676 – Local search is where it’s at: Tom interviews Stormy Knight

Episode 676 – Stormy Knight
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 676 of Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Stormy Knight, and I did confirm that that is her real name because I didn't believe it until she told me the story of it. But we'll have her tell you how it came about. And I love the people who've been in the game almost as long as I have. I started in 1994 selling online and she, I think is 95 or something like that.

[00:00:53] That's right.

[00:00:53] That's been around a long time. Seen a lot of stuff come and go, that's for sure. But she's going to talk about search engine optimization, which people listening to this show know I have ragged against for years. But she concentrates on local SEO and reputation management and those kinds of things, which absolutely if you're going to do something local, which I want you to expand your local business using digital products so you can bring in extra cash flow. But if you are in a local business, you need to know about the things that she's going to talk about today. And one of the you know, she speaks about this stuff and one of the testimonials of her speeches is that it says, and I quote, Stormy did a good job of providing a balanced point of view. Both the pros and cons were discussed, and that's the whole thing, because you get these people hyping up stuff, Oh, this is the greatest dog poop ever. And you know, we can really get your dog poop selling well with. And so my my old saying is, is that you can pour sugar all day long on dog poop and it will not turn into candy. So. So she's going to give us a fair look of what you have to do and what you don't have to do and what it's how much trouble you got to go through to get found in local search and keep your reputation up while you're at it. And then we'll talk about some specialized software service she has about getting reviews, which are critical nowadays when people are making the purchase decisions.

[00:02:28] So we'll bring her on in a minute. Now, I hope you miss episode 675. As you know, I have been taking you on my journey into Ticktalk and so far I have not been kidnapped and put into child slavery. So apparently that's a good thing. But I don't know. They might be coming after me. I'm not big enough on Ticktalk yet, but we'll see. So episode 675 I told you about some of the techniques I've been learning about. I've been taking advanced courses for about a month now and making some great inroads on that. All right. And I want to thank the folks helping us out with Patreon, which is our Sony kind of a donation service, thanking us for the good content we put out here. But I'm not taking any of the money for myself. It's all everything. But the Patreon fees are going to fund the scholarship program we have for persons with disabilities. So we started as little as $3 a month. And I mean, we've got hundreds of training episodes and it's through the community slash training and then probably 400 or more interviews with great people like Stormy, and we'd love for your help with that. So you can go to screwthecommute.com/patreon and kick in whatever you want. We have a lot of perks there for you now. I hope you didn't forget to download a copy of our automation e-book. This just one of the tips in this book has saved me over.

[00:03:54] We we actually estimated like 8 million keystrokes over the past many years. So so check that out. So we sell for 27 bucks, but it's yours free for listening to the show that's through screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And while you're at it take get a copy of our podcast app it's screwthecommute.com/app. Put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:04:21] All right. Let's get to the main event. We've got Stormy Knight here. She's got 27 years of experience in search engine optimization. She has distilled all of her experience down to the simple basics that any small business person can understand. And I've listened to her on some of the other shows, and and she understands that what she talks about could glaze over your eyeballs, you know, So she she she makes it she's not the typical propeller head, which I just bought a new propeller head hat that I'm going to use in my and some of my TikTok videos because we have techno geeks and propeller heads. We lovingly call these folks that she's worked as a speaker for the launch program for Google, My business, which has changed its name recently. So. Some highly paid executives could make their worth. I guess I don't know why they do this, saying that she knows small business owners want the information that's understandable and implementable. So Stormy, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:05:23] You all right? How are you doing there, Stormy?

[00:05:26] Good. I'm doing really good today.

[00:05:28] It's awesome. So now, in all this stuff I was looking at and all the search engines, you remember from back in the day, and I remember you left out one. Ask Jeeves. You remember.

[00:05:39] That? Yes. Yes, I do. Yes, I do remember asking you.

[00:05:43] Ask Jeeves, folks, was something that you were supposed to be able to ask them in a normal question and get the answer from Jeeves The Butler.

