Digital Marketing Unleashed: Mastering Sales Strategies for Explosive Growth

Hello everyone. Welcome to this episode of E Coffee with Experts. I am your host, Matt Fraser, and on today’s show, I have with me a very special guest, Thad Jones. Thad is a successful entrepreneur and digital marketing expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He’s the founder and CEO of Vertex Visibility, a leading web design and digital marketing agency.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in business management and marketing from California State University. Northridge. Thad has an impressive career spanning over 17 years in marketing and sales. He has worked for top companies such as solar care, dental plans, and review Prompt, where he served as the National Director of Sales and Director of Sales, respectively.

Thad’s extensive experience in the industry has enabled him to help clients in various sectors, including auto repair, HVAC restaurants, garage door sales, and repair, real estate, carpet cleaning, and more. At Vertex Visibility, he leads a team of professionals who specialize in conversion-focused web design and digital marketing strategies.

Under his leadership, the agency has helped numerous business increase their sales and revenue through effective digital marketing campaigns. When he is not working, Thad enjoys spending time with his family and friends. He’s an avid sports fan, especially of the Los Angeles teams, and loves to play basketball and ping pong.

Thad, thank you so much for being here. It’s a pleasure to have you on the show.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, no problem. Hey, Thad how would your university professors describe you as a student?

Quiet. Sat in the back. Just wanted to get through it. Didn’t spend a lot of time asking questions, just did my own research.

Yeah. So not really interacting, engaging, a lot shyer than I am today.

Oh, right on. Right on. Yeah. What, what changed? What how did that growth happen?

You know what? It’s funny. The honest truth is I used to work at Universal Studios up at the the live tour in Los Angeles.

I went through high school, I was always kinda shy, quiet. And when I started working at Universal, it was a very similar to a high school environment. Really even a kind of a college environment. Yeah. All the young people that work there. And I remember it allowed me to immediately reinvent myself.

Okay. And I quickly became very popular up there. Cause I actually started out, I was one of the sweepers that go, walked around the park. And I just was in my own element. I walked around and it was so cute that everyone was very friendly. Whereas high school was very clique-ish. Universal Studios enabled me to expand and just go out and talk to everybody and then be once I started realizing that people enjoyed having a conversation with me, I just went crazy and I really found myself as a young kid working at Universal Studios.

That really led, that’s amazing. So that brought you outta your shell. It really did. And then I realized too, That I had a propensity due to go on these long soapbox, diatribes where I just share my feelings. I started talking about politics even back in, I’m dating myself, but this is, back late eighties, early nineties.

And just really found that the more I spoke, the more people listened and would be these parties. And I would start giving these sermons on my beliefs and my feelings and my thoughts, and I’d have a group of people sitting around listening. So once I realized that I had this ability to kinda command an audience. Oh yeah. Yeah. And my confidence went through the roof and it’s I’ve been a monster ever since.

Wow. Hey, that’s amazing. I was the same way. I used to be so scared to go out in public and to talk to people. Yeah. Like I was so scared to go to like I to go to the mall by myself or to go to a movie by myself and, I remember reading a book called The Feeling Good Handbook by Dr. David Burns. And he said that, if you were in England, say you got a job in England. He’s what would you do? Would you stay inside your house all the time? He goes, of course not. He goes, you’d go to a restaurant and have something to eat.

And do you really think that people are watching you go do it here. And see if anything happens. Do you think people are gonna be snickering and talking behind your back and look at that loser eating by himself? Or go to a movie, so I went to a movie by myself on purpose.

No one gave a crap. And and then I got a job in the restaurant industry kinda like you. It forced me. I started as a buser. The buss don’t engage with customers. I just busted my butt to clear tables as a buser. I was sweating from my forehead, man. The waiters were blown away at how industrious I was, but when all of a sudden you’re the only buser and the whole restaurant clears out, you better go fast because the tables need to get static again.

And so anyway, they eventually made me a waiter and I remember the first time I went up to the first table, I was so scared and I was so nervous. It was just pathetic.

