All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
I just wanna go through some of the things
that might help you with your visions.
Hey, what's up everybody?
And welcome into Vision Pros Live.
I'm your host, Jackson Callum.
A big shout out to our sponsors, Aepiphanni and Able Health.
I'm gonna make that quick today.
We're gonna move right into the water project.
It's one that I love to talk about the most.
Everybody knows that.
Rick and Dr. Seth Gates also know
that their respective companies.
I don't know why, just hit me hard right now.
I know there's so many people on this earth
who don't have access to clean drinking water.
And that just kinda like tears me up.
It's like, man, why can't we make more time in our life
and dedicate a little bit more resources
to helping people who are missing out
on the most basic needs?
The water project's a great thing to check out.
Go and give a dollar to it.
I'm gonna always make sure that we're doing our part
to lift those up in the world
who don't have access to the same resources that we do.
Now, without further ado,
I'm gonna bring on a guest named David Ramos.
And David is also one of those resources
that brings, in my opinion, the living waters, so to speak,
waters that can help you with your brand.
Things about research, things about,
not trends, but he calls them threads.
Ways to connect with the market
in ways that you're likely overlooking, you and me both.
I caught some flaws in my own marketing
as I was just reading through one
of his super extensive posts on finances
and not the trends.
Again, the threads that are happening behind the scenes.
He's very great at research.
That comes from years of working behind the scenes
with professors at university for more than 10 years.
And also he's got two master's degrees,
one of which he earned in less than 100 days,
which I think is pretty cool.
And he's done SEO for an enterprise company
that he had a half a million dollar budget
to compete with multi-billion dollar companies
on SEO and content creation.
And in addition to that, he's also had a YouTube channel
where he was teaching people and probably other channels.
Let me not box him in too much,
but he's doing tutorials on a software called Kajabi,
which was able to help him make over $40,000
on those tutorials.
And he's got this simplicity about his style
and how he teaches that I hope that you appreciate
as much as I do.
And I'm really excited to bring him on
and pick his brain about how he's gotten to where he's at
and how all of these subjects can tie back
to what you're doing with your vision today.
So without further ado, David,
thank you so much for joining me
and I'm glad we finally got to catch up.
Absolutely, thank you so much, Jackson.
I'm so happy to be here.
Absolutely, so here's our background story, guys.
When we were at the Kajabi event,
Kajabi had just launched this wall for me.
I was new to it.
I was what I call a Kajabi hermit.
And I hadn't known about the community.
And so I get into this community and they gamified it.
So people are connecting.
And then there was a couple of people who said,
Jackson, you need to be David.
And you guys gotta catch up with each other.
And so at the conference,
somebody pulled me and a David together
and I thought I met him.
I did, I met the wrong but the right David, another David.
And this is our actual first interaction
that lasted longer than 15 seconds, probably.
Exactly.
So I'm happy to have you here.
Like I said, I read through your article
on the financial landscape and what's going on.
And I was just like, whoa,
this guy has maintained what he's learned
from his master's degree and is actually like applying it
in the real world of research.
So how does that relate to entrepreneurs
who should be listening right now?
Why should they listen to you?
And what are they going to get out
of today's discussion with me?
So I think the people who should be listening today
feel like the market that they want to enter
is too crowded for what they want to do.
And so what I'm hoping to show them
by the end of this episode is that that's not true.
That there's plentiful opportunity out there
and that the opportunity that's right for you
likely hasn't even been tapped yet.
Awesome.
And so one of the things that you shared with me on that,
I think you hit it right at the beginning of that,
but I'm gonna reiterate it.
Going all in on your thing.
I love the way that you talk about that.
What I get out of that is I gotta own the value
that I know that I have and not allow the world
to distract me from that value
or tell me that that value is not good enough.
What, can you speak to that?
The way you word it is perfect.
So a phrase I throw around a lot
is that you don't need to find your next big thing.
You need to make your thing big.
And so the context that makes that true
is that A, what is the value bring
just need to be connected with the right audience
and it needs to be packaged in the right way.
And there's lots of ways to do that.
And so often we limit what we're trying to do
so that it fits a pre-made mold
of what we've already seen done.
And there's a lot of issues with that
just because you're not like the people
who are probably doing the thing that you wanna do
in the way that they're doing it.
