The Code To Winning - HOW TO BUILD INSTANT AUTHORITY & GROW YOUR BUSINESS (2025 METHOD) || NIC ABELIAN || EPISODE 056

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

In this episode, HELPING BUSINESSES TURN ATTENTION INTO CONVERSIONS WITH SMART PR, we sit down with Nic Abelian, a marketing expert and entrepreneur who has helped build multiple 7-, 8-, and 9-figure businesses. As the CEO of AnotherZero, the #1 rated marketing agency on Trustpilot, Nic and his team have supported over 5,000 businesses across 30+ countries. His journey began with one simple but frustrating realization: better products don’t always win. Competitors with louder voices often steal the spotlight, and Nic made it his mission to fix that.   Through strategies centered on visibility, value, and credibility, Nic has helped companies transform their offers into market leaders. Whether working with personal brands, e-commerce stores, or B2B services, his approach consistently delivers refined messaging, optimized campaigns, and higher conversions. By leveraging platforms like Google, Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and even television, Nic ensures his clients are seen where it matters most. His methods are rooted in data and execution, not fluff or guesswork.   What sets Nic apart is not only his results but also his process. Instead of cookie-cutter packages, AnotherZero customizes each strategy based on proven insights gathered from thousands of accounts. This unique perspective drives smarter campaigns, stronger ROI, and long-term growth for his clients. Under Nic’s leadership, the agency has become the go-to solution for coaches, consultants, influencers, SaaS companies, and local businesses ready to scale with confidence.   Beyond running a globally recognized agency, Nic is committed to mentoring entrepreneurs and sharing his expertise online. His mission is clear: to give ambitious businesses the tools they need not just to survive, but to lead their markets. If you’re an entrepreneur or business owner looking to amplify your visibility and turn attention into real conversions, this conversation with Nic Abelian is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.

So we started in 2020 and we did a lot of other things. So we did like paid media management. We've tried so many different advertising venues. You know, even going back to my last company, which was home improvement energy like local service here in LA. At that company, we did Facebook ads, billboards, bus ads, mailers, almost anything you can think of. And I helped grow that company to 35 million a year.

One of the best things that we invested in was PR. When starting out of zero and thinking about, okay, what actually helped me in my past companies grow and scale. And one of the best investments was, you know, getting those ass seen on logos, building our credibility, setting us apart from the competition, and being able to charge more and stop competing on price. PR makes a big, big difference, right? And in your opinion, why is personal branding so important?

So I want to go two ways with this. Yes, personal brand is important. What do most people usually get wrong about? personal brand in European. Yeah, so a lot of people, they think, you know, for example, with PR, a lot of people dug up featured in, let's say, Forbes, and they won't really do much with it. You know, they kind of look at it as like a vanity trophy that they, you know, put on their shelf, but it's the code two winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow.

Today we actually have a very amazing guest. We right now, still in the golden state of California and in the city of the city. of Angel Los Angeles. As you can see this beautiful studio skyscrapers, Staples, Staples Center, LeBron James, Laker Nation, Hollywood, yes, yes, yes. And without further adieu, if you guys are interested in upscaling your business in trying to get the best PR and marketing firm in 2025, this is the episode for you. I have a guest today who's very, very good at helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses feature in magazines. outlets such as Forbes and many others that we're going to be discussing in this episode today.

If you're curious in growing your brand, growing your business, getting social media presence, getting that boost and growth and also getting recognized internationally and also nationally, of course, again, this is the episode for you. So without further ado, I have the CEO and founder of another zero. I have Nick in the studio. Welcome, brother. How you doing? Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I was Amazing intro. So my name is Nicholas Svelian. I'm the founder of another zero.

Over the past year, we've probably helped over 5,000 businesses, entrepreneurs, coaches, get featured in the news and grow their bottom line. And it's how we've become the number one rated marketing agency, SEO service, and public relations firm across all businesses on TrustPilot. And I'm excited to get into everything.

No, I'm curious. No, the reason I was saying that some of my viewers might like the approach of how I'm going to be doing this thing. Some might not, but it's one of those things where I want to really ask a lot about personally for me. And of course, for people that are out there that may be in a similar situation that I am currently right now, where there is growth. It's steady. It's slow. It's consistent. It's organic.

It's amazing. But it's at the point it's like now trying to get that reach. I think I'm handsome enough to be in the Forbes magazine for the most part. I'd like to think that at least, but I want to try and get into these strategies. Why is, when did you start your company? So we started in 2020 and we did a lot of other things. So we did like paid media management. We've tried so many different advertising venues.

And even going back to my last company, which was a home improvement energy like local service here in L.A., At that company, we did, you know, Facebook ads, billboards, bus ads, mailers, almost anything you could think of. And I helped grow that company to $35 million a year. And a lot of, one of the best things that we invested in was PR. So when starting another zero and thinking about, okay, what actually helped me in my past companies grow and scale? And one of the best investments was, you know, getting those ass seen on logos, building our credibility, setting us a from the competition and being able to charge more and, you know, stop competing on price. Because when you look, you know, nowadays with how the internet is and AI, it's very easy to start a business,

but it's very hard to stand out. So that's what we help do with businesses. Okay. And I think it's so important right now because I look at a lot of like trendy in industries. It's usually the few people that do stand out. Like right now the YouTubers are taking off and you see people like I show speed. He's racing somebody every single day. But in my mind I'm like, I'm telling you there has to be some sort of PR like behind it and trying to get him the right races for him to blow up because he's out there with the FIFA president and all these different stuff.

And in my mind I'm like man like PR makes a big, big difference. difference, right? And in your opinion, why is personal branding so important? So I want to go two ways with this because I think for most people, it's very different than how it is for like, you know, I show speed or, you know, these big brands that already have huge followings. But the entrepreneur that's just starting out that, you know, maybe doesn't even have their first client or they're just. starting to get a few clients. For them, it's so important because it shows that they're credible to deliver on what

they're promising. So when you're first starting out, you know, when you talk to a client, it's, you know, do they trust you and do they believe that you're actually going to deliver? And PR and personal branding is so important in that because it shows that you are actually an expert in what you're doing. They should listen to you. And you can deliver on whatever you're going to do. On the other side, when you already have personal brand, you know, like speed and the way he's doing it, it's so important because once you get to that level, it's almost, it's very hard to, you know, keep growing through paid advertising.

