60% Of Traditional Searches Don't End With A Click Now, The One Common Thing With The Best Marketers In The World, How To Generate The Most Revenue From Conferences, How To Manifest 7-Figure Deals From Thin Air

0:05I'll name one more thing here. Did you see this research from Bain? from who bain cap not being capital but bain the consulting firm uh i have not so okay so this guy uh teney interesting research from bain so 80 of consumers now rely on zero click result results in at least 40 of their searches on traditional search engines 60 of searches end without the user progressing to another destination wait can you repeat again sorry so i'll just give you the second part because i know you're a little tired um i'm actually the first part is what i lost 80 80 % of consumers now rely on zero click results in at least 40 % of their searches.

0:41Okay. Okay. Second part you understand. So traditional engine, 60 % of searches and without the user progressing. Okay. We're going to continue to see this. I mean, earlier I just mentioned like this jaw, right? But I mean, Bain's doing this research. You have this research. Jim from BrightEdge has this research. So we're going to continue to see that. And that goes back all the way to what we talked about quite a bit. the search everywhere optimization thing where you have to optimize for other channels because you can't just rely on one basket. Yeah, and you gotta look at this as a branding play.

1:09If you're not there, your competitors are, and it's gonna screw you up. If you think there's no value in branding, just look at companies like Apple, look at companies like Nike, look at companies like Visa, MasterCard, Range Rover, like the largest brands, legacy brands, like Louis Vuitton, Hermes. It really does come down to a brand play. If people continually see you, they're much more likely to purchase from you in the future. If you're not there, you better bet your competitors are, and that's going to eat up some of your revenue in the long run. So I just finished this event, right, that you are at, and Noah was at too.

1:43But the one common thing that I've noticed with some of the best marketers in the world is that they are usually good, exceptional, world-class at one channel. And so, for example, we had Sean Cannell talk about YouTube. He's really good at YouTube, 500 million views and 4.3 million subs, right? And then you have Sharon who spoke about email. He focused on email specifically, and he's exceptional at that. Usually most people are good at really one channel and then they start to diversify. Now, Greg Eisenberg, he's pretty good at multiple channels, but you typically don't see that often. Yeah. But even when someone's good at multiple channels, they usually excel more at one channel over others.

2:24What's your strongest channel that's see i wanted to ask you that too i i don't know what it is right well i would say you know what what's interesting seo is still my strongest channel from a lead standpoint um but what i think is is my my up and comer right now is youtube youtube's finally starting to give me credit uh for the videos i'm like oh they're not just like getting hundreds of views anymore now it's like here's a 50 000 one which is pretty decent for a long form one here's 100 000 over here okay now the average is like okay a couple thousand or so i'm like oh this youtube of things getting better now.

2:53That's what I would say. I'm going to rephrase the question. What is the channel that you're the strongest at? Forget where you generate most your business from or leads from. What is the channel that you're the strongest at today? And what would you say the strongest channel you were when you started? Strongest channel when I first started, and I want to hear your answer too. It's hands down SEO. I think today the one that I enjoy the most and I think I'm the strongest at right now is probably video content like this. Yeah. You? When I'm I started off, it was definitely SEO. And then shortly after it became social media, but not social media like most people think.

3:31It was more like Dig, Style Dig, Reddit, those kind of channels back then. And if I had to say the last five years, my strongest channel, hands down is probably conversion rate optimization. Interesting. You call that a channel? I didn't even call that a channel. I consider it a channel because you can take all the other channels and just generate more revenue. I feel like that's just a marketing skill. It's probably not a channel. I feel like CRO is like a philosophy. Like some people, some people understand the concept of CRO. A lot of people do. Some people actually run split tests, but very few people are really good at taking existing traffic and just knowing without running A-B tests.

4:12Like I can go to almost any type of website and I usually can improve the conversions without an A-B test. But you've always been good at CRO. Correct. Yeah. And you've always spent a lot of time on it. Yeah. So to me, I don't see it as a channel. I just I think it's more of a way of doing things, a way of thinking. It's a philosophy. If I had to pick a channel, then I would say conferences. Conferences. Interesting. Yeah. And, you know, so I was talking to one of the speakers and he was like, yeah, I'm speaking 200 days a year. I'm like, it has not been good for my family. I'm like, so what are you going to do?

