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Excerpt

This is a reverse-guesting episode where I was interviewed about my experiences as a seasoned digital marketer, entrepreneur, and leader, and how the skills I’ve learned can be applied to other industries.

KC is the international executive property officer of SMDC. KC has been doing real estate for 4 years now. She has also been training brokers abroad for just about a year now.

What are your views on Real Estate Investments?

Real estate is one of the best investments that you can have but it’s capital intensive. The common kinds of real estate include condominium units and houses and lots. I personally am more fond of houses and lots because condominiums, after 50 years, we know that it will go back to the corporation by right. I prefer land banking because it has no expiry, the house and lot will be mine until I sell it, even if it lasts even more than 50 years.

For me, a house and lots are a better investment. I would have bought and rented out one already if I had the capital. That way I would get passive income from rent, and property prices will be rising depending on where you buy the lot.

There are pros and cons to real estate investment, however.

The cons include the need to have a lot of capital to do it. If you’re going to loan from the bank and you didn’t get a good rate out of that loan, then it will be difficult for you in terms of the interest rate. You will be earning less than if your interest rates weren’t that high.

In terms of the pros, it’s very good because not only will you get dividends from the rentals; your investments are also growing because of the property value.

How do you manage your appointments when you also have a lot of other responsibilities?

You can’t make time. You have 24 hours a day. That’s how God created time. I don’t have one hour more than you, nor do you have one hour more than me. The best way to “make” more time is to prioritize.

Before, there was no such thing as priorities. Only a priority– it’s singular. That’s because you can’t have multiple priorities. If everything is urgent, then nothing is. If everything is important, then nothing is. You cannot have many priorities. You can only have one, maybe two.

The rest of the things that you want to do, you have to delegate them. I always say “buy other people’s time”. That’s why you should have a team.

For example, here at SEO Hacker, we are a 50 man team. There are so many people here that are working to help each other out. If we were less than 50 now and we’re serving the same number of clients, then we will have less time because we will work overtime every day.

How I prioritize the appointments, the meetings, all of the stuff that I need to do is through delegating and prioritizing.

How will you attract new clients? What are the most effective advertising techniques? Can you please explain how you can use social media to promote products properly?

With SEO Hacker, how we do it is by ranking first for the most difficult keyword in the country which is seo Philippines. It’s the most difficult keyword because all of the other Filipino SEO companies are fighting for that keyword. That is our holy grail.

We have other keywords similar to that as well. Since we rank for it, people easily find us. Since they’re already interested in SEO, that’s why they searched for it, they go to our site, they fill-up the form, they become a lead and we get in touch with them, set a meeting then close the deal.

I don’t really advertise since we rank for it already. That is how we generate most of our revenue. SEO is a huge part of our business. Other things we do are we get referrals from clients, I also have very good branding in terms of being an expert in SEO and the digital marketing industry. I’ve spoken in a lot of events so some people would just contact me and ask if I can do work or consultations for them. If they like it, then they’ll proceed to sign a contract with us.

There are different channels and funnels of leads that we get our deals and sales from.

In terms of Facebook advertising, yes, we have an advertisement going on called Honoring Filipino Greats, but it has nothing to do with SEO and selling SEO. it is an advertisement to honor some Filipino founded companies that we are partnered with. They are our clients. We serve them, and we love that they are Filipino founded.

We celebrate Filipino entrepreneurs and Filipino entrepreneurship. The focus of that ad is not to get a return on investments, it’s not to get leads and sales. It’s just used to honor them to create more awareness.

The problem with advertising is that a lot of people, especially small to medium entrepreneurs think that since they pay a lot for it, they should get some leads from it. Advertisements are more about branding and awareness. It’s rarely about leads and ROI. at its core, ads are outbound. They distract people from what they’re doing.

For example, when you go on Youtube, within the content that you want to watch, there are ads. You don’t want to watch the ads, but since they’re in the middle, you’re forced to watch, even if it’s skippable. Usually, people just skip them because they’re not interested in the ad.

Advertising is usually treated as a big stew. People want so much to happen from just one advertisement. It’s like you’re a chef that gets all of the ingredients and throws them into a boiling pot. You mix it and you feed it to your people. The stew that you make won’t taste nice because you just got all the ingredients and threw them all into what you would call a stew.

Good stew is made when you choose your ingredients from a recipe and follow it.

A lot of big companies treat is as just a big stew that ends up tasting bad in the end.

The ads that we have on Facebook are not for leads or sales. They’re for branding and awareness and honoring our clients.