[00:05:51] Yeah. And I mean, that was a major that was a major step forward.

[00:05:55] Yeah. I mean.

[00:05:56] Usability.

[00:05:57] I say I remember I was taught by what was I don't know if you knew the guy or not, but he was considered one of the best of the best in the day is Michael Campbell. And he he could get all ten positions and AltaVista for himself and his clients. And AltaVista actually called him up and said, Hey, Michael, come on. You know, he wasn't cheating or doing anything bad. He's just he could beat the system because the system wasn't much in those days, right?

[00:06:22] Yeah. I mean, you could basically, if you wanted to do well for London, you could type London a lot of times on a single page. Right. Chances are good you could be in the top ten.

[00:06:31] And you could hide it in and make it the same color as the.

[00:06:35] Background.

[00:06:37] Things. Things that I still hear people talking about, stuff today that would just totally get you banned like 20 years ago. And there's still try to, but but you got into it in an interesting fashion. Tell them how you came about getting into this line of work.

[00:06:54] Well, the first thing was I wanted to be a travel agent, and we started a website called Bargain Travel and Selling and consolidated Airline tickets. And right after we did that, we went to a trade show and Google had a booth and the two founders were manning the booth. And so we said, We never heard of your search engine. And they said, Oh, it's going to be a really big search engine. And here's what you need to do to, you know, to do well in our search engine. And so we went back and and did what they told us to do. And we were number one for consolidated airline tickets for years and years until we sold it, I guess about roughly ten years later, 12 years later. And that helped. That was that bought us a house. So, yeah, that was how we got into SEO, just trying to do well for ourselves. And as we started to go, Well, we're going to sell this property. What should we do? We said, Well, we know search engine optimization because we've been doing it on our own properties and we didn't then we'd been in web development other than that, and as we went along, that's what we ended up doing. And then we went into local more because the impact when you do SEO, as we discuss right before the podcast, you really are dealing with a lot of different moving parts and they change all the time. So it's a it's a tough race, but Google has to be more simple for local because business people don't have time to chase SEO. So there's they've tried to make it as simple as they possibly can, which is to consolidate all the information for local businesses inside of their Google business profiles.

[00:08:45] Yeah, and.

[00:08:46] That's a big difference.

[00:08:48] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And, and this name change thing just cracks me up. You know, I've been in business my whole life. Never had a job. That's why it's called Screw the commute. If you didn't know that, sometimes you see these things and like why some highly paid executives had to, you know, make their worth. So they decide to change a name of something.

[00:09:12] And yeah, no. And that's a common thing at Google. I have no idea why I'm a Google ads partner and they've changed the name of Google ads several times over the years. Yeah, there isn't there isn't too many Google products that have not had their names changed.

[00:09:28] Yeah. And and I'm all for making things better. But like, for instance, you know, I advertise on Google, but not every day like an agency person would be in there all day long. And so every single time I go back, something's moved. And I'm like, You kidding me? I can't find it. It takes me an hour to put an ad in That should have taken 5 minutes. Yeah, they move something.

[00:09:52] And they kind of held off for a while because during COVID and now it's like every single thing that was on the roadmap from the end of 2019 to the middle of last year is all getting rolled out almost. Yeah, I'm in there once a week and I'm having the same.

[00:10:08] Exactly. Exactly. Now, now, just a little history for for folks. And I've been preaching this for years is, you know, back before Google, you could use some of these search engines like AltaVista, and you'd have to sift through 20 pages of garbage to find anything you wanted. And when Google came around, they said, you know what, that's not acceptable. We're going to make the first page. You're going to find what you want. And they did it. And bam, boy, they turned into one of the biggest companies in the world just by pleasing people with finding stuff that they actually want.

[00:10:43] Right. And that's why I say that Google's product is good. Search results.

[00:10:47] Yes, exactly. In fact, I've preached that they hate us. We're we're a necessary evil. That's website owners. They just.

[00:10:54] Use. Yeah. And we're usually trying to do something that they don't want us to do. Yeah.

