Stop Listening to What Clients Say They Want

Hi, hello and welcome to the Unbalanced podcast. I'm Candy along with Sam and our very special guest today is Ron Stopper uh the founder of Leader Digital and we're all in a little green. We're recording on St. Patty. I got a little bit going on here. >> Um Ron, can you tell us something about you and your firm? >> Yeah, sure. So, like you said, my name is Ron Stoa. My company is Leader Digital, and I call it Leader Digital, and that's it. Not digital marketing, not digital development because for me it's all things digital. Fits under the umbrella of digital. But, um, yeah. So,

a lot of times I work with law firms, professional service businesses, um, accountants, CFOs. help them with marketing, but also it's actually these days especially, I'm really helping them find out what's broken and getting clarity cuz I've learned uh over the past so I started my company 18 years ago and um I've realized recently that a lot of times people talk about marketing but they really don't need marketing, they need other things. So I can help people with uh you know all things digital to you know grow their business but also help diagnose uh challenges and uncover you know things that need to be to be addressed and dealt with. >> Do you do those like lead funnel things that they call I don't know. [laughter]

>> Yeah that's that's >> I think that I keep like adding on to my cart that was like wait it was only $47 I just spent 300 >> uh yeah upsells and and Yeah. Right. Um I I could usually um it's funny though I don't do a lot of e-commerce. E-commerce is um usually takes much bigger companies to support that kind of infrastructure. Um so e-commerce for me I'm a very small you know business owner. E-commerce for me it's a major pain in the in it's a headache right it's a pain in the behind. So I try not to get too involved in that too much. Typically it's more like um you know like I said service businesses law firms home service businesses is another one. So, you know, plumbers, roofers, companies like that. So, a lot less e-commerce, a lot more lead generation and uh, you know, digital marketing.

>> We're the same. We don't do e-commerce customers because it is just a whole different beast animal. >> All of it. That's Rachel. >> Yeah. Compliance issues and >> what do personal >> personal what do they call it? Protected health information sometimes and, you know, HIPPA compliance and all that stuff. Yeah. >> Yeah. Lots of complicated. >> You had a broad spectrum of industries that you work with like from politics, education, you know, all over. Do you have a favorite? [laughter] >> A favorite. >> Accountants. Say accountants. [laughter] >> Okay. >> You know, when I was younger, I thought accounting was so boring and I thought

money was the most boring thing you could possibly deal with on a daily basis. But these days, I appreciate how black and white it is. >> It's it's simple and it's pure. It's like, you know, either the money's there or it isn't, right? So, I love how um specific and definitive that is. But I would say I >> favorite. I like it when people call me and say, "Here's something you've I guarantee you've never heard of before." And I I'll give you the best u the best example. This is the wildest example. A guy called me about two or three years ago and he said, "Hey, I'm starting a housing company, uh, a housing startup that's going to do prefab, uh, you know, manufactured housing, but we're going to take it all over the world." And so we're going to get on a bunch of little tiny airplanes and we're going to go fly

to Alaska and, uh, we're going to go meet with, uh, Alaskan natives and tribal members and see if we can solve their housing problem up there. uh be because it's in extreme weather and uh shipping logistics is a nightmare and uh I need I need help figuring out how to market this. And I said, "You're absolutely right. I have never gotten that request before, [laughter] but we did." And it was fascinating. And I um I had to go there twice. Uh the first trip, I think it was three years ago, it it I took it took me 11 flights to get there and back. Um, so six flights there, five flights back, and then the next year I went back and it a lot fewer flights. But I love those. I love the people who say something I've never heard before because a lot of times it's hard to it's hard to find the

interesting part. Like if a guy um, you know, calls me up and says, "I have a roofing business." I love roofing. I love roofers. I have no problem with that. But there's not a whole lot of innovation going on in roofing. Um, you put a roof on a house, right? It's pretty simple. [laughter] So, so you know, breath, whatever you call it, like cutting edge new building technologies and uh people with crazy dreams and crazy ideas with with the money to back it up. That's always the hard part. And uh in this case, there was money. So, uh I'll go anywhere. >> That's a bonus. Yeah. I love that you get to travel to those places because that helps you understand probably really in the trenches of like what's going on and how to market it or who the audience is and the actual environment

of it. That probably is pretty fun. >> Oh, that's Well, it's fun. [laughter] >> Let me tell you, some of these villages we went to, uh, they don't even have running water or septic or sewer. Um, so yeah, it's it's pretty poor for infrastructure. So definitely not uh not a vacation but um yeah I always call it boots on the ground right there's there's nothing like boots on the ground and especially when you're dealing with funded companies um you know with investors the disconnect between you know the the office at the 17th floor in New York City or or wherever it is you know Silicon Valley the disconnect between what the conversations going on in that room versus what's actually happening on the ground um in my experience is enormous. they have um a

