EP 34 - David Somerfleck - The Importance of Web Design Lead Generation and SEO

Digital marketing can help businesses maximize online presence, launch great products, attract more clients and grow their business exponentially.

On today’s episode, Steve introduces us to David Somerfleck, Founder of Defacto Digital. David is a trained and certified court mediator, the author of five books, a former college journalism professor and education program director. Here are more key points on today’s episode:

• The importance of web design and lead generation for businesses.

• Why SEO is still a vital part of digital marketing.

• What a Cadillac problem is and how to overcome it.

• And the future of digital marketing according to David and more.

So listen to today’s episode and find out more about Digital Marketing and how it can help your business.

Welcome to the Awesomers.com podcast. If you love to learn and if you're motivated to expand your mind and heck if you desire to break through those traditional paradigms and find your own version of success, you are in the right place. Awesomers around the world are on a journey to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. We believe in paying it forward and we fundamentally try to live up to the great Zig Ziglar quote where he said, "You can have everything in your life you want if you help enough other people get what they want." It doesn't matter where you came from. It only matters where you're going. My name is Steve Simonson and I hope that you will join me on this Awesomer journey.

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1:38 (Steve introduces today’s guest, David Somerfleck.)

Steve: This is the Awesomers podcast episode number 34. And our tradition has been established that if you want to find the show notes or any relevant details that we may throw in there, some bonus links etc. Just go to  Awesomers.com/34, that's Awesomers.com/34. For any relevant show details. Now today our guest David Somerfleck is going to give us a little bit of a taste about web design and kind of refresh our memory how important web design could be. David is a trained and certified court mediator, the author of five books, a former college journalism professor and education program director. Founder of three different startups and an expert in digital marketing, SEO, website development, social media, content marketing, Google AdWords, Facebook advertising the list goes on and on. And he has a traditional boots-on-the-ground advertising background as well. David has been a certified business mentor for score, which is a division of the US Small Business Administration and a great little resource for some of those new CEOs that have never heard about it. He's done that for over five years where he's advised hundreds of businesses around the world. From large marketing agency owners to lawyers to E-commerce, retailers, copywriters, psychologists, mechanics even startup founders and accountants. We all need help sometimes, don't we? Now some of David's former clients include the City and County of Denver, Caribou Coffee, AOL Time Warner and even Microsoft. David's an active member of the internet society, the internet marketing association, the Collier County Bar Association and the International Webmasters Association. That's a lot of associations. Fun fact here and I found this fascinating myself. David once mediated a child custody dispute scheduled to appear on the Judge Judy program and about briefly operated a mediation nonprofit organization as well. But this is a guy who understands how to resolve conflicts. Welcome back Awesomers, Steve Simonson again and today I'm joined by David Somerfleck. Did I get that right?

David: Somerfleck does fine.

Steve: I'm so close, my record of getting guest names right is it's really taking a hit this past month but I appreciate you correcting me. So thank you and welcome aboard. So we've already read David's bio and so everybody kind of knows his deep background and how awesome it is. But I always like to have somebody to just say in your own words. David what you do day to day and summarize where you live and what you do. So Awesomers out there can kind of get to know you.

David: Sure, basically what I do is I have a digital marketing business with a very profound emphasis on marketing. The idea is to promote a business so that your phone rings in very very direct terms. So I have a digital marketing business. Now I have two divisions of that which is sudden impact Web Design which are focuses on web design and works with a broad spectrum of the public and second to that or maybe a part of that is Defacto Digital which works primarily with solo practice lawyers, attorneys in smaller law firms.

Steve: Well that's an interesting delineation there so and way of course in the show notes everybody you'll be able to find the links to these companies and make sure we get you connected. But we're gonna dive in kind of deeper to both of these but the one that it's just intriguing to me is this general idea that the solo practitioner law firms. I suppose that they need a web presence but when you're a solopreneur or solo lawyer, you need to look outside for help. And so how is this a new thing has this been going on since the internet came down or it seems weird to me I have to say but what do I know.

