In this insightful episode of The One Small Change Podcast, Yvonne McCoy welcomes digital marketing expert Frank Buddenbrock to dive deep into the evolving landscape of being found online. Together, they explore the concept of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), the importance of staying relevant in digital marketing, and the practical steps entrepreneurs must take to ensure that their services and content are visible in a rapidly changing environment. With actionable tips, real-world stories, and a mindset focused on experimentation, this episode delivers essential strategies for anyone looking to boost their online presence.
Guest Bio:
Frank Buddenbrock is the founder of a longtime digital marketing agency with 20 years of experience helping businesses get discovered online. With a background that stretches back to the pre-Google era, he’s an expert in website development, ad management, SEO, and marketing innovation. His entrepreneurial spirit drives his passion for teaching others how to adapt, stay visible, and thrive in the fast-changing world of online search.
Chapters:
00:00 "Small Changes, Big Impact"
04:07 Desert Survival Skills Dilemma
08:06 "Visibility and Staying Relevant"
11:31 Evolving Search Habits and Queries
13:26 "Curiosity-Driven Questioning in Messaging"
17:11 "Girl Scouts, Marketing, and Dad"
20:29 "Creative Email Strategy Insights"
25:50 "Scaling Google Ads Effectively"
29:36 "Learn, Connect, and Grow"
31:10 Entrepreneurship Is an Experiment
Quote from the Guest:
“But the point is, you still need to market. It doesn’t matter what you do, what you offer… even the big guys, the Fords, the Apples, the Microsofts, the Verizons of the world, they are running ads constantly. And there’s a very good reason why they do that.”
Link:
Receive a free AEO Assessment by sending an email to [email protected] with the subject line: AEO Assessment
Welcome everybody to The One Small Change. And as always, I
Speaker:am so thrilled that you are spending your time with me today. And
Speaker:we are going to embark on a journey of exploration and
Speaker:transformation. And I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost
Speaker:30 years of entrepreneurial experience. And I have a passion
Speaker:for discovering growth through the power of seemingly
Speaker:small change. And I want to thank you again for— I know
Speaker:your time is important, so I want to thank you again for coming,
Speaker:and I do this because I want to share with you
Speaker:people that I think will help you grow your business. And this week
Speaker:we are talking with Frank Buddenbrock and
Speaker:he is going to share with you how his story,
Speaker:how his life made a change in what he does that makes
Speaker:him really good at what he does. So
Speaker:Frank, thank you for being here. Thank you for
Speaker:sharing with my audience. Um, I know they're going to get
Speaker:a fistful of— what a weird thing to say, a
Speaker:fistful. They're going to get a handful. I think
Speaker:we're all in fight and flight right now. You're going to get a
Speaker:handful of information that is really going to help you grow your business.
Speaker:So tell us what you do and take it away.
Speaker:Sure. Again, Frank Budenbrock. I have a digital marketing
Speaker:agency for the last 20 years. We do pretty much everything
Speaker:and anything it takes to promote a business online, and that could be
Speaker:anything from website development to social media
Speaker:management. A lot of the work that we do now is, of course,
Speaker:Google and Facebook ads management, and then search
Speaker:engine optimization, and now the new AEO, or
Speaker:answer engine optimization. We also do a lot
Speaker:of email marketing campaigns for clients because Once we've
Speaker:driven someone to your website, you need to follow up with them.
Speaker:It's rare that they're going to have just an impulse
Speaker:buy, unless you're an e-commerce site, let's say. But if you've got a service or
Speaker:product that they want to do some research on, they're going to
Speaker:have to be educated and entertained and engaged.
Speaker:And, you know, you have to tell them why you have the best solution to
Speaker:the problem they're trying to solve. So before you go, before you go
Speaker:any further, because I'm not, you know, an
Speaker:expert in any of that, I've never heard of— what did you call it?
Speaker:Answer? Answer Engine Optimization, or
Speaker:AEO. Uh-huh. I don't even know what that means.
