Joe
Hey everybody, its Joe Troyer here from Digital triggers and show me the nuggets and I'm super excited for today's very special interview. So the guest that we have here today I've known man for going on over eight years now. So I know that because my oldest son was just born when I met today's guest, and and it was an awesome first experience getting to know this person and I'm super excited to have him on the podcast. Honestly, it's been way overdue. So for those of you guys that don't know, Zach Anderson, Zach's been in the agency world turned software owner turned successful exit with software and now is back, you know, running his own agency still and he's building another piece of software. And I'm just super excited to bring him on the podcast to share with you guys kind of his journey, what's worked for him and and really I want to dive in on one of the niches that he serves. as well so Zach Man Without further ado, welcome to the podcast.
Zach
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Hope my outfit is not clashing too bad against my background. I didn't realize I was wearing a picnic basket or whatever you want to call it a shirt. Sometimes I don't necessarily think things through when I'm getting on live webinars, or excuse me podcasts
Joe
All good. all good, man. You look fine. It's not clashing too bad. So, um, first things first, right on you when you've worn a lot of hats since I've known you, right? agency owner, obviously SAAS founder, reputation platform reputation loop, successful exit. Let's let's just kind of start from the beginning, so to speak. I think help us understand that how you got started in the agency space.
Zach
It's actually really simple. So back in the day, I used to own a mortgage company and I sold that mortgage company in 2007. Right before the crash happened, which was nice, but also sucked at the same time Yeah, it was good and bad. Good part was I made some money bad part was I had to stay with them for two years or I had to get it back. Yeah. And I didn't, I didn't, I learned something about my first exit. Don't do that ever again. And so I got about two and a half years into it. I hated it because it was so much regulation in the mortgage industry. And so I just looked at my wife and said, I can't do this anymore. Then she's like, what do you want to do? I'm like,
I have no idea. And so I started doing research. And I knew one thing I wanted to do was I wanted to get out of the, you know, you're only as good as your last month like in mortgage, basically, you're only as good as your last month. You know, you have to start over every single thing. I wanted to get into reoccurring revenue. So I was like, Okay, what am I gonna do this reoccurring? Then I started doing the math like, okay, small businesses. There's lots of small businesses. This was back in 2010 ish. I think this was just when like, you know, maps had like a seven pack or a 10 pack.
I think I bought Brian Anderson's maps power pack or something like that. And that's when I'm like, you know what, Vanessa, I'm quitting my $300,000 a year job. I'm gonna go in and do online marketing for local businesses she's like ok, so I just jumped I literally just quit and just jumped into it. And basically just started, you know, create a creative product and the package. So my the way I kind of worked backwards, I know this is kind of weird. I'm a big believer in one niche, one product one, everything, just just sole focus on one thing, but when I started, I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I didn't focus on a niche. I focused on a product. So my I went in reverse. And so how I did it was I built out a product, which was what I call now the R3 program. And what it was was just Local SEO For Businesses. That's all I get. Yeah, I enjoy technical things. And local SEO is really, really technical.
So that's what I did. And then I instead of just you know, going after one niche I went after like seven niches and then how it works. Is I was whatever niche I responded to the best I was going to go full bore into. So that's kind of how I got started. I mean I in the beginning I was doing roofing HVAC electrical plumber, dentists. I feel like there was one more oh I tried restaurants for a little bit bad idea don't do that they don't pay you much and it's a they're a pain in the butt. So yeah, so that's that's kind of how I got started eventually I just after about a year or so I realized that the dentist I just spoke to them really well. I understood you know their problems I understood kind of how everything works. So after about a year I just kind of purely focused on dentist, dentistry
Joe
I love that, I love that too. I think that there's a good lesson in there for anybody that's new right like get started, dabble around figure out what what niche like you played best to which ones you like talking to which ones you can you know prospect to the best the ones you I like working with and then choose, I think a lot of people try to choose a niche right out of the gate, or they don't choose a niche ever, and they stay kind of dabbling. And so I think there's a nice little takeaway there.
Zach
You know, and one of the things that I do is I teach people this a lot and what I always referred people back in regards to picking niches, you have to have some kind of investment in that niche. Meaning does your father do it as your mother in law? I mean, somewhere there's got to be a connection Did you used to be in the industry with me, I've always sold to highly educated individuals in mortgage. And then prior to that I sold computer hardware and I sold to CTOs and CEOs. And so I i understand his professionalism and I know how to kind of communicate to them so
I always try to gravitate towards that. The other niche I dabbled in that I had some success with was plastic surgeons. But the reason why I didn't go after them is because I felt that it was a little bit really, you know, like tied to the market. That's one thing I want to get out because I lost My ass, basically in the mortgage market meltdown. So you know, yep, that was one thing I wanted to stay in a thing that people always need plumbing, they always need hkc they always need dentistry. That is kind of what how I picked those types of things. And so, and that was my connection, I can communicate to them in a way that they understand.
Joe
Awesome, that makes perfect sense. So then what was the transition from agency and we'll get back to agency in a little bit, but from agency to Software as a Service, you know, founder, that doesn't just happen normally.
Zach
you know, I, luckily, I have a wife that has been around a father who literally is built. He's always been an m&a and building companies and selling them. So she's like, no big deal if you just start random things. And so how it came about was, I, I just like building stuff. And so what happens is in my agency, I get these problems. And the first problem that I had was my agencies or excuse me, like my dentist, they weren't getting did enough reviews and it was making me mad. I knew how important reviews were. So like way back in the day, I think it was like 2012, I created this product called offline reviews tsunami.
