hey what's going on it's the Doug show
my name is Doug Huntington and in this
interview I talked to my friend Dom
Wells and he is working over at on folio
which is now full-time project and you
may be thinking to yourself I thought
was it human proof designs and he is the
founder of human proof designs but he
recently sold the company so we talked
human proof designs because he worked
there obviously for a long time and he
was the founder so he created the whole
thing and he ended up growing human
proof designs to revenue over $1,000,000
which is crazy it's a lot of money of
course and we talk about you know why he
decided to part ways and his new project
on folio so it's a great conversation I
mean DOM and I have known each other for
a long time so it's always good to catch
up with him it had been a long time I
was really intrigued overall just with
growing human proof designs so I ask a
lot of questions about that
and I also talked a lot about service
businesses because I don't particularly
enjoy service businesses which I you
know we mentioned in the interview but
Dom seems to gravitate towards them and
obviously he does a really good job at
it so now he's working on on folio
so anyway I'm gonna send it over to the
interview here and thanks a lot to Dom
be sure to check out on folio and some
of the resources that they have over
there just so you are aware hey what's
going on it's Doug Pennington here and
I'm with my good friend Dom Wells how
are you doing today yeah I'm doing well
happy to be here it's always fun when we
have a conversations together yeah it's
been it's been a while we were chatting
off off the record there for a few
minutes and it was like you know it's
been several months maybe a year since
we've chatted so it's good to catch up
and for the folks that don't know you
can you give a little bit of an intro
about how you like sort of got into the
space of online marketing and sort of
what you're working on now yeah
I got started with affiliate marketing
into
thousand twelve I feel like I didn't
really get started till 2013 because
2012 was pretty much reading staff
building websites that failed miserably
making my first few dollars online and
then trying to figure it out from there
and 2013 was when I first started making
like a few hundred dollars a month and
and I was just building basically me
sites just like my first site was
stopping smoking which was bad niche
site because it's not here it's that one
of the broadest most complicated topics
out there but I had just quit smoking so
seems relevant at the time and then I
started to have a little bit of success
and in very late 2013 probably more like
2014 I I started humor group designs
which was a company where we basically
did services specifically done for you
website creation for affiliate marketers
mostly beginners who wanted to get
started I've seen a gap in the market
where there were a lot of people buying
in these kind of turnkey starter
websites or flipper and and they were I
think warrior for him as well and they
were mostly scams or just junk websites
that we're never going to get anyone
anywhere so I was like why don't I build
good starter websites with training and
you know community around them and a
support group and all of that and then
that pretty much became the thing I did
for for a very long time for about five
years and I grew that somehow managed to
grow grow it to a million dollars in
revenue over 2017 and 2018 and then last
towards the end of last year so late
2018 I started on polio which was based
on an idea I'll actually had in 2014 and
then forgotten about and then we had if
Yuri have an idea and then so I started
that and that's basically working with
investors and people who want to buy
established websites like maybe $30,000
$100,000 websites but they just don't
want to run them or they don't have the
skill to run them so my team and I will
will be like the operator at the website
and we'll we'll have a management fee
and a profit sure would be the investor
that's pretty much my focus these days
awesome
so that is a awesome trajectory so you
started not knowing anything it was a
little rough in the beginning you became
successful right you started making some
money saw the gap in the market to
provide some services for the market and
then slowly grew that up into a big
business sold it and then you found
another gap in the market through you
know being you know in the trenches with
the market I guess using market a lot
here but the point is you identified
another gap and now you're filling that
awesome now most people in the world
haven't started a website and maybe
maybe they're thinking about a side gig
but like in the beginning I know how
frustrating it was for me making
mistakes and you alluded to you know
many failures before you had any success
can you take us back like what was it
like like what were you thinking how did
you keep going when it looked like you
were just making a bunch of mistakes I
don't know how I kept going really I
think it was because there was so much
to learn and so many different things to
get excited about which was definitely I
guess it hindered me to some extent as
