Overhauling Your Website To Revive Your Brand – Business Owner Interview With John Matiolli – 183

John Mattioli: I feel like Google changes because this company they don't know me or the company personally, but based on analytics, which is that world, this cat's for real, this organization's for real.

Jesse Dolan: I always think that's an amazing but hidden benefit that people don't quite realize once you get some good marketing going on, your company changes, the attitude, the energy can change.

John Mattioli: Continuing to do what it took to maximize the exposure. Our website, it's not a vanity thing, it's a business thing. It's the best advertising marketing I've ever done.

Jesse Dolan: Welcome back to Local SEO Tactics where we bring you tips and tricks to get found online. I'm your host, Jesse Dolan. Sue Ginsburg with me here today. Sue, we've got a special guest. Why don't you set the stage, let everybody know what we got going on today.

Sue Ginsburg: Sounds great. Yes, we do have a very special guest. We have here with us today, John Mattioli, co-founder and owner of a great business out of Atlanta, Georgia, Giant Enterprises. John was a friend and confidant to me long before he became a client. Working together came about from our many conversations as friends, just talking about life, business, and starting to pick up on some of the things John was telling me about his business.

Looking into his online presence and his curiosity in how marketing could help him. Lo and behold, here we are, I don't know, three years later or something like that, working together and his business continues to thrive and expand and we have helped be a part of that. We have John Mattioli on the podcast today to talk a little bit about his journey, how his perceptions have changed towards marketing before, during, and now.

We're really, really glad to have John here, super sharp business owner, one of the best. I think that he will have a lot to share that will be helpful and insightful to all our business owners that are listening out there in the audience. While we have you here, John, would you mind sharing with us how your journey into marketing started with us.

What your attitude and mindset was before and as you were learning this, applying it to your own business with us, working on it for you? I guess that's a backward way of saying, tell us how you came into this all and your view of it as a business owner who's now employing online marketing.

John Mattioli: That's a great question. Finally, I knew the website we had was obsolete and it was pixelated and all that, that was never my focus to get a better website or a bigger presence online. It was always about running the business. Those times when I happened to be online checking it out, it was like, "Gross, I should really do something about that." Which went on for probably two years.

When you and I had reconnected, Sue, I told you about it. See, this is the classiest thing we could do better. It's all blah blah, blah. You took a look at it and it is what it is now. We have too much back and forth and input, and all of that. You guys are like custom designers, I wish you made suits, I'd be the sharpest dressed guy in the world. The finished product was spectacular.

From there, I'm going, of course of a conversation I'm saying, "Man, I really like it, blah, blah, blah. What's this thing? What is it about reviews? Do they really matter or is that just somebody bribing somebody to say nice things online so that they get some traffic is how I hear it works? I didn't know." They said yeah and you said you started to explain what that is and from can contribute too. It's a big circle, it's SEO.

SEO to me I thought was a corporation. It's search engine optimization and here's how it works. You walk through all of that and it made sense. Being a businessman, a big part of me, I think a lot of business guys are, or owners, show me, what do you mean? Show me how it works and why it works that way and all that, and you did. We get on there, you brush up if not completely reconstruct the website.

You start talking to me about how keywords work and how that enhances search engine optimization. All the while I'm showing off this website and actually talking like I know what I'm saying to buddies and other friends that have businesses with search engine optimization and they didn't know what I was talking about. I'm a step ahead of them at least. Then, you take it what other things affect SEO.

Then, we started talking about the website individualized to each regional office we have, which we have three, one's in Panama City, you know Atlanta, and just opened one in Nashville. The websites are, I don't know if it's a contradiction of terms, but hopefully it's a generalization, it's an individual generalized site, so you can't have a site that's comparable. The site itself it looks on the surface same except for the content for the most part.

They're individualized to the region and local area that you're in. Not only reviews steer the search engine optimization, which is an algorithm where the words, the engine, the search engine, the algorithm will steer the keywords to who's ever got the best optimized, I call it a pipeline engine. It'll go to those keywords and that's where the eyeballs go. That's where the clicks come from and we've done that. It's been so effective.

The reviews, I won't brag, the reviews have been excellent. Nashville just kicked off, but it's happened in each of the other two locations we have, regions we have, it's going to happen in Nashville sure as we're sitting here talking to each other. I couldn't give you a definition of what search engine, I know what it is innately, but I stumble over the words to pinpoint the exact definition of it is, but I know what it does.

