July 9, 2024 • 24 mins
Robert Smith Founder, & CEO of The Chart Group, City Site LLC, & Charleston.com
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Robert Smith is founder and CEO ofthe Chart Group, Cityside LLC and Charleston
dot Com. Welcome to CEOs youshould know Robert Smith. Yeah, thank
you for having me. Well,thanks for taking the time out today to
talk to us. So please explainto our listeners what the Chart Group does.
The Chart Group who are we?Well, we consider ourselves a content
creation firm and what that means isthat we create video production, editing,
(00:25):
photography, website SEO development, youknow, logos, things that companies need
for branding or advertising purposes. Wealso have two arms of outreach in the
in the advertising world. We havethe in room advertising that runs in hotel
and resorts both here in Charleston,Savannah and Asheville, North Carolina. And
(00:48):
we also have the Charleston dot Complatform as well. The in room service
you provide that's part of Charleston dotCom. No, that's Chart Group,
you know, the in room itreally is nothing more than the visitors channel.
You know, guests come into ahotel in Charleston that we have contracted
with and they turn the TV onand well they can learn about how to
use our city. And that's beenvery, very successful in reaching the market
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of which those companies, you know, you're looking to reach a market of
visitors who are looking to either havea place to dine, things to do,
that type of you know, thattype of education of really what Charleston
has to offer. Sure, Imean very important in a tourist town like
Charleston, absolutely, you know,and it's it's updated monthly, so you
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know, it's not a show thatthat sits stagnant. You know, it's
one of those things that we haveso many different events, so many different
things that happened here in Charleston ona monthly, you know, weekly,
monthly, and yearly basis, andso we change it every every single month.
Well, obviously we have something incommon, which is marketing. And
when it comes to marketing, Ithink, you know, there's so many
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businesses that I come across that don'tbelieve in it, don't know how to
do it, you know, don'thave don't think they have the money to
do it. What are some ofthe biggest challenges that companies face when it
comes to marketing their services that you'vefound, you know, that's a great
question. The challenge is that wereally face with companies who are looking to
market number one is is budget.You know, everyone thinks as marketing as
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a budget aspect, when really itshould be more in an investment talk.
You know, if marketing is costingyou money, you know that's the problem
right right You're looking for return oninvestment absolutely, and everyone wants to know
their ROI. So you know,when you can put your message right in
front of people, the direct audiencewho are looking for you, I would
say that's pretty successful. I thinkmost most of the problems that we are,
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issues that we come across as reallyfrom an educational component is you know,
what is it, how does itwork? How does how much does
it cost? You know those typethings. Everyone's really especially after COVID,
they're really being they're really being cautiousabout how they spend their money. But
these days, with social media outthere, there's so many different choices that
(03:06):
weren't there you know, ten,fifteen, twenty years ago, So you
really have to look at what isthe most successful opportunity, what's the best
bang on on you know, whereto put your dollars. So I think
that education, education is really abig component, you know, and most
companies that we talk to are agood fit, but not every company.
(03:27):
So you know, from our standpoint, we have to decide that this is
a good fit or not. AndI think that, you know, you
sit in a meeting with somebody whohas been presented with both magazines and billboards
and social medias and all of thesedifferent things, you really have to just
kind of set yourself apart from that. Absolutely, you know, you need
to be heard among the noise.Robert, If you're talking to somebody that's
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just starting out and they haven't pursuedmarketing to the point where in the back
of their mind they know they shouldbe, but they haven't done it yet,
what kind of advice would you givethem The first step I would advise
the company really, if they're juststarting I mean, get your base,
you know, your basics done,get your logo, your recognition, your
brand awareness, you know, findout who you are, and then you
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know, then look at what thebest practices are on finding out who your
audience is, you know, andthat's that's not easy. You know.
It's if you're looking to get someof the visitor traffic, well we know
how to do that. If you'relooking for some local traffic, you know,
we just have to look at kindof the money that you've set aside
for marketing, which most companies don'tat all, especially a lot of the
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folks that we talk to have verylimited budgets, so we're trying to kind
of find the best fit that's goingto give them something where they can see
the results fairly quickly. I thinkin today's society with social media, most
companies are looking for the immediate result, and in most cases that's just not
an option, you know, andso you have a lot of free platforms
(05:02):
out there, you have a lotof gimmicks out there. Like you said
earlier, just kind of weeding throughthe noise is going to be difficult.
So I think with a with afirst time company, we really have to
sit down and really kind of explorewho they are, what they offer,
and kind of decide who that audienceis going to be so we can have
at least a footprint on where we'regoing. Well, that was going to
(05:26):
be my next question, because I'msure you deal with people where that they
don't have any idea, and sometimesthey might think they have an idea,
but after you really sit there anddo your homework and explore it, they
can be way off the mark.So you know, how many people that
you deal with know those aspects oftheir business and how many of them and
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I don't mean to be insulting,they just haven't grasped maybe who their end
consumer is or the most effective wayto go after them or position themselves.
