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Benas Leonavicius: How Being Fired Led to a Six-Figure Solo Business Built on Referrals
Episode 5523rd April 2026 • Power Movers • Roy Castleman
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EPISODE OVERVIEW

Duration: Approximately 32 minutes

Best For: Trapped entrepreneurs who feel chained to every client and every task, unable to step away without everything falling apart

Key Outcome: Learn how to build a referral-based business by being ruthlessly selective about who you serve, so clients come to you instead of you chasing them

He got fired after two months. Then he tripled his income within a year.

THE BOTTOM LINE

You built something from nothing. That said, now you cannot take a holiday without your phone buzzing. You cannot say no to a client because what if the work dries up? You have become the bottleneck, the salesperson, the delivery team, and the person who answers every email at 5am. Benas Leonavicius was on that same path. Fired from his first real job at 22, told he was not fit to manage, he could have crumbled. Instead, he got angry. He went all in on freelancing and made three times his agency salary in that first year alone. Ten years later, he runs a six-figure solo business where more than half his clients come from referrals. He does not chase leads. He chooses who he works with. The difference? He stopped taking every client and started being ruthlessly selective. When you serve the right people brilliantly, they tell everyone. When you try to serve everyone, you exhaust yourself and nobody talks about you.

WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS TO YOU

When you stop chasing every client that breathes, you create space to deliver work that actually generates referrals and frees your calendar.

The trapped entrepreneur who says yes to everyone ends up working harder for less money. Benas shares exactly how being selective doubled his business in just a couple of years.

Your bottleneck status comes from serving clients who do not fit. Learn how choosing the right client type creates a referral engine that works while you sleep.

Keep saying yes to everyone and you will still be answering emails at 5am next year, exhausted and wondering why growth feels so hard.

KEY INSIGHTS YOU CAN IMPLEMENT TODAY

Not every client type generates referrals. Benas discovered that some clients, like e-commerce founders selling dog food, cannot refer you to others because their contacts are competitors. Keynote speakers, coaches, and high-level executives know everyone in their industry and are not in direct competition. Choose a client type that can actually refer you, and suddenly your marketing becomes a conversation instead of a campaign.

Being strict about fit does not shrink your business. It grows it. When Benas started refusing clients who were not a good match, he worried about income. That said, within a couple of years he scaled to over six figures with more than half his business built on referrals he never actively sought. The trapped entrepreneur fears saying no. The free entrepreneur knows that every wrong client costs you three right ones.

Your website is not about you. It is about your client's pain. Most business owners build a brochure, listing everything they do. Nobody cares. They want to know how you can help them. Use AI tools to understand what your clients are actually saying, their real complaints, their actual language. Then speak that back to them. This single shift changes everything.

Personal branding is not about becoming an influencer. A few thousand followers and a couple of hundred views per post is enough in your specific industry. Imagine standing in a room with 300 people looking at you. That is what 300 views means. The trapped entrepreneur dismisses small numbers. The free entrepreneur knows that 300 right people is an audience that pays.

The human factor becomes more valuable as AI grows. Information is now free. What AI cannot replicate is human connection, trust, live events, and community. This is where high-ticket offers live. You will sell fewer things for much more money, and those sales will come from people who trust you because they have seen the real you, not a persona.

GOLDEN QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING

"I am now unemployable and I have been for 30 years." - Roy Castleman

"As soon as I made the change, in just a couple of years, I scaled to over six figures. More than half of my business built on referrals." - Benas Leonavicius

"One view is not equal to another view. If you get up in front of a thousand people, that's a whole other feeling." - Benas Leonavicius

"If you don't have personal brand, you might become very invisible." - Benas Leonavicius

"Consistency is the thing that helped me get through a lot of difficult phases of entrepreneurship. Just being consistent, never giving up." - Benas Leonavicius

