Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde Joins Us On The Join Up Dots Business Podcast
To subscribe to the podcast, please use the links below:
Click Here to Subscribe via iTunes
Click Here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes feed)
If you like the show, we would be so grateful if would consider leaving the show a review in iTunes as well as Stitcher Radio.
A couple minutes of your time can help the show immensely! Thank YOU!
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde is our guest joining us on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots business podcast.
He is a 20 year old entrepreneur who has a digital marketing agency whose clients are small businesses.
It wasn’t an obvious route to where he was today, but it was one that wouldn’t have occurred without taking action..perhaps imperfect action but he started.
As he says “I was listening to podcasts while mopping floors in a church and decided to learn everything I could about digital marketing., and now today I am an agency owner.
The reason that he wanted to develop his online skills was when he realised that many small business are struggling right now.
He goes on to say “If your business is struggling, you’re not alone. 2020 was hard for everyone, especially small businesses.
My own business was affected last year, and it was during this year I realized a massive problem.
How The Dots Joined Up For Luke
The world is becoming more and more digital, so if small businesses want to survive and continue to get business, they need to shift their marketing efforts online.
However, most of them don’t have the money, time, or knowledge on how to do so.
So I have launched The Small Business Digital Roadmap is designed to give you exactly what you need to know to get started with online marketing, without having to waste time and effort scouring the Internet for the answers.
All the information in this program is concise and user friendly, so even with no prior digital marketing experience, you can benefit.
Finally, the strategies taught in this course have been tested and proven to work for small businesses, so you will be able to generate the same if not better results than hiring a marketing company.
The best part: you only have to pay a one time fee and you get access to the program for life.
So how did he speed through to where he is today, by finding out the right answers to marketing that he could then test out himself.
And why as a young man did he have the desire to start his own business, and as many find out it might seem easy from the front, but the backend is very very difficult.
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr Luke Hyde.
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty subjects with Luke Hyde such as:
Luke shares why he was never that enthralled with the subjects that he was learning about in education
We reveal the steps that Luke took to start building an online following on Instagram, to then find his own clients.
Luke talks around the problem of working with Facebook ads, and why its so important to get expert training.
and lastly………
Luke tells a brilliant story about how his first online success came crashing down due to trademarks and what a learning curve !
How To Connect With Luke Hyde
Return To The Top Of Digital Marketing Expert
If you enjoyed this episode with Dirk van Reenen, why not check out other inspirational chat with Clayton Morris, Dorie Clark, What Is Success and the amazing Cody Berman
You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy
Full Transcription Of Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde Interview
Intro [0:00]
Life shouldn’t be hard life should be a fun filled adventure every day. So now start joining up dots tap into your talents, your skills, your God given gifts and tell your boss, you don’t deserve me. I’m out of here. It’s time for you to smash that alarm clock. And start getting the dream business and life you will, of course, are dreaming of. Let’s join your host, David Ralph from the back of his garden in the UK, or wherever he might be today with another jam packed episode of the number one hit podcast. Join Up Dots.
David Ralph [0:41]
Yes, good morning. Well, good morning, and welcome to Join Up Dots CSI a great day to be alive. It really is. Well, on today’s show, we’ve got a guy he’s 20 years old. Yeah, he’s trying to at the moment, he’s 20 years old. That’s quite annoying. Secondly, he’s just can fly over to Florida and have a bit of a vacation. But it’s very annoying. But he deserves he deserves it because he is somebody who’s getting out there and doing his thing, and has a digital marketing agency whose clients are small businesses. Now it wasn’t an obvious route to where he was today. But it was one that wouldn’t have occurred without taking action, perhaps imperfect action. But he certainly started. As he says I was listening to podcasts while mopping floors in a church and decided to learn everything I could about digital marketing. And now today, I am an agency owner. Now the reason that he wanted to develop his online skills was when he realised that many small businesses are struggling right now. He goes on to say if your business is struggling, you’re not alone. 2020 was hard for everyone, especially small businesses. And my own business was affected last year. And it was during this year, I realised a massive problem, the world is becoming more and more digital. So if small businesses want to survive and continue to get business, they need to shift their marketing efforts online. However, most of them don’t have the money time or knowledge on how to do so. So I launched a small business digital roadmap, which is designed to give them exactly what they need to know to get started with online marketing without having to waste time and effort scouring the internet. For the answers. All the information in the programme is concise and user friendly. So even somebody with no prior digital marketing experience to Laura Kramer’s site, that’s how easy is digital marketing experience can benefit. Finally, the strategies Taught In The Course have been tested and proven. Now, how did he speed Prue to where he is today by finding out the right answers to marketing, but he could bend test out himself? And why is a young man did he have the desire to start his own business? And as many find out, it might seem easy from the front. But the back end is very, very difficult. Well, let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. Luke Hyde
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [3:07]
I’m great. I’m great. Thank you so much for having me today. I really appreciate the introduction. And I know you mentioned a little bit about imperfect action. And that’s something that I definitely had to take a lot of, and would be happy to talk about on your show today. So and thank you everybody for listening. Looking forward to this.
David Ralph [3:22]
Well, we’re looking forward to have you over over here in Florida, most of us haven’t left our back gardens for about five years now. And now you are in your shorts, the sun beating down on you. Do you think to yourself, life is good Luke?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [3:38]
No, it definitely. I’m definitely very fortunate with where I am today. I know it’s it’s taken a lot of work. And I got a lot more work to do. But I definitely consider myself very fortunate for where I am.