Well, it's funny, you know, we talked about a lot of new
companies. A lot of new companieswill have a cousin or a sister or
a friend who can build a websiteor they can find a free medium out
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there, like a lot of companiesout there that offer free websites, and
nobody knows that. You know,those people I don't mean to say nobody,
but those people aren't aware that thosetypes of platforms have limitations. And
so when you can sit down witha client and really discuss, you know,
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here's what it's going to take tobuild a proper website, Here's what
it's going to take to have someonecoming and do photos for you. You
know, are you doing TV orwhat we call now video? I mean,
listen, video is so important.You know, it's the second largest
search engine to the world. Imean Google bought YouTube. You know,
TV has been around for a very, very very long time. And so
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you know, if you look atsome of these social media aspects out there
right now, you can sit downand kind of get sucked into your phone
and watching funny videos. So it'sone of those things that you have to
really decide, you know, what'sgoing to be best for your company from
a cost standpoint, and then howcan we get that media and use it
across the board. So it's reallyimportant to have one type of media that
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can be multipurposed. And that's oneof the things that I really when I
sit down with a new client,you know, kind of explore, you
know, what is that message goingback to the brand? You know,
how can we relate it back toyou? And then how do we get
it out to the to the massesof folks who are actually looking for you
and where are they? And sothose are some of the types of things
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that are important in any meeting witha new client or a client who who's
looking to advertise. Now the let'stalk SEO for just a minute, Search
Engine optimization. You know, Italk to several people that are like,
well, I do this because youknow Google wants this or you know Bing
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wants this. But I mean thesealgorithms are so advanced now you really can't
trick them anymore, right, youjust have to act smartly and kind of
know how their systems work in orderto build that base and organically grow those
searches. Correct. You know,SEO is one of these things that when
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you can't touch it, you can'tfeel it. So you know, it's
it's hard to sell something to somebodythat's not really tangible. You know,
it's not something you can grab andfeel the texture or taste, you know,
those type those type things. Butyou know, SEO is something that's
very important. And the unfortunate partabout SEO is, you know, the
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SEO provider does not control the algorithmsof what the search engines they're asking for,
right, so you have to adhereto the rules to be able to
advance. And so you know,it's almost like, you know, you
and I have a race car,and the weight of the car is the
same, the fuels the same,the drivers are both you know, we're
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both experienced the same. What's what'sgoing to be the difference? And why
you would whatever me? And essentiallyit becomes the performance of that driver.
So when you look at content,you know that's that's the driving force behind
SEO is getting that content. Isit relevant to the business? You know,
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are you changing are you massaging yourwebsite on a regular basis? You
know, when does the search enginescome in and actually rank your site?
You know, is it sixty days? Is every six days, every thirty
days, twice a month, oncea month. Those are type things that
we have to figure out in theSEO world to make an SEO campaign successful.
You know, when you do SEO, you're really competing with everyone else,
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and so that's the good thing.But the bad thing is that you
just don't know when the algorithms aregoing to change and what those changes are,
So you know, you just haveto adhere to the best practice.
But it's funny you brought that up, because if you look at every different
search engine and you put in thesame keyword on different search engines like Google
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or Duck Duck Go or Bang,you're going to come up with different search
results. Why is that? Youknow, where are the most people searching?
You know, of course we knowthat Google has probably the majority share,
But is there enough business if yourank on being but not Google?
So they all have their different rulesand you just have to abide by them.
And that also comes down to budget, right, because maybe you can
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find a way. If you don'thave a big enough budget to go after
Google, maybe one of these othersearch engines you can rank higher and more
effectively spend your money. Right,Well, budget is a big aspect,
and really it's how much time doyou want somebody to spend and making sure
that you're SEO is solid. Solet's say we have a client who wants
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ten hours a month, you know, ten hours a month, that's really
not much more than two and ahalf hour a week. And if we're
only spending two and a half hoursa week on your business, how successful
will we be? You know,that time and that knowledge is it's hard
to come by the knowledge of SEObecause it, like you said, it
does change monthly, it changes allthe time. And so you know,
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SEO is one of those things that, again you spend a lot of money
on and it takes a long timefor the results to come back. And
that's what the educational component is about, is you know, what are the
expectations If a client comes to meand says, hey, we want a
rank in two months, that's notgoing to be possible. It just depends
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on where we're starting from. Butif we have a new client, that's
just not going to be possible.Because there's so many different attributes that go
into an su campaign. We typicallydon't expect anything between anything really before six
to twelve months, and a lotof a lot of our customers just can't
afford to do that and be aggressivewith it. So it is what SEO
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is one of those things that itis expensive, but once you get there,
you know, things get better.But even when you get there,
are people going to click on you. And that's the thing is like we
have you on page one, wehave you ranked in the top five,
but now we have to actually getpeople to hit that to hit that link,
so you still have to grab them. You still have to grab them.
