Hi everybody and welcome back to another episode here on the daily grind today We have a special guest John Vong John is the founder and CEO of local SEO search John has an absolutely unbelievable story He's a true entrepreneur and he's doing some amazing things if you wait to the end John has an awesome initiative That I am super excited to help him push out because what he's doing for small businesses out there is I haven't seen it before So be sure as always you have a pen piece of paper sit back and dive deep in today's interview with John Vong enjoy Do you ever feel like there's something interfering with your happiness or is preventing you holding you back from achieving your goals for me. This was my past I kept using my past as a crutch to not move forward and an excuse and it wasn't until I started to talk about it with a Professional that things really changed and I transformed and this is why I love this company better help better help Will assess your needs and match it with your own licensed professional therapist and you can start communicating with them in under 24 hours Now, this isn't a crisis line. It's not self-help It's a professional counseling service done securely online The best part about this is guys is that you don't have to worry about driving in a location sitting in an awkward waiting room Not knowing who you're talking to like you get to pick your counselor You get to do it for the comfort of your own home So it's really comfortable and super discreet for you and you can really open up what I find when I'm in the comfort of my own home I open up in ways I never thought I would and there's a broad range of expertise in better helps counselor network Which is definitely not available for you in your local area and the service is for clients worldwide All you do is log into your account anytime send a message to your counselor and in a short matter of time You get a timely and thoughtful response plus you can schedule a weekly video or phone sessions So again, you don't have to sit in the waiting room. You don't have to book a week out You can do this whenever you're ready better help is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches And they make it super easy for you and free to change counselors if needed So if you're not jiving with someone or they're not jiving with you You don't have to worry about this awkward thing You can just find someone else so you can spend the time early on to find that person who you really jive with and that's super I can tell you from experience it really really helps It's more affordable.
This is the best part It's more affordable than traditional offline counseling and maybe if you don't have cash right now or you're not as flush as you need to be Financial aid is available. I can't tell you the importance of this guys has changed my life when I finally decided that I wasn't Gonna accept all this shit that I kept happening to me I'm gonna deal with my past when I dealt with my past it helped me move forward and better help And I want you to start living a happier life today I want you guys to visit better help dot com forward slash grind again That's better help HLP dot com forward slash grind you can join over 500,000 people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experience Professional again for daily grind listeners only you can get 10% off today your first month by going to better help Dot com forward slash grind again better HLP dot com forward slash grind with a holiday season quickly approaching as you're all Stocking up much like me on stocking stuffers for friends and families and gifts for your kids and nieces and nephews and your loved ones The thing is is although Christmas time is a time for giving it's also time to give yourself Don't forget to treat yourself as well Take a chance on that business idea or side hustle you've been wanting to get to that you have maybe part-time right now You're trying to take full-time or that ideal you have that's just stuck in your head But you haven't done it yet today's show is sponsored by Teachable So whether you have an offline business, you're looking to bring it online You have a niche or a passion or you have a specialty you'd like to teach others Teachable is here to help this platform is amazing teachable is a platform that helps independent entrepreneurs helps creators to build and sell fully Customizable online courses and services. This is amazing There are a ton of different platforms out there that allow you to make online courses, but Teachable makes it super simple You can join over 100,000 instructors who have transformed their knowledge into a world-class online course And have earned more than five hundred million dollars to date I'm super pumped about this because I'm actually beginning to launch my new online course Which I'm excited to share out with you, which is in the works and I am going to be launching it with Teachable I'm super super pumped now to help you get started as a special offer for listening to the Daily Grind today If you visit Teachable comm forward slash grind and you enter your email You're gonna get a free masterclass It's gonna walk you through the exact steps to take to create your own online school and start making money today again That is Teachable comm forward slash grind Enter your email for a free masterclass to help you get your online school and online course started And even better than that it check out if you sign up your first three months are gonna be 50% off when you enter code grind again That's Teachable comm forward slash grind and then enter code grind for 50% off your first three months on Teachable today Well John Vaughn welcome to the Daily Grind my friend. How are you?
