Specialization Is a Superpower | Joshua Thompson

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of The Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Joshua Thompson of Bright Beam SEO about the intricacies of local SEO, the evolution of marketing strategies, and the importance of specialization in business. Joshua shares his journey from financial services to SEO, the challenges he faced in growing his agency, and the personal growth that comes with entrepreneurship. The conversation emphasizes the need for businesses to define their target markets, the significance of saying no to opportunities that dilute focus, and the realization that control is often an illusion in the entrepreneurial journey.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Local SEO is focused on helping local businesses, especially in home services.
• Joshua's journey into SEO began with a financial business and evolved through various marketing roles.
• The disconnect between sales and service in SEO companies can lead to frustration for clients.
• Specialization in services can lead to better results than trying to be a jack-of-all-trades.
• Saying yes to opportunities can lead to growth, but knowing when to say no is crucial.
• The long tail effect in marketing allows for niche targeting, which can be more effective than broad approaches.
• Defining a target market too broadly can hinder growth; specialization is key.
• Challenges in entrepreneurship often stem from personal growth and self-control issues.
• The importance of understanding human behavior in marketing cannot be overstated, especially in the age of AI.
• Building a business requires letting go of control and trusting others to manage parts of it.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.23)
Welcome to another episode of the profitable creative, the only place on the inner webs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Mexico City. No puedo traducir en español, lo siento. Anyway, thanks for listening. Joining me today, Joshua Thompson of Bright Beam SCO. Welcome to the show, Joshua.

Joshua Thompson (00:31.01)
Thank you.

Christian Brim (00:32.866)
In my very poor Spanish, said I can't translate into Spanish. So I can't translate the show. You're going to have to listen to it in English. So, Joshua, you have the company called bright beam SEO. What, is it exactly that you do? I mean, SEO is kind of in the name, but, lots of people do SEO. What's your niche?

Joshua Thompson (00:38.221)
Hahaha.

Joshua Thompson (00:57.324)
Yeah, local SEO, so more focused on local businesses and even more so focused on home service businesses. That's the majority of what I do and I focus on.

Christian Brim (01:12.049)
And I'm assuming you didn't start out there, that that was kind of a journey that landed you there. Speak to that.

Joshua Thompson (01:19.776)
Yeah, well, so early, you know, internet, well, for me, guess early 2000s, I, you know, was getting involved in the internet, started a financial leads generation type of business that led me to starting an addiction treatment center for a while. I ran the SEO and marketing for that. Yeah.

Christian Brim (01:42.608)
Okay.

Christian Brim (01:46.276)
Okay, pause. I pause. I'm sorry. That's too hard of a branch there. How did you get from point A to point B?

Joshua Thompson (01:47.338)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that that's a leap.

Oh yeah, you no, just decided one day to start. No, obviously that's not the case. Yeah. So yeah, I started the financials. I've always been a, or I guess I was inclined to, to be entrepreneurial ever since I was a kid. Uh, you know, that was kind of instilled in me, uh, in my family. So when, uh, yeah, around, you know, 21 started doing some financial stuff.

Christian Brim (02:10.671)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Thompson (02:25.228)
Right. was family members were involved in that. So getting leads for family members was helpful for them. Right. Something we could get going. So I did that. And then. Yeah, I had a, I had a very good friend who got involved in using substances and was having struggles and he had found this kind of crazy miracle cure kind of thing that worked really well for him.

So he started getting involved in that. He knew me. He said, yeah, you want to help me out? I said, yeah, that's what I do is just kind of like to say yes to opportunities. So I ran the marketing for his business for a little bit. That whole thing crumbled and me and an individual that he was employing at the time went off on her own and started this. So I ran all the marketing, right? mean, at the end of the day, it

As somebody who is running marketing, I don't need to know everything about the service itself. I can run marketing for pretty much any company as long as somebody is doing the service and the fulfillment. So I ran the marketing, the website, ads, all that kind of stuff for that for a while. And then I sold my portion of that and that's kind how I ended up over here.

Christian Brim (03:33.498)
Right?

Christian Brim (03:54.768)
Okay, so how did the evolution progress that you were working in the local space and the home service space?

Joshua Thompson (04:02.466)
Yeah, so I was doing, you know, SEO. SEO was always my primary interest. I just always found it to be so odd and so, so much benefit if it could be done right. It's just like a giant Rubik's Cube puzzle, right? So that always just was interesting to me. So when I was running this addiction clinic, I would continue to go through the same process of, want to find somebody who does SEO really well.

Christian Brim (04:15.568)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (04:19.024)
Hmm.

Joshua Thompson (04:31.394)
going to hire a company, getting a salesman, getting transferred to somebody else once I purchased it, realizing this person I was talking to didn't even do SEO, right? They just sell me a service that, you know, likely they have no involvement in the SEO.

Christian Brim (04:48.386)
And the salesperson's answer is always yes, sure. Yeah, we can do that.

