Leveraging Google Maps for Local Businesses with George Converse

This is episode number 236 of The Homeowner Show. Well, whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett. Here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad you could join us for another episode live here in The Homeowner Show studios. How you doing, Kev?

Oh, you know, don't you?

I do.

Don't you know?

I, I mean, you know, my goofy self had my phone on with the delay going on in the freaking feed.

No, man, I'm doing good. It's been a long day, but, uh, we're here. Life is good. Everything's fantastic. I'm wearing shorts again.

So dude, it was like 84 degrees outside.

I know.

I know. What's up with that?

I don't know.

Well, and here's the crazy part, man, is we were supposed to be flying out tomorrow.

Where?

To the Grand Canyon.

What?

Yeah. But we— long, long story. I really can't get into the particulars because I don't wanna lose any of the benefits that I got from this. Um, but, uh, we didn't wanna go and ended up— that travel insurance ended up, uh, covering the cost of the trip. Uh, but there's a massive blizzard going through Las Vegas right now.

That's nuts.

It's like tomorrow it's gonna be like snow and sleet and 17 degrees. What?

Yeah.

With like a wind chill factor of like 4, and I'm out. We're like, we don't wanna go to the Grand Canyon right now. It doesn't sound pleasant or fun. Nothing like heavy rain, sleet, and strong wind in a narrow canyon.

Nope.

Yeah.

I mean, here's the thing. If you've ever been to the Grand— have you been before? I have.

None of my, none of my family has been, which is why I was excited about it.

Okay.

Well, it's, it's always windy there. I mean, especially up on the ridge. So I mean, you add a chilling cold to that and more wind. Right now I'm out.

Yeah. No.

No fun, I'm out. So thankfully, thankfully we're not going. We've rescheduled for like the end of March, so, um, you guys won't see me then.

But anyway, perfect, I look forward to that.

Um, well, I, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and, and intro our guest because we've, we've got a, uh, I, I guess George Converse all the way over from the great state of Arizona.

Wow.

Which, you know, that, that has the Grand Canyon going on in it.

I don't—

George, you're not anywhere near the Grand Canyon, are you?

Yeah, about like 2 and a half hours away, so not too far. And, uh, yeah, it's gonna be cold over there right now, so you might not want to be there.

I was fixing to say, are you, are you getting any of that chilly weather tonight?

Yeah, you know what, it's kind of crazy, man. I've been in Arizona now. I'm originally from Detroit, Michigan, and I left there at 25 to try and dodge winters. And it's been beautiful here in Arizona for a while, but like lately it's been, uh, pretty chilly for the, uh, Arizonans over here.

I, I, I, you know, I've heard that it's actually been kind of nuts there this year. Like it's just been like freakishly cold for the winter, right?

Just like there.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of like, maybe I should just be back in Michigan, you know?

Don't. No, no, no. I got, I haven't, I, I got a news story that might change your mind. Although like, it's not gonna do well for us either. Oh, perfect. Um, I, I wanted, I wanted to, I wanted to bring you in, uh, for this conversation because we're gonna bring up Detroit. We're also gonna bring in our hometown. This is a story from February 19th from the New York Post declaring the 5 dirtiest cities.

Oh, perfect.

In America.

Oh, I probably— I'm probably gonna challenge one of these at least, unless it's in there, 'cause if it's in there, then I'm gonna be okay, fine.

So, but here, okay, like one, I'm gonna read the entire title of the article and I'm gonna give the name of the journalist that wrote it so that you guys can Send them all the love. But here's here's the actual title of the article: Is five dirtiest cities in America run by Democratic mayor? Study says. Oh, okay. So and she nice. And this is by Jessica Chasmar from Fox News.

Obviously, it's Jessica, by the way.

Is it Jessica?

I'm just kidding.

Okay. You know her?

Nice. Jessica.

Did you go to school with her?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Do you have her Twitter handle?

Not yet.

All right.

So here's— here it is. It says the top 5 dirtiest cities in the country are run by Democratic mayors. A new study has found among 152 of the biggest cities across the United States, Houston won the number 1 spot for dirtiest city.

Wow.

Followed by Newark, New Jersey, San Bernardino, California, Detroit, and Jersey City, New Jersey.

2 New Jersey cities. Look, okay, this is what I was gonna say.

Wow.

It's— I was gonna say, if it's not in there, I'm gonna say that should be in there. Then they put in the whole big city thing. But Camden, New Jersey is by far the dirtiest, most awful place on the planet. It was, it was the murder capital of the world for a while.

Wow.

And it was so bad that they've retracted. They do not have a police department. They do not have a fire department. They do not have trash service there anymore because it is such a horrible place.

Wow, that's crazy.

I know it is literally just filth and, and, and trash everywhere. And it's—

That has to be the dirtiest city.

That's what I'm thinking. Yeah.

So anyway, this is, this is from Lawn Starter. It's apparently a research place. But anyway, George, do you wanna, do you wanna speak up in defense of your beloved Detroit?

Well, I gotta say this. I mean, Detroit's actually an amazing city and it's actually kind of made a pretty big comeback. I feel like in the past several years, I feel like when I was actually younger, there was actually a lot more bad things going on there. And it's kind of been revitalized over the years. But I haven't been there for a while. So I can't, you know, necessarily vouch for it because I haven't been there recently, you know. So been out of there for quite a while now since I was 25. I'm 43 now.

I mean, like, I have some, I have some love for Detroit Motown, baby.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Yeah, I gotta say they got their hockey and they got their music on. Great music scene, hockey, football, the Lions I don't know about.

But they used to, I mean, they had Barry Sanders. I mean, they've got history.

Yeah, you're dating yourself there.

Yeah. I'm just saying they've got, well, hey, the Tigers have had plenty of their, their stars too. But anyway, it's both of those.

I think Dr Pepper got its start in Detroit, man.

Did it really?

No, that's a Texas thing.

I was gonna say, I was, that's definitely Dublin, Dublin, Dublin, Texas.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay, good.

Let us have our stuff. Okay.

Come on. Come on now.

That's right. Northern appropriation. That's what's going on right now.

I, I gotta, I gotta say, Our friend Jason, glad you're listening. He put up here that Kid Rock loves Detroit.

So, oh yeah, Kid Rock's from Detroit. You got Kid Rock, you got Eminem.

That's right.

That's right. So love it.

Love it.

But according to Huey Lewis, the heart of rock and roll is in Cleveland.

Yeah, there you go. We all know he's right. We all know.

We're all saying things that make us sound old.

That's— I just wanted to join in.

Well, well, he said he was—

now that we've Dated ourselves.

That's right.

Yeah, he said 43. I mean, you're almost there.

I'm getting there.

I'm almost there as well. So we're, we're all pretty close to the same age here.

So yeah, but we all look good, right? We all got that, we got that, we got that look going.

Yeah, look at us. We all have hats. Some of us can grow beards.

Some of us—

yeah, it's, it's good, man. It's good. Some of us aren't allowed to grow beards, even if you could.

Even if I could, not allowed.

There you go.

I teased it with a mustache and that lasted about a month.

I, you wore that thing longer than I thought you were gonna get away with. I do not know how.

Right.

I don't know how you got away with it.