lot of times a preconceived notion of what the real marketing challenge is and operational challenge and I find out that's not the case. So I come and I bring them back a report and say here's a here's what you thought the problem was. Here's what I actually discovered. And so yeah, that's fun. It's fun because it's um it's, you know, it's kind of like you're like Sherlock Holmes. You're trying to put things together. It's a little bit of a mystery, but it's also fun because it helps people do what they want to do. Um, and a lot of times, you know, like I said, they don't really know what the barriers are or they think they know and they're wrong. And so, you know, I mean, I'm getting a little long-winded here, but those are really the the challenges, the the clients I like working with right now. It's the ones who have challenges where they don't even know what they don't know. And I can pause and say, we're going to stop and we're going to really think about like, let's

let's test all of our preconceived notions first, right? before you invest a million dollars or 10 million or $50 million into something, let's go let's go find out if you're dealing with uh information that's actually accurate and and that's hard to do. And I think a lot of uh people in marketing don't do that. Um you know, there's only so much you can do on Zoom. There's only so much you can do with phone calls and emails. But, uh, let me tell you, when you're, you know, in my case, when you're watching the, uh, uh, Alaskan natives literally, you know, they're they're too busy to talk to you, depending on what day of the the year it is because they're they're like their subsistence fishermen and they're out there like doing the herring run. So, when we were there in one of the villages we went to the first time, they told us like, "Okay, don't do

not we cannot talk to you on Tuesday because we're going to be, you know, there's hering the herring run." And so there's like all these boats everywhere and they're, you know, bringing in nets full of fish and stuff like that. So when they were done with that, then we had a meeting, uh, you know, a couple days later and we actually interviewed them about, you know, what are your housing challenges and what are the building technologies we can use here? And then someone like me goes back and says, okay, so having said that, how are we going to pull this off with, you know, uh, you know, the financial picture, what does that actually look like? >> Huh. So all right, now I have a whole bunch of questions. >> Yeah, go ahead. Um, one, of course, I have to tie in that you said Sherlock Holmes. I don't know if you know this, Ron, but um, I do fraud work and I'm a private investigator >> and I think you would be great in that field because it seems like you have

learned how to read people and just know figuring out the right questions to ask >> get you so much further ahead, right? Like you what is it? You have two ears, one mouth. listen right before you speak. I work on that, but um it sounds like you've mastered it. My question to you is do do you have a team >> or how many people do you work with? >> Yes, slightly. So, um it's just me here, you know, officially employed by my company. And I've always wanted it that way. I don't want big teams. I don't want employees. I don't want the office rent. I don't want the high-rise, you know, in in a big city. Um, but I do have uh virtual team members. And by that I I don't just mean like, you know, a random person I found on Upwork. I

mean people I know. Um, I have a junior developer who I've known for at least 14 years. Um, and he and I collaborate on projects sometimes. I have a back-end developer uh for, you know, more complicated uh web projects. I've known him for 16 years. Um, and so, you know, I have I have a virtual assistant. Um, I've known her for probably about a year, but typically, um, I'm very collaborative. I try to pull people in, experts, uh, that I know, not really, you know, let's go out on a on an online marketplace and see who we we can find. There's nothing wrong with that necessarily. It's just not the way I like to work. So, yeah, I So, it's mostly just me, but um, sometimes I have to lean on some friends to help me with the bigger projects. >> Uhhuh. So, because I'm in awe of the fact that

you were presented this opportunity in Alaska and you were able to accept it and leave and go and for so many solopreneurs, they'll get an opportunity that they can't take because they can't juggle everything else, >> right? >> So, [clears throat] how did you manage [laughter] >> being able to did I manage it now? Now you're going to a remote area. I'm guessing like internet was sketchy, right? So, it wasn't like you could take your laptop out and do your other work. >> How How did you manage to be able to take such an amazing opportunity to go do this and yet still handle the rest of your business? >> H [laughter] Okay, so I'll be honest with you here.

Um, I didn't tell anybody. That's how >> So, I didn't say anything like I'm going to be out of the office. I just I just went and uh you know, it was a little bit of a gamble. Well, there was one point I um there was one point when we were way way out of, you know, range for everything, internet, phones, email, all of it. And I I emailed my uh my friend and my junior developer and I said, "Hey, um if I'm going to set up email forwarding, so all the emails come to me that come to me in this period of time, um I'm going to send them to you. If there's anything urgent, please respond to them." And he said, "What am I going to tell them?" And I said, "I don't know. just tell them um we're working on this and then I'll get back to them. So I was only I was only out of pocket for probably 48 hours during that whole

time. But the rest of the time if anyone know like my wife knows me this is the way I work you know if I'm if I'm like backstage before an opera cuz I used to sing opera years ago. U you know I'm I'm still working like I have my laptop with me all the time. I always have my laptop with me. So, I was, you know, at various airports uh across the state of Alaska, you know, sitting there typing away, responding to emails, uploading PDFs, waiting for it, waiting for it, waiting for it, hit send. Okay, now get on the plane. So, um it's just, you know, sometimes you you see these insane opportunities and you say, >> uh I might drop a couple of balls, but they'll probably be small. Um, so I had minimum a minimum support infrastructure in place to where if somebody really needed me, um, I I did have my junior