[00:10:59] Yeah. But they, they used us to become $1,000,000,000,000 company. So now you with your travel agency, I think you used a thing called a geographic qualifier. Is that right? So you, you picked a destination or the name of a city or something to, to cut out the competitors for other things. Right.

[00:11:21] Right. You had to produce you had to produce content for every single combination that you could think of. Right. So, I mean, we were in the thousands of pages of content when we sold the property, and one of the reasons we sold the property is that there was a lot of rumors going around that Google was going to become an aggregator of flight information, which they did to a certain extent, but not as badly as at the time that we were looking at it. We were saying, okay, if we're if we're if the. People who are sending us business goes into our business. We have a problem. So that was that was one of the reasons that, you know, the precursors of why why we chose to sell it. And it's I don't know what the status of it is right now, but.

[00:12:07] Well, well, yeah, we used to used to teach, you know, I taught lots of professional speakers over the years and, and I used to teach them, you know, have a page where it's a professional speaker, Los Angeles, professional speaker, San Francisco, you know, different page for each one. Just because a lot of the meeting planners didn't want to pay travel expenses. So pretend like you were local. I mean, all these things, it just cracks me up that we used to do in the day, but. The. The local search. So if somebody is listening and they do have a dental office or any kind of local business or restaurant or something. So what are some of the tips you have for for them?

[00:12:54] Well, we've got to two things to think about and four things to do. So good and simple. The first thing, which is a concept, is you need to tell why Google should show you in search results. And that is the Google business profile, which used to be called Google My Business. If you go to business Google.com and you type in your business name, you can see whether or not it's ever been set up or claimed. You can also go to Google and just search on your company name. And if on the right hand side of the screen, there is information there. Even if you didn't set it up, Google has your company information. Google is the largest aggregator of business databases in the world. So whether or not you've claimed or set it up yourself, they may have already set it up for you based on your licensing, your business profiles, everything that is out in the public domain, your name, address and phone number. If they have that basic information, they will put up a basic page about your business. Now, whether or not you're going to show up in search results has a lot to do with whether you claim it and you optimize it because they have a lot of information. They want to feel confident about the information that they have. And the best way to feel confident about it is to have the business person confirm that the information is correct. And then secondly, to get reviews from external people that prove that that business is actually active. So that's telling Google why you should be in search results.

[00:14:30] That's your first step. The second step is telling searchers who now may find you online why you should do business with them, why they should do business with you is the second concept. Because you want that. You want the pictures that are there to make sense. You want all of the information to be complete. You want the hours to be there. If you carry particular product lines, if you're a retailer, you should have that information in there. All of those pieces are going to come back when someone finds you online and convince the person that you're the solution that they went online looking for when they start it. So those two things are they overlap with each other. Google wants to have good search results, so if they have the information to feel confident and people are coming to the information that Google has and saying, Aha, this is where I want to go, that tells Google that they have good information too, and that helps keep moving you up either by putting you in the three pack, which is data that's tied to Google Maps. So when you do a search on dentist, you'll usually see some ads and then you'll see a little map with upside down red teardrops and then the listing information. All of that information comes straight out of the Google business profile. So that's why those that is the basically the key to reaching out to both the people that are searching for what you do and Google.

[00:15:54] Now, do you see any value Stormi for someone that doesn't care about local business, even doesn't even want local business to go ahead and fill this out and put reviews in and so forth. But and maybe their business location, but they're an intern. Maybe they're a consultant that consults with people all over the world. Is there any value to it out.

[00:16:17] There is for the first one, which is Google wants to know. Who you are and what you do. And they want a confirmation on that. So that's the thing that's of value to somebody who isn't a local business. You can tell Google, Google, your business service area is North America. Now, granted, now you're in a you're in a foot race with every other consultant in North America that does what you do. But at least Google knows definitively that if somebody is in Cincinnati and you're in San Diego and they type in something that's fairly specific to what you do that they should show you in the search results. Now. Whether or not that happens. But the more information you can give Google about what you do, it's a win.

