Interview of Isar Meitis of the E-Tribe Podcast #494

I think we're, I think we're live right now. So, yeah. So, um, you know, my name is Matt Bertram. This is the unknown secrets of internet marketing. I'm one of the co-hosts with Chris Burris. Uh, he is not here today. Uh, but I am filling in as a host, right? And so, uh, I have Isar here, uh, with the E-Tribe podcast. He was so generous to have me on. Um, you know, it was like a month or two ago and we, we had a really good conversation. So I wanted to get you on and, um, you know, share with, uh, my audience a little bit about what, uh, you're doing. So if you could just maybe introduce yourself in a nutshell, uh, and, and then we can kind of get into it, you know? Sure. I would love to nutshell is like 25 minutes, right? How quickly? No, I'm kidding. Um, I, so the accent, I'll start with the accent because people will go crazy with this. I'm originally from Israel. That's where I grew up. I've been in the U S in Florida actually, uh, for the last almost 16 years. Um, I, I'm a startup tech guy from Israel. So I, I did, I'm not a tech guy, tech guy, but I've been in tech startups. So software startups, uh, three already. So I joined one immediately after my military service, been there for a very long time in senior positions. That's how I got to the U S so we opened a U S subsidiary here. So four of us, uh, moved here to start a U S business. Then I started my own startup here, which raised a lot of money and did some very cool things, but couldn't make enough profit to make it survive. And then I started my main investor. The guy that was my main investor in the startup, uh, brought me into his company to, we didn't call it an incubator, but that's what it was. I basically started a small startup within his very large

travel corporate. And that little business did amazing. So we, uh, I was running last minute travel for, for a very long time for like seven or eight years. And then the bigger company got sold together with my part of the business. And then in the last two years I've been investing, consulting, doing the blog, the podcast, uh, helping a lot of other entrepreneurs in different ways. Uh, it's been fun. So that's on a nutshell. Yeah, no, like I, I, I know that every conference that I've been to, when I run into Israeli startups, like they're always doing some kind of cool tech, um, like 3d modeling drone stuff. Like I've like, I mean it automation, like all this, like really, really cool stuff. So every time I, I run across Israeli entrepreneurs, it's, it's always military based, right. Or some kind of military application. Uh, and then, uh, it's really, really advanced, really cool stuff. So, uh, it's, it's great to have you on here. Um, you know, like it was crazy. Like, so, so we both were part of the gainest book of world records for pop this, right. You know, like the, no, I guess it's not an attempt. We like, we won, right. Yeah, we did it. We got the badge. Yeah. That, that, that, that was cool, man. Um, tell me, tell me about, about your experience with it. Listen to me, it was incredible because my, you know, my first time being exposed to podfest was the, the live event that happened in March. And I came in as like a nobody and, you know, just network. I love networking. I just enjoy so much meeting interesting people and working with them. And so I hooked up with a lot of really interesting people. Uh, one of them is now became my partner in starting a business, which is again, just incredible, but you know, you get involved with the right people and you share the right knowledge. And so they invited me to speak the next time around. I'm

like, Oh my God, I get to speak on podfest. And it was just nobody in the last conference. And then this whole thing became, Oh, let's break the world record. So I think it was very, very unique. I think the fact that they were able to pull this off as quickly as they could, you know, Chris, Chris Kermitsos again, I, I stand and salute, uh, going back to my military background, you know, in, in eight weeks, the guy went from nothing to breaking a world record with over 5,000 attendees on a podcast thing. It was amazing. I mean, you like it. I mean, what was your experience? No, I say same thing. I mean, I, you know, so I was encouraged by a friend to, to go to podfest because, um, we've actually been pod podcasting for a long time. Um, didn't, didn't really look at it as like a business per se, right? Like it was kind of a marketing channel and, and I really thought it would be valuable to understand it as an industry, as it was growing rather rapidly, uh, to better understand what people were doing and, and, you know, meet some of the influencers in the industry. And I walked away with a ton of knowledge, loved it, was looking forward to going back next year. Like really like we left when like Corona, like it was like the last conference I think of like the entire like year, like, honestly we were leaving and like, it was just like COVID was popping up everywhere. It was crazy. No, it was nuts. I mean, I, I mean, it was so weird because people kind of already knew that it's happening. So it was, but you know, it's a podcasting conference. So it's like a huggy KC kind of environment. And a lot of people know, and it's like every person you approach, you weren't sure. Do you hug them? Do you shake their hand? Do you do an elbow thing? Do you just say like, it was really a

