Unlocking Local SEO Success for Your Franchise

SEO not working? This will inspire you! Lonnie Jones shares a JAW-DROPPING case study: a franchise went from 10 leads/month to 100+ after fixing their SEO! Learn what they did wrong & right. 

DISCLAIMER: The information on this podcast is for general information purposes only. Franchising involves risk and careful consideration should be given before making any decisions.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
you start getting addicted tothe feeling of when you get

(00:03):
somebody to the point where youstart making them money and then
you really substantially impacttheir business.
There's no better feeling thanthat.
Right.
admittedly, I'm not gonna sithere like other marketers claim,
they're AI experts at thispoint.
It's all bs.
It's moving too fast, but we'restill smart enough people to
move with it.
It's just constantly chasing atthis point.

(00:23):
I can't express enough that youdon't have to force yourself
into a box like I.
There's ways you can beinfluencing people everywhere.
It's just gotta find what theway speaks to you and then just,
right.
But then you gotta commit to itlike no matter what.
Welcome to the Franchise FreedomPodcast, where you can escape
the corporate trap throughfranchise ownership.
Here's your host, Giuseppe gr,the franchise guide.

(00:50):
Welcome to the Franchise FreedomPodcast.
I'm your host, GiuseppeGrammatic, your franchise guide,
the show where we help corporateexecutives experience time and
financial freedom.
Thanks for joining us today.
We have a very special guest.
We have Lonnie Jones from localSEO, help.
Lonnie, welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks for having me.
We've been we've been talking alot.
I'm like, man, we should haverecorded the previous call, the,

(01:11):
you know, about 20 minutes agoas well.
There's every time we speak, Ilearn something new, but wanted
to bring you on.
You know, we talk about businessownership and we've been
bringing guests.
We've had franchisors.
On the show talking aboutdifferent mile models, excuse
me, franchise models.
We've had accountants andattorneys, and one area we
haven't talked a lot about wasmarketing.

(01:32):
And we had a conversation awhile back about SEO and I said,
you know what?
Lemme bring Lonnie on.
Let's get a show.
We can talk about SEO, maybe thefuture of marketing.
I have.
I have a lot of questions on mylist that I still haven't asked,
and I'm like, why not?
Why not create a show.
But before we dive in, if youcan give the audience a little
bit of background on who Lonnieis and how did you get into
marketing and SEO?

(01:53):
I mean, I don't really considermyself a marketer.
I'm a numbers guy.
I've a degree in finance.
You know, I started my career asan accountant and started a
little accounting firm that Iended up selling and then.
Had was way more interested inthe internet.
I mean, I'm old, so the internetwas a new thing at some point in
my life, where now it's justpart of life for most.
Kids these days.

(02:13):
And I wanted to pursue theinternet because it was an
interesting new I thing.
And that's where I said let mestart a website, right?
I'm just some guy that wanted tostart a website and started a
business online.
And part of that process Ipicked up a book about SEO one
day because frankly I was abusiness owner, entrepreneur.
A lot like people that areprobably gonna listen to this

(02:33):
podcast.
So I don't consider myself amarketer.
I learned SEO from my ownbusiness, you know, and so a lot
of your questions were about SEOand you know why?
Because you want to help yourbusiness.
You know, luckily now there's awhole industry of SEO that you
can turn to, you know, good, bador otherwise, depending on who
you work with.
But I had the same mindset.
The difference was there's noone for me to turn to.

(02:54):
There was like maybe 10 peoplein the world that even add that
title to their.
Their name and so I was just onmy own.
So I started doing it and didvery well.
I mean, transparently, this wasbefore it was as complicated as
it was now, and you can get awaywith a little bit more.
But hey, that's what started medown my path ended up selling
that business and asking myself,what do I wanna do with my life?

(03:17):
And in the process of thinkingabout what I wanna do next with
my life a bunch of people in myindustry approached me and said,
Lonnie, can you help us withSEO?
And I'm like, what are youtalking about?
You know, like I'm a.
Business owner, I'm gonna startanother business, you know?
Right.
Come on.
Help me.
And I said, all right, you'regood friends of mine.
I said, okay I'll do it for afew months.
We'll just see what happens.
You know, I never even thoughtit would turn into a thing, but

(03:37):
I just got success aftersuccess.
Maybe it was luck.
I don't know.
Back then I look back and thinkabout all this stuff I did.
I like to think I know things,but I didn't know anything then.
And it, that's how it started.
It just started having successand you know, you start getting
addicted to the feeling of whenyou get somebody to the point
where you start making themmoney and then you really

(03:58):
substantially impact theirbusiness.
There's no better feeling thanthat.
Right.
You know, and so that, that'skind of where it just led into.
One day I blinked and I waslike, I guess I'm an agency,
right.
You know, I never considered itthat way.
And then I started gettingfranchise stuff come my way and
you know, here this is wherewe're talking today, so Awesome.
That's a little bit about myselfand my, how I got here.
Sometimes you just fall intostuff, right?

(04:19):
It's not the grand plan and youjust, hey, get the interest is
there, you start to build sometraction in a certain area.
So that's kinda been, I've beenhearing that more and more
often.
So that's kinda, that's kind ofcool.
You never know what's gonna fallon your lap.
Alright, I wanna maybe.
From an educational standpoint,take a step back.
Now, when you look at marketing,we'll use the word marketing in

(04:40):
general.
There's multiple pillars, right?
There is.
You know, I look at it, there'smaybe some of these are kind of
subcategories or sub pillars,but SEO to me is one of the most
important search engineoptimization for anyone
listening in, because I didn'tknow what the heck SEO stood for
when I first heard SEO.
But, that to me is more of theorganic pillar.
It's you know, what you're doingon the website link building.

(05:02):
There's a lot of aspects tothat, you know, what are the
other pillars?
Because some people, you know,may only double down and do SEO,
but ignore the rest.
So what would you say are.
Not to spend a lot of time, butwhat are the pillars in
marketing, if you wouldn't mindsharing?
I think the problem with callingit a pillar is it silos.
All these different channels,pillars, whatever you wanna say.
I think if you think aboutbefore the internet happened,

(05:23):
how do people see you as abusiness?
They would see a billboard youdriving by, right?
You see a truck out in thefield, you'd hear your neighbors
discussing you or talking aboutyou referring you.
You'd watch tv.
I mean, back in the day whenpeople actually watch
commercials, you'd hear it onthe radio, you know?
And so you really want to be.
Seen as very, as in a variety ofplaces as possible, right?

(05:43):
Primarily the places where yourcustomers are gonna be more
densely you know, engaging.
And so when you translate thatinto the internet, it's just the
same thing.
They're just new versions ofthat, additional versions of
that.
Because a lot of those stillexist and you know, this is
where somebody.
I spend one minute and you know,I'm in my day at work and I'm do
a lot of Google searches'causeI'm doing research on things or

(06:06):
looking potential clients up orexisting clients up or
competitor research or thingslike that.
And I'm on Google a lot,whereas, and so then I want to
make sure when I actually go tolook for a service or product, I
know I go to Google.
It's just the way I am and a lotof other people do that.
So that's where you want to havea presence for people who are.
At a certain stage of theirbuying cycle.
Right.
Or thought process where they'regonna find you.