[00:17:07] Yes, There's no downside to it.

[00:17:09] Right? There's absolutely no downside to it. I have I had a client as a consultant who couldn't be found anywhere. And she was she was adamant about the fact that she's a consultant for a specific type of quality control on a specific type of machine. And there's only eight people in the United States that certified in this, and she wasn't showing up in the first page. So statistically something was wrong, she thinks, since there's ten search results in. So we went back and we did some general cleanup on her website and we made sure that everything was callable and we got Yost in there and we set up her Google business profile. And her Google business profile is now showing up. So so that's exactly when someone searches in way, way, way outside of San Diego, which is where she was at.

[00:17:57] So I know a lot of fraudulent consultants. You give them money and then you can never find where they when they leave. I leave town.

[00:18:06] Yeah. Come and get me.

[00:18:06] Yeah.

[00:18:07] It's going to cost you some money to come get me. So, yeah, there is no there's no downside to telling Google about your business.

[00:18:14] Got it. So you said there was two things and then three things.

[00:18:17] What was the other? Yeah, well, it's now here. So here's your task list. You go to Google business profile number one, you you claim it, which usually is pretty simple. If you have the same telephone number that's already listed in Google and then your phone will ring if you're sitting next to the phone and now you're verified. If not, answer because.

[00:18:39] I don't want to answer anything anymore with the robocalls.

[00:18:42] Exactly. Yeah. I have the same issue. And then you optimize your Google business profile. You add in every single thing that they have a field for you to put in. Do you have ADA access? Do you have restrooms? Are you closed on what holidays? If you are a hotel, directions from the nearest airport. I mean, every single thing that a user would theoretically want to know about your business should be included in their happy pictures, you know, all kinds of stuff like that in a webinar that I do. Be sure to put your logo in because there was a kids play facility where the owner was arrested and there was no logo. And so the only picture that Google could find that was related to the owner of the business was his mugshot. So you don't want that to happen.

[00:19:33] So I think that's good that that happens. I truth.

[00:19:40] So we got a felon so and then start getting reviews as soon as you can from existing clients so that Google can say, aha, this indeed is a real life company with real life people who we know who they are somewhat because you usually log in through your Google account to leave a review and that will help you against whoever else you're competing with. Because the cool thing about local besides it's simpler than regular SEO, is that they want they only you're only out trying to outrun whoever is your competitor in your local environment, right? It's a foot race. So if there's five of you, all you have to do is be better than four other guys.

[00:20:26] Yeah. And the the a lot of people are using the near me in their search terms. Right. So that can grab you. I don't know what the parameters are. How many miles that consists of is probably different for different types of businesses.

[00:20:42] Yeah, it is. As a matter of fact, here's here's the illustration I use if you type in dry cleaners. You're going to find dry cleaners very close to your home, because Google's assumption is, is that you are not going to drive past 20 dry cleaners to go to a dry cleaner. On the other hand, if you type in personal injury lawyer for me, I live in Santa Rosa, California. I'm 50 miles north of San Francisco. I'm shown personal injury lawyers in San Francisco. Because they have sold their businesses up the wazoo in terms of showing up in search results and have built their authority so that they're showing on the first page of results for probably 100 mile radius. And they probably paid a lot of money and created a lot of content to get that to happen. Because realistically, if I think this personal injury company, law firm is great, I'll drive to San Francisco. So they do treat it differently based on the assumptions of what the marketplace wants to see.

[00:21:47] And now, if you're on your cell phone or tablet and you have your locations on, it's going to give those dry cleaners if you're on the road speaking and you need a quick dry cleaner, it's going to give you near where you're actually located, right?

[00:22:03] Yeah. So and for some reason or another, I go through Comcast business and the primary server for Comcast business is in Fairfield, which is about 40 miles from me. And so half the time, Google knows well, Google knows, but everybody else, Best Buy and Home Depot and Target, they all think I'm in Fairfield. Google knows because I told them.

