How one big decision changed this MSP owner’s life

[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is an MSP Marketing Podcast special. Hello and welcome to this special for Easter. I'm joined today by MSP owner Steve Dempsey, who's going to tell us his business owning journey. And trust me, you have never heard a story like this before. There are many highlights, one of the best being how he went from losing thousands in his business every month to making thousands with one key decision. Steve is a unique and generous character and you're going to love everything he has to talk about. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Powered by MSP marketingedge.com Paul Green's MSP Marketing Podcast hey there, I'm Steve Dempsey. I've been in the IT business for 25 years and my main IT company is NeoTech Networks, and it's so cool. [00:00:47] Speaker A: To finally get you here onto the podcast. Steve, we've got our special episode for Easter 2025, and I feel like you and I have both been in lots of the same places at the same time, but we've never had a quality conversation. You're obviously highly active in the tech tribe, as am I. We nearly met at scalecon, which was the big marketing conference in Vegas in October last year. I actually talked to you from the stage and we did some cool stuff where you were in the audience and I was on the stage, but we never found each other afterwards. So it's absolutely crazy. But I'm delighted to have you here on the show and the reason I want to have you here. Well, there's two things that I want to talk about. The first of them is you are one of the most unique MSPs that I have ever come across, and you have a very unique lifestyle. And I want to explore today what your life is like and what you've had to go through to get to that life. And just as a bit of a tease for that, for any other MSP. Well, the many MSPs that will be listening to this on the podcast or indeed watching this on YouTube. Steve has an enviable lifestyle and it's nothing to do with having lots of houses, a yacht, cars, anything like that. But Steve is living his best life and also has a great business. So that's what we're going to explore, first of all. And then secondly, you have one of the most unique approaches to SEO Search Engine optimization that I've ever come across. So I want to explore that because I know you had a huge amount of success for it, and indeed you are helping a small number of other MSPs to implement that in their business. But let's start with the lifestyle stuff. So first of all, Steve, let's, let's hear your story. So you said in your intro you've been in the tech world for 25 years, which is, you know, it sounds like such a long time, doesn't it? I don't know how old you are. I'm 50. How old are you right now? [00:02:27] Speaker B: I'll be almost 52. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Okay, so we're more or less the same age then. So we are talking about 25 years. It sounds a lot. And when you realize that's half of my life, that's actually, that's quite sobering in some respects. Tell us about your tech career then. So how did you get into, into tech in the first place? How did you start your first business? What's your, what's your journey into this MSP space? [00:02:48] Speaker B: So to sum it up quickly is full disclosure. I actually never went to college. Right. I only have a high diploma and I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. My last full time job was. This is probably embarrassing to admit, but it's been that long. My last full time job was probably 28 years ago. The company went out of business. I always had that just drive in me to do something on my own. And then when I was, let's say 27 years old, when I was on my own, I started a quote unquote computer company. Let's just say that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and absolutely no direction whatsoever. But on the second year I actually did start to get the clients and I actually went to people's homes and repaired computers and all that good stuff. [00:03:33] Speaker A: Yeah, the real old fashioned way of doing it. And when did you make the leap over into managed services? [00:03:39] Speaker B: So truth be told, and you're going to love my brutal honesty, Paul, and everything because I am a New Yorker and I think you know me well enough from the tribe, right. I don't hold back and I don't mince words. Truth be told, a number of years later, let's just say from that point on, let's say 15 years about I was, I admit I was getting burned out and I did have, and I fully admit this, I had an attitude problem. I had an attitude problem for years, I think just over the work and just dealing with everything, I really let my business slide and it was pretty bad. And then when I turned 40, it's that, you know, whole midlife crisis thing, right. I got burned by another IT owner in New York City that I was subcontracting for. And then that's when I had the final like, aha moment of I need to make a decision. I'm like, I