(06:26):
Whereas when I get off of work Igo and I, you know, I finally
want to decompress and I sitdown on my porch or in a chair
or something, and guess where Igo?
I go to LinkedIn, I go toFacebook.
You know, I just start checkingthings out.
Instagram for some people,TikTok these days, right?
And so that's where, but I'mstill the same person that will
be influenced by who, you know,the pro the brands that I

(06:49):
potentially have are a good fitfor.
I by the way, yeah, I like,yeah, I like that point.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
So I didn't answer yourquestion, but there's social,
which is organic and paid.
Organic is where you just see.
The businesses share content andthings like that.
And then paid is where they doan advertisement.
There's Google search.
Google has a Google displaymechanism, which is similar to

(07:09):
paid social.
You know, I don't know there's.
There's lots of white, you know,email coming in, SMS coming in.
There's these scenes calledvoicemail drops where a
voicemail just pops into yourinbox, which is, people blow
their minds when they get that.
They think they missed a call.
And it's that's the impressionthey give, but it's just a
voicemail.
But guess what?
People listen to those'causethey're curious to who this is,
and that gives you a chance toget, you know, somebody's.

(07:32):
In front of somebody that youmay not otherwise.
So anyway I probably workedaround that question, but
essentially that's kind of how Iperceive it actually.
I actually I prefer theexplanation, actually.
Your explanation much better.
Me, I'm, that's how my mindworks.
Maybe that's how my mind'sstructured, but that makes
complete sense.
And to your point, yeah, I'mLinkedIn during the day, but in
the evenings I'm not onLinkedIn.
You know, I'm on Instagram and.

(07:54):
It's one way I bond with thekids.
The kids would be sending me,you know, stupid videos and you
know, it's like we can find thestupider video, so we're sharing
them back and forth.
Actually, text message doesn'twork.
If it's not a Instagram message,then they're not even
responding.
So that's my way.
Oh yeah.
There go, being able tocommunicate with two high school
kids.
So that's, oh, wow.
That's a whole, I take skill.

(08:14):
We'll do a show.
We'll take skill right there.
We'll do a show on that, that'llbe next week's show.
But you might need a couch forthat one though.
Yeah, that's a differentconversation.
Couch.
And I'm, and I'll bring the kidsin.
We'll have a, it'll be a party.
You know, SEO is, as youmentioned it's more organic.
There's a lot of.
Components to it and maybe wecome back to SEO.
But my thing and you know, thequestions that I have, and I'm

(08:35):
sure the listeners have is, youknow, the game has changed back
in the day.
You know, you just did a blogpost and that was more than
enough because there was lesspeople on, there was less
technology, less ways.
Right.
So now with the with AI andeverything that's being able to
be produced, I'm noticing I do aGoogle search.
It's like you're getting ai, nowyou're getting ai responses.

(08:56):
Up top.
Which I found interesting.
So that.
You know, correct me if I'mwrong, that is, that's, is that
still technically SEO becausethe AI is pulling from
somewhere.
So if you can explain a littlebit about, you know, what this,
what the future looks like ifyou're doing traditional SEO
what is gonna change in thefuture and how do you make it to
that, you know, to where the AIis gonna be picking up your

(09:18):
stuff.
Yeah, I mean, over all the, Imean, I've been doing this for
15 years.
I say 15 years because I haven'tdone the math to know exactly
how many years.
I probably should do that oneday, but definitely over 15
years if I were to look backand.
Search engines have changed.
You know, when I first startedthis, there wasn't even Google,
right?
There wasn't even Google.
I was, you know, and you know,there's Yahoo, there's a OL

(09:38):
which people may not even heardof.
You know, there's search engineshave evolved over the time.
Now Google ends up becoming the800 pound and gorilla literally
overnight.
And so that's where alleverybody ever talks about.
But then even beyond Google,YouTube's a search engine.
YouTube, yeah.
Was bought by Google.
They didn't invent YouTube, youknow, and that was its own
search engine.

(09:59):
You know, duck goes a searchengine.
Obviously Microsoft and nowBing.
So there, so over the years I'vebeen doing this search engine
have came and went and there'snew search engines even going
to.
Instagram's a search engine.
You're looking, usually whenyou're investigating and trying
to find either a brand orsomebody interesting you wanna
listen to, or even like apodcast, people go to the search

(10:19):
engine of podcast.
Research franchise podcaster.
Right.
You know, and or franchiseinformation.
And they wanna find thepodcasters talking about
franchise stuff'cause they haveinterest in that.
So all these things are searchengines and they follow a very
similar pattern.
Guess what, when AI comes intothe picture.
It's the same thing, it's just away more advanced competitor
that, you know, good, bad, orotherwise.

(10:40):
It just means that I need to putenergy into figuring out what
that new robot needs to see to,you know, for our, for my
clients to then be seen and befound.
And you know, for me it's been,I've been.
Seeing this coming for threeyears now.
A lot of people are just beingintroduced to this like this
year or so.
So this isn't new to me.

(11:01):
I've already been doing theresearch and it's rapidly
changing.
So I don't wanna sit here andsay that anybody's an expert.
But once you understand thebones and the fundamentals of it
you just keep evolving from thatand to account for that.
In the strategy that I take onfor my clients now, it's
affecting informational searchesmore than anything.
When somebody's doing research,like I've been using it a lot.

(11:22):
I hate, I don't know if I wannaadmit it or not, but I like
adding context.
If you can't tell, I can talkand talk and talk.
When I search for something, I'drather give a paragraph search
with tons of context and I wantAI to give me the answers'cause
I can get.
Same context back and then myanswer, that's more valuable to
me than having me to go dig forthat information.
And so it's, so right now we'reseeing it mostly affect those

(11:46):
types of searches, right?
You never go to Google and writea paragraph, right?
And the quality of the bolt I'mgetting is helpful, but if I'm
looking for a roofing company atthe franchisee level, at the
local level, I mean, think aboutai, they're full of information,
but like how does AIdifferentiate between 10 roofing
companies, you know?
The information that's providedto them on the surface of a

(12:07):
website is all equal.
In AI's mind.
They're gonna look for thirdparty information, like reviews,
right?
They wanna see the sentiment ofthose reviews.
They wanna see other websitesrecommending them, you know,
forums, Reddit, things likethat.
So like they're evaluating itvery similarly than how Google
does, but probably a little moreunique though.
So I think if I were.

(12:28):
You know, a betting man.
I'd say there's inconsistency inlocal results at this point, and
that's what I have to navigateis I could be following the same
strategy for 20 franchisees andI might have 20 different
results.
Where right now I have a verysimilar result.
So that's where I have toovercome.
But it's because it's just sucha new.
Place to go into.

