Learning From Others

Today's guest is a former engineer at Yahoo who understands search engines second to none.

We talk about all the ways to run an agency wrong, hoping to teach you how to be successful and do it right.

He founded BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company that provides training and mentorship for aspiring entrepreneurs across the globe.

On a mission to create a million jobs internationally, please welcome Dennis Yu.

Dennis Yu, it's a pleasure. Welcome to the Learning from Others Show. How you doing, man? Good, Damon, and it's awesome hanging out with you again. I wish it was in person like we were driving race cars in Vegas. I. That was fun. You know, we got a couple stories we could probably hit. Um, you and I have engaged on mostly Facebook over the years and kinda got a little friendship going on and, um, yeah, I, I flew out and I, every time I fly out somewhere I try and kinda keep track of who's where and, um, I.

And meet up with somebody and establish a relationship a little bit better. So I appreciate the opportunity of you being willing to go hang out. And we did, we went and did a limo in race cars and um, I mean, you live in Vegas, but we, we did the tourist a little bit of the touristy thing. Yeah. Yeah. And, and thanks for taking the time.

That was such an honor. And you know, you're one of the few ss e o people out there. I know this is being recorded. You're one of the few ss, e o people out there that is legit and drives results. And I am not being compensated to say this. But I've been sharing this and I'm, I know people that are watching this and have seen my Facebook posts.

They're coming to you. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. It's, um, we'll probably talk 'cause you're legit about that today, you know? Yeah. Not, not about me, but about the industry. And, um, for, for me, that's been, uh, Good and bad to throw rocks at my own industry. Right? Like, it's unfortunate that that's such a valuable sales proposition to distinguish yourself as actually doing your job.

But, but it is. So why don't we, why don't we start there? So, um, actually before we get into it, um, let's, let's have you talk about yourself the most, uh, enjoyable, comfortable part of a podcast. Um, I, I actually like how you put it on the intake form when, uh, so I ask the guests, you know, what's your elevator pitch that we can use?

And Dennis just puts Google me. If we're talking about s e o and, and you don't have a knowledge panel show up when I Google you, you're a fat weight loss coach. Fat weight loss goes, where's, where's the analogy of a fat weight loss coach? Oh, fat, okay. Overweight weight, weight loss coach. That's overweight.

Got it. Yeah. Yeah. So Dennis, um, has been in marketing for how, how long have you been in marketing? 30 years. Yeah, how'd you get into it? And I was one of the original people, one of the first people at Yahoo. So I built the internal analytics at Yahoo. So I'm a search engine engineer, so I'm not an S E o. I am the person who's trying to protect the results from the SS e o people trying to trick us.

Yeah. Have you got jaded over the years knowing like how this works and being able to see the manipulation that's going on when it's not done for the right audience and the right users? Do you think that weight loss scams will ever go away? Every year there's a new scam, right? And people fall for it.

'cause they're just like, how do you not know that? It's a scam? Hey, if I take this one pill, you're gonna lose 30 pounds in 12 days. Like it's a scam, right? Mm-hmm. So the salespeople are always inventing new techniques. And I remember, this is like back in my day, we used to walk uphill both ways. I built websites by hand using Microsoft Front page.

It was engineers that were building websites, people like us that actually physically knew how to do the thing. It was before the marketing people and all that came in back then. You remember it was called web mastering. Mm-hmm. Before it became digital marketing and social media and influencer and all these other words that are now really just buzz words, new words for the same thing.

Mm-hmm. Right. And now I'm, I'm gonna blame the internet money Bross. Yeah. And the motivational speakers for now, all of them are ai. Experts and crypto experts and chat G P T experts and they're SS e o experts too. So all these people have come in in the last few years seeing easy money and now they're gonna start selling S E o.

I was a Josh Nelson seven figure agency conference and Josh Nelson's amazing. I love the guy. They're people that come into that program 'cause they think it's easy money. And in the program Josh teaches you should sell s e o, but he also says you should also deliver s e o too. You should also understand what it is.

Some agency owners, the guilty will be unnamed, are selling ss e o and they don't even know what it is, but they know that people want it and they need it. So they sell it for $2,000 a month and they're making all this money. This one company that I'm probably gonna release a full investigation later today is making three.

Well, they're, they were making last month, $320,000 a month off of 150 clients that are paying for s e o and Facebook ads and websites and things like that. It is a scam. There's no way to defend it. It's a scam, but it's a sales guy running it. He has no operations, he has no marketing. He's a sales guy and some of them even white label their stuff out.

So they have no idea what it is and someone else is doing it. They, the client doesn't know anymore. I mean, you know, they, but they're selling it 'cause they're salespeople. There's too many salespeople in the s e O space. Mm-hmm. We need more mechanics, not people in the car dealership wearing a tie. Slick hair saying all these things about the car.

