rest of my life. Was that worth 16,000? Heck, yeah. Did it take longer than I thought to get the return? Yeah, for sure. Wasn't, as, as, as cool as I thought it was going to be, but it wasn't a waste. I've had other investments that were a waste. Literally got nothing out of it. And then I know what not to do. Right. And that's not a dead end. It's not me. Oh, poor me. That's a victim mentality to absorb that back. Oh, yeah, well, do it. Blah. And make excuses like, no, make decisions quickly. This is the key, I'm telling you. This is. I, I've interviewed hundreds of people and this is, is the common core thing that keeps coming up. Well, yeah, January after holiday, light season. Yeah. Then I'll join. Oh, wait. But then in January now I got this. And then someone got sick and then someone's, a death in the family. And then, oh, we got this. There's always going to be a reason not to take action. And so if you're, if you crave certainty, then you need to take action. And what's interesting about this, it's almost like you're walking down a path and the path is completely dark and the next stone doesn't illuminate until you step on it. That's what this is. It's risk, it's faith. You step into the darkness not knowing if it's going to light up. And those are the winners in the industry. Those are the people that are growing their businesses. They're taking risk. They're deciding to invest in.

You need to make decisions fast. SEO, pay per click, all these things, they don't always work

We're having Victor on in a minute. SEO, pay per click, all these things, they don't always work the first 30 days. That doesn't mean they don't work. It just didn't work the first 30 days. So you got to try something else. Right. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they blow up in the first 30 days, like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And then like 90 days later there's a dip and you're like, what's going on? Okay, you need to learn to make decisions fast. And there is a way to make calculated decisions. But when you have evidence that your decision making process has led you here. Right. But, that maybe that's why you're stuck, because you are unable, because you have to talk about it, think about it, wait for it, blah, blah, blah. That's why you're in the position you're in. That's why you feel stuck, because you're not willing to take those risks, take a step in the dark, let the light, come and shine in at that point. And that is how you move forward, my friends. So I hope some of that made sense to at least one of you. I just decided to call an audible literally right before because I had this, this experience and I, and I feel for this individual so much. I'm like, dude, you're you. You belong in this community. We will help you go so much faster. I mean, they've been in business several years and have not cracked a few hundred thousand. We have people doing more than that in their very first year. So it's not like I have evidence that it works. Right? And this person knows that it works. They're just not ready because they want certainty. And the more that you demand certainty and the less you're willing to make decisions, the more you're going to stay stuck, my friend. So, I'm here for you. I want you to succeed and, and it's going to you be. It's going to require you to get uncomfortable. So hopefully that helps you guys. yeah, and hopefully it helps this, this brother that we were talking to a couple weeks ago. Hey, by the way, if you've been, listening for a while, you know I care about the client experience. I mean, it's an easy way to differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't let a bad lamp ruin your client experience. Emory Allen makes premium LED lamps for lighting professionals who demand the best. Don't settle for less. Upgrade your designs and installations today with Emory Allen. Remember, it's what's on the inside that counts. Reach out to tom gmeryallen. com to learn more and take advantage of their contractor pricing. Don't forget to mention lighting for profits. Just email Tom g@emoryallen. com. get your discounted contractor pricing set up. Thank you tom g@emryallen. com. but seriously, thank you Emery Allen. Thank you Tom. Appreciate your guys support. Email I'm Tom gmeryallen. com.

We're going to be talking about all things marketing on today's show

all right, guys, no secret, one of my favorite topics. We're going to be talking about all things marketing. Let's get our guests coming on. You guys say, where's music? Can we do this? I can do hard things. Welcome to the show, Mr. Victor Hubbard. What's up, Vic?

Not much.

How's it going?

Thanks Ryan for inviting me, man.

I love it. I'm excited to have you on. I could geek out on marketing all day long. This will be a good one. so I, I can't. I mean seriously, everyone that I get on these strategy sessions and stuff or if I'm just like, people are asking me questions in my DMs, like, so what's the number one thing you need help with? And they're always saying the same thing. It's like AI is contacting me, but like, I need more leads. I need More leads. So hopefully we can help some people figure out how to get more leads today.

Perfect.

Well, you know, we met, I think it was. I don't know, I. We met at a show like, several years ago actually. and, since then, you know, we've gotten to know each other a little bit more. And quite frankly, I talked to a lot of different marketing people, agencies, things like that. But when I talk to you, the conversation's different, you know, and, it's like you definitely have an understanding of it. And especially when we start talking just like, not just like mindset, but more like the specifics of, like, how things work and all that.

Victor Hubbard with Performance Driven Marketing talks about digital marketing misconceptions

So if it's okay, I kind of want to just kind of pick your brain on some things around SEO, pay per click websites, because I think there's some common misconceptions and I think some, some common headaches and challenges that people have with digital marketing. And I think we can help them out today. Love it. Do me a favor, just introduce yourself real quick and then we'll jump in.