developer, you know, on call, but when I got back, I said, "So, anything urgent happened?" He said, "No, it was quiet." And I was like, "Great." And see, so now I didn't even have to go into this like weird complicated explanation of I'm going to be talking to Native Alaskans out in a tiny little island 5,000 miles away from home. Like, nobody just, you know, nobody knew. It's just business as normal. >> [laughter] >> I'm so jealous of you because every time I try to leave, something catastrophic happens and it feels like I get punished every single time. [laughter] But during co so during CO I I lived in California and I decided to start going to Montana to see my sister and her family more and more because in Montana you could actually still be a person and it wasn't as strict and all the things. And that's when I decided I'm not even going to

tell people I can't even go see my clients. I'm not allowed to go see my clients. We can't meet in public. So, who cares where [clears throat] I'm pushing the keyboard from? And it was a complete mindset shift for me. No one never knew. They never knew. [laughter] I was gone for six, eight, 12 weeks at a time, you know, going back and forth. And >> it it really made me realize like I can do this from anywhere. So, why would I go into this big explanation of why I'm gone or where I'm going? It's really no one's business. >> Exactly. At the same time, you have to watch your social medias. [laughter] Make sure your clients are not one of your friends because they will pop and be like, "Oh, interesting. Where are you going and why are you there?" And I've had [laughter] a couple

>> Right. Right. I just sent you an email. Now I see a picture of you in a swimsuit on the beach. What's up with that? >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. I stopped having my customers on my social media a while back because I would get like, "Well, I see you're not too busy for that, but I you just told [laughter] >> Oh, man. Oh yeah, Candy. >> Well, I go >> I go totally silent on social media when when I'm gone like that. I don't say anything. I don't tell anybody what I'm up to. Um it but it's funny you mentioned that because yes, CO was um the move to all digital after CO was a huge blessing for me because that was very weird before that, right? Like it was a very strange thing to just be like, "Oh, I'm digital and I work here and there and everywhere." People were really like, you know, "Oh, where's your office again?" and you know what what

city are you located in? And then once I figured out it doesn't matter anymore, uh my life opened up in a huge way. So, uh I'm a scuba diver. So, you know, like a couple years ago, I went scuba diving in Honduras. I didn't tell anybody I was gone. I didn't tell anybody. Only my wife knew that I was gone. As far as everyone else was concerned, I was just, you know, still here in my home office stateside. But I learned I learned uh three things on that trip because I've done it a couple times. I've been to the Virgin Islands. Um, I went to uh let's see, uh, Grenada. That was that was awesome. And, uh, so I I go diving and I take my computer with me and I'm working the whole time. Now, it's complicated because it's like >> it's not really relaxing. It's not really a relaxing vacation, but I mean, if you're going to work any from anywhere, why not work from anywhere,

right? Yeah. So, but I learned three things when I was in Honduras. Number one, be careful of time zone changes. So, you got to keep that in mind. >> Number two, um, it your your uh your Zoom can tattle on you [laughter] if you're not careful. So, meaning, you know, I live in Arizona. I'm in the Sonor and Desert, but when I'm on a Zoom with somebody and there's uh like seagulls in the background. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> People start to wonder, wait a minute, what's [laughter] where are you? >> And then the third thing is um sometimes the uh geo geo uh what do you call it? like geographic uh localization of websites gets a little bit tricky, right? I start visiting Google and it's, you know, it's it's in Spanish, right? Or I was like

trying to buy something on eBay or something like that at the time, like some photo gear and everything was in Spanish and then when I checked out the receipt that it sent me was in Spanish and at no point did I say, "I speak Spanish. Feed me all of the content in Spanish." It was just like, "Oh, well, he's in Honduras, so obviously he must be a Spanish speaker." >> [laughter] >> So that was >> I've gotten kind of sideswiped by that by being in like Europe and trying to go work and my QuickBooks won't work or my computer is like security loading like you can't work from this location and I'm like ah because no one knows I'm gone so they don't know I'm not working [laughter] >> right >> if I can't work this is bad. >> Right. Right. Yeah. That's funny. >> Yeah. But I I I have just taken my first actual vacation in 10 years in January.

>> Nice. >> Congrats. >> Meaning I wasn't just on my computer the whole time working from a hotel room in a different part of the country. Um, so I know what you mean about I take my computer everywhere, but I still took my freaking computer because it makes me so anxious to not have the option to like if I have to do something be able to right there then and there take care of it. >> Um, there any point in time when you travel and you're not telling people that you don't take your computer or is that so far you're always always having your computer? I always do, except my wife and I in October of last year celebrated our 20th anniversary >> and we went up to the mountains and she said, "I want to see you the whole time,