She was outta town a lot.

Then it was gone the second she got back.

That's right. That's right. That's right. All right, George, we, so usually, so I wanted to let everybody know this is gonna be more of like a business special episode of the Homeowner Show because you and I have been talking for a while and I, I wanted to let a lot of the businesses that, cuz there's a lot of business owners that follow the show. Mostly because they've either been on the show, uh, or they're just interested in what other business owners are doing. But I wanted them to be aware of the tools, uh, that you guys over at Real Work are— have put together and are continuing to put together, uh, because I thought it was such an interesting concept.

Um, if you, if you could just real, real quick, let everybody know, you know, what Real Work is and, and what you guys do over there.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Um, so with Real Work Labs, we've been around for about 2 and a half years. We're a startup. Um, but altogether we just noticed a trend of where Google was going. And altogether, being a software and a tech company, and I guess just to kind of start off here too, so we're not a marketing, advertising, or SEO company. And so nothing wrong with those companies, but obviously for business owners, they work with those type of companies and you're crossing your fingers hoping to get results, all that kind of good stuff. We've just built out tech around all of the different updates of what Google's doing. As we all know, Google is constantly changing and pivoting on a daily

basis and kind of moving that goalpost. And in some cases, just making it difficult. to kind of ever figure out what you're supposed to do. And so we've just built out software around all of these updates, simplifying what to do and just making it easy for business owners in less than 24 seconds a day to essentially be aligned with Google and just be rewarded heavily as a result of it.

Wow. That— what you just said a lot.

Let's unpack that.

No, that's— yeah, I think we need to definitely unpack that. So let's break it down. break it down a little bit. Uh, yeah, I heard Google, and we're talking about Google here. And the reason we talk about Google is because it is the search engine of search engines. I mean, it is the winner. Every— it is now a verb, a noun, it is an adverb, and it has its own pronouns. So, um, I love it. I don't know if that's actually true.

Uh, it probably is.

It probably does.

It's on the internet now.

It is true.

Yeah, that's right.

Um, and it, it is, it is what everybody uses whenever they're, they're going to search for things. And so what I know, because I'm a consumer, I know that whenever I go to search for, uh, specifically let's talk about contractors because we, we're a homeowner show here. And so we interview a lot of contractors and we, uh, we talk to a lot of homeowners who are bringing contractors into their homes. Trying to figure that out. And so what happens, let's say, um, that you have a leak in your home, you need to call a plumber. What are you gonna do? You're gonna go to Google and you're gonna type in best plumber near me or plumber near me, or

just maybe plumber, I don't know. And what's gonna happen is Google is gonna show you, uh, first of all, it's gonna show you some ads most likely, and you as a consumer, are not stupid, right? We're not stupid consumers. So we're gonna scroll right past those ads. That's what we do.

Oh yeah.

We're gonna go and we're gonna go and we're gonna find the map next. And there are 3 very important people or businesses in the map, and we've been trained by Google to believe that those are absolutely the most wonderful, best companies in my area. And so we are gonna call one of those. And, um, that is called a Google Maps listing. It's called a Google Business Profile, used to be called Google My Business, all these sorts of things, right? So, um, yep, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about Maps listings specifically. Am I, am I hearing you correct, man?

I'm gonna— I think we might have to hire you over here. You were like spot on.

You know, I'm dangerous. That's what I am. I'm dangerous. And yeah, I know, I know a few things because I've seen a few things. Like, I'm, you know. Yeah. What is that? Is that an insurance company?

I don't know. Stop it.

So anyway, that's, that's kind of what breaking, breaking it down, that's kind of where we're at, right?

Yep, 100%. Right on target.

Okay, so I mean, I, I think that it's important for us as as homeowner show and consumer and business people, all of that kind of rolled up into one to just kind of lay that as the groundwork. But I guess the thing that, um, that we need to hear from you is how are you taking that? Because, uh, if you don't, you, you mentioned a couple of other things. Uh, so I'm gonna ask you to, to define some of these things. You asked, you, you, you said the word SE or the, the phrase SEO. Can you tell me what that means?

Yeah, so search engine optimization. So essentially for years, ever since Google became a thing, there's all these things that people are doing or SEO companies are doing to try and essentially game the system to be able to create content within people's websites ultimately for the search engines to be able to rank, ultimately to generate more traffic, consumers, more sales for businesses. And it's pretty cool watching I also started marketing 20 years ago. My first job was when Google actually started paid advertising, where I started my career. And fast forwarding 24 years later and just observing this whole industry and market space just evolve and grow and shift. And it's pretty interesting to see where we're at because we're coming into this new era where it's more about authenticity and

trust. And content specifically than just doing specific things on a website that used to work for years where you just stuffed all these keywords on your website to try and show up in search engines, or you did a bunch of backlinks, or you're putting metadata behind stock photos to get rankings. All of those things used to work for a long time until the helpful content update came along this past August and just crushed it. And so, I mean, pretty much all day long I talk to business owners and I've worked with thousands of business owners over the past 24 years and successfully helped them with their marketing. But it's real interesting. I've never seen anything like what's happening right now. Over this past year,

pretty much every business owner that I get on the phone with and having conversation consulting on how we can help their business grow with our technology, we'll just pull back the curtains and look at their traffic and their keywords. And the average company right now is losing about 500 to 1,000 keywords if they look behind their curtains for each location that they own. and roughly about a 30 to 50% or larger drop in traffic. So if you're a business owner and all of a sudden your phones have stopped ringing as much over the past year, it's most likely because of this helpful content update. Because a lot of the things that used to work, especially with SEO that a lot of companies are investing in today,

just don't work anymore. And so it's a new switch. So the people who are getting in line with that, it's kind of the cool part in my opinion, is that— There's far more people doing the wrong thing right now and they aren't aligned with Google than those that are doing the right thing. So when Google did this update, we were already in line and our clients were already doing these things that Google's now asking for. So our clients didn't take these big hits of loss in keywords and loss in traffic. They actually accelerated more traffic, more calls when this update happened because we were already teaching and having our clients do all these things that Google essentially wanted.

As of August 18th this past year, which was pretty neat to watch that happen.

Hey George, real quick, something you've said a couple of times now is losing keywords. What does that mean?

Yeah, so essentially, so one of the things is, so if you're a business owner and you have a website, you have products and services, and ultimately when people are searching for you on the internet, so let's just say you're a plumber and somebody's going online because they just had a leak in their kitchen and now they're trying to get it fixed and they don't know who to call, so they search on Google for a plumber in their area. And then there's the ad section, the map section, and the organic section. And so when we're talking about keywords, the primary factor for that in this context, unless you're paying for it, is going to be that organic section

of Google. So everything below the map section. And we could actually even pull up a search. You guys want me to pull up a search here so we have something to visually see here?

Yeah, I don't think we actually have your computer connected because we're not on like an actual Zoom.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no worries. I can kind of walk you through.

Yeah, why don't you do that? Um, and, um, that would have been smart if we pulled something up. Um, I, I, I have— we do have the ability to do that, we just didn't think about it before we, um, before we jumped on here. But yeah, let's, let's talk through it a little bit because if anybody were, were listening to this, if you talk through it, they can probably kind of recreate what you're, what you're saying.

