BusinessOpportunity.com interviewed the VP of GeoSearch SEO to find out what makes such a successful entrepreneur tick.
Right away Jesse shared with us that he’s been involved with GeoSearch SEO for a couple years now and have not only found a great company, but found something that allows him to follow one of my main objectives that he’s passionate about: Helping others. With Geosearch SEO he receives this returned to him two-fold.
We asked in conversation to give us a brief story behind the success. Jesse shared with that, “First off, I help small businesses grow their online marketing with an affordable SEO plan, which has more deliverables than anyone else in the market. We’re able to do this by utilizing the technology we built over years that has been proven time and time again with all our customers. It is amazing when you can sell a low cost, high deliverable product that is unmatched by any competitor. That’s exactly what I found with GeoSearch SEO and helping small businesses compete in such a complex online marketing environment and have tremendous results is so rewarding,” says Jesse Solis.
“Second off, as I have grown with GeoSearch SEO, I became a VP and help coach new Distributors under my guidance as they get their businesses started within GeoSearch SEO. My support helps them grow as I have been there, achieved success and I can share those experiences. We have a very unique company atmosphere with our weekly nationwide calls where every Distributor has a voice within the company. What is amazing, is Distributors share ideas and successes with others instead of keeping it close to the vest. It is a huge marketplace out there for small businesses with websites, so we all share successes with one another,” says Jesse Solis.
Interview Questions:
Q. How does someone know if they have what it takes to own their own business? Tell us a bit about how you made the decision and why.
A. Ultimately running your own business comes down to motivation. There is no time clock to punch, there is no one telling you when to come into work or leave. You are your own Boss. You need to be self-motivated. We are always most motivated when we enjoy what we do. Then it is no longer work, it is more about spending time with something we are passionate about. That feeling of waking up in the morning excited to get your day started is the ultimate zest for life. The best part is if you can make great money at what you love to do, then you have found the secret to a rewarding life!
Q. What was the biggest challenge you faced in your first six months in business? How did you meet that challenge?
A. The biggest challenge I faced when getting started was having the confidence to speak with potential clients and knowing my subject. You want to sound like an expert and be able to answer all questions that come your way. I was able to meet this challenge by watching all the training videos provided by GeoSearch SEO – twice, and use the access to my coach within GeoSearch SEO. I join in on all the weekly calls and participate.
Q. What do you think is the greatest challenge facing business owners today and why? Any suggestions for how to address those challenges?
A. One of the toughest challenges for business owners these days is marketing their business while running their business. Years ago, anyone could place an ad in the yellow pages and presto, there you are and the phone is ringing. Now-a-days, it’s all about being found in Google. It’s a powerful tool, but with every small, medium and large business online, it is so difficult to compete. Small businesses are out-spent by larger ones and lose any competitive edge. There are only 10 spots on page one of Google. One way to resolve these types of challenges is to become an online marketer yourself and figure out how to get on page one of Google, but this is a huge undertaking and ultimately a full time job.
This is where the reward of Geosearch SEO comes in. I work with small businesses like this, allowing them to focus on what they do, while I get their website to the top of the search engines for hundreds of pages for an extremely low cost.
There are things a small business can do to improve their online exposure like, setting up a Google Place account, a Google+ account and a Pinterest account. We actually provide this to any prospective customer with a free download and step by step so they can do it themselves.
Q. What is the single strongest piece of advice you would have for someone just starting out in business for themselves?
A. Work hard, stay focused and get a support team surrounding you like colleagues, family members and friends. Build your website focused on optimization from the get-go. It’s more about being found than having bling-bling on your website. What’s the point of having a major flash website that no one would ever find unless they find a flyer in their windshield?
Q. What is it about the business/industry you are in that made it so attractive to you?
A. What made GeoSearch SEO so attractive is that every small business has a website these days and all have one thing in common… They need to be found online! It is the very same life blood that helps grow their business. Whether it’s a pool cleaning service, roofer, attorney or caterer, they all need to get to the top of the search engines. I get to help people every day with what they find so overwhelming. I let them focus on their business while my GeoSearch SEO deployment teams build their website from a 5-page display website to a 200-page authority website.
Q. After the initial start-up phase in business, what obstacles do business owners face as they try to grow their business and remain successful? Any advice for how to overcome those obstacles?