Speaker:Yep. Well, you're not alone. A lot of people are
Speaker:seemingly unfamiliar with it, though you've probably seen it every day of the
Speaker:week. Now, when you do a search for something,
Speaker:if you do a Google search for something, Google is going
Speaker:to return a page, what's called a search engine results
Speaker:page or a SERP. And at the very top of that page now,
Speaker:Google puts their AI overview. And
Speaker:that has a, like a summary,
Speaker:but it's at the top of the page and it's called the AI overview.
Speaker:And what that is, is the answer to the question that
Speaker:you've just asked in the Google search bar. I do. I saw that
Speaker:today. Yep. And so now the goal
Speaker:is to make sure that your product or your service, your
Speaker:business is one of those companies mentioned in that
Speaker:paragraph. And that's what the new answer engine
Speaker:optimization is all about, because most people now are
Speaker:finding the answer that they want there. And they're no longer scrolling
Speaker:down, so they're rarely seeing your ads. They're rarely seeing your
Speaker:website listed as one of the search results. So
Speaker:it's a, it's a very big deal. It's really changed the world of
Speaker:search. Well, you know, one of the things, one of the
Speaker:reasons I was really interested in having you come on was because
Speaker:we share something in common, and that is Be Found.
Speaker:So tell us your story and why you're good at helping people be found.
Speaker:Well, sure. Years ago, actually before the
Speaker:internet was what it is today, before Google was the search engine
Speaker:of choice, I was the president of the Southern California Land Rover
Speaker:Club, and we used to do a lot of exploring in the Southern
Speaker:California area, and that included things like Death Valley and the Mojave
Speaker:Desert. And it dawned on me that I should have somebody teach our
Speaker:members desert survival skills 'Cause there are times
Speaker:when you're out there in the desert and something can happen to your car, something
Speaker:completely not your fault, something you didn't do, but you may have a
Speaker:catastrophic failure in your vehicle. You're out in the desert and now what
Speaker:do you do? You're miles from the nearest road and what
Speaker:are you gonna do to survive? But again, this is way before the
Speaker:internet and trying to find that person, somebody to teach
Speaker:my members desert survival skills, was virtually
Speaker:impossible. I mean, they don't list themselves in the White Pages, if you
Speaker:remember those, or the Yellow Pages, if you remember those.
Speaker:And it was very difficult to find that person. But I
Speaker:heard about this thing, the internet, or the World Wide Web, as we called
Speaker:it back then. And I thought, well, maybe there's a website
Speaker:where that person might have listed themselves, some kind
Speaker:of a directory. And I, I searched high and
Speaker:low and couldn't find that person. And so I thought, well, you know
Speaker:what, there should be a website where you can find experts in any
Speaker:field. And so I decided I would build that website,
Speaker:and it was called findanexpertonline.com.
Speaker:And it took me quite a while to build it.
Speaker:WordPress didn't exist, Wix didn't exist, none of
Speaker:these platforms exist back then. You had
Speaker:to do things like Joomla for the directory part. I had to use
Speaker:a program called phpMyDirectory, and back then
Speaker:they barely could talk to each other. It was impossible to get them
Speaker:to integrate. Things like YouTube didn't
Speaker:exist back then, and trying to get an interview or a podcast like
Speaker:this again was very, very difficult. There was no delivery
Speaker:method back then. Nevertheless, I decided to make this
Speaker:directory. I did, and I started having experts
Speaker:subscribe or be members in this directory. And I
Speaker:tried to find one of my own experts doing a search,
Speaker:and I couldn't find them. And I said, well, that's not going to work. I
Speaker:can't charge these people money to be in my directory and then not have them
Speaker:be found. So I found out that there's this thing called
Speaker:search engine optimization. And I read both books
Speaker:at Barnes Noble on the subject at the time. I took
Speaker:a couple classes at UCLA and one at UC Santa
Speaker:Barbara. I put all this information together, made my own recipe for
Speaker:search engine optimization, and applied it to my own website. And
Speaker:then sure enough, there I am on the first page after about 5
Speaker:months. Actually, it took quite a while.
