Filipino Motivational Speaker in the Philippines

All about Sean Si and his thoughts on entrepreneurship, public speaking and leadership

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Thanks, I Noticed

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Merry Christmas SEO Hacker 2021
Happy Holidays SEO Hackers🙂
 
Another year flew by – and this one much more trying than the last. We have grown our partners of clientele in a way that is unexpected. When 2021 was about to begin, I thought that it would look very much like 2020 where everything shut down and the world came to a standstill for about 3 months.
 
We had much time last year – maybe the most free time we will ever get in our lives.
 
We were dead wrong about our predictions this year as there was much more work to be done compared to last year.
 
We all felt the squeeze, the workload and the stress. Each and every one of us – some more than others – but regardless, more was required of us this year than before.
 
So I just want to write and send this letter out in the event that I might miss our Christmas party due to a client meeting and take the time to tell you all thanks and I noticed.
 
To Yani and all our interns: I hope you have learned and grown with us and I just want to say thank you and I noticed all your help, and assistances in the small but important things.
 
To the blog management team led by Clark: I am pleasantly surprised that the team has never been better. We had the least amount of concerns from your team.  That, and a significant amount of praise and pleasantries from clients as well. For your leadership I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To the blog managers, Mikee and Pat who have managed all of our blogs and articles – a daunting number – like it was a piece of cake: For your consistency, reliability and endless creativity I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To the writers Faye, Dani, Matt and Tyrine: you have been a powerhouse this year. I have yet to have a better writing team than you. For your care for our clientele, your diligence to research and learn about what it is you are actually writing, and for making us look good as a company towards our clients, I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To the linkbuilding team Nikki, Paola, Marian, and Ynna: we have been through difficult patches throughout the pandemic. It might very well be the most badly hit team – and we had to rebuild it (and will continue to strengthen it). For your resiliency, grit and adaptability to change, I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To the specialist team Erika, Jules and Niko: I have given you the map and you found the way for our clients to rank better. I could not be more proud about how this team has grown and improved. For your brilliance in strategy, love for the game of SEO and support for the rest of the team, I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To the web developers and QA’s Vic, Ayam, Genesis, Rei, Jeff, Kiko, Audrey and Andrea: the work is aplenty and it might feel like too much at times. The sacrifices you have made in extending the clock, going the distance and finishing the work in unity is a great example for the rest of us. For your exceptional practice of being a challenger, your sacrifice, and your problem-solving prowess, I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To the web designers Sweet, Pam and Rex: I feel like the impossible is always at reach because of how well and how fast you are able to turn over beautifully designed websites. For your mastery of the arts, your responsiveness to deliver and the way you think ahead for our clients, I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To the project managers Phia and Gail: Silver and gold come from rough ores that need to pass through the fire for them to shine pure and become of great value. You have both passed through fires for sure this year. For your grit, responsiveness to inquiries and support for the accounts and dev teams, I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To the Accounts management team Deanne, Ally, Oreo, Grace and Jaz: Your unrelenting barrage of client calls, viber, whatsapp, telegram, emails, messengers – and everything in between – can be dizzying for sure. Your representation of all of us at SEO Hacker to our clients is something to behold. For your wonderful service to our clients, your ability to juggle numerous simultaneous concerns and tasks, your diplomatic approach to communicate to all involved, I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To Cath who was suddenly left alone as our HR: your courage to brave on with the load of work that has been dumped on you is admirable. It is in these difficult conditions that heroic deeds arise and right now, even if people may not think it – you are a hero to us because you make our lives better whenever we have a successful hire. Cath, I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To V and Ira, heralds of our new inbound marketing team: the boldness to step into the unknown world of SEO, email marketing, CRM, and content marketing is not just uncommon but rare. For your reliability in the projects I have given you, and for your continuous pursuit of growth and experimentation in new fields and tools I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
For the LS GD and SMM team Lara, Peter, George, Jam and Christian: We have grown what started as a small, little project to a sizeable audience. We have delivered value almost a hundred thousand times to numerous people on Spotify and Youtube. I could not be happier and more proud of what we have all been able to accomplish together. For your continuous support of the show, your help in marketing it on social media and your putting up with my voice and face day-in and day-out, I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
To Stephy who I communicate with on a daily basis for all incoming clients (and I don’t really need to write this letter to but I am) – I just want to say thank you for all the little assistances that you help me with🙂 Let’s close more deals next year!
 
