Revenue Spark, proven formula for landing high paying clients? With Megan Grant

Today I got to talk with Megan Grant from MeganGrant.net about her formula for attracting and retaining quality clients, we also discuss some of the tricks that blogger use? I never knew bloggers were so sly. Megan is a business owner and the founder of Revenue Spark, as well as How to Blog Like a Pro. She traded in the 9-5 for entrepreneurship, building a business generating five figures a month in revenue. And now, she teaches other professionals how to do the same.   So today we are thinking big about your business. Megan will be running a live, accelerated version starting Monday, January 4. The goal is to work with students to land your next client during the month of January, with me. (There's also the self-paced course.) People can either email me here ([email protected]) or book a call if they're interested in enrolling. https://calendly.com/megangrant1/15min Revenue Spark: https://megangrant.net/revenue-spark   How to Blog Like a Pro: https://megangrant.net/how-to-blog-like-a-pro This is for people who want to learn how to write blogs that get more traffic and better rankings. Here are some freebies on my site:  https://megangrant.net/freebies   Leaders are Readers, here are some free books for you to get. Free copy of Think and Grow Rich http://bit.ly/free-think-and-grow-rich-ebook   The 14-day Think and Grow Rich Challenge https://bit.ly/tagrchallenge   Free Audibles book http://bit.ly/thinkingbigaudible   Connect with Sean Osborn at Thinking Big Coaching http://www.thinkingbigcoaching.com https://www.instagram.com/thinkingbigcoaching/ https://www.facebook.com/thinkingbigcoaching/   Until next week, remember to always think big Thanks for listening! It means a lot to me and to the guests. If you enjoyed listening then please do take a second to rate the show on iTunes.  Every podcaster will tell you that iTunes reviews drive listeners to our shows so please let me know what you thought and make sure you subscribe using your favorite player using the links below.   Episode Transcription SUMMARY KEYWORDS people, clients, blog, mindset, business, google, content, building, LinkedIn, big, growing, writing, work, students, podcast, thought, money, formula   00:00 Welcome to the thinking big podcast. Today I got the chance to talk with megan grant from Megangrant.net about her formula for attracting and retaining quality clients. We also discussed some of the tricks that bloggers use. I never knew bloggers were so sly. Megan is a business owner and the founder of revenue Spark, as well as how to blog like a pro. She traded in her nine to five for entrepreneurship, building a business and generating five figures a month in revenue. And now she's teaching other professionals how to do the same. So today, we're thinking big on your business.   00:41 I really want to welcome Megan grant to the podcast today. This has been, I've been looking forward to this one because you, you kind of go down my alley of the stuff that I'm actually very passionate about. That's mindset. And really how our mindset controls everything that we have, you know, to me, our whatever we see in the outside world is a direct mirror of our mindset. So having you on the show is actually great, because I want to pick your brain, I want you I know you're gonna add tremendous value to the people listening. Megan, Tell, tell us a little bit about yourself. Great. Well, first, thank you so much for having me on here. My background is actually in writing, I started writing professionally, in 2009, I believe. And, you know, speaking of mindset, I grew up hearing and understanding that writing as a hobby, and we tend to say that about fields that are more artistic. And so I always grew up never thinking I could really make any money from writing.   02:16 But then that, you know, thankfully changed. And after years of working on, you know, my business and my own mindset, I was able to build this into an agency. That's, you know, thankfully doing very well these days, and really take control of my workload and what I do for a living and my finances, and now I teach other professionals how to grow their own businesses. Oh, that's so in writing. So did you do like copyright stuff? I mean, is that what you what you did? Yeah. So I, what it ended up turning into with a lot of my clients was, you know, I, I'd be hired to write blogs, but then they'd be really happy with my work, which is always nice. And they'd say, Well, can you do our social media too? And I'd be like, Oh, sure. Yeah, of course. So then I learned how to do social media. And then they'd say, well, we need some email content written, can you read our emails, so it turned into this thing of, if it is written, I can write it. That is a double edged sword, because that you end up doing a million different things. But it's also why I believe that if you know how to write, you can do a lot. Now I'm on blog. So that to me, that is one of the   03:33 arts or the one of the one of the things that's still out there, that I think still has a lot of traction, I think blogs are still a fantastic way I take blogs and podcasts kind of in the same same light in the sense that I think that they're on a long term investments, their long term,   03:52 you know, long term marketing. It's not something that I'm going to, you know, do really quickly and you're not, at least I don't see a tremendous amount of immediate turnaround as far as dollars are concerned. But I see, you know, blogs being, you know, you're building up your, your content, you're building up, you're building up your tribe, you're building up people who look up to you that people that like what you have to say. And so I think that's really, blogs are still How do you see blogs going still? I mean, is it you see people doing more video logging or blogging or   04:28 they're definitely becoming more, more how I put this engaging, like multimedia people are adding in more video podcasts. They're evolving like everything in our industry.   04:42 But I don't think blogs are ever going to go away.   04:46 This type of content is timeless, and it's the gift that keeps on giving. I have blogs that I wrote for clients a couple years ago, that are still bringing them tons and tons of traffic, but you're absolutely right.   05:00 I want to highlight what you said it is a long term play, for sure. And I think that's one tricky part with a lot of professionals today. We've all kind of gotten sucked into this. We want immediate gratification, we want things to blow up and go viral overnight. And we're, we're impatient.   