April 16, 2025 • 42 mins
Mastering Google Ads: Lead generation strategies to grow your small business with John Horn of StubGroup
Navigating the complexities of Google Ads can be daunting for small business owners, but in this episode of Small Business Pivots, John Horn, CEO of Stub Group, breaks it all down. From avoiding wasted ad spend to leveraging smart targeting strategies, Horn shares proven tactics that help businesses maximize their digital advertising ROI.
Many small businesses dive into Google Ads without a clear strategy—leading to expensive clicks and poor results. Horn explains why this happens and outlines a step-by-step framework for success, starting with setting clear campaign goals and understanding what each lead or sale is worth to your business.
💡 Key Takeaways from This Episode:
✔️ How Google's pay-per-click system works and why quality scoring matters
✔️ The minimum ad budget needed to make data-driven optimizations
✔️ How to avoid common Google Ads mistakes that drain marketing budgets
✔️ Retargeting strategies to convert website visitors into paying customers
✔️ Best practices for hiring the right digital marketing talent for long-term success
✔️ The importance of website quality, customer reviews, and lead nurturing before launching paid ads
John Horn also shares expert insights on navigating Google’s complex advertising policies, avoiding account suspensions, and ensuring your campaigns stay profitable—even in highly competitive industries.
Whether you're running Google Ads for the first time or looking to improve your results, this episode is packed with actionable strategies to help small businesses generate more leads and grow online.
🔊 Listen now and start running Google Ads the smart way!
John Horn: StubGroup, CEO
Website: https://stubgroup.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnjhorn1/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/stubgroup
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StubGroup
Blog: https://stubgroup.com/blog/
Podcast: https://stubgroup.com/podcasts/
#GoogleAds #DigitalMarketing #SmallBusinessGrowth #OnlineAdvertising #PPCMarketing #GoogleAdsTips #MarketingStrategy #PaidSearch #LeadGeneration #SmallBusinessMarketing #AdvertisingStrategy #GoogleMarketing #MarketingForSmallBusiness #GrowYourBusiness #MarketingTips #Entrepreneurship #MarketingExpert #BusinessSuccess #GoogleAdWords #AdStrategy #JohnHorn #StubGroup #SmallBusinessPivots #MichaelDMorrison #BOSS #BusinessCoach #BusinessLoans #OklahomaCity #BusinessPodcast #SmallBusinessOwner #MarketingForEntrepreneurs #ScaleYourBusiness #BusinessGrowth #MarketingExperts #GoogleAdsSuccess
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots,
where, again this week, we haveanother special guest from
around the world, and this timethey're just one state away from
our great state of Oklahoma, inSan Antonio, texas.
We are proud to have this guesttoday because digital marketing
is a big, big thing for a lotof small business owners these
(00:22):
days, especially on Google, butI know no one can say their name
or their business like thebusiness owner, so I'm going to
let you introduce yourself andtell us just a little bit about
yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Michael, thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
My name is John Horn, I am the CEO of Stub Group and
Stub Group is a digitaladvertising agency.
So, like you mentioned Googleads and other platforms, meta
Ads and so forth Ultimately, wehelp small medium-sized
businesses to find new customersonline, where people are
searching for solutions, andacquire those new customers
(00:56):
profitably and grow and scaletheir businesses.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Wow, wow.
Yeah, sales is a big thingthese days, so how do you think
we're going to help ourlisteners today best?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So there's a lot of directions we can go.
I would love to talk through,maybe, some of the frameworks of
thinking about Google ads.
I'd love to focus on Google adsbecause it is a really relevant
channel for many smallbusinesses, whether they're
local or national, and there's alot of, I think, common
misunderstandings, pitfalls,ways to easily waste money as a
(01:29):
business using Google Ads.
So I'd love to hopefully sharefrom some of our experience of
helping many, many businessesover the years to run profitable
campaigns.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I think all of our listeners have heard of Google,
so let's introduce the show.
We'll be right back.
Welcome to Small BusinessPivots, a podcast produced for
small business owners.
I'm your host, michael Morrison, founder and CEO of BOSS, where
we make business ownershipsimplified for success.
(02:01):
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots, my friend
(02:24):
, before we really get startedinto Google, I know a lot of our
listeners have had trials andtribulations growing up as I
talk about each week.
Many of us had a hard time, ifwe haven't even gotten over
those, so we might have someself-doubt, self-worth issues,
mindset, things like that.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself so we can catch up to
(02:47):
how you grew this businesssuccessfully.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Been doing this as a subgroup,as a business has been around
for a little over a decade atthis point, and prior to
subgroup but I was doingpersonally was kind of other
started blue collar, did someblue collar work, some other
marketing marketing type jobs aswell, and then had the
privilege of having a brotherand close friend who started
(03:12):
Stub Group and he said, hey,john, come on, essentially be
employee number one and we'regoing to grow this business.
And so, um, I've gotten to be apart of that process,
essentially from day one, as wefigured out what it is that we
were doing, figured out how to,how to run campaigns, how to
figure things out and then howto get our own clients, how to
scale them, how to scale ourteam, keep bringing the right
(03:34):
talent on board to help ourgrowing clients and eventually
build the business over time towhere we are right now.
So I've gotten to experience alot of the the ups and downs of
that entrepreneurial journey andalso see that entrepreneurial
journey for so many otherbusinesses that we've been able
to partner with over years andsee kind of the, the good, the
bad and the ugly of the businessworld, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
What would you say has probably been one of the
biggest challenges at owning andgrowing this business.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Biggest challenges generally revolve around people.
So in our business, you know,people is our primary product
that we're selling.
It is our team members time,experience and skillset that
they're bringing to the table onbehalf of our clients, and so
my job as CEO is to find thebest possible people and to put
(04:26):
them in the right roles and togive them the resources that
they need to be successful forour clients.
And you know, given how peopleare, there's not always going to
be a 100% success rate withthat, and so you know, a lot of
the problems and challenges havealways been around finding the
right people.
When you make a mistake andhire someone who's not the right
fit, learning to identify thatquickly and take action on that
(04:49):
quickly so that it doesn'timpact clients negatively,
impact the rest of the teamnegatively, and also finding
those all-stars and making surethat we're rewarding them
properly and making sure thatthey're a part of the long-term
success of the company, of thelong-term success of the company
.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
It's interesting that you mentioned people, because
many of us think of Google asdigital and so we never think of
that.
There's people behind theseprocesses or these companies or
this software, whatever it is.
People still are a part of it,and so that's very important to
know.
How would you say you havefound best, because everybody
wants key players, everybodywants those A players, and how
(05:30):
have you found those?
What tips do you have for ourbusiness owners?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So a lot of it comes down to the hiring process, and
no hiring process is perfect.
It's never going to filter outevery single potential bad apple
or, you know, be exactly whatyou want it to be.
But there's a lot of things youcan do to really hone in on the
type of person that you want tohire, and this is something
that's developed over time andcontinues to develop.
(05:56):
But a couple of key things Iwould say first of all is when
we are, for example, putting outa job posting, looking for the
right people, we put a lot ofinformation into that and we
have very specific next stepsfor people to follow and that's
a very specific email addressthat they need to send an email
to answering specific questions.
(06:17):
And that first step gets rid ofa ton of people who just aren't
detail oriented and who arejust clicking a million buttons
and don't really care.
And you know, in and of itselfthat probably weeds out 95% of
candidates just by doing that.
And so now you've got the 5% ofpeople or whatever percentage
is who actually read it to thebottom and who actually follow
those next steps.
(06:37):
So that's a very, very easyfirst qualifying step.
Then you know we like to ask acouple of questions in that, or
give a couple of questions forpeople to answer in their kind
of application to us, and thatallows us to get a little bit of
a sense for just how do theydescribe things using written
words it's not just their resume, but how do they answer a
(07:00):
question?
And again, you know so manypeople terrible spelling,
terrible grammar, just obviousthings where it's like I don't
want that person communicatingwith our clients.
So that's a very clear no.
And so we're looking for, hey,who can communicate really well
and I'm like, oh, I read thatemail, oh, that's cool, that's
awesome.
I want to learn more about thisperson.
Then I like to ask them tocreate a video so I can see, you
(07:24):
know short video answering aquestion for me and I can see
how do they present on video,because I can see, ok, how do
they articulate things, how dothey present?
Is it professional, are theyeasy to understand?
Things like that.
And again, that weeds out a lotof people where you say, you
know what, I don't want thatperson representing my brand
because clients aren't going tobe able to understand them or it
(07:45):
doesn't make sense what they'retrying to communicate, and so
those are just things that youcan do to kind of weed out and
find potential good playersbefore you even spend the time
interviewing them.
Then, during the interviewprocess, you know there's
obviously a lot of standardthings to ask, but something
that we like to do with our teammembers or during our hiring
process is to give what we callvetting projects to them and
(08:07):
we'll pay them some money,regardless of whether we hire
them.
We're not looking for free workfrom them, but we'll give them
very specific tasks that arerelevant to the types of work
they would do if they're workingwith us, and that's incredibly
valuable, because people cantalk a great game and it can
sound like they know exactlywhat they're talking about.