well because you know there's the shiny
object syndrome and I was being like
maybe I'll do like local legion or maybe
I'll try and do like cpa networks like
stuff like peer fly them for a while i
was on squid oh and those sites
so those things definitely slowed my
progress but because there was always
something new to try I guess it always
meant that when I failed with something
I was like oh well I'll try that thing
instead or
I'll try a different niche instead and
so I just kind of something motivated me
to not give up I guess because I had
seen in a people succeeding that I felt
like it must be possible like I think my
biggest doubt was not that it was
possible it was that I could do it
because I've always been a bit of an
underachiever and so I was like in the
back of my mind something was like yeah
but just cuz someone else is gonna sink
doesn't mean you will but I don't know I
guess I just kind of lied to myself i BS
to myself enough that eventually it
became true as I know I can do it and I
really just there were lots of small
things as well like I was able to kind
of like maybe my first website didn't do
great but I got better at installing
WordPress like I remember the very first
website I couldn't figure anything out
with WordPress like what's the
difference between a page in a post and
all of that and so the next time I set
up a site I was like this was much
easier and then maybe my second website
made 10 dollars in a month and so my
third website I felt like well I can
make a little bit of money and I can set
a website up so I don't know I just it
just kept getting better every time and
eventually to be honest I still feel
like it's the same process I think it's
just the numbers were a little bit big
enough yep and actually that was my next
question as you were making this
statement it's like does that feeling go
away cuz I know it doesn't for me it's
like partially impostor syndrome and you
know there's a lot of labels for it but
at the end of the day you just don't
know if what you're doing is gonna work
even if you've done it a couple times so
has it gone away for you specifically
for like on folio are you like yeah a
hundred percent like this is go no I
think it does stay I think maybe it
changes slightly like basic stuff like
you see someone else is doing the same
niche as you or the same just the same
idea and you're like oh no and then it's
like come on you
should know by now that competitors are
a good thing because invalidate your
idea and also you know your there's
always going to be other people so you
still have these thoughts and these
doubts but I think they they're a lot
easier to dismiss now because you're
like what am i doing you know you push
them aside whereas when you get them in
the beginning you you haven't got that
kind of confidence bank to to make it
withdrawal from so it's um it's yeah
it's harder in the beginning but I don't
think those feelings ever go away you
just get better with dealing with yeah
yeah totally who I was just looking for
validation for myself I guess since I
still feel that sort of you know
indecision at times and you're nervous
and you don't know if it's gonna work
and you just have to push through so
alright still you know back in that
early sort of part of your timeline
there how did you decide to focus more
on services versus you know tripling and
doubling down on just creating more
sites or did you I'm making an
assumption there but how did you get
into the services business and decide
that that was going to be the main deal
to be honest it was just where people
would pay me I really think like it was
just about figuring out how I could make
some money and when I first started I
wasn't really interested in services I
just wanted like the kind of passive
affiliate model I didn't want to deal
with customers and all of that I didn't
want to build become an authority or
build a like personal brand or anything
and like looking back is the easiest way
to scale a business is to build a like a
personal brand as both of us know but I
think really yeah it was just I was
still growing my own site so one
question I got a lot was why do you sell
sites to people rather than just grow
your own the answer in the beginning was
because I can research like 20 sites a
month and I can build 20 sites a month
but I can't run 20 sites so you know
maybe I'll run five and sell 15 and so I
was like I was also a supply and demand
thing as well people were gonna pay me
to build them a site so I did still run
my own sites and scale them but I just
also sold others and then as the team
got bigger I realized well I can focus
more on my own portfolio now because I
have more bandwidth again so kind of was
like first it was just me doing my own
thing then it was just growing human
foot designs and then it was growing
both and then like now it's focusing on
my own portfolio again and it is kind of
funny because I if someone said do you
like service based businesses I'd be
like now they suck I hate them but like
objectively of course but at the same
time I keep falling into service
businesses and I keep doing well with so
I guess I don't