need to make. I need the need to get serious about my business. I said, or get out. Like, you know, and I'm 40 years old, I'm like, you need to like grow up or get out. And it was at that moment that I went full swing into my IT business virtually overnight. Reinvented my, my out, my perspective. I got rid of my attitude problem. I saw everything as brand new and I hired my first employee probably about a year later. [00:04:54] Speaker A: Amazing. Amazing. When you, when you talk about that attitude problem. What, what was that? Was that, was that you being arrogant or was that just, you know, being a bit of an arms folded New York IT guy? Everyone else is an idiot. That my way is the only way or was it something different? [00:05:11] Speaker B: No, it was actually the attitude problem was actually I just didn't want to be bothered. And I did get like fired by a couple of clients. And you know, looking back on it, I'm very embarrassed by it because I'm sure people picked up on it. I just didn't want to be bothered. Left a finger. I think part of it came from just the repetitive work. I mean, when you fix someone's outlook or printer, you know, whatever, for you know, the 500th time, you're just like, yeah, I just, you know, I just don't be bothered anymore. And it showed. I admit it. [00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's, that's very brave of you to admit that because to. I'm not a psychologist, but this feels like a therapy session for you to go back and, you know, even to look at an aged fault of something that you are 10, 12 years on from. None of us like to admit our faults and when our behavior didn't match up to our values. So thank you for doing that because I think at least one person listening to this will realize that, oh my goodness, that's me. I'm trapped in that because I, because I'm dealing with the same things and I'm trapped in something I actively dislike. In fact, we have a phrase for it which is where MSP owners create a prison of their own design and lock themselves inside. And I think the manifests itself in different ways. And that was clearly how that manifested for you. So you got to that point, you got, you had that incident, you made the decision to do it properly or get out of it. Obviously you went in a specific direction. What was, what then happened to the business. And take us through the story of how you grew that business, I assume you got more staff, you got more clients. Is it your traditional growth story? [00:06:39] Speaker B: It is traditional growth. I did get more. Like I elevated, like each year I got a small office in Manhattan. Like for the first time in my life, I actually had an office. And then things grew from there. Like a couple of years later, I needed to hire like a second tech and get a bigger office. And you know, like I said, I was just on full swing. What looking back on what held me back at that time. Right. And it took me and I'm sure other, you know, solo IT guys would appreciate this is even for me to hire my first employee. It probably took me, and I'm not kidding a year to mentally get over the fact that I was paying somebody a full time salary for work that I could do myself. And the reason why is because I was not a business owner. I was a tech and I was 90% tech and I just, I was not a business business owner. So, you know, for, for years, even five years, I was more of a tech than a business owner. And then I finally started to, you know, slip over to the other side and realize I needed to get other people to do things for me and do the work so that I can move on to bigger and better things. [00:07:45] Speaker A: Do you that mindset shift from being a tech who happens to be working within their own business to being the business owner who, who is working on, on a different, almost like a different level. You're working on growing this thing and that means, you know, having to, to get people in to do things that even though you can do them. Is that a mindset shift that you could have done earlier or did you, do you think you had to go through that, that process to get to that point? [00:08:11] Speaker B: I think it probably depends on the person. You know, you really need to think big, right? And I kind of do think big now, but I just wasn't, you know, mature enough or did not have the business sense to. I honestly can say that I 100% have to. What changed all that was the tech tribe, which, you know, we knew it was going to come up sooner rather than later. Once I joined the tech tribe, you know, brand new, and I started to absorb all that knowledge and then be around not only other business owners, but also other business owners that had, you know, like 5, 10, 20 staff, you know, Jamie Werner, for example, comes to mind. You know, who's a friend of mine now, you know, hearing like, wow, I'm like, you know, he actually has people that works with him and he's not dealing with, you know, his low level stuff. And once that started to rub off on me, you know, it took years. But yeah, that