Yeah. Victor Hubbard with Performance Driven Marketing. we've been doing this for 17 years now. Came, out of the yellow page world. We, saw a dying industry. Our yellow pages were dying. We were wondering what was going on next. It was kind of just as, as things were starting to pop up with online marketing and different things. So my business partner and I left the yellow page world. We jumped into Internet marketing. Have been in it ever since. It's been awesome. We've grown a team. We have 20 employees that work with us. so we're not just. Everybody that works with us is all in house. So we're all here, local, and we help companies to be found online, help them to grow their business, help them to be able to better understand the craziness of marketing and advertising. So that's what we love to do, is declutter the craziness of marketing and advertising.

I love it, man. Yeah, thanks for that.

Business owners often believe that all SEO companies are the same

so, you know, when it comes to getting leads, I mean, most people know they need a website, they need to get it ranked SEO wise. and then not everyone pays for ads. They're like, oh, I just, I just do SEO. So let's start with SEO. What. What is some of maybe the, the biggest rumors or lies that business owners believe about SEO?

I think the biggest misconception that's probably out there is that all SEO companies are the same. And so if they'll see somebody that'll throw up a price for $250 to do SEO. And they're like, oh man, this guy's, I'm going to go to these guys. They're doing it for $250, versus a company that's doing it for more money. We're asking more things. And so I think that misconception of understanding that SEO is not the same from one company to another, and understanding that there's both on page SEO and there's off page SEO, and that those things work together to ultimately rank your website and make you show up.

So what are some of the things that you're doing to like you say on page, off page? You know, let's say you have a, someone who's charging a couple hundred dollars a month. It makes sense that obviously they can't afford to do as much. So what are some of the things that your firm's doing that a good SEO company would be doing to make sure someone's page is ranked?

So one of the first places we start, and this is where I think it's really important for people to understand is what is the right keyword to be even be found for? So one of the biggest mistakes I see most people happen is if I go to their website and they have three pages on their website and they think somebody's doing SEO for them, they've got three pages that can rank and you can maybe be ranked for two to three terms per keyword or for each page that you have on your website. So now you're only ranking for six terms and they think they're doing SEO, whereas we'll typically sit down with somebody and say, what are the services that you offer? So we're going to sit down and look at exactly what terms they're offering. one right now. Thinking of it, it's kind of a fun one to kind of explain to people is, is that holiday lights or is it Christmas lights? And most people have on their term is holiday lights, when the reality is what people are searching is Christmas lights. And so it's important to understand the difference on what terms to be found for what pages do I need to have on my website? And the reality is, I would love you to have a Christmas lights page and a holiday lights page, because those are two different terms. Two different people that are looking for those terms. So making sure that we can be found either way that somebody is looking.

What are the right terms to have on your website to be found for

All right, so that would be something that's like, hey, you start with us today. Of course I want as many pages as possible, but that's not humanly possible, and it's not really possible with costs and stuff like that. So is that what it is, is you're adding new pages every single month?

Yeah. So every single month we're looking at, we're coming in, we're going to add, different content. And a lot of times people are like, what about blogging? Or different things? Blogs are a fantastic way to be able to show up for terms when people don't even know that they need you. if people are searching for different questions around things like, hey, what's the best way to light my house? Or how do I get more security around my house? I want to be answering that question so that when somebody finds that question, I'm the answer to that question, therefore I'm the first person that they're going to call. So even blogging helps with some of those kind of things. But it's taking a look at all your different services that you offer and figuring out a game plan as far as when and why and what pages just to add to make sure that we're being found for every single term that we possibly can and what are the most important ones. So, like, for instance, like I was talking to you earlier, if we had to choose between holiday lights and Christmas lights, just as an example, I've got a. I use, Google Adwords to tell me exactly how many searches are being done for it. So, for Christmas light installers, there's 40,000 searches a month. For holiday light installation, there's 2,400 searches a month. If I have to choose between those two pages, I'm going to choose the Christmas light installation page to build out first. Therefore, I'm being found for the term that's most likely to be searched and most likely to be found for me. So that's an example of if I have to decide between several terms because I don't want to build out a, bajillion pages on my website, what are the most important pages? What are the right terms to have on my website to be found for? if your website guy, or if your SEO guy that's helping you, if he never asked to get into the back end of your website, he's only doing on page SEO, he's not doing any, or he's only doing off page SEO, he's not doing any on page SEO. So that's a really quick trick. If they've never asked you to log into your website, they're only doing a fraction of the SEO for you that they need to be doing.

And what are some more of the off page SEO activities that, that you do?

So a lot of that is like citation building or directory sites. So making sure that your business is listed with its name, its address and its phone number and making sure all those things are correct. So going through that process of doing some of those type of things where you're finding other places to be listed, it's adding that additional content to different places. Whether it's your GMB listing, whether it's your Facebook page, Google is looking at all of those things and they want to make sure that all of those things are matching and working together. So they want to see that there's interactions and different things being done. So we put together a formula that basically makes sure that Google knows that you're out there and that you're represented the correct way online.

Okay, very cool. And then you mentioned earlier, like when you, when you go to a Google search for anything, there'll be those questions and then like you pick one and then they're kind of unlimited, they'll just keep going. Right. Is that, is that a strategy you guys use to find out what content you should be putting on your website, what questions you should be answering to be ranked on those?