it's SmartNet no but I mean I
experimented with some service
businesses and actually recently did in
the past six months and again realized
and remembered we remembered that I
don't really like it that much for many
of the reasons which you know people
know of service businesses there's a lot
of clients you have to keep the pipeline
full customer service is big especially
with higher ticket items in our market
of internet marketing where there's some
scammy people you know to have good
customer service is essential so yeah
very interesting very very interesting
and it's good that you're like embracing
the fact that you do good with services
so you may as well keep moving with it
so when you start at human proof was it
was it just you building the site's like
how did you grow the team can you just
tell us about the trajectory of that up
until when you sold it yeah so in the
beginning it was just me I I did
everything myself except write content
and in fact the very first websites I
built I didn't even write the content I
was just like I'm just gonna research a
niche do the keyword research build a
website and hand
/ but then I was like people need
content so I was outsourcing content I
think at first I was using AI writer and
that I wrecked it was great because you
you could get content turned around very
quickly but it was bad because the
content was never that good so there was
a lot of editing required it was also
quite cheap as well so I could keep the
cost of the websites down and then the
first hire I made was someone to
assemble the sites for me so I was just
like okay I'll give you the articles
when they're done and you just assemble
the sites and it was very much because
they were done for your sites they were
all built the same way so it was like
here's the articles upload them do the
formatting and like do all the other
stuff like install the plugins and so on
and then he was quite good with plugins
that he was able to create kind of like
push-button WordPress installations
where he would you know they this sort
of human proof skeleton would be there
and then he'd just load in the articles
and then the next hires I made were
writers because I was sick of dealing
with our writer and I realized I could
actually get it cheaper if I paid in
bulk so I was like hey I need 10
articles if you order one article maybe
you're gonna pay like $10 an article but
I could say hey he I need someone to do
10 articles for me for like $60 and
someone would be like I don't just seed
60 instead of 10 and overnight yeah I'll
do that so then the next thing I needed
was an editor it's just like it's
someone who was interesting charge of
the content so then I would just give
them the keywords they'd order the
content they'd pass it to the site
builder person and then the next thing I
out sourced was I brought on a project
manager to just deal with everything so
that I could then focus more on
marketing the business and writing blog
posts and all of the like working on the
business type stuff and then as that
scaled we then brought in people below
all of those people so there
be like the project manager would have
an assistant and the website builder
would have like four website builders
under them and then we ended up with
like five keyword researchers and then
we would promote one of those five to
the head of the keyword research team so
that my project manager if he became a
CEO could then move on and build it at
the writing team and that process took
probably a year and a half really to get
really well
and it went from like I've never hired
anyone I have work to up work for
sending me Christmas cards because I'm
like a VIP customer in the space of
about two years maybe yeah so I very
quickly and the I think the real key was
that I didn't hire everyone myself I
hired someone whose job it was to hire
people so I was like so when I brought
Brad on who is the human group design
CEO
even today he he would be like right
what's the biggest bottleneck and I'd
say keyword research and so okay teach
me keyword research so I told him how we
do it he did it by himself for two weeks
and then he was like right I feel like
I'm competent enough and I was I was
giving him feedback during that's two
weeks and so he was like right I feel
like I'm competent enough to teach it so
I'm gonna go out and hire like for
Filipinos to do it for us and I was like
okay and so he he did that and then he
trained them and then after two more
weeks he said yeah one of them's really
good I think he should be the manager
and I said okay and then and then that
was the keyword research team and then
he was the next bottleneck and so it's
like ordering the content and then rinse
and repeat so we did that systematically
for well whatever I just said like 18
months 12 around 18 months to get
everything down to the point where I was
completely out of operations except
maybe replying to customer emails and
stuff and we were able to launch way
more products so like in the beginning
of a customer
said to me how can you also do SEO can
you also do PBM rings can you also do
ebooks blah blah blah blah we would say
no because we didn't have the bandwidth