Speaker:So, um, back then Google again was not the search engine of choice. We had
Speaker:things like AltaVista Ask
Speaker:Jeeves, uh, AOL, uh, yep, and Dogpile. I always found that one to be kind
Speaker:of curious. But then finally Google came along
Speaker:and, uh, superseded everybody. They really came in
Speaker:with a phenomenal algorithm and set
Speaker:the standard. And so now all the other search engines at
Speaker:that time anyway would just license the data that Google was
Speaker:collecting. And that made the job a whole lot easier. So, and
Speaker:then— I'm sorry, finish, finish. Yeah,
Speaker:so, uh, in that process of building my website and doing the
Speaker:search engine optimization, as the internet started ramping up, it
Speaker:also dawned on me, hey, people are going to have websites and they're
Speaker:going to want to have them found, and the way to do that is through
Speaker:search engine optimization. And so that's how I started the
Speaker:digital marketing agency that I have today. So there are a couple
Speaker:of things. Some of these are kind of high level, but the first thing I
Speaker:think is, and this is what I believe as
Speaker:well, is people, you know, people
Speaker:need to be found. You can have the best product, you can have the best
Speaker:service, the best process, the whatever, but if nobody
Speaker:can find you, it doesn't matter. So that's the
Speaker:first thing. The second thing that I think you hit on kind
Speaker:of unintentionally is The way to be
Speaker:found is constantly changing. So
Speaker:if you were doing something that, you know, you used to come up and, you
Speaker:know, ask Jeeves, that's not going to help you now. So you have to
Speaker:stay relevant. And I think as entrepreneurs, that's probably one
Speaker:of the biggest mistakes that we make,
Speaker:is that we think we fixed a problem and then we don't look at
Speaker:it again. Do you know, you know, I— and one of the things
Speaker:that I say all the time is people are practicing to be perfect, practicing
Speaker:to be perfect, practicing to be perfect, and when they think
Speaker:they finally nailed it, that thing doesn't exist
Speaker:anymore. So you gotta be imperfect and jump in right
Speaker:away. And then I think the third thing— there was a third
Speaker:thing— so you got to be found, you got to be found in
Speaker:relevant places, and I don't remember the
Speaker:third one, but it'll come to me. So go ahead. You know,
Speaker:yeah, no, you're absolutely correct. We tell
Speaker:clients it's not a set it and forget it situation at
Speaker:all, especially with the internet. I mean, literally
Speaker:Google changes things almost on a daily basis. I mean, it is, it is a
Speaker:moving target, you know, and it, it makes it interesting, makes
Speaker:it frustrating. But it keeps us on our
Speaker:toes, keeps it very fresh in our minds, you know, and
Speaker:what worked maybe next week doesn't work this week, you
Speaker:know, the paradigm changes all the time. And now,
Speaker:like I said, with the AEO, 6 months ago
Speaker:that barely existed, but, you know, a week ago
Speaker:it's now very, very, very much at the
Speaker:top of people's conversation. What, what, what would you
Speaker:say are the other misconceptions that people have
Speaker:about being found on the internet or in internet
Speaker:marketing? Well, I think a lot of it, again, for being
Speaker:relevant, that's very important. Now with the
Speaker:AEO, it's all about answering the questions that people have.