But it's very easy to, you know, do strategic partnerships with, let's say, FIFA and FIFA and Speed, they're kind of trading their audiences and growing together that way. So it's through strategic partnerships that allow them to grow like the next step. But personal branding is so important. It's, you know, it's how if you look at the Rock, McGregor, Kylie Jenner, Haley Bieber, they've all grown billion dollar businesses almost overnight. And, you know, let's say for McGregor, whiskey or the Rock, tequila, like these are companies that, you know, they probably don't, they're not even experts in maybe, but through their personal brand, they were able to leverage that and grow it into a billion dollar company.

So that's our personal branding is so important. I actually like that example you made because it's so true because in my mind I'm like, I don't think even like speed and then folks are paying paid ad because that's at the point. But my thing is just to add on that because I feel like yes, personal brand is important, what do most people usually get wrong about personal branding in your opinion? Yeah, so a lot of people, they think, you know, for example, with PR, a lot of people they'll get featured in, let's say, Forbes, and they won't really do much with it. You know, they kind of look at it as like a vanity trophy that they, you know, put it on their

shelf. But it's such a powerful tool that if leveraged correctly, it does so much more. So what people do wrong a lot is they'll get these features, but they won't do much with it. And the same thing happens with reviews and testimonials and other great things that their company might have, those assets. And they don't know how to leverage it. You know, so what we try to do is, you know, once our customers are featured in the news, once we get them that press, that that asset is something that they can use forever. You know, it's something that they should have on their website, on their ads in their, you know, when someone's waiting on the phone, let's say they have a law firm and it's, you know, the on hold recording. And it should even mention like, oh, did you know so and so was featured in Forbes for the best lawyer in Los Angeles?

You know, things like that are ways to leverage the feature to make it go 10 times, 100 times further. So a lot of times what people get wrong is they'll just, they'll get it and they won't do much with it. They think it's going to be a magic bullet that changes everything. But it can if you use it right, if you leverage it. Yeah, no, that's perfect. which kind of segues to this because I know you probably have experience this thing. I mean, I travel a lot, but one of the things I've noticed is that I usually like, like when I travel somewhere, maybe stop at a small town and go to like a local food place.

And so between Idaho and Utah, I was traveling so much. And in between them, like, border state, there was that called gas station. But next to this gas station, there was a place that sold the most, like, delicious burgers I've ever had in my entire life. But at the same time, my go-to, if I'm hungry, like at night, it's like, oh, my gosh, let me get a quick Big Mac or like in and out double-double animal style. It's a brand that's right there, which the question I'm going to with this, there's people out there that have a great product, they have a great service that they're offering, but they actually have no audience and they have like no branding whatsoever. If somebody would approach you with absolutely zero and like nobody even knows them, what's the first thing that your company or you guys would do to fix them? that. So that's such a great point because I'll get to the question, but just to add on to your point, you know, those those hidden gems, you know, those companies, those restaurants that are like nobody

knows about, but they're so good at what they do. It's the opposite of what you want to be when you're, when you have a business. You know, you don't want to be a hidden gem. You know, you want to be under the spotlight right in front of your target demographic, exactly where they are, where they're shopping, whether it's Amazon, Facebook, you know, innovative. retail shop like where they're walking you want to be front and center in front of your target demographic and you don't want to be a hidden gem and that's all because uh and alix romosie says it really well once he said uh best known typically beats best and you know that's so true because like you said even though that burger is better you know you're you just automatically think

of in and out and you're used to it and you see it when you're driving it's it's conveniently right on the exit every single time. So it's very, very important to actually promote yourself, get in front of people, get your product out there, your service out there. And the way we do it is when companies are first starting out, again, like I said, it's so hard to differentiate from the competition. So we try to highlight what sets them apart. It's not about like just advertising, but it's about finding what actually sets them apart from the competition and why they're qualified to deliver that. And then once we figure that out, we figure out their message, we write an article about them, make sure it's SEO optimized because nowadays everything's online.

So you want to make sure it indexes. You want to make sure the AI is picking it up. You know, chatubit picks it up, GROC. All of the AIs are indexing it and picking it up as well. And then we will get it featured in a news outlet of their choice. Hopefully, you know, we try to target their demographic as much as possible. So we'll even adjust the article based off of, you know, if we're targeting women, we'll write it a certain way. Okay. And do it that way.

That's perfect. And then what would you separate or what separates you guys from other PR firms? So we worked very differently from traditional PR firms. The way it has been and how I was a customer of PR beforehand, like when my past company was, and, you know, most companies, Most firms are like this. You go to their website. There's no price.

There's no guarantee. You don't really know what you're getting, but there's a book of call, like, Callantly link over there. So let's click a link. Yeah, it's always, you know, book a call. Get on a call with our sales rep. You know, they're obviously going to try to sell $3,000, $5,000 a month retainer.

It's not very transparent what you get. And they don't really guarantee much. Okay. So I, as a consumer, I hate, getting on calls just to see what the price is, just to, you know, see what I'm even getting. And then, you know, it's probably a good sales rep. He's not going to, you know, he's going to overcome my objections. It's going to take my time. We're going to go back and forth, whether it's a good fit or not. It's just going to take a lot of my time throughout the day. You know, even if it's 30 minutes,

I have to schedule it, make time for it. So I kind of flipped it. No sales calls. You know, we cut that commission out. We don't need to pay a sales rep, $1,000.000. of dollars to sell $10,000 retainer. That way we're able to sell a lot more, get bulk pricing that we can pass down to our clients. And, you know, just make it how I would want it to be if I was a customer. You know, I know exactly what I'm getting. There's a guarantee if I don't get it. There's social proof hundreds of reviews.

We've been featured in hundreds of outlets and there's no, you know, sales call or high pressure pitch involved. Okay. that's perfect now now on to the kg you know PR stunting this is like now i'm in your office you're interviewing me and trying to figure out like what my goals are the only problem i'm having personally for myself i'm i'm at the i'm at the trajectory where it's like four five hours of sleep a day i'm so passionate i love what i do i i rather like researching the guests i get in i read about them i see what podcasts they're in it's exciting and And like I said, I have Google ad campaigns, like many of the subs that are right there.