You are your own person.
You have your own background, unique molding of skills.
And so what I'm trying to do with my writing and research
and the companies I've supported is just saying,
hey, let's take the pieces that you do have
and find a way to assemble them
to match what the market needs
instead of constantly going out
and trying to add to the already full bucket that you have.
I love that.
So you're saying that if I shoot the basketball
just like LeBron James does,
I might not get the same results that LeBron has.
Exactly.
But you might be the perfect person
to teach people in your community
how to shoot the basketball like LeBron does
because they're never gonna get a chance to meet LeBron.
But maybe you have a unique way
of understanding his skillset
and then translate that and so on.
But that's just a way of bridging the gap.
That's something I try to do.
Well said.
And so we're talking about the virtue and value of modeling,
right, of learning from those who go before us,
but also making sure that we create space
for what it is we're meant to do.
How do you do that?
Let's say that there's people listening right now
who you're an entrepreneur
and you think you're on the right track.
You might feel that way
and you've been subject to many opinions out there
and maybe you've made shifts
that you're subconsciously unaware of.
And so how do you open somebody's mind and heart
to realizing that in a way that's safe
and allows them to really latch on to that concept
and run with their big thing?
Yeah, yeah, you're asking the hard questions.
These are questions that I wrestle with myself.
These are hard for me.
That's why I'm like, let me put them on David.
Yeah, yeah.
So I can speak to what has worked to me
is that I have a few core things
of how I wanna spend my day
and the types of people I wanna help.
And so I have tried to build a business
that incentivizes those two things.
So I've tried to build a business
that A, incentivizes me to write deeply
because that's what I enjoy
and incentivizes me to work with solopreneurs,
the creator economy and so on
because those are the people I wanna spend time with.
And so there are ways I could monetize my writing
and research that are very valuable
outside of those two domains,
but I would be incentivized to not work with those people
or to not do my own writing and so on.
And so I think for those of you
who might be stuck in this route where like,
I know I can make money in this way,
but this isn't how I wanna spend my time.
This is how I wanna spend my time.
Well, you need to spend more brain power
figuring out how can you incentivize yourself
so that you are pushed to spend time that way
and able to monetize it in a way that also satisfies others.
There that you have to go into it
with the belief that that exists.
I did not always have that belief.
My undergrad was in classical and medieval studies.
So a degree that you tell people you got a degree in that
and they're like, oh, okay, so you're gonna be a garbage man
or these jobs that maybe,
there's not really a clear path
in what you do with classical studies.
I would have a guest librarian.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And so I went into my career believing
I'm not gonna be able to make money writing.
That's probably not gonna happen.
So I need to find other ways to make money.
And so here I am 15 years later,
oh, I can actually make a lot of money writing.
That was just a belief I had to change
and then incentivize the model to charge that.
Dude, well said.
It reminds me of an old friend of mine.
I haven't talked in almost eight to 10 years, Tom Richie.
Tom Richie has a YouTube channel.
I hope he still has it.
I was working with Video Power at the time
and he had just crossed the line with them
of making more money through his YouTube channel,
teaching AP US history through YouTube
than he did as a teacher.
And so he was on the super high of course of like,
wow, cool, this is real
and I can inspire others to do this and stuff.
And so he reminds me again of what you're talking about,
being able to take what others have said,
no, that's not possible.
No, you're not gonna be able to do that.
And he took his big thing and he put it online
and he made it happen.
So I'm gonna shift personally here.
David, what is your vision?
Normally we put a 15 seconds on this,
but what's your vision for you moving forward?
That's a great question.
So my vision for me is to create a market research resource
for the creator economy.
So if you are a person who is learning
how to build something online and monetize it,
you're going to find the answers that you need
in what I create.
I love it.
Okay, and so the creators that I know out there,
they don't usually have the gift of research, right?
That is something that most people don't understand.
Or enjoy.
Or enjoy, right.
And so if you don't enjoy it,
then you're not gonna wanna do it.
And if you don't understand it,
then it's just gonna make you,
it's gonna make you feel bottlenecked and trapped.
And at the same time, that's probably one of the greatest,
I don't even think it's a kept secret.