Yep. So just think about it this way. So when people are doing this search for a plumber, for a roofer, whatever type of business you own and they're looking for your products and services, but they don't know who you are yet. It's these keywords, it's these specific words that a consumer is going to search that you ultimately want to show up. If you show up in the paid section, in the map section, in the organic section of Google, people are going to find you as long as you're on that first page. And in finding you, they go to your website and then they start engaging with your brand. Perhaps you're getting customers from it. Now, the cool part about this is, and this is just what we did as a company,

is we just asked ourselves the question as a tech company when we started off, where are there the most customers at when it comes to the home service industry? Because that was the industry we were looking to go in and assist. And in asking that question, obviously, like you guys mentioned earlier, it's Google. There's more customers on Google really for any business than any other website in the world. And then if you're already on Google, then it's to understand, well, where's the most customers on Google? And it's actually the map section. Not everybody really realizes that, but over 70% of Google's traffic flows through the map section of Google. And a big part of that is actually what you brought up earlier, Kevin, is it's just so easy. So there's 3

featured companies, they call it the Pack 3. And so, and here's kind of a little tip for homeowners out there as well as business owners, is just understanding that you most likely think that those are the top 3 businesses in your area to go with, with whatever you're searching, but that's not necessarily always true. Always the truth. It's more so moving in that direction now because of this helpful content update with Google more recently. But before that, and this is what was actually broken, is Google thought that if somebody was searching in the map section of Google, that they were going to hop in their car, drive to that business. So the primary driver of why those 3 businesses are showing was more about distance of how close a physical business

address is to the consumer. Now, if we're talking about a gas station or a restaurant, that makes perfect sense, but for home services, it doesn't really make much sense because most consumers or homeowners are never going to drive to that business. The roofer or the plumber is going to drive out to the home of the homeowner, and that was the whole schema update that happened about 2 years ago where Google set out to kind of fix this whole piece here.

Yeah, and so let's talk through what that looks like even. So in the map there, you've got the business name, you got their information about what they, their phone number, what they do, maybe even, you might even see, depending on how they're optimized, you might even see like a little review possibly that shows up right there.

Yeah.

But then over on the right-hand side of that, between that and the actual map, there's 2 little boxes icons that could possibly show up, but they don't necessarily always show up because it depends. One of them would be the website, right? And so depending on whether they have their website at all or whether they have it connected specifically will determine whether or not that's actually going to show up. The other one you mentioned is a directions button.

Yep.

And if that business has their address listed in in their, uh, business profile, then that will show up. However, this— I think this is what you were talking about. Um, when they did that update, uh, a couple years ago, they made it to where they recognized that there are certain industries that don't have a physical location, so it doesn't make any sense to put the address there.

Yeah.

So now they made it what they call a service area, and so they've taken that icon away. And so if you don't, if you don't see that icon there, it's simply just because they're in a— they say we serve a certain area, we don't necessarily serve from a physical location. Is that what you're— what I'm hearing?

Yeah, somewhat. So the idea here is this. So the primary driver before this whole schema update was really just based off of only distance. There's obviously other factors there, but distance was more the larger factor, and after the schema update and after we came along on the scene, it changed to more of a relevance thing. So you could have a business, let's just say 3 businesses that are in the city you're searching show up in that pack 3. That's what we're all used to. We do a search for a plumber, you get 3 plumbers that are in your city, perhaps the closest to you physically. But after the schema update, that's no longer true because now it's more of a relevance game. So those now that are basically

doing what are called site-proof checks. Check-ins and just documenting all the work they're doing out in the field, they're getting credit for all that work with Google in a real way because they're creating what Google wants. And it's kind of funny because we were doing this before they did this update. But if you went on Google's blog and went on their blog post from August 18th past year in 2022 and you go to the helpful content update, the big bold line there, Google talks about better ranking original quality content. Now obviously they're talking about your website, but It's just this idea of where the more original quality content you consistently do on a daily, weekly basis on your website, showing

off the real work that you're doing, hence the name Real Work Labs, then Google's just going to reward you with better rankings, meaning you're going to get a lot more traffic, you're going to get a lot more customers. And so our technology was just already doing this. So instead of just showing up in the pack 3, on the front page of Google because you happen to be the closest, you could now not even have a business address location in the city that somebody's searching for a plumber or a roofer, but you could actually as a business owner be showing up in that pack 3 on the front page of Google just because you're more relevant than a business who actually happens to be physically located in that city. Does that kind of make sense a little bit?

Yeah, it does to me. I mean, Craig, are you—

Yeah, I was going to ask, I mean, you're saying that they're more relevant. Well, they don't have a physical location. physical location, how is it that they are more relevant then?

Yeah, for sure. So it's just kind of again diving into this whole helpful content update with Google. So it's like so simple, but I think it just goes over everybody's head. When Google's sitting here telling us, they're kind of giving us the keys to the kingdom away here, and they kind of say the more original quality content, you get better rankings. But if you kind of break down what this means, and so content in Google's eyes referring to your website is really anything on your website. So pictures, videos, reviews, words, graphics, logos, literally anything that's represented on your website is considered content in Google's eyes. And Google tells you, first off, original content. So like when you start talking about roofers and plumbers and then you go on their websites, I don't know how

many websites I've seen with just nothing but stock photos. So it's not even real pictures of the real work they do. And at the end of the day, that's That's not authentic because you're literally showing off work that's not even your own work and it's not original. And so that's an easy one to kind of look at where Google's like, all right, you're taking a step backwards. And then some people have some stock photos, some real photos of the work that they're doing out in the field. So it's like this dance that's happening where you're taking a step forward, but then you're taking a step backwards with Google as far as rankings and showing up on the front page. And then when

Google throws in quality, What quality means to Google is 2 things. One is the fact that you're consistent. If you put all original content on your entire website but left it up for the past year or so and you're that person who just hasn't touched it, your website's collecting dust, you're taking major steps backwards and probably have lost a lot of keywords, a lot of rankings with Google where you're just not showing up anymore or not as much because they don't consider that quality or helpful to a consumer. Again, it's all coming back to this helpful content, so what is helpful to a consumer. So that's kind of the biggest thing you could ask is anything and everything that's represented on your website, is it helping a consumer to purchase more products and

services from you? And if the answer is yes, the cool part is Google is going to reward you with better rankings. And if the answer is no, they're going to take it away from you. And so 2 key examples here for you guys, and I'll kind of let you hop in here, is that, so as a consumer, if I needed a new roof, And I'm looking for a roofer and I'm searching on Google. A couple things you know about me. First off, I need a new roof because I'm searching on Google, otherwise I wouldn't need one. Secondly, I don't have a word-of-mouth referral. If I did, I would have just called that guy. He would have already been working on my roof. And so when I do a search on Google and then I find those top 3 roofers and then I

click through, everybody for the most part just dumps a consumer on their homepage. And really what you're doing is you're dumping a stranger on your website who now has to pretty much do some homework and start digging around on your website. And all a customer is trying to do is get comfortable enough to think about doing business with you. But on the flip end, if we took— even if you had all this original content, but we took all this original content, original photos, original reviews, but we laid it over on top of a map and a consumer clicks through to your website and you now land as a consumer on a map, your neighborhood where you actually live. First off, it's familiar, you recognize it, and so you're like, well shoot,

that's literally where I live. And then you start seeing these little houses on the map and you start clicking on them and you start seeing pictures of all these beautiful roofs that your neighbors got done by this XYZ roofing company. And now all of a sudden it's almost like a word-of-mouth referral because you can see reviews of your neighbors, you can see beautiful pictures and videos of the real work that got done by this company. And so even if you want to be a smart shopper and shop this company versus their competitors, and you click the back button, go back to the search engine, start looking at other roofing companies, you're probably not going to know if any of your neighbors work with these companies, and you're probably going to go

back to that company. So again, it's just consistently creating this original quality content and serving it up in a meaningful way that helps and benefits consumers, homeowners, to make easier decisions and a lot more comfortable doing so with companies that they just met seconds ago.