>> not in front of a computer screen." And I said, "Okay, here's my promise to you. I won't even bring it." So, I didn't I didn't even bring it. Yes. I was a little bit nervous. >> Yes. >> But uh yeah, I I didn't >> I did not look at a single email. I did not do any work for three days. It was just the two of us hanging out looking at each other without any screens. >> Were you itching? Did you like >> No. No. No. Honestly, I wish No. And here's, you know, one of the drawbacks of being a really really small business owner like myself is there's not really a second in command that I can just say like, "Hey, can you uh can you just take care of everything? I'm going to drop out for a couple days or a week." That's something that I can work on. And and like I said, I do have some, you know, a minimum amount of uh support

infrastructure, but again, if if you know, a developer, you know, gets an email from a client saying, "Hey, what's the password for this?" or "How did we do this again?" and he wasn't there, he might be like, "Well, heck, if I know, I'm I'm not even sure what to tell these people." Um, so I I do need to work on my SOPs and documentation such that I could like get hit by a bus and be in a body cast for 6 weeks or something like that and someone else could say, "Oh, I see what Ron was doing. All right, so you know, this this company is asking for help with this. Here's the answer to it. It's right here in the company wiki or whatever." That's something I've been working on for about uh two years and hopefully by the end of this year I'll have a sufficient enough set of processes and documentation that someone

could at least make sense of it. But right now it's mostly up here. >> I guarantee you as soon as you get it dialed in something's going to change. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Right. Well, exactly. But and that's why we don't do it because we say like as soon as I put this on paper figuratively it's all going to be outdated. But I had a a business mentor last year who said it doesn't matter. Do it anyway. Just do it. like like >> you have no reason not to. >> Yep. It's at least a starting place for someone to to help out and you never know when you're going to unexpectedly have >> a change of some sort. Um your life, someone else's life, whatever that is. >> Is there anything uh from being a business owner that you did not see coming that threw you for a loop that you would like to share? like, oh, never

knew I was signing up for that. When I uh when I started my business, >> I started my company with zero expectations because I got laid off. >> I was in I was the marketing director for a construction company and in the great recession, everybody was laying everybody off. >> So, my only expectation was um I'm unemployed now and I have a wife and three kids and I just bought a house and I need money. That was it. So, I had no dreams or expectations. I never woke up saying, "I want to be self-employed." I've met people like that, and there's nothing wrong with that. But when people talk about, "Oh, I always knew I wanted to be my own boss." I have no idea what that's like. Never. That was never part of my plan. I wanted to be a normal person, get a normal job, just go to the office,

do the normal thing, get in my normal car, drive back to my normal house, have a normal family, and just like live a normal life. Well, okay. [laughter] >> Yeah. Well, I I'm juxtaposing that with the life that I ended up having, which is exceptionally abnormal, right? Like I don't have paydays. We don't have, you know, employer sp My wife and I were filling out a form last night and uh it was, you know, for some financial thing and it was like, do you have an employer sponsored health plan? And we were like, no. Do you have an employer, you know, backed uh company matched IRA? No. Do you have employer uh short-term disability? No. No. No. No. No. Do you have a W2? No. It does not apply. Does not apply. It does not apply. That's the life I live right now. Uh I don't know

that I would have. Like I said, I don't know that I would have said that's what I want. That's for me. Um but here we are now and it's gotten me this far and you know I can go scuba diving in Honduras and nobody even knows and I don't have to ask my boss. I just get on a plane and disappear. [laughter] The autonomy of being a business owner is really magical. And I think that's what keeps a lot of people from giving it up, even when it's hard, is that you don't have to ask. But I don't I think something no one really talks about is your life will be much harder most of the time with getting a house, getting a car, doing those things as a business owner because they want you to either show all this profit that you're not making or they want you to also have W2 income. They don't trust that your tax

returns are so or your tax return shows you don't make any money because that's a tax strategy >> and maybe you're not on paper but you can still afford the house. Um I didn't realize how how much harder it was going to be to just do the simple things that everybody takes for granted as a business owner. >> Um when I was starting out in that journey >> yeah most people don't and it's interesting it's not just that it's it's just the pure lack of safety net. I think that scares a lot of people and stops a lot of people from doing, you know, becoming self-employed, but then also it's it's the thing that that terrifies us, right? Like like here's a here's a classic example of someone who will never be self-employed. [laughter]

I was camping a couple years ago with my sons [clears throat] and I was wearing a company shirt cuz my company shirt, right? I have my company logo on it. And one of the dads comes up to me and he says, "Hey, is that uh I see that is that that company name on your shirt? Is that your company? What do you do?" And I said, "Well, yeah, I do uh you know, digital marketing and uh web development and things like that." And he said, "Oh, that's great. I'm going to be self-employed, too. I'm going to start a company also." And I was like, "Cool. That's great. What do you do?" He said, "I do marketing." And I thought, "Oh, look at that. We have something in common." Okay. Well, so you haven't started it, but you're going to? He said, "That's right. Yep. I'm getting ready to." And I said, Okay, this is kind of a weird thing that he's telling me here. I'm not sure what to think about this. Said as soon as I have two years of salary saved up. And I

almost la like burst out into laughter. Two years of salary. Are you kidding? >> How is that possible? First of all, if you can do that, >> kudos to you. But second of all, no one I have ever met who has been self-employed has ever done something like that. And that was eight years ago. He still hasn't started his company. So, >> Right. Yeah. [laughter] >> Right. Yeah. I think one of the best things that I had was complete I had no idea what I was getting into. I just I just jumped off the cliff. I had no education about being a business owner. I didn't even know business owner people to talk to about the realities. I just