I think it's one of the greatest tactics, strategies,
realizations that Mr. Beast knows, Mark Rober knows,
anybody you can think of,
whoever your favorite YouTube celebrities are,
influencers out there that have grown,
they are kings and queens of research in many respects.
So what are some of the bite size ways that,
let's talk about the vision for those you serve.
How do they start diving into doing research
the right way or understanding
what the value is of what you do?
Absolutely.
So I think the core of that message,
so why would you even bother doing research
in the first place,
is that you don't need to find the next big thing.
You just need to go all in on your thing.
So that acts as a filter to say,
okay, I'm not entering the internet space
to find answers to a million questions.
I have one question.
I want to make this business model work.
I want to make this website a success.
Okay, now how do I start from there?
So right off the bat,
if I'm gonna give two tactical tips,
one thing that I know most people never engage with
because it's still kind of a relatively new area
is called audience research.
So the tool called SparkToro and super useful
if you are entering a niche and don't have a good grasp
of what that landscape looks like.
So a tool like SparkToro will give you,
enter a keyword like creator economy, for example.
And I'm going to see the top hundred podcasts,
the top hundred Twitter accounts,
the top hundred Facebook influencers
and Instagram influencers.
I'm gonna see what websites people visit the most.
And so that's gonna be a great starting point to be like,
okay, who do I need to follow?
Who do I need to talk to?
What topics are they talking about?
What hashtags are trending?
And so that's just gonna give me the data I need
to start creating what I call
a revenue driven content strategy.
So I'm going to understand what am I,
ultimately, what am I gonna charge for?
And then work backward, what are people interested in?
And then build that bridge.
Oh, that's fantastic.
I was being a nerd the other night.
It was like two in the morning, I should have gone to bed.
And I wanted to watch a movie.
And I ended up watching some YouTube on expanding,
like how to use Twitter or something like that.
So I'm diving in and they brought SparkTor off as well.
And I got to see that, how they were using it
to enhance their Twitter strategy.
And I was like, wow, cool.
So I took some screenshots rather, some pictures of my TV
and started sending them over to the team.
So I'm glad you mentioned, I've seen it too.
I was like, wow, this is actually a really cool tool.
I hadn't explored that one yet.
So yeah, dive in, play with it.
Get familiar with the different type of tools
you have out there.
And you said revenue-driven content strategy.
Words that are not combined often enough
in the marketplace.
Detail Publishing calls it profitable publishing.
Right, again, two words that should be combined
more often than they are in terms of strategy.
So revenue-driven content strategy.
What does that look like in the creator economy?
How are people going about doing that?
Yeah, a few things.
One of my core beliefs that I think people can miss
because it's not the loudest voice in the room
is that authority is more valuable than virality.
So we see a lot of viral creators or sites and so on
getting millions of views, millions of page views,
so on and so forth.
What we don't see on the backend
is that a lot of these people have a lot of difficulty
capturing that value.
So I personally know TikTok people with 200, 250,000
followers on that platform who struggle
to clear $100 a month just because they don't have
a clear way of capturing the value of that audience.
And then I just read like in the SEO world,
there was this basically website about classical music.
Not a very big website, got maybe 60,000 page views a month.
For context, most large websites you know
are getting several million.
Yeah, several million.
So my website might be getting about 100, right?
And everybody else out there that's listening
is probably getting a couple thousand,
but at 60,000, you're not crushing it.
No, you're not crushing it.
Not from a virality standpoint, as big as that may feel,
just kind of helping you see over the horizon.
That does not mean instant millionaire status.
No, but-
But you're making a great point about authority right now.
Yeah, because they just got acquired
for several seven figure deal
because of the authority they've established in that space.
And so, when I think about helping people build
a revenue driven content strategy,
what I'm helping them understand
is that first goal is authority.
You want to, you don't need to be the biggest name
in the space.
You need to be one of the most trusted.
And one of the easiest ways to do that
is use a tool like HRS or Sumrush,
find the top 50, top 100 most asked questions in your niche
and just spend time answering them.
Each one in depth,
doesn't matter if it's been answered by a thousand others.
It hasn't been answered by you.
It hasn't been answered in the way you see that topic.
And so these are like those core foundational tips
that once you do that,
you're gonna stand head and shoulders above the rest.
And they're so simple that people are like,
why am I gonna waste my time?
And like, I have a shoe business and like,
how to tie your shoes.
