How Reviews, Content & AI Are Transforming Small Businesses

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Speaker A: In addition to being a podcast host, I'm also a small business attorney, mostly providing legal services in New York and New Jersey. With over three decades of experience, we can handle most transactional issues. So if you're watching the show and you encounter some sort of legal issue, reach out to us and Visit our website, einhackerlaw.com. thanks for tuning into the show and for continuing to support us. Okay everybody, back to another show. Welcome to the show. I'm Mitch Benaker, your host. We got a little bit of ah, John was pointing out not only coast to coast interview but an international interview because John is up in British Columbia. So we're excited to have him on the show, going to hear about his story, talk about his business. I remind um, everybody if you're listening on your favorite directory, wherever you can leave us a five star review. We're continuing to build the YouTube channel. On the video side we have all this great video through Riverside FM. So go to the YouTube channel, subscribe, share, share, like all that kind of stuff so we can keep growing. I also, I said this in the last episode. This will probably be out in like a month and a half. I'm just starting a new podcast, a, uh, sports podcast with my son. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas. Just moved there about two months ago, and we talk about sports all the time. So now once a week, we have two episodes out. Now by the time this comes out, there'll probably be six or eight of them. Listen to us. Go to the show. It's called Big Apple Benches and Bleachers. Go to, um, YouTube, look up benches and bleachers. Or look up Instagram. I think we're on TikTok, maybe Facebook. I don't know. My VA is putting stuff out there. So if you want to hear some cool conversation about sports, we're big Knicks fans, we're big football fans. College, uh, professional. We'll do other sports too, I guess hockey as we get more into it, stuff like that.

Speaker B: Hey, can I.

Speaker A: Come on. I know you're from Canada, right, John? So hockey's good.

Speaker B: Hockey is good. Go Habs. It's the last Canadian team. And, um, if you want to talk sports, my son works for the Arizona Diamondback, so maybe, maybe we can have a father son thing.

Speaker A: Very nice. We definitely, as we get more episodes, my son said, all right, let's get six or eight episodes and we'll have some guests on, so. Perfect. My daughter actually goes to University Arizona in Tucson. So I've been out there and I have a friend who is a, uh, MLB agent in the Phoenix area.

Speaker B: Cool.

Speaker A: So he knows a lot of the diamond. He probably knows your son. Probably named Scott. What's Scott last name? I don't remember.

Speaker B: He's a good friend.

Speaker A: Um, yeah. Scott Goldberg or something like that. Anyway, um, so tell me, tell me, you know your story in business and go back a little ways and then we'll work up to Alley Cap Market.

Speaker B: You bet. So I love the name Accidental Entrepreneur. So, uh, my family are Dutch immigrants. Uh, today, I don't know if you know, is the anniversary of the victory, uh, of Europe, World, uh, War two ending. And my father, my grandfather, was in the Dutch underground. And, um, he was a butcher by trade. And then they actually put him into law enforcement to help, uh, to help, you know, with the unrest that was that followed that. And he, Holland was liberated by Canadians, mostly, uh, Canadian armed forces. So, um, they decided when they were going to come to North America. A lot of people, of course, went to Michigan area, uh, and New York, of course, used to be called New Holland or New Amsterdam. And my family came to Canada, and, uh, so, you know, we started out as potato farmers, chicken farmers, and worked our way up. But we've always been, been in business for ourselves and my dad owned a business. We've gone through a bankruptcy, um, and I just didn't know what I wanted to do. You know, you talked about your daughter going to university. Um, you know, I'm just too cheap to spend 20, 30, 40, you know, thousand dollars back then on a, on a university education if I didn't know what I wanted to do.

Speaker A: But isn't it more cost effective in Canada?

Speaker B: Uh, it's, it's less expensive, absolutely. But, but let's, let's face it, $80,000 wasted or $30,000 wasted.

Speaker A: You're right. I know. I have the same. I got three. That's my third kid, by the way. Yeah, ah, it's all been 50 plus every year actually. She got money. She's the only kid who got money. But. Yeah, no, nothing.

Speaker B: Yeah, so. So I got into, I got into business because my dad had been in business, my grandfather had been in business, and uh, I just started selling stuff and I did, you know, TVs and stereos. Then I moved to jewelry. As a funny story, I had a client that I sold a television to. And then he ended up getting engaged. So I sold him away an engagement ring when I worked there. And they go, okay, well we'll be back to see you when we need a house. And so, you know, thinking I was going to be on the, on the, you know, the, the scale of selling more expensive stuff all the time, but I ended up.

Speaker A: Well, so you're, you're not saying that the store you worked at sold TVs and weddings?

Speaker B: You're saying I transitioned to a new store? Yeah, I mean, let's face it, an entrepreneur, you do one job your whole life, you just do it at a bunch of different places, especially in sales. Right, right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I ended up in the car business. I'm a car nut. And uh, I ended up working for the Jim Patterson Auto Group, which, it's kind of like the Penske group down there or Bomberito, something like that. He's the largest player in Canada. And uh, and I did very, very well. I was very comfortable, very good at what I did. Six, um, figure job. And then in 2008, my appendix burst and I almost died. Like complications. Seriously. My wife.

Speaker A: Yeah, Bursting appendix is worse than appendicitis when you get there.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I'd been, I've been just, you know, having conditions for three days and I didn't realize it So I was full of infection. So here's the thing. My boss calls me at work, and I'm sure this is probably not legal, if not unethical, uh, or calls me from work at the hospital and say, when you come back to work, John, that's today.

Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, so as a manager, I supervise 24 salespeople. Uh, and I ordered the cars, and I did marketing and stuff for this group. And, um, you got to measure your performance. You measure the performance of your people. Right? Well, I had to measure my own performance and my performance after that disrespecting, you know, episode went down 40%. I. I just couldn't do it anymore. I. I would liken it to, you know, Tom Cruise and Top Gun or Maverick and Top Gun. It's like, right, uh, you know, the same guy, same skills, same, uh, equipment. Uh, completely ineffective because of his confidence. Right. Just.

Speaker A: Right. Exactly. Just took the wind out of your sails. Right?

Speaker B: Completely killed me. So I just couldn't work in that environment anymore. So my wife and I, we doubled the mortgage on our house, took out a bunch of lines of credit, like lots of accidental entrepreneurs do and purposeful entrepreneurs as well. Got a whole bunch of debt. And I bought an existing business, which I totally recommend buying a business rather than starting from scratch.

Speaker A: It's hard to start from scratch. There's a lot of more variables involved when you. Even if the business needs some rehabilitation, at least you have a shell, a frame of something.

Speaker B: Yeah. I was so excited. I remember buying the business. I'd never owned a real business before. I tried to bootstrap one once before. But, you know. You know, back then, it was 2009, I remember I bought the business and the accounts receivable, and, uh, people came in and picked up their signs and paid for it with a credit card. And boom, I got money coming in the bank. I was so excited. Right.