But like I've seen it from Google Maps or whatever it may be. We're doing a lot of like stuff like that. We're promoting like crazy on Instagram collaborations. All the guests, all accepting clubs, like from FBI special agents to like top real estate people. Like, you know. But my thing is because I know I'm so like dedicated at what I'm doing right now, by the time this episode is out, I'll probably be on like 40K subs. I still feel like I'm having such quality guests, such great conversations, and I'm a little

impatient with like the growth I'm kind of getting because I'm like, can you not see the guests that are coming on the show? Can you not see the conversation we're having? Like, why is it not out there? Why is it not like, you know, 100K? What's the first thing you would do in my situation? Like what? Because that's my goal, but it's not necessarily the 100K figure, but it's like that plaque creates credibility. Now it's at the point where it's, you know, it's, it attracts bigger clients to try and come here and vice versa, brand deals, endorsement and all that kind of thing. You know, it's not like the number of subs, but it's like it represents success in my perspective. Now, what's the first like step we're doing in my situation? Yeah. So on the PR side of it,

that's, I think that's something that should be on every like entrepreneurs like to do list. But you do it once and then you can, again, you leverage up forever. So I would just start. We get some features, which we'll do it. Like this episode, I'll definitely get it, push it out into a bunch of different outlets. And then that is something that you leverage, you know, when you're trying to pitch a guest to come on or an endorse sponsorship, whatever it is, it's, oh yeah, like our podcast was featured in X, Y, and Z. We've had this guest on, this guest on. You know, we've grown this much in so-and-so time. So it's highlighting all of those accolades, putting it in a clear message, like, you know, showcasing it on your

Instagram, your YouTube, your social medias. And then again, it's like, we'll definitely get those features. Like, we'll get those done. That's no problem. And then it's just about leveraging it. And after that point, it's what we kind of talked about earlier. You know, the clipping, the getting the content out there, you know, getting those short reels out. to direct them to the podcast and subscribe. And then how we talked about the connections with like speed and how he does it with FIFA. You're basically doing the same thing with your guests.

So every time you get a guest, you're leveraging their audience and vice versa. And that's, I think you're doing everything right. I think PR is just something to check off the to-do list and then not worry about again. And then that way you can leverage it for getting bigger guests, getting bigger sponsorships and growing. No, I like that. I like that a lot. And I think, yeah, and I think that, you know, public relations is such a big thing because also the reason for my goal with the 100K thing is the fact that I'm going to be starting a different live show.

I studied economics and I want to try and do something a bit more in like financing. And I saw some of the stuff in like Business Weeks and Fox Business. And I'm like, gosh, then once I get that thing, like I can imagine myself just discussing like, let's say there's something happened with the federal like chair, like Jerome. Powell did like an interest rate. It's something I'm also, I have a passion for and I want to be able to discuss as well. But then I saw this multiple different things that you guys like do, which I was extremely impressed by business weeks, Fox, all this different stuff. My thing is how did you get those connections if you don't mind me asking? Yeah. So it took a lot in time. And it's just reaching out to these outlets, trying to see what they're looking for, making deals with them to see, you know, okay, if we hit the criteria that you're looking for in a article in a news story, you know, what do you need from us to get

this done? And then, you know, or finding, you know, writers or journalists at these outlets and then seeing what they're looking for. And then that way, we're able to offer those to our clients and we'll shape the article in a way where we know that that's what the news outlets looking for, you know, to make it newsworthy, to make it worth something that they want to publish. And we're constantly, I mean, we're always adding more outlets. And that's just, again, it takes time of reaching out, building those connections, and then adding that to our list, which is like a never-ending process. And one thing I want to let the viewers even know,

this already takes away all the stress of them trying to figure out how they're going to try and get that exposure as well. And that's the beauty of having a firm that does. it because now all you got to do is focus on you, your brand, and what you're currently doing and everything has been taken aside. And I think that's one thing I've realized with the more successful people become and the more prestigious and or like the more established they become, that's what I'm looking for, they start realizing that convenience and time is very, very important and it's very precious. So by paying something that is an expert,

in a certain field, it already deals with that rather than you trying to focus. Because right now, like I said, it's nice and it's amazing. I can probably take myself to 100K, but from 100 to a million, that's when you have to be able to utilize something that's a bit more professional, profound, and you can just focus on doing the interview as well. And I think it's important people to understand because convenience is everything, you know what I'm saying? Because you pay for people to do the shortcut that you would not be able to figure out

unless you would do it yourself, you know? So I appreciate that. What's the psychology behind press coverage and why does it instantly increase someone's perceived value? So you're basically like pinging back off of the credibility of a third party outlet that people already recognize. So something that, you know, a brand that they grew for years and years and people all recognize, now you're kind of taking a little bit of that credibility and tying it to your brand. So again, it's similar to how the Rock and McGregor did it. It's something they've built for years.

And then, you know, proper 12, like used McGregor's branding to go into whatever, $600 million, billion company, whatever it was. But that's basically how it works. Awesome. And you also help people to jump on bigger podcasts and stuff like that? Yeah. So not yet. So right now...

Well, Coda winning is won. We'll talk about that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Help them jumping. And I think we have some pretty big clients that I think would your audience could learn a lot from and would be great guests, which we'll talk about. That's what I'm trying to. I'm saying for both. I'm saying getting the client to jump on my podcast, but also vice versa where like, yeah, yeah.

Like that's exactly that. I think it's so much of knowledge. Who watches the news no more? Like I'll be driving. It's funny. I'm driving back right now. I'm going to listen to another podcast. while trying to listen to my tomorrow's one that's going to get released.

Like I can't remember when last I watched the news. Besides election night, probably that's the last time, you know, you watched the news. Podcasting is that's how the president got elected as well because, you know, you jumped in the Joe. Because people are listening, people are engaging, people are understanding. That's where the world has shifted, you know, because people have become like the media today. You know, you don't sit and watch, see it on Fox News no more. Sometimes you do, but like, yeah. Yeah, it's very rare.