05:19 Not everyone, of course, but that's the trend I'm seeing, especially with social media with platforms like, you know, tick, tock and Instagram, people want to blow up overnight. And for the vast majority of us, that is just not going to be how it works. So you might as well sit down and get coffee, because it is going to take a while. Yeah, I'm not a Tiktok star. No, me. You and me both. So you mentioned that when you first started getting into writing that, you know, it was kind of a mindset thing of, you know, this is just a hobby. Where do you think that came? I mean, is that something that you grew up with that that is,   05:57 which is which is odd, because I so I was the type that I could never write. And I thought it was something that was you had to be so intelligent. And so you know, so good to be able to do you know, writing and write stuff. I was never, ever a writer by any means. But so you actually had a mindset, or at least got a mindset growing up that that really wasn't the thing to do.   06:22 Yeah, you know, it's something I've loved. I mean, I've been writing for as long as I can remember I can, I was a kid, and I was writing plays in newspapers. And I just, I always loved it. And I always, I was always a strong writer, like, I can remember even in college, my some of my professors telling me, like, why are you not writing for the newspaper? Why are you not writing for magazines, and this was always my thing.   06:48 But you know, because it was something I was very passionate about. Because it's kind of, you know, a lot of people view it as more artistic. Even though I will argue it's part art part science.   07:00 A lot of the feedback I got from, you know, some people in the family and you know, boyfriends and people like that, it's a great hobby, but you got to go out and get a real job. And I get that it's not a traditional path to take.   07:16 Thankfully, I'm very, very, very stubborn. And I eventually said to myself, I was like, This is the only thing I enjoy doing. So I'm gonna make money from it. And   07:29 I was not long after graduating from finishing college, a friend was like, Oh, you got to read this book about freelance writing. And I was like, what's that? Because the concept was still so foreign to me. Like, I knew I wanted to make money off of it. But at the time, I still had it in my head that it was going to be really, really hard, and maybe not even possible. And he read me this book, it changed everything. And yet, I can't remember the title of it. And   07:54 it opened me up to this whole world. And I thought, Oh, so there are people selling this, there are people making money from this. And I never looked back. And I just kept climbing and climbing and growing, and   08:06 trying everything. Because it's certainly not easy.   08:12 But it's possible. And I'm just I'm really glad these days that I didn't quit, because it's been very rewarding. Yeah, that's it. So I and I think that goes along with, honestly, just about everything, we all have this on a limited mindset of limiting mindset that what we do is not good enough, or it's not, it's not for us, or we're not, you know, it's I can't make money out of whatever it is. But once we once we get past that, you know, that really minimum, you know, mindset or that limiting mindset that any idea that we have any skill, I don't care what your skill is, you can absolutely make money at it.   08:54 It doesn't matter what it is. And that, why there's I see so many people that have that mindset, that it's just limited. And, you know, it's not for me, you know, I can't make that, you know, I can't do it. I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. Whatever the you know, the limiting belief is but, you know, once you realize that, any idea, any skill that we have, we can absolutely turn it into either a business or we can make money at it, or we can utilize our genius. I mean, to me that that's our genius. What we're good at is our genius, and we can absolutely make money at it.   09:29 Yeah, yeah. You're so right. And it's it really I feel like the the biggest limits we have we place on ourselves.   09:40 And it's funny, you know, sometimes my students or people who are considering enrolling, they'll be like, Oh, I want to do this, but I don't know. Like, do you think I could come on? course what do you do? Do you mean to I think you could of course you could. Then I have to remind myself like, okay, they're where I was, you know, 510 years ago, whatever it is.   10:00 They don't know yet what's possible. And once you kind of let that sink in, it's really liberating. Because you can tell yourself, okay, if I want to make $5,000 a month, I can, and I will. And you will. I told myself, I want to make 10 grand a month. And then I did. And then I said, I want to make more. And then I did. And it's like, you can do anything. And I'm always telling people this, like, you can do it. It's all about having the right process the right steps. You know, there are so many successful people out there who are doing what you're doing, and it's not luck. It's not magic. It's not a fluke. It didn't you know, it just having the right steps. And if you follow the steps you get there. Yeah.   10:46 And one of the so how, I mean, how long have you been doing your, your business now?   10:53 Well, I officially, you know, like on paper, I registered it in 2017.   10:59 But I have been building it, probably a year or two prior to that, like trying to really grow and kind of get out of being a one woman show and then building it into an agency. So I've been doing that now for about the last three, three to four years.   11:15 And it's a constant learning process, you've never stop. But it's, it's good. You just keep growing and getting stronger. Yeah, and I, boy, I work with a lot of solopreneurs I work with a lot of people have small companies. And the one thing that I, I see everybody doing is   11:35 they're doing everything for the company. They they're doing their writing, they're doing their copy work, they're doing their graphics, they're doing their marketing, they're doing everything there for their company, and I get it, we all have to kind of do that. When we're starting out, we're starting our companies, we have to kind of be you know, we have to do everything within within the company until we get you know, big enough to, you know, start outsourcing that out. How long did it take for you to do that?   12:06 too long.   12:09 I, I'm a workhorse I always have been. And I am really good at working hard. But what I didn't realize this is something else I stress to people the difference between working hard and working smart. And I was always against finding easier ways of doing things because I thought it made me lazy I was so like buying into the hustle culture will you have to be working, you know, 14 hours a day and hardly sleeping and you're sick and stressed I thought that was like heroic and meant that I was on the right path. And really, I was just shooting myself in the foot.   12:47 And I didn't hire my first person until I hit my breaking point, which was the wrong way to go. But lesson learned.   