[00:22:28] Yeah, but if your location services aren't turned on, would it grab your IP address and and try to do that. Try to tell.

[00:22:38] You it'll look for the what the the relative nature of the IP is. That's why I'm getting Comcast businesses local local IP in Fairfield.

[00:22:46] So okay now you go go ahead.

[00:22:48] Go ahead.

[00:22:49] Well, you mentioned reviews and I wanted to get into that because I do, even though I'm kind of rag against national or international SEO nowadays, reviews are still one of the main things to get business. And no matter who you are or where you are. So so tell us. Start telling us about the importance of them, how you've you've created something to help with that.

[00:23:17] Sure. Well, I think the pandemic I mean, we all understand the pandemic kind of raised the numbers and percentages of everybody who's been trained now to look at reviews because we had to buy everything online for a period of time. So all of the numbers that were from 2019 is roughly 20 to 50% more than they were in 2019 as of this year. And so people are going to do their due diligence in whatever it is. If you're buying baby carriages or looking for a pet sitter or, you know, hiring an estate lawyer, whatever it is, you're going to, first of all, ask the Google if you haven't had been told something by your neighbor or your sister in law or something, you're going to go to Google and you're going to type in whatever the thing is that you're looking for, whatever the problem is you're solving. And then Google is going to do their best to show you, you know, a smorgasbord of things that you might want if you're looking for whatever it was you put in the search engines. That is going to be the first place where the person is going to start their, you know, their path to discover somebody who they're going to do business with. Those reviews from Google, they're going to show up in the local three pack.

[00:24:34] If it is a local type business or it's a specific retailer or something like that. And that's going to be the first differentiator now to show up in that three pack. There are generally three things that make a big difference. When is it? The first one is proximity. As we mentioned, they might cast a wide net, but in general it is the proximity of where Google thinks you're located at because obviously you're not going to drive by 20 dry cleaners to get to one just because it's got more stars than somebody else. But that being said, the next one is the general rating. That is, if you got a five star, four star or three star and you add them all together and you split them by the number, what is the rating of that particular business? And then the third thing is the recency and continuity of getting reviews so that Google is getting a signal every time you get a review that you are still in business, that you are legitimate, that real people are dealing with you. And those three things are of of the pyramid of things that Google looks at, which is roughly 200 different things. As far as that first search results for a local business, those are the big three.

[00:25:48] All right. Now, the last time I did this for my school, it's been a while. It seems to me there was a link generated inside the at that time it was Google in my business that would make it easy for people to go directly to leave your reviews that still exist.

[00:26:06] Yeah, you can get you can get a direct link and assuming that you don't use our software. My recommendation is to go into that Google business and get that direct link and use it as you see fit, either by making a short URL on using your website domain or adding it to the signature file of your email. But that's part of the due diligence, that first step when you go into Google and you do those type things, that is Google and Google's world. Now, if someone is doing something of more than they're going to do some due diligence, the next thing they're going to do is go, This company sounds good. They might go through to the website or they might take the name of that particular business and put it into Google. And that's when it starts getting interesting, because that first page that comes back, when you type in your business, you got your info box with your your Google reviews on the right hand side. But below that is the regular Google. The regular Google search results. And that is going to usually be Yelp. Facebook if you have it. You know, if you're a hotel TripAdvisor, if you're a lawyer abo the sites that are industry specific for leaving reviews and you want that page to be consistent and solid because if you don't if the person sees that you have 74.5 reviews on Google, but your Yelp rating is 17 and you've got two stars, something is not congruent.