I'm not gonna write an article about that.
No, you should, you should make a video, write an article.
These things are little droplets of trust
that build up over time.
Well, blew my mind.
Okay, it's written right here guys.
Homework, right, homework.
Top 100 questions by SEMrush.
You mentioned one of their platform.
What was it?
Ahrefs though, ahrefs.
People say it different ways,
but A-H-R-E-F-S.
If you basically, if SEMrush had like a nerdy cousin,
that too would be.
And so people in the SEO space are very passionate
about which one they use.
I'm an ahrefs guy over SEMrush, but they're both.
How long I've been out of the SEO game.
So there's that.
I got guys like you to help me with that.
So, but that's, and you just, you just did,
you just threw it down.
So we like to teach similar concept
and that is make sure you're paying attention
to the frequently asked questions.
Exactly.
Right, and you have that list.
You frequently ask questions.
What people ask most frequently
are also called your buyer's questions, right?
And that means that if you can get those addressed
on the front end before somebody talks to you,
that builds that ability for them to start to know you
and to start to like you.
And like David's talking about,
then you start to establish trust when they say,
wow, that resonates with me.
The way that you said it, the way that you framed it,
combined with your other questions and answers,
it allows people to feel much more comfortable
deciding they wanna work with you.
Yes, with like, that's a perfect example.
So one of the stories I like to tell people
is there's a pool company.
I can't remember the exact name.
It's very well known in the space,
but he was one of the first chains to use SEO
to grow his neighborhood pool business.
And so he created a bunch of articles over two years
and started to see sales like really pick up.
And then one day he had a guy come in
and go through his Google analytics with him.
He was like, hey, do you know how much content
people are consuming before they schedule a call
to talk about the pool?
He was like, well, my articles are like really in depth.
That's like two, 3000 words each about some fact.
And so they went and they looked at the analytics
and he was assuming people are gonna read
two to three articles and schedule a call.
The analyst guy showed they're reading 47 on average.
So we underestimate the volume of content we need
to have the success we're after.
And like that's such a clear example I try to tell people
like you need more content for people to expose to
before they have that trust,
before they're gonna have that action.
And so you answering 50 to a hundred questions
is just a baseline of getting people
to even take that first step with you
whatever that may be.
You're hitting it.
And I don't know whether to call it a trend or a thread.
You can educate me as we go.
Sure.
But I would say one of the things that I've noticed
one of my hypothesis is that has exponentially risen
since COVID again, not to beat the COVID horse to death.
That's done.
But people became more isolated,
less likely to engage with each other, masked up.
Like I'm the guy loves to say hi to people
but it was awkward when you're under a mask
and when other people are.
So what we're seeing on our side from a sales standpoint
is that people are coming in due to automation,
due to COVID, due to who knows what else
far more apprehensive and not ready to engage
in a one-on-one conversation.
Have you been doing any research in that space yet?
That's a great, that is a great.
I have not, I don't have hard data to show for that
but like just in a baseline,
like I agree from what I've seen too.
I think there is a clear before and after for COVID
in terms of what sites have been successful
and what sites haven't been.
And I think, we touched on briefly
my article on finance, personal finance.
There's a clear before and after.
That article's mind-blowingly.
Thank you.
I loved it.
I was like, this is so good.
So if you could pull it up, that'd be great.
For people who haven't read that, let me give you the TLDR.
So basically within the last three years,
the top 10 personal finance sites have lost anywhere
from 60 to 80% of their overall traffic.
And one of my-
Say that again, say that one more time.
Sure.
So over the last three years,
the top 10 personal finance blogs have lost anywhere
from 60 to 80% of their overall traffic.
Oh.
That's massive.
So we're talking about revenue.
We're talking about several million dollars in loss
for each one probably.
And so one of my beliefs is that attention
doesn't disappear, it's just reallocated.
And so I went looking for where that attention went.
We're talking about five, 10 million questions a month,
not being answered by the same people
that they were four years ago.
They're being answered by someone else.
And so what I found was a lot of this attention
shifted to social media influencers and also small blogs
who are more focused on the lower end
of the economic spectrum.
So people are struggling financially,
that's reflected in the types of questions they're asking.
And so there's this huge opportunity
for traditional personal finance to just adjust the way
and the topics they addressed and then get some of that-
You say adjust.
