Transcript
Speaker: Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production and distribution process so easy.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Speaker: I'm your host, Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abcida. In this episode of The Independent Minds, I'm meeting Matt Dermonte, the founder and CEO of HeyTony.ca and author of Get Found, the NOFA's guide to ranking higher and becoming your customer's first choice.
Speaker: Matt is based in Niagara Falls in Canada, a place that I have visited in both seasons, winter and construction. If I ever get the chance to visit again, I will take advantage of the trade prices on travel that I have access to as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club.
Speaker: I have added a link with a built-in discount to the description so that you can also become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club and just like me, travel at trade prices. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of the Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
Speaker: and probably good enough to share with your friends, family, and work colleagues as well. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
Speaker: Hello, Matt. Hello. Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure to have you. And i remember some good times in Niagara Falls. It is ah a very interesting place. I remember a hotel called Michael's Inn there as well. Obviously, I had to stay there.
Speaker: Tell me a little bit about your career and why your company is named Hey Tony. I don't know where to start with my career, but I'll tell you about the name Hey Tony.
Speaker: I was living in Toronto at the time. i was walking to lunch and I overheard these two construction guys like, you know, the really big burly construction guys, like their arms are the size of my torso. Yes. I overheard those guys talking and the one guy says, Hey Tony, you always know how to put a smile on my face.
Speaker: And I just thought in that moment, I was like, what a genuine expression of emotion from somebody you wouldn't expect. Like this guy saying, hey, you brightened up my day. You made my day better. You put a smile on my face. I was like, when I was trying to come up with a name for my agency, I was like, I want something that means something. And i thought back to that moment and I was like,
Speaker: oh, I want that same transparency and feeling with anybody the business touches, whether that's the team, whether that's clients or strangers on the internet, let's all put smiles on each other's faces. Make Herbidae look a little bit better for everyone. Yeah.
Speaker: And of course, that kind of That must have been sometime during the construction season because at least eight months of the year is winter in Canada and nothing happens outside, up curling and steam. Basically, yeah. Great stuff. So now you're based in Niagara Falls.
Speaker: Yes. I made the move. The big city was just getting a little bit too crowded and we wanted a little bit more space. So so we we moved we actually moved to a smaller city called Hamilton, lived there for four years and then moved out more to the country. Nice.
Speaker: Nice. And just before we started, you could hear your dog barking in the background as well. But yeah, she was losing it. Going to sleep now. Tell me a little bit about this book that you've written, Get Found. Yeah, it's basically everything you need to know about getting found online, so getting found on Google or ai even if you know nothing about what we call SEO, which is search engine optimization, if you know nothing about that, this book is the foundation and strategies you're going to need for success.
Speaker: The go-to book so that you can be the go-to supplier for customers. Yeah, basically, yeah. You must have identified, I suppose, that there was a need for that book. And I, that as an entrepreneur as well, you don't know everything about everything. Yeah.
Speaker: When you're sort of setting up a business and you tend to go with what you hear or somebody's told you has worked for them, no proof that it's going to work for you. But what is it that made you decide that there needed to be a book about this?
Speaker: I have an online course that's free called Understanding SEO, and that was the original title for for the book, actually. I've had over 30,000 people take that course, and I was like, you know what? That's ah a pretty good amount of people to identify that there is a need for understanding.
Speaker: people who don't know anything about SEO or ranking on Google. They want to learn this stuff. They want to watch videos. They want to, you know, read more in-depthly about it and really understand this stuff because there's a lot of scammers out there um who are taking advantage of business owners saying, hey, yeah, we'll do SEO for you. And then they never really say what they're doing.
Speaker: So my whole concept was I want people to have the knowledge and be armed so that they don't get screwed over by, you know, these scammers.
Speaker: Yes, because if my understanding is correct, if you do the right thing, you can make SEO work for you up to your advantage. Yeah. If you do the wrong thing, then the search engines will identify you're trying to play their system.
Speaker: They will penalize you and your website and your business for having tried to, to like I say, play the system rather than do the but the right thing to contribute to the system.
