PP 621: Evaluating Opportunity Costs with Sam Lui

“If I’m going hide who I am — or if any of us are going to hide who we are and not be our true selves, then we’re doing a disservice to the people who need us.” – Kim Sutton

After a stress-related incident sidelined Sam Lui in the late 2000’s, he found himself at home caring for his children. It didn’t take him long to realize he had been so focused on his work, that he had estranged himself from his kids, and committed to changing this for the long term.

Listen as Sam and Kim chat about integrity, parentpreneurship, boundaries and more!

Highlights:
03:15 The importance of connection
08:47 Stepping back to become closer
12:54 Employment | Daddy | Entrepreneur Differentiators
23:47 Integrity
26:04 Not everyone is going to like everything
27:24 Personal integrity
31:40 Managing stress
33:50 Being at the beck and call of others
36:21 Pomodoro Technique and Pareto Principle

Listen as Sam Lui of https://localassist.co and @thekimsutton chat about integrity, parentpreneurship, boundaries and more! https://thekimsutton.com/pp621 #positiveproductivity #podcastClick To Tweet

About Sam Lui:

Sam Lui

Sam’s entrepreneurial journey, like so many others, has been an evolution. Today, Sam is the owner of Agency Cinco and LocalAssist.co, where he supports clients with search engine optimization and website maintenance.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION – SAM LUI:

Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton, and today I can’t even tell you how excited I am to introduce you to our guest.

But before I jump into who he is, I want to tell you to take note of Episode 21. Keep in mind that this is Episode 600… And I did have that written down before we started but I’ve forgotten it momentarily… 621 we are on right now. But Episode 20…

Kim Sutton: Oh my goodness. Brain farts at the beginning of the episode is always really good. But episode number 21.

Kim Sutton: So, oh my gosh, Sam. 600 episodes ago, I mentioned you for the very first time. Listeners, I want to introduce my friend Sam Lui from agency five.

We met. What 2015 2016? What year? Would that have been Sam?

Sam Lui: Yeah, it’s been a really long time. And actually, we didn’t actually meet we actually, I just reached out to you on a whim or a Facebook group. And we decided, and then we set up a, I guess it was a coffee meeting or coffee date, if you want to call it that. And it’s kind of went from there. So I think it was probably at least, yeah, at least for four years now. Five years, possibly. Yes.

Kim Sutton: Yes. So we set up a virtual coffee, and that’s what Episode 21 was about… Was about the value of virtual coffees. So yeah, it had to be at least 2015 when we met, because I know we had met way before that that episode was recorded.

But the way you… This all went down, and the reason why it’s so important to me to share this with the listeners is because it’s it’s so important to connect with people when we are entrepreneurs and even more so when we are online entrepreneurs.

Kim Sutton: Sam is in a… in a I would have to think that you’re in a more populated area than I am. I mean, outside of Toronto. But I mean, here I am surrounded by corn and soy fields, and the entrepreneurial scene is just a little bit different.

So, Sam was at an event. He said… he sent me a message “Hey, I’d love to meet up and have coffee if if you’re here as well.” And I was like, oh, guess what, unfortunately, I wasn’t there. And I said, “Well, how would a virtual coffee when you get back to you know your town.”

So, we did that, and here we are, four years later. We may only connect once a year. We should do it a lot more often than that, but we’ll pick up where we left off but…

Okay, so I’ve just taken over the whole conversation, Sam, I’m gonna throw it over to you. Would you mind introducing yourself?

Sam Lui: Yes. Welcome, as I already told you, my name is Sam Lui. I’m the owner of Agency Five. I’m in the digital marketing space. And it’s been an interesting journey.

Sam Lui: I started my business back in 2009. After I left my corporate job, I took a year off and then I started the business. And it’s been a really interesting journey since then. It’s been really sort of a lot of about personal growth and about understanding where your values are about understanding how to overcome difficulties and really just learning about you know, who you are as a person and what you can possibly do.

Kim Sutton: Okay, so I am so embarrassed. I never realized the proper way to say your last name… Lui… That is so horrible listeners, you know? Every other episode I have to ask, “Did I say your name right?” And of course, the one that I don’t was a friend for four or five years is the one I get wrong.

Sam Lui: Okay.

Kim Sutton: Personal growth… Development,.. I never realized that you left a corporate job and took the year off. And especially at that time, what were you thinking? And I don’t mean that in a bad way. But seriously, what were you thinking? How did you leave corporate and then think to business?

Sam Lui: So that’s a that’s a really interesting thought process because at the time I was in corporate, I was making great money. I was doing like six figures. I had two kids, one of them was a newborn, and one of them was approximately two years old.

Sam Lui: And what led up to me leaving the job was I had a stress related incident that basically sidelined me for almost four months. And at that point, when it came back to work, I decided that that was enough, and I wasn’t going to do it anymore.

Sam Lui: So I left my job, and my wife went back to work. So up here in Canada, we get the partner or the spouse gets eight months madly pay. So that was while we took, we took advantage of that. And then when she went back to work, that’s when I decided to leave. So it was excellent timing. It was really just God’s grace.

Kim Sutton: I did not realize… You said the partner gets eight months?

Sam Lui: Yes, actually. So it’s a little bit more than that. So she actually had one year off Yeah, but it was at a reduced rate. So it was all paid paid leave.

Kim Sutton: Wow. We’re lucky if we get 12. That’s if we haven’t left early… because we just can’t do it anymore. I mean…

Sam Lui: 12 weeks?

Kim Sutton: Yeah.

Sam Lui: Oh, wow.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. When I had my first in 2002 he was born a day late, but he was nine pounds, six ounces. And I was taking the train every day from Westchester County, New York into Manhattan. And it got to the point where I, and I know this is gonna sound like an excuse, but I just could not do it anymore.

I mean, I was waddling from the train station over to my office. Sometimes people wouldn’t let me sit down on the train. I mean, anybody can try putting a bowling ball bowling ball into their belly and you try maintaining balance, but holy moly, I’m already the most klutzy person on the face of the planet. When you put this huge thing in my stomach Yeah, no, I might as well just somebody could touch me with their pinky finger and I would have fallen over. Thankfully, I never did.

But I said enough is enough. So after he was born, I only had eight weeks.

Sam Lui: Oh, wow.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I could have taken more, but it would have been totally unpaid, and I would