Those are fantastic blogs. So those are like, so if you type in any term, you'll have the frequently asked or questions that are sometimes asked. Those are great, blog topics for people to use. That's exactly how we go to find different blog topics and different things for people to use. So it's a, it's a great place to go and look at it. the other thing that most people don't think about is every question that somebody asks you is a question that you should be answering on your website. So if you're frequently asked about what is your, how much does it cost? Like create a page that talks about your costs because that's a question that everybody's asking. They want to know that information and therefore you're going to be found, for it first when people are searching.

I love it. It's funny because when you talk about this stuff, it's like it seems so like, well, I don't know, like what are the secrets? And it's just like, just provide really good information. Like provide really good customer service. Like you just said, like, if you're always having these people, like, oh, I didn't know it was going to cost this much. Or how long does the lighting installation usually take? Or do you service these areas like you can just answer these. And not only that's not only helping your client out, but it's helping you get more leads, in the same. Same time.

Yeah. With AI coming on board, like, you're going to notice like, those little AI overviews that pop up now in the search. A lot of the times you'll find that those are the questions that people are asking. And the reason that you'll show up in those are because of the frequently asked questions. So if you've noticed a trend of everybody having frequently asked questions at the bottom of their website, that's an SEO tactic that they're using to be able to be found better on the AI search. And different things too.

Yeah, no, I mean, pretty much every day. I mean, sometimes it's dumb stuff. I'm not even trying to hire someone, but I mean, I'll put in so many questions into Google. Just dinner table conversations with my son or something like that. He asked me a question. I'm like, I don't know, let me find out the answer. And it's all those AI summaries and it's all linked to those specific pages where they're pulling it from. So you're dead on there.

I think it really comes down to that content. If there's a magic trick to SEO or anything else

What's something that Google rewards that you've found that people just still aren't doing?

I think it really comes down to that content. If there's a magic trick to SEO or anything else, it really is content. and if you use that philosophy that I said that you can rank for two keywords for every page that you have on your website, the more content, the more information you put out there, the better off you are. one of the biggest things I think people miss out on is their recent projects. So, like, if you get done doing a project and you're in an area, let's call it, we're here in Utah, right? So let's say we just finished a project in Salt Lake City, and we want to show up better in Salt Lake City for Christmas, light installation. We're going to create a page that's Christmas light installation, Salt Lake City. And we're going to show the pictures of the things that we've done. We're going to build out a little bit of content around that. That page now allows me to be found outside of my local area where I'm always showing up on the maps, and now gives me one more spot to show up. And so it's just utilizing the things that you're already doing. It's just taking those pictures that you've already taken and putting them to work for yourself so that they're actually generating you business, generating you more money because you were putting that out on your website and giving that information to everybody else else to see.

How does someone know when, when to hire an SEO company

How does someone know when, when to hire an SEO company? I've had so many people tell me, they're like, I don't know. I, I hired this company and I'm spending this much money and it's been five months and I haven't gotten a lead and they, they don't really know. I'm like, okay, is that the SEO company? Like improper communication, letting them know, like, hey, this is normally this or you shouldn't expect leads or I don't know. You get what I'm saying? Like there's just these.

Sure.

There's a disconnect between the, the digital marketing agency and the business owner. And I'm wondering like, is it the, I don't know, is, is it the, the company or is it business owner not patient enough? Like, are there metrics they should be looking for? I feel like they just feel like they're paying money and then they're like, that person's just off on vacation in Hawaii or something. Like, are they even doing anything? You know, how can they make sure that they're getting what they paid for?

So a couple of the metrics that I tell people they really need to be tracking is first phone calls. So how many phone calls you're receiving off your website? If you're not knowing how many phone calls you're getting, how many leads did you generate? You don't know. the other one is use your contact form. It's like, how many contact forms did you have filled out last month versus this month? the other one would be even your analytics. So in the very beginning, right, Sometimes your phone calls and your leads might not be coming in because your, you're one month into this SEO program and it just hasn't started yet, it hasn't generated the business. But usually you'll be able to look at your analytics and you can see an increase in traffic. Now the hardest thing is if I started with a brand new company and I'm looking at their analytics and I'm looking at it and it's. And I'm comparing this month to last month. Well, if we're comparing December to January and we just come out of the Christmas light season, like, yeah, of course December is going to have way more traffic and way more everything for that term specifically. And so it's Important that you understand the data that you're looking at in the comparisons. The best comparison that I give is use year over year comparisons. So always compare December to December, because if I'm comparing December to November or December to January, those numbers are going to be off when it comes to some of those different things. So it's important that you're comparing year over year as far as when you're looking at numbers and then look at the numbers that make you the most money. Like if you get more leads coming in, then it's working. If you're getting less leads coming in, why is it not working? Is it because the SEO isn't working? Is it because the economy sucks? Is it because something drastic has changed? I had an example of this. I had a client that called me just the other day and he's like, I don't think my Google Ads are working. First off, his website was actually atrocious. It was horrible. He called me with two days. It, it's. It's November 24th, and he says, I want to run Google Ads for Christmas lights. And I'm like, well, your website sucks. Let's not use your website. Well, I don't have that option. I don't have any time to change it. Okay, let's use what you got. I call him and I say, it's been a m. It's been 24 days or something that I call him and I say, hey, how's it going? He goes, well, I don't think it's working very well. I've had, I've had several people fill out forms on my website and I've gotten of, the six forms that I had filled out, five of them closed. But I don't think it's working. And I'm like, how else are you driving traffic to your website? Well, I'm doing some SEO stuff. Well, that hasn't really worked. I guess I'm not really paying anybody to do SEO. But he couldn't see that the leads that he had generated, he spent $500 and generated six leads. And five of those converted into jobs that were $2,500 jobs. And I try to help him to understand that, hey, that's a great conversion. You just made a lot of money from the ads that you just spent. And so it's helping people to understand, you know, the return on their investment or expectations. And so I think that's one thing I really like to do up front is set realistic expectations of what to expect and how, how to try to measure those things as best as possible.