Speaker: hundred percent. Like what when people think of seo or ranking on Google, they're like, you know, I just want to rank cause I want to make more money. I want more customers, all this kind of stuff. But in reality, ah SEO is solving people's problems, right? It's helping somebody find the solution to their problem. And you can be that solution, whether it's with content, whether you have a product or a service that solves that problem. Like I'm just looking outside right now, it's raining.
Speaker: Right. So it's like, okay, I have a leak in my roof. The somebody's problem is I have a leak in my roof. How do I fix it? Right. And that they could find a blog post that says, oh, go to your hardware store, buy some shingles and nail them on whatever it is. Right. So that could be informational or throw a tarp over it or whatever it is.
Speaker: And then if somebody is like, okay, well I want to do this myself. I need the shingles. Then now they're, you know, they're looking for shingles. You can sell them shingles or sell them the tarp or whatever it is.
Speaker: And then the last option is like, I want to hire somebody to come fix my roof because I'm not going up there. high. don't want to fall off. I don't have the experience. So it's all just solutions to problems.
Speaker: And if you're not providing a solution and you're just trying to game the system, you're not going to win. Yes, I can see that. You've made my day, Matt, to be honest, because it's described is what I thought I needed to do with my website. I've seen it when we first started it.
Speaker: which is quite a while ago now, my idea was that I'm going to have a website. What is the purpose of a website? yeah The purpose of the website is to tell people that I exist, my organization is here, and that we can do all these various different things.
Speaker: But that felt a bit like blowing your own trumpet, and no one likes someone blows their own trumpet. Yeah. Really. It's just not human nature, really. ah And I thought,
Speaker: why is it that i go onto to the internet what is it that i am looking for and it came up with exactly what you've just been describing i'm looking for the answer to a question i have a problem a challenge something isn't what i think it should be i want the answer to that question and i search the internet for the answer to that question.
Speaker: Yeah. I've made it work. That's it brilliant. and I've got to provide the answer to the question, which then made me think that the internet is not broadcasting in the same way as the big television or radio stations are.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, there's aspects of the internet that are like that. Like social media is very much broadcasting. But when we're talking about search and, you know, AI recommendations, that is all people. People are looking for something specific. they Nothing's being broadcast at them.
Speaker: And that's where you really win if you are showing up when people are looking for your specific the solution your specific solution. Yes. getting to fit the information onto your website.
Speaker: that will answer the question that that one person is asking about what you've so you can solve their problem yeah and the other thing that you were mentioning there was about providing them with the information this is how to do it then providing them with the tools or providing them with well you don't you understand from the information you've been given just how complex getting it right is. You don't necessarily need the tools, but here can be a person who can come and do it for you.
Speaker: yeah And that's what I tried to build into my website, the Abbasida website, was here's the answer to the question. All the information you need to do it yourself. Here's the tools that you need in order to do it.
Speaker: And then, well, okay, you haven't got the time. You've realized how complex it is. You want an expert to do it. Well, I'm an expert who can do it for you as well. Yeah, well, that's the thing too. Like when I started posting on social media and even writing blogs on my website, showing people how to do this stuff themselves, other people were like, aren't you scared? People are just going to do it themselves and you're not going to get any business. You're not going to make money. You know, you're going to not be able to pay your rent or mortgage or whatever. i was like, well, no, the people who are looking to do it themselves are ultimately going to find a way to do it themselves.
Speaker: Yes. Right. So i was like, why, why not be the person that they come to to learn how to do it themselves, right? Because you build goodwill. And yeah, like what you're saying, some people, they don't have the time, right, to do it themselves, or they realize it's more complex. And they're like, you know what, this guy's already helped me out get from point A to point B or point C. You know, maybe I'll maybe I'll contact him and see you see what he can do.
Speaker: Yes, it's a bit like when you set up a business, you're an entrepreneur, you set up a business, every penny counts. And you don't want to be spending money on something if you can do it yourself.
Speaker: 100%. you could look for the experts who can provide you with the information. When your business grows, more realistic for you to be spending your time on those things that are going to generate income rather than on the things that are the marketing, et cetera.