It's like election, like, I feel like TVs, people just watch. news very rarely and then sports it's like live sports that's pretty much it um and that's the thing too like a lot of people get wrong with like PR it's i wouldn't use PR it's not necessarily a marketing to get leads or clients but it's a authority builder to help you get the leads and the clients through your marketing and everything else that you're doing so like you said nobody watches the news really anymore like it's so much smaller than before but Everyone Google is a company before they work with them or a product or they look for their reviews or they look for they search that company, that person, that company, whatever it is. And when they look on Google and they see articles from Forbes or USA News or New York Weekly or whatever that is saying that that person is an expert at what they do.

Where that product is actually great. Exactly. That is something that they do see. So that's even better than being on a live TV show because nobody is really watching that. But when someone is searching you and they see those things, it's just so powerful to get that conversion to actually convince them to buy. That's fair. And it's the same thing like with me. If I watch like a TV, because I did an internship like in Bloomberg in New York.

So like whenever like there's anything with the federal rates and like stuff like it, I'll tune in for a good like 30 minutes and hours. Well, it's something that interests me. But at the same time, if I say I was featured in Bloomberg or like US news or stuff like that like, okay, credibility is like, oh my gosh. okay, maybe he knows what the heck is talking about. Because at the end of the day, that's why, like, if I need to get something, what's the first thing I think of, I need to go to Walmart and get something, but it's a brand that they've built. There may be something out there better, but I just trust it a bit more because it's

something that's just built that much credibility that they don't even have to do advertising at this point, you know? So that's the level I think PR can probably take people. Maybe you might need a bit more advertiser, but like it builds credibility. It's leverage. You're leveraging somebody else's credibility in their brand. So it's, you know, again, like you said, it's a shortcut. It's a quicker way to get there, quicker way to build trust versus, you know, doing it the long way and, you know, posting for years and years, which is good too.

But this is a much quicker way to do it for most entrepreneurs. And I think that's a, that's my personal opinion. Often saying, yeah, people say, keep posting, keep posting, keep posting. But if you do the exact same thing and expect different results, sometimes it's a, that's the definition of what incentives. is you know you have to go out there you have to continue building the connections collaborations and stuff because yeah and I think that sometimes it's misleading when the Homoz and stuff and I like him I think it's one is such a great business leader in marketing but I think that you need to tell people to

do more than just post you know yes consistency is important but you have to do something different and try and get new reach and then you build because I've seen some guy like stuck on maybe like a hundred follow-weigh was in posting like four or five times it, which is not a bad thing. You're still going to be on the explore pages. But with how the algorithm is going right now, for you to really stand out, you're going to have to do a bit more than just the basic stuff. Would you agree on there? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I've experienced that too. It's like the Gary V, like Alex Hermose, like post every day, make organic content, you know, just post, post, post, but that works.

It definitely works. But it takes a long time to build up. You know, it's like, I'm sure your first few episodes. I mean, you had Andy Elliott, I think, first, right? So that's a big jumpstart. But for most podcasts, you know, the first 10, 20, 30, whoever, you know, whatever that number is of episodes, it takes a while to build up. And then suddenly now it starts rolling. But it takes a while to build that up with organic posts and social media posts. So advertising, PR, it's a way to leverage and get there a lot quicker.

And then how does another zero stay ahead with the trends, especially within cooperation of AI and the marketing landscape just changing at such a rapid pace? How are you guys like keeping up with that? Yeah. So we, I mean, we work with so many customers. And at this point, we've probably worked with clients across over 30 different countries. and over 100 industries. So we're able to see what's working within our clients businesses. And we kind of tailored that to continue to improve whatever we're offering to make it better for all of our clients because we're able to see like, okay, like this was working really well. This campaign worked really well. Let's take, let's see what worked. Let's put it together and like

let's make sure we implement this for all of our clients moving forward. So we're able to see everything in real time that way. And then secondly, like we do. We use PR ourselves. You know, we're always getting more features and we're always advertising. We probably test, we probably do 100 tests a week across like creatives for Facebook ads, ad copy, headlines, demographic audience tests. And when you're doing like paid advertising like that through Facebook, it's very easy to see what's actually working and what's not very quickly.

Even on a day-to-day basis, like, okay, we just launched a camp. like tomorrow like let's see how it's working we're able to analyze the data and see like okay this is working now this isn't working so that's how we're kind of staying in front of it and then with AI I mean that's so important like to incorporate in everything that we do especially for our clients because like recently like we've put a big focus on getting our clients articles indexed as far as like chatry BT and the AI see it because I think we're going to slowly move towards people search, just asking TRGBTBT about a company or asking about, you know, whatever AI they use, like about this person or about this product and seeing what

TribeT says. So getting it indexed early on right now before, you know, everyone starts doing it is kind of giving us a head start. So it's very easy for us to get our clients, like, picked up by the AI already. Man, that's amazing. Oh, I had another question I wanted to ask. Do you guys also do like billboards and because I have a dream. I want, oh, that's not like Martin Luther, Martin Luther KG.

But I wanted to figure out like time square and stuff. Like do you guys have that connection and stuff like that? Because as soon as I touch 100K or like one mill, I want like, I don't know, like, because one of my friends, I saw them in a time square thing. I think I've seen. And then there's also a lot of NASDAQ as well. You know, do you guys have that form of? Yeah.

So we do that too. Let me rephrase. We don't really offer that, but we do have those connections. So like we could get it done. But what we are like really focused on is like the online like articles. Yeah. Because like we could offer so many things to the clients that will work. But I think this is like the easiest.

like quickest win that every business an entrepreneur should do. But we'll definitely get you on like Times Square Billboard when. Yeah. It's one of those things where you have it is like a, yeah, yeah. You don't want it the whole day because I can you imagine how much like it caught, but it's one of those things where it's like a portrait, like something that's such a credibility you kind of save us your story. Yeah.