QUICK NAVIGATION FOR BUSY LEADERS

00:00 - Introduction: From fired at 22 to six-figure freelancer

03:45 - The moment everything changed: Getting fired and choosing freedom

07:20 - Why SEO is evolving: From rankings to real business results

12:30 - The ICP problem: Why most websites speak to nobody

16:15 - How being selective with clients doubled his business

20:40 - The referral secret: Why some client types cannot refer you

24:10 - Personal branding without becoming an influencer

28:00 - Why 300 views is actually a massive audience

30:45 - Conclusion: The power of consistency for the trapped entrepreneur

GUEST SPOTLIGHT

Name: Benas Leonavicius

Bio: Benas is a freelance SEO expert who built a six-figure solo business helping companies get more traffic from Google. He works hands-on with keynote speakers, book authors, and coaches on their personal brand SEO, and teaches freelancers how to find better clients, charge more, and build a business that fits their life rather than consuming it.

Connect with Benas:

Website: https://benasleo.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benasleo/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@benasleo

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benas11/

YOUR NEXT ACTIONS

This Week: Audit your current client list. Identify which clients could actually refer you to others versus which ones have networks of competitors. Notice the pattern, because this reveals whether you are building a referral business or a treadmill.

This Month: Define your ideal client type based on referral potential, not just revenue. Ask yourself who knows lots of similar people who are not in direct competition with each other. Adjust your positioning to attract these people specifically.

This Quarter: Build visibility in your chosen space through consistent content. You do not need to become an influencer. You need 300 of the right people seeing you regularly. Start a simple video practice or newsletter that showcases the real you, not a persona.

EPISODE RESOURCES

No additional resources for this episode.

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READY TO ESCAPE THE TRAP?

Take the Freedom Score Quiz: https://scoreapp.atpbos.com/

Discover how trapped you are in your business and get your personalised roadmap to freedom in under 5 minutes.

Book a Free Strategy Session: https://www.atpbos.com/contact

Let's discuss how to build a business that works WITHOUT you.

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CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST, ROY CASTLEMAN

Roy is the founder of All The Power Limited and creator of Elevate360, a business coaching system for entrepreneurs ready to scale without burnout. As a certified Wim Hof Method Instructor and the UK's first certified BOS UP coach, Roy combines AI automation, wellness practices, and business operating systems to help trapped entrepreneurs reclaim their freedom.

Website: www.atpbos.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roycastleman/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@allthepowerltd

Transcripts

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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in

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the world. Welcome to the podcast. Today I've got Ben

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Ass with us. I'm not even going to pronounce his

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last name. I'll let him say that. Leon Averages. There

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you go. There was no chance. I'm super excited to

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have you on. I love the entrepreneurial journey and I

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love the entrepreneurs, to me are just the best people

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in the world because we look out at the world,

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we see a problem, we decide we can fix it,

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and then we do something different from everyone else. We

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don't talk about it, we take some action, whatever that

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pain might be, and it goes through this whole process.

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So tell us a bit about your background and your

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history. Yeah, I mean, I've been in this whole entrepreneurial

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freelancing game like for more than 10 years now. My

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father is an entrepreneur and a businessman and I always

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knew that I was going to do something on my

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own. I just never expected it to be so sudden.

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I was following the usual path. Get good grades at

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school, go to university. Then my dream at that time

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was maybe to work at Apple, Google, get some experience,

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and maybe when I'm 30 or something like that, start

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my own business and do something like that. The life

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played out completely the other way around and I basically.

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What was that first time you realized that you were

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going to take the step? It was actually when I

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was. So I finished university, I started freelancing in university

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and then as soon as I finished university, I was

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still freelancing. It wasn't a full time thing, but it

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was earning me quite good. But I was still thinking

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that I need that real work experience. I cannot just

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do something on my own without even ever trying to

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get a proper job. And I was hired as an

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manager, like SEO manager and at a marketing agency. But

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I didn't have any managerial experience. I knew how to

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do SEO at that time. I had already a couple

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of years of experience, but being a manager, I was

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like what? 22? Something like that. And they basically, I

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have no idea how I got that job, but they

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hired me and they hired two other girls at the

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same time. So three of us and we were all

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like account managers. And after two months I was actually

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fired because they realized that I'm not fit for the

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job to actually lead a big team and work in

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this big agency. The other two girls had way more

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experience and they were like way proper account managers. As

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soon as I got fired, I actually got really angry

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at the 9 to 5 corporate. I just felt Very

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angry for letting me go like that. It was very

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unexpected on my end, although looking backwards it makes total

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sense, but at that time it didn't feel like that.