I'm doing great Colin. Thanks for having me of course We're excited that you're here John you know first for kind of people being first introduced to who John is if you wouldn't mind Just kind of in your own words sharing who John is and what it is that you do Yeah, definitely so I Born and raised here in Hamilton actually Canada So an hour outside of Toronto West and I started a company seven years ago called local SEO search So that's what I've been doing helping small medium-sized businesses with their digital visibility and presence on Google But prior to that always did sales and marketing. So yeah, I'm excited to share my Kind of journey into entrepreneurship with the audience members for sure So I mean let's start off you kind of said you were first into sales and marketing Did you go to university? Where'd you go to university?
I went to Western in London, Ontario Oh, okay party school and for people who don't know party school for people that actually had money to party Fair enough. So you go to Western out of Western. What's the plan? Did you have a plan set in mind?
Like did you know you were getting the sales and marketing? What did that first career path look like I study business finance and actually it was very interesting because I got a Exchange pro I was accepted to an exchange program out to London not London But Lancaster, England for my third year and I didn't get into Ivy school and that was one of the things I wanted to get into my marks The greatest but I did do an exchange program and that was pretty much my life Changing event in my career in life at that time because I've never really traveled outside of going to Toronto So my upbringing was you know family moved from Vietnam for a better life for us children left the war I was the fourth of immigrant children and from Vietnam my parents didn't really have family friends Community here in Canada didn't speak the language and really we just started with nothing and therefore we you know Shocked at local charities and Salvation Army and it was really about like food You know stamps it really just support but we had each other right and what I thought was normal was not normal when I started growing up Right, which is we didn't have any sleepovers We never had friends over ever and it was all about like when we went to travel It was traveling to CNE once a year because my parents got free tickets I wasn't aware of this but that was my big event throughout the summer right because first time going to Toronto It was like big festival we got to play an experience games and saw so many people of different cultures It was great festival. So for me, that's what I associated travel with until I actually did an exchange program Where I travel for the first time after the 9-eleven attacks and what I associate travel to that point was every security guard had machine guns Right and for me that was in October after the 9-eleven tax But I thought this is normal so when I visit England I was like oh I feel ultra safe What's going on and then I was able to just meet a ton of people who travel get to know how to experience a new culture and life experiences Relationships and learn how they you know built their whole social realm of community in England It's a lot different than here in Canada But that's how I got really interested in getting to know people and being interested and curious on how people live and always asking questions Cool so like from those kind of you mentioned kind of like humble beginnings Obviously like family super important for you Did you have a like a drive from a young age like you wanted to whether it be succeed in your own way and success to everyone You may think money I don't think money But like did you always have that drive for for more for you? Yeah, so when I was young in high school actually so I actually started doing newspapers at nine years old to support my family Right to help buy the milk and groceries, but all throughout high school is really self rewarding I was working all the time to pay for my clothes or extra activities at regular to go out with friends Right didn't really have like an allowance per se, but I knew I had to earn everything the hard way Which was fine with me because that really molded me to who I am today But early days I always thought those people those CEOs of big companies I always wanted to be like them right because they had their own private jets nice cars nice Homes and nice clothes everything was like it looks so good right in magazines and on TV So that's why I dreamt of when I was growing up, but you know It's a lot different than you than you really believe when you actually live it Very know so when you say that's a lot different from what you believe than you live in explain that a little bit The people because there are people right now who still have those aspirations right like they want the jet They want the Ferrari they want all that stuff Yeah, you kind of realize what's really important in life Right and as you grow and evolve as a human and a person growing up Whatever you see and watch and listen to might sound great at that time But as you grow up and you become more mature you live life a little bit longer You experience more cultures and travel and get to know people in a more intimate level you realize what truly is important Especially during this pandemic you realize that people relationships Experiences are much more important than stuff that you see on TV or you watch on TV or you see in a magazine or social post Right and what does money really buy you I think you know You have to figure out what the priorities are in your life in the certain journey that you're living in the lifestyle that you want Totally so um, let's go back to kind of sales and marketing.