And then you know what I'm saying? Yeah. But I agree with you. Another thing is Wikipedia. I know I didn't like touch on that. earlier but like Wikipedia and like how can people because I think it's such a big when I start seeing somebody and I'm researching and on Wikipedia I'm like okay all right yeah you're someone you know what I'm saying do you guys also help clients with stuff like that

yeah so Wikipedia and Google knowledge panels so on the side where you see whenever you search someone and they have their image and like their age and information that way that's Google knowledge panel they kind of work hand-to-hand but yeah we do both of those as well I'm already sold on this dark thing, you know what I'm saying? I'm sold already. Yeah, I'm trying to think. There's a lot of personal ones I want to do. That's Times Square One, all the different things.

The reason I do like when you spoke about like the online presence is because people are all searching because that's when SEO comes in. Because you know what? It's so crazy. Every time I go to like an Airbnb hotel, first thing I do, I'm revealing my secrets right I don't judge me. I don't think I'm obsessed with myself. I'm not.

I'm just trying to test the waters. So I go in the hotel, I type, go to YouTube and I type in code. I want to see how many times before I have type in code winning. And it's been getting bad. At first it was like code two and then I put a w. It was like it wasn't my showing up, but like at my hotel right now and I typed in code two without like logging in

and then I type in the w it was winning. But what I want is like, you know when Pitbull gave it whole thing, it's like when you type in Pitbull, the rapper shows that brother than the dog. Like my goal is when I type in code and just the T, it shows code to winning on the search bar. So I think that takes time. That's where SEO comes. For somebody out there that doesn't know SEOs, someone that's just going to be new and

media or try and build a personal brand, can you kind of like give a definition of what SEO is? Yeah, absolutely. So SEO, like you said, it takes time. You know, there's a lot of firms that'll promise big things for SEO and they'll charge I've seen 30,000 a month, 10,000 a month, like huge retainers. And they, so the thing with SEO, it's very hard to see what's actually being done and see results. So there's like entrepreneurs, I usually tell them like be careful when you're working with the SEO agency because it's very easy for them to tell you like, oh yeah, we're doing all of this work.

We're doing, we're creating these backlinks. We're doing this, that, this, that. but it takes time, it takes time. And then they kind of drag it out for six months until the entrepreneur, like, fires them. And they didn't really do anything. Like, that's their whole business model. It's like, let's see how long we could drag this out and how much money we could get

out of this entrepreneur. So SEO, I think entrepreneurs, like, that's something you have to kind of do on your own. I agree. Not as far as, like, link building, but, you know, something very simple. Like, when you get a five-star review, take a screenshot of that. Transcribe, like write the text of that review and the caption. Post it on your X, post it on your Instagram, post it on your website, post it on, you know,

everywhere that you could post it, put it on Reddit, put it everywhere that Google could kind of trace it. And, you know, it could say like Code to Winning reviews. And, you know, Google's seeing that on Reddit, Google seeing that on not just YouTube, but Instagram and Twitter and all of these other platforms. And that's how you're going to build those SEO keywords up for code to winning, let's say, or whatever business it is.

So it takes time and it takes a lot of posting. But if you see any of my pages, it's like we get all of our reviews. Like we put them on every single platform. Like we want to leverage every single one. We want to make sure we utilize that for SEO and credibility as much as possible. And that, again, that takes time. No, solid, man. That's super solid.

And you've obviously built a brand. You've built a team. You've built a company right now. what would you say is then the hardest part about building a service-based business? So with that, it's very important to have a good team. Like I really believe systems are very important. But when you get to a certain point, it's how good is your team? How can they handle everything where you can trust them to do the things that you don't need to do

so then you can focus on getting more clients and scaling? So it's very important for having a good team. And that goes to like, you know, you have to take care of your team, take care of the people that are on your team. If they're worried about, you know, their pay or they're worried about making ends meet or their job or whatever it is, how can they actually deliver to your clients? You know, like you have to make, like, I truly believe, like, you have to make it their life easy. So then they can make your client's life easy. So when, you know, my team, I'm always thinking like, you know, how can I take extra steps out of their tasks or their day? How can I give them the tools to make their job easier?

So then, again, they could give better care to our clients. Solid. Solid. And do you watch football, European football? Not too much. More basketball. What's your basketball team? Celtics.

Oh, they introduce. I don't want to. I was waiting for it. Bro, you can't say that right next to Crypto.com Arena. That's an abomination. I know. Oh, no, thank goodness Jason Taylor didn't win, but that's a story for another day. But the reason I was going to talk about this thing, you know David Beckham, right?

Yeah, obviously owner of Inter Miami. But before then, like football was always such a grassroots, aggressive, like an electrifying sport. Being in South Africa, we used to watch games because we have the same time zone as like England and stuff in Europe. And so David Beckham, I feel like was the beginning of like PR in football, like a good looking guy. And then, you know, hairstyles would change up. Mohawk and then he has the long hair and all the different stuff. And I'm looking back at then, not only did he have a good team, but he literally gave heed to instructions and like trying to like build a brand build this thing, he was Adidas, he wasn't like the most gifted, like they were way better players

than what he was, but you started seeing it, and that's when, like, after that era, that's the Cristiano Ronaldo and the Messi era, and, you know, Ronaldo, his brand is everything. He can post one thing, it's going to sell, like, the next day, you know what I'm saying? To somebody out there right now, wanting to start with another zero, what form of, like, guarantee. I know it's hard to really guarantee everything today, but what's what could you let them know about what they're going to gain from another zero? So what, so the way we work, we work with so many different news outlets. And they're always making changes. They're always updating their websites or changing their prices, things like that. So we try not to guarantee

anything on that side of it, just because we can't control the news outlets. They're always, always changing, but we can't control what we do. So we try to, you know, we deliver articles within 24 hours. We make sure that we're transparent throughout the entire process with the client. We make sure we, you know, conduct SEO research and research into the company and their competitors. We try to make sure we tailor everything to actually highlight their company. And then if we can't deliver it because the news outlet changed the policy or whatever it is that they changed on us, you know, 100% money back guarantee, like no questions asked. Like if we can't deliver it, nobody should pay.