I just did it and I did it and I did it and I did it and I did it and I did it. And I did it and I got better at it.

So kinda yeah. I progressed as an individual by putting myself in an awkward situation that stretched me. Do you think it’s important for people to do that?

Oh, absolutely. Funny when I moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 2004. Yeah. And I was married at the time and a couple years later ended up getting divorced.

And I remember, I, so I didn’t really have a group of friends here. As often happens in a marriage, it’s just you and your family. We had a couple of kids. So when I was all of a sudden single, I didn’t have a network of friends, local friends that I could just reach out to. And I was going nuts cuz I didn’t really want to date obviously after all of that.

But I wanted to be around people. And what you said, just going out to a movie or going out and doing something by yourself actually joined a hiking group. And because I wanted to be around people. Just didn’t want the respon, dating was like an interview at that point. Yeah. So I, I just started going on this hiking group and interacting with people.

Cause I love, I actually enjoy people. Yeah. Even the crazy ones, so Yeah.

Yeah. Me as well. So how did you, oh, sorry. I, my apologies. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into digital marketing? Like you made the. Obviously you were working from the Studio Universal Studios, and then you started off in sales for Solo Care Group.

How did that come about from Universal Studios to being the director of sales at, that’s pretty interesting. At the Solo Care Dental group.

There was actually a period of time from Universal where I, I. Kind of jumped around a few different jobs after Universal Studios, but one of ’em were, it was a company called Page Net, which at the time were just paging in the United States.

And I started out customer service. Yeah, exactly. So I remember, and it was funny cuz you know, it was Everyone was so excited about paging. Even the general manager always used to try and encourage everyone to buy stock, and he was so invested in it. And I’d say within five years that company was outta business.

It was the largest technology. Yeah. And so I started in customer service there, and because I, as a customer service rep for the system. I became so knowledgeable of everything, page net, that it made it real easy and I, an opening came up for sales, a sales position, and because I was so knowledgeable at that point, it made it a real easy transition to start selling the services.

Yeah. And so that was my first kind of foray into sales. And from there eventually got married. My ex-wife was a graphic artist and I saw that she was creating all of these, little logos and envelopes and business cards and brochures, and I said, Hey, branding materials I can sell. Yeah, I can sell that.

What are you doing? Yeah. So in the late nineties, I became a print broker. I started, Converting her designs selling the printing. So instead of just getting the design fee, we were then taking it and I was broken her out, the brochures that she was designing and what have you.

So that was really when we started our own business. That was in 96. Wow. And we moved to Las Vegas in oh four as I mentioned, and I started my own little magazine. It was a local zip code type magazine where we would sell advertising. And that just became a real, yeah, it just became a real challenge to keep that going as a one person team for sure.

The attrition would just knock me down. And so every month I was starting over at. And that’s at that point we partnered up with someone who we knew in Los Angeles, in a dental marketing business. We both had, me and my wife had 15% of that company. Oh yeah. And we used to sell dental plans and it was all online.

So that was really my first introduction into the online arena. Oh yeah. And So we would, we had a whole system and that’s when I became, started learning a little bit more about not only how it all worked, the internet, I was really, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the internet, quite honestly until about 2006.

And from there, really it just evolved into me, my inquisitive mind. I want to learn a little bit more about it. Selling it was one thing and you’ll find a lot of my experience, I’m a salesman by trade. I’m really not the technical end of what we do. Okay. I have a web developer, I have an SEO specialist.

I have some, my, my current wife does all of our social media. Yeah we have, yeah, we have a video production studio here in Las Vegas. Oh, right on. And where I’m partnered with someone who’s a video production expert and editor and all of that. Sure. So really my gift is forming these partnerships and basically finding people who can help me do all of the technical things.

But at the same time I’ve found it important and almost necessary that I’ve learned just enough about everything that we do. To where I can not only sell it, but I can jump in and pitch in and execute it. Wow, that’s awesome. But yeah, so from solar care started getting into the digital marketing aspect and he was actually from my son, my oldest son, where that taught me seo. Oh yeah. I’m 55 years old, so I consider myself right on the cusp. I was either gonna be. A traditional dinosaur, my background is traditionally print and print marketing. Yeah. So I could have easily been left behind.