David Ralph [3:50]
So let’s start as a starting point or that sort of strategy of You’ve worked hard to get where you are. He was mopping floors in a church and now you’re sitting in Florida, still operating on your business digital agency taking it with you online. Was that something that you really knew that you wanted something that you could carry with you and not route you to one spot?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [4:15]
Now I really had no idea. You know, in high school, I was actually quite a studious student. I was the salutatory in my class. So that’s like the, you know, the second highest of my graduating class and people thought maybe I was going to go to be a doctor or, you know, mechanical engineer or something very, very technical related, but I don’t know there just really wasn’t anything from academia that really, you know, enthralled me and made me interested in it too much. So as I was you know, at the time I was a janitor at my church and you know, I mop the floor sweep, sweep the floors, vacuuming. I would listen to podcasts about young people Making money doing other things, you know, maybe it was trading stocks or people getting started with real estate investing and, and eventually I came across people doing things with digital marketing. And it was at that point, I, you know, was really first introduced into this subject. So no one really forced me into it, I kind of found on my own. And once I found more out about it, that was when I really found a concept that interested me like nothing else had before.
David Ralph [5:29]
So So you didn’t have a concept of actually, unlike my parents, or people that I know that have to go to the same place every day, I can’t, I couldn’t have a business that I could just take with me around the world, and it will still operate. Because when I started this many, many years ago, when probably you weren’t born like that, that was one of the key things, but I knew I had to now into it, the fact that it would be transportable, and if push comes to shove, I could run this in Australia or London or America or wherever I am.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [6:02]
Yeah, no, it’s, um, you know, I didn’t have an idea about that. However, you know, in hindsight, I can kind of see almost like some, some, some subliminal messages being put in my head. My dad for a while, I’m not sure, maybe 20 years or something, the majority of his professional career, he was in, like TV advertising and print advertising. And he was the that the art director for this advertising agency. And then in like, 2008, when the big crash happened in the United States, he lost his job, he was let go. And he started doing things freelance online graphic design related. So he was basically kind of doing similar things he was before but kind of on his own. But he is so he he works from home. However, he that’s the only thing he does, he only does it really from home. So, you know, in the beginning, I thought when I was doing was very, very, very different from him. However, looking back on it, I can kind of see the similarities. And, you know, it’s, I definitely appreciate some of the things that he he taught me, and I don’t think I’d be where I am today, you know, without his help. And, you know, without my whole family support, my girlfriend support, everyone has been super supportive along this journey.
David Ralph [7:22]
Now, let’s talk about that moment. You’re listening to podcasts. And you’re thinking this is interesting. And I imagine Join Up Dots was one of the first ones look, you didn’t have to say it. Or imagine it was one of the ones you kept on coming back to time and time again. And when you force yourself, digital marketing, now most people at stage would go back to interesting, and you were different, you decided that you needed to learn as much as you possibly could about the subject. How did you do that? But Ben transition to actually taking action because we find in Join Up Dots time and time again, people get stuck in the research period, when they just think they need more than more than more without actually launching it into the world. How did you actually sort of springboard yourself?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [8:11]
Sure. And again, this kind of, you know, a little bit of imperfect action and honestly, maybe just some luck, but it definitely was a lot of hard work. Once I started learning a little bit about digital marketing. At the same time, I started learning about people who are building their own, like personal brands online. So I thought that was cool, kind of like building a following and becoming becoming kind of like a mini celebrity a little bit of an influencer. And since I started to really like digital marketing, what I did is I actually started an Instagram page, and I just started posting every single day about the digital marketing strategies that I was learning. So I was kind of just, you know, reframing it putting it in my own my own spin creating graphics writing words. And then I started gaining a following and from that following I actually had my first you know, kind of quote unquote clients reach out to me saying, hey, Luke, it seems like you know what you’re doing you know, you’re making all these posts Can you help me with x marketing problem or market why marketing problem? And from there I was like, Oh wow, I could actually make money from this and that’s when I started to research and see other young people making money off their personal brands making money off of you know, digital marketing, because it changed my my, you know, YouTube searches from you know, how to run Facebook ads, you know, in 2019, to how to run Facebook ads to make money for x business or, or how to charge real estate agents for Facebook ads or something like that. And I started to see how other people were using these skills to make money.
