1154: Marketing Counts: Proven SEO, Social Media, and Digital Marketing Strategies from Marketing Counts Founders Shreya Banerjee & Paul Counts

Robert Plank 00:01 Welcome back. It's the marketer of the day podcast, Shreya Banerjee and Paul Counts are here. Me and Paul go so far back. I don't even know what, what year, what decade they first came across him, but both of them, Shreya and Paul, they're co founders of marketingcounts.com they are serial entrepreneurs, advisors to influencers, their methods and strategies have generated well over $100 million for their clients, customers and businesses, and they are passionate about helping you grasp some of these proven marketing concepts. We're talking about, leads, traffic, sales, getting those ad costs down, getting the organic traffic, getting traffic from multiple sources. They have an amazing podcast called The Marketing counts podcast. They have an Amazon series. They have online courses, and they are here to tell us what we're missing out on. Some of them might be simple, obvious. Some of them might be like, Oh my gosh, I have to go and implement this right away. They partner with Russell Brunson with PLR, funnels.com, so we have a lot to talk about, but we'll have a lot of fun hear some stories. So Shreya and Paul, glad to be speaking with you.

Shreya Banerjee 01:08 So glad to be here.

Paul Counts 01:09 Hey, great to be here. Great to see you again. Robert

Robert Plank 01:12 Yeah, and it's and we were just saying before the recording, that it's always great to catch up and get the blend of the old and the new and because, like so, so many times you come across someone and like, they invent, they pretend like they invented something. I'm like, hey, that's resaw, right? That's PLR, that's a lead funnel that was invented 30 years ago. But then there's a reason why these things have stood the test of time, right? It's like when they say, Well, why are, why are the pyramids still there? Well, because everything else that was built differently has kind of fallen, you know, to the wayside, but some of these things, right, sales letters and retargeting and abandoned cart and all these kind of things that have stood the test of time, that just taken new forms, they're what we're always missing out on, right? The the fundamentals, we need more attention on that. And so what should we talk about, as far as, what are you guys focused on, passionate about? What's the jumping off point in a conversation?

Shreya Banerjee 02:05 Yeah, can I start real quick?

Paul Counts 02:06 Go ahead.

Shreya Banerjee 02:07 My my current favorite, because you said everything's every it always comes back. My current favorite is SEO. Is brand new, yes, or social posts, because that's, you know, everyone's becoming a guru on that right now, and I find that hilarious, because it's been there forever.

Paul Counts 02:22 Yeah, that's the biggest thing I'm seeing right now, is people are saying because, you know, a lot of people don't realize, like this Gen Z audience, like over 60% of them have now selected, basically Instagram and Tiktok is their search engine of choice. Like, they're not using Google, and so like Tiktok, Instagram really, you know, pushed into this by not making hashtags be the only way to find people. Hashtags still work, but they're also, you know, if you put relevant copy and relevant content, just like you would optimize an article, you would see it. But what's really funny, like Trey was saying, is we're seeing all these gurus coming out and going like, oh, there's this new thing called, I think it's called SEO. Like they literally said that. And people are like, wow, this is amazing. And it's like, dude, this has been around since early 2000s like you guys are this is not new, and I'm finding now more than ever what was old is working extremely well. We'll talk about one of those here, here in a bit, too, that we're finding that is amazing. One of the old methods that has come full circle all the way back

Robert Plank 03:18 When and just to get people caught up on this. This whole idea of SEO is like people are looking for, they're doing search phrases right, like looking for solutions to their problem. And then there's like the wherever you rank on that, and there's a little bit of trickery of it as well, isn't there? Because if someone searches a certain phrase and they they go and they watch a tick tock, and they they watch it most of the way, or all the way through. That's like a click, so to speak, and then the the algorithm says, Hey, we're gonna bump that up in the rankings. And then there's even more trickery of like, I know, sometimes, especially on these social networks or on like, even YouTube, I'll search a phrase, and then a day or two later, I'll see that in my, like, my main feed, as if I searched it again, because it's saying, like, hey, this this dude searched for, like, you know, PLR, rights, this person, they searched for, Clickfunnels, marketing agency. And then days later, it's like, we're going to show you more of that. And it's like, there's this cool disconnect, like, oh my gosh, it's reading my mind. Well, no, it's just looking at what you did two days ago and forgot. And so tell us about what we should know about the the old and the newest SEO. What's the this cool technique that you hinted?

