Joe Mikitish, Co-Founder, Winning Reviews
Joe Mikitish is the co-founder of software company, Winning Reviews. Coming from an engineering background, he has worked for companies like Microsoft and HP. He started a cloud computing company in 2005. Winning Reviews later spinned-off from that after he realised the value of reviews.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joemikitish/
https://www.facebook.com/josephmikitish
https://www.winningreviews.com/homepage
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AUTOMATED EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:01] You're listening to Scaling Up Services where we speak with entrepreneurs authors business experts and thought leaders to give you the knowledge and insights you need to scale your service based business faster and easier. And now here is your host Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt.
[00:00:22] Are you a CEO looking to scale your company faster and easier. Checkout Thrive Roundtable thrive combines a moderated peer group mastermind expert one on one coaching access to proven growth tools and a 24/7 support community created by Inc award winning CEO and certified scaling up business coach Bruce Eckfeldt. Thrive will help you grow your business more quickly and with less drama. For more details about the program, visit eckfeldt.com/thrive . That’s E C K F E L D T. com / thrive.
[00:00:54] Welcome everyone. This is Scaling up Services, I’m Bruce Eckfeldt. I'm your host and our guest today is Joe Mikitish. He is owner of Winning Reviews. We're going to talk to him about what he's learned about how you can use Google and not only from CEO point of view, but really from a Google Maps localized content to really help drive your business. If you're a service based business that deals with going to people's homes, going to people's businesses are localized. From a geographic point of view, this is really going to be a helpful interview, helpful episode to really understand what services are available out there. I think there's a couple of things we're going to talk about. You probably haven't heard about or don't know much about that are really key and can be really influential and really productive if you learn how to use them. But it's all about reviews. It's all about getting your business to show up when people are on Google Maps and Google my business and really leverage that platform. So with that. Joe, welcome to the program. Yeah, thank you. Before we dig into all the kind of review strategies and how we can use reviews to drive your listings and drive more traffic, the SEC, a little bit about your background, how you got into this. What was the kind of epiphany or the process you went through to realize, you know, what you can do with Google Maps and Google my business and then we've got to get into the content. But give us a sense of the backstory.
[00:02:03] Yeah. So I have an interesting way of getting to the marketing arena, which is kind of where I sit is marketing, even though way we do it is often through software. But I actually worked for Microsoft and HP and I was that I was an engineer, but I sat in between engineering and marketing.
[00:02:20] So when the marketing team was trying to figure out how to sell or market products, I would go get engineering specs from engineering team and then bring them over the marketing team and explain it to them and help them help translate. You know, if you've ever seen office space, I was that guy who's like, hey, they're engineers. They're not how to talk to people. And so I had that personality that could fit between the two. I didn't take any marketing classes in college other than, you know, your standard little marketing classes freshman year. But, you know, they kind of recognized early on that I had an affinity to translate between technical jargon and what people could actually understand, consumers could understand. So I worked for those two companies for a while and did some other freelance consulting work for big, big companies, Fortune 50 companies. Then in 2005, I started my own cloud computing business and started marketing to small businesses selling cloud computing, which it wasn't called computing back then, but just when I was a little early to the games. So we had to educate a lot of people on what even it was. And then we started working with lots of nonprofits. We worked with hundreds of nonprofits nationally. And so I spent thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing over the course of a decade and realized that most marketing experts have no idea what they're doing. They're not really experts and really almost none of the marketing that I did to market my business other than face to face referrals, BMI and that kind of thing even worked so well.
[00:03:43] I knew that there was there is a secret to doing online marketing that made sense, that wasn't just throwing stuff on Facebook and praying that people would see it. You know, that push, push marketing, throw your message all over the place. You're putting ads in print or radio or any of that, just hoping and praying it would see it at the moment or hear it at the mall that they needed it. And so about six years ago, I created an outsource sales business and that sales business, we started noticing that people were tracking online reviews before buying from us. And so and that was with my other business and with all the businesses we're doing Salesforce. So, you know, it led us to trying all of these review software. You know, we're trying we we started buying licenses to them all and none of them did what we wanted. We're like, oh, my God, this is horrible. So what were they doing? What was the software that was just automating the process of asking for reviews on it and getting those reviews in the right place, whether that's Google or Home Advisor or wherever people want, reviews, Facebook, whatever. So a lot of those software packages are super complicated, either from the customer's perspective or our perspective. Running the software is clunky. They were all venture capital backed. So they they looked fancy, but they didn't do what I wanted them to.