David: No, I don't think it's weird at all. I don't think it's weird really you have to have empathy and that's a really vital. You've got to be able no matter what you've been through you have to be able to reverse your perspective and look at it from the perspective of the client and I learned this by working with a lot of non-technical of small business owners. What you call mom-and-pop shops but also working for larger agencies where we will have clients calling who want to know what can I get done for XML. Thank you for ordering something at McDonald's the lawyers basically you from their perspective, they go to college, they do their in four years. Now you've got an additional number of years then you have to study information that is extremely specific very very detailed 3d. So they graduate from law school they're experts in civil law, could be family law, could be personal injury, could be divorce or whatever their area of specialty is could be. I spoke to a business litigator you would just take other businesses. I once mediated a child custody dispute but basically they have this very specialized knowledge and nobody ever really takes him aside and says this is how you promote a practice. They do them a profound disservice. I mean my wife is a yoga teacher and she was taking her yoga classes and she's graduated and she said you know nobody ever said anything about how do you get clients. How I get yoga customers and it seems to be something that is done. Whatever it is if you go and you studied to be a plumber or you study to be an electrician, they're not going to take you aside and say this is how you get customers they're clients. In the case of lawyers their area of knowledge is very specific, yes it is. With any other service provider who specializes it makes a decent living but nobody takes my side and tells them this is how you going to get clients and there's so many of them that are out there struggling.

Steve: Yes, it's a fascinating thing. So the phenomena of I guess individual single person law firms was the part that was more intriguing to me. The phenomena of people don't know what to do in real life, right? Where we have the entrepreneurial seizure, we started a business and now it's like where are the customers that seems and that resonates with every entrepreneur on the planet there are otherwise because we all want the same thing which is more customers, right?

David: Yes, exactly the solo practice lawyer. I've spoken to many as you might imagine. And you'll graduate from law school, you have a tremendous amount of student debt. So you've got that stressor on you and now you're trying to find clients. So you're excited, hey I want to practice what I studied. I believe in this I can help people and I really do believe you can make a very very positive impact. I've been there. I was a mediator. I have an idea what they go through and to have that skill and that ability and find anybody. I read something recently I think it was the Washington Post. I can't remember exactly the source but it was something that said eighty-six percent of low-income Americans cannot get or they can't find it. And they can't afford civil lawyers to represent in the court. 86%. Meanwhile how many lawyers are graduating from law school and they can't get work. So there's a profound. Get out there where the people who need. The lawyers can't find them and the lawyers who need work they can't connect with the people who need them. And I think it's a case of you don't know what you don't know. It's not that either party, it's not like they're bad people or anything or that they're purposely making things difficult. They can't do that but they're just not meeting, they're not connecting. If I were to talk to you, I don't have my glasses on, I can't see anything.

Steve: Yes,  that without the knowledge right and that's what the internet ultimately fills in. It’s the knowledge of  what somebody's service or what's their offering and does that match up with what my needs are. So I really I like this premise. I like the fact that you've been in in kind of the E-commerce and digital marketing space for so many years. When we come back from this break, we're going to talk about kind of the standard things that everybody's interested in, which is getting more leads and David's an expert about that. He's going to give us some some tips and hints hints. We'll be right back after this.

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Steve: Okay here we are. We're back again and it's Steve Simonson on the Awesomers.com podcast with David Somerfleck. How about that time? All right, well if I could bat 500 and baseball I'd be a superstar. So I'm gonna take that as a win. So David we teed up before the break that in fact really every business almost doesn't matter who you are. Doesn't matter if you're the solopreneur, the solar law firm or even the big companies. We all kind of want more leads. It give us your philosophy of how that problem kind of manifests itself and then maybe some of your first steps that you take to remedy that problem.

11:25 (David talks about the problem of wanting more leads.)