Joshua Thompson (04:53.058)
Right. Exactly. And it's just like a giant disconnect between the sales process and then what I would get at the end, at the end of the day. And I, they'd start, you know, running the service and it would be the same as the last one, right? The same stuff. And it was like, I can do this way better than, than these people are doing for my business. So then I would take it over. I'd start to do it. I'd get overwhelmed with just how much marketing I had to do. And I kind of went through that cycle a few times.

Christian Brim (05:06.754)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Thompson (05:21.592)
for I was like, I'm just going to focus on the SEO and have other people help me run these. Well, in the story, Google cut off, there was a big thing that happened about, it's gotta be like 10 years ago now, where Google got hyper involved in the addiction space because there were so many people selling leads through Google ads. So we actually got cut off. And because...

Christian Brim (05:42.874)
Mmm.

Joshua Thompson (05:48.169)
I was one of the few people in our market that was doing SEO. All of sudden we went from this really highly ad driven environment to basically most of our competitors just going out of business overnight and us being in the top now three of the, in our, in our service because we had been doing SEO. So that changed the game for me.

Christian Brim (06:01.092)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Thompson (06:15.446)
So I continued to invest in SEO, was spending more time in SEO cause we couldn't run ads. And yeah, so once I, once that ended for me and I, and I got out of that business, I was asking myself what to do. I always wanted to have an agency, but never really kind of had the time at some friends who had local businesses, that needed help. started helping them and it just kind of naturally progressed to me starting an agency and

wanting to help more people to help more clients, right? Expand. So that was how I got local too, because most of those companies were local services. So then AI rolls around and it just kind of turned out that I had made some good decisions because now the national SEO is, has been hyper affected and local businesses, people still have to find local services. So it's largely dodged that.

Christian Brim (06:56.994)
Okay. Okay.

Christian Brim (07:12.548)
Yes.

Joshua Thompson (07:15.192)
bullet up till now.

Christian Brim (07:18.38)
Yeah, it is interesting. I've, I've talked to a lot of people that have been around since the inception of the internet and AdWords and all of these things. and you know, the constant theme that, know, yeah, if you can figure out the algorithm, if you can figure out how to crack the code, there's a lot of opportunity. The flip side of that is that you don't control the algorithm.

And so they can switch it and then you're screwed, which it sounds like, you know, is your story. But yeah, and, you know, the home service space is one of those non-digital spaces that is not themselves affected by technology very much. I mean, they do have.

Joshua Thompson (07:48.643)
Right.

Christian Brim (08:15.204)
they do, but not the same way you and I do, right? Yeah, so that industry is protected, right, as well. So it's not like you're trying to get leads for a local accountant that their industry might be experiencing pressure from automation and AI, not right now, but definitely in the future. Whereas like your HVAC guy,

Joshua Thompson (08:16.482)
Right. The world of bits versus the...

Christian Brim (08:44.036)
they're still gonna have to go out to the location and turn a wrench.

Was that part of your thought process and selecting home service or.

Joshua Thompson (08:57.11)
No, not really. Yeah, I mean it has become...

Christian Brim (08:59.088)
I like it when you make I like it when you make guesses and they're right. I like that.

Joshua Thompson (09:04.11)
I, yeah, I was just going where, like I said, I like to say yes. if, if I don't know something, but it's in a world that is interesting to me, then I'm going to say yes. I'm going to go figure it out. Right. I just think there's so much benefit to that. That's been such a great benefit to me in my life. Just saying yes to opportunities and moving forward with those. Right. So it just was.

naturally kind of happened. then, yeah, it turns out in hindsight, it was not a bad move, but you know, I was not predicting any kind of feel. going to sit here and act like I'm some kind of genius radio talk show host that's predicted the future a hundred times here? You know, it just is what it is.

Christian Brim (09:49.903)
Right.

Christian Brim (09:54.052)
Well, okay, so that's interesting you say you like to say yes, I know from my journey and my entrepreneurial journey that I like to say yes has caused me some problems. Has it ever caused you a problem saying yes?

Joshua Thompson (10:07.266)
Well, I think over the last few years now I've started alert. Yeah. Now, now I'm going the other way. Now it's saying no. That's that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Gets you, you know, yes. Gets you down the road. The no, gives you the speed and velocity, right? As you, as you continue forward, because you know, what I, what I've done is gone from a marketing company to,

Christian Brim (10:15.856)
Yes, yes, no, yes.

Christian Brim (10:29.036)
Hmm

Joshua Thompson (10:37.206)
you know, more home services and more SEO specific, right? And continue to say no and chop things down because...

These every business is so different. Everything's becoming hyper specialized and I'd rather do a much, much better job for a select few businesses than. Yeah, like saying yes is the weird way to to phrase it, but I think at some point you you have to start saying no and start specializing and focus in.

Christian Brim (10:52.589)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Thompson (11:13.934)
if you really want to do a great job. Just businesses are too different. There's too many different things happening. So I don't know. That's not maybe a great answer, but.

Christian Brim (11:25.336)
No, no, I think it's a good I think it's actually a great answer because I agree with you There was a book you look old enough to have read it when it came out the long tail When when the They were talking I I think it was the case study was around Spotify. I think but I don't recall So it's been a while but it talked about how the the

Joshua Thompson (11:37.719)
Okay.