[00:04:49] So we developed our own. So we have our own review software. We make it easy, a super easy for both sides. That's really what we wanted to do, was do that then. So then we started selling software independent of sales. So we just started selling it to home services businesses. And they were like, this is great. This is better. The best thing in the market, they will get 100 reviews or 200 reviews on Google and nobody would see them. And so because their Google Maps listing was not done right, they wouldn't even have pictures of their logo would be well on phone number, some thing that their ads management company put on there, you know, just all kinds of stuff. So. I started teaching people one on one how to manage Google Maps, which, if you can imagine me spending two hours every single day ever. I was like, oh my gosh, there has to be a more efficient way. And so several people said, why don't you teach classes on this? Several of our customers are like, this has to be inefficient for you. And they're right. So I started teaching classes and the first class, I think, had three or four people on it. And I'm like, well, you know, that's not as inspiring as what I wanted. And then the last several months, because Google Maps is so much in everybody's mind business wise, because so much search is done on maps now.
[00:05:53] And Google is moving away from the MCO model of back links and all this stuff. And they're moving to that zero click model where they want people to stay on their platform. And so what do they put right at the top of every local search maps and apps lists? So know the classes are becoming very popular, cell out every single one of them now. So, you know, locally and nationally we do online and in here. I'm in Boise, Idaho. And so selling our classes is great. And then I teach classes on that. And that's led into doing next door classes as well. So two areas where business owners are just overwhelmed by it. They get in there and they're like, wow, there's just so many options, so much stuff going on. What do I actually need to do to get my phone ring? And so, you know, I teach workshops on that. You know, you're about two hours. And, yeah, it's great. It's been a lot of fun. And I love getting texts from my customers every day with screenshots of how many phone calls they're getting from Google Maps. Now, that's what gets me up in the morning when I get the text at 7:00 in the morning and somebody is like, hey, check it out at 12:00 calls today or yesterday. Google Maps. I'm like, that is it inspires me because I'm I'm a business owner and I've been so frustrated with marketing all these years. Now I've got some that works for other people.
[00:07:01] Yeah. Those Grant and I like the story because I always find that, you know, sort of software and systems that are, you know, developed to solve your own problems, you know, being in the business and seeing the need and not finding a solution and developing yourself and then realizing that that's the business, you know, being able to turn that into a platform that you can then, you know, license and license market sell subscriptions to. You know, it's a great a great story. And I see so many kind of products and companies that are built around that. That story. So why don't we just kind of help people understand, you know, kind of the pieces we're talking about here. We talk about Google Maps. We talk about Google next door, just kind of layout what these things are, how they relate to, you know, what people know in terms of Google search. Like, I go to Google and I search for something. How are these things different? How do I get to them? What are the platforms? I mean, you talk about desktop. We talk about mobile.
[00:07:49] Why are these things sort of important and what's sort of new and developing around them that make them a really interesting platform for marketing?
[00:07:57] You know, really all focused on Google for this conversation. But, you know, I'll talk next door as well. You know, Google's platform, you know, whether it's search or maps are so integrated. Now, you know, if you're looking for a plumber or a roofer, you know, anyone walking on or in the home and, you know, lawn care, you name any of those service industries, really, they're the differentiator is no longer how starting SEO packages. Right. It's how strong your Google Maps listing is and whether you show up in that group or three magical group of three maps. I mean, anybody who's listening, this can go Google right now and type in plumber and your me or electrician or any of those. And you're going to see those three maps listings in those three maps listings is the magic. That's a secret source of getting the phone calls. Obviously, you know what inspires people to make those calls? Whoever is going to get called first is the one with the most reviews and the quality good quality reviews. But being in the list, if you're not on the list, you can have a thousand reviews and some other guys. Fifty fifty is his listing and showing up in that group at 3:00 every time. And you're not getting the calls.