weird, and I agree with you. It was really strange. Well, I mean, like by the, like I was fine really, like I knew it was kind of going on, but like the last day or two of the conference, I was like, and then in Florida, it started like picking up really bad. I was like, Oh dang, like, this is like all happening around us. Like, are we going to get stuck here? Like, I didn't know what was going to happen. And, uh, it was, I mean, it was just awesome. And so, so yeah, I stayed in touch with a lot of people and, you know, got asked to speak and, um, you know, like it was, it was great. And really, um, like, I'll tell you the experience of, of talking, um, like it was great. Okay. But the thing that like, I can't believe happened to me is literally five minutes before I went on my computer crapped out. Oh my God. Like, and so I'm in the office, I have my tech guy right there. He's like trying to fix it. Um, he's like, use my computer. I'm like, like, we don't have time. Like, so I just like pull everything out. Cause it's on like a base station, multiple monitors, everything. And then like the computer I have at work, so a little bit older. So it's, has got a microphone that like points up your nose kind of thing. And like, and so like, I'm like, like, I don't even have a mouse and I'm just like trying to, trying to go through it. Cause I wanted to have the slides pulled up on the side so I could kind of see what was coming out and then like jump into it. Like, I'm, I'm just lucky. Like it happened honestly. Like it was like, like I, but I did send in like the, the prerecorded like practice. Like I did one run through that. Like I, it was just like, basically like, yeah, I need to add this slide in

here. Like I'm talking through it and everything. And I was just about to tell him like, you got to use that. Like, sorry, you know? And, um, but it, but it, so it worked out, but it was, it was quite stressful when it shouldn't have been, you know what I mean? So that, that, that was quite memorable. And then, you know, the thing that I think I liked the most about Podfest was how they organize it, where you interact with people. And they did that on that, like follow-up call, like where we were getting cut into like little different groups. And I, I continue to meet some really cool people like other speakers and stuff. And like, I think it's just the community is the coolest thing about, about Podfest and everybody's not competitive and everybody's, you know, doing their own thing. So I thought, thought it was, it was quite awesome. Um, yeah, man. So, so, so tell me, okay. So tell me the experience. So recently, right. Recently. So COVID hit, lost a bunch of business, right? Everybody was just like going down the line. I'm like, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. And a lot of those clients did come back, but I mean, because everybody didn't know what was going on, you know? So I started looking at our business model and, um, I go, you know, I'm on, I'm on the wrong side of like the, like, you know, like, like the line, I don't know exactly how to explain it, but I'm like, I know I'm on the wrong side. Cause I'm outside the like circle. And I talk about in my book, like the trusted advisor. And so I was just a third party vendor offering like web services, SEO, whatever. And, and so that, that's something that like, you know, like, uh, I guess it's like, uh, hiring or employees get cut. Right. And then like, and then, and then marketing gets cut, like, and you just go down the list. And so I said, I want to

be on the other side of the ledger. Right. And so, so I just actually did this deal, uh, with, with the, uh, a franchisee, um, that, that that's in the oil space that I I'm super excited about. Cause I, I have some, some experience in oil and I'm coming in as like fractional CMO and it's, it's a, it's a marketing deal. Right. But I'm getting, they don't have any online sales. Cause it's like oil and gas is like old school. So then I'm going to get a percentage of profit of, of all sales. And, and then, and then also there's this equity component cause he wants to, like, he has an exit already designed in like five years. Like he's super aggressive. He's well-funded. Like it just, it just made sense to say, Hey, I know you need marketing, but it sounds like you don't, you don't have like a fractional CMO. You don't have anybody to, to kind of help direct some of these things. And there's a lot of moving parts. And, and, and so, so I was able to kind of, and, and a lot of my listeners, so, you know, um, are, uh, DYI internet marketers, you know, entrepreneurs, um, you know, also some people at bigger companies, but like really this was the first deal that I structured that, that, that I'm really getting involved with the business. Cause it was exciting to me. Um, I, I liked the people I was going to be working with. There was some really well funding components to it. And, and, and I wanted, I wanted to, to lock in a longer term contract. So it was like 18 month contract and then, you know, with, with, with an out and then the option to keep going. Right. And so, um, you know, and that, this was like in the middle of COVID, right. You know? And so I'm like locked in like this big contract, like little different component to it, how, how I structured it. But, but you and I were