To Nim who has brought in new perspective, experience and median age to the team: I look forward to next year when you will be able to increase your momentum in managing our operations as you learn more of how we work, how we think and what we do for our clients. For your effort to grow and learn more about SEO Hacker I just want to say thanks, I noticed.
 
I sincerely hope that I did not miss anyone – and if I did, believe me it was an accident and a mistake and I am grateful and thankful for all of you.
 
As with every year’s passing, I hope that you are closer to what you really want in life – and what God really wants for you as well.
 
Rest assured that I will always do my very best as your leader and CEO to bring you to new heights and growth.
 
God bless you and happy holidays!

How This Plumber Created an Online Business Empire

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How This Plumber Created an Online Business Empire

 

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Excerpt

 

Sean:

I just want to know your entrepreneurial journey. How did you start from being in the plumbing industry? How did you get the idea for buyingonlinebusinesses.com? What inspired you to say, Oh, you know what? I can do much more than this. I can build an online business empire?

Jaryd:

Yeah. So basically, I was plumbing. I got a job straight out of school. Well, I was still in school when I was plumbing. I did three days of school and two days of plumbing per week. All because I was pretty much dumb and I wasn’t very smart when I went to school. And I went into the… I guess dumb is the worst word for it, especially for children, but I went to dumb English and dumb Maths is what they called it.

And so, I just believed that I wasn’t going to do any office work or job and stuff like that. So I went in and started working on the tools. Over that process, I was working big hours– 60 to 70 hour work weeks and commuting in my car an hour to work or an hour and a half to work and then back home again. it was just very tiring. because I worked so much on the weekends, I just kind of wanted to just like get away from that and just started partying and went down a pretty bad track with drinking and doing silly things.

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Over time, I’ve started to save my money as a plumber, and I just really had this massive desire to travel. So I started traveling and went to all this different places around the world and took big, long trips. I would save all my money for a year or more. And then I’d take about six months off and I’d go traveling. Then I’d come home with no money and then do it again. I did that process again and again.

What I realized on one of my trips, I was living in Egypt and I was a divemaster. So I was teaching people to dive and taking them scuba diving around the reef and stuff. And I realize on this trip that “hang on a second, like I’m just running away. I’m just saving my money and I’m running away from the life that I have in Australia.” It wasn’t good. So I really decided I needed to create a new life. I really needed a goal. So my goal was to work out how I could continue doing what I actually love, which is traveling. So I literally typed into Google, Sean “how to travel the world and make money online” which was quite funny. That’s where my journey started.

I started my website business and I didn’t make much more money either. I made a little bit of money, but not much. And that’s because I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t know anything about digital marketing. And from there. I was still working. I went back and working on the tools as a plumber and I came across this stat. And this stat was that 90% of all startups fail.

And I thought, well, hang on a second. I know how to run online businesses now. And I’ve learned so much over the years. Why don’t I go away and buy a website business that’s past that 90% failure rate. Because my other startups were kind of failing and dwindling away.

And so that’s what I did is I typed it into Google again, “how to buy website businesses”. There was not really anybody teaching people how to buy website businesses and do due diligence and the research that you need to do. And the things you need to check off to make sure you buy a good investment.

So I taught myself and I bought a business. And then I bought another one. And from these two businesses, I was making more money than my day job as a plumber. So I quit and I went traveling and I bought another business. And then on my travels, what happened was people like, hang on a second. How come you don’t need to get a job when you go away? Or how come you don’t need to go home and earn some money? And I told them my story and they’re like, wow, you need to teach me how to buy websites. I finished one of my trips and realized that’s what I want to do. I want to help people. That’s where buying online businesses was created.

What Are the Top 5 Books That You Should Read to Become Successful?

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What Are the Top 5 Books That You Should Read to Become Successful?

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Excerpt

 

Apart from CEO at 22, what are the five key books I should read and why?

I recommended How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie last time. So definitely that is one book that I believe everyone should read.

Second would be the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell. I’ve read that I think four times already since I was 12 years old. Fantastic book. Those are the laws of leadership. Leadership is important in all areas of your life.