jumped off the cliff. Now, that meant I did everything the long hard way, but I learned so much that I can actually help people now circumvent that or get through it or whatever it is. And it does get give you some thick skin. That's for sure. >> Oh, yeah. I mean, like my wife has joked before, she's [laughter] sometimes we uh because I remember when I when I got laid off the first time, I came home and I told her, um, you know, the company is maybe going to have to go out of business, but, uh, they're laying everybody off, including me, so I don't have a job anymore. That was pretty traumatic, but we both saw it coming. I mean, again, the real estate industry was taking a huge nose dive. We all the the big developers in our town were

going bankrupt. some of them were going to prison. It was it was a crazy time to be in real estate. And uh so so we lasted as long as we could. And then finally, you know, I I got handed a check and I I was told, "Here's your last check." Um that was a that was really tough cuz we had just bought our house, right? So we like got the keys to the house and then got laid off. And so my boss said, "Well, I got you this far." And I said, "Thank you. Thank you for doing that this week and not last week." But anyway, uh >> the second time I got laid off because I I got a job from the construction company, um I started my business and then one of my clients offered me a full-time job and I thought, "Oh, great. Okay, cool. Getting back into business. This is going to be awesome." And then, uh nine months later, they laid me off.

So, no, now they were totally different. There were software company uh venture-backed company um out of Canada, funny enough. But I was working here in the States. And uh I say all this because I walked home on like a Tuesday afternoon at 3 PM, right? And my wife says, "Let me guess. You got laid off." I said, "Yeah." So the resilience kind, you know, kind of like what you were just saying, the resilience of like, "Okay, well, >> here we go again." Right? It was it was not that big a deal. It was kind of like we've been through this before. >> What's what's one more layoff, right? We we know how it works. We know what we're going to do. And what I did actually the second time I was able to bounce back much faster. >> Yeah. >> I think if I recall correctly I got laid off on a Tuesday. Seriously like 3 2 or 3:00 in the afternoon. I came home with

a cardboard you know classic right? Come home in the middle of the day cardboard box with my plant and you know my picture of my wife and I in the box like I cleaned out my cubicle. I walk in the door and you know we talk about well what are you going to do now? Well I'm not going to go look for another job. I'm just going to I'll just let's just do the self-employment thing. And uh by the end of the next day, I had a check in my hand from a client. So, it was like, okay, >> lay off on Tuesday. >> By Wednesday, I just I I was ready for it this time. I was like, okay, the morning period, you know, like took a couple weeks the first time. This time, it took me one day. It was like that sucks. Okay. Well, let's see. I got two hours left in the day. I I'm going to

start making some calls. So, I started making calls and I said, "Hey, former client from, you know, a year ago." Remember when I was self-employed and then I told you I got this job because of my uh uh you know, my my one of my clients offered me a full-time gig and I took it. Um that's over. Let's all just pretend that that never happened and go back to the way it was before. [laughter] >> And and a bunch of conversations went like that. And they were like, "Oh, okay. Well, that sucks. Actually, now that you mention it, uh there are a couple things I want to talk to you about." And so I had money in the bank the very next day. >> I literally built my business by calling every person who had ever told me, "When you're not so busy, when you have time, >> I need your help. I need your help. I need your help." And I had doubled my income within two weeks of starting my business because everybody that I called

was like, "Oh, good. I'm ready now. Oh, good. You're ready now." Or, "You're capable." >> You just have to pick up the phone sometimes. >> Oh, yeah. For sure. you know uh picking up the phone is very helpful pardon me zooms are very helpful because the face to the fa the face to face thing is it's as almost as good as in person it's the next best thing like you know we always talk about you know like people can misunder understand the meaning in text so if you send a text message like if you were to kind of rank them face to face is the best right meeting with a prospective client face to face there's nothing like it >> but then next is zoomc or you know what we're doing here face to face. I can hear you. You can hear me. I can see your face. You can see my face. Um and

then is you know probably email and then text message, right? Text is the worst of all of them. Um but anyway, yeah, so phone calls are but what you know what's interesting? Last year I started thinking you know I got to get creative at drumming up some business. So I emailed every single person I was connected to on LinkedIn. Took me a very long time because LinkedIn makes it as hard as possible. They don't let you get people's email addresses automatically. You can't just say download all my contacts. You can, but their email addresses aren't there. So, it took me like six hours or nine hours, some some long amount of time. I visited every single profile of every single person I was connected to on LinkedIn. >> Copied their emails and pasted it into uh an email list. And then I recorded a video similar to this. So, you know,

nice sounding microphone. I'm smiling. I'm looking at the camera. I had good lighting on. And I I emailed a thousand plus people. I don't remember how many people. Um, and I just said, "Hey, how's it going? You and I are connected on LinkedIn. What are you up to these days?" um you know over over a thousand people and uh probably 35 to 40 people got back to me which is a lot less than I was hoping for u but it was a lot more than it could have been right so and uh some people were saying so to your point a moment ago some people were like hey Ron wow golly what's it been 10 years interesting so you're doing website