talking kind of in, in the green room about you structure these deals a lot like this. And I think a lot of people listening, um, that, that are, that are internet marketers are probably hearing what I'm saying and going, Hmm, that's, that's kind of interesting. Tell me more a little bit about that. And, and, and I know you have a lot more experience in that kind of thing. And I want to hear kind of how you do it. Right. And then we can like maybe apply it to, to what we're doing on, on the digital side, you know? Sure. Listen, I, I love what you're saying because I think I'll, I'll go two steps back and I'll tell you how I got to that mindset. So when I was running last minute travel, it was a really large organization. Meaning I, I, we did on the year we sold the company, we did a hundred million dollars in revenue. I had a marketing department, a call center, BD people, account managers, you know, the whole, it was a company, like a really big company. Um, and when you're in that situation, everybody wants to sell you stuff, especially like new startups in marketing. We have this new thing for social media. We have this new thing for engagement. We have this. And I told all of them, I'm like, listen, I have a marketing budget that is unlimited. If you bring me results, I'll, there's no upper cap, right? I don't care. But since you're telling me you have this amazing tool and you can do this and you can do that, I will do whatever you say on a revenue share. Like I'm not paying you any retainer because we can both make a lot of money, a lot of money. I literally no upper limit. And there were actually people that I work with that. I wrote them checks every month for 200, $300,000 a month for marketing because they were bringing me more. So why do we know each other? Like, yeah,

yeah, yeah, I know. No, I'm serious. That's, that was the budget, right? We, and so we, but people come to me and say, no, no, no, no, no. We only work on retainer. So if you, if you're telling me that you have this amazing system that gets this and that kind of return, click-through rate conversions, et cetera, but you're not willing to work on rev share when I'm telling you there's no upper limit, it means you don't trust your own system. That's all it tells me, right? If I'm telling you, forget about me paying you $2,000 a month, I'll pay you 50,000. Just prove that you. Well, Rick, I can tell you that, that, that I learned early on that you really got to select the right businesses to work with because I actually have this one client that like, and, and, okay. So like, I, I wasn't looking at a lot of those things going into it. Like, can they scale? Like have the, do they have the ability of capacity if it's increased? You know, just everybody wants more capacity or, or more sales, more sales, but they, they, some of them can't handle the business. So I had a, a remodeler that, that came to me and I didn't ask the right questions. He, he actually only did like five houses a year. Okay. And so he's like, I want all this SEO and blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of stuff. And, and how SEO works is like, you know, your video about SEO when I was on yours, by the way. So everybody, you should go check that out. But, but, but, but essentially it starts local, regional, national, right? So, so I started ranking him for the terms he wanted, like whole home remodeling, all that kind of stuff. And we're in Houston and he wanted like the upper, you know, high-end homes, whatever he was ranking first position all the way in new Orleans. Okay. So everybody from here to new Orleans in a circumference around Houston

was calling him. And he was like, he got angry and, and like, I had to, we had to build all these different forms. We had to like have all these like checks and approvals. And so there's a problem on the flip side when you get too much business. And, and ultimately we're still managing his website and we do little changes for him, but he had to stop. He literally had to stop marketing. I've had some other clients have to do that too. It's because they can't handle the capacity. And, and, you know, that's, that's probably one of the biggest things that I've learned is that you got to pick the right companies that, that have that vision, but also can, can, can get there with some help. And, or, or if all they really need is more sales, then it, then it becomes really straightforward, right. Or, or more marketing. And, but a lot of businesses that they don't focus on the operations. And when they're a smaller operation, you don't have to have so many standard operating procedures and like everything that you would need. Right. I mean, it, that's just been my big, big kind of takeaway over the, probably like, like about three years ago, I learned that. And like, it changed the way I did business and prospect and, and decided to even accept clients because I needed to ask those kinds of questions. Right. So. Yeah, no. So I, I think it connects very well to what you said before. So now, now I'll flip it over. Right. So now I'm on the other side of the fence. I come into companies and I offer my services. And again, I've been to three different startups, three different industries worked in Europe, in Israel, here in Australia. Like I've, I have some experience that is valuable to startups to understand how to scale and grow a business. And I'm, I'm looking at it now from the other side of the equation. I'm saying, you know what? I don't want to come

