what's going on everybody Doug
Huntington here and in this interview I
talked to Clayton Johnson of the Hoth
the Hoth was based and sort of it was
spawned from ideas in the 4-hour
workweek so basically they were trying
to create a business that provided them
with location independence they wanted
to have some freedom with their time and
they got started at you know a good time
timing was good they obviously put a lot
of work into it and they built the
company from the ground up with systems
in place so that they wouldn't have to
you know figure out how to get out of
the business the Hoth is an SEO company
and they have a suite of products they
do guest posting they do link building
they do content and like managed
services more or less they also white
label everything so a person could for
example serve as the project manager and
as sort of the marketing and sales
person and then outsource most of the
work to a company like the Hoth they
have excellent customer service in
general and I'm a fan so I shouldn't
have gone on and on like that but
Clayton and I just chat I hear about his
story specifically and he's the CMO
that's the chief marketing officer at
the Hoth but he's one of the founders
there are products behind a lot of the
interviews because you know it's
interesting to talk about that sort of
stuff but really clean and I spend a lot
of time on like his journey so he
actually like sold a lot of his stuff at
one point in time I think this was like
2014 he sold his stuff got rid of his
car he moved to Columbia and hung out
there for a few years the cool thing is
during the time that he was gone in
Columbia that's when the Hoth was
growing at an alarming rate we go very
deep into it and we talked about how the
growth happened and just you know the
realities of growing a company from just
a few people to I think they have about
45 folks
right now and have an office like a
physical office in st. Petersburg
Florida near Tampa right so anyway I'm
gonna send it over to the interview
quick thing to note I am an affiliate
for the Hoth so if you happen to follow
a link in the description or make an
make a purchase
I get a commission which I definitely
running some tests right now so
depending on when you watch this video
you may be able to check out some of the
tests that I'm running with the Hoth
specifically on guest posting so without
further ado let's go to the interview
hey what's going on it's Doug Pennington
here I'm with my friend Clayton Johnson
of the ha how are you today
oh man I'm doing amazing how about
yourself I'm doing really well and I've
worked with a Hoff for a long time
actually since I got started doing any
kind of internet marketing so I
appreciate you taking the time it's a
pleasure to speak with you and I'm
pumped to like have the Hoff on my
channel and all that kind of stuff
yeah me too thank you much thanks so
much for having me
right on so for the people that don't
know you personally Clayton can you give
a little intro and then sort of what you
do with the Hoff yeah yeah so where to
start so my name is Clayton Johnson I'm
the CMO chief marketing officer of the
Hoth but I've actually been around from
the beginning if anybody's never heard
of the Hoth before were an SEO company
we've started as a as a link building
company then kind of expanded so we
started in 2010 and we've really grown
over the last few years and welcoming us
gets to be nine years now that I've been
in this and now we have an office full
of 45 people here in Florida and we got
hundreds of people across the u.s. that
are that are working for us so yeah man
it's been it's been a great journey and
yeah I do all the marketing for it so
you you been with the Hoth since the
beginning in 2010 yeah exactly
cool so what was it like in the start
you win it when you're in a startup man
it's like it's so much different than it
is now so we actually started in Chicago
and I lived there for five years know
the cold
6:17 month winners but it was just a few
guys in an apartment and we actually
launched with just a YouTube video and
that's kind of what it's like we had
that really startup lean scrappy
mentality and just try to get something
out there and actually we were so
fortunate in that we we had a product
that connected with the market we have
just a simple like one link building
service and it was enough revenue to say
hey you know this might be something
might be something big so we just
invested in that kept growing and I did
did operations for that so I if
anybody's ever run a business you you
you know how like you do every single
thing in the business at some point so
yeah that's that's exactly what I've
done so yeah it started just like a few
guys and then we add a little bit more
people a little bit more people and then
you know a few years ago we kind of had
a break point where we just kind of
exploded so that's that's the whole the
whole entrepreneurial rollercoaster has
been a crazy ride man I believe it so
did you have like I well how many people
did you start with send like two three
guys yeah it was like essentially like
three people and then we started yeah
you know getting like a little team you