How did you get into sales and marketing? What were some of the jobs you had early on? Yeah, so first off after I finished my degree at Western I took a job in Toronto and it was Sales and marketing for a printed directory called the red pages It was really a knockoff of what the yellow pages was but it was a directory of every single website going to every single whole right So business websites locally by going to every single home business store front apartment and at that time think about 17-18 years ago 3 okay, so it was a great great concept and idea because internet was still 3g Computers were taking a long time to load email took a long time to load and websites took extremely long to load as well So everything was like at your fingertips when you're at that printed directory because you can now get and find things really quickly still Right then advancements of technology started to occur where the computer was more faster to load internet speed was a lot quicker apps We're now at your disposal. So that kind of Desipicated like after a couple years I did the sales there and then I moved to affiliate online sales for a couple years Wow and learned a lot more about like email marketing digital ads, you know paid ads, etc And then I actually reside at Yellow Pages and where I work there for five years and over the course of many years of sales and marketing I actually learned where I wanted to be of most use I feel and where I wanted to fit in terms of my life Right because I loved helping I love giving advice or helping business owners achieve success And while at Yellow Pages, I was able to be more of an account manager, but more sales I had a big book of business where I helped consult their ads then And they were spending a lot of money in printed books and we moved to the YP platform We sold some Google ads and social ads But what I really resonated with these business owners were they were actual real people right that I can really look up to they own businesses that were sprit some order or service based but in your local community in the GTA or surrounding areas and They were like real on as hard-working people that were either did it themselves or passed on generationally Right, and they were your local neighbors right your if you're a parent your you know family of the kids that they play hockey with right Yeah, like these are real people that you can actually see and touch and feel and get to really back right So that's what I really wanted to focus on all my efforts when I started this company to help these business owners get more of a digital Presence because there's a lot of big agencies out there They just really focus on big ticket items right big agencies that can afford their services What about the smaller local guys right they didn't really have people they can trust and resonate with because you know It's already challenging to understand what's going on digitally.
So I wanted to have that ability to communicate with them So they can trust a brand that they can back I can support yeah for sure. Did you have a kind of like an extensive or a background an SEO to be honest? No, I wasn't sales and marketing I work with thousands of local business owners And I just wanted to help them because every time I met with them the last year and year and a half while working at YP Yellow Pages every call I had with these business owners were hard calls to talk with right they were frustrated with ROI They knew usership and behaviors were shifting to digital and they understood that print media or traditional media was not gonna Be sustainable and people were pivoting right away from a bricks and mortar I mean old school advertising to now digital advertising So you wanted to help kind of the smaller sized businesses you wanted to kind of help people that were kind of local What was the kind of maybe aha moment that made you realize I go I could I could help an SEO even though I don't have a background like this is where people really need help well for my aha moment It was really talking to these business owners and I just felt like yellow pages is not doing a good job There's big companies that were in the SEO field not just in Canada But globally but they just were also not doing a good job to service this small medium-sized business marketplace And I just wanted to do anything to support them right because I felt there was a huge need in a cat there Especially locally I live in Toronto So it's like these SEO agencies been around and deals with big brands only because of the price point right they needed to ensure that they had a big Enough margin to support their their business and storefront and everything else right? So I kind of did everything the opposite way I bootstrapped everything I hired people overseas and I started building a team to help them because of the cost But I was more helping them by being transparent and honest about the process because a lot of people aren't educated in the digital landscape front And that's where that's the biggest challenge in barrier totally is there a is there a first customer story?
I find with a lot of businesses that get started like it's not a business until you get that first customer, right? Like is that is our story for you? Yeah, I'm gonna go back back in 2003 I think it was a February my first client was just walking in I was bootstrapping everything I didn't have my laptop at that time. I'm an officer like when you say I'm walking in It was just like I walked into people's storefront because for me, I'm a salesman, right?
So I go in selling and pitching I had my own abatement pounding David I had my cell phone and I basically went into a pet grooming. It was out in Markham. I was seven in Kennedy I know exactly who it is and basically I I pull up my phone and I'm like look this is what's going on in your landscape right now It's very slow in your end because I see it Would you be interested in getting more leads getting more response from your website and right there? She had a gold daddy website builder.