Christian Brim (11:55.694)
the technology has, and it was talking specifically about music, but I think it applies to virtually every business is that, you know, the left side of the curve where there's popularity hasn't changed. you know, the Taylor Swift's are still going to sell their millions of records, just like Michael Jackson did. Like that didn't change. What did change was because of the cost going down. On Spotify, you had this

uber long tail of artists that just produced, you know, a few downloads, right? And that's what, you know, what I think you're alluding to is that that tail is stretched out in all businesses and the the customization, if you will, to two niches, you know, you take home service as an example. All right, so

You know, 20 years ago, you could probably be just a plumber, right? Maybe you specialized in residential or commercial, right? Maybe you specialized in new construction versus, you know, rehabs. But now you see like a plumber can say, I'm the toilet guy. If your toilet's clogged, call me, right? That's the kind of

specialization that I think you're referencing.

Joshua Thompson (13:29.846)
Yeah, no, that is actually very pertinent to the current meta, if you will. And the funny thing is everyone's instinct to solve their problem is to go broader. And I think you have to, have to deny yourself that instinct. Everyone's always much more concerned with the client they're going to lose than the extra client they're going to get.

Christian Brim (13:47.247)
Mmm.

Joshua Thompson (13:58.799)
So you see people who are, you know, they're not doing very well yet. Right. And, and like exactly in the plumbing and, and instead of, think the toilet reference, I think the better way to look at it, in my opinion is based on geography. You have a plumber who's in a city and they're not getting enough, right? There's, competition around them. They're not getting enough. what do they do? The solution is to go open another location that does somewhat poorly.

Christian Brim (14:25.136)
Mmm.

Joshua Thompson (14:28.544)
in another area and they continue to spread themselves broader and broader or, or yeah, or they add a service, right? Okay. Now I'm going to do water heaters. Now I'm going to do HVAC because I need to expand, but that's where you, you dilute yourself and you actually make it harder for them, you know, to, rank for the, yeah. And, to get all of those synergies come with, with condensing things down.

Christian Brim (14:28.794)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (14:35.588)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (14:48.74)
People to find you.

Joshua Thompson (14:56.654)
So I think you have to ignore that. Yeah. Kind of have to ignore that, that human tendency to try to get more by broadening and worrying about people you don't have and really continue to chunk down into being specialized. would say more city and service. That's where it is on the Google side at least. Right.

Christian Brim (15:18.784)
Yeah, because people, you know, people don't hire a plumber. People don't hire an accountant. People don't hire an SEO agency. They hire a solution to their problem. And so you define that problem very clearly, like my toilet's clogged. And then it's easier for them to find you and to buy from you because I'm not getting confused with water heaters or a remodel.

Joshua Thompson (15:36.344)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (15:47.264)
or new construction or anything else that might come into play, right? We've struggled with this and I'm interested in your opinion. This is the first time I'm sharing this publicly and I'm doing it with you, Joshua. We defined our target market three years ago loosely as creatives and we took internally, so we said

Joshua Thompson (15:51.246)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (16:16.332)
any creative and that was pretty much anybody that was self identified as a creative. you know, there are verticals like, you know, agencies, videographers, content creators, like there are verticals that are defined in there and we picked a couple to play in. But I almost feel like and so, you know, this year we haven't been seeing the growth that we want and I

almost feel like the problem is, and I've had this discussion with my leadership team, is maybe we haven't defined the target market small enough, right? Maybe we need to pick one of these verticals and market just to them, like videographers or agencies. What are your thoughts on that?

Joshua Thompson (17:03.587)
Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (17:08.782)
That is very interesting. I mean, look, I'm not going to act like I understand your game that well because look, I'm not a marketer. I'm a reverse engineering specialist, right? So my job is to go figure out what people are searching for and then target it. So I think I don't know how people find you. Is it based on search? Is it based on

Christian Brim (17:20.645)
Mm-hmm.

Right?

Christian Brim (17:29.84)
Mmm.

Joshua Thompson (17:38.732)
hearing, you know, do you try to get people to share? mean, I guess that would be the question is how do people find you generally?

Christian Brim (17:42.956)
Or yeah, so so first is referral. Second is organic and third is is social, which, you know, I would say SEO plays in that organic space, right? So it yeah, I mean, there definitely is volume there. It's probably not.

Joshua Thompson (17:49.773)
Right.

Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (18:01.334)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, so a search, basically.

Christian Brim (18:13.198)
And this is the interesting thing when you start looking at search queries, the more specific you get, obviously the fewer searches there are, right? I mean, that makes sense. Exactly, exactly.

Joshua Thompson (18:21.87)
right, but you can rank for them. If you're ranked 99, you know, on a huge search, it doesn't do anything for you.

Christian Brim (18:30.314)
Like account, accountant near me, for instance, you know, that's, that's a horrible place to be because it's very general and you're going to get people you don't want as clients, right? So we gave up on, on one, one, we don't do local because we're a national firm, right? We've got clients in 43 states. So local doesn't work for us, but

Joshua Thompson (18:37.367)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (18:58.544)
I wish it did, but maybe it could. mean, like maybe we're looking at this the wrong way. Maybe they're, my understanding from Google's paradigm is that that is fixed to a location. So like, I guess if I went and opened up a bunch of Regis offices and got them approved with Google in these areas, I could use local. Is that an accurate statement?