(12:49):
There's no clarity onconsistency that I can follow
any patterns to then create astrategy to consistently win.
Right.
And that's where it's, it seemsto be changing rapidly is, but
the bones are there still notquite.
Seeing the patterns that I wouldwant to, I need to know exactly
what to do.
I mean, admittedly, I'm notgonna sit here like other

(13:09):
marketers claim, they're AIexperts at this point.
It's all bs.
It's moving too fast, but we'restill smart enough people to
move with it.
It's just constantly chasing atthis point.
Gotcha.
At least how It's how I feel.
Yeah.
It's it's an evolving thing andI feel you know, it's just
you're constantly learningthings.
If I find once you figure itout, it's changing, but.
I guess if you learn anything,it is just to evolve with it.

(13:31):
It's not it's not stagnant, it'snot you know, you're constantly
having to improve.
You know, you're on page oneday, you know, this week and
that you may be at page 20 ifyou're not keeping up.
So that's why you have to lovewhat you do because then what I
do, I love it.
I love the challenge oflearning.
I've been doing it for 15 yearsfor a reason.
This isn't new, it's justdifferent version of what I

(13:52):
experienced.
And if you don't love this, ifyou're doing this as a job,
you're not gonna cons always be.
Interested in this type of stuffto continue to learn.
So I think that's maybe where Imight have an advantage over
other people is I just, I can'thelp it.
I need to constantly be in frontof it, not even for the sake of
my business, because I'm justgenerally curious, you know?
Right.
And I think that helps me a lot.

(14:14):
Loving, chasing this type ofstuff.
So I'm not mad about it.
I'm actually happy that I likethe evolvement.
If it's too stale, I get bored,or that means other people can
get into my space and I now Ihave more competitors because if
it's easy, everybody will do it.
Right, exactly.
And they'll do it themselves,right?
If it was easy.
There there's so many elementsas you know, as a solopreneur
that it's hard to keep on top ofthings.

(14:35):
Two parts.
Number one.
You have an SEO masterclass thatyou had shared with me, if you
can talk about that and whothat's for.
And then the second part wouldbe if you are working with that
startup franchisee or even thesolopreneur, just say they're
not even a franchisee and theyhave only, we'll say five hours

(14:55):
a week to really spend time onSEO, you know, what would be
where should I start and whatwould be your top
recommendations.
Yeah, those are good questions.
I mean, I created the franchiseSEO masterclass that's being
hosted on franchisors.com.
If anybody wants to go check itout, it's free.
The reason why I created that isbecause I've talked to pro
hundreds of franchise brandsover the years of doing this.

(15:18):
Thousands of franchisees and Iget the same questions over and
over again.
Okay?
So I put those questions in avideo like this and I put'em
into a list where you can, youdid, you or your marketing teams
can go find, get questionsanswered without having to like
book a call with me and ask methe question.
You know, people are sometimesuncomfortable just getting one
answer.
They think I'm gonna try to sellthem something.
I'm not that way, but I made iteasy for them and put'em out

(15:40):
there and said, Hey, go get youranswers.
And the second reason why isbecause.
These franchise brands, I'llinherit them.
I'll, you know, I'll sign'em asa client and there's so many
mistakes and I go, I know wherethose mistakes come from.
They're either coming from theirlack of education or their
agency's lack of education and,you know, they mean but they
don't know what they don't know.
You know, they don't know theintricacies of, and the depth of

(16:03):
what SEO can be and all thelessons learned from that depth.
So then I have to fix it, andthen a lot of times I have to
fix it.
That takes resources and timeand money.
It also slows down.
The results that I could getsomebody if they didn't make
those mistakes.
So I'm hoping brands and theirmarketing teams will go and get
questions answered, and at thevery least use it to challenge

(16:23):
their existing agencies or theirexisting marketing teams and get
them to at least address itbefore they take a step.
In a different direction ormaybe learn something and go,
Hey, let's do what Lonnie sayson here.
And then, you know, maybe oneday if I end up working with
them it'll make my life easier.
And ultimately that brain'sgonna have a better experience
and get a better result.
And that's ultimately whatmatters to me.

(16:46):
And what, and the site wasagain.
It's on franchisors.comfranchisors.
It's, and you know, they hostedit.
You know, I'm starting to do,you know, probably do some
videos and stuff on YouTube atsome point.
Just not quite developed thereyet.
But right now franchisors.com ishosting it for me.
So happy that they did that.
And you know, it's a resourcefor everybody that's free.

(17:08):
I can give you the link and youcan add it to this description
or whatever, wherever you wannaput it.
People can get to it easily.
But then, you know, the secondquestion you asked was about if
somebody has limited time youknow, let's say they have one
hour a week or two hours a week,or five hours a month to put
into SEO.
I mean, it's a good question.
A couple things.
One, you gotta have content outthere.

(17:29):
I know that's something that youhear over and over again.
You're doing it right now.
You're creating content, youknow, you're having me on here
and you're talking about thingsthat are related to the industry
you're in, and the directionyou're, you know, the businesses
you're pursuing would get valueoutta the conversations like
this.
So doing something like this iswell worth your time and energy.
It's just, what's your versionof this?
At whatever business is watchingthis.

(17:51):
Right?
Right.
I mean, I'm not a comfortableperson interviewing people.
I won't ever do a podcast.
I can talk, you can tell that Ican answer questions.
I mean, I guess that's easy whenyou know stuff, you just answer
things top of your head.
So it's not like a challenge.
But I wouldn't be good atinterviewing people, so it's not
a good fit for me.
So you gotta find what's a goodfit for you, what channel that's
on.
You obviously want to be in thechannels that.

(18:12):
That your customers will be orwhatever, but there's some
influence there.
But ultimately, find what you'recomfortable with and just start
with what's easy for you.
Don't force yourself intogenerating content or doing
things that you're notcomfortable with.
I'm not good on social media.
Like I'll sit here and answerthese.
Questions, but then now I,LinkedIn or Facebook or

(18:33):
whatever, and I need to postselfies.
And I'm at, I mean, I was at aconference yesterday, I didn't
even take one picture.
That's stupid.
I'm a marketing guy.
I didn't take one picture.
And so now I'm like, I probablyshould have taken some pictures
and put'em on LinkedIn, but Ijust, it's not my instincts, but
you gotta go steal'em.
Gotta go steal'em from othersdoing the masterclass.
Correct.
You know, doing a masterclasswas my thing I could lean into

(18:53):
and I now I have this huge assetthat hopefully will lead me and
get me in front of people that Iwouldn't.
And get in front of.
So content is over sold in thesense of everybody says get
content.
But what is Find the, just findworks for you and just start
there and just stay focused onthat and build it out.
And then you can figure out onceyou have that, like how do you

(19:15):
get people in front of that?
That's.
That's how, what I recommend, Iguess if I was a franchisee.
The other element, and you askeda question about AI already is
AI is actually evaluating afranchisee or a local business
or you know, solopreneur thathas their own local business.
It's not so much.
As much about what Leilani cando on a website, it's about the

(19:38):
whole picture is actuallybecoming crystallized in AI's
mind.
They can see the big picturewhere Google has tried many
years to see the big picture,but they still compartmentalize
all the elements.
Of what a real business does.
It's not just the content on thewebsite, it's how many reviews
they have.
It's, I already said it earlier,the sentiment on in, you know,
in forums, the sentiment insocial, things like that.