stuff and it's funny because like I always was but like they must have forgotten or something like that. Somehow the point is I put my face back in front of them virtually and they were like you know now that you mention it I have been meaning to you know to to do this complicated back-end digital CRM integration infrastructure thing. Is that something you can help me with? Hey look at that. You know so I've started doing that. That's um the next best thing. It's a lot more scalable obviously than making a thousand phone calls. Um it's not quite as effective. I think a thousand phone calls would work too. I I have yet to try that. But I did try that recently where I just, you know, I said to every person you and I have because some people connect with people on LinkedIn that they don't know. I've never done that. Every single connection. Okay. Except for Candy. I

think you sent me a connection like like you know 20 or 20 or 30 minutes ago. So I accepted that. But now I know you, right? Because we're looking at each other and talking at each other. So I prematurely hit accept. But normally I don't accept Facebook or uh you know LinkedIn requests from people that I haven't met unless they say something like, "Hey Ron, nice to meet you. Bob, our mutual acquaintance and I were at coffee last week. He mentioned your name. Would you be willing to connect and talk about this?" Okay, in that case I will. But like of a thousand plus people that you know I was connected to, I remembered every single name that I sent it to. And so, you know, it was just it was a really good exercise to say like, "Wow, I actually know a lot of people and there there are a lot of different industries represented here and wow, I didn't know that, you know, Jamie, who used to work for the bank, is

now doing this cool thing over here." Interesting. So, you know, just there's another interesting business lesson, I guess, which is something that I learned a long time ago when I got laid off, which is, okay, um, just start calling people, right? Hey, how's it going, Jennifer? Long time no see. You'll never guess what I'm doing. Now, >> you know, I think this is a good point too about marketing itself is that out of a thousand people, you got 30 people to reply. I was actually thinking that was a lot and you said you thought it would be more, but marketing is not an instant gratification thing. It's the longhaul. It's the consistency. It's the the follow through. It's it's a return on investment. It is not just I'm going

to do this thing and get all these results. You might not. But one of those people you messaged who has not reached out might in three or four months, 6 months, a year go, "Oh yeah, he sent that message out. I'm going to call him now." But they're still thinking of your face because you took that effort when they're ready. Um, and I think that's >> a lot of people, you know, >> missed that on marketing. >> It's it's funny you mentioned that. Um, you brought up something I forgot about. [clears throat] So, you know, of the 35 and I'll write a blog post about this, you know, here in the near future, just the stats of like I emailed this and then I got this response and this response and this and this and this and then I got dollars, right? Like so I got I have new closed business from it. But um >> there was an interesting side not a side

effect, what would you call it? Like a secondary effect, I think. Um, there were a couple people where I emailed them for something totally different, you know, like, "Hey, uh, uh, I don't know, uh, Joe the CPA, let's say, you know, hey Joe, um, by the way, are you still doing blah blah blah, such and such? Thanks. Hope you're doing well." And then that person would respond and answer my request, but then say, by the way, I got your video. That was awesome. or like I would meet somebody in in person and even though they didn't respond to the email I sent out, they would mention it. They would say like, "Oh, hey Ron, I was meaning to tell you, thanks for that video. That was really cool." So, I was like, "Wow, okay." That So, kind of like you're saying, it's like, hm, okay. They're listening.

They're paying attention. They're seeing it. They're mentally registering it even though they don't say anything. So, you know, I would tease them like, well, didn't you [clears throat and cough] why didn't you respond? I asked you what you're up to. Oh, well, you know, I was going to and I I just didn't get around to it. It's in my drafts or something like that. >> I responded in my head. In my head. >> Exactly. Right. Probably they were like, "Oh, that's really cool. I I I'll do that next week." And then it doesn't happen. But it made an impact. And that was interesting, too. So, yeah. I mean, relationships are huge. And marketing, you know, like you're saying, it's not a direct uh instant result. It's relationships. And you know that's I mean my whole business has been built built through relationships.

>> Yep. >> I probably have six drafts in my LinkedIn right now of things I'm trying to reply to that I distracted from replying to. [laughter] >> Yeah. Right. >> All right. Ron, I have some questions for you. >> Yeah, sure. Would you say that most of your business comes from like referrals from people you know or like a lot of us where the cobbler doesn't have his own shoes? Are you do you put a lot of energy into your SEO and your digital marketing or are you putting more of your energy into your clients and maintaining yours? but maybe not putting as much energy into that to

generate business [laughter] because just like you know we're we're the people that our books aren't done or >> sure you know we everybody's taxes are done except ours right so >> yes >> we're so focused on our my like yes >> you know so we're we're not looking out for ourselves >> do you think so how how do you juggle that with yourself and and is it more just people know you and they're like oh my friend could really use as help and they send you somebody they know. >> Yeah. I unfortunately I have to admit yeah I'm a cobbler whose children are barefoot and that's a little bit embarrassing >> but it's actually not that embarrassing because like you said it's incredibly commonal. Um, yeah. >> You know, like, [laughter]

sorry, Uncle Andy, if you're listening to this, my uncle is a a, you know, a home builder and a remodeler. And, you know, for many, many years it was like, "Oh, great. Andy's going to finally finish that remodeling project someday, right?" you know, uh so so uh to answer your question though, I I I do get some, you know, uh online leads just through organic SEO and stuff like that. But no, I've never really focused on that. What I have focused on um I don't know, is it okay if I show you something? >> Yeah, >> I just finished writing a book actually, brand new. >> It's called The Solopreneurs Gu Survival Guide. See if I can remember my own book name. the solarpreneur survival guide to business networking. How to grow your business one handshake at a time.