definitely started my transition of thinking like a business owner and not a tech. [00:09:02] Speaker A: I love that. And Jamie Warner's been on this podcast a couple of times. He's, he's such good value because as you say, he's built an enormous MSP and he's built Enviro Soft as a side project and it's huge. And Jamie's just one of the most inspirational people you can speak to, which is great. [00:09:19] Speaker B: So he's an awesome guy. Jamie is a super nice guy too. [00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know him personally, I only know him professionally, but he's just. [00:09:25] Speaker B: A really nice guy. [00:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I bet, I bet he, I bet he is. So what take us through then to, to the point at which something changed. Now, I don't know what changed for you, I don't know your story that in depth, but I know that the lifestyle you live today, which we're obviously coming on to talk about, is much different to the classic MSP owning lifestyle that most people live. So talk us through the growth and then, then whatever it was that caused this change to happen. [00:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll just, I'll put it on the table so everybody hears it. Right. I was in a cramped Manhattan office. You can imagine, you know, how much rent I was paying. And I had three other full time people. I probably had seven or eight people's worth of work and we were all just like juggling, just work from one to another and honestly just being a glorified help desk. And I was not doing anything proactively. I was barely working on sales because I was always answering tickets myself and all that good stuff. In the past seven years, I purchased three other IT companies because my, my, my growth for expansion or growth, my road for expansion was absorbing other IT companies. So the first one was a huge financial success and I bought it in Long Island, New York. The second one I bought in Minneapolis, Minnesota and it was like a. So, so successful. And then I ended up buying a printer repair company in New York City. And I should have had my head examined for buying that, but I can't take it back. Okay. It sounded like a good idea at the time. And that's that when Covid hit. And like I said, I'll just fully disclose this, when Covid hit, I was a quarter million in debt from the acquisitions and you know, my appetite far exceeded my business sense and I should never have purchased a printer repair company because I already had debt from the second acquisition. And you know, it was just too much for me to take on and I was just too ambitious. Covid hit I lost my biggest client in New York City, which was like a 20 chain restaurant client. And that was also 30% of my business. Okay. So I was probably, I was probably in the, thinking back now, I was probably in the red about $20,000 a month. So in other words, by time Covid hit I was already losing $20,000 a month. The only thing I was doing was just not paying my credit card. I was paying probably almost $3,000 a month in credit card interest alone. And then a couple of months after Manhattan shut down, American Express actually shut off my credit card and they wouldn't, wouldn't let me charge anything else. I was actually in serious financial trouble. And then it was at that moment that I had made a decision just to turn everything upside down within one week. So within one week I closed both my Manhattan offices. I laid off all three of my salaried employees in Manhattan. And then I went full swing into virtual, which I still have many of them today, which was freelance Latin America in Venezuela. And then I hired full time employees down there for a fraction of the cost. And I would say within one month I met, I went from $20,000 negative to like $10,000 positive within like a matter of, a matter of weeks. [00:12:46] Speaker A: That's incredible. What a story. And there's so many things to unpack from that. Let's start with, we're going to delve a little bit into all of that, I think, and then we'll talk about what you've done subsequently because I now understand how the lifestyle you live today is possible. So let's talk about that that week. So I, I've never personally been in a position where I was that deep into, into debt. So I've had bad years, I've had good years. I've been in business for 20 years myself. But that, I mean, and especially I can imagine if you're that much in debt then, and then this pandemic comes along and shut, shuts down the city and takes your biggest clients away. And then the credit card company say ring and say, cut your cards up. That's, that's, that's as low as you can go, right? You must be, you must have been weeks away. Bankruptcy. Never mind just losing the, losing the business. So what, what's the, what took us through the mindset and I appreciate we're talking about Something five years on. So a lot of those emotions are now memories. But what, what was the, what was the thinking and the mindset? Did you become