Speaker A: There you go. And that was Alicat.

Speaker B: So that was Alley Cat signs. Yeah. Uh, and. And so that was in 2009. And then this thing about 10 years later happened called Covid. You might remember it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, I got it.

Speaker A: A lot of people needed signs in Covid days.

Speaker B: Well, uh, you know what? All they needed was stickers and Plexiglas shields to say stay away. But there was no customers to keep away, so my business went to the tanker. We had some good government support, you know. Thank you for that.

Speaker A: Mine went through the same thing.

Speaker B: But, um, you know, when. When people. When business is good, people need signs. When business is bad, people still need signs. So it's a recession resistant business. There's nothing proof, right. But it's pretty hard in a pandemic. So the great news is I had already started getting Google reviews by then, and I had more Google reviews than any of my competitors. So I was actually getting business from across the country, um, just because Fortune.

Speaker A: So, uh, for partitions.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So whatever it was. And then, and then as Covid went on, I started. I started teaching people how to do what I'd learned. So, uh, you know, you can. We talked earlier about university education. You can pay your 40, 50, 80 grand or you can go through the school of hard knots and get your SHK degree. So I had an SHK degree and I'd learned what to do and what not to do. And, um, in digital marketing. So now I had actually become, uh, I, uh, hate the word guru, but I become a self educated expert. I had experience. Some people call me an expert. I won't. I won't be still that title on myself, but I will receive it from you. Okay, so that. So that's how we got here.

Speaker A: So. So Alley Cat then was, what was it? A retail store when you bought it? Like, you took on a lease, you had space, you, you made the signs in your back of the shop.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're a bricks and mortar shop, uh, in a commercial area in vict. We had six employees. By the time, uh, the pandemic hit, I had to lay off everybody, including my oldest son. Uh, we're a family business. My wife worked with me, my oldest son works with me. And then we had three other staff and we had to let them go. And um, yeah, so. So from that then I realized, okay, there's not a lot of signed business coming in. I got, I got all the government business because I'm in the capital city. I got a lot of government business, but.

Speaker A: Oh, you do. Okay.

Speaker B: But I now, um, you know, I've got people that, that need to attract business and they're moving online. Right. So they need to have an online presence and they need to get online. So.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So I don't know about you, Mitch, but you know, if you're in a, in a strange town, you know that you've never been to, and you've got your spouse or your daughter with you, maybe you're in, is it Tucson visiting your daughter and you want to go, you know, what's the best Mexican food and Mexican restaurants there? So which one is the best is you. What do you do?

Speaker A: Yeah, you go to Yelp you look for reviews, you go to Google. Yeah, absolutely. Especially when you don't know. I mean m. You don't have anybody to ask. What uh, are you gonna do? Go up into the guy in the street corner? That's what you do in the old days. You probably pass somebody on the street, say hey, what's the best Mexican restaurant in town? And hopefully they know what the hell they're talking.

Speaker B: Exactly. So really what that comes down to is that's reputation. Right. So whether you're getting, whether you're searching by face to face talk for a referral, a guy on the street could be your friend, who's the uh, who's a scout. It could be a fellow student of your uh, daughter's. Um, it's all about reputation. Where have you had a good experience? Right. So in the old days it was only mouth to mouth reputation, but now with social media and with Google, we, we literally have a digital place that we can go to. There is no excuse for you taking your family out to a bad restaurant nowadays. Like, I mean, really. Yeah, really. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, no, it's, you know, maybe it won't be, you know, you'll pick one. It won't be the best experience, but you know.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean anybody can have an off night. Nobody's perfect. I even have some one star Google reviews. I never claim to be perfect, but you know, we put our best foot forward and um, we put it out there. So now what I do, part of what I do is I help you get found on the street. So with an, a frame or a sign or a wrap on your vehicle.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So I'm not going to help you Mr. Client in New Jersey or you know, upstate or whatever.

Speaker A: Ship me a sign. That's great.

Speaker B: Not cost effective, you know, and, but here's the great thing. I can help you with your reputation. I have clients in, you know, Louisiana, Australia. I even got a Google review the other day from, well, a couple months ago now from Spain because I was able to consult. Right. Whether you're an online business or you're a person to person business, your reputation is the most important thing. I mean, does that help? As a lawyer in a law firm, is that not how you get business?

Speaker A: Uh, of course it does. And it's a lot of it is how you show up. Do you look professional, do people say good things about you? I mean, there's really no reason for not having, I mean, look, there's a lot of websites that aren't, you know, SEO, you know, really done up from an SEO standpoint. But they should look professional, they should have valuable information, you should have good reviews. So I think it's all about. And even if you don't sell online, people are still going to check you out that way. So that's that. Nobody goes, uh, even if you recommended me to someone, they're still going to go and check me out electronically online. There's, uh, no question about it because that's where the. It's just available, right? You're going to search and you're going to put it in your phone. You can say to Siri, I don't know, whatever you're going to do. And I think that people miss that. But I want to go back a little bit. I have a question for you because you mentioned before about buying a business and that you recommend. Uh, yeah. So let's talk about, like, what advantage buying this business gave you and what were the difficulties that you took on basically when you bought the business? Because you are, to a certain extent, you're buying an opportunity and some structure. And to a second extent, you're buying someone's headaches that they're walking away from selling their business.

Speaker B: So, yeah, you know, yeah, for me, it was. The benefit was cash flow. Like, I had a mortgage, I had three kids. And, um, you know, we, we wanted to be able to hit the ground running. And I had tried to, I tried to bootstrap a computer cleaning business before, because my dad had one. That was one of the things. And when you're starting your business, this, you know, this is the E myth very simply, right? Like, you're, you do what you do, but when you do what you do, you're a technician when. And so you got your technician hat on today, but tomorrow you need to go sell, so you got a business to do. So you're. They're selling or you're. Or you're doing whatever it is that you do. And you can't do both at the same time now.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, so that was the big thing for me. So I tried to bootstrap that business, and it was exactly that.

Speaker A: So what's a computer cleaning business?

Speaker B: Uh, you have a keyboard right in front of you. So, you know, um, if you work in an office and you're on the same keyboard over and over again, and then you shake hands with somebody and you come back and work on your keyboard, or you go like this and you work on your keyboard. So a keyboard is literally dirtier than most toilet seats, has more bacteria on it. So, um, so Back when everybody worked in offices and lots of government, um, we would clean those keyboards, but we would also go in and. And blow them out and clean CD ROMs. Remember when you used to do stuff?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So let me ask you a question. I have, uh. I don't know where it is. One of those air cans. How much does that help? Nothing. It makes it look bad.

Speaker B: Yeah, it looks better and it blows it off. But we all have oils, right? On our skin.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course.

