Heroes in Business - Matt Bowman President and Founder Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, Top 10 SEO, INC5000

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

How to make your marketing THRIVE. Matt Bowman President and Founder Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, Top 10 SEO, INC5000 is interviewed by David Cogan famous host Heroes Show and founder Eliances entrepreneur community.  

Up in the sky, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. That's right. And again, welcome back. Again, can't appreciate, can't thank you so much for the feedback we get. Continue to provide that feedback about the show. We've been doing it long enough. We love all the feedback. And thank you again, too, for the feedback we continue to have on when I hit on the CMO of Atari. Guess what?

He's coming to the grand tables. So make sure that you go to alliances.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com, the only place where entrepreneurs align. All right. So I got to tell you, there are probably millions of SEO agencies that are out there. I mean, everywhere you look, there's just a tremendous amount of them. So to try to be like in the, let's say upper 50% of an SEO agency is pretty impossible. Well, how about this? Not even in the top 100, not even in the top 50, but in the top 10, because we have with us, you ready for this? Matt Bowman, president and founder of Thrive

Internet Marketing Agency, which is a top 10. That's right. top 10 SEO agency. In fact, he's been listed in the Inc. 5000 fastest growing company, and you can reach him at thriveagency.com. So welcome to the show, man. Let's just get like right into it. How many SEO agencies are there that exist? Is it like in the thousands? Yes, I would say there are. If you count all the small, you know, three-person, I would say definitely. And you're in the top 10. Like, that's just incredible. How long did it take you to build the company to even be like in the top 1,000, let's say, in the top 10? Well, we started in 2005, and so I've been doing this since then. We started in 2005, and so I've been doing it since then. Great, great.

So let's talk about what Thrive is. I'm familiar with it. I actually know people that use it and that. So tell me about what Thrive is and what stands out between the gazillions that are out there. Yeah, so Thrive is a digital marketing agency. Our passion is to help businesses grow and use the power of the internet to do that. We're all about generating amazing results for our clients and then just building long-term relationships, just building trust with our clients as well. we have an amazing team we've got right now about 230 full-time employees and we're all over the world we are a remote agency we were we were remote before it was cool with covid and so we've been doing that for a long time and yeah we we love what we do we love making a difference in in the lives of our clients and helping businesses succeed and avoid failure,

helping them reach more customers and grow. Yeah. In fact, you started this, what, 17 years ago? That's right. That's a long time. In internet time, that's like, you know, 40 years ago. Yeah, that's true. Wow.

Simply. And, I mean, did you ever, like, what was the secret to really being able to build it and the size that you are, but really being in the top ranking? Well, I would say there's not one one thing, but I would say it's a mixture of persistence, hard work of the right people coming at the right time, whether that's employees or clients. I have some great, really great leaders in the company that have really been a key to our growth and other mentors of mine that have helped me along the way as well. So it's kind of been a mixture of all those things. along the way as well. So it's kind of been a mixture of all those things. Now, I know that probably one of the most popular questions that people must ask your employees and that is,

how do I get found? Matt, is there any secret of like being, you know, easiest way to get found on the internet? Easiest way? Is there an easy way bazillion sites out there well the the uh standard answer will be it depends but no the real answer is you need to commit to investing in being found and seeing marketing as a lever in your business. It's a leverage point. And if you just see marketing as an expense keys to growth and an opportunity where you can put in a dollar and get three or four or five back, then that's just a different perspective. So I would say it starts with a mindset of seeing marketing as leverage rather than expense.

And then it's identifying the right channels for your business. So every business is a little bit different. Their customers find them in different ways. Some businesses are in industries that are very known. You know, if my toilet backs up, I know I need a plumber. But there's other types of businesses that you may not even know their service exists. And so there's less search volume for those. Some are business to consumer businesses. Some are business to consumer

businesses. Some are business to business. So that's where the it depends comes in. But I would say that organic ranking in the top three to five positions, I tell my clients, there's a feeling and it's hard to describe the feeling until you've experienced it, where your business ranks in the top three to five positions for a high volume high value keyword or multiple of them and so if you're willing to put in the time and money and energy to get there then it can really pay off excellent and we're when we return to we're going to ask matt about the difference between startups and corporations with your se strategy, because you're listening, watching me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Heroes show. ThriveInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetInternetIn SEO agency and Inc. 5000, fastest growing company. Been in business for over 17 years, thriveagency.com. So Matt, what is the difference between the strategy that perhaps we've got a

whole range of people that are maybe listening right now. They may be in their car right now listening. They're thinking about starting their company or they've got a startup to large, ginormous type of companies, what's the difference of the way in which they would utilize your product, your service? Yeah. So I would say, again, back to the concept of first being committed to marketing. We know that most startups, most small businesses in the United States fail statistically.