I'm gonna pick on you for that one.
Sure.
Go ahead though.
Yeah, but I like, and there's lots of opportunities
like that, like every time there's a change
or you see attention leaving one platform,
it's going somewhere else, something is happening
and there's an opportunity there.
There is.
And so is that something that you guide people through?
I feel like a leading question,
but like if somebody wanted to hire you
to help with the research process
and all of assessing that, is that,
are you on the market for that or-
I am not currently.
I definitely get the question a lot,
but right now my focus is on writing this type of research
so that I can reach a broader audience.
I think, you know, when I have done freelance SEO
work in the past, we're talking several thousand dollars
per engagement, you know, on a long-term contract.
And most people can't hire me for that.
You know, most starting entrepreneurs don't have four grand
to help me come in and help them get started
on the right direction.
But a lot of them do have several hundred dollars
to read something that can help them avoid a lot of mistakes
and save a lot of time.
Nice, okay.
So are you working on the scalable model of you right now?
Yes, a hundred percent.
So I am, you know, I am creating two assets right now
that I'm hoping will lead to more down the road.
I'm creating a weekly newsletter called Class Notes.
It's basically a byproduct of the long form essays
and reports that I'm writing.
So I'm trying to remember what the last one was about.
I've been writing them all week.
So the first one was about creators
versus users on a platform.
And so, you know, we all hear about like,
oh, Instagram has X amount of users
or TikTok just surpassed a billion users.
But in terms of actual audience growth
and interaction and engagement,
that number means nothing for most people.
The matters are the people who are actually posting videos,
adding comments, interacting,
because if you're trying to build a audience,
get customers and stuff,
you want people who are actually using the platform
to do something,
because then you're more likely to connect
and build that relationship and so on.
And so that newsletter, and then every week,
it's basically diving into some small aspect
from the larger reports
and hopefully giving people an actionable tip.
So yeah, and then the reports are once a month,
deep dives into something related to the creator economy
that's a clear gap for people to exploit.
Okay, do people have the opportunity to like,
you have like a poll or something that helps guide
what you're gonna talk about?
My poll right now is just LinkedIn direct messages.
I probably get like 20 or 30 a day
and just lots of conversations
and the conversations that keep happening.
People that are listening can reach you there.
On LinkedIn, you're cool with that?
Yeah, I'm cool with that.
So send me a message.
So I can ask you for things and all that.
Exactly, yeah, because I have a notion doc right now
with probably the next, I don't know,
maybe 50 or so ideas that I have.
And those come straight from questions people have asked me.
I have one for you if that's okay.
Absolutely.
This is cool, I got that VIP seat.
Yes, you do.
For this process, just by hosting you.
So I've got a client and her name's Jennifer.
She's got a book program called Music Helps Me Learn.
And it's helping infants, toddlers, two to three,
actually learn to read.
I'll learn the basic three steps of reading at those stages
through the music and the book combination, right?
Now, I'm asking partly just as a nerdy scientist guy too,
like, okay, I've seen a shift take place with COVID
and kids as well.
You know, my child was born during COVID.
Congratulations.
Thank you, my fourth.
And so, and I've got four kids, three that were older.
Social skills were certainly affected
by the enclosure that took place.
And then you've got, I've got one child who grew up
watching everybody with masks
for the first two years of her life.
And what types of educational research trends
would we likely overlook?
You know, there's the basics.
We can Google stuff, we can ask people, you know,
but what are some of the things that deeper dives
that you would say, Jackson, don't forget to do this.
Jennifer, don't forget to take a look at this.
As we make sure that we're preparing them
to get those books into daycares.
And of course, in the hands of moms and dads too,
to engage with their children.
And you know, what would we do to make sure
we're up to the speed with your research styles?
Yeah, yeah.
So I have a lot of questions to offshoot on that.
So a few questions I might start with are, you know,
what kind of, is this children of all abilities
who are gonna be able to read with this program?
Is it specializing in children
who might have more difficulties than others?
Is it children on the other side of the spectrum
who have already shown some advanced skillsets?
So I think that'd be a question
so we can kind of help narrow that down.
Another question would be the age range of those children
to get really specific down to the, you know,
are we talking about-
Down to the month.
Yeah, exactly.