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And that is exactly when I decided, hey, what if

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I just give this freelancing thing a go? This is

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when I decided to do it full time. That year

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I actually made three times more than I would have

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if I stayed at that marketing agency. And after that,

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the rest is history. I always tell people that I

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am now unemployable and I have been for 30 years.

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And the first IT job that I worked in, I

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didn't know about it, but I got into this job

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and I worked there for seven years, which was a

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long time. And I realized the reason why was because

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the owner of the company basically let me run the

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company and I took it from £500,000 turnover to about

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five and a half, £6 million turnover. He was there

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to guide on the finances and stuff, but otherwise I

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could do what I wanted to do. And yeah, I

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learned a lot of lessons in that, but I wouldn't

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be able to work for somebody anymore. Yeah, just wouldn't.

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Yeah, yeah, same, same. It took me a bit longer

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to realize that I think maybe five years after I

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was freelancing full time, realized that now I'm no longer

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employable. I was still sometimes trying something I was experimenting

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with a lot. But at some point, yeah, I realized,

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no, it's never going to happen. I am that kind

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of a person. Probably just like you, where you want

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to do things yourself by your own rules and just

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keep creating, keep working. And if you're put into some

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kind of a set of rules with somebody above you,

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then it might not work out. So let's talk about

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SEO. I've been playing the SEO game for many years

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myself. I've been beaten up by all the Google black

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and white animals, the pandas and the penguin. I did

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those black hat things where you go and buy five.

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I had 300,000 links at one stage on one of

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my sites that I bought from wherever was selling links.

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And then Panda came along or something came along and

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it just knocked me. And I think one of the

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biggest challenges that business owners have is to get leads

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in. Yeah. And so this is if you can get

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your lead flow sorted out, then you can then start

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worrying about your client delivery, you can worry about your

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operations, you can worry about your hiring. All these things

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that follow, they all start with a leaf before the

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lead flow. You've obviously got your branding to think about

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and Other things. But yeah, even if you don't have

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those things, if you have a lead flow that works.

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And SEO in the olden days was fun because you

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could actually make progress. Now I have three IT companies

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at the moment and IT support London is a fairly

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strong keyword. Right. I also spent three

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years or four years at the top of Google in

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position one without getting any leads. But if you don't

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have the CRO, you don't have the user experience, you

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don't know what you're selling, you're just throwing good off

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to bed. Yeah. And now we're in such a different

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world that I'd like to really dig a bit more

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into where we're going because I think everybody knows that.

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Well, SEO is not dead. It's still foundational in what

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we have to do, but that's not where people are

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getting answers anymore. Yeah. So the game is definitely changing.

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I think it's maturing a lot. If we take a

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look like 10 years back, SEO was more like Westworld

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where it's just, it's all about the backlinks, it's all

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about the first positions. Looking back, it's golden age of

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affiliate marketing and all of this black hat stuff. We

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are entering the new age with AI search. And what

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I'm personally seeing is that nowadays impressions might start

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to matter more than clicks. Since you are being referenced

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a lot in AI search, in AI overviews, a lot

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of people are maybe even will start getting their sort

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of voice, AI voice, sorry, voice. SEO thing was on

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a rise maybe eight years ago or something like that,

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but it really didn't took off. Nowadays with all of

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the AI search and all of the capabilities that also

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might be more relevant to us, a lot of people

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might actually find you through hearing about you, seeing about