[00:27:44] And when something is not congruent, people don't want to buy. And that's where it gets weird, because if monkeys look at people in monkeys, look at the preponderance of evidence, Is this safe? Am I going to have some risk here? How are they going to treat me if something goes wrong? So what you want is to produce all of the evidence that says there is no risk. If you respond to your reviews both on Google and Yelp and and Facebook and all the major places, and every time there's a good review, you say, I am so glad that you had a great time with us. We work very hard to make sure that everyone blah, blah, blah and every bad review, you say, Oh my goodness, I can't believe that we let you down. This is not this is not acceptable. Bryan At 712, you know, blah, blah, blah, and she's waiting for your call and we're going to make this right. Now, that is the most powerful thing you can possibly do, because you not only did you take the risk out by having good reviews, but you made you took the risk out by by responding intelligently to a bad review.

[00:28:56] That was more important than responding to the good reviews.

[00:28:59] Yes, it is. Yeah. But it's consistent. It doesn't if you don't respond to the good reviews and you suddenly respond to bad reviews, people go, Oh, so you don't want that to happen. But that and the way I frame this is a review is data. A response to that review is a story. And when you write stories, you can change people's behavior. And you can sell people stuff. So having an organic relationship with that market out there that is basically giving you tools to sell in the future. This is this is a this is a part of the equity of your business. You know, if you go to sell your business and you've got, you know, 2800 reviews and they got a 4.9% remove rating and you're on a whole bunch of different sites, that's actually valuable. That's like intellectual property valuable.

[00:29:55] Yeah. So and I saw a study recently that the five star average review is not as believable as a 4.9 or 4.8.

[00:30:08] If you start reading those reviews because they want to see what that one was. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's just our natural curiosity. If everything's written, if everything sounds like it's written by your mother, it might be written by your mother.

[00:30:21] Yeah. Yeah. I think I saw an article on your site somewhere. Or about recognizing fake reviews.

[00:30:30] Right.

[00:30:31] And even the Amazon, a lot of those are still sneaking in because some of the vendors are kind of shysters. And if you have a bad review, they bribe you with free stuff or pay it to take it back. And so but you have to.

[00:30:44] Have Amazon is is the Wild West all over again in terms of reviews.

[00:30:48] Yeah well they they try to get tight because if if you even let on that you know the person like you know I do a lot with Kindle folks teaching and teaching them that and they won't show the review but still a lot of these ones on all their fulfilled by Amazon vendors are just sneaking in all kinds of crap so so.

[00:31:10] You yeah because there's money to be made the difference the difference between a three star and a four star review is huge. And the difference between a four and a five is not as huge, but it's huge.

[00:31:23] So how is your software in? Because keeping up with this stuff is what drives small business people crazy. So how does your software help out with this?

[00:31:33] Well, the first the first step is, is that all of your reviews on all of your platforms are aggregated at a single location. Mm hmm. And you receive notifications from all of the different places. So especially like if you're in the travel sector and there's several very large travel sites or you're in the wedding sector and you you care about Google, Facebook and Yelp, but you need to be on the not wired and here come the brides and whatever other ones that are out there. So that allows you to say, okay, I'm going to sit down at the end of the day and I'm going to see if there's anything, you know, you're going to get your email notifications and you're going to respond back to them. And it gives you one place to keep track of where it is. And you can also see if someone's left something bad. So if you're only checking your reviews on one platform and you're not checking in on another one, you know, and there's a bad review and it's stinking up the joint for weeks, that's not good. It should be dealt with. And so having a single source of where all of these things are coming from, some people are not going to want to leave it on Google. Or maybe you have a really good Google profile, but all the other places are cruddy. You can basically rotate through the other ones besides Google and keep filling those up.

[00:32:50] Now Google sees other directory review sites. Do you get credit for them? You just don't see them in the Google universe. So if you're getting stuff from Yelp and you're getting stuff from Facebook, but you're going, well, Google is not seeing it. Well, actually, yeah, they are. They're using what's called a schema format that is based on reviews. So Google can see what's happening on your reviews, all on all the other websites that you mentioned. So you want you want to have it completely automated. You can send if you have a customer list, if you have an invoicing program, the time to ask someone for a review is when they're at the maximum joy from your product or service. So if you're selling mattresses or cars, that's probably not 20 minutes after they buy it. You have to have some kind of timing mechanism in place so that three days out, you know, we'd love to know how you're enjoying your new Chrysler or we'd love to know how your nice sleeps have been the last three days. That kind of that kind of interaction, based on what industry you're in, gets you more reviews and gets you more complete reviews, and it makes the customer happier, too, because if they're being asked an inappropriate time, they're not going to review you or they're going to leave. A Yeah, right review. You don't want to do that.