But when you actually make themdo some work and then you have
(08:28):
a screen share with them andthey have to walk you through it
, the rubber meets the road andyou see they have no idea what
they're talking about, or theycan't write an ad, or you know
what they think about.
The platform is five years old,and so those are some of the
ways that we try and identifyreally good A players to bring
on board the team.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, it's communication and having the
right people as I say in thegood to great book, having the
right people in the right seat,going the right direction, et
cetera is critical and if youspend that, do your due
diligence up front, you kind ofcome out better on the other
side.
So those are very helpful tips.
(09:10):
Well, let's go back for some ofthose that may not kind of have
evolved with Google, maybedon't understand what it
actually is.
I know that sounds like a sillyquestion.
Everybody's like well, I justgo in there and search.
Well, it's a lot more than that.
So let's kind of start there sothen we can get into the ads
and how those actually work.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, so kind of thinking of Google.
Foundationally, obviously, it'sa search engines where people
go for information, but you canreally think of it as two unique
products in terms of, on thebackend end, what brings the
information that you see whenyou do a search on Google, you
have what they would call Googleorganic, which is the quote,
unquote, free things that showup.
(09:53):
So that's the normal, you know,10 blue links, like they like
to talk about it.
Now there's a lot more than the10 blue links.
Now you've got YouTube videosthat can come up.
You've got Google businessprofiles if you're looking for
something locally, things likethat.
Those are all things thatyou're not paying money to
Google for, but that, generallyspeaking, does take a lot of
(10:15):
resource investment on the backend to try and actually get into
the top rankings there.
And then the paid side of thingswhich is more of where our
focus is although we are doingmore on the SEO side nowadays as
well is where you see sponsoredlistings that appear generally
at the top of the page, and then, if you're scrolling through
(10:38):
pages, you'll see themthroughout the page as well.
Pay Google to get in front andspecifically to get clicks from
people who you think arerelevant to the product or
service that you're selling,based upon what they're
searching for.
So if you're a plumber, youmight target things like hey,
emergency plumber near me, great, well, that's someone that
sounds very relevant to me, I'mgoing to pay to have my ad
(11:00):
appear.
If someone clicks on that ad, Ipay Google money for that and
hopefully I have a greatexperience for them when they
get to my website saying I'm anemergency plumber near you, call
me right now, I'll fix yourproblem.
And then you can just kind ofextrapolate that across all the
different service industries andtypes of businesses that are
out there.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, I know one of the important parts of your
services are generating leads.
So how do you, or how does yourbusiness, help do that?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So the way you got to think about it is what are
people searching for?
That tells me they are aprospective lead.
So you know, using that plumberas an example, if I provide
emergency plumbing services, Iprovide them.
Let's say, in San Antonio and Iprovide them.
(11:50):
I can take calls from.
Maybe I don't work 24-7, but Ican take calls from 9 to 5.
Just making up some exampleshere.
Great, well, if someone issearching in San Antonio for an
emergency plumber near mebetween 9 and 5, that is someone
who is self-identifying asneeding the service that I
provide.
And so, by serving an ad tothem, I can say in my ad hey,
(12:12):
I'm an emergency plumber in SanAntonio near you.
And again, hopefully, you know,if they see that ad, they click
on the ad, they come to thewebsite.
Now, the journey is not done yet, it's just begun, because now
they're on your website and nowyou have the opportunity to
convince them that they shouldreach out to you and take the
action you want them to take.
So in that plumber example, youwant to think through what are
(12:33):
the pain points of your customer.
Well, they have a problem.
It's obviously plumbing related.
They want it solved.
Right now.
They probably are notinterested in reading a long
blog post about you know typesof sinks that they should have
in their house.
What they're looking for is aphone number to someone who's
available right now and can comeout.
And so we want to have a veryclear you know journey on the
(12:56):
landing page saying hey, call,call this number.
Uh, fred will pick up the phoneand answer and we're going to
get somebody out and fix yourplumbing solution, your plumbing
need, rather, and so that's,you know, that's how the journey
might work for that type ofbusiness.
Other businesses are going tohave a much longer sales cycle.
It's not hey, my toilet'sbroken right now.
I need to fix it.
It's hey, I'm looking for thissoftware to help me with my
(13:19):
email marketing or my you knowCRM or whatever, and so you're
going to have a differentjourney there.
But again, if someone goes andsearches email marketing
software for a plumbing business, for example, and that's what
you sell, well great, they'veself-identified as a lead that's
relevant to you, and now youwant to get them to your website
, pay for that traffic andconvert that into a lead through
(13:41):
your website.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, Well, I've noticed on Google searches used
to almost just recently, itseems like there were sponsored
ads at the top and now, afteryou search, there's a bunch of
AI information.
So can you tell us how it'stransitioning using AI and how
sponsored ads can stand out andstill get leads?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, google is very much prioritizing um, the ai
generated information.
They call these ai overviews,which, like you're like you're
mentioning many searches you donowadays on google.
The very first thing that'sgoing to come up is these ai
generated results that aretrying to answer your question
or give you more informationbased upon the information that
(14:27):
Google is pulling from the web.
And this appears above organicresults.
It appears above ads.
Now, eventually, google hassaid they're going to
incorporate ads into those AIoverviews.
So that's coming.
We don't know exactly when,don't know exactly what that
will look like.
That hasn't happened yet.
But what we're seeing right now,I would say, is not as
significant of a decrease intraffic on the ad side of things
(14:50):
as you might think, becausewhen you think about what types
of businesses, generallyspeaking, are running ads,
they're the types of businesseswhere people aren't going to get
their answer just from an AIoverview.
They need to engage in some way.
So, for example, let's, ifyou're a website that has a
bunch of recipes on your website, well, you're already probably
(15:12):
not running ads because there'sgoing to be very little value of
people coming to read thoserecipes, and so AI overview may
put the recipe right there,someone might not have to click
through to your website, and soif you're a type of business
that's trying to monetizetraffic to your website by
showing ads to them, you couldhave big problems because Google
(15:34):
is essentially replacing you.
But again, if you're theplumber, the eye overview is not
going to come out and fix yourtoilet, and so there's still
that opportunity.
Even if it gives someinformation about you know,
whatever how to pick the bestplumber or something, there's
still that need that people haveto take that next step to go to
the solution for their problem,and so you know, ads still
provide that solution and getthat traffic.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
So you do Google Ads management.
So let's talk about if a clientwere to use your services.
What does that process kind oflook like?
And do you do it all and theypay you for that.
And then kind of, what is theaverage cost for a small
business owner?
I know that depends on a lot ofthings, but I know there's
pay-per-clicks.
We hear a lot of these acronyms.
How does that all work?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, great questions .
Let me kind of break it down.
So, first of all, what does itlook like to work with a company
like Stub Group to run GoogleAds?
So we are going to handle thewhole process of creating the
ads, creating the campaigns, thetargeting, the tracking, all
that stuff.
What we're going to work onwith the client is understanding
(16:34):
what are their goals, what doessuccess look like?
Because a lot of businessesthey don't know what success
looks like.
They're like, hey, let's throwsome money at the wall and see
what happens, and that's arecipe for disaster, generally
speaking.
So we got to figure out hey,what are we trying to accomplish
with these ads?
Are we trying to get people onthe phone?
Great, why, what's going tohappen next?
Is it a free demo?
Is it a free quote estimate,things like that?
(16:56):
Is it?
Hey, we're selling productsthrough the website?
Great, what are your bestselling products?
What are people most interestedin?
Because that's things like that.
And, of course, understandingthings like what's you know,
what cost per lead can youafford?
What's your return on ad spendgoals, for you know selling
products, things like that.
And so we try to figure outwhat success looks like and then
(17:18):
from there we kind of work ourway back into okay.
Well, what types of campaignscan we run?
What are people searching foron Google that is relevant to
the product or service we'retrying to sell, and how
expensive is that traffic?
Because, like you mentioned,google is what we call a
pay-per-click model, so you payGoogle when someone clicks on
your ad, and the amount that youpay Google is going to depend
(17:42):
upon many, many different things.
The biggest thing is going tobe competition.
So if you're in, let's say,you're a personal injury
attorney, you're going to havevery, very expensive cost per
click, because all of yourcompetitors are like hey, if I
can get somebody who's a milliondollar court case for me, I
don't mind spending $300 for aclick because it's going to work
out in the long run, and sothey're willing to do it, and so
(18:03):
you got to be willing to do itand that kind of thing.
Whereas you know, if you'reselling a $10 umbrella to your
website, well, obviously youcan't pay $300 per click,
neither can any of yourcompetitors, and so there's
essentially an auction whereyou're competing with your
competitors around price, butalso you're competing around the
quality of your ads.
So this is why, when you go andsearch for, you know, buy an
(18:24):
umbrella, you're not going tosee an ad for Geico, because
Geico could throw as much moneyas they want at it, but Google
knows that's not a relevant ad,it's not going to have a good
click through rate, it's a badexperience for someone.
And so if you you know Geicocould be like I'll pay you a
thousand dollars per click and Icould be like I'll pay 50 cents
per click, but if my ad isabout an umbrella and Geico's ad
(18:45):
is about car insurance, I'mgoing to win that auction
because I'm actually what theuser is looking for and Google
wants to give a good userexperience.