Yeah, George, when, when you were showing me this stuff in the previous conversations that you and I have had, one of the things that, that stood out to me is that you guys actually put an interactive map on, on the website when you, when you guys help companies set these up. And, and as I was looking at it, I was like, okay, so that if that's the landing page that a homeowner is going to and, you know, they're looking for that roofer, they, they can literally look on the map and say, okay, like 2 streets over, this guy had a roof. I mean, be, be, and like, and I, I think a roof is a great example because that's a massive investment for most homeowners.

I mean, it's, it's one of the more expensive things.

Yeah.

That you can have done to your home. And I, I can imagine, you know, if it was just 2 streets over, I, I might, you know, you know, hop on the old skateboard and roll over there.

Yep.

And be like, hey, like, let me, let me take a look at your roof. Did, I mean, did you get a roof done by XYZ Roofing Company? Like, how was, how was the, like, if I'm, if I'm gonna spend, you know, $20,000, $30,000, to get my roof changed and, and repaired and, and replaced, that might be a trip worth taking. You know? Whereas what you're talking about is like them trying to feel comfortable enough to do business with you. Like, it's really difficult to do that with a website.

Yeah. I think, I think one of the things that I was reading not too long ago is that, and I don't remember what the number is, it's a very high number percentage-wise that, that people regard a review, a positive review, equal to an actual person referral. Um, yeah, so, so like for example, if you go on to Amazon and you're looking for a, a cassette player— I wanted to say that because you said skateboard. Okay, cassette tape player.

And you have the Walkman with the skateboard.

I love it. We got the whole picture here.

Exactly. So you're looking for a cassette tape player and, and you see down there That, you know, ABC Jenny, uh, wrote a review that said this is the best cassette tape player that I've ever had, even better than the Sony Walkman that was yellow. Um, then it's impossible. Yeah, no, I think that's the best one.

It was the— that yellow Walkman was the best, man.

Yeah, it was waterproof. It had like the little thing that like clipped over the top and like made sure— oh yeah, dust or particles got in there. Yeah, really good.

Um, get those in a pair of gerbil jeans and you're good to go.

That's true.

Love it.

Yeah.

My Junko, my Junko is put some JNCOs on.

And, uh, anyway, um, you were way more thug than I was.

Yeah, obviously. Um, so you, uh, you see that review from ABC Jenny and you for some reason transfer her into a real person. And most likely ABC Jenny is a real person. Uh, most likely. Um, surely, right? Yeah. And you transfer onto her I, I trust her. For some reason we do that, and it is subconscious, but it's something that we do just as much as if I were to say, hey Craig, what's the best cassette player ever? And if you would've said like, hey, there's this one on Amazon that I just bought, it's amazing. It's the same. Like the, the, we regard that in the same in our brain. So I, I hear what you're saying, George, that like if I go on

someone's website, so I think there's Here's what I'm— there's 2 things that I'm hearing you say, so I wanna— I want you to either confirm or alter my thought process.

So one—

Yeah.

Is that you're, you're adding this map that shows in real time different locations in that person's area, because Google can do that very easily. You can integrate that person's area into what they're actually searching for. That's the reason we get ads that are targeted, that they do that to us all the time. You go to a certain place and you turn around, you got an ad for it in your phone, and you're like, is Google stalking me?

Yes.

Yes, they are.

Yep.

They're absolutely stalking you and, and listening right now. They are. They know everything that we're saying. And so they're, you're showing people that relevance, right? You're showing them on their way on that webpage, here's a place and a real person who has used this service and here's what it looks like. And that is equal in our brains to an actual referral from someone that we actually know and trust. And so that's one thing that I hear you say. The second thing I hear you say—

Yeah.

Is that with the new update that Google came out with back in August, original content is really good. So not only that, consistency of additional content is really good. So every time you have a new service done and a new icon shows up on the map, and we'll, let's talk, we can talk about that in a minute. That's new content for Google.

Yep.

And Google's going, oh, this roofing company is adding new content and they're actually showing up where this person is, is actually searching. They're searching in this area. That neighborhood is showing up on this person's website and it's new content coming in regularly. So it's sending all sorts of signals back to Google that Google actually really likes, which that's very important. Because if you send Google signals that they don't like, like you said, they're going to They're going to step you back in the rankings. So those 2 things, am I understanding you correctly?

Yeah, 100%. And a cool way to think about it is this. So like, let's just imagine that we're a homeowner right now and we need a new roof. And so we go to Google and we do a search like so many people do, you know, roofer near me. And we do this search. And then like most people, like you mentioned earlier, Kevin, we bypass the ads, which is what about 90% of people do. And we get to that pack 3 section and it looks juicy because we're like, this is easy. There's 3 results. Google's sitting here telling me these are the 3 best roofers in my area. That's what a consumer's thinking. And so think about this,

this experience that's happening. It's just about trust. A consumer is trying to get comfortable to trust a complete stranger to do their roof, and this is a big investment for them. And so a consumer sees these 3 people And they assume they're the top 3 roofers in their market. And so a consumer starts shopping these 3 roofing companies that showed up in the pack 3. And so the first company, they click through to the website and it's all these stock photos. And I think all of us can agree on this podcast and everybody listening, we all know stock photos when we see stock photos. These companies aren't fooling us.

I see you.

And so that's your first experience with the first company. And they got a checkmark because they were the top 3 people. So you think they might be one of the top 3 companies to work with, but then you click to their website and see all these stock photos of unoriginal stuff that you know is not their work. And so like all of a sudden you're disappointed. You're like, eh, I don't know, this just doesn't feel right to me. So you click the back button and you go to the number 2 person and you click through and all of a sudden it's all this beautiful original work of all the roofs they did. And it's really nice work. but you have no clue whose homes those are

at all. So it's good, it's better than the last company, so you're kind of feeling a little bit better, but you're just digging around on their website, feeling it out, and you're like, yeah, they got some beautiful roofs, but let's check out that third guy. So you click the back button and then hit on that third guy, and when you click over, you immediately land on a map and it's your neighborhood that you live in. So you're kind of thrown back a little bit, you're kind of like, whoa, this is kind of cool. Like, This is literally my neighborhood because you know your cross streets. I live right there. And the house right next door to you, that's your neighbor Bob. You see a little home there and you click on it, and sure enough, this picture comes up of

Bob's roof with this beautiful roof, and he used this company, and you know Bob. And so you're like, wow, that's kind of cool. Then you start clicking on another house nearby, 2 blocks down, and you see that that's your neighbor Nicole, who you actually know, and she did a review on Google for this roofing company. And so now all of a sudden it's a very personal experience too, because not only are you seeing original pictures of the work that they're doing, but you're also seeing reviews that are actually real people that you know. So the whole game shifts for you, because when you entered and you saw 3 companies, let's just assume that all 3 of those companies had the same amount of reviews or close to the same amount of reviews. Let's say they all had like 300 reviews.