Speaker:So now the process, rather than just targeting
Speaker:specific keywords, right, if you just had a particular keyword that you
Speaker:were targeting, and hoping that people would type that in
Speaker:and your page would come up on that first page of results. Now
Speaker:the thing is that people are answering questions, answering questions, or asking
Speaker:questions. They're much longer phrases, you know, what is the
Speaker:best project management software? You know, so it's a whole
Speaker:question. And so now the challenge is making content on your
Speaker:site that literally has that exact question maybe in
Speaker:the title tag, maybe at the H1 tag or the title of that
Speaker:page, and then answering that exact question through the content of
Speaker:your page. So that's, that's very, very
Speaker:critical. So this never dawned on me, but
Speaker:it— so for instance, we used
Speaker:to say, give me management software,
Speaker:give me management you know, what's some management
Speaker:software? And now we're asking more to get
Speaker:a qualitative answer, like give me the top
Speaker:10 or give me the best. I never thought
Speaker:about that before because I actually, I mean, and
Speaker:it's funny because I did a search today. I wouldn't even tell you what it's
Speaker:on because it's really weird, but I went in and
Speaker:I originally put in the phrase of the
Speaker:thing And then I was like, that's not really— I mean, I, you know, that's
Speaker:not really what I want. What I really want is this. And so it's a
Speaker:much longer question. So that's an interesting thing because I think
Speaker:some of us— there are some ideas that I
Speaker:think we are attached to, like you have to have the right
Speaker:hashtag, you have to have the right words, you have to— but it
Speaker:again, it's evolving. Oh, yeah. Very
Speaker:much. And I think a lot of it is driven by the
Speaker:smartphone. One's on my desk here somewhere, but because it's
Speaker:now going to mobile, right, on your smartphone, and
Speaker:people don't want to necessarily type in an entire
Speaker:question, so now they're using voice search. And that's how
Speaker:Google is seeing where the intent is. So people are no longer
Speaker:just typing in project management software., but
Speaker:now they're using their voice command and they're asking Siri
Speaker:or Google, you know, what is the best project management software I can find
Speaker:for my company? Well, nobody's going to type that in, but now that you can
Speaker:do it by voice, now that phrase is an entire question,
Speaker:right? Or a whole sentence rather than just targeting
Speaker:a keyword. And I think a lot of that has come from that
Speaker:ability to do. That type of search. And, and I think maybe, you
Speaker:know, again, this is my opinion, but You know, one of the
Speaker:changes that I've been making is to ask
Speaker:a question, you know, because I think people—
Speaker:there's a curiosity factor, right? You know, and if
Speaker:the question, you know, is one that it's like, oh, I had that thought before,
Speaker:you know, and the same thing, you know, part of when
Speaker:I'm working with clients, I tend to have them
Speaker:start with what's the situation that your client is in
Speaker:instead of like, do you find yourself, you know, that this is happening and this
Speaker:this is happening, versus I am so-and-so, I do this, this,
Speaker:and this, I've taken many courses, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, because they
Speaker:don't care, right? You know, if you, if you're not going to deal with the
Speaker:issue that I have, what do I— why do I need to listen, you know,
Speaker:any further? And what you're telling me is that that lesson
Speaker:is true for the internet as well, right?
Speaker:Right. And, you know, the big difference between just doing a search and getting
Speaker:a result in the answer engine optimization is that if you type
Speaker:something in and you just do a search, for example, Google is just going to
Speaker:say, here are 10 results and your answer is probably in one of
Speaker:those 10, right? But now with the answer engine optimization and
Speaker:that AI overview at the top of the page, they're saying, here's
Speaker:the answer that you have and I'm certain of it. So you don't have to
Speaker:start looking around for things. My wife has given up on Google.
Speaker:She just does ChatGPT. That's her search engine. And
Speaker:she'll ask that question, you know, where, where can I find
Speaker:the best recipe for sourdough bread? You know, and then
Speaker:boom, here, that AI overview is going to present the answer
Speaker:to that question, or at least citations or sites
Speaker:that she could visit that have that answer.
Speaker:So she doesn't have to filter through all those 10 different search
Speaker:results. To try and find the answer because a lot of them are advertisements, a
Speaker:lot of them are not very
Speaker:relevant. So here, boom, just saves so much time and
Speaker:aggravation too. What other things are we doing? Do
Speaker:we have misconceptions about or.
Speaker:Doing wrong? Well, again, I think the set it and forget it, that's probably one
Speaker:of the biggest problems that we see. Even
Speaker:with, again, going back to the search engines or even the answer
Speaker:engine optimization, those algorithms, they want to see
Speaker:fresh content. So you need to, even if you've got a blog post from 5
Speaker:years ago, you can go in there and refresh it, right?