Okay, cool. I like it. So obviously, Google Analytics, you can at least see traffic. And if you're like, oh, cool, it's spiked, it might not be the SEO, it might just be because it's a different month that, you know, whatever. And most people kind of know that, like, if you're not in Florida, if you're like, in the north, you know, like, spring and fall are big landscape lighting seasons. You know, summer typically slows down, so it would be unfair to be like, it's August. Why haven't we got the same number of leads that we did in April? You know, it's like, well, it's August. But, you know, in, in Florida, for example, like, all the snowbirds are back there. It's a big season for them right now. They're gonna, the next few months are really big for them. So just understanding that about where you're located, seeing what traffic's coming in, what the analytics look like. And then, of course, leads. I've always been like, I don't actually care how much traffic I get. I care about how much leads I get. Even though typically leads should be a trailing indicator on the traffic you're getting, it's not always true. So, how long should someone give it? Like, if they hire a company and they're like, let's say they already have a site in place, but they're maybe getting it redesigned and, you know, it's, they're, they're, they're transitioning from either doing it themselves or a previous company and then hiring you, how long does it usually take for them to actually notice it, if that makes sense.

Sure, you bet. when it comes to SEO, search engine optimization specifically, that's usually going to take somewhere between two to three months before you really start to see, results. And I usually tell people by three months to six months, you should be getting a return on your investment. So for every dollar you're spending, you should be getting at least a 5x return on that. So, like, you should start to see a return on your investment within, within three months. If I'm not seeing it at three months, I'm starting to ask some pretty hard questions to my marketing company and saying, here's where I'm at, here's my numbers. And I think it's important that you're open with your marketing company and telling them, like, look, I haven't seen this, or this is what I'm seeing, so that they can understand what moves the needle for you, what matters because sometimes I'll just have a company just up and leave and they'll never, they'll never even explain to me why they left. And is it because they're waiting in leads or whatever? It's important that you have conversation. it's also important. I've seen this sometimes where, when you're changing websites or you're doing different things, all of a sudden you've been getting leads on a general basis and it's been happening every week. You're consistently generating leads, and then all of a sudden they stop. Sometimes our contact forms or things will get broken, or sometimes an email will change and somebody didn't update and tell somebody about that email changing, those kind of things are really important. If you've got general leads that are happening on a regular basis and talk to your marketing company and say, hey, something's happened. We've got a drop in leads, and then they can diagnose it and tell you why it's happening. If they can't tell you why it's happening, it's time to probably hire somebody else.

Yeah, that makes sense.

One thing I love about digital marketing is they're intentional

So, one of the things I love about digital marketing and, you know, we're talking Google and SEO and pay per click right now, is they're intentional. Like someone had to type in landscape lighting installer near me or, you know, whatever that term is, you know. And I love all forms of marketing. Like, I like sending out direct mail, I like yard signs. I like all that stuff. But the cool thing about this is, like, someone actually typed it in. We don't know if they have money, like all the time. We don't know some of the things like that, but they really typed it in. So if we're getting traffic to our site and we're not converting.

Let's talk about websites for a minute. You mentioned this gentleman didn't have the best website

Let's talk about websites for a minute. Because the other thing I do want to ask you about is Google Ads. but before we go there, let's talk about websites, because I think people will spend money on ads and spend money on SEO. You mentioned this gentleman didn't have the best website. What are some common things that just. You see people missing where you take over, take them over as a client? You're like, okay, first things first. These are the top five things we're going to do to their site.

So the first thing I always like to explain to people is think. Put yourself in the customer's shoes. So, so if you're a customer and you're coming to your site, what are the things you need to know? We just talked about the buying cycle. These people that are coming here are ready to purchase. If they like what they see, when they get there, they're going to make a purchase. So how do I make a purchase with you? Do you want me to make a phone call? Do you want me to fill out a contact form? What is your process that you want them to take? And I should be able to see that action either. In the upper right hand corner, I expect to see a website, a phone number. So I need to see a phone number in the upper right hand corner. If I don't see that, I'm usually saying, why is there not a phone number there? Maybe it's somebody that says, well, I suck at answering the phone. I only want people to fill out a form. Okay, you got some other things to fix, but let's, let's at least get them to fill out that the next thing I want to see is.