more clear? Did you go out and just try and drown your sorrows? You know, what, what was your way of kind of dealing with that and reaching that decision of I've got to do something so extreme it could be the end of everything, but actually I've got no option. [00:14:02] Speaker B: My position at the time was, I mean, I knew I was in trouble, you know, and I, you know, the credit cards obviously were. The debt and the interest and everything was racking up. So I knew I was on a bad road. My position at the time was actually I was going to work my way out of it. So my day started like at 5:00am I was working until whenever, seven, eight o'clock at night. I was working, you know, six or seven days a week, trying to get out of this, like, doing the work of like 10 other people and all that other good stuff. So the end result is Covid and Manhattan shutting down. And me losing my biggest client was actually the best thing that could have happened to me, to be honest. You. Because if it did not happen, I did not have, for lack of a better word that I want to use. I did not have the guts, okay, to do what needed to be done, which was close the offices, you know, go full swing into a virtual staff. Right. I just did not have the guts. What I. If Covid did not happen, if that those events did not happen, what I would have done is I probably would have borrowed a ton more money from family, friends, whoever I can get it from, right? And pretty much, you know, pay that off and just, just move debt from one to another. So. But looking back on it, it was the best thing that happened to me because it forced my hand and it forced me to do, you know, all those things virtually overnight, which has led to my lifestyle here, you know, here and now, present day. I don't think that would have happened if those events didn't happen. [00:15:30] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned freelance Latin America. It's a company I'm, I'm familiar with. I did a webinar with them actually a few months ago. Really good people, very passionate about what they do. This is now going to end up as a free little advert for them. But then they're, they're the, the key, I think, to, to you doing what you did. If, if we actually. Let's not talk about them, let's talk about the concept of, of what they do. So you, you have essentially outsourced your tech work to, to, to people not in the US Is that, is that correct? So that's essentially what you've done there. [00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that, that is correct. But almost I, I, almost I, I understand what you're saying about outsource, but you know, they work for me full time and, and like my first couple employees from freelance are actually now with me going on year five. [00:16:15] Speaker A: Got it, got it. So, so let's take the word outsource then. So you, you've shifted the work from people who sit in an office sweating in a city in your. And I say sweating because they're sitting with no air conditioning. You know, it's at an office building in Manhattan and to people who are elsewhere, but they're still doing their 100% of their working time is for you, but because of the world, the economics of the world and different geographical locations, the cost of that person, they're earning a good salary, but you're obviously paying them a lot less than you would be paying someone to sit in an office in Manhattan and your overall overheads are lower. What was your fear, shifting that over? Because I've had that conversation with lots of MSPs about the, you know, there's so much good talent available in lots of different places and everything can be done remotely, but there's a lot of emotions and a lot of fear that holds people back. Now, obviously you were in a quite an extreme case position, but what talk us through. Almost like what's the, what was the feeling you had of what's the worst thing that could have happened at that point? [00:17:11] Speaker B: All the above. I mean, speaking of freelance Latin America, Randy, who's the owner, you know, he's my personal friend of mine and I did meet him in person. He was actually sitting next to me at the, the scalecon convention, just so you know. Yeah, yeah, he was next to me. When you gave me that shout out. Off, off subject. When you gave me that shout out on the stage, Randy, lean into me. Is like, see, you're an influencer. I can't believe this. And he was very impressed. But, but, but back, but back on track is, is it was all fears. I couldn't wrap my head around actually entrusting any kind of work, clients, bookkeeping, support, anything to somebody overseas. It took me and Randy will tell you this, from the first conversation of me hiring an admin, it really, it took him three months of chasing me for me to finally say yes because I just, I just the trust and everything and Then once I did was like a snowball effect. Six, six months later I had like six full time people. [00:18:04] Speaker A: That's insane. That's just insane. And obviously it's working for you