Speaker B: So the oils get on there, then the dust settles on there. Now you've got a mucky fingerprint. So they do need to be cleaned. If you want a quick tip, just get an alcohol wipe or something like that and turn the computer off. Wipe the keyboard and it'll evaporate off and you'll be fine. But.

Speaker A: Right, that's a good advice because if you don't tell you turn your computer off, all kinds of crazy things are going to happen. All these buttons.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, funny story. Worked in a. I was cleaning a keyboard in a government office one time, and I was shaking upside down to get the staples out. 180 staples out of one keyboard. And you would.

Speaker A: Just because they're unstapling, they just drop them in the keyboard.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. Oh, type the F and the J comes up. You know, like crazy stuff like that.

Speaker A: Yeah. That sounds like a tough business, though. Right? Because small companies, they got their own problems. They're not going to pay to have their computers clean. They're going to tell their employees, you do it. Big companies, I, uh, don't know. Especially if. Right. You got to prioritize. But everyone needs signage. Right. So how did you find Alley Cat?

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, I just looked online, you know, and so I ended up buying it through a realtor. But I saw it and. And, um, you know, Alley Cat. Let me tell you about Alley Cat. It was a great business. It had a good reputation. It literally started in. In an alley. In. We have one. We have the second oldest Chinatown in North America here. It's.

Speaker A: Oh, interesting. What's the first oldest?

Speaker B: San Francisco.

Speaker A: New York.

Speaker B: San Francisco.

Speaker A: Oh, San Francisco. I've been to San Francisco Chinatown.

Speaker B: Okay. Um, so, uh, it started in what we call Fan Tan Alley. And, uh, so. So that's where it started. And at that time, it was just cut vinyl letters and stuff like that. By the time, you know, I bought it from the second owner. And, um. So you talked about, why did I buy a business. I didn't know how to sell signs. I knew nothing about science I knew about.

Speaker A: But you were a good salesman though, John. I mean, you've sold a bunch of different kinds of stuff.

Speaker B: I knew about messaging. I knew about being short and to the point and telling people what they need and if it's good or if it's bad. Right. And then letting them make up their own mind. And you want to know something about my Google Reviews? I have 800 and I do have a couple, I have, uh, a couple of ones. They're all about me personally, about my personality. He's direct. He's disrespectful. I'm not disrespectful. I respect that. You are entitled to your opinion. I just happen to have 45 years of sales and marketing experience. So your pretty logo is not going to help you sell anything. You should write the name of your company and what you do. There's two messages. Who you are and what you do for your client. That's it.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Pretty doesn't do it.

Speaker B: The third, the third message is how do, how do I get in touch with you? Right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: People forget the basics and they, and they spend thousands of dollars on a wrap on a vehicle that no one's ever going to be able to read because it's so flowery. And they've got, they've got three. They've got the logo and then they've got the font and the name and stuff like that. And it all gets lost in the noise.

Speaker A: Right, yeah, of course. And then people remember this nice van. They can't remember what was on.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I bought Alley Cat Science. He's got a really cool looking logo and that is not it. Okay.

Speaker A: That was not the logo.

Speaker B: Not the logo. I bought it because it had a really cool scripty looking logo. So I told you. My son works for the Diamondbacks. He used to work for nascar. I am a racing fan. So, um, I, we had a local short track here and I sponsored cars. Like a lot of drivers come to me, hey, can I, can you put my numbers on my car? Yeah, yeah. And I give them a deal. I say, okay, I'll give you $500 off you. Let me put Alley Cat signs. So one time I was at the track on a Saturday night and I had about five cars out there. All of them had Alley Cat signs on it from 100ft away. I couldn't read it. My own logo, that's a problem because I bought it. I bought the company. I came with the logo that I thought was so cool could not be read from 100ft away. That's a problem. Why do you put your name on a car? So people can read it. And, uh, they like you. They like the affiliation. Hey, you support local business, you support local racers. That's a good thing. Who is that? I can't read that. That's right. Right.

Speaker A: So that was like an epiphany of yours. Like when you bought the business, you

Speaker B: thought it was great school of hard notch education, right? So I learned a lesson and then I applied it. And then now I can apply that

Speaker A: lesson to you now, uh, look, lawyers do the same thing, right? They have these cards, they have the name on it. You can't tell what it says. My card says Bindhacker, like in big bold letters. And it's got the logo. Like they don't need to remember anything else.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, the rest of it they'll, you know, People know me.

Speaker B: Let me give you a little tip. So you see my name written down below there. John DeYoung. Mitch Meinecker.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: When you have an email address on your business card, I want you to do this at the end of the day. See what Your email address is probably all lowercase. So think you know, johnllycatsigns.com all in lowercase. It all runs together. It's very hard to read now. You used to have to do that. You don't have to do that anymore, folks. The very first thing you should do, the first marketing tip I'm going to give you is change your, uh, email address or your website addresses to have upper and lowercase where the words change. Okay?

Speaker A: Because it's all. It's not case sensitive.

Speaker B: You can type in any way you want. So you're just making it so difficult for people to read on your truck as you're driving by john@allycatsigns.com like, I can't read that. And then, plus, I've got a different letter in my. It's spelled a K, a T, not cat.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: The more variables you put into it, the harder you're making your marketing. You know what? Right?

Speaker A: Make it easy for people to remember your name and to remember your email. Be able to email.

Speaker B: Exactly. Make the evidence easy. Present it to the jury and let them decide. And I'll tell you, they decide with their wallet. They decide, I'm going to do business with you or I can't even find you. You're not worth the effort. What was that guy's name again? Was it Pussycat Marketing? I don't know. Like, you got to make it right.

Speaker A: Exactly yeah. So if I did a search for, you know, sign companies in Vancouver, in Vancouver, Canada, would I come up with alicat?

Speaker B: You may or may not. That's a. Okay, there's different. That's a great question. So Vancouver is actually only about 25 miles away from me, but I'm across a body of water. I'm on an island. Um, so.

Speaker A: So it might not pick you up,

Speaker B: might not pick us up. But, um. But if you were in the greater Victoria area and you typed in sign shops near me, uh, I'm gonna come up. And that is without a paid ad. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, I don't do any bad advertising. None.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: All content related.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So let me tell you this, whoever's listening, if you're a businessman, an entrepreneur, businesswoman, starter, very experienced, I don't care who you are. If you haven't optimized your Google business profile and you're paying money for Google Ads or Facebook ads, stop right now. You're wasting, wasting your money. Go back to, um, Right. You know, you can do this yourself. Google business profile. I learned how to do this myself. I can do it. I can teach you. I have free training. But optimize your Google business profile. When you, you mentioned Siri earlier. So you're an Apple guy. Okay.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, you know, what was the word? Reluctantly? My kids forced me to get on.