David Ralph [9:53]
Now, when somebody comes out the woodwork and I think every single member who is now in Join Up Dots Club and you’re in the Join Up Dots Club loop. Now you are you’ll get a special badge and everything will say that when they start the first client that comes to them, give them a moment of brilliant. There’s a client and oh my god, I don’t think I’m good enough to actually charge and it seems to reel. Did you have that? Or did you just have the young man’s competence of Yeah, bring it on? Bring it on up, man. I’ll do it. Yeah, no, it
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [10:26]
was definitely, I definitely started small. But it was it was it was really cool. I mean, I think at that point, I was kind of just throwing out numbers and seeing what people would respond to. The first I remember, I was funny, the first ever kind of job that I got, was like a little bit of consulting for this, like, drop shipping company, I think, or they were selling some type of e commerce, like this dog water model thing. So probably was drop shipping or something. And drop
David Ralph [10:57]
could have been dropped eating Luke, and they were looking for a young guy who didn’t dig in enough.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [11:03]
wavy, and I charge them $50 an hour for consulting. And I only did a couple, you know, maybe four or five consulting calls with them. So it was only, you know, ended up only being a couple 100 bucks. But still, you know, at that point, 18 years old, saying I was charging somebody $50 an hour, you know, was was really cool. And then when I got my first ever like agency client with my agency, it was a local law firm. And I did a website for them for like 400 bucks, which again, was not a lot, however, was an awesome achievement. Because I remember at that point, again, I just threw out a number. And then they were like, sure they sign the cheque and gave it to me. And you know, I was like getting paid instantly. And I still have that check hanging up at my parents house. In my in my old bedroom is kind of a reminder of, you know, where I where I came from, I guess
David Ralph [12:00]
I can actually remember a guy this was about I don’t know, probably about eight years ago, saying to me, oh, yeah, David, what you can do his face. And you can do that. And then you can charge somebody 1000 pounds an hour, and I 4000 pounds an hour. Yeah, who’s gonna pay 1000 pounds an hour. Now, obviously, I’ve been in the journey for so long, I can see people charge 50,000 for a telephone call 100,000 for lunch, you know, there are people that will pay astronomical fees. And it’s a real journey, you’ve got to go on lukisan to get out of your own way. Because otherwise you would have been trapped on that $50 an hour for the rest of your life, you really have to bridge that even if you don’t personally believe that you can provide that much value. It’s not important. It’s what people are willing to pay you, which really cement your worth.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [12:55]
Yeah, no, definitely. That’s definitely been a hard thing. I mean, I’ll you know, I’ll be honest, even yesterday, I went on a sales call. And, you know, I’m I’m, I’m testing out a new niche of, of niche of people that I’m working with. And I’m feel very confident in what we’re offering to our clients. However, it’s, you know, not as honestly tested as some of our other methods. But I knew I had to charge this guy at a certain point. And I added some extra margins to make sure, but it was definitely higher than I’d been working with before. And I threw it out there. Again, I actually didn’t face any price resistance, which is interesting, because it’s probably a quote somewhere. I’m not sure exactly what the quote is. But, you know, it seems like the clients who pay you more end up being less of a pain, yeah, they don’t bother you less. And I think I’m definitely starting to see that more. So sometimes I think charging more, you know, on charging, your worth, can be better for you and better for the client as well, you know, they have more invested into you, they’re probably going to, you know, spend some more time to make sure that they’re actually doing their part so that they can actually get their money back and you know, make a good return on investment.
David Ralph [14:13]
Cheap clients are the worst things you can have. I promise you, and because if somebody is willing to pay, number one, they’re willing to step away and let you do what you do. That’s the first thing. Secondly, if you can double your fees, you need less clients, so your lifestyle becomes better as well. And I remember back in the early days of everything I did, I had some absolute gifts, I’ll be honest with you, they were terrible, terrible people and I weren’t happy pay me anything at all. Now, I would say that every single client that I’ve got a friends and I genuinely enjoy working with them. And that’s something I’m going to throw at you. Are you somebody that sees every person as a potential client Or do you look at them? And thinking? Well, no, I don’t think this one’s going to work, I will pass on this.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [15:06]
Um, you know, in the beginning, I definitely took everybody. And you know, I don’t want to spoil anything for, you know, for the sermon later. But I can say that I definitely have now been more careful with who I’m taking on as clients because of lessons that I’ve learned in the past.
David Ralph [15:26]
Now, let’s hear from Oprah. And we’ll be back with Luke,
Oprah Winfrey [15:28]
the way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, Oh, I got all of this stuff. What is the next right move, and then from that space, make the next right move, and the next right move, and not to be overwhelmed by it. Because you know, your life is bigger than that one moment, you know, you’re not defined by what somebody says, is a failure for you. Because failure is just there to point you in a different direction.
David Ralph [16:00]
Alright, so let’s take you back in time, you’ve now decided that you want to learn everything about digital agency, and you’re sitting on your bed in your special underpants thinking to yourself, I want my own business. What was your first step? As she said, You’ve got to consider your first right step or your next right step? What was the first thing that you did to get your business up and running?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [16:23]
Yeah, and I, you know, honestly, I’ll probably elaborate on this question, because I think this is an interesting story. And it ties into everything that she said about health needs are not only as you know, important to make a step, but that failure can just point you in a new direction. So at the point that I started, you know, making some money off on my Instagram page, you know, people are coming to me, I decided, Okay, you know, maybe I should, I should turn this into a real business. So I mean, at my at that point, I thought a real business was, you know, I made an LLC, I made my own bank account, I started keeping my phone separately, I made a website, I started promoting myself a little bit more in like services. So those were the steps that I took, and things were going good, you know, for I think it took me about six months. And then I got to just under 20,000 followers on Instagram, which was really cool. I was getting messages, you know, almost daily of people saying, Hey, you know, I really liked the content, you’re posting, etc. Other people saying, you know, I’d like to work with you. But what had happened is I got an email one day, from some guy saying, Hey, you know, your username is on Instagram is actually something that I have trademarked. So my lawyers are going to be contacting you to get everything shut down. And it was like, sent from an email that I’ve never seen before. This guy didn’t even have like an email signature or anything. So I thought, you know, maybe it was like spam or something, you know. And then I saw, I was like, it was the weekend too. It was like a, it was like a Sunday or Saturday. So then I was like, I’ll wait till Monday. So the next day, I go on my Instagram, or I should say, I tried to go on my Instagram. And I try to log in, and it says your account has been banned, because someone reported you for trademark violation. And then I you know, that’s when the reality kind of set in, that this guy must have reported me without his lawyers contacting me without me reaching out reaching back out to him. So at that point, I, you know, I screwed on my computer, and I emailed them. I said, Hey, you know, sir, I’m really sorry, I’m 18 year old kid, I’m just starting with my business. I really didn’t mean to offend you in any way or violate anything. You know?
