Digital Marketing Unleashed: Mastering Sales Strategies for Explosive Growth

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Quiet. Sat in the back. Just wanted to get through it. Didn’t spend a lot of time asking questions, just did my own research.

Yeah. So not really interacting, engaging, a lot shyer than I am today.

You know what? It’s funny. The honest truth is I used to work at Universal Studios up at the the live tour in Los Angeles.

I went through high school, I was always kinda shy, quiet. And when I started working at Universal, it was a very similar to a high school environment. Really even a kind of a college environment. Yeah. All the young people that work there. And I remember it allowed me to immediately reinvent myself.

Okay. And I quickly became very popular up there. Cause I actually started out, I was one of the sweepers that go, walked around the park. And I just was in my own element. I walked around and it was so cute that everyone was very friendly. Whereas high school was very clique-ish. Universal Studios enabled me to expand and just go out and talk to everybody and then be once I started realizing that people enjoyed having a conversation with me, I just went crazy and I really found myself as a young kid working at Universal Studios.

That really led, that’s amazing. So that brought you outta your shell. It really did. And then I realized too, That I had a propensity due to go on these long soapbox, diatribes where I just share my feelings. I started talking about politics even back in, I’m dating myself, but this is, back late eighties, early nineties.

And just really found that the more I spoke, the more people listened and would be these parties. And I would start giving these sermons on my beliefs and my feelings and my thoughts, and I’d have a group of people sitting around listening. So once I realized that I had this ability to kinda command an audience. Oh yeah. Yeah. And my confidence went through the roof and it’s I’ve been a monster ever since.

Oh, absolutely. Funny when I moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 2004. Yeah. And I was married at the time and a couple years later ended up getting divorced.

And I remember, I, so I didn’t really have a group of friends here. As often happens in a marriage, it’s just you and your family. We had a couple of kids. So when I was all of a sudden single, I didn’t have a network of friends, local friends that I could just reach out to. And I was going nuts cuz I didn’t really want to date obviously after all of that.

But I wanted to be around people. And what you said, just going out to a movie or going out and doing something by yourself actually joined a hiking group. And because I wanted to be around people. Just didn’t want the respon, dating was like an interview at that point. Yeah. So I, I just started going on this hiking group and interacting with people.

Cause I love, I actually enjoy people. Yeah. Even the crazy ones, so Yeah.

There was actually a period of time from Universal where I, I. Kind of jumped around a few different jobs after Universal Studios, but one of ’em were, it was a company called Page Net, which at the time were just paging in the United States.

And I started out customer service. Yeah, exactly. So I remember, and it was funny cuz you know, it was Everyone was so excited about paging. Even the general manager always used to try and encourage everyone to buy stock, and he was so invested in it. And I’d say within five years that company was outta business.

It was the largest technology. Yeah. And so I started in customer service there, and because I, as a customer service rep for the system. I became so knowledgeable of everything, page net, that it made it real easy and I, an opening came up for sales, a sales position, and because I was so knowledgeable at that point, it made it a real easy transition to start selling the services.

Yeah. And so that was my first kind of foray into sales. And from there eventually got married. My ex-wife was a graphic artist and I saw that she was creating all of these, little logos and envelopes and business cards and brochures, and I said, Hey, branding materials I can sell. Yeah, I can sell that.

What are you doing? Yeah. So in the late nineties, I became a print broker. I started, Converting her designs selling the printing. So instead of just getting the design fee, we were then taking it and I was broken her out, the brochures that she was designing and what have you.

So that was really when we started our own business. That was in 96. Wow. And we moved to Las Vegas in oh four as I mentioned, and I started my own little magazine. It was a local zip code type magazine where we would sell advertising. And that just became a real, yeah, it just became a real challenge to keep that going as a one person team for sure.

The attrition would just knock me down. And so every month I was starting over at. And that’s at that point we partnered up with someone who we knew in Los Angeles, in a dental marketing business. We both had, me and my wife had 15% of that company. Oh yeah. And we used to sell dental plans and it was all online.

So that was really my first introduction into the online arena. Oh yeah. And So we would, we had a whole system and that’s when I became, started learning a little bit more about not only how it all worked, the internet, I was really, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the internet, quite honestly until about 2006.

And from there, really it just evolved into me, my inquisitive mind. I want to learn a little bit more about it. Selling it was one thing and you’ll find a lot of my experience, I’m a salesman by trade. I’m really not the technical end of what we do. Okay. I have a web developer, I have an SEO specialist.

I have some, my, my current wife does all of our social media. Yeah we have, yeah, we have a video production studio here in Las Vegas. Oh, right on. And where I’m partnered with someone who’s a video production expert and editor and all of that. Sure. So really my gift is forming these partnerships and basically finding people who can help me do all of the technical things.