but now whenever we wanted to launch a
new service it was really a case of me
designing the service
Brad figuring out the logistics of how
that service would be delivered how much
it would cost how much we should
therefore charge and then training the
necessary people we would basically just
launch the product and it was very
smooth so we went from being like ground
to a whole customers asking for refunds
wondering why their product isn't
delivered yet to being able to like
launch a new service in my two weeks
because of like this this sort of right
team that assistant we've got very cool
in you know just hearing you talk about
that it is very systematic it's an
iterative approach so that you can like
make progress as you go learn from each
time you launch a new product and all of
it makes sense and that's something I've
never done with any service business
that I tried to do which I know is I'm
going through it I'm like do I want to
do I want to push through this and then
I always decide now so I'm glad I'm glad
people like you are doing it and it's a
good overlap I mean I think when I think
when you and I first met we started our
blogs and we you know we were in the
same circles a little bit and I mean
we're competitors right we're kind of we
didn't know what we were doing exactly
and you know eventually we had two
different markets so we were sort of
focusing on where there's a great
overlap very little stepping on toes so
it's been you know a good relationship
where we can work together versus like
you know talk bad about each other or
something like that so kind of meta but
that's my observation so any thoughts on
that like on our relationship or yeah
sure yeah yeah on the or the the - like
our two businesses and as we were
getting started just to decide to
collaborate versus
is you know be enemies I guess because I
have approached people and I'm I'm like
we could probably work together well and
they just completely ignore my email or
they just the rude and they're like no
go you know go after yourself right so
so any observations on that yeah I mean
I think I can probably draw a straight
line from like the day I started trying
to approach other people to know where I
am now and there were people that didn't
reply like you know one of the first
people are contacted was Spencer Hawes
and he he replied but my he wasn't gonna
collaborate with me because he didn't
really know who I was back there and and
so I was like okay maybe I should start
smaller and there were other people who
I messaged like tone Tran who was from
cloud living who was like I'm already
interested in promoting your stuff but
here's some feedback here's how you
could improve it and because of that we
actually maintain the relationship but I
actually went to turn the wedding like
last September so this you know he said
no but in a very respectful way and
actually whenever I launched services I
was like they have to pass like the
tongue test or the the gale test from
authority hacker because like if those
guys like your stuff it means it's good
quality and so then yeah there were
people like Authority hackers who again
weren't really interested in promoting
my stuff but they were like nice guys
and they were still happy and we've
linked to each other and stuff like that
and then yeah there were people who were
just rude
but then there were people that you who
replied and Matthew Allen he was very
friendly early on who else John Havel
was sort of ultimately ended up becoming
a competitor through his association
with bran builders but in the beginning
like he was friendly and we're still
friendly but I mean we in the beginning
we were more willing to work together
than later on and
yeah like Empire flippers as well they
were huge and helping me so I think it's
just kind of one of those things where
it's like you just have to reach out to
everyone in the space and maybe maybe
not just reach out like hey link to me
hey be my collaborator but you're gonna
get some people who you Bible with early
on and some people who you die
that's just my how it goes and I think a
lot of the success on folios had because
we would barely really marketed it apart
from the fact that I would come on
podcasts and stuff and send a few emails
out but it's already like on course to
be a pretty good year
and I think a lot of that comes to the
fact that I've spent years like building
up contacts and and networking and just
generally making friends with people and
I think you like in your case sometimes
there was maybe incentive to not share
each other's stuff sometimes there's
more incentive like I know we promoted
your course for a while and then we had
our own course so kind of didn't make
sense and then but I think there's I
guess while all of that's going on like
we were always maintaining like a kind
of cordial friendship anyway which means
that just stuffs right I don't it's
always positive so yeah but in fact you
know I heard you were working on
something new I said let's talk about it
come come on the show so we could tell
people about it so it all makes sense
just I mean if people are watching out
there and you're worried about