Paul Counts 04:27 Yeah, so, okay, so here's, here's the part that is still relevant for SEO. It is you're connecting people that have a need and a desire for something. So just like you said, if somebody's looking for how to get rid of back pain, how to train a dog, how to, you know, improve your golf swing, whatever. And they type that into the search. And a lot of people don't realize Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube, all those are search engines too, just like Google is itself, and as long as you bring up a relevant result, that means you use common sense and name your video what those keywords are, you have a chance of ranking. And then you put those keywords in the comments, and that's, like, always been there for SEO, like, that's like, SEO 101, and so that's kind of one of the the things that's still around. And then the part we hinted at that's really happening is, you remember online forums, right? And how we used to use those to generate traffic way back in the day, uh, bulletin, you know anybody?

Shreya Banerjee 05:19 It's back, just like bell bottom jeans, it's back.

Paul Counts 05:22 Yeah, it's back. Forums are back. So Google in, in an attempt to basically attack AI, because Google's just anti AI, they just, they just got rid of about 2% of their webs. It was a huge amount. I mean, 2% is a lot of websites. It just went, just got axed from Google, and they're continually down ranking websites that are using AI content, because they want human generated content, and so Google went out and they licensed content from Quora and Reddit. They spent $100 million so I don't know if you've noticed lately, when you do searches on Google for almost any how to topic, you actually see forum listing show up, and they actually call them forum listings. They're even feeding in from I saw a constant contact form showing up for marketing. They're pulling in forums into the first page of Google. And so what we've started to do is go in and leave comments on those forums with a nice, well placed Profile link, like we used to do back in the day. And so in literally minutes, you can rank on the first page of Google and get eyeballs and traffic by utilizing that strategy. But you again, you have to add value in your forum post, right? You can't go use AI to make it. But Google's loving this, because forums generate human generated content. So Reddit and Quora are, like, getting so much traffic now, and a lot of people, I think, have discredited those because they're onto the new thing. And I'm like, no, no, the forums are back. It just has different names,

Shreya Banerjee 06:40 Right? And I feel like people always jump for the easy button, push button solution, and every time we'd run for that, for example, AI, you do get axed at some point. But if you follow the same basic principles, even though it might take you a little bit, you're going to stay there. You're going to see the value for much longer, and no one is still and no one is doing that. So even if you do a little bit, which we did it for one of our trainings, our stuff is there. We're starting to see traffic for it, even because no one else is doing it, everybody's going the AI route. So by being yourself and authentic, you're standing out, which is really funny, because people always want to do something extra to stand out, right? But you don't have to.

Robert Plank 07:21 Yeah, and why not just put in the effort in a different way, right? Instead of, you don't necessarily have to do like, 10x the work, just like, be helpful and solve these problems. And, you know, like, one of the very, very first things that I learned or started to do, like, I'm talking about, like, year 2000 was they said, make 10 forum posts a day back when, like, like I said, there's the V bold and all these different websites, you'd register an account, and they said, just make 10 posts a day, and before you know it, you're at like, 2000 3000 posts. And then you have the signature lines, and then you keep showing up when there's these certain topics and and all three of us, right? We've gotten sales over the years just from making those forum posts, but then you didn't know which one was going to do it. So it's worth it. Just make the habit. And then it seems like there was that period of time then when, like, social media kind of took over, and then, after a while, the Facebook groups took over, and then the Reddit and the Quora. So now it's like the search engines are like, Hey, what happened to all these, these juicy, delicious forms in our search results? Now we want some of that back. So it's, it always seems to be, like, find where the the gap is right. Find, yeah, like, however the the search wars are doing, who's trying to make a move and then go and help them out. So jump in on, on the chorus. And so what, what do you have to say, as far as, like, these habits nowadays, like, are you still big on, like, spend an hour a day, or 10 posts a day? Or, like, how much activity do you think azina To get that balance of like, well, I want to get results, but I don't want to waste all day on this.