Speaker:Depending on your, your market or your industry, probably things have changed in the last
Speaker:5 years. It could be last 1 year for all I know, but
Speaker:it's a wonderful opportunity to go in there and refresh your
Speaker:content And then that improves your likelihood of being again one
Speaker:of those search results that Google is going to present to answer
Speaker:that question. When you say refresh, do you mean just
Speaker:post something on it so it comes up, or do
Speaker:you mean repurpose it? Well,
Speaker:I would say, like I said, that there's probably new
Speaker:information, right? So in the last 5 years, for example, there
Speaker:may be a lot of innovations in software right
Speaker:now. Software is functioning at a different level because of, because
Speaker:of AI. So here's an opportunity for you to just— it doesn't have to be—
Speaker:you don't have to rework the entire blog post or article, but you want to
Speaker:give it some brand new information. And then now when the search engine
Speaker:comes— update it. Update. Okay. Update
Speaker:or refresh. Exactly. Because I have some posts that
Speaker:I consider classic posts. You know, and so, and I
Speaker:post them once a year, and each year I take a look at them
Speaker:and see if the message is relevant, see if the call to action
Speaker:still makes sense, do you know? And I just did one
Speaker:of those recently. I always do one around the time Girl
Speaker:Scouts are selling cookies, right? And the post is,
Speaker:what does, what does Girl Scout cookies, my dad, and
Speaker:marketing have in common? And it's, you know, when I was a Girl Scout,
Speaker:my dad used— I was always the highest seller because my dad used to take
Speaker:the cookies to work with him and he would let people have one
Speaker:cookie for free. Right. And then when they came back, you know,
Speaker:it's like they didn't know they need a cookie until they saw it.
Speaker:Right. And when they came back, you go, oh, I have all these varieties
Speaker:for sale. And that's kind of what we need to do. A lot of times
Speaker:our people don't know what it is that they need. So,
Speaker:you know, right. So that's good. I'm glad I'm doing that right.
Speaker:So, yeah. And again, that kind of goes to the email marketing we were talking
Speaker:about earlier too, because people have so much going on in
Speaker:their life and you've got to be in front of those people, try and stay
Speaker:top of mind, right? And show them that you have the best
Speaker:solution to the problem they're trying to solve. So, so this is one
Speaker:of the things that I see with clients a lot, and I know I
Speaker:struggled with it. And it's like, I don't want to
Speaker:fill somebody's inbox up. I don't want to post too many
Speaker:times. I don't want to, you know. So, do you have any thoughts on that
Speaker:or any suggestions? Yeah, I think a lot of
Speaker:us think that we're that special, I guess, maybe that
Speaker:maybe we shouldn't be in their inbox so much. But I don't know about
Speaker:you, but I follow quite a few different
Speaker:industry leaders across the board. I've probably worked with 100 different industries over
Speaker:the years. And I'll subscribe to their newsletter. And I mean,
Speaker:there are some of those gurus, if you will. I get
Speaker:an email from them every single day, you know.
Speaker:And if it's good, if it looks interesting, if the subject line catches my
Speaker:attention, I'll open it and read it. Otherwise, it's just hit the
Speaker:delete button, you know, and let it
Speaker:go. But I think you still need to be in front of people.