She'd never really advertised. She's now doing some ads and yellow pages, but not getting good All right, so I explain my story I let them know why I'm doing this and I just said in a couple years I'm gonna dominate Canada So do you want to be a part of this journey of mine because I'm very like committed to my business and basically She gave me six months up front and that's where I basically said look now I have a couple of dollars I hired someone to do the work even though I didn't know what they were doing or how to get the money So that's why I kept doing which sales me and I kept going out there selling and Not promising but letting people in on my journey and letting them know why I'm doing this What's my purpose and really getting people around me to buy it right that's how I started and then eventually I got a laptop I got people and then I started growing that way. Yeah, that's right I love the story because I think there's so many people who are so hesitant about like there's someone listening right now It's like wants to start that business like driving into work sick and tired of their boss They like they're hate what they're doing or right now. There's no one's driving it to work But they want to start something they don't know what and oftentimes it's like you don't need to know everything You just need to sell something and you find someone who's really good at it to do it Exactly, that's business, right?
Yeah, understanding There's a gap on opportunity people willing to pay for a service that they're not good at and filling that gap And you don't have to be the best at whatever it is that you're offering But you just have to be better than what that person's willing to pay for the service that you're offering a product and they're you go with a business Right a hundred percent. So when you were like you sell that first one, right? You're like I got six months I got some cash flow I got find someone what was the process like for you to find the person to now execute on the promises? Yeah, I first started on Upwork started hiring people.
I bet it first time using the platform. It was crazy Yeah, that's early stage Upwork, too Yeah, yeah, and there were a lot of other sites like freelancers and all these other ones But you post it in an hour you get like a hundred applicants now you have to vet through it and figure out, you know And I've never hired a whatever and you don't really know what to hire for because I don't know anything about So they can be saying anything and I was like, all right, you know, so you try you task you make the stage you try Or you make a mistake, but it was fun, right? Like I was just enjoying the whole process right and then eventually I found some good people that trusted and I built a team Around it and I vetted better. So over the years, it's all about like doing something Constantly doing something and it's okay to make mistakes as long as it's not gonna really hurt you in the long term Like being honest with yourself and everyone that's gonna be touching whatever you're doing Interesting.
So like would you consider yourself an SEO expert? To be honest. I am a founder and business owner. I have a team like experts That's what I was mentioning and we collectively are this agency, right?
But I took the rest right I know a lot more now than I did when I first started and I'm constantly learning from Experts in the industries of the doing it for many many years I still associate myself as a sales and marketing person because I have 15 plus years 20 years of that So I feel sales and marketing still my bread and butter Totally, but it goes back Like the reason why I was kind of tension is because like you stuck with what you were good at right? Like you let people you obviously surround yourself with people who are experts in other areas But like you were good at one thing and entering multiple things, but like you stuck in you stayed in your lane so to speak Yes, it's it's very interesting but very important to really focus on your strengths, right? Where eventually I found an SEO expert that was doing it for 10 years with an agency and multiple agencies multiple countries like New York Lended and with that background I was able to bet to find out like how good is he really before I hired him and brought his whole team up 10 plus SEO people around him to join because that's how you know, you have to learn right you make tons of mistakes along the way And then you learn what's important who's important what skills that's important and then how to hire Now when you were kind of getting started like early days Were you looking at other SEO agencies so to speak or other people who are experts and like where did you feel like you fit in or like What type of what was the service offering you feel like separated you local SEO search from everyone else? Yeah, so when I first started no one was really focused on local businesses everyone in SEO at that time were the larger brand players Right they wanted to go out there the bigger ticket items three five thousand ten thousand dollar retainers, right?