Paul Counts 08:52 Yeah, I would say it's about, you know, spend about an hour a day doing intentional forum posts and comment like, we're talking Quora. We're talking especially Quora and Reddit, Google spent $100 million 100 million dollars for those to show up on the first page. And you can't. Not only can you get traffic from like just commenting on the post that are on the first page of Google, but you can also get traffic from inside there, because people forget those sites have hundreds of millions of users on them, and literally, like the entrepreneur thread has one point, I don't know, 1.5 million people in there. The homeschooling threat has 1 million like I we have a client in the homeschool niche, so I was checking it out for them, over 2 million people in that one there's the fitness group has 5 million people like you can go in and add value, if you're in those niche markets, go in and respond to people. And the other thing we find is, by doing this, we learn what our market wants. So then we can go out to YouTube and Google, and now we know exactly what videos to make, because we can, like see similar questions that keep popping up. And what people forget, too, is that with Reddit and Cora both, they actually have a post feature on your profile, so you can remember Squidoo and Hub Pages those days. This. Is like that, but on steroids. So it's back

Shreya Banerjee 10:03 Yeah, and so actually, the reason it's back is because Google's trusting user generated content and user regulated content, because the second you post some AI thing on Reddit, you're gonna be kicked out of that subreddit. So because people understand what what AI is and not so Google finally said, I'm not going to try to figure it out. I'm going to let you guys figure it out and give me the valuable content. And that's why you see this big rise of worms again.

Robert Plank 10:30 And I think that that's huge. And I think that's a good insight, that if someone isn't around the AI every day, they might be fooled with it. But people like us like, I mean, I open up Reddit when I'm bored, right? I'm like, well, I could scroll Facebook and I read another read Reddit and, like, get some insights, learn some stuff. And when you're just, like, always reading, like, you have that human detector. And if suddenly someone is talking about the if something, if this is is crucial, or if they're giving, like, this bulleted list, or they're like, using these certain keywords, like, if they're talking about, like, fostering a connection, I'm like, people don't talk like that. And so that's a good insight. But you know when, whenever AI comes up, there's this idea of, like, using it as your buddy, right? And if say there's a question, you paste it in, you get some ideas. Do you still both do that? Do you say, like, Well, hey, I'm not going to use AI to write it, but, like, I'll say, hey, maybe it can fill in the gaps of what my answer would be.

Shreya Banerjee 11:22 Absolutely, absolutely coming up with the initial content. Just back in the like, back in the day we used to have, like, encyclopedias, or when you would go to the library to get the basic stuff right, but then you would rewrite it for your paper or for your assignment. Is the same thing where you're now using AI to kind of get that basic information to come out. Come up with ideas, come up with, like, maybe the basic content, but then you're rewriting it, you're doing it and putting it in your own words.