>> I love that. >> And so that this is how I grew my business. So from zero to wherever I am today after 18 years, >> it's all in here. Um and that's what it's all about, you know, and and uh I like to say every every dollar I've ever made started with a handshake, right? Whether that's literal or or figurative. And a lot of times, most times it is literal. Um, you know, I I just walk into a room full of strangers and I say kind of like what we're doing right here, right? >> Hi, >> my name's Ron. What's your name? What do you do? Oh, really? Hey, do you know so and so? Oh, you know, I heard about this thing that was going on. Yeah. Oh, cool. Hey, uh, can I get a card? Right. It just organically throughout conversations. So, business networking for me has been a phenomenal success.

That's basically how I've built all the business that I have. And then you know there's like there's like secondary and and tertiary uh network effect from that right which is like once you know a certain I mean that's the whole power of social social networks you know like social media right once you know a certain number of people they know a certain number of people and you reach this critical mass to the point where um you know like I I tell people this this is true but it's about to not be true. I'm going to start spending money on advertising because I want to take my business more seriously and and do and show the clients that I have that they should do like me, right? So, if they're hiring me to help them with digital marketing, I should do it myself. But, um I have never spent money on ads for my company ever in 18 years. Never. Not even a single dollar. I've never had to.

Um now, I I I want to do I want to change that now and do some experimentation and, you know, start creating some video and make my own landing pages and write my own book, right? But um it's just been handshakes and referrals and you know secondary and tertiary and I don't know whatever fourth level is. But you know at some point it just people say like hey uh hey Ron we'd really like what you did here. Could you talk to my friend uh Jod? You know she's a florist. And I'll go wow. Okay. Florist. Um yeah sure. Why not? >> Right. Like I don't specialize in florist businesses but sure. I'll help. I'll talk to just about anybody. >> Can I put you on the spot? >> Yeah sure. Okay, so you and I are at a networking event and we're just walking up to each other. Give me your quick

elevator pitch. Tell me who you are with one sentence. [laughter] >> Hi, my name is Ron Staer. My company is Leader Digital and I help companies uh bring in the kinds of business they're looking for. I don't know, maybe something like that. I'm terrible at it because in the one sentence thing. I mean, thank you for doing that. It's the elevator pitch, right? Um, >> yeah, >> usually I don't really do that though. I start by asking other people about them and Yeah. And so I don't say, you know, I'm Ron and I do this. Although there are there are two things that Okay, so now that I'm thinking about it, there are two things I'll say. Usually people say, you know, because I'm like eating a big giant meatball or something like that and have holding a beer in one hand

and people are like, "Hey there, Ron." You know, looking at the name tag. What do you do? And I say, "I build websites that don't suck." >> U, that's one that usually gets a laugh. And and I didn't make I didn't make that up. That was I got that like probably six months, maybe not even three months into after I started my business. Um, I went to a networking event and somebody there next to me was saying, you know, you should talk to Ron because your website sucks. And, uh, I didn't say that. Someone else did. >> And, uh, >> and then the guy said, Ron builds, you know, he builds websites that don't suck. And I thought, wow, okay, well, that's that's interesting. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I can build your website that doesn't suck. Does your website suck? Um, and then you know another thing when

people ask what I do, my wife finally crystallized it like this. She said, "Uh, he makes the phone ring." I thought, "Okay, yeah, that's pretty good." Is that is that good enough to where my in-laws can understand that? >> It's got the feels, right? Like, yeah, they [clears throat] send you your message needs to bring the feeling. Your wife hit it right on, man. >> Well, she's always she's always getting tired of answering the question, "What does your husband do?" She well he uh you know it's like um digital marketing and then people say well what's digital marketing? Well you know it's like does he help you with Facebook? No not really. Can he reset my iCloud password? >> No no don't don't do that. [laughter] So she just said you know he makes the phone ring for small businesses. And I thought that that right there >> is your tagline.

>> Yeah it see >> people ask what you do. >> So the cobbler's children having no shoes. Right. [clears throat] I help people get clarity in their own marketing, but I'm bad at it myself. Notice those two examples I gave you were from other people saying >> doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. [laughter] Doesn't matter. >> We're We Yeah. We're We all know what we're good at. >> Yeah. >> And you're great at getting that across for other people, but sometimes we need the help. >> Yeah. >> You know, like I've I've hired pitch people, all this. I could not articulate like what we do as a firm. Um, and it was so hard. And then, um, my niece had a salon and she's like, "Canny, I don't

say I cut hair." >> Like, I don't cut hair. She goes, "I give women who are exhausted an experience where they can go relax." And I do that in my salon where yes, you'll get your hair done, >> but you're getting champagne. You're getting a whole experience. Nobody's got cell phones on them. You know, the music's nice. >> It's right. So, she's like, I don't cut hair. >> You know, nobody in my salon cuts hair. We give this experience. And it's like, >> oh yeah, well, that's why you can charge what you charge because, right, >> you'll never say it that way. at you saying, you know, what do you do? Well, I make the phone ring. How do you do that? Oh, I do it by building right,