Speaker B: It's okay, right? You know who you know? Do you know that Google pays Apple about a million dollars an hour to be the search engine for Safari and Siri?

Speaker A: It's like, oh, uh, you mean it's the back end search engine.

Speaker B: Back end search engine. So whether you're searching.

Speaker A: That's why I use Google, by the way. I use all the Google products.

Speaker B: So do I.

Speaker A: Right. On my iPhone. I do not use Safari. I, I use Siri, but I don't use Safari. Yeah.

Speaker B: And, and it's a difference. It's between, it's difference between good and better. Right? Like they're not bad. You can do everything you need to do on those platforms. I'm not bad melting other platforms. I am platform agnostic. Uh, I just want to get the message out there and I'll use whatever method is better. Do you advertise on Yellow Pages anymore, Mitch? Just asking.

Speaker A: Do they have the Yellow Pages?

Speaker B: What are the yellow Pages? All the young people are saying, right.

Speaker A: I was told that if you could order a book if you want to. It's very thin.

Speaker B: Yeah, I actually have one.

Speaker A: Do you have one?

Speaker B: Uh, but. And I don't pay to go in it. But, um. Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I bought alley cat 17 years ago, we were paying 400amonth for Yellow Pages ads. Right. Because people knew that's where you have to be.

Speaker A: That and you want to be an A, so you're high up aaa, right?

Speaker B: Double A, triple A. So, yeah, those are the old tricks. And so those are hacks for the algorithm that you. Right, but it was a. It was not a digital algorithm. It was an analog algorithm. Right, but now we have to use hacks for the digital algorithm. So that means getting found where people are searching. Okay. The restaurant we talked about, you searched on Google. Um, you know, you're looking for Best University. You're gonna search on Siri or Safari or something like that. Wherever you're. Wherever people are, that's where you want to be, right? Yeah. Uh, maybe your clients are NASCAR fans. Maybe your clients are baseball fans. Maybe your clients are both. So you've got to figure out where their dollars and cents are. But if you know 93% of people when they're searching for something or searching on Google, doesn't it kind of make sense to go there?

Speaker A: Yeah, no question about it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, you don't. You don't need someone like me to do it. You can do it yourself. But what you need to understand is what is the cost of doing it yourself? So I charge out at $125 an hour. Lawyers and law firms. 4. 5.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm at 500 an hour.

Speaker B: 500 an hour. So you do not have time to learn. Okay, now that's that. But. So you charge it at $500 an hour. But you know what? If you. If you get a case, uh, uh, through. Through someone finding you on Google, lifetime value. Do you have a. Do you have an average lifetime value of what your clients are worth?

Speaker A: Yeah, they're probably. Well, some of them are. A lot of them are like one off, but anywhere between 15 and $25,000.

Speaker B: Okay, great. Do you know what the lifetime value is of a. Of a Starbucks?

Speaker A: That's by an annual. That's by an annual value. I have. Any idea what lifetime value.

Speaker B: Okay, so a lifetime value on a Starbucks client. A, uh, Starbucks person spends, on average, $6 per transaction, but they stay with Starbucks. Once they're a fan, they stay with them for 10, 15 years. The average, uh, lifetime value of Starbucks client is $14,099. Okay. Okay, so the cost.

Speaker A: 15 grand.

Speaker B: Yeah. So the cost to you, uh, to not be advertising or not to be found on Google, the cost of Starbucks is $14,000 per customer. It's not $1,000 a month or $500 a month or whatever. Okay, so if they get one new customer per store per year, they're picking up 15 grand per store. Right. Per. Per year. So, uh, like, uh, they spend millions. Okay, you don't have to spend millions, but they are.

Speaker A: No, because they got national brand, world, international brand. They want to.

Speaker B: Yeah. And, and actually getting found nationally on Google is actually harder. So. Yeah, you know, most of my clients I'm dealing with are, are in Victoria, local business. I have, I have per, you know, long term relationships with a lot of clients. Uh, I have a database of, with 25,000 clients in it. So, um, you know, you don't have to be the best in the world. You just have to be an expert in your own hometown. Right. Like, you know, you talk about your kids in sports. You know, my, my kids were, uh, two, uh, of them played lacrosse. And you. It's amazing how great you feel about yourself when you're a big fish in a small pond and then you go to a national university with Div 1 players and you go, whoa. It's a whole different.

Speaker A: Right. It's not as good as I thought.

Speaker B: Exactly. So you know what? You're an expert in your hometown. Be an expert there. And, uh, you know, marketing, knocking on doors, there's nothing wrong with that. Leaving brochures, there's nothing wrong with that. But you know what's even better is getting found on Google. Best business lawyer near me, Best sign shop near me, best hairdresser, whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, uh, look, I'm, uh. And I know that Google loves content. I always tell people, listen, don't be paying. I mean, look, there's some businesses that really lend themselves to keywords and, and paid for advertising, but for the most part, if you're a professional and, or you have a retail store, whatever, if you're putting out regular content, uh, not paid, and people are seeing you and you're getting good reviews and you have. Right. Then when they search more than just your website comes up, they see that you were, you know, named, uh, you know, chamber of commerce, business of the, of the month, or you helped this kid at a park because you, I don't know, you found his. Got his cat out of a tree, whatever it is, you know what I mean? Like, it's a content game. And I learned that early on with the podcast. Somebody told me, said, Mitch, listen, you just keep putting out episodes. You make them good. You put, uh, you know, show notes in there, you post on whatever, and magically it was facetious, but, you know, magically, people will start to find you and the content becomes pervasive. As long as it's good content and as long as you, like you said, you're getting good reviews and people have a good impression, like you're showing up well online. Because then almost bad advertising is almost like, don't know if you really need it. If you're a local person and you have all your followers and you have, like you said, a huge mailing list. I'm all a big fan of building an emailing list, so I think a lot of people miss the value of that.

Speaker B: It's about valuable communication. Uh, you know, you can't always be taking from people. You have to be giving. So always, you know, um, one of the things that.

Speaker A: What's that, what's that book? Uh, not the Giving Tree. I cashed out my entire 401k thinking

Speaker B: someone stole my identity.

Speaker A: A fake email cost me my dream home. After I sent my personal information to a scammer, my AI agent wired thousands to an account I'd never seen.

Speaker B: When billions of people feel unsafe, that's

Speaker A: no longer a security problem. It's an economic one. At Jenn, we're building the trust layer for a more fearless planet with products

Speaker B: and technologies from our global brands, Norton,

Speaker A: Lifelock, Avast and Moneylion. See it in action@gendigital.com the, um. It. I had him on my show early on those books about the Giver.

Speaker B: Uh, well, servant leadership, things like that.

Speaker A: No, there's.

Speaker B: There's a book that I loved from.