Speaker: Then you go, well, where did I get the information from? Who is the expert yep that I trusted? Now I can go along. And actually the conversations that you can have, with that person are much more engaged because you're you're using the same words, you're speaking the same language because it's like you've been on the course, you've read the notes, you're working in your way. Your customers are working in the way that you would have liked them to be working before they came to you.
Speaker: It's a long, long game. And i think there's this idea of developing an educated client so that they understand as a result of your content, what it is that you do, how complex it is, but they understand what questions to ask you because they understand what they need rather than what they want.
Speaker: A hundred percent. And like, I'll just give you an example. Like when somebody fills out the contact form on my site and we get on a call with them, it's not like, what can you do for me? It's okay. I know all of this stuff. I already trust you. There's that goodwill. And it's less of a sales call more of a conversation on like, how can we help you get to where you are? Let's learn a little bit more about your business and see if this actually makes sense for you where you're at.
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. the Educated, informed client tends to ask them more, understands how complex it is. And to be honest, doesn't quibble about the price either, do they?
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, some still do. It's part of the game that we all have to play at some point or another, isn't it? It's like, I got a deal there, I got a bargain. that's That's well worth it, yeah.
Speaker: Thank you very much for those sorts of things. So we can wax lyrically about how fantastic this is and all the information that you've put into the book, but there are still issues, aren't there? So what sort of mistakes do you find people doing with their SEO and online marketing?
Speaker: I think it's, it's really, people don't understand that they're there to help others. They're trying to help themselves first. And like, yes, like if you know, on an airplane, the mask comes down, you put yours on first and then the person next to you, uh, you help them out. But when we're talking about SEO specifically, it's like, we want to help other people first and then they will help us put our mask on after.
Speaker: How can we help other people first? What sort of formats might that take? In terms of, I guess on on your website, writing blog posts, answering your customers' questions. Like it's, SEO is as easy as that. Like if you hear your customers or clients asking you questions, you know, whether you're like a surgeon about the procedure or if you're a plumber about,
Speaker: I don't know, my hot water's not working, what do I do? You can answer those questions on your website as a blog post and that will help them be more informed, right? So you're helping them, you know, basically make a decision, whether they go with you or somebody else, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker: You're you're you're doing this out of goodwill and it doesn't cost you any more money in terms of like hosting fees or anything like that. Even if somebody across the country, across the world is visiting your website, it doesn't really matter that they can't hire you locally.
Speaker: Right. Like you're helping somebody get to the next part of their journey. There's posts. If you write a blog post, which answers someone's question, enables them to get their heating back on, for example.
Speaker: Yeah. The hope is that they would then add to the blog by saying, I've followed this advice. It worked. I have saved a fortune. Thank you very much. I mean, even whether they leave a comment or not, I actually turn off comments on all my blog posts because there's so many spammers out there who leave spam comments. But the hope is like, let's just be good people, right? Somebody has a problem. Their heat's not working. Their water's not running or whatever it is. Like, why not have a resource for that person, even if they can't pay you?
Speaker: Yes, offer things at different price points for different types of customers. There are always going to be people who need your knowledge, but don't actually have the budget to to pay for it in the conventional way.
Speaker: Yeah. And like I was mentioning earlier, like I've had over 30,000 people take my free course. And did that cost me any additional money to have that many people take the course? No.
Speaker: Right. It's all digital. I'm going to tell you right now, most of those people did not hire me. would say like 99.99999% those people have never paid me a dime, but it's it feels good to me to be like okay well now this person has more information um they're not going to get scammed i'm doing a service uh the entire ah seo industry not the spam part of it but like i'm i'm helping people learn what to look for what to like and if they want how to do it themselves true but you're also i suspect as part of that course helping people to
Speaker: qualified themselves in as a potential client for you and also qualified themselves out. Yeah. So you must be saving a lot of time in terms of conversations with people who are potentially customers, but aren't really customers. They're, they're trying to find the information that you put into the course so that they can start the board rolling themselves.
Speaker: So you're having higher quality conversations with hundred percent more people who are tend to have a higher percentage rate rating for becoming a client.
Speaker: Yeah. And hundred percent. Yes. With that. Uh, and then additionally, I just want to mention, so when you're answering your customers questions on your website, that can actually save you a ton of time.