in for a six months retainer because it's not worth my time. I'm not saying that to be arrogant. I'm just saying the whole concept of short-term retainer based business doesn't make sense to both sides, because if I come in for six months and then in three months, I got to look for the next client. So I, because I know this one might go away, then I'm only really servicing for three months. And then in the next three months, I'm focusing on finding the next client and, and, and I'm not committing to anything. Right. So they're going to pay me a lot of money. So whatever, you know, five, 10, $20,000 a month, but then I don't make any more money moving into the future, even if I help them tremendously. But the flip side is if I haven't done nothing, they still have to pay me for those six months. So I always look at deals. Like you just said, I'm like, I'm willing to come in as an investor, as a partner, as a board member. And I do all of these things in different startups, in different hats. And, and some of them are actually even not startups. They're like bigger companies, but I'm doing this with percentages of the sales. And I'm doing this with equity always, or at least for those who are like, okay, we don't have equity. Like we don't have a mechanism to give away equity to anybody. None of our employees get equity. I'm like, okay, then we're doing a revenue share. But from the moment we stop, I'm still a part of the revenue share for the next two years from the clients that I bring. Right. So for the value that I bring to the company, I want to get, and if you don't want to pay me a retainer, depending on the company. And in many cases, what I've learned, by the way, is that you need to ask for a retainer just for their commitment. Because otherwise they're like, oh, okay, you do

your thing. I'm like, I'm like, no, I, you're going to pay me because otherwise you don't have, you don't have skin in the game. As the company, which sounds stupid, but we've done a few deals and they're like, people are like, did nothing that we asked them. So we do, I do what you said. I'm like, I want to make sure you can scale. If I don't think you can, I'll make suggestions to see if you're willing to accept them. So I'll give you, I'll give you a practical example because I like doing this when I host people. I'll make this very practical for you. So there's a company that I work with. They make very high-end LED solutions and they do huge projects. I'm talking like hospitals, complete renovations of whole facilities. They do Disney Universal. They're here in town. So they do like these gigantic projects. Yeah. But that's so tough to do because you're bidding against, I don't know how many people you get this fraction of the work together with 20,000 other contractors. And then you're constantly chasing projects. I'm like, stop, let's start building products. Let's take the knowledge that you have and build products and then find other people that can use it in projects. And they're like, oh, okay, let's do this. So we're in this process of creating products from the projects that they've did. So from the knowledge and now selling it to other people and let them worry about chasing projects. So now we're in the opportunity to make more money, working a lot less, not doing designs and bidding and all that stuff. All this goes away and we'll keep on doing those. We'll just do the really big lucrative ones instead of all the small ones. So now the structure of the company has changed. The focus of the company have changed. It's scalable because you cannot scale projects. It's not scalable. I mean, it is. Now you just hire 20 more people for six months and then you've got to rehire. It's

just a mess. Yeah. So this way we, you know, we, we change the structure of the company to allow it to scale going back to your problem. And, and then it made sense for me to come in as a partner, as a consultant, uh, help them structure their marketing, help them structure business relationships and, and we're in the right track to make some very interesting things. So I agree with you a hundred percent. It's, it's a combination of figuring out the right business, meaning, is it the right partnership to even go into, but if it is the right partnership, meaning if the other side is willing to listen. And I had those who didn't, they're like, yeah, we want you in, we want you in, we want you in, but they, they really like listening to you, but they don't apply anything that you say. And I'm like, you know, guys, I'm out. It's not going to work. So yeah, I think, I think you're, you're on the right path with your new contract. I think that's the right direction. Yeah. You know, I mean, like, like I'm committing, I'm committing, you know, I'm, I'm only committing five hours a month, right? Like, or up to five hours a month. And you know, if they need more, like it's billable. Um, but this was, there was a lot that went into like scoping up like the scope of work for, for this thing. Like you were talking about, like, I didn't, I didn't think about it. Like, I don't know how, like, I was trying to negotiate like, uh, like a strike price at what the company's worth now. Right. And I brought in a investment banking buddy of mine to like, help me get that component set up. But like on the sales component, like, you know, residual after I leave. Right. Because really that that's even the thing too, with like SEO, right. So we do SEO and it's not like ads that you turn them off and boom, like it's done. And