David: Where does the problem come from? I think the problem really originates I mean is its base it depends on where you're coming to it from. If you have a large corporate enterprise then…  we've all worked for really really large businesses, really large corporations. These mega corporations, I won't go in any names but I've worked for them independently. Freelancing Network for agencies and in a lot of cases they're so big and so you mungus that they're insulate. We have a marketing division for the big company but what they do is almost done by rote. It's like almost robotic there's no thought in innovation or doing anything different. And if you've ever worked in a marketing department for a big major corporation. If you try to innovate or do something new. It's very possible that you'll get slapped back down or just told hey that's okay. We don't do that here, we work like that. They can't pivot and that's why you see so many large retailers going under. Now when they're huge but they just can't compete they can't innovate, so Amazon comes along. It just eats their lunch. Now as far as which, we may be your audience more, maybe the solopreneur, the freelancer, the small business owner, maybe the mom and pop shop with them. They're actually better suited because they're more mobile. They can change approaches very quickly. It's not a big deal for a smaller medium business to rebrand, come back with a new online presence or start a new marketing campaign or change something. If they're doing a Google AdWords campaign and they want to transition out of that into a Facebook ad campaign or whatever or start writing in content or change things around or whatever. It's not that big a deal for them, whereas obviously for a large corporation it's a very big deal. I mean I was looking at Whole Foods just the other day which everybody knows was recently acquired by Amazon. So you would think you could go to Whole Foods look up food right order it, pick it up, You can't. I went on the website. I'm trying to look at what kind of food they have. It's not there I can read articles about it but I can't see if it's on the Shelf. I can't order it and it go pick it up. So the large location…

Steve: I just want to make sure that I'm clear on this point. So if the big company let's use the analogy that the big company is the big oil tanker and the little companies that the smaller enterprise are the little speedboats right. The speedboats can change direction, can decide what we were going for that beach but it's choppy water this way. And it's glass over here let's do it right? Where is that big oil tankers, not changing direction. And even if they turn quickly it'll take a miles and miles and frankly months and months for that change to take effect. Is that ultimately your point?

David: Exactly and I think that's a really really good analogy. That's really the advantage of being smaller as compared to these larger businesses. Is that you can pivot. It's kind of like judo or Aikido or something the larger person comes at you and you can kind of pivot and redirect. But that's the strength. One of the benefits of being small is you can do things that the larger businesses cannot. As far as getting leads, getting business and growing the smaller enterprise has more adaptability. You can just do more that the larger business can't. You may not have the financial resources but quite honestly if I were to take a hundred small businesses and give them each a million dollars. It wouldn't know what to do with it.  Would they invest it? They don't have P&L statements to show you. So it's tough.

Steve: Without doubt that there's a question about how do you are you gonna allocate your spend. So on one hand we have the big complex organizations and by the way Proctor and Gamble for the Awesomers out there listening. A long term multi-generational company probably a hundred hundred fifty years old, massive brand consumer brand, dominant player on so many brands that you know the names of. They are feeling the pressure of the online world and they are feeling the pressure of these little speedboat brands that are running around. And it's ridiculous, it's crazy right?

David: Yes it's ridiculous because they have so much financial capital but they just they don't know how to innovate. They don't know how to be creative and if you were working in creative with them you're thinking about the word culture. You don't rock the boat you want to maintain your nice paycheck. And you want your 401 K. You need your help benefit. They don't really innovate anymore and that's why you see so many business is going under. Now I mean if you look at it really the Internet to me probably, to you and to many of their you listeners the Internet is like okay. So what been there done that got the t-shirt but for a lot of these business owners, a lot of lawyers, a lot of everybody else they use it every day. But there's not a connection that this is something that's going to make my phone ring. So what's the value of it? I don't know if I'm digressing too much but it's a real disc. But you have to lay the foundation. If I were to give you 100 new clients what would you do with them? I remember talking to a woman once who was talking to me about internet marketing and I said well that's fine. We can create Ecommerce and I think she had a like a clothing store, clothing boutique so I said okay. I can create the E-commerce, I can set all that off, I can give you great SEO. We can make it so that your freedom putted it locally because naturally you can't be competitive. There's no way and then she came back and basically said what I don't think I wanted that because if we have more people coming into the store. I'd have to hire more people, I'd have to do more work, we'd have to have more inventory. The system isn't just not set up they have to grow more slowly.

Steve: Oh yes that's a we call it a Cadillac problem to be kind of hesitant or afraid of growth. The reality is I think most small businesses and particularly my audience which is it's going to be largely E-commerce driven. And many of them will have their own brands and although we all face the cash flow challenges of trying to keep up with inventory. I just had one of my colleagues say they had the product featured on Good Morning America this morning. They sold 10,000 units in one day which is what they allocated and but now they're back ordered. So it is a great experience for them and it's a Cadillac problem to have that. And so most folks I think are willing to lean into that problem. So what do you tell those types of people no matter where they come from, doesn't matter if their mom and pops or solopreneurs or solo attorneys. For that matter how does for the ones who want the leads? What's the best practices they can put into place?