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Yeah, So then that's when marketingcomes in and then those type things.
You know, it all kind ofworks together. Now. We were
talking off air about marketing and youknow, in any business you have to
wear if you're running a business,you have to wear so many different hats,
and there's a very select few peopleout there that can wear all of
those hats effectively. And that's whycompanies like yours are very helpful and needed.
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And we're also talking about, especiallyin marketing, that having the ability
to do both sales and creative isquite unique in the marketing world. But
you have both those skills, youexcel at both well. You know,
when I first started, when Ifirst started chart I, we did have
a sales team and we had atthe production side and the sales side.
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And in today's world they're both together. Especially in my world, I can
go out and sell, but Ican also produce the ad as well or
produce the project. It comes froma lot of learning, you know.
You know my my background of news. I was in news for nine years
of my career. I was ableto produce, I was able to edit.
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I was able to run a studiocamera. I was able to run
a field camera. I was ableto run a live truck. I was
able to run a side track.You know, you have to, you
know, if you want to succeedin this in this kind of technology,
you really have to kind of keepup with technology and have more abilities than
just one job. And that's whatmakes it so much fun is that you
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know, every day is different becauseyou might be doing a different job one
day, you might be running cameraone day, you might be producing one
day, you might be out theremaking sales calls. Makes it very interesting.
Now does that ever come up inmeetings with your clients? Because I
have that discussion all the time withthe CEOs that I talk to on how
important it is to know the processesof your business and be able to do
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each of those jobs, or atleast be familiar with them. You just
can't sit at the top and lowerit over your company without knowing what's going
on in each individual department and evenin each individual's approach to their job and
what's happening, and having that knowledge. Doesn't that also inform you on your
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approach to marketing? It does?You know, having the ability to know
you may not know how to dosomething with your own hands, but at
least having the concept or the knowledgeenough to speak to the client on the
importance of something you know. Forexample, it comes to a website,
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you know, I can't put myhands on code and make code do something
that I want it to do.I hire people who have more knowledge in
that than me. But I doknow the importance of having a good website
and what those attributes could be Ijust don't build them myself. You know,
same thing with SEO. I'm smartenough to know to talk about the
concepts of SEO and how it works, but when it comes to taking the
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actual SEO and putting my hands onit and making that happen, you know,
that's for the SEO provider himself,because there's not enough hours in the
day for me to learn that processalone. That's why it's very important you
know that you know how it works. But at the same time, as
a CEO or business owner, it'simportant to know that you need to hire
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someone a little bit smarter in thataspect than you, but you still have
to kind of manage that person becausethat typically those people aren't good in the
sales side or even the customer relationside, right, And we were kind
of choking about that, you know, off the era and you know,
the different personality types that seem tofit into creative or into sales or you
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know, whatever it may be.But you had mentioned that you were in
the news business for for nine years. Tell us about your journey in starting
the companies that you run. Whatmotivated you to to start those companies and
especially to start the chart group.Well, I wanted to start the Chart
Group. You know, I hadI had a vision in my mind someday
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I wanted to be a full timevacationer and I could I could figure out
a way to support my family doingthat. So starting the Chuck Group,
you know, I knew production,right. So the first thing was is
you have I and you have tolook at a business structure and say,
how does the money flow? Numberone, do you have you know,
have the ability to do a perjob you get paid per job, per
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hour, or there's this thing downcalled residual and it's good to have each
of those models in your business.So that way, one goes a little
you know, one's a little bitlight, the other's a little bit heavy.
It kind of balances itself out throughoutthe year. So, you know,
finding the residual side is much moredifficult because you have to build a
network. And so putting the endroom advertising platform together was a way for
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us to again not trade hours fordollars, and it was a way to
do the work. Put the workout there that was going to do that
was going to kind of motor itself. And then once you figure out how
that works and you can replicate thatproduct and do it again and again and
again. And that's what makes abusiness successful in my opinion, is to
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be able to find what model worksin your company and focus on that.