Speaker A: I can't remember it now. It's like a. It's like the E Myth, but it's a three series, four series book called the Giver. Something. I'll think of it. But there's also a very good book I love, by the way, John. It's cold. Um, the referral of a lifetime. It is a Tim Templeton, um, book. Hundred pages. A parable about building a keep in touch program. Like keeping in touch with the people that you meet and know who are in your world. And people don't do it. Like, I got people I meet at networking events and then I see them again. I remember what they do because they never, like, sent me anything, reached out. Nothing.

Speaker B: No communication. Right.

Speaker A: And a lot of you can automate these days. You don't even have to do it by hand.

Speaker B: Well, and you know, it talks about communication a lot. Even miscommunication turns. It can turn into Good communication. You can, you can use that to your benefit. So, um, my wife and I are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary in about three weeks. Well, very nice.

Speaker A: 28 this weekend.

Speaker B: Good for you. Congratulations. Um, I'll tell you the first time. I can tell you exactly what my wife was wearing the first time I saw her. But she, she dismissed me out of hand. There was a miscommunication there. She, she, she saw me. I come in, in a, In a, you know, a fancy sports car. It was a Volkswagen Scirocco.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah? Who's this guy?

Speaker B: Yeah. And. And I was a little bit cheeky. And, and, uh, but, you know, hey, a Volkswagen Shirako is just a rabbit with a fancy hatchback on it, right? So I was, I was Mr. Middle Class with car payments, you know. And, uh, but, you know, she, she turned me down. I asked her out. She turned me down because she, you know, she had a. But I didn't stop after saying after. She said no.

Speaker A: Well, you're persistent. A lot of people are.

Speaker B: Right. I followed up. I followed up. You know what you need to do in business? Follow up. You know what you need to do after you've closed a sale and they bought from you and they're happy and they said, hey, thank you very much.

Speaker A: Ask them for a review.

Speaker B: Do you mind, uh, can you just. Just. You have your phone on you? Yeah. Okay. Just right here. Or scan the other side of my card, which you got a QR code on it. Boom, there. To your Google business profile in three seconds, right? All about making it easy. Make it easy to say yes. Make it easy for them to do what you want them to do, you know what. And say, no disrespect. Um, I'm just giving you a little tip here. I ask for a four or a five star Google review. I don't just say five star, because some people are just, that's perfect. I'm never going to give them five stars. But you know what? I humbly asked for four or five.

Speaker A: Maybe I should. Okay, I'll start saying that.

Speaker B: And they'll probably give you five stars, right? But. But it just, it comes a little. Comes across a little more humbly. And, uh, they go, oh, sure, John, yeah.

Speaker A: Or maybe I should say, leave us a review. You decide what we're worthy of.

Speaker B: So that. Again, that's phraseology. I say, if you think it's appropriate, would you mind leaving us a four or a five star Google review? And then, Mitch, you're talking about, um, feeding the algorithm and communicating ongoing if they leave you a photograph with that Google review. So I was out for dinner last night with my wife and my in laws and, and um, I took a picture of my dinner and I took a picture of her dinner and I had already left this restaurant a five star Google review. But that was like a year ago. But I uploaded two more pictures and that kind of is like poking the bear in a good way. It's, it's saying hey Google, uh, you

Speaker A: know, I came back.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Um, we're uh, you know, these guys, it's like another Google review. So Google reviews that are older than 90 days do not help for your ranking. Most people don't know. Right. So, so if you've got a, let's say uh, you know, cleaning company down the street that uh, all of a sudden is getting five Google reviews a month and you've got 300 and they've got 10, then they have 15, then they got 20, but you haven't had a Google review in three months. They can quite possibly show up higher on Google than you. Yeah, because more recent Google appreciates activity, they appreciate communication between you and your clients and, and to Google, your client who leaves a Google review that's and is now doing a search for something else, that's their client, they want to service their client well. So they're not going to serve, they're not going to put in that pop up when you do a search. Uh, right, someone who hasn't touched his Google review in five years. Or is Google right?

Speaker A: Of course not.

Speaker B: They only want to deal with people who've got active, uh, consistent content. Like.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that reminds me that I got to go to my pipeline. I got a bunch of things in there probably that I finished. I move them to the one status, there are the finished status and they automatically get a series of emails to ask for reviews with links to Google. And yeah, I got to keep it up, uh, keep up. That's the only manual step I have. But uh, yeah, I always, I try to tell my clients, my clients, my colleagues, I should charge them for this but I uh, don't. I coach a lot of these guys, you know, to get their marketing going and you can automate a lot of things so you can focus on the running of your business. Like it doesn't, that shouldn't be burdensome on you but if you try and do it yourself then you're, you know, you'd be the guy. Yeah, I posted twice on LinkedIn last week. Yeah, okay, that's it. Like that's yeah, it didn't work. I didn't get anything. Yeah, uh, probably nobody saw it to begin with.

Speaker B: Your time is valuable. Right. So posting the LinkedIn versus posting to Google. Post it to Google. Connect your LinkedIn profile and your YouTube and your Facebook and uh, uh, your Instagram.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's all connected.

Speaker B: Connect it all to your Google business profile and when you post it there and when you cross post it, you should, you can set up an automation so it goes back and forth so you don't have to do 10 different things, you have to do one right.

Speaker A: When they post to Google. I think it also puts a thing on LinkedIn said hey, this such and such.

Speaker B: Ah, how many, how many times you follow up and ask for a review? Let me ask you that Mitch.

Speaker A: Well that's, that's what I mean. Uh, every time I finish work for a client I have it automated where they get a review letter and they get a series of. Unless they, if they file a review right away, then they don't get the rest. At least I don't think they do.

Speaker B: Perfect.

Speaker A: And if they don't, it comes three or you know, three or four times Perfect. Yeah, because I was told that if you send it once you're probably not going to get a big return.

Speaker B: No, that's right. So again it comes to follow up. Right. So and let me tell you, another channel that's even um, about a thousand percent more effective than that is text messaging. So I, I have an automation, I have an, I haven't, I have an automation that sends out an SMS and it says hey, thank you so much for choosing Alicat signs or hope you're happy with your signs. Um, click here if you think it's appropriate to leave us a four or five star Google.

Speaker A: Yeah, I get that from my haircut.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it goes right to your text message and when you get in your pocket you're gonna flip it open and look at it. You know text messages, SMS's get open about 90%, emails 40%. That's even for people that we know. Right. Like, and so speed to lead is a thing. Right. The, you know, if uh, a client reaches out to you that wants some law or legal advice, if you're the first one back to them, you've got like a 70% higher chance of being the guy that they pick because you're, you're, you're deemed as professional and punctual and so on. Well that, that's everywhere. Okay. It's the same thing with your, with your Google Review. If you, you can't wait two, three weeks to ask for a review, you, you need to get it out promptly.

Speaker A: Right away.