>> right? By building websites that don't suck, among other things, [laughter] you know, >> right? >> But, you know, if if you're looking for a solution, I'm going to work with you to figure out what your real issue is that needs to be solved to get your phone to rank. Right. So, like >> Yeah. Exactly. And a lot of times people don't and and just kind of going back to I think what I said at the very beginning of this. A lot of times people they don't exactly know what they need. They think they do but they don't. >> And that's one of the biggest one of the biggest shocks for me in business recently. And it it literally took me this long. Last year I had a couple um a couple uh experiences where I realized like I'm I'm trying to understand what's going on here. There's a mismatch. like this person is speaking English, I

think, and I'm speaking English back, but we're not understanding each other. And I realized because this person keeps telling me that they want this, but they don't. And this this is messing with my brain because I'm seeing like the underlying system, and I'm I know that that's not what he wants. But he keeps insisting that this is what he wants. And so I realized I had like this light bulb moment. I realized I need to stop listening to what people tell me they want and dig a little bit deeper to find out what it is they're really saying, right? What is the question behind the question? So, and that's why networking is so great because you get in a little bit of a conversation and then they start saying things like, "Yeah, you know, >> we're we're um I don't know, [clears throat]

>> let's use plumbing as a quick example." What's that? >> I want to know literally what your shirt says. Oh. Uh, so it says you literally mean figuratively. And and that's important because like if you haven't figured this out by now, I'm very precise, right? Like I want to figure out exactly what's going on. Let's be very clear with our language here. And so yeah, sometimes people will they'll say like, you know, well, our website sucks. Okay, why is that? Well, because blah blah blah. And then I I'll I'll say, okay, well, does it do this? Does it do this? Does it do this? Sometimes they'll say like like here's the most classic one. We need more traffic. Our website doesn't get a lot of traffic. We need more traffic. Well, if you don't have a good funnel, using a term you brought up earlier, if you do

don't have a good lead pip, you know, generation pipeline and a salesunnel, you know, increasing your traffic only increases your waste and your wasted spend, right? A lot of times people don't really need more traffic. They need to plug the holes in their salesunnel. they need to, you know, build a lead generation pipeline that doesn't leave money on the table. And so that's where I really start to kind of dig in deep, deep, deep, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. You know, keep asking more questions like, why do you think you need more traffic? Well, because we don't get a lot of online leads. Okay. Well, why don't you get a lot of online leads? Or, you know, well, you know, we get people calling us, but they call us for the wrong thing. Or, you know, and I can do a little bit of sleuth work afterwards and I can find out like, did you know that your lead form is broken?

Like I hit submit here and it said error. You know, how long has that been going on? >> It did. Oh my goodness. Wow. I didn't know that. >> Oh, okay. Well, [laughter] maybe that's part of your problem. >> Yeah. Or you described your business as this, but your website says you do this, you know, like >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. >> Ron, we could sit and probably talk to you all day. [laughter] >> This has been very interesting. Thank you so much for joining us. Um, thank you Haley and Anchor and Candy. And we would love to know if you have any final parting words of wisdom for our unbalanced community. >> Yeah, I would just go to marketing is storytelling. Candy, I noticed that you say storytelling in your LinkedIn

profile. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I have a degree in storytelling. Literally, I went to college and I have a bachelor of arts in storytelling. And let me tell you, the hardest thing that I've ever done is tell a story. >> I I I went to college to study it and I still struggle with it all the time. But marketing is ultimately storytelling, right? And and final words of wisdom, just think about it as a story, right? Like here's who I am. Here's what I do. Here's why it matters to you. Here are people who have, you know, who can attest to the fact, here are the results, right? like just make it as clear and as clean as possible from start to finish and uh make it fun, make it interesting, be memorable. Be the person that when someone leaves a building after meeting

you, they say, "Wow, that person was interesting." Or, you know, I need to I need to schedule a one-on-one follow-up with that person because, you know, there's so many people in life that you meet and you think, okay, great. Another person who does this, I already know eight people who do that. >> Be the one that they say, "I want to talk to that person." So, and that's part of your story, you know, just make it storytelling is marketing. >> I love that. And if they wanted to find you, >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Check me out on leaderdigital.com. Lie derdigital.com. And uh yeah, let's get connected on LinkedIn, too. Yeah. If if you're listening to this and you want to get connected on LinkedIn, tell me how you heard about me so then I'll actually accept your invite. Otherwise, I don't I

don't know who you are. Oh, I love that. Thank you so much. This was great. And >> I do think that a lot of people will reach out because it's especially in the accounting community, which is the largest part of our audience, there's so much disconnect between marketing and telling your story and sticking [clears throat] out and getting your your vision out there. So, I think people would love to have someone like you available. >> I'm happy to chat. Awesome. Thanks for your time. >> Thank you both. >> All right. Good to see you. >> Bye-bye.