Yeah. And luckily my son was very internet savvy and taught me the basics of SEO and how it all worked. And we built it from there. And started this vertex in 19 or in 2018 and been doing it ever since.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s such an exciting world. The world of digital marketing.

It’s so much fun to me. It’s like a big puzzle. It’s a puzzle that you’re trying to figure out and put the pieces of the puzzle together in order to get the final outcome of what you want it to do. That’s exactly right. Putting a or putting an engine together.

And I might think it’s a little more exciting than most people, but Yeah, I agree with you.

Probably.

We probably think, I stopped trying to talk to my family and friends about it or what I do because they have no idea, yeah. They can’t even understand it. They don’t. They don’t even, it’s oh, he builds websites. No, I don’t just build websites. Yeah.

Yeah. Luckily, I, my, immediate family and most of my friends are actually all involved in this business.

Oh, that’s, so I’ve been fortunate enough to bounce a lot of things. All of my son’s friends, one is a, a computer programmer. He understands code, my son understands code and so he, and then, My wife has taken an interest in it. So we talk a lot of shop, we all enjoy it for the most part.

That’s awesome. So what was the moment where you decided, Hey, I’m gonna start Vertex visibility. What where did that happen in the process of going from solar care

Actually I give that my son again. Being very SEO savvy, started Vertex actually out of. His bedroom, and it’s the office that I’m in now.

He’s since moved out. This used to be his bedroom, him and his one of his close friends. Oh, okay. Him and one of his close friends, they started this business and they they quickly, I had some money put away and I, I saw what they were doing.

I was excited about it and I invested and being a salesman, I said, Hey, let me help you start selling this. And from there, it was one of those progressions where, it wasn’t really what they ended up thinking it was. And I just started enjoying it so much. I said if you guys don’t wanna do it, I’m just gonna keep it going.

And that’s when I was, it actually forced me to kinda learn the intricate side of it, the kind of the technical end of it. As a salesman, that wasn’t really easy, but so yeah, my son started this company, and I came in rather quickly and we all worked it together for a couple of years and eventually they decided to move on to other things

Were there shares distributed? Did you have to buy out your son? I’m just curious if that’s what you had to do.

No. It was funny, when they were involved, it almost was like a childhood. Hobby almost. Ah, gotcha. I think they wanted to take it a little further.

I was doing some other things at the time, so I committed some resources to it. Okay. And some time to it. But that was a, around the time when Covid hit and yeah, it just changed everything. And during that time, my son actually landed a really incredible job with a company called Box Bowl.

Oh yeah. Where they build the modular homes out here and he’s now the the chief technical officer for that company at a young age. I just took the reins and really dived into it. I got rid of all I was doing and made it a actual full functioning business.

And That’s where we are today, that’s awesome. All the credit to them first, the company.

Yeah,absolutely. So how important is it for a founder of a company or a business owner, an entrepreneur to learn sales?

It’s funny. I think it, it depends on if you’re open partnerships.

I’ve always been weird about partnerships within my core business. So sales is an obviously an intangible. I’ve tried hiring salespeople who just never seem to have the same effectiveness that. That I do the closure rate is never where I would expect it to be. And yeah. And so I’m I’ve had to learn to delegate okay.

Because I’m the type that even though I wasn’t a technical person, I’ve dived in, I now, I can design my own WordPress websites. I can set up a seo, I can even set up ppc even though I don’t like doing it. I have a guy who does it much better than I do. And I, yeah, I’ve realized that by delegating. Now the person who does our, my, my other, my younger son actually.

And he’s much better at it than I am. My wife took over our social media. It’s a real family business. That’s awesome. She is really creative. Yeah. She’s extremely creative. We’ve had to sign up for seo, our social media services, our seo, cause I believe it all. And we’ve had.

I said, I can’t really do this anymore, but I don’t wanna stop. I want you to continue doing the social media. Yeah, so she does really great work on that end of it. And so that’s what I’ve learned is you need really good people supporting you and people that know the little the details better than I do.