Speaker:I mean, you know, who doesn't know Apple? Who doesn't know Coca-Cola? Who doesn't
Speaker:know Ford? But they're doing commercials every day, every day,
Speaker:every day. So, you know, people get distracted,
Speaker:have things going on in their life. And if you've got a
Speaker:product or service to sell, you've got to stay. In front of those people. I
Speaker:also think that, like you said, we've got
Speaker:so much going on. But I, you know, I mean, a really simple
Speaker:thing is You know, if you just send one post, by the time the person
Speaker:decides they're going to read their email, you could be on the third page and
Speaker:they never even see it. Exactly. You know, and
Speaker:so I— the first thing that I say to
Speaker:clients is be consistent. If you're going to send
Speaker:your newsletter out on Sunday, then like I do, send it
Speaker:out on Sunday and be consistent. So it's better not
Speaker:to bite off bite more than you can chew. It's better to build up
Speaker:so that you can stay consistent. And one of the
Speaker:things that, you know, that I did, it was like, you know,
Speaker:was I discovered I can resend the people who
Speaker:didn't open. It's like, oh, they didn't open, so they didn't see it. So I
Speaker:will, you know, I won't be bothering the other people. I will, you
Speaker:know, but it, it, you know, I started out with
Speaker:like, oh, twice a week seemed like a lot. And now I'm
Speaker:up to at least like 5, really
Speaker:every day but Monday, you know, but it's
Speaker:a different variety of kind of things. So, you know, Sunday
Speaker:is my newsletter, Friday is the
Speaker:podcast, right? Tuesday and Wednesday are my posts, Thursday there's
Speaker:a quote, you know, and, and so there's a variety of things
Speaker:for people to look at and to see. And I've kind of saved
Speaker:Monday as as when I have like a personal message that I
Speaker:get, like, you know, yeah, my thought that I, you
Speaker:know, that isn't necessarily, you know, it's
Speaker:like one of the ones that I do is
Speaker:this is political, you know, delete if
Speaker:you're not. But when I get like, yeah, yeah. That
Speaker:kind of thing. Yeah. Well, you're right on
Speaker:about being consistent. 'Cause if they like your
Speaker:stuff, for example, your Sunday newsletter, people are gonna
Speaker:start looking forward to it if you're consistent, if they know, oh, okay, Yvonne's
Speaker:newsletter comes on Sunday. Maybe at the end of the day after I've had
Speaker:the weekend with the family or kids or friends, whatever, and I'm sitting in front
Speaker:of the TV with my laptop or iPad, oh,
Speaker:wonder what Yvonne's newsletter is today. And people will kind
Speaker:of look forward to that. So being consistent is, is
Speaker:really critical. One thing we found interesting when we— we've done quite a
Speaker:bit of marketing for personal injury attorneys
Speaker:and mostly on the Google Ads side of things, right? Because they want
Speaker:to be there when people go looking for an attorney, right? So Google Ads is
Speaker:one of the best ways to do that. But they also would like
Speaker:to have blogs written for them again so that they can come up in
Speaker:the search results because they've got constant fresh new content to
Speaker:their website. And, you know, that's one of the things that we'll offer them as
Speaker:one of the services. And they say, oh no, we'll take care of it. And
Speaker:we go, okay, sure, right? So first month they're
Speaker:right on, second month they're right on, third month
Speaker:they're maybe a week late, and then by the fourth month it's done. It's almost
Speaker:like a gym membership, you. Know, everybody's really gung-ho at the
Speaker:first year. Yeah, but by, you know, by March you can find
Speaker:a parking spot in that parking lot at the gym without. Any trouble at
Speaker:all. So the other thing that I tell people
Speaker:is, you know, rather than keep changing what you're doing and keep moving the
Speaker:way that you're— you know, it's like the person that sees you on Monday and
Speaker:goes, oh, I need to come back to this, or I need to find them
Speaker:again, you've moved. I said it's like having a mobile store that you move every
Speaker:day and sell something different. By the time they're ready that,
Speaker:you know, you're doing something else, and so you're really
Speaker:losing sales. Um, before we run out of time, there's one other thing I wanted
Speaker:to ask you, and that had to do with— we
Speaker:were talking about being
Speaker:consistent, um, repurposing.
Speaker:I know, I, I got it. Okay, I'm having these—
Speaker:for the, you know, for those that are listening, you notice I'm kind of
Speaker:glitchy lately. When should somebody start thinking, I'm ready
Speaker:to pay.
Speaker:For ads? Well, as soon as possible, really,
Speaker:because the longer you wait, the more
Speaker:opportunity your competitors have to come in and take those clients
Speaker:away from you. But again, you
Speaker:know, there are.
Speaker:Money issues. Sure. And also, if you're— all right, so I always say you
Speaker:have to have clarity about what you're doing. You have to be really
Speaker:sure, you know, pretty, you know, clear about what you're doing,
Speaker:because obviously if you're fuzzy about what you're advertising, your results are not going to
Speaker:be good. And it's going to be— so there's a certain place, a certain timing
Speaker:in your business that you go, okay, I've got some clients,
Speaker:I got some cash coming in, I'm pretty clear about what
Speaker:I'm doing. What are the things that people should start saying, or what should
Speaker:they be aiming for to say, this is where I need
Speaker:to get before, you know, I need to have a certain
Speaker:amount of money to, to be able to
Speaker:be out there enough to get results? Sure. I mean, running
Speaker:one ad won't do it. No.