David Ralph [18:41]
What was the name of the business? Luke? What was the name of it?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [18:45]
Um, it was something it was it was just like a generic marketing name. Like, I think it was like Mr. marketing or something, is what it was called. So I think that is what he had trademarked or something. So my username was like, Mr. Marketing official or something like that. But you know, I’m sure you know, listeners know, it’s super easy to change your username. Not very hard at all. So that’s what I told him. I was like, Hey, you know, I can just change my username. You didn’t mean to report me, you know, none of my content says Mr. marketing or anything like that. And at that point, everybody that I’ve met in the online marketing community was pretty nice. So I thought he was gonna, you know, be nice, too. But that was definitely not the case. I got an email back from him, maybe like a week later of me, you know, really nervous. And it was super simple. All he was like, I already submitted it. Sorry, I can’t do anything else. And I was like, What the heck. So after that, I tried everything to get my followers back. My content back I reached out to Facebook. I’m not sure how if you know, support, they’re horrible. And I eventually even got him to reach out to Facebook and say, I guess it’s okay, if he gets his content back as long as he doesn’t use my name. But that didn’t work. I even got in touch with an employee who was a friend of a friend. And he tried to put in an inquiry for me to get my stuff back. But to this day, I’ve never got any of that back. So at that point, I was really starting from square one. And it was just, that was a really big failure that really kind of made me question if I wanted to continue doing what I was doing. But I’ll be honest, you know, maybe it was a little bit of Yes, I was passionate about digital marketing. But it was a lot of want to prove this guy wrong. And, you know, show this guy and show everybody that I can build a bigger and you know, better business. And that’s what I did so.
David Ralph [20:50]
But also on the other side of the things, you learn so much about the name name registry, which most people wouldn’t, you know, you’re now clued up moving forward, to provide more value to people because of fat. And as you’re saying that to me, I was thinking, Blimey, the amount of things that I do, and I never really checked them to name name, I just sort of, I want to go daddy or something and buy something and then think, well, that’s his job done. But, of course, there’s a lot of checking, which you should do to sort of make sure that the Facebook and the Twitter and the Instagram are all there and award available.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [21:26]
Yeah, I know, it’s definitely, it’s more of an in depth process. Because I think that’s something that people do. Yeah. Just because as soon as they think that domain name is available, they’re like, okay, yeah. And I mean, I checked with this guy didn’t even have an Instagram or have a Facebook, he didn’t have any social media. So I don’t know, how he found me. I’m thinking maybe somebody found me and thought it was him, maybe. And then he got confused, you know, because at that point, we weren’t even doing the same services. So I don’t even you know, I’ll be honest, I just think this guy was, you know, a little bit of an angry person, you know, coming after me, but whatever, you know, again, like you said, I learned a lot of valuable lessons. And, you know, every since then, you know, we have something like the United States, like trademark database, or whatever, so you can go in there. And when I started my agency drive digital advertising, I like quadruple checked to make sure that drive digital advertising wasn’t a trademark. And since then, I haven’t had any problems. And I’m currently like, in the process of getting it trademarked. So that you know, if anybody ever, you know, had any problems or something, but at this point to now I have a much more, you know, solid data, you know, you know, I have Google reviews, I have a Facebook page with a bunch of reviews, you know, if anybody was to try and say, Oh, that’s their business now, I think it would be hard for them. To do that.
David Ralph [22:47]
I think I would have started a new one, the son of Mr. Marketing, and say, Yeah, can you take that well, Mrs. Marketing? So So do you do still connect? Did you send him Christmas cards, Mr. Marketing?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [23:01]
I don’t, but honestly, that might be a good idea. I wonder if you would I you know, I it’s funny, because this is such a big part of my story. But I bet for him is just such a miniscule part, which I think is interesting on how things work. You know, sometimes we interact with celebrities or something, and it’s such a big moment for us, but for them, it’s just, you know, such a small piece. So I bet I mean, honestly, if I reached out to my, my baby, I bet he would have no idea who I was. But, you know, honestly, I’d probably have to thank him for giving me so much more determination for being where I am. And I will be honest, I definitely have thought about, okay, as soon as his trademarks, you know, expands, you know, get it, it expires, I’m gonna jump on that. But you know, that’s not the way I wanted to business. I’m not really trying to be humble. And you know,
David Ralph [23:50]
I’ll pay for it for you. And let’s do that. Let’s let’s, let’s see if we can screw Mr. Marketing. I love the garage. I do. I will hold a grudge until the day I die to Mr. Marketing, because he screwed over Luke Hyde, who appeared on Join Up Dots. So he is interesting with that, because we’ve everything, certainly in business that we see time and time again, on Join Up Dots, he built a whole sort of methodology of Join Up Dots, that the real crappy times the times when you go, Oh my God, oh, I’ve run out of money. Oh, I can’t do. They’re just the ways that make your business stronger. They make your life stronger. There are ways that when you come down the other side, you think, oh, okay, I thought that was game over. But I’ve gone past it. I can keep moving forward. and perseverance is far more important than talent. Would you say?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [24:43]
Yeah, I honestly would. I definitely think it’s important. I have a something that I’m very passionate about is helping young people understand the opportunities that are out there for them, and I’ve given multiple presentations to college kids. high school kids. And one of the presentations that I give. It’s more of just kind of like a hoo rah motivational type presentation. Not like specifically how do you get in digital marketing? I have this this acronym that I created. Obviously, I didn’t create the word but I like to call it Oba. You know, like the Greek word. But it’s definitely not for if you’re setting, you know, cheese on fire or anything,
David Ralph [25:24]
how would you spell that lipstick?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [25:25]
Oh, PA,
David Ralph [25:27]
did I tell you that? I’ve trademarked that. And I want to, I want you to stop doing that straight away.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [25:36]
Man, you know, honestly, I mean, it could fit in any order, basically, the three legs. That’s money. And people used to people used to jab at me about that quite frequently. I was kind of funny, about trademarking things. And my parents, as soon as I started a new company, they’re like, you need to trademark this, you need to make sure and I’m like, you guys, I know that it’s not trademark, you know, blah, blah. But anyway, so, oh, pa stands for opportunity, perseverance, and adaptability. And I think those are the three things as a young person that you need to succeed, as any person, really, I think you need to succeed online, or really at any stage. So I mean, the Oh, opportunity, that same, you know, that means, you know, always seeking new opportunities, and creating your own opportunities, because you know, especially as young people, there might not be as many opportunities for us to take on. So we need to try and create our own opportunities, which is exactly what I did with buying businesses. And then the P kind of like, what you mentioned, is persevering. Because yes, you can be very talented, but if you give up at the first, you know, first shutdown, then you get anywhere, you know, you lose opportunities coming your way. But if you give up after the first one, then like you said, you’re not going to get anywhere. So it doesn’t really matter how talented you are. But then the final thing is adaptability. Because I think, perseverance, yes, very important. And they these kind of complement one another, I think kind of like Rock Paper, Scissors almost. Because you could have a tonne of perseverance. You could be, you know, pushing through a bunch of different obstacles, just keep going. However, if you are, you know, running into the same obstacle, maybe over and over and over again, you keep just hitting your head against the wall. Maybe it’s not, because, oh, I need to push harder, I need to persevere more, maybe it’s you’re not doing the right thing. Maybe you need to adapt and try something different. And with my agency, I’ve had to do that a lot. You know, I’ve been working with, you know, one niche for a while, maybe it was working out good. And it stopped working as well. And I had to adapt and start working with new people or offer new services, etc. So I think those three things are very important.
