For the last month or so I’ve been droning on and on about my move. I promise this will be the last time I mention it… * promises are not a guarantee
Where we lived in Arizona was wall-to-wall people. Deep in the suburbs, there was endless stucco houses with unbearable HOA’s with a Walmart every few miles to break up the monotony. The road that went along our house was always busy (special F U to lifted trucks with custom exhaust that like to rev their engines).
Here in Washington, we live in a little town of just under 9,000. The road near our house might have 10 cars a day go by. Neighbors wave to everyone who walks by. Several of our neighbors have brought fresh fruit and veggies from their garden to us as a “welcome back” gift. At night, the world is quiet. Every morning I open all the windows to let in fresh air.
I’ve always thought I could live anywhere and that what mattered was having the right people around. The right people is still important, but geography matters more than I anticipated. For the first time in a long time I can say I’m truly happy. But, I didn’t get to this house without a years worth of planning. Numerous discussions, charts, lists, and late nights with my wife sussing out the details.
What makes you happy? What’s one little step you can take to get closer to it? What can you do right now?
Give that a shot.
On to this week’s newsletter:
– Importance of local SEO for the summer of road trips.
– Lifting and building instead of tearing down and diminishing others.
– A hot link I’ve been going back to all week.
The road trip
Its no surprise this summer is going to be different. All weekend I saw numerous news outlets covering the hottest vacation trend – renting RV’s. Here’s just a few examples:
– USA TODAY More turning to RVs, motor homes to escape COVID-19 — and get away from it all
– SFGate RV travel soars for summer trips as air travel stalls
– Wall Street Journal RV Vacations: The Safest Way to Travel This Summer
The hype hit our house, too. After driving nearly 1,600 miles moving from Phoenix to Seattle, we decided this summer WON’T be a time for a road trip. But, this is an example of how people are thinking. They are thinking more locally, and looking to explore parts of the country within a reasonable drive. Depending on how many kids you have will determine how far “reasonable” is.
This is why local SEO will be vitally important to your marketing strategy for the remainder of the year. Will people be able to find you as they go down the road? Instead of looking to see if you can be found on Maps, look if you can solve the pain points these RV novices will have. Or what the local community you serve now finds themselves in their new normal. Don’t just advertise you serve curbside. How? What do they have to do? What’s the whole process?
Make it clear, make it easy, make it repeatable.
20 Tips & Tricks to Managing Local SEO
Destruction vs. building
You know I’m a pretty hardcore fan of both Gary Vee and of Seth Godin. Both for different reasons, but they both preach a similar strategy. Last week they hit on a similar topic at different times, each have been ringing in my ears nonstop. In this Gary Vee short film “How To Build The Tallest Building” there’s this line: “You can either spend all your time and energy focusing on you making your building the tallest, or you can go around and try to tear everyone else’s building down.”
Then on Seth Godin’s amazing blog titled Getting what the customers asked for: “The gears in the system are too often turned by short-term profiteers and people who seek to manipulate us for their own ends.”
What’s stuck with me is we get caught in the loop of distraction. We get pressure from boards and the C-suite to convert, so we succumb to manipulation of the customer for short term gain. We see what the competition is up to and move to undercut their efforts. In the end we’re just wasting time trying to tear others down instead of building our own. Its easier to tear others down to make ourselves look better.
But, in the end, we’re not actually better. We’re still the same, just slowing losing our humanity. We could be so powerful if we focused on building our best selves instead of attempting to tear down others success.
See both here; How To Build The Tallest Building, Getting what the customers asked for
Hot links
- Uncommon Types of Social Proof that Matter
- Why Retention Has Stolen Our Attention, Not Churn | Leadfeeder
- How to Take Your B2B Prospecting Strategy From Pivot to Profit – Bloobirds
Get focused | Get Better Friday
With everything happening in the world, I haven’t felt that this is the right time for the leadership and coaching videos I’ve done in the past. Partially because I think there’s too much going on, partially because I don’t know what to say. Instead, I’ve been trying to do as much listening as I can, rather than preaching.
So, I need recommendations. Please send me videos, podcasts, blogs, articles, tweets, whatever you’ve found to be good information for leadership in this moment. I want to see them! The world is changing fast and right now, I need to just shut up and listen.
In the meantime, I’ve become OBSESSED with these always live music channels on YouTube. I need sound to drown out the noise at home, but with no lyrics to distract me. Lofi hip-hop is super popular and a good place to start. Me? I listen to synthwave (cause… 80’s guy I guess). Check out ThePrimeThanos and let me know what you think!