12:57 But then thankfully, once I did hire her, it almost became addictive because I started, you know, passing some of my work off to her. And it freed up space in my brain First of all, to stress less, but also to think about ways of growing my business that I didn't have time to think about before. And I stopped having to do so much of the day to day grunt work, because she was doing it. And I could feel a little more like a business owner, which is what I wanted. And so now   13:29 I everything I have to do first I you know, get a grasp of it myself, so I can train someone on it. But then it's okay, can I get this off my plate and train somebody else to do it? Yes. Okay, here you go. And if I don't have to do it, then I don't. And that allows me to focus on growth.   13:47 Right. And I think that's so for me, and for a lot of people I've talked to, I'm the type of person that, like you said, If I, if I can do it, I want to do it. And it's a sense of, you know, I'm not going to pay someone $100 if I can do it, it might take me three hours. And that's worth a lot more than $100. But my mind, there's something in my mind that says, If I can do it, I'm not going to outsource it. And that was one of the biggest things that I had to get over was I'm not sure if it's a control thing if it's a   14:24 limiting mindset on money thing. I don't know what it was at the time. But it was it was to the point where I had to give up on doing some of the stuff that I couldn't because I did the technology stuff I did virtually everything my first company I built it was a technology company and I did virtually everything for that for a long time and it I'm telling you it about killed me doing all that stuff. And we have to again I What do you see when you're working with your clients? Do you see it as kind of a mindset thing a stubborn thing a god I'm trying to look back and think back when I was you know, doing everything in   15:01 I don't know why I had to do everything, but I did.   15:05 Well, I'm sure it's, you know, for everyone, it's a different experience. But I do think part of it's this mentality of, well, no one could do it as good as I can. And   15:20 that might be the case right now. But you are as good as you are at your tasks at your responsibilities, because you practice them, you didn't wake up being fantastic. So really, the what I tell myself now is that it's just a matter of allowing somebody else that same opportunity to become really, really good at it. And they might not do it in the exact same way. But your way isn't the only right way. So, and it really like, what I tell people is, if you want to keep growing, you will have to outsource, you don't have to, but then get get comfortable with where you advocate where you're at, because you're probably not going to grow a whole lot more like there are only so many hours in the day.   16:06 But that was certainly that was the case for me. I was okay, spending the money. You know, my business was doing very well. And it was just me. But I was terrified of letting go. Because my clients were so used to me, right? They were used to my work and my words. And I thought, well, no one could ever mimic that. And then I thought, well, Megan get real. Yeah, they could. They do. Like, it's just a matter of finding the right person, training them, keeping you know, the line of communication open, if they help, they need feedback, and also giving them room to be creative. Because, you know, the I've got one person on my very small team, a team of me and one other person right now. And   16:48 I give her so much freedom now. We've been working together for over a year. And   16:54 she's great. She's fine. She's just fine. Everything is great. So if I hadn't let go a little bit, I never would have gotten here. Yeah. And that's it. Boy, I tell you that that is something. I see it throughout many different things, not just in business, but people just don't want to get out of their own way sometimes. And they they do they think their ways, either the only way or the best way. And it's truly not. There's so many ways to get stuff done that we don't you know, we don't even really look at at all. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone knows something. You don't? Yeah.   17:33 That's, that's a hard thing to learn sometimes, too. It is, it is. And it's not even something we do to be like, you know, arrogant or malicious, I think we just don't realize it. And it's taught me I think, to be a better listener and to pay more attention and be more open minded. Everyone knows something. I don't.   17:54 Yeah, that's, uh, and to me from a just from a development standpoint, that is a great place to be. Because the second we think we know everything, it's the second we stop learning, it's the second we stop, you know, growing, we always have to have that. I like to call it like a child mindset of, you know, always always learning and   18:15 trying to know what other people know. That's one of the reasons why I absolutely love doing a podcast is I get to talk with so many people like you that do things that you know, some of the stuff I do, but it's it's in different ways. And it's just, it's so, so enlightening to talk to people about the ways that that they do things and the way that they they operate.   18:36 Yeah, good for your brain. It's good. It kind of expands your horizons a little bit. Yeah. Now some of the kind of like you're working with your clients and stuff. What are some of the biggest challenges or the biggest mistakes that you're seeing in   18:50 people right now in their business and what they're doing?   18:54 To clarify, are we talking about my clients with my agency or my students? clients with science to Yeah, okay, my agency? Oh, yeah, got it. Now, just checking.   19:05 One of one of the big ones is and it's so ironic when you think about it, um, I've had a lot of amazing clients who are very resistant to change. And, you know, a this industry changes sometimes by the day, so we have to be adaptable.   