competition like maybe you don't have to
worry too much like the rising tide
lifts all boats and all that all the
people that you mentioned or friendly
are still like they're still doing
something and they're moving on to other
things so maybe that has something maybe
that's evidence to like being you know
nice and friendly and professional
as far as networking is a good idea
versus you know trying to beat people up
out there so ok so moving Oh were you
gonna say something there no I was just
gonna say like you're right like and you
never know if like four years later
you're gonna bump into these people and
become
friends with them like like I bumped
into Spencer and chris guthrie at
traffic and conversion in San Diego last
last March and it was like oh hey yeah
how are you I know you and we had beers
together and stuff and so it's like was
I ha I got you eventually you know my
friends that's funny so in like the
other thing like you said you know you
you emailed Spencer back in the day and
like he didn't know who you are but now
you've you know you've been around
you've proven you're you know a
responsible knowledgeable person you're
running a solid business and there's a
lot of social proof out there - I guess
support that so I mean at this point
he's confident that you're not going to
you know do something like the problem
is if someone promotes you and then you
turn out to be like a bad dude then they
sort of lose some credibility with their
audience so that that's the risk out
there and I know people have approached
me and they're they're trying I mean
they want me to like promote their
product or something like that and I
don't know who they are
maybe they're a little bit rude in the
email they don't even tell me their last
name like that sort of stuff like so
it's a little it's a little hard so you
it's hard to separate you know who's I
guess professional so yeah and yeah to
some extent you know maybe you open me
you know you scan it and you you're not
even gonna bother checking out what what
their offer is because of the bank and
do it and you're just like oh whatever
I'll deal with ya I deal with them later
and sometimes I remember actually I
think Chris Lee from ranked Excel he
sent me an email promoting his course
when he very first started it and I
think that was just an example of an
email I opened him sort of glazed over
and was like I think about that later
and then I closed the email and I never
thought about it again
and then I think I saw like Stewart
Walker from me shacks promoting the
course or something like that or someone
and I was like that sounds familiar
and I went back and I opened the email I
was like oh yeah hey Chris how's a guy
so it kind of once you've been on the
other side of it you can kind of realize
like what it's like when you're being
the when you're doing the outreach you
can see what the other person is like
and they're probably they they're not
deliberately ignoring you or trying to
be like trying to be rude or anything
but they probably just don't have the
incentive or the bandwidth to give me
much time until like you say until you
prove yourself yeah got it so on folio
can you tell me about like the origin of
on folio you mentioned you had the idea
and then you know were growing human
proof and then it sort of came back to
you so how did you get from you know
there to where you are now yeah I
actually remember I don't remember what
year it was I think it was probably 2014
and I was I was at lunch with my my wife
back then she was my girlfriend and I
remember saying to her like I've sort of
met human proof or something and I was
like yeah I had another business idea
today I think a really cool business
would be like I know how to buy our
website off Empire flippers and grow it
but I don't have like $30,000 spare but
other people have $30,000 spare but they
don't have a growing website so wouldn't
it be really cool if I could partner
with people like that and and she was
like oh can of like real estate or
stockbroker that kind of thing and I was
like yeah you should do my marketing I
was like yeah exactly but the problem is
I'm just some dude in Taiwan like I
barely full-time and my own business and
like I don't have a track record or a
team or authority or any of those things
that you need but maybe one day I will
and then you know that was the end of
that idea and then 2018 I did a deep
dive survey to the human roof design
audience which is from the ask method by
Ryan Levesque and
basically I was just surveying the
audience and I was asking them what
their biggest problems were and one or
two people mentioned they had money to
buy websites like like big websites not
like than a few ones but they didn't
know where to buy them or what to do
with them once they bought them like I
think three or four people mentioned it
out of a couple hundred which is oh
that's actually high enough to continue
this conversation so I emailed a few
people and was like so do you think a
course on website investing would be
good or do you think a service and some
of them were like yeah of course would
be good somewhere like a service would