A. Staying focused and busy. Sometimes a business owner is juggling so many things at the same time that as you are completing jobs or work orders, you forget to keep marketing. It’s just like a water pump, we need to pump it for a while to get it primed. Once the water flows, most tend to take both hands to drink as much of the water as possible. But something happens when we do this, the water runs out because both hands were used to cup the water and drink. Now you have to start all over again. You need to pump the water pump with one hand and drink with the other. It’s all about balance. GeoSearch SEO takes one aspect of the balancing act out of the customer’s hands so they can focus on what they do best.
Q. What on-line, software or other resources have helped you the most in managing all aspects of your company? Why and how have they been helpful?
A. There are so many to list, but one powerful tool we use at GeoSearch SEO is the Google Streak CRM. First and foremost it’s free. You can keep track of all your customers, leads and current work orders. It makes you become organized and you can customize everything. One of the best features is you can prepare emails, snippets, and have a letter ready for a common customer question and by using the simple mail merge, it will populate the message with the customer’s name. What a time saver! The kicker is, when you send a mass email, let’s say to 500 customers, with Google Streak you can see who opens the email and how many times they open it. This way you can focus on the 20-25 people who opened your email as these are your hot leads! We have a tutorial for our Distributors on how to use Google Streak. My experience is using Streak has made me so organized and efficient it’s as if I am five people!
Q. What did you do before you decided to become your own boss, and how have those skills helped you in your current business?
A. I worked in the mortgage industry before joining GeoSearch SEO. I was always a hard worker and focused on relationships and follow-ups. Always remembering something personal about the client. I did such a good job, that many clients thought I was the owner! The only problem is that I was always working for someone else, advancing their business and not my own. It was time that I did something where I advanced my own business with my efforts. The residual with GeoSearch SEO also is an important component to doing something I am passionate about
Q. What process do you follow to successfully close on a lead and make the final sale? Any tips?
A. First and most importantly, I use Google Streak. It helps me create a drip email campaign, stay on top of my follow-ups and notes for those personal tidbits which impresses customers by remembering. My approach has been more of the Apple approach. That is to say, I don’t aggressively push for the sale. I use the informative approach, letting the customer know all the benefits that we provide. I let them know we are ready when they are. This soft approach creates more trust and confidence. I like to email results videos provided by GeoSearch SEO which show our customers’ websites coming up to page one of the search engines for hundreds of terms. That make the customer approach me, which is the dream of every salesperson.
Q. If you work from home, what are the greatest benefits to doing so?
A. Working-from-home, you need to stay focused. I like to give myself small goals. For instance, what I want to accomplish between 9-Noon. Then I use lunch as a reward and recharge. Then same thing for the afternoon, a goal from 2-5PM. The best part of being your own Boss and work from home is I can still stay involved in my family’s lives, like going to a soccer practice, picking up after school, even volunteering as a coach. These are all things that lead to a healthy, balanced life.
Q. If you own more than one business, how have you integrated your businesses to juggle it all successfully? Any suggestions?
A. I focus strictly on GeoSearch SEO but many of the Distributors I coach do run multiple businesses or represent multiple products. I do see it work for many who use products that are complimentary. For instance if you get your foot in the door with a company regarding a mobile website build, you can also share optimizing with GeoSearch SEO. We have many distributors who are website builders or mobile website reps and GeoSearch SEO is simply complimentary to what they do. Most love the fact that they learn the Streak CRM tool or other sales styles through GeoSearch SEO, which then can be implemented to their other products too.
Q. If you bought into an already existing business opportunity, distributorship, licensee opportunity or small franchise, how and why did you make that choice?
A. I did join GeoSearch SEO and did my due diligence prior. I evaluated the cost and also evaluated the time I knew I was prepared to dedicate. Honestly, I was prepared to work 10 hours a week and felt this fit the bill, of course I dedicate much more time than that because to me it’s not work, it something I love to do. It was an affordable start-up which included a marketing webpage so I didn’t have to do that myself. Of course there’s so much I could see before joining, but once I joined and went through the training, I realized there was so much more than I expected. More support, back office sales tools and everything I needed to become better at sales.
Q. What is/are your favorite motto and/or quote when it comes to business? Any final words of encouragement and/or inspiration for the budding entrepreneur?
A. I like our motto which is: “Build someone a great website, you become their Hero, Get them to the top of the search engines, you become their Savior,” says Jesse Solis.
My final words of encouragement is do something that makes you smile and others smile. Do something you love and the reward will be there. YOLO!