I know how the reviews, which I thought was fluffy and stuff that it makes it feel good, but come on, does it really work? How these algorithm works, which I know what it does, I don't know how it does it I just know it's effective. As good as it's been, you can also have it be bad, not mine, but a website or without those things, which maybe I'm 65, I've been in business for a long, long time. The younger folks out there probably are listening to me and going, "Duh, no kidding."

To me, and a lot of guys my age, if there are many that aren't retired yet, have ever wondered about it or thought about it and not done it yet, I'd recommend it. It's been a game changer. We don't advertise and trade publications anymore. They didn't do squat and there's nothing you can do about it with something like this or even the newspaper with something like this, you can keep changing, morphing, and improving.

I'm no expert, couldn't teach a class in this stuff, but I can tell you what it's meant. It's been a game changer. You know what, it's 2023 if one isn't doing this, I was late to the game, if anybody is considering this, don't be any later to the game because how many times you go to a newspaper anymore and open up and look at the ads? How many radio ads do you hear that that hit home?

Number one, 99.9% of them aren't even anything you want to do with, and all the SEO and the website and the reviews and all that is individualized bringing literally the universe to your doorstep if in fact those keywords ring a bell.

Jesse Dolan: John, you mentioned you're 65, been in business for a while. I'd like to rewind a little bit, talk about some of that, but then also underscore your business was successful. To be clear to everybody listening before we engaged with you, even though I'm just going to say you ignored your website, you literally ignore it, but in retrospect you didn't put the attention that you are now.

Could you speak to everybody for a few minutes just so they understand who you are, your journey a little bit more. Again, successful in business, established business, been doing this for a while without any web in SEO. Lead us up to that point before you engage with us. How are you doing? What you're doing? What was working? Timelines? Give us a little history on that.

John Mattioli: I moved around a lot as a kid. My father was in the corporate world and we moved nine times between my first grade and my senior year. Three of those times were in all three years of high school. Sophomore, junior, senior year we moved freshman to sophomore, sophomore, junior, junior to senior year we moved in three different parts of the country.

I played basketball so everywhere I went I would look for where the guys were practicing and go practice or shoot around and have pickup games all summer. It wasn't all that bad, it's just something that I didn't want to keep doing. Even at that age, I knew that. Although I did get into, when I graduated in '79 right next to Sue, I was an economics major and economics majors were a dime a dozen back then.

However, guys that could pitch a story about the car business were being eaten up by companies like Ford, the big three. I happened to go to work for Ford. You guys remember the Arab oil Embargo? We were just coming out of that. Prime rates were out of sight, companies were struggling, but the forecast were better times were coming. They were hiring. I hooked up and I was in the corporate world for two years, was not my thing at all.

For a lot of reasons it's just harder and you do what you're told and don't say anything about it. Corporate America hasn't even changed since then, but you came to work in a white shirt and a tie and a jack and a suit, and that wasn't me. Anybody that knows me know within five minutes, actually were in the corporate world who ever hire you. There was a lot of other things that I had interest in and most of them entail working for myself.

I went through two or three businesses. One was in the automotive world where it was an automotive aftermarket business where since I was familiar with that, and by the way, right out of school, I told you I got hired by Ford right out of school. It was a year later I went to work because couldn't find a job that I wanted, had some offers, didn't want it so I had to make some money. I worked in the car business selling cars, and then became a sales manager for two years.

I was in the retail end, which enhanced the experience, which got me the job with Ford and it wasn't my thing. Got into the aftermarket world where I would do services, hire some people, got a shop and we actually, back then aftermarket items were big in the car business, and that was rush proofing, paint sealant, nicer radios, ad cruise control. Pretty much everything that now comes with a car standard we were doing.

My wife had an opportunity, she was with Xerox at the time, she had an opportunity to move to Pittsburgh, which we ended up taking, sold the business and went to Pittsburgh. Got back in the car business on the retail side, ended up hooking up with a guy and became an owner of a Ford dealership in Emsworth, Pennsylvania, back in a car business, but now I'm the owner. I don't have to answer to somebody's, we all know what the stereotypical buying experience is.

We did great, ended up selling it, and now I don't know what I'm going to do. That same time, this is about five years later after we moved to Pittsburgh, Theresa gets another opportunity, but it's not within Xerox, it's who we transfer, it's with HP. She jumps on it and she retired two years ago, by the way. I don't know if she can hear me, I give her a shout-out. She said she's working harder now in this business that she ever did in 30 years of corporate America.