David Ralph [27:49]
Yeah, no, I agree with you totally about the if it’s too hard, then you might be doing the wrong thing. And I’ve done that in the past, but I’ve gone, okay, I can work harder, I can work harder than the next man. Don’t worry, I will get it done. But now I look at it and I’ve been now walk away, walk away, there’s got to be an easier way to get to the solution. And sometimes you’re too close to it. Sometimes you’re too wrapped up in your business to actually see. Now one of the things I’m interested with yourself, Luke, you’re into digital marketing. And the reason I asked you on the show was that you are in digital marketing for small businesses. And I’m a great advocate on the biggest way to win the big game, or the quickest way to win the game is targeting micro markets, ie your local town, your local, county, whatever, where people haven’t got the knowledge base, but you can get the results quicker. Is that something that you you struggle to express to the local? I don’t know, restaurant owner, but actually, it won’t take too long to really make a difference on his business? Because there’s limited competition, we should say.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [29:07]
Yeah, I think it’s, you know, it’s definitely working with small businesses is something I’m very passionate about. because like you said, you can make a impact on them much quicker. I mean, I had a winery that I worked with last year, and we only spent like $1,000 and maybe like a month and a half or something like that. And but because of that they’ve been in business for maybe three or four years. And it’s not cheval
David Ralph [29:33]
and coke from Michigan.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [29:35]
Yes. Yeah. And I
David Ralph [29:37]
love coke. I didn’t know that you knew Sherwin Kirk as well.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [29:42]
Yeah, they’re really nice people, really nice people. And when we work together, they’d almost gone out of business because of because of the virus. And working with them was super It was a great opportunity. And because of working together they had and this was even after our After Black Friday, they had a really big black Friday sale. And after that, in so like that’s in November, in December, we had their they had their biggest month in business that they’ve ever had. So So
David Ralph [30:11]
what did you do? Yeah, I can understand lockdown caused problems for so many people. So yeah, did they reach out to you? Or did you were you sitting there drinking in the corner of a pub, and they came over to you.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [30:26]
Now, I actually, uh, you know, in, in our local county, we had a grant programme. So basically, you know, the state of Michigan got a certain amount of COVID relief dollars to spend on small businesses. And then those dollars were distributed to each county, according to their, you know, population of businesses, etc. So our county, McComb county had a certain amount of money that they were giving away to small businesses. And at the time, you know, they just, I’m pretty sure they were also doing this, like, support your local businesses type thing. And they were just reaching out to local businesses, doing like little videos on them so that people could, you know, try and go there to try and learn about the economy a little bit. And these people had missed the initial grant giveaway, that was, you know, money that was going getting out to people. And so the they had gone in there, people from the county had gone in there seeing the struggle that they were having. And then they reached out to me and said, Hey, Luke, you know, these people, they don’t have, you know, the full $10,000 grant that other people were getting, we can only give them, you know, a couple 1000. You know, because that’s really all that we have left. But can you, you know, help them with that money. And I said, definitely, so we were running Facebook, that was all because of the limited budget, all we were doing was actually Facebook ads, we had a mall, we had a couple of Facebook ads, you know, just targeting the local area, wine lovers, and we were people coming in, you know, they were only open during the weekend. So we were running the ads during you know, during the weekend, and they were you know, coming in and like I said, they you know, they had a tonne of tonne of people coming in from our ads, which was, which was awesome. And they were really happy with it. And it was kind of a really good case study for the whole grant programme that the county was doing as well.