David: Do you know you have to build it as if it's going to come. What was that movie Field of Dreams or something, if you build it it will come. So many people it's very easy to get into this way of thinking where I don't have any money I can invest in Google Adwords, I can invest in Facebook advertising, I'm going to build my own website even though they don't no web design or SEO just wildly common. I mean unbelievably common. These DIY websites and then nobody ever finds it. So you have to build it expecting people to come you have to whatever it is that you do, you have to scale it. And say look it might not be happening now but my phone is going to be ringing. I have to be able to handle at least five cards at the same time. So what's your onboarding process? What's your workflow if for the five people contact you at the same time they want to work with you? What you going to do? You have to have that set up if you have a DIY website hey that's fine if you don't like money. If you're not interested in growing a business and you just want to post photos of your cat or water skiing squirrels or whatever it is that they do that's fine. I've been doing this since the mid 90s. Now I've never seen a DIY free website that ever generated any income. No one okay. I'm not saying that to put people down. I'm just saying that's dude that's reality. You get out what you put in. So I would tell people to build it as if you expect people to come scale slowly. If you don't have a lot of money to invest, there's nothing wrong with that. You don't go to Starbucks every morning, you don't eat out for 90 days, you did amazing much. You can save if you don't go anywhere for 90 days, I call it the the to cheap budget gas and groceries. Don't go anywhere for 90 days and you'll save enough money that you can put it into LinkedIn ads and be very specific or put it into Facebook ads and do the scatter shot wide approach or you could invest in postcards. And just send them out to people that you think you'd like to work with. But be prepared to get some freaking phone calls don't say I'm going to create a website but then there's no content. I talked to a solo practice lawyer recently who had a do it yourselfer website. He was a tough guy didn't want to spend any money not a penny and that's fine that's. His project god bless you but the problem the phone isn't ringing, nobody's noticing him. I don't understand why and basically I found out after basically two phone calls. He's working for a much older established law firm doesn't really need it they're giving him the class. So this is more something in other words you have to have skin in the game so I would say build your foundation is if you're going to get at least five clients coming in four day scale it like that plan for growth prepare for read a book a week. Go to udemy and sign up for the free online business courses. There's a website got open culture you can go to take all the free business courses you want. So there's really no excuse today for people to be uninformed. Just what I don't know what to do or I don't know about XYZ when you have all this wealth of information available to you online. So being formed build to scale, get out what you put in, if you don't know what you're doing, start saving and start planning, have a business plan. And that's basically where I get wound up so to speak is building a comprehensive marketing plan that has different levels or different tiers. So you would have different approaches.

Steve: I'm sorry to jump in David but I have some question about... I generally agree with this premise that if somebody just builds a site that's on the free Wix or the free... I don't even know all the names out there these days. Then it's gonna be tough for that to turn into actually a real commercial business but what's your opinion about the sites like Shopify or similar platforms, I can't some of the others off the top of my head, wordpress, E-commerce, what's your thoughts about those and those things to be kind of very commonly used. How does that interface with what you do?

David: Well there's a profound difference between the free DIY sites and working with a professional developer who knows what he or she is doing. And they have credentials and they've been doing it for a decade or two. Then they've got credentials and so on. There's a big big differences on Amazon they have do-it-yourself dentistry kids. There's a big difference as far as Shopify it's kind of the same thing because you're basically using the do-it-yourself builder to build something and then put it out there into the world. And you're basically expecting that people are going to find you. How are they going to find you if you're not investing in the advertising or unless you're working with someone he knows SEO really well. How is anybody ever going to find you? It has to be a very very narrow specific niche or else nobody's going to find you.

Steve: If you run a product on Amazon if you put a website out there, it's just one of the billions of billions of stars in space without a route to find you. I completely agree that you must have it. So let's assume that we have a nicely built website and and so we're prepared. We're ready to scale what do we do to drive traffic to that website?