(19:59):
And they're evaluating all thattogether and deciding who should
be number one.
AI is gonna be, do somethingsimilar, but I think they're
gonna be better at the otherthings that aren't on a website,
that aren't in a Google businessprofile.
The things that I know how tomanipulate the best are still
gonna have value, but I thinkthere's gonna be more value in.
AI being able to evaluate a realbusiness that's highly sought

(20:20):
after in a market, and that'swhere you, as the business owner
needs to be out there and doingall those glue things that it's
hard for an agency to do andthat's.
Collaborating with other localbusinesses, you know, joining
Chamber of Commerce.
I know this sounds like stuffyou've already heard before, but
this is the stuff that then endsup online and ends up in
different areas and referralsand you build brand ambassadors

(20:41):
at the local level.
All those types of thingsgenerate activity and
conversations and things that AIis now gonna see at a better
debt.
And that's gonna be influencingWW how much you show up in a.
In the AI search engine or theAI version of the search engine.
Gotcha.
Those are the types of things.
So just do real business, reallocal marketing.
I know it sounds like it's seemslike a cop out answer, but I'm

(21:02):
telling you the act, you know, Ialways see franchise brands say,
I want my franchisees to be themayor of town.
I hear that everywhere.
It's true.
And this is even doubling downon that because you need to be
out there creatingrelationships, creating, you
know, with the intentpotentially to create referrals.
Yes.
Things like that, that is gonnadrive activity, that is gonna be
picked up by AI and that's gonnaget influencing SEO, which is

(21:25):
this.
People aren't gonna really putthis together, but that's
ultimately what I'd recommendwith my time is don't make a
to-do list of things you'regonna do for SEO and I'm gonna
optimize this or whatever.
Either generate content or ifyou're in a local market, you
can still generate content, butlean into fostering
relationships locally becausethat will circle back around and

(21:46):
generate the activity onlinethat these AI search engines are
gonna be seeing and using toinfluence where you show up.
Right?
There's a long answer.
Like always for me.
No, it's good.
You, I mean, a big part of it,as you mentioned the stuff that
you enjoy doing.
Like you said, you don't, younot necessarily a podcaster, but
you enjoyed the masterclass,which was that, you know, with
those, the series of videos.

(22:06):
So it's gotta be sustainable,right?
If you're gonna get sick of itthe first time, obviously.
Oh, podcasts.
Don't work.
What was the intent of thepodcast?
And you gave up after 10episodes, so what?
What the hell did you do?
It was kind of a, I'm not, youdidn't even, you didn't give a
shot.
I've heard from expert podcastmarketers that you're not, it
doesn't make sense to you do ahundred, you know, yeah.

(22:28):
Oh man.
I don't even know how to inter,I mean, that's where I like, get
realistic for myself.
Say, I'm not gonna interview ahundred people.
I mean, I might.
I don't know.
It's just not that I don't wantto commit to that energy.
I just know I won't be happyabout it, so it won't be
something I enjoy.
So that means it's gonna be likea job.
It's gonna be painful, and so Ican't express enough that you
don't have to force yourselfinto a box like I.

(22:49):
There's ways you can beinfluencing people everywhere.
It's just gotta find what theway speaks to you and then just,
right.
But then you gotta commit to itlike no matter what.
That's the other thing is peoplegive up way too soon and they
just say, this isn't working.
I don't know.
And then they don't do itbecause they don't, but I don't
know, I don't know how toexplain it, but I have tons of
examples of clients of mine andeven myself where I just commit

(23:09):
to something heavily and justlet it.
You know, see it through to theend and it does work.
I mean, I can't tell you enoughthat masterclass has brought me
leads that I never would've gotif I didn't have it.
And I spent a lot of time onthat thing.
But it was easy time for me.
It was just time.
The time is what I struggledwith that because I have work to
do.
But but doing it, I enjoy it.

(23:31):
I could do that all day.
You know, I have a lot to sayclearly.
I keep over-explaining things,but, so that's why it was easy
for me, and I have other thingsI want to do.
It's gonna be easy to do.
It's just gotta find the time,and then I'm gonna do it right.
And then eventually, over thefuture after that'll produce
activities that, again, if Ididn't do that right one, it
came my way.
Yeah, no, I, yeah I, it makescomplete sense.

(23:52):
I wish I had learned some ofthis stuff sooner, but speaking
of shows, this is, I don't knowthe exact number, but we're at,
we're approaching 250.
This is our.
Our fifth year, we're doingabout 50 a year.
This is, yeah, fifth yearbasically.
So we started just before COVIDI think it was March February,
March of 2020.
So I.
Oh, you're a natural.
I mean, you just, it's in yourbones, right?

(24:12):
It doesn't this isn't work foryou is it just feels now it's
during COVID, you know, at firstwe, we built a show to educate,
but then it became education,but it also became networking.
That was my networking thing.
And a lot of people don't have,you know, you may take you two
hours or take a flight to seesomeone.
And I'm not saying.
This takes the place of that,but I'm able to meet someone new

(24:33):
just about every single week,talk with them, learn a new
topic, share that with theworld.
You know, we create a blog forevery single one, so it's
helpful.
Now, my, I guess my website is asearch engine.
You can just search a word andit'll pull up any single topic
that was brought up.
We have the transcripts onthere, people find that useful
but what I hear all the time is,you know, they go back to the
site.
They don't look past the last 10shows.

(24:55):
So we're bringing a lot oftopics back up, you know, not
that there's any change, butit's let's revisit marketing,
let's revisit you know, youryour FDD review or your
accounting best practices andstuff like that.
Not many changes.
There, there's some updates asyou just got back from the
conference, maybe some newthings you learned, which will.
Which we'll add, but not a lotchanges at least when you're
doing due diligence or lookingat brands and stuff like that.

(25:17):
So yeah, it's fun.
And for me it's natural.
It's just part of what my weeklyroutine, it's just new show
every week.
Sometimes we batch record'em,but it's fun.
I truly enjoy it.
I know some people don't, andthey first told me I had a face
radio and we just did audio, andthen we added video.
And I was like, I'm screwed now.
And now I gotta figure, I gottabe, I gotta become a writer and
I am definitely not.
A good writer.

(25:37):
So this is something that's easyfor me.
It's fun and yeah, it's but forsome people, I have friends of
mine that I, that were on thesame kind of group, and they're
writers, they're afraid, youknow, afraid of the camera.
So they write, and that'sequally as good.
I think if that's how you canconnect with people.
You said it a minute ago thatlike the networking that came
from this, that wasn't yourprimary focus on doing this.

