Jeremy Ashburn on Epic Entrepreneurs: Building an SEO Agency and Winning at AI Search

0:00 Welcome and PushLeads Introduction
Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae filling in for Bill Gilliland with your local business training and coaching firm, ActionCOACH Business Growth Partners. I’m really excited to have Jeremy Ashburn with PushLeads as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs podcast episode today. So Jeremy, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company, and what primary products or services you offer our community? Sure. I’m Jeremy Ashburn with PushLeads, and what we do is help small business owners get more leads without struggle or frustration. And what we primarily do is get you visible, get your business visible at the top of Google, and also recommended by AIs, such as ChatGPT or anyone using other… any of the other AIs out there. And, and essentially, there’s a lot of frustration these days, um, because a lot of times business owners really wanna get at the top of Google. They wanna be recommended by AIs, but they don’t really know what to do. They have no idea what it takes to get up there, um, to get recommended, and we make that our expertise to do that. Uh, so we’ve been doing this for about 15 years full time.

1:16 What Jeremy Would Do Differently
We’ve got about 45 clients that we do it for on an ongoing basis, and it’s just been a lot of fun. I’ve been doing this, um, you know, just really, I’m kinda living the dream, um, doing what I love and helping businesses grow at the same time. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. So how long have you been in business thus far? So it’s been about 15 years. Um, I really started around 2012 when I went full time, and I can tell you that whole long story. But I had a lot of things that kind of led up to the point where I decided, "You know what? I love doing this, and I wanna go full time." So… Okay. So, you know, obviously with the, with the business 15 years, I’m sure you’ve got some, some things you can say here on this next question. Um, if, if you had to start from square one in your business, what would you do differently? Yeah, let me, let me think about that for a second. Wow. Let’s see. If I had to start… Let’s see. If I had to start from square one doing, um, redoing it from ground, ground, from… If I had to start from… Let me just start all over again. If I had to start from the beginning, what I would do would be to go out there and hire one or two sales reps, um, to go out there and beat the streets and pay them a really nice commission for going out there to generate leads. And, and if I could… If I would’ve done that from the beginning, I probably would’ve been growing more exponentially like I am now. Um, I have a really, really amazing outside sales rep who also doubles up as my social media queen, and she’s actually here in the office with me today. Her name is Andrea. And she has been going out there and, um, you know, meeting with potential new clients and bringing them different reports of what they can do to get higher in Google. And if I could go back, I would’ve really hired an Andrea, you know, like a s- an outside sales rep, like 15 years ago. But I did not. I just started on my own, and I started doing networking groups and growing on my own. Um, and- Mm-hmm … I, I grew slow and steady, but if I could go back, I would redo it and try to bring on people like her, uh, from, from the beginning. Yeah, yeah. So basically, you were, you were juggling everything by yourself, right? Is that what I’m understanding? Yeah, and that’s the mistake a lot of times entrepreneurs make, is they think, "Hey, I’m gonna do everything on my own." Um, and, and when you’re dealing with cashflow issues and you’re starting a business, it can be difficult to do everything. But what I’ve found is if you can create a, a structure that rewards, you know, people for doing the work they’re doing, and they’re motivated to work, then they’ll keep producing for you because they’re motivated. They’re doing work that’s producing income, and that income is also helping your business. So that’s kinda what I’ve, uh, that’s kinda the arrangement I’ve come up with, um, with, um, with my current outside sales rep, is that she, um, will get, like, a 20% commission, um, of any kind of business that she brings in. And she also handles social media, so she gets 100% commission on all that work because she’s doing all that work herself. So I’ve found that, uh, the people need to have motivation to work. Have you noticed? Oh, yeah. And, and if they don’t have the motivation, they just will… Or they don’t have the drive, then they won’t really do a lot. But if you find somebody that is, like, young, um, or even not young, um, and but they’re, they have a drive and they’re showing up and they’re doing the work and you give them tasks and they’re doing it and they’re grateful for the, you know, the money, the, the revenue you’re paying them, and they’re just consistent, then that per- that kind of person is like a superpower, um, for your business. And it’s hard to find that person ’cause there’s so many people that just don’t actually have drive. They don’t have the motivation. And, um, but when you can find someone like that and test them on a small little project and see how they do on a small little project, and, and then if they consistently do that and you give them more work, then, you know, I’ve found that that’s a really recipe for success. Because one thing I’ve figured out is that how you do one thing is how you do everything. Mm-hmm. And so if you’re the kind of person that is gonna just lay around and sort of let life happen, happen to you and just sort of, you know, do your best, then life will always happen that way. But if you’re the kind of person that gets out there and is, like, a go-getter and has drive and is, you know, in the community and is, and making connections and doing the work, then, then I’ve noticed then, then it’s like that- That whole aspect of getting out there and just taking more of an active approach to life, it really rewards you. Um, so that’s a little bit about, about my philosophy, but I’ve just found that that really does make a difference. It seems like you either have drive or you don’t, you know- Mm-hmm … from my take. No, you’re, you’re definitely right, and that’s something that cannot be taught at all. You just, like you say- Exactly … you either have it or you don’t. So, um, and it’s- And that’s why I, that’s why I’ve found that, like, if you take somebody and just give them one little task, like with Andrea, I said, "Hey, you know, here’s one of my clients. Um, it’s a hair salon… Excuse me. It’s a wax salon in Los Angeles, and they’ve been on my client… They’ve, they’ve been my client for a couple of years." And I said, "Hey, you know, w- let’s meet with the business owner, and let’s show them where they are in Google, and let’s talk to them about doing social media and see if they’re interested." And she said she was. And I said, "Okay. Well, let’s, let’s come in at a lower than the market price, around $300 or $400 a month, and see if we can produce results, ’cause you don’t have a lot of experience doing this. But if you can be consistent, and you can be posting on their social media, on their Instagram, on their TikTok, and you can be consistent, then that, um, then that will mean the client will keep working with you." And so- Mm-hmm … she did. She took that client on, and she started posting for them on TikTok and Instagram, and that was three or four months ago. And now we have… Now she has 10 clients. Mm-hmm. And I’m paying her roughly $500 to $1,000 commission a week because she is killing it. Wow. So it’s like, I need about five more Andreas, you know? Yeah. It sounds like… And, and shouts out to Andrea. Sounds like you got a, you got a really good one there, so she’s coming on- Yeah, she’s in the background saying thank you. I don’t know if you can hear her. Yeah, no problem at all. Um, so Jeremy, what have your biggest learnings been as an owner since you

This is part of our AI search visibility guide.