Joshua Thompson (19:27.732)
Once again, I think you just want to reverse engineer what Google is giving people and then figure out how that applies. you know, if, if I'm searching for a podcast or information, it's unlikely that there is a local, that Google is going to show local results. You can always test that, but if Google isn't showing local results, then there's not really a big reason to.

Christian Brim (19:44.76)
Right. Right.

Joshua Thompson (19:57.497)
try to grow local results, right? So you just have to kind of look at where, what's being pushed and then how do you get into those right areas? I would guess local wouldn't work as well because, yeah.

Christian Brim (20:08.656)
...

So to clarify, the local is Google's GMB, right? Yeah, that's, are we talking the same thing?

Joshua Thompson (20:19.092)
Yeah, right. Well, you'll see that search results do the same thing. Google business and search results, right? They can be like, there might be a situation where you say, this is a good one. Like how much does it cost to build a home in certain city? And even though Google might not push the map ranking, the GMB, the three pack, right at the top, you still may be getting a lot of results from that local city area.

Even if you just search, how much does it cost to build a home? You might get localized results in search. So localized doesn't always necessarily mean maps, right? The search itself, AI, all of that can be taken from local, depending on how Google already is assuming what people want, right? So there's a lot of local searches that are not locally centered, meaning the city is not in the search.

Christian Brim (20:50.606)
Right.

Joshua Thompson (21:15.394)
but Google is still gonna show you local because it assumes that might answer your question, right? it just though, once again, you can just do the searches. That's the best way to find out anything. Do your searches and see what is showing up. Is it localized? Is it not? Is there a map pack? Is there not? That usually is gonna give you a pretty good indication of whether or not you wanna target locally.

Christian Brim (21:43.874)
Okay, I want to pivot and ask, you know, since you've started this agency, what are some of the challenges that you encountered that you had no knowledge that you didn't know?

Joshua Thompson (21:58.589)
say, sorry, I'm, I'm still thinking about your keyword research and no, I, I, yeah, you get, like thought, let me just ask, do people search? you, you target search? Do you target like podcast search? Like are you targeting searches on a podcast platform? Is that typically how you, a lot of people find you.

Christian Brim (22:02.372)
I'm sorry, you're trying to solve my problem.

Christian Brim (22:17.59)
No, no, no, Organically, I know an attribution is a squirrely thing, right? Because you don't know where they have touched you before they actually searched for you. But we use a local SEO guy that not local SEO, he's just lives here.

Joshua Thompson (22:27.107)
Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (22:34.381)
Right.

Joshua Thompson (22:45.228)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (22:48.324)
And I'll be very honest with you. I have no idea what he does because I'm not, I'm not the one that does that. So I don't know the answer to your question there. I said it, you know, when we sit at the, very beginning in the green room is like, I don't know is an acceptable answer. And I don't know.

Joshua Thompson (22:51.715)
Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (22:57.859)
Yeah.

Yeah, right. I mean, think that's the interest. I think you're on the right track, right? That if you want to quicker and simpler for specific keywords, then niching down is always going to help with that, right? That will help you hit that target. So I think that's a really good way to consider it.

But I think you have to go, at least from my perspective, you want to make sure that you're looking at searches that have the volume. If you're going to niche down, right? You don't want to niche down into something that you're inventing because then no one knows to search it. otherwise, yeah. And I think the word creative is interesting in the way you use it. Because I think a lot of people don't realize they're creatives or wouldn't think of themselves as creative, but you're calling me a creative, which I...

Christian Brim (23:51.024)
Mmm.

Joshua Thompson (23:56.439)
I think fits me, but I might not know that that might not be something I really consider myself unless you explain to me, here's why you're a creative, right? Otherwise I just think I'm an idiot that can do computer stuff.

Christian Brim (24:06.393)
Well...

That's a fascinating point because because I came to this realization when I started writing my book, Prophet First for Creatives. So I went to Mike McAlewitz who wrote Prophet First and I said, I'd like to write this derivative book, Prophet First for Creatives. And I was thinking like all the other derivatives are like Prophet First for Automatrists and Prophet First for Lawn Care or you know, they're very self describing.

Joshua Thompson (24:33.175)
Hmm

Joshua Thompson (24:37.43)
Right.

Christian Brim (24:37.456)
of who they're written for. And so I was thinking, well, like, he's never going to approve this because it's too broad. I mean, what the hell does that mean? Creatives. To my surprise, he'd already got his publisher to approve the title because someone had come to him a year before to ask about that title, but they didn't end up licensing it. But as I was writing the book and working with my editor.

Joshua Thompson (24:47.116)
Right.

Christian Brim (25:03.664)
Um, you know, I had to have a very clear understanding of who I was writing the book for right And and I write about that in in the introduction about like who it is for um but bigger picture I and I talk about this in the book. I I all entrepreneurs are creatives and I think there is a certain uh stigma with people like you and I that are more

Joshua Thompson (25:09.23)
Right.