(25:57):
I guarantee when you starteddoing this, you're thinking that
you're gonna get lots ofsubscribers and followers and
lots of people finding you thatway, and that's how you're gonna
make this make sense.
But I bet you the networking iswhat produced more value out of
it.
So that's where people give upon things too soon because they
focus, they don't realize big.
They stick a step back and thinkabout all the things that come

(26:17):
from that.
And then, you know, they don'treally put that together.
It's understandably.
'cause you really may not ifyou're not experienced with it,
but I guarantee the networkingyou brought to the table.
Was the differentiator here.
I mean, when I was at thisconference the other day, I
mean, people walked up to me andsaid, LA, you haven't been
posting on LinkedIn?
I just told you earlier, I don'tlike social media.
So like when I got too busy overthe last few months, I, believe

(26:39):
me, I have tons of content toget out there.
I just been.
Too overwhelmed to actually getto it, but I realized, geez, you
actually paid attention.
People are paying attention tothis stuff, you know, so now I
gotta oh, I gotta get back togetting some stuff out there.
But you know, you don't realizehow many people actually see
this stuff and put a face to aname and recognize it.
You know?
I, it's weird.
It's so anyway I really, yeah,that s cel the celebrity status,

(27:03):
I call it.
What?
Yeah, a little bit.
I mean, it was surprising forsure, for me.
What was if you could share thename of the conference and if
you had any, if you can shareany takeaways.
It was the Young conference in,in Scottsdale this year.
You know, the Fisherman's andRyan Hicks put it on.
And the, and I.

(27:24):
You know, they also doSpringboard, which is one of
their other popular conferencesthat I also go to, and I think
they have a third one calledUnconference as well, which is
more of a small group.
And you know, they have lots ofemerging and mid franchise
brands there.
And you know, it's good forsomeone like me to go there and
shake hands and kiss babies, butthen it's an educational
platform, so they have peoplespeaking and talking and

(27:45):
educating things that I thinkbrings a lot of value.
But the most value comes out ofjust talking to people.
I mean, I got, again, the samequestions on my masterclass.
Got asked to me 35 times is thelast few days, you know, and I
like, and I feel I can, youknow, I feel bad'cause I'm like
this is my masterclass.
It's not self-promotion, but Iwant them to know that I know
they have more questions andtheir marketing team, they're

(28:05):
not gonna remember my answer.
Even when I told them at the,you know, in person, they're
gonna go back and try to telltheir marketing person, you
know, Lonnie said, go do this,you know, and then they're
gonna, they're gonna butcher it.
So I say, go to my masterclass.
Get your marketing teams there.
They can just get questionsanswered about website structure
about.
Content about GBP stuff.
You know, you name it I coveredthe whole basis.

(28:27):
Even if it's just looselyrelated.
SEO, it's on there.
'cause they're the questions Iget asked.
So I, you know, love sharing myknowledge and I love helping
people.
You know, especially mergingbrands that don't have the big
budgets, they still need.
To know this stuff, they stillneed to head in the right
direction and make the rightdecisions that will get them
results or save them a lot ofmoney and time in doing the

(28:49):
wrong things, right.
So that's where I'm happy tohave it out there and I hope
people like it and utilize itfor that, for those reasons.
I I went through the class andit was very helpful, so I
greatly appreciate it.
So for anyone, we'll you know,anyone listening and that's
interested, we'll put the thelink in the show notes switch,
switching gears a little bitbecause you know, you work with.
Franchisors as well asfranchisees and in every

(29:11):
organization is different.
You know, depending if thefranchisor offers what they call
turnkey marketing.
Some are gonna be a little bitless, and not because they don't
wanna assist their franchisees,but maybe it's more B2B and they
have you going out and doingmore of the networking in the
chamber.
But we see a lot of, in the homeservices space, which you have a
lot of experience in, you know,helping those brands.

(29:31):
So the question that comes up isthat there's a different
strategy at the franchisorlevel.
There's typically a brand fund.
You know, you're getting kind ofthat national presence across
the country.
And then you have thefranchisees located in their
specific markets, maybe a couplezip codes or a handful of zip
codes in their in their state.
So the question is, you know.
The strategies are different,but at the same time how do they

(29:54):
work?
How do you kind of work togetherso that you're not replicating
posts and content andpotentially I would assume maybe
get penalized for that.
So what, how does that strategykind of differ when you're
putting money into the brandfund, but you're also doing kind
of, marketing at the local levelwhere, I mean, the information
for the most part is similarbecause you're all dealing with
the same brand.

(30:14):
Yeah, I mean, I run this a lot.
I mean, every brand I work withhas a different version of what
you just said.
I mean, it's amazing.
Everybody has opinions, youknow, other agencies have
opinions from, some, fromexperience, some from lack of
experience will recommendthings.
So there's all this noise ofinformation and recommendations
out there.
So I understand why there's thisbig variety of what I inherit

(30:36):
when I work with the brand oreven.
I just analyze brands a lot.
I have, Hey Lonnie, can you lookat my website and tell me what
you think?
And I'll get on calls with them.
I'll give them my advice, youknow, and get off that call.
But it's amazing the differencesin what I see.
And again, a lot of my.
Recommendations or in mymasterclass I know that sounds
like I'm promoting it, but it'sthis is all, these are all the
kind of questions I get isgenerally what you just asked.

(30:57):
And so I can't stress enoughthat I've covered all this stuff
in, in there and for people whoare listening to this and that
have their own concerns andquestions to go get'em asked.
But anyway so what I seecommonly is.
The brand will take money outtathe brand fund, use it for lots
of things, but if they end updoing SEO or using some of it
for SEO, there is a national.

(31:19):
SEO strategy, right?
And so when Google is looking ata franchise brand's website,
they don't sit there and go, oh,that's a franchise.
They, it's not how they analyzethings.
They analyze things that it'sjust another website.
And so when they see thatwebsite, they have the same
expectations as they would seeon your website or a franchisees
website if they have a differentwebsite, is they wanna see
content about the subject matterthat they're in.

(31:41):
So it doesn't matter whatindustry you're in, there's an
expectation that you're gonnabe.
Talking about, you know, med spainformation or roofing
information or medicalinformation about whatever you
do or whatever you sell orwhatever you offer.
And and you want to, you kind ofwant to be informative.
You want to display the factthat you are an expert, so you
have all this wealth ofinformation that.

(32:02):
Anybody in the general publiccan turn to learn something like
it's a resource.
So that's one thing at thenational level your brand should
be doing.
Some of'em do some of themdon't.
Some of'em do it well, some ofthem don't.
Right?
So there's just lots of varietyof what that is, and I could
talk about that for an hour byitself.
But when you're a franchisee.
If your brain is doing it right,then you don't need to establish

(32:25):
yourself as the expert inroofing, you don't establish
yourself as the expert in, in,you know, facials or waxing or,
you know, men's health, whateverit may be.
You just need to establish thefact that you are operating in
your city.
Okay?
So when you're, you know, yourfranchise brand gives you a
micro side of some sort, whichis hopefully tied to the brand

(32:46):
itself.
So now you're being evaluated'cause you're connected to that
brand.
You don't need to write, rewritea blog about roofing.
You don't need to rewrite a blogabout medical stuff.
You know, you don't need toestablish yourself as an expert
in the niche or the industryyou're in because that's already
been done at the website brandlevel.
If the brand's doing it right,so you really just trying to
establish yourself with localrelevance that you are in that