And I launched it on the warrior Plus Program, or some one of those sites had no idea what I was doing. And all it was a program that I installed in all of my dentists offices where they basically had this little card that they would give out to every person that came in, and it would say, Hey, leave a review. We'll give you a $5 Starbucks card, you know, after you leave it and just send it back to us. So that was the birth of reputation, though. Well, you get to a point where you're like, Okay, this is stupid. I'm doing this manually when I can build it automated. So I just dove in. I don't I'm not afraid of anything. So I just went out there and found a team of developers. I think I hired like five developers. I designed it all out, mapped it all out and said build it. And so I let them build it for I think it was only four months to take.
It took me to get it up and ready to go. And then I just launched it out there on one of those Jeff Walker style launches, you know, we do the, the video, the video, the video, then the big sale, the big reveal, and then the close down. And we went from like zero to, like, I don't know, 40 or 50 grand in reoccurring revenue overnight. And that was just the beginning of my whole software makes a lot of sense. This is way easier than this other side. So you know, I love the other side. And I keep my pulse on that, because it's what I understand what works for businesses. So that's where all my ideas come from, when I build build software is from the agency world and the needs of my specific customers like the problems that they actually are facing that I'm facing. And so I solve those problems by building software.
Joe
Yeah, man, that's a novel idea. Who would Who would have thought that you would have made the transition from agency to training or software and you would have actually kept your agency going, Man, that's, that's not normal.
Zach
No, it's very, there's very few people out And then have an agency. They'd like to teach that they have an agency still, but they actually don't have an agency.
Joe
Yeah, I love it, you definitely understand that the pain points of the market, what's happening in the industry, what's working today. And I think that's obviously going to give you, you know, a pulse on the market, but that's going to keep you one step ahead of any competition or any issues or, you know, any challenges that are going to come your way? Yep. So, you ended up building a reputation platform called reputation loop, which obviously, like you said, just help people get reviews from their existing customers or patients and then walk us into how the heck you ended up actually selling and exiting the software company.
Zach
So the the plan was from the very beginning of the software was to sell it. Me and my business partner, that was our goal. I my job at the company was Sales Automation and basically the entire development features and all those types of things. So what I knew in the very beginning was because of my agency experience and me doing SEO for my, my, my dentist and then getting hundreds of patients. I'm like, I need to focus on content. And I need to make sure I'm delivering content on a weekly basis, and never stop. And so what I did right in the beginning, a lot of people thought I was crazy. Because this was six years ago, I started just doing weekly blog posts and weekly content that was consumable, like PDFs and all that type of stuff. And I was putting it on our blog I was written by I didn't write any of it, I had someone writing it for me, but it was under my name is all original content.
And I just all focused around white label, Reputation Marketing Services, that was it. And so I just, you know, never stop, never stop, never stop and about to about three years in or two years in, we got number one on Google for white label Reputation Marketing, just that like multiple keywords. So we were getting 30 to 50 signups from organic traffic, well what also occurred because you're getting all that you have VCs and you have brokers and all these types of people wanting to contact you, do you need money? Do you need money because they they make money off of getting money. So I would feel these calls all the time. And I'm like, nope, you know, I look them up this one guy, you know, oh, it was, I'd say about five years, five and a half years ago.No, about five years ago. He, you know, reached out to me,
like three times I literally said, Nope, nope, no, I mean, three times. And he called me and like, nope, and then one on the fourth one. I decided to look him up. And I'm like, Oh, this is no joke. He's actually he's a real private equity firm. And so I'm like, I'll entertain the conversation. So I had the conversation by myself didn't involve my business partner, just to kind of get a gauge. I'm like, Dude, this totally legit like 100% you know, the whole, the whole strategy, the philosophy everything. So we went from you know, No going nowhere to be like, yeah, sending over financials and then sending an LOI on, like 15 days, you know. And so that was kind of a whirlwind. And I won't get into this any deeper than this. But our role, my world also imploded at the same time. So I always believed in transparency, the transparency is a big thing. We're about a week away a week and a half away from closing the deal. And a lawsuit popped up.
And they basically had to say, No, it wasn't a lawsuit against me or the software having a business partner or something like that. But we still had to deal with it. So it took us nine months to get through that. And at the ninth month, you know, I call them up and said, Hey, are you guys still interested? And they said, yeah, if your numbers are the same, and we have been grinding hard, the numbers were the same. And so they we sent them all over to them. They said, All right, sounds good. And so we ended up able to close like in 30 days after that, but it was like the most roller coaster learning experience of my entire life over a lifetime. A year and a half process of selling a company.
Joe
Yeah, such a crazy story. I remember being at the mastermind that we're in, right and you guys are like yeah, we sold the company and we've been like basically trying to sell it for 10 months and like this up down whirlwind we're selling it Oh, shit lawsuit. Oh, no, now they don't want to buy it. We got to settle the lawsuit. I mean, just crazy man.
Zach
And the one thing I learned with lawsuits is you're guilty until proven innocent. I mean, anybody can throw a lawsuit on anybody. It's just, it's unfortunate. And it was completely it was this such BS it was just, I mean, I I don't even want to get into because we could talk about it for hours. But you know, it's it was a learning lesson. It was, you know, all these types of things. And you know, I put myself in different positions moving forward, not only with my life, my reputation, or excuse me, my marketing agency, but my new software platform. And, you know, installation and protection that way. But, you know, it's something that not necessarily changes you, but makes you have a few gray hairs and become like a wise individual at some point.
Joe
Definitely, definitely. So let's, let's fast forward to today. Give us an overview of business as as as we see it now, right? What's happening with your agency molomedia? What's up with the new software company?