19:25 But it's funny because they hire me because what they're doing isn't working, then they don't want to change what they're doing. And so sometimes I will just have to, you know, like, if we're on a zoom call, or whatever, I just have to point blank say, what you're doing isn't working. So why do you want me to continue that? And it is, it is a struggle, like I have had to really, really, really, you know, push some clients and have these conversations with them. And I think it's just that maybe a matter of like, they're scared of stepping outside their comfort zone. So even though they know what   20:00 They're doing isn't working. It's what they know. And it's predictable. They know it's not work. But like you could save your money, don't hire me save your money, keep doing it and just continue not working.   20:12 Yes, it's so doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Now and you're now in your students? What? What, who is your I'm curious who is your ideal student who who is coming to you for, for your coursework and for your trainings.   20:30 Really, the beauty of it is that it, it works for most client based businesses, um, everyone will be different. So that's why I always get on a call with people first before I'll enroll them, because   20:44 I have to be really confident that this will work for them. You know, I want to keep the success rate up. But you know, I get a lot of freelancers, a lot of people who are still a one person show, and some of them come to me with absolutely nothing. Some come to me with a business that has plateaued, but it's a lot of freelancers, writers, PPC experts, social media people.   21:09 I've got an accountant. I've got, what else who else is in there? graphic design, web development. So any professional that needs clients to keep their business going?   21:21 The odds are, this will apply to them. So tell me about your about your course and stuff a little bit. That's it? Because to me, that is absolutely   21:31 amazing needed thing. People don't necessarily know how, how to do that. What is what are some of the biggest challenges that they have actually doing it?   21:41 Well, you know what, I say that there are two pieces to being a successful business owner. One is providing a really good service. And the other is sales. And you know, sales, brings people in the door, but you keep them there by being really good at what you do. So I get people that are really good at what they do. And they're still struggling. And they'll say, I'm not making money. I don't know why I'm not making money. And I'll say okay, well, how are you generating leads? And they go What? And I say, Well, how do you do outreach? They go What? So what's your client acquisition process? Hmm. And they're their eyes glaze over. And I'm like, okay, there's your problem. So what I do with them is, you know, my approach is very, very holistic. So, you know, appropriately enough, the first module in the course, is mindset, because a lot of people come to me with these very, very toxic self limiting beliefs. And I tell them, you got to work on those, or else, none of this is gonna work. Right? So we start there. And it's funny, a lot of people kind of, I've seen a few eye rolls when they when they enroll in the course, and I'm like, What is this? Why are we talking about mindset? And without fail every time they finish that lesson, and they're like, oh, okay, they get it. Now I get it. Now I get it. Yeah. Yeah, that and what's funny is working with   23:05 some of my clients, some of the biggest things that I see the biggest,   23:10 I won't say errors, but the biggest, you know, challenges I see is, I have a lot of people that do a lot of great things, and they'll do your marketing, they'll you know, get the lead, but they don't know how to ask for the sale.   23:22 And that's the biggest I see a huge I had that for a long time is I didn't know how to actually, you know, I'd get them into funnels, I would do various things. But I couldn't ask for that. I didn't know how to ask for the sale. And that was that was one of my biggest challenges.   23:40 Yeah, it's tricky. And it's, I think that's one of the hardest parts about landing clients. There are a number of variables and moving parts, you know, you just mentioned like, if you put them in a funnel, okay, that's one moving part. It's one moving part consisting of even smaller parts within it. And it there's no magic trick to it, but it's incredibly difficult, lining up all the pieces in the right order, and putting it all together. That's why I tell people you know, like, with the way I teach it, it's a very holistic, laser focused approach. And I'll often see people who have some of the parts, like they know they're onto something and they know that they're almost there, but something's not working. And it's just because there are so many pieces to it. And if you have you know, one but you don't have the others or you have almost all of them, but not quite then it's probably not gonna work. That's really hard. Yeah, and it's And so, when I was looking at your stuff, and when I was going through, some is up, it actually is a   24:47 formula a process a I call them standard operating procedures on how you do your thing and I think that's like I know you have you know, you do coaching, definitely want to talk about some of that coaching that you have come   25:00 up, but you also have evergreen evergreen courses up there. And it looked like the   25:07 you really do, it looks like you're, you're teaching a very good formula for it attracting for getting and for, you know, for keeping your clients.   25:20 Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, it's, um, I do so the Well, I've got I've got two programs. One is to help people write better blogs. But then there's my my client Acquisition Program. And that's also self paced. But it's, it's so much more than I didn't want it to be like, okay, you're enrolled, here you go, good luck.   25:44 You know, I take a very hands on approach to it. We have a Facebook group, that's for students only. And we do live zoom calls. And I always tell people, like you are never in this alone. And there are already people who have made this work many times, and that should bring you comfort.   26:03 And it's, it's like you said, it literally is a formula, I wanted people to be able to follow this step by step, check all the boxes and get consistent results. And, you know, take out the guesswork take out the trial and error. I mean, of course, there's always going to be a little bit of that to an extent. But, you know, generally the same concepts, the same steps are going to apply to everyone.   