I think that's probably a little bit of a stretch, but she's helping me. When we moved here, I got hooked. I always stayed in touch with one of the best friends of my life, Jim Clemshot, he had just kicked the business off. We ended up hooking up. He ended up passing away a few years later, day before his 45th birthday. His wife and I kept it going, she lives in Omaha. She's not involved day to day. We kept it going and it's turned into it's hit a niche that nobody else did.

To be specific what we do, I frame it as we do everything in the waste management world for multi-residential properties. Your mid-rises, low rises, high rises, residential properties, mostly apartments, some condos. In these buildings, the infrastructure is you eat and the packaging in the garbage, you take out, walk it down the hallway, open the trash chute door, throw the trash down there, it goes barreling down the chute into a compactor.

It gets compacted, they put in a container and either the containers get picked up or waste management, somebody like that comes by and picks them up. We do everything waste management infrastructure-wise except the hauling, we don't haul the garbage anywhere. What else does that mean? Well, the garbage that goes barreling down that chute and all the times those doors get open, they break, we replace those doors, fix those doors, we install chutes in brand new buildings.

We install chutes in old buildings that are rotted. The biggest thing we do is ambience scenting and order control. It's a recurring revenue model that is where the website and SEO, and all that has been spectacularly impactful because it's the greatest model there is. By that I mean anything, you can have a lot of models that are the recurring revenue model or a lot of products and services, but when you get a customer one time but they keep paying you monthly, it's pretty sweet or quarterly or semi-annually, whatever it is.

We do this ambience scenting is in a lot of institution now. Major superstore, I mean department stores and all kinds of places. Restaurants have them, banks have them. We do it in the lobbies and hallways and fitness centers and those types of places in these properties, and we call that the front of the house. Then, we also do it in the back of the properties. Those trash rooms I was telling you about in the chutes and the cotton packers.

It gets to stinking and that's the back of the house, which we also have a recurring revenue of servicing and we differentiate that and call it odor control. Those are two big drivers of revenue, but the other services have come on and that's probably a little bit more than anybody wanted to know, but that's basically in the nutshell.

Jesse Dolan: That's great. I think it's important for people to know, I got a few more questions I'm going to ask you and I think that was great to lay the foundation so people know you know what you're talking about here. You didn't just start a business yesterday is my point. Let's still stay before you engaged with us and really started doing a lot more on your website or in Google, things like that.

What was your sales tactics, John, at that point? Knocking on doors, calling people, you mentioned whatever, TV, radio, newspaper because you're ignoring the website right up until we engage with you, what was driving success? You had a good business, you weren't floundering or going bankrupt or anything. What was working? What were you doing?

John Mattioli: It's a good question because back then when we started, it was Jim, my partner started it in '93. We got here in '97 and he had moved on to something else and was doing this part-time. What we did was just go around door to door. We had no advertising, we had no website. You guys could share what the audience better than I can, what the technology is now with websites and SEO and all that.

In '97, I mean the computers could barely handle that bandwidth. We started by pounding the pavement and we went door to door and we had a model that nobody else did. We would let him try a free two-week trial and this all came from let's try this type of thing. "In this trial you can try absolutely free, no cost Mr. or Mrs. Property Manager. If you want to continue it, we will start invoicing. If you don't, then we'll just take it out of here free of charge."

Basically, we would walk in the door and back then it was much easier to get into these properties. Now, they're like Fort Knox for a lot of reasons, but I would go in the back door, which is where the trash rooms were and nobody was around typically. I'd see if they had a need, well guess what? Every single one of them had a need because there wasn't the services that we provide or anybody else provided at that point.

These rooms stunk and I would go up to the front of the desk, the front of the house and I would ask for the property manager, the maintenance manager. One of them would come up and say, "Hello, my name's John Mattioli, I represent a company called Giant Enterprises. We specialize in industrial and commercial solutions for odor control." In a property like this and the best thing about our model is I could do this in a hospital, in an environmental services section of the hospital.

I can do it in an operation that was commercial or retail. You just changed the spiel, but I would say when I said in a property like this, in the trash room at the base of your chute is probably a big stinky challenge for you. He didn't know I was down there so I knew. He says, "Yeah, it is big time." I said, "Well, if you would be interested, I can set a free trial because we handle problems just like that and we'll make that stink go away."

"Yeah, right. You'll make that stink go away?" Yeah, you can try it free. If you like it, we will bill it. We do not require a long-term contract. We go month to month so we have to perform to your standards or we're out." Now, who's going to turn that down? They got nothing to lose. That's how we started, a lot of yeses. We have a ton of customers to this day, this is dang near what, '23 and this is 26 years ago is when we started doing.