Speaker:Yeah, you'd have to have a campaign. Well, again, it depends what's your, what's your
Speaker:objective., right? Are you just looking to maybe have people sign up
Speaker:for your webinar? That, that's one objective. If you've got a product
Speaker:that you're selling, that's another objective. If you've got a service that you're
Speaker:offering, maybe it's a brand new service or a twist on
Speaker:an old service, then you want to get the word out there that this is
Speaker:available for people. All right, so nice thing with— go ahead. So if we were
Speaker:gonna— if we were trying to get people to sign up for a workshop.
Speaker:Workshop or webinar. Mm-hmm. Yeah, again, if you've got a good
Speaker:list, that's always a good thing for on the email side of things. But
Speaker:what's nice too, with that email list, you can import that into your
Speaker:Google Ads account and show Google these are people that we
Speaker:want to target, and Google will now present those ads in
Speaker:front of like people, right? So that, that's
Speaker:a really nice feature that Google offers you to do that. The
Speaker:nice thing with Google Ads or Facebook Ads is you can start small,
Speaker:you can scale. You don't have to go out there and spend $5,000. You
Speaker:know, you may not have that, it may not make sense. So you might
Speaker:start out small at a $500 a month campaign
Speaker:and see how your responses are and then scale it up,
Speaker:right? As, as new leads come in, as money comes in, now you scale it
Speaker:up and scale it up and scale it up. And then as long as it
Speaker:keeps on working, you do that. And if it's not working, then you need to
Speaker:go in and tweak things. You need to change maybe the offer that you
Speaker:have. Maybe your, your headline isn't grabbing them. Maybe the landing page
Speaker:that you're sending them to isn't converting because it's not
Speaker:very compelling. So it's a whole process. It's not just the ad. For me, the
Speaker:ad is just like the very first exposure
Speaker:to a company, right? But now you bring them to a landing page, and that's
Speaker:where you really get a chance to educate those folks. And show them why you
Speaker:have the best solution to the problem they're.
Speaker:Trying to solve. We're running out.
Speaker:Of time. Okay, I got, I got into it, you know. So here's the thing,
Speaker:we talked about a couple of things. One is, um, that
Speaker:entrepreneurs can do. One is to be consistent. One is to
Speaker:update and be relevant, you know, don't just set it,
Speaker:you know, do it set it and leave it. Um, and
Speaker:you've got a gift, so you haven't talked about that yet, so
Speaker:let's do that. Yeah, if people are interested in how they
Speaker:are appearing in that AI overview, I'm
Speaker:offering a chance to have an
Speaker:AIO— AEO assessment. So what you could do is email
Speaker:me at frank@canyoufindmenow, and I'm sure you'll put it in the show notes
Speaker:here. But they could email me with their URL
Speaker:for their website and of course their name and maybe some of the keywords that
Speaker:you'd like to be found for. And then
Speaker:we'll do an AEO assessment to see
Speaker:how your website is doing as far as answer engine
Speaker:optimization is concerned. Guys, this is
Speaker:a fabulous gift. If you're trying to build your business, I don't know why you
Speaker:wouldn't do this. So, okay, here's where I'm going to put you on the spot.
Speaker:When was the last time you did. Something new for
Speaker:the first time? Oh, good question. Something new for
Speaker:the first time. Well, you know, I like to, like
Speaker:to cook, so I'm always looking at new
Speaker:recipes. So I've come up with a
Speaker:new recipe for lemon pound cake. My wife is
Speaker:just enamored with lemon pound cake, so I've I've tried a new recipe.
Speaker:I've got to tweak it. It's not perfect yet. So
Speaker:I like to do that. I used to own a restaurant years ago
Speaker:when I was much younger. Yeah, it was a submarine sandwich shop.