7:52 Biggest Learnings Delegate and Document
started your business, would you say? So can you repeat the question? What have your biggest learnings been as an owner since you started your business? I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is that, um, it’s really important that you understand something intimately as a business owner before you delegate. But once you do, delegate as, as soon as possible so that you can free yourself up to go out and do more things. Um, so, so for example, um, you know, one of the things that we do is we publish inner hidden pages on a website our, for our clients around different subjects. So one of our clients is, um, a roofing company, and so we publish a lot of inner hidden pages around roofing costs, around roofing maintenance, around, um, diff- different aspects around roofing, even do DIY guides and things like that. And what I’ve found is that I like to enjoy doing this process initially, coming up with a strategy and then documenting the strategy. Um, and then once I have that done, and once I test it, and I know it’s consistent and it’s producing results for my clients, I then pass that off to one of my virtual assistants, one of my team members, and they start doing it consistently. So that’s one of the things that when I first got started, I was doing all that myself. And it’s one thing if you have 5 or 10 clients, you can do that, but you can’t really ex- uh, you can’t really scale into 10 and 20 and 30 clients or more if you’re doing everything yourself. So that’s one of the things I’ve really loved doing, is understanding the process myself and then documenting the process. Um, we’re, we’re a huge fan of using Loom to record the screen. It’s… Uh, Loom is a record, a screen recording tool that has, you know, a little bubble of you, of your video in the lower left-hand corner, and then it’s, you’re, you’re doing, you’re recording on the screen. And so I can essentially take any of my tasks that I do and record it, and then I can get that transcription and make a step-by-step SOP, standard operating procedure. And then from there, I can then create that as a training for any of, one of my team members to go out there and start doing. And so that’s kinda what I’ve really done in the last, um, actually six months or so, is documenting a lot of my process out and then hiring different people to begin to do that for my clients so that I’m freed up to go out there and go after more clients or meet with my clients or do whatever I wanna do. Okay. Okay. I love it, love it. So what would you say are some common misconceptions about running a business? This is always a good one. Let me ask an AI to answer that question for me. I’m kidding. Uh, let’s see. What are some common misconceptions? Um, you know, let me think about that. Let’s see.

11:14 Common Misconceptions About Starting a Business
I think one of the common miscon- misco- I think one of the common misconceptions is that you need to go out there and get a huge loan to be successful. It’s not always the case where you need a lot of initial capital to be successful, especially if you are considering going off on your own. So if you’re considering going off on your own, um, what I ended up doing when I first kinda discovered that I really had wanted to do this full time was, um, I had a client that was paying me about $5,000 a month, and I only had one client, and I was like, "Man, what happens if I lose this client?" ‘Cause I’m just month to month. I don’t… I, I didn’t have an annual contract. And so I was like, "All right. Well, I need to start getting clients so that I can build up my client base So I went out to the bank and got a $12,000 loan, and I said, "Okay, this is, this will maybe… I could last maybe three or four months if I could make this stretch." Um, and, and then at the same time, I lost this client because I’d finished the work I was… that he wanted me to do, and he didn’t want to keep paying the money. So at that point, I literally had three months to make this work. It was a total sink or swim moment, and I was like, "You know what? If…" I did not give myself the option of failing. Mm. And so I literally had three months to make this thing work, and I did it. After about three months, I was making about maybe 3 or 4K worth of income. Not enough to totally survive, but enough to rob Peter to pay Paul- Mm-hmm … and then keep going, uh, you know, and over and over again. And eventually I got to the point where I was like, all right, make enough income to, you know, survive. So you don’t need necessarily 50 or $100,000 to start a business, especially if you are working full-time and you’re doing what you love on the side, and it’s a side gig that could become a full-time gig. You could start slowly moving into that. Or you could be in a situation like myself where you’re like, all right, well, I have some amount of money to make this work, but y- I need to produce in this timeframe to make this thing work. And I think that having that drive to produce and having, having a time limit and having a goal, um, those are all things that I found are super important, because I’m really big in manifesting- Mm … and believing something and then bringing that into reality. And I could talk to you for hours about that, but it really comes down to coming up with a goal, uh, coming up with a goal of what do you want to accomplish, and then doing actions towards that goal, and then saying different things, uh, different affirmations that begin to make that goal a reality. And, and then sometimes also just letting it go and just mar- letting it marinate, you know? ‘Cause you can work too hard, right? So it’s a balance there. But getting back to the story, I was able to make it work ’cause I had a goal. I had three months to make it work, and I had a, I had a strategy in place. I had joined two different networking groups. I would go every week to these groups. I’d let them know what I do, and I started getting… I would meet with clients face-to-face, ’cause everything was more face-to-face back then. Mm-hmm. And then I started getting clients. And so looking back on it, it was kinda crazy to, to do. Um, but it was a sink or swim moment for me. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it, it’s interesting because a lot of people in that situation, they would actually crumble, right? But you actually took that on and took that 90-day period and was like, "Hey, I’m gonna make this work." Sink or swim, like you said. And I, I love that. Says a lot about you and your character, because a lot of people, you give them a timeline and they’re just, it’s not gonna happen. That, that, that actually puts more pressure on them to actually fail. You, you know what I’m saying? Yeah. And you know, there’s, there’s this whole thing that we don’t really talk a lot about in our culture, um, resilience. You know? Resilience is when the going gets tough, how tough are you? You know? Um, are you gonna work late? Are you going to, you know, work weekends? take personal time to recharge so that when you are working, you’re working as super productive? Mm. So those are all things that I’ve learned, and I think… Sorry. Sorry about that. It’s okay. I think that, um, resilience is super important, and it was… it really surprised myself, um, I, I really discovered that I love what I do. And I was really influenced years ago, um, you’re probably gonna ask the question about, you know, why I started, you know, why, why I wanted to get into what I do now, but I will just share that story.

