that was a kind of a severe experience and um I was that that was a three month end one um after I built a site and um yeah like one day I've just got a quote request saying that hey um you're invited to this um government tender project it's a demolish a building um of a school um yeah that was at the Ministry of Education so when I got this request I was like I have no idea how to to even start the tender process I don't know what to prepare and um yeah it just seems too big to um to even to to do it yeah you don't have a demolition company you're sit on your laptop halfway around the world I know I just built this site so um yeah so I reach out to L um and I said hey look I've got this lead what should I do should I just leave it like I don't know what to do um yeah so Luke said wow you should go for it so and I I just got some sort of a confirmation the confidence maybe I should give it a go um but yeah um so what I did is I reached out to a local contractor that of course is fully qualified we actually um probably spoken on the phone before so and he's all in on this project um and he did mention that maybe the the chance of success is a is not that high but we will give a go so I okay yeah so I just actually um my my English is actually not my first language so my writing sucks imagine me submitting the the the government tender so I have to hire someone um my ask my VA to help me out to sort of Tidy have other document uh lots of like safety all the thing yeah like kind of a formal process it's very tedious um having said that I got a D and we sent me the um the application and three months later uh one day just out of blue and Bo I received email saying that well you are congratulations you are the successful um bidder and for the school project for the Ministry of Education wow yeah and of course we did finish that project um I think for that uh that particular lead I got paid for over $5,000 um dollars just for that yeah that's really a cool story of likey you know creating something out of nothing and really a win-win for everybody because this company um now got this big job that so such big enough that they were able to pay you a $5,000 commission for sending them that lead is it typical to structure it as um kind of like on a commission basis you know we'll pay you a percentage of the total billing or a flat fee based on whatever work we book or I think what Luke was describing in was more like look you know 500 1,000 1,500 bucks a month like we'll just send you all the leads that we get through the site just to make it like easier more consistent and like not have to track on a performance basis all this stuff yeah um so I do both I I prefer the flat fee so actually majority of my um website that I do a flat fee deal it's just so much easier there's no tracking um the the only there's only a few side I do commission one is the demolition um only because is high ticket because each job could be over 100K per per um per lead and sometime the sales cycle are super long because imagine if you need have to demolish a building and that involves like console consent um disconnection or the service it's just very it sometimes we can complete a job um that uh the leads actually can in last year so and that's how long the sales cycle can be so um usually it's a lower volume but higher ticket so for that particular particular Niche um I do the commission base um but the rest um absolutely I do flat fee it's just so much easier okay yeah this is similar to We did an episode with link Moser who was doing like high-end lead generation for real estate agents and the the drawback was you had to have a real estate license to be able to you know legally earn commission on those referrals but it was similar like hey I I don't need to do aund a ton of these because one multi-million dollar property could be worth you know4 $50,000 in commission but you know this is a way to kind of broaden that idea uh and no no real estate license required so it sounds like you like the demolition Niche something I never would have considered what you know what makes a good Niche for the rank and rent model I like something that's service based that um you don't have a storefront it like a basically like a plumber um the concrete guy or roofer you go to um the client s to to to work so it's not that um people come to your office um so service based business um the second one is I really like those higher ticket type of work like concrete Drive ways patios um earth work demolition um Roofing um nothing sexy nothing sexy um but those Niche work yeah it it just they they work and that's because the value of these jobs uh is worth quite a bit to the service provider and so they're just like if we can get more if we get more leads in if we can book up our calendar then yeah it's worthwhile we'll just you know add this to our monthly marketing budget yeah exactly um I've done the smaller Niche like um handyman um I probably would not do handyman again having said that I have a hand handyman side that's producing lots of lots of leads and the business has been with me uh since the um yeah the beginning when I started business so and and sometimes like a smaller smaller Niche like a ga cleaning can be good because um it's high volume so you get like a 60 or to 90 leads per month um but the thing with G cleaning is sometimes you start a job with G cleaning and you find out the ga needs a repair the roof needs a repair the roof needs repaint so a small job can turn into a bigger job um yeah you you just never know so um yeah but that my person favorite is still a bigger ticket do you like to go deep in one location or deep in one Niche or like it's really a matter of like trying to find The Sweet Spot of I'm going to go I'm going to do carpet cleaning in Dallas and then I'm going to you know build out all these other niches for Dallas or I'm going to go do carpet cleaning in you know 100 different cities yep very very good questions um I there's two way to tackle this um so if a city that's if it's a big city like with a population of a million um and above I like to go so either