know essentially contractors okay and
then did you have a background in SEO
prior to that hell no I had like no
background in SEO you know I went to
school for like they call the telecoms
kinda like communications then I worked
in a t-shirt printing shop after that
doing web stuff and then started doing
the ha but I mean I think that's that's
kind of like how everything works now
and what's amazing about the time that
we live in is that most people whatever
you're doing you like there's a good
chance you did not learn that in school
and actually you learned so much more
and we have so much access to learn
anything now even for free that you know
it's just a crazy time to be living it
man yeah for sure that that's pretty
cool just getting started out of an
apartment and then just organically kept
pushing did you feel like the dip of
Seth Godin Fame did you feel that dip
early on or it sounds like maybe you
pretty solid at the beginning um can you
tell me what the dip is I'll read that
book like ten years ago
I forget okay well it's like when things
aren't working out do you need to move
on to a new project cuz it's a bad idea
or a bad fit or are you just in that dip
and once you push through then things
will work out you know I think that we
were we were really lucky and that we
did find product market fit like pretty
quick and it was it was enough to
generate revenue that you know
sustainable business but at the same
time like I think everyone feels at
least some sort of did right like almost
all the time so I think we were very
fortunate and in that but but you know
like when the business isn't really
generating that much in the beginning
you're like is this like a real big
thing or is this just kind of like a
blimp is it gonna go away because we
didn't have recurring revenue you know
it wasn't like some businesses like star
software and they they can predict their
revenues you know we had like that
one-time purchase
type of thing it's part kind of like I
mean affiliates a lot of times like if
you have like one somebody might come
and they might purchase and then it's
gone or if the website dips or whatever
I felt that kind of you know like we
didn't have the recurring revenue so
right gotcha
and then you mentioned at some point
things sort of popped like do you know
what that inflection point was what
caused that yeah yeah man well there was
a lot of things to say about when we
went we essentially in the last cent
from 2014 to 2019 we have now 17 extra
revenues so that's like a four year four
year period and when I say 17x
you know if you were making like a
dollar and you 17 next it you'd be
making like $17 so let's just say we
started way above that
so we significantly significantly
improved our revenues and the thing that
caused it there's a lot of different
things that go into it but I think a
common story with everyone is that the
thing that most limits people or the
thing that really makes a big explosion
is almost always starts like internally
with yourself you know yeah there's that
that's exactly what happened to me
you know we ran a business and it grew
and it was doing is doing well but a
certain point like kind of sold out
right we were we're just a certain
revenue and we couldn't really get above
that and I felt that kind of not only
just in the revenue but I also felt like
my life like where are we going next
what am i doing all that kind of stuff
and then through the pain of Chicago
winters finally forced me to say like yo
something has got to change
and so I decided to not not do that
anymore I didn't want to I didn't wanna
live anymore winner and I wanted to find
something and I didn't even know what it
was but the cool thing about you know
going looking for something is like
sometimes you find it right and so I
sold everything I had and I moved to
Columbia and South America and that was
October 2014 and right then I just
started like working on myself I started
working on like daily routines started
working on being like grateful I stopped
complaining like eliminated complaining
for my life not to say I'd never do it
I'd do it all time but you know it's
like a goal so I really worked myself
personally and then and then at the same
time kind of started setting goals and
trying to figure out like how to
actually achieve those goals and through
that process I had like a lot of
realizations I kind of moved from an
operational capacity you know runt
running operations and to into marketing
and you know that was kind of the start
of everything I you can like literally
look at our traffic graph our revenue
graph and the amount of fun we're having
graph and they all look the same they
all go like this it hit the like late
2014 or early 2015 and just starts
skyrocketing so you know that that I
think that was a big catalyst is if
you're stalled out you know a lot of
times what you need to be that next
level to figure out how you yourself can
get to that next level
I was definitely true myself interesting
and what I'm glad you brought it up
because before we started recording
everyone else who wasn't here basically
I was like hey you know st. Pete Tampa