A customer is going to take a little note in their head and notate, yep, they all got a bunch of reviews, that looks good, but nobody's going to sit here and read 300 or 1,000 reviews. So even if these competitors had 5, 10 of their neighbors that got roofs from these companies too, the consumer would probably never know that information because it'd be like finding a needle in a haystack. And so when you have those 3 options as a consumer, It's kind of like almost asking— I don't know if you guys remember that big yellow book in the back in the day, like the Yellow Pages. And so it would almost literally be like asking a consumer today, hey, you got 2 choices. You can find the roofer to do this new roof on your home in the Yellow Pages by

waving your finger in this big yellow book, or you can go with one of the top-rated companies on Google who's showing off all their beautiful work, and it happens to be your neighbors. in your neighborhood, who do you wanna go with?

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's obviously it that when you say it like that, it's a no-brainer. I mean, you're gonna go with the company, you're gonna go to the company that you can see all the things that make sense. And, uh, in that, I, it's, it's, it's interesting because as consumers, we have, um, we've been trained really to believe that that's gonna be the best company out there. And it doesn't really matter if they are, really.

Yeah.

It really doesn't. I mean, hopefully they are. I mean, hopefully if they are going to the trouble that it takes, and it is trouble to get up into the map pack and up, you know, get organically ranked onto, you know, the first page, that takes work. If you're doing that type of work, you're probably putting a lot of work into your business in general. you're probably doing good work. That is, that is generally speaking the truth. Now, does that mean that someone on page 7 doesn't do good work? That's obviously not, not the case. But, um, the lion's share of the, of the leads that come at the top, they, they come at the top.

Yeah.

They just absolutely do. And anybody who's a business, business owner, especially in the, uh, the service industry that's listening to this podcast right now, they know if I'm on the first page, I'm gonna win, and that's, that's the way that goes. So I will—

I do wanna say George gave us a really hot tip right there. He didn't know it, uh, about how to find really smart companies that have been around a long time. And, and this is really for anybody born after like 1995, um, because any, anytime you see a company and like, this is just something that those of us that grew up with the Yellow Pages know, is that if you see a company named AAA All-Inclusive Plumbing, the reason they're named AAA All-Inclusive Plumbing is so that they could get the top spot in the Yellow Pages.

For free. For free.

Yep.

Yeah. And, and like, and so then you would start seeing companies just AAAA Electricians, you know, and like they would just name their companies that because they knew that there's value in being at the top of the heap.

Yep.

Um, and so like, it's, it, you know, That's, that's one way to find a company that's one, smart, and two, has been around a long time.

The longevity is there. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so George, let me ask you this. How do you do it?

What's the secret sauce?

Who's that man behind the curtain?

Like, I mean, so I mean, I, I want to know a couple of things. So I— can you explain? Because we don't— we can't just show everybody because we didn't set this up correctly. But can you just kind of explain— you mentioned a map and you mentioned, yep, some things. Can you kind of give us an idea of what this looks like and then like how, how this actually works?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'll kind of explain our tech. So, um, there's essentially 2 ways that you can drop what's called a SiteProof check-in, is what's happening here. So business owners that are home service businesses can have the real Real Work Labs app on their phones. So anybody who represents your company, it could be a contractor, it could be an employee, really doesn't matter as long as you're okay with them representing your company, they can have the Real Work Labs app on their phone. And then when they're out in the field doing real work on behalf of your company, they can essentially document that work in a very meaningful way that immediately affects Google in regards to how this is happening. And so when they pull out our app,

they're going to immediately see like a pin drop so to speak, um, that's ready to go in the neighborhood. And it's called a site proof check-in, is what it's called. And then they're going to be able to put a little description in there, which, AKA keywords, um, they're giving keywords specifically. But again, you could just ask yourself, well, what did I do here? Well, I installed a shingle roof. And by saying I installed a shingle roof, if somebody searched shingle roof installation, boom, you could perhaps be the one showing up in that neighborhood. Um, you're going to take a picture or a video, again documenting the work, maybe a before picture, an after picture, or

maybe a progress video as you're progressing through the job. And it's just documenting this real work that you're doing out in the field. And really what our app's doing is it's making it simple. So in less than 24 seconds, somebody who's out there in the field on behalf of your company can document something that's meaningful of what you guys do and how you help and serve people in your community and getting the job done. We also have a dashboard. So if you don't want your technicians and people out in the field doing that, that, you can just have them snap a picture on their cell phones and then shoot a text, shoot an email, or upload it into software. A lot of companies

use different softwares that they're already taking pictures, they're already documenting the work that they're doing, they're just not leveraging it in a meaningful way. And so this can just help to leverage that where somebody from the office can tap into those pieces and then leverage all of that in dropping SiteProof check-ins for all of the work that they're doing out there in So those are the pieces. And what's happening is, as you take 24 seconds out of your day, whether it's somebody in the field or somebody in the office doing that, this is kind of like art. Even if you just did what I just mentioned 1 or 2 times a day, 5 days a week, which— and this takes less than 24 seconds to do, it's super simple. And we got a team that will train you how to do this and train your team how to do it

and hold your team accountable in doing it on a monthly basis. But even if that's all you were doing, that little, little job and just dropping those pins, dropping in Site Proof check-ins, ultimately doing that over 2, 3, 4 months, we're seeing on average with our clients that they're knocking some of these competitors out of these front page placements in the pack 3. So that's happening. The other big part is in addition to unlocking the largest volume of jobs on the internet, which is again the Google Maps section. Helping our clients again just abide by what Google's asking by just creating all this original quality content, which is benefiting them in the map section, it's benefiting them in the organic section. The

other cool factor is as all this new traffic, newfound market share, is coming over to your website, they're landing on this new type of an experience, which is the map like we talked about, seeing all of this beautiful work you're doing out in the field that's automatically populated And as a result of that, we're seeing on average a 19% to 49% increase in conversion on our clients' websites because of this widget and this map and this hyperlocal experience. And all that means is that our clients are experiencing, when people are landing on their website, 19% to 49% more people pick up the phone and call our clients to engage in business or submit a lead to our clients. It's massive.

Yeah. 19 to 49%. I, I'd take 19.

Yep. 19's bad. Yeah.

19's not bad.

Yeah.

You know that, I mean, that, that's a significant increase in, in the amount of traffic that's showing, not just showing up, but actually picking up the phone and, and calling. That, that's a, that's a big difference. So, okay. That, that makes sense to me. Craig, do you have any questions that like, that he may not have answered?

Right.

My question, I, I mean, I, I don't have as many questions just because I've engaged with this a little bit. And so like, I'm more like excited about it than, than anything.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that, look, everybody, everybody who is a consumer doesn't understand the behind the scenes, um, process that, that companies go through to do the advertising that they do to make sure that whenever someone goes to Google and actually searches for their service, that they would actually show up.