the thing about ads though, too, is you, you build a campaign that works. It is a digital asset, right? But SEO has this huge multiple of, of return. Like I had this, uh, uh, another client that was, it was a huge law firm. Uh, and, and they, they hired me to do bankruptcy, but they had all these other lawyers and I got them ranking first position for bankruptcy, the city, uh, in six months, first position, they had, the phone was ringing off the hook. They couldn't handle it. They, they said, Hey, we're going to work like, we can't, we can't handle this. We got to let you go. We'll, we'll, we'll bring you back later on. Right. And, and, and the, the, the thing about it is they were still in first position and then second and then third and then fourth for a year after that, right. Think about like what they paid and then divide that over 24 months or whatever, where they're still getting all the business. Um, a lot of clients in COVID, um, you know, left and they were spending good money on, on SEO and SEO is kind of like, it's like a, a glider, right? It glides up there, kind of stays in the Gulf stream and then it'll start to like, glide back down based on what other people are doing. Um, but I mean the, the ROI on it after it's like, it's like, it's like real estate almost that you own, right? Yeah, no, absolutely. You lose it, but, but you own it. And, and after you've done, after you stop paying. And so the, the multiples on SEO or the return on investment, like I can't even calculate how, how much money's been generated, um, for clients, you know, and to capture like two years on the back end, I think really smart, you know? No, absolutely. I think, listen, especially with what you do that, like you're saying, it's not an evergreen asset, but it's probably as close as it gets to being

an evergreen asset in digital, in the digital world. Uh, listen, I'm not an SEO expert. I, I am a baby in SEO. I know very little, uh, but I do the right things and I invest probably more time than I should. I probably should hire you or somebody to do it for me. Uh, but I invest in it. Meaning every, um, every interview that I do turns into content generation. Like you're definitely doing content generation. I'm looking at your site. It's not just that I'm doing content generation. Every content generation starts with, okay, which keywords I want to go after? What are these keywords? What other keywords I need to touch? What do I want to? So I do the interview kind of like with that mindset already in place, but then the article that I write, it's not just the notes from, from the interview, which a lot of people do. I write a proper article that is based on SEO that is using a lot of SEO tools and what I see, and it's amazing. It's, you know, I've been doing this for four or five months. So not a very long time and slowly, but surely your organic traffic is growing and it's grew from zero six months ago to 30, 40 people a day today. And it's not a lot, but it's 30, 40 people that I see my content without me doing anything other than every week paying a little attention to what I do and how I do it. And again, I'm not an expert by any means. I do the very, very basic, but it's working. Well, so many people don't even do the basics, right? So many people don't have a plan, right? That's why the strategy, the SEO strategy, setting the strategy and understanding what you need to do is so important, right? And so, you know, we break it up into like, we do the strategy, right? And then, and then if you want the fulfillment or the execution, we'll do that too. But, but

there's separate things, right? And there's a lot of things that you know how to do that. You don't need me to do. I might, you might need to hire someone like me to do heavy lifting now and then, but if you understand what that strategy is, you and your team can implement it on your own. And, and it's going to, it's going to work because you're competing against everybody else in your space. And like how many people are doing the right thing? Like, you know what I mean? Like how many people are like, so that, that was actually what my talk was at podfest was how SEO and, and podcasting, like how, how do you utilize it? Taking the, the, you know, the transcript, right. And then, uh, converting that into a proper article that Google understands people can read. It's not just, you know, back and forth. Um, you know, because, cause that's what Google's like, liking to give people is, um, consumable content that they can understand and H1s, H2s, all that kind of stuff. And so, um, it's really important that, you know, out of everybody podcasting, like how many people are doing that? Right. Like, very few. Right. And, and I think that like taking video content and then audio content, and then, you know, like, like splintering it, it's called like social splintering, I guess is what digital marketer calls it, but basically pushing it out there on all these different channels, having kind of little blurbs of like, like little, little tidbits of like what's going on soundbites, I guess is the right word. And, and, you know, there's so many different things you can, you can turn it into an infographic, you know, like there's, there, there's a lot that, that people are doing and it's all about like, just have the process and then do it and be consistent. Right. And I think that those are some of the, the key things that, that, uh, if people did that, they could take a lot away from it.