David Ralph [32:18]
I mean, he’s brilliant, we’ve, you know, I don’t like Facebook, I don’t go in at all. But for the ads sides, you can get so granular that you literally can go into the back pockets of people, you know, you can get so close to your ideal customer, because of the amount of data that you can mine.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [32:35]
Yeah, and that’s, that’s 100% The reason why I like digital marketing so much. I’m just so fascinated by those concepts of, of being able to deliver customised advertisements get in front of your ideal customer. But I can tell you as a fact, kind of going back to your original question, it’s hard for a lot of these older, you know, people who are running a lot of these smaller businesses to understand the new way of doing things, you know, there used to, you know, thinking that Oh, TV advertising, and print and radio is the only type of advertising and that stuff’s really expensive. So then they think, Okay, well, I don’t really have a budget to advertise, or, or maybe I do have a little bit of budget, so I’m going to print out flyers or something, I’m gonna spend 200 bucks on flyers. And, you know, maybe for, you know, 200 bucks, you know, you could print out maybe 500 flyers or something, I’m not sure. But for 200 bucks on Facebook, you could reach, you know, 5000 plus people probably. And, you know, it’s tough for them to understand these concepts, because they’re so new to them. However, I definitely think it’s the way that things are going. I’m not sure what the percentages are. But I know, I was just recently looking up a graph. And I was planning my small business digital roadmap course, just to show the importance of digital. And you know, the, the amount of ad spend each year for digital is increasing. And the amount of ad spend being spent on traditional sources of media is decreasing. You know, digital is starting to take over a little bit. And I definitely think there’s going to be a place for all of the other traditional forms of media for sure. However, for people with smaller budgets, digital is definitely 100% the way to go. Now,
David Ralph [34:19]
a course for people out there, they’re listening to this and going Yes, that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna jump onto Facebook, we have to say that you can waste a lot of money if you don’t know how to do it. What would you suggest for somebody out there that’s got 100 pounds that they want to invest in their business. They don’t want to just throw it onto baseball, they want to get the results. What would your example of how to proceed be?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [34:46]
Sure yeah, definitely. And that’s a very good point because that’s a you know, a rebuttal I get a lot is that people have heard Oh, you know, my buddy wasted 500 bucks on Facebook and didn’t get a single quick Facebook ads suck. Basically. pants don’t work, or the same thing for Google, you know, I only got three kick is three clicks, yada, yada, yada. But just because somebody is doing it the wrong way doesn’t mean that’s the only way to do it. And you know, and I mean, that’s why there’s a place for online marketers like myself, you know, to be experts in this field, so that we can do it for these business owners. But for somebody who’s looking to get started, a big, big thing I would say, is that right off the bat on Facebook, Instagram, you’re gonna see the option to like boost or sponsor a post, it’s normally you know, big red or blue button or something. And a lot of people, that’s the trap that they fall into, they boost these posts, they sponsor these posts, and they don’t really go anywhere. And the reason behind that is because Facebook and instant, you know, instant Facebook runs, Instagram and Facebook, and they created this opportunity for people so that they could get into advertising a lot easier. Now, it’s definitely you know, with a few clicks of a button, you could spend, you know, 100 bucks, or just, you know, 10 bucks, it’s definitely an interesting tool. However, because it’s so simple, there’s a lot of targeting options that you can miss out on. Yeah, one big example. I used to work with real estate agents quite frequently. And because of that, I would see real estate agents on my page all the time. However, I’d see a lot of real estate agents from like, all the way across the country. So I live in Michigan, like I said, I’d see agents from California or from, you know, Missouri or from Texas, and they weren’t like advertising like, Hey, if you’re from Michigan moved to Texas, they were just saying, Hey, are you in the Texas area, blah, blah, so I reach out to them, and I say, Hey, you know, just so you know, I saw your ad, I’m in Michigan, I don’t know what’s going on. And they were like, Oh, I just boosted a post, you know, blah, blah, because, again, they missed because it’s so simple, they skipped right over the targeting options that they have available to them. So that’s a big thing is, is if you’re going to boost a post, make sure that you actually read all of the fine print and, and do the targeting, you know, options that they have, you know, geographic locations, demographic locations. However, what I even more recommend, is going and go to the Facebook Ads Manager, this is a little bit more technical, however, you can look up, you know, some quick YouTube videos, or you know, it’s it’s relatively simple to get started with it. And then after time, you know, it takes a little bit more to learn the finer things. But again, that’s why there’s people like us, myself and other agency owners to help small businesses with it. But with the ads manager, you have the full suite of Facebook objectives, Facebook, targeting options. So that’s where you get really detailed on, okay, I want to target five miles around this location, I’m only going to target people who live in this location, I want them to be people who, you know, for the winery, for example, you know, they like wine, their ages are from, you know, 35 to 65 Plus, you know, etc, that’s where you get very detailed. And that’s where you’re going to make your ad dollars really go further.
David Ralph [38:14]
Now I’ve got an off business, oh, and we do use Facebook ads, not a lot. But when we do, it really makes a difference. And you can target age, a person location, the car drive, you know, loads of different sort of options. But the key thing that people have to understand, and I’d like you to sort of confirm this is that they have to understand what metric they’re trying to achieve by having the ads on there, you’re not generally going to make money on a Facebook ad, without it being part of a funnel, whether they land on and it’s an awareness metric, or it’s just a click you you’re wanting explain that to the listeners, Luke about what actually happens once somebody is on Facebook Ads Manager because you’ve got to decide on what you’re aiming for.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [39:07]
Yeah, definitely, no, that’s a very good, very good point for sure. So they split up the Facebook ads, metrics into three objectives. I mean, three kind of categories of objectives. There’s like the awareness stage, the consideration stage, and then I forget what the third stage is, but it’s like the action stage or whatever. So that’s kind of like the three levels of the funnel, top of funnel, middle funnel and bottom. So I mean, for you know, for anybody who’s unaware, you know, the top of funnel is for advertising to just get your name basically out to as many people as possible. These are people that are probably just going to like your photos. There. They’re just there to be like, oh, wow, that’s interesting, you know, but they’re not actually going to take any action. Now, again, these can lead to vanity metrics, kind of like what you’re saying. People might want to get 100 likes on their photos, but getting 100 likes might not actually lead to that many clicks are that many conversions. And for small businesses with small budgets, it’s very important to actually focus on getting conversions making these ads convert into customers. So I would be definitely less worried about, oh, how many likes and shares is my photo going to get? Because while that’s important, making sure that you are actually getting conversions is more important. So how do you do that? Well, there’s other objectives that support those. So for example, if you’re trying to generate leads, you know, if you’re a gym or something like that, and you may have a $15 off offer or something, and you don’t really have a good website or something like that, if you didn’t want to spend the time to actually create a landing page or create a website that you could drive traffic to, what you could do is you could use a lead form ad on Facebook. So what happens is, Facebook scans all of their audience, and they say, okay, who here in our audience, based on his targeting metrics have filled out forms on Facebook before, okay, this group of people, and these are the people that we’re going to show our ad to first, because they filled out forms like that before, which again, means maybe they’re more likely to fill out your form. So people will click on the ad. And then in the in the app or on the desktop browser, it’ll pop up a form where they can put out you know, whatever information you want. So maybe their typically its phone number, and email, and then they submit it, and that information can be sent right to you. So it’s a really quick and easy way to get people’s information. In exchange for them getting some type of reward, typically, you know, like a $15, gift card or a free consultation or, you know, bonus, you know, supplements when you come in or something like that. And that’s a great way to make sure that you’re actually getting again, conversions instead of just likes or comments on your photo, or video views or something. Because those metrics, like you said, don’t matter as much.