be good and then so I actually build a
course and while promoting the course
even more people were like you know a
service would be good and I was like I
know I'm just trying to promote the
course first and then I was like wait a
second I had this idea before like four
years ago but now I am an authority I do
have a track record I do have experience
I do have a team interesting and I also
think the market now is more mature
there's more there's better websites for
sale like you know no offense to the my
flipper sites in 2014 but the ones for
sale now away better they're a lot
bigger you know there are sites on the
market right now like five million
dollars two million dollars eight
hundred thousand dollars that are like
still just content websites and there's
more serious money moving in but there's
still a lack of like professional sort
of managers there's there's there's more
and more people coming to the same
conclusions that I'm coming to you and
the more I talk about it the more other
people will enter the space so you know
if they haven't built a service business
before good luck learning how to do that
but yeah so I just kind of felt like I
got the validation I realized like I had
all the answers this time whereas I
didn't four or five years ago and I just
started talking
a little bit and people were like yeah
I've been looking for this kind of
business for a long time just suddenly
like we've got like 30 sites that we're
running and it's like oh okay I guess
this is a good idea so that's kind of
it's just a it's like for me it's a
great story but for a beginner listening
to this or someone who's trying to find
their way they might be like yeah that's
great for you because you already had an
audience and you already you were able
to leverage your network and and so on
and like yeah I can't really deny that
so I think it's just a case of
understanding maybe your market and
looking for a gap or a need and I think
that is why I keep falling into service
businesses because I keep seeing these
needs out there and not being afraid to
run a service to fulfill that need
and I guess my advice to anyone who
would is a beginner like that would be
to just the more experience you get in
your niche the more your the sooner
you'll be in that kind of situation that
I was in because it is just a pen a case
of like what do they say like you have
to work for 10,000 hours to get
overnight success or something like that
I don't know if I'm rodeo will be
classed as an overnight success but it
definitely feels like a case of it's
very easy right now because of what I've
done before so you know people just have
to do that before a bit to get to to
this kind of position interesting well I
mean you you started with no audience
and no credibility and you built it over
time so yeah like you said it's a eight
year overnight success or something like
that but you know when you look at it
though it's really on folio is a bit of
an extension you know another service
business it's not like you've switched
business models completely it's just
like
higher stakes higher investment value
but it's the same concepts overall so
very cool very cool
that's true there so from a like
services that on folio provides so can
you kind of outline like what the
process is like if someone's interested
in investing maybe it's like a private
investment group maybe a family family
trust or something like that like what
happens yeah so we've got three services
really well we've we've got three but
we've got two because no one's ever used
one of them so someone suggested it to
me and I was like yeah that's a good
idea no one's ever gone so one service
is actually kind of we partner with
people who already have sites and there
whether they built that site from
scratch or they bought it we partner up
and we generally people come to us for
two reasons like one is because they
just don't know how to grow the site
anymore or they don't have the capacity
like maybe they have a full-time job
they're like I know what I need to do to
get this to the next stage but I don't
have the time others just don't know
what they need to do or it's people that
just don't have the bandwidth or the
desire to run their sites anymore like
we run a couple of sites for a Chapman
who he has a huge portfolio websites and
he's just like okay can you guys just
run these for us
and then there's yes there's no those
people those sites we don't just take
like smaller sites because it's not
really worth our time and we can you
know we want the site to be established
so that we can turn the dials and makes
that happen and then the other service
is similar but it's like someone has
money they want to get started but they
don't know how to run a site so they'll
they'll buy this I will run it for them
and we'll help them find the site we'll
do the due diligence we'll hop on a call
with the seller and do all of that stuff
and then they own the asset will in
exchange for a management fee and a
share of anything we can grow we will
run the site for them and again for that
one like we
minimum which is $50,000 because
anything below that there's not really
enough profit in the site for us to make