(33:09):
geographic market.
So that's where there's reallynot a lot you can do above and
beyond.
What's usually recommended is ifyou have any ability to optimize
your website yourself, or youcan.
You know, your franchise brandworks with an agency that can do
it for you.
What you're really doing is mostbrands, every website is exactly

(33:29):
the same one for thefranchisees, the microsite.
So you have a very similarstructure, right?
Now, the only difference wouldbe.
This one's gonna talk aboutScottsdale.
This one's gonna talk about LosAngeles.
This one's gonna talk aboutDenver.
This one's talk about Miami.
But usually the rest of thecontent about the industry
they're in is the same.
Now when like I take on afranchisee and we do local SEO

(33:50):
for them, one of the firstthings we do is, you know, in
theory we're getting.
You know the brands we workwith, I only work with them if I
can actually optimize that page.
Some brands don't allow that.
They're like, no, this is atemplate.
We're not touching it.
Oh, really?
You're severely limiting myability to improve that
franchisees market.
But they're like, in their mindit's scale and it's the

(34:10):
management of.
Hundreds of locations that have,will have different content,
whatever it may reasons whythey'd make that decision, I
don't think they understand theimpact it has by being able to
optimize locally.
So we'll go to that page andwe'll really hone in and be
hyperlocal and add a bunch morewords about the points of
interest in Scottsdale.
You know, you know, talk aboutthe things that only people in

(34:33):
Scottsdale would recognize, andit's not even related to the
industry you're in, but what I'mtrying to establish in Google's
mind is that.
We are operating there and Iknow that sounds like it's an
obvious thing.
You said Scottsdale and yourpager.
What else do you need to do,Lonnie?
You know, there's 30Springfields in the US right?
You know, there's 80 some oddWashingtons, right?
I mean, or WA related toWashington.

(34:54):
So Google is a robot again, andyeah, you might give enough
information that makes itobvious to you that you're
operating that city.
But Google's robot wants to seemore debt.
I mean, there's Pasadena, Texas,there's Pasadena, California.
And so if you don't reallyhighlight.
More specific hyper-localinformation that differentiates
the two pasadenas.

(35:16):
And yeah, you can put Californiaand Texas and that seems like an
obvious thing, but I'm tellingyou from experience, it takes
more, right?
And the more depth we go withlocalizing that content, the
more Google trusts.
Which city you're in, and thenwe will rank you higher because
of that.
So that's one of the things thatwe do for our clients.
But if you're a franchisee andyou can edit your own content,

(35:37):
find a way to crowbar that inthere, add your own influence.
And so that's what you can do tothe website.
And then when it comes to yourGoogle business profile, which
is.
You know, more important in myopinion, than the website
itself.
That my next question?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
That's where you wanna do thesame thing.
You wanna make it hyperlocal,you want to add photos and your,
I mean, I was just at a afranchisees grand opening when I
was in Scottsdale actually.

(35:58):
And this is another thing Ididn't even put on LinkedIn, so
I'm actually gonna do thattoday.
But, which was cool to go seefranchisees in person, right?
You can boots on the ground, youcan meet the people, you can,
you know, really put thatperspective out there.
So I really enjoyed myself outthere, but I sat there and I
told the owner, I said, okay,drive all around Scottsdale
taking pictures.
I.
Of points of entry, theScottsdale sign, the things that

(36:19):
are recognizable.
Put your, yeah, your wrappedvehicle out in front of it and,
you know, make a, you know, makea comment about it.
But what you're effectivelydoing in Google's eyes is you're
confirming to them that you areoperating there.
That's your territory, that'syour service area.
It's not enough just to sayScottsdale on your website,
Scottsdale inside your Googlebusiness profile.
They wanna see that depth andthat depth is often very hard

(36:39):
for a brand or an agency toproduce.
So if I'm a franchisee, and I'mtrying to do the things that are
gonna bring the most value to meas a franchisee.
Again, hoping the brand is doingthe right things.
Then when you come in and do thethings I just mentioned, that's
gonna be a game changer for you.
So that's what I wouldrecommend.
That's going to keep things, youknow, keep the conflicts down.

(37:02):
When it comes to, again, if youwrite about roofing and your
franchise, a lot of brands willgive their franchise these local
blogs.
And I see them write aboutroofing, about med spa.
All you do is hurt the brandbecause the brand already has
content about that stuff.
Right.
So when you write about it.
Google looks at the two.
They just, they're just twopages on the same website.
And if they're the exact,they're talking about both about

(37:23):
roofing or both about, you know,I dunno, skincare, whatever it
may be.
Then Google doesn't know whichpage should be the premier page.
So it actually brings down thenational page, which reduces the
effectiveness of it.
'cause there's lack of traffic.
Your page goes up a little bit,but your page will never go to
number one locally.
Right?
So you have to be very selectivewith the content you generate at

(37:44):
a franchisee level on thewebsite.
To things that are justhyperlocal that are unique to
that location.
If it can be answered Nash to ona national post that's generic,
it doesn't mean you need a localversion of that.
'cause people aren't going toGoogle and searching for how do
I fix a roof leak?
And then in Houston, right?

(38:05):
What's the difference betweenHouston or whatever, right?
So like people, I see thoseblogs everywhere and I'm like,
you just kill, you just wastedyour money and energy, right?
And you actually hurt the brandprobably.
Anyway, I can have a lot, I cangive you 10 examples of this
where I've seen, I went to thebrand and go, look, I'm gonna go
delete all this stuff.
I don't care how much yourfranchisees spent on this,
you're act, they're actuallyhurting us, the system as a

(38:26):
whole.
And you know, that's a wholebattle by itself.
But anyway, I can't evenimagine.
You got all these other businessowners and Yeah, it's and they
may not real, they're not doingit intentionally, right?
They're doing No, they have goodintentions.
They're good.
It's a good thought process, butno one's.
Telling them otherwise, youknow, everybody's moving a
hundred miles an hour and theagency, it's just but you gotta
put these in the brand policy.
So I'll work with brands andsay, Hey, here are the rules

(38:47):
that you need to put out there.
I need to tell you why.
And then they put'em out therewithin the franchisees are like,
oh, my nephew, who's an SEO guysays, I need a blog and do all
these things.
Like the intention's, right?
But that.
Person doesn't have theexperience to know what they're
actually asking for and what theimpact is negatively when you're
working in a franchise system.
So that's where it ends upbecoming a battle.
And it, it shouldn't, but itjust does.

(39:09):
And so brands want to behelpful.
They want to be collaborative.
So a lot of times they say yesand then because they don't know
either, and.
Backfires.
Yeah.
I come in and go, we're gonna godelete all this.
And they just look at me inhorror and I go or we don't,
then I'm gonna go work withsomebody else because it's not,
I'm not gonna be able to do myjob, you know?
Right.
So anyway.
Yeah, I can only imagine.
I've heard horror stories andyes, it's it's difficult, but

(39:32):
you're the expert in that area.
Right.
And now we know what to do, kindof going forward.
You know, the plan is createcontent, but this is how you go
about it.
We kind of handle the rest,needs be strategic for sure.
It's gotta be very strategic.
I absolutely agree.
And I didn't really understandall the moving parts as well.
So yes, you, it's not likeyou're selling it, the course is
free, you know, worth a watch,even if you watch a couple

(39:53):
modules there.
Completely helpful.
Can you share maybe kind ofputting it all together and to
kind of round out the show maybea recent success story where you
were able to, and we'll keep itin the franchise space.
Where you were able to help thefranchisor, franchisee or even
both really turn things aroundspecifically with SEO.