Joshua Thompson (25:24.685)
Right.

Christian Brim (25:33.868)
Analytical right you said an engineer engineers and accountants are cousins They are that's why we don't ever take engineers as clients they make awful awful clients Sorry

Joshua Thompson (25:42.626)
Yeah

Joshua Thompson (25:48.686)
No, that makes a lot of sense actually too much sense

Christian Brim (25:52.744)
No, it does. It really does. Because they're just going to tell you how to do your job, right? It's like, anyway, you know, there's this stigma of being identifying as a creative. And I struggled with that for a while. Perry Marshall in a hot seat in a live event in Dallas called me an artist. And I took umbrage with that, sir.

Joshua Thompson (25:58.627)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (26:22.509)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (26:23.04)
I did not like to be called an artist, but the way he defined it was he said entrepreneurs are either builders or they're artists. And I've had a subsequent conversation with him in this podcast about like how I see that really as a continuum. Builders see an opportunity and the problem solution and an opportunity to make money. And that's why they do the business.

Whereas artists are passion driven. There's something else there that they're filling their cup with in doing the work that they do. And so artists by definition are more exclusive. Like I'm not going to go, I could go get an 8A certification with the SBA because I am Choctaw and I could go bid on government contracts.

Right? I purposely chose not to do that because like, I don't want to do that. Can I make money? Absolutely. But like, it's not my primary motivation, right? I have to be interested in what I'm doing. And so from that perspective, looking at it as a continuum, I lean towards the artist side. And so after he explained it to me, I'm like, yeah, I can agree with that. And so

If I described it that way, would you be more comfortable being called a creative?

Joshua Thompson (27:55.405)
No, and I don't have any problem with the word itself. I think I am very much a creative, even if it's not necessarily a direct relationship to the work that I'm doing. I just think, you know, in your particular situation, most people like it's a problem of once again, the reverse engineering side.

that they're not already calling themselves that by nature. It's not that you're not right. You're right. The other piece I think about the creative that's interesting is anyone who does identify with what you're talking about right now, those people are probably freaking out because of the AI stuff. So even more if people are, if your podcast might be getting hurt or might not be growing as much, it might be just that everyone who does identify

Christian Brim (28:22.096)
Yes, yes. No, you're 100 % right. No.

Christian Brim (28:39.503)
Yes.

Joshua Thompson (28:49.374)
as a creative in the business world is losing their mind collectively and worrying about what is going to happen to my life. Am I getting out of this? Do I need to change like tomorrow? because like you said, videographers, know, designers, graphic designers, they're, you know, it's.

Christian Brim (28:59.342)
Yeah, no, you're 100 % right.

Christian Brim (29:06.0)
Right.

Christian Brim (29:12.494)
Right. I know you're exactly right. Like I've kind of created my own problem, but I knew it. Like I knew it going into it. And you don't ever want to be in a position where you have to convince your prospect that they have the problem that you solve. And that's really where, you're exp-

Joshua Thompson (29:20.705)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (29:41.58)
as we're having this conversation is kind of giving me some clarity on that because, okay, let me unpack this and get your opinion. Victor Ching in Extreme Revenue Growth writes about what he saw are the necessary components to have revenue growth in a business. And he starts with the customer. So you have to have a customer that has a problem. That's the first thing. The second thing is they have to know they have a problem.

And then the third thing is that they have to be willing to pay for the solution to the problem. Okay. And what I've, what we're struggling with as a company right now is that third piece. And, you know, cause if, if you were, if you're going to say, does everybody have a finance and accountant, accounting problem as a business owner? Yes. Everybody, everybody has that problem.

Do they know it? Most of them do, right? So then it's getting them to be willing to pay for the solution. And that's where we're struggling. Cause I'm like, I know those people exist out there that would be willing to pay for the solution because we have lots of clients that have raised their hand and they're raving fans. They love to refer us. but

It's finding those people that are willing to raise their hand and say, yeah, I would pay for the solution. That's where...

Joshua Thompson (31:20.012)
Yeah. I mean, I think I'm not a raving fan of Hormozy, but I think the idea of the offer that people can't refuse, right? what, like how do you have some kind of hook that gets people, you know, is it like here, let me show you how much you can save in 10 minutes, right? Whatever it is.

Christian Brim (31:35.418)
Yes.

Christian Brim (31:46.841)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Thompson (31:47.927)
Right. I think that is a very spot on assessment of getting people in that first step. Right. Is like, how do you get an offer or some kind of hook pitch that yeah. Whereas like, I need to see this and I have to see this information. It's such a hard game because I think few people do it really well in any industry. You have to be creative, right? In a way that you're not used to back to the creative.

Christian Brim (31:58.69)
And yeah, and and and

Christian Brim (32:09.419)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Thompson (32:14.286)
piece, right? This is where you have to be creative. We're all creators because to do any of this stuff well, it's creative.