Yeah.

Now that's, that's part A. Part B is I don't think that, um, most companies, most businesses have a clue. And I mean this very, very kindly to all of our friends out there who own businesses. don't have a clue what to do in order to get to the top.

Right.

And they're going, look, hey friend who's also in my service, what did you do? How did you get to the top? And they're going, I don't know, I paid someone to do it, you know, or, oh, I don't know, like I've been doing this forever or whatever, you know, and they just showed up. And, um, you know, sometimes, some, sometimes you'll even hear, uh, business owners we've heard 'em say this, say, I know I'm not anywhere on the first page, but someone found me somehow.

Yeah.

And called me and it happens all the time, you know? And, uh, it's like, well, they probably called you cuz you had your car wrapped. Um, that's probably what happened, you know? Um, but I think that, uh, what I'm hearing you say, George, is there's options out there and, and sometimes they're not the traditional options. This is definitely not what I would consider a traditional option because traditionally people have heard, you know, well, build a website, do SEO.

Yeah. I mean, and I think, I think that's kind of the point is any, anyone that's listening to this that, that owns and operates a business, and I want, I wanna come at this from like 2 different angles. One, I think very, very much to what you're saying, Kevin, is like any business owner is in business to do business. They're not in business to do SEO. They're not in business to build a website unless that is your business. But, You know, like that is overwhelming. It is to, to a certain degree because like they know that it offers success, but they also know that it's gonna, it's gonna take them away from the thing that they got into business for in the first place. Mm-hmm. And so they don't wanna do it.

Yep.

Um, and they don't know how most of the time.

Well, yeah. And like there, there, there's gonna be a massive steep learning curve if they decide to do it themselves.

And not, look, I'm not trying to, to, to dog on anybody, but if you're out there, you know, doing what some of our friends do, um, over at Affordable Air and you're doing HVAC for people, you're probably, there's probably a reason that you're not maybe ranking up there on Google because you've not done all the things that you're probably not the most internet savvy person. You're out there really savvy with putting air conditioners in. Yeah.

You know, that's, that's what you should be focused on.

Right.

Yep.

Yeah.

And, and so, 100%. What, what he's talking about is is in my mind almost leveling the playing field because I think, I think most business owners can wrap their heads around taking a picture.

Mm-hmm.

And, and then writing something like just goofy about the picture that they just took or the video that they just took.

Um, well, because most of 'em do know social media to, to a certain degree. And they, they are okay posting from time to time. Yeah. They, they even understand the value of And that's easy.

And it, this sounds very much in the same vein as that.

Yeah.

And, but like, so it's, it's valuable on the, on this end for the, for the business owner, one, because like it, it allows smaller companies to actually compete with bigger companies because like, yeah, you're, you're reporting the work that you're doing in the areas where you're actually doing the work. The, the value on the other end for like the homeowner is like you, you potentially have a chance to actually look at smaller, more local companies who are actually doing work in your neighborhood.

Mhmm.

You know, because if, if you're reporting it, then they're gonna be able to see it on that map. They're gonna be able to see it in, in the rankings. They're gonna be able to see it. And, and I think that's, I mean, good on Google if that's what their goal was.

Mhmm.

By changing all this kinda stuff is to actually allow homeowners and customers to engage more with smaller businesses rather than just who can pay the piper the most money to be at the top of the heap. Right. Because that's the game we've been playing.

Yep. Yep.

For I don't know how many years now.

Yep.

I mean, and, and to a certain— I mean, like, look, at the, at the end of the day, to a certain degree, that's still going to be the game that we're playing. I mean, because money, money will always get you to the top of the heap no matter what. I mean, like, let's just be real. But the chance that you have to see more companies who are actually doing work closer to you is extremely valuable.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and the other thing that I want to mention Um, and I'm, I'm going to talk directly to business owners for a minute. Um, and, and George, I'm interested to hear your take on this. So, um, and I know that y'all aren't in the SEO business and you're not in the content writing business and that sort of thing. However, you mentioned something earlier that is very, um, very relevant, and that is that new original content will rank your site better. Google wants that. That's what they're looking for. They want regular new content. So enter the very fun and very exciting AI ChatGPT, right?

Nice. Love it.

And so now here is a, an open source AI content provider that you can tell it to do whatever and it will do as far as writing content. You can say, write me 5,000 words on HVAC services And it will do it. And then you can take that and you can put it on your website, and SEO companies are loving it because that's what they are doing. But let me, let me challenge you as business owners to understand what AI is, and it is not original content. It is actually the very opposite of original content. It is actually taking content from everywhere in the world. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. It's what makes it so incredibly powerful and incredibly amazing. But it is bringing it all into

one place from somewhere else. AI cannot, at least right now, produce original content. It, it, it can't do that. It has to aggregate that from somewhere else. So if you have a, a, an SEO company that you're paying right now, and they're using AI writers to produce content on your page, Google will find out. And when they do, because they can, they can detect AI, they have their own AI. In fact, of course, isn't it amazing that Google days later come out, came out, you know, displayed their own AI writer option? So did Bing. come out with their own stuff, and, and they know that it's not original, right? So I'm— I guess I'm kind of curious, uh, George, what

are your thoughts on that? Because this is a, a, a new phenomenon that a lot of us are like— it's like, I don't know, like Christmas, you know, Christmas morning, whenever we're like, oh, look at this brand new thing that I want to play with, and it's pretty amazing.

I'll let everybody know I use it a lot. Yeah, I mean, it's— I mean, and I'm using it I'm using it until it doesn't work anymore, because right now it's working.

Yep. Yeah, George, what do you think?

Yeah, so it's a really interesting environment out there right now. I mean, again, I've been doing this for 24 years in marketing, so it's so interesting just again, and I've just been following Google for such a long time and all these just different things within the online marketing space. And the thing that's interesting to me, just observing and just watching this show go on in front of us with Google and just people trying to game Google essentially, is that A little over 6 to 12 months ago is really when a lot of the AI pieces really started hitting hard, where a lot of companies were using it. So especially with a lot of these SEO companies where all of a sudden they were doing, in my opinion, I don't want to say minimal work, but when

you really look at what somebody does SEO-wise for what they charge, it's pretty minimal labor that's really involved typically. And so it was already minimal work. And so then all of a sudden AI comes along and makes it even more minimal where they can do less work, but again, still charge the same, if not more money for what they're doing for a business owner. But then all of a sudden Google came and just laid the hammer down with this helpful content update where they literally, I mean, in their own words, you can go on Google's blog. I'm literally going to just read it to you right now because it literally says word for word what I'm about to say. It says the

helpful content update The purpose of it is to tackle, which isn't a good thing, you don't want to be tackled, to tackle content that seems to have been primarily created for ranking well in search engines rather than to help inform people. So very simple but very profound what Google's telling you here. And so here's the thing, the funny thing is, is if you're using ChatGPT or Jeeves or any of these type of programs or softwares to write all your content, Google can use AI, which they do, to identify the percentage of that content that's produced on AI, just the same as they can use AI to identify if it's a duplicate image on your website that's been duplicated all over the internet because it's a stock photo. So it's, it's no longer a human

being that's sitting there checking websites and pictures and all these things. It's literally just AI that's literally within milliseconds checking all these things through the different algorithms to see if it matches or not. And so the cool part about this, in my opinion, is that a lot of companies for a lot of years got away doing very minimal work, and then all of a sudden this AI came and they thought they were going to even do less work and get— make more money. But then Google laid the hammer down, and again, I could literally pull up anybody's website, whether it's a one-location business And on average, see 500 to 1,000 keywords lost, 30, 40, 50, 60% of their traffic lost because they're not doing what Google wants them to do. And then

I look at— so I'm the head of enterprise for our company, so I work with all of these large enterprise clients and franchise clients, like these massive organizations that aren't looking at 500 to 1,000 keywords. We're talking like 50,000 keywords lost, 100,000 keywords lost. And like, again, 30, 40, 50, 60— a client that I was just looking at recently, it was a large national organization 70% loss in traffic this past year across a national organization. That's millions of dollars worth of lost business this past year.