In your own self-discipline, you have to lead yourself. In your marriage, you have to lead. In your family, you have to lead. If you’re the guy you have to lead with protection, with provisions, with spiritual leadership. If you’re the wife, you have to lead with nurturing, caring, and supporting, honoring, respecting leadership is really just super important and learning the laws behind it that will serve you for the rest of your life.

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Another book that I really love. That I recently read would be Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, the rules of negotiation. It just helped me out because I’m a sales guy and I negotiate. As the CEO, I’m the guy who fixes stuff. There’s something broken or there’s a conflict between people, maybe between client and an account manager. I’m the guy who comes in and tries to fix things. And that involves negotiation. That’s why business people in the Philippines are called negosyante. You have to negotiate. You can’t be a businessman if you can’t negotiate. So that one is a really good book.

Another book would be Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Being a team player is super important for me. That book helped me to learn about what breaks down a team. What makes it dysfunctional and how you can deal with it. It’s such an easy read because Patrick Lencioni writes it in a story narrative where he’s just like narrating a fairy tale, but in kind of a real-life, telenovela kind of way. So you learn the principles as you read the story. And that for me, makes it very easy to read.

Another book would be EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey. Because I’m a businessman and I had to scale up my business. I had to make it bigger. I had to deal with all of the accounting, legal. I have to make processes, train people, improve my hiring processes, improve my firing processes. All of these things that you don’t think about when you’re starting up, because when you’re starting up, all you think about is: How can I improve my cashflow? How can I survive? How can I make revenue greater than my expenses? That book, Entreleadership. is definitely something that I think a lot of people should read. It’s super underrated because not a lot of people know about that book.

The default answer would be the Bible. And I think you might figure that I’m, I’m cheating by giving this answer, but I think it is a book that has changed my life the most. So I’ve read, I’ve read the Bible for 14 times already, and this is my 14th time to read it. I’m in the book of Ezekiel and the principles that I learned there are secondary. What is primary for me is how I am able to listen to God and his will for my life. That for me is life-changing. That for me is super important. That took me from where I was to where I am now.

When I was younger, I said, this doesn’t make sense to give 10% of what you make the God, how can you make more from that? But I fatefully gave my tithes when I finally had my allowance in college. So that was a small amount and I still give my tithes up until now, now that I’m doing business and the revenues is bigger than my allowance and, you know, God has always been faithful.

He has always provided for us. That promise is true. It’s very true in my life. It can be true in yours. That’s why I cannot not include the Bible in the top five books.

How to Motivate Yourself When You’re Down

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How to Motivate Yourself When You're Down

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Excerpt

 

How do you find motivation when times are hard?

To be honest, times are hard right now and it’s tough to find motivation. To be honest, it is. I guess what we can do is to listen to people who are able to make things happen right now. I think that that is one big way to have some motivation in your life. There’s a lot of things to be thankful for.

I listened to a podcast recently. I forgot which one, but what that person did to be motivated is to write down 10 things that he or she would be thankful for that day. And that helps. If there are at least 10 things you’re grateful for or you’re thankful for the day. Write it down or say it out loud that helps to motivate you. No matter how down you are, no matter how out you are, out of the count, it helps to motivate. Because you know that there are things that are good in your life. There are things that you can look forward to in your life. Motivation for me is it’s about contentment and gratitude. It’s not about heights. It’s not about emotion. It stems from contentment and gratitude. So if you are content, you’re thankful, even when times are hard, you can be motivated.

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Do you think there’s always a downside to success?

I do think there’s a downside to success. That’s why there’s a Bible verse:

Pride comes before the fall.

I don’t think you’re going to be proud if you’re not successful in anything. There is that downside to success. The biggest enemy of success is success. Because a lot of companies, when they’re successful already, they stop innovating. They stop experimenting, they stop working hard, they stop doing what made them successful and that causes them to fail. There are a lot of downsides to success. If you’re able to study books like Jim Collins, his book, How the Mighty Fall, you will learn that big companies, how they run their business to the ground is because of ego, pride, and because of their success.

You put it in context. When you said, when you persevere for your dreams, you always have to invest your time. And when you’re a parent, you’re always going to juggle. And sometimes families put aside since the reasoning is we work because of them. Here’s something I learned: when you put God first in your life, remember Matthew 6:33 “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And all of these things will be added to you.”