Zach
Okay, well, I'll start with Molomedia ,I know right now, this, this podcast is going to come out in the midst of this pandemic. I'll touch on that a little bit. But not too much, because I want to make sure that you know, this has more value, and I'll go across between the two. So just so you're aware of how I work with my agency, it's, it's not my primary focus of my business. It is my ancillary business to keep a pulse on there. So I keep it around 25 to 30 customers at all times in that agency, and they're all primarily dentist. Some of them might just do some low end services. Like website hosting, reputation management, whatever it may be. And then my other ones I do local SEO and have a very specific package around them that I do that. And last year I just before this, I just want to run numbers.
The most I've ever got my agency up to was about 500,000 in reoccurring revenue, or excuse me, ar right now I just ran the numbers for last year was like 350. It's not a heavy focus on me. I if I wanted to, I could probably get it to a couple million but I don't. I love software. So fast forward to where I'm at right now. Basically, I'm doing the same thing I have one of one full time employee in the Philippines, who handles all my customers, because with 25 you don't really have to do too much. I'm, I spend maybe an hour or two a day, let's just call it five hours a week. In the business itself. I have another Filipino that is part time.
He does design work and so he handles anything that comes up with air amongst this covid issue that we have just so I can touch on it. I have all mostly dentists. So what I've done is I've pulled down the dentist that wouldn't be willing to do this just down to hosting fees. So I'm just covering their hosting, I have a couple other dentists that have like, like four or five practices with me or seven practices, we've reduced their fees by half and I'm still doing the same stuff for them because it's really important that when we come out of this, that they're still you know, have all the content out there have all that their SEO is great. So that that's where I'm at right now, but you know, nothing's changed. I'm still you know, focusing heavily on the dentist when I do, like if I lose a dentist or something like that, and like my, my business goes down a little bit where my where I need to keep my revenue so that I can, you know, pay for all the stuff that's inside of it. All I do is go out there and start marketing again.
And I get one or two dentists and then I stopped and you know, it's it. That's kind of my my my world and my agency. I don't spend a lot of time with it. I'm really close to all my customers. I'm really a boutique Where I talk to them like intimately like what they're doing because that's where I come up with my ideas. I don't charge a lot I only charge $1,000 for like a you know, a month for the local SEO and these dentists are getting 100 plus sometimes new patients a month so to the math backwards, you know, one patient is worth to them so they don't you know, they don't complain too bad. They don't leave me very often. But that's
Joe
awesome. So what's what's the new software man you keep alluding at it but butyou haven't shared with us what the software does.
Zach
So basically, one of the problems that I've had in my dentists and in my, you know, when I'm doing the local SEO and all that is, I get really annoyed when front staff front office don't respond to people in an efficient way. When they get contact us forms. They don't necessarily answer the phone or they don't call people back when people call them they don't get there. So I'm like and you know,
It just it just just really angers me cuz I'm like I'm doing all this work and spend all this time and they're there, they could have, you know, 10 more new patients a month. And that's, that's $10,000 a month in revenue potentially. So I built this little thing called Ringbots. And what it is it is a highly intelligent like artificial intelligence, I guess you'd call it widget that literally sits down in the corner of the website or the right corner of the left corner. It's not like chat. It's in. It's what we call an instant callback widget. So when someone visits the site, they're sitting there perusing and at the right time, this widget pops up and just goes, boom, Hey, would you like to be connected to us in 15 seconds.
And so what happens is the visitor puts in their phone number presses contact, it then calls the dental practice. The dental practice says hello, and it says, Hey, you have a new incoming lead from your website, press one, a press one. It then calls the actual visitor on the website in real time. So they're connected in 15 seconds or less, and they're able to record calls, improve the customer experience, all those types of things. And if any of those calls are missed, then it's notified to everybody. It sends text messages, it sends emails. So now they can actually follow up on people if they miss those phone calls with. So it was kind of one of those solutions to get around the chat because I don't know about you, but I've never bought anything off chat nor text messaging.I always personally,
Joe
yeah. Especially local services, right. Like, I'm not gonna sign up for an appointment with a dentist office, right, like via a chat. Yeah, it's not gonna happen
Zach
And the customer experience is horrible. Because guess what, those people never man the chat. So you have a chat that doesn't exist, or a text message that doesn't exist. So it's like, this is mind numbing to me. So I built this software that's like dead simple, like stupid, stupid, simple. It takes like three minutes to set up in three minutes to honor but we've seen 50,60, 200% increase in conversion rates on websites. And guess what? They're all sales calls. They're not like, you know, they're Literally sales calls I actually took, I have it on my site. And I took on this morning and actually close the deal. I'm not kidding you. Like, I practice what I preach. It was literally on there. I actually got it on my phone. I'm like, do I want to answer this? And I'm like, Sure, why not? And it was a dude. It's like, I found you.
This is amazing. Can I sign up and I went over the whole spiel, and literally signed them up on the spot, like, literally, credit card in the order form on the spot. So it works. It's amazing. I've only had it. This is March 31. Don't know when this is going to be released, that I've been out for a month and we've been extremely successful with it. And agencies are already just seeing crazy, crazy, crazy results. I mean, it's just, it's amazing. So I'm really awesome. It's gonna be my next commercial grade software that I'm going to sell in two years.
Joe
that's awesome, man. That's absolutely fantastic. And people listening should know that they want you to sell it in two years, right? They should be excited about that. But that's your vision because They know, for the next two years, five years, whatever, you're going to be extremely, extremely focused on building this thing to be the best of the best in its class, right. And they're going to get world class service in the meantime, because you need to do that in order to be able to exit and exit successfully.