[00:08:57] So this is this is this is an organic result, meaning it's this is not paid placement. This is if you're if you have a strong listing and Google decides that you are a good fit for what a user is searching for, they're going to drop you into this one of these top three slots. And then those are map listings, I guess.
[00:09:13] How does Google distinguish between searches that are are map related versus searches that are not like hundreds looking for a piece of content, you know, like who won the World Series and, you know, nineteen fifty six. That's a content informational search, not a map search. How does Google know if I type in. You know that when I type in plumber like okay now I'm now I'm dealing with something that might be local map related versus just general content related.
[00:09:37] Yeah. So they've come up with this cool thing called business categories and then services that are under those business categories. Then they also assign groups of keywords or search terms that people all commonly search when they're searching for those those businesses. So Google knows. I mean, they have all of the data in the world and all the business, intelligent intelligence in the world to know that when you're searching for something, you're searching for a local business or some help from local businesses. So they're going to present you those maps, listings for those local business searches almost all the time. You know, you have to search, get really obscure with your search terms just to trick Google, not to thinking that it's something else. But even in the plumbing issue, there's hundreds and hundreds of words. And if the plumbers do it right and they pick all the business categories that are correct and they fill out. All their services and they do all of the work on Google Maps. Google is going to Google's a matchmaking service. That's what I really. Well, somebody searching for something. Google wants to give them exactly what they're looking for. I mean, one time I accidently and you may have done this even yourself, a lot of people have actually changed their default search engine and their Web browser to Beijing or Yahoo! Or something. And then you type in a search term and you're like, what is this has nothing to do with what I'm looking for. This is crazy. Google's lost their mind. Then you realize you're not on Google's platform and you know, you're like, oh, of course. And then you go back and change over to Google is very good at what they do. They're a great matchmaking service. And if Yahoo! And being to do that kind of searches, we would all use their platform.
[00:11:00] Exactly. And now these are the results that you're talking about. These aren't just kind of Google search results. These are these are results of companies and individuals who have listed their businesses as a Google business, that it's pulling the data from that or it's deciding based on the data that what to show and what information shows like thiss
[00:11:18] This isn't gonna happen automatically. You need to actually list yourself on Google to be able to get to get yourself to show up. Is that correct?
[00:11:23] Exactly. You'd have to go in there and create a Google my business listing to show up on maps and show up in those searches. And there's this misconception that, you know, you're when you get a Web site and then you have an SVO company doing SEO, that's it. That's going to do this for you. And it's totally not true. Two completely different sites, Google. So you can do all the FCL in the world and have the most amazing Web site ever created by man.
[00:11:45] And it's not going to help you to show up on maps because you haven't created a profile, because you haven't actively created a profile profile on Google my business.
[00:11:52] And even if you did, it's not it's not a determining factor whether you're maps listing shows up.
[00:11:56] Oh, because because you have to fill it out correctly and strategically and for it to actually make the cut of getting into the rankings. Exactly.
[00:12:05] And tell us, are there. I think it's generally are there types of businesses that, you know, this works well for and types of businesses that this doesn't work well for? How do you kind of navigate or decide for a client? You know, if this is a good strategy for them or not?
[00:12:18] Yeah. Let people get the most benefit are the ones who are selling in their local market. Right. So whether that's, you know, within blocks of your building, maybe you're an automotive shop and you sell within a three mile radius of your office, of your building, or if you're a realtor and you sell across a giant territory, maybe the entire Dallas metro area includes Fort Worth and Arlington, everything. So it works great for those people, doesn't work so great for people who sell on a national basis. So business coaches, if you do a local business coaching, great. If you're Tony Robbins, you're probably not recommended.
[00:12:52] And why not? Like, why is that different and why does it not compete well or what does it not perform well?