No one was serving the purpose of yellow pages type of clients, right? The local dentist the mom and pop family run businesses, right? That serves the purpose so I wanted to really help those people because no one was doing it really well locally So that's where I knew there was an opportunity and gap and just trying to Be in my lane and not really deviate and want to go everywhere and do everything really well for everyone Just know what you're you're trying to serve as a purpose and focus on that and even to this day That's who I am right family run small business owners or medium size But they want to really connect with a solid person or agency or company that trusts and they can actually back right? Do what they say and really deliver and over exceed their offerings.
How big is the how big of a team do you have now? I have over 30 staff and it's just enjoying the whole process So every year I'm getting better adding more value by now. We have content specific team We have SEO strategy team. We have link building team.
We have social team. We have graphics team We have dev team everything gets better because as you grow and go to conferences and network and get to know other agencies What they do everyone does their thing differently, which is cool perfectly fine, right? I stuck with my lane of yellow pages That's all I knew and I wanted to help those people and there's no one that does what I'm doing because of my experience working with so many small business owners Me and my vb of sales worked at yellow pages for over 30 plus years in sales So me and him collectively have worked with over 10,000 local business owners, right? So that's where we differentiate from a lot of other agencies.
Cool. Um, I'm gonna go in two different directions here I'll go one first Shao has the process been for you because obviously when you start out like yeah, you're the business owner You're outsourcing but like you're you're so hands-on at the beginning of a business right like you do everything You're like if in your toe and everything what was the transition like for you from like being say a solo printer in a sense Even though you got people helping you to now you're moving into more of this leadership role where now you're you're serving people Yeah, so at the beginning it was a lot of work. You're drawing out our 16 18-hour days Trying to figure out and you're spinning yourself, right? You don't even know what you don't know and therefore you're focused in so many directions that really doesn't really need focus Right because as you grow in your company or any entrepreneur journey You really should stick to your lane, which is um, you know, like I was sales and marketing I devoted a lot of time then I devoted a lot of time learning I see all right learning development learning marketing strategies Operations and human resource like there's so many other things that you're gonna put your hat on and try to figure out because you think you need to do Everything at the same level or better than your expertise, which is sales Which those people have been doing it for 10 15 years hire them.
They love what they do I really quickly learned well didn't really quickly but after a couple years of killing myself and stressing myself out on these smallest little things I realized it's really not worth it by stressing it out just hire someone that loves what they do So we'll save you time and they will really enjoy whatever that passes Yeah, 100 percent. Okay. Now second part like a little 180 on this Um, how has seo changed if at all from 2013 to now 2020? What are the biggest differences you see?
I think the biggest challenge is um There's so many businesses or consultants or freelancers that claim to be experts. So there's a lot of noise out there and You don't you cannot differentiate right like business owners don't know what they don't know so the biggest challenge is education Um, but people are solicited with seo agencies promising and guaranteeing every single day today From telephones to emails to everything webinars and they're guaranteeing and they could be anywhere in the world But as a business owner, you don't really know what seo is right So I'm kind of doing grassroots on the educational front to really let people in on as a business owners What do you really care about right? Who do you want to partner with? Do you want to connect with does it resonate with your values?
Does it you know what do you really care about as a business right and surround yourself with like-minded individuals, right? That's more important versus you know results great, right? You kick you know by on results, but everything else is in turmoil, right? Like they'll do anything for results Is that how you run your business really like black hat gray hat or do you want to just do everything on board ethical slow and steady wins the rates, right?
So how do people because you know there are business owners listening? You know, there are people who are going to be starting their own business and seo is super important Like especially nowadays like if someone google's pet groomer in grims v like you want to be there, right? Like that's just the reality of life like you you got to be at the top there else you're going to be losing So like with all of these people soliciting you with all these people telling you that they're experts Like what what are some either red flags people should be looking for or like how do people really look at a company? Say like yours and and be able to determine like, you know, this is a solid business I trust them they're serving me and my best interest in my business for my business So when you're vetting for a big purchase item let it be a home let it be a plumber a roofer home renovation big project addition You're going to do the same thing you should do the same thing for any of your vendors, right?
Seo is the same way software is the same way anything that's a bigger ticket for your business So a lot of people don't see it that way. They think oh, it's only a couple hundred dollars I'm not gonna do as much work. Exactly. It can really hurt your business if you're partnering with the wrong company That's and it's your brand awareness.