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you, but then interacting on a different platform. So before

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it was very simple. You Google something, you find something,

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you click on it and you maybe take action, maybe

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not, but it's still, it's much more measurable and stuff

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like that. Nowadays we're still not there, but it feels

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like we might be heading into a world where you

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might need to adjust your SEO and AI search game

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in a sense where you, you are being found on

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a lot of different places and referenced more. But then

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in exchange, you might lose Google traffic per se because

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people are using AI overviews, but then you might gain

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direct traffic because people are still coming to your brand

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because they're finding you on other places. So that's one

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thing that I feel we might be heading Into I'll

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come back to this piece that you start a business

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and you're doing one thing right, or you're serving a

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set of customers. Let's take it support, for example. Okay,

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I'm going to do it. Support. And customers come to

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you. Can you do this? And can you do this?

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And can you do this? So you do everything because

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you just have to get the money in to pay

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the bills. At the moment all you're trying to do

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is give yourself a salary so you can eat. Yeah.

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And then you start getting some good clients and slowly

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but surely you get to a point where you have

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five people or you have 10 people and the whole

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game changes. And that whole journey is, yeah, it's very

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exciting, but it's very painful and it takes you into

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all sorts of places. And the challenge that we have

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now that I see is that in order for anything

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to find you, whether it's AI, Google, any of the

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other mechanisms out there you mentioned, voice video is another

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good one. The second biggest search engine is Google is

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YouTube. And now the YouTube algorithm is so important and

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it can search the video content. It just makes it

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a much bigger piece to think about. The AI, in

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particular the large language model models. There's still only 2%

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of the people in the world using them. Now I

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understand probably 30% of business owners are using them, but

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most of those aren't using them correctly. So the opportunity

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that I see is actually understanding how to get, you

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know, further on that, understanding the structure you need. That

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for me starts at knowing what you're selling. But what

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tips and tricks can you give people? How do they

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think about this new AI search world? One of the

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things that I like that you mentioned, I feel that

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as SEO is evolving, the SEO specialist that at least

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that I communicate with, as I mentioned before 10 years

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ago it was all about the organic traffic, the rankings,

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and nobody really knew or cared about the business side

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of things. Nowadays, the conversion optimization stuff the actual business

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needs, they're way more important. There's people who are still

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like looking at the organic traffic and making sure organic

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traffic grows, which is meaningless by itself, those are the

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ones that are going to fall behind. But SEO is.

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Seems like it's. Since it's taking so much of. Since

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you need to do so many things in order to

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have a proper SEO, it feels that you need to

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know so many different aspects of the business. Not just

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SEO, but then of course branding, then of course conversion

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optimization, and of course you need to look at social

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media in a sense Becoming somewhat of an expert in

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many different areas rather than just staying. For example, in

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paid advertising, you only do Facebook. That's the only thing

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that you care about, and you're not moving away from

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it. So for the SEO people, we have to look

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around into more broader areas of how to actually help

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our clients. A lot of the time with my clients,

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I spend the first period looking at the icp, the

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avatar. Who are you actually serving? And what I'm finding

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people aren't doing is using the large language model. I

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prefer Claude. There's obviously so many more using their large

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language models to know what their clients are saying and

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what they're complaining about and what are their real pains.

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And there's this link between, okay, this is my icp.

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This is what he's saying, this is his pains. And

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what we do is we go and build a website

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and it's a brochure. My website. This is all stuff

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I do. No one gives us. They want to know,

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how can you help me? Yeah, exactly. And that makes

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your job as an SEO person a little bit more

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difficult because you've still got to get the keywords and

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you still got to get the robot text, everything in

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the background of it. Yeah. And there's just now, when

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beforehand you just had to have the on page, the

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off page, a couple of formats laid out. Now there's

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a list of 15 things you have to actually get

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into play. Exactly. And for this reason, I'm now way

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more strict with who I actually work with. For example,

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so before that, it used to be that you take

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any in the beginning, especially any client, any work, any