And we truly believe that. And if we can't find, you know, an alternative that they prefer, you know, a lot of times we'll upgrade clients to a bigger outlet or a bigger package just because we couldn't deliver on the one that they purchased initially. So as far as hardcore deliverable, like that's what we do. As far as like ROI bottom line, like we make sure to give the client all the tools they need to take advantage of the future. So we'll give them like a custom ascena on banner, social media kit, HTML code to add it to their website. We'll give them a full guide on showing them how they could, you know, scripts on how they could seamlessly integrate that feature mentioned into their sales pitch, into their scripts on the phone, added to their ads, added to their landing page.

So we will show them like 50 different ways that they could leverage this feature. And if you do that, like it's almost guaranteed that you're going to see an improvement, like in conversion rates, in marketing, in sales, in recruiting. You know, a lot of our clients, too, they use these to, you know, get investors into their company. And it just helps open so many doors. So that's what we try to help. clients with that's solid man and the ninety seven dollars is that like a that's obviously the beginning start but that's still a good price it's an obering 97 dollars you can go do-dash right now

and then by the end of like you can get 97 and start putting that today you know what I'm saying so i think 97 is a bargain man and obviously um if you don't mind me asking what does 97 at least get you yeah great question so the 97 that includes us doing the research that's SEO, everything that I mentioned, the 97 includes. So we'll research the client, do SEO research, write at 800 to 1,000 word article on the client's business. They get to choose the outlet that they want out of, I think we have over 60 different options right now and we're always adding more.

But they get to choose the outlet, they get the custom as seen on banner, the social media kit, the maximizing PR guide that we give to everyone with the scripts and the, you know, different ways to utilize it that's all included in the 97 promotion so we really believe on delivering uh right away and over delivering and then you know if we do that which we have been i think that's why we've seen such great growth because clients are going to want to come back and do more because we've already gave them such a big win that's smart man and then obviously when you say they choose the outlet they can choose Forbes news week and all the different stuff so the Outlets, the list is always changing.

We try to have at least like 60 great options, 50, whatever it is. Pretty much everything that shows up on our ad or our landing page is things that they could choose from. Again, they're always changing their policy, so maybe one or two, we might have to swap out. But yeah, like USA News, New York Weekly, Women's Insider, Men's Insider, like CEO Times, Biz Weekly, like all of these outlets they could choose from whichever one they want. If they and we'll also help them like you know, we think with your target demographic and the timing of the trends right now, like if we hit this news outlet with your product or service, I think it could do really well. So we'll help them and consult with them on that as well. Wow.

But yeah, they could choose from over 60 options. All of them index come with do followback links for SEO. And then we, you know, make sure that they get that as seen on banner. they could throw on everywhere as well. Why aren't people doing this? This is a no-brainer. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are doing it.

But, yeah, I mean, it's something that, like, I think every entrepreneur should be doing it. Like, it's the first thing that I did for my past companies once I did it the first time and saw the results. But it's such a no-brainer. It's like when you're doing your, making your logo look nice, you know, get the credibility, put on your website, make it look nice with that as well, you know, build the trust. The reason I'm bringing that up as well So my first

1,000 subscribers how it was done I printed out a pamphlet of like my podcast This was way before I even got Andy Elliott there I just wanted to kind of like drop it out there And then what I did Like over hundreds and hundreds

I spent about like two months door dashing and with my QR code there and I told people like listen don't tip me or anything all I want you to do is I want you to scan the QR code and I want you to subscribe to my channel. I did that which was very creative and I liked it because people and I was giving it to everyone because I talked to everyone because of just my sales background

so whether somebody working at McDonald's whether it's somebody I'm dropping something whether it's a fellow door dash that's waiting for the thing so I was always giving out. I had to give out at least between like 20 to 50 a day but I'm not going to see 50 customers because you're knocking on so you give it to us many and it started growing and then I was like

oh that's amazing it's amazing but then you realize there's obviously a spotter way to do it, but it's a nice kick boosting. But my also concern with that is the fact that people were subbing, but they weren't watching. So they were doing out of love. So it's like, listen, eventually, because I got monetized super quick after my third episode of the Navy SEAL veteran guy. But my thing is people were not watching. So I was getting a great sub, sub, organic count, but like with the watch, I was super low. So that's when marketing comes in.

That's where getting to the right audience that would like the thing that you're giving, people that like business, people that like building personal brand, people that like to market, people that want to get out there as well. And I think that's one thing I've realized about marketing, because I feel like, yes, I'm getting all the right stuff. And every time I get a different guess, I'm like, my mind blows. I'm like, well, why have I not done that all this time? You know, it's just crazy.

Can you want to add a bit more again on PR, anything that you may have left out? Nothing for PR, but I want to add like the marketing, is you hit it on like right on marketing is so important it's like I think the number one mistake that businesses make is that they don't market enough they don't promote enough especially when they're just starting out so a lot of times people will you know when they're just starting business they'll worry about their logo their website their Instagram page their packaging their product like they worry about a hundred things they spend you know weeks and I've made this mistake so many times myself making sure everything is perfect before

going to market before actually advertising and getting in front of customers only to see that no one really wants that specific service or that product you know there really isn't a market for it or a need for it so the way I started to do it after learning that painful lesson and I've helped so many people launch businesses this way too and we've seen great results but it's start with advertising. Okay, so start with the ad. And it's very simple. Like what I'll do now is I'll get a simple image with a call out at the top like, hey, business owners. In the middle, put whatever the service is, for example, monthly bookkeeping. And at the bottom, I'll put the price to, $300 a month. And I'll launch that simple one picture ad on Instagram or Facebook ads,

you know, spend $100 and see if people actually want it. You know, do people want $300 a month bookkeeping? And if I'm getting leads for $5, and I've actually had a friend that I helped do this for monthly bookkeeping, so he was getting leads for around $6 to $8 for a $300 a month service. And now we know, okay, this is something worth building out. It's something people are interested in versus, you know, building something out and then realizing no one wants it. So the good thing about this too, even better than finding something that does work is finding the things. that didn't work and you just save six months of you know potential time and thousands of dollars because now with a hundred bucks and one day's worth

to work you already know no one is interested in a hundred dollar whatever it is that you're selling so I think starting with ads is super important and I also notice on my on my ads I should different you like my least engagement app is Facebook it's maybe because I have like my aunt my grandmom and like it's just like a thing you had a well It's like it's not becoming as obsolete as my space, not really, but like I'm just thinking like how Facebook ads. I've heard it's the most like effective way. I haven't even tried it yet.