It's like years of Educating yourself as a professional like a dentist You spend 20 years educating yourself finally you have a chance to buy into a practice You invest a couple of million dollars or whatever into it And then you you step out on a couple hundred dollar campaign and not knowing what you're getting that's what's happening, right? People are not budgeting accordingly on the value that they should perceive it should be for your business so You know with seo it's so important today. It's like think about yellow pages without google existing It would still be the dominant player. Yeah, you need to advertise there You need to be there in front of center if someone's looking for your business but now google exists you need to now advertise a become more visible on search when someone searching for a service keyword that is Relevant and where you want to own as a thought leader at xer So if you think about long-term and not short-term wins like people are very short-minded, right?
They look at ads they say $10,000 a day some other person got it or was able to achieve it It's bait switch, you know everything is all about like selling courses and guarantees If you look at real businesses Focus on long-term, right where you want to be partnered with the right companies ask the right question Bet them the right way build a real relationship with real people, right? Not the ones that are hiding behind with aliases and anonymous gmails and accounts, right? Writing fake reviews writing, you know creating fake accounts like all these things You have to look at it as like a real business If you plan on doing it for five times 20 years focus on building real relationships with real people That's what we're trying to do totally and it makes so much sense right now We say it is like entrepreneurs one of those funny games where someone can wake up to like today They could be listening like I'm gonna become an entrepreneur like you can't do that with professional sports You're a basketball fan like I can't wake up tomorrow and be like yeah, let me try for the Raptors Like let's give this a shot You know like it it takes time at something to be an expert And this is where platforms like this and uh content becomes super super important for people to realize that You know, there is a massive educational period and becoming an entrepreneur, right? Totally um just like in any career like I was a sales and marketing guy And I still say I am because I have 15 plus years versus an SEO expert I have seven years But it's really a team that made me become an agency, right?
I love the analogy of sports because they start when they're three or five 10 years old, right? And they've been doing it 16 hour days No one talks about the commitment and the training and the mistakes and the learnings that travel that Everything the grind right until they are that peak right of LeBron James or whoever it is, right? Like tag with any of the pinnacle ones They didn't talk about 20 30 years ago when they were just little kids spending 18 hour days 16 hours for 20 years to get to where they are Right and people will go to you know genetics, right? But like I went to school in the u.s And there are a lot of people who are 64 and who are strong and who can run and who can jump and probably jump higher than a lot of People who are more athletic as nothing like it's all work ethic and in entrepreneurship It's no different right like it is work ethic when you see a company as successful as yours You see a company as successful as others You know that it's someone who like is committed to their their grind committed to their craft Yeah, and no one sees me doing those 16 18 hour days at the beginning And you it's the same thing as every entrepreneur, right?
You need to put in the time to make mistakes and go out there and do something about it Because all these people that want to be that CEO because you know Everyone you read an article or you saw it on a blog or whatever video You need to start really putting in that time and craft to really make those mistakes because no one just becomes it, right? What would you what would you find valuable to someone listening who's like thinking about getting into this like they're thinking about Becoming an entrepreneur, maybe they're really early stages Like what would be a super valuable piece of advice that you feel like to share go out there and learn sales Because unless you're in business, you're the biggest advocate of your product or service, right? And you have to fill a need a gap because or you can do the same thing But just a little bit better tweak the service level the quality the whatever it is, right? But people are willing to pay for something then you have something that you can really focus more heavily on But if it's just an idea or a concept and people people are like, you know, unless you have real revenue, right?