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project, any niche, and you're trying to make it all

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work. But as kind of time went on, I realized

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that I'm not the best fit for every type of

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client. And if I can actually see that the person

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first of all understands icp, if their website is not,

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for example, targeting the right icp, are they willing to

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do the changes? If they are, okay, we can actually

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work with this. But there are clients who are very

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determined to leave their current website, but they want to

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rank for a keyword that might not even bring any

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sort of leads for them. So it's the whole business

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aspect. I can do SEO for them, but I know

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that they won't be satisfied in the end because they

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are not going to see that business result. So these

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days, I'm very strict with who I actually work with.

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And I want to. First thing that I want to

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see is that, are we a good fit? If I

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Help you? If I do the SEO, will that actually

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help your business? If it does, then we can actually

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work together. That's so important, that's so important for everyone

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because when you're grabbing that money, when you're grabbing those

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clients and your service suffers, then you're not going to

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get the reviews you need, you're not going to get

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the credibility you need, you're not going to get any

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of that. But it's difficult. It's difficult because there's that

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period in between where the money. Yeah, it's probably the

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most tough thing, that period in between. But as soon

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as I made the change, in just a couple of

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years, I scaled to over six figures. When I made

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that change, more than half of my business built on

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referrals. So nowadays because it's such a good fit for

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me and for the client and I provide the results,

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which are the exact business results that the client is

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expecting, I'm getting referrals basically without actively seeking out them,

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which showcased to me that, okay, the thing that I

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implemented a couple of years ago of being more strict

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with who I work actually benefited my business by a

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lot. And who do you work with? At the moment

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I work with mainly with keynote speakers, but I'm also

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now expand because I saw that this works so well.

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Now I'm expanding into book offers, coaches and high level

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executives. Since the personal branding website aspect is very similar

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to keynote speakers. But keynote speakers is my main clientele

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for the last couple of years. Cool, cool. So let's

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just talk a little bit about more AI. I know

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people might find this boring, but I just want to

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give some examples of what's possible these days. Right. I'm

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slightly advantaged because I'm an IT guy, but I've never

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been a coder. That's the sentence you hear very often

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nowadays. Yeah. And I used to work as a network

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engineer. I could do Cisco Networks and do all those

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good things. So I knew a little bit of that.

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Never code was just a. That scared me. Now with

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some understanding of how these Claude code or lovable or

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any of these work, you can go out and you

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can build yourself a pretty good website in two hours.

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Yeah, yeah, that's great. But without the fundamental grounding of

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the business first, understanding the whole market, the SEO,

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the geo, all those things, the all the different signals,

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you end up just with a website that's not going

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to do anything. And I see so many people going

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out and saying, right, like you just said, I want

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my website to look this way and the problem is

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you're not your client. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The client doesn't

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think like you, otherwise he wouldn't be coming to you.

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He might want to be like you, but he's not

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like you Right now. How do you tackle that? Because

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together TEDx speakers and authors can probably be quite tied

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in their ways of I want to look like this

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and needs to do this and I need to tell

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everybody what I've done. But it's not about that. In

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my experience, it's maybe I was very lucky, but in

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my experience it's quite the opposite. A lot of keyboard

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speakers might think that they might be tied in their

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own ways or in the way that they want to

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present themselves, or keywords that they rank for. But honestly,

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at least the ones that I work with, they're very

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flexible and they're very willing to do what it takes

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to actually rank. So in that sense that's really helpful

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for me as an SEO specialist. So I personally haven't

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encountered that, but I haven't worked with the whole industry

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yet. So that might be just that mini referral network.

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Because as soon as I got started working with one

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keynote speaker, he referred me to four others and those

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couple of others are referred me to the other. So

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it might be just that specific circle that is very

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open to that. But I guess we'll see. Yeah, I

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shouldn't generalize, but I do see quite a common thread.

