Expert Tips To Take Your Business To The Next Level

Hello everyone. Welcome to this episode of E Coffee with Experts. I’m your host, Matt Fraser and on today’s show, I have Terry Redmond with me. Terry is the CEO and founder of Internet Business Ideas and Marketing, also known as IBI, a full-service digital marketing agency located in the West Palm Beach, Florida area. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and has over 15 years of combined sales and marketing experience working with companies such as Birkenstock, the University of Washington, Johnson and Johnson, Microsoft, and Nike, just to name a few. When not working on marketing campaigns for his clients,Terry enjoys spending time with his wife and two-year-old son. Terry, thank you so much for being here, and welcome to the show.

Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it, and the oddest thing is to hear your bio for 30 minutes.

Oh, yeah.

Put it out there right now, everybody. Let Matt, just for 30 minutes, talk about himself, and you guys will be thoroughly interested. You won’t want to turn away.

Oh, thank you very much. I’ll have to get on the podcast as a guest myself and share my story. But I’m glad you found it interesting. How would your high school teachers describe you as a student?

Well, I would tell you, going in as a freshman, I’ll tell you how the principal described me. So, I was fortunate that at our graduation, our principal speech was about me, and I had no clue. You know you got almost 400 people in your classroom, and I thought he was talking about our star quarterback, but he was talking about me. It was kind of interesting. And I would say this, school education was a priority in our family, but I didn’t make it a priority. It wasn’t like I was failing, but I was a C-grade student. I pretty much graduated as a B-minus student, maybe C-plus anyway. But then I found sports, and I was in sports year-round. So, to be organized, you show up on time, you learn to work with that, and you gotta make time for scholastics. It forced you to do everything, and then.

As a result, I would say I came in kind of wiry but probably looked a lot more focused as one of the first African-American homecoming king also at our school, I think.

Oh, wow.

I kind of have a testimonial, too, from where I started off to where I ended up being.

That is cool. So, getting involved in sports helped you to focus and be more disciplined?

Yeah, I think so. For me, it did. I mean, you got coaches on time. On-time is 10 minutes early. You need to have a certain GPA to play a sport. Yet any social interactions that were unsavory, I guess, were happening. You’re not playing in that game, so run, practice, and do everything else. But you can’t get the reward of playing, so you pretty much stay out of trouble. And so, that was the genesis, I think, that helped mold me into who I was. Also, I should give more credit to my family, my mom and dad. We’re fortunate to have a two-parent household.

That’s so important.

Absolutely. My Dad is a technical engineer, ironically enough. My mom worked for the government, but she was a contract worker doing H.R. work. So, just having that already was like a good foundation for me.

Right on. Did that carry on into university?

Absolutely. You know, what is funny, is I don’t really miss things like school, attendance, classes, and work. You and I are in this networking group called B&I. I will tell you, in six years, I bet I haven’t missed even five meetings.

That’s amazing.

It’s like I’m just programmed to do it, which is not always good. Right after the birth of my child, like the very next day, I was present. I literally showed up, and I ran the meeting.

Oh, wow.

That too in Lockdown, in the hospital in COVID. So, while that’s not always the healthiest way, it is what it is.

I get what you’re saying. Like, it’s important to be a man of your word, and it’s based on that principle. So, that’s awesome. But what inspired you to pursue a career in digital marketing?

Most interesting. I’m going to jump ahead of you for this. So, I am a person of my word, I have integrity, and I’m not saying others in our industry don’t have it at all. But sometimes transparency is lacking.

Yeah.

And I understand it’s not our job to teach people how to do our job. As you mentioned, Matt, you spent tens of thousands of dollars and endless hours learning how to do your craft.

Yeah, absolutely.

You can’t give it away for free all the time.

Yeah, exactly.