4:45He's like, I'm going to keep doing it. and I'm not talking about you. But I was like, oh, you know, Neil has a way now. He's just going to bring his kids. That's the hack. He's going to bring his family with him. And I think that will at least cover, what, 30%, 40 % of the travel? Correct. So then you're still in a relationship that way. Yes, although my kids are starting to go to, quote, unquote, real school now. So that's going to create a problem. What does that mean? Like when they're three years old and you pull them out of school, it doesn't matter. When they start getting to, like, first grade, second grade, it starts creating problems if you pull them out too much.

5:15yeah but i look at it as like oh my daughter's ahead a lot in almost all subjects yeah so if i pull her out she'll be more normal yeah how how much she's ahead i'm like i'm okay with that she could miss four days of school for you know i think you know this too you probably know a lot of parents that do this but a lot of parents do pull their kids out like just whatever they want and yeah why not you too yeah um cool where do you want to go next oh uh interesting thing you You know, do you want to end up breaking down how you get the most out of speaking at a conference? Yeah, let's do it. So what's your formula?

5:49To get the most out of it? To get the most revenue. To get the most revenue. So I remember there was an event that I spoke at and I invited a bunch of VPs of marketing to a dinner. And the dinner things have always worked out well for me. And from that one dinner alone, we got three deals done. And this was in SF. So these are tech companies that raised a bunch of money at the time. um and of those companies two of those kept following us from company to company afterwards so i i think that that works out really well um when we sponsored saster the booth and no knock on saster i think it's a great conference but spending 75 grand on a booth bad idea 75 75 grand it was and we brought we brought like a couple people with us but you spent 75 grand 75 grand yeah and we brought like four or five people with us yeah and which is ironic because the year before I didn't spend anything and I was just by myself for Sastr.

6:39We got three deals and the Sastr one where I sponsored, I got nothing. Right. And again, no knock on Sastr. I'm just saying we didn't do a good job there. Um, but I would say the dinners always do what I'd rather spend on the dinners. Wait, so how do you get people to attend the dinners? So what I did was I would find, sometimes I look for the speakers, but in that case, I wasn't looking for the speakers. I just knew that there were a handful of people that would be at this marketing conference. And it's not like they share the attendee list, but people will share it on social or whatever. And I just have a lot of connections on LinkedIn.

7:11And I said, who else would you know? Like I knew a couple of people going, maybe three or four people. I was like, okay, bring someone else that you know that's at your level, right? And they'll bring one or two people with them. So usually that works out well. So that's one thing, but we can turn it over to you. We can keep going back and forth. Just keep going and then I'll go through my playbook after. Well, I need to think. I think you want to go through my whole thing? Yeah. Well, you can go. If you have the whole thing, go. And then I'll go. So first, before we go to an event, we see all the PR and journalist people that are there.

7:42Usually the conference has a list of that. Some of the conferences help you even connect with them. So we'll hit them up to try to set up interviews. So that way we get more press for agency. The second thing is we look for our existing clients that are going to be there, if there are any. We try to meet with them, build deeper relationships. building deeper relationships always can potentially create upsell opportunities in the future. Not always, but sometimes can create upsell opportunities in the future. The next thing I do, of course, is speak. When I speak at an event, I have a QR code on my slides.

8:14Roughly 18 % of the people in the audience scan it, turn into leads. What do you have for the QR code? What's the offer? Download the deck. That's always the best because they just want the slides. Yeah. And then Then the next thing that we do is we try to set up meetings with potential companies that are going to be there. You can see other speakers, companies. We just reach out. A lot of them say no. Some will say yes. Building relationships doesn't necessarily create direct revenue right then and there. The next thing that we do is we look to see who else has a booth there that's spending a lot of money.

8:49so like um for example when i was at web summit recently uh vibra spent a ton of money on a booth vibra is their version of like exxon mobil right it used to be government owned and then independent so like 8 000 gas stations get gas from them right it's a massive corporation and you know when we connect with them we'll typically do something at their booth So with Vibra, I spoke, one of their team members asked me questions. It was pretty much a panel. It was their head of innovation and me just talking. And that builds relationships with a potentially large company who's also spending an arm and leg on sponsoring.

9:34So you know they have money. And usually we only do this with large publicly traded organizations. But two, they're bringing people to their booth. You're generating more leads from that as well. And then we have our team around and they're networking with those people as well. But that's pretty much it that we do for conferences and that models worked out. It's just a pure numbers game. And then we always stay for Q &A. We always try to stay for Q &A. What I mean by staying for Q &A, after I'm done speaking, I don't try to rush off unless I have another meeting like this time I did, which sucks.