traffic's a little rough and you're like
I haven't had a car in a while you know
like yeah I sold everything and blah
blah blah that was like whoa that's
crazy so you're telling me you moved
down to Columbia for a few years
and then that's when the business took
off and you were working remotely yeah
oh I would say like look there's there's
a lot of different elements to it you
know I said I'm down there but at the
same time there's a lot of other things
that happen in the business you know we
were able to bring on some really great
people we were able to expand the
product line but from myself personally
that's how I see my vision in like how I
improved and I would not I don't think
it would be able to be there I wouldn't
be able to do what I do now without
having that personal transformation so
got it got it cool so let's let's
transition a little bit because I know a
lot of my audience is interested in some
of the technical SEO stuff so we're just
we're going to knock out some of these
babies here so from an SEO standpoint in
the Hoth like how have you guys been
able to stay current from 2010 until the
president with algorithm updates and the
changing landscape of SEO that sort of
thing yeah man that's that's a great
question and yeah and you know that we
started since we started in 2010 like
right after 2010 that all the biggest
updates of all time happened to panda
penguin all that kind of stuff
and it was like we started a business as
a link building business and it might
have been like the worst time ever to
start a link building business because
it was just raining fire um luckily you
know what happens is that you know to
some extent I do love this industry
because after those updates happened as
he was always band together and look at
data and figure it out and thanks to
what's happening now we have like these
companies like eight reps that are
putting out like sick data and they have
access to it now we're doing less and
less guessing all the time so you know
even back in the day we had people
analyzing the the SERPs and figuring out
how to how to come come back from it or
whatever so we were able to survive
through all those when we when we
started like to expand the park line I
think that was like a big part for us as
well which is you know we're building
links we had this one link building
product then we started expanding into
like local citations and I think a big
transition happened when we started
expanding into content you know people
might have known us as a link building
company in the past
actually we sell a ton of content we do
a ton of content and we kind of
reinvented the process to do it a little
bit differently than the typical content
mills and that's been a the you know
doing that a little bit in a little bit
different way and training the people
that are coming on to be our content
creators that really changed the game
and we the content became a big part of
it and then on top of that after
expanding all that product line we put
together you know a managed service and
that really catapult catapulted us into
like the next category because for the
most part I think the business owners
want to run their business and SEO is is
really a one part of marketing albeit
like a very strong powerful ROI positive
apart but when people can get I see it
so many times when we talk to clients
that can you so easily sucked down in
the details it like they get so smart it
prevents their success you know what I
mean so we we created that service and
now we can actually help clients day up
today so they don't have so that
evolution I think helped keep us current
got it
and I was gonna say well I didn't ask
this earlier but that original product
can you in link building strategy can
you tell us what that was is that
proprietary sure yeah well actually the
the park was originally called the Hoth
which which is a lesson if you're
starting a business you gotta think
bigger think like you're gonna expand
your product line at some point okay
because that became confusing later on
but yeah it was called the Hoth now it's
called Hoth foundations and this
essentially it was very simple we're
starting 2010 what we do is we create a
little bit of content we put them on web
2.0 type properties and we put your link
in there and then we power those
properties up with second-tier links and
yeah that's pretty much how it works is
very simple strategy and it works great
especially for you know like for low
budget you know I mean right it's an
expensive way to get links to your site
cool and just make sure I got it right
in for the other folks so you would
create maybe a few blogs like a blogger
WordPress and put some content out there
that's relevant and then you have some
link there's some websites that you can
send links to those so they have some
authority behind them yeah that's
exactly the strategy okay and speaking
of authority there's a lot of different
companies you mentioned age rafts
there's Moz or a few at Majestic which
metrics do you feel if you can say
because I'm sure you know people at all
the companies yeah which which metrics
for authority do you find the most