Like 12 to 18 month, month 14, month 15,
like where are we talking about?
And then from there, question I might go next to is,
okay, who are the influencers for the children
at that stage?
You know, what YouTube channels are they watching?
Just to get an idea of how does that entertainment style
influence the product that you're making?
Like, and then who are the influencers for the parent
who are the target market?
Whether or not that, whether or not their content
is parenting related.
I think that's important.
People get stuck thinking, oh, I'm selling a book to parents.
I have to find other parenting blogs.
You could find cooking blogs that specifically target
to budget minded parents.
They're probably on a budget
because they just added a fourth kid
and now they're trying to understand, you know,
food bills went up a little bit.
How do I-
Always on a budget when you have children.
Always.
Exactly.
Or exercise blogs that focus on, you know, mothers
post pregnancy who are trying to get their body back.
Like that's a niche.
And so I would think about the areas that serve that
that aren't directly related.
And then from there, I'd probably do some of that
top hundred questions we've talked about.
What are the questions people have
when they're trying to get their infants to read early?
This sounds like a problem that people have been facing
for a long time.
How can we address those questions in some way, shape
or form through social media, blog content,
so on and so forth.
And then also use those questions to inform our marketing.
And so, yeah, I feel like that's a good starting point.
And then you just kind of follow the threads from there.
I love it.
So yeah, once you've defined that audience more clearly
then it's much easier to go about figuring out
what the questions are that they have.
If you start too broad, you know, to begin with
and then the questions you're getting, you know,
it's a hundred questions may sound like a lot
but it's amazing how fast, you know,
you can have 100 questions about Scott's toilet paper.
Yes.
You know, like that one, that one roll of toilet paper
you can come up with a hundred questions.
Yeah.
And if you spend a day, one, answer one question a day
in depth, right?
In three months, you could have the most authoritative site
or social platform for that topic.
It's, we're not talking about three years of development.
We're talking about, you know, a fast.
Right.
I'm with you on that because, and it really,
it's symptomatic.
Maybe that's not the word, but it's representative
of the market we live in,
which doesn't tend to gravitate towards,
I would say a lot of the market is manipulating authority.
Yeah.
I don't know if that's fair to say,
but that's what I would say.
Is I see a lot of manipulation of the market taking place
where people are demanding that they have authority
or trying to force the issue of authority
rather than actually doing the research
that gives them strength without force, right?
The ability to be strong without making it
so boldly well-known.
I don't know. How would you frame that?
I feel like you're on the right track.
Authority is something earned, not taken.
And so when you, you know, this is why people often hate
on paid advertising because, you know,
it obviously makes money,
but people don't always like to be sold that way,
but give a blog that they've been reading for a year,
they'll pay for your course in a heartbeat
because you've earned that.
And so obviously like there's a big time difference there
and so on, but the more you can do to be that trusted figure
and show up more often and you know,
that authority is like, it pays the bills.
Yeah, like the more you love that.
So we actually, you and I get to combine now
on a contrarian notion, which is that of advertising.
You describe advertising was most people know it.
That's the problem is when people are trying to advertise
in a way that sells and convinces.
Right.
Elon Musk just last week posted,
maybe it's been two weeks, my weeks go super fast,
but he posted about an ad done by Vogue
that blew his mind.
And keep in mind, Elon Musk does not advertise.
Right.
They have zero budget, zero advertising budget at Tesla.
They've done everything through PR, marketing and media.
Like that's how they choose to grow.
What he was talking about was when you use,
when you utilize advertising with the same respectful
constraints that a natural conversation, that an authentic,
like you said, what did you say about authority?
You said it really clearly, I loved it.
It's earned.
That it's earned, not taken.
It's earned, not taken when it's proper authority.
That's pro that's authority that's going to last.
Exactly.
Right. And that people have a respect for.
And so that's ultimately what he did by posting that tweet
about that particular ad.
He was like, whoa, like this really pulls at the heartstrings
here and provides a depth of value
that makes it super successful.
So my challenge to entrepreneurs would be the,
the thing that has changed,
the unique mechanism that has changed is 20 years ago,
you had to spend a ton of money in advertising
in order to test that medium.
And you had to throw the whole kitchen sink at it.
Nowadays you can spend a few dollars
and on those few dollars, you can test your message
on an audience that's designed to hate you.