[00:34:13] Yeah, it's just it's critically important, that's for sure. Has there been any studies done on how fast you reply to a review? Because in my company we're like lightning fast on anything. I get notification of anything. I'll drop whatever I'm doing, pull the side of the road and take care of somebody instantly. Is there been any studies on the value of that?

[00:34:39] I read the bright local annual report every year, and I've never seen any discussion of that other than do it as quickly as reasonably possible.

[00:34:49] Yeah, I mean, it just seems like it's a common sense thing. The faster see, because what happens is because is to teach customer service. The longer somebody takes to get their problem resolved, the more they escalate the problem in their mind. I mean, I recall a situation where you had a problem with a toaster and I called I think it was Sears at the time and and didn't get a return call and call back the next day. And so now I'm going I'm escalating the really problem with this toaster. And then like by the third or fourth day, I'm like, the toaster is on fire, you know? Yeah. So the faster you can take care of somebody, the faster I think, ah, the better things turn out.

[00:35:32] So yeah, it becomes an open loop and people know that they have to follow up on open loops and it makes them nuts. Yeah. And they also receive a notification after they get a response to their review too, from Google or from Yelp or I'm trying to think of Facebook does it that says, thank you so much. I mean, it's actually from Google and says, Thank you so much for leaving review. It's great that you were able to find that the the what's at Flam is working exactly the way you expect it to. Please feel free to call us if you have any other questions about the product or something like that that comes in their mail. So if you get back to them, if you do that an hour, not only, you know, not only if they now been acknowledged, but they now know that you are on top of stuff.

[00:36:18] Yeah, Yeah. It's it's just basic customer service, which I have a lot of trouble with. A lot of the I hate to be I don't really hate the stereotype people, the young the younger generation doesn't seem to get this so, so much, you know. But that's old farts know that, hey, I'm going to take care. I'm in business to take care of people, and it's paid off enormously for me. But right. So we've got to take a response, a break. When we come back, we're going to ask Stormi what a typical day looks like for her, and she'll tell us how to find this super review stuff she's got. So, folks, about 25, 26 years ago now, I kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head, and the people at my level were charging 50 or 100,000 up front to help you with your small business. And and I knew a lot of these people, you give them 50 grand up front like we talked about earlier, you'd never be able to find them in Google search or with a private detective. Take your money and run. So I said, that's not that's too risky for small businesses and not fair. So so I kind of made them all mad in that I charged an entry fee, which is like ten times cheaper than what they were charging.

[00:37:33] And then I tied my success to your success. So for me to get my 50 grand, you had to net 250 grand. And so they're like, Wow, we love this. This guy is not going to disappear. And here I sit 25 years later, still helping people. I could have quit 20 some years ago. And I just love helping small businesses and it gives them a chance to have access to high level help without too risky and breaking the bank. So so 1800 plus students later is still going strong. So it's the longest running, most unique, most successful mentor in Internet and digital marketing ever. And I triple dog dare people to put their program up against mine because I'm a crazy fanatic actually through Oh, Thanksgiving's coming up here. Stormy. I actually accidentally threw a tele class one time on Thanksgiving because I didn't I didn't notice it was Thanksgiving. So and because about 60 people showed up for it, I made 3500 bucks that night because they didn't want to hear their uncle drunk uncle bitching at the football game. I guess so. So anyway, it got all kinds of unique features. You actually get an immersion weekend here at the retreat center in Virginia Beach. We have our own TV studio and it's all one on one. We don't do anything group because I don't want to lump you in with people more experienced or less experienced.