accurate do you use in-house there um
well we we sell posts based on Mazda
main Authority because that was kind of
industry standard for a while and then
after that you know internally we use
well first of all we have access or we
use all of the tools we use SEM rush
eight reps we actually haven't used
majestic as much lately but we use both
SEM Russian eight reps all the time uh I
loved for the last few years eight reps
is just like smashed it I think in my
opinion I love their stats you know
looks like from what they say they have
some of the best crawlers the most data
all that kind of stuff but I will say
that I've seen some studies now that Moz
has just got put their foot back in the
game and they're their new crawlers and
stats are amazing as well and then SEM
rush who was kind of like the the the
other one that's in the game I stopped
using them for a while when when a dress
was coming up and all these features but
I've just been using SEM rush a lot more
lately because they've had a ton of new
stuff too so to be honest the question
is what is the most accurate I really
don't know I know that we use a dress
for the stats a lot but Moz is really
good too so cool and that's kind of
where I arrived to they have certain
strengths and you guys are obviously
doing a lot more throughput than than I
am but yeah every every company seems to
have an area that they focused on and
like you said age rests like up their
game their blog contents even better
than so much more I think they're
crawling faster than Google I don't know
but the different that they want to
release their own search engine no no no
I didn't hear that the founder was
tweeting about how he wants to create
his own search engine I was like dude
they could probably do it because they
have so much data and they know how yeah
I mean it could be amazing that would be
great yeah Wow
so from a beginner standpoint can you
tell me the most common maybe mistakes
that a beginner may make from an SEO
standpoint yeah I think probably the
biggest beginner mistake that we see is
that people get their their own problems
that they're too smart for themselves
they will read and read and read and
read and read all kinds of articles and
they will forget to actually take action
and the reality is like you're not going
to become an expert by reading and
reading we don't get enough information
but we get so many people that can
probably talk me or talk talk about SEO
way more technically than I can but at
the end of the day you can go look at
the Hawks like SEO traffic and you know
we have over $200,000 a month worth of
SEO traffic that's coming to our site
and you know so it's like it's more
about taking action than getting down in
the details I think people limit
themselves by trying to be too technical
and and not taking enough action that's
probably the biggest mistake that I see
okay well you took my next question
which is how to keep from getting
overwhelmed because of all the
information and I think yeah like spend
some time studying and then you can
execute and see what's going on but
there's like unlimited information and
then you don't know how accurate it is
depending on who you're getting it from
yeah yeah exactly and I mean the reality
is that most people show up this happens
all the time to me like most people show
up and they're very confident in
whatever they say and I find out that
for myself which I've had a lot
experience in SEO for like nine years
and doing marketing and all kinds of
stuff and we run a successful company I
find out that a lot of the things that
I'm very confident in yeah
wrong and the things that I think are
never gonna work then they just work
this happens all the time
so I've let my ego go and I focus more
on like let's just do stuff and then we
will look at the data later sort it out
later yeah it's how do we I totally
understand that can relate not unguided
crazy person ah we have strategies we
think but I'm much more intent on like
taking action and trying things than I
am on like trying to get bogged down and
making everything exactly perfect for
sure for sure so from more advanced link
building standpoint as far as like link
building velocity maybe for a brand new
site well I guess what's the
recommendation from the hot like if we
came to you or if I came to you for like
a managed package like how would you
guys approach it yeah well like for the
most part I think the most important
thing for us at least is determining you
know what are you trying to rank for and
then looking at the data objectively to
figure out what it's going to take to
rank for that I think a lot of people
try something like this where they go
like oh I want to rank for this term and
they'll be like a couple links and
they'll be like I'm not ranking what
happened and what we like to do is look
more at like for instance and a.h reps
have a great feature you go in there and
you can look at how many links are
coming to the page the the top page is
on page one or the top three and see how
many links they have and see what the
power and strength of those links are
and so if you can look at the data more
objectively you say like the top three