Yeah, that's amazing. It really is.

Because of this.

I don't know that this, this should be surprising to anybody. I mean, like, professors in universities have had tools like this for years where they could— they can take anybody's— and I mean, because, I mean, like, nobody's turning in an actual papers anymore. They're turning in digital copies of those papers. And these professors for years now, I mean, I'm talking like for at least the last 20, 25 years, have been able to take those papers, run them through an application, and tell, detect very, very quickly whether or not you plagiarized that thing.

Yep.

It's been going on for a long, long time. That being said, I still think any like mid-level copywriter should be shaking in their boots right now. and trying to learn a new skill because, I mean, like, your days, your days are numbered with this stuff. I mean, because like, man, it's, it's like anything else. I mean, like, eventually they're going to come up with a system that can do it better and cheaper. And, you know, even, even with what we have right now, eventually it's gonna be undetectable. I mean, it just will.

Maybe.

I mean, once, once we have sentient AI, game over. As, as far as like being able to detect whether or not it's AI or human.

Mm-hmm.

Um, you just won't be able to do it. And I, I imagine the, the, the margins on accuracy on some of these programs right now are pretty, pretty thin as well. Um, yeah. Um, just because, I mean, like if I, and I'll, I'll, I'll tell everybody how I've used it right now just to see how it works is I've used it to make titles for our YouTube page.

Mm-hmm.

Like, good luck telling if I wrote that or the AI wrote it.

Right. I mean, like, well, if it's really good, you probably didn't write it.

Exactly. Yeah. I'm just saying.

I love it.

Which is why I'm not doing it.

Right.

Yeah.

And, and I think that, I, I think that for, uh, when it, when it comes to ideas and thought processes and, and, and trying to do things a certain way, I think it has a lot of value. I guess my point is, um, George, what it sounds like y'all are doing removes that whole thing and it is actually bypassing the opportunity for Google to say this is anything but original, because it, it is, it's all original, you know, and, and, and it's, it's feeding the machine what the machine wants to, to chew up and eat.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and it makes it happy. And so, you know, whenever you do that, you're right, you're gonna get better rankings across the board. So, um, I, I think it's really, really interesting. Um, I, I guess, uh, the question I have is like, um, what's the best way if we have a, a, a business owner that's listening to the show right now, what's the best way to get them connected with you so that they can, uh, maybe learn more about this to see, okay, here's what I do. Is this something that would be relevant for me?

Yep. Um, yeah, any business owner that's listening, um, first off, uh, anybody that we're consulting with, we do a free consultation, uh, where we can hop on a call. We can literally pull back the curtains to look, uh, what's happening for you digitally speaking, also with your competitors in your market, just to give you a competitor analysis. And, um, yeah, best way to reach me, uh, you could either just go to our website, uh, www.realworklabs.com, and, uh, just fill out a form field there. Just acknowledge the show, make sure that you let them know that you heard, uh, this on the Homeowners Show podcast. Um, we're going to have a, a special deal that we're going to do for you guys because the show. So we got some special incentives there for that for you, um, if you decide

to partner and work with us. And, uh, or you can just even reach out to me direct. So you can text or call me direct to direct cell phone at 480-787-7575.

Perfect. We'll, we'll link that up in the show notes. And, uh, perfect. What I, what I heard, because everybody likes a good deal, what I heard is if you mention the Homeowner Show, you're going to give them a deal.

100%. I'll tell you what I'll do for them. Um, we are a software company, software as a service. Um, so we just charge a, a flat monthly rate, uh, to be able to lease our software. We've invested $6.5 million in the software. Um, so again, for free, we'll hop on the call, we'll do a consultation, we'll pull back the curtain, show you everything what's happening, what's not, show you how you can benefit from our software. Um, but if it does happen to be a good fit— and again, you mentioned the show, that that's how You heard of us. We'll do a $100 per month discount, so $1,200 discount per year off of our services, and we'll even do a 50%

discount off of our setup. So it's going to save you some money there if it happens to be a good fit to work together. And either way, I can guarantee you'll come off that call with a lot of additional insights of things that you can do either way yourself as a business owner, or you can allow us to help you out and be a partner with you.

Dude, that's huge.

That's a great deal.

That's a great deal. Uh, yeah, I love it. I love it, love it, love it.

Awesome. Well, anything else you want everybody to know before we, we wrap this thing up?

Um, I think that's a bit about it. I mean, I think the biggest thing to understand here, just moving forward, uh, that I hope everybody got out of this, um, is as a business, the biggest thing moving forward is really authenticity and trust. And the easiest way to create authenticity and trust with consumers and homeowners, and I think all the homeowners listening would agree, is just by showing off your original quality work of what you do. I mean, every business owner I think could agree the reason your business is still alive today most likely is that when you started, hopefully you did quality good work and that showed off and people talked about you and they referred you, and that's what allowed you to grow your business and

maybe to multiple locations. And 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, 100 years later, some of these businesses are still around because they're serving their customers at a high level and taking care of people. And that's really all that Google's asking too, just in a digital format, is, hey, if you take care of real human beings that are on your website in a meaningful way to help them make a decision to work with you and your business, then we're just going to reward you with rankings, which I think that's cool. It's a really cool double-edged sword that if you just help more people choose you and work with you by showing off the real work of what you're

doing out in the field and how you help serve people in your industry, then Google just rewards you. And again, we've just built out technology that makes it simple for you to do that. So instead of you going on Google's blog and reading through everything and going on their developers page and seeing all these changes that are happening daily, weekly, and trying to keep afloat of that. We just do that for you and we build it into software, so we simplify it. So in less than 24 seconds a day, you can be assured that you're doing exactly what Google wants you to do and get rewarded heavily within the rankings and conversions that you're seeing with your business.

Awesome. Very, very cool. All right, Craig, any other questions?

I think we covered it, man.

Okay. No, it's been really, really good.

We got the sweet deals, we got the info. Yeah, we're ready to to to bring it home.

Bring it home. Yep, let's do it. Well, guys, thank you for downloading the episode, but we're not done.

We're just starting.

People, we're just getting started because this is the one thing that everybody that has ever listened to our show waits for.

All five of them still hanging in there, waiting.