But at the same time I’ve found it important and almost necessary that I’ve learned just enough about everything that we do. To where I can not only sell it, but I can jump in and pitch in and execute it. Wow, that’s awesome. But yeah, so from solar care started getting into the digital marketing aspect and he was actually from my son, my oldest son, where that taught me seo. Oh yeah. I’m 55 years old, so I consider myself right on the cusp. I was either gonna be. A traditional dinosaur, my background is traditionally print and print marketing. Yeah. So I could have easily been left behind.

Yeah. And luckily my son was very internet savvy and taught me the basics of SEO and how it all worked. And we built it from there. And started this vertex in 19 or in 2018 and been doing it ever since.

And I might think it’s a little more exciting than most people, but Yeah, I agree with you.

Probably.

Yeah. Luckily, I, my, immediate family and most of my friends are actually all involved in this business.

Oh, that’s, so I’ve been fortunate enough to bounce a lot of things. All of my son’s friends, one is a, a computer programmer. He understands code, my son understands code and so he, and then, My wife has taken an interest in it. So we talk a lot of shop, we all enjoy it for the most part.

Actually I give that my son again. Being very SEO savvy, started Vertex actually out of. His bedroom, and it’s the office that I’m in now.

He’s since moved out. This used to be his bedroom, him and his one of his close friends. Oh, okay. Him and one of his close friends, they started this business and they they quickly, I had some money put away and I, I saw what they were doing.

I was excited about it and I invested and being a salesman, I said, Hey, let me help you start selling this. And from there, it was one of those progressions where, it wasn’t really what they ended up thinking it was. And I just started enjoying it so much. I said if you guys don’t wanna do it, I’m just gonna keep it going.

And that’s when I was, it actually forced me to kinda learn the intricate side of it, the kind of the technical end of it. As a salesman, that wasn’t really easy, but so yeah, my son started this company, and I came in rather quickly and we all worked it together for a couple of years and eventually they decided to move on to other things

No. It was funny, when they were involved, it almost was like a childhood. Hobby almost. Ah, gotcha. I think they wanted to take it a little further.

I was doing some other things at the time, so I committed some resources to it. Okay. And some time to it. But that was a, around the time when Covid hit and yeah, it just changed everything. And during that time, my son actually landed a really incredible job with a company called Box Bowl.

Oh yeah. Where they build the modular homes out here and he’s now the the chief technical officer for that company at a young age. I just took the reins and really dived into it. I got rid of all I was doing and made it a actual full functioning business.

And That’s where we are today, that’s awesome. All the credit to them first, the company.

It’s funny. I think it, it depends on if you’re open partnerships.

I’ve always been weird about partnerships within my core business. So sales is an obviously an intangible. I’ve tried hiring salespeople who just never seem to have the same effectiveness that. That I do the closure rate is never where I would expect it to be. And yeah. And so I’m I’ve had to learn to delegate okay.

Because I’m the type that even though I wasn’t a technical person, I’ve dived in, I now, I can design my own WordPress websites. I can set up a seo, I can even set up ppc even though I don’t like doing it. I have a guy who does it much better than I do. And I, yeah, I’ve realized that by delegating. Now the person who does our, my, my other, my younger son actually.

And he’s much better at it than I am. My wife took over our social media. It’s a real family business. That’s awesome. She is really creative. Yeah. She’s extremely creative. We’ve had to sign up for seo, our social media services, our seo, cause I believe it all. And we’ve had.

I said, I can’t really do this anymore, but I don’t wanna stop. I want you to continue doing the social media. Yeah, so she does really great work on that end of it. And so that’s what I’ve learned is you need really good people supporting you and people that know the little the details better than I do.

And sales is my strength. But so it’s vital. If you can’t sell, I think, it’s funny, when I used to sell to dentists, One of the things I noticed about dentists is they would spend two, $300,000 on a new dental office. Beautiful operatories. Everything was, topnotch.

They’d open their doors, had no money left. And, so you have to be able, it’s not one of those things where you can just build it and they will come. No. You have set aside money for marketing. Absolutely. And luckily I have the sales ability to go out and get it. Since our revenues have gone up, I’ve been able to do some lead generation things like that.

And that’s when it really took off

Really there’s a couple of friends and just one of the things I’ve learned as a salesperson or an entrepreneur matter is you can learn from every sometimes they say a child’s mind sometimes is the best teacher because they’re not cluttered with all the things that we think about.

And it’s just real simple, as a matter of if you want that, why, just ask for it, right? I think we let a lot of things influence us as adults, that if you can, you sometimes just watch young children and you can learn from them. But to answer your question, there hasn’t been a single mentor.

In my life that I’ve learned from as, as much as there’s been hundreds, we’re in the fortunate, we deal with I, I mean we have almost a hundred clients and I take the time to really get to know all of them. I find out how they succeeded a lot like we’re doing here. And you’re talking to me.

Yeah. I talk to them and interview them, and I find out how, at the point that you know of success that they’re in. And so I’ve learned from everyone that I talked to, I wish I could give credit to one in particular person. My, at 55, my sales process has really evolved. And it wasn’t something where I just learned how to do it right off the bat.

It is really evolved.