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Yeah, that happens. And yeah, you mentioned referrals and that's

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so powerful, right? Referrals is how are you doing your

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referrals? Because if you can do your referrals properly, if

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you. Firstly, if you do your job well, you have

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to do your job well. That is true. Not every

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client type is good for referrals. So let's say you

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start working with an E commerce founder that sells dog

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food. He or she, they might know other e commerce

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dog founders, but then they are competitors, so it's not

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like they're going to refer you to other e commerce

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dog founders. Yes, they might know other e commerce people

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that are doing similar things, but then you might be

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switching niches unless you want to go very broad and

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work with only e commerce sites. But what I found,

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it's very difficult to get referred by those people since

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Steam might not have good leads to refer you to.

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So hitting a wall, even if you do an amazing

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job. But then for example, compared to keynote speakers, keynote

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speakers, they're not really in competition with one another. Yes,

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they might talk about similar topics and stuff like that

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you might write similar books with one another, but you're

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not really directly competing with each other, meaning that you

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are way more likely to refer you to your peers

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because again, you're not in direct competition. Second of all,

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usually people like keynote speakers, high level executives, coaches, book

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offers, they're usually very well connected people. So they have

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bigger networks, they like to network. They're very extroverted, especially

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keynote speakers. It seems like they know basically everyone in

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their industry. That alone makes them, they have a much

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bigger network for you to refer to. Those two combined

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aspects, I think is what actually helped me to get

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a lot of referrals from just a handful of people

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compared to all the other people that I've ever worked

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with and they very rarely got any referrals. So if

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you choose good client type that is fit for referring

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you, then you might actually grow your business very fast.

343

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Now, what does the future look like? Obviously, like you

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said, you're now going from freelancing to agency, which is

345

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awesome. Where are you now? Where do you see yourself

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in years time? What's the vision? What's the dream? Yeah,

347

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so the thing is, I personally believe that personal branding

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is going to become very important. And that is true

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for companies, brands as well as just people themselves. Especially

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with AI taking so much of our space, of our

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content, of everything. It feels that if you have a

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very strong personal brand, you have so many more possibilities

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for your business, whatever that would be, writing books, selling

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::

products, talking on stages, it's going to be very powerful.

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And not a lot of people I think are paying

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::

too much attention to that. The way I see it,

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since I see this as a very powerful thing. The

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agency that I'm building is actually I am still doing

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SEO. I still think it's an integral part for the

360

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personal brand aspect. But I am shifting my focus towards

361

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helping other people build their personal brands. So it's going

362

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to be a personal branding agency and videos, LinkedIn and

363

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website, which is SEO essentially are going to be the

364

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three main pillars to actually get people like keynote speakers

365

::

on another level. Also doing videos on LinkedIn and social

366

::

media helps with SEO as well. So I'm just also

367

::

doing myself a favor by taking other things that I

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do, which in turn also help SEO. And then SEO

369

::

can fuel other things. So it's just a very, I

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think, a very good balance. So this is the future,

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::

this is the dream. Building that agency and what I

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have right now, I want to scale this to 4

373

::

or 5x time and then see where, what do you

374

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have right now. So when we come back to you

375

::

in six months time, we're going to see how you've

376

::

grown. Ah, good question. Six months time, Difficult to say

377

::

since there is a lot of moving pieces that I'm

378

::

moving around. But I feel that by the end of

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the year I should have doubled what I have right

380

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now in terms of the clients that I work with

381

::

and in terms of income as well. So this is

382

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the goal right now. Challenges, opportunities. Right now. Beforehand,

383

::

you had to go and do everything. Now AI can

384

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do so much, right? The automations, the agents, the 70%

385

::

of the work that you used to have to do.

386

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If you spend the time building it and structuring it

387

::

and understanding what's needed, you can pass that off. And

388

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for me there's this piece. I love the idea of

389

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personal branding and understanding all that because humans are going

390

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to want to connect with humans much more now. If

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::

your company can automate 80% of the job and that

392

::

20% that's left, you can do more human, then you're

393

::

going to stand out. Yeah, I personally believe that's why.