because that's obviously still what you're doing now. So talk us through what your lifestyle is like now. And the only reason I know about your lifestyle is because you do post stuff in the tech tribe and I follow you in terms of following what you write because I always find value in what you write. Give us an example of what you've been doing the last few weeks and I think that will, that will show us the lifestyle you've been able to achieve as a result of this change. [00:18:31] Speaker B: So yeah, so before I speak about that, I mean I'm just going to say, you know, as part of that, this, this goes with the transition of being a business owner or from going from a tech to a business owner. And then more importantly is that it comes with trust, right? You have to trust the people that you're working with and let go. And that also to back that up, you need processes in place, right? And you know, just, you need people to make the right decisions, but they're not going to make the right decisions if you don't trust them. So I created When Covid, like I said post Covid, when I created my virtual team, I sketched out an entire business model with roles like service manager, procurement, sales, calibration, administration and the list goes on. So I had created a business model for my virtual workforce and I just started filling those roles. So if anybody was thinking about doing it, the biggest issue I see even to this day when tech drivers approach me privately is they think they're going to hire a full time guy overseas and he's going to be like five people in one and right. And they show me like their job descriptions and I'm like, yeah, well good luck with that because they, I see it time and time again. So you want to hire somebody, you know, you give him a dedicated role, dedicated responsibilities, that's the way I did it. And then they know what they're doing. And it grew from there. So now once that happened, my workload became less, even though I'm still a workaholic and I had people making decisions. And then now it's the point where most of the things that come to me are usually yes or no answers, right? Like, you know, from my team, like just, you know, yes, can we do this? Or you know, something like that. It's nowhere near my involvement, even up to two Years ago. So to answer your question is last month I actually, I went to Uruguay. So I went to Montevideo, Uruguay for two weeks as well as Buenos Aires for two weeks. I worked on my laptop for a couple hours in the morning and then, you know, went on my day to do whatever. And then just with my phone and Microsoft Teams, I was just keeping tabs on everything. And every once in a while my service manager or my experience liaison would message me or even my admin, can you, can you give me a thumbs up on this or approve this or approve that and then just, you know, was a tourist for two weeks. And last year I lived in Colombia, South America for six months in different cities running my business. None of my clients knew I was there and ran my staff. But my company runs itself. You know, I would say probably 90% at this point. [00:21:08] Speaker A: I absolutely love it. So essentially you've become a digital nomad where you can, you can run your business from absolutely anywhere in the world. And the only thing I guess you have to worry about is time difference and have I got wi fi and have I got electricity? And I know you've, you're into mountains, aren't you? Mountain climbing is your thing? [00:21:25] Speaker B: Oh, very much so, yeah, absolutely, yeah. [00:21:27] Speaker A: So, I mean, I love, I love the sound of all of your lifestyle except the mountain climbing. Me, I just like to stay somewhere flat where they've got coffee shops. But son, that's something that a part of that lifestyle I'd most like to live. Final question on this and then we're going to move on to the subject of SEO, which is the clients. So we've talked, you know, over a five year period or very quickly, you went from staff sitting in an office to staff, virtual staff. Did the clients notice? Did you tell the clients what's their experience today? And did you lose any clients as a result of this? [00:21:59] Speaker B: That's a very good question. So when I went full swing into virtual and I did not gracefully do it, I mean, I literally just turned into it in a matter of a week. I hired techs and then threw them on the front lines without any training whatsoever. It was like just, here's the ticket system and do it. Because I was just, you know, in over my head. I did have a handful of clients that I, you know, the business owners that I knew reach out to me or maybe mention it, like, hey, Steve, I noticed like a lot of these people you have working for you have, you know, Spanish accents or accents of some kind and they, they noticed it right away that you're you know, when I got rid of my three full time staff in Manhattan, you know, and I just put them at ease. And while I didn't say they were from another country or anything like