[00:12:56] You know, it's just not enough eyeballs out. Right. So and people aren't searching for a Tony Robbins or Grant Cardone or Ty Lopez type person on Google Maps or locally they're looking in. And Google is not going even presented to them unless that person has gone to Google my business page in that one local market. So here in Boise, we have a half a million people in this area. There's not enough business for Tony Robbins person to bother with where a a plumber. It's the difference between that plumber being able to put his kids through college and not, you know, that's that's literally the difference. When I talk to my customers who come to my classes, they tell me this is the difference between me having three employees through the this season and not being able to afford to keep those people and having to lay them off. So it's life changing. We're on a national scale. It's not a local local businesses. It is the thing that is driving business now. And in any local services, businesses. No, Jack, what I'm talking about. You know, they get one bad review on Google and oh, my goodness, it's like the world's falling down.
[00:13:53] And what do you put on the listings? I mean I mean, walk us through a little bit about what Google's actually collecting in terms of information about you, your business. I mean, I know for search engine optimization, you know, there's all the strategy of finding these kind of tail keywords that are, you know, going to help you be unique or help, you know, bring in the right traffic or, you know, using the right kind of getting the right keywords in place and your content so that you show up correctly. How do you do that on the business side?
[00:14:18] Yeah, you do that. Almost the same way you do on Web sites. Right. And you create content with those keywords. And so there's a couple of ways to do that. One is your profile. When you log into Google my business, there is a section called Imbo and there's an entire profile that needs to be filled out. And there's two sections that almost everybody ignores and that services and products. And in there, you have the opportunity to fill out what your services are and give good, solid descriptions of each one of the services you provide. And then if you're a product, business or service business, you can use the product section to really detail that in like a thousand characters or more what it is. Each one of your services or products are so and Google is matching people. You know, we used to back in like, say, 2007. Everybody's like, you got to have a blog on your Web site. Right. Why did you have to have a blog on your Web site back then? Google would index that information and then they would use that to present your Web site. Me, we were searching for your exact products and services. Well, now you do that with Google Maps and then you also embed all those keywords like you're talking about in here into the metadata on your photos.
[00:15:17] So when you're doing photo postings. Google made a business page. If the geotagging with the longitude and latitude of your physical location or your Google Maps listing, if you want a physical location, they still assign you one based on your service area. So do you have to fill out the metadata in the photos correctly or or it just doesn't help you? Right. So a lot of businesses, I see they have thousands of photos on there, but they're still not showing up on maps. And I look at the photos and they're all straight off their iPhone. So their named like I M.G.. And so Google has no idea what that is. And then because I didn't name it what it is. And then they didn't geotag it. So Google doesn't know that that's their photo that's owned by them. So they don't know that's our original. And it doesn't help boost our maps listing up by saying, hey, this photo is attached to this Google my business page. Here's the geocode of my maps listing. And each one of those that you do, whether you're posting it on there or next door or any other place to Google's indexing Facebook, it's going to help your maps listing because it's going to show that you're creating original content and you're intelligent enough to attach that to your business in the right way.
[00:16:22] And so there's a lot of metadata that goes in that photo. So in my in my workshop, a good like forty five minutes of the two hours is how to do photos and videos correctly to get your maps listing boosted and get people's eyeballs on your listing. So, you know, I'll give you the example of how he does mobile oil changes. So he's competing with traditional oil change shops. And Google didn't know how to classify him, so they were sending him like pizza parlor search results. So as came to my class and put all those search keywords and he content into services and products. And then into the photos, he went from like five to 10 views on Google Maps per month to 4000. And his final phone calls went from like one or two calls to hundreds. So obviously that totally dark with his business. He had no other people. And I told them I was like, good prominently. I got the victory. Go to Jiffy Lube and got to job, you know? So that's the difference is, is Google just wants to bring him the business where people are actually searching for what he does in a house. So we just give him the tools to do that.
[00:17:22] Yeah. I mean, it's a classic example of like if you don't understand how the system works, you're liable to miss opportunities and not not really leverage it. But, you know, once you really understand how Google is using this content, you can optimize what you're doing and how you do it to increase the results. And it sounds like this is, you know, somewhat of an area that is, you know, still being discovered by the general market. Like, if you get in there and start doing this stuff now, you can have a leg up on on the majority of competition in your market because it doesn't sound like many people are really optimizing around this.