Paul Counts 11:47 Yeah, that's the biggest thing, yeah, put it in your own words. Like, use it, remember the so this is why it's funny, because everybody's going off about AI and all this. And I remember the article spinner days, I remember which were noted, which is AI, but just not that smart. But like, people would put out websites and websites with these and, you know, it worked for them for a very short time, and then Google caught on, and, like, those websites were gone. And, you know, so there's always people trying the new, latest, greatest hacks. The problem with what people done with AI, though, is they're just copying and pasting straight from chatgpt and like, Oh, I'm done. I'm like, that's not how it's done, though. Like, you have to still put your own human ideas into this. Google came out with this formula. They called the E formula, so it's experience, and they've had this for a while, right? So they have expertise, authority and trust was always like their thing. And then they added a separate E because they decided they didn't want to spell, right? So they put in a separate e in there for experience. And that experience means, like, they want to rank articles that have experience in it. And this would, they launched this right around the AI movement in December of 2023, and they were like, saying, Nope, we're done with, you know, this AI stuff. Like, we want to have real human experiences infiltrate our articles. And so they are looking for case studies. They're looking for testimonials. They're looking for actual experience. From my experience, having a business for 20 years is what I've learned, or from my experience, you know, struggling with back pain, this is what I learned. Because they learned AI can't really have experiences, and so Google added that to their formula for ranking. So it doesn't mean you can't take AI to like, give you the foundation, but then you have to infiltrate your own stories, your own experiences. And I mean, and as we all know, all of us here, good copy comes from storytelling still, you know, like AI is not going to connect with your readers. I write my own emails, and I love it, you know, and that's why they still connect with my audience. If I had aI write it, it wouldn't connect. And so you still have to give that human touch. People are craving human, you know, interaction more than ever. And so it's, it's very important. And, you know, so I think that's always going to rise to the top, no matter what

Robert Plank 13:52 100% and it's like, it seems like the EE at came about, like when AI was new and the pandemic was new, and there was the people were saying, like, oh, well, should you inject bleach, or should you drink this horse medicine? And Google was like, Well, hey, if someone posts that, that's fine. But then if, if it's like a medical doctor's posting it, and it's linked to all these other things, and they have these publications, then we'll kind of put that top higher on the the top of the heap. And so that's, it's kind of like their their long term AI killer, right? That instead of it being an arms race. It's like, well, you can admit whatever, but then it has this name attached to it. And if this name has has the spiderweb of all these other credentials in place, then that will be more superior and so and it seems like whenever traffic is explained, that's what it's all about, right? They're like, well, have your your focus on a handful of networks, but have it all work together. And you know, the three of us love to talk about the nostalgia, and there's like, the matt Basak, like the a nine thing or whatever, where he's like, here's your content, but you post it to all these places, right? Yeah, to the squid do, and the Twitter and the Reddit and all these things. And so you're giving us kind of some tasks here, right? We need to be focusing on on Reddit, some. What and on Quora somewhat, and try to see, like, how can we be going in there on a recurring basis? Fill in as much of our profile as we can, but otherwise, just add to the discussion. Give some helpful answers. What other ingredients go in the soup? If someone says, Well, I need to have more consistent, organic traffic, what methods should they be pursuing?

Shreya Banerjee 15:22 Right? So social, organic is really big right now, and we talked about Quora and stuff, but also on Instagram, Tiktok. People are using those as Google. Like we use Google to search for things, you know. So when you're posting there, engagement is very important. Like, posting is one thing, but mindful engagement within those platforms is very important, taking 10 minutes of a time in a day and engaging with other people, liking, commenting, messaging, very, very important to do per platform

Paul Counts 15:54 right when you're when you're on there. I mean, and that's a few minutes per day to do that. But you know, the thing about it is that it take, you know, social media, social, right? And I think every a lot of people forget that. They're like, this is just my media platform to to share my ideas, and they forget the social part of it. And every one of these social media sites, they are like, even LinkedIn, they have this thing called the SSI score, which is how they rank you, and you know, how you look good to them. And part of that is, are you engaging with other users? And are you interacting with other users? 25% of LinkedIn algorithms based on that alone. And so so many people just forget that. They're like, Oh, I'm posting this out there. The world wants to hear from me only. And they forget the fact that you should just intentional engagement. Go out there and interact with people, and don't just like it. Likes are weak, you know, like you see posts that have 100 likes, but three comments go in there and make that comment. Don't use that.

Shreya Banerjee 16:48 There's actually a formula for your your score, right? And comments are worth more than likes.