So I'm super excited for the software. I think it's awesome. Obviously, lots of people that follow me do Google Maps and local SEO, and they do PPC, and they hear the phone calls, they see the missed calls, they have the same frustration and the grinding of the gears with clients not answering or losing calls, not setting appointments, just like you have. And so I know that everybody listening is going to be super excited for the software. And I know that we're doing something cool to hook them up. Can we talk about that briefly?
Zach
Yeah. So again, I practice what I preach. You know, I believe in value just like you do. I mean, I love your stuff because you always bring extra value well What I'm willing to do is give you a free trial on our software, not $1 literally free, you don't have to pay a dime. And it takes you literally maybe five minutes to set up and start working and, and getting it going. It's like dead simple. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it to you guys. It's completely free trial. So you can test it out, play around with it, you don't like it? Quit it, but I mean, it is. It's so easy, and it makes so much sense that you'll see that, you know, you're you're going to be able to just destroy it with this. I mean, especially if you're doing little local SEO or PPC or any of those kind of things involves traffic. This just accelerates that it increases conversion rates and increases its customer experience and tracks and measures. It's all about you know, you have tracking and measuring things. So I put my money where my mouth is and you just, I'm offering a complete free trial.
Joe
Not even an awesome man. Very cool. So we'll put the link for that in the chat for everybody in the industry. Show Notes rather. So that's awesome, man, thank you for that. I'm sure everybody's gonna love it. And I can't wait to hear what you guys think about the software. I'm sure that you guys will love it just like I do. So Zach, let's shift for a second to dental. And what I'd like to do is talk about dental. So if there's any agencies watching this, there's any marketers watching this and they want to work with dentists. what's the what's the 80/20 with dentists like what's the skinny? What do we need to know about working with dentists? What you know, what, what's the pitch? What are they concerned about? What do they like? What do they love? What do they love?
Zach
So one of the things you get to know one of the things that I learned,this is odd, and you know,I'm just gonna lay it out how it is. I've never worked with a female dentist. That's just I only target male dentists. I do it for a very specific reason. They're egotistical. They are Kind of self centered, they like they, they're, I mean, think about it, they're, you know, highly educated they, they have a job that is they make a lot of money potentially, especially if they do it really well. And if they do it the right way, they have an immense amount of freedom. I mean, an incredible amount of freedom. I have a Dentist that I work with that basically has practices that he doesn't even practice like he doesn't even go in, like literally doesn't do anything. So what I've realized over the years of communicating with them and actually marketing to them is they want everything taken care of for them. Think about it this way. Where they make their money is they have they're drilling teeth, butts in the seats, drilling teeth that's where they make money.
If they're not doing that. They're not making money. And guess what, if they're spending all that time in there, they're dependent on somebody else to do their stuff from they're dependent on the bookkeeper to do their booking. They're dependent on IT guy to keep all the systems They're dependent on a front person's front of person to do all the bookings appointment. They are your perfect customer because they know how to delegate because their job requires it. So you have to play into that. And so the way I do it is I basically go in I approach them and when I have their compensation and their presentation with them, I explained to him what I do for us I do local SEO.
So what my goal is I call this R3 marketing package. And we focus on reputation, retargeting and rankings those are my three things R3, so anything anytime I actually and this is if you ever see my, my sales process that I believe in single focus and making a package unique, because you don't want to sound like everybody else, if you just come to them say I do local SEO, they're gonna be like, whatever. Do you come to them and say, like, I have this R3 marketing system. That's amazing. And I'm like, Oh, really, I'm like, yeah, it guarantees you new patients every month. You you change the narrative. I mean, that is probably one of the biggest keys in marketing to people that are heavily marketed to alright I have no problem getting in front of dentists, zero. Once I start marketing and I do it in a specific way, calling it something else, and I take them through a very specific sales process. And what it comes down to is like, I want to be that guy that takes care of everything for you. I will host your website. I'll do your retargeting. I'll do your local SEO, if they want PPC I'll do that. I mean, and I obviously give them to you but I don't do very often PPC
I it just depends. I mean, because i've i've assisted with a local SEO that I can get ranked really fast. And so it's like that does such well that it's like why put more money on it we do the retargeting part which is kind of the same difference. So you know, when you're ranked number one in Google, what's the point kind of deal but at least for your name type of thing. And so I handle everything their email, so I I go all the way this far I I registered our domain name if we're using a new domain name and I handle their their DNS settings. There, I put everybody on Google on Gmail and do HIPAA compliance so they can access it from anywhere else. They all love me right now, guess Guess what? No one's in the office because of what's going on, which is close at night. Yep. I do a website, that local SEO, all the directories, all the retargeting I manage, and I just encompass it under one thing, so that it literally makes it hard for them to leave me. Does that make sense? And then yeah, but and then then. And then the one thing I do that I think so many people miss on and my entire team knows this. I don't have a lot of
customers, I only have 25 to 30 a time. So this is easy for me to do. I require if a dentist emails us, they respond within five minutes within five minutes every single time without the solution or that they're going to get back to them within an hour of the solution. And that's how I've kept dentists for almost 10 years. I've had some that started. The only reason they left me is they wanted to work with someone local, because I don't have to work, I'm all for my, you know, or they sold their practice.
And I don't usually ever get somebody like quit, oh, I don't like you anymore or doesn't work because I'm always I know how to get them ranked. And then, you know, the fear factor and I take care of everything for it. So it's really understanding that you're going to do everything you possibly can for them to help them to make their life easier, and that you're the go to guy because they want to have their guy they all want their God. You know, that's kind of how I position all of my marketing, like, I'm the guy in marketing. He's the guy and dentist, you know, I always tell them, like, you know, I'm not gonna be able to diagnose someone's got a bad tooth or not just like you're not gonna be able to diagnose if you got good or bad marketing. You got to rely on your experts. And that's what I always really focus on because they're already trained to do that. There's literally trained out of school to delegate and put responsibilities on other people. So that's a long nutshell.