[00:39:00] So it's very efficient. It's one on one with me and my entire team, just all kinds of great perks. Plus you get a scholarship to my school, which is the only licensed, dedicated Internet and digital marketing school in the country, probably the world. And you can either use it yourself or gift it to somebody to keep somebody that you love out of the indoctrination for your college camps they have nowadays that put them in debt and then they're begging for jobs at Starbucks. So check it out at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com, it's easily accessible and there's no high. Pressure here. We just want to help you. Small businesses really turn it on.

[00:39:43] Let's get back to the main event. We've got Stormy Knight here and she is a specialist in reviews and reputation management, local search. And she's been in the game a long time. You can't believe it because she looks like she's 12 years old. But than that. So Stormy, what's what's the typical day look like for you nowadays? I mean, here's here's what I'm talking about. You get up early. Do you have a morning routine? Do you work out? What do you eat? I mean, besides business stuff?

[00:40:16] Well, I get up early.

[00:40:18] What's that? Early is subjective. What? We're 30. Oh, yeah, You got it. That's early.

[00:40:24] And I generally in the office by about 530 after breakfast and clean up and, you know, doing stuff. I don't. I don't really exercise per se in the morning because that's really my sharpest focus period of the day. And that's I spend about.

[00:40:45] And that's 830 on the East Coast.

[00:40:47] So yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:49] 435 3530.

[00:40:52] Yeah. And then 530 in the office. Generally, it's been about a half hour getting the day straightened out. That gives me roughly four and a half to 5 hours of, of clear thinking. And really, you know, in business or in terms of if you're working for somebody, if you can get three solid hours in in a day. That's good. And that allows me to have a couple of hours before anybody is going to be emailing me or sending me anything. And that's the most high value time period that I have in a day. And then so it's like the the read priority stuff in the morning goes until about 930, 10:00 at 930, 10:00, we go to the mid range where I'm replying to emails, I'm doing calls if it's high, high importance and then have lunch around 1130 and then that's when I do about a half hour of yoga and weights. And then I check email again because it tends to recycle after lunch. And then I do a walk with my husband and my dog, and then I clean up anything else. So that's really my day. I'm generally out of here by three, 330.

[00:42:15] Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:17] Which is still a, you know, an eight hour, Right. Plus or minus day. But it gives me time to go make bread or sit in the back yard and space or.

[00:42:29] Yeah.

[00:42:30] Yeah, that kind of stuff.

[00:42:31] That's lifestyle business. That's what we're all about here. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Great. All right. Sounds good. So. So tell us how they find this. The service here.

[00:42:43] Sure. I'm at five stars fast. And that's 5starsfast.com. And you can see a demonstration at that location. You can. We have a library of documents for people. Just reach out to me at store me at 5starsfast.com and I can send you a link to the library or I can give you a link to library. Tom.

[00:43:07] Yeah, we'll put it in share.

[00:43:09] Yeah, I think it's in there and yeah, so five star fast and. You know, it'll give you a lot of tools to generate more reviews.

[00:43:21] Yeah. And so. So if you were not a local business, reviews are still important. So. So I imagine you can it's still usable for people that aren't local businesses, right?

[00:43:35] Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're a consultant and you serve the whole United States. And you specialize in a particular type of stuff like my client that I had having zero reviews, and the other one guys have two or 300. Doesn't look good.

[00:43:51] Yeah.

[00:43:51] So you've got you've got to compete with your competitors wherever they're located, not just local for sure.

[00:43:57] Well, thanks for coming on, Mr. Norman. Yeah. So everybody check out the show notes will have her email and a link to the. I guess it's a kind of a library she'll have for you and the service. Did you say you can get a demo of the service?

[00:44:17] There's actually a demo on embedded on the site. Oh, good.

[00:44:20] So how you see it, how it actually works, so you can grab those reviews that are so critical nowadays for your success. So. So thanks a lot.

[00:44:30] Sure. Thank you, Tom. It's been great.

[00:44:31] Okey dokey, folks. So we will catch you all on the next episode. See you later.