Like would you say in terms of like how they do search engines and stuff? Do you think it's a good way of how to get reach as well? Because my Instagram, my reach is good there. Like I boost every now and then. I'll promote a few things and I can obviously YouTube as well. But Facebook is just I just log on every now and then. because I just automatically do, but I think I need to do better at that in terms of advertising. Would you say it's a very effective way?

Yeah, Facebook, I love Facebook. Facebook and Instagram ads are like my favorite thing to my favorite way. So even when I passed company, we were doing $35 million a year and that was like we did bus ads, billboards, mailers, everything you could think of. And one of the biggest things that we include, and Facebook and Instagram obviously, but But one of the biggest like improvements that we made was just cutting everything else out and just focusing on Facebook. And that really like let us scale a lot. And Facebook is how we do all of our advertising right now.

And we use PR to, you know, help Facebook with getting those conversions. So all of our ads have our, you know, as seen on logos. Our landing page has it. But yeah, Facebook is super important. I wouldn't. So I know you said you boost posts on Instagram. for most types of business boosting posts just for the listeners like don't boost your posts on Instagram if you're actually like trying to sell a product or service.

It's not effective at all. So the boosting is it's just for like getting likes and engagement and getting in front of people, but it's not built for conversions and getting actual sales or leads. Interesting. So Facebook knows what type of people just view content, what type of people fill out their information, which people actually purchase. So if you, based off of whatever your goal is on Facebook, like through ads manager, if you put it for sales or if you put it for leads, Facebook is going to show it to the right people that are most likely to fill out a lead

form or most likely to go to your website, actually put their credit card in and purchase. So boosting for most businesses, I know podcast is different. Like you're trying to get more get in front of more people, get more viewers. But when you actually have a service, or you're trying to get leads or you're trying to get sales boosting is like i've never seen it actually give a r or so it's not good at all um just a tip for most people no i'm glad so now that now that you opened up the uh that can of worms so the reason why well not the boosting part i 100% agree with that it's it's helped in terms of subs and stuff like that but i'm saying um The reason why that 100K subs was like the goal is it's the fact that I'm when rebuilding a brand

new studio in downtown Salt Lake and then renting out like doing memberships for people that want to try and rent out in the studios and stuff like that. And then also doing a consulting for those that want to try and start a podcast and stuff like it. You have to have been somewhere and you have to have a goal that you reached. Now you can actually teach it. Does that make sense? And so it's all these different stuff.

And obviously the PR is great for that. But that's where I was trying to like kind of also get at. Because I feel I've heard you and many people speak about the importance of Facebook marketing and how great it's been. I just haven't utilized as much. And do you guys do it or do you give people the guide for them to do their Facebook stuff like it? So we do it for ourselves. And then we so we work with a lot of agencies as well.

resell our services so SEO agencies and marketing agencies and the reason they use us is because they get to get those you know as seen on logos which immediately helps facebook ads like if you're advertising on facebook one of the easiest ways to increase conversions is you know put those as seen on the ad put it on the landing page and it's such a simple like takes two seconds to add and right away you see an increase in conversions um but as far as is like us doing it for our clients. We don't do that right now. Maybe that's something down the line,

but we do do it for ourselves and use PR to kind of hypercharge our Facebook ads and make them convert a lot better. And then do you guys have a Discord or Telegram for clients or is that 97? Is it a retainer or a monthly thing? That's a one-time investment. What?

If you have not, I'm believing that in the description section, build your brand, one-time fee, no-brainer. Yeah. I spent that in food yesterday. I went to a nice buffet, by the way, but like, no, that's, oh, what? But what about, like, people that constantly want PR? I'm one of those.

I don't necessarily just want a one-time. I want constant stuff. I want to jump on this thing. Like I said, once I end up launching that live show, I'm going to be getting a few guests that are in finance, we're going to be breaking down like current events and stuff like that. You know what I'm saying? But it's one of those things where I want constant reach because the problem sometimes that people get to have a goal, 100K subs and then plateau begins. I'm like, no way, that's the beginning. That's when like you fuel up the engine and you keep going because

momentum is everything. You know what I'm saying? So now, do you have like other memberships and stuff like that? Yeah. So we have a subscribe and save option. That's totally. 20% off, so $77 a month. And again, that includes everything. We write an article every month, send you the list of outlets to choose from. Again, do our research. If we hit a certain demographic last month, we'll try to tailor it to a new demographic and new keywords the next month. So that's an ongoing plan that we have. And then, you know, we have other plans that we could like tailor if the customers looking for a specific outlet or specific thing that they want to launch or whatever it is, we'll see what works best for them.

But yeah, that's, that 97 is just the one-time, one-time investment. Like, I really, like, we genuinely care about delivering and over-delivering. And I obsess over this. So, like, every day I'm trying to think, like, okay, how can we deliver more value? How can we give our clients, you know, how can we deliver quicker, make sure they get better results, give them the tools to the cheat sheets and the guides and the scripts and templates that they could right away like implement this into our into their business because I know that if we help them like they're going to want to come more they're going to want to come back for more business

so we and I think that's that's why we've been able to like grow so quickly even on trust pilot and get you know like we average probably three five star reviews a day two or three a day um bum but clot yeah so it's And that for me is like more fulfilling than seeing like a sale. Like when I see a five-star review and like how we help the small business owner or coach or an author sell their book or whatever it is get out, get their message out there. It's a really good feeling. And that's what we're trying to do. Like make sure we help these small business owners and hopefully not add to their tool list, but take things off of it.

Dude, absolute no-brainer. Absolute no-brainer. Then what would you say is like a big myth or misconception with people about a featuring in a top tier publication? So one thing that, I mean, it's been like this for years. And most people think like, okay, this is only for celebrities or public companies or businesses with, you know, millions of dollars in sales or hundreds of employees. So a lot of people think it's all that because it has been for so long. for years and years it was only available to those companies that had those connections and were willing to spend so much like thousands and you know even millions of dollars on PR campaigns. But now everything is changing with, you know, how online businesses are and the news outlets and AI.