10:09But we genuinely try to stay there and let people come up and ask questions and answer every single one builds deeper relationships and you don't know what leads you're going to get from that so speaking for sure obviously and then just to double down um usually what happens is neil and i will just go off to the side um and if we're both speaking at the same time maybe neil might go in one corner i might go to another one usually do you remember what i've seen so i made this observation neil's line is always four times longer than mine it's always four times longer dude your line can be four times longer than mine no no your line is four times longer but um So anyway, so that that part goes a long way.

10:49I think I always do look for if I'm going to speak in Barcelona, for example, I do look for who I'm connected to in Barcelona and just to meet up with them. Right. And then we set up a separate dinner where I like, hey, invite some other badasses. Right. Usually they bring badasses. Right. Like because I say bring badasses. Sometimes they like very rarely do they bring someone that maybe is like, huh, what happened? I think Neil's way I haven't done Neil's way but I do like Neil's way of I got this idea from you but going to the conference organizers and trying to barter a deal if they're not going to pay like a certain fee or something like that saying okay can we get a boost or can you make intros for us or something like that but I think what it is what's important for us to talk about also is when those intros are made how do we approach this so mine and I'm sure yours is the same is always coming from a position of okay what is it that you do exactly what are you excited about right now, but most importantly, what can I do to help?

11:41Not, Hey, come buy my stuff, come buy my stuff. It's always, how can I help? Give, give, give, give, give, give, give, over give. And then maybe I'll get something back. That's always how I played it. And I think you played it the same way too. When I first started my business, the overwhelm was real. I didn't have the tools to help me scale. If only I had Shopify from the start to handle all the behind the scenes work. Shopify is the platform behind millions of businesses globally from huge names like Mattel and Gymshark to the smallest brands just getting started. The best part about it, it has everything you could need.

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13:20One of my favorite things is that Framer's AI handles translations with a single click, so your site can be up and running in multiple languages almost instantly. And with real-time collaboration, your whole team can jump in and work together, no issues with versions or miscommunication. whether you're starting from scratch or using one of their templates framer lets you focus on design while handling the technical side for you animations responsive layouts search optimization and all the things that matter ready to build a site that looks hand-coded without hiring a developer launch your site for free at framer.com and use code ms to get your first month of pro on the house that's framer.com promo code ms framer.com promo code ms rules and restrictions may apply but i found that getting the conference organizer to give us a booth never really pays off it does nothing yeah at least for us and i'm not saying it doesn't work for other companies but it hasn't for me and clearly from eric's 75 000 investment hasn't worked out for you although you had a booth at the ypo event did that work out that worked but also because i'm the event organizer and then also i think there's a big halo effect because i the comments that we've gotten so far it's like i've been a lot of conferences this is a top three event and then a lot of people are like hey came up to me i was like hey i had very high expectations for this and you exceeded them like by a lot um so i think there's a giant halo effect with that yeah yeah so it's a little bit off to see if that i think i cheated on that yeah yeah because you're it's also partly your event yeah we have we have found the boots to work we used to do something where we would have the event organizer throw another private session or a private lunch and we would then go and I would speak while people are eating and you're inviting the people in there.

15:03We stopped doing that as much because it's just getting so chaotic because like after a while, just being at these events, you have mental fatigue, not physical fatigue, but mentally, at least with me, I just get worn out. So the new thing that we've been doing that's working well is when we go to event, we know a lot of people are going to be there a day before or a day after. And we usually do it a day after. And that after is during the event because the events are usually three, four days, but I'm speaking one day. So the next day we'll do it where we'll do our own private event co-chaired with someone else.

15:37We usually pick someone else who will pay for all the expenses. And then we'll invite, you call it 20, 30 people, meet with them. and we'll do a speech that's maybe like 30 minutes max. Then we put the rest of the people on tables. So call it groups of like four or five per table. And they, each table discusses their biggest problem and they had to pick one problem. And then I go around to table to table. We usually do five minute timers, 10 max, but usually five minutes. And then I end up giving the table a solution that could work for them. And you do it for each table and I'll give them a few solutions.