15:57 Steve Jobs Stanford Speech and Finding Your Passion
Years ago, before I went full time to what I do now, I saw Steve Jobs did a qu- did a, um, he did a s- a speech to the graduates of Stanford in 2005, and I watched this speech on YouTube probably in ’08, ’09. And, and you should totally go to YouTube and look it up if you’ve never seen it before. But it just blew my mind. It… I literally almost started crying when I saw this. And I’m not a fan of Apple, um, or the company as a whole, but I, I found the speech to be so inspiring to me. And basically what Steve Jobs says in the speech is, "If you can find what you love and you can find a way to make money doing what you love, you’ll never work another day in your life." It will still be work. You’re still showing up and getting the task and doing the things and meeting with clients, but it won’t feel like work because it is your passion. And I was like, it just hit me at that point. I was like, wow, my passion is helping small businesses grow. And what if I could make this into a career? What if I could make money doing this? I know other people are making money doing this. How do I get there? And it, it just became like the impetus for this drive to be successful. And, and it’s like I… That’s what I’ve… I, I guess that would be a piece of advice I would give aspiring entrepreneurs is find what your passion is and find if you can find a way to make money, you know, with that passion. And if you can, if you can make money doing what you love, you, it really won’t be work because you’re doing what you love. Oh man, I love that. That’s super inspirational. Love that. Love that. Um, so do you think you are a better entrepreneur or employee, and why? I think I’m a better entrepreneur than employee because I really enjoy the i- whole idea of learning something new. I’m always learning, always growing. It used to be where I read books all the time. Now I really talk to AIs all the time. Which I know it sounds crazy, but, um, AIs can just teach you a lot more in a, a sh- a lot shorter amount of time. But I do still find the importance of reading books and being offline and taking long hikes in the woods and, you know, listening to the trees and the wind blow through the trees. So I’m a huge fan of being offline, but also, um, reading books, you know, old-fashioned turn the pages books, but also using the technology we have now to do that. So what I’ve found, though, is learning, um, continuing to learn and grow keeps you mentally fresh. And to me, that is really what being an entrepreneur is, is being mentally fresh, is, is, um, meeting your- meeting with your clients and showing the progress you’re making, as well as, um, doing things to expand your own horizons. So I find that as an entrepreneur, that’s kinda what my focus is, and I like learning things, and then I like testing things out to figure out, is this thing I’m learning, is this gonna help my business? And then testing to find out that makes a s- that if it works. And if it does, then I start documenting that process and then have my, my team implement that. Um, so as an employee, you’re gonna be the person that takes these sort of implementations, uh, takes these standard operating procedures, and then does that. That kinda wears me out, honestly. Consistently doing something and posting on social media or posting blogs. Have I done it? Do I do it? Yes. But I’d rather have people do that for me, because I get wore out from consistent things like that, if that makes sense. I’ve just learned that’s how I sort of am hardwired. So what I do is I document a process, and then I, um, have my team implement it, and then I come in as needed as there’s extra, extra high-quality touch on top of the process they’re already doing. Hmm, okay. Okay. So how do you handle taking vacations while running your business? So one of the things I’ve found is that I can tend to be somewhat of a workaholic. I love what I do so much that I kinda tend to work a lot. And my partner has really, and I’ve been working about, um, working on the balance of work-life, um, a work-life balance, and having a time where you stop responding to emails, respon- stop responding to texts and you are just, um, completely offline. You’re present with your, your, uh, partner or yourself if you’re single and you’re solo. You’re, you’re dating yourself, so to speak. Um, but the importance is that you’re not working. Um, and so I’m at the point where this year my goal is to do one sort of either weekend or, you know, week-long vacation once a quarter. Maybe it’s just a weekend once a quarter. Maybe it’s a week-long vacation sometime in the summer. But really what I find is that if it, uh, if at all possible, at least on a weekend, like a Friday to Tuesday for Valentine’s Day, we’re gonna go to, um, one of my clients has cabins, and we have this really great cabin that we love to go to. And I’m gonna tr- we’re gonna try to be offline the entire weekend. Maybe, maybe use the phone to s- turn on some music, things like that, but just try to be offline the entire time and just be present with my partner. Um, her love language is quality time, and so quality time is quality time when you are focused and you’re attending with your partner. You’re with them. You’re, you’re, you’re, you’re doing tasks with them. You’re just being with them. And so that’s something I’m working on is the importance of just getting offline. So what I typically do on a weekend is I’ll get offline and just stay off the entire weekend and then slowly get back on as I’m ending, you know, a weekend vacation. If it’s during a l- a week-long trip, what I try to do is let my, uh, clients know I’m a- unavailable for that time. I’m on vacation. Send them an email or a group text. Let them know I’m unavailable for that week, and then have someone to take over tasks if something comes up during that week. Um, so that’s kinda my goal for this upcoming year is on the week-long vacation, to have someone handling the business if anything comes up, um, anything urgent that comes up. Um, and so that’s kinda my philosophy. And what I’ve found is that the more you can disconnect from your business, the more you can be offline, the more have s- quality time with yourself or with your partner or with family and friends, the more productive you are when you are in– when you’re in productive mode, when you’re at work. And years ago, um, I had a, um, an ex-wife tell me when we were together, she said, "You know, you’re a Cadillac." And I said, "What?" She said, "You’re a Cadillac, you know. Do you know much about cars?" And I grew up, you know, drawing. So I grew up, like, in art class. While everyone else was playing sports, I was drawing and reading books. I