And so we want to be a partner that can come along a business and can make sure that the marketing side of their business, the piece of the puzzle, there's a lot of puzzle pieces you have to get right to survive. But marketing is one of the things that causes businesses to fail if they have ineffective marketing. And what we found is there's significant amount of waste in marketing just in general. There's a lot of money spent with the hopes of a positive return, and then the positive return doesn't come. And so there's a lot of reasons as to why that happens. But I would say one of the things that you should do is start small, identify the channels that work the best, and then leverage those to the maximum that you can. key. I think a lot of people invest in forms of marketing that are very difficult to track and know whether or not you get a positive return. That's why we love digital marketing because it tends to give us a lot of great reporting and feedback. So yeah, make sure you're starting with

a test. Make sure you're tracking your results and make sure you focus. That's another thing that I see people do very often. They go too wide at first. So they're trying to do three or four or five different things. And what happens is maybe one of them works well. And then the other ones are, you know, a waste. So I like to test, test, test, and then find the things that are working and then go after it, you know, open the pocketbook and scale. Like, for example, we've got a lot of other podcasters that are listening and ones that want to go ahead and start a podcast, even though we're also two on radio, AM and FM, by the way.

What kind of advice or that would you say those that are starting with Thrive Agency and they want to have their podcast be found? Do they buy keywords based upon what they're marketing to on Google? What are maybe one or two of the first things you would suggest? Yeah, so if you're starting out just a brand new podcast, I would say there's a couple of key things. new podcast, I would say there's a couple of key things. One, you want to make sure you have great content. The marketing doesn't matter if someone lands and the podcast isn't valuable to them, then you're not going to grow. So that's where it starts. You want to have a good, high-quality content. But once you have that, then it's all about being visible. So yeah, you can buy Google ads for different keywords or target audiences. You can run social media ads. You can identify

influencers that could recommend your podcast. I feel like the best way to grow your podcast is to be promoted on someone else's podcast. That would be an easy way to do that. You definitely want to encourage people to leave reviews because that is so important. Reputation matters online and in real life. And so reviews is something that you want to pay attention to as well. All right. I want to do some snooping since we're in your office now. Tell me something, either something that you treasure the most in your office or something that's unique in your office. Okay. So one unique thing I'll mention, there's a picture in my background on my bookshelf.

I'll see if I can point at it here. It's right there. You can't see it very well, at it here. It's right there. You can't see it very well, but it is a photo of my grandfather. His name is A.J. Ricks. He was an entrepreneur, started several businesses here in Texas. He has four children. All four of those children are business owners.

Multiple of his grandchildren are business owners, including myself. So I keep that picture of my grandfather as a reminder of kind of the legacy and the family heritage that I have as entrepreneurs. Yeah, because aren't you, you're a fifth generation, right? A fifth generation. My grandfather's father and grandfather also own their own businesses. So we're an independent family. also own their own businesses. So we're an independent family. What kind of secrets can you share, you know, with young adults,

those that are right now in high school, and they want to be able to make an impact. A lot of people dream of having their own business, building it, scaling it, and that. Given the, you know, legacy that you have, right, five generations and all that, what can you share with them? Well, that's a great question that I'm asking myself right now. I have four young kids, and I wonder if someday they might want to have their own business or work at Thrive in the future.

They tell me they do, but they're under 10 years old, So a lot can change between now and when they get to that age. But I would say there's a lot of things that have maybe not direct connection to entrepreneurialism, like all those things like business planning and learning how to do finance, the finance side or marketing. I'm thinking more for young people, it's more like personality or characteristics of you as a person. So, for instance, I believe that successful entrepreneurs need to have a good hold on just gratitude. need to have a good hold on just gratitude because being thankful for your life, no matter whether it's hard on a day that's hard or a day that's going well,

having gratitude can help you persevere through challenges. And that is something that every entrepreneur has to be able to do. Perseverance, gratitude, being respectful to those around you. Like I said earlier, if you don't have a great podcast content, no one's going to want to listen. If you treat people poorly, no one's going to want to work with you. And so you need to figure out how to be the type of person that people would want to do business with and have integrity, be honest,

people would want to do business with and have integrity, be honest, tell the truth, even when no one's looking. These are all, by the way, these are all core values at Thrive. So this is the standard that we hold our team to. And these are the things that I would tell young people that they need to focus on as well. Because the hard thing is I talked to a lot of young entrepreneurs and they want some kind of a silver bullet. They want some kind of a, what is the thing that I need to do? And it's, I don't know if there is one. I think it's just every person has a different

story, different situation. I had no business plan of getting into this industry. I was working with a nonprofit organization. They wanted working with a nonprofit organization. They wanted to start a new program. They said to promote the program, we should build a website. Matt, can you help us with that? At that time, I had no clue how to build websites, but I said, I'll figure it out. And so that's how I got started. So there wasn't some extensive research about the growth trajectory of digital marketing in the next 17 years. It was just meeting a need. And then when I got into it, I found that I really loved it. That's another thing.

Keep an eye on the things that you really enjoy because you want your business to be something that you love to do. Excellent. Well, Matt, you certainly have filled a need. You set out on your own 17 years ago, a fifth-generation business owner and built Thrive solely and with precision. Matt Bowman, president and founder of Thrive Internet Marketing Agency,

a top 10 SEO agency, Inc. 5000, growing company. Reach out to them at thriveagency.com. Once again, that's thriveagency.com. You've been listening and watching me, David Kogan, host of the Alliance's Hero Show. All right, Matt, you got to dance with me too. This is custom music. All right.