Niche down so for example if it's concrete I don't do all concrete I just um specialize at certain type of concrete either it's a stem concrete or um concrete res um resurfacing or concrete driveway um so you have to be the specialist in that um the service that you provide I found you get lot more success than just do something regener in the big city now okay yeah okay the bigger the city the more Niche down you need to be so Niche down for the big city and if it's a big city also you can if you can't Target like say let's say for New York City it's just too big so you have to Niche down to a different burrow like Manhattan or Brooklyn or Queens Long Island so um yeah either uh Niche down to this specialized area or Niche down to the local area so that's um that's a general rule but I I found anything above 50k should work the population wise I'm talking about um 400k population wise seems to be a very sweet spot so it's not to big city um your local competition is not that strong um and it's easy and you have enough volume to um uh the the population produce enough leads um enough search volume that is going to help you you to Rend a side out okay cool and I I swear I was on Wikipedia at one point like here's the list of you know cities with population you know 100,000 to 250,000 like or you can probably just ask chat GPT at this point like come up with this list for me and and there's a there's a potential starting point anything else that goes so I'm you know trying to cross reference these cities am I looking at the local competition yet or am I okay yeah yeah um the yeah the one one thing I'm doing I I'll just actually give you an example that um that just shows you the initial research and sometimes it's not about what you provide is has to be good enough is about your competition so I'll give you example of um two side I built one is a that's in Wellington and the capital city in New Zealand okay um we had on the just on the on the um on the data shows that the landscaping business has has a huge demand very high volume and uh the keyword difficulty is medium so you have the local competition so I thought you know given that how much demand I'm going to build a side for landscaping um a few month down the track the site is ranking however the quality of leads um and the number of leads are not great so we still producing the um the leads but it's just not um ideal so what I did did is I buil a specialized so um so I work this landscaping company and they do all the paving um concrete artificial grass retaining what everything um and then what we did is we found um the concrete driveway in the local area there's no company just do concrete driveway um there's a lot of landscaping company there's a lot of concrete company just does very general um like a just general contractor but nothing um no company does concrete driveway so I build a site for um concrete driveway in Wellington and that site blew up it's completely blew up um so what happened is this contractor so if if a client um want a concrete driveway down um in front of the house sometimes they go to do the backyard they need a retaining work again they need Paving work again so it's like really it's finding the right Market to get into therefore dominate so you are still providing the same service however it is extremely important to actually pick the niche that with um um very little competition um interesting so it was the landscaping company that was doing the driveways yes so that's the same it's the same company so what the land yeah the local landscaping company there are a few big one that have a good name um so they dominate the market so it's very hard for a um someone small to medium business to just get into the the market because when people think about Landscaping there's a big name out there um but if you change your Arena to the concrete driveway well no compan is doing that um just like specializing that so it's just really easy to get into and you ended up up getting all the Landscaping work um but through the the right channel so yeah that's really interesting trying to find that that back door or that side door uh into the into the place like we it's you know maybe it's number six on our menu of service offerings but you know if I try to rank for General Landscaping it's really tough but if I try and rank for concrete driveways okay caving Yeah a different just yeah okay specializ in it yeah are there any tools or metrics that you're using to kind of quantify that level of local competition yeah um I used to to so I use sem rush so I were looking at the keyword difficulty um even though the uh on the data saying in anything above 20 it is still rankable and it's still doable it's super like a moderate but I don't like to go to those Niche because I if I'm going to spend the same amount of time and money um I want to go for the easy target so so under under 20 on their metric 20 yeah under 20 um yeah is there a minimum search volume that you're looking at yep uh I would look at the combined search volume to be 15 and above at least 100 buff so let's say if it's um a bigger T ticket Niche like a demolition then I think 100 is enough but for a small ticket Niche and I were looking at higher volume probably 200 100 but maybe 150 combined keyword volume is um the that's surprisingly low to me like oh only 100 people are searching for this every month but if the jobs are $100,000 like and they're searching for it like they're pretty well-qualified lead if it does come through so that does make sense yeah yeah it's it's a yeah you don't actually need that much of search volume um for a bigger ticket yeah and maybe companies are ignoring it because it is low volume and and and telling the the Wellington the concrete driver company Wellington um sometimes the search volume is not really reliable um especially in a smaller country maybe in the US US is more um accurate that Wellington concrete driveway there's only 30 search volume okay um it's extremely low but sometimes you just have to use your judge um intuition like looking at the City's population um yeah it's