i meant for us to take a management fee
and then for there to be a budget for
growing the site and the investor to get
ROI so like the bigger the amount of
money the the bigger it is river the
other service which no one uses is just
like something kind of in between it's
like you want to buy a site and you want
to run it yourself but you don't want to
buy a scam we'll just do the due
diligence for you okay no one no one is
interested they either they you know
want us to run it over there they're
fine and then one thing we are looking
at doing is kind of a like a group by
type thing where it's like like we
really want to move up the food chain
because when you buy a site that is say
500k it's got way more profit and it's
p.a now generally it has a team already
like bas and everything included content
costs already included usually so it's
got the growth budget like baked in and
also it's a much higher quality site and
we can run fewer of them like we could
run 5 500k sites and make a very nice
management feed to be worth our time and
grow those sites but we don't need to
hire like 50 we don't need to buy 50
sites to pay for our overheads because
50 sites you can't really focus on them
so what we're thinking of doing is like
maybe someone only has 30 K or someone
has 100 K but they don't want to just
buy one single site with it so we'll
probably like what we think about doing
is like every quarter basically pooling
the people was money together and like a
JV and then you know setting it up as
like a legal entity and and just buying
like one site with it and so that's more
like a kind of like a real estate
investment I think like the way that
works and then we'll just run it and
predetermine whether we're gonna do it
the cash flow or like Senate in two
years or something like that
so that's that's the service which has
attracted the most attention I thought
it would be the partnership but
generally people that already have sites
they're less willing to give away some
of the share which which is
understandable whereas other people are
like yeah I just I have money I just
want to invest and I want but I you know
I don't want to i want to buy a site and
have a good a zero right so it's yeah so
that's that's the area that we're most
excited about and where we can offer the
most value as well
gotcha and you know that the service the
vetting service that I mean totally
makes sense to me in fact people have
hired me to vet sites ahead of time so I
bet it's just a matter of time before
that's like one of the more popular
services because you know what whatever
it is that you charge is going to be a
bargain versus like buying a site that
you know is somehow scammy or they're
something that they didn't know to look
for as an issue so I think it's only a
time yeah I think like even if we
charged like like if someone's gonna buy
a site for say 60 grand we could charge
like 10 grand and it would still be a
good deal for them but we would probably
charge like a lot less than that but
there are companies out there that do
that already as well so like century ago
for example so we're not like that's
that's good one-time payment to bring in
some money for us but it's like not
really the kind of long-term planning
that I see on folio succeeding with so
sure I'm not too fussed about the
success of that one in its one in my
head I'm like well it's a great you know
once you get them in the door and show
them value you can you know upsell them
on the management stuff unless they just
happen to be you know I would imagine a
person that would hire for a vetting
service doesn't necessarily have the
skills to grow it so maybe it's a lead
magnet kind of or not a lead magnet but
a tripwire situation into the big I
don't know we're just I'm just
speculating here but yeah maybe actually
just do the vetting like a hundred
dollars or something like just get
the door yeah interesting yeah can you
I'm sorry to interrupt you there were
you done with your thought no I was just
myself so it's cool so I don't know like
how much you can reveal but like what's
the general process so let's say someone
comes in like ace for example who has
like a site that's doing well obviously
you're incentivized I believe to you
know grow the site right like you want
to grow it you get paid more so
everybody has the same incentive they
want to you know increase the revenue so
can you take us through just some of the
basic things that the team does to grow
the site yeah so every site is different
but generally we start out in the same
place and most sites that we've
partnered on have had some some level of
technical SEO issue
pretty much everyone we've been like
well the first thing we're going to do
is fix that and that that issue might be
as basic as like not having an SSL
certificate installed too sometimes we
get people that haven't fixed the Yoast
you know the great Yoast error of 2018
just where a bunch of their stuff good
index they shouldn't some of them have
architecture issues so just like
navigation and site structure and things
like that pretty much every single one
has speed issues generally if someone