[00:17:49] Well, in fact, I don't know anybody who is. I know that there's other trainers out there either teaching people online how to do this, but they're charging thousands of dollars for their classes. And so the average business owner, A, doesn't know where to find those people. Maybe they're going to spend thirty four hundred dollars on a class. So that's sight unseen to them. So we created a structure where people who are local, small businesses, service businesses, can leverage these tools and not need a marketing expert to do the work. And obviously, there's the time money equation, right? So if they have more time than money, then they can do the work themselves and they can then outsource the work if they the money equation starts taking over. But most the time people come to my classes, I would say ninety five percent of them end up doing the business, the work themselves. And we make it easy enough where we go, hey, here's what you need to do on a daily basis. Here's what you need to do on a weekly basis. Here's your little checklist. Just do the work and then inevitably they're sending me screenshots because their competitors are not doing it. I've never seen Google my business page done correctly. Not one. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them from around all over the country in all 50 states. You know, we work in all 50 states and all U.S. territories have never seen one done. And that's one of the services I offer is I'll look at your Google my business page for free, and I'll just give you a little bit of feedback for people. And I'm being. Right. And so I do a lot working. And B and I nationally through B and I connect and I talk to business owners all over the country every day and I've never seen one done even 10 percent. Right. You know, they're all dorks up. And I'm like, do this, this. And that's Aneel. You know, that'll be your beat out your competition. Now, if you want to dominate, take the next step.
[00:19:20] So that's all about listing and making sure that you're showing up. Right. You've got the right content. And Google is sort of seen you as the right type of business to do the right matches. But let's talk about the review side of it. How do reviews kind of play into this from kind of an algorithm point of view or from how did they affect your profile, your ability to get listed? And then we'll talk a little bit about how to get the right reviews and how to amp that up.
[00:19:40] Yeah, and reviews don't matter as much as one would think on where you rank in BAPS. So or in search of when somebody's searching for, say, a plumber. What determines whether you're in that group of three reviews really don't matter. Right. So what reviews help you with is when people see those three listenings or there are maps on their phone and they do a search or armor, that you're the one getting the calls. It's a psychology thing. So the sentiment is people call you and I always do this thing. When I have a class, I pull up a listening of three. You say Armours and I'm like, OK, here's these three. Palmyra's one has two reviews and an average of three starts to get to one side in a five star. Then you've got another guy who's got 48 reviews and four point eight. And then you got another one that's got a three hundred and something, and it's, you know, four point nine stars speaking a call, you know, the most in years. And what looks the best thing you may get in there? Read it. Read some of them. Well, by and large, if you've got a plumbing problem and say your toilets leak and all these lower, you're not just go, that guy's got several hundred reviews. Call Bob. Get him out here. Fix my toilet. You know, and you don't even bother calling the other two unless the first guy doesn't become a star.
[00:20:42] Yeah, exactly. The trash. You're centralizing the situation. Good enough.
[00:20:46] Yeah, exactly. You're just like and that's just almost always the way it works. People do read reviews. I get that a lot where my customers call me and they're like, hey, check us out. I asked this customer why they picked us and they read our reviews and that's 100 percent the reason they decided on us. They never would have had the opportunity had they not been seen.
[00:21:04] So first thing is just kind of get seen and then the reviews are gonna help you further differentiate from other folks who happen to be making that list. Exactly. Is there a circuit formula for review? Like when you go to ask for a review, what do you want people to actually say? Right. And the reviews are a strategy or a formula here that makes them more more impactful or more useful.
[00:21:24] You know, I never try to tell people what to write. When we were our software request, reviewers advised people to do. We say something like, hey, please write us a review. It would mean so much to me in my family because you're a local service business, right? It wants me right. It is your helping out my kids. You know, when you when somebody reads that review request, if they kind of get that little tears in their eyes, they're gonna write a heartfelt, passionate. Right. So because they know that they're actually helping you and your family, not just some big corporation that doesn't care. Interesting. So those that emotional incentive actually gets better quality reviews then just something that's dispassionate and just go. You know, it looks like a machine. Yeah.