You know, I know our companydoes a lot of different things, but
at the end of the day,if we can get it into a sense,
a residual sense, and that it'sstarting to work in that engine,
it makes it more successful. Thatengine is is working. And so when
you can build a network and ittakes a little time to kind of figure
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out how are you going to dothat or what what avenue you're going to
take, But for us, itwas creating our own product. And that's
what made it a little bit moreinteresting for us is we're selling our own
our own work. Now. Wetalked about some of the biggest challenges that
you know your clients and startup companiesface on their path to success. What
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were the biggest challenges that you facedwhen you were starting the Chart Group,
starting the Chuck Group. Some ofthe challenges we faced from the very beginning
really or people people in the business, managing folks, managing expectations. You
know, we had I had towork a full time job for many many
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many years and then come home andwork nights and weekends to build to build
my own business. And at somepoint it got to we got to a
cross's where well, I got tohire somebody, and then I'm still working
a full time job while paying afull time staff member. And at that
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point, that one individual got usto a point in the residuals that it
made sense for me to leave CorporateAmerica to come over into my own company.
And that's how I did it,working a lot of long nights and
weekends and spending just a lot oftime trying to figure out how to make
that residual model work well. Andas you mentioned, I mean, it
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is a lot a lot of work, and it's also a fearful moment when
you take the final leap and yousay, all right, I'm all in.
And if for any young entrepreneurs outthere that are looking to start their
own business or in the process ofdoing that right now, what advice would
you give to them? You know, giving advice to those entrepreneurs is very
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important because you know, some guystook time to sit down with me at
one point in my career and say, you know what, Robert, here's
what you need to do. Andyou know, I got a lot of
information from those guys. So mysuggestion would be to surround yourself with people
who are like minded of who youwant to be. You know, I
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never saw myself ever wanting to becomea pilot or fly aircraft until I was
around pilots and aircrafts. You know, it just kind of happened. Now
business owners, I found myself wantingto be around other business owners. You
know, I look back at myfamily, and of course my mom and
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dad are business owners, but mysisters have they work for great companies,
and then there's me who's out therekind of trying to create my own,
my own company. You know,it just takes it. It takes time
and getting around those people, listeningto their stories, you know, and
what advice do you actually take doyou actually follow through with? You know
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those type things. So my adviceto those people out there who are entrepreneurs
is really surround yourself with like mindedpeople and then eventually you'll become those people.
And it's also important to challenge yourself, isn't it, Because you know,
I remember back when I was startingin this business, I was I
was always the youngest one at anyradio station or broadcast company that I worked
for, And I certainly didn't wantto be the you know, the young
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kid that couldn't hold his own amongmy peers which were much more experienced than
I was. And anyway, whatI'm trying to say is that made me
up my game and it also taughtme to challenge yourself. And I still
to this day, I put myselfin situations that I'm not totally familiar with
so that I am challenged and sothat I can experience that growth. Well,
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I think first you have to sitback and ask yourself what a success?
Right? I want to build thisbecause and whatever that reason is.
So you know a lot of peoplelook at success as a monetary gain.
To me, success for me ishow well do I sleep at night?
You know? Did I do theright thing? Did I treat that individual?
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You know, every day in business, you're going to have issues no
matter no matter what business you start. You know, did I handle that
properly? Did I do that theright way? You know? Looking at
that, I think, really,you know, defining that success point really
is going to be really important onhow you drive forward and taking that chance.
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Yeah, you're going to have totake a lot of chances because you
know you'll you'll you just have tolearn to fall forward to the falling back
right. And I think it's soimportant when you said, you know,
you need a goal because otherwise you'reyou're jumping in the car, say,
and you're heading out on the roadand you don't know where the hell you're
going. That's right, and it'sa you know, and if you want
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to be a leader, you don'thave followers. Really, you're just out
for a walk, you know.You really just have to have that mindset
of what you're going to do andwrite it down, you know, write
it down and look at it andkind of make a roadbap on how you're
going to get there. You know, if you do if you do right
by people, you know, andI get I get this. Get put
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in this position a lot when I'mwhen I'm in a sales meeting and I'm
going up against the company that doesthe exact same thing or is fair something
very similar. What is gonna what'sgonna make the company I'm presenting to choose
me or them over me? Youknow, it typically comes to who they
like better, right, and whothey think can do a better job.
So you have to take risks.Risk, don't be afraid because you know,
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if you know, if you canaccept no as a perfectly acceptable,
uh acceptable answer, you'll do well. Robert Smith, that's great advice.
It was an interesting conversation today.Robert Smith is founder and CEO of the
Chart Group, City Site LLC andCharleston dot Com. Will have to continue
this conversation another time, Robert,but thanks for your time today on CEOs.
(24:03):
You should know. Oh well,thank you for having me. I
enjoyed it too.
Robert Smith is founder and CEO ofthe Chart Group, Cityside LLC and Charleston
dot Com. Welcome to CEOs youshould know Robert Smith. Yeah, thank
you for having me. Well,thanks for taking the time out today to
talk to us. So please explainto our listeners what the Chart Group does.