They hate ads.
So if you can test that on an audience that's designed
to preemptively not like what you say and they like it,
that's indicative of how powerful that message will be
with your warm audience.
Exactly.
And so you can leverage both to then be able to say, okay,
well, let me test on a market that,
and let me not offend my existing market
by testing something.
Let me do some more research on an unknown market.
And then let me bring that message to those who lovingly
follow me on a regular basis and gift them with the treasure
that I've created.
No, I think it is not the smartest path
that a lot of solopreneurs use it as a badge of honor
that they've never paid to grow.
And as a guy-
One of the biggest indicators to me that they're not growing.
Exactly.
As a guy who specializes in organic growth,
I super value it.
I know how to play this game well.
And that's why I spend most of my time and money
in the arena where I know I can win.
But I also know that it takes me a while to win.
I can win big, but it's gonna take me a time horizon
that some people aren't comfortable with.
And ads can shorten that.
Man, let's go back to your subject too on this badge of honor.
One of the badge of honors that I hear often is,
my business grows through referrals.
I get a ton of referrals and the opposite view of that is,
well, wait a second.
That means you're not good at converting strangers
to buy from you.
If you're only good at referrals,
you may have become great at that,
but you're ignoring your ability to influence
the strangers out there,
which means your content isn't great online.
It's not attracting anybody.
And you're underserving your existing market
and your referral market by not fixing that, right?
So back to your subject too,
both of those matters come into hand.
I wish more people understood the value of great content.
I don't think content's king.
I think great content is king.
So what else would you like to, you know what?
I don't know, I have one more pointed question.
You do all this research.
Sometimes researchers are looked at as mad scientists
who aren't very personable,
yet you're doing this research with your audience in mind,
thinking of the market.
Is this a nurture play or you have a nurture in nature
or is this more like you just love the data?
I'm just kidding.
That's a great question.
So circling back to our very first question,
when I worked in higher ed and I wanted to be a professor,
my dream day is reading about nerdy things
and then helping people understand and apply that.
That's my dream day.
And so when people are like,
oh, how do you get good at research and stuff
and writing and all that?
Well, first of all, I enjoy it.
So it's not like that I'm outworking the other people
in my niche because I can work on this
for eight, 10 hours a day.
And I'm just as thrilled the next day
to get up and do it again.
Is it right there, there's an advantage.
And then the fact that I can give this to people
and then they can actually grow their business
and make money and what I've seen like,
oh, this light bulb comes on.
I didn't know that that's a technique or strategy
I should be applying to my thing.
That's just, there is no secret end to what I'm doing.
The end is the incentivize that I want to do this
for people and I wanna see them win with it.
And that's just gonna make me better at what I do.
And so why do I care?
It's because I enjoy, selfishly, I really enjoy winning
and I wanna prove to people that my ideas work
and I prove them by helping them win.
So it's a win-win all around.
It is.
Well, and you nailed something
that is hard for people to figure out.
And that you said you get satisfaction
out of seeing that light bulb go on too in their head.
So there is a part of you that's unselfish in that.
And you're like, you see it, you feel it.
Yes, it's always that win-win mentality.
It's that the more you give, the more you get.
So where did, do you remember your first couple
of light bulb moments with people that,
do you wanna share any of those stories?
That's interesting.
Yeah, I think, man, I've had a lot of light bulb moments
over the years.
I bet.
I'm trying to think of like some of the standout ones.
They're growing exponentially at this point.
Yeah, I mean, so we talked a little bit.
So I have two masters.
And so the second one I did, because I heard,
I discovered something called competency-based learning.
I thought it was interesting.
And so I did my second master's degree in 84 days,
which to most people sounds ridiculous
because master's degrees take at least a year
and all this money and so on.
But there's models of accredited programs
that are different than other ones.
And so I started telling other people
who were thinking about going back to grad school,
like, oh, you don't need to pay $30,000
and take two years of your life.
Find a school that's competency-based.
And you can see them going like, what do you mean?
Like, you know, they've never seen that before.
And then same thing for when I started doing SEO work
for SaaS companies.
You know, a lot of them felt like they had to compete
with the hub spots of the world to get an audience
and gain traction for whatever their project was.
And so I did some very light consulting with these people.
