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Kathi Burns 0:04
Hi there, I'm board certified professional organizer Kathi Burns. I'm really glad you're here. This podcast is designed for busy entrepreneurs just like you who want to take better control of your business and move forward with less stress and more success. If this is your first time listening, then thanks for coming. The Organized Energized podcast is produced for your enjoyment and show notes are found at ThePodcast@OrganizedandEnergized.com Come back often and feel free to add this podcast to your favorite RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow me on Twitter at organized energy and Facebook. All links are in the show notes. Now let's get into the show. Hi, everyone, I am back with John Vuong. He's the owner and founder of local SEO search, a boutique agency from Toronto, Toronto, Canada, one of my favorite places. He helps small and medium sized businesses rank on Google and dominate their local market. So we're gonna learn how to dominate your local market right now with John. John, I am so psyched that you're here. And I can't wait to hear what you have to say about local search engine. I know it's a big daddy deal. But tell me a little bit about your background. How did you get into all this crazy world?

John Vuong 1:20
Yeah, well, thanks a lot for the intro. I started this company, local SEO search back in 2013. I didn't know much about SEO, actually, I actually wasn't sales in advertising sales for 10 years prior to that worked in online digital, traditional. Then I worked at a directory that some of you may know of called Yellow Pages. I was there for over five years, worked with 1000s of business owners got to really understand the true meaning of what small, medium sized business were all about. They valued customers, they understood and really took care of their community. They understood how foundationally to build a business. What they informed me was, there was a transition going on a lot of the traditional ways to market and advertise was going through a lot of change disruption. I either wanted to be a part of that or try something unique. So that's how I started this company not knowing anything about SEO, I knew that I wanted to help serve that huge community of SMBs. I had to learn how to do it and be one of those good guys out there to offer a solution for people that are in need, but they can trust and doing things the right way. And that's how I started almost 10 years ago now.

Kathi Burns 2:51
That's pretty amazing, the demise of the Yellow Pages, right? It's pretty funny. But I know doing advertising sales for anything is really hard. I did that for a while myself for about a decade. You've got to be really good at what you do in order to sell advertising and print ads. So I commend you for that. How did you switch into it? How did you start when you decided, Okay, I'm gonna start trailblazing and doing my own thing. How did what was the sequence of that.

John Vuong 3:23
I saw that the last, so I was there for five years at Yellow Pages. The last two years, every single meeting I would be going into, they were upset with me and the brand. They were frustrated because they were getting lower ROI return on investment, they were spending more than ever, it was no longer the yellow pages that they once knew and trusted. They told me informed me that they wanted to try this new avenue of digital they here liable Google social media, they understand that there's another platform and different ways to market themselves. But they didn't know who to go to who to trust what it really meant. Because all they knew were they were bricks and mortar business owners that understood their business, their clients, they didn't understand this new digital world that was being transformed. I needed to get in and learn about that, my strength was always sales. I went out there got new clients to really build something that I can kind of take to the market. I made so many mistakes at the beginning because I didn't know anything about SEO. So going into this new world, being a sales rep. Learning about this new digital world. I was learning on the fly. I was reading ingesting tons of content. I was joining as me communities forums as possible. It's new terminology as well as like this new language altogether. So everything was brand new and it took me a lot of time, investing a lot of hours every single day, like 16 hour days for seven days a week for many years. I just had to put in the time, because I knew eventually it would pay off.

Kathi Burns 5:14
Did I get this right that you were actually paid by the Yellow Pages to start learning how to do SEO?

John Vuong 5:20
No. So I left two years. Okay. So those two years gave me a good foundation of what I wanted to do, right, which was build something. I had a good idea, like there's paid ads or social media. But when I really looked at search engines, there was this organic way, natural way that people in very similar to yellow pages were seeking now, but they didn't have to really pay for placement, right. So I had to figure out the algorithm and how Google really shifted things on a regular basis. That's where it allowed me to build clients who paid for a service. I understood the the, the way Yellow Pages, built their business, and then built something similar, but in this whole SEO space.

Kathi Burns 6:11
That's so super interesting. Back then it was more of a wild frontier. My husband did SEO about 15-18 years ago, and he was always white hat, and he was always organic. He did a lot of reputation management, but things changed so much and so frequently. I bet your head is spinning all the time with something new on the block that you have to deal with, right?

John Vuong 6:36
Yeah, so you have to stay top of mind, you have to be on the pulse of the algorithm. We're always testing a lot of things, we have so many different ongoing projects, we're always doing a lot of go to market strategies to see what works and doesn't smear foreign competitors to see what worked for them. Maybe we can integrate for ourselves in some of our clients. So there's so many factors, so many moving parts. But foundationally, if you look at how those bricks and mortar SMBs survived for not just five or 10 years, but generations took care of their customers. Listen, really built good case study testimonials, white papers, serve them understanding pricing value, that's what is going to make you survive through ups and downs in any environment in any community over the course of a long term.