David: I'm assuming that you built it with someone who has a knowledge of SEO what can you do to build that E-commerce site so that it gets more lead generation riding on. Patronage blogging is pretty big I was number one on Google when I was in Denver Colorado in Florida and I'll never forget a competitor called me up and his exact words were beautiful bastard what did you do? Now I knew right away who it was and it was a really really nice guy do one of these people are just so likable you can't help but want to get my hug when you see him. It's how did you get to be number one. I go for lost we talk about yes you're right up there and I told him I don't look at it every day and it's too stressful. I don't want to know you work toward that goal. So basically I said well I've been tinkering with the website every day on a regular basis, fine-tuning the content, fine-tuning the SEO. Looking at what competitors are doing, what they're saying, what they're writing about in trying to appeal to my ideal client. That ideal niche client back then I would say I don't want to be a web developer. I want to be somebody who uses the web to help businesses grow a big difference. I don't want to be slinging templates and competing on Craigslist or Fiverr to try to pay the rent. I want to be working with people with real businesses with real problems. So I want to change that. So I kept taking with the content on a daily basis. What that did, was it kept pushing me up Google slowly but surely because to Google this website is being changed so often. It's got things going on. So blogging is still very very important. It's still very well of it how many of these E-commerce sites don't block.

Steve: Yes many many people miss that opportunity. So just to drive this point home and I'm gonna put in my own words but please officially direct me David but the idea of Google... So first of all the premise that SEO is dead is a misunderstood premise right? We agree that is complete crap right? David said let's see that if that were the case how would you have Google making more money and still be in business? How would Google AdWords be this multi-million dollar enterprise? That it is why would big big giant mega corporations like Coca Cola and Disney be investing in SEO on a daily basis that makes no sense. Well Google AdWords for clarity that's the paid platform that SEM search engine marketing for the lay people out there and that's where we just pay for our placements. But SEO search engine optimization is where you're trying to get yourself in the organic listings. It used to be way easier in the older but so the premise that's gone. Despite them ratcheting down and unleashing the menagerie of animals as they have over the past ten fifteen years making a harder real content and quality content still ranks organically. That's fundamentally a point yes.

David: Absolutely. I've actually consulted with larger marketing agencies and they there are some who are very competitive in their SEO. Just by writing content, just by blogging on a regular recurring basis. Very aggressively writing about everything that they think their ideal clients want to know about. So you can still move the meter by blogging on a regular recurring basis the more often you write good content, crap content. But good content is actually thought out like a research paper with lots of links and videos. And imagery Google picks all that up, you're all tags your matter and all that stuff the more often you do that on a regular recurring scheduled basis, like every Monday at 9:00 a.m.. For example Google's gonna automate that and start looking. It's going to be trained so to speak or prime to be looking for this and it can actually still move the meter as he owing dead. Believe me it's very difficult that's a big difference. It's more difficult to get a grip on because Google is the leader they're not going anywhere for at least another decade or so. And they keep changing their algorithms every quarter so it's harder to get into their mind. It's more time-consuming but Google owns that space right now. Yahoo had their chance and they were interested.

Steve: Yes they also weren't interested when Microsoft offered to buy them for fifty billion in leadership for a few billion in a fire sale. And add some of the money back after they got sued for just...

David: Yes.

Steve: It's there's lost opportunity. You're right we won't digress to there but the other point I want to help drive home. And David alluded to this but recency is a big part of what my interpretation of the Google algorithm likes. Recency and kind of the consistency of change, right? So if you just make a static page out there in space, it's gonna stay pretty static and not changing whereas I can modify and add stuff it seems to be better. David,

David: I can tell you right now my a we see I have my two main business websites are on the both on the first page of Google right now. For the SEO that I wanted so as it's working I mean it's right there at the top of Google search results. If I see oh we're dead I wouldn't be able to do that and it's really some of the changes that you can do to take ten minutes but if you don't know how to do it then you can't do it. But SEO is absolutely here to stay it's not changing is becoming more complex. It's more time consuming you're not going to get into Google Analytics if you have to study it. It's difficult I have to get up to speed if you have the skills or Hannah and you haven't use it a long time. Then you got to go back and relearn it because it changes so quickly but that's why I'm a firm believer. That the business owners should run their business be the best they can at that didn't let the professional web developer build their site just fat who you're who you're working with.