26:28 Yeah, I, anybody that can come up with a formula or for standard operating procedure to do something, to me that that is, to me, that's the only way to go. One of my mentors, God, at years ago, told me a story about, you know, if you had to go through a, you know, a minefield, where the bombs were planted, you know, the landmines were planted, and you want to get across safely, how would you do it? And I was like, I don't know, I'd run real fast. I would, is like, No, you take you find someone who actually did it. And you take every step, identical to the step that they take, and you're going to be successful. And that, that kind of drilled it into me is like, we have to find people, if there's something that we want, if we can find someone that has done it. And that's successful. I can turn months of my own learning into literally days or weeks. Because I'm following someone else's procedure that they've actually or their process, their, you know, their their formula, of how they did it exactly how they did it. And I don't care who goes through if you have a success formula, I don't care who goes through the formula and who does it. It's gonna work every time. And that's, yeah, so so going out and finding people that are specialized in what they do is, for me is very critical for business owners and business people is to go out and find these people who are like yourself that have been there done this, this is your specialty. This is where you've specialized and you've got a process. Why would I want to go spend months of my own time, although I always   28:10 do that stuff. But why why would Why do we want to go and, you know, spend all this time when we can work with someone that's already been there, already done that saved me a lot of money save me a lot of times, they made a lot of headaches.   28:25 I just yeah, you give me on a roll with the with standard procedures.   28:30 I need. That's why it's so important. Because you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can, there are people out there who want you to copy their process. And I always tell people, if you do the work, it works. And one of my one of my star students, his name is bright.   28:49 And I always tell him, you light up the room, you're bright. And he has had incredible results. And sometimes, you know, stupid people who are considering enrolling, they'll say, Can I talk to a student? And I'll be like, sure, and I'll send them you know, too bright, or to someone else and bright told one of them.   29:09 If you follow this to a tee, do exactly what she says it works, and it will continue working. And I tell my students, if you come to me, which thankfully it is that hasn't happened yet, but I tell them, if you come to me and say it's not working.   29:26 I always tell my students, I teach them how to track all their work, track their progress, track their metrics, I'm going to ask for all of that. And if I start finding gaps, I'm going to send you back and tell you to go to to pick up the right way. Like I said, it's I haven't run into that yet. But the point is, if you do it, it works. And you brought up something that Oh, the   29:51 we need to do it as much as we can, but we always have to look back and reflect on how we've done what we've done and how   30:00 What book was it? I   30:02 think it was a psycho cybernetics by Maxwell maltz. And that's kind of what I mean, it's a cybernetic. It's a cybernetic application where you, you do something you evaluate, you change, you do again, you evaluate, you make any changes, you do it again. And most of the time, a lot of a lot of us, we don't go back and evaluate   30:25 or measure our progress. And if we to be if you don't, if you track something, you pay attention to it, you know, where you put your mind and when you know where you focus your your energy goes. And without having those measurements in place, then, yeah, we just keep spinning our wheels, at least I do. You know, I have to have that stuff in place.   30:45 So well, you're you're right, though, like it's and you actually you kind of mentioned said this in a different way earlier, you said you have to have like a, like a childlike mentality. We're talking about exploring and trying new things. I think that's what it comes down to here. You need to be a little bit of a detective, a little bit of a scientist or researcher, and you can't do those things if you're not tracking your progress. I mean, how can you know if what you're doing is working if you're not monitoring it, and that was another another limiting belief, I had to get over it. Because for as long as I can remember, I've always said I'm not a numbers person. I'm a words person. I'm a writer. And I've always said like, I'm terrible at math. I'm bad with numbers. I had to get over that real quick.   31:35 Especially as a business owner, yes. Yep. There's no way around that.   31:40 Now also up on your site, and that one of the things that intrigues me is you also have a thing for blogs on blogging like a pro. What are what are some of the best tips for because I, I do a half assed blog. And   31:57 and like anything, if you do half ass, it just doesn't, doesn't work that well. What are some of the best tips for like doing a blog? What do you look in? When you go to a blog? What are the first few things you look at and go, Ah, this guy's an amateur.   32:13 I would say the biggest is people who are writing entirely for the algorithm and not for the reader.   32:21 And SEO, Search Engine Optimization, keyword research, topic, research, all of those things are still really important. I teach them in the course, because they're important. But what Google cares about most these days, you can't get away with keyword stuffing anymore used to used to work, it doesn't anymore, and you're not going to outsmart Google, you're not going to trick Google.   