Kathi Burns 7:34
I understand totally. I think more and more, we're, we're very much all spinning around to customer service, put the customer first do the right thing. I mean it seems remedial, but at some point, I think it wasn't quite like that. But now we're all coming right back around to serving our client and looking out for their best interests. Because if they if their best interest is served, then we continue doing business with them. Right. So that's what it's all about. So if you had to do this over again, flashback, almost 10 years, what would you have done? Would you have changed anything on the way that you went about it?

John Vuong 8:14
Like, actually pushed me to learn quick, because I wasn't comfortable. I was Ultra curious. I wanted to survive. It was a really interesting stage of my life, where I left a good cushy job, six figures doing well, to then nothing, right? It pushed me I just got married, I bought a place I had to really figure things out. So life stages in people's lifetime, and then business stage, I wasn't content and comfortable working for someone else. I wanted to be someone that built something that can be more of an impact in society, right, to help people transition into this new world. I was always a servant. Looking back, yeah, maybe I could have saved some time by hiring the right people earlier. But I didn't know what I didn't know at the beginning, right? So it's better to make mistakes on the fly.

Kathi Burns 9:20
Well, and I think too, whenever you're starting out, and you're hiring the guru, so to speak, you really don't know how to qualify them. Because until you've made some mistakes, or know what you shouldn't be doing, you really don't know what you should be doing. I fell into that where I would hire people who would help me, but it was their way it wasn't my way and it wasn't organic, and then it didn't feel right. And so we're like that right. Then once you know what you know, and you know kind of who you are. I think it's easier to hire a coach or to hire someone to help you with what you want help with. Because typically, I think oftentimes, people will just say try to put you into their cookie cutter, right and say Oh, this is the way that you should do it, this is the system. Maybe it's not right, and actually, that's what I love about my job is, is there's no cookie cutter way. It's all about the client and everything, I get the jam off of the creativity of creating new things for each client, because we're all individuals. We all need different things. I'm sure being customer service oriented, you're doing the same exact thing.

John Vuong 10:24
Yeah. I think you just nailed it, having full clarity on what you want to be have ownership on and understanding contexts and perspectives of what's going on in the situation of individuals, let it be on your team, people you hire or your clients, and letting them understand where do they want to be currently? How do you transform them to where their ideas peak situation. With time, and of course of many years and learning and figuring things out. That's the only way to ultimately learn. You can't know everything on the onset, right? Like you don't know who your ideal avatar client is your pricing standpoint, your values, right, like it gets harvest and change on a regular basis. So you have to be nimble. And being a small business owner myself, I'm always trying to cultivate good people get good clients, and serve more of my type of Avatar, Persona type client.

Kathi Burns 11:30
Yeah, do you find that your avatar is you?

John Vuong 11:33
Okay, so I've learned over the years that there's so many different profiles out there. But the ones that want to be a part of our team, like our client base is someone that acknowledges they do have a problem, and they can't do it themselves. So they're seeking an expert that they can trust that can form and nurture that long term relationship. Understanding what you bring to the table, your value prop and who you want to work with, is so key to success.

Kathi Burns 12:06
Absolutely. I know there's a lot of people that are actually a great resignation, everybody's launching and starting new things, as you're starting a business or maybe they've been seasoned for a few years. What's a big piece of advice you would give them as far as increasing their SEO ranking? Or making Google noticing more often and more frequently? Do you have I know, that's a kind of a hard question. But as a generic, a generic suggestion, what would you say that they would do first on their own?

John Vuong 12:38
SEO is becoming much more complex. It's also getting more difficult because of competition. There's so much out there in the world that you don't even know where to navigate and get content that's rich. I always say stay true to yourself, figure out who you want to be. Create a website that stands for your values, and then figure out how to present it in the world by creating good information content, resources, links, or whatever it may be on different platforms, and continuously do it. So there is no secret, I would say it's it's time more than anything, and consistency. And it's adding value to the people that you want to attract. It takes a lot of effort, energy and hard work, right. And you got to be consistent and persistent.In terms of like tricks, just keep doing and moving forward. Don't be afraid of trying to put out the best content. Least you're doing something progress is important.

Kathi Burns 13:50
I had this mantra a long time ago, when I was writing my first book perfection is overrated, and simply not worth it. It's better to have things out there than things half baked and not sitting on. Not going for it right, like just hat and put it out there. Because I think the average, Google loves words. But quite honestly, I don't think that your readers are not going to read every single word that you write anyhow. I know that writing articles and posting blogs and that type of thing is huge. Is it or is our other older websites pointing to your website still very important or is that shifted?