The Chart Group who are we?Well, we consider ourselves a content
creation firm and what that means isthat we create video production, editing,
(00:25):
photography, website SEO development, youknow, logos, things that companies need
for branding or advertising purposes. Wealso have two arms of outreach in the
in the advertising world. We havethe in room advertising that runs in hotel
and resorts both here in Charleston,Savannah and Asheville, North Carolina. And
(00:48):
we also have the Charleston dot Complatform as well. The in room service
you provide that's part of Charleston dotCom. No, that's Chart Group,
you know, the in room itreally is nothing more than the visitors channel.
You know, guests come into ahotel in Charleston that we have contracted
with and they turn the TV onand well they can learn about how to
use our city. And that's beenvery, very successful in reaching the market
(01:14):
of which those companies, you know, you're looking to reach a market of
visitors who are looking to either havea place to dine, things to do,
that type of you know, thattype of education of really what Charleston
has to offer. Sure, Imean very important in a tourist town like
Charleston, absolutely, you know,and it's it's updated monthly, so you
(01:34):
know, it's not a show thatthat sits stagnant. You know, it's
one of those things that we haveso many different events, so many different
things that happened here in Charleston ona monthly, you know, weekly,
monthly, and yearly basis, andso we change it every every single month.
Well, obviously we have something incommon, which is marketing. And
when it comes to marketing, Ithink, you know, there's so many
(01:56):
businesses that I come across that don'tbelieve in it, don't know how to
do it, you know, don'thave don't think they have the money to
do it. What are some ofthe biggest challenges that companies face when it
comes to marketing their services that you'vefound, you know, that's a great
question. The challenge is that wereally face with companies who are looking to
market number one is is budget.You know, everyone thinks as marketing as
(02:19):
a budget aspect, when really itshould be more in an investment talk.
You know, if marketing is costingyou money, you know that's the problem
right right You're looking for return oninvestment absolutely, and everyone wants to know
their ROI. So you know,when you can put your message right in
front of people, the direct audiencewho are looking for you, I would
say that's pretty successful. I thinkmost most of the problems that we are,
(02:45):
issues that we come across as reallyfrom an educational component is you know,
what is it, how does itwork? How does how much does
it cost? You know those typethings. Everyone's really especially after COVID,
they're really being they're really being cautiousabout how they spend their money. But
these days, with social media outthere, there's so many different choices that
(03:06):
weren't there you know, ten,fifteen, twenty years ago, So you
really have to look at what isthe most successful opportunity, what's the best
bang on on you know, whereto put your dollars. So I think
that education, education is really abig component, you know, and most
companies that we talk to are agood fit, but not every company.
(03:27):
So you know, from our standpoint, we have to decide that this is
a good fit or not. AndI think that, you know, you
sit in a meeting with somebody whohas been presented with both magazines and billboards
and social medias and all of thesedifferent things, you really have to just
kind of set yourself apart from that. Absolutely, you know, you need
to be heard among the noise.Robert, If you're talking to somebody that's
(03:52):
just starting out and they haven't pursuedmarketing to the point where in the back
of their mind they know they shouldbe, but they haven't done it yet,
what kind of advice would you givethem The first step I would advise
the company really, if they're juststarting I mean, get your base,
you know, your basics done,get your logo, your recognition, your
brand awareness, you know, findout who you are, and then you
(04:15):
know, then look at what thebest practices are on finding out who your
audience is, you know, andthat's that's not easy. You know.
It's if you're looking to get someof the visitor traffic, well we know
how to do that. If you'relooking for some local traffic, you know,
we just have to look at kindof the money that you've set aside
for marketing, which most companies don'tat all, especially a lot of the
(04:39):
folks that we talk to have verylimited budgets, so we're trying to kind
of find the best fit that's goingto give them something where they can see
the results fairly quickly. I thinkin today's society with social media, most
companies are looking for the immediate result, and in most cases that's just not
an option, you know, andso you have a lot of free platforms
(05:02):
out there, you have a lotof gimmicks out there. Like you said
earlier, just kind of weeding throughthe noise is going to be difficult.
So I think with a with afirst time company, we really have to
sit down and really kind of explorewho they are, what they offer,
and kind of decide who that audienceis going to be so we can have
at least a footprint on where we'regoing. Well, that was going to
(05:26):
be my next question, because I'msure you deal with people where that they
don't have any idea, and sometimesthey might think they have an idea,
but after you really sit there anddo your homework and explore it, they
can be way off the mark.So you know, how many people that
you deal with know those aspects oftheir business and how many of them and
(05:46):
I don't mean to be insulting,they just haven't grasped maybe who their end
consumer is or the most effective wayto go after them or position themselves.