impossible to have that low volume and something's wrong so just do it anyway so yeah there's there's value of ranking at the top of Google in you know whatever small Niche it is whatever small City it is like if you can get to the top you're you good things can happen and so that's kind of the next phase of this conversation is like okay I find the niche and City and competitiveness combination that looks attractive and then you know what happens next in terms of you know securing a domain and like building out that site so yeah the U well we were talking about the keyword research and knowing your local competition I believe that's the most important step so I don't actually um um do I I don't give this job to VA I actually do this a research part myself the rest um is pretty streamlined so the next is a you you find a domain that um is the most um I I would I would like to use the I prefer to use the domain name name that's contains the keyword so whatever the N you're doing if it's Roofing you would um have the roofer or Roofing roof um those keyword in your domain so it's more of like a partial match of the N you're doing um so you finally and the city name too or just just the service yeah absolutely you um I I make sure all the domain name contains the city name and the niche name and I got to imagine for a lot of smaller towns like those domains may be more readily available or maybe they're cheaper on the second hand Market versus New York Roofing or something like I gotta imagine that's like super premium already claimed but it's like you know Wellington NZ concrete driveway.com like probably available for 10 bucks or whatever yep yep they always uh I'm surprised because every time when I'm um using that domain trying to search for domain and it's always available and I was shocked why not yeah that like never happens like all the domains I want are are already taken so that's like that's a cool element of this Niche or of this of this side hustle yeah but the original country level domain is easier to get okay uh okay so what happens next next you get domain and um so I use WordPress I felt um WordPress is easy I started with a webly and um but when I decided to scale and I switch to the um WordPress I use a template and then you just up upload the template and swapo the content um find the photos um don't don't get any photos from Google because those photos are not maybe have a copyright so I make sure all the photos are either purchased from a um photo stock website or um they are copyright free um okay and build a site I contract all the all the building part to my VA and she's really really good so she actually taking care of the building process so you build a site um and after that you create all the social media like a um Facebook uh building the citation um yeah and um just start the ranking process and I do have a people that help meet me with a link building making the blog comments building the back links um yeah that's all the technical part all right well let's let's unpack each of those each of those steps because there's a lot there um on the content side so your VA is is writing out or like kind of building out the contents that like these are the services we provide like this is about the company like you know what do you what do you put on this page when realistically there's no there's no company behind it yet okay yeah um I what I do actually that's um that's what I learned from look um I I did not create this process um I I just follow someone that's already had the result and um yeah started doing it now um in terms of content I would basically um found out all the local like I would put a keyword in um for that business and the city's name and collect the top 10 competitors that's already ranking well and I pull the data into sem rush and then get all the keyword and then you analyze it um for example for example let's say stamped concrete or roof repair has very good search volume and I will put that in as one of the service provide so it it's almost um we we create a Content not it's it's it's work out better that way so I found lots of business they like to write about how good they are what they provide but without knowing the market so what we do here is is we research the market find out those the service that's really highly in demand people need it therefore um pick the one and throw to the website and yeah and your website literally become a Wikipedia of everything people need to know about that about that business okay so if I'm understanding this it's looking at you know plugging my you know top five or 10 competitors into an SEO tool to see what their what what content of theirs is already ranking like what have they created content around and then just trying to match that like doing the same or better um to build out this site yeah and it's about finding the service um it's about finding a service that people are interested and lots of people searching for and have a relatively um low difficulty to rank and through all the business um onto your uh your site because you can say okay this competitor have a offer a few services but not others but the other competitor have um um other competitor has a certain service that this one doesn't provide so you your side become the Wikipedia like your your your website become the One-Stop shop for everything that people are looking for okay and you kind of have to skip you have to like skip the about page where like you know we're we're a third generation family-owned company and you know here's the picture of you know me and my dad and we run this thing and like like you have to kind of leave all that stuff blank for the time being yeah yeah you can like I personally I don't like to provide light like um you can say you're like a family local F you you can say you're locally owned business but personally I don't want to put any uh information that's false sure so um I like to keep the website pretty generic unless I found a local contractor to work with and we can taor make the the content to be more specific to that business writing a story because a story a personal