And sales is my strength. But so it’s vital. If you can’t sell, I think, it’s funny, when I used to sell to dentists, One of the things I noticed about dentists is they would spend two, $300,000 on a new dental office. Beautiful operatories. Everything was, topnotch.

They’d open their doors, had no money left. And, so you have to be able, it’s not one of those things where you can just build it and they will come. No. You have set aside money for marketing. Absolutely. And luckily I have the sales ability to go out and get it. Since our revenues have gone up, I’ve been able to do some lead generation things like that.

And that’s when it really took off

you have any who did you learn what people have influenced you directly or indirectly in becoming a better salesperson?

Really there’s a couple of friends and just one of the things I’ve learned as a salesperson or an entrepreneur matter is you can learn from every sometimes they say a child’s mind sometimes is the best teacher because they’re not cluttered with all the things that we think about.

And it’s just real simple, as a matter of if you want that, why, just ask for it, right? I think we let a lot of things influence us as adults, that if you can, you sometimes just watch young children and you can learn from them. But to answer your question, there hasn’t been a single mentor.

In my life that I’ve learned from as, as much as there’s been hundreds, we’re in the fortunate, we deal with I, I mean we have almost a hundred clients and I take the time to really get to know all of them. I find out how they succeeded a lot like we’re doing here. And you’re talking to me.

Yeah. I talk to them and interview them, and I find out how, at the point that you know of success that they’re in. And so I’ve learned from everyone that I talked to, I wish I could give credit to one in particular person. My, at 55, my sales process has really evolved. And it wasn’t something where I just learned how to do it right off the bat.

It is really evolved.

Yeah, me too. Like I always, I learned from Anthony Robbins, if you wanna be good at something, find somebody who’s good at it, sure. Do it twice as much. Learn from that. And then do it twice as much, I’m always of the opinion, always be learning. John Maxwell says, if you’re green, you grow.

If you’re ripe, you rot. So I’m of the mindset that I’m, I have this attitude to always be learning. Leaders are learners and are learners, are earners. Yeah. I always sought out resources like I learned Tom Hopkins. Yeah. His book or his book selling for Dummies. Of course that’s a great brand.

And then he also how to master the Art of Selling that book phenomenal book. Then he had sell It Now, sell It Today, how to Master the Art of the One Call Close. Can you believe that I bought that on clearance on tape cassette ons?

And listen to say I’m probably dating myself, but I used to read things by Zig Ziglar, who was a notorious sales expert.

You don’t hear his name anymore, but I’ve, I, you mentioned Tony Robbins and I find myself, I don’t ever die. I don’t ever buy into a doctrine a hundred percent, but I take little bits and pieces, I’ve even watched. Yeah, I’ve watched Grant Cardone, who’s a little more current.

I’ve read Zig Ziglar. I watched Anthony Robbins presentation. So I, there was a, what was it called? Food for the Soul. I was, God, I can’t even remember. I’m dating myself, but I’ll be honest I, when I was younger and first getting into sales is when I did a lot of that kind of homework.

Reading and it’s not even one of those things where I think I have it all figured out, but I have developed my own style and it works for me to the point of where if I ever really wanted to monetize it, I probably could much some of those people have. It just really works, but it’s not a single influence that created that.

It’s a little bit of everybody Yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely. What are a sec I’m processing in my brain. What advice would you give to someone who wants to get better at selling and wants to improve and maybe is just starting out?

I, one of the things that, and I teach this too, is that, after every sales pitch that I don’t close, and even the ones that I do close, I go back and I look at it, what did I do right? Why didn’t, where did oftentimes it’s gotten to a point now where I’m in the middle of a sales pitch, and as we all do we take a wrong turn.

And I know instantly I just lost this guy, and so at the end of every sales presentation, I take a look at what I did and I slowly start, Addition by subtraction, I started eliminating the things where I put my foot in my mouth so always be learning. You mentioned it earlier. Yeah. And the key though for is a lot of stuff to get stuck on a pitch. The problem is that pitch has gotta be different for whether you’re talking an AC company or a lawyer. Yeah. Or a roofing contractor. A doctor. So you can’t just you have to be it’s like sports.