was so artsy. Um, and, and I was like, "All right, so what do you mean?" You know? And she’s like, "Well, Cadillacs, you know anything about the car?" And I was like, "Um, kind of." She said, "Well, Cadillacs are, are like a high-end brand that requires a lot of maintenance. But if you maintain the car and you get regular oil changes, and you are, um, doing all, all of your preventive maintenance on time, and you’re just consistent with it, and you’re not driving it too hard, but you are, you know, tender with it, and you are with it, um, and you’re consistent with all those things, then it will reward you with a long life where it takes you to and from work, and it’s there." She said, "That’s what, that’s what you are. You are a Cadillac, and your tendency is to burn the candle at both ends and, and go hard." Go hard in the paint, so to speak. Um, but reality is, the harder you push yourself, the more exhausted you are when you are working. So if you could learn to disconnect and be with me and be with your kids and blah, blah, blah, and be with your family, um, then you’ll be a better productive worker. And, and ever since then, even though that marriage didn’t work out, I took that advice and I was like, "Yeah, I am a Cadillac." And so it’s okay to not work. It’s, y- I need to set aside time to just be present, to be offline, to be in the woods, um, you know, to, to be sitting with my partner watching a show or reading books. And so it’s a still, it’s a work in progress, but that’s kinda what I’ve been learning. Yeah, no, I, I love that. And then being called a Cadillac, A, there are worse things to be called, right? I, I actually love Cadillacs, so That’s actually a, that’s actually a, a compliment if I was to, you know, somebody was to call me one of those. But, um, but yeah, no, I love that. Great story. So what have you… Let’s see how I can frame this kinda onto, kinda to fit what you do. What, what have you attributed to the growth of Pu- of PushLeads so far? What would you say has, has led up to that other than your, your work ethic and obviously your, your drive?

25:38 Growth of PushLeads Self-Teaching SEO
I think, I think a lot of times, you know, when I first started, um, I guess this is a question between you and I real quick. Are you gonna ask sort of why I decided to s- decided to start my company, or is that one of the questions or not, Cliff? Uh, no, I’m not a- actually gonna ask that, no. I actually- Okay … skipped that one. So ask that question again and I’ll kinda go into- Okay … I will start again. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I typically don’t ask that question. Um, but, uh, all right, let me see. So what have you attributed to the growth of PushLeads so far? So I think the growth really has first of all come down to understanding what my passion is, which is helping businesses grow, and then secondly, taking action items to connect that passion to something that can produce something that our clients can see the results of their getting higher in Google. Um, and so what I really did was I completely self-taught. I taught myself how to do, how to show, how to make businesses show at the top of Google. It’s called search engine optimization or SEO. Um, and now I’m teaching myself how to show up for the AIs, how to be recommended by the AIs, whether we call it generative engine optimization or SEO or whatever we call it. AI SEO, it’s, there’s so many words that are thrown around. But this whole idea of learning the industry on your own. I’m a kinetic learner. I learn by watching people do things and then doing them and imitating them and then doing them on my own. And that whole kinetic learner of doing things, of testing things, of seeing the results of the wor- the, uh, uh, uh, of seeing the results of the testing and then implementing that has really been probably the foundation for my success. But also meeting with potential clients and showing them my work and then working with them and then getting them, bring them on as clients is also super important. So when I first got started, um, doing what I do is, it was way back in 2003. I read a book about how to show up in Google, and it was really back then about writing a blog and creating a blog and writing a blog and just do this. Just blog. Write blog posts about your passion and then share that with people, and eventually that will turn into income. And I was like, "I don’t know how that’s gonna happen-" Mm-hmm … "but okay, I’m gonna do this." So, um, around 2002 I created a blog. It was called buyapc.org. It was literally a .org domain, and it was the whole idea of if someone’s l- looking to buy a computer, maybe they’ll do some research and they’ll read my reviews about computers and, and see, and potentially buy a computer from reading my review. So I created this blog, then I started posting on it on a weekly basis, and I would just talk about the most popular laptops and desktops. This is before smartphones were out, before all the modern technology. And for years I just would- … write about t- I always loved hardware. I, I’m a, I’m a total geek, so I, I would write about computer hardware and I would then, um, share what I loved about this particular piece of hardware and then I would publish that as a blog post. And then two or three years later I discovered that, wait a minute, I can write about hardware that’s on Amazon. I could write about the most popular gaming desktops or the most popular office desktops for office use, et cetera. So I started- Mm … doing that and then I realized that I could basically from there put a link, so if somebody clicked, somebody clicked that link and they went to Amazon and they bought that computer within 24 hours, I would make some money. And so, so from there I started making money, and by 2009 I was generating $20,000 of business a month for Amazon and I was making about- Wow … $5,000 a month, um, just from the commission. And, and so what the whole process is this, is that a lotta times the future or your goal or your destination is you can’t see it from here. All you can see is the next step in front of you or maybe two or three steps in front of you. So the spirit or the higher power or your intuition, whatever you wanna call it, is leading you to that destination but you don’t know, you don’t know how to get there. You just know what the next step is in front of you. Imagine like standing in front of a river in a wood, you know, and it’s a long wide river. It’s, it’s, and, and there’s like- There’s regular stones that are popping out of the water, and you’re on one bank, you know? And you could see the first couple stones to hop to, but from there you don’t know where to go. Mm-hmm. And so it’s not until you hop into that