Christian Brim (32:17.616)
Yes. Well, mean, going back to our plumber analogy, right? Like, if your toilet's overflowing, yes, you know you have a problem, and you 100 % are going to pay for a solution. Like, that's the ideal situation. But most businesses don't live in that space.

Joshua Thompson (32:28.416)
Right.

Joshua Thompson (32:36.28)
Right, yes.

Right.

Joshua Thompson (32:45.6)
Right.

Christian Brim (32:45.936)
where there's like, need to throw money at you. Please come as quickly as possible. need to, right? Most things don't rise to that level of urgency. If you got tooth pain, you're not gonna haggle. It's like, I need this tooth fixed now, right? But that doesn't describe most of our situations with our prospects and customers, right?

Joshua Thompson (33:01.835)
Right.

Joshua Thompson (33:09.846)
That's it. So from your perspective, are you do people hit that point? I mean, I guess they do, right? They just hit the point where their finances are so far out of control that they don't.

Christian Brim (33:19.62)
Well, what we're doing is we came up with last year, we retooled our service offerings again, we tweaked them, it wasn't so much of a wholesale, but one of the service offerings that we're focusing on is those entrepreneurs in creative industries that are at the point where they could save money if they did an S corporation.

Okay. It's a very clear distinction. Like, you know, they're not a side hustle. They're not a startup. They're making money. And, I'm really tired of paying this much in tax. And so we designed the service offering. We really just tweaked it. And then the marketing messages around it, we changed that. The fundamental service really didn't change much. But to your point, you're addressing a specific problem that they...

Joshua Thompson (33:49.368)
Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (34:12.365)
Right, yeah.

Christian Brim (34:19.312)
And this is the thing they may or may not perceive it. There's a lot. What we saw was there were a lot of companies adjacent to our space like Gusto, the payroll provider that were marketing, S-Corp, which I found fascinating. That's interesting. Right. And so we think the needs out there and we think other people are marketing to it. And so we're trying to slide into that. but if you're going to take a specific.

Joshua Thompson (34:36.035)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (34:49.018)
creative business owner out there, are they looking for the solution of an S-Corp? No, we're looking for that pain point of, I'm tired of paying this much in tax. This seems like a lot of money.

Joshua Thompson (34:55.746)
Right.

Joshua Thompson (35:03.83)
Yeah, yeah, no, I totally understand. And that's where I think marketing is so interesting from that perspective because in some cases you have to create the need for the service because people don't know about that solution, right? They would never even think to search for that solution. They just know I'm not, this isn't working well for me. Somebody please help me.

Christian Brim (35:33.244)
Right. Yeah. And that is what's fascinating is because one, you have to be thinking in terms of what they're thinking, not your solution, right? Like what is the symptom that's keeping them up at night? Like the nerve pain, right? You got to figure that out. And you have to describe your solution in a way that they would understand it, right? Like it can't be technical jargon.

Joshua Thompson (35:33.868)
Joshua Thompson (35:41.282)
Yeah. Right.

Joshua Thompson (35:47.789)
Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (35:55.629)
Right.

Christian Brim (36:00.056)
It can't be features and benefits. They were like, can you make my tooth stop hurting? Okay, great. Right?

Joshua Thompson (36:04.14)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's where it's like, right. You just need like to keep there's so many offers out there that people use. I see this in home services. It is so hard to come up with an offer. Like over and over. I don't know if I just lost. okay. I had some pop-up. So, you know, I don't know if

Christian Brim (36:24.048)
You're good.

Joshua Thompson (36:31.948)
I guess it's, it's, it's when you see an amazing offer, you recognize it, but it's so much harder to come up with something like that. Then people really give it credit. They try the standard five or 10 offers. Everybody else does. And then they get, you know, lackluster, decent results. And they kind of stop iterating because it is so hard. And I think about this all the time. You have to basically start a fire with no, you know,

no matches. You marketing really, really good marketing is, is inventing a spark. And I don't do that. I don't do that. My job is to figure out what people are searching. You know, I'm catching a baseball. I got to put my mitt in the way of the ball, where it's going to go. And I got to my hand up otherwise, you know, marketing in this fashion that we're talking about, which is where you have to try to get that spark to get people to come through the door. Cause I'm sure once you get on the phone with somebody or whatever you'd

Christian Brim (37:02.297)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (37:08.005)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Thompson (37:29.518)
probably do a great job because they have the problem. Just getting that initial. It's, like you said, I think the effort from the person on my end to go through it, like, I don't want to go through that process with you, right? I, I know it could be beneficial. I like it. It's great, but I don't want to do it. It's a bunch of work. want to ignore it next year. I'll deal with it. Right. And then, yeah, year after year, I'm getting bled by tax problems and

Christian Brim (37:45.931)
Mm.

Joshua Thompson (37:59.489)
you know, finance issues that killing me slowly.