Well, it's funny, you know, we talked about a lot of new
companies. A lot of new companieswill have a cousin or a sister or
a friend who can build a websiteor they can find a free medium out
(06:08):
there, like a lot of companiesout there that offer free websites, and
nobody knows that. You know,those people I don't mean to say nobody,
but those people aren't aware that thosetypes of platforms have limitations. And
so when you can sit down witha client and really discuss, you know,
(06:29):
here's what it's going to take tobuild a proper website, Here's what
it's going to take to have someonecoming and do photos for you. You
know, are you doing TV orwhat we call now video? I mean,
listen, video is so important.You know, it's the second largest
search engine to the world. Imean Google bought YouTube. You know,
TV has been around for a very, very very long time. And so
(06:54):
you know, if you look atsome of these social media aspects out there
right now, you can sit downand kind of get sucked into your phone
and watching funny videos. So it'sone of those things that you have to
really decide, you know, what'sgoing to be best for your company from
a cost standpoint, and then howcan we get that media and use it
across the board. So it's reallyimportant to have one type of media that
(07:15):
can be multipurposed. And that's oneof the things that I really when I
sit down with a new client,you know, kind of explore, you
know, what is that message goingback to the brand? You know,
how can we relate it back toyou? And then how do we get
it out to the to the massesof folks who are actually looking for you
and where are they? And sothose are some of the types of things
(07:36):
that are important in any meeting witha new client or a client who who's
looking to advertise. Now the let'stalk SEO for just a minute, Search
Engine optimization. You know, Italk to several people that are like,
well, I do this because youknow Google wants this or you know Bing
(07:57):
wants this. But I mean thesealgorithms are so advanced now you really can't
trick them anymore, right, youjust have to act smartly and kind of
know how their systems work in orderto build that base and organically grow those
searches. Correct. You know,SEO is one of these things that when
(08:20):
you can't touch it, you can'tfeel it. So you know, it's
it's hard to sell something to somebodythat's not really tangible. You know,
it's not something you can grab andfeel the texture or taste, you know,
those type those type things. Butyou know, SEO is something that's
very important. And the unfortunate partabout SEO is, you know, the
(08:43):
SEO provider does not control the algorithmsof what the search engines they're asking for,
right, so you have to adhereto the rules to be able to
advance. And so you know,it's almost like, you know, you
and I have a race car,and the weight of the car is the
same, the fuels the same,the drivers are both you know, we're
(09:03):
both experienced the same. What's what'sgoing to be the difference? And why
you would whatever me? And essentiallyit becomes the performance of that driver.
So when you look at content,you know that's that's the driving force behind
SEO is getting that content. Isit relevant to the business? You know,
(09:24):
are you changing are you massaging yourwebsite on a regular basis? You
know, when does the search enginescome in and actually rank your site?
You know, is it sixty days? Is every six days, every thirty
days, twice a month, oncea month. Those are type things that
we have to figure out in theSEO world to make an SEO campaign successful.
You know, when you do SEO, you're really competing with everyone else,
(09:48):
and so that's the good thing.But the bad thing is that you
just don't know when the algorithms aregoing to change and what those changes are,
So you know, you just haveto adhere to the best practice.
But it's funny you brought that up, because if you look at every different
search engine and you put in thesame keyword on different search engines like Google
(10:09):
or Duck Duck Go or Bang,you're going to come up with different search
results. Why is that? Youknow, where are the most people searching?
You know, of course we knowthat Google has probably the majority share,
But is there enough business if yourank on being but not Google?
So they all have their different rulesand you just have to abide by them.
And that also comes down to budget, right, because maybe you can
(10:31):
find a way. If you don'thave a big enough budget to go after
Google, maybe one of these othersearch engines you can rank higher and more
effectively spend your money. Right,Well, budget is a big aspect,
and really it's how much time doyou want somebody to spend and making sure
that you're SEO is solid. Solet's say we have a client who wants
(10:54):
ten hours a month, you know, ten hours a month, that's really
not much more than two and ahalf hour a week. And if we're
only spending two and a half hoursa week on your business, how successful
will we be? You know,that time and that knowledge is it's hard
to come by the knowledge of SEObecause it, like you said, it
does change monthly, it changes allthe time. And so you know,
(11:18):
SEO is one of those things that, again you spend a lot of money
on and it takes a long timefor the results to come back. And
that's what the educational component is about, is you know, what are the
expectations If a client comes to meand says, hey, we want a
rank in two months, that's notgoing to be possible. It just depends
(11:39):
on where we're starting from. Butif we have a new client, that's
just not going to be possible.Because there's so many different attributes that go
into an su campaign. We typicallydon't expect anything between anything really before six
to twelve months, and a lotof a lot of our customers just can't
afford to do that and be aggressivewith it. So it is what SEO
(12:01):
is one of those things that itis expensive, but once you get there,
you know, things get better.But even when you get there,
are people going to click on you. And that's the thing is like we
have you on page one, wehave you ranked in the top five,
but now we have to actually getpeople to hit that to hit that link,
so you still have to grab them. You still have to grab them.