Your website should speak to the target market that you're marketing to

I want to see something. If I'm. Who is that target market that I'm marketing to? That, picture that's on the front of your page should speak to that target market that you're talking to. So if I'm talking luxury landscape lighting, I don't want to see a crappy piece of house. That's the first thing that I see on your website. Because me as a luxury customer coming to your site, I've already left because I don't think that you market to me. So you want to make sure that your site is appealing to the person that's going to get there. You want to actually funnel them through to an action that you want them to do. So, if I scroll down the page, I want to see the services that you offer. So if I don't see the services, let's say I do pool lighting and I don't have it on my website, that person was looking for pool lighting. They come to your website, they don't see it, and they're going to leave immediately because they don't see it. The other thing to remember is there's two types of people. There's analytical and there's visual. An analytical person is going to look at the top menu bar and they're going to look for what they're looking for. A visual person is going to instantly start scrolling. So it's something that I've always talked to people about is making sure that there's multiple ways to get to the different sites sections because you're targeting two different, groups of people when they come to your website. As I scroll down through Your website, if it's an SEO client of mine, I'm going to need 2,000 words of content on your website. A lot of people think that's like way overwhelming, that's way too much content or different things. There's different ways to hide that. So it still looks pretty, but we have the content so that Google can read it. Because Google is reading the site just the same as a person is and they're reading left to right, top to bottom, bottom. So your most important services should be in the upper left hand corner. So if I open up your page and it has lighting services, what is that first page that's going to show me? What's the second page, the third page. And these should be in order of priority of what type of clients that you want because you're telling them who you want as you're building up that site. So that's how I like to look at it and kind of really quickly diagnose, does this a good website or is this a crappy website?

Cool.

Use images to set expectations for potential clients when they visit your website

So you mentioned the example of like, you know, the visual person. Help me understand this. If my average home that I light is a million dollar home and my average job is $10,000, but this last year I did this really cool project. It was a five million dollar house and it was $200,000 and that's my best picture. I love it so much. Is that a homepage picture or do I stick with the million dollar home? The $10,000 project?

That really goes back to. If you're trying to move yourself up to that next level, then sure you use that photo. But if I'm trying to keep. Sometimes people don't know the difference between that million dollar home, but you're setting an expectation. When they see that house now, they expect their house to look that way. So all of a sudden you go out and do your project and they're disappointed because it doesn't look like the two million dollar picture that was on your website. So I really like to diagnose like where are you at currently and where do you want to be at in the future? Because maybe if you're wanting to get to those bigger homes and you want to get out of that smaller thing, sure, use that image. But in most cases I would say stick with the what's your bread and butter? Use that as that image because you're setting an expectation for the person that's coming to the site.

Yeah, I like that. And I also think that you're just going to get a lot more search volume from regular million dollar homes than you will five, ten million dollar homes that are wanting. So of course, yeah, you want to be that. But that's, that's where I think like this is all about capturing Elite. It's not about selling yet. I mean it is a little bit, but it's really just lead capture. When you get to the appointment, that's when you can show them like, hey, what's possible, you know. So yeah, I like that. And then in terms of a form, I mean I've always thought that it's just like again, I'm just there to capture a lead and a lot of people, will disagree with me here. I'm interested what you have to say like, because a lot of people are like, well, I want to know the address because then I can look it up and I can know in advance when I call them back. But all I want is a name, an email and a phone number. Path OF LEAST resistance what types of information do you put on a form?

The world is changing a little bit. And so I've got clients, it's interesting. I have some clients that will want to give them a bid right online. So they'll give them everything that they need to get a bid right there online from their website and whatever else. And there's definitely a market for that. But what we found is, what we did is we stopped that right at the beginning. We gathered their information and then we give them an option to go further on. and it was interesting because we increased the leads to this company by 25% just by making that little change and it was just changing it to where they first got their name, address, phone number and got all that information. And then they give them the option to do that other. Because what was happening is too many people were getting started in that form. They got busy, somebody made a call, something happened, they left it, they never captured their information and they just disappeared. And so I think it's really important to understand, like capture their information, then give them the option to fill out more information. But I want to capture that lead while it's there before I lose it, if that makes sense. And I've seen this with several different softwares that'll do whole proposals for somebody. If they don't capture that lead first, they lose it.

Yeah. And I think maybe with, you know, permanent lighting, Christmas lighting, you could, you could maybe make the argument they could just do their own quote online, but for landscape lighting, it's definitely more artistic. Most of these people want to get their eyes on it and look at it and do that. And I, I also think that, like, depending on how big you are, a lot of these guys, if you're just the one man, show answering your phone calls, everything else, the, the desire to like, well, I'll just use my form to pre qualify and make them fill out all that because I don't have time to answer the phone anyway. That's just a flawed strategy in my opinion. I'm like, no. Once you hire an admin, they can take the time to interview the client, get them stoked. Hey, you know, we're awesome. We've been around this long. We have these awesome warranties. We can come out and give you a design and, you know, get them excited and pre qualify them. That way, once you have their information now, you might turn someone who wasn't gonna spend 5,000 to like, well, actually, you know, we didn't, we just didn't know. We thought solar lights were the thing. Yeah, we didn't even know. Low voltage doesn't cost that or cost that much to run. And, and, we get these awesome warranties and it looks better and it's brighter. So, yeah, maybe we should have you come out, you know, so that's, that's why I'm a fan of like, less is more. Just like, get their, get their info and then gather it on, on that initial phone call.