When you put God first in your life, I learned that success will follow. However you define success to be. It’s true in my life as well. Whenever I don’t put God first, whenever I make a decision ahead of God, I don’t pray about it. I don’t think about what God thinks, it fails.

Success does not follow. Failure follows. Heartaches follow. Headaches follow. But whenever I put God first, I pray about it. I ask my wife what she thinks. I put my family first, success does follow. It may follow suit a lot later, maybe delayed may come a year or two later, but success does follow. Juggling between family and business for me is, is a difficult thing, but it’s a no-brainer when push comes to shove. You have to put family first. It’s hard for you to keep on telling them that, you know, I’m doing this because I love you. I’m doing this because I want to support you, but you lose them along the way because they don’t see you anymore. They don’t hear from you. You don’t spend time with them.

Having to juggle between family and business is like you’re saying that you’re doing the business, you’re investing so much time and effort for the business because of your family, but your family is losing you, then it doesn’t make sense. You have to put your family first. The business will be there. As long as it’s generating positive cashflow, revenue is greater than expenses. You’re okay. You don’t need to sacrifice your family for that. You don’t need to put your family on the altar of your business.

What Qualities Do I Look for in the People I Hang Out With?

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What Qualities Do I Look for in the People I Hang Out With?

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Excerpt

The number one quality is something where they’re more successful or better than me, that I want to be successful or better in. So if, for example, they’re better at me in basketball. I want to hang out with them. If I want to become better with basketball. If they’re better at me with a public speaking or with reading or with selling while on stage, then I would want to hang out with them more because I want to learn that and you can only learn that from people, who are better than you, who are more successful than you. It’s hard to learn it from people who are at the same level as you are and you’re just pushing each other, encouraging each other, and patting each other in the back. Although that helps, but it would be a lot easier and a lot faster and a lot more validated if you learn from people who have gone the way, those are the people I would probably hang out with.

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How do you start a conversation?

Just say hi. I understand that there are people who are sometimes awkward or find it difficult to just find or start a conversation, but it’s going to be weird, if you just chat out of the blue, it’s going to be a little bit weird, but really if you want something so bad, I personally do that because I’m in sales. I’ve been doing sales for a long time since I started business 10 years ago. I had to sell SEO. When you think about it, SEO is not really easy to sell because 10 years ago, people had no idea what SEO is. They’re like “SEO, what’s that?” “search engine optimization? What is that?”

It’s hard to sell SEO. You have to keep on practicing. I’ve been practicing for 10 years. I have my elevator pitch now. it’s easy for me to start a conversation about SEO. But really, if you want to start a conversation with someone, just say, hi. Just let them know what you do or ask them something or give them something of value. That’s the easiest way for me, give them something of value. If you know they’re struggling with something or they want to know something, give them the answer, give them what you think that just enables you to go down a good conversation route.

 

The 3 Things We Look for in a Good Hire

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The 3 Things We Look for in a Good Hire

 

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Excerpt

Do you think emotional quotient is more important than intellectual quotient?

EQ is more important than IQ in doing business. I think EQ is more important than IQ because IQ is a test of what you know not really of how you use what you know. But just what you know. EQ is more of how you use your understanding of other people.

There is no business that is not a people business. All businesses are affected by people. And people are a big factor when you do business. So EQ, knowing how to deal with them, knowing how to understand them, and communication as well and sales are affected by EQ. So I think EQ is a lot more important than IQ in business.

That’s it. Patrick Lencioni mentioned humble, hungry, smart. That’s what they look for in a hire. That’s also something that we look for in SEO Hacker whenever we have to hire someone. How we’re able to look for these things is to ask questions. How do you know when someone’s humble? You ask them, what’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in your past job? You ask them what’s the reason why they left. You ask them what is the biggest thing that disappointed your leaders in your last company? If they’re humble, they will tell you the story.

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Then you have to probe, you cannot take things at face value. You have to ask the same question in different trousers. What that means is when you ask them, is there something that disappointed your leader or your direct leader or your direct report during your tenure, in your past company? And so they tell the story and then you ask, so what did you do to fix that? And then you ask, so what did these people say about you?

Because they can make stories up. They can invent stories. But if you keep on asking these probing questions, pretty much the same question, just ask them a different way or ask in a deeper way. Then they’d have to tell you the story. If there’s inconsistency, you know, that this person is not really that humble because if they were, they would tell you the entire thing. They would have the integrity to tell you the entire thing.