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The reason, I mean, this is why I'm like doing

395

::

podcasts and appearing on podcasts, because I believe that personal

396

::

branding is going to be important. So I stand by

397

::

my words by actually doing that myself, but also offering

398

::

that to other people as well. It's a thing that

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I feel a lot of people should start doing because

400

::

the human aspect is going to become even more important

401

::

if we move into this AI world where a lot

402

::

of things can be automated. And what is important about

403

::

personal branding in your view? Like, a lot of things

404

::

are important, but I feel that it's just you have

405

::

to be known to gather opportunities. So what is a

406

::

personal brand? Personal brand is basically you yourself showing off

407

::

what you do in the world and gathering an audience

408

::

around that. So when I say personal brands, I never

409

::

mean influencers. I don't mean that you need to have

410

::

a hundred thousands of followers. Actually, for a lot of

411

::

people, just a couple of thousand of followers and a

412

::

couple of thousand views per post or per Instagram reel

413

::

is enough in their specific industry, in their specific people,

414

::

that they're targeting to actually make an impact. And it's

415

::

just if I'm looking for somebody to work with and

416

::

I see a person that has personal brand, has videos,

417

::

has something, I'm way more inclined and likely to actually

418

::

go and chat with that person compared to a freelancer

419

::

that doesn't even have a photo on his website or

420

::

doesn't even have A website. So it's like, basically, if

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::

you don't have personal brand, you might become very invisible.

422

::

And the only way to find you is like, I

423

::

don't know. If you don't even have a website, then

424

::

there's no way to find you. So I just feel

425

::

that that's going to be a crucial part. I love

426

::

that view. If you have 300 views on

427

::

TikTok. Right. Let's just take that as an example. Yeah.

428

::

And everyone cries about 200, 300 view at jail. Imagine

429

::

you're sitting in a room with 300 people looking at

430

::

you. You'd feel entire. Most people won't even get up

431

::

and talk. They won't even say anything because they'll be

432

::

too nervous. And you've already got 200 and 300 people

433

::

in front of you. And if those two or 300

434

::

people are the right people. Yeah, to your point. Yeah.

435

::

That's an audience by itself. And if you're posting one

436

::

of those videos a day and you're still getting the

437

::

300 people, by the end of the week, you've got

438

::

1500 people. That's exactly what I've been telling other people

439

::

as well, that in the social media age, we got

440

::

so desensitized to. Basically all of the numbers are way

441

::

inflated. Like, we get a thousand views on a video

442

::

and we're like, ah, this is a bummer. But yeah,

443

::

as you said, if you get up in front of

444

::

a thousand people, that's it. That's a whole other feeling.

445

::

Yeah. One view is not equal to another view. So

446

::

let's say you get 3,000 views. The actual, like, audience

447

::

that watched a video that I would actually come to

448

::

see you live, per se, would be like maybe 300,

449

::

400 people. That is still a lot of people dedicated.

450

::

So, yeah, it. It is very powerful. And not a

451

::

lot of people are, I think, thinking that way. So

452

::

they're missing out. Yeah. And I think so many people

453

::

change the views at the cost of authenticity. Yeah. Yeah.

454

::

That's also another thing. I feel that personal brands, you

455

::

don't. When I speak with people about, hey, you should

456

::

build a personal brand, do a Instagram video, make yourself

457

::

more visible, do a newsletter or something like that. If

458

::

we're talking about, like, videos, people always seem to think

459

::

that they need to put some kind of a Persona.

460

::

I need to become somebody to be on a video.

461

::

I'm like, no, you just showcase your. It is difficult.

462

::

I'm not saying. Had to learn that the hard way.

463

::

When I first got in front of the Camera. I

464

::

was very not myself. Nowadays I'm way more used to

465

::

actually film something, but it is a skill. Yeah. A

466

::

lot of people think that they need to act a

467

::

certain way where in reality is just learning to be

468

::

yourself on camera and just showing what you do and

469

::

how it works that already sets you apart, apart from

470

::

80% of people. One last question before we wrap up.