John Vuong 14:30
Yes, backlinks are still very critical. Which means like you mentioned other websites linking to your website with either anchor tags or branded keyword, but also the authority of that existing website linking back to you is very important. The niche the industry, the keywords that you are going after the age, the authority of that site, the trustworthiness so trying to harvest a lot of these links, it's not the quantity so much the quality. So always focus on creating quality content pushing to those that are actively seeking your services out of quality versus quantity. Everyone's looking for a number, I would say, focus more so on the type of websites that's linking back to you.

Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good tip. So you've been doing this for almost a decade, tell me about a time where you just felt like stuck. I know years three, four or five it generally hits us. We're like, what is going on? Tell me about a time when you felt stuck. What do you do to get over that hurdle, and to move forward with more ease and more confidence.

So feeling stuck is when you try to do everything, yourself. Running a business, especially an SEO agency, there's so many moving parts, there's so many different specialists that are required, and you can't do everything yourself, you have limited time and capacity and bandwidth. When I started hiring people, I had to hire managers to manage those different pillars of subsets that runs a good SEO campaign. So right now have teams have a content team, have a link building team, have social team, have a development team have SEO specialists, team have graphics team, all these people have to be working together. But then I also have a manager that manages all of them. And they allowed me, it allowed me to move away from that, that whole process of watching the team, right. Then I can focus on working on doing stuff like this and marketing the business looking at ways to captivate more speaking engagements, and more more PR, related activities to generate and harvest more brand awareness.

Kathi Burns 17:05
Yeah, that's fantastic. It's a good case in point of working on your business as opposed to in your business. We all need teams. This has just been a recurring theme over and over during my podcast, grab a team, get a team built, even if you can't, even if you think you can't afford someone, there's always someone who is willing to learn. There's always a way that you can get a helper at least one to start out with, and then build the teams just like just did. Yeah, that's great advice. What is your is one thing that sticks in your mind, and the best advice you've ever received from anyone about running a business, or even actually about living life.

John Vuong 17:48
Oh running a business. So I was fortunate to work with 1000s of SMBs. Right, working out why Yellow Pages, I always short form for YP. And in there, I got to really understand and meet people of all ages, ethnicities, in every industry. What I saw that was the root of it was the passion of people that actually were successful in my eyes was someone that actually look forward to go into work every single day serving and building something of value for other people, their clients, their community, their family, they had a purpose. That's what really resonated with me, when I started my own company. Those are the people I wanted to be like, when I grew up, right, because some of them were 60,70 80,90 years old, and still woke up every morning, doing something they loved. So that's what it is all about. Right? wake up every morning, being excited, doing something that you can say, I'm bringing value to the people that really mean the most to me.

Kathi Burns 19:00
Yeah, that's so very important. Being on purpose, right? Doing your purpose and knowing what your purpose is. For those of you who are listening, that you are looking at your job, if you know your real job, and you're not feeling like you're on purpose, and you're not feeling inspired, then this is this is a wake up call. This is a time to reinvent. In fact, I'm talking about this in my insiders club on this week is it's the time to reinvent it's a time to change. And there's no better time than now, especially when economies are a little bit funky. This is a great time to launch I mean, Microsoft launched in the softest time period of all and they're cruising same thing with Mac, you know or apple. So, this is this is the time to launch. And if you're feeling like you're not on purpose, listen to what John says here and find your purpose. Find something that's going to make you excited to get up because if you're excited to get up and go to work every day, the money's going to follow. Don't you think that's true?

John Vuong 20:02
This is one thing I also learned from all these business owners is they will never chasing a car or a home or bigger, you know, property or bigger business, they were just taking care of their people, their community, they're adding value, right? Price was never something like they were very going after like, you know more stuff. It was all about just that purpose of what mattered to them at that stage of their life. So maybe it is spending more time with their family by building a business that allowed them to support that, or running a business to create charities and giving more philanthropy to others, right, supporting their children at that stage of their life. Whatever it is, a lot of seasonal businesses, I run a business for six months, I spent six months in Spain, in my villa. It's whatever it is. So figure that out. I got so many of these business owners, I can just knock on the door and ask them these things like 20 years ago, what did you do? How did you grow your business, like all that is reach out as well find out people that you really respect. Don't be afraid to ask because they're so willing to help people that are going through those same challenges. Business owners are so nice, like they're the, you know, people that actually are human and real. So if you reach out to them and have questions, they're more than willing to help support you in any cause.