Joe
Yeah, man, that makes a ton of sense. So I mean, ultimately moving backwards, right? Like you, you offer a ton of value everything kind of under one roof, at least to a certain extent, right? Then in terms of sales positioning, you've positioned yourself with a unique mechanism, right? With the R3. So you're not just like everybody else, right? That combined, I think within what you offer, and obviously your results, your social proof, your history, obviously, is why you're getting clients, what's worked for you with dentists and in terms of getting their attention so that you can actually then have that sales conversation.
Zach
So I've actually used the same system since I started, which is really, really easy. There's two ways I do this. I do this either through cold email outreach with just a very simple message saying, Hey, are you accepting new patients? Taking them, you know, and they always answer yes, and taking them through a sequence of trying to get them to engage, or what I do, and this is more old school, but it works really well. If I go into a city. I'll basically go into a city Look at that particular city, like who's ranking on top, and then I'll do a video. Literally why that is because I'll do some deep research like I want understand how many citations read, I'll get deep research takes me maybe an hour to do it.
And then I'll have all those those notes written down. And I'll record a video of why that person is ranking number one and how you can take them over and then send that email or send that video to every single one in that city. And I usually get one or I can get at least one pretty much every single time. But that's that's like goes I don't think people do that type of stuff anymore. I used. I did that when I first started out and people are like, so lazy now that they don't want to go into that. But it's probably one of the most effective ways like if I really need a customer, that's how I do it.
Joe
I hit on that so hard man all the time with my people. You know, with the agencies, I work with invisible PPC, the agencies that I coach at Digital triggers, it's like how how hard is it to come up with a you know, 20 minute audit that you can run for a market, right to figure out, you know, for Chicago dentists, right? what's working and what's the competition have and how do you beat them? And to record a video that's personalized and to knock that out, right and then send it to everybody in the market. Like how lazy Do you have to be to not to not see the ROI and that strategy?
Zach
Yeah. Do you want to know my secret sauce? ButI don't ever share with anybody.
Joe
I want the secret sauce, man, we all want it. This is
Zach
this guy's
Joe
never meet the nuggets, right? I've never actually
Zach
I've never shared this publicly to be honest with you.
I just called people no so I basically can guarantee a dentist I can get ranked in six months. Like number one. But yeah, let's do this. I have to have the right dentist. So I'm not going to reveal any of my customers. I don't want them to be you know, destroyed everyone market to them.
So how I do And they This is this you're gonna, you're gonna know this is dumb simple, you're like, that's easy to do. So what I do is if I want a dentist wants to approach me and I start working with them like, Okay, this is this is the game plan, this is what we're going to have to do. Do you want more business off the internet? Yes. Do you want to get more patient software? Yes. Is that like your number one goal to grow your practice? Yes. Okay. So this is what you're going to have to do. And if you're not going to do it, we're not going to work together. You're gonna have to change the name of your practice and get a new URL. And he's like, What?
I'm like, yeah, we are changing the name of your practice. And we're getting you a new URL.
And they're like, Huh,so like, for example, Chicago dentist, right. I mean, that's a huge I wouldn't be able to get Chicago dentist dot com, but I may be able to get the Chicago dentist calm or North Chicago dentist com or something like that. So the first stages, they read, they they change their name, they register that with the state so that it shows up in the you know, the on as a whatever call dva so it shows there. And then basically we get the URL of whatever the business name is. So whatever the business name that we choose on, let's just call it the Chicago dentist. That's their new business name. They get a new sign. They get new everything. I'm like, do you want to win or not, they go down that path. We get a new URL, we then move we usually redo the site because we want new new code on the back for Google to to crawl. And then we go to town on the directories of updating all of them or making new ones if we can't update them and just saying Screw it. And then we go to town on press releases, and I'm done in about three months in their three months. They're already on page one and about six are like number one for Chicago dentist.
Joe
But that is huge. So ultimately, at the end of the day, you're going after almost like an exact match domain because we know keyword loaded business names rank. You just throwing in a little variation, right the or north or downtown. or something like that, so that you have a very close to variation of the exact match name.
Zach
And you know, this is it was scary for me to do this in the beginning because
I had a dentist that was willing to do it and now I'm like, so confident with it because I've got like, like all of them just pegged, that will do it. I mean, pegged, pegged at number one, like, they don't move. And so you know, and I show it to them, I have the results. And they're like, That's nuts. I'm like, tell us tell them go type that in, go type that in, go type that and go type. They're like, Ha, I'm like, Yeah, like, but you got to do it. And they're like, yep, like, does it What does it matter? And so that's my secret squirrel behind the scenes. I'm a good salesperson, so I can do it. But it is amazing.
It's kind of like think I mean, the way I always try to explain them, it's like think about this. Google's job is to give you the best results possible, so that you keep coming back to them. So if IBM you know wants to, they don't need to rank for their own name because you type in IBM, Google to show you IBM. It's the same concept. If your Chicago dentist, and your name is the Chicago dentist, and it's legit, it's not fake, you're not trying to screw the system. And that's the whole thing is that's why I'm like change your name dva the whole nine. And so that's how that works. And so that's my little secret sauce of how I can get a new dentist and, and just go to town on it. It's not very difficult to get them to rank.