I understand. And so, when you gotta a person in the garage by themselves, no one else, and just learning you’re getting into it, they’re going to make mistakes just because they’re new. Then they’re also not going to tell people how they will help them. Well, the company that I was with really was a great company, and for three months, they were subletting our stuff out of India. It doesn’t know where it was, but the people they gave it to weren’t doing a good job. And how it touched me is as the face of the company we had, this huge client that was a lumber company, but they were small in nature. And as a single mom, that was there from the beginning and had been with this company for 11 years. They loved our marketing because we grew them tremendously. A single mom was pregnant for five or six months, and we’d call back. She wasn’t there anymore, couldn’t figure out why. She said, hey, you know, we have a 30% downturn in marketing for them, and that’s a big number for a company like that. They had layoffs and let her go, as the owner told me. Then I found out the reason why it’s for 90 days secretly. He didn’t tell me, but he’s been farming some of the shoddy work overseas. I said let’s admit to what we did. I didn’t want to do it, and wasn’t taking responsibility for it. That was one of the major reasons why I went off on my own. I wanted to be transparent to a certain degree. I wanted to keep out of my world and what it meant trying to do was if I can’t help you, I’m going to refer you on to somebody else who can. Even though I don’t recruit or talk about it because you can integrate it legally into your hiring practices or whatever, this is a faith-based company.

Oh, yeah.

But for me, it says that integrity that someone needs to have. If we mess up, I’ll own it, let you know about it, and then tell you what to do to improve. By the way, I’m gonna tell you that we did something well, and I’m also going to tell you to celebrate it because now we’re going to do better, we’re going to do it next month. So, it’s kind of one of those two things. So, that statement you made about being on your words. Exactly.

Yeah. There’s a verse you probably know about called Keep your word to your own hurt, which is a principle I like to live by, which means keeping your word, even if it’s going to cause you discomfort. Like, if you say you’re going to do something, do it to the point that even if it hurtings you but make sure to keep your word.

I like that. But how awful is it to do what you said? Right. I think about how hard it is, like we’re both married people, how hard it is when you know something else comes up, which you got to do. You want to do something, and you know you want to have a difficult conversation. Right?

Yeah, That’s not always easy.

Sucking up your ego, Accepting and listening to what someone else is saying. That’s all part of that, and if you take that same mentality to our business. It makes a difference.

Absolutely. Like when you say you’re going to do something for a client, do it. And if the campaign doesn’t work out for whatever reasons, then be transparent. Explain it to them. Maybe the copy sucks, maybe the landing pages weren’t good, maybe they didn’t spend enough money, maybe somebody didn’t pay attention to the broad match keywords or the negative keywords and adding those words, and so on and so forth. So, I think that’s a common thing in our industry, though I’ve learned that people get frustrated with marketing agencies because of the lack of transparency, and they’ve had a lot of bad experiences. I found the similarities between them because I was in car sales, as I shared with you. People think all salespeople are dishonest in that they’re snake oil salespeople. But being in this industry, for now, I know that this doesn’t speak to everybody, but I think every industry has that problem, including the marketing agency, the legal industry, and even the medical industry. There are doctors that don’t do their jobs as well as they should, and so on. So, yeah, I think no matter what you do, if you’re a mechanic or a lawyer or whatever the case may be, being a person of integrity in business is important.

Absolutely. I totally agree.

So, what do you love most about digital marketing, Terry? Of all the professions you could have gone into, why was it that you chose digital marketing?

No, not at all. And I don’t know too many people who really just go like, well, a few people that we work with on our team love optimizing, love working in accounts or designing. Yeah, but for me, no. Didn’t love it, never thought I was going out to say, hey, I’m going to do digital. Well, right now, as we speak, there is a $2 billion jackpot for Powerball. I don’t know if you do that in the States.

No, no, no. Two-billion-dollar jackpot. Wow. That’s amazing.

That’s crazy, right?

Yeah, that’s crazy.

Well, roughly about two months ago, there was one point to what is like the third or fourth-largest at the time. Now that’s the largest. And then I remember someone my wife told me we’re leaving everything to clients. We’re done, Terry. No more hours. It’s over. I said no, I can’t. I’ll be a little more selective, but my passion is helping people, especially SMB small and medium businesses. Now, one thing with people like yourself or others that are in this industry, as you all know, we are good at what we do, the price tag. We’re not touching too many clients and just spending on them. For example, SEO, we are just a few thousand dollars. We put a lot of work and time into it.