Speaker B: Yeah. Some of my clients haven't picked their stuff up yet. So I hold off on it until they pick it up, take it home, put it in, and then what I do is I pick up the phone and I call them and I say, hey, it's John from Alley Cat. Just want to make sure, you know, is the sign working out for you? Are the graphics, are you happy with the way the graphics went in your van or are you getting in what kind of reaction you're getting? I don't ask them for a review. I communicate with them. Right. I discuss. I, uh, it's not about me, it's about you. How right did the service that you came to me and gave me the privilege of providing, how's that working for you? Because if you're not happy, I need to know about it right before you leave me a one star Google review.

Speaker A: So. Right.

Speaker B: That's communication. And then I say, hey, just so you know, you're gonna get a text message and an email asking you for a Google review. Is that okay? Yeah. And then I send it and I just click yes and then it follows up. So they get a text message today. They get an email a few hours later today, then they get it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Then tomorrow they get another one. And because, and it's not that I'm being rude and it's not that I'm being pushy.

Speaker A: No. People are busy and they don't realize and they don't get it and it goes to their spam. Exactly. It took me three months in the old days. Funny, I used to have a bigger firm in the old days. We used to a lot of collection work. One of the guys was collections attorney. We used to get some reviews from people and they carried over to my current firm. They're like way down the list from people that we sued. So let's say you're owed money, right? And then you say, mitch, this client owes me 30 grand. We did this big signed job or whatever. So we send them a letter and then we sue them and we get the money. They leave a message like, don't go to this firm, they steal your money. And then I had to respond, say, you're not even our client. Like, what are you talking about?

Speaker B: Hey, I'm so glad you brought that up. So first thing, Google reviews. Google gives you 300 characters, uh, to type in and tell about your service. So, um, uh, on your Google M, my business profile, they give you 300 characters to talk about a service. So a service could be, uh, you know, plumbing unplugging, it could be digital marketing, it could be, you know, notarization or something like that. They give you a thousand characters to describe your product and you can put pictures in there and you can say, okay, we sell a frame size, you do vehicle wraps, we install toilets, electrical, uh, whatever. When you get a Google review, whether it's positive or negative, here's how important this is to Google. They give you 4,000 characters to reply to a Google review. So they're four times more interested in how you respond to your customer than how you attract the customer. Customer, okay. Uh, they care about the long term relationship once the customer has started with you. Not just attracting the customer, but they care how you, how you handle this. So when you get that guy who's trashing you, you get to write a sermon telling a, oh, I'm so sorry that you're not happy. We, um, wish we could have done better. It uh, turns out we can't even find you in our database, so we're not sure you're a client. And would you mind contacting us at so and so?

Speaker A: And then you say, yeah, I've done that before.

Speaker B: And then you tell exactly, um, here are some options to so because this is just a giant brochure, it's a giant advertisement for you. Because when people look at Google reviews, lots of them go to the negative reviews, right? Like they got a thousand and they're five star. That doesn't seem really realistic to me. Like what do they got? You know, what are their ones? Like what are their twos? Like what are the problems? How do they solve their problems? Because how a person communicates or solves a negative problem tells you a lot more than how they are when the light's shining on them, right? Mhm.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. All right, so you're doing the coaching, helping people with marketing now you still got the, you have just one store location?

Speaker B: Yeah, we're just a mom and pop shop with uh, we're back up to six people again. And, and so I use AI, um to help and you know, you can use AI yourself and yeah.

Speaker A: So you know, do you know how to design these agents that they're doing, like Open Claw. Do you understand all that stuff?

Speaker B: I don't understand all that. There's people.

Speaker A: Well, I don't understand any.

Speaker B: There's people younger and smarter than me, but I have access to that. But here's the thing. Here's my, here's my take on AI. AI is an actual idiot until you train it, okay? It's got, uh, it's got all the knowledge in the world. So think about it like when you go into a big law firm, they got walls and walls of books. Well, who. All those precedents, all those things that's useful.

Speaker A: That's.

Speaker B: It's useful, but that's only knowledge. Wisdom is knowing which case study to pull out and when to present it in a case. Right. It's exactly the same thing with a, uh, brochure or follow up with a client is that all this knowledge is out there. I just had a client send me, uh, uh, and. And it's becoming more of a problem than a benefit right now. People are sending me things that AI designed that.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, real pretty, but.

Speaker B: So this is.

Speaker A: I can imagine. I get it on contract. You must be getting graphics all the time.

Speaker B: Yeah. And so this is going to cost you $10,000. And you, you used a free AI to do it because you thought it would save you money. But so, so I've coined a phrase, what I call AI squared, which is actual intelligence. This gray hair. I earned it, my friend. Um, along with artificial intelligence. And when you marry the two of them together, they, it becomes a symbiotic relationship.

Speaker A: There's.

Speaker B: There's gears there. And if anybody, you know anything about pulleys or gears, you increase the power of something exponentially. Right, Right. So it makes me way, um, more effective. It doesn't make me smarter, but I'm just using tools that are there. So that's what I'm trying to teach people is how to apply, uh, AI. And a useful thing because again, this is a very expensive education because a, it's changing all the time. And yeah, so you got to keep relearning and learning different things. And then it's like, okay, next shiny object. Next shiny object. Okay, Claude has got it this week. Chat, GPT, Gemini Grok. Right? Like, where do I go? Okay, slow down, people. Find an expert, check their credentials, check their Google reviews, talk to local people, find out, uh, what their reputation is. So that's the problem nowadays is you don't know who to trust and you don't know how much it should cost. Right? Because you can get, you can get legal advice. You can, you can get, um, you know, house cleaners for a hundred dollars a day. You can get them for, you know, 400. And there's going to be a difference.

Speaker A: Tick tock. He does deep cleaning. In a house, charge five grand. He's only doing big houses. M. You know.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Do you, do you find that AI is, is affecting your business? Like I could go to AI, right. I think you correct me if I'm wrong and I could tell whatever the services, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, whatever to design a sign for my business and then I could find some company in China, probably for pennies on the dollar to make this sign. I would guess it probably wouldn't look too good, but they make this sign probably with a 3D printer or something and it would come and they'd ship it to me. Right.

Speaker B: Um, is it affecting my business? I'm sure that it is. To me that's an acceptable loss of business. Uh, you know, please don't, please don't get me wrong. I make signs that are like a hundred dollars to sixty thousand dollars. So I'm across the spectrum. But if you're just hunting for the cheapest price, you're probably going to be a high maintenance customer that I don't want to deal with in the first place.