Right. No, I agree with you a hundred percent. Like I said, I, I don't even use the transcripts other than I just post them and that's it. But I write an actual article that is obviously connected somewhat to what happened in the conversation, meaning it's the same topic, same concepts, but I, but it's keyword based written correctly. Now I don't do a lot of other stuff I need to do. So no backlinks, no, you know, all the stuff that you have to do. What you're saying is cause I don't, I don't do that and I should. Okay. I don't, but you're going to do that for this podcast and you're going to like show me how it's done and then I'll SEO it. Right. Yeah, sure. For sure. Well, that would be the day that I'm teaching you SEO, Matt. That would be, uh, no, no, like I understand it. Okay. Like the execution, like my team's busy. Like, so, so a lot of the stuff that I have to get done, like I, I have to do it. So I do a lot of like our company's SEO, um, you know, and then I step in on, on, on different clients and we have some publicly traded companies. And so like, like I'm involved, but on the like day to day, like it's, it's very hard. And like, we really, like, I don't know if you've heard the term, uh, the cobbler's kids have no shoes, you know, like I can tell you that COVID it's actually been really good for us because we lost like 77% of our business. Like, I mean, a lot of it came back, but like, I was like, ah, what are we going to do now? Right. And so I just took all the resources that I had and I focused them internally. And we actually rebranded the company because we were e-web results and, and the little e before everything like was a little dated. And so, you know, we changed it to EWR digital and launched

a new website and redid the best SEO podcast, uh, .com website. And like, so I took all that time to focus internally. I started doing SEO on our, our own stuff. Like, and so it was, it was really quite helpful to kind of have a break before things started to pick back up again. And, and, and, you know, so, so it's kind of tongue in cheek, but it's really serious. Like a lot of times you're moving so fast, taking care of clients for sure. You, you, you got to take a step back and put your own gas mask on. You said you flew jets, right? Right. You flew jets. I did. I flew jets. I, I had the amazing opportunity to fly F-16s for the air force. And it was, it was amazing. It was amazing on so many different aspects. You know, people say, Oh my God, you flew fast. You pulled G's. I'm like, yeah, but it's, it's not that it's, it's the, the mindsets and the strategies and the concepts that stay with you for life, because you'll be doing this day in, day out for 10 years. That's what really matters beyond the fun. You want your dog fighting in the jets, like a little, little mock trials. I mean, that is cool. Like the Israelis, like you all have to go through, right. You all have two years or four years of like, like, like you have to serve, right? Yeah. So everybody serves, uh, we, from the age of 18, both guys and girls, uh, joined the, uh, the military. Uh, I'm not sure what it is now because they keep changing it back and forth based on the government budgets, but it's roughly around three years for guys and two for girls. Uh, but if you, if you're like me and you end up, uh, joining the air force and becoming a pilot, then you sign up, you sign up for eight years. So I, uh, train you and then correct. Uh, so yeah, it was, it was

incredible. You know, the amount of business related learnings that you get from, from being a fighter pilot, or I, you know what? I would say that any combat military teaches you so many things that, that you take for life. It's not something it's, it becomes a part of my DNA, right? It's who I am today. Yeah, no, I, I, I read a book, uh, Chris had recommended to me called it. I think it's called extreme leadership with like Jocko something. Um, he was actually on Joe Rogan show recently. And, uh, is he like, you know, he consults with like, uh, leadership and, and, and, and things because you don't want to be like a, uh, like, like, like he just goes into companies and helps them kind of build their culture and, uh, you know, train leaders and that sort of thing. And he was talking about like how people are dealing with like COVID and, and all that sort of thing. Um, you know, to kind of switch gears, uh, for a second, uh, I wanted to make sure we got in today, um, what you're currently doing and, and, and a little bit about your podcast. Um, you know, one of the things that I saw, okay. When COVID hit, okay. Was, um, there was this huge shift, right. As people were getting laid off out of work, like their job wasn't as stable of, of doing like a side hustle or side gig or starting their own. Uh, like, I'm, I don't know how many people that I know that have been in corporate jobs for forever are now starting some kind of side company or, you know, want to get my opinion on this or that or whatever. And, you know, it's funny. I was like, I recommended them my book. I was like, you know, go read the, uh, there we go. You kind of know, but basically build your brand mania. I like say, look, this is everything about three years ago that, that I knew is like, I'd