branding always works better than generic content but just to start with something very generic would would work yeah and is there a a call to action on the site you know book a quote contact us now you know call this tollfree number like what happens when somebody lands on the site yeah um so very big uh core to action so that that's the whole point right you want to convert the um the clients that whoever click into your website so big um numbers so numbers on the top and I want to make sure every page because they may search you from they they may found you from a service page not your homepage so every page would contain a quote request form so it's easy for the potential clients to just send inquiry um to us so definitely quote form quote reaction numbers make sure every page have that um so people can contact you what do you use for the phone numbers and or the phone answering okay so I there's a lot of phone company provider service so like a I use T and lots of people use um coral and I think there are just so many company provide that service you can get a virtual phone number um yeah and then just using that and I I divert so I would U program the phone number and with a bit of a sort of a welcome to um the business and press one to connect or press one for roofer you know um yeah you can program and make it looks at least present like a very um like a real business okay so you have like a virtual answering service would would say um hey you know concrete driveways Wellington how may I how may I help you or how may I direct your call or something yeah um the so I just programmed the welcome message in the beginning I answer the phone call so I just pretend I'm the I'm the office lady I'm I'm the reception okay and so you but you can tell like what site because it's got to be probably different phone number for all these different sites yeah yeah yeah okay sorry yeah now I got it yes so the I can set up so those company they have a um yeah there's a functionality that you can set have a whis what we call a whisper message so if I get a phone call I would hear a little whisper message saying new leads from Wen okay okay so you know how to answer the phone okay otherwise with the 40 s I have no idea you know where where is this uh caller coming from but yeah you can identify where is the caller coming from everything's tracked recorded um it's just yeah it's a it's easy okay and then you have to become a very good actor or actress in saying uh you know my my guy who does our bids uh is out right now you know let me let me get back to you or or sorry we're booked up on that date but you until you kind of have a critical mass then you got to go find like a service provider or a supplier to go out and fulfill the work yeah sometimes it's jenal rash so like people are calling oh I've got this urgent job like for example tree uh I have a few trees that um yeah they need someone doing the job urgently so I immediately have to drop everything I was doing and look for trying to find a contract that's can provide this work um yeah that's but it's fun gotcha yeah because you want to because you don't want to get it a bad review he like oh this this person blew me off or they weren't available yep and it's so easy actually yeah people read b reviews this days yeah yeah okay I do want to Circle back to the you finding reputable reliable qualified suppliers in a second but go back going back to the SEO process we're talking about you know building out first this library of content becoming the go-to authority in the space by going broader than anybody else in in the niche next thing you mentioned was creating social handles and citations can you explain what that is how that works yeah so if you can I would um s every S I would have a Facebook page and I think in New Zealand slightly different but us you want to create all the um citations like yel um or Google my business and lots of like a business directories so that would um that would help with the ranking because you are telling the internet that um your site is legit like it's you're operating and you got lots of social signals from a different site that's um supporting that um and therefore build a local relevance and trust and Authority um so that's the basic I the best thing I do for every site but going down a little bit deeper is um is the is to rank so is the back links um that's a part I personally really I hate doing because it's super super tedious and time consuming um I know like who who wants to just randomly link to a you know a concrete driveway site you know no that's the thing and um like you have to outreach to PE U to the different like a blogs some business um I yeah so that I think that's the hardest part um and it's is there's so many people out there saying that they can do it um I hired probably 10 different people claim that they know how to do this but they really have no idea and not producing any results so finally I had a few yeah it took me lots long time to find them but once you find them you know they know exactly what to do um yeah that will help your website to rank any uh you know one or two tactics that come to mind on the link building side that are effective today sorry said again are there one or two link building tactics that you're finding effective today yeah I like I like um block comments um because it's yeah 2024 we're talking vog comment like is this for real yes yeah and who who still read the blogs but those lots of blogs still have a very high Authority um okay even though it's probably like no follow because it's user generated content like that still has some weight it still has some value yeah yeah and usually they're free um the the key is you make you want to make sure that your comments are not spammy so um yeah it's actually relevant to what they blogged about and write about yeah your your your opinion or your suggestions yeah and usually if you do that the um the yeah the comments actually will stay and it's just one of the easiest way to um to build a back links all right that's surprising but what what else have you got yes Andre yeah