Like usually the entrepreneurs,
maybe they had a team of one or two already other engineers.
And so I would just give them, hey,
like here's the first 10 articles you write
about your project.
Just, this is it, just do this and you'll see traffic.
And you could just see like their face go,
but that's it?
Like that's it.
I'm like, yeah, like we don't need to recreate the wheel.
Like you don't need to compete at level 10
when you're a level one company.
You compete with your arena and then you move up slowly.
And so I really like,
I think kind of the common thread
in both of those examples is just the simplicity.
Like we overcomplicate so many things.
I think what research has shown me is that, you know,
the overcomplication is usually there to make a buck
somewhere down the road.
So I try to come in and say, no, no, no, no.
Like it is, this is the option that most people know about
because they're making the most money
and making sure they're the loudest voice in the room.
But the simpler options are almost always there
for almost any category you're looking at.
Wow, that's awesome.
And you mentioned competency-based education.
If you have children out there,
this is something to probably be aware of.
I might be getting this concept wrong,
but it reminds me of the movie August Rush.
I saw when I was a teenager,
this kid basically goes to Juilliard
as a child prodigy of music.
And Robin Williams is this homeless guy
that's got his own like musician stuff.
And he goes in there and he starts yelling
at the Juilliard people, like,
you're gonna destroy this kid's musical talent
by trying to fit him in a box,
versus allowing him to explore and express himself.
Now, how does that tie into competency-based education?
If I'm correct, you're saying that if we took a kid
that had that type of talent,
or we took a coder who's dedicated themselves
throughout his teenage years
to being able to code really well,
there's a fast track to be able to help them get the degree
to showcase I'm already at this level
and then build beyond that.
Is that correct?
Exactly, yes.
Because education should be about skill acquisition,
not time spent in a chair.
That's got to be on the growth trend right now
with the way that education's being crushed
by online education resources
and online courses and all that.
I imagine that's on the rise.
Is that correct too?
Yeah, so like one of my pet peeves,
and actually my next research article
is gonna be about online education,
is that there's just this gap.
There's so many things that higher education doesn't do,
and also that online courses don't do.
And there's just this giant thing online that says,
hey, if we could make an online education system
that was as valued as a higher education degree
and as simple and affordable as online courses,
like the game would be over for several years
because they would win so big.
And like that's winning with a big B
in terms of there probably would be a billion dollar company.
There's a lot of ways for individual course creators
and so on to come in and pick away
at the opportunities that are there
that no one is accessing
because we're all distracted by,
this is how an online course should be.
This is why higher ed is more valuable
than online courses and so on.
And we're having the same old conversations
when really people just want to get paid more.
They want to learn the skills.
And if we can serve that in a way that no one else is,
you're gonna win.
Well, I love that.
It's kind of the difference between realizing to,
this is not something that everybody can do,
but it's kind of the difference in debating politics all day
versus running for office.
Yes.
And saying, you know what?
I need to put these skills to use
rather than talk my neighbor's ear off all day.
Yes.
Right?
And so we won't dive too far down the political spectrum.
We actually talked about that up front.
Yeah, we did.
Oh my God.
Full circle.
Yeah, exactly, for real.
But man, this has been such a pleasure.
And I really appreciate you coming on.
We've got, go connect with David Ramos on LinkedIn.
You can send him messages on there about research projects.
Go check out his newsletter as well, ramoswriter.com.
Fantastic place to go and check it out.
We'll put these of course in the show notes as well,
Vision Pros.
I mean, just know that, you know,
from my perspective in business,
from his perspective in business,
what you will save yourself in terms of time,
resources and money by truly looking
at what your market needs,
by asking the right questions, finding them all.
And then of course,
answering them in ways that people can get
from point A to point B,
not necessarily point A to point Z,
will help you so much with scaling your brand out
and building and establishing the authority
that David has blessed us to know.
We need to all be focused on constantly earning
with our markets.
So David, thanks so much for being here today.
We really appreciate you.
Thank you so much, Jackson.
This has been fantastic.
And I hope everyone listening to this
got some value and I reminded that
you're already on the right track.
You just need the data to support that.
Absolutely.
Vision Pros, you guys have a fantastic rest of your evening.
We will see you tomorrow for the next episode.
Everybody take care.