Christian Brim (38:00.718)
Well, yeah, I mean the reality, the reality is that people don't make a change, which would include buying something until the pain of the solution, which that could be just, I got to do something different. I got to go find the solution. I got to pay for the solution until that pain is less than the pain they're experiencing currently. Right. That's it. And

Which goes back to our examples of like nerve pain like I'm there like I don't I don't need any persuasion that I need to change this and and marketing it I find fascinating because at the end of the day you're trying to predict human behavior and human behavior humans don't act rationally. In fact, they're predictably unpredictable right and that's what

That's why I to all the creatives out there that are worried about technological changes, know, even if you're a designer, none of that matters because the technology doesn't solve the fundamental problem of trying to understand human behavior. And AI is trash at it. I mean, it's awful.

Joshua Thompson (39:12.387)
right.

Joshua Thompson (39:15.918)
This tells you what you want to hear.

Christian Brim (39:18.8)
It's just like Facebook. It just feeds you back more of what you give it.

Joshua Thompson (39:25.922)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (39:28.27)
Yeah. Okay. You're not going to get off the hook with my question though. What were some of the things that were challenges that you didn't know would be challenges?

Joshua Thompson (39:32.258)
Yeah, which is.

Joshua Thompson (39:42.008)
Didn't... I mean...

Christian Brim (39:43.608)
Like going, going into starting your own agency, what were, what were some of the things that stick out of like, God, that, that I really didn't predict, didn't know. And it sucks.

Joshua Thompson (39:56.331)
I think, yeah, that's a really, that's really interesting. Look, I, I would say at my core, have this Buddhist type philosophy and I have, you know, gone through ADHD and growing up like in what I would consider to be difficult for me to learn things, difficult circumstances as far as, you know, being frustrated with myself.

I have put such a perfectionism on myself that I don't know if anything exterior to me ever is as devastating as my internal self. So, you know, I'd say I, my whole focus, my goals, everything that I do often comes internally with this drive for self-control, this drive for like, um,

you know, even just working a certain amount of hours, right? I've been, you know, all, all this year I've been doing 60 hour weeks as like a self-control mechanism. So I'd say the biggest problems I've have been personal and in like self-control and all those, and those have been such monumental changes that the business problems I run into were just, I guess, fun, you know, I enjoy solving those. mean, I've feel like I've come so far.

Christian Brim (40:57.914)
Mmm.

Joshua Thompson (41:24.288)
in my life over the last years that, I don't know if there's one thing specifically I can say that is like, that was really hard. I genuinely enjoy all the stuff that I'm doing and get to do. mean, I just feel like I'm so lucky to be able to like own a business and, grow it. is. I feel like there's no other level for me of like personal.

growth and putting myself into the world and becoming a better person than having that control, right? To build a business.

Christian Brim (42:02.468)
That's very interesting that you went there because most people, including myself, don't start with looking internally. They look externally and look at the problems of the business rather than the problems with themselves. Right. The reality is the business can only be as successful as you allow yourself to grow. You said self-control, is, which is interesting.

Joshua Thompson (42:18.594)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (42:31.972)
because I think I have this theory and my colleague, entrepreneur colleague who is now a doctor of clinical psychology, he sold his business for like nine figures and decided that he was gonna go back and get his degree in psychology. And we had this conversation as he was going on this education journey and the

The reality that I believe, that I experience and I see in others is that most people start a business to solve some problem they have internally. They may not have a conscious awareness of it. It might be like, I grew up poor, I don't wanna be poor anymore, right? Like, I don't know what it is. It's unique for each individual, but...

that the business becomes their coping mechanism to deal with this underlying thing that they're trying to fix. Yeah, no, mean, it's, it's, but here's, here's what Dr. Patel's data on entrepreneurs found. There is a tight correlation between the time that people are in business. So the longer they are in business and entrepreneurs.

Joshua Thompson (43:36.206)
Interesting. Yeah, that's...

Christian Brim (43:58.766)
the more emotional connection they have. In other words, another way to say that is that the crucible that is entrepreneurship, the challenges that it brings, gives us the vehicle, the mechanism to fix those things in ourselves if we allow it. Like if you quit, you don't, but if you're in it longer, you actually start to heal yourself and solve this problem.

Joshua Thompson (44:29.238)
That seems very like Maslow, right? Like as you get to do the things that you want to do and in a growth way, you're kind of, right, finding your purpose, is comes from self control, control against controlling your time, right? Like putting your own time into the things that you choose.

Christian Brim (44:36.804)
Hmm.

Joshua Thompson (44:54.478)
But, know, and I think self-control is an interesting, I guess I should say self mastery because control is one of the things that I'm dealing with right now, right? Like I am right now going through letting go of control a little bit. how to having a manager who helps me run the team and they have some control over what the outcome is. And that has been so hard for me, but those are all, I mean, the things you run into in your business,

Christian Brim (45:07.066)
Yes.

Joshua Thompson (45:24.078)
Like you said, like I was saying, I think they stem from you, right? And as you become a better person, I guess, it's weird to say it that way, but I guess as you understand yourself and overcome those hurdles that are in your way, then your business gets better because you allow it to...

Christian Brim (45:28.784)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Thompson (45:45.058)
have the, like for me, have to give it the breathing room of not controlling everything in order for it to grow.