Absolutely.

And what I realize is that there’s an underserved market. So, as predominantly small businesses that can’t afford that are made up of minorities and women. So, as a result, I said, let me get a price point that is fair enough that I can actually do something. Well, I’m going to go a little deep and I’ll get back to that.

Sure.

My mission statement in life. I have it put up to touch it every day when I leave the house but have a positive impact on everybody and me. Be kind, forgiving, and understanding. Educate while constantly being educated. Be the example. All this would be done with God as my foundation.

Wow, I think I will have to steal that, Terry.

Please do. All that is interwoven into our personal mission statement of our business, and part of that is having a positive impact on everyone in our sphere of influence. So, someone famous once said not everyone could be famous, but everyone can do great things. If your janitor is the best janitor. If you’re a plumber, be the best plumber you are. Just be the best teacher because, guess what? If Terry smiles and opens a door for somebody, says thank you, or buys somebody’s groceries behind them in line they don’t know about. You’ll appreciate that, and one day they’ll probably do the same thing. That impact that I have will go down for generations that I wouldn’t even know about. You wanna smile or be nice or help others. So, being very involved, helping each other. So for me, just recently, I didn’t realize it. But I love seeing a business that’s small, spending only $500 or $1000. Give me some homework, DIY stuff, or we’re still doing some minimal marketing until they can grow, and now we have them for five, six, seven years, or even ten years as a client.

That’s smart.

That is awesome.

Rewarding.

Yes absolutely.

You know, you remind me of a lesson my dad taught me when he sat me down when I was 12 and told me, don’t try to be the best. Always do your best.

Love him.

I don’t know where he got that from because he’s not a philosophical person. He doesn’t read a lot of self-help books. But he told me, Matthew, don’t try to always be the best, but always do your best.

He’s a fantastic man.

I’ve never forgotten it. I mean, I didn’t do it. I was having trouble in school, not that I was not smart, because I was exceptionally good. Well, anyway, I don’t want to boast. I did very well in school, but there were some emotional challenges I was having. I was getting made fun of for being smart. So, I dumbed down to not get made fun of, and I wish I’d never done that.

Yeah.

I wish I’d never done that. And so, I guess I should put into context why he said that to me. You know, and another reason was I was actually bored in school because they were teaching too slowly. They should have put me in a different program. But anyway, he told me, don’t try to be the best. I always want you to do your best. So, whenever I do, I do that. Whether it’s this podcast or whether it’s doing a marketing campaign or writing a blog post like I won’t write a crappy blog post. I just refuse. I’ll work on it until it’s exceptional. But again, I’m trying to do my best and not be the best.

It’s so hard, and it’s like a double-edged sword for us. I mean, I feel the same way, and I’ve learned more from my failures than my successes. And so, as we started, I said, I’m going to do better if I will give my 100%. That’s all I can ask, and when I fail at this, I know I didn’t give 100%. I know I didn’t do this. I kind of missed opportunities because maybe I didn’t have the knowledge or experience. But if I don’t give 100%, in addition to that, I’ve only failed myself, and I realized that where I take a double-edged sword is our work ethic. The things that we do are sometimes off the charts. So, we have people working for us or relationships or friends. You sometimes expect, which I’ve learned, that they are not Matt or they are not Terry. They’re not telling you those expectations because you’re giving and saying you want everyone else to do it too. Why aren’t you doing it? Even my client. I got a client complaining like you have $750. Do you want to rank for the whole state of Florida? I’m like, no, but here are the things you can do on your own, right? So, for example, there was this one guy. I gave a free app to him so he can sign people up and can push notifications to them. This app that you can have, I think you’d have even 10, 15, 30, literally nothing, nothing with it. And so, I’m paying for him to have an app and to do anything with it. And that’s his example. You can’t always help people. That was a lesson for us because you care so much, and you want them to get 100% to it. Some people just don’t want to help themselves, you know?

Yeah. So, you mentioned some failures. What has been one of your biggest failures, and how did you pick up from it?