first stone, into that second stone to where you can see, oh, there’s another stone, or maybe I have to go through the water at this point, or maybe, uh, there’s a, a branch I can hang on to that, you know, get me to the next step. And so you’re gonna eventually gonna cross that river and get to the other side, but you can’t see all the steps. You can just see the first stone in front of you. And a lot of us are too afraid to jump to that first stone, to take that first risk, to step out there. But reality is if we do, if we step out there, then there– from there, our vision gets wider. We have greater perception, because now we’re in the river. Now we can see that next stone. Maybe that next stone is slightly under the water, but that’s okay. Maybe you get your feet wet, that’s okay. But from there you can go to the next dry stone. And so that was kind of my whole process of starting a tech blog and writing blogs, and then from there, um, learning how to sh- get it to show up on Amazon and learn how to get those links and get money from those links. And then later on, I was really surprised when I logged in and I was generating twenty thousand dollars of business of, of hardware sales. I was like, "This is crazy." Yeah. So it’s very re-reiterative though, so… Okay, okay. No, I love that answer. All right, perfect. So now we’re gonna move on to what’s called the quick fire round.

32:04 Quick-Fire Round Education Planning Inspiration
basically how this works is I’m going to throw out one word, and I just want you to tell me the first idea or first thing that comes to your mind. Now, your answer doesn’t have to be one word, but just basically the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business. All right, first word is education. So my response to that would be continual learning. I’m part of a BNI group, and, um, BNI is a networking group that you can be part of, um, and you can help grow your business that way. And one of their, um, ideals is continual education. So I think that we need to embrace this whole aspect as a core value to always be continually learning, because that learn, uh, the more you learn, the more you earn. I totally agree. Totally. And now digging into that a little bit more, uh, actually we’ll pivot here before we dig back into the one words. Um, I know you’ve talked a lot about networking here on this call, so, or today, but what would you say other than the BNI, do you have any other networking groups that you, that you are, are part of that you would recommend for small business owners looking to grow? So if I was a small business owner, um, and looking to grow, I would definitely join, um, the local chamber. Um, the Asheville and the Huntersville Chamber has, um, you know, it’s important to join the chamber. But more than joining a chamber, going to a weekly leads group is super important. It’s gonna be a group of like five, ten, or twenty people, and they’re gonna stand up and y- everyone has one minute to go around the room and talk about their business. And then from there, you’ll– people, people will walk ri– From there, people will walk right up to you in the, after the, you know… Let me try to talk here. From there, people will walk right up to you after the group and ask you about what you do and potentially want to set up a one-to-one. And setting up– doing those one-to-ones is how you get business, is how you get clients. Um, and Asheville is still very face-to-face. Um, so I would recommend joining the chamber. I would looking at– I would recommend looking into BNI groups. Um, there’s also other groups. There’s a group that I meet with on Mondays, um, with a lady named Laura. Um, I can give you the info here in a little bit. Um, but it’s a group of ten of us, and we meet on Zoom, and we just share different wins that we’re experiencing as entrepreneurs. And that is a great group. Let me give you the name. Hold on, give me a second. I’m sure this will be really, really helpful. So yeah, I really appreciate you sharing this, Jeremy. Yeah, definitely. Um… Yeah, it’s an online group. It’s– Some of these groups are Zoom only, and some of these groups are in person, and some of these groups are online. It just depends. And you have to find something that works for you. So if you’re the person that prefers in person, then you can, you know, look, you can join those kind of groups. If it’s, if you’re somebody that is more comfortable online, you can join that group. Um, here we go. Okay, so… Okay, so, um, on Mondays at ten AM, I’m part of an online networking group called the Mosaic Momentum Networking Group, and we can provide the link to it, um, in, in, in this podcast. But it’s a group of about ten entrepreneurs. Some of these people are business coaches, some of these people are, um, uh, a therapist, some of these people are entrepreneurs where they have a service-based business. And the group is really an hour long, and they’re different than a BNI that has like thirty-second elevator pitches. We start with, um, the spark, which is like a one big win. Like what’s the one big win you’ve been able to accomplish this past week? And then we talk, and then we go into a breakthrough session where we talk about issues and how to solve the issues. And then we meet one on one in the group. We go into Zoom rooms, we meet with somebody, and then from there we kind of end with a victory lap where we talk about wins. So I’ve, I’ve enjoyed that group because It’s not just stand up and talk about your business, which is super important as well, but it goes a little deeper. And it seems like that the deeper you can go with people, the more effective you can be. So those are the two groups I’m part of. Um, there’s also a group that I’m forming for other people that do what I do. Um, so this would only be for certain people that are– that do kind of my… that do SEO, and it’s a group I’m starting at the end of this month. Um, the first– our first meeting is ten AM, Friday, January thirtieth, and it’s called SEO Geeks and Freaks. And essentially, it’s a no-BS monthly mastermind for SEO professionals who live and breathe anything about SEO. So whether you’re a geek, um, and you love technical details, or you’re a freak for the latest algorithm updates, this is a tribe of people. And essentially what I, what I want this group to be is a group where we get together and we connect and collaborate. We build genuine relationships with other SEO professionals, we stay current about the latest updates with AIs, we share, we share with each other what works, real strategies and, um, we grow together. We make a– we make– We say, "Hey, we’re not gonna try to take each other’s clients. We’re gonna try to help each other." Because a lot of times people that