on average have seventy links and you
start now you just built three links you
got a little ways to go in order to be
able to actually even compete and in the
top one so like that's for me that's
like even more important than the link
velocities like figure out objective
like what is it gonna take to even rank
for this and then after that I we've
seen that at least this is you know what
we've seen looking over like a ton of
different kinds that we've actually had
is that consistency is is very helpful
if you are building your site I would
love for marketing to be like this like
build one link go up one one space it
never is like that nothing is
like that from like email marketing to
social is never like that
so what what I preach is like
consistency you need to be building more
content on building more links every
month and I'm less concerned with that
velocity now there's some some more
technical people out there that have had
some pretty good theories like you know
your your link building should you can
magnify it or you can increase your
velocity as you gain traffic as that
would be natural you know people find
either way more people finding your
website more people could be linking to
it that would judge that the traffic
would justify the backlinks I think
that's a great theory but in my in my
opinion what I've seen is that those are
the two things that I would focus on the
most number one figuring out how many
links you actually gonna need and then
number two keep it on the conceiving on
consistency going to our exact goal got
it it totally makes sense I mean kind of
kind of some of this stuff that we were
talking about where it's like we were
very confident about a certain approach
but then you could find different
instances and case studies where it's
disproved or an exception and it's like
well it's really hard to tell what's
going on and we can frame the story
around it however we want and then you
end up like making bad decisions
so yeah which makes me like just come
back to that kind of like focus always
like focus on the course and if you're
doing most of the cores right like
everything's gonna come up when you get
down in the details to try to figure out
everything I think it's gonna lead to
like a lot of frustration right spray
right so let's um get away from some of
the SEO specific stuff and I'm
interested personally on like you
mentioned Hoth traffic growing so much
over the last few years revenue followed
can you talk about some of that and like
like what you guys do on the blog to get
that kind of growth yeah for sure so
kind of around early 2014 late 2014
sometime in 2014
same time when I would I moved kinda
started thinking about this this problem
that you you've heard this phrase before
the the Cobblers children's have no
shoes I think every business owner feels
like that if anybody has never heard
that essentially means
you're working on your clients and
they're getting very success well if you
look at yourself you you're not getting
the same success that they're getting so
this is very common with like marketing
companies so if you looked at the Hoth
traffic back in the day you know like if
we look like we were didn't know what
we're doing because we weren't working
on our own site so what what kind of did
I was like we should probably rank for
stuff to prove to people that or a good
SEO company but I didn't necessarily
focus on like an awesome SEO strategy
when I first focused on was the actual
content that's gonna help people I
always say like I'm really focused on
who we trying to help who's the avatar
that you're trying to track got to get
to know that person and what they care
about so that you can connect to them
through their content right so I start
with that before anything and so what I
would do is I would say what are the
things that they're there they're here
right now and they want to get to over
here which I want them to get to a
purchase and right and so what are the
things that are stopping them from
getting to the purchase what are the
questions the doubts the fears that they
have before they can actually purchase
or start having success with SEO and so
I would listen to our sales guys calls
and like hear the same questions over
and over right and this happens in every
market that people before they buy like
a product they're gonna have like the
same like six questions that they won't
answer like which one is the best
does it have this well is the price
worth it on this one or whatever they
have the same questions over and over so
if you know what those questions are
then you can create content around them
and that can just shortcut them to to
the actual purchase right and so that's
what I'm focused on I started focus on
what are the questions that they're
asking over and over and over
Xtra articles about those and that was
kind of the renewing of our blog where I
actually wrote it to our customers and
not just like blame updates about the
haul
so we started writing about stuff like
link building an anchor text selection
and how to avoid penalties and what's
the SEO strategy you should be using and
things like that and that was kind of