I will say in my sports. I was lucky enough to play University Washington football. We were so good that we won the national championships. Rose Bowls is equivalent in Canada is like for colleges. We were the best in the entire country for like three years. Back in Alabama for a three-year run. So, it got to the point where I just realized that kind of maybe to my head, or I didn’t give the effort I knew I should be doing. I should be living and breathing what I love doing, and I choose to be a fraternity brother sometimes. I go to some of those parties, and I wouldn’t run as much as I used to. Now I was like, Terry, you did a lot. But I know what it takes to be at that level. I went to another college and was a starter and played there. But to see me making it, being on that team and that squad, I know I didn’t give 100%. And so that kind of aided me for a long period of time, and then when I took that mentality into my business life, I said it happened again. Stuff that you’ve been told, like you said, your dad. As a teenager, from 17 in college till roughly 21 didn’t really sink in, and then it started to sink in afterward, in my senior year. I started realizing, and that’s why I said, okay, that is one of many I can tell you about. Like my business failures, you know, but the bottom line is that I always look at something, and I step back and say, what could I have done better? And then, once I do that, I put things in perspective. I don’t have any ill feelings. I assume that responsibility, and that goes again for my personal life, whether that’s for family or business.

Absolutely. So, you’ve been in business for quite some time now with your agency. What do you think is the key to sustaining long-term business success?

Ten and a half years.

Yeah, that’s a long time. Most businesses go out of business in less than five years.

Absolutely not acting on your stats on that stuff. I mean, most fail. I forgot the percentage fell within the first 16 months. I will tell you this. I had a different business plan. I was fortunate enough to be part of companies that were big agencies and as you know, keeping a client for months was Norm, 6 to 8 great and a year goldmine. I didn’t want that. I knew there was money in the residual. That’s what I told you before when we talked earlier about helping SMBs. Think about the power, but there are downsides to it. They got to have some blue ribbon, budget with champagne tastes most of them.

Yeah. That’s a good one, man. Exactly. They want the world for nothing.

They want everything, and they want your time. So, I understand most people don’t do it, don’t get me wrong, but this is my passion, and I don’t mind it. And the cool thing about having them is the residual that comes with them. I wake up knowing I have a paycheck. If one or two clients leave me, I don’t struggle. So, you have a situation where you have residual income coming regularly. So, for me, staying in business was that. Again, you talked about wanting to do better. So, it’s kind of like coaching. We give monthly reports, which are pretty transparent. We review them with clients and let them know what we did wrong or right because we see traffic increases and decreases, and rankings of keywords increases and decreases. We don’t tell them every single thing that we do as far as our optimization because, as you do it, there are always little tricks and secrets, but as you know, it’s public domain. If you want to know how to do link building and how to do optimization for on-page or off-page for SEO. Do the basics to be successful. If you want to be successful, do some little tricks. I don’t do gray or black hats. I will walk that fence. I will straddle it, but I won’t cross over it. But the bottom line is I always keep learning. So, for example, I study 5 hours a month on just a particular topic. Just SEO, just pay per click, just social media. I really don’t do web design as much anymore, hands-on. So, I don’t really care as much, but I do know enough, like how we create something, or if something goes down, I can go in there and fix it, which is easier nowadays than it was 12-13 years ago with the plug-in place and all these different platforms now. I think that staying on top of things also helps out. But I would say one last thing as I realize that I think it was Jim Rome. He said invest in yourself more than anything else. So, think about that if you invest in your mind, like learning, as you mentioned a few awesome books which you have read. You’re doing good to your body and your spirit of who you part of you better. That is the foundation of everything in perpetuity. If you’re spending more time studying and learning about online marketing than you are putting that into your own self, listening to self-help books or maybe other breath work or learning how to calm down or solve problems, like all the different things that help you be better that is a key to doing this. I think for me, my success is that, and then I put that knowledge into my business and into the people that I work with.

Yeah, that’s awesome. How do you identify a client that is possibly difficult and unprofitable? What strategies do you use to identify those people over the years that you’ve been doing this? Let’s be frank. There are people who are difficult to work with that nobody wants to claim. And maybe there are some people out there that are trying to figure out how to identify them and how to avoid working with them.