do, in my world, um, people that do SEO, they’re just kind of off on their own. They may ask questions to an AI, but there’s not really anyone that they can ask a question about. And so this group is gonna be a way where I can give back and share what I’m working with my– what’s working for my current clients, and I can learn what’s working with other people. There’s a guy that’s, um, in my co-working space. I, I work out of Mojo Coworking, which is downtown Asheville, and there’s a co-working space there. And there’s a guy there who’s an SEO professional and has sixty-five clients. So he’s ahead of where I’m at. I’m at forty-five clients, and I sit- regularly sit down with him like once a week and just get to know what he’s working on, and he always shares nuggets with me. And I’m like, "What if we could just make this as a group where we can share these nuggets with other people and help other people grow?" So it’s a, a way to give back. So those are the three groups I’m part of is the BNI group, the Mosaic networking group, and also this new group, this SEO Geeks and Freaks group I’m creating. Perfect. Perfect. And we’ll get to, uh, we’ll get into that a little bit more and kinda get some, um, ways for people to contact you here a little bit later. So, um, but yeah, getting back to this, so, uh, the next word is planning. So planning is all about understanding where you are right now and where you wanna go and how are you gonna get there. And for me, what I’ve found is that my best time to do planning is generally on the weekends. It’s first thing in the morning on Saturday or Sunday morning, where I sit down, I’m looking at, looking at what’s going on with my clients and then what needs to be happening, and then coming with strategies as needed. It doesn’t take a lot of time. It can just be like thirty minutes to an hour ’cause I definitely want my weekends to be mostly offline, to be mostly with my partner or in the woods hiking, that kind of thing. But so I find that, I find that planning is important, but it’s also important to have this aspect where you’re not always left brain all the time. Planning can also be a right brain experience where it’s more spontaneous. You’re looking at what’s happening and based on what you’re hearing right now or what a client is saying, "Hey, I need more leads in this one area." "Okay. So let’s stop, and let’s plan for an hour. Let’s plan for thirty minutes." So I’ve really found that it’s important to have sort of planned planning, but also spontaneous planning, if that makes sense. Okay. Next word is inspiration. Inspiration is connected to your passion, and in the way we all are kinda designed is different things will inspire us. Like for me, I really don’t care about football or sports. I just have never really cared about it. But I really enjoy technology and, um, art and the science, things like that. So I think it comes down to what inspires you, and then start to do and be around people that do the same thing that you’re interested in and, and inspire you. Or if you can’t be around those people, maybe it’s a podcast or maybe it’s a group of people that get together. And so the more you can be is– the more you can be inspired, the more you can aspire to new heights and new growth. And a lot of times we just get stuck in the rut of doing the same thing. Um, years ago, I remember hearing a story about, um… it was a, it was a study, um, back in the late nineties in New York City and, and what, what– and what they were doing was tracking people’s, um, their phones throughout New York City over a period of like a year. And they weren’t really tracking names or anything like that. They were just tracking the location of smell– of cell phones. And what they found is that people tend to take the same route to work, to and from work every day. They tend to go to the same places to eat. They tend to congregate with the same people. It’s like they’re all just kind of we’re all in a video game, and we’re all just sort of NPCs going and doing and saying the same thing over and over again. And the more you can break out of that pattern and do something different, do something that’s off the grid, do something that’s away from your normal pattern, the more you can be inspired. And so part of what I try to do is getting back to the planning question. I try to plan times where I am not doing things that I normally do. And a lot of times that means I’m in the woods but not all the time. So Okay. Okay. And speaking of, uh, you know, patterns in, in video games like you just brought up, uh, just an interesting story I’d like to throw out there. I saw something on, uh, I believe it was on Instagram yesterday, where, uh, this couple for 30 years plays Mario Kart to see who makes the coffee every morning. For 30 years. Wow. Can you believe that? I love that. Yeah. The old Mario Kart from back in, I think it was, like, Super Nintendo or something like that. I love that. They play that every day. I, I love that. I love, I love video games. I grew up playing- Mm-hmm … games. Um, and one thing I’ve found is that I don’t play games these days, but the whole idea, uh, video games as much, um, but I… the whole idea of, um, the addictive dopamine rush that you get when you play video games, and then what happens as a result of that, you can take this whole idea and transfer that into business. You can gamify starting a business or growing a business, um, or selling a business. Um, you can turn anything into a game. And the more you can do that, the more you can reward yourself, the more… it’s like, it’s like playing video games. Um, so I could talk to you for hours about how fun that is. Yeah, no problem. Um, and then the last word is commitment. So commitment to me is consistency. It’s, it’s, um, me reaching out to Andrea, met her about six months ago, and, you know, I said, "Hey, you know, I have clients that need you to post consistently on social media. Is this something you’re interested in doing?" And I just threw it out there as kind of like, you know, idea, and she’s like, "Man, this… I’m, I’m TikTok all the time. I’ve really wanted to do social media." And I said, "Well, let’s start with one client. Let’s see if we can close one client. Let’s see if you can be successful with one client. And if so, we can give you more. But if you’re not successful and you’re not consistent, then it’s not gonna work." And so to me, consistency is super important, and it’s been great because she’s proven herself. Um, you know, and we ended up getting 10 clients within about what, three months? Within about, within about three months. Um, and it’s because she was consistently showing up, doing the work, closing the clients with me, and then actually doing the work.