And so, quality of ad you knowwhat words are in it, what it
looks like.
Things like that are superimportant.
And so, in terms of how thatpayment kind of how money
changes hands, generallyadvertisers pay the platform
(19:06):
directly.
So you might have your creditcard in your Google ads account
or bank account or whatever, andso you're paying the ad spend
directly to Google and then StubGroup, as an agency, is
managing the campaigns on yourbehalf to try and accomplish
your goals and you would payStub Group for the work that
we're doing to manage yourcampaigns and in terms of cost
and budget, like you said, itvaries widely, but generally,
(19:29):
the benchmark I'll give for mostbusinesses is that you want to
be in a position where you caninvest at least $2,000 per month
into ad spend before gettinginto the platform.
Now, there are always exceptionsto that.
We have clients who spend lessthan that and who do it
profitably, but generallyspeaking, that's a benchmark,
and the reason that we have thatas a benchmark is because you
(19:52):
need to be spending enough moneywith Google to be generating
enough data for us to see what'sworking and what's not working.
Now, if you spend $100 withGoogle, maybe you get a great
lead, maybe you don't, butthere's just not data points for
us to say, okay, well, hey,let's, let's spend more money
here, less money there, becausewe have no idea what's working,
whereas when you spend moremoney, we collect enough data.
(20:14):
We're like okay, these keywords, they're driving some leads.
Great, let's double down onthat.
These keywords over here notworking, let's not spend money
on that.
And then that's where yourcampaigns improve over time and
get more efficient.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Well efficient, well said.
You also do Google suspension.
You fixed that.
So how would one get suspended?
And what does that mean?
You're listening to SmallBusiness Pivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
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(20:55):
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well.
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest, as you also do
Google Suspension.
You fixed that, so how wouldone get suspended and what does
that mean?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yes.
So Google Suspensions issomething that most people know
nothing about, which is great,but then when it happens, it's
something that becomes a littlebit all-consuming and is a
significant, significant problem.
So let's kind of talk throughwhat this means.
Google has a large number ofpolicies that you need to abide
(21:31):
by when you are runningadvertising on Google.
It's from kind of you know,really obvious things like you
know you can't have all caps inyour ads, to much more nuanced
things like there's, you know,various policy pages they like
to see on your website.
And there's things like don'tknow how not having a redirect
in your, in your URLs and allsorts of different things that
(21:53):
go into Google's policies.
And and there's both thewritten policies and the
unwritten policies.
So there's the written policieswhere you, okay, you know I
can't do this, can't do this,and then there's kind of the
back end of Google, where theyare looking at all kinds of
different signals, trying tomake sure that the advertisers
(22:16):
that are using their platformare legitimate, they're not
scamming people, they're notinstalling malware when you
click through ads, things likethat, and so, unfortunately, a
lot of businesses can eitheraccidentally violate policies
that they had no idea existedand weren't trying to violate,
or sometimes they don't actuallydo anything wrong, but
something about what they'redoing or the industry they're in
looks suspicious to Google ortrips Google's automated flags,
(22:36):
and so they suspend the adaccount.
And what that means is, if youhave a suspended ad account, you
can no longer run ads on Google, and it's not as simple as oh,
it's just going to create a newad account, because Google will
suspend that as well.
And it's a situation where thiscan literally shut businesses
down.
And I've seen this happen wherethey rely upon Google ads for
their business, for a largepercentage of their ads, and
(22:58):
they get suspended and they'renot able to fix it and they're
dead in the water.
And so what we do as an agencyis really, over the last decade,
we've built up a ton ofknowledge about Google, about
their policies, about whatGoogle likes and doesn't like,
about how to work through theirappeal process, and so we can
kind of come along as a guide tobring that knowledge to bear,
(23:19):
because Google really doesn'thelp you.
You'd think that they wouldwant your money, but it's more.
Like you know, once you getthat flag, you're guilty until
proven innocent, and so we'regoing to have to be your your
lawyer, for lack of a betterword and go to Google on your
behalf and try to get yoursituation where it needs to be,
to make Google happy, eventhough Google won't tell you
(23:41):
exactly what you did wrong.
So that's kind of a uniquespecialty that we build up over
over time and that we've helpedmany, many businesses.
We've helped thousands ofbusinesses on suspended accounts
and stay compliant withGoogle's policies.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
So they're just about like every other platform out
there.
They don't tell you why you'resuspended, they just say you're
suspended, exactly.
Well, let's talk about realquick retargeting and how that
works and what that means.
I know when we mentioned thatto business owners as business
coaches, they're like what?
So can you explain that and howit works?
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, yeah.
So retargeting is this idea ofwhen someone comes to your
website, a large percentage ofpeople who come to your website
are not going to take actionright away, they're not going to
pick up the phone, they're notgoing to fill out a form.
They're in the journey ofthinking through.
Maybe they're checking multiplecompetitors out, maybe they
haven't decided to pull thetrigger on this service or just
doing research, whatever.
(24:36):
And so with the targeting, um,conceptually it's pretty
straightforward.
You put some, some code ontoyour website and then, when that
person leaves your website,that code follows them around
and you get to serve ads foryour business as they browse
other websites online.
It could be go watch a YouTubevideo, it could be on weathercom
(24:57):
, and you see an image ad on theright.
There's many, many differentplaces that those ads can appear
.
And Google there are differentplatforms that run retargeting
ads.
Google is, I think, probably thelargest in terms of across the
internet of showing or marketingads in many, many different
places Meta, facebook, they doremarketing as well, and so
(25:17):
forth.
So basically, it's this idea ofvery cost-effective marketing
because you're only targetingpeople who've already been to
your website, so it's not alarge number of people,
generally speaking, and it's notparticularly expensive,
generally speaking, to show adsto them.
But they are the warmestaudience, people who already
know who you are.
They've been to your website.
They're probably thinking aboutyou right now and it allows you
(25:39):
to stay in front of them.
You know, keep, keep your brandin mind and sometimes
strategically to, you know, giveincentives for them to come
back.
Hey, here's a 10% off coupon,come claim it now, things like
that.
And so it's a cost-effectiveway of staying in front of
people, keeping your brand intheir mind and ultimately trying
to bring them back to take theaction you want them to take.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You may or may not know the question to this, but I
hear this often of businessowners.
I'll be sitting at a coffee orsomething.
I'll go.
You know, I was just thinkingabout Nike shoes and next thing
you know I look, nike shoes areall over my platforms.
How does that work in thebackground?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
So this is a very controversial, controversial
question.
There are many uh there.
There are people on differentsides of this.
I am of the perspective thatyour phone is not listening to
you, so a lot of people havethat and I've experienced that
as well where it's like I justwas talking about these Nike
shoes and obviously my phone islistening to me because I'm
(26:40):
seeing them.
But there are many, many otherways that advertising platforms
can figure out potentially yourinterest in this without
listening to you.
So there are some, I'd say, moreobvious ways.
So, for example, if you go andsearch Nike shoes on Google,
google knows that and so Nike isgoing to target people who are
(27:01):
interested in Nike shoes, and sothat's kind of an obvious way.
But there's also things likelet's take Meta, for example.
If you're logged into Facebookon your phone and you're talking
with a friend and that friendjust recently bought Nike shoes
and they're telling you aboutthose Nike shoes, well, meta may
not be listening to theconversation, but they know that
you're in the vicinity of thisfriend and they know that this
(27:24):
friend recently made thispurchase through a Facebook ad
and often we'll see you knowthey'll be like oh well, let me
show an ad to something similarto this person because they were
in, you know, geographicalcontact and so stuff like that
happens and lots of other things.
There's also, like you know,third party data, credit card
stuff that can get pulled intosome of the platforms.
(27:44):
So I don't think that theylisten to you.
I'm not going to say that with100% certainty, because I
certainly don't know all things,but there are ways to
accomplish the same thingwithout necessarily having the
mic turned on, if that makessense.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I know that's one of
those big questions.
Well, we've talked a lot aboutGoogle and you've been very
helpful for our listeners.
Let's talk about Stub Group.
So our listeners are mostlysmall business owners, and those
that aren't are probably thosethat want to be a business owner
(28:22):
.
They just haven't pulled theplug.
So let's start back to theearly days.
What were some of thosechallenges that you had?
Growing, because you've gotquite the team here on your
website.
I see you've got quite a fewpeople on your team, but that's
not how every business starts.
So let's go back to the earlydays and kind of tell us things
you've learned and maybe sometips and insights that you would
(28:42):
share with others.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, absolutely no, definitely.
It definitely did not start outwith the size of the team we
have right now.
You know some of the some ofputting money into our own
advertising campaigns hopingthat we're going to get business
(29:10):
out of that that can then paythat off and keep flipping that
cycle, things like that.
We're very much a part ofthings.
I think, at the end of the day,it really came down to looking
at every client relationship asthe number one priority and
we're going to figure things outfor them, even if they're not
(29:30):
paying us a lot of money rightnow.
We're going to build ourreputation by doing an awesome
job for them and by beingcreative, by bringing some fresh
perspectives to the advertisingwe're doing for them that other
people aren't bringing, andbuild that reputation for
excellence and create afoundation that can then help us
get new clients and also helpus attract the right talent who
(29:53):
wants to work at a good place.