Relating it to Ms. KC’s situation, Social media is not an advertising platform. You didn’t join Facebook because of the ads. You joined it for friends, relationships, and memories. Things that matter to you.

If that’s how you want to use Facebook, wouldn’t it be the same for other people? It doesn’t have to be a Facebook ad to be an ad, it could be just you advertising what you’re selling. Some people don’t want to see that.

If you post about stuff that matters to other people, then they will start to notice you, then you can sell it to them. First, however, you have to give them value about your expertise.

For example, our sit down consultation and mentoring sessions right now. If this is valuable to you and you become the vice president of a certain company, you might require SEO. who will be the first person that you will remember?

This is how I advise people to do it. Provide value first to other people who post stuff that they find meaningful, valuable, and enriching to their life. And then you can start a conversation with them about whatever it is that you are peddling.

Do you prefer working independently or as a part of a group?

Naturally, since I’m an introvert, I prefer working independently. That’s what my instinctive behavior is. But I also found out that if I do everything on my own, the efficacy will be small. I won’t be able to grow bigger than that. This is a problem because I don’t want to still be working when I’m old and grey. I want to replicate myself to other people so that they can replicate themselves to other people. Us as a group will be able to produce a lot more, leading to me being able to retire earlier.

I want to write 100 books when I’m retired. For me to achieve this goal, I need time. That’s why I want to retire earlier. If I can’t retire earlier, then I will never be able to write 100 books. This is because I need to be able to work deeply for them. We only have around 3 hours of deep work per day. It doesn’t get any more than that. Deep work is when you’re creative juices are flowing and you are writing and communicating very well.

For me to achieve a state of deep work, usually I need at least an hour of quiet time, meditating, and focusing on the screen. After that 1 hour of quiet time, I spend three hours in deep work. That means I would finish a book after around 1 or 2 months, and then editing happens.

For me to do this, it will take time. For me to achieve this, I cannot work independently, even if I like doing that better. I need to work with a team. That is the only way I can achieve the big picture goal in my life.

The reason why I want to write a hundred books is to influence people that there are ways to do things in our world today instead of surrendering to the corruption, surrendering to the extortion, to the dirtiness of business and employment. I want to write about these things. These will live beyond my years on earth. Writing is very important to me because it is my first passion. It’s the reason why I founded SEO Hacker, through my original Christian blog. I want to continue doing that.

This year, I can do that more by raising more leaders in the team. I first need to establish the team in terms of their leadership capabilities, their sacrificial commitment to the company and each other, and their servant leadership. If that has been established, then I can take a step back and work deeply in my books.

I just finished writing my second book, though I’m not done with the editing yet. It will take some time before it goes out to publishing. How I’m able to do that is by raising more leaders in the team, though admittedly they’re still not enough. One of my projects this year is to do a lot of seminars, at least 10 leadership development seminars for our team, internally at Workplays . It won’t be available to the public because it’s for our team, but it’s a program that I’ve developed here. It’s just a one-hour seminar including recall sessions, for facilitation.

That would increase the number of leaders in our team. Once that has increased, I will be able to do more deep work, more editing, and a better overall publication– leading to a book that will outlive me and reach more people than I can ever do.

I prefer leaving a legacy.

How can I have that security from all the competitors I have since there are a lot of sellers and developers? How do you think I can manage that?

This is just like how I share all of my talks publicly. I’m not insecure about it all even if other speakers do copy it or incorporate it into their material. Even if they don’t give proper credits, that’s fine for me.

It’s fine because, at the end of the day, I know that it’s not my bread and butter, and they will never be able to deliver it just like how I do. I use the Lessing method so most of my presentations would have over a hundred slides. It’s a very presentation-based method rather than just a few slides where speakers talk a lot. I try to engage everything, visually, body language, facial expressions, tone of voice– I use everything to try and influence their memory retention. They will not be able to do how I do it because they will be doing it their own way. They won’t just change to fit my own material.

That’s why people still get me even if I have a lot of materials published out there. Some of them even want to use the same exact material to be presented by me for their events. It’s amazing how many people will get you just because you give free stuff.

For you, always remember that there are some things that only you can deliver in a certain way. You have to make that known. You show people your style, be it an extra level of care, or your standards are through the roof. You are different from the rest.

You have to make sure that the world knows that. Bear in mind that you are different from your competitors. In fact, you are all unique. What you do will never be the same as how other real estate brokers do it.

You need to market the unique selling propositions that you have and that only you can do. If you’re able to see clearly what these are, then you will know yourself better. You should then market yourself that way.