We started '93 but didn't get really amped up until '97. It's been a good run that way, and it's the way we still do it now by the way. We still do it, we just do it with more services.

Jesse Dolan: I know when we first engaged with you, I'm not saying you had the opinion that your website wasn't going to benefit from an SEO or do these things, but you were the type of business and business owner where you just hadn't seen that. This isn't where you got sales even though you knew it was important. Maybe share with everybody if there's certain product lines that have really taken off from what's been happening online. How it helped your sales team.

I know there's discussions we had about your team being happy that they could actually now from a design aspect point back to the website like, "Hey look, this is us. We're happy now. We're happy to showcase ourselves instead of trying to hide this website, and it has information." It's useful to your physical sales team as a digital brochure, but more from that inbound side of people finding you and not having to knock on doors.

Maybe help everybody understand the evolution of your mindset and then how that actually impacted your business and those fronts.

John Mattioli: When Sue and I hooked up, it was after this initial start of the business. We've always seen each other, not always but we stayed in touch. She comes to town and actually after several phone calls of hearing what I do and how we do it and then she gravitates towards internet marketing and all this stuff. She says, "John, I'll be in town. Had nothing to do with me or it was unrelated, "I'll be in town visiting a friend and to meet with you and talk to you about it, blah blah blah."

We do, the rest is history. What happened specifically from there is that she had to overcome some reticence because we were growing the business and we were doing well. I had no idea how much better and faster we would grow it, until I actually got on board with the program. I was like, "I'm not necessarily a workhorse in this traditional turn because I like to play golf." I was very active in kids things.

I'm going, "You need to tell me after Sue has talked to me about it, I don't even know Sue how my body language was because I'm going, "I really need this, right?" She finally me grabs me by the nape of the neck and figuratively says, "Look at this stuff." She's showing I didn't have a website or anything, so she's showing me other things, other sites, what it does for you, the benefit, what Google is all about.

I said, "Okay, well we started with the website." I said a few times and then we then built from that because with Googling my business at GMP or Google marketing platform is what it is now you got to have a website, you got to have a platform. The technology that is now able to pick a keyword where in a world of maybe the same keywords from other businesses and direct it to yours has to do with, how am I going to put it? How well-oiled your keywords and the SEO line to your site is.

She converted me and we did whatever she said. She said, "Try this, John." I'll be dang. Then, when we started getting reviews, we have very proud to say we have a five-star reviews and we started, what? I don't know how long ago, but I'd never worked it never had the employees work it. Now, we have 500, they're all five-star. Well, there's one that we think was a competitor. I won't get into that, but I had to get Google involved and he threw a one star in there.

Nobody knows who he is and we'd never heard of him. Dom's saying that gang, just as in full disclosure, but the rating is five-star without that and they don't count that. I don't know, I tried to dispute it, but Google didn't seem to want to do too much about it, but it's still a five-star rating even with the one. The more I got and the more aware of, and the more Sue, "Look, look, look. This, this, this, bam."

We're getting five-star reviews and there's not the stars, it's the comments that come with it and I'm starting to go, "I'm better than we thought. We got this going on." It was very flattering but it made you juice up. It was motivational and it just kept the commitment to continuing to do what it took to maximize the exposure. Our website, it's not a vanity thing, it's a business thing, and it's the best advertising marketing I've ever done by far.

Jesse Dolan: There's a synergistic effect if that's the right way to put it, not only does it bring in new business, but your existing team from seeing your investment, seeing the facelift, and then what it does for bringing in the business. I always think that's an amazing but hidden benefit that people don't quite realize once you get some good marketing going on, your company changes, the attitude, the energy can change, and you saw that happen.

John Mattioli: I feel like Google changes because this company, they don't know me or the company personally, but based on analytics, which is that world, this cat's for real, this organization's for real, and everything gets pointed. They don't adjust settings, it's traffic flow that's free. Nobody's forcing anybody to click on our site or follow the SEO or have our SEO flourish or we do work on our GMP and our website and we update it and all that.

That's not because we like seeing the reviews, although we love that, it's because we get more traffic that way. Somebody Googles have heard about us, maybe a property manager moves from Atlanta to Panama City Beach or Nashville, and they Google the local odor control scenting, trash chute cleaning, pressure cleaning company, container replacement, whatever we come up.

We get that lead and we don't have as many reviews in Florida because it's a smaller market, but all those are five-star as well. We get a chance to shine, we get a chance to grab a customer and press the heck out of them. It's what our mission statement's all about and this has helped fulfill it in a big way.