32:45 And besides, what Google cares about most is user experience. They want the reader of your blog, to have the best experience possible. So really, what you should care about most is the reader, not Google. If you make the reader happy, as a byproduct, you will make Google happy. And you'll rank well. So and I think that's the biggest thing. Like, sometimes I'm surprised it's still happening to the degree it is I'll you know, be onboarding a client. And I'll look at their blog, and it's just keyword after keyword after keyword, you know, a million links, and they just went overboard with the SEO backfires not like you know, so you just like, are speaking a foreign language me? What do you mean by Sorry? No, no, no, that's fantastic. But But what do you mean by like, what do you say when you go in there? And you see, like, oh, they've got all these, you know, words in here that what does that look like? I mean, what is that?   33:42 As an example, and I'm, this is 100% made up. But I've seen variations of this a million times. I'm based in Las Vegas. And if I've got a client who is a lawyer, which I don't work with lawyers, so that's why this is made up. This is what people do. They know that they want to rank for the keyword lawyers in Las Vegas, so that if someone goes on Google and searches in lawyers in Las Vegas, they'll show up on page one. So what they then do is write a 500 word blog, and cram the keyword lawyers in Las Vegas in it 200 types. And, and it's it's it's spammy, and it doesn't work. And furthermore, it hurts your performance. You don't want to do that. Wow, begin the reader is going to be reading that it's going to sound very forced and mechanical and spammy. They're going to have a bad experience. So Google won't be happy.   34:39 See, now that's that's so far out of my paygrade I just don't   34:45 see now that stuff. Oh, that's so I didn't even know that was a thing. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's an older tactic because back Back in the day, whenever I don't even know exactly when that was how many years ago doing that.   35:00 kinds of things did work. You could rank high in Google by keyword stuffing. But Google caught on to it and is way too savvy for that. So really, you know, like I said, keywords are still important. But you really just need to write good content, write stuff that people want to read. So how does for instance, how does a Google say, yeah, that was a good experience, by time on a page by   35:28 clicks. But also time spent on a page, it doesn't matter. If you're getting tons and tons of clicks, but people aren't hanging out to read. That's actually a bad thing. That's why you shouldn't only be looking at clicks, we were talking a moment ago about monitoring your progress and your metrics.   35:48 If people are clicking on your content, but not sticking around to read it, that's a red flag, because Google is going to look at that and go, Oh, they're landing on a page, but they're not sticking around. So clearly, they don't like what they're seeing. And it will penalize you for that. So you want people to hang out and read, and you want to keep their attention and keep them scrolling. And if you can, you know, get them to click on another page on your site, and poke around a little even better. Wow, see, I didn't even that. See. That's why I need to take your course on blog like a pro.   36:23 I just have no idea that those are even even things. I'm just happy if I can get like, right two pages of stuff, then I'm golden.   36:32 Work.   36:34 Oh, but yeah, so I'm starting to try to. So do you see a lot of stuff in like repurposing content. So for instance, if like this blog, or this podcast, if I go in, and let's say turn parts of the content into a blog, and you because I'm the type that I'm, I'm very lazy. And if I can, if I can repurpose something and get more use out of it. But then again, that might be one of the Google filters. And they say, this guy's lazy, and he's trying to cross, you know, cross contaminate all these, you know, a blog and a podcast and, you know, micro content. And does it look   37:15 like is your site as a whole? Or is it just kind of   37:18 independent?   37:20 Yeah, you can't see me, but I'm shaking my head right now. In this case, your laziness will pay off. Because awesome, and this is   37:30 really exciting. You don't have to do more work.   37:33 What's really you should absolutely be repurposing content. And this is something else. I sometimes not too often, but sometimes I struggle with with my clients.   37:44 They'll pay me to write a blog. I'll write it, they post it on Facebook once and they're like, Okay, give us new content. And I'll say, okay, but what about this blog? And they go, Oh, no, no, we already posted that. People don't want to see that again. And I tell them, Okay, first of all, you're gonna reach new people, the more you post it, so we'll post it again in a couple of months. But turn it into a YouTube video, turn it into social media graphics, take quotes, put post the quotes online, if it's a podcast, take snippets of it and post it as a teaser, transcribe it and turn it into a blog or summarize it and turn it into a blog, and so on, and so on. You should get as much out of every piece of content as you can, especially with content that's more lengthy or long form, like a podcast or a blog, or a video. See, I knew there was genius in my laziness.   38:38 I knew deep down somewhere, that there was a reason for   38:44 Oh, no, we're laughing, but it's true. And one of the one of the best things I learned from actually my ex, um, he was always finding shortcuts. And I'd be like, you're so lazy. And he'd go, Yeah, but what you spent two hours doing I got done in 10 minutes. I'm like, Okay, well, it's hard to argue that   39:04 there's genius in that. Yeah, that's what I say when I want to find someone to come up with like an operating procedure or something, a procedure, I'm going to hire the laziest person that I could possibly find. Because I can guarantee that the process they come up with will be the most efficient, less time process than anybody that's, that that's where I come in. That's, that's where I come in. So, so true, that and that so that that is great. You know, for anybody listening that if we have content, repurpose it, I know that I've been trying to do that I need to get better at it. But man that's seeing there's there's things like this that most of us don't even realize we don't know the ins and outs. We don't know what things are looking at its algorithm here algorithm. We don't know any of that. Yeah, it's a lot. There's a lot to learn, but um,   40:00 You know, he's just looking at it like this, you spend a lot of time and energy creating this amazing piece of content, whatever it is podcasts blog video, why would you want to just post it once and be done with it? You worked so hard for it content can continue driving traffic to your site, and reaching new audiences. So leverage that and just keep, you know, hammering it, putting it in front of people in different forms. And you can take one piece of content and turn it into 50 pieces of content.   