like the beginning of the blog and then
after that we started creating tools and
tools were a huge one for us
you know sometimes when you talk about
like link building or linkable assets
people write ultimate guides and
ultimate guys are great and but for us
in addition to that there's a lot of
times we can make like a resource that's
not necessarily a regular article or a
big thing so for us tools were a big
resource that people could use and that
worked really well in terms of like
ranking and getting people to link to
our site because people will totally
link to tools or resources um so that's
kind of how you know the the traffic
exploded but what what was kind of cool
is about that theory as we were testing
on our own site on our website we
essentially built links like
consistently though consistent content
and then our traffic exploded crazy
enough building links and content gets
you really big right it's the two things
yeah it's only two things so we kind of
translated that that strategy into our
managed SEO product and then we did the
same thing with bunch of clients so that
was really successful
awesome yeah and it's usually I mean we
look for more complicated answers
because we we imagine it must be
complicated but it's like showing up
every day every week like how long did
it take before it like popped by the way
just curious you know what I can't
really remember the timeline because it
like to be honest I wasn't even doing it
that consistently in the beginning I
wasn't blogged consistently I was
because it was all me you know what I
mean I was trying to like run marketing
make sure the operations going crazy and
products all kinds of different stuff
not that I was like the only person but
I'm just saying like as somebody like a
business owner you know you're juggling
lots of different things so I don't
think I was even very consistent but if
you do do it consistently what we do see
with like our clients for instance is
that you can start seeing some pretty
good results within three months that's
building like every single month and
then after that you know to actually hit
your goals it just depends on how how
competitive you know it is well yeah if
you do it consistently for three months
you can it's kind of working out you
know yeah yeah yeah yeah I guess you got
to suspend your disbelief for that
period of
is that that three months at first three
months when you're building canta
building links like that's the hardest
man because google has had enough time
to pick up your site and Google's just
seeing if you're gonna become an
authority or just like a little rinky
being site and then you guys suspend
your disbelief that it's it's not gonna
work and then just keep going and then
once you hit that mark Google like will
pick it up see that you're doing it and
they can just unlock the floodgates and
then it's just a lot easier after that
for sure and I mean I feel like it's
like that across the board for so many
things like you said working out or
whatever I've spent a lot of time on
YouTube and it's just like there's no
there's no inflection point it's just
like slow growth or at least for me
right least for me I know some people
have had like explosive growth but if
you're just showing up making boring
videos like me then slow growth Lord
we're competing with a lot of really
funny videos man I'm not that funny yeah
but you know we got this we figured out
Clayton and I figured out how to blur
our background so it and smooth out our
face I mean I yeah I look much better
change right now
I shared better but I'm trying to grow a
beard so I look like you know not super
clean at the moment but trying to get
this thing to go along no that's good I
don't know if that'll work for Florida
very well though but I guess I mean you
know if you had a big beard before or
never had a beard saw it's new for me
man okay it's coming out pretty good I
can't you see I'm like follically
challenged as they say but I tried to
grow a beard over the winter because it
was so cold up in Bozeman like there's
like negative 15 like extremely very
cold so it really helped but it just
looked patchy and I looked silly with a
trying to grow a beard to be honest with
you but yours it looks full and you know
you got a solid set a you know beard
follicles so thank you thank you yeah
and I feel like sometimes like you need
going along and you're doing something
for like a long time you got it change
it up man and you just gotta feel like
we were ready for a change in like many
different things like I just started
going this out cuz I moved back to the
US a few weeks ago so I was like that's
another great time to change that's cool
that's cool and but it's funny just all
of a sudden we're talking beards but how
long have you been growing that now
Oh maybe like three weeks I'm like that
mean maybe not right how far how far you
gonna let it go I don't know we'll see
how long get it man right that's cool
that's cool
all right now speaking of Florida
speaking of is it st. Peter Tampa that
you guys are in dislike we're in st.
Petersburg which is like right outside
example if people don't know what st.