The other one that I've seen a few times that I really like is, is a free consult, right? We're offering a free nighttime demo or different things like that. Something where you can, offer them something to fill out something for you, right? Like give them a reason or a purpose to fill out what you're asking them to fill out.

One of the biggest mistakes is not understanding how Google Ads work

So let's talk about, Google Ads. Because I've had so many people tell me that, you know what, I tried Google Ads. It just didn't work. But. And I have a lot of clients are like, no, it's crushing. So why is that? I have my own, hunches, I guess. But where have you seen people missing the mark with Google Ads?

So I think one of the biggest mistakes is understanding how Google Ads work and what they are about the benefit. And the cool thing about Google Ads is Google Ads, it gives you the ability to show up wherever the heck you want or wherever you don't want. One thing that's important is first knowing where you want to be targeting. The other cool thing about Google Ads is you can choose to be really broad or you can be very specific. If I'm working with a customer that has a small budget, I'm going to be really exact on what I want. So it's going to be landscape lighting contractor, landscape lighting services, landscape lighting. I'm going to get very specific and I don't want those broad terms of just landscape lighting because if I'm getting clicks for landscape lighting, I just wasted all my money and never got anybody that was really even interested. So missing the terms. And like if I, the first thing I look at in a campaign is are you on broad match or you're on phrase match or exact match? If somebody's on broad match, they've just wasted a lot of money and I even feel bad telling them because that's usually they've spent thousands of dollars that they didn't need to spend because they were targeting the wrong terms. The other big important key here is negative keywords. So if there are certain things you don't want to show up for, you got to start putting in negative keywords. Usually we start with a list of about 300 to 500 words that we just dump into somebody's campaign. Then we start getting very specific to do you want to show up for your competitor's name or do you not want to show up for your competitor's name? Do you want to go into different things? And we build out a very specific identity of who they're targeting and what they're targeting. the other thing that people will do sometimes is they'll, they'll target way too big of an area. They'll target 100 mile radius when really they should be targeting a 5 or 10 mile radius because they don't have enough budget to go that far. And I also don't trust Google. Like if you get a Google rep that talks to you on the phone m. Their whole goal is to make you spend more money. That's how they're making money. So I don't trust the Google reps when they talk to me and tell me what to do either.

Careful, they might be listening.

I know, I know.

So I want to go back because you just hit it really quick. Broad match, phrase match, exact match. You're, you're saying you're not doing broad match. Are you phrase or exact? Which one of those?

I start with phrase match. And if somebody doesn't have the budget or is not. If phrase match is too loose for them, I'll go to exact match. But I'll usually start with phrase match and start to see the terms that they're hitting on. And you can look at inside the insights on Google Ads. You can look at the exact term that people are searching for so you can see exactly what people are searching for. You can, identify, like, issues. Like sometimes there will be a weird term like that you get shoved in there that's not even related to you. Let's say it's electrical car lights, right? And so we're talking about lights or security lights, and it's talking about cars. And so you need to go for the negative term for cars or automobiles or different things. So it's important that you look at those insights and see what terms you're actually being found for and making adjustments to spend correctly.

Broad Match is the lazy man's way to do Google Ads

And let's talk about. Why do most people do Broad Match? Because almost everyone does it. Is it because Google's made it so easy? It's like the lazy man's way to do Google Ads.

Exactly. So they want you to do broad match. Right. Google makes money when you click, when somebody clicks on their stuff for other things. Now, there is a strategy to do Broad Match. If I have a negative key list that's extremely good and I can really narrow it down and I want to get every single term and I have a big budget and I want to just be found. If somebody's searching anything towards lights, I want to be found for it. Great, I'll show up for it. But I don't want to use that strategy with somebody that has less than $10,000 a month on a Google Ads campaign and is not willing to brand. They're using that for branding and everything else because it's a very different strategy because you're not getting those people that are searching exactly what you're looking for.

I hope people are taking notes because, I mean, I saw one the other day and I was like, wait, what? I wasn't really paying attention to which type of campaign they were on. I'm like, so show me your list of keywords, you know? And then I was like, wait, why are you guys targeting this? Do you really like, what? Is this something that you guys really want? I don't even know why that's there. And it was because they were on Broad Match, you know, and it's just, it's so broad. Which again, if you have an unlimited budget, then maybe, maybe it's not a bad strategy. But I haven't come across anyone that, that has that yet. So, yeah, hopefully people are taking notes on this stuff. This is, this is really, really good.

How, um, how much should someone plan on Spending on Google Ads

How, how much should someone plan on Spending. I think a lot of people and I, and I feel like this is one of their, the reasons they tell me they go, yeah, Google Ads don't work. I'm like, how much are you spending? And I ask them all these questions and everything. Oh, like 300amonth. And I'm like, okay, so like, I don't know what the average click in your area is, but let's just say it was 10 bucks, you know, 30 days. I'm not very good at math, but that's not a lot of clicks.