Joe
So I love this. I want to spend a little time breaking this down. I love this because it's simple, right? I love this because it's easy for you to get results. It's easy for you to share proof, right? It makes your method even better. does it apply to everybody? Will everybody do it? No. I mean, at the end of the day, like is Apple trying to sell everybody know not everybody's going to buy a $3,000 computer right like it but that's okay. Right, like the surface will always have the Microsoft Surface will always have market share because it's so cheap, right? That's fine, right? Like you're never gonna sell to everybody and I think that's a lesson like you gotta you got to not sell to everybody. But if you just sold to you know, dentists and you just implemented this one strategy at the end of the day like how much easier is your fulfillment Zach because you just like put tunnel vision on
Zach
it is it is ridiculously easy I mean, um
yeah, I you you'd be shocked the fulfillment goes down like this, you know, once you get them up there because it's the exact match and it's not it's not the it's not the spammy way it's the legit way kind of like if I name my you know, my software ring bot you know, you type in ring bots should show up you know, if I do my you know, if it does, you know, it should I haven't done any SEO on it, by the way, so don't don't get upset at me. Um, and yeah, I mean, it is a strategy that people will be afraid of, you have to communicate properly with it. But I know I know, you know, this works because this is you. You've done this stuff forever.
Joe
I'm done hundreds and hundreds of times. But to be honest, I haven't done legit legitimately like, I have put the business name there as an exact match. And that wasn't the actual business name. Right. And so technically, that's against Google's Terms of Service. And they can suspend you from Google My Business because of it. It's ah, it comes in waves, it seems like and what I mean by that is like, they'll go through and they'll do a cleanup of kind of spammy, exact match looking business names inside of Google. But then they'll let it go for a while and then they'll do it again. But I've never done it the right way, so to speak, like you have and that's, that's the way that you build a real business right? doing it the right way.
Zach
So this The unique thing about this, and I do want to touch upon this, once you get confident with this strategy, and please do you guys take on do not, do not rely on me, this is your choice to do this.
When I talk to a new customer,
and I explained this to them, they're like blown away. Like, they get excited about it. Like, it's gonna go two ways. They're either all in and excited or like hell no. And that's why it's so easy for me to sell it. And they're, they're not i'm not charging an arm and a leg for it. And then they respect me so much. It's like, Ah, that makes sense. You know, I get it. Because if you explain it just like the way a normal person would explain, like, when you type in Apple and Google, what are you going to get? You're not going to get an apple tree to get Apple was a trillion dollar company. Right? So it's, it's just using logic. It's just plain simple
logic.
Joe
But and and the author is a no brainer. All right, and you have social proof. So it just works. Yep. Dude, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that little nugget that you've never said before. That's what it's all about guys.
Unknown Speaker
Ever.
Joe
So let's change perspective for a little bit. We got a little bit more time before we got to wrap up here. So Zack, like you've you've been successful, obviously building a mortgage mortgage company, lucky to get out before the crash, maybe unlucky as well, because then you had to work for that company throughout the crash. You built a successful local marketing agency that led you into building software for that agency and for those customers and then being able to exit that software. You're a new SAAS founder. So obviously business for you. Like you've become good at business, when you think about the last eight years the last 10 years last 15 years plus in business. What? What do you think your superpower is?
Zach
I know exactly what my superpower is. And I Funny enough, I just, I just released a product. I don't know, two months ago, my superpower is systems and process and consistency that's flat out what it is my superpower is I can start any business and making process successful in six months. I don't care what it's in. Because I follow a system and a process that I've been able to create over a 25 year time in sales, whatever you want to call it, whether I was all I've been all commission, or self employed for 25 years, I have not had a paycheck for 25 years. It's It's weird, but I'm so used to it. And so I have refined my process down to where, you know, my wife will start a business and I'll just be like, follow these steps. And in three months, she's
killing it. And it comes down to
it's really simple. And I know you're you're the same way me You're very analytical, you do the same thing. It comes down to a sales process and consistency in what you're doing on a daily basis. That's it. First, I mean, you have to have a product that works. I mean, you can't just sell me random. But once you have a product market match, all you have to do is build out your sales process that is, you know, if they're very simple, they're not hard, you can figure it out in two hours. And then you have to be consistent in your marketing and your messaging. And you have to focus on one product, one niche and one sales process. Those three things will make you successful in anything you're doing. absolutely anything you're doing. I don't care whether it's underwater basket weaving, you know, horse lessons, it does not matter. If you focus on a singular niche and even a sub niche inside of the niche.
Like what my wife would do, you know, she, she didn't only just she didn't just train horses she did hundred jumpers, you know, for a specific age group. That mean it was like that. I do train At the 35 to 45 year old women for this, and I mean, it's like you, the more focused you can get. And then you prove your sales process out, the more successful you're going to be. And you can do it in absolutely anything. And it's not complicated. I think the biggest problem not only in just people and just trying to start businesses and in any world is they get bright, shiny object syndrome. And they, they they aren't for one, they're being, you know, confused by people that are trying to sell them a product.
That's not proven. First off, because they don't I mean, if the person that actually is selling you the product doesn't actually physically do it. Don't buy a phone, flat up and make them prove it to you. I know you do PPC, I know. You're a company that does it. Right? You do retargeting, you own a company that does it. I mean you all these types of things. You practice what you preach. There's very few they're out there doing it. So the 25 plus years is just being hyper focused on one niche, one product One sales process and go all in on it and you will be successful. As long as you have passion, you have to have passion for it. So if you don't like doing it to not go into it, you're gonna hate your life in the year. So that's my, that's my 20 cents on that.