knows how to get their speed good then
they don't need our service so we
normally will fix all them first then
there's a lot of CRA type stuff like
most people like of is an Amazon site
they don't really have mobile optimized
tables
I'm sure Matthew Allen would have
something to say about that with this
plugin but yeah a lot of them a lot of
mobile-friendly tables or
mobile-friendly this or mobile-friendly
that and from there it's very much a
bespoke plan like some of them it's like
right now
just going to smash the site with the
content until until all that site scales
other sites it's like we need to disavow
your spammy backlinks other sites it's
like oh you've got an info product
funnel let's try doing the pricing on
that and that kind of thing so yeah it
really it's always the same we do a
technical audit a speed order and the
kind of keyword and backing called it
and based on that we usually have
something to improve and sometimes that
can be enough to turn the site around as
well they're not always like distressed
sites when they come to us but yeah
quite often me it can turn them around
but then from there it really varies
like what we're gonna do next
sorry very interesting yeah I could
definitely imagine some people have
sites where there's a ton of content
almost no backlinks or vice versa
where there's you know 50 posts but a
crazy amount of backlinks and there's
opportunities to like fill the gaps
wherever they happen to be interesting
so with the sounds like a lot of work
needs to be done for any of the sites so
tell me about the team that you have now
or sort of how that structured I know
but actually I'll just leave it at that
it won't speculate so what's the team
like how do you run that fortunately I
had a very good project manager recently
so things have been a lot more smooth
over the last couple of months but
essentially there's like there's not
actually that many of us like on the
actual sort of core team there's
probably about ten and that will range
from like me who's you know like the
boss and then Alejandro who does a lot
of the he does all of the audits and a
lot of he's kind of an extension of me
in the way that he'll do a lot of the
game plans for the sites and deciding
what we were gonna do but then he's also
strong in other areas he's a lot better
at technical SEO than I am so he does
all of that all of the audits and then
we
the program at Osby and then she's just
like making sure we're all doing stuff
she's like you know whenever my asana
queue gets to zero suddenly it's back to
ten again
aha and then we have just various
freelancers below that and people who
are full-time who like we have someone
called Hannah who's really good at
Pinterest and so she runs runs that sort
of thing
because we've got a lot of sites that do
well with the kind of Pinterest and
media vine model but there's a lot of
people like in affiliate marketing who
are really focused on like SEO and best
blah blah blah and then there's loads
and loads of people mostly work at home
mums but not there's a lot of others in
the group as well who were just like
silently crushing it with Pinterest and
media volume and making like 5 care
month 10 camera it's crazy
so yeah Pinterest is a big part of what
we do and then you know we just have
like sort of bas below that who you know
like they do content uploading and
audience and on page SEO tweaks and all
of that stuff yeah and then we bring in
you know if we need content written we
use an agency or use smoke humor booth
designs
articles and SEO like authority builders
and maybe some other more gray hat ones
depending on if it's like our site or
not so yeah things are interesting ok in
like when you branched out to like work
on on folio and I guess slowly were
deciding to you know make it your main
focus like how did you I guess determine
what success was how do you know you're
on the right track sounds like you know
you have quite a few sites that you're
managing now but how did you project
what you wanted to do over six 12 18
months knowing that you were gonna be
working on a full-time
I guessed I kind of I had that initial
validation earlier I'm like I mentioned
and from there it was like I guess I was
in a situation where I was like all I
need to do is get enough customers and
at least this is how I rationalized it
in my head I was like if I can just have
say ten clients or partners I don't
really think of them as clients ten
partners around that number that would
be enough to pay for my team's
overheads and then my team can work on
my own sites for free so therefore
because sometimes I would have this
thought like why do I need to bother why
don't I just have five of my own sites
maybe make 20k a month of those five
which is very easy to do or even thirty
care month of just those five sites and
just work on the five sites myself and
have no team or even just on one site
you know doing 15k that would that would
keep me happy and then it was like well
I kind of want a diversification and I
want to move up the food chain as I
talked about I didn't want to just be
having to do all the work m
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