Yeah, yeah. And my formula for how I usually figure it out is I'll first sit down on somebody and say, how many leads are we trying to generate from your Google Ads? So if you work backwards and so if you'll use this formula, it works pretty well is you'll say, okay, I want to generate 100 leads. I'm working backwards. I'm going to go in and find out what my average cost per click. And so just for fun, I've got permanent Christmas lights on my screen right now, so I can tell you how much that is. So permanent Christmas lights is going from 62 cents to $6.19 on the HYBE page for free page. So in that case, I'm going to take that, 619 and I'm going to times it by 10. So I need about $60 a day to get 10 clicks. So 10 clicks is usually one call. So for every 10 clicks I get one call. So that's one potential customer for every 10 clicks. So that's kind of the formula that I use. And I'll just work backwards and say, okay, how many leads are we expecting to generate from this? And if we'll do that, 10 by 10, it'll usually give you a pretty good idea of what to be spending to get that. Now those are rough numbers and we want to fine tune that and get that a whole lot better. But it gives you a pretty good idea of where you need to be spending, in the world that we live in. Since Google's done what they've done, I would say if you're not going into it with at least $1,000, you're going to have a hard time unless you're in just a tiny, tiny market. I was just explaining earlier. I was in Bozeman, Montana, helping the guy for Christmas lights and he was spending, he had a budget of $2,400. I could only spend $600 for him. He generated six leads from that money and his average Click was costing around $8. To give you an idea, his click through rate was phenomenal. He was at a 10% click through rate. If you're over 3%, you're doing fantastic on your click through rates. So that's what we usually monitor is the click through rate. How many clicks are you getting per impressions that are out there? So that's how we monitor if it's a campaign's doing well or not well.

And if someone's doing like highly targeted keywords, they could expect 10% of the clicks to convert to a lead.

They should be, yeah, yeah, that should be pretty accurate. Now there's, there's times when that's not going to be if you're in a certain super, super competitive market. But like, yeah, that's, that's usually the formula that I'll go off of.

Okay. And I think this kind of relates back to the websites. It depends on where you're sending them, right? It depends on what your form looks like. You have your phone number. Like if you have every, if you don't have all that in place, you, you might not convert any of the clicks, right? You might convert 1% or something like that.

So the other thing, I'm just kind of going off of that. It's really important that you have a landing page. If you're trying to track your Google Ads, there's not many ways that you can really track it accurately without having a landing page that you're specifically landing them, on that has a unique phone number and it has a unique contact form and it has no way to navigate back to the site because now I've locked them into landing on that page. I now know if they're converting or not converting.

I like that. a lot of people get, especially in landscape lighting, there's a lot of, like, there's a lot of artists, you know, they're really proud of their work and their work's awesome and they should be proud of it. But they, this is hard for them to understand. Like, but wait a minute, what do you mean? I just, it's just a landing page. Like where do they go view my portfolio? You know what I mean? And that can be a problem even on their website because they're like, well, no, I want to get people to my portfolio. I'm like, no, you literally just want them to fill out this form or make the phone call. So I guess, I don't know. Do you, when you do the landing pages, is there specific ones for different campaigns? Like a, ah, Landscape lighting campaign, an outdoor lighting campaign, a, ah, Christmas lighting campaign so that all the images and everything lines up.

Exactly. The other thing it's important to understand is Google reads what's called the quality score. So quality score is the page and the content and the information that's being read on that page. So let's say the difference between that $6 or that $6 click and the 60 cent click is not actually how much they're willing to spend. It's partly how much competition is there, but it's also the quality that the page that they're landing on, if your page is talking about Christmas light installation and Christmas lights and it has that information, that content, Google's going to give it a higher quality score and therefore give it more reason to show that page over somebody else's because your content is specific and correct to that term. So that's where you can save yourself some money because your quality score can lower the cost that you're paying on paid ads as well. So then this is where it gets really like when it, like if you're trying to do this yourself, you're just kind of winging it and you don't understand some of these terms. You don't understand these things. This is where having a professional help you, they're correcting, they're fixing these type of things. They're saying, hey, we need to increase these, the content that's on this website for these terms because it's going to help us to lower your cost. And so those are the kind of discussions you can be having to why you're doing it. And sometimes it takes a little bit longer to launch that. Right. But it's going to provide you with better results. I feel almost bad sometimes when I launch that campaign for that guy. He wanted to launch it because he needed the leads immediately. But I was doing him a disservice because I didn't rebuild his site and do it correctly. But we didn't have time for that. So I would tell you, invest in the time up front. Give your marketing person enough time to be successful. If you make them work with crap, they're going to get crap results.

Yeah, I think that leads all the way back to even branding. if you have a bad brand that's hard to build an awesome website around, it goes back to the client experience, the sales process. You know, you can do a phenomenal job. Maybe they have a brand, maybe they have this badass website. The pay per clicks there, the landing page is there and Then all sudden, they suck at sales, which is why I'm so passionate about it. Like, yeah, Victor's great and all, but, you know, just not. The leads suck. Can't close any of these. Like, well, okay, so it really is this whole experience and everything, how it's connected to each other.

100 agree with that.

I want to talk to you about AI as we wrap up

okay, when you, when you were talking about. I want to talk to you about AI as we wrap up, because both Google and Facebook already have made it easier to do, like, diy. Like, oh, yeah, just go create a Google Ad account and here's, here's actually 500 worth of ads. You just click some buttons, throw in a broad match. Like, you're freaking digital marketing agency. Right. And I see that only getting worse and worse and worse. how are you overcoming that? Like, how do you see AI affecting all of this?