How we measure hungry is we try to figure out if the person really did his or her research. Do they know things about us or not? Are they from a rich background or not? Are they here for just a couple of months and then will they leave? Will they just try to learn from us, make us a stepping stone? We cannot grow with people who are mercenaries. We cannot grow with people who are just going to make us stepping stones, it can be a good trade. Six months of work, six months off this amount of salary. It could be a good trade in some cases, but most cases, we would rather hire someone who is going to play and work with us long term.

That means they have to be hungry enough. Usually, we check the person’s background. What do their parents do? Are their parents working or are they retired? Are they married? Do they have kids? Are there other people depending on them? How hungry is this person? Will this person choose their job or pick jobs or say, that’s not my job? Will this person have a winning attitude, a winning drive?

Because usually, in basketball, the center player does not tell the point guard that it’s not their job to dribble the ball and vice versa. The point guard doesn’t tell the center player, it’s not my job to rebound the ball.

Why? Because they play to win. If you play to win, you’re not going to tell the other people in your team, that’s not my job. People who are not hungry enough will say, “that’s not my job”, somewhere in their tenure with you.

Smart. Lastly, we see smart, easier, because for me, if it can not be straight in the eye during the interview, if you don’t know how to answer my questions during the interview or if you don’t have questions after all the interviews and I ask you, do you have questions for me?

If you don’t have questions, usually I consider that it’s not being smart enough because you should have questions, right. For me, for the company, because you don’t know so much about us and you should know you should be curious enough. To be able to relate with us better. You should ask questions. So that’s another thing that I’m looking at whenever I interview someone.

Your Winning Templates for CEO at 22 Giveaway

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Hi {!firstname_fix},
 
I want to make it really easy for you to get more entries at the CEO at 22 book giveaway.
 
So I prepared templates for you to use. These templates tell a little bit about the book without giving it all away.
 
You can share it on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram along with your lucky URL:
 
Template 1: The Failure to Success
“From a guy who almost got kicked out of college due to failing units, to CEO of 4 tech companies. Read his story through the book CEO at 22. Get your free hard copy today! https://sean.si/giveaways/ceo-22 #ceoat22”
 
Template 2: Computer Games Addict
“This guy played DOTA almost 8 hours a day everyday. He skipped classes and consequently failed a lot. But he is now CEO of 4 tech companies. Read his story through the book CEO at 22. Get your free hard copy here: https://sean.si/giveaways/ceo-22 #ceoat22”
 
Template 3: 4 Companies from 1,300 Pesos
“This guy started his company from 1,300 pesos. Now he is running 4 tech companies at the same time. Read his story through the book CEO at 22. Get your free hard copy here: https://sean.si/giveaways/ceo-22 #ceoat22”
 
IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to replace the URL with your lucky URL!
 
That’s it! It’s as easy as copying those templates and pasting it in your social media accounts.
 
Hope you win!
 
Sean Si
CEO, SEO Hacker and Qeryz
Serial Entrepreneur, Author, Blogger and Motivational Speaker
 
P.S. Don’t forget to use our Hashtag #ceoat22

 

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20 Winners for CEO at 22 Book

By Sean Leave a Comment

You’re in and you have a stake at winning the CEO at 22 Book Giveaway!
 
What now?
 
Well April 28 is fast approaching.
 
And I’m writing to you just to tell you that you need to get up and WIN this thing!
 
Why is April 28 so important again?
 
Well, for one: I’m going to be ending the CEO at 22 book giveaway on that day.
Another reason is that I’m going to be picking the 20 lucky winners of the CEO at 22 Giveaway on that day.
 
So what?
 
So you may want to increase your chances of winning the book! I checked your entries and you could significantly increase it by sharing your lucky URL with your friends on Facebook or Twitter or even Instagram!
 
I lost my lucky URL
 
Okay, okay, don’t panic. Go through your email inbox and search for the email that has the title “Confirm your entry for “CEO at 22 Giveaway”
 
You will find your lucky URL there. Share it, get 15 more entries per person who enters the contest through your lucky URL.
 
 
It’s dead simple.
 
Go share and win {!firstname_fix}!
Sean Si
CEO, SEO Hacker and Qeryz      
 
P.S. If you’re sharing this on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, I’d love to know! Use our Hashtag #ceoat22

 

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