Joe
That's awesome. I love that mindset. I've always admired that about you. I feel like I'm very similar. But But I always am thinking about how disciplined you are with kind of one product, one market one solution, and I love that discipline. I think you're a good role model in that sense. The other thing I love about you is that it's it's very, very, very much you know, family first and and, you know, building your family spending time with your family, versus the hustle and the grind type of mindset that I see most quote on, quote successful entrepreneurs have, and definitely admire that in you and think of the world of you because of that. Yeah, that's
Zach
a you know, that's probably why me and you actually get along so well is I only tend to gravitate towards people that are I have real true relationships with that are all about family because I only this is all this stuff I do is secondary. My family is actually the first thing because guess what, if you don't have that you literally have nothing or you're empty at the end of the day. So, you know, I believe, like everything I do, and everything I create is like, how can I create more freedom in my life? How can I create a better experience for my customers at the same time, not working as much trying to work less, but, but not but not lacking on quality. I mean, I won't ever lack on quality. So it's and that's where those that's why you're so successful because you you understand systems and processes. You understand what people think? And you're passionate about anything you do, and you won't like what I love about Joe, is Joe won't put out a product unless it's fucking gold excuse my I mean, he won't, he does not put something out unless it is stellar. And that's why I've always, you know, gravitate to him. He's a big believer and family, big believer in quality products that actually work. And so you know, it, you guys have to I mean, if there's anything I could give any advice is put your family before all this crap. And secondary, create consistency and a system of processing your business and just hyper focus. If you do those things, three things. It's the sky's the limit. I mean, literally, the sky's the limit, because your priorities are now correct. They're in line as far as I'm concerned.
Joe
So, Zack, you're obviously on the bleeding edge building an agency SAS owner, you know the before successful in the mortgage space, who do you follow? What do you read? What keeps you on top of things? Where would you point people to?
Zach
So what I don't read is Gary Vee.
I, I don't read him at all. I stay as far away from him as I possibly could. I do not believe in the hustle. I don't believe in the grind. I don't believe in just the in your face. I can't stand it. It bothers the shit out of me. I mean, you know, I tried to get on the Kool Aid, you know, and like, I mean, I respect everything he does. Great. But I'm like, he's like the iconic individual that's like, if you just Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, you're gonna have everything. I'd like to know what his real feelings are on the inside right now. Honestly, guys,
Joe
he's changed over the last six to 12 months I feel like has has fallen off a little bit and I think he's gotten major criticism for the for the hustle your face off, you know type of mentality and now he starts To say, you know, there are other priorities and you know, things like that. I think he's toning down on the messaging a little bit. But if you've been following him for any real amount of time, you know exactly what we're talking about.
Zach
And another one is Grant Cardone, I can't stand him either. I love what he does. Too much. Yep. The average individual, this is what I hate about these gurus that are out there that are just preaching this level, the average individual, even the high, highly educated, disciplined, average and who cannot, cannot do what they're saying or cannot comprehend. It is hard. It is not easy. So I don't like watching those types of people. The people I like to watch are the inspiring individuals. The Elon Musk's as much as he's, you know, controversial. He works his ass off to, I mean, I've heard stories about him being inspiring people like I'll do it. So he has a compassion side to him.
I mean, I'm the Fufu side. I love Oprah.
I just Meet me, a black woman that became a billionaire that is just like could be the president if you wanted to next month. I mean, that's amazing. I don't, those I follow people that are influential that are not just focused on themselves and the hustle that they'll do anything outside of that to support the human being the population of the world. In regards to I follow a lot of different places in the SAAS world, like is it get locker you know, these you know, all the ones that I bought? Yeah. You know, great. Yeah, that type of stuff in just so I have that SAAS side on the agency side. Funny enough. One of the agency guys I follow heavily is Josh Nelson.
He, Iwatch everything he's doing, because he is out of all the agencies that I've seen grow over the last 10 years. He by far is probably one of the
the best way of staying committed to the, the local, not getting like he's grown huge. But he's not like the reach local where it's gotten out of control. He's been able to really stay centered and focused and on a niche. So, you know, that's that's kind of my my gamut of what I watch. I try. I'm not on Facebook much I go on Instagram a lot for entertainment. But besides that, you know, I keep a distance from a lot of the hypee crap and don't buy into it. So I watch your stuff. I love reading your emails because I always learn copywriting stuff. And Ben Adkins always learned copywriting from Ben Adkins as well, but definitely,yeah, so Yeah, I agree.
Joe
Mainstream Media mainstream gurus I pretty much to now. I can't remember the last time I watched the news. It's like it's been a really, really really long time. Especially right now what we're going with with going through with Covid 19 and everything else, I stay away from the media, but always have years and years and years and years ago, Frank Kern put out an email and it was during the last recession. And it was basically like him saying, like, flip the bird to media, right and tune out and talking about why we should and and I was like this is great, right? Like I got to stop listening to this stuff. I got to stop letting it kind of infect me and I did and I haven't really looked back since. I would agree with you too. Nelson is a great role model for the agency space. Built a $5 million agency now a year of focus on hvac and plumbing and we've had him here on the podcast great guy focused on a niche one super super deep has obviously been well rewarded for it. So definitely would agree with your recommendations. And if you want to learn copywriting definitely not me don't learn it from me, learn it from
Zach
Ben Adkins good but you're good to buddy.
Joe
I don't know about that. Not not in comparison. Don't put me up next to him. Let me go first. I
Zach
think if you ever get emails from me and they look like Ben, I have asked him and before I do it, by the way, because I do it all the time, and I still joke about it all the time.
I do think copywriting is important, but back to the whole new thing. I'm like you, I haven't had cable TV. For probably four years. All I do is watch through Netflix and Hulu. I literally have no idea what's going on. My wife has to tell me sometimes what's going on. I hate the best, especially the local news. just flat out can't stand it.