Speaker:You are, you are
Speaker:a multifaceted individual. My husband, my husband goes on YouTube all the time to
Speaker:find, to find recipes. And so we eat really well. He's retired, so he
Speaker:likes to cook too. So that's a good thing. All right. So I got to
Speaker:do the ad before we run out of we run out of time. And so
Speaker:I hope if you like this, everybody will take the time to
Speaker:subscribe and to share the podcast and to engage with this
Speaker:on social media. And the reason I did this was I meet
Speaker:so many interesting people, and I want you to be able to learn
Speaker:from them and supercharge your business and give you a chance to connect with
Speaker:people that maybe you wouldn't have ordinarily have come up with. And it's
Speaker:my way of giving back, and it's my, you know, my hope
Speaker:that you will use the information to grow and
Speaker:have impact. And so I hope that you will continue to join me on the
Speaker:One Small Change. And, you know, as we go along, I'm making
Speaker:changes, I'm learning things, and you, you know, I can't wait to
Speaker:share it with you. The other thing is, if you have never listened to the
Speaker:first episode or any of the Clarity
Speaker:Check podcasts that I've done, you might want to do that too. So, Frank,
Speaker:before we finish, Tell me, you know, your words of
Speaker:wisdom. What are your, what are your, you know, a favorite quote or what you.
Speaker:Want people to remember? Well,
Speaker:if it's about business, you know, you really have
Speaker:to concentrate on marketing. I think it
Speaker:was what David Ogilvy said, you know, half the money
Speaker:I spend on advertising is wasted. I just don't
Speaker:know which half. And I've always found that fascinating. But
Speaker:the point is, you still need to market. It doesn't matter what you do, what
Speaker:you offer. As I said earlier, even the big guys, the
Speaker:Fords, the Apples, the Microsofts, the Verizons
Speaker:of the world, they are running ads constantly.
Speaker:And there's a very good reason why they do that. So take
Speaker:that to heart. The other thing that, not to jump on your last words,
Speaker:but I think one of the things that's
Speaker:really important is I think the best thing that ever happened to me
Speaker:was learning that entrepreneurship is an experiment.
Speaker:Do you know, you never, you never get closer to your goal until
Speaker:you do something. And that doesn't mean, you know, and you learn from
Speaker:your failures. And I think, and, you know, marketing, I mean, I think all
Speaker:the time of like some of, you know,
Speaker:Coke's big fiascos, you know. So if a really big company with a
Speaker:big, you know, marketing department and stuff can make mistakes like that, I
Speaker:shouldn't be surprised that I, you know, would make a mistake.
Speaker:And you just, you know, and some of the best things you— some of the
Speaker:best things that you learn come from just
Speaker:taking action and seeing what the response is. You know,
Speaker:because you want people to engage, you want people to respond to
Speaker:what you're doing. Anyway, sorry, I got— yeah, that's one thing we do
Speaker:all the time is test, test, test.
Speaker:Because if nothing else, people just have advertising fatigue.
Speaker:You know, after they've seen your ad 3, 4, 5, 10
Speaker:times, they're kind of done. So now you have to come up with something else
Speaker:so that they can stay interested in what you.
Speaker:Have to offer. Variety, but with
Speaker:a specific
Speaker:focus. Absolutely. Okay, um, we're gonna have to cut this short.
Speaker:Um, well, thank you. I have learned so much, so I hope everybody
Speaker:that's listening to this has learned stuff as
Speaker:well. And so what I want to remind you is that
Speaker:change can be simple, but it isn't always easy. I
Speaker:mean, it requires courage and resilience and a willingness to step outside
Speaker:your comfort zone. I know for myself, if I don't
Speaker:have some butterflies in my stomach, it means that I'm not, you know, I'm
Speaker:not interested enough. So, you know, that's a good feeling. It's not
Speaker:fear, it's excitement. So I hope you will continue to join me on the one
Speaker:small change as we embark on this journey together. And until the
Speaker:next time, stay very, very
Speaker:curious. Bye, Frank. Thank you.