Petersburg is okay and I the reason why
I mentioned that is I saw best place to
work in in that area right you got voted
for that can you talk about that like
what's the deal with the culture there
and all that yeah yeah so for us yeah we
have one Tampa Bay one of the best
places to work for the last two years
and I think that that's really important
like as people grow their businesses you
know wherever out in your business you
know probably there's a good chance
you're gonna have to hire employees in
order to really achieve your full vision
and believe me that's even coming from a
in the Hoth was actually started on the
whole four hour workweek kind of book as
an inspiration like a lifestyle business
is actually started like that and then
as you start helping people like the
vision expands and it changes what you
actually want but yeah so from the
beginning that we thought that culture
was like super important you saw like
what the Hoth monster looks like you
know it's a little bit different than a
typical like swoosh logo SEO company and
the the Hoth is actually an acronym it
stands for hit him over the head and
it's it's all about like bludgeoning
with awesomeness or going above and
beyond you know like getting hitting
somebody with head like oh man that was
like an awesome experience or that was
like awesome customer service I didn't
expect that or whatever it's about going
above and beyond and so we wanted to
take that and make it permeate through
everything else and so that's why we
worked really hard on on our culture we
even have a culture document that
describes you know how I wish operate as
a country as a company and actually
wrote a post on if anybody wants to
check it out on the hospital but um well
yeah that was baked in there and like I
feel like if you can take care of your
employees they're gonna take care of
your customers and so we bake that in
it's not just we
to help everyone with SEO but we'll have
a blast doing that so I think all those
things are gonna help make like a
successful company right now you know
Inc in this kind of climate very cool
I know is well obviously it's really
hard to do that as you're you're growing
especially but it's pretty amazing
to have like such a strong culture just
I've worked at a I've worked the big
corporations for a couple years before I
got laid off and you know you hear the
culture stuff and the culture document
and it's just the mission statement and
all that kind of garbage and you don't
buy into and I think with this like a
company your size right I can believe it
but I was in bigger company so I'm jaded
like you know you would affect um and I
think it gets harder and harder as you
grow bigger because you have so many
contingencies and different
personalities and kind of stuff when you
have five people man you got like a
killer culture because it's you and your
friends are your you know what I mean
wouldn't once you start growing it gets
harder what's cool about this is I think
that if you come in from the beginning
and you have that like we were we were
lucky to that I hate so many other
things so I'm like we'll never do that
so you have this like a strong base and
the thing is like when you put it out
there to be honest like we've had a
culture talk for a long time even before
we had like a bunch of employees but the
thing is like when people came in it was
crazy because they took it to heart like
they actually believed in it and the
culture like created a creature of his
own it was wild like when I came back
here his office actually started growing
while I was at while I was out of the
country and it was crazy when it came
back I could you see that everybody was
like buying into it and they were even
taking it like a step further it like
created its own monster so I think if
you build a company coming after they
try like tack on culture to it and I
grow out of the people like no one's
gonna believe it but if you start small
like wherever you're at and you build it
now I think that's like how you can do
it I think that's probably part of the
reason that it's been very successful
here very cool yeah that's amazing now
it seems like maybe you weren't like
there as much but I'm curious
growing the the team and the HR aspect
of all of that can you talk about that a
little bit yeah yeah for sure so we
started as a virtual company and we were
virtual for many years we'd never had an
office or anything like that just worked
out of our homes or our friends homes or
whatever co-working spaces sometimes and
that was kind of cool as the team
started to grow you know as we started
adding more revenue it kind of became
more important that we actually have an
office as we want to add more team
members on and just for communication
and keeping everybody together started
to get like yeah we needed that office
and we hired an Operations Manager and
he really just led the charge like if
you get those great key first employees
like I think those like some of the most
important and I'm sure everyone's
business operates much more differently
than mine but that was one of the most
key hires we've ever done is an ops
person and by operations I mean like
okay doing the marketing we're doing
this you're the guy that makes sure that
everything runs okay like if customers