We need more mechanics that actually have grease on their fingers, like you and me. Yeah. I mean, I often get asked what, um, what should I know as I shop s e o and, and I think that why people are so attracted to, to you know, you and your transparency is because it establishes trust when you're willing to go, Hey, you know, One example, s e o takes time, but here's why.

And then you explain it. Or, hey, not only here are the advantages of s e o, but here are the disadvantages because what they're getting pitched to you. You nailed it with the sales bros and not enough actual people doing the work is the majority of the time. These people that. Sounds smooth, are not the people that are actually doing any of the work.

So they're gonna tell you whatever they think that you want to hear. And so when, when I get asked, you know, what should I be, be looking out for? And I'd be curious, some of the things that are top of your mind is, is my first thing is transparency. Like, they should be able to communicate. You don't need to know, you know, the, the full granular details of, of everything that's going on, but you should be able to clearly communicate, you know, here's.

The intent behind why we're gonna focus on this thing in content, not just, we're gonna write stuff, you know? Mm-hmm. And what's, how, how are we gonna measure progress? Right. And how long is this gonna take and why? Yeah. But the majority of the people that are out there are just like, oh yeah, no, we'll get to it.

You know, we'll get there, you'll see. And it's just like these vague responses, and I think that's become a thing of, of. Beyond just ss e o, but you and I are, are in that space more so just marketing in general is these constant sales bros of it's yell loud or talk louder or be flashier. Mm-hmm. And the emotions overtake the sales process.

And then it doesn't matter, like right before we hit record, I was telling you about somebody that we're working with and they're killing it and the data shows they're killing it. But a, a sales bro got in their ear about, Hey, you need to be louder and flashier, and they're tearing it all down. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. The sales bross are focused on collecting the money. I. They'll make huge promises. They're, they don't even know whether they can hit those promises 'cause they're not operators. The fact that you are posting screenshots, of course you're masking out like the client name and the keywords and all that, but showing the increase in traffic and sales, not just ranking on more keywords.

'cause you can rank on a bunch of garbage keywords and claim victory. Yeah. We need more people doing what you're doing and actually teaching the techniques. Not that these clients wanna learn how to, you know, who wants to learn how to change a transmission or, but at least if you know that that guy who is an actual mechanic is posting videos of him as he's, you know, working on the transmission and got grease on his hands as he's working on the car.

There's a lot more trust there and especially if the mechanic shows what they're doing, right? I'd love to, you know when, when you go to a car or uh, you know the dealership and something's wrong with the car, they're gonna give you an itemized list. Of the things that are broken and what, and therefore the toll and you know, maybe the dealership will still overcharge you, but at least you know what they're doing, right?

Yeah. If you're buying a new car or not a new car. So Damon, let's say you're buying a, a car off of whatever, like Facebook marketplace and the guy says, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always been in the garage the whole time and never been driven. And you see it's got 150,000 miles on it. I don't know if that's exactly true.

Oh, it's, it's never been in a crash, really. I don't know. It just looks like some of these. Here don't look like they were the original parts. Are you sure? Oh yeah. It's brand new. You know, it's, it, I don't trust, I just ha

Today's guest is an award-winning, internationally recognized personal investing and wealth management expert. This former electrical engineer is on a mission to help 1 million moms take control of their financial future with her movement called Invest Diva. Please welcome Kiana Danial.

• https://investdiva.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/investdiva/
• https://www.facebook.com/KianaDanial
• https://www.tiktok.com/@kianadanial
• https://www.youtube.com/@InvestDiva
• https://twitter.com/InvestDiva
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/investdiva-com/

Today's guest is the Senior Director of the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing at Georgia Tech and the Director of STEM Education Strategy at Google.

Hear his story when he witnessed someone with a broken arm screwed to a board to set it instead of a cast opened his perspective to the differences in economies and education, and that set him in motion to aim to make a difference where he could.

As the first generation in his family born in America, to Guyana immigrants, his work focuses on building an equitable approach to computing education as a cornerstone of modern citizenship, to support opportunities in education for all. Please welcome Kamau Bobb.

• https://www.kamaubobb.com
• https://twitter.com/kamaubobb
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbobb/

Today's guest had a massive success with his very first business. But opportunity can come at a cost. Listen as he shares with you the awesome journey of entrepreneurship with a realistic view of what to expect with rapid growth.

Please welcome Chris Michael Harris.

• 02.03.54 How Startup U Podcast Started
• 06.45.35 Entrepreneurial Journey
• 19.31.68 About the Learning Curve
• 32.35.59 Website's Name
• 33.10.78 A Favor: The Two Things You Must Do

Contact Info:

• https://chrismichaelharris.com
• https://instagram.com/heychm
• https://twitter.com/heycmh

Today's guest had a massive success with his very first business, but opportunity can come at a cost. Listen, as he shares with you, the awesome journey of entrepreneurship with a realistic view of what to expect with rapid growth, please welcome Chris Michael Harris, you are ready to grow your business, and I love helping entrepreneurs find success.