For the very end, the thing that we didn't tell George about. Did you tell George about it?

We asked him if he listened to the show and he said yes, so it shouldn't be a surprise.

Well, this is the one thing that we do with all of our brand new, uh, you know, first-time guests on the show.

That's right.

It is called the Final Four. The Final Four. That's right. And this is the final 4 questions that we ask each every one of our guests. George, are you ready to participate in your very own Final Four?

Let's get it, let's go!

That's what I'm ready for as well. So here we go, first question right out of the bat: what is the must-have tool you won't leave your house without?

Of course it's my cell phone. I mean, that's an easy one, guys, come on. I don't leave anywhere without that thing.

Neither do we. And that is why, my friend, that it is the number one answer.

Yep.

On our show since we started the show.

Yes, it has.

It absolutely—

nice.

All right, the next question, number 2, uh, we, we're gonna ask this, uh, the way we are always asked it, um, and I'm gonna put a caveat in there. So the way we ask the, the question is, what's a job you walked away from? So what we really meant by this is what's actually on the screen right now, which is what's a project you walked away from, like something you were doing at your home that you thought, you know what, forget this. I had a leak, I was trying to fix it, can't fix it, I got to call the plumber. I got to call, you know, get on the Google searches and figure out who the person, the top map pack is, and, uh, call that person. Um,

but that's not what we asked. We asked what's a job you walked away from. So you can take it however you want to, but I'm going to ask you now the question. What's the job you walked away from?

Nice. Well, I had a job. One of the first jobs I ever did was actually door-to-door in Detroit, Michigan. And I think you can probably understand why I walked away from that. Um, I did it for 7 years. I don't know how I held out for 7 years, but after 7 years walking the streets of Detroit doing door-to-door, that was more than enough for me between the winters and Detroit, man.

Yeah, I don't blame you.

I lived through it though. I lived through it though. I had guns pulled out on me and some crazy stories I could tell you about that, but I did live through it. Created some thick skin, I'll tell you that.

I bet you did. I bet you did. All right, question.

You're supposed to have guns in Detroit?

Oh please.

I know, I know, it's crazy. I thought only Texas had guns, but I guess Detroit does too.

All right, 3rd question.

How do you wind down at the end of a long Um, I'll tell you what, I'm still trying to figure that one out, man. I'm just like, you know, at the end of my day, I'm just going— my brain goes a million miles a second. So it's kind of tough to wind down. But I normally just try to shut everything down, man, shut down the electronics and just kind of decompress a little bit, you know, because we're so attached these days, I feel like between our phones and laptops and just Communi— like over-communicating between everything, um, all these different channels we have access to. So if you guys have a good, uh, recommendation, I'd love to hear from you guys how you wind down, because I'm still trying to figure that one

out in the tech world we're in these days.

Yeah, I, I mean, you know, we can go all the way back to episode 1. I don't advise you to, but you could, um, listen to how Craig and I answered this question. And for me, no nothing's changed in the 4 and a half years we've been doing this podcast. And, you know, for me it is spending time with my family. And so, yeah, we, we, uh, you know, we eat dinner together as often as possible and then we, uh, you know, I put my kids to bed, my wife and I will just turn the TV on and, and we, we've got some show series that we watch and we'll watch one of, one or two of those and just kind of, you know, drift off to bed after that. It's kind of our, our,

our go-to. And Um, you know, just kind of depends on, on what's going on at the time, but that's something that we really do.

Yeah, I, I enjoy taking young children on snipe hunts.

Oh yes.

Yeah, that really winds me down at the end of the day. Do you not—

do you have the actual snipe sticks that you like?

No, we give them snipe calls. Okay, so there's different ways, otherwise known as kazoos.

Oh yeah, nice.

Very effective.

They— those snipes really do—

they are drawn to the kazoo.

Yes. Yes, they are. So yeah, perfect.

That's awesome.

It's either that or bourbon for me. It's—

there you go.

I don't know why those have to be mutually exclusive, but one usually leads to the other.

Yeah, exactly. So, all right, well, there you go. All right, we're gonna go with the last question. Here we go. What's one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice you've ever received?

Don't go snipe hunting with a kazoo.

This is not your final— sorry, sorry.

Go ahead, George.

Honestly, I think one of the biggest things is— I don't remember who it was, but somebody encouraged me to go travel more often. And I took it a little too literal. I ended up traveling the world for 5 years straight, living out of a suitcase through 33 countries. But it was the best experience I've ever had. So whoever that person was who encouraged and motivated me to do so, thank you if they're listening right now. But either way, I would just advise people, get out, travel, experience the world more. And instead of taking what a screen tells you to be reality, go and experience it for yourself.

That's fantastic. I know, I'm with you, man. And as much as you— and I haven't lived out of a suitcase for 5 years, but like, I've done a fair amount of travel. And I think the more you can do that, the better, better, more well-rounded person that you will probably be.

Yeah, I mean, you find things you've never seen. Yeah, you know, you appreciate things you've never understood before. And it's, yeah, it's wonderful.

So I mean, real quick, what was, what was in your mind the most interesting place you went to?

Um, I mean, I went all throughout like Central and South America, which I loved, all throughout like Europe. I think in general though, I mean, I don't think I could just say one single place. If I had to, maybe like Spain. Spain was incredible. But I think the coolest thing in general that like I just kind of learned on my journeys is that like People are people. Like, no matter where you're at, people are people, and we all have things that are in common. And, uh, I think that people in general and humanity is much better than what's painted, you know? And it's like there's this, uh, image that's portrayed sometimes that I feel is much different from reality.

And just traveling around for 5 years through all these random countries, and, you know, like, it seemed like there was more people willing to help me out and like be nice as a traveler than the opposite.

Mm-hmm.

throughout my whole journey, knock on wood. But it was just incredible, like experiencing humanity, I guess, you know.

And I think that's important for people to hear. I mean, I know the image that's portrayed is to be suspicious of people who live in their own country when you're the outsider.

Yeah.

You know, so do you follow Tim Ferriss very much?

Yeah, yeah, I'm very familiar with him. I was gonna say, 4-Hour Workweek kind of inspired me.

Okay. Yeah, no, I mean, like, he's— I mean, he's, he's a great inspiration for that. I mean, he did something very similar to that. I mean, like, he basically sold his company and then ran another company while he was living around the world.

So, yep, that's awesome, man. Yeah, yep, yeah. Literally sold, threw away, gave away everything I owned and, uh, just went off on a journey for, for 5 years. It was fun.

Wow, dude, we could do a whole podcast on that.

Yes, we could. Maybe we should. Well, listen, uh, thank you so much, uh, for giving us your time, for, uh, you know, helping us understand, uh, this, this new opportunity for, for a lot of our listeners. Um, so, um, look, if, if you're out there and have any other questions, um, just click below in the show notes and you'll see all of the information and, uh, be able to contact, uh, George directly. Um, listen, thank you so very much. Uh, for downloading the episode, for watching it online. Uh, we appreciate you very much. If you haven't already, go ahead and click the like button, subscribe to us, do all the things, leave us a 5-star

rating and review. We would appreciate it very much. George, thank you so much. Hang with us here, uh, after we get done. We would appreciate it. Until next time.

Awesome.

We'll see you later.