Kathi Burns 21:39
Well, just like you, John, I mean, I think that the more successfully that you are, the more open you are and the more intimidating it might be for someone to reach out, oh, we can't talk to him. You know, he does all this. But the more successful that a person is, I think, the more open they are to providing advice and providing guidance, because you know what, we've all been there. We've all been in the trenches, we've all been in the downs down. We've all been freaked out and overwhelmed. But we all bounce back, and how do we do it. That's what this podcast is all about. So I really appreciate you telling your story and showing people that what it takes to be good in a business is to love your people, and to really feel that you're really helping the masses. The better you are, the more people you can serve. That's the idea here, the more you grow.

John Vuong 22:31
Constantly have fun, right? There's always going to be challenges, you're going to be thrown with problems, situations, like there's things that are out you're outside your control, like the pandemic, there's wars, there's supply chain issues, there's mass resignations, stuff will happen. And then there's family problems, like older parents, children, there's gonna be things that grab you. Then you got to figure out what's important to you at that stage of time. You get to time management, all of it, and figure out what really stay true to yourself. I always say your gut is so important on what you need to continually do to get better and improve your situation and others that really mean the most you.

Kathi Burns 23:18
Yeah, and have fun and get over it. I'm cracking up while you're saying because for those of you who don't know, we started this five to 10 minutes late because my Internet didn't work. So my first podcast was canceled today. Here I am with John and John standby, ATT is trying to fix my stuff. This is just what happens this is a part of doing any business and I love what you said, the first thing is like, breath. Thank you for reminding me.

John Vuong 23:44
Let go right? Like that's the worst that were what can happen, right? Like we're here in North America, doing something that we love, there's people in the world that would love to just have one day of their lives like what we have. So be grateful for what we have right and have a different perspective of what's going on in the world.

Kathi Burns 24:06
We are blessed. So I know you have something that you want to offer the offer the kiddos here there who are listening, what is your invaluable free resource? And what can they're going to be able to download it right below the podcast and talk to me about what it is and how it's going to help them.

John Vuong 24:21
Yeah, so it's a checklist. So for us, we do offer SEO, but it's so critical to understand where the gaps are, what is required to really optimize your site and really figure out like how do you compare to your competitors what needs to be done? So on our website on our homepage, actually, there's a free download that says, download a checklist to figure out what you need to do to get started to optimize so that you can start outranking some of your major competitors. So then you can take that steps of trying to do it yourself or hire consultants or try work on a work with a company, but at least it gives you a head start.

Kathi Burns 25:04
Yeah, gives you an understanding of what you should even do or where you're falling, what's falling through the cracks? I'm definitely going to do it, I'm on my second website, and who knows what's going on with it. My first website was really optimized is really old. This new website, who knows, so I'm gonna do that checklist to see what's falling through the cracks on my world, because there's always something that has to be done. So thank you for that. And we'll have your website below, we'll also have the free download, they can go directly to that download and download it from the podcast page. Is there anything that I should have asked you, John, that we haven't discussed? Or anything that's on your mind that you really wanted to say?

John Vuong 25:45
Yeah, as a business owner, I know it's gonna be hard, right? There's always going to be things that are gonna be stressful, you're gonna have doubts, you're gonna wonder like, is it better to just have a job, right? Business Ownership is not for everyone. But timing is so critical as well, you need to figure out and put in the time to make sure that it is successful. So you got to plan ahead, you got to try different things, and work at it. Just like if you have children, or you have family or relationships, you got to put in that time to harvest it, right, you got to plant those seeds. So business ownership is exactly the same way. There's no one size that fits all, there's no making a million dollars in a month, or adds a clickbait like diet pills and all that you kind of put in that time. And that's why I learned about not just running a business, but also SEO. It's like owning a home you gotta plant those seeds down payment, paid mortgage, all that stuff during a rental project, harvesting children. So with business ownership, just have fun throughout that process. Don't give up.

But you know, I mean, it's all about like just putting in that time, because you don't even know if you're doing the right thing by nurturing and teaching them and coaching love. It's like, as a parent, I have no idea if I'm doing the right or wrong thing, but I'm enjoying that process.

Kathi Burns 27:22
Yeah, just have fun along the way and do the best that you can and make sure that you put them first. That's all. Hey, well, this has been a this has been a blast. You're so sweet, and so dear and so trustworthy, right? So that's what it's all about. I just appreciate your time. I'm so happy to introduce the viewers to you. And Hey, gang, if you cannot afford to hire someone, as a staff, or try to hire someone that can help you with SEO, like John, because it'll definitely help you juggle your business and create more income. That's what it's all about is launching that business and getting going. I'm going to look into it as well because there's always something to be done on a website that goes on and on and on. Google loves to change their stuff. So thank you, John, so much for being on the show. I really, really appreciate your time.

John Vuong 28:15
Thank you for having me, Kathi. I really had a great time today.

Kathi Burns 28:19
Absolutely.

Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you want to hear more, feel free to subscribe on the platform of your choice. Also, if you feel so inclined, I would truly appreciated good rating from you, to me have a stellar day.