And now, you know, we're able to offer to, you know, small business owners that are, you know, like that burger shop that is doing something really great. and maybe they're not focused on PR or advertising because that's not their specialty, but they're really good at making burgers or they're really good at delivering services to their clients. So we want to, you know, like you said, it's a cheat code of hiring someone that has already figured out and we do that for them. So then they can focus on doing what they do best, which is, you know, delivering to their clients. Awesome.

And then would you say you currently right now, have a model to implement somebody from no presence, social media presence, to recognize, too extremely well known to Alex Hermose. Too soon to say. But I know there's, I don't want a yes or no answer, but like, would you at least say you have the tools or you have the trajectory to get those tools, you get people there? So I think... Some people don't want that, some people, I really don't, I really don't, I really,

I really think people don't necessarily want. It depends on what they want. I want to be on Forbes cover. I want to be that cover at the latest stage. I want that stuff. But it's that credibility that I crave more than anything more than the cloud chasing. Doesn't make sense.

I want to say, listen, I was here. I need you on the podcast. This is what happens. You know what I'm saying? It's that kind of thing. Yeah, you want to establish yourself as the expert in, you know, whatever you're talking about. I know you said economics and finance and you want to talk more about that in the future.

And it's, you know, why I'm. am I qualified to talk about these things and why should people listen to me about these things? And that's where the credibility, like, oh yeah, Forbes cover, this and that, that's where the credibility comes. As far as helping, you know, businesses at different levels for entrepreneurs, in the beginning, like getting to Alex Formosie takes a lot of time. Building that brand, it's not something that you can get overnight at that level. but we can very quickly deliver, you know, articles and top outlets that give people the credibility that they can use in their ads and their websites and their scripts and things like that. So getting to add to a surmose level, that takes time.

And ultimately, that comes down to, you know, are you genuinely delivering a good service to your customers? Because, you know, you can have every feature in the world. You know, you could be featured in Forbes, but if you have one star rating on Yelp, you know, you're rated one star is on Yelp or Trust Pilot. It doesn't really matter much. You know, if you genuinely don't help your clients, you don't deliver a good service, then, you know, you could be featured anywhere and it really isn't going to make that much of a difference because you're not actually great at what you do or deliver something good

to your clients. So I want to, like, we try to do it. So, you know, our clients, like, focus on. what you're good at. Like deliver a good product to your customers, deliver a good service, and we'll highlight those great things that you're good at that set you apart from the competition and put it in the news and get it in front of your target demographic. Awesome. And then what's the next big shift for PR? So I think with PR and the way AI is going, I think PR is completely going to change over the next few years

because this is probably one of the last few windows of being able to get featured in these news outlets so easily. Once AI starts like AI content, and it's already starting, once AI starts taking over like all the content online, like people are just putting up just junk content through AI, these news outlets I think are going to get really much more strict on what they're publishing, what they're allowed to publish. And it's going to be much harder for people to get into them because other people ruined it through, you know, bad content or bad, you know, using AI to mess with Google's algorithm or whatever it is or news outlets thing. Like these news outlets are or they're using deep fakes to make fake things and, you know, do scams. So these news outlets are going to get a lot more strict on like, okay, like we need to make sure like this person is not a scam or a deep thing. fake or just the AI person. Like, are they actually a real person? Do they actually have a real company? Do they actually serve their clients and deliver on their promises? And I think that is

going to increase their prices because they're going to have to be so diligent about, like, they have to go through so much more. So I think their prices are going to get a lot more. It's going to get a lot harder for, you know, small businesses that don't have much presence to get into it initially. So I think it's really important right now for people like you invest in it one time, you use it forever. And like once you're invested, I mean, once you're featured, it helps you get future features. That's a like tongue twister, but it's true. It's, you know, it's absolutely true. Like for example, like we were featured in a few outlets and then Forbes picked us up naturally.

Like we didn't, we didn't reach out to them. We didn't even know about it until like I think I saw it two weeks. after it was published, like, oh, like we were in Forbes. And I was just searching our name on Google, and I see an article pop up. And it's like, you know, top five businesses to look out for in 2024, I think it was, whatever it was. And it was like, chat GPT, American Airlines, a couple other ones, and then us. And it was like, I didn't even know about it.

So getting these features, it leads to more features and it builds your credibility that now other news outlets want to feature you because they see, oh, yeah, you've been here and here. we can trust you. You're obviously an expert. So now they kind of piggyback on that. Dude, that's amazing stuff, man. And as we conclude right now, winning is a coat winning. I often feel like it's important for people to understand the importance of winning in their life and in their business and whatever they're doing as well. However, the term winning is so different for each and every single guest. And I often ask them towards the end because it's the coat to winning insights that you need. today to seize the world tomorrow. In your definition, what does the term winning mean?

Winning, I think it's, it might sound cliche, but it's like persevering through the problems, like, especially as an entrepreneur, it's like constant fires that pop up. You know, it's, especially over the past year, like, when you're really scaling, like, you see so many things that just come up that you think, okay, like, this is going to, this changes everything, like we need to figure it out. and a lot of companies don't and you know they fail but when you get those obstacles or those things that come that are inevitable to come for every business it's about figuring it out persevering through it and then I think that that is the winning part but you need like it has to be hard and then that's what makes it worthwhile and like what it actually means like okay I I figured it

out and I ended up you know getting past that thing that you know I thought was going to cripple our company or what was going to make us bankrupt. Love that. Love that so much. If you could look at this camera here and let our, give viewers no way they could get a hold of you, if they want to be able to get featured, like your website, your social media. Can you do you take DM?

Just let us know as well, please. Yeah. So you can find us at another zero.com. That's just spelled out ZERO. I'm on Instagram, Nick Abellion, N-I-C-B-E-C-B-E-C-W. N-C-T-W-W, N-T-W, N-T-W, N-W, okay but if you are watching this DMCTW or code to winning mentioned code to winning or KG and you know I'll make sure we get you some bonuses and extra stuff to

take care of listeners for this podcast and of course subscribe to KG and I think it's awesome what you're doing awesome stuff the code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow you better click at the link below $97 no-brainer enjoy Anyway.