(40:14):
There's a lot of successstories.
I mean, I think about the,there's the biggest one that
pops in my head immediately.
It's not the most recent.
There's some recent ones, butit's all the same story.
Right.
A lot of times you know, a brandusually engages with me because
they're not feeling like they'regetting the results from whoever
they're working with, right?
That's usually the case.
And then somebody says, oh, youneed to talk to Lonnie, or
whatever, and they go, okay,Lonnie, you know, let's.

(40:35):
Get on a call and the firstthing I do is I go look at their
website and I have tools thatevaluate it and gimme a sense of
what they've done.
I can see all the history.
I mean, it's not a hundredpercent of it, but 80% I can see
with these tools and I go, okay.
Piece together.
I already know what they did, Iknow or what they didn't do, and
I can look at their website.
I mean, that's the beauty ofbeing an SEO is everything's
right in front of you.

(40:55):
There's no guessing game.
And so I can see the depth ofthe quality of the content, how
well it was optimized, all ofthat.
And I.
Get on the call and I show themwhat their competitors are
doing.
I show them what, why thecompetitors are doing better.
I show, I mean, I give them lotsof real world examples.
I show them where theirdeficiencies are and then they,
you know, again, a lot of otheragencies do the same thing, and

(41:17):
it's easy to poke holes andstuff and say things and
whatever.
So I, I take that the grain ofsalt if I was a brand, but I
take it very seriously and thinkI give a lot of great advice and
give a lot of direction.
So I do that and then.
They say, okay, Lonnie, I trustyou for whatever reason like
what you're hearing orrecommendation, you're referred
by the right people, or you havea track record, whatever it may

(41:39):
be, and they go give it a shot.
And then I would inherit thesite and get all my access to
it.
And a lot of times I'minheriting websites from very
well-known marketing agencies.
I mean, you name them.
I know them and I hate pokingholes in their stuff because,
you know, it's, we're still allmarketers and we're all on the
same team at some capacity.
But I also see what they've doneand the reason why there's no

(42:01):
lack of results.
So I have to poke holes so thebrand knows that there's
deficiencies here, right?
So I take'em over and.
I work on the franchiseeslocation page.
I do things like I mentionedearlier, I delete blogs, you
know, I do lots of things.
I optimize the Google businessprofile and everything starts
moving.

(42:21):
And so I remember one brandspecifically, which popped in my
head.
I went through the history ofthe research on them, and they
worked with the, probably thebiggest marketing agency in the
franchise space, which I'm notgonna name names, but I'm sure
you can.
You can.
And they worked with them forseven years, paying them.
I can only imagine how much, andthere was 50 plus franchisees in
the system and they probablygrew like 1% a year.

(42:42):
Right?
2% a year.
And this is just on the SEO Oside.
Right.
And I look at it and they, K andI and the brand I was talking to
said, oh, they just kept saying,SEO takes time.
SEO takes time.
And I'm like, oh.
I hate saying that myself.
The Yeah, the famous, yeah, itdoes take time, but there's just
never ending the seven years.
Yeah, seven years of it takingtime.
But I know it, they went to,they every month they're like,
look at, there's a little bit ofimprovement, but it's just

(43:04):
minuscule.
And then I go look at the leads.
So not only can see the rankingsand the traffic and the clicks,
but then what matters here isare they making sales?
Generating leads.
So I dive into that data and Iwas like, okay, you guys are
generating about 500 leads amonth, which is great in a round
number.
When you divide that by 50 Zs,that's 10 leads a month, which
is still not bad, right?

(43:24):
But seven years, and I can onlyimagine how much money's being
spent.
You know, there's a, there'swhat's the ROI on that?
So long story short, we did apilot with five Zs and just
those five shot.
To, they were generating 50, 60leads a month.
They didn't, not right away.
They generate 20 or 30 and thenit turns into 40, 50 and then,

(43:46):
and at some point after around ayear, they were generating about
a hundred.
Somewhere around the range of 80to 120 leads a month, depending
on the territory and the, youknow, the Z and things like
that, what they were getting ina year.
Wow.
That's impressive.
Yeah.
That was the end result.
So when it was all said anddone, those three, as those five
pilots, you know, we startedtelling all the other Z and all
there, I wanna do this too.

(44:06):
And you know, we did this bigannouncement, you know, and I
explained to everybody what wedo and how we're doing and those
early results, and every singlefranchisee came to the table and
so we just applied it toeverybody and.
18 months into the campaign, youknow, I did a town hall with the
brand and went over the resultsjust so everybody can see it.
And I think we were generatingseven to 8,000 leads a month.

(44:27):
Wow.
You know, and so like it sounds,it's not, you know, that's
doesn't mean that's normal.
Depends the difference.
This brand was around for awhile.
They had a lot of good stuffgoing for them.
When I told you earlier aboutfranchisees doing good things in
business and being talked about,like they checked all the other
boxes, they just didn't have SEOdialed in, right?
Like I just went in there andturned some knobs, did some

(44:49):
stuff that wasn't done and itcan really move that fast.
So again, not at exact, thatkind of trajectory is very
aggressive.
So I don't wanna set myself upfor failure and say I can do
that for everybody.
But just telling you that.
Existing brands do things withfull intent thinking they're
doing well, but there's,depending on the industry you're
in, how competitive it is.

(45:10):
You, there's a whole nothertier, a whole nother level of
what you can do to becompetitive and make this stuff
move.
And that's where I like to feelthat I take that level of depth
and determination when I developa strategy that.
I guess a lot of other agenciesjust don't do, or they think
they're doing it, but they don'tknow that there's a whole nother
level you can go to.

(45:31):
And that's unfortunate.
But that's a big success storythat I like to, that's, no,
that's, think about, that's hugebecause Right.
If they're not, maybe they'renot up to speed on SEO or
they're.
They're not going about it theright way.
And then, you know, it's always,I hear let's just dump money and
paid ads.
Let's just dump money here.
And it's just I call it almostlike the black hole you want,
you know, once you stop thoseads, the leads start, stop

(45:52):
coming in.
So the SEO is something organic?
Yes.
Oh, that's, let me speak tothat.
I mean, you just hit on aperfect thing and it's hard to
explain.
And you know, and first of all,I can't even make a case study
about this because I signed anNDA and the brand has a policy
where they don't want to, youknow, anybody, any, so it's ah,
it kills me.
You know?
'cause I wish I could just putthis out there, but it did
happen.
But what's worse is then theysell to private equity and then

(46:14):
private equity goes, oh, we haveour own agency.
So that own agency takeseverything over.
And so I just keep watching itand everything just keeps
moving.
And I see them add newfranchisees, and guess what?
Those new franchisees aren'tmoving.
Right.
You know, and it's it's all theexisting all, you know, the 50 I
worked with turned into 80 overthose, the 18 months, they all
have enjoyed all this and arejust killing it.