yeah and then attach your you know your your business at the end therefore you have a link all right anything else on the link building side that's that's working today um that that's actually my favorite so I do lots of blog comments but the thing is the key things you want to um have variation of the the the keyword or what we call Anchor text um so you can't say you can't have the same anchor text that's not enough so you kind of want to um have variation for example if it's concrete driveway in Oakland I would say Oakland concrete or concrete contractors or just some your random URL or contact like you you really want to keep like under the like name field because that's what will end up being linked yeah okay be completely um yeah keep it a little bit um random rather than just completely like a exact match of your business okay all right that's really surprising that that that is uh effective but still works um I want to go back to the Google my business thing for a while I don't know if they still do but like they you had to mail a postcard to this physical address to verify you were who you you said you were and you were doing business at this location is that is that still a thing or how do you get around that yeah that that's the part um I think made the Google action made it so much U more difficult um for people that's doing recular rent because it's um it's a lot harder so in old days we just need to find address um and the Google will mail you the postcard and your your business your Google business profile become live now um Google does lots of video verification um that's the part when especially the first stage you don't have any contractor to to um to work with um so you can't really create a video um yeah and especially the niche I'm doing lots of them are like a in a like a hardcore like a exavation or concrete um sometime you have to show the the tools the Vans and I I I don't have them so um but I don't think that's the I think it's definitely got little um a lot more difficult to create a business profile having said that um that has not stopped me ranking the site because um you still got the organic search result and that brings lots of business and what I do is after the site is already producing the leads and I find the local contractor to work with and I can work with them to create a Google business profile with the real business name and everything and that would work okay got it yeah so you may not be may not be able to get that uh early on but no so it's just the ORD changed yeah okay gotcha yeah we got um on the link building front episode 534 was with Jeremy Poland uh a really popular episode they got great feedback on some creative link building strategies in that one so if you're wondering what to listen to next you can go check that one out um but that's like that's really fascinating stuff like yeah I I'm going to forego kind of the map um the Map listing but like even just with the organic you know text based listings in Google like that could be enough but now you got to go find out and find a supplier and here's here's what I found it's like the the service providers that are any good they're not necessarily hungry for business they're like dude we're we're booking a month out like ah yeah get in line you know we've raised our rates they're they're not necessarily hurting for for leads and if you're trying to now cross reference this with an area that's low competition it's like are are there enough players in that space to even pay you and like would do a good job if they went out to a customer site like this is like the other piece of the puzzle is like finding somebody to go fulfill the work yeah um I have to say the all the technical side building ranking to the number one um right now this is a because we know all the process we know exactly how to get it on top this is the easiest part the hardest part is actually um finding the business that's the right fit like you said if a business already very uh established they yeah they don't need your leads um they they booked up six month in advance um yeah and those one that's like the Cowboys um doing a bad job um they may be hungry for a job but they're not the right person that you need to partner with right right yeah it is tricky I have to say not every not every Niche and location you can find the right fit and that takes a lot of um trial in error um yeah that that's why going back to um I personally like the city that's 400k above that um because you have enough business to test out okay they'll have enough different players yeah yeah yeah um yeah this is this is um and especially I think in the US uh slightly the situation is slightly better but in Australia New Zealand there's such a shortage of Labor um and yeah I um well I think it's true everywhere like there's fewer people going into the trades yeah for yeah I I don't know it's um yeah like a I I was just talking to a business owner yesterday um he's in a roof painting business um he want to scale the business um so hi he wants to hire like a seven new guys um ended up those younger guys they're just not reliable and um he have to you know sort of make sure he's not grow the business so fast because just um you can't find a reliable person to to do the work but the the thing is once you find the right one um it just worked perfectly um I literally was Interview a um business owner yesterday um he was the the G cleaning business in Oakland um okay that one of side yeah and he said um so so he he provides so it's it's it's a matter of finding the right business that provides good job but not yet um be the expert in marketing and you actually help them grow like I get lots of joy out of this so he was saying before um before using the Ser our service um and he has to compete uh with other competitors with the price um so he is immigrant he's Chinese uh he works really hard um yeah and he he's um major bus like a potential customers order in the Chinese Community but since he's using the site like all of a sudden and he's got um people um yeah the from everywhere requesting a service um because he