Speaker: So I'll give you two examples. The first one is, uh, we used to run Facebook ads for our clients, um, several years ago and every single client that we got, I had to jump on a 20, 30, 40 minute call with them where they shared their screen and I walked them through where to click on their Facebook ads manager. to give me access.
Speaker: And I was like, there's gotta be a better way. So I wrote a blog post where we have screenshots of like, this is step one, click here. This is step two, click here. Now, anytime a client would say like, okay, what's the next step?
Speaker: I'd say, cool, here's the blog post, here's the steps. Then they go through that. And that just saved me for each client, like 20, 30 minutes of setup time, like the frustrating time where like, no, click over there. No, not there, over here. So that's one instance. The other is like I have a community of of business owners who are learning to do SEO themselves. And I get a lot of the same questions like, hey, I'm redesigning my website.
Speaker: What are things that i need to keep in mind so I don't ruin my SEO? And I was like, OK, I'm just going to write a blog post about that. And now every single time again i get asked this every single week.
Speaker: Like, what do I do when redesigning my website? I'm like, oh, here's, here's all the information that you need to know. And I send them the blog post. So I don't need to repeat it. i don't need to go into all the details. They actually are getting more out of it than asking me the question because nothing is left out.
Speaker: The side bonus to that is those pieces of content start ranking. You start getting traffic for that and new people start finding out about your business, about your website, and you're helping new people as well.
Speaker: One thing I'm noticing from everything that you're saying is this four letter word help. you're helping people you provide help to people yeah and that becomes the first point of interaction I suppose is helping someone one the things that we did on my website the opposite website was that we put in lots of outgoing links yeah we would write the article the blog post about a particular issue if we could then find content that developed that knowledge and educated someone so we would write about
Speaker: an HR issue, and then link through to a government department or a professional institute, which would have more information about it. That seemed to work very well for us. you yeah People definitely found us as a result of our outgoing links. And I suppose I always thought about it as as building the internet. you know The technology exists.
Speaker: There's all of these servers, but all of these websites on the internet are all individual. Yeah. And you create the web by creating the connections between as many websites as possible.
Speaker: 100%. I actually just did this today. So I saw a comment on Reddit. It was like, does Google care about AI written content? And I'm like, no, they don't. So I you know respond to that person. I say, no, Google doesn't care if it's written by a human or AI as long as it's helpful. And then i cite what Google said about it.
Speaker: And then I'm like, if you want to learn more, you can you know read their entire piece of content here. So that's exactly what you're saying, right? You're Not only are you providing the resource, the like the source for that person, but you're showing that you're not making this stuff up.
Speaker: Yes. Right. There's no quality check on the internet, is there? Not really. like so People will quality check you for sure and do do their own research, which is great. But yeah, anybody can say anything.
Speaker: Yeah, that has its upsides and its downsides. One of the things I've noticed is that you have people who have an opinion about everything and anything. yeah The more that they post, the more... Like if they post on social media sites, business media sites, the more that they do it, there's something that starts to click, it or this person must know what they know, that this person must be good, because they're visible. yeah But there's a big difference between being visible...
Speaker: and being good at what it is that you do and the big difference between i suppose content marketing and visibility is quite large oh 100 and the thing is like i play in both so i post every single day on social media on instagram tick tock threads facebook um snapchat linkedin and like blue sky and all these other you know social media sites but the The reason that I do that, yes, it is for the visibility, but I also run an agency where we deal with a ton of clients and we're doing SEO for all these people. So if I go and like this is like partially why I started doing this, like there's a lot of people out there who don't who aren't actually doing this stuff, who are making it up, who aren't legit about it. They can't show results, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker: where I'm like, well, I'm actually doing the thing. i actually know what I'm doing. We're getting results for our clients. I can help other people so I can show them tips. I can show them tricks. I can show them where to find things. I can show them results and how we got those results.
Speaker: um And I'm like, that's the kind of visibility businesses should be striving for. Not, you know, if you're not actually an expert or you're not actually good at what you do. and just pumping out a ton of content for the visibility, like that's the wrong thing to do. Because even if you do get the client, they're going to probably leave you a bad review because you don't know actually know what you're doing and you're not helping them solve the problem.