Sue Ginsburg: I know we talked about this, but I think in addition to Google having a high priority on reviews, we're all consumers and we all know that we're not going to buy anything until we read the reviews. They're important for a variety of reasons. Somewhere along the line, I forgot exactly when you got a new client who actually told you that the reason why she came to you so quickly and easily was because of the great reviews that you had online. That's influencing people's decisions all the time.

John Mattioli: That's a great point right there, because I never appreciated that being at my age and to this stuff, I'm late to the game. I really am late to the game, but it's like we've done it my whole career with the results anyway. Younger people who are most are a property manager now it's our biggest market. We do a lot of segments, but the multi-residential segment is our biggest segment, they're not my generation.

They're boomers and G-ers and Z-ers and whatever other alphabets that come with them as we age. They eat this up. What do you mean you will look in a paper for what, an ad? What? Are you drunk? They go right to this stuff and they don't go to one site. They could go to our site first or last, but they're going to cover a bunch. It seems we get more in our fair share of exposure in business, or at least inquiries.

Getting the businesses on us. Just give us the exposure, just lobby me a soft blooper and we'll knock it out of the park.

Sue Ginsburg: I'm thinking, and another thing that I wanted to point out that you shared earlier and Jesse emphasized, you were running a very successful business. You're a good salesperson, you got a great team, do quality work with great customer service. Your business was doing very well. When you and I had our conversations, what I pitched to you was, do you want your website to be another salesperson for your company?

Which was a mindset change for you because you had never thought of it that way. That's what we say and that's what I believe, and that's what we help businesses do is have their website be part of their sales team 24/7, part of the sales team.

John Mattioli: As a matter of fact…

Jesse Dolan: Go ahead.

John Mattioli: As a matter of fact, we now have signed up with Yelp and become accredited with the Better Business Bureau and are soliciting, we don't have a lot yet, we have two on Yelp and one or two on BBB, but I'm not going to do that unless I had a heck of experience with the king of all reviews in SEO right is which is Google. We did it with those programs because the more you get out there, especially I'm sold now. I wasn't sold in the beginning, I'm sold now.

If it's done, it doesn't have to do as well as it's done with Google. You never know what a little bit more here and a little bit more there, so I keep referring to myself as a dinosaur maybe here's proof, I don't use Yelp, but our customers do, potential customers do. Better Business Bureau, I've never looked, I've been a member when we were in a car business, but that was a long time ago. I haven't been in Better Business Bureau since I've had Giant, I am now.

It's just more and more and more exposure and I don't know if there's a limit to that. How many other websites can I go on and get one customer because of recurring revenue? If they're paying $225 a month for our service and we keep customers a long time. If I keep them for you name the timeframe, is it worth it? Of course, it is it if I don't get anybody else and we do, we get others as well. It's been fun.

It's been fun, educational, and the work you guys did on the website compared to what I have, I mean I was walking around with this black hood over my head. I didn't know what was good or what was bad, and when you guys replaced what I had, I'm going, "Man, I was embarrassed to be honest with you for the old one." Whatever happens, I've thought about getting into consulting for a while that went away because I got grandkids now.

I was never known for the time I spent in the office. Well, it's going down, but there's all kinds of ways you can go with SEO to touch places that I have not here to [inaudible 00:34:47] different kind. We could bring on other pressure cleaning business for parking decks and walks, and all that, there's no mention of that on a website yet. There's all kinds of places, but I'm going, "How much is enough?"

I'm not going to get out for a while, but I wouldn't say that my drive has gotten more intense in the last couple of years. It's just part of getting older. Whoever takes it or whatever manager I put in my stead and I keep the business, this is a no-brainer. They don't even have to know anything about it either. They would because they're going to be younger, but this is a self-sufficient way to continue to generate quality leads, that generate quality leads, that generate other quality leads.

I'm not doing anything except lifting up the laptop once in a while. The other thing is you better deliver too. If we were maybe a less than reputable company, would you guys want to rep it? Would you guys want me to have stuff on websites that you designed? Of course not, and you couldn't stop me, but it helps to be upright and true to some honest and principles and some integrity.

I think that's juiced up the designers of the website because if you do it the right way, it works. Don't do it on the cheap, just do it the right way and it's going to work.

Elisabeth: Seospringtraining.com is the website that you can go ahead and purchase your tickets on there. You can learn a little bit more of information of what we're doing. I am absolutely available, my contact information is on there. It's elizabeth@seospringtraining.com. You're free to email me and ask questions. I absolutely don't mind.