So let's do this. I'm Damon Burton, Forbes contributor, author of the search engine optimization book, outrank and president of SEO National. I've been featured on Forbes, entrepreneur and hundreds of websites and podcasts for helping big businesses grow bigger and make more money by showing up higher on search engines, including shark tank, featured businesses, NBA teams, and Inc 5,000 companies.

I'm bringing my successful network to you [email protected]. Whether success to you means financial freedom, freedom of time or freedom of the soul. We're in this together. Welcome to the learning from others podcast.

Ready to show up higher on search engines for words that you can monetize, but without paying for ads, download your free copy of my SEO book outrank. If you visit www.freeseobook.com today. Chris, Michael Harris, welcome learning from others. Good to meet you. Hey man. Great to meet you. Hey, so before we hit record, he said, uh, you know, you recognized a couple other people we've chatted with and, uh, I think that's kind of something interesting that you find when you kind of dive into the podcast world, regardless of which side of the mic you're on.

I think it's called that you can run into. there's so much opportunity and there's so many people out there, but you kind of realize it's, uh, it's its own little world too. Yeah. Especially when you like really niche down to entrepreneurship, you see a lot of the same names and faces kind of popping up.

It's interesting. Cause like we have our own little world, but yet we have the people that kind of continue to pop up in that world. So yeah, it was interesting to see a lot of the folks in there that I write. Yeah, I appreciate you jumping on. So, you know, the drill two questions, question number one is who are you and why are we listening to today?

All right, well, I am the founder of StartUpU, you and the host of StartUpU podcast started UTV, uh, and that all kind of came to be because I had early success with my first venture when my, uh, my brother and I decided to launch a little side hustle. And that evolved into a multi-million dollar company within the next 36 months.

By the time I was in my mid twenties and realized throughout that process, wow. They didn't teach me like how to do this. And despite the fact that I was at a very notable school university of Georgia go dogs by the way, national champions and right now, um, yeah, I just feel like there was so little application, both in life and formal education, not to disparage those, but that actually applied to running a business, especially when it was growing as quickly as we can.

From year one to year two 48,000 to $500,000. I mean, it's ramping growth, right? Not no funding whatsoever. And so I kind of had this vision of what I would do after that, that business. And it really revolved around education. It really evolved around, I can't build every single business, but I can help people and indirectly create a lot of businesses.

Uh, and so that's what we've kind of started to work on with startup you, and as we continue to serve people in the online space, both in all animals. Uh, that's the, there's a big vision as far as what we can accomplish doing that. Well, I want to dig into that entrepreneurial journey. Uh, but not until I ask you a question number two, which is why do you suck at dude?

I suck so bad at feeling like I don't have to insert myself into bloody everything. Uh, I, I I'm just so some of us are just so type a, we just can't freaking take a chill pill. And sometimes I get myself in trouble and get a little distracted, uh, probably is the best way to say it by just literally feeling like I have to like, not just do something, but like I joke with a buddy of mine this morning literally is why it's so relevant.

I'm like, I feel like I have to assemble the damn Avengers with everything, with everything I'm doing in my life. Like, I can't let anybody take the lead. Like I have to be, you know, the driving force of it and it drives me nuts. So I'm really bad about that. So it's in business. Business and business, personal family, everybody's health around me.

I mean, it's just like, don't take me to the grocery store. I'll tell you everything you want to know about human health and wellness and optimization and what you should eat. Shouldn't eat. And it's like, bro, some people just trying to eat and enjoy their food. They don't want you analyze their label for them.

And that's what I do. I'm I am a food Nazi for sure. Did you realize this? Was it? When did you become aware of this problem? My whole life. So, so you've known about it. There wasn't like a tipping point where you're like, oh, damn, I need that. I think, I think there's a more recent revelation in terms of how problematic it was.

Like. Like a more of a, this is actually a detriment it's not serving you kind of thing. Right. And I think also there was a lot of underlying frustrations that have been there for a long time, but not necessarily cognizant to me to address it as a real problem that it is right. It's kinda looked at it as like me being the overachiever and everything that I do.

And I kind of like staked my claim on that. Like, yeah. But then as you get older and wiser, and I think entrepreneurship really does that to you, you kind of realized that you need to pick and choose your spots a little bit more strategically and the best that's what they do, right? The best of the best.

That's what they do. And so I'm, I'm I always tell us, I have acquired a lot of knowledge now. I'm like, let's acquire some wisdom. Let's get that. Like John C. Maxwell wisdom going on, like that's my that's kind of the season of life that I'm in. Yeah. Let's I mean, I think this is where it's digging into a little bit more, um, you're right.