471

::

We had this old world where information was expensive. We

472

::

now have the new world where information is free. You

473

::

can come and be a coach and the same program

474

::

you're coaching can be taught by AI. All the information

475

::

can be there. And so many people that I speak

476

::

to, I say to them, okay, you need to give

477

::

away a lot of free content. You need to be

478

::

honest and authentic and make it useful to people. Because

479

::

there's a principle of reciprocity. If I'm giving and I'm

480

::

giving and I'm giving. Yeah. And I give different stuff

481

::

or the same stuff all the time and people like

482

::

me and they start to build a trust with me.

483

::

It's just building of the trust that's important, right? Yeah.

484

::

Then they will come back and they will at some

485

::

point decide to buy for me. Yeah. And I always

486

::

get this. But if I give away my secrets. Yeah.

487

::

How many secrets are out there anymore? Yeah. To be

488

::

honest, circling back to the same thing as AI is

489

::

getting better and basically was able to provide any advice,

490

::

any information for free these days, what is actually valuable,

491

::

Human factor is valuable, human connection is valuable. The same

492

::

personal brand is actually valuable because I might get the

493

::

same information from AI, but maybe I trust you more.

494

::

I like viewing you more on your YouTube channel. So

495

::

I'm still going to go to you for a certain

496

::

piece of advice rather than just type it into like

497

::

chatgpt. If these like authenticity, human factor, personal brand

498

::

is going to. In this new age where information is

499

::

free, I think those key things are going to become

500

::

even more important. Another thing is that communities, live events,

501

::

stuff that AI cannot replicate is going to become super

502

::

important. I think what you are going to eventually sell,

503

::

let's say, as you said, if I'm giving away everything

504

::

for free, what is there to sell? Something that is

505

::

high ticket, I think that is going to become way

506

::

more prominent. So the exclusivity is going to be even

507

::

higher. You will sell less of the things but for

508

::

way more. And it's probably going to be some kind

509

::

of access network, community, live events, those are the

510

::

things that AI cannot replicate. But people still crave human

511

::

connection, human touch. So I think this is the direction

512

::

we're going to. 100% community is exactly where it is.

513

::

And as business owners. I don't know if you found

514

::

it, as business owners, it's probably one of the loneliest

515

::

jobs out there. It is. Oh, man. I only started

516

::

going to conferences, attending like networking and just meeting people

517

::

just in the last couple of years. And it changed

518

::

the way I view things and how much more valuable

519

::

it is to. It's also very difficult to meet entrepreneurs.

520

::

Like, it's not, it's. There are like very few of

521

::

us amongst, just in, in general. So it's not like

522

::

you can go to a bar and just randomly meet

523

::

somebody like that to connect. You need to seek out

524

::

communities, specific events. There's less than 2% of the people

525

::

in the world will start a business. Jesus, that's such

526

::

a low number. And every year less than 1% will

527

::

start. Wow. And of those, I'm talking numbers here. But

528

::

of those, 75% of them will fail. So it's a

529

::

very small community, a powerful community. Small community. It's a

530

::

community I love. So thank you so much for joining

531

::

us. And if you were to leave people with one

532

::

one thought, what would it be? Consistency is the thing

533

::

that I think helped me to get through a lot

534

::

of difficult phases of entrepreneurship, of freelancing, is just

535

::

being consistent, never giving up and being resilient to that

536

::

thing. If things doesn't work and you suddenly you quit,

537

::

basically. So I think that is what helped me a

538

::

lot in my journey and that is what I wish

539

::

for everybody to have. Thank you so much for joining

540

::

me. I'll put all your details on the show, notes

541

::

and everywhere it goes out and we'll catch up again

542

::

in six months time and see if you're where you

543

::

want to be. Exactly. Thank you so much for having

544

::

me. That was so fun to be on this show.

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