David Ralph [42:01]
Is it as important to define your avatar or define your author? First, I always say to people, is the author, you’ve got to get the offer, right, so that you know who you’re targeting. But I’ve had people that say, No, you’ve got to know who your avatar is, and then define an offer that they’re going to like, what do you think Luke?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [42:23]
Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I would say. Yeah, I honestly, I am not 100% sure, you know, because I think there’s, you know, reasons you could say both honestly, because, you know, if you start with the audience, obviously, you know, if you start from your audience, then you’re going to know what types of things they want. And then you could craft an offer from there. And I think that’s typically where I started a lot of times. However, if you’re starting with an offer, you know, I guess it kind of really can depend, you know, if you’re an expert say in Facebook ads, you might want to say, Okay, this is my offer, I’m going to offer Facebook ad services, you know, for 300 bucks or whatever it is. And then from there, you can say, Okay, what types of people would be interested in that offer? And then you could say, Okay, I want to start with these services, you know, these groups of people, these groups of people, however, I bet there’s a lot of other people you know, who might be like, okay, I want to serve gyms. How can I best serve gyms, okay to serve gyms, I’m going to create a Facebook ad offer something like that. So hopefully, it’s kind of a toss up. For me. I think it’s very important. And I think it might just go down to a case by case basis for me, honestly.
David Ralph [43:45]
I think I’m gonna say I’m right. I’m gonna say I’m right there. Look.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [43:49]
He’s my show. And I think that exactly, I think that’s a good way to go about it. Yeah,
David Ralph [43:54]
absolutely. Well, let’s hear from somebody who you can’t dispute the words he has said is Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs [44:00]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards. 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph [44:35]
That pretty good words even for a young man like yourself, they make a lot of sense, don’t
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [44:41]
they? Do? They really do? Yeah, no, that’s it. That’s a good one. And then I think more and more I’ve been I’ve been considering, you know, things in the past and I mean, hey, you know, I don’t really have much of a past compared to some other people have But definitely, you know, I kind of keep that in mind. You know, things right now. might not seem Like they make sense, but I bet in the future, you know, as long as I’m kind of doing that imperfect action, taking those steps, they’re gonna wind up making sense in the future. I always
David Ralph [45:08]
listen to young chaps like you. And I think God, I wish I was like you when I was your age, I had no ambition, no drive of a van, I suppose, getting drunk and getting laid back. That was the two, really, and we’ve yourself, you’re so focused, and you’re really pushing yourself out there is that a groundswell that you see happening? We sort of youngsters out there now. Because when I was growing up in a curve at all,
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [45:37]
you know, it is honestly kind of hard to say that because I definitely, you know, I kind of live in a little bit of a bubble, you know, my social media pages, I’m surrounded by other entrepreneurs, other young people who are doing things. However, if I sometimes take a step back, and you know, because I’m actually still in college, I’m still a full time college student while I’m doing this. But the but because all of our clients are in law online, I haven’t really had many experiences without college kids. So I can’t say for certain, but I do know, when I was first getting started, it was mind boggling, everybody, you know, thinking that I did something on my own, you know, nobody was doing anything like I was doing. And I think that honestly, is still a little bit of a trend. You know, I would say, more and more people are starting to realise the digital things that are out there. And honestly, that’s kind of, you know, one of my passions is helping other young people realise the opportunities that are out there. Because there’s so many. And you know, I hope that, you know, the number of young people wanting to get started is growing. But I definitely think there’s a lot of people with ambition who’s like a young you as well. Yeah, come
David Ralph [46:52]
on, come on, people. Come on, get out there be more like Luke, don’t be like me, didn’t get me anywhere. He just got me to sit behind a microphone. It’s funny, actually, Luke, because I occasionally meet people that I used to work with. And I talk about what I’m doing. And literally all of them go, oh, always, oh, I just bought you had chats with people. And that’s it. And that is the kind of thing that people see with an online business. They don’t see everything that’s going on behind the scenes, they only see the front side, don’t they?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [47:20]
Yeah, definitely. There’s there’s definitely a lot that goes behind it. And, you know, luckily, you know, most of the people that I meet, you know, they respect the work that I’ve been doing, you know, and they understand, oh, wow, you know, that’s pretty cool, what he’s doing. Every once in a while, I’ll run into somebody who’s like, Oh, you just do stuff from your computer, like what, you know, what does that get a real job? And it’s, honestly, I
David Ralph [47:45]
would say, I’ve been speaking to my mother most.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [47:48]
Yeah, I get the most flack. In the beginning, I got the most flack from my clients, actually, you know, they would accept me to do work for them, but they wouldn’t think I would, you know, like I said that those first lawyers that worked with me, I did their website, they actually wanted to hire me as like a, you know, like, Hey, you could work in our office, you can be you know, our own. And I was like, No, you know, I’m trying to do this as my own thing. And they were like, Alright, man, you know, good luck, you know, I’m not going to stop you. But good luck, basically, you know, I then thinking that I wouldn’t be able to actually turn into a real business. And I’ve actually had a decent amount of people say that, and, you know, and, you know, no hard feelings against them. You know, I know, it’s, you know, kind of hard to maybe comprehend that somebody young might be doing something like this. But, you know, I prove that is possible, and I’m not stopping anytime soon.
David Ralph [48:39]
Yeah. And he’s in Florida at the moment in his underpants talking to me, you know, that’s where it’s late. You lawyer people, Mr. Marketing, don’t you realise what he’s done, he’s created a life for himself. Well, what we’re going to do now we’re going to see if we can shed some light on your younger self. Now normally, this journey is 3040 years, but I don’t know what age you’re going talk to talk to. But this is the part of the show that we call a sermon on the mic when we send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could speak to the younger Luke, what age would you speak to him? What advice would you give him? Well, we’re gonna find out because we’re gonna play the music and when it fades, is your time to talk. This is a sermon on the mic
Unknown Speaker [49:31]
of the show.
Intro [49:37]
Man.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [49:47]
So you know, like I’ve said a couple of times on the show, you know, as a young person, I really don’t have too much to go back on but I probably speak to myself maybe a year or two before I started my digital marketing agency, kind of just give them a little bit of hints of, hey, look, this is some stuff that you could actually do. Because I know, you know, now I see other really successful people who started when they were a couple years younger than I was. And I think, you know, just having a year or two more time to get started, I think I would be, you know, so much more and more ahead than where I am. But you know, hey, that’s okay. I’m totally okay with one I started. And, you know, as I continued to, you know, to go through it, I’d say, you know, to my younger self as well, no matter what I decided to do, make sure not to let anything stop you. And I definitely did that. However, there are some faults in the road, you know, the whole Instagram thing. That was a whole big debacle. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t you know, since then I haven’t really done much else on Instagram. But I really had such a fun time with that. It was, it was great. You know, my girlfriend maybe didn’t like it as much because I was spending so much time on it. But I would say to my younger self, I wish I would have started back, you know, I wish I would have started it back up, because now I’ve got so many other things going on. It’s hard. And I honestly, you know, I’ve been telling people recently, that’s where I want to go back to I want to get more into content creation and becoming more of a brand and authority figure in the space. And I think again, it would have been easier if I would have, you know, kept going from there. You know, I would say, the last piece of advice I’d give a younger self of mine is to is to just I would say I guess you know, just focus a little bit more, because as as you might see, you know, David, I appreciate you the kind words, but I definitely had a lot of shiny object syndrome, you know, again, as a young person, and I was trying all these different things with it, you know, in regards to digital marketing. But again, I think if I would have focused a little bit more focused on one thing, I really could have owned that and then tried other things, which is again, what I’m kind of doing right now, I’m really focused in on one niche, one offer doing really good at it. And it’s going well. So that those are just a couple things. I’d say, you know, my my couple years ago self,
David Ralph [52:22]
but I hope he listens to you. And I can tell you as well, Luke, I think it’s as much about the things that you try that don’t work as as the things that do you know, so I think, yeah, it takes a while to fine tune and get bit laser focus. But I think that’s part of the game as well be trying loads of different things and thinking, actually, I’m quite good at this, but I don’t like it. Or this is really lucrative, but I haven’t got a life until you kind of meander and you find what works for you. So what’s the number one best way that our audience can connect with you sir?
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [52:56]
I would say honestly, your most dreaded platform, Facebook is where I have my most, most present. So you can find me at Luke Hyde or at Luke hi digital. If you want to check out on our website, our agency’s website is Dr. Digital ads calm. And if you want to learn any more about our mentorship programme, that is just at Luke high.com.
David Ralph [53:22]
Right, we have over links on the show notes to make it easy for everyone to connect with you. Luke, thank you so much for spending time with us today. joining up those dots. And please come back again, when you’ve got more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our past is genuinely now it’s always the best way to build our futures. Luke, thank you so much.
Digital Marketing Expert Luke Hyde [53:45]
Thank you, David. I really appreciate it. And thank you everyone for listening.
David Ralph [53:52]
Mr. Luke Hyde. Yeah, from Michigan. He is in Florida at the moment, 19 years old or 20 years old with his own agency. And eight these days, youngsters I blow me away because they’re just so different to how I was I just wasn’t really interested. I wasn’t interested because I didn’t know these beings were out there. But with everyone out there listening to shows like Join Up Dots, it all points to a path that you can take. But you’ve got to self develop yourself, you’ve got to start moving in the right direction. And be aware that it is a long game, very few people hit it out of the park instantly. But most people do take you know, two or three years to really build a proper six figure seven figure business whatever you want. And then it grows again. It keeps on growing and you just keep on changing. So anybody out there who is interested in our next coaching session, well I go through the back end of what makes a online business. Just drop us a line at Join Up dots@gmail.com and say that you’re interested and we will connect and for everybody else out there that just likes listening hopefully We will have your ears again until next time, you stay sexy, you stay safe. And I’ll see you again. Cheers. Bye bye.
Outro [55:08]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant self you or wants to become. So he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life. Head over to Join Up Dots comm to download this amazing guide for free and we’ll see you tomorrow on Join Up Dots.