And so going back to thattalent went through so many
interviews and conversations andkind of approaches to figuring
out how do we structure our team, how do we find the right
people, things like do we hireand then train?
How do we find the right people.
You know, things like do wehire and then train or do we
hire people with experience?
(30:14):
Often in the early days we wouldhire and then train and there's
definitely benefits that comefrom that.
But there's also a lot ofdownsides, because you don't
know for a long time whether ornot the person actually has what
it takes, and you may train andinvest for six months or 12
months and then realize they'rejust not getting it.
You know, and I just wasted allthis time, and so, generally
speaking, nowadays we've movedmore of the model of hiring
(30:36):
people with experience andobviously you can pay a premium
for that in terms of, you know,salaries and things like that.
But we like to bring on provenentities for lack of a better
word who understand the businessthat we're in, who already have
a lot of experience, and thenwe still do more training to
kind of bring them up to ourlevel of excellence and how we
do things.
(30:56):
But we know that they alreadyget what our industry is like
and how to do the job and theyhave experience of working with
clients and, ideally, working inan agency environment and
things like that.
And so just figuring you know,figuring things like that out
over time what those hiringprocesses are, the the hiring
process we talked about earlier.
You know vetting, vettingpeople and and you know coming
(31:18):
up with projects for them towork on, and things like that um
have been really crucial tomaintaining a high level of of
service that we provide to ourclients, maintaining a good
reputation, which then allows usto keep growing as a business,
bringing more clients on boardand repeating that cycle.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
The digital space, would you say it's more kind of
self-learned, self-taught, orare there places that people?
Because you said you want tohire experienced people.
How do you determine if they'reexperienced?
Is that, like I said, is thatgoing to college?
And if so, is there a goodplace to learn this kind of
stuff?
Or is it?
(31:56):
Where do they get thisknowledge from?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah, that's a great question stuff, or is it?
Where do they get thisknowledge from?
Yeah, that's a great questionbecause, like you mentioned, the
digital space moves so quickly.
I I really don't care abouteducation.
I honestly don't even look tosee if people went to college.
You know what they graduatedwith, et cetera.
What matters to me is thathands-on experience of actually
(32:20):
working, you know, in thetrenches of running campaigns,
of working with clients, offiguring out Google or Facebook
or whatever.
So we're looking for people,generally speaking, who've
already been doing that, ideallyfor other agencies, and then
we're able, through thosevetting projects, to get a sense
for, okay, how have they beentrained and what type of work
are they doing?
(32:40):
And is that in line with, youknow, what we know works best
and kind of with the way that weapproach things for our clients
?
And then, um, and then,generally speaking, we give them
a lot of new experience theydidn't have exposure to, because
the types of clients that weget to work with and you know
the processes that we put inplace, and so we we can help
kind of up, upskill them up,level their skills and uh, and
(33:01):
get them to where we need wewant them to be for for working
with our clients.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I know a lot of business owners.
You know you've kind of gonethrough the.
This is how we attract, this ishow we hire.
How do you retain key employees?
That's another big thing abouthow do I keep these people now
that I found them?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, I think a couple important things go into
that, you know.
One is very much theenvironment that people are in,
and that environment is verymuch controlled by the other
people that they're working with.
Now we used to have a physicaloffice where the majority of our
team members were physical.
Now we're completely remote.
So we have people all over thecountry, all over the world,
that we work with, but there'sstill lots of interaction
(33:44):
between those team membersworking towards a common goal,
and so it's really important tobring people on board who other
people are excited to work with.
Having that bad apple, havingthat big ego that just wants to
take credit for everything andrun a rough shot over the other
team, it's not worth havingthose types of people, at least
(34:07):
from my perspective and myexperience, because they create
an environment that other peopledo not want to participate in,
and that's where you see peopleleave is when they don't like
the people that they work with.
So, again, going back to hiringand what types of people we
bring on board, but that's super, super important and, like I
was just having thisconversation an hour ago with a
candidate we're hiring who wasasking about our environment,
(34:28):
and usually the first thing I'llsay is we don't have a bunch of
big egos on board.
We're very team oriented.
We wanna be successful for ourclients and we know that when we
are, we're successful as acompany and then each of us
individually is successful.
So that's really important.
And then, you know, just from avery basic level, incentivizing
people, paying them well,paying them for their work and
(34:49):
when they do well, when theyexcel, when they drive, generate
more revenue, more value forthe company, rewarding them for
that, so that they see thattheir hard work is valued and
they get to, you know, engage inthe fruits of that labor.
So I think those are the twomost important things.
Probably the third thing I wouldsay is in the agency world,
(35:12):
we're not afraid to fire clients.
It's not, you know, certainlynot the ideal, not something we
like to do, but there are justsome businesses that, frankly,
are just not worth working withbecause they just don't approach
things with a partnershipmentality.
It feels like a fight every day, even though we're trying to
help them be successful and ourteam knowing that you know, I
(35:35):
have their back in that way andthat if a client's being
unreasonable with them or isbeing unprofessional with them.
They can come to me and say,hey, I can't take this, that
type of thing and I've proven.
Hey, if it's a situation wherewe need to, we'll sacrifice the
revenue for the company, move onfrom that client, wish them
well, refer them to somewhereelse, because it's just not
(35:56):
worth working with.
You know really terribleclients in the long run.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, we like to refer those to our competition
and I love to hear this becausejust because you're a business
and you're paying someonedoesn't mean you can't treat
them in humanely, like you knowbadly.
So I love, love to hear that.
So let's go to a couple ofchallenges.
Anything that you learned alongthe way growing and scaling
(36:23):
this business Like this is anessential that every business
owner should know, because thisreally moved the needle for us.
Or maybe this is something wedid.
Don't do this because it reallydamaged us.
Anything like that happen inthe years you've been in
business business.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
I would say one one thing that comes to mind.
This is not going to be, um,you know, not going to be this,
this genius gem of information,but I think a lot of businesses
deprioritize it is you have tohave that sales funnel
constantly being filled andmoving forward.
So a lot of businesses,especially you know, you've got
(36:59):
a business owner who's maybe haswears a bunch of hats, is doing
a bunch of different things,really busy actually doing the
work on behalf of their clients.
They put sales and marketing tokind of the very bottom of
their priority list and thenthey wake up one day like I
don't have any jobs the nextmonth and at that point it's too
late because it takes time formarketing, time for sales.
(37:19):
And so you have to invest thetime, the energy, the effort in
always having leads coming in,having those conversations,
making sure that your pipelineis full so that you can keep
yourself and your team busy.
And and you can't, you know, youcan't deprioritize that, even
though it's so tempting to dothat, because it's not calling
(37:42):
you, yelling at you like yourcustomers might be.
And you got those customerscalling like, well, I got to
deal with this, and yes, you do,but if you also don't deal with
your sales and marketing,you're not going to have any
customers calling you next week,and so that's, I think, a
really important thing to justalways remember you have to
focus on as a business owner.
Well, you think that's not agem, I think a really important
thing to just always rememberyou have to focus on as a
business owner.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Well, you think that's not a gem.
I think this is about our 90thepisode we're recording and
you're the first one that eversaid that.
So it is a gem, because manypeople don't think about that.
They get a big sale and theyget so wrapped up working in the
business as they say, theyforget that, hey, next month or
six months from now, if I'mdon't keep that consistent lead
(38:24):
generation going, I'm not goingto have business.
So I appreciate you sharingthat.
Well, is there anything that Ihaven't asked?
I know a lot of times if I'm ona podcast I'm like I really
wish I would have said this.
Anything we haven't covered,that you're.
You're just like yeah, let memention this before we sign off
here in a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
I think we covered some great territory, I think.
If I wanted to kind ofemphasize or reiterate a point,
maybe I would go back to thatidea of if you're going to get
into any advertising channel,whether it be Google Ads or
whatever.
It's just so important to thinkthrough again.
What does success look like?
What am I trying to accomplish?
How am I going to measure that?
(39:03):
And try to set yourself up forsuccess.
You know, if you have a websitethat looks like it's built in
2009, maybe don't start spendinga bunch of money on Google ads,
sending people to a websitethat they're not going to trust
because it looks terrible.
Put the time and the effort andthe investment into having a
good web presence, into makingsure that if someone Googles
(39:23):
your reviews, they're going tosee reviews about you because
you've asked for your customers,give your reviews and just kind
of basic foundational things.
Just think like a customer howdo you decide who to work with?
And then just make sure you'vegot those things for your
business and for a lot ofbusinesses, you know, just a few
(39:43):
changes, improvements on yourwebsite, getting some more
customer reviews can have just amassive impact on your sales
and lead volume that are comingin Excellent.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I know a lot of people like to follow our guests
, learn more, get in touch withthem.
What's the best way to do thatwith you?
Speaker 2 (40:02):
I'd say that the place we probably most
consistently place content on isour YouTube channel.
So search Stub Group on YouTube.
Put out a lot of free contenton there.
And then, of course, if youwant to learn just more about
Stub Group and other socialmedia channels and things, just
go to stubgroupcom and we've gotall the information on there.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Any podcast or anything Blogs.