actually provide very good service so he now not only has to chase for the service but um the clients find him and he raised the the profit margin to 20% um therefore he can provide a better service to the client um yeah and he makes more money and he can grow the business so yeah like I think here is a matter of finding you will find the you will find a contractor that's a perfect match and also I have a I think one of my concrete um site I found this contractor I've been working with this guy since the beginning um he does amazing concrete work so all the reviews that he complete like the customer post the pictures very super happy with the result but he was working for a bigger company before um and not getting paid that much he has amazing skills and he treat like a good customer good manner um it's a right match once you find a person and um yeah the you you are helping them so much and of course they're helping me as well grow my business I think it's definitely the win-win situation if the right person yeah it sounds like it's a matter of finding that person who maybe is uh or that company that's maybe early in their business they they know the skill they know how to provide the service and they have good reviews from whatever business they've been able to get but just don't have the time energy or expertise to do the marketing side of things and it's like okay if we could just get more people you know in the front door more people in the top of the funnel like we could do really well and so that's where they turn to a service like yours and so what is that Outreach pitch like or maybe like the the tree example like I got somebody I got a hot lead on the line I got to go find a Serv provider and it's like do you do you do you want this lead do you I got more where this came from uh you how do you set set up that initial Outreach and kind of explain what it is that you do and how much it costs and and all that um it sounds very scary in the beginning so you just C calling people but what I realized is um you know I've got the leads on hand um it's very hard for the business saying well I've got a tree removal job and do you want it it's very hard for them say no we don't want it um if you get the answer which means this business is really um doing well they don't need your leads so most of the business will say actually yes it makes I think it makes the conversation or the Cod so much easier when you get something in hand some value to offer and I usually would send them a few free leads um just you know as a good faith um and I don't want to ask for any money or anything um I want them to test out see this is working for them if if they made money and they like the leads they know the leads are real okay um they are generally more open to have a conversation with you that do you want to continue to get the leads um and and then invite them to to the zoom meeting to explain to them exactly what I do um and how is the the the fee or the structure the deal Works um with everything yeah okay it's like the free samples at at Costco hey you had a taste now if you want the whole P you go back yeah buy buy more or sign up sign up for the monthly package yeah and um yeah it's um and and and I tend to not talking about like I'm not worri about whether I'm have to make money from the business I can even you may maybe um send them a few more like I'm not super um clean on the on the money part I think to me finding the right business the right partner is the is the the most important thing um having the the trial period sending the leads to them it is also a opportunity for me to know how they handle the customer are they the right fit so it's it's a it's not that they choose me it's I have to choose them as well it's a is met of finding the right fit for both side right and because ideally you want somebody what becomes hopefully more hands off where it's just like yeah they just you're on you're on autopay for your $1,000 a month and like you know the phone now directly Rings their phone so they can handle it you don't have to be involved and I imagine if everybody is happy in that relationship that could be a really sticky customer I know you've been at it for for two and a half years like you have a sense of how long a a service provider sticks around or like is churn a thing here um I have to say majority probably 80% of my customer um they've been with uh with me since the beginning I started business and never they like because if you provide so much value why they would stop right um the however you know the turn does happen um so I had a business they actually just got a few big commercial job and they want to focus on that and I like good on you you know um glad I can be part of a um that can help you get big big jobs and help you grow um and I'm happy for them um and and and I don't do any like contract or anything just month by month because I feel if yeah if someone is um if I'm not providing value they don't find the value of my service why I have to um pin them down it it's just not how I believe the relationship would work yeah what do you use what do you use for the payment processing or the recurring billing um stripe makees everything so much easier okay yeah do you ever get the feedback or maybe the customers would be or the the service providers would maybe be on the receiving end like would they show up wearing the polo shirt that says like they're pre-existing company brand name but like well the website said something else like does that like does that mismatch ever happen um it does happen so what I would uh advise the this ambulance background so I would normally would uh advise the um I would tell the business owner in advance that may happen so what tell I tell them to do is when they answer the phone or when they returning the customers's phone call you say something more generic like for example um New York City Roofing so it's not branded name um or they answer the phone call with yeah something really generic because when people calling you um they expect something the same name that they calling the website on um but then