Paul Counts 16:55 Comments are worth a lot more. When they talk about engagement, they want you to actually comment on people. And a lot of it, you have to look at it from all these platforms. They all have the same idea. They want to keep you on their platform. And so if you are somebody that's engaging, or you're creating engaging comments and content, it's going to keep people there longer. They're going to reward you for that overall, not to mention, if you leave a really good comment on a high profile post, just like the forums do, they come back full circle to your profile. Happens to me all the time, and that's that stuff has been around for years, right? This goes back to what we talked about earlier. Robert, you know, like leaving forum comments. It's no different than going out to x.com formerly Twitter, going out to so that one drives me nuts, going out to Instagram, Facebook, whatever, and like, you know, leaving good comments, then they're gonna enter back to your profile, which where your link is, you know. So you just have to add value on these platforms and be consistent. What worked 20 years ago still is working today. It's just different platforms that's all right.

Robert Plank 17:55 It's link building in a way, right? And whenever a topic of link building comes up, it can get kind of daunting, because you think like, oh, do I need to contact like, Ink Magazine or Forbes and do a guest blog proposal, but then to do it in, like, a more like, achievable, consistent, micro way, just keep posting the comments. And so that leads to thinking like, Okay, well, what's the time management of this sort of thing? Like, like, because, like, I mean, maybe personally, like, I very slowly embraced outsourcing and delegating and having a team. And sometimes I have people, like, kind of keep my LinkedIn warm, and they go and they leave some of the likes in the comments, but then I'm also when they're kind of doing like, the higher level comments. And so do you recommend that, like, kind of like the partial outsourcing? Do you have, like, a calendar at certain times a day to make sure you're consistent. How can somebody make sure that they stick to this habit?

Paul Counts 18:47 That's, that's a good one. Outsourcing is good for me. It's, you just set up that time like, so I've just kind of set myself like, every day. I'm like, Okay, I'm going to do this on LinkedIn. And, you know, so it this might be my LinkedIn day, or today's my Reddit day, or, you know, so I don't try to do them all at once, because otherwise you'd go nuts, because there's so many social platforms. But it depends on it's really just setting aside that time and making an intentional part of your day. That's what it is sometimes for me, usually it's around three or four o'clock for me, and it's when I'm relaxing after all meetings, zooms, podcasts, whatever, and I'm literally laying on the couch doing all this for my phone, you know, like, that's when I'm like, Okay, this is my relaxed time. And I find it relaxing because I'm like, Well, I'm getting traffic at the same time, but I get it actually interacting comment so, you know, so I've kind of set that time each day that I have that and we have outsourced quite a bit in our business. Ray is really good on that, because I was very slow to adapt outsourcing, and she's been pushing me to do that more and more. So I do agree with you. I think having the outsourcing on some of the basic stuff is really good, but it's still like, you still have to give that high level engagement, or else people just, you know, it's not going to fall flat, right? So

Shreya Banerjee 19:59 now, as. Far as schedule goes, though, you have to do what works for you, right? Because consistency is key. And I know a lot of people that said this rigid schedule, and then you can't follow up with it because you're not consistent with it, right? So whatever works for you, if that means that when you go to the bathroom and you're scrolling on Tiktok, rather than scrolling on Tiktok, you're engaging with people you know that works if that's what works for you, if you're the type of person who's very structured and need to schedule that 10 minute time on your calendar, that works for you. So you gotta do what works for you, but make sure you carve that time out like Paul likes to relax and do it on his couch because he enjoys it works for him, right? Yeah. Um, so whatever works for you, because consistency is key. Doesn't matter which platform you're doing it on, right?