(12:24):
Yeah, So then that's when marketingcomes in and then those type things.
You know, it all kind ofworks together. Now. We were
talking off air about marketing and youknow, in any business you have to
wear if you're running a business,you have to wear so many different hats,
and there's a very select few peopleout there that can wear all of
those hats effectively. And that's whycompanies like yours are very helpful and needed.
(12:48):
And we're also talking about, especiallyin marketing, that having the ability
to do both sales and creative isquite unique in the marketing world. But
you have both those skills, youexcel at both well. You know,
when I first started, when Ifirst started chart I, we did have
a sales team and we had atthe production side and the sales side.
(13:09):
And in today's world they're both together. Especially in my world, I can
go out and sell, but Ican also produce the ad as well or
produce the project. It comes froma lot of learning, you know.
You know my my background of news. I was in news for nine years
of my career. I was ableto produce, I was able to edit.
(13:31):
I was able to run a studiocamera. I was able to run
a field camera. I was ableto run a live truck. I was
able to run a side track.You know, you have to, you
know, if you want to succeedin this in this kind of technology,
you really have to kind of keepup with technology and have more abilities than
just one job. And that's whatmakes it so much fun is that you
(13:52):
know, every day is different becauseyou might be doing a different job one
day, you might be running cameraone day, you might be producing one
day, you might be out theremaking sales calls. Makes it very interesting.
Now does that ever come up inmeetings with your clients? Because I
have that discussion all the time withthe CEOs that I talk to on how
important it is to know the processesof your business and be able to do
(14:16):
each of those jobs, or atleast be familiar with them. You just
can't sit at the top and lowerit over your company without knowing what's going
on in each individual department and evenin each individual's approach to their job and
what's happening, and having that knowledge. Doesn't that also inform you on your
(14:41):
approach to marketing? It does?You know, having the ability to know
you may not know how to dosomething with your own hands, but at
least having the concept or the knowledgeenough to speak to the client on the
importance of something you know. Forexample, it comes to a website,
(15:01):
you know, I can't put myhands on code and make code do something
that I want it to do.I hire people who have more knowledge in
that than me. But I doknow the importance of having a good website
and what those attributes could be Ijust don't build them myself. You know,
same thing with SEO. I'm smartenough to know to talk about the
concepts of SEO and how it works, but when it comes to taking the
(15:26):
actual SEO and putting my hands onit and making that happen, you know,
that's for the SEO provider himself,because there's not enough hours in the
day for me to learn that processalone. That's why it's very important you
know that you know how it works. But at the same time, as
a CEO or business owner, it'simportant to know that you need to hire
(15:48):
someone a little bit smarter in thataspect than you, but you still have
to kind of manage that person becausethat typically those people aren't good in the
sales side or even the customer relationside, right, And we were kind
of choking about that, you know, off the era and you know,
the different personality types that seem tofit into creative or into sales or you
(16:08):
know, whatever it may be.But you had mentioned that you were in
the news business for for nine years. Tell us about your journey in starting
the companies that you run. Whatmotivated you to to start those companies and
especially to start the chart group.Well, I wanted to start the Chart
Group. You know, I hadI had a vision in my mind someday
(16:30):
I wanted to be a full timevacationer and I could I could figure out
a way to support my family doingthat. So starting the Chuck Group,
you know, I knew production,right. So the first thing was is
you have I and you have tolook at a business structure and say,
how does the money flow? Numberone, do you have you know,
have the ability to do a perjob you get paid per job, per
(16:52):
hour, or there's this thing downcalled residual and it's good to have each
of those models in your business.So that way, one goes a little
you know, one's a little bitlight, the other's a little bit heavy.
It kind of balances itself out throughoutthe year. So, you know,
finding the residual side is much moredifficult because you have to build a
network. And so putting the endroom advertising platform together was a way for
(17:18):
us to again not trade hours fordollars, and it was a way to
do the work. Put the workout there that was going to do that
was going to kind of motor itself. And then once you figure out how
that works and you can replicate thatproduct and do it again and again and
again. And that's what makes abusiness successful in my opinion, is to
(17:42):
be able to find what model worksin your company and focus on that.