that, I assure them, I said, you're going to have to trust me. That was my position. Like, I've been in this business for a very long time. I said, each one of them has been hired by me personally, vetted by me personally. They work for me full time. And that was enough to, you know, put their minds at ease. And I did not lose a single client as a result of the shift at all. [00:23:03] Speaker A: Oh, amazing. I just love that. And it's. And I guess for any MSP listening to this or watching this, who's thinking, how could I do that? You know, is that something we could transition to? Would your advice be to, if you did it again, if you were doing it today and you had the luxury of time and, and slowing everything down, would you be more communicative with the clients or would you, would you just ease in and just see what happens? [00:23:28] Speaker B: I would just ease in because, you know, you know, when you announce something like that, it's more like your drop. You know, I'm saying, like you're announcing a, this is going to happen. And that's why I didn't do it the first time. Because in my opinion, you know, you are kind of maybe forcing someone to make a decision, right? Like a client, well, do I want to stay with them or do I not want to stay with them? If you say something like that versus, hey, if the work's done, you know, what do you, what do you care? And your bill's not going up, what do you care? And that was pretty much my position. And they were okay with that. [00:23:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Okay, let's change subjects. I just want to do a few minutes on the subject of SEO search engine optimization. So caveat with this. I'm not an SEO expert. I've never claimed to be. I understand the basics of it, but I. It's a very technical subject and I'll be honest, it bores the pants off me. And I think for the vast majority of MSPs, SEO or traditional SEO is not an option. But you have a very distinctive and unique approach to SEO, which seems a lot more grounded in the realities of being an msp. So talk us through what your approach is. And again, how did you stumble across this approach? [00:24:36] Speaker B: So I was never a marketer. I hated marketing. And I think this maybe came with age and experience. And you know what, Paul? I'll be honest with you. I don't know what the hell changed myself. But all of a sudden, like almost three years ago, I started to fall in love with marketing. And I still. I don't even know how that happened, to be honest. [00:24:55] Speaker A: Marketing is sexy. Everyone knows this. [00:24:57] Speaker B: I mean, I hated it. I didn't want to touch it ever. I just wanted to, you know, do it work. But just like all other, you know, small IT business owners like me and even smaller, right? Everything comes up. You want leads, you want to grow. And I tried it all. And I spent a lot of money over the years with cold calling. And I hired a consultant on Google Ads. I was paying a lot of money to him, and I tried LinkedIn stuff and tried this and try that. My biggest problem, which was me personally, is I would kind of jump on like everyone else does. You jump on something, you give it three or four months, you don't put any work into it, you don't pay attention, and you are expecting a return. Okay, it doesn't, it does not happen like that. What kind of changed my mind is three years ago, I restarted my Google Ad campaigns. And I realized when I, when I started to, like, learn Google Ads, you know, for myself, you know, I realized just how bad they were when the consultant did them. I mean, I'm sorry to throw them someone on the bus, but they were bad because the consultant did not understand it. And this is what I tell everybody else, right? To an outsider, you know, VoIP security, cybersecurity. For them, it's just a buzzword and they know nothing besides that. And they're just like, okay, let's just spend money on that. A cybersecurity. You do cybersecurity, right? You do VoIP? Yes, I do. Let's spend money on that. And to them it's just. It's just plain vanilla and you're not going to go anywhere. So when I saw that, I realized just how bad it was. I realized also, as the outs. An outsider can never understand the IT industry. And then I started to. I got so discussed with Google Ads because it was not working. I decided to learn SEO myself. And I started to actually fall in love with it. You know, like, I got passionate about it, the metrics and data. And then once again, my unique approach is because I'm an active IT business owner, I'm not guessing at somebody's business model. I'm not guessing at the terminology. I'm not guessing at what you do. You know, my answer Is okay, just, you know, tell me what, what industries you serve and everything, and we can have a very natural conversation of what kind of leads you're looking to attract and, you know, local market. Pretty much only without somebody or without an it, without a business owner holding my hand, explaining IT terminology to me. So that's, that's. Nobody