We do actually.
We do actually.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
We do our own podcast called Clicks to Customers.
You can find it on Spotify,apple Podcasts and elsewhere.
Generally, we talk aboutvarious marketing topics.
We usually go a little bitbroader than advertising.
We've talked about, certainly,seo.
We've talked about how AI isimpacting advertising.
We've got a sales episodecoming up soon, so, yeah, lots
(40:44):
of good content on there.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
And then is there a place to follow you if they want
to do that Best place for thatis probably going to be LinkedIn
.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Just search my name on LinkedIn and you'll find me
on there.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Fantastic.
Well, before we sign off here,I always ask one final question,
and that is if you were infront of an audience of business
owners different sizes ofbusiness, different industries
what's one applicable insightthat you would give them?
It could be a quote, a book orjust something.
Maybe you've already said thatyou want to reiterate.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
I'm going to go back to the people side of things and
back to a quote which is hireslowly, fire quickly.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Wow, amen, amen, and that's the hardest to do.
Well, john, you've been ablessing to many and a wealth of
information.
I appreciate your time today.
Thank you so much, michael,really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Thank you for listening to Small Business
Pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company, boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours.
Boss, offers flexible businessloans with business coaching
support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
(42:02):
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at michael at
michaeldmorrisoncom.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots,
where, again this week, we haveanother special guest from
around the world, and this timethey're just one state away from
our great state of Oklahoma, inSan Antonio, texas.
We are proud to have this guesttoday because digital marketing
is a big, big thing for a lotof small business owners these
(00:22):
days, especially on Google, butI know no one can say their name
or their business like thebusiness owner, so I'm going to
let you introduce yourself andtell us just a little bit about
yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Michael, thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
My name is John Horn, I am the CEO of Stub Group and
Stub Group is a digitaladvertising agency.
So, like you mentioned Googleads and other platforms, meta
Ads and so forth Ultimately, wehelp small medium-sized
businesses to find new customersonline, where people are
searching for solutions, andacquire those new customers
(00:56):
profitably and grow and scaletheir businesses.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Wow, wow.
Yeah, sales is a big thingthese days, so how do you think
we're going to help ourlisteners today best?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So there's a lot of directions we can go.
I would love to talk through,maybe, some of the frameworks of
thinking about Google ads.
I'd love to focus on Google adsbecause it is a really relevant
channel for many smallbusinesses, whether they're
local or national, and there's alot of, I think, common
misunderstandings, pitfalls,ways to easily waste money as a
(01:29):
business using Google Ads.
So I'd love to hopefully sharefrom some of our experience of
helping many, many businessesover the years to run profitable
campaigns.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I think all of our listeners have heard of Google,
so let's introduce the show.
We'll be right back.
Welcome to Small BusinessPivots, a podcast produced for
small business owners.
I'm your host, michael Morrison, founder and CEO of BOSS, where
we make business ownershipsimplified for success.
(02:01):
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots, my friend
(02:24):
, before we really get startedinto Google, I know a lot of our
listeners have had trials andtribulations growing up as I
talk about each week.
Many of us had a hard time, ifwe haven't even gotten over
those, so we might have someself-doubt, self-worth issues,
mindset, things like that.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself so we can catch up to
(02:47):
how you grew this businesssuccessfully.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Been doing this as a subgroup,as a business has been around
for a little over a decade atthis point, and prior to
subgroup but I was doingpersonally was kind of other
started blue collar, did someblue collar work, some other
marketing marketing type jobs aswell, and then had the
privilege of having a brotherand close friend who started
(03:12):
Stub Group and he said, hey,john, come on, essentially be
employee number one and we'regoing to grow this business.
And so, um, I've gotten to be apart of that process,
essentially from day one, as wefigured out what it is that we
were doing, figured out how to,how to run campaigns, how to
figure things out and then howto get our own clients, how to
scale them, how to scale ourteam, keep bringing the right
(03:34):
talent on board to help ourgrowing clients and eventually
build the business over time towhere we are right now.
So I've gotten to experience alot of the the ups and downs of
that entrepreneurial journey andalso see that entrepreneurial
journey for so many otherbusinesses that we've been able
to partner with over years andsee kind of the, the good, the
bad and the ugly of the businessworld, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
What would you say has probably been one of the
biggest challenges at owning andgrowing this business.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Biggest challenges generally revolve around people.
So in our business, you know,people is our primary product
that we're selling.
It is our team members time,experience and skillset that
they're bringing to the table onbehalf of our clients, and so
my job as CEO is to find thebest possible people and to put
(04:26):
them in the right roles and togive them the resources that
they need to be successful forour clients.
And you know, given how peopleare, there's not always going to
be a 100% success rate withthat, and so you know, a lot of
the problems and challenges havealways been around finding the
right people.
When you make a mistake andhire someone who's not the right
fit, learning to identify thatquickly and take action on that
(04:49):
quickly so that it doesn'timpact clients negatively,
impact the rest of the teamnegatively, and also finding
those all-stars and making surethat we're rewarding them
properly and making sure thatthey're a part of the long-term
success of the company, of thelong-term success of the company
.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
It's interesting that you mentioned people, because
many of us think of Google asdigital and so we never think of
that.
There's people behind theseprocesses or these companies or
this software, whatever it is.
People still are a part of it,and so that's very important to
know.
How would you say you havefound best, because everybody
wants key players, everybodywants those A players, and how
(05:30):
have you found those?
What tips do you have for ourbusiness owners?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So a lot of it comes down to the hiring process, and
no hiring process is perfect.
It's never going to filter outevery single potential bad apple
or, you know, be exactly whatyou want it to be.
But there's a lot of things youcan do to really hone in on the
type of person that you want tohire, and this is something
that's developed over time andcontinues to develop.
(05:56):
But a couple of key things Iwould say first of all is when
we are, for example, putting outa job posting, looking for the
right people, we put a lot ofinformation into that and we
have very specific next stepsfor people to follow and that's
a very specific email addressthat they need to send an email
to answering specific questions.
(06:17):
And that first step gets rid ofa ton of people who just aren't
detail oriented and who arejust clicking a million buttons
and don't really care.
And you know, in and of itselfthat probably weeds out 95% of
candidates just by doing that.
And so now you've got the 5% ofpeople or whatever percentage
is who actually read it to thebottom and who actually follow
those next steps.
(06:37):
So that's a very, very easyfirst qualifying step.
Then you know we like to ask acouple of questions in that, or
give a couple of questions forpeople to answer in their kind
of application to us, and thatallows us to get a little bit of
a sense for just how do theydescribe things using written
words it's not just their resume, but how do they answer a
(07:00):
question?
And again, you know so manypeople terrible spelling,
terrible grammar, just obviousthings where it's like I don't
want that person communicatingwith our clients.
So that's a very clear no.
And so we're looking for, hey,who can communicate really well
and I'm like, oh, I read thatemail, oh, that's cool, that's
awesome.
I want to learn more about thisperson.
Then I like to ask them tocreate a video so I can see, you
(07:24):
know short video answering aquestion for me and I can see
how do they present on video,because I can see, ok, how do
they articulate things, how dothey present?
Is it professional, are theyeasy to understand?
Things like that.
And again, that weeds out a lotof people where you say, you
know what, I don't want thatperson representing my brand
because clients aren't going tobe able to understand them or it
(07:45):
doesn't make sense what they'retrying to communicate, and so
those are just things that youcan do to kind of weed out and
find potential good playersbefore you even spend the time
interviewing them.
Then, during the interviewprocess, you know there's
obviously a lot of standardthings to ask, but something
that we like to do with our teammembers or during our hiring
process is to give what we callvetting projects to them and
(08:07):
we'll pay them some money,regardless of whether we hire
them.
We're not looking for free workfrom them, but we'll give them
very specific tasks that arerelevant to the types of work
they would do if they're workingwith us, and that's incredibly
valuable, because people cantalk a great game and it can
sound like they know exactlywhat they're talking about.
But when you actually make themdo some work and then you have
(08:28):
a screen share with them andthey have to walk you through it
, the rubber meets the road andyou see they have no idea what
they're talking about, or theycan't write an ad, or you know
what they think about.
The platform is five years old,and so those are some of the
ways that we try and identifyreally good A players to bring
on board the team.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, it's communication and having the
right people as I say in thegood to great book, having the
right people in the right seat,going the right direction, et
cetera is critical and if youspend that, do your due
diligence up front, you kind ofcome out better on the other
side.
So those are very helpful tips.
(09:10):
Well, let's go back for some ofthose that may not kind of have
evolved with Google, maybedon't understand what it
actually is.
I know that sounds like a sillyquestion.
Everybody's like well, I justgo in there and search.
Well, it's a lot more than that.
So let's kind of start there sothen we can get into the ads
and how those actually work.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, so kind of thinking of Google.
Foundationally, obviously, it'sa search engines where people
go for information, but you canreally think of it as two unique
products in terms of, on thebackend end, what brings the
information that you see whenyou do a search on Google, you
have what they would call Googleorganic, which is the quote,
unquote, free things that showup.
(09:53):
So that's the normal, you know,10 blue links, like they like
to talk about it.
Now there's a lot more than the10 blue links.