Speaker A: Right. They're probably not your customer. I say that about contracts too. If you want to get a contract done online and that's fine. And by the way, bringing me a, and I'll tell anybody listening, bringing me an AI contract to review is not going to save you any money. I'm going to charge you the same thing. So, just so you know, but I think that um, those people are not my customers anyway. The people that want to use me want to use professional services because like you said before, their time is valuable. They may make on their business thousand dollars an hour, fifteen hundred dollars an hour, whatever it is. And they want to pay a professional to do something right the first time.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. I mean I believe in templates, uh, and AI is kind of good for offering templates and AI gives me a starting point, but you have to modify it from there. Uh, you know, you'll books nowadays you can tell when they're written by AI, uh, ads thing, you know, it's there, there's an animosity. You know, it's new and shiny right now, but there's also an animosity that comes with it. A lot of people have, some people don't. I mean I'm a glasses, half full kind of guy, so I'm looking forward to the day where my workload can decrease so I can spend even more time with my wife and my grandkids and my kids. Notice the order I put them in there. Um, but, um, but AI is not a replacement for, um, for human interaction. We, you know, uh, we need to know that there's wisdom behind the decisions that are being made. And let's face it, sometimes there's humans that are making poor decisions too.

Speaker A: Of course, sometimes worse decisions.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, but, um, you know, I, I think people, uh, if you're, you're entrepreneur and, and you're fearful about losing your job to AI or something like that, I think if you deliver valuable service, uh, and you do it in a professional way and you follow up, you have such a leg up on your competitors who are just trying to take the shortcut, uh, make the quick buck. Right now, there are things that I could do to make more money faster. I don't need more money. I have a mortgage, but my monthly payments are getting made and my clients are happy. And if the Internet goes down tomorrow, my reputation is not only online, it's primarily online. But it's not only online, but, but good people get, uh, good customers and do good business.

Speaker A: There's no question about it. I think, uh, people have to learn that as things change, you use tools to your advantage. I'm sure at the turn of the last century, people were like, oh, it's the industrial age. They're making machines. Nobody's gonna have a job now. There were, look, there were industries that disappeared. You know, certain things were done by hand. Remember in the, what was it in the 40s when they invented, like, auto switching on the phones? And they used to see those women with the, yeah, you know, the headset, and they plug it in, plug it in. And, uh, you know, uh, you know, operator, can I help you? And that whole industry disappeared. Disappeared. But people adjust and, you know, you got to use. But I think, you know, it's interesting because I think AI really an opportunity for small business people to do things like from a marketing standpoint, uh, that 20 years ago you need to be a big, you need to hire an advertising agent. I think in the future you're probably able to design your own commercial and put yourself in it without a studio or cameras or a director or anything to put something on. Uh, and then there'll be shops, like smaller shops like yours, that said, no, we can help you design the commercial and you do the whole work, but you don't need actors and all this kind of stuff. And you can charge them a reasonable fee and they can do the advertising that you couldn't do years and years and years ago.

Speaker B: It's very exciting. I mean, I, I, there's parts of it that I love. There's parts of it that, meh, I can take it or leave it. Um, yeah, you know, I will work with you, with AI to help you improve your business. I, I just don't believe in a fear mentality. You know, I used to, um, I,

Speaker A: I doesn't serve you right.

Speaker B: Yeah, I, it's all, it's all about your point of view. So is AI here to stay? Yes. Is it dangerous? Yes. Is it going to be good for you? Yes. All of these things are. Yes. So choose which side, uh, you're going to be on. And you still got to get up to, you know, it's like baseball. You got to get up to the bat and you got, uh, up to the plate, and you got to swing the bat and you got to keep swinging. Right. And sooner or later, you're gonna, you're gonna hit something. Yeah. But don't just run away and hide in fear like, oh, AI is going to ruin my business. No. Get out there and fight for it. Right. You don't have to beat everybody. You don't have to beat AI. You just have to be as good or better as your people closer to you. That's your competition.

Speaker A: You're not against a leader in your community.

Speaker B: Be a leader in your community. Be an expert. Um, and you don't even have to be the best, but if you're the best communicator, if you work with people on a regular basis, um, I got paid the highest compliment the other day. Uh, a friend of mine took me out to a, um, believing it was an AI seminar, a lunchtime. And then we went out for. We went for a lunch afterwards, and I. And, uh, and I introduced myself to the business owner. It was a taco place. And I said, oh, hi, I'm John from Alley Cat Science. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, I know you. I get your emails. I read them all the time.

Speaker A: And it's like, there you go. People say that to me, too. That means you're communicating.

Speaker B: He's on my email list, and he hasn't unsubscribed. Right. So. And I write. Okay, here. I write all my emails personally. They're inspiration, um, based on real stories. I'll probably write something about you, Mitch. Um, and what to do, what not to do, I don't know yet, but. But that's what.

Speaker A: I don't let this happen to you. And they'll be my picture.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so, you know, it's just a matter of communication. People is and value. You don't have to, you don't have to give something, but you can always be taking something. Don't always be asking like my, my marketing minutes are uh, are there to tell you about my experiences and how I handled them and where I, where I see there was room for improvement. Some of my wins, some of my losses. Right, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: Listen, all my blog articles are legal related. They're to teach business owners and people about different things. There's no sales pitch in them whatsoever. The only place that I'll mention is in the little byline with the little print at the end where links to my website and whatever because people, and then people share the articles and because you write, you just want to give value. I had a, ah, colleague of mine say years ago, we don't want to be advertising the Internet and doing videos and appearing on podcasts. What are you teaching people what to do? They'll put us out of business. I go, if you think that helping people and sharing information is going to put you out of business, you are so off with the way business is done, you know, because look, I talk to people all the time and you know, maybe I charge more than somebody else they spoke to. I talked to a guy the other day and he's like, yeah, that's more than everyone else is charging. I go, yeah, I understand. And I'm not the cheapest on the street, I'm not the most expensive, but I do take time to work with clients. And when you're. It was a, uh, real estate closing and I said, listen, if you're going to do it though, make sure you do this, this and this. Because a lot of these guys are charged less. They get in there, they do it, they don't talk to you, whatever. And he appreciated that. He chose me.

Speaker B: Good.

Speaker A: So, you know, you got to stick with. I think that's another interesting conversation about pricing your product or your service. I think a lot of people like, they have to get comfortable with, you know, asking for a reasonable price for what they do that they don't want to underprice. You know what they do. Professionals or.

Speaker B: Yeah. And, and so gurus, business gurus are telling you, you know, charge more of your under charge. You know what, I'm still in touch with my community. That that's what makes me, um, valuable to my community is because I understand what's going on. And if you can get, if you can get, you know, I'm sure you can get a product that I charge $25 for from China for $7.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You know, plus shipping or whatever. But, but if it's screwed up, if it's wrong.

Speaker A: Yeah. They don't get you.