You know that this is an ongoing process because passion is there. So, I got an example. I have an individual who also built a website and do some marketing. And he talked a good game, and we set appointments. Number one, I try to screen out. They need to have a budget.

Okay.

This person had to meet with me. I don’t really meet with clients anymore. I do things all across the country. But I had to physically be there. Then you will find out he wanted a one or two-pager. Now my heart goes out. He wanted to build a website for his son, who has cerebral palsy, and you want to raise awareness out there. And they’re going to find out he has like $300 or $400. I told him for me to go and meet with you, 45 minutes to drive there to me for whatever time to come back. I know my time is worth it now, but not just that I’m helping you out. But you have to do this so badly, right? That I can charge you for it. You can pay more. But your price point is in particular. Then how can I do the marketing for it? So, I already know this is going to be a learning experience. I realize that my heart went out, and as a single father with his child who has a disease and then what happens is I keep trying to help. Keep following up, and I know he can’t even do the marketing with it. So, very unprofitable, and I got to cut ties. Is this something going on right now? I got another one that I know I see it coming a mile away, and I say, hey, here’s this. I gave him some blogs that I have about DIY marketing, which they can read themselves. I had a consultation with them, and I said, we may not be a good fit right now, but I will tell you, please call these individuals. Some people do Google my business setup page, some things that they can do free for themselves. Should we do it on social media? I go, you put this in now when you get too busy because you’ll be making money. Then you can come to us, and we can help facilitate that. That’s what I typically do. So, again part of the mission statement is always to help everyone in our sphere of influence. So, I’m always learning. It is tough, and I will tell you, it is a reason why people don’t do those clients. Yeah. But yeah, I love it. I love seeing the reward in the end.

Well, it’s awesome. Hey, what are some of those do-it-yourself marketing blogs that you point to?

It is on my blog on IBImarketing.com. Go to the bottom section. It’s on there, and one of them is DIY. Say, for example, SEO if you can’t afford SEO for anyone right now. Always say to put content on your page.

Okay.

At least once a month. Do at least 300 words. Talk about a topic that you get the most questions on in that blog. Make it to the personality people that come to your site so the compensation of your attorney might be serious and straightforward. If you are jovial, be jovial. Nowadays, as you well know, the punctuation, all that stuff, and run-out sentences aren’t what they used to be when I grew up. So, the point is, make it so that people want to be there. Also, have a few interlinked links to other topics and the landing pages on your website so people stay on-site longer. Then you got contextual links happening, something you do on your own. You got some content that’s fresh and unique. Don’t copy from anybody. Remember, Google wants unique content, so at least 80% needs to be your own, keep that in mind, and then you can put that on there. That’s impressive. As a matter of fact, go out there and be in a bunch of different directories. Directories are free out there. Sign yourself up to be on that. That will help you out as well. Do some DIY things you can do on your own that don’t take too much to do as is for SEO or social media, or pay-per-click. I can tell you things also.

So, are there other digital marketing blogs that you yourself read regularly?

I’m a fan of search engine journal.

Search engine journal.

Yeah, I like them. But I don’t have a particular vertical or individual. I listen to everybody. So, If I go to someone. I always have links to somebody else that I listen to and read, and then no matter what, when I get stuff, I always go back and research to make sure it’s legit and make sure that it has a proven case study. I don’t experiment on my client, but also being Google certified, I also have reps, and I’m blessed enough to have people that work for Google, that work for DuckDuckGo, work for Yahoo! that are high executives, I can pass this stuff by. So, I’ve just been doing this for so long. Like yourself, Matt. You got people that you know already. The same thing with different companies that you can pass up, they have firsthand experience and know what’s going on, and they implement this. So, by doing research first, I’m not coming empty-handed, asking for favors. I bring knowledge with me. Sometimes they learn, sometimes they’re like, hey, this is a good idea. Or to say, No, no, you did this a year ago. People are talking about that. Don’t believe it. Something else that could go on, a new strategy.