Now you've got YouTube videosthat can come up.
You've got Google businessprofiles if you're looking for
something locally, things likethat.
Those are all things thatyou're not paying money to
Google for, but that, generallyspeaking, does take a lot of
(10:15):
resource investment on the backend to try and actually get into
the top rankings there.
And then the paid side of thingswhich is more of where our
focus is although we are doingmore on the SEO side nowadays as
well is where you see sponsoredlistings that appear generally
at the top of the page, and then, if you're scrolling through
(10:38):
pages, you'll see themthroughout the page as well.
Pay Google to get in front andspecifically to get clicks from
people who you think arerelevant to the product or
service that you're selling,based upon what they're
searching for.
So if you're a plumber, youmight target things like hey,
emergency plumber near me, great, well, that's someone that
sounds very relevant to me, I'mgoing to pay to have my ad
(11:00):
appear.
If someone clicks on that ad, Ipay Google money for that and
hopefully I have a greatexperience for them when they
get to my website saying I'm anemergency plumber near you, call
me right now, I'll fix yourproblem.
And then you can just kind ofextrapolate that across all the
different service industries andtypes of businesses that are
out there.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, I know one of the important parts of your
services are generating leads.
So how do you, or how does yourbusiness, help do that?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So the way you got to think about it is what are
people searching for?
That tells me they are aprospective lead.
So you know, using that plumberas an example, if I provide
emergency plumbing services, Iprovide them.
Let's say, in San Antonio and Iprovide them.
(11:50):
I can take calls from.
Maybe I don't work 24-7, but Ican take calls from 9 to 5.
Just making up some exampleshere.
Great, well, if someone issearching in San Antonio for an
emergency plumber near mebetween 9 and 5, that is someone
who is self-identifying asneeding the service that I
provide.
And so, by serving an ad tothem, I can say in my ad hey,
(12:12):
I'm an emergency plumber in SanAntonio near you.
And again, hopefully, you know,if they see that ad, they click
on the ad, they come to thewebsite.
Now, the journey is not done yet, it's just begun, because now
they're on your website and nowyou have the opportunity to
convince them that they shouldreach out to you and take the
action you want them to take.
So in that plumber example, youwant to think through what are
(12:33):
the pain points of your customer.
Well, they have a problem.
It's obviously plumbing related.
They want it solved.
Right now.
They probably are notinterested in reading a long
blog post about you know typesof sinks that they should have
in their house.
What they're looking for is aphone number to someone who's
available right now and can comeout.
And so we want to have a veryclear you know journey on the
(12:56):
landing page saying hey, call,call this number.
Uh, fred will pick up the phoneand answer and we're going to
get somebody out and fix yourplumbing solution, your plumbing
need, rather, and so that's,you know, that's how the journey
might work for that type ofbusiness.
Other businesses are going tohave a much longer sales cycle.
It's not hey, my toilet'sbroken right now.
I need to fix it.
It's hey, I'm looking for thissoftware to help me with my
(13:19):
email marketing or my you knowCRM or whatever, and so you're
going to have a differentjourney there.
But again, if someone goes andsearches email marketing
software for a plumbing business, for example, and that's what
you sell, well great, they'veself-identified as a lead that's
relevant to you, and now youwant to get them to your website
, pay for that traffic andconvert that into a lead through
(13:41):
your website.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, Well, I've noticed on Google searches used
to almost just recently, itseems like there were sponsored
ads at the top and now, afteryou search, there's a bunch of
AI information.
So can you tell us how it'stransitioning using AI and how
sponsored ads can stand out andstill get leads?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, google is very much prioritizing um, the ai
generated information.
They call these ai overviews,which, like you're like you're
mentioning many searches you donowadays on google.
The very first thing that'sgoing to come up is these ai
generated results that aretrying to answer your question
or give you more informationbased upon the information that
(14:27):
Google is pulling from the web.
And this appears above organicresults.
It appears above ads.
Now, eventually, google hassaid they're going to
incorporate ads into those AIoverviews.
So that's coming.
We don't know exactly when,don't know exactly what that
will look like.
That hasn't happened yet.
But what we're seeing right now,I would say, is not as
significant of a decrease intraffic on the ad side of things
(14:50):
as you might think, becausewhen you think about what types
of businesses, generallyspeaking, are running ads,
they're the types of businesseswhere people aren't going to get
their answer just from an AIoverview.
They need to engage in some way.
So, for example, let's, ifyou're a website that has a
bunch of recipes on your website, well, you're already probably
(15:12):
not running ads because there'sgoing to be very little value of
people coming to read thoserecipes, and so AI overview may
put the recipe right there,someone might not have to click
through to your website, and soif you're a type of business
that's trying to monetizetraffic to your website by
showing ads to them, you couldhave big problems because Google
(15:34):
is essentially replacing you.
But again, if you're theplumber, the eye overview is not
going to come out and fix yourtoilet, and so there's still
that opportunity.
Even if it gives someinformation about you know,
whatever how to pick the bestplumber or something, there's
still that need that people haveto take that next step to go to
the solution for their problem,and so you know, ads still
provide that solution and getthat traffic.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
So you do Google Ads management.
So let's talk about if a clientwere to use your services.
What does that process kind oflook like?
And do you do it all and theypay you for that.
And then kind of, what is theaverage cost for a small
business owner?
I know that depends on a lot ofthings, but I know there's
pay-per-clicks.
We hear a lot of these acronyms.
How does that all work?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, great questions .
Let me kind of break it down.
So, first of all, what does itlook like to work with a company
like Stub Group to run GoogleAds?
So we are going to handle thewhole process of creating the
ads, creating the campaigns, thetargeting, the tracking, all
that stuff.
What we're going to work onwith the client is understanding
(16:34):
what are their goals, what doessuccess look like?
Because a lot of businessesthey don't know what success
looks like.
They're like, hey, let's throwsome money at the wall and see
what happens, and that's arecipe for disaster, generally
speaking.
So we got to figure out hey,what are we trying to accomplish
with these ads?
Are we trying to get people onthe phone?
Great, why, what's going tohappen next?
Is it a free demo?
Is it a free quote estimate,things like that?
(16:56):
Is it?
Hey, we're selling productsthrough the website?
Great, what are your bestselling products?
What are people most interestedin?
Because that's things like that.
And, of course, understandingthings like what's you know,
what cost per lead can youafford?
What's your return on ad spendgoals, for you know selling
products, things like that.
And so we try to figure outwhat success looks like and then
(17:18):
from there we kind of work ourway back into okay.
Well, what types of campaignscan we run?
What are people searching foron Google that is relevant to
the product or service we'retrying to sell, and how
expensive is that traffic?
Because, like you mentioned,google is what we call a
pay-per-click model, so you payGoogle when someone clicks on
your ad, and the amount that youpay Google is going to depend
(17:42):
upon many, many different things.
The biggest thing is going tobe competition.
So if you're in, let's say,you're a personal injury
attorney, you're going to havevery, very expensive cost per
click, because all of yourcompetitors are like hey, if I
can get somebody who's a milliondollar court case for me, I
don't mind spending $300 for aclick because it's going to work
out in the long run, and sothey're willing to do it, and so
(18:03):
you got to be willing to do itand that kind of thing.
Whereas you know, if you'reselling a $10 umbrella to your
website, well, obviously youcan't pay $300 per click,
neither can any of yourcompetitors, and so there's
essentially an auction whereyou're competing with your
competitors around price, butalso you're competing around the
quality of your ads.
So this is why, when you go andsearch for, you know, buy an
(18:24):
umbrella, you're not going tosee an ad for Geico, because
Geico could throw as much moneyas they want at it, but Google
knows that's not a relevant ad,it's not going to have a good
click through rate, it's a badexperience for someone.
And so if you you know Geicocould be like I'll pay you a
thousand dollars per click and Icould be like I'll pay 50 cents
per click, but if my ad isabout an umbrella and Geico's ad
(18:45):
is about car insurance, I'mgoing to win that auction
because I'm actually what theuser is looking for and Google
wants to give a good userexperience.
And so, quality of ad you knowwhat words are in it, what it
looks like.
Things like that are superimportant.
And so, in terms of how thatpayment kind of how money
changes hands, generallyadvertisers pay the platform
(19:06):
directly.
So you might have your creditcard in your Google ads account
or bank account or whatever, andso you're paying the ad spend
directly to Google and then StubGroup, as an agency, is
managing the campaigns on yourbehalf to try and accomplish
your goals and you would payStub Group for the work that
we're doing to manage yourcampaigns and in terms of cost
and budget, like you said, itvaries widely, but generally,
(19:29):
the benchmark I'll give for mostbusinesses is that you want to
be in a position where you caninvest at least $2,000 per month
into ad spend before gettinginto the platform.
Now, there are always exceptionsto that.
We have clients who spend lessthan that and who do it
profitably, but generallyspeaking, that's a benchmark,
and the reason that we have thatas a benchmark is because you
(19:52):
need to be spending enough moneywith Google to be generating
enough data for us to see what'sworking and what's not working.
Now, if you spend $100 withGoogle, maybe you get a great
lead, maybe you don't, butthere's just not data points for
us to say, okay, well, hey,let's, let's spend more money
here, less money there, becausewe have no idea what's working,
whereas when you spend moremoney, we collect enough data.