Christian Brim (45:53.52)
And no, you hit on the first what my friend Drew Goodman's and calls entrepreneurial inflection point. And it has to do with control and it usually presents itself in the symptom of delegation to other people. Right. But ultimately it, and for me, it was like, I have to be comfortable letting someone else do it differently than I would do it. And I accept the consequences of their actions.

That was a big hurdle for me. Right. And it is and most entrepreneurs stall at that point. They're like, because I can't get over that. Like, I'm fine with someone doing it differently than I am. But I don't want to take responsibility when they screw up. Because you know, that sucks. And and I, I figured this out when, you know, my children are grown adults now. But when my kid, my first daughter started to reach about 12.

Joshua Thompson (46:23.477)
Right? Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (46:39.192)
right.

Christian Brim (46:51.76)
I realized that control is an illusion. Like, you know, when they're they're toddlers is pretty easy, you know, like they do what you tell them to do and they're there where you left them and you but but as they get older and they start making their own choices, you realize that, you know, this control that I thought I had was is actually an illusion. And and I think that that wisdom of discerning what you really can control versus

Joshua Thompson (46:57.55)
All right.

Joshua Thompson (47:12.299)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (47:20.526)
what you can control is critical because we focus on things that are largely out of our control. I fell into it again this year, like, and the way that manifests itself is fear. And you start acting out of fear out of this thing that you really have no control over. And so you have to acknowledge that, like, I can't control it. What can I control?

Joshua Thompson (47:23.852)
Right.

Joshua Thompson (47:28.012)
Right.

Joshua Thompson (47:46.755)
The interesting thing about business is that you build something that you can control until you gets big enough that you can't control it. And you have to start backing out slowly of what you're controlling so that you're controlling the most important things. That is, think what I've been running into because I, I

Christian Brim (48:01.069)
Mm-hmm.

Joshua Thompson (48:07.948)
That it's funny to bring that up. My, the first idea that in my mind really resonated deeply with me was in around middle school, early high school, reading seven habits of highly affected people and the circle of influence, which is where he basically lays out the idea that there's things inside your control and outside your control. And too many people spend all this time worrying about stuff that's outside of their control. And I've always liked that. What I'm realizing now though, is that

Christian Brim (48:19.802)
Mmm.

Joshua Thompson (48:37.748)
In the case of business, if you do well, things that were inside your control go outside of your control because it gets too big. I can control 10 clients myself, right? With my effort, everything, but as that gets bigger, I have to let go of control and try to manage. But, and I'll just, I think this is a great segue to the end. The first addiction clinic that I talked about at the beginning.

Christian Brim (48:45.52)
Yes.

Joshua Thompson (49:06.508)
The reason they failed is because the owner cannot let go. Literally, if he would have just gone home, he had all the pieces. He had a manager, he had me doing all the marketing. Everything was in its place, but he could not relinquish control. He had to have the control and the drama. I think too many people find their, their, their, self

Christian Brim (49:15.556)
Yes.

Joshua Thompson (49:36.515)
fulfillment in having a title. I am the owner of a company. I, and so if they, they have to have the title, they don't care about the business succeeding. I see as much as they care about just being able to tell people they own a business. But if this guy just gone in home and just sat on his couch and said, send me the checks. He'd still be in business today. Cause we were running that thing so well, but

His control that he had to have just crushed the whole thing.

Christian Brim (50:06.608)
Right, which is going back to exactly what I said. He was trying to solve his problem of self-worth. Look at me, I own a business. And it was like some... Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (50:15.148)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. 100%.

Yeah, I was just trying to say exactly what you were saying that they're deriving something else out of there. Their goal is not to build a business as much as it is to derive some kind of, yeah, personal or social benefit from being able to, that's why they go into heavy debt, try to keep up this illusion that they don't, they're not there to work and build a business, right? They're just there to say, I'm a business owner, you know.

Christian Brim (50:40.216)
Yes.

Christian Brim (50:46.032)
And the penultimate entrepreneur, someone like an Elon Musk, right? They understand that their job is to figure out who, not how, they can find the right people, as Dan Sullivan's book is who, and your job is to make money off of them. It's not what you do.

Joshua Thompson (51:04.3)
Right.

Joshua Thompson (51:07.64)
Yeah.

Joshua Thompson (51:14.946)
The Henry Ford, right? Addage, right? It's yeah.

Christian Brim (51:16.72)
That's another one, right? Yeah. mean, that's what you're driving for if that is your true intent is to be an entrepreneur. But I think most of us and myself included have used or tried to or get sucked into the business being part of our coping mechanism.

Joshua Thompson (51:37.964)
Yeah, yeah and for me perfectionism.

Christian Brim (51:42.19)
Yeah. Joshua, this has been a brilliant conversation. How do people find out more about Brightbeam SEO and unclogging their toilets?

Joshua Thompson (51:51.872)
Yeah, bright beam SEO.com, Josh at bright beam SEO.com. Feel free. Always interested in talking more about business things.

Christian Brim (52:03.487)
Perfect listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard to hit that button, send us a message and we'll get rid of Joshua. Until then, ta ta for now.

Joshua Thompson (52:17.943)
Hahaha

Thank you. man.