You mentioned that you dedicate a certain number of hours to training per month. And with the digital marketing landscape changing so much so quickly all of the time, how do you yourself stay up to date on the latest digital marketing trends?

Let me ask you that is a study saying that search engine journal is pretty good at that. And I tap into it to my connections and resources. But I will tell you this, I don’t mind saying this, but one of my execs at the highest social media platform in the world or in North America is. He just had the option to stay or leave? He chose to leave, and I asked him why he had a great job etc. He’s even working out the industry. Well, he told me, number one is that things are going to be changing. So, you got Apple that has the opt-in situation, so you can’t really track what’s going on.

Yeah, they’ve totally changed the game.

So, using social media to do that, you should be able to say, hey, how’re our old age range, male or female, right?

Yaa, I remember.

Like where they’re coming from. They can still do that. What platform are they using, their phones or laptops, or desktops? So, now Google’s going to be doing this. The biggest player in the game will do it by the end of this year, Q1, the latest Q2. When you get that happening, the landscape is going to be changed. So, you need to have a strategy put in place right now for when you’re giving clients feedback and letting them know the benefits of online marketing. It’s not going to be as great as it was before, but it’ll still be better than traditional marketing, just like radio, television, and print. There’s not going to be like it was. You gotta have a strategy in place now and let people know exactly how it benefits them, which we are doing as part of, like staying on top of that. I wouldn’t even have known that was going to happen so soon if it wasn’t for leveraging connections, which is before you go to some conferences. I know people are going back to them after the pandemic, but I tell people also just don’t go to those conferences. Get online with a lot of people. That’s how I met everyone. There are thousands and thousands and thousands out there, so get on with them and do one of these. You get some knowledge about this, you get to network, and you get to know people. And these are the ways that you do to keep expanding in terms of studying. It doesn’t always mean you’re always reading articles or listening to blogs or whatever, but also sitting and learning. You know, I learned about giving away some of the things you talk about with SEO that we talked about, possibly some connections, but I would never know at the time that this podcast would give me a connection. I would never have done that and so take the time to give everybody an opportunity and talk. And I had to mention that our fellow Canadian here might be moving to Austin, Texas, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

As you know, that is Silicon Valley in the South right now in the United States. He’s going to be in the middle of that. How awesome is it that when everyone comes in town, you’re probably going to be the person that was going to start going to. You’re going to have a studio when you’re in there.

I am going to build one now.

Podcasts were on the road coming in town. You will be a different man, and I’m lucky to get it now. It would be a different back another few years. But that’s just an idea. This is part of the networking. Stay on top of things with people because you’re going to have to be talking to people that you never thought you heard before. And me, knowing you and you will be like, hey Terry, you know what? I heard about this. You should be doing this, you know?

Absolutely. Well, that was amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all that information. It’s just been absolutely amazing talking to you. What’s one takeaway you want people to get from this episode?

About marketing, I would say the takeaway would be my mission statement. That’d be ideal if someone could take that and have a positive impact on everyone you meet. That’s probably the ideal. That will be my takeaway.

That is gold.

And tell you what, I can still. I don’t know if you said this before the podcast.

Matt said he got it from his dad. He always gave 100%. It sounds simple, but you know and you own it when you don’t give 100%. That’s probably the takeaway that I wrote down when we were talking, as to remind myself is giving an effort or 100% too. So those are probably the two takeaways.

Again, it’s been absolutely awesome talking to you. How can our listeners get in touch with you online if they choose to do so?

Great question, Matt, because I’m the worst of this, but Facebook at IBI marketing dot com, that’s probably the best way. My Instagram is at IBImarketing. IBI is Internet Business Ideas.

And what about you personally? Are you on LinkedIn?

Absolutely. IBI Marketing is there. Terry Redmond or Terence Redmond is my LinkedIn profile. Feel free to email me. I’m open to emails at terry@IBIMarketing.com. I love taking questions. I love helping people, and I love mentoring.

It’s awesome. I’ll make sure to put that information in the show notes. Hey, Terry again, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you.

Matt. You’re awesome. Thank you.