And listen to say I’m probably dating myself, but I used to read things by Zig Ziglar, who was a notorious sales expert.

You don’t hear his name anymore, but I’ve, I, you mentioned Tony Robbins and I find myself, I don’t ever die. I don’t ever buy into a doctrine a hundred percent, but I take little bits and pieces, I’ve even watched. Yeah, I’ve watched Grant Cardone, who’s a little more current.

I’ve read Zig Ziglar. I watched Anthony Robbins presentation. So I, there was a, what was it called? Food for the Soul. I was, God, I can’t even remember. I’m dating myself, but I’ll be honest I, when I was younger and first getting into sales is when I did a lot of that kind of homework.

Reading and it’s not even one of those things where I think I have it all figured out, but I have developed my own style and it works for me to the point of where if I ever really wanted to monetize it, I probably could much some of those people have. It just really works, but it’s not a single influence that created that.

It’s a little bit of everybody Yeah.

I, one of the things that, and I teach this too, is that, after every sales pitch that I don’t close, and even the ones that I do close, I go back and I look at it, what did I do right? Why didn’t, where did oftentimes it’s gotten to a point now where I’m in the middle of a sales pitch, and as we all do we take a wrong turn.

And I know instantly I just lost this guy, and so at the end of every sales presentation, I take a look at what I did and I slowly start, Addition by subtraction, I started eliminating the things where I put my foot in my mouth so always be learning. You mentioned it earlier. Yeah. And the key though for is a lot of stuff to get stuck on a pitch. The problem is that pitch has gotta be different for whether you’re talking an AC company or a lawyer. Yeah. Or a roofing contractor. A doctor. So you can’t just you have to be it’s like sports.

A sports metaphor is you have to be able to call audible. Yeah, absolutely. And really the key to selling, in my opinion, yeah. Is to know your product inside and out. Know your product knowledge. It really is. Wow. And, yeah I found that the more I know about my product and my services, and not only the product and services, but the benefits of them to each individual.

Industry that I’m working with, it allows me to audible and then use anecdotes and this is why I would do this, but only for your industry and this is why in your industry I might try this instead of doing this. And it’s a lot of audibles, but product knowledge.

I put them in my seat or in the seat of a consumer. Okay. I ask them, what is it you are looking, when you do a search on Google, or if you’re on Facebook and you see an ad, what is it that attracted you to that ad? Yeah. What So I, I then learn their habits first as a consumer.

And then I explained to them, I go, that’s all the people that are looking at you. Ha. They follow the same patterns and habits. Absolutely. It’s funny, when I was in print marketing, I, one of the things I used to sell, I was a broker for even AK and Money Mailer. Yeah. And I would talk to a lot of, I talked to a lot of men.

And men will say, oh, I just throw that in the trash. I go, I’m sure you do. But the wife probably pulls it out and looks through it, right? Yeah. And the wife usually makes about 80% of the buying decisions in a household. Yeah. So I, I try and put it in perspective for people and they then, a lot of ’em, I would point that out and they say, yeah, you’re right.

You’re right. My wife does do that. Men tip, you have to understand men. When they want a pro, when they need a product, they go and they buy it. They don’t shop. Yeah. And I, no, we don’t. I’m the same way. Yeah. So I try and paint a portrait of what their shopping habits are and explain to them that’s the same shopping habits of the people that are searching for your products and services.

And then I dummy down SEO and how it works and how it basically I. Puts, it’s about them being everywhere, right? Yeah. Absolutely. And that’s what SEO comes down to. You’re not gonna get a hundred percent of everyone who’s looking for you, but the key is to be everywhere and including, if you wanna be in maps, you wanna be on, if you can, if you have the budget for it, you wanna do some PPC to be up at the top, you do it.

The goal is you wanna be in all three sections of Google. Really? If you can give people that much more opportunity to click on your ad. Absolutely. Your, yeah. The organic section has become increasingly difficult to get onto just because you’re competing with all the big box yeah.

Directories, Yelp, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I usually, I tell ’em my goal is to get you on the maps. Yep. Just because people are looking for local services predominantly, unless it’s product based. But so yeah, absolutely. That’s usually how I’ll usually pitch it to ’em like that.

they can visit us on our website, which is vertex visibility.com.

Vertex is basically a synonym for peak visibility and it Oh, okay. Funny how that worked out. We wanted to call ourselves peak visibility and it was taken, so we looked for synonyms and Vertex is a synonym. Synonym for peak. Oh, okay. Cool. And so Vertex visibility be seen at the top? Yeah.

You’ll see on there we offer a variety of services, website design seo, social media, video production, ppc. Cool. Cool. We do all of that.

LinkedIn. Facebook. Cool. Twitter. I practice what I preach. I believe that SEO starts with a strong internet presence.

It’s not just one. Yeah. There’s no one, there’s a holy grail, right? Yeah. You have to be everywhere. And so I practice that.

It’s absolute pleasure.My pleasure. I enjoyed speaking with you. Right on. Thank you.