[00:22:01] So we're we do a lot of analysis of what the psychology is behind what incentivizes people. And we never want to do like a monetary incentive or anything like that because, you know. Interesting. There's not that emotional feel to it. And what we've noticed is the emotional reviews where people are almost like, you know, this guy came and saved Milo, you know, well, my roof was leaking and it was five degrees outside. And, you know, snow is coming in. And, you know, the roofer came out and said, you know, put that in right about my kids had saved our house from getting flooded out. You know, whatever the story is, those stories incentivized the emotionally, the next people to come along and buy from me. So, you know, obviously there's people who are like business, business type relationship people where they're going to type in a dispassionate you know, Bob did a good job, thinks, you know, type of review. But the ones that get people to buy are the emotional ones because you want to get those emotional buyers.
[00:22:52] And I like that idea that the monetary incentives actually work against you. I've always felt that none of us kind of from a sales process, but we said, you know, people make decisions based on emotions and logic and. And I think you you're gonna do yourself a disservice to try to, you know, give, you know, five dollars or ten dollars or, you know, 10 percent off your nice purchase to kind of promote the review and then kind of focus on the more the emotional connection, you know, the passion side of it and the financial incentive side of it. I mean, I guess how have you kind of discovered that or what do you think that works?
[00:23:20] You know, it was really trial and error. You know, we we we bought licenses, all of our competitor software. And we looked at how they were working and were like, you know, looks like some A.I. machine wrote the request. And so we did some testing with with some some of our early customers were like, hey, can we write like four different types of review requests and see not only what the response rate is, but also what types of reviews you get from different types of requests? And, you know, I think we're I've never seen another I mean, there's tons of review software out there now. But, you know, let's all venture capital back. But you got to remember who's in those businesses are. They're run by business people who are just thinking of this as like a spreadsheet. And it's all numbers to them. You know, how many subscribers do we have? How much churn do we have, that kind of thing with us? You know, I always say that our our business was funded by the Bank of Joe and Bethany, you know, and I'm talking to business owners and I'm looking at their business. We look at it from a personal perspective because they in almost all these service businesses, you know, they tell you is 90 percent of my business comes from referrals.
[00:24:24] Right. So if 90 percent of their business is coming from referrals and I actually did a test with my neighbor across the street back in describes Ivor Grubbs, your guy might be in chapter. So I walked over there and I'm like, hey, know a guy? He's great. And he was like, oh, yeah, what's his name and why? I'm telling him his name. He's Googling and in reading his reviews. Right. And so not only did you get the business from a referral, but you know that he had bought, you know, poor reviews or a poor showing on Google. You may have not, you know, the garage door. I mean, I've got that business to play a part into each other. And I understand that. I think better than that a lot of folks do, because my business is 90 percent referrals. So when I help out Bret, the guy who owns the main cleaning business, and then he refers me to his body, he owns a carpet cleaning business, he referred me to the guy who does it. He's a painter. You know, those people have a personal relationship with each other. And I want that to be portrayed in everything that we do that that's our focus is. Not only the reviews not only showing up on Google Maps, but creating those personal relationships from.
[00:25:24] From what you're putting out in the market, not just from the personal relationship you already have now to lay out for you know, if you know someone listening to this who's, you know, owner of a service based business who, you know, is fairly localized. What are the steps or what's the kind of checklist that you give them in terms of how to really take advantage of the platform of the Google Map platform?
[00:25:44] And one of the things I need to do. What do I start? What do I do next?