when they set up the estimation ready to send an invoice and the contractor can actually explain to the business that um the website they contact is a is their marketing site or they can say um yeah this is our company and that I'm in partnership with the side um usually if you're providing good service and build a build a trust people don't really care yeah it's really rir that people say oh that's not going to work for me this is the deal breaker I have not come across with that situation yeah we had kind of a similar conversation with Johnny Robinson who had this uh window cleaning business you know largely built on the back of subcontractors and the feedback was like well dude you're going to trash reputation like going to show up like wearing their own Window Cleaning company not orange window cleaning and it's like so much of your reputation happens online now it's the booking experience it's the website experience it's the reviews that you have it's like if they show up and do a good job I don't care what shirt they're wearing I don't care what their truck rap says like as long as they do a good do a good work it doesn't really matter yeah I I feel like going back to the niche section um since you mentioned that um maybe this business model works better in the in the business that's not so brand driven um yeah yeah yeah like who cares about who does your window cleaning and doesn't have to be a specific company or name as long as you're doing good job so business like that might be easier but let's say maybe if you're working have a have a site for orthopedic surgeon that may I don't know I haven't tested out that particular Niche yet but Imaging could be a little bit difficult yeah yeah I'm not gonna trust just anybody to a slice me up that makes sense yeah okay uh and is it is it 100% organic for you are you doing anything with paid ads in in partnership with larger companies or like hey we really want to monopolize more of this you know page one real estate anything like that okay no uh I have tried um I so that's really so people are doing two different ways so some people that are not doing ads and therefore is so much faster to scale your business um yes you can do it the I guess the there are good and bad side I think doing ads you skill you will skill the business faster however you really have to be very very good at sales um I was not in the beginning so I just go by everything organic and I feel like I have the time to um just take the time to build my site until theci side start to producing the result but having said that is a paying ads a good idea I think it yes um yeah will it would work for some people yeah I especially on those commission-based jobs where I mean I guess if if the service provider is Happy paying you a th000 bucks a month just for what you're getting organic like I guess that would probably be an extra layer of complexity like we're also going to manage ads on top of that for an additional fee or you have to work that out but the reason I ask is we get this um magazine I don't have one they I mean it looks like a magazine but it's like the Seattle area you know homeowners guide and there's no content in this thing it is like it is just pure ads and it's like you know this bathroom renovation Specialist or this you know backyard patio specialist and I'm wondering because they have a lot of them have kind of like very generic sounding names or sometimes they have like almost a templatized little you know half page ad it's like I wonder if these are are the legion yes yeah that's possible yeah yeah so there's the offline offline leg gen happening as well if you have these local mailers so me you got you know dozens of these sites running at this point what's you what's a day in the life look like for you today well my it's uh the great thing about the doing this is you're not limited to the location um I could be in New Zealand I could be in New York last week I was in LA um I could be in Miami doing this yeah in Australia so um yeah it's uh that that I love traveling that's the reason I love what I'm doing right now are you actively building out new sites or it's kind of a man matter of like I got to I got to try and rank the ones that aren't quite to page one yeah like where where does the time go that is spent on work right now I'm not um since I've already got so many um not as many as I wanted but I've already got a um some website some site is still ranking process so I definitely want to get those side up to speed and therefore for me to able to rent it out and um I feel like I have tested quite different different niches and I would like to stick to the niches that I know I would um have yeah definitely have the success and be able to rent it out um I'm still building a few other site um that's in completely different Niche but those site that um I thre my own contact that they already have the business they want me to to help out with the SEO and lead generation process so I'm not as actively building more site at the moment unless the yeah the the business owner want me to too and this became a full-time thing for you uh in terms of full-time income full like I don't there's no other day job that is expecting you to call in yeah I was working full time I have say um to get it started is not easy nothing is easy so I started doing this when I wasn't working a full-time and then I really just have to make make a the phone course reti uh replying to customers during the lunch break or lunch break and just doing all the studies so um to this point I yeah I I don't have to work a full-time job that's great was there was there a point where you felt comfortable colon quit yeah so when I think I when I made enough money to replace my full-time work and that's a point that I feel okay yeah that's that's that's a fantastic place to be and the I think last year I spent um I spent like two and a half month um in China spending time with my mom I'm Chinese M uh my mom was like how like when are you leaving like you like just hang around here don't you need to work like you're not she she felt like I'm I'm like a bum um and then and I said well mom actually I worked really hard to get to this point um yeah yeah um yeah that's just funny because she said oh before that you can always um um visit have time for like two weeks holiday now you're staying for two month and you still hang around here that's funny it reminds me of my friend Dustin heiner has these shirts that say successfully unemployed and I try to make a point to where that whenever I'm going skiing like in the middle of the week like oh successfully unemployed I feel like you would be a match for that as well anything that's surprised you over the last couple years of doing this um definitely I initially when I um you know signed up l's course um start doing it and I thought okay I'm just going to learn all the marketing SEO kind of a skills and that's what I expected in the beginning um to this point I realized wow um I actually learned so much more rather than just the technical process I have learned um yeah it's just maybe sales maybe communication um and also hiring because it's impossible to do everything yourself um how to hire people how to be resourceful how to solve the problems um and I realize the the word is never lack of talent because every time when you actually post a job um on upw work or some sort of a platform there there's 100 people applying for it um it is M that makes me realize um you know it's not the skills that you have like the skills important but the the most important thing is actually to create the generate the clients have the business then you can find someone can f fulfill the the work the hardest part is actually to to to actually create a job um and create a declines have the demand um so that's uh yeah that's uh that actually changed my yeah it feels good to be on the hiring side yeah yeah yeah and um yeah just I feel like there's so much skills that I've have learned throughout the way um that way more than just the technical skills yeah that's really cool well what's what's next for you for Blackbird SEO what you got what's got you excited these days yeah um I definitely want to grow my company bigger I I do have a um big dream um the other things what I realized is um I think throughout for my the last for the experience for the past few years I I I get I do get lots of joy out of um talking to the business owner see a business starting from maybe one man onean operation but very honest um business that you know you can see them grow so much and I yeah I I do enjoy that process to talking to them and also especially for the Immigrant um I'm an immigrant I I went to New Zealand when I was young young and I I see there's a lot and lots of contractor they are immigrant um they they don't know how to get a business um and I particularly enjoy to help those people actually um yeah to to um how to grow the business how to actually get the main they're not just just limited to their own Community they actually open themselves and to the bigger audience the mainstream um client-based um yeah and that and that's really fulfilling yeah really rewarding to be able to turn around and and help us like hey I I learned the stuff and now I can help other people uh go and implement it and make a bigger impact on their own lives and lives of their customers I think that's really cool so again Blackbird seo.com you can check me out out over there let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle Nation just get it started um thinking about it is not going to get you any result take action isn't that true thinking about it won't get you there but uh if you don't think about it you're probably not going to start it so make sure to just just take some action so now again really appreciate you joining me it's Blackbird seo.com couple notes before we wrap up number one I thought was interesting was to think International like you had some you had some on the ground experience in New Zealand but like I have you know I I think a lot of us listeners us entrepreneurs like are very focused and to be fair there's you know there's a lot of opportunity here but hey maybe it's maybe it's lower competition somewhere else or maybe you have uh maybe you have some connection to uh a different International Market and that could be an interesting way way to go the other one was to look for those side doors I thought that was really unique like hey Landscaping was too competitive but concrete Paving or P or you know driveways was less competitive even though it was the same you know I'm pulling from the same pool of service providers I thought that was a really interesting way to go as a way to kind of shortcut your your your just make it an easier road to get to the top of Google on that and then the third thing was you know really the you know the meat and potatoes of this business is the long-term Partnerships with the service providers so like doing the vetting and the diligence and being a trusted marketing partner on that front really is what drives this you want to make it passive you want to make it hands off you have to find somebody who's good at what they do and really understands the value of this relationship so um those were my takeaways again your listener only bonus for this week is that list of 25 Rank and rent niches we probably covered um half of those We'll add maybe we'll add some more maybe we'll up that number um but Rank and rent niches to Kickstart your research process you can download that for free at the show notes for this episode at Sid hustle.com meow m AO or just follow the link in the episode description you get right over there big thanks to MA for sharing her Insight big thanks to you for supporting the advertisers that help make this content free for everyone as always you can hit upid hustle.com deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place that's it for me thanks so much for tuning in if you're finding value in the show the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend so fire off a text message or two hey we should totally start this until next time let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle show hustle on