Speaker: Yes. Help them solve the problem. Focus on what it is that you really do well. And I suppose also what it is that you enjoy doing. Yeah. The two tend to go together. If you're good at something, you enjoy doing it.
Speaker: I mean, theoretically, yes. Yes, we've all had occasions where somebody's told us, you we're really good at it. you're thinking like, but it's so boring. Yeah, it's so boring. It's just, yeah, I know how to do it I've done it too much.
Speaker: Leave me alone. Find someone else. Yeah. All those things. We've all got parts of that in the thing, but it is really, you know, getting found is about creating the right type of content that helps other people to understand what it is that you understand.
Speaker: And I suppose takes them on a journey from knowing very little knowing what they need to to know in order to connect with you with confidence that you are going to help them out. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. It all seems to come together so easily, but because there is a large amount of work involved and i suppose time as well, we mustn't expect overnight results is one of the things you're going to tell me, isn't it?
Speaker: Well, yeah, that's not just like an SEO thing as well. That's like social media. That's, you know, if you're running ads, like you need to give it time one for the algorithms to really start learning your content and learning your cadence and all this kind of stuff. But you also need to give yourself time to get better at each of those things.
Speaker: right like with seo yes it does take oftentimes three to six months or longer for google to pick up your site for them to start trusting you and start ranking you with social media it can be a lot faster if you create the right type of content that hits the algorithm and when i say algorithm like that content that people like ultimately, but it takes time for you to get good at creating that content.
Speaker: It takes time for you to get better at understanding me why this ad is converting better than another ad or why that targeting matters or works better than something else or why a landing page converts better. so it takes time for all of this and if you're just expecting like i'm going to spend a thousand dollars on ads and i'm going to you know make two thousand dollars like that sounds great in theory and some people can do that but most people aren't giving it enough time right you have to spend probably five thousand dollars over three months or five months or whatever it is to get that data back understand it and optimize from there so data understanding the data that your activity generates
Speaker: is important but i'm also wondering when we talk about content we could have audio content video content images and also text-based content yeah but there's no single sort of like this is better than anything else because it depends where you're posting it and what you want or who you intend the the audience to be for it hundred percent. Like, yeah let's just talk about social media for a second. Like you can post videos, you can post images, you can post carousels, you can post all kinds of stuff. And like, I've seen some accounts that only post images that get a ton of views, a ton of followers, a ton of likes, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker: And then I've seen other accounts that only post videos that get a ton of views, ton of followers, ton of uh, likes and engagement, but it really depends on who the audience is and what they're gonna resonate with. Like, this is an audio only podcast. I know some people do video podcasts with audio as well. So it's for you. I'm like, okay, well, your people are listening. They're not watching.
Speaker: Right. And that's, it's really like, uh, industry to industry, business to business. Where are your, um, where, where's your audience and what kind of media are they consuming? Yes.
Speaker: And the data will tell you that because we know that regardless of where our audience is in the world, their listening time coincides with what would be considered the normal commuting to work time. Yeah.
Speaker: And then we we know what sort of age they are, the gender, the type of jobs that they have, all of this comes from the data. Yeah. And then we can target more on on that. So there's a huge huge amount of things to learn if you are going to go down this route of looking at ah SEO, online marketing, content, all these sorts things.
Speaker: Unfortunately, you know Matt, you have created a course that helps people do it. So we will put a link to the course in the description. Beautiful. Yeah. But today, know, Matt, I've really enjoyed our conversation and it's great that you've confirmed that some of the things that I was doing and hoping that they're the right thing actually are the right thing because you're the expert and I was just trying things out.
Speaker: But also I've learned so much. You really make me think. Thank you very much. Awesome. Thank you for having me. This has been great. It's been pleasure. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with The Independent Mind, Matt Diamante, the author of Get Found.
Speaker: You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description. I'm sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Matt and I have enjoyed making it.
Speaker: So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. You'll probably also want to share the link with your family, friends and work colleagues as well.
Speaker: Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.