44:55 Commitment Transparency and Ethical SEO
Um, and then in my own life, it’s showing up, um, and it’s, you know, meeting with my clients on a regular basis. Um, it’s showing the work that my teams are doing, that I’m doing, that are getting results, and then being, being transparent about that. Um, the biggest problem about my world is that about 80% of the companies that do what I do are a scam. I don’t know if that’s true. I’m making up that statistic. I think 100% of statistics are made up. I’m kidding. But there’s a huge portion of companies that do what I do that just will take your money and run. They’re not ethical. They don’t care about producing results. They just care about taking your money. And I didn’t know this was a thing until I started calling companies out of the area, and they thought I was trying to scam them. And I was like, "What?" And I was referred to a lawyer about seven or eight years ago, um, a New York business lawyer, excuse me, in New Jersey. And, and he said he was spending $1,400 a month to the previous SEO company that was working with him. And, and I was like, "Well, what kind of results did you get?" And he said, "I’ll tell you in a second, but first, log into the website and see what they were doing." So I logged in, and I looked at what they were doing, and I dealt with… I pulled up all my tools and did research. And what I can tell, from what I can tell, they were doing about 1% of the job to get to the top of Google. And I was like, "This is insane. And how much were you spending, $1,400 a month for a company that was doing 1% of the job?" And I said- Wow … "What kind of results did you get?" He said, "I got one call in a year." And I was like, "Wow." So we produced a lot better results for him, and that’s another story. Um, but I started realizing that there’s a lot of companies that do what I do that just will not do any work- Mm-hmm … or the work they’re doing is subpar. And so, um, it’s super important when you’re out there looking for a marketing company to work with that you do your research or have an AI do research on them and, and make sure they can show you results that they’ve actually got for other clients in similar or the same industries. And, and also make sure that sit, they’ll sit down with you on a weekly basis and show you the work they’re doing because it, uh, turn, it turns out the scammers will not be transparent because they’re not ethical. But the whole thing of it’s called ethical marketing. It’s doing some- it’s doing marketing in an ethical way that produce the results that bring income to you as a cl- as a business owner, but also help your clients. It’s really about giving back. And I really hate that this is the, the state of my industry, but it is what it is. So I’ve found that when I talk to a new client or potential client, I start off with saying, "Hey, have you been scammed?" You know, it’s just a thing. Yes, everyone has their own scam story, and it’s like, "Well, here’s how I work. We’re gonna meet on a weekly basis. I’m gonna email you and show you the tasks of what I’ve done. We’re gonna look at the tools and see you getting higher in Google, seeing you be recommended by AI. We’re gonna do all those things." So if we can be transparent, then we can be ethical. Yeah, no, I love that.

48:11 Final Advice for Small Business Owners
All right. So yeah, appreciate that. That, that was the quick-fire round. So just a couple little last questions here, and then, uh, yeah, we’ll wrap up. Um, you’ve, you’ve given a lot of really good advice, a lot of great nuggets on this, uh, podcast today. So, um, just to kind of wrap that up in a kind of a bow and, and, and send everybody on their way, especially smaller business owners, what– and you can be as candid as you want to on this answer. What final words of advice would you offer to other business owners, specif- specif- ah, specifically small business owners who are looking to grow? You know, I, I remember hearing this years ago, "See a need, fill a need." You know? So what are– what is the need that you’re seeing out there in the marketplace? Um, is that a… What kind of need is that? Is that something that your current, that your current offerings is satisfying? Um, if so, how, how can you satisfy that better? If you can help people, and you can give back, and you can solve their pain, their pain point, right? So for me, the roofer is like, "Hey, I’ve got two roofing clients, one in Asheville and one in Huntersville," and, you know, reality is their need is that they, they need more leads from Google. They need more AIs recommending them. So that’s the need. If I can fill that need, the better I can fill that need, the lo- the more consistently they’ll be working with me. So a lot of my clients are month-to-month or quarterly. I don’t have annual contract at this point, which I know is kind of ballsy, but it’s, it’s kind of like how I… You know, I’m really big in proving, "Hey, let’s continue to work together, and I’ll continue to show you the results I’m getting." So I think that if you can see a need and fill a need, and you can improve on that process, and you can help people, um, with their pain point, what issue are they facing? Do they need more leads in this case? Or, you know, whatever the issue is in your industry, the better you can do that, the better you can give back. And really what it comes down to is this: in every interaction, whether you are in a podcast like this, or you’re sitting down with an employee, or you are sitting down with a loved one, are you giving back? How much are you giving back? If you can give back in every interaction and help people, whether they’re, you know, employees or they’re, you know, a, a family member or they’re a friend, if you can be a listening ear, if you can be somebody who solves the problem, if you are giving, the more you are giving, the more the spirit, the universe, the higher power, the more the spirit will give back to you to give away. Because that’s kind of what I’ve learned ab- what it’s all about is, is giving. Is, is giving without expecting something in return and just helping people out, and, and that’s what I’ve found is m- probably the biggest key to success is what B and I call just giver, givers gain. If you are giving without expecting return and you are helping people, then people will wanna