(20:14):
We're like okay, these keywords, they're driving some leads.
Great, let's double down onthat.
These keywords over here notworking, let's not spend money
on that.
And then that's where yourcampaigns improve over time and
get more efficient.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Well efficient, well said.
You also do Google suspension.
You fixed that.
So how would one get suspended?
And what does that mean?
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well.
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest, as you also do
Google Suspension.
You fixed that, so how wouldone get suspended and what does
that mean?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yes.
So Google Suspensions issomething that most people know
nothing about, which is great,but then when it happens, it's
something that becomes a littlebit all-consuming and is a
significant, significant problem.
So let's kind of talk throughwhat this means.
Google has a large number ofpolicies that you need to abide
(21:31):
by when you are runningadvertising on Google.
It's from kind of you know,really obvious things like you
know you can't have all caps inyour ads, to much more nuanced
things like there's, you know,various policy pages they like
to see on your website.
And there's things like don'tknow how not having a redirect
in your, in your URLs and allsorts of different things that
(21:53):
go into Google's policies.
And and there's both thewritten policies and the
unwritten policies.
So there's the written policieswhere you, okay, you know I
can't do this, can't do this,and then there's kind of the
back end of Google, where theyare looking at all kinds of
different signals, trying tomake sure that the advertisers
(22:16):
that are using their platformare legitimate, they're not
scamming people, they're notinstalling malware when you
click through ads, things likethat, and so, unfortunately, a
lot of businesses can eitheraccidentally violate policies
that they had no idea existedand weren't trying to violate,
or sometimes they don't actuallydo anything wrong, but
something about what they'redoing or the industry they're in
looks suspicious to Google ortrips Google's automated flags,
(22:36):
and so they suspend the adaccount.
And what that means is, if youhave a suspended ad account, you
can no longer run ads on Google, and it's not as simple as oh,
it's just going to create a newad account, because Google will
suspend that as well.
And it's a situation where thiscan literally shut businesses
down.
And I've seen this happen wherethey rely upon Google ads for
their business, for a largepercentage of their ads, and
(22:58):
they get suspended and they'renot able to fix it and they're
dead in the water.
And so what we do as an agencyis really, over the last decade,
we've built up a ton ofknowledge about Google, about
their policies, about whatGoogle likes and doesn't like,
about how to work through theirappeal process, and so we can
kind of come along as a guide tobring that knowledge to bear,
(23:19):
because Google really doesn'thelp you.
You'd think that they wouldwant your money, but it's more.
Like you know, once you getthat flag, you're guilty until
proven innocent, and so we'regoing to have to be your your
lawyer, for lack of a betterword and go to Google on your
behalf and try to get yoursituation where it needs to be,
to make Google happy, eventhough Google won't tell you
(23:41):
exactly what you did wrong.
So that's kind of a uniquespecialty that we build up over
over time and that we've helpedmany, many businesses.
We've helped thousands ofbusinesses on suspended accounts
and stay compliant withGoogle's policies.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
So they're just about like every other platform out
there.
They don't tell you why you'resuspended, they just say you're
suspended, exactly.
Well, let's talk about realquick retargeting and how that
works and what that means.
I know when we mentioned thatto business owners as business
coaches, they're like what?
So can you explain that and howit works?
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, yeah.
So retargeting is this idea ofwhen someone comes to your
website, a large percentage ofpeople who come to your website
are not going to take actionright away, they're not going to
pick up the phone, they're notgoing to fill out a form.
They're in the journey ofthinking through.
Maybe they're checking multiplecompetitors out, maybe they
haven't decided to pull thetrigger on this service or just
doing research, whatever.
(24:36):
And so with the targeting, um,conceptually it's pretty
straightforward.
You put some, some code ontoyour website and then, when that
person leaves your website,that code follows them around
and you get to serve ads foryour business as they browse
other websites online.
It could be go watch a YouTubevideo, it could be on weathercom
(24:57):
, and you see an image ad on theright.
There's many, many differentplaces that those ads can appear
.
And Google there are differentplatforms that run retargeting
ads.
Google is, I think, probably thelargest in terms of across the
internet of showing or marketingads in many, many different
places Meta, facebook, they doremarketing as well, and so
(25:17):
forth.
So basically, it's this idea ofvery cost-effective marketing
because you're only targetingpeople who've already been to
your website, so it's not alarge number of people,
generally speaking, and it's notparticularly expensive,
generally speaking, to show adsto them.
But they are the warmestaudience, people who already
know who you are.
They've been to your website.
They're probably thinking aboutyou right now and it allows you
(25:39):
to stay in front of them.
You know, keep, keep your brandin mind and sometimes
strategically to, you know, giveincentives for them to come
back.
Hey, here's a 10% off coupon,come claim it now, things like
that.
And so it's a cost-effectiveway of staying in front of
people, keeping your brand intheir mind and ultimately trying
to bring them back to take theaction you want them to take.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You may or may not know the question to this, but I
hear this often of businessowners.
I'll be sitting at a coffee orsomething.
I'll go.
You know, I was just thinkingabout Nike shoes and next thing
you know I look, nike shoes areall over my platforms.
How does that work in thebackground?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
So this is a very controversial, controversial
question.
There are many uh there.
There are people on differentsides of this.
I am of the perspective thatyour phone is not listening to
you, so a lot of people havethat and I've experienced that
as well where it's like I justwas talking about these Nike
shoes and obviously my phone islistening to me because I'm
(26:40):
seeing them.
But there are many, many otherways that advertising platforms
can figure out potentially yourinterest in this without
listening to you.
So there are some, I'd say, moreobvious ways.
So, for example, if you go andsearch Nike shoes on Google,
google knows that and so Nike isgoing to target people who are
(27:01):
interested in Nike shoes, and sothat's kind of an obvious way.
But there's also things likelet's take Meta, for example.
If you're logged into Facebookon your phone and you're talking
with a friend and that friendjust recently bought Nike shoes
and they're telling you aboutthose Nike shoes, well, meta may
not be listening to theconversation, but they know that
you're in the vicinity of thisfriend and they know that this
(27:24):
friend recently made thispurchase through a Facebook ad
and often we'll see you knowthey'll be like oh well, let me
show an ad to something similarto this person because they were
in, you know, geographicalcontact and so stuff like that
happens and lots of other things.
There's also, like you know,third party data, credit card
stuff that can get pulled intosome of the platforms.
(27:44):
So I don't think that theylisten to you.
I'm not going to say that with100% certainty, because I
certainly don't know all things,but there are ways to
accomplish the same thingwithout necessarily having the
mic turned on, if that makessense.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I know that's one of
those big questions.
Well, we've talked a lot aboutGoogle and you've been very
helpful for our listeners.
Let's talk about Stub Group.
So our listeners are mostlysmall business owners, and those
that aren't are probably thosethat want to be a business owner
(28:22):
.
They just haven't pulled theplug.
So let's start back to theearly days.
What were some of thosechallenges that you had?
Growing, because you've gotquite the team here on your
website.
I see you've got quite a fewpeople on your team, but that's
not how every business starts.
So let's go back to the earlydays and kind of tell us things
you've learned and maybe sometips and insights that you would
(28:42):
share with others.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, absolutely no, definitely.
It definitely did not start outwith the size of the team we
have right now.
You know some of the some ofputting money into our own
advertising campaigns hopingthat we're going to get business
(29:10):
out of that that can then paythat off and keep flipping that
cycle, things like that.
We're very much a part ofthings.
I think, at the end of the day,it really came down to looking
at every client relationship asthe number one priority and
we're going to figure things outfor them, even if they're not
(29:30):
paying us a lot of money rightnow.
We're going to build ourreputation by doing an awesome
job for them and by beingcreative, by bringing some fresh
perspectives to the advertisingwe're doing for them that other
people aren't bringing, andbuild that reputation for
excellence and create afoundation that can then help us
get new clients and also helpus attract the right talent who
(29:53):
wants to work at a good place.
And so going back to thattalent went through so many
interviews and conversations andkind of approaches to figuring
out how do we structure our team, how do we find the right
people, things like do we hireand then train?
How do we find the right people.
You know, things like do wehire and then train or do we
hire people with experience?
(30:14):
Often in the early days we wouldhire and then train and there's
definitely benefits that comefrom that.
But there's also a lot ofdownsides, because you don't
know for a long time whether ornot the person actually has what
it takes, and you may train andinvest for six months or 12
months and then realize they'rejust not getting it.
You know, and I just wasted allthis time, and so, generally
speaking, nowadays we've movedmore of the model of hiring
(30:36):
people with experience andobviously you can pay a premium
for that in terms of, you know,salaries and things like that.
But we like to bring on provenentities for lack of a better
word who understand the businessthat we're in, who already have
a lot of experience, and thenwe still do more training to
kind of bring them up to ourlevel of excellence and how we
do things.
(30:56):
But we know that they alreadyget what our industry is like
and how to do the job and theyhave experience of working with
clients and, ideally, working inan agency environment and
things like that.
And so just figuring you know,figuring things like that out
over time what those hiringprocesses are, the the hiring
process we talked about earlier.