read 50 different books. I've been working with all these different clients. Like I tried to put all kinds of case studies and encapsulate everything into that. And there was this huge growth, even in search volume, right. Of like certain services for clients just dwindling. Okay. Like dwindling, uh, like, like DWI lawyer, like no one's like, no one's driving. Right. Um, you know, pressure washing is like way down. Like there's certain like that, that, that people don't need anymore. Right. Um, and, and you, you, you can really see that in the search strategy, but what I saw is this huge growth in like, do it yourself and, and start your own business and, you know, make money online and like all these sorts of things. And so like you were talking about previously, like productizing your services and we'd kind of already started that process. Cause like big bespoke, like stuff, you can only do so much of it based on like the bench of talent that, that you have to do it well, but you can productize stuff and you can, you can increase capacity, but, but also like, you know, looking at like info products and like just personal branding altogether is so important at a company. Um, and then on your own in today's market, like this new economy. Right. And so, you know, I saw that trend, but it's, it's been, it's been put on steroids with COVID, right. It's just like massive. And, and, and we were talking about, um, kind of you, you looking at that space too, and seeing some opportunity and demand there. Can you talk a little bit about, about, about that? Yeah, certainly. So, you know, tell me about your podcast, tell everybody about your podcast. Okay. So the podcast is actually interesting because I'm, I'm in the process of, so the, the podcast I'm running today is called the E tribe going back to losing the E. I actually liked the E, but, uh, it was, it was actually really funny because my background again

is e-commerce. I, I ran pretty large e-commerce company before that. And so I, I own, you probably like me if you, and I, you know, we don't know each other a lot, but we know enough. You probably own like 50 different domains because every time you had an idea, I'm like, Oh my God, this is what I'm going to do next. So I own e-commerce.org. And I said, okay, this is the time I'm going to be e-commerce.org. But then I'm like, you know what? I don't want to be just e-commerce. I'm a lot more an entrepreneurship kind of guy, startup kind of guy, scaling companies kind of guy than just e-commerce. So I'm like, okay, it's e-commerce and experts and entrepreneurship. It all starts with an E. So then I'm like, okay, what I'm going to do with this. And a lot of people talking about building your tribe. So that's how I started the E tribe. And it, and it really came out of a place of helping more people because I'm in, in these companies that I'm involved in personally, it's like, you know, I give these two hours and these three hours, but I'm like, how can I get to thousands of people? And the initial thing was write a blog. And I'm like, I couldn't get the mojo of writing. And then I'm saying, what if I interview people? I really enjoy doing this. So that's how it kind of all happened. And I, I love listening to podcasts. So I, so that's how I started the E tribe podcast. And it's been amazing. So the amount of doors and business opportunities and relationships and very interesting people that I got to meet because I host a podcast is incredible. It's really nothing short of incredible. It's nothing. It's so above and beyond what I ever imagined before I started doing this. So, so that's the E tribe podcast. What I'm doing right now is I'm actually in the process of putting together a company that is actually already working, even

though it doesn't have a name and a structure, but we already have a few clients, uh, of helping companies. So startups and established companies, mostly in the B2B service field, because that's where the demand is just endless of putting together. And it's not just a podcast. It's the whole infrastructure on how to create a podcast as a way to bring in your ultimate dream clients. And so it's the whole, how do you find the right people? How do you bring them in? How do you set it up? How do you prepare them for the interview? And how do you switch from an interview scenario to now we get to know each other on a very informal basis that nobody else will let you do? Like you cannot call a CEO of a company and just have a chat. But if you bring him to your podcast, like, Oh yeah, I'll chat with you for an hour. So that barrier goes away and it becomes a real human relationship. It's not salesy. It's two people with similar interests, with relevant backgrounds that are having a very interesting conversation like you and I are having right now. And the chances of me hiring you as my SEO guy, as a result of this are dramatically higher. And if you set it up correctly, it skyrockets. But then there's the backend of this, right? So how do I set it up? How are the follow-ups? So all this infrastructure, which integrates so many aspects of marketing and automation and VAs and all these things that if I'm a legal firm, there is no way on earth I'm doing this on my own because I'm a law firm or a bank or a doctor's office or whatever. But if somebody is going to hand me this on a silver platter and all I have to give them is rev share from the revenue of new revenue that I don't have right now, uh, is magical. So every time I talk to somebody and tell them this, like, okay, we