Steve: Yes I quite agree. So that premise of bringing an expertise around you to supplement you the skills or the gaps in skills that may exist. it's true in every category to be in it it certainly can be true in this. So let's assume that we've got reasonable SEO, we've got a reasonable site built what's the next thing that they could do to drive leads because I want to make sure we give some little nugget here before we have to tie this one off.

David: I appreciate you keeping track. I can die gross if I don't have enough caffeine. You've got your SEO, you've got the content marketing, you want to push that with social. Keep in mind that social media is just a distribution system. That's all. It is not a miracle. You've got to have good content to funnel through social media channels on a regular recurring basis. Every week have something exciting. That's fun for people but I like to combine digital marketing with what I call old-school boots-on-the-ground marketing. And if I work with a client and I'm not gonna work somebody if I don't feel I can really knock it out of the park with them. And really deliver in spades. I really want to ram at home or else I'm not going to do it. So you do that by combining old-school boots-on-the-ground marketing that would be let's say your lawyer. Okay just for the sake of brevity. Let's say your lawyer you can't get enough clients. Okay very common problem let's say they've got a great website. They're writing blogs on a weekly basis. They take the blog post they convert it into a podcast. Now they turn it into a video. So they have a weekly video series on YouTube that they can send other video sharing sites. They have a weekly podcast. I've got a weekly blog post oh that's great they've got it all done. All the SEO everything's great. Now what can you do on top of that to bring in even more referrals? Well you could go to a website like me, calm start a local group to provide advice. Some kind of a networking get-together type of meeting group to bring in physical bodies. People coming in for a lawyer it's great because I know their profession their field. So if you could have a meetup group discussing like divorcing couples should know or how to handle child custody issues or divorce, Healing Group I are divorced singles group. I've seen that divorced singles get together. Who's the homes - organizer the group this really nice the divorce attorney. Obviously he's got it, he's helping signals get together but he's got his own mind as well. Getting the word out it's indirect but it's getting the word out. So you want to look at how you can do things in the old-school physical way have a presentation to professional associations that has a very very high return on investment. I've never had a case where I would give a presentation of professional association and not gotten follow-up phone calls or could you work with a friend of mine or I'd like to be interested in working with you. Could you send me a prospectus or could be talk I've never had that happen. When you've given a presentation but it's got to be a professional association, electricians, lawyers, doctors, dentists whomever.

Steve: So there's a ton in there David. there's just so many tactics and things that people can do to deploy both on the local level or on the national level right? Webinars would be the same thing as giving presentations right? Yes this follow-up this follows the general premise of let's go ahead and give something of value and then see what comes back to us right. We like that as Awesomer. So we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back we're gonna give David the final word, give us a kind of the crystal ball view the future of how he sees kind of internet marketing going and we're gonna do that right after this.

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Steve: Okay guys we're back again Steve Simonson here with David Somerfleck and we're talking about all things digital marketing. And trying to really put a bow on this thing we've talked about the idea that SEO still relevant. There's different ways that we can we can mark it and bring content to our sites to make it more relevant but  David one of the things that I always like to get a an opinion of, especially somebody who's been in the internet space since the mid-90s right? I go back to that same same length of time. My first website was put up in 1996 and it was not Awesomer. I can just give full disclosure on it but so for me it's your experience where do you see the future of internet marketing going? Let's say in the next five years any surprises any here add?

38:37 (Steve asks David about the future of internet marketing.)

David: I think a lot of it is already very intuitive in that you pretty much know what to expect. Basically what we're going to see is more of what we have now more and more people are going to be doing everything using their phone. If anything I think phones are probably going to get fatter. I think is going to they're going to continue working on that and more people have smartphones now than have laptops or PCs. So you've got to have a mobile first sensibility and everything that you do, SEO writing everything. So I see more of that more people using mobile for everything that they do. And I think also you're going to see a lot more consolidation it's about serving the customers you're going to see more of reac it's going to be more about what you see. Now with the Amazon more consolidation, place your order online go pick it up or go work with someone. I've been actually very surprised at Amazon hasn't bought up Sears yet then kind of consolidated that with their marketplace type of thing. Where you could hire an electrician go to Sears and get supplies. It would have you're gonna meet the electrician or whatever just as they bought up Whole Foods. It's happening already. So I think you're gonna see a lot more consolidation of resources and a lot more movement toward mobile than we've ever seen or in history. Very few people are going to get PC’s anymore. You're just going to see a lot more tablets and a lot more of these smartphones.