Like someone willing to pay for a part of the service That's where then you have a real business But until then it's just a concept or an idea So go out there and start learning to sell and there's a lot of audio and books and podcasts and videos on how to sell But it's you're the best salesman You're the biggest advocate of your product and service if you can't sell it No one you hire will be able to sell it better than yourself For you sales wise, what's what was the biggest thing that helps you whether it be a resource or a person? I think story tell was always very very important because of my story and my background, right? I just kept going I always always curious and asking questions But yeah, like when I was growing up I was watching and listening to Brian Tracy Zig Ziglar all these audio tapes because at that time, you know, blogs and YouTube wasn't very popular So every day I was listening on my drive to sales calls, right? Just always trying to learn one or two big tips and then implementing it So don't just listen don't do anything about it Like go out there and try to learn what you know heard or read or listen to and do it and see if it actually applies and then make it a part You haven't had today's interview with a part of your system before I asked about that share this out with you for five years down the road Obviously like truly benefit the great day.
So, thank you much. You that where do you see? You're so much the better help for sponsoring today So if you want to talk to the show that I'll be back next we'll be back next I just want to help these owners until they're more than sign up and always remember All right, business owners are stuck in their own ways They're so reliant on where the mouth and referrals when they dry up and they will What's gonna happen, right? They're already so late behind the curve and it's not you know How much money you throw at it sometimes?
It's time in as well, right? Like these are signals of Google and if you're not positioned well digitally and for the long term Like you're gonna it's gonna take longer and harder and spending way more money and time and effort longer. You're waiting Right, so it's just like in any business get in Don't wait, right just go out and do something right because if it's an idea and concept like someone's already thought about it It's how you execute on it. That's gonna make the difference go and figure it out Go out and do something about it.
Love it So for a business owner listening for an entrepreneur listening Where's the best place people can learn about what you do? Where's the best place people can go? Yeah, so we have a website called localseosearch.ca We focus on helping small medium-sized business owners become more President dominant in their vertical niche locally here in Canada, but also in North America market And really we have a lot of content there and you can reach out to me directly as well On the team page you can find John vong and connect with me on LinkedIn very cool and and off air before we jumped on here You would let me know about a really cool initiative that you're starting and I really want you to share that with everyone as well Yeah, so it's called an impact initiative We just launched it this month in October of 2020 and our focus is really to help small business owners Who are have been impacted the most right these 90 percent of the Canadian marketplace in terms of businesses are run by small businesses And what I feel on a more personal level is what can I do outside of just throwing money at them, right? My expertise is digital marketing SEO in particular.
I want to help these small business owners Really get more dominant visible online and hopefully have the opportunity to share What their product and services are to to a larger audience so that they don't rely on store Walk-in traffic or signage or traditional media, right? So over the next five years what we're doing is we're giving out a hundred SEO full service one-year campaigns for business owners and yes, it's a couple million dollars, but it's a big initiative for me because I want to give back and I used to do give back to students as a back-to-school initiative for more immigrants and people of lower income But this year was a challenge because of covid We weren't able to do that because you can't give anything away to kids. Um, so for now We're really focused on helping small business owners amazing And where can people learn about that initiative? I'll send you the link in the show notes So if you're listening it's in the show notes to be able to get that and uh wouldn't amazing initiative first of all Like I salute you because you know what businesses are going through right now is Is far beyond difficult?
Uh, and I don't know what that outlook's gonna be I don't think they do either So I appreciate what you do. Um for people who want to follow along your journey like where are you most active on social media? To be honest, I'm not the biggest on social media I really focus on building strong relationships with business business owners right or people so Um real connections real coffee real lunches real conferences get to know real people as opposed to this digital world But they I do have a twitter account. I do have a link to an account at facebook So you can follow us there.
We also have a podcast called local SEO today You can check us out and really it's all about like sharing and giving value and helping others out because gratefulness being Helpful and adding value is what I'm all about and I'm just trying to spread the love awesome John Well, everyone listening I'll share all those links and John I can't thank you enough for for taking your time coming on the podcast sharing your wisdom Uh, the things that you're doing are absolutely amazing, especially with this initiative. So I salute you and appreciate you coming on very much Thank you so much for having me Colin. Thank you and there you have it everyone We hope you enjoyed today's episode if you did hit that subscribe button share this up with one person He feel like a truly benefit from today's show. Thank you so much to better help for sponsoring today's episode We will be back next week until then call him working signing off and always remember to keep on grinding