You know vetting, vettingpeople and and you know coming
(31:18):
up with projects for them towork on, and things like that um
have been really crucial tomaintaining a high level of of
service that we provide to ourclients, maintaining a good
reputation, which then allows usto keep growing as a business,
bringing more clients on boardand repeating that cycle.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
The digital space, would you say it's more kind of
self-learned, self-taught, orare there places that people?
Because you said you want tohire experienced people.
How do you determine if they'reexperienced?
Is that, like I said, is thatgoing to college?
And if so, is there a goodplace to learn this kind of
stuff?
Or is it?
(31:56):
Where do they get thisknowledge from?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah, that's a great question stuff, or is it?
Where do they get thisknowledge from?
Yeah, that's a great questionbecause, like you mentioned, the
digital space moves so quickly.
I I really don't care abouteducation.
I honestly don't even look tosee if people went to college.
You know what they graduatedwith, et cetera.
What matters to me is thathands-on experience of actually
(32:20):
working, you know, in thetrenches of running campaigns,
of working with clients, offiguring out Google or Facebook
or whatever.
So we're looking for people,generally speaking, who've
already been doing that, ideallyfor other agencies, and then
we're able, through thosevetting projects, to get a sense
for, okay, how have they beentrained and what type of work
are they doing?
(32:40):
And is that in line with, youknow, what we know works best
and kind of with the way that weapproach things for our clients
?
And then, um, and then,generally speaking, we give them
a lot of new experience theydidn't have exposure to, because
the types of clients that weget to work with and you know
the processes that we put inplace, and so we we can help
kind of up, upskill them up,level their skills and uh, and
(33:01):
get them to where we need wewant them to be for for working
with our clients.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I know a lot of business owners.
You know you've kind of gonethrough the.
This is how we attract, this ishow we hire.
How do you retain key employees?
That's another big thing abouthow do I keep these people now
that I found them?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, I think a couple important things go into
that, you know.
One is very much theenvironment that people are in,
and that environment is verymuch controlled by the other
people that they're working with.
Now we used to have a physicaloffice where the majority of our
team members were physical.
Now we're completely remote.
So we have people all over thecountry, all over the world,
that we work with, but there'sstill lots of interaction
(33:44):
between those team membersworking towards a common goal,
and so it's really important tobring people on board who other
people are excited to work with.
Having that bad apple, havingthat big ego that just wants to
take credit for everything andrun a rough shot over the other
team, it's not worth havingthose types of people, at least
(34:07):
from my perspective and myexperience, because they create
an environment that other peopledo not want to participate in,
and that's where you see peopleleave is when they don't like
the people that they work with.
So, again, going back to hiringand what types of people we
bring on board, but that's super, super important and, like I
was just having thisconversation an hour ago with a
candidate we're hiring who wasasking about our environment,
(34:28):
and usually the first thing I'llsay is we don't have a bunch of
big egos on board.
We're very team oriented.
We wanna be successful for ourclients and we know that when we
are, we're successful as acompany and then each of us
individually is successful.
So that's really important.
And then, you know, just from avery basic level, incentivizing
people, paying them well,paying them for their work and
(34:49):
when they do well, when theyexcel, when they drive, generate
more revenue, more value forthe company, rewarding them for
that, so that they see thattheir hard work is valued and
they get to, you know, engage inthe fruits of that labor.
So I think those are the twomost important things.
Probably the third thing I wouldsay is in the agency world,
(35:12):
we're not afraid to fire clients.
It's not, you know, certainlynot the ideal, not something we
like to do, but there are justsome businesses that, frankly,
are just not worth working withbecause they just don't approach
things with a partnershipmentality.
It feels like a fight every day, even though we're trying to
help them be successful and ourteam knowing that you know, I
(35:35):
have their back in that way andthat if a client's being
unreasonable with them or isbeing unprofessional with them.
They can come to me and say,hey, I can't take this, that
type of thing and I've proven.
Hey, if it's a situation wherewe need to, we'll sacrifice the
revenue for the company, move onfrom that client, wish them
well, refer them to somewhereelse, because it's just not
(35:56):
worth working with.
You know really terribleclients in the long run.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, we like to refer those to our competition
and I love to hear this becausejust because you're a business
and you're paying someonedoesn't mean you can't treat
them in humanely, like you knowbadly.
So I love, love to hear that.
So let's go to a couple ofchallenges.
Anything that you learned alongthe way growing and scaling
(36:23):
this business Like this is anessential that every business
owner should know, because thisreally moved the needle for us.
Or maybe this is something wedid.
Don't do this because it reallydamaged us.
Anything like that happen inthe years you've been in
business business.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
I would say one one thing that comes to mind.
This is not going to be, um,you know, not going to be this,
this genius gem of information,but I think a lot of businesses
deprioritize it is you have tohave that sales funnel
constantly being filled andmoving forward.
So a lot of businesses,especially you know, you've got
(36:59):
a business owner who's maybe haswears a bunch of hats, is doing
a bunch of different things,really busy actually doing the
work on behalf of their clients.
They put sales and marketing tokind of the very bottom of
their priority list and thenthey wake up one day like I
don't have any jobs the nextmonth and at that point it's too
late because it takes time formarketing, time for sales.
(37:19):
And so you have to invest thetime, the energy, the effort in
always having leads coming in,having those conversations,
making sure that your pipelineis full so that you can keep
yourself and your team busy.
And and you can't, you know, youcan't deprioritize that, even
though it's so tempting to dothat, because it's not calling
(37:42):
you, yelling at you like yourcustomers might be.
And you got those customerscalling like, well, I got to
deal with this, and yes, you do,but if you also don't deal with
your sales and marketing,you're not going to have any
customers calling you next week,and so that's, I think, a
really important thing to justalways remember you have to
focus on as a business owner.
Well, you think that's not agem, I think a really important
thing to just always rememberyou have to focus on as a
business owner.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Well, you think that's not a gem.
I think this is about our 90thepisode we're recording and
you're the first one that eversaid that.
So it is a gem, because manypeople don't think about that.
They get a big sale and theyget so wrapped up working in the
business as they say, theyforget that, hey, next month or
six months from now, if I'mdon't keep that consistent lead
(38:24):
generation going, I'm not goingto have business.
So I appreciate you sharingthat.
Well, is there anything that Ihaven't asked?
I know a lot of times if I'm ona podcast I'm like I really
wish I would have said this.
Anything we haven't covered,that you're.
You're just like yeah, let memention this before we sign off
here in a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
I think we covered some great territory, I think.
If I wanted to kind ofemphasize or reiterate a point,
maybe I would go back to thatidea of if you're going to get
into any advertising channel,whether it be Google Ads or
whatever.
It's just so important to thinkthrough again.
What does success look like?
What am I trying to accomplish?
How am I going to measure that?
(39:03):
And try to set yourself up forsuccess.
You know, if you have a websitethat looks like it's built in
2009, maybe don't start spendinga bunch of money on Google ads,
sending people to a websitethat they're not going to trust
because it looks terrible.
Put the time and the effort andthe investment into having a
good web presence, into makingsure that if someone Googles
(39:23):
your reviews, they're going tosee reviews about you because
you've asked for your customers,give your reviews and just kind
of basic foundational things.
Just think like a customer howdo you decide who to work with?
And then just make sure you'vegot those things for your
business and for a lot ofbusinesses, you know, just a few
(39:43):
changes, improvements on yourwebsite, getting some more
customer reviews can have just amassive impact on your sales
and lead volume that are comingin Excellent.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I know a lot of people like to follow our guests
, learn more, get in touch withthem.
What's the best way to do thatwith you?
Speaker 2 (40:02):
I'd say that the place we probably most
consistently place content on isour YouTube channel.
So search Stub Group on YouTube.
Put out a lot of free contenton there.
And then, of course, if youwant to learn just more about
Stub Group and other socialmedia channels and things, just
go to stubgroupcom and we've gotall the information on there.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Any podcast or anything Blogs.
We do actually.
We do actually.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
We do our own podcast called Clicks to Customers.
You can find it on Spotify,apple Podcasts and elsewhere.
Generally, we talk aboutvarious marketing topics.
We usually go a little bitbroader than advertising.
We've talked about, certainly,seo.
We've talked about how AI isimpacting advertising.
We've got a sales episodecoming up soon, so, yeah, lots
(40:44):
of good content on there.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
And then is there a place to follow you if they want
to do that Best place for thatis probably going to be LinkedIn
.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Just search my name on LinkedIn and you'll find me
on there.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Fantastic.
Well, before we sign off here,I always ask one final question,
and that is if you were infront of an audience of business
owners different sizes ofbusiness, different industries
what's one applicable insightthat you would give them?
It could be a quote, a book orjust something.
Maybe you've already said thatyou want to reiterate.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
I'm going to go back to the people side of things and
back to a quote which is hireslowly, fire quickly.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Wow, amen, amen, and that's the hardest to do.
Well, john, you've been ablessing to many and a wealth of
information.
I appreciate your time today.
Thank you so much, michael,really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Thank you for listening to Small Business
Pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company, boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours.
Boss, offers flexible businessloans with business coaching
support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
(42:02):
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at michael at
michaeldmorrisoncom.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
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