Steve: Yes. You heard it here first everybody. The reality is that I quite agree that the mobile and the multi device experience which right the customer journey, now happens on many times on multiple devices. And maybe they've working on the computer at the office, maybe they're surfing on their phone. They get the tablet it just crosses. So many devices now it's becoming very convenient for customers. Even today myself I've been on multiple devices and carrying on more or less the same conversations right. That's a Facebook message whatever. So I think that's very a nice insight and then of course the idea that this convergence of retail and online or so-called omni-channel.

David: Yes the interconnectedness, you're gonna be getting messages, SMS. You're going to be getting you newsletters are going to be coming through your text messages and you're gonna instead of sending emails you're going to be using things like was it loom you're going to be doing things like what we're doing now, Google Hangouts and so on, on your phone. It's exciting, It's fun but it's overwhelming. A lot of business owners who just don't know how to keep up and that's where you have to just ask for help. Well this is gonna cut you off.

Steve: I just love no it's quite right and I listen. I love the passion. I love the insights and I want to say to especially the smaller companies, especially mom and pops because I have deep background in kind of land-based stores and retail and so forth and you have done a great number of kind of a solo attorney office and so forth. Often these smaller local businesses feel like they're left behind that the Internet's. Not something they can leverage and I want to just say as clear as I can. It absolutely can be leveraged into a high degree within affordable ranges right. It does take…

David: Absolutely you can get up it. There is no web developer out there who would not work with you or get an payment plan. They may say look I'm not going to lower my rates because it's still quality and still work for me. I still have bills and a family to take care of but we can get on some kind of a payment plan. There's nobody who is not going to do that. It's about you being receptive to a process that hopefully the digital marketing guru guy is going to have a process and know what they're doing as opposed to hobbyist kind of thing. Where it's just jointed. And you hear about all these negative experiences.

Steve: Well it definitely is something at one of the Awesomer philosophies that we've shared before is you really do get out what you put in. And that's both effort that's intellectual skill building. And it's the same thing when you're trying to invest in something that should be an asset that produces revenue. So David I want to thank you for taking the time today. It's been a great pleasure to meet you. Don't Awesomers that we’ll have the links of David's companies on the show notes page which we'll share with you at the end of this episode. And we'll be right back after this.

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Steve: It's a fascinating concept to me that independent law firms or small lawyers who start their own practices really are entrepreneurs in the very traditional sense. I don't always think of law firms that way but especially these smaller groups and the guys who start up and gals for that matter who startup firms all by themselves. They're a classic entrepreneur and of course they need help. They have unique problems of being kind of a local business. So they don't want to advertise to the world like an E-commerce company and they have other things that they may have specialties that present unique challenges right. It's not just any kind of law only call me for family law or only call me for patent and trademark law, whatever the case may be. So it's a very interesting thing and I think a nice reinforcement of some of the basics of web design and remembering that our web sites are very important and can be a major source of income for us. Even today in the world of marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Jet.com and others kind of taking big bites out of the marketplace at large. You are listening to the Awesomers.com podcast episode number 34 and to find those secrets show notes and details, any links that we may have discussed just go to a Awesomers.com/34. As always all the little details and links and sometimes the books or things that we talk about at Awesomers.com/34.

Well we've done it again everybody. We have another episode of the Awesomers podcast ready for the world. Thank you for joining us and we hope that you've enjoyed our program today. Now is a good time to take a moment to subscribe, like and share this podcast. Heck you can even leave a review if you wanted. Awesomers around you will appreciate your help. It's only with your participation and sharing that we'll be able to achieve our goals. Our success is literally in your hands. Thank you again for joining us. We are at your service. Find out more about me, Steve Simonson, our guest, team and all the other Awesomers involved at Awesomers.com. Thank you again.