work with you. They’ll be attracted to you. Maybe it’s a non-verbal thing, but they’ll want to be around you. They’ll wanna talk to you. They’ll wanna work with you. Why? Because you are giving back. I sat down with my real estate agent, um, you know, a friend of mine a couple years ago, and I had a question about this, and he gave me an hour of his time and gave me all these documents I needed for a real estate transaction I was looking at. And– Sorry. And he did all this work for free and didn’t charge me anything, and but his time was super valuable, and I still remember that two hours of time he gave me, even though that was two or three years ago because it was h- it was high touch, high quality, and it really made a huge difference in my life at the time. And so I always ask myself, "Am I giving back?" And if you can– And how much am I giving back? And if you can end inter- an interaction like a podcast like this or interaction with, um, a client or a friend or… and they, they compliment you, and they’re like, "Wow, this is so much," and you– and they’re saying things like, "Man, I can’t wait to hang out with you again," or, "I can’t wait to, you know, hear from you again, connect with you again," if, if you want them– If you leave them s- if you want th- if you leave them wanting more, then you’ve done your job. You’ve helped them, and they want more from you, and that’s really what it’s about, is giving back. So I’m a huge fan of giving back, and it’s one of the things if I’ve, if I have ga- if I could give advice to new entrepreneurs or someone growing their business, find a way to give back. Find a way to help people. Find a way to, um, serve your clients better than what you’re doing. The more you can do that, the more you’re going to grow because people and businesses, um, will be attracted to you. Nice. Nice. Okay.

53:07 Next Big Thing AI-Automated SEO Content
All right, so what’s the next big thing for PushLeads? So the next big thing for PushLeads is, um, we are looking at potentially the idea of creating an, a, uh, SEO operating system. Essentially an entire operating system that does automated SEO for your business. Um, and at this point, everything is a mix of AI and manual work that we’re doing, and I always feel like that humans will be, always be a c- component of the process. But I’m experimenting with the idea of having some of what I’m doing, some more of what I’m doing automated. And so I have a, um… So my biggest win this past year was creating an AI automation that scans your website, understands what your brand and voice sounds like, and then writes content that sounds like you wrote it around any subject. And we have found that when we publish that content on a website, then AIs see that content and start recommending you. So if that’s the one thing of, one piece of advice that I could give to all business owners is start publishing inner, hidden pages on websi- on your website around related subjects to what you do and what you sell. And the more you are an expert in your field by publishing these inner, hidden pages not in the menu, the more an AI would recom- will recommend you. So what we’re trying to do now is, is, um- Take that to the next level and expand on that and make that a little more automated. But I’ve been testing this whole process. I’ve been working with the– I’ve been working with a, um, a med spa in the West Asheville area, and we started publishing content around their s- their core services. And one of their core services is a chemical peel. I have no idea what a chemical peel is. I’m kidding, I know what it is. But I never had it done to me. But my AI automation started publishing content that sounds like they wrote it as an inner hidden page about chemical peels. And guess what? They went to the top of Google for Asheville chemical peels. And then from there, they went from ten to forty searches at the top of Google around these related subjects. And so it really made a huge difference. Um, and so we just wanna take that whole idea and slowly move into automation, but being very careful about it because if you give AI full control, it will go crazy. So it’s really just ab- about having a human as part of the process, but also trying to automate a little more of what we’re doing. Okay, perfect. I love it. All right, and lastly, what’s the best way for someone to find you or

56:01 How to Contact PushLeads
get in touch with you if they’re interested in hearing more? So you can go to PushLeads.com, and you can book a meeting with me right there and then, uh, right from the homepage or the contact page, and you can set up a Zoom with me– a Zoom meeting with me. You can also call, um, of course, I have an AI secretary that answers the call. So you can call me at eight two eight-three four eight-seven six eight six and just ask to speak to Jeremy Ashburn. It will be an AI that answers the call. I apologize, but it is an AI. But if you ask to speak to a real person, it will connect you to me. And you can also ask it to set up a meeting with me, and it’ll set up a meeting with me. And you can also email me directly at jeremy@PushLeads, J-E-R-E-M-Y, @PushLeads.com. Perfect. Any social media? And you can look me up on Facebook, on, on Instagram, on TikTok. Look up PushLeads, and you can follow me there as well. Great. And you can also look me up on LinkedIn, Jeremy Ashburn on LinkedIn. Um, and I regularly post videos about what I’m doing with my clients on there as well. So if you wanna get to know me a little bit but not necessarily book a meeting with me, go to my LinkedIn. I’m most active on LinkedIn, and you can see videos of what I’ve posted, um, results I’ve got with my clients, as well as different experiments I’m working on. And LinkedIn is kinda like the modern phone book these days. It’s kinda like the modern Yellow Pages, but it’s much more interactive where you can scroll down and see who I’m, who I’m about and what I do and watch videos about me, so. All right. Perfect. Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much for being a part of the community and for all that you’re doing. We certainly wish you continue to success in, uh, everything that you’re doing with PushLeads, Jeremy. I really appreciate you coming on today. Thanks for having me on, Cliff, and I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah.