Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Foreigners and design agencies exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson. Hi, and welcome to episode 27 of the WP Innovator podcast. What did you think of the new intro? I thought it was pretty cool. Thought after 27 episodes we should probably mix things up a bit and just give you guys a bit of a surprise with a brand new intro which may or may not stay, I don’t know. But I was having a great time on Audio Jungle, finding some really cool backgrounds. Now, if you do have an amazing kind of American style voiceover voice and you want to help me out with a cool intro, just give me a shout. Leejacksondev.com forward slash contact.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But anyway, let’s crack on. It is episode 27 and in this episode we have Brandon M. Lewin. He is a marketing legend and we have an absolute blast in this episode. I apologize in advance. You may be deafened at times or you may giggle along. I just want to say a big thank you to Kim Doyle. That’s Kim Doyle from the WP Chick podcast.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
She was also a previous guest on our podcast. If you run a search on the website for Kim Doyle, she introduced me and Brandon and seriously, we’re like buzzing buddies already and I can’t wait to meet up and have some beers with this guy. You’re gonna feel the same way. You’re gonna have a great time listening to all the amazing advice and just be in awe of his story as well. So before we crack on, can I just encourage you head on over to the Facebook group. That’s leejacksondev.com group that’ll redirect you to the Facebook group. We’re now a well over 80 web designers and design agencies in the group, all connecting, sharing cat pictures, I promise, not cat pictures. I think I shared cat pictures.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think I’m the only person who has shared a cat picture. Actually, most of the time we’re all talking about web design, WordPress, sharing ideas. Recent conversation was all about contracts as well, which was really cool. People sharing what contracts they use and giving each other links. So go ahead, check it out. Come join the conversation. Leejacksondev.com Group and and without further ado, on with the show. Hi, this is your host, Lee.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And today I have with me in the virtual studio, Mr. Brandon Lewin himself. Hey, Brandon, how you doing?
Brandon Lewin:
What’s up? No, I feel like we need like a background for like a round of applause because every time you do that, like, I just get pumped. I’ve heard your Podcast. And that intro just, like, gets me juiced.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Come on, let’s do this. It’s Brandon, Larry. And now I apologize for everybody’s ears, especially those people who are running and they’ve got the sound turned right up because of the traffic. And then they’ve just had me screaming
Brandon Lewin:
down their ears, we’re gonna be jumping when they’re running. And they hear that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, you mean a bit of a slow motion kind of, you know, the. What’s it, rocky? Sort of theme tune.
Brandon Lewin:
Exactly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Pumped now. In fact, I can imagine whoever’s running and listening to this has actually sped up a little bit at the mention your name now. You know, like when you’re listening to music and you’re like, oh, this is amazing. And they suddenly realize, well, you’re angry about something. It’s either fast music or I’m angry. And I’m suddenly realizing, crap, I’m running really fast. I should get angry more often. Get a personal best.
Brandon Lewin:
Anyway, best intro ever.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I love it. So, Brandon Lewin, mate, thanks for coming. You are. Well, he is. Let’s talk about. Oh, I’m getting confused. He’s a digital marketing strategist. That sounds so cool.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What that actually means is Brandon makes marketing really, really easy or really, really, really, really easy. And I know this for a fact because a doctor. Yeah, an actual doctor. Has said the following. I found Brandon brilliant at demystifying complex technology, but she obviously didn’t have a really deep voice. This was Dr. Ruth Farrar says this. So this is the man who can.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
When it comes to just getting your head around technology, getting your head around marketing, because to be frank, it is a nightmare. And we’re all digital agencies, we’re all online agencies, and our clients expect us to know freaking everything there is to know about everything. And it is so confusing. And that was why I was so excited when Brandon agreed to come on and talk to us and I could introduce you all to him. So I’m going to shut up, mate for a second and could you just say hi to everyone and give us all a little bit of background about your fine self?
Brandon Lewin:
Absolutely. So, first of all, again, amazing intro. I’m going to bring you with me everywhere I go, and if not, I’m just going to record this and play this every time I’m about to open up.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You can do it. You can do it.
Brandon Lewin:
Oh, again. This keeps getting better and better. Howdy, everybody. Hello. I once lived in Chicago so I used to say hello. Hey, how’s it going? Now I live down in Austin Texas. So I’m saying howdy all the time. I don’t really know why, but when you’re around those type of folks, that’s what you do.
Brandon Lewin:
So as Lee said, first of all, again, Lee, thank you so much for having me on. And this is going to be a lot of fun. I’m just a person that has spent a lot of time doing a lot of marketing and, and I’ve exceeded some. I failed a lot. And I’d love to test new things out. I don’t think very conventional. I like to go against the grain. I have always been that way.
Brandon Lewin:
And I like to bring those strategies and tactics to companies that need that help. Because as most people know and as developers, even myself, there’s only so much time in the day. And to really be a successful business, you need people who are experts, who know what they’re talking about, who can help point you in the right direction in your corner. And the more you can have those type of people, the more successful a business is gonna be. So I just do that for companies that need my help and they range, you know, anywhere. I don’t normally work with corporate companies just because, I don’t know, just not my forte. I’ve always had my heart and soul, has always been in the small business, entrepreneur kind of startup world. My father goes back as being a small business owner for 40 plus years.
Brandon Lewin:
He’s run his own accounting practice for that time. He’s always worked with small businesses. So I grew up in that world. My mom too was a small business owner. So it just, it’s where it is. I love him, I understand him. I am one myself. I never plan on going into the corporate world.
Brandon Lewin:
So that’s a little bit of who I am. Besides just doing that, I share a bunch of free stuff because I’ve always believed in giving away as much value as I possibly can. And then the universe pays you back. So in a nutshell, that’s, that’s who I am.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And you can find some of that amazing free stuff that Brandon is just talking about over on Brandon Lewin.com forward/lee. Because you’re gonna make a page with loads of free stuff on. That’s right, isn’t it?
Brandon Lewin:
It’s already ready to go, buddy.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You were doing it as we were talking. That is freaking amazing.
Brandon Lewin:
Multitasking.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Multitasking. Well, I can’t do that, sorry. Multitasking. That’s how you guys say that now. I love the idea of just working with small businesses. Exactly what we do. So our target Audience is design agencies. So we just work specifically with design agencies and most are kind of three to 20 man bands.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You know, they’re a small team of people and some of them might work with corporates, etc. But I really enjoy the kind of relationship that you can build up with the smaller businesses. And again that’s where we target is those, you know, three to 20 team people and you can get banter, you can have a. Laughter’s very little in the range of corporate office politics or multiple lines of command where you’ve got to see something through, you know, multiple chains, etc, all of that sort of stuff that just really stressed me out about being in a job basically is why I kind of avoid the corporate world as well and just love to work with. I don’t like to call them small businesses because some of these businesses are mainly small in number, but they might be actually financially doing amazing. But you know, small in number is still just great, isn’t it, to be working with, you know, local teams, et cetera. So I said, I salute you there,
Brandon Lewin:
buddy, thank you, I appreciate that. And it is amazing just to go off your points of. You can have a team of people that are, you know, one, two, maybe, excuse me, three people and they’re doing like 5 million in sales plus a year. I mean like that’s. That used to not be able to. You used to not be able to do that because you needed all the manpower. And now with technology and the Internet, a one person shop could do that as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So yeah, it is, it totally levels the playing field.
Brandon Lewin:
It does.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You used to have to be huge. And I think I saw a meme the other day of a guy who they were saying it was something about business and it was like they were showing how you need to be like, hey, will you marry my daughter and the President of the United States? Like, no, I’m not going to. Let’s say your daughter marry my son or something along the lines. And they’ll say, yeah, but my dad’s the owner of Microsoft. And then he’s like, oh, okay, you can marry. You know, basically how back in the day business was all about who you knew at the top level so you could essentially then run the bank. Whereas now we’ve got technology that we’re probably going to talk about shortly as well that really do help level the playing field. I mean someone I’ll think about or a couple of guys I think about would be Pat Flynn or John Lee Dumas.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
One man bands who started off as a one Man Band and now got a small team around them, but they’re generating amazing amounts of money using online technology, online marketing, etc. And they’re not a massive corporate entity. So it does blow my mind. And that’s the dream for us as well here at Lee Jackson Dev is to be a small company that can generate good money so that we can be comfortable. But again, adding value is, like you said, tons of free value is good.
Brandon Lewin:
It is. It really is. And there’s another guy I would throw in the mix. If you know Ryan Daniel Moran, if you heard of him, he does the Freedom Fighters or Freedom Fast Lane. That’s it. That dude is a small team and they’re killing it on the online world. And they actually sell products too, so. But everything is on E commerce.
Brandon Lewin:
So anyway, just to add to that mix of superstars that once were one person band and now they’re killing it with a small team. Exactly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So let that be encouragement to everyone who’s listening in and going, yeah, we can do this. Because it doesn’t matter how small your team is, technology is available to help you be superstars.
Brandon Lewin:
Yes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And have that life that we all dream of with our MacBook Pros on the beach. Although I’ve always imagined it’d be really hard to see the screen.
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah, I don’t want to be on the beach. Like everyone says, I want to be on the beach. I don’t want to be on the beach. You know why? Because I burn. Like, I do not want to look like a Red Lobster. And no one else wants to see that either. So I will be perfectly content being inside the bar with a drink, doing work, looking onto the beach.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Hallelujah. I like that as a bold guy as well. I can’t be out in the sun for too long because, yeah, there’s the few stories about that where I’ve had blisters on my head and everything. It’s just been a. Yeah, no, I think I might cry. So what we’ll do is we’ll move on, buddy. So obviously you’re. You’re now a.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re an online strategist, you’re working with businesses, providing consultancy, etc. But I do understand that you used to run your own agency, so an online agency. So are you alright? Just to kind of fill us in on kind of how that came about and how you’ve then decided to transition and what the catalyst for that transition was from moving from being a web, essentially a web or a design agency, through to doing what you do now.
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah, absolutely. If you don’t mind, I’ll even go back a little bit further because every good story has a story behind that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I was born in.
Brandon Lewin:
Exactly. We used to walk through the snow for five miles, no shoes on.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wait a minute. That’s what Disney. That’s what he used to do. Delivering papers in Chicago.
Brandon Lewin:
In Chicago, yeah. Good guy. Good guy. Hell of a businessman. Genius in that sense. But anyway, so move on to another genius. Not to toot my own horn, but there’s. So back when I started, I was in college.
Brandon Lewin:
I have that typical entrepreneur story where at 10 years old, I was shoveling driveways and making money, and that’s when I got the taste. And everyone has that lemonade. A Stan story. So I’m not going to bore everybody with that. But in college, I started my first business. I had a friend of mine. He came out to me, one of my best friends from high school. His older brother was already graduated.
Brandon Lewin:
He was doing well. He started an Internet business, and it was actually buying and selling traffic online. And so he had platforms that he worked with. And eventually he bought out his own search engine called mama.com. but he would buy and sell. It was like trading stocks, in a sense, but in the world of online business and traffic and really interesting stuff, not the sexy stuff that most people think about, but it’s really, really lucrative and a great business to be in. So anyway, he was doing really well for himself. He had this money.
Brandon Lewin:
He said, you know what, Brandon? I noticed that you’re really good with people. You have a great mixture of friends. You have a great network. You even know people. Like your father has connections as well, and you keep in contact with those people. I have this idea for a business, and it’s an online ticket brokerage, and I want to start it and I need someone to run it. So he’s like, here, I’m going to give you some money. I’m going to help you get started.
Brandon Lewin:
I’m going to show you everything that I know about this world. But you’re going to do it, and I’ll support you. I was like, awesome. Young. I was like 22 at the time. I was young, dumb, ready to make a lot of money. Didn’t go the way you thought it was going to go. On that one.
Brandon Lewin:
I started off, he showed me. I started building a website and it was like a drag and drop kind of platform. Platform. This is back in like 2000. I want to say 2003 or 2002 back then. Yeah, it was something similar because I know I wasn’t coding. That’s all I can remember. And it was basically like a template that you worked off of.
Brandon Lewin:
And so that’s what I did. Built a website. And then, like, I made, like, minor tweaks here. And I remember he said to me one time, wow, that actually looks really good. How’d you do that? I was like, no idea. Like, I have no idea. I blacked out for a second. Um, but.
Brandon Lewin:
And it just kind of came to me naturally. So, anyway, fast forward. We did that. We got the business up and running. I went out there. I was really doing everything by myself with his support, and I was doing the sales and marketing and pulling the tickets. And this was back when, like, StubHub was coming up. But it was a hard business to crack into.
Brandon Lewin:
So it was, you know, the whole selling tickets online was very new. And so it was hard to kind of get people comfortable with everything. So anyway, eight months into it failed. I decided I was going to move on, went on to do something else. Worked for a company, did sales, did marketing. And then eventually I started another company, which was a financial service business. Did really well there, took money, and I decided I had this idea about how to make LinkedIn better than what it was. And this was back in 2007, 2008.
Brandon Lewin:
I was using LinkedIn and Facebook as platforms to actually grow. Grow my financial service business. And it was a gray area at the time, very gray line. There was no restrictions around it whatsoever. And they haven’t caught up with everything. So I was really using it. I put people into, like, I put friends and people that I knew from past, and they were out in the working world. They graduated college or what you would say, university, and they graduated.
Brandon Lewin:
They had some money, they started getting some jobs. And so I was helping them show what they could do with the money that they’re making besides just putting in a savings account. So I put them in this group on Facebook. And I remember somebody told me one time, brandon, why are you putting friends? Why are you using this for business? Facebook is not for business. I said, I don’t know why, but I know it’s working. So that’s what I did. And I was using LinkedIn as a networking tool, but I saw some gaps in LinkedIn. So I decided I had this idea.
Brandon Lewin:
I was going to create this website. I put together a team, a small team. I invested money in this. I had them pulled together, and the company actually merged fairly or pivoted pretty quickly into a agency. So we started. Someone contacted me I remember we were growing this and we were going to do online events and offline events and mix them together, have the online networking portal and then also do these offline networking events. And. And so we were pulling this together and as we were building up relationships with like chambers of commerce and associations, somebody reached out to us and called me and said, hey Brandon, I have this business I’ve been running up for a while.
Brandon Lewin:
I need to get a logo change, I need to get a website up, I need a brochure and I need to get an e commerce store. And I said, she’s like, can you help me? And I said, yes, I definitely can. And I’m an entrepreneur. I had no idea what I was doing at that point. So I just kind of rolled with the punches, pulled together some outsource resellers or outsource help and we started working with her. It quickly merged into kind of doing everything into just social media because that’s what I was really good at, that’s what I did and how I grew my financial service business. So I just took that and started using the processes that I started writing down and sharing them with other people. And it worked phenomenally.
Brandon Lewin:
Like I had people, I had leads coming through from LinkedIn, we were getting people in from Facebook. And this was back in the early days, you know, 2008, 2009. And so it really was picking up steam and we had a great business growing. And so that grew to about six people. And that was my first true agency. And at that point I had up and running about four years. I decided to sell part of it to another agency, work for one, work for them. Because I was getting married and I was about to have a baby and I said, you know what, I don’t want to be pulling these 18 hour days and have all this responsibility.
Brandon Lewin:
I’m just going to go and live the life and work for somebody else. And little did I know that as an entrepreneur, when you go work for somebody else, it is so hard to do, it is not easy and you have to find the right mixture, the right person, it has to be the right fit. And I think in most cases you really can’t go back to working for somebody else. But needless to say, I worked my way through three agencies in three and a half years, learned a ton through my experiences doing that in marketing and everything else, and had a lot of fun doing it, but it just wasn’t for me. So about a year and eight months ago, I was forced into going back in the entrepreneurial World. And I say forced because actually the company that I was working for, this last agency, fired me. They said, you know what, Brandon? They didn’t give me a reason. I was butting heads with the director of marketing at the company.
Brandon Lewin:
It was very old school, very corporate, smaller company, I mean, 50 people, but it was ran very corporate, like. And they said, you know what? This isn’t going to work out. We’re moving in a different direction. I said, fine. I was happy and content with the work I did there. And I know that I helped them quite a bit, but I knew this was a sign also, like, I’m always finding the signs in the universe of where I need to go. And this was. I was already on my way out.
Brandon Lewin:
I already planned on what I was going to do next. I was putting goals down of what I want to do. I already had it in my head that I wanted to go. And that’s awesome because I put it in my head. Now I’m thinking about it. I came to the realization right here now on the show that I put all that stuff in my head. I wrote it down. It was basically affirmations.
Brandon Lewin:
And the universe just said, you know what, Brandon? You’re going to do it right now. And so I moved on. And it’s been wonderful though, since. For a year and eight months we’ve been. I’ve been on my own, working as a digital marketing strategist consultant. I did start at agency right after that with a buddy of mine back in Chicago, and that was great. We called it down with the man. Again, very against the grain, unconventional.
Brandon Lewin:
And we really brought both of our skill sets because he was a designer UX guy and I was more the analytics, digital marketing type of person. So we brought that together and we started building some clients off of that. But we decided he felt like he wanted to be more in the startup world and kind of work behind the scenes instead of being having that full responsibility, which I was completely cool with because he’s one of my best friends from high school. So now he’s working for a really cool startup in Chicago. He’s got some equity in there. He got on the ground floor, so he’s really happy and I’m doing what I want to do, which is helping people, giving away value and building up a business. And I had the opportunity too, to move. So we moved eight months ago.
Brandon Lewin:
My family and I’m married and I have three kids. Two at the time, my wife was pregnant. So now that I think about it, I’m probably crazy. As shit for doing all this. But we decided to pick up and move to Austin, Texas, leaving behind my entire family. Her family’s in other parts of the states, but we left my family behind. Basically the complete opposite that most people do when they move towards their support system. We kind of moved away from it.
Brandon Lewin:
And it was for a number of different reasons. One, from a business kind of professional perspective, I wanted to step out of my comfort zone to really grow. And so that moving away from the city that I grew up my entire life was a huge step out of a comfort zone. And so I did that. And little did I know though that Austin is like the home of Internet marketers and there’s a huge population down here of those people. And there’s this awesome party. If you guys ever come down here, first of all, hit me up, grab some drinks or whatever. But also there is a party called Internet marketing party where basically just Internet marketers come together once a month.
Brandon Lewin:
There’s a speaker and some like the top speakers, like Pat Flynn’s been a speaker, some of the people that run like the number two brand on YouTube, they were on the app. The app guys. I forgot what the name of the brand is, but they were there talking about how they did things. Tucker Max, who’s one of the first self published kind of guy, Crazy Shit, has a great couple books, who’s now a huge angel investor, he was there a couple months ago speaking on the whole world of product, products or informational products and where it’s going. So anyway, long story short, I’m glad we moved here. That was my kind of taste in the agency world. I worked for agencies, I had a couple of my own and I decided that I wanted to go back and run things kind of more solo that way. I have a team of people that I work with, so it’s not like I do everything by myself.
Brandon Lewin:
But I have other rock stars that are really good at what they do and I bring them together to help businesses grow.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s so cool. That’s an amazing story, mate. Absolutely love it. There’s a few parallels. I remember being forced out of a job I was in and that was kind of the catalyst for me for change as well. It’s funny, isn’t it? When you’re ready and you’ve already got those thoughts in your mind that you want to do this. I think you’re right when you said that, I was like, oh man, yeah, I think you’re right. It’s almost like the universe is saying, yeah, yeah, you’re ready.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re doing it now. Not even gonna let you make the choice because we know you’re gonna kick the can down the road for another. So how about we just. Boom, right? Get started.
Brandon Lewin:
Exactly. It’s the scariest thing in the world. It really is. But like, you know, one, I was, I was never scared because I’ve done it before. So I was like, I’m comfortable with it. But like, I talk to people, friends, you know, other people that I just meet in the world that they have this idea or they’re running a side gig and they’re always waiting for that perfect moment to come, you know, and they’re always like, brandon, when is that perfect time? When should I be ready to go? I said, you know what? There’s never a perfect time. There really isn’t.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Go ahead and do it, because that instinct to feed your family will win through and you will make it work.
Brandon Lewin:
Absolutely.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
There’s a quote, Henry Ford, he says, whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right. I don’t even think the word probably is in there. I mean, you are right. If you think you can, then you’re gonna go ahead and do it. If you think you can’t, you’re not even gonna start. So it’s like a self fulfilling prophecy. So, yeah, I live by that quote. It’s something we talk about here at the agency a lot.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Especially if one of the developers is on the phone with me and he’s like, this is not possible. I’m like, well, then you’re right, aren’t you? But. And they’re like, oh, shut up, Lee, with that flipping quote. Sorry. But then they usually end up doing it. Then after I’ve kind of done the quote, they’re like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know why you’re doing this. Whoa. And then they kind of disappear for a while and then like the proud folks, it works.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Look at this. And I’m like, yeah, I told you so. It was all me trying to take credit for their work. That’s incredible.
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah, it’s good stuff, man.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I love it. And the Internet marketing party, I think you’ve had people like Noah Kagan there as well, haven’t you? From AppSumo, etc. Those sorts of guys.
Brandon Lewin:
Noah Kagan, Neville, Andorra.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So jealous, man. I am so jealous. I’ve heard of the party before because I’ve seen it. I think, I think for some reason it came from my Facebook feed of all things. I live nowhere near, but I’ve Got loads of friends in Texas, so, you know, and friends from Appsumo as well. So that would be why probably it was appearing in my feed as well. But I remember checking that out, thinking I really need to just take a flight over there one day and just chill out. Over in Texas, there’s so companies.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s exciting. It’s like California and Texas are the two places where it’s going on right now.
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah, it’s like San Diego and Austin is like the big parts and. Yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, just the city itself, Austin is booming, so it’s just a fun place to be around.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. All right, well that’s on next year’s holiday plan. I think we’ll be heading out there.
Brandon Lewin:
Come on by, man. Well, we have a place for you if you want to bring the whole family. I got. You have a daughter, right?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, nine.
Brandon Lewin:
Nine. Okay. Well, I have a five year old, so she can use her as a doll or something like that if she wants.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Cool. All right. That’s amazing. I look forward to that. I’ll send you more details and we’ll get.
Brandon Lewin:
All right, cool. All right.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We were looking for a place in October, so maybe. Maybe we’ll do that.
Brandon Lewin:
Perfect. Just let us know. We fed seven people in January in our house, so that’s amazing. Yeah, well, seven other women too, man, because we had the baby and my wife’s family came in and it’s crazy. Anyway, I don’t want to digress.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Sounds like it could have been a movie. This literally sounds like you are putting out the plot for the next big idea. You know those family sort of movies like Christmas with the Cranks and stuff like that. It’s just.
Brandon Lewin:
I’m. I’m gonna write that down because I’m gonna turn that into a movie just.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That was free. Okay. Because I’m like you. I believe in givers games. That was a free idea.
Brandon Lewin:
I’ll give you like 5% royalties. How about that?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, mate, that’d be. See, it comes straight back to you, doesn’t it?
Brandon Lewin:
Exactly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing. So, all right, so I’m going to throw a random question at you because I am absolutely fascinated. You’ve worked in digital agencies or online agencies. You’ve been building websites, doing design, kind of doing that whole thing. And obviously with all that comes all of the marketing, etc. So could you just hit me with three ideas, as it were, for agencies that are listening right now? They’re all web agencies or listening in kind of three different marketing strands or Ideas that they could be monetizing with their clients because they’ve got clients asking for help. But you don’t know what you don’t know, do you? You don’t know where to start. Like what could I start offering? What are the kind of, the easy things that are easy ish things or the most effective things that we could take on or learn.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I come to you for that help, you know, that they could potentially start monetizing for their clients in that kind of marketing sphere.
Brandon Lewin:
Well, so, so basically, let me just see if I understand the question.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s, it kind of evolved as I spoke, so feel free to clarify.
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah, no worries. So it, and it’s a good question though. It’s a really good question. So you’re saying from a agency perspective, what are three ways that they could turn in some other services and to monetize those.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly. I mean obviously there’s a monetization aspect, but there’s also just the fact that it’s going to massively help their client. The clients are saying, hell, help. We need help with our marketing. And many of us, I don’t speak for all agencies, but I do know a lot of agencies that I deal with, they are kind of panicking, thinking crap, how can we help them? And we don’t know anyone else that we can bring in. So yeah, I’ll let you speak.
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah, no worries. So I did this a lot actually. I worked with some development design agencies who do websites. And it’s a great question because it’s very common. It, you know, there’s some low hanging fruit right off the bat. First of all, I think, and I’m not sure how everyone has the process developed, but it’s like you create a website or design one or whatever it is, you develop it. You need a strategy, not only just for the website, but you need a strategy for what’s going to happen after the website, what are the kind of channels you’re going to go after? Maybe they’re doing current things. So what’s the analysis of what they’re currently doing? Those are great things to come into to look both at that perspective and then also afterwards and then what that also does, and I’m not sure how much agencies do this.
Brandon Lewin:
I just know that I worked in another agency, the one that I was kindly departed from, and we worked with a lot of like larger development firms because we, the consulting side of the business did Fortune 500 companies. And what I always remember from that, that I really practice now is that when you’re Developing a website. Your design team should also really work with your analytics team, or you should look at your analytics when you’re designing a website, if you have it. Obviously, if you’re doing a brand new website for a new business, then that’s going to kind of be out the door. But if you’re doing a redesign, looking at the analytics, because then you can see what’s going on. But then there’s also planning, right? So we’re going to set up events for this button. We’re going to, you know, we’re going to track this. We’re going to put the goals in here.
Brandon Lewin:
And that’s where a lot of smaller companies don’t have these certain things set up. It’s amazing how many times I talk to a company, no matter how well they’re doing in business. I mean, I even talked to this Internet marketing guy down here who’s making like, does easy seven figures a year by himself. But I was like, do you track any of this? He’s like, no, I don’t even have Google Analytics. I was like, oh, my God. I’m like, I’m like, you don’t understand how much more you probably could be doing and optimizing what you’re doing if you actually just looked at the data and tracked it. So to go back to all that, just to kind of clarify it, I would say definitely to put forth a strategy or work with them, to say, all right, once we get this up, what are you going to do afterwards? And again, they might have a marketing team, so that might be kind of out the window. But I always think that at least working with their team to develop that strategy will be a big part of it because then that also will help the design of the website.
Brandon Lewin:
Then the analytics part of it as well, like, analytics is huge because that really dictates what you’re going to do with your marketing. And you can track everything nowadays so you can see what your marketing does. And that would really, really help your customers as well. And I don’t know if anyone has. I’m sure you probably have heard this, but there’s a new tool that I just have felt head over heels for. It’s called Hotjar. Have you heard of it?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I have, because I clicked through to your review the other day. Was it yesterday from Kim?
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah. Okay, cool. That tool from an analytics standpoint and a user experience standpoint. All right, so this one is a humongous tool. There’s so much data to be had. It has a free version to it. So if you get about 2,000 visitors or page views a month, you can just do it. You can handle the free one.
Brandon Lewin:
If you’re doing more than that, you can upgrade it. It’s only like $29 a month. It’s an amazing tool and it allows you to see it actually records what people do when they come on your website. So you can see like how many pages they’ve gone to, what they’re clicking on, what they’re scrolling, where they exit, everything that you possibly want to see. And then you can see that. And then you could set up funnels too, so you can track the funnels. Like if you want people to, to take a certain step on your website to get to a sale or contact form or lead generation, you can track all of that with hotjar. And again it starts off at a free, you get every feature on there for free to start off and then it goes up and it’s still like a very small cost compared to like what the other tools that are out there.
Brandon Lewin:
You have to basically combine them all together to get what hotjar offers you. So it’s just an amazing tool that I definitely think more people should be using if they are not using it yet. So analytics, strategy and then of course I’m a big advocate of SEO and content. Everyone knows about content, but a lot of people just, they don’t understand the science behind it. If you really want people, obviously you can use content to build loyalty and trust. But if you want other people to find your content, and you should, because when you build this stuff, you’re putting your heart and soul into it. You’re doing something that provides value. So why not have other people find it without just going beyond just a typical social media post? So setting that stuff up, there’s some simple basic things you can do from the SEO perspective.
Brandon Lewin:
And I’m sure there’s some agencies out there that are already doing SEO for some of their clients, but I think that’s a big one. And then there’s a new tactic that I’ve been testing out from a, from an SEO perspective which is really more focused on low hanging fruit, kind of going after non existing keywords. Like what I mean by that is that if you go into Google Keyword Planner and you put in this keyword or key term, you’re not going to find any traffic for it because it’s so new. There’s not enough data for it yet. But that offers some low hanging fruits. And I did one perfect example. Not only did I like hotjar, but hotjar was. It’s fairly new, and some of the keywords around it is not heavily populated.
Brandon Lewin:
So I put that post up. I started getting organic traffic less than 36 hours into it. And they’re like, that is unheard of from an organic standpoint. And then I’m raking on the. Moving up the ranks on the second page. My Google is getting up there on the first page. So it’s amazing what this can do. And I just started testing it out, but it’s really more from a topical standpoint.
Brandon Lewin:
Finding a topic that people are searching for, thinking as a user instead of thinking kind of in the Google sense, like how Google wants you to think about it and then creating content and a strategy behind that. So I know that was a lot in that short period of time, but you asked for it, so there you go.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That was awesome. This was like having a consultancy that I would normally expect to pay a lot of money for, for free. This is why I run this podcast.
Brandon Lewin:
Perfect. And so there you go. Reciprocate. You gave me the movie idea. I give you this.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That was amazing. So we’ve got strategy. People will build a website. I want to make sure I’ve understood this right. So you got strategies. People build a website. And then I sit there, where is everyone? Okay, so that sucks. So that’s one upsell is what are we going to do beyond the website? What is the strategy? What, you know, campaigns.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
What else can we do around this website to drive traffic, to generate leads? Let’s create a strategy. We’ve then got things like analytics. How is our strategy doing? How is our website doing? Because we could pretty much analyze everything, and hotjar is freaking incredible. I remember reading through the review and thinking, oh, my gosh. I mean, it even gives you things like, you know, when people say, oh, we need everything above the fold. Well, actually, hotjar is kind of cool because it kind of proves that they’re actually right. You know, the hottest part of the website is actually the strip across the top, where everyone looks at the menu or looks for the phone number to give you a call or whatever it is they’re doing, you know, so. And it gives you this kind of chart of where the hottest parts of your site are, which is a pretty incredible.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, yeah, so this is analyzing, you know, seeing what’s working. If you’re blowing loads of money on Facebook and you’re actually not getting much traffic or not many conversions from that, your analytics is going to tell you that. So let’s. Let’s change what we’re doing on Facebook or even knock it on the head, you know, whatever isn’t working, knock it on the head. So there’s that. And all of this is obviously consultancy that you’re providing to your customers. So that’s all pay for consultancy. And then finally you’ve put in their SEO, which is definitely rocket science to me, which I’m always grateful for the fact that other people do that part.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But I loved your idea about low hanging fruit. So that’s non existing keywords and the fact that you are nailing it already for something like hotjar. It’s a new product you’ve created. What I would, I think Pat Flynn calls a mega post. Is it, Is it Pat Flynn who calls it that? Yeah, a mega post, which is tons of information. You’ve got the magic word in there, review. Because everyone’s always going to say review, aren’t they? Hotjar review. They want to know what it’s all about and you’re driving traffic, etc.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But also I love that line about thinking as a user rather than trying to think about how Google works, actually thinking about what a user would do. What. What is a user interested in? So literally right there, you know, I’ve heard of hotjar, I want to know if people like it. So I’m going to write hotjar review to find out what people are doing. So you’ve just kind of. You’re right, you’ve proved a point there, man.
Brandon Lewin:
Yep. Thank you. And you know, thank you, I appreciate it. And just so to piggyback off that a little bit because there’s another kind of strategy within that strategy as well. So I did some research and I saw Hotjar, I did Hotjar review and I saw there’s another Hotjar review. It’s number one right now. It was created back in, I think, August 2015. So it’s a tad bit dated because there’s been some updates to hotjar.
Brandon Lewin:
So that’s one thing too. I have this post and we can maybe link it in the show notes or I could put on the page that everyone comes to, but it’s called 13 Surefire Blog SEO Tips. And part of it also is about finding not. So it’s not about just finding topics that people that you think people want. It’s about also it’s about finding topics that people already want to know. And so you do some research and you find out, right, that maybe there’s some posts, but how can I make those posts better? Because most times the ones that are ranking really High up. Those are a little bit dated. Or maybe if you look at them, some of them might be just.
Brandon Lewin:
And so can I swear on this
Lee Matthew Jackson:
episode we have a beepatron.
Brandon Lewin:
All right, cool, cool. All right, so I’ll make sure I won’t swear. I’m glad this was only one time,
Lee Matthew Jackson:
man. Stop swearing. Sorry, Karen.
Brandon Lewin:
That’s awesome. So you think about it from, you know, from that perspective, and that’s what I did too, is I saw his post, which was good, but I saw an opportunity because it was a little dated. But I also saw that he didn’t put in beyond the beyond, just the review. He didn’t really put in how to use it. He didn’t put in kind of a tutorial. So I took it both and I put a review and a tutorial together and I created this one epic post. And so that’s the word post.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I knew there was a phrase.
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah. So now it’s a little bit more than what this guy has given. It goes beyond the review, it’s updated and I’ll have to keep updating it as well as it goes on. But yeah, I mean, this is going to help drive some really low hanging fruit traffic and I have to give it up. I didn’t come up with the low hanging fruit strategy by myself. I actually kind of stole it. But you know, who would have thought that people steal stuff nowadays. Oh my God.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But you mean like Steve Jobs from Apple?
Brandon Lewin:
What? This guy Ryan, who I have to give him a shout out because he’s awesome when it comes to SEO too. I really admire him and his tenacity and skills that he does with all that. But if you go, you can check him out at Webris, it’s W e b r I s.org and he’s got a ton of free stuff too. So it’s really good content if you want to check out some stuff on SEO. And he gives away like everything and more. So I stole that from him and kind of mixed it with my own sort of tactic and now put together this epic blog post with some low hanging fruit mixed into it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Thing is that, mate, we all, we stand on the shoulders of giants, don’t we? The whole thing about progress is that somebody gets so far and then someone else uses that and adds their own to it and it just kind of goes from there as well. And also all of the best artists steal. You know that, don’t you?
Brandon Lewin:
Yes, absolutely. I never feel bad about it, but I love to give credit to where credit’s due, you know, So I mean,
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I wouldn’t be doing this podcast if it wasn’t for John Lee Dumas and the podcasters paradise setup that he did, etc. And you know the questions and my style is very much influenced by the things he’s done. But then I’m doing my own thing mixed in the bag as well, so it’s totally cool. You know, we all, we’re all here to learn off each other anyway. That’s what I think.
Brandon Lewin:
I totally agree with you.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
To prove I was listening then, did I get most of that right that I reversed brief to you?
Brandon Lewin:
Yes, you did. It was awesome. Perfect.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing. So I noticed that you’re using the Genesis framework for your website. Because I’m a geek, it’s actually dead easy because of the G in the favicon. But speaking of WordPress, you like our segue? This, that was really good segue, wasn’t it? Business strategy to Genesis framework to WordPress. Is there a WordPress plugin that you would recommend to the world that you think is freaking awesome? And why?
Brandon Lewin:
Oh man, there’s so many. But the one that I just live and die by right now is Thrive. Thrive Leads. Their landing page one is awesome too. But the Thrive leads has been revolutionary for me. It’s really changed my business. I’ve. My opt in rate has increased in the thousands because of that.
Brandon Lewin:
I’m always testing new ones out. It’s just like I’m also very. I worked for a digital intelligence company so I was really heavily involved in analytics and testing and so that’s just really where my DNA is right now. And so that the fact that they have all the stats there that they left, you test multiple different widgets out and different opt in forms and you can test them against each other. To me, there’s nothing else out there that can beat what Thrive Leads does from an opt in standpoint.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, I totally agree. I love the fact that you can also, you can do things like select a winner, can’t you? So you’ll test. So if people don’t know what that kind of split testing thing is, the idea there is you’ve got two different opt in forms, maybe on the same page or whatever it is, and they might be worded slightly different or a different color and you want to work out which is going to be the best and essentially Thrive will then randomly display that to the different visitors who are hitting your site and then it’ll give you a tally up and say, hey, this one converts better than this one. And Then you can say, yep, I’m going to select that one as the winner and then that one becomes the one that always appears. So I’ve literally just scrolled down on your website to a random page and filled in one of your opt ins and I think I’d encourage anyone to go along right now to BrandonM Lewin.com because the value he’s dropping right now, he’s gonna drop it in your inbox as well. So head on over. Right in the top strip of his website is a email. Opt in to get some of the amazing stuff that he’s talking about here and also go to any page and I’m pretty sure Thrive Leads is gonna pop up with some sort of content input.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So get subscribed. BrandonM Lewin.com I nearly said Lewis. It’s Lewin with a.
Brandon Lewin:
Yes, Lewin. Lewin. Like Lewinsky without the ski.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah.
Brandon Lewin:
If anyone remembers that. Yes, exactly. Oh man. When that came out, I was in like middle school and I did not hear the end of it. It was awful.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, if you’re in middle school, I imagine there was a whole load of jokes as well.
Brandon Lewin:
Oh yeah, there was. I literally almost got in trouble for punching people in the face for doing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
No. I was thinking, yeah, okay, well, we’ll move on. This isn’t a therapy, this is a podcast. I mean, that sounds like you. Yeah, I’m just sending you a digital hug here right now. Here you go. There, there. Do you feel that?
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah, I did.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We’re all good. So you’ve already dropped a really valuable link. That’s webris.org which I’ve already got. I love that. As in I’ve got it open and I’m going, yes, I am going to get lost in this. But are there any other online resources that you would recommend to our wonderful web agencies who are listening right now that they should go ahead and check out to go learn stuff?
Brandon Lewin:
Well, yes, and there’s a whole ton of them that I would definitely recommend. I’m going to throw out some of my favorite right now. ConversionXL.com if you guys have heard of it, is a great one for analytics and conversion optimization. That’s one of my favorites. I’m actually, it’s funny that you asked me this question because I’m actually my next real big. And this is not going to be like my next epic post, but this is going to be my next one in probably like two weeks because there’s a lot going into it. But I’m creating a entire list right Now I think it’s somewhere around 103 marketing resources. I’m putting them all into a post and then I’m going to have them list out, segmented out, organize little blurbs of what you can find.
Brandon Lewin:
So if you guys opt in, that’ll go directly to your inbox when it comes up and running. A reminder. BrandonM Lewin.com dude, you’re awesome. I need to get you on my show for like the voiceover is what I mean.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So where marketing is complicated.
Brandon Lewin:
One man to rule them all.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Carry on.
Brandon Lewin:
That was awesome. That was the best impression. Yeah. So. So that. So conversion Xls is one I’m sure you guys have heard of this. Coschedule is another plugin that I love but they have great content as well. So I’ll give them a shout out.
Brandon Lewin:
One that I’ve been smart blogger that used to be. I forgot what the name of it was before then. John Morrow. He does stuff on blogging. I love that. Let’s see another one that I find to be really interesting. Yoast is a good one from SEO. They have a great obviously the plugin, but their content’s really good too.
Brandon Lewin:
Matthew Woodward is one of my favorites from SEO standpoint. He offers some great insights and some really good plugins too. Then you got Backlinko, which I love. Again, there’s not many that I don’t love. Then I’m going to list out then from analytics, another conversion analytics app. Unbounce is a great blog. They I don’t know if you guys have heard of them, but they’re kind of like a lead pages in a sense. But they are structured a little bit differently.
Brandon Lewin:
But they. I remember I partnered up with them, the other agency I worked with and they’re just really good people believe completely in the whole content marketing, giving away stuff free, helping people build up. And they even offer like they have a partner website or partner page on their website that if you’re actually interested you could probably offer or apply to be a part of it. And they just give referrals out to people like that. So unbounce.com blog they have some great content on there about landing pages and testing and stuff like that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So if you’re driving and you’re like crap, I need to write all this down. Remember this is a podcast. You can always press play again but we will put all of these down in the show notes. And I got to ask you mate, because the child in me was like, really? Did you say one of them was called John Morrow?
Brandon Lewin:
Yeah, John. John Morrow. His. He. He’s the blogger behind Smart Blogger.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I get you. It’s just like the dad joke in me was wanting to say, I wonder if he has a brother called Tom. Well, at least you left. That means you’re a dad, so that’s good.
Brandon Lewin:
I am. I’m a dad.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You and me would laugh at that, but then our daughters would respectively go, ugh.
Brandon Lewin:
So not cool.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Can’t believe I came from you. I’ve not heard that line yet, but I’m dreading the day. Got me in the feels, though. Anyway, mate, you’ve been awesome. I seriously want to have beer with you soon, so this has been so cool. Feels like we’ve just been having a good chat in a pub, so thank you, Kim, if you’re listening, for introducing the two of us.
Brandon Lewin:
Yes, thank you, Katie.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I love him to pieces and I’m feeling mutual. I’m married, so not in any kind of awkward way, just in a kind of bromance sort of way.
Brandon Lewin:
I can. Yeah, the whole bromance is definitely something I’ve been getting more and more involved in and it’s interesting and funny and, yeah, I feel you, man.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So absolutely, we won’t edit that out. We’ll just leave all that in. Just see the guy running sick, sick at the side of the road.
Brandon Lewin:
I would say something is probably not politically correct, so I’m gonna leave at that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We might have to get the beepatron. I’m actually really tempted, you know that I’ve said, we’ve got a beepatron now. It’s just like, throw random beeps in inappropriate moments to make it sound like you’re just swearing all the time. But I won’t, I promise.
Brandon Lewin:
Oh, that would be funny, though.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
My name is Brandon Lewis. Buddy, I appreciate you so much being on the show. Could you. We’ll have to wrap it up because we’ll try and keep these under an hour. I think we’re rocking on to nearly an hour of fun. So there’s two. Two things I would love to have from you. Number one is what is the one piece of advice that you would give to anyone? Some thing, strategy, whatever the hell you think it is that they need to do.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
One thing that they can apply to their business today that you really feel will make a massive difference. And then could you let us know the best ways to connect with you? And then we will kind of hug and kind of say a long goodbye.
Brandon Lewin:
So whether you have product or service or you’re. Whether it’s existing or you’re starting something new in that sense. Do some research, do some research, do some surveys, get into the heads of your customers. I’ve tried to launch products in the past and done everything kind of from my gut or what I thought was right. And then I went about a different way. And it was amazing from the insights of talking to my customers and potential customers, people who fit the profile of a customer and they just give you everything that you possibly need. And it’s so amazing and it takes so much stress off of your shoulders that I don’t understand why people don’t do that more often. So I would say, and even if you have an existing service, this still can be done.
Brandon Lewin:
You can still survey people. You still can ask them great ways of doing that. And hotjar actually allows you to do this. If you have an E commerce business or if you have clients who have E commerce business, you can actually submit a survey or get them to do a survey right after they purchase something. But I would say that’d be a great way for agencies to survey their customers. You know, even like right after a discovery session or something just to get some feedback. It really, I think, sets the tone for that relationship and it also shows that you’re putting in a concentrated effort in making yourself better and people want to continue to work with people who do that. So I would say that’s this definitely one strategy kind of tactic to put into play.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome. And how can people connect with you, mate?
Brandon Lewin:
Oh, so forgot about that, too.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Maybe I should have separated the questions. I was getting excited.
Brandon Lewin:
It is. You can connect with me if you want to have direct questions. You can always reach me by email. I don’t hide. It’s Brandon. Brandon M Lewin. L E W I N. Or you can tweet at me at Brandon Lewin.
Brandon Lewin:
You can find me on Instagram @brandonm. Lewin. And then I’m on Facebook too. And then you can also find me on Snapchat if you guys want to. So I love hanging on Snapchat. It’s at Brandon Lewin on there as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So I didn’t know you’re on Snapchat, so I shall add you, buddy.
Brandon Lewin:
Awesome, man. I look forward to it. And dude, Lee, first of all, thank you so much. This was the most entertaining and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much on a podcast interview before. It’s. It’s a blast. And you obviously should be in the entertainment world, but I get why you’re on the podcast right now. So I don’t know why.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s just rude.
Brandon Lewin:
See, it just keeps going. It keeps going. No man. And you know to your comment about drinking in the pub, I’m right there with you. So regardless if you come here first or I’m out there first, some way, shape or form we’re going to get together and we’re going to have some drinks and some laughs and I’m probably sure we’ll have a good story or two in there too.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Totally. And if you’re listening and you want to join us for beers, just go leejacksondev.com contact or brandonm Lewin.com mate, thanks so much for being on the show and have an awesome day, mate.
Brandon Lewin:
Thank you. All right man.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So that was episode 27. Utterly awesome. Would do that again and again. Brandon mate, thanks so much for joining us. You are a legend. Guys, if you can head over to BrandonM Lewin.com forward/wp innovator, go and grab those freebies he’s giving away. Go connect with Brandon. He is awesome.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Anyway, before we go, let me just tease you with a little something. In a few weeks time and I’m gonna keep it vague for now, but in a few weeks time we’re gonna do a podathon. That’s right, it’s a pod a thon. There’s gonna be seven episodes. That’s one episode a day all focused on different subjects within running a web design agency or a design agency. So we’re going to be covering some big topics. We’re going to be unpacking stuff from our own agency and also from others. And the only reason why I’m telling you or the two reasons why I’m telling you is number one, whet your appetite and if you want to be involved, get in touch.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And also to just hold me accountable to you as well. Because this is something that has been on my heart for a while. I really want to share it with you all and if I tell you I’m gonna do it then you’re all gonna expect it and I’m not gonna want to let you down. So there you go. In a few weeks time there will be a seven day podathon coming from the WP Innovator. So you just keep your eyes peeled. Sounds painful. Anyway, have an awesome week and don’t forget, keep.