It is April 13th is the VIP, but 14th through the 16th is the regular marketing conference. It's in Scottsdale, Arizona. We have reserved an Embassy Suites.

Jesse Dolan: It's not an event where this isn't like trade show where it's just sponsors all over tables, people throwing stuff around and everything's brought to you by this, and trying to sell you a package. It's actual people practicing SEO doing it that are up-to-date with what's happening.

Elisabeth: We bring quality value to people through our events. That's the whole purpose of it is just because when we started out, we didn't know what we didn't know. If I can shorten the learning curve for other people, I'm absolutely happy to. Our speakers are coming from so many different areas.

We've got people from social, we've got people from super technical, we've got people from sales, people from affiliates. It's any discipline within the SEO marketing realm.

Jesse Dolan:

It's real people doing stuff, sharing, helping, and not just a one-off deal yet, not just a pitch fest to sell a bunch of stuff. You're going to come to the event, learn some stuff, get back and actually make a difference in your business.

Elisabeth: We give a lot of real world practical actionable things that as soon as you're behind the computer, you can actually utilize that information and make a difference for your clients or your business.

Jesse Dolan: You're a great example of business owners that we talk to all the time, Sue and myself when I say we. Business owners that just say, "No, we're good. I got my sales people or my recurring customers or my little black book and I don't need to be online." I think you're a great example of not burying your head in the sand. Successful business if we can find a way to let the rest of the world know that you're successful, it's a flywheel effect. You couldn't get all these reviews you're talking about five-star reviews, especially if you weren't running a great business.

You're going to get a bunch of two and one-star reviews if you're not running a great business. If anybody out there listening or watching here in John's story, the point I'm trying to make is if you're a thriving business doing good work from a revenue standpoint. Taking care of your team members, being around for a while, and just doing a great service, if you think that you don't need to get online or invest into your digital marketing, things like that, that's a valid argument because you're paying your bills.

You're saving for retirement, you're being successful, and I think John, maybe you're a little lucky that you had a personal relationship with Sue to nudge you into this because you probably would've hung up on her if she kept calling you all the time if she didn't know you.

John Mattioli: Well, I can tell you, Jesse, she's a hell of a follow-up person. I didn't wrap my arms around the idea at first. I'm glad she kept at it.

Jesse Dolan: I remember being on myself personally, some of the initial meetings where I'm not saying you were skeptical or poo-pooing at all, John, but just like, "I'm trusting and giving a lot of equity in what Sue is pitching, but I'm not going to hold my breath because I've built this business on A, B and C. It's working great, but if you guys want to play around with this thing, go ahead and get back to me." I think a lot of people out there have that same mindset.

I'm trying to tell everybody, if you have that mindset and you're actually running a successful business like you are John, man, you put a little bit of energy into your digital side of your business, you're going to get those reviews. People are going to be happy to give them to you. The energy that you get in your company, your sales team from investing into it, and then getting people to come to you saying, "I would like to buy your product or your service."

You never had to cold call them or knock on their door or anything else, man, that's a beautiful thing when that starts happening. It doesn't have to replace what you did before. It supplements it or it adds on to it. That's that flywheel effect I'm talking about. I think you reluctantly in hindsight, but thankfully now, really benefited from that. From my end, it's been fun to watch the last couple of years with all of it transforming because man, it was pretty raw. It was pretty raw to begin with and it's been nothing but upside for you.

John Mattioli: From my end, it's been fun to watch. You get a technician who gets a five-star review and the flowery written review from that person or the sales guy that it happens to, which happens a fair amount. They're walking around with their chest booted up. They're taking pride in it. I've often wondered about this, nobody's ever told me this, but the human condition is what it is. Do they know? It's almost like somebody's watching.

If a tech gets his five-star view, he's been proactive about getting it, but sometimes he'll get one he didn't realize he was going to get. That's not a bad windfall either, but I was telling him it's because somebody's watching. We can do it the right way and all the time because we feel like somebody's watching, or you can do it when the spotlight's on, defeats the whole purpose. If it's not genuine and it's not of integrity, you're not going to get the reviews in the first place.

That's not the collateral damage, the collateral damage is you're not going to grow the business either as fast as you would the other way. You do it the right way. You get the exposure, you get these rewards from the exposures to get more exposure. It's better to work smarter than harder.

Jesse Dolan: That's good lessons for everybody. Straight from the business owner, the not wanting to invest in the website initially business owner too.