Robert Plank 20:46 And, you know, the whole advice of, do it works for you? I used to discount that, because I used to think that was like a cop out, like, oh, well, I I'm not going to answer your question, do it work for you? But then now, like, every, you know, few years, I try some other schedule, and I think the big aha with that was like the podcasting during here, right now, right? You put aside 2030, minutes show up to an appointment. It is kind of a hassle, right? You gotta, you gotta put on clothes, gotta turn on the lights. But then I had a friend who was like, no matter what you do, don't do one a day, like, block them all out in one day. And then I tried it, and I hated it. And doing like, one or two a day. I was like, I can do this. This is easy. So I think you're so right that there is a different kind of work ethics, motivations, personality types, and there probably is, like, a discomfort period of setting the new habit, right? If you're transitioning from just scrolling through x and doing nothing to like, Okay, I'm still gonna be when I go to the bathroom, I guess I'll, I'll still do that, but I'll transition over to Tiktok. You give it a shot for a few weeks, see how the schedule works for you. And then just, you know, go through there. And I like the kind of the insight there of don't try to do like Tiktok at 9am and x at 10am like separate it through the different days, but then also be consistent with it. And then also, like, if that can be your winding down, then great. Like, one of the, one of the very first books I read as a kid was Tom Sawyer, where the the kids, like, he's painting a fence, wine, he doesn't want to do it, and he tells his friend, like, hey, you know what's really fun is painting this fence, and his friends does it instead. And he, like, thinks it's fun, and it's like, that's, you know, one person's pain is another person's pleasure. And so this is great to think about, but I want to make sure, in these last few minutes that we have a focus on these other services that you do. And if someone has a problem, if no one else can help, instead of hiring the a team, you hire you guys who is even better than the A team, as far as I'm concerned. But what is the problem that you guys solve, and how do you stand out?

Paul Counts 22:46 Yeah, the biggest problem is we help people reduce ad spend and increase their profits. I mean, that's the biggest thing right now. Ad spends are going crazy high, and they're so variable. I mean, if you have an election year, they're higher. If you don't have an election year, they could be higher for other reasons. You know, because literally, what people forget about, especially small businesses, 99.9% of businesses out there you're competing against companies with billion dollar ad spends. I mean, that's just what it is. I mean, let's just be honest, and Google and Facebook and all these platforms are going to cater to them. And also those platforms, they don't care. They just have to run traffic. They have to hit their numbers so because it's in their budget, so they don't really focus on conversions. We've worked with publicly traded brands. They're a billion dollar companies, and we've witnessed it, and it's shocking, and they can't believe that we can make a page convert higher. You know, like it blows their mind that we are happy that we can get a page that was converted 2% to convert it 30% you know that that blows their mind, like they can't even fathom that, because that's how their mindset is, right? And so one of the things we do with clients is we come in and typically we cut ad spend dramatically. People think we're nuts. They come in or like, what are you doing? There goes my traffic source. I'm like, no, no, just wait. Give it two, three months, you'll be fine. And then they're fine with it after because they realize, like, Oh, I didn't need to be spending all this money, because most of the time they're spending wasted traffic, right? So our philosophy is FTE Foundation, traffic engagement. So you have to fix the foundation, and you have to do the unsexy stuff like optimize your your title, your optimize the headline, optimize the sub headline, optimize the images, make sure your pages convert. Make sure you're capturing leads on that page. Make sure you're not sending people to a dead offer. You know, like a lot of businesses, there you go to their website, especially small businesses, says, Welcome to our website. I'm like, well, that doesn't do any good. Like nobody wants to do business with you. So, you know, we go back to the basics. We go through customer avatar templates to make sure they know who is your target audience, and what are you trying to reach them with? That's what we do. We pull back the curtains and go back to the basics. And they think we're insane at first, but then it really helps their business, because now, once you know your avatar, every time you go leave a comment on Quora, on Reddit, on all these social media platforms, you now know who exact your exact target market is. So it's easier for. You to focus and dial that in. So that's one of the core things we focus on, is helping people fix their messaging and fix their foundation, so that when you run traffic, you're not wasting that traffic now, and also you don't have to spend as much traffic to get the same results. You're more we're optimizing your business so that you can have a business you're in more control