want in. I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm doing this. So that's why we already have clients. No, literally I have clients. You have to follow this application, right? The funny story is we were not ready to onboard clients. And so many people said, I don't care. I want to be the beta. Like, I know it's not perfect. I want in, I want to. So we already have like a fluke on slide. I have, I have another conversation today with another potential client. I have one next week. So it's just growing organically without us even, you know, completely having everything tailored. So it's working because we have clients live. So we have clients who do this, like this kind of live shows on weekly basis with all the content getting repurposed and sent out there and they're getting amazing results. So they're now, okay, how can we do more? I'm like, so we're now in the process of going back to what I know how to do of creating all the SOPs and all the processes and all the structures and all the systems and automations all in place. So we can scale. So our clients can scale. So that's where I'm at. So the podcast is going to be called something else. I'm still not a hundred percent sure on the name. I'll be happy to get your feedback or if people are listening and want to write to me. So I'm kind of debating between the business accelerator. Okay. I like it. To the business growth accelerator to just the growth accelerator, which I actually like the most. Well, you know, like if you want to go the Facebook route, just Facebook. I was trying to go there, but all these are already taken in a podcast by somebody. I think the podcast needs to say what it is you do really, really clearly. Like that has to be communicated because, you know, when people are looking for something, that's why I named my book, build your brand mania, because people

are searching for keyword research, build your brand. Right. Like, so, so, so, so, and, and it needs to, it needs to just, they need to know what, what it is and, you know, two seconds or less. I think any of those are good, but it's like, how do you differentiate between something else? Like I decided personally, like, I'm not saying it was the right decision, but I was like mania. People will remember that. Like people remember that word. So something memorable, but there's all these books about build your brand. But if I say build your brand mania, people are like, okay, I I'll remember that. So, so I think, you know, some, something memorable, memorable, all those three sounded very similar to me. And I think they're all good. Um, but, but maybe, you know, some kind of wow factor, um, you know, or something to catch their attention might be good. I don't, I don't know. That's my, my quick feedback. Um, I actually, uh, uh, am late for another call. I have to run. Um, how, how, how can people, if they want to get in touch with you, get in touch with you and then I want you to send me some links and I'll, I'll get those posted as well. Yeah. So first of all, for now, go and check out the e-tribe.com with the, the, in the beginning. So the e-tribe.com. No, no, no, no, no. Just the e-tribe.com. Uh, and then if you want to find a podcast, it's also called the e-tribe. So if you just go on any podcasting platform and search the e-tribe, you'll find me or go to obviously the e-tribe.com forward slash podcast that will work as well. Uh, as far as finding me personally, my name is Isar Maitis. So if you go on any platform out there, but preferably LinkedIn, that's where I'm most active and look for Isar Maitis. There's only one, it's a huge benefit. Go on LinkedIn and search I-S-A-R and Maitis is my last name, M-E-I-T-I-S. And you'll

be able to find me and I'm very active and I respond and I like connecting with people. So, uh, go ahead. I'll, I'll, I would love to talk to you. Awesome. All right. So, so last words of parting advice, like what, what, what is like the biggest thing over all your experience that you've learned that you can distill down into like a sentence or something that you can just share, share with everybody, like words of wisdom kind of thing. Wow. Okay. I'll say a few things. One is your team is everything. If you build the right team around you of people that are smarter than you and better than you, it doesn't have to be on everything, but on specific things you want them to focus on, uh, you're on the right path for success. Two is kind of like an extension of this in today's era. Networking is everything. It's more important than probably anything else you're going to do to grow your business. And people like, yeah, I'll get to it when I get, no, this is like number one, because that's going to get you the right connections that will enable you to, to make a quantum leap and not small steps forward. And three is look for what's stopping you from scaling. Look inside your business. Stop for a second. Look inside your business and saying, okay, what are the bottlenecks that are preventing me from growing right now? Map them out, have a list. One, two, three, four, and then start building a plan on how to tackle them from big to small, right? If your biggest problem is I don't have enough clients. Okay. How do you, who is your client? So many companies know you're, you're a marketer. So you know that you're like, I need a persona. I need to know who I'm marketing to. So many people don't have a clue. They're like, they have a company, they sell products. I'm like, okay, but who, who are you selling this to? Ah, this, this, this, this,

this, this, this, and that. Okay. Let's, let's try to paint it somehow. So find out what it is. That is the biggest showstoppers, the things that are bottlenecks that are slowing your growth and then figure out a way to tackle them. And it's perfectly fine to say, I don't have a clue. Hire somebody to tackle them, spend the money, invest in your business so you can, so you can grow it because people are so running in circles, just trying to do what they've been doing for the last five years to barely make money. You're going to keep on barely making money. Nothing surprising is going to happen suddenly. Awesome. Well, Izar, thank you so much. It was great having you on. We'll be in touch and appreciate it. Matt, this was phenomenal. Thank you so much. I had a lot of fun. All right. Have a good one. Bye. Bye.