16:16And then sometimes they'll have two or three questions because they can do them pretty quickly within the five minutes we have time. And then people stand up and then talk about the best solutions that they learn and, you know, teaching each other. And we found that to build really good relationships over time. Well, I'll give two more and we can move on here. So if I have the attendee list and sometimes I might get it, especially in America, whoever watched the talk, I will send them. I'll email them, say, hey, you know, glad you attended. Or if you missed my talk, here are my slides. Right. That always generates conversations and it actually generated for this event.

16:50I had one more, but I forgot it. So it is what it, oh, one more. So Neil and I are both going to be at Inbound this year. So if you're going to Inbound September 3 to 5, we'll be there. And last year we had, so we had a marketing school session. I think 700 people came, but you and I also did a mini session where it was a private one where 200 people came. And that was one where we had everyone like did their own tables. And then we did like a competition at the end. and then someone won, right? It's always good to do intimate things like that because it builds a deeper relationship and people feel more connected with you versus like 700 people or 3 ,000 people or whatever it is.

17:24It's harder to do that. So I think there's trade-offs for every level. We were fortunate enough where HubSpot allowed us to capture different levels of relationships. Yep. Yeah. No, I think that can end up working out really well. And look, Eric and I have tried different things. I don't think there's a right way to slice and dice it. You just got to experiment just like you would with any other marketing channel and just double down on what keeps working for you. Yep. All right. So I want to talk a little bit about the event because it's over now and it took me two years to do that thing. Two years?

17:54Two years. Yeah. Well, I was voluntold to do it two years ago and then basically a year and a half. You were what? Voluntold. So it's like volunteering, but someone told you to do it because it's not like I get paid to do this event. Right. I was. So I volunteered, but I was told to volunteer. I never heard of the term voluntold. Voluntold. Yeah. But because it was in Miami, I was like, okay, I know Miami well, and I have a certain way that I want to do it. So I want to talk about this one's interesting. So the first part I want to talk about a little story here is how you can manifest seven figure deals from thin air.

18:24So I was standing in line with one of my friends. You know who he is, but we're just talking. And I saw one of the other speakers walk by. I was like, oh, hey, so-and-so meet so-and-so over here. And then the speaker actually knew who my friend was. And then my friend looked at me afterwards. She's like, Eric, that's a seven figure deal right there. and I was like, wow. And then I immediately connected them on text afterwards. But that just goes to show you, because a lot of people came up to me from the event and they're like, how do you get all these speakers, right? I'm like, it took years, decades to get these relationships.

18:52And for that intro to happen, that took a long time to do that, right? And you make intros all the time. But my point is, that's how these deals happen from constantly helping these people, making connections over time and not expecting anything back. You've always been good about introductions as well. And it's just the same thing again. You give without trying to get something because the moment you try to get something, people can sense it. But if you're just a natural born giver, you just end up getting everything that you want in the long term. Plus more. We were at the same event. Eric and I were eating lunch and we ate lunch outside of the food hall.

19:29What did you get? At the YPO event. We did? Yeah. I don't remember eating with you. I was eating the free ice cream. Oh, yeah. The gelato. Yeah, because it was free. I went three times. Oh, nice. It's good. Cookies and cream. Technically, I only went twice. The first time I got one. The second time, I'm like, just give me a double scoop. And they only did one per hand. I was like, oh, it's free. Give me whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we were sitting down for lunch and a few people joined us. And we were just sitting outside on the couch area. And we were all talking. And then one of Eric's buddies, who I know as well, because Eric introduced us from one of his past events nice guy did lunch with him uh we were talking about his new company that's crushing it and his agency is doing well but not growing not near that growth yeah not near that growth and it's a distraction and i was talking about the numbers and eric said right away he's like oh maybe neil's trying to buy and he said this out loud and i was like no no no i'm not trying to buy it i think you guys should merge or do a deal and then i don't know if he ever followed up with that we'll probably follow up um i think my thinking on it is it's probably a little too early for both sides right now i want to see how it develops a little more um but i think it's a great idea and i think it actually might it would work out way yeah like in a positive way yeah and i doubt like but again that was neil's idea and we're just sitting there that's what you get from these events you get these random ideas which actually like oh that's actually a really good idea um so he has a revenue he's not spending enough time operating not very high profit not very high profit you can fix profitability you already know that and you can help with operations and it's a good team and it's a good team your agency would really scale at that point if you just merged it would you'd have to change it all into one brand because he has too many brands I think he has three or four yeah three he has three agency brands anyway that's it for today guys please don't forget to rate view and subscribe and we'll see you tomorrow