Speaker B: They don't take care of you.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, that's, that's kind of the way I do things. It's like, okay, we've, you know, this client I was mentioning earlier had a sign designed by AI and they have, you know, you see a lot of them on podcasts nowadays. The insulated, uh, walls with the lines in them so they absorb the sound. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The vertical lines in it. Well, when. It's just a fact of the way human anatomy works, when your eye sees vertical lines and then you put a word on it, like, um, um, Beinhocker, that has an E with a straight line on it and an I on it and an N and an H and a K. All those straight lines. If you put those letters right onto some, uh, a background with straight lines, you're gonna get a vibration. It's called the comb effect. And.

Speaker A: Right in your eyes.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's not, it's not real. It's an optical illusion process.

Speaker A: I didn't know what it was called, but I've seen it.

Speaker B: Yeah, but so this client came to me with, uh, with their design and it had that. And I said, well, I suggest you put it on a backer so it stands off and blah, blah, blah. So, no, we want it this way. And we went, My son went and installed it and I get a call three days later. Yeah, it's, it looks kind of blurry. There's something wrong with it. And I had to explain to him,

Speaker A: it's your eyes, not the sign, it's physiology.

Speaker B: And these people are doctors and psychologists and, and so they understood that. Now, um, they have to come up with, um, you know, three to five hundred dollar solution to fix this, you know, that they wouldn't have had to spend it. They had taken AI squared advice. Right, Right, exactly. Actual intelligence and experience with artificial intelligence.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, uh, there's no question about it. Look, I, I try to explain to people that AI works just like our brains work, right? We use our collective intelligence, things that we've experienced in our life. You and I have 60 years of experience. My son's only got 25. So I'm going to come to different conclusions and then I'll tell you things that I think are correct and draw some conclusions based on the information I have. AI does exactly the same thing, except it has an access to a much greater knowledge which can cause, you know, good Results and bad results. Right. When you have too much conflicting knowledge and they try to draw conclusions. So it works the same way. It's just, you know, it's not reliable either for the same reason.

Speaker B: It has knowledge without perspective. And, um, you know, coming back to.

Speaker A: Right. Because they're not human.

Speaker B: Yeah. Coming back to your job, um, you know, that's what, that's what is now what findings are or judgments. And then there. And then there's interpretations and then reinterpretation. Correct.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And they make up cases anyway half the time.

Speaker B: Uh, and are they right and are they wrong? I don't know. We. But I will do what's the best for you at this point in time. And, and you are making the best decision you can make at that point in time. Like, I'm not, you know, I'm not in the same career that I started in 40 years ago because I've changed. My needs have changed, my desires have changed. Right. So follow my dream.

Speaker A: So, John, what's the best way for people to connect with you? Learn from you. Learn from Alley Cat Marketing, See what's going on. They obviously, if they're not in your area, they're gonna walk into your store. So, yeah, there you go. I getyoufound.com. i love it.

Speaker B: Yeah. That's what I do. Right. I get you found on the street, on the web. So if you go there, you're gonna, uh, it's gonna ask you for your name and your email address, and then you'll get into my CRM and it's gonna send you a free download of what I call my playbook, My I, uh, get you found Playbook. And there's three things in there that I talk about. One, um, chapter is completely boring. It's all about how to do your Google business profile that we were talking about.

Speaker A: So you don't have boring but important.

Speaker B: It's boring but important. So you don't, you don't have to do it yourself. You can hire me. And by the way, if anybody tells you that they're gonna do this for you for $100, run away. $500 is the minimum. This should cost to a thousand. And then if you want ongoing service, it's 500 to $1,000 a month is really what you need to spend. Anything less than that, you're throwing your money away. So please don't. Okay, um, so I'll teach you there, how to optimize your Google business profile, what you need to do. I will also teach you, um, how to get Google reviews. And I'll show you the same scripts and stuff that I use. So I give you access to all that. And then there's one more thing. Most of you are watching this on video right now. So you're seeing our face, you're seeing our interaction.

Speaker A: Um, right.

Speaker B: We, ever since, you know, humankind, has always been about community. But even ever more so since COVID uh, we wanted to face, um, I recommend, uh, what I call the website Concierge. It's a little pop up video that you'll see on my. On my website. And when. And you can click on it. You don't have to click on it. It's just an invitation for you. But if you click on it, it'll say, you know, let's say it was on your website, Mitch. It says, hey, welcome to Binhacker Law. This is, uh, Mitch, if you're looking for legal advice, click over here. If you want to see some of our free tools or videos on YouTube, click here. And if you want to book an appointment, click on the calendar down here.

Speaker A: It's called Website Concierge.

Speaker B: Yeah, you can find it on, on my website. Yeah, that's my name for it. There's a bunch of different ones.

Speaker A: Oh, okay.

Speaker B: Um, but, but what it does is it increases the engagement, uh, of people who actually land on your website by 42%. Okay. Because.

Speaker A: Interesting, because sometimes they don't want to read. They'd rather watch a video.

Speaker B: Well, you know what? You've got three seconds to make a first impression. And HubSpot, um, says that the average stay on a website is only 54 seconds. Now, I don't know about you, but

Speaker A: that sounds like a long time. 54 seconds.

Speaker B: So how long we've been on here, Mitch? An hour?

Speaker A: We're coming on 53. 54 minutes.

Speaker B: Yeah. So in 53 minutes, we've, we've talked mostly about digital marketing and signage. And me, okay, People have gotten to know me in 53 minutes. And they know a little bit about you from all their previous experience. Right. 54 seconds is not long enough. Um, so. So you got to engage with people right away. And you've got to show people that, hey, I have something valuable to offer and I'm going to treat you well. And you just can't do that with a pop up on, uh, you know, uh, when an AI bot turns people off, it doesn't really help them.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And are you on LinkedIn? I would assume I am on LinkedIn.

Speaker B: I'm a little bit limited on my presence There. But, um, yeah, if you go to I get you found, uh, you'll. You'll see a video, connect with you,

Speaker A: get on your marketing list, learn from you.

Speaker B: Yeah. And. And you can unsubscribe at any time. Like we do not want.

Speaker A: That's why I tell people my list too.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Oh, people can quit whenever they want.

Speaker B: And. And then you can sign back up. Like sometimes, you know, you might. You. I might get. I might not be flavor of the month anymore, you know, six months from now. Or you might think I'm sick of hearing about John stories and his wife.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, you meet other people. Everybody's got good.

Speaker B: Some.

Speaker A: There's a lot of good people out there. It's not just you and me. I understand. Yeah. Humble enough to say I'm not the best lawyer around. I'm a very good lawyer.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Not the best. I don't even know if there is a best.

Speaker B: You know, exactly, Right?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. All right, John. Well, I know it is midday, uh, out by you. It's like one o', clock, right? So enjoy. I don't know what Vancouver's like, but it's gonna be a crappy weekend in New Jersey.

Speaker B: So let's get started.

Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you so much.

Speaker B: I appreciate you having me on and any of your guests out there. If I can help you out, uh, please feel free to reach out.

Speaker A: Thanks so much, John.

Speaker B: Have a great day.

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