You know, I know our companydoes a lot of different things, but
at the end of the day,if we can get it into a sense,
a residual sense, and that it'sstarting to work in that engine,
it makes it more successful. Thatengine is is working. And so when
you can build a network and ittakes a little time to kind of figure
(18:04):
out how are you going to dothat or what what avenue you're going to
take, But for us, itwas creating our own product. And that's
what made it a little bit moreinteresting for us is we're selling our own
our own work. Now. Wetalked about some of the biggest challenges that
you know your clients and startup companiesface on their path to success. What
(18:26):
were the biggest challenges that you facedwhen you were starting the Chart Group,
starting the Chuck Group. Some ofthe challenges we faced from the very beginning
really or people people in the business, managing folks, managing expectations. You
know, we had I had towork a full time job for many many
(18:48):
many years and then come home andwork nights and weekends to build to build
my own business. And at somepoint it got to we got to a
cross's where well, I got tohire somebody, and then I'm still working
a full time job while paying afull time staff member. And at that
(19:10):
point, that one individual got usto a point in the residuals that it
made sense for me to leave CorporateAmerica to come over into my own company.
And that's how I did it,working a lot of long nights and
weekends and spending just a lot oftime trying to figure out how to make
that residual model work well. Andas you mentioned, I mean, it
(19:33):
is a lot a lot of work, and it's also a fearful moment when
you take the final leap and yousay, all right, I'm all in.
And if for any young entrepreneurs outthere that are looking to start their
own business or in the process ofdoing that right now, what advice would
you give to them? You know, giving advice to those entrepreneurs is very
(19:57):
important because you know, some guystook time to sit down with me at
one point in my career and say, you know what, Robert, here's
what you need to do. Andyou know, I got a lot of
information from those guys. So mysuggestion would be to surround yourself with people
who are like minded of who youwant to be. You know, I
(20:19):
never saw myself ever wanting to becomea pilot or fly aircraft until I was
around pilots and aircrafts. You know, it just kind of happened. Now
business owners, I found myself wantingto be around other business owners. You
know, I look back at myfamily, and of course my mom and
(20:40):
dad are business owners, but mysisters have they work for great companies,
and then there's me who's out therekind of trying to create my own,
my own company. You know,it just takes it. It takes time
and getting around those people, listeningto their stories, you know, and
what advice do you actually take doyou actually follow through with? You know
(21:03):
those type things. So my adviceto those people out there who are entrepreneurs
is really surround yourself with like mindedpeople and then eventually you'll become those people.
And it's also important to challenge yourself, isn't it, Because you know,
I remember back when I was startingin this business, I was I
was always the youngest one at anyradio station or broadcast company that I worked
for, And I certainly didn't wantto be the you know, the young
(21:26):
kid that couldn't hold his own amongmy peers which were much more experienced than
I was. And anyway, whatI'm trying to say is that made me
up my game and it also taughtme to challenge yourself. And I still
to this day, I put myselfin situations that I'm not totally familiar with
so that I am challenged and sothat I can experience that growth. Well,
(21:49):
I think first you have to sitback and ask yourself what a success?
Right? I want to build thisbecause and whatever that reason is.
So you know a lot of peoplelook at success as a monetary gain.
To me, success for me ishow well do I sleep at night?
You know? Did I do theright thing? Did I treat that individual?
(22:11):
You know, every day in business, you're going to have issues no
matter no matter what business you start. You know, did I handle that
properly? Did I do that theright way? You know? Looking at
that, I think, really,you know, defining that success point really
is going to be really important onhow you drive forward and taking that chance.
(22:33):
Yeah, you're going to have totake a lot of chances because you
know you'll you'll you just have tolearn to fall forward to the falling back
right. And I think it's soimportant when you said, you know,
you need a goal because otherwise you'reyou're jumping in the car, say,
and you're heading out on the roadand you don't know where the hell you're
going. That's right, and it'sa you know, and if you want
(22:55):
to be a leader, you don'thave followers. Really, you're just out
for a walk, you know.You really just have to have that mindset
of what you're going to do andwrite it down, you know, write
it down and look at it andkind of make a roadbap on how you're
going to get there. You know, if you do if you do right
by people, you know, andI get I get this. Get put
(23:17):
in this position a lot when I'mwhen I'm in a sales meeting and I'm
going up against the company that doesthe exact same thing or is fair something
very similar. What is gonna what'sgonna make the company I'm presenting to choose
me or them over me? Youknow, it typically comes to who they
like better, right, and whothey think can do a better job.
So you have to take risks.Risk, don't be afraid because you know,
(23:42):
if you know, if you canaccept no as a perfectly acceptable,
uh acceptable answer, you'll do well. Robert Smith, that's great advice.
It was an interesting conversation today.Robert Smith is founder and CEO of the
Chart Group, City Site LLC andCharleston dot Com. Will have to continue
this conversation another time, Robert,but thanks for your time today on CEOs.
(24:03):
You should know. Oh well,thank you for having me. I
enjoyed it too.
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