John Mattioli: Every business, every decision I've made in business hasn't been the greatest necessarily, but this one was almost one of them. When I think about, especially when we're having this conversation, what could have happened? What if I said no, that's nonsense and was one of those rock heads that wasn't willing to change. I'd probably have a decent living, but it wouldn't have turned into what it turned into regarding the business and the growth.

Thank you, guys. I'm the one that said yes, but I think Sue was within just a quarter of an inch within giving up. "John, boy, I love you, but you're a rock head. See ya."

Jesse Dolan: Then, she called you a rock head in a meeting we had. It was a much worse term, but I probably shouldn't.

Sue Ginsburg: That's right.

John Mattioli: Well, I wouldn't have said it at a harsh term even if we weren't talking here to the world, but I'm glad she stuck with it I'll tell you that, so is Theresa.

Jesse Dolan: From our side, we talk about internally here at Intrix, at our agency, a lot of times we feel blessed or need to remind ourselves that we are in that what we sell as a service and a product helps you and your team, and your company improve their life. Make money and accomplish your goals and dreams or help you towards them at least. We're not solely responsible, but that's what we sell.

When it works, it helps people. Just hearing your story, I know me personally, that makes me feel real good and just gives everybody the energy on our end too, to keep doing the good stuff, and this show and everybody listen and hopefully get a little inspired with your story for how it makes sense for your own journey too.

John Mattioli: We have a mission statement that I had when I was in the car business, tweaked it a tiny bit, but not much. It's comprised of a statement and then guiding principles. The mission statement is to treat every single customer that we have and will have as potential lifetime relationship by not only meeting their needs but exceeding them.

Right there, if a business owner was to look at a customer not as a source of income, not as a dollar bill, but a relationship that can reduce a ton of dollar bills, then how does that set you up mentally going forward with all customers and all relationships? There's ways to do that that's genuine if it's truly in your heart. Then, the other thing is the effect that this SEO and the website and the pride we take in presenting a message because it's a reflection of how we really operate.

There's only one way to do it, and that is having your employees on board. In the car business we were famous, or people in a car business were famous, they treat the customers like gold, but you could tell it was phony, but they treat the employees like crap. Excuse me, not as well. At the very bottom of our mission statement, it says, "After all the guiding principles, and there's five of them, I'll spare all that. Our fellow employees are our customer also."

How are you going to expect an employee to treat a customer like you want them treated if they're treated not that way. It's a reflection on the quality that the website comes out as, as well as the constant meetings we're having about, I'm sharing the reviews all the time, every meeting we have. Matter of fact, we're doing our annual kickoff meeting on February 8th. I have a guy come in, mean we start the new year with the goals and objectives and all that.

I have one or two guest speakers come in. One is the regional south regional president for a company called First Services Residential. They're huge. He's become a friend of mine, so he gladly spoke. I didn't know what his presentation was going to be, but he pulled out his seven principles to success, something like that. They matched every single one of ours. Now, he had them worded differently, we had five, he had seven, but he had a couple of them broken out a little bit deeper than I do on mine.

They were the same thing. There's not that many ways to run a business the right way. There's one right way. You can put different slants on it, but it's all from the core the same. It's the thing with the marketing you guys do. From my perspective, it's not only image, but there's a story to be told within that image, and that image better be genuine. It probably wouldn't be built genuine if the individual that's tasking you to build it isn't genuine. I'm glad I listened to you guys.

Jesse Dolan: Always listen to Sue, I think that's the takeaway from this episode.

John Mattioli: Well, you're speaking from experience too. Don't try to just act like I'm the only one.

Jesse Dolan: No, no, just listen to Sue that'll be the title.

John Mattioli: He's the boss, by the way. Yikes.

Jesse Dolan: Gosh, I think Sue, we did an interview of Sue, I think it was our 100th episode, wasn't it, Sue?

Sue Ginsburg: Yeah.

Jesse Dolan: That was pretty fun just to share everybody. I'm not going to get into it, but if anybody wants to listen, check it out. Sue's journey to us at Intrycks and this podcast and Sue's a wealth of information, so I'm glad you listened to her because it's been fun getting you on as a customer on this show here. Like I said a few times now, anybody listening that feels like they can relate to you, John.

Whether they're 20 years old just starting out or if they're 65 and figuring out how to reinvent things, run a good business, treat people, invest in the strategic areas. Man, once that flywheel gets some momentum going, you're talking about reviews and I'm just picturing a scenario where I'm a new tech, maybe coming to work with you, and I'm exposed to these 500 reviews that all my now teammates and people that are come before me it's like, "Holy crap, that's a standard I got to live up to."