Yeah. I think you've got two options, right? You can bury your head in the sand, or you can embrace it. as a company, we've chosen to embrace it. Right. We realize that it's going to be around, it's sticking around. there's things that are changing. It's such a new product that we don't even fully comprehend it. But there's some cool things that we're doing. We're getting ready to launch a new product that's going to come out January 1st. It's going to make it possible for us to launch a website in less than 24 hours. Now, is this our Cadillac website that's got custom graphics and custom everything done to it? No, but it, gives us the ability to launch a website within 24 hours. it gives us the ability to build out some SEO tools and different things within that at a budget that makes it affordable for some of these guys that we haven't been able to work with in the past. And so it's, it's really cool what's happening with AI and some of those things, but it's, it's also important to understand, like, AI is not taking over the world. It's not going to take, like, all the things that we've been doing. The way that we build websites, the way that we. The content, the information, there's a reason and a purpose and there's better results that can happen. AI is a tool. It's not a solution, if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, well said. And I think a lot of the stuff that you've mentioned, like AI, like, yeah, you've got this product that's coming out, it can build a website in 24 hours. I mean, in the past, even now, your Cadillac websites might take you guys weeks, you know, to do. But, okay, let's say it can do a website. Let's say it can do your ads. There's still an element of like, okay, but just because you do the ads, right? Is the website right? Does that. Is the right landing page with the right keywords. Like, there's still that. that's where I think AI still hasn't connected the dots on a lot of this stuff. And almost everyone at this point is using Chat GBT on the regular. And. And if you've ever. You're using it regularly, you'll see sometimes it's freaking awesome.

It just.

It's like a home run. And other times you're like, nah, it just doesn't get it. It just. It's not, it's not. It's not understanding the emotional element here. It might understand the technical, but it doesn't need. It's missing this piece. So, I think. I think you're dead on. Like, we have to either embrace it or bury our head in the sand. And we know it's going to happen like it is a tool. and when used properly, it's going to just speed up. It's going to collapse time for a lot of people.

And that's where I think it's awesome, is it does collapse that time. I mean, the thing that I need people to Understand is, is AI is not always 100% correct. If you sit and put prompts into it, all of a sudden it's going to start doing the same thing that Facebook or any of these other platforms do. They're going to start providing you the information that you've provided to it. So if it knows that you want a certain outcome, it's going to provide you with that outcome. So it's important to understand that you get out of it what you get out of it. but it's also important to understand, like, those AI overviews that are popping up on things. There's tricks, there's ways to show up in those, and it comes back to having the correct content and information and putting information out there. If you want to be AI, you got to provide it quality content, quality information, and you'll be the one that shows up in the right spot.

Love it.

Lighting for Profits is offering a free 30 minute consultation to listeners

Well, you put together a little offer for our audience today, which I'm grateful for. Do you want to go over that?

Sure. Yeah. So something that we're willing to do is we Want to offer you a 3:30 minute consultation. If you have questions, you want answers and you want a little more personal time, we'd love to offer you a free 30 minute consultation. On top of that is if anybody that signs up with us in the next 30 days, we're going to offer you $500 off of our services. So just list, mention the fact that you saw us unlighting for profits and we'll give you a discount of $500. So yeah, we appreciate the time on.

That's awesome man. I appreciate it, Victor. And just as a side note there, that's for any listener of Lighting for Profits, but if you are a member of Landscape Lighting Secrets, we've put together something special on top of that as well. So make sure to mention to Victor that you're a member of LLS and he is going to double check when you say you're a member. He's gonna be like, Ryan, is this guy, is this guy really in? so don't just say you remember to get the discount. But even if not, if you're just a member or listener of Lighting for Profits, you get that free 30 minute consult.500 off a new website. website is Performance Driven Marketing dot com. Is there another way they want you to want, to reach out to you?

Happy, if they want to send me an email, it's Victor PDM Utah. com.

All right, cool. is there anything else you forgot or you want to close us out with

All right, cool. Victor PDM Utah. com. all right, well, I think we got everything. Is there anything else you, that we forgot or you want to close us out with?

I think that sounds good.

Okay, well, thanks so much for coming on Victor. I appreciate you man.

Yeah, thanks, Ryan.

You need to get intentional if you want to go from operator to owner

All right guys, we've done everything we can to give value around your marketing, your leads, all this stuff. So if you're not scheduling time to be a business owner and, and really find time to implement this stuff, and I don't mean like, okay, learning out like what broad match means versus like phrase match, all that stuff. I just mean you need to spend time to be like, okay, I'm going to schedule a call with Victor. I'm going to really map this out. I'm going to sit down and once a week I'm going to spend two hours being a marketing guy and thinking strategically and putting a plan in place. That's what it's going to take. You're going to need to get intentional if you want to go from operator to owner. So, thanks so much for coming on, the show. Victor. I appreciate you man. All m right guys. Have an awesome week. Don't forget to go to lightitup expo. com get your ticket now and take advantage of our pre show classes we're giving away for free. Have any questions? Reach out. Talk to you soon.