A sports metaphor is you have to be able to call audible. Yeah, absolutely. And really the key to selling, in my opinion, yeah. Is to know your product inside and out. Know your product knowledge. It really is. Wow. And, yeah I found that the more I know about my product and my services, and not only the product and services, but the benefits of them to each individual.

Industry that I’m working with, it allows me to audible and then use anecdotes and this is why I would do this, but only for your industry and this is why in your industry I might try this instead of doing this. And it’s a lot of audibles, but product knowledge.

Okay. How do you approach pitching digital marketing services to clients who may not fully understand the value of the services?

I put them in my seat or in the seat of a consumer. Okay. I ask them, what is it you are looking, when you do a search on Google, or if you’re on Facebook and you see an ad, what is it that attracted you to that ad? Yeah. What So I, I then learn their habits first as a consumer.

And then I explained to them, I go, that’s all the people that are looking at you. Ha. They follow the same patterns and habits. Absolutely. It’s funny, when I was in print marketing, I, one of the things I used to sell, I was a broker for even AK and Money Mailer. Yeah. And I would talk to a lot of, I talked to a lot of men.

And men will say, oh, I just throw that in the trash. I go, I’m sure you do. But the wife probably pulls it out and looks through it, right? Yeah. And the wife usually makes about 80% of the buying decisions in a household. Yeah. So I, I try and put it in perspective for people and they then, a lot of ’em, I would point that out and they say, yeah, you’re right.

You’re right. My wife does do that. Men tip, you have to understand men. When they want a pro, when they need a product, they go and they buy it. They don’t shop. Yeah. And I, no, we don’t. I’m the same way. Yeah. So I try and paint a portrait of what their shopping habits are and explain to them that’s the same shopping habits of the people that are searching for your products and services.

And then I dummy down SEO and how it works and how it basically I. Puts, it’s about them being everywhere, right? Yeah. Absolutely. And that’s what SEO comes down to. You’re not gonna get a hundred percent of everyone who’s looking for you, but the key is to be everywhere and including, if you wanna be in maps, you wanna be on, if you can, if you have the budget for it, you wanna do some PPC to be up at the top, you do it.

The goal is you wanna be in all three sections of Google. Really? If you can give people that much more opportunity to click on your ad. Absolutely. Your, yeah. The organic section has become increasingly difficult to get onto just because you’re competing with all the big box yeah.

Directories, Yelp, yeah.

Depending on what industry you’re in. Absolutely.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I usually, I tell ’em my goal is to get you on the maps. Yep. Just because people are looking for local services predominantly, unless it’s product based. But so yeah, absolutely. That’s usually how I’ll usually pitch it to ’em like that.

Right on. Hey, I know we’re coming to the end of our hour, but there’s so much more we’ve uncovered. I would love to have you back on the show to, to talk, discuss even further some of these things. But in the meantime, how can our listeners connect with you online if they choose to do

they can visit us on our website, which is vertex visibility.com.

Vertex is basically a synonym for peak visibility and it Oh, okay. Funny how that worked out. We wanted to call ourselves peak visibility and it was taken, so we looked for synonyms and Vertex is a synonym. Synonym for peak. Oh, okay. Cool. And so Vertex visibility be seen at the top? Yeah.

You’ll see on there we offer a variety of services, website design seo, social media, video production, ppc. Cool. Cool. We do all of that.

Right on. Right on. And you’re on LinkedIn as well?

LinkedIn. Facebook. Cool. Twitter. I practice what I preach. I believe that SEO starts with a strong internet presence.

It’s not just one. Yeah. There’s no one, there’s a holy grail, right? Yeah. You have to be everywhere. And so I practice that.

Right on. We’ll make sure to put those links in the show notes and the YouTube description when it comes online. So thank you so much for being here.

It’s absolute pleasure.My pleasure. I enjoyed speaking with you. Right on. Thank you.