There's so many ways like running a good business and turning that inside reality outside to share with everybody else, whether they be prospective clients or prospective or new team members, all of that nowadays. We're not talking yellow pages, we're talking all these digital marketing everywhere. Everything is out there for everybody that the business as an entity interacts with. When you're doing a good job, you got to shout that from the mountaintops.

That's one of the things we're able to do with digital marketing is just expose that everywhere, tease it out, get it out there. You get that trajectory going and it's sure success after that.

John Mattioli: Just flow into it, you just set it up. I frame it as you blow into it and then let it just float. It always takes upgrades and all that, but it's more just believing in it and you'll do the things that takes to make it the best you think it can be. It's like anything else, if you didn't really believe in it, who's going to spend the time and effort to doing it? You guys aren't magicians.

You can make a heck of a product, but if the customer's not invested, it's probably not going to go too. He may pay for it and run it, but is he really going to walk the talk when it comes to it because that has to happen as well.

Sue Ginsburg: Which you have. I think the reason that I can be relentless when I talk to business owners about the value that this will bring them is because I know our team will pull through. They know what they're doing and they do it.

John Mattioli: It's a great relationship. I'm assuming you guys have that with all your customers. There's some fly by nighters out there. Anybody's thinking about this. I don't know if I want to give out my number, but I got an email address if anybody wants it, and I'll talk to them straight out. It's not 1975 or '79 or '85 or '89 or '94 or 2000, get with the times. We're no longer the baby boomers. You're too young for this, Jesse probably just missed this, but the baby boomers, were all about the biggest buying generation in the history of the world.

Why? Because there was more in a single generation than any other generation in the history of the world. You know what we are now? Yesterday's news, we really are. Now, we have fun and because we're the generation and we've plowed some ground when it comes to accumulation of wealth and all those things, we live a pretty good life. Given what the opportunity is for each subsequent generation that comes along, why would you do it the old-fashioned way? Which is any of this stuff we've talked about for the last little while.

Jesse Dolan: Can't disagree with any of that, John. Even if I am too young to know what the hell you're talking about. Just kidding.

John Mattioli: That's me stumbling around my words that's what old people do. This has been fun. Thank you, guys. It's reinforced some memories and also some things that we do that it wouldn't happened without you, guys. Sue, we go back a long, long way. Thank you.

Sue Ginsburg: Well, thank you for giving us the opportunity and for being the quick study and willing to learn that you are for us. I know you know this, but I wish that everybody listening would know this, that our end goal is not to get great metrics, our end goal is for you to see success in your business. That's what gives us joy and that's why we do this.

John Mattioli: That's dealing from the heart, not from the wallet. I also talk about that when we do our meetings. It's the only way to be.

Jesse Dolan: Show us through works. John, we've compromised about an hour of your time so we can wrap it up a little bit more than an hour. Appreciate you coming on sharing your story. Hopefully everybody listening is inspired.

Jesse Dolan: What's that?

John Mattioli: I said are you serious it's been an hour?

Jesse Dolan: Yeah.

John Mattioli: Felt faster than that. I don't talk to anybody that long. They don't want to listen because I talk so slow.

Sue Ginsburg: We're honored.

Jesse Dolan: We're professional talkers on this, so we'll just keep you going.

John Mattioli: It was a ton of fun. I didn't know if I was going to what I affectionately call quote unquote, "crap the bed on this thing" or not. It's fun talking about stuff that works. It's fun talking about success. You're successful because you make businessmen or whoever customers are successful, that's fun. It's not because we're successful the journey was getting there.

We turned on a dime really with our marketing and advertising, which was pretty much zero. Sue went through some, is he going to turn around on this or not times. I'm not dumb, the product was spectacular and it worked. Congratulations to you, guys. You guys been around a while too.

Jesse Dolan: We appreciate it. Speaking for Sue, she's nodding her head. We appreciate your business and everything you bring too. John, thanks for all your time on here. Hopefully, everybody listening has drawn some inspiration, getting some lessons, inspired, running a parallel story or you see trajectory moral of a story in addition to listen to Sue, anybody who engages with her.

Sue Ginsburg: I like that.

Jesse Dolan: Also, don't be afraid to invest into your marketing, it's a flywheel effect. It'll get going and eventually it should be doing great things for you. Appreciate all your time and your stories too. As always, thank you for joining everybody listening. Thanks for checking us out and we'll catch you on the next one.

John Mattioli: Thank you.