Robert Plank 25:20 I love it, and that that's so huge, just this idea of going back to the basics, like, I think it's like John Wooden or there's some basketball coach where, like, the beginning of every season, he's like, Hey, this is the basketball. This is what dribbling is. Yeah, it seems silly. But like, so few of us do that in business, going back and saying, like, hey, you know that splash page that you put up there five years ago, when you last updated the headline four years ago. Does that really match up with when you when there's the post on Quora, and someone clicks in your profile and goes to your website, and they opt in for the lead magnet, and they get the emails and they see the offer, does all that match up? Or is it like a hospodge of things? Or do you cringe when you look at, well, I set that up years ago and forgot about, I mean, we're all guilty of that, and it can definitely help to have that outside team looking in, because if you're, if you're so close to it, you've gotten so used to it, you have, I know there's ad blindness, but there's got to be, like, self website blindness as well, just because you've been around it for so long. And so what? What are some next steps here? Like, there's there's marketing counts.com, there's PLR, funnels.com, if someone says, Man, I've gotten some good ideas, and I've gotten, like, a little bit of help. As far as, like, what my problem is, what I should do, but a podcast only gives us a taste. So as far as going to some websites, contacting you, getting help from the source, where should someone go?

Paul Counts 26:40 Yeah, the easiest thing you can email us support@marketingcounts.com we get that email directly. You know, you can ask us any questions, and we can see if we're a good fit. That's probably the easiest way. And then marketingcounts.com will have everything you need as well.

Robert Plank 26:54 Very cool. So marketingcounts.com and support@marketingcounts.com and as we're headed there, I like to try to stand out in the podcasting world. And instead of just saying bye, go to the website, see you later, I like to try to stump my guests a little bit and ask them for a fun quote or lesson that see Paul's already revving his hands. I asked for a fun quarter lesson that has helped you in all your years of experience that you can pass on and help us. So what comes to mind? Maybe both of you, fun quarter lesson.

Paul Counts 27:24 All right, you want me to go?

Shreya Banerjee 27:27 Okay? This has stuck with me for a long, long time. It's from Magic School Bus. Of all things is Miss Frizzle saying, take chances, make mistakes.

Robert Plank 27:38 I love it. And what does Paul have?

Paul Counts 27:39 I got Pete Maravich, basketball player, love never fails, character never quits. And with patience and persistence, dreams do come true. And that's that's probably the biggest one for me. Persistence and patience, like having a business, it can take patience. Everybody wants the fast route to success. Everybody wants the easy button. That's why, you know, I've been in this business 26 years. I started at 13. I'm still here because I've been patient, persistent, and I know people that followed the easy button that are no longer here. So you've got to, you can't just follow the trends, right? Like Robert, you've been here for about as long as I've been here, I think. So, oh, yeah. And that's that's because you, you haven't followed the trends, right? You've stayed consistent and steady and and patient. And, you know, it could be easy to jump to the bright, shiny objects at times and all those things. And so I don't know, persistence and patience are probably the two biggest reasons businesses succeed.

Robert Plank 28:32 I love it. Don't always go the path of least resistance. And even like merging it back with message there is that it's like, it's all about these, these different experiments, right? And these different kind of, like activities and projects and milestones. And that way you don't have to just throw out your business every time you try something new. If you try the Reddit and the Quora traffic sources, you try replacing the paid ads. You try making over the website. It's like, you just do these little experiments. So that way you kind of keep your your core there, but then if something is promising, or if some other traffic sources blowing up, you're like, hey, well, this is adding to my business, but I'm also not remaining stagnant. So there's some very powerful ideas we discussed. So that email was support at marketing counts.com and the website is marketing counts.com so go there right now. You'll be glad you did, because if you got some traffic ideas just from this conversation, imagine what you'll get going to that website, sending that email, having that conversation, getting people actually looking at your website and showing you what's possible, you're going to be completely amazed and get your business to that next level. So super wonderful catching up with both of you and having this fun conversation.

Paul Counts 29:45 Thank you. Robert. Transcribed by https://otter.ai