else can really do that or nobody else. Big claim. Let's just say most can't. How about that? [00:27:26] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So what, what do you do? Because obviously SEO, there's lots of things you can do and I know you've got a mix of things you do on site, which is on your website, and things you do off sites, but you've, you've taken a more, it's a more Google business profile approach towards that. Is that, is that correct? [00:27:41] Speaker B: No, no, that's not, that's not correct. Is. No, because SEO, I mean, listen, SEO makes my brain hurt sometimes to Paul, because there is so much, you know, I'm saying, and everybody supposedly has the golden goose and go on YouTube, okay? 100 people are going to make you a million dollars with SEO tomorrow. And even I'm, I'm exhausted of watching those videos, but I watch to learn. My approach is actually, is to take everything, which means Google Business Listing, you know, obviously Google SEO or you know, the SERP searches your website and then as, and then now what I'm doing is also social media, right? And then putting it all together and kind of crossing all the boxes. What I've really learned actually in the last six months myself is that Google, YouTube, whatever, they're not human, okay? They are just, they are just an algorithm. And if you, if you give it what it wants, right, if you just check the boxes and just give it the math that it wants and the quantities that it wants, you're going to get results. [00:28:44] Speaker A: I mean, that in itself there is a, is a great strategy is just, just give, give the, give the platforms what they want. You could actually apply this across all the marketing. You could apply that to LinkedIn. You know, you could apply it to any other social, social media network. You could apply it to anything of. Give them what? Give the algorithm what it wants, what it's set up to reward, and of course you're going to see better results for it. But that's amazing. So has SEO become your number one source of new leads now? And are you, and just to put some context on that, are you generating leads in Manhattan or are you now looking at a much wider area? [00:29:15] Speaker B: You know, Paul, I'LL be honest, I am so spread thin sometimes as a business owner, I don't even work on my own SEO half the times. Okay, so, yeah, I'm serious, right? I Google my website and I'm like, God, I'm like, I need to do like 100 things here and I don't pay attention to my own website. I'm having difficulty in Manhattan because I'm up against some serious IT companies with serious budgets, and that's a fact. So I'm always refining, like, my, you know, my processes, you know, Google business listing and Bing even. So, so full disclosure, I'll give you two examples of what I have going on. I have a triber in Asheville, North Carolina, who's one of my first clients. And he, like, was not getting any. His only business was referrals. And now he gets probably a local lead a week from. From the work that I do, both Google business listing and Google searches. He just got a brewery that was looking for a new IT company last week. And, you know, I'm like, hey, listen. Like, I told him, like, if that was me, I'm like, I would just go back to them and say, listen, you can pay me in beer and then we'll call it a day. But I said, you do what you want to do. On the flip side, I had a triber, and he. Because he stopped paying me, and he was right to do so. I had a triber in California, and, you know, he was with me for six months. I did not get him a single lead because I'm always, you know, refining my processes, whatever, and I was very frustrated. So I'm actually working for him now for free, which I offered because I just feel like I have, like, a moral obligation. And, you know, I just, you know, if the situation reversed, I'm like, I get it. You just pay me a lot of money. You have nothing to show for it. I understand. So I'm hoping, you know, the more I learn, I mean, I even brought in some outside help to engage with my team in house that I'm working for him, you know, to get leads. So it's. It's not. Listen, it's not a golden road. You know, it could be very difficult. It could take months, six months, whatever, and hopefully it'll pay off for me. You know, I. I'm not reliant on. On the SEO business to pay my rent. That's why I don't mind that when I fail, okay, which, you know, like, okay, let me work for free for a few months and Let me see what I can do. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I love that. And that's. Again, you've been brutally honest throughout this entire interview. And you'll never hear someone who sells SEO saying it doesn't work for some people because. Because that goes against their model. But what Steve has said there is the truth. In fact, you could apply that to all marketing tactics. You know, what works very well in North Carolina might not work well in California. And it's about finding the. The right fix for each of those. [00:31:53] Speaker B: And let me just say this. @ Scalecon, okay? I don't remember the speaker's name, but he did SEO or does SEO. Okay. And he was on stage speaking, and then when he mentioned the website in New York, he goes, I got this website. And I'm like, mother effort. I'm like, you're the one, okay? Because I knew. I knew the website. And I was like, man. I'm like, this guy must have spent some serious money because I was reading, you know, I'm looking through the backlinks and everything, and I'm like, he's on, you know, number one position. I'm like, this guy must have spent some serious money. And I'm like, and there's the guy responsible for it. So I thought that was hilarious. I love that. [00:32:28] Speaker A: And I hope you did the decent thing. I hope you stole his laptop and deleted his website, because that's what is the right thing to do. Steve, you've been just so open and just been a delight to have as a guest. I'd love to get you back on in the future. Let's just finish off by, obviously some MSPs listening to this, watching this. May want to have a chat with you about SEO. We've already said, obviously it's almost like a fun side project for you, more than a highly commercial service. But what's the best way to get hold of you? And obviously Tech Tribe is a great place and anyone that's in Tech Tribe knows you're there. But for. For someone who's not in Tech Tribe, because apparently There are some MSPs who haven't yet joined Tech Tribe. What's. What's the best way to get hold. [00:33:06] Speaker B: Of you so you can visit actually the scoit guy.com, right? It's very fitting. I only work with IT companies. I only work with IT companies on, on a local level. And just like my IT business, where I only work with small business clients, kind of the same thing on the IT side, you know, I have no problem working with a sole practitioner, which I have the guy in Asheville close something like four new clients like two months ago, you know, as a result of organic searches. Right. So yes, it does work, but it takes a lot of work to get there. And you know, as I learned like from him and other tribers that I'm helping getting more leads, I kind of put that all together. So that's how you can get in touch with me. Just go there and, and fill out the form or email me. [00:33:54] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:33:54] Speaker B: I do have. And I'll just say one other thing. You know, this is, you know I, this is turning into a full time business and a real business and it's a separate, it's a totally separate business from, from my IT business. And you know, just given my. I know you want to go Paul and everything closes out but you know, given my age and experience, you know, I have no problem like working with other IT business, you know, being neutral. Not, I'm not looking to get anything out of or you know, steal any ideas or anything because be honest here, I am just so indifferent at this point of being in the business for 25 years. So yeah, it's, it's. I do have an in house team, you know that I trained and we do a lot of work. So it's, it's not a pet project. It is something, you know, real. That's all. [00:34:34] Speaker A: Okay, My apologies. I made an assumption there and we. [00:34:36] Speaker B: All know, no problem when you assume. [00:34:38] Speaker A: You make something of you and me. We all know that. So thank you, Steve. Thanks. [00:34:42] Speaker B: Okay. [00:34:42] Speaker A: For coming on the show. And listen, if on your travels, if you ever make your way over to the uk, please let me know so that we can go and have a beer together. The only downside of that is we don't really have mountains in the uk. We've got small hills. That's all we've got, man. [00:34:56] Speaker B: Okay, well, I've climbed, FYI. I have climbed. There's 58 14ers, which is 14,000 foot mountains in Colorado, which is where I live now. I moved, there's 58, I have climbed 26 of them and I'm way behind on my schedule. But like this summer, you know, I'm probably gonna get to maybe 35 and I'm, I'm hoping to climb all 58 probably within the next few years. [00:35:17] Speaker A: So side goal and a small English hill should be added onto that as a goal. Definitely. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Sure, man. If you got a warrant, you guys drink warm beer. Is that just a rumor out there? [00:35:27] Speaker A: It's just a rumor. Just a rumor. [00:35:28] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. [00:35:31] Speaker A: Coming up, coming up next week. Thanks for listening this week. Next week we are back to our usual format. And we're going to tackle a common problem that many MSPs suffer from. The problem is too many ideas, too many things you could do to grow your business. But which things should you do? I'm going to help you reduce everything down into a tiny number of tasks that will move the needle and make the biggest difference for MSPs around the world. [00:35:59] Speaker B: Around the world. The MSP Marketing Podcast with Paul Green.