Like you learn, uh, you learn a lot, but then you also learn that not everybody cares and the part that's, the part that's frustrating for me is, um, is when people ask, you know, when, when they go, Chris, I know you've accomplished a lot of things. How did you do it? Or Chris? I know you've been through this, you know, gave me some pointers and then.

You feel compelled to help them because when you find success, if you want to bring other stuff with you, but the part for me that's frustrating is when you're in that scenario, when somebody asks for it and then they don't take action on it drives me insane. Yep. Totally agree. All right. So let's talk about the first venture.

Um, w what did you say? The figures where you do. Yeah. So we went from launch from college department to we at one point to within 36 months, no funding. It was a, it was a residential moving service for college students during the transitional summer months and evolved into doing furniture installation for college apartments.

So we kind of did a, we were kind of on both sides. We had a commercial on a residential division. And how long ago did this? Let's see, that was, I finished. So 11 was when it was a side hustle. 12 was full time. 13 was half mil, 14 was 1.2. So it was a good, yeah. Okay. Has that jaded you having success the first round of you run into, you know, cause I think that's where we're going to want to talk about next is like the entrepreneurial journey and um, I'm not, I'm not a big fan of saying that.

So entrepreneurial success was locked, right? Because I think the majority of people work really hard at it, but having such a great success, um, round number one, you know, did you walk into venture number 2, 3, 4, or whatever point, and then look back and go, this one wasn't as successful or as quickly successful.

So what's different this time question. Um, so it was definitely a fail forward situation. Let me be crystal clear about that because I think a lot of people here. Revenue numbers. And they immediately think like, oh man, like he's just a hot shot. Maverick business owner, entrepreneur, like just with kit.

And it's like, no, no, no. I got my ass kicked. I did, um, I got, I just, I accelerated the process and we were very blessed to be in the right place. Right time. But don't dismiss. We worked very hard to achieve what we did, right. There was just a, but to dismiss how hard I suffered, how much and how hard I struggled and suffered throughout that process, uh, there was a starvation period, but then there was like a keeping up with growth struggle.

And I was in really bad shape for a long time. Like my 2014 brutal. I spent 95% of my time managing cashflow because now we're working with big companies that installation work. I told you about those manufacturers that were giving us thos

After the death of what would have been his future father-in-law, today's guest talks how that loss gave him a gift for life. Life hacker, podcast host and entrepreneur here to motivate you to make the most of life, please welcome CJ Finley.

Contact Info

• https://www.instagram.com/cj.finley/
• https://twitter.com/cjfinley7
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjfinley/
• https://www.cjfinley.com

Today's guest is a business consultant that was inspired to write his book "Don't Be Dumb" after the successful removal of a brain tumor. Here to discuss his leadership playbook that's intended to help people be smarter, overcome obstacles and rise rapidly in these challenging times, please welcome Robert Towle.

• https://dontbedumb.expert

Today's guest is a business consultant that was inspired to write his book "Don't Be Dumb" after the successful removal of a brain tumor. Here to discuss his leadership playbook that's intended to help people be smarter, overcome obstacles and rise rapidly in these challenging times, please welcome Robert Towle.

• https://dontbedumb.expert

Today's guest has had more careers than cats have lives. From Hollywood TV exec and game designer to manga rewriter, voice actor, animator, electrical engineer, studio head, and video game designer. He's the CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators that was ranked the #1 incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazines.

Here to teach you the ins and outs of venture capital funds, please welcome Steve Hoffman.

Contact Info

• https://CaptainHoff.com
• https://FoundersSpace.com
• https://SurvivingAStartup.com
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/FoundersSpace
• https://www.linkedIn.com/in/FoundersSpace/
• https://instagram.com/FoundersSpace/
• https://twitter.com/FoundersSpace/

Today's guest was diagnosed with dyslexia at eight years old. After the initial overwhelm he learned how to use what others called a learning disability as a super power.

Then, after building up a successful real estate agency for five years he threw it all away after a chance phone call that lead him to talking on stage about being your best you.

This professional speaker and peak performance coach is here today to help you increase productivity, reduce stress and have more energy. Please welcome Christopher Dedeyan.

Contact

• https://www.christopherdedeyan.com
• https://www.youtube.com/c/ChristopherDedeyan/
• https://www.instagram.com/christopherdedeyan/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherdedeyan/
• https://www.facebook.com/ChristopherDedeyan
• https://twitter.com/chrisdedeyan

From $75k in debt to a millionaire that's worked with Snoop Dogg, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry and more, today's guest is one of the top music producers in the industry.

With his decades of experience in music he's converted those lessons-learned with the best artists to challenge others to achieve their goals in life.

Please welcome Mr. Bellringer, Marcus Bell.

• https://www.100dayzimpactchallenge.com