(46:35):
And then I can just imagine theconversations they're having in
there going, why aren't the newones moving at that rate?
You know, but, you know, so it'sjust kills me when that type of
scenario happens.
But it's you know, still feelsgood when.
When you Yeah, it's, it doeshappen for sure.
No, that, that was that's reallyhelpful.
And that's that's one thing my,where my focus has been just
really putting good content.

(46:55):
I'm national, so there's a lotthere.
It's hard to really focus on onearea, but yeah, no learning,
learning every day and trying toapply as much as we can.
I know we went a little bit overlast question I like to ask
everyone that comes on the show.
Fun fact.
I don't know if you rememberwhat you put down.
I don't, Steve.
It's different.
I sometimes I lost a, I lost myspot over here.

(47:19):
I'll ask a fun fact and it'swait a second.
We're going in a differentdirection.
Something about Mexico.
I.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, that's what popped in myhead.
I was like I, you know, I livedin Mexico for 10 years.
I still have a house down there.
And you know, you look at me andI don't look like the
stereotypical guy that would'velived in Mexico.
But for a long time there I wasin Southern California and you
know, got sick of just the grindof.

(47:41):
You know, making a living justto survive in a high dollar area
like Orange County, you know,it's pretty expensive to live
there.
And I was like, you know what?
I just need to take a vacationfor a weekend.
Went to Mexico and rented like acondo there and was like.
What am I doing?
I mean, contrary to you know,not many people would do that.
And there's all these fears ofMexico, which I can, you know,

(48:03):
talk about another day.
But you know, I was one of thebest decisions to make in my
life and happy to do it.
And then I liked it so much I.
Moved there permanently, or atleast for 10 years and built an
agency and hired a bunch ofpeople there and trained them in
SEO and everything.
And a lot of'em are still withme.
I'm currently in Idaho, butdefinitely have a big love for
Mexico.

(48:24):
I like my tacos if you can'ttell by looking at me.
That's always a big thing thatpulls me that direction
constantly.
Part and part two of the funfact, in 10 years you didn't
learn the language.
Not even once.
That's the worst part.
I mean, so I was surrounded byenablers.
I mean, one on one hand, myentire neighborhood is full of
Americans, so everybody's thereand the local bars around there,

(48:45):
everybody speaks English.
So that's the one thing.
The second thing is when I hiredthe team, of course I had to
hire people that spoke English,so who just speak English to me.
And then my, you know, my wife,speak Spanish and English.
So we'd go out if it came downto it, she would just interpret
it.
She was so alive and make mylife easier.
You know, my brain doesn't workthat way though.
I mean, I think that's theproblem too is I'm a, I'm an
analytical person, numbers guy,statistics guy.

(49:08):
My brain's not for languagelike.
I can, even now, I barely pickup words, you know, it's just
it's not my nature.
So it made it easier for me whenI had these enablers surrounding
me.
So that's go Google Translate.
My, my wife is from the CzechRepublic, and when I visit her
family, I don't know, I mean, Iknow maybe five words of C and I
mean, you just talk in thisthing and it just, it talks the

(49:28):
other, I mean, it completelytranslates everything.
And it's it's so convenient.
I don't know how the hell we didit prior to that, but yeah,
it's, technology.
Oh, I technology's great.
As long as it's working.
Technology is great.
Or you have internet.
That's where I'm hopeful AI'sgonna come in and they're gonna
have a solution where, like inreal time.
Yeah.
You know, I know Googletranslates.
Okay.
You know, like it can get youthrough things, but I know AI
would make it a whole notherlevel.

(49:48):
Especially when they, you know,Facebook has those glasses that
they're putting out there.
I know other people are gonna dothe same thing.
Can you imagine it just, helistening to.
What someone's saying and thenwrite on your glasses, would
tell you what, you know, whatthey're saying in English so you
can have a conversation.
It's gonna be that amazing.
Yeah.
I mean, it's priority in thatdirection if I had to guess.
But yeah, I'm excited for that.
I'm excited as well.
Yeah it will help.
I mean, English is spoken inmany countries.

(50:11):
We've traveled and but it's,yeah, it would be pretty, pretty
amazing just to have thatconvenience.
But Lonnie, this was fun, man.
I'm sure we've could haveprobably talked and we've, we
started talking before, we'vespoken again for hours.
Oh yeah.
I think this was this was funand we'll put all your contact
information if anyone wants toreach out.
But I'll put that link for thatmasterclass.
I think that's huge.
It's definitely helped me.

(50:31):
I learned the I learned a lot,applied it all.
And, you know, you gotta beconsistent.
You almost need like thischecklist and you need gonna
eventually have a, an assistantor someone to really assist me
with some of these tasks becausethere is quite a bit that you
can be doing so, but ultimately.
It's gotta be sustainable and toyour point, yeah.
If you just absolutely hate it,either it's gotta be outsourced

(50:52):
somehow, or you gotta I alwayssay pick your platform if it's.
Audio writing as I wasmentioning or video.
Pick what you enjoy doing and itwon't feel like work or else it
becomes a grind.
So completely.
But Awesome.
I appreciate it and yeah, if we,anything that we didn't talk
about that you found helpful, orif you see another resource, if
you shoot me an email, we'llinclude that on the show notes
on the blog as well.

(51:13):
I will definitely do that, and Ireally appreciate you having me
again.
We can talk, we can do anothertwo hours.
Absolutely.
We'd probably put people tosleep as entertaining as we
think we are.
I mean, yeah, right.
We'll do we'll we'll do amasterclass in a different area,
but now it's yeah, there you go.
There you go.
It's it's a lot.
And everyone's got their, I gotthe secret sauce and it's is
there really that, that secretsauce?
It's, there's really, you know,there, there's a.

(51:34):
Yeah, there's a guide, you know,kind of, that's basically what
you created in that masterclass.
You don't need the the nextwhat's the word I'm missing?
The, not the strategy, but likethe hack, I guess.
Right?
It's what's the new hack of theday that's not gonna work.
So I.
But no, this was helpful and Ithink it's good to talk, explain
a little bit more, not just youneed SEO, but what the hell is
SEO to begin with.

(51:54):
How do I actually implement itto start, and that's why we
asked that question.
If I have an hour a week or fivehours a week, whatever that
number is, I.
How do I get started?
So stuff like that.
And then you slowly build.
So just build some consistencyand build it kind of like you
brush your teeth every day.
You're doing a video every day,you're doing some type of
article or blog every week.
It takes a little bit of time.
It becomes a habit at the end ofthe day.

(52:14):
Yeah.
But yeah, no, this is fun.
We'll definitely have you backon and appreciate it and we'll
we'll definitely talk soon.
All right.
Happy to be here and happy to doit again if you choose.
Sounds great.
All right.
Thank you.
Thanks for tuning in if you wantto learn how to make the
transition from corporate toowning your franchise.
Join Giuseppe on the nextepisode.

(52:35):
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