40:32 That is, and that's, that's all 100% for that. Now, do you do you see people like, for instance, if I wanted to get traffic from a blog, what would what would prevent me from going and just taking blogs from other people did I would think Google could say, hold on this exact same content was posted   40:53 over here   40:56 and not drive traffic to it?   40:59 Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a it's called duplicate content. And that will absolutely come back to bite you. And, you know, whenever you do stuff like that, we call it blackhat. techniques, blackhat, SEO, any like shady practices. It's like I was saying a few minutes ago, you're not going to trick Google.   41:20 So when you do stuff like that, it will see it, it'll catch you maybe not right away. Or the person you stole it from will catch you. I actually I used to write for bustle. It's like an online feminist magazine. And people stole my content all the time. I'm glad I didn't know what you were talking about when you said that then.   41:42 Because Oh, you mean, the name of the magazine? Or the thing? You're right. I'm like, a feminist. It's like, I'm glad I didn't know what it would have been weird if I would have known what that was.   41:52 Oh, yeah, I don't know. It's a   41:55 big, they have a huge audience. And   42:00 which is really, you know, great opportunity for a writer. But it also means that they're targeted a lot. And you know, they have the legal resources, they can send a cease and desist or whatever. But, um, I would actually get, like, they're called pingbacks, I would basically get an email. And I would be alerted when people would copy paste my content. And I would go and contact them and be like, You stole my content from start to finish. And it doesn't work.   42:34 Wow. Wow. So how so? You know, it's, it's the beginning of December right now. We've had a hellacious year, a year like northern how has 2020 been for you from a business standpoint, and also a personal standpoint, I'm very interested in how people are getting through this whole pandemic crap. And I've know people who have done apps, their businesses have grown 500%   43:02 I'm not every which way, but to me, and I can tell by your stuff that you've continued to learn, you've continued to push and I think that's what we all need to do. During this, you know, however long it lasts, I think we're gonna be I think 2021 will be much better than 2020.   43:21 Yeah, me too.   43:23 So I, you know, like a lot of people, my business took a hit. It was mid March. And I, I, I say last, I mean, I had about 65% of my clients go on hold. And it happened in a week.   43:42 And I'm not gonna lie, I was stressed out like I was, you know, I was, I was always fine financially. And I was going to be okay, either way. But it was more of this defeat, like, like, even now, it makes me sad. I work so hard. I work so hard, like a lot of people. And in a week, most of it was gone. And I was devastated. And I just like, cried and cried, and then I drank and then I was crushed. And then I thought, Okay, I'm going to let myself kind of be upset. And then you move on, because the world doesn't stop turning. So, um, I came back at it the next week, and I thought, Okay, this sucks. What do I do? And I thought I do what I did in the past. I pin it. And, you know, this wasn't the first time I ran into a big problem like this. In fact, the motivation for starting my business in the first place was that I got laid off.   44:46 So okay, all right, motivator.   44:50 Well, you know, it's like it is that was actually the fourth time I had been laid off. And that's when I was like, Okay, I'm done. I'm done with this.   44:58 But you know, we look   45:00 Look at it. And this doesn't this isn't to say that it's, it's easy. But at the end of the day, you have two choices. You can sit there and just,   45:10 you know, cry about it, or you can, you know, keep crying if you want to move on, pick up the pieces and find a way around it. And that's what I did. And,   45:19 you know, sure enough, a bunch of clients came back, I picked up a bunch of new clients, the course grew more students, and then I just keep pushing.   45:30 Yeah, the alternative, isn't that attractive of an option? No, it's not. And, and that's the thing. I I so from all the clients I've talked to in the people I've talked to one of the best things I think that's come out of this whole thing is people have become genius in the fact that their imagination, they've used people who haven't had to use their imagination are now having to think how the hell am I gonna get through this. And there's some amazing stuff that's that's come out this year, there's some amazing things that have been developed through 2020.   46:05 Because of because of what happened, and I think that I think it's gonna be one of the biggest upticks that we see is all the amazing stuff, you know, stuff coming out. And it's, again, I think 2021 is gonna be much better. Now, I know, you have your, you know, your evergreen courses up there, we were talking a little bit earlier, you have a live course, coming out in January. And I do the same thing. So I have, you know, I'll do a live course, and, or a live event, whatever it is, and then I will take recordings, and I'll have kind of an evergreen, you know, product up there. But there's nothing like being on the live side. And I've done the same with with, you know, people that you know, my mentors and stuff that I've taken their life stuff, I've taken their record stuff. All that was great, but there's nothing like being in a live meaning real time environment, whether I'm sure your this one coming up in January, I would assume is going to be like via zoom or some remote, remote technology. What how, How's this? What's this? What's this live course going to be?   47:13 So it's what I'm doing is I'm taking my whole process for landing clients. And as you said, I'm going to be teaching it live over zoom. But I'm also another little twist I'm adding is I'm going to do it in a month. And that means that it's going to be a little accelerated. But my reason for doing this was, because 2020 was so awful for so many people. And you know, yes, I have the the self paced evergreen course that that's always there. But I thought I want to do something different, I want to do something else. And I thought I'm gonna do it alive. Again, I've done this once before, when I first launched this course, I did it with a small group of professionals live. And it's a lot of work for me. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm not doing this again anytime soon. But you know, I was a little while ago. And you're right, like, it's a totally different experience. So bringing it back in January, it's going to be accelerated. And the goal is for people to land their, their next client in January with me, and you know, kind of holding their hand and walking them through it, and setting them up to have a really good year. And beyond, but it's about starting 2021 off on a brighter note. Yeah, and success builds success and just getting some of those early successes. God that's huge for so many people to do. And that's so that's fantastic. And for the people listening, this podcast should come out, right, right towards the beginning, I'd say a week or so before before this class starts. And Megan's so I'm going to make sure that those listening, go to the show notes. After you're done listening, and I'm gonna have all the links, I will have the link to the to the live course as well, obviously to your website, and, and everything is will be in the show notes as well. But I want to make sure that people can quickly get to get to the course of the live course because again, I think live courses are I get 30% more out of a live course just because one I think that there's more ownership or responsibility. So I take more responsibility. People are watching it's live you know, it's like yeah, so I always I maybe that's why I get so much more out of live is you know, I've got some accountability, kind of a built in accountability partner when when I do a live Yeah, accountability is huge. And that's something else I've been telling people. You know, if they enroll and they go through the self paced program, some people are totally fine on their own. Some aren't. And I get it, it can be really hard to stay motivated when it's just you but in this life course.   50:00 I'm going to be on your behind every week. And there's more homework and there's check ins. And so that's why it's for people who are ready to hit the ground running late. Let's go. Let's do it.   50:12 That's great. I can't wait to see how, see how that turns out. Now, I was up on your website, I also noticed that you have what First, I want to get your thoughts from a business standpoint. How big do you think LinkedIn is still? I mean, is that still a big platform for for business? Is it? How does that kind of rank in the in, you know, kind of the social media, stuff that's out there? I think it's huge. I think it's great. I know, LinkedIn, sometimes people give LinkedIn a hard time because it doesn't have all the bells and whistles that, you know, Facebook, or Instagram might. But if you use it the right way, it can be invaluable. And, you know, one thing I do want to say, though, is that whenever when it comes to connecting with people online, whether it's LinkedIn, or Instagram, or wherever, you have to be willing to have conversations, to talk to people to nurture relationships. But where LinkedIn has a leg up, I feel like is that it's not totally a social media platform. And it's not 100% business, it is this perfect spot in the middle. So you're in the perfect place to form like semi casual connections with people. And also talk business.   51:33 Yeah, I think the perfect blend. Yeah, and that's that, what you said is a great concept, it's it truly is more about, and this is on any business, it's more about making a connection, not a sale, especially on social media platforms, you're not there to make an immediate sale, you're there to make a connection and make a, you know, make a friend make a you know, make an acquaintance actually get to know know people. Yeah, definitely. And it's a, I know, it kind of goes against that whole instant gratification that we all kind of struggle with.   52:06 But there's really, really something to be said for building relationships, building authentic relationships. And, you know, one of the biggest mindset shifts for me and for my students has been look at it as helping not selling, if you reach out to people and try to form relationships, and all you're doing is just trying to like hammer them with the sale, because you want the money. It's not going to work. No, if you approach it from they have a problem, I have the solution, you will do so much better. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I'm, I'm gonna take   52:43 the notes, but I'm going to take the action where I'm going to go up and get your LinkedIn, because that's one of the places that I don't engage as much as I should. I'm going to go up and I'm going to take your I'm going to get your LinkedIn profile, how to optimize your LinkedIn profile. I'm going to take that, and I'm actually gonna, so that's one of my takeaways from this is to go in, optimize my LinkedIn profile, and start using that a little bit more as well.   53:11 Yeah, definitely, we should. I don't know if we did already connect on LinkedIn. And, you know, let me know when you've had a chance to go through it. And I would love to read through it and see the changes that you made. And, you know, let me know what what kind of progress you've made. It's really powerful. And, you know, LinkedIn, it's a it's a search engine, not to the, to the extent that Google is, but it is people use it as a search engine. So you got to keep that in mind. Yeah, I think LinkedIn is absolutely powerful. I just haven't spent the time there. And I need to so that's why I'm glad that you have that up there. Because I'm definitely gonna, I'm definitely going to utilize that.   53:48 Yeah, you'll when you start seeing the results, you'll become a little obsessed with it. I used to hate LinkedIn I got this thing is so dull, it's so ugly. Now. I'm obsessed with it, because it works. I'll definitely have to check that out. And again, Megan, I want to thank you for for being on the on the show. And being on the podcast. This I'm telling you this all this information is absolutely fantastic. I can't wait to go back and actually read Listen to this. So I can pick out much more of the of the content that you have. And everyone listening, go go to the show notes, go to you know, go to the website. There's great stuff up there. You've got obviously blog stuff you've got, I was looking through your blogs, you've got great blogs, and great information out there. So it was absolutely and it's mega grant dotnet. And again, they're going to be in the show notes as well. So you can just go to the show notes and click, click on it and go go over there. But again, Megan, thank you so much for spending the time and enlightening all of my listeners on some of the ins and outs especially if I could blog I had no idea.   54:55 Thank you. I really enjoyed this and I love the information that you're using.   55:00 you're sharing with your listeners. It's it's the kind of stuff that I feel like I wish more people, you know, covered this kind of information mindset and business and growth. So you're doing a great thing and thank you for having me on here. Oh, thank you so much.