You know, when I started my podcast only a few months ago, I was filled with determination. I was going to make a GREAT podcast, and once I did, the listeners will follow. Did I make a GREAT podcast? No, not really. To be honest, I’m still learning, and with each passing episode I try to get a little better each time. After a handful of episodes, I realized that like just about every other podcast, I was NOT going to go viral. And then I realized something. Starting my podcast was not all that different than starting my small business consulting business, which I started almost 9 years ago, making as much as $360,000 in my best year.
When I started Distressed Loan Advisors, did I just throw up a website, and then all of a sudden people were beating a path to my door? No, of course not. But it’s wasn’t super clear exactly what to do. They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. I don’t know if that’s true, but when it comes to starting a business, imitation can really get you going in the right direction. After all, if someone else in your industry is doing something, perhaps they have learned something from their past experiences. So with that, I googled the keywords that were relevant to my business, and saw that one of my competitors posted articles all over the web. So what did I do? I took note of the websites that their articles were showing up, and began writing my own articles. Little did I know, I had stumbled onto rule #1 of search engine optimization: I was posting original, high quality content. And that was it: that was my one simple method. Google noticed, and within a year, I was at the top of most relevant keyword searches. And to be clear, I know very little about SEO. All I did was write articles about a niche topic that I knew lots about. And with that, I didn’t need to FIND customers. They found me. Cost of customer acquisition? $0. And that’s a price that will never be match by any other marketing methods out there.