are contacting you or things are going
down and the website goes down or
whatever you're gonna be in charge of
making sure that everything keeps
running right so trying to make it
simple people can relate to this because
I have no idea with businesses they're
gonna so um so when we hired that like
ops guy he's he he had experience you
know he came in and he had experience
like hiring people and just took our
team and found where we needed people
and which is able to take you know take
our team from like six people in an
office to like 20 in the space of a year
and then the next like a couple years
you know to 45 here in the office so I
think like those key hires were there
and it's just finding that right person
at the right time to be able to like
help you out with that and help you
scale where you need to where you don't
even have the eyes like that that was
like a key thing for us awesome see and
I think maybe another point is like you
got someone who was experienced in an
area that I don't know even if you
you've you guys had the skills already
you maybe didn't have time to exit
you don't and so you had someone that
knew how to run a shop right oh yeah
exactly and you know it sounds crazy but
like I couldn't think of a better person
to be to be running our company now or
he's a CTO oh the chief of operations
now but he actually came from Target and
he'd be like dude you hired someone from
Target right what was kind of crazy is
like you start after hiring a lot of can
you start seeing these interesting
things it's like with hiring someone
from Target that's somebody that can
that had corporate development that was
able to grow quickly through they
understood bigger structures they hired
and fired a lot of people they grew
through different teams and became
managers and stuff like that so there's
a lot of those skills that is irrelevant
whether SEO is important or not he was
able to come in and figure out oh we're
gonna need capacity over here and I have
the experience and the confidence to be
able to execute those things and I've
actually noticed that about a lot of our
best employees our best employees are
not when you think about like hiring the
best SEO or the best PPC or whatever you
go out there and you look for that that
person and a lot of times you know that
that can be very hard to do and those
people are very very expensive or if
they're ready the best do they're good
they don't want to work for you in hello
so what I've actually found like some of
the best the best employees that we've
had at our company are not what you
typically think it's more about the
person that under a lot that is
underlying you know what is their
attitude what is their work style they
they came from Target they were previous
babysitter's there are previous people
that are from rock bands like literally
there's some of the top people at our
company they can come from anywhere and
it's so much more about the core of the
person and the way they approach their
work and their responsibilities than
anything else that can supersede almost
anything so very interesting I did a lot
of guest posting in the past right and I
was nervous to hire anyone who said they
knew SEO because you don't know like the
practices that they're gonna use so I
just hired my writers to do it who could
communicate follow directions and send
emails which is a lot of like what you
know working online is and they they did
awesome they knocked it out of the park
they did way better than anyone else so
I would recommend
like you said looking at the person
their core sort of skills at a higher
level like if someone can follow
directions and they're willing to learn
and they're flexible like that's usually
pretty good and then you needed someone
who had you know the I guess like
experience working with an org chart and
like navigating the politics that that
just are inherent with a company as it's
growing so pretty cool you said
something like that's super perfect
which is we you try to you try to hire
from within or we try to promote from
within so like for you you said that you
took your writers that were good at
doing emails and turn them up and that
we've seen the same thing some of the
fastest-growing people at our company
they start and support which is like you
know you would think is the most like
boring basic and it is but the people
that can survive support you know they
have all the skills in terms of like you
know getting to impact zero and being
nice to people when they're they're not
happy or being able to solve problems to
understanding at all the products and
all the contingencies and all kinds of
different stuff so they're like really
set up to just like like Excel in the
company and what I love if I need a new
team I love picking people that have
been through that so if you have a
company hiring a promoter from within I
think that's like a jackpot
definitely definitely so a couple
products like we were chatting
beforehand and I know there's a couple
products that I haven't seen before I've
used the foundation from back in the day
some guest posts and stuff even that I'm
testing out right now but the products
are sorry the syndication product that
you have can you talk about that a
little bit and then I'll sort of I'll
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