[00:25:48] So, you know, first thing obviously is get your Google my business profile. And a lot of people have one that, like a web developer, created forum like years ago also sitting out there. But there's nobody managing it anymore. So if you sit down and you find your listening and there's a manager's listening option there, definitely click on that and gain control of your listening. And then Google has a verification process now where they're going to mail you a postcard takes five days. I would say half of the postcards come in the mail and people just throw in the garbage because I don't think they don't know what it is. You know, just make sure that you look out for those postcards. Get your listing verified and then go through the profile. There's like a you know, when you're on to most of the service businesses are not on like then, but on platforms like that, there's like a little dial that says, how filled out is your profile? Is that 80 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent, you know, whatever. Make sure that that profile is 100 percent filled out. And then at least do the step of filling out your products and services. So, you know, that step right there will help you almost more than anything to start out with and then make sure that your photos are named properly. You know, don't just post them from your iPhone, put them on your computer and name them whatever the photo is so that Google knows what that is. And then, you know, obviously doing geotagging and metadata on photos looks kind of like your your next step. And probably most people on this call or not don't understand what that means. But, you know, that is the thing that will drive eyeballs to your listening is ensuring that all of your content, whether it's photos or videos or are properly geotag and have keywords put into them.
[00:27:17] And your name, address and phone number is embedded into the photos. So I've noticed that posting a photo that's not geotagged and posting photos that are I'll get four or five hundred percent more eyeballs on your lasting thing, and that is. So you got to make sure that you're doing that. That is that's the critical thing that people overlook where they're just like dumping photos out there and they're not ensuring that they're named properly. And the metadata is not embedded in the photo. And then almost nobody uses post. I always tell people, if you want to do stuff on Facebook, you know, I'm a numbers guy. So here's a statistic that most people know that small businesses owners don't understand. There was a survey that went out and I sent out a survey, a hundred thousand business owners that had been in the United States, two point three percent of their business came from Facebook and social media. Last year, the year before that, it was two point two percent. So Google accounted for 17 percent. So if you and 68 percent obviously was referrals, but 17 percent. So if you're going to post something, why post posted that? You know, I'm not saying don't post it on Facebook, but ensure that you're also getting a 17 percent by posting it on Google my business and ensuring that those posts are being seen by putting a photo on there and putting some content in there and ensuring that you're putting that content. And Google knows that you're interacting with their platform. So they're going to they're going to use you're listening now.
[00:28:31] Great advice, Joe. It's been a pleasure. If people to find out more about you, about the business, about how they can participate in the courses and learn more about how to leverage Google Maps, what's the best way to get that information?
[00:28:41] The best way is to reach out to me directly on Facebook. You know, my name is Joe McIntosh. You know, my last name was spelt m i k i t i s h was not very many of me. And you're all related. Yeah. You know, my I've got like there's two, three of us in the United States, so pretty easy to find me. I'm not the chef and I'm not the judge. There you go. There you go.
[00:29:04] And then, you know, waiving reviews, dot com, you can always check out our software. There are classes you're not are not on there. And they're always being updated, but reaching out to me. And I'm happy to do a free analysis. If you Google my business, listening doesn't cost anything. I'll give you 15 minutes of my time. No charge and I'll walk you through the listening. And if you get the benefit out of that, you can go do it on your own. How about it? If you want to take it further and come to my class, then that would be a good way to take it to the next level. I would say after people get on fifteen minute calls with me, that's all they need. They can go party hardy with their business and they just stay in touch with me over time and back when they need me.
[00:29:40] Good. I'll make sure that the links are in the shonen so people can click through, get the information. I would highly encourage everyone listening to take you up on the offer. I was I'm always surprised how many people don't, but I know the people that do end up getting the benefit to get a biased or is action big action. But this has been grand. I think this is an area that I actually I don't.
[00:29:58] I kind of know a little bit about. I've worked with several different local service businesses and I've seen somebody really, really well and I've seen some not do so well. And I think I have a better understanding why. So I think this has been helpful for me and I think it's been really helpful for everyone listening. So I really appreciate the time and you being on the program today.
[00:30:13] All right. Thanks for having me.
[00:030:14] You've been listening to Scaling up Services with Business Coach, Bruce Eckfeldt. To find a full list of podcast episodes, download the tools and worksheets and access other great content, visit the website at scalingupservices.com and don’t forget to sign up for the free newsletter at scalingupservices.com/newsletter.