Joe
Alright, man, so let's let's wrap it up here. This is an amazing, we're about to hit the top of the hour though, really want to try to keep it under an hour. So at the end of every podcast, I feel like the big infamous question is Zachary Anderson. Will you please give us your three favorite books.
So I like books. I do. I don't read honestly, as much as I'd like to. But I do like reading like, and I'm either gonna read the first chapter and I'm gonna read the whole thing fast, right? Or I'm gonna read the whole the first chapter and be like, yeah, nope. So for me, I like skipping the reading the first chapter and throwing it away. Right. So I like getting recommendations from from other entrepreneurs. So I do something a little different here on the on the podcast. So looking at your business now, right your agency Molo media looking at ringbot, as you look at your business, what book comes to mind?
Well, right, as you look at how it's set up, it's running operations, what comes to mind?
Zach
So the problem with me is I've got super ADHD, I can't sit down and actually I've never I've probably read one or two books my entire life. I'm not kidding you. But I listened to them. So I've learned that I actually can listen to books. So for one of the better listening as well, yeah, so and i and i do listen to a lot of books and one of the ones I love is make more work Less is more literally like my life, it's literally it's such a I love that guy you know you interviewed him Did you? Did you? Yeah
Joe
and I introduced you to him So James Schramko we had told you about that book. So yeah man talk about someone tell me why
Zach
I love that book isit literally I felt like it's a reflection of my life I literally have on my wall right there in my office because I'm not outside. This is fake by the way. In there it says, basically says, work as hard as you can or no work. make as much as you can work as literally says give me No it's a it's a full on saying and that's been my preaching for like 20 years. And then when I came across that book, and I listened to it like four times, I'm like, this is literally like my life. Everything I do, I systematize and make it more efficient. And, and that's like, it's I feel like it's the holy grail of the reverse guru. Like the guys in the Gary And the cardones, which I don't believe in, it's like, okay, family, friends, life, you, conversations, that's more important than all this other BS, you know. And so, and that's really taught a lot about the other one that I thought was really good. It's called the untethered soul. That's more, more of the flu, flu Fufu stuff that I would call it because I'm very spiritual. I'm not religious.
I grew up heavily Catholic, but I'm more spiritual. So
I read things that kind of go into like energy and stuff like that. And the untethered soul is of a very quality book that I've read, or listened to multiple times. That allows you because I feel like there's in business two sides of the equation, you have your logical side of the equation when you're dealing with crap and then your emotional side of the equation. So logic is, you know, kind of like that, you know, make more work less, like how you work through things. Um, yeah, and then the other one is the untethered soul. There was another one that you gave me that I forgot that I've listened to a million times. It's the guy that Did the franchise for the workouts?
Joe
Oh, yeah. Bedros Keullina book. Bedros his book. Yeah, so Bedros used to be a client I spoke on stage at one of Bedros is that like men so long ago, before I met you, that's how long like 10 plus years ago. So he runs a franchise called Fit Body Boot Camp. He has he has a great book that's basically all about and the name is escaping me but all about getting off your ass and kind of making you take action. And it is a great book if you find yourself just kind of in a slumber. It's a definitely a great book.
Zach
And that and the reason why I bring that up, I don't really believe in a lot of the stuff that he has in there because some of that is associated with a hustle. But the reason why it resonated with me so well. When I sold my company, my software company back in 2019. I didn't realize that was going to have an impact on my life. Because I didn't know I had no identity anymore. I was literally in the guy's shoes that like now what do I do and I have no business. I got lost, and it literally helped me kicked my ass to get me to go and I'm assuming a lot of you guys could be in that situation right now. So that's a really good one so we need to look it up so we don't want
Joe
to hold on. It's called man up, man. And I agree with you. I think it's it's a lot about it's a lot definitely in the book, a lot of references kind of Gary Vee style, like just man up right, like, you know, but in all reality, I think it's it's really good to get you to take responsibility for your actions and it talks about Bedro's his story of how he built what is now a franchise but he wasn't calling it a franchise he wasn't charging franchise fees, and whoever regulates franchises came after him right and imposed all of these these fees and charges that and he couldn't afford to pay him like it was like literally more than he charged to be a part of this, this group. And training program. And he was like literally on the verge of bankruptcy and it was either like, go bankrupt, or, you know, take ownership and figure it out. And now it's the top fitness franchise out there.
Zach
Yeah, I mean, I thought I thought his message. I mean, he is more of the, you know, because he's a workout guy, like, grind it, grind it, grind it, get the message underneath that, that just resonates so much in the sense of challenges struggles, how you overcome them. And I feel like if you're in a position where you don't know where you're going, or you're lost, if you read that book or listen to it, it will
definitely get you to go somewhere. I mean, so those three funny two of them are from you. So
Joe
that means we know each other well.
Zach
Yes, we do. We know each other probably way too well. But yeah,
Joe
awesome, man. So I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing from from the heart. Thank you for for giving up some nuggets that you've never shared. Before publicly that's absolutely awesome. You shared those nuggets with me. And I was hoping we could get those out today on the podcast and I didn't even have to ask. So man, thank you so much for coming on. And everybody, we'll put all the links that we mentioned and all the resources that we mentioned that software previous companies and and links up for social for Zach as well. Anything else specifically man that we should link up in the show notes? Well, you
Zach
know, not not necessarily I think the the biggest takeaway of all this, especially with going through this Covid 19 is family. First is probably your number one priority, and then getting your shit straight in your business and focusing. It's literally thatsimple. And I hate to say it,stop following people that don't preach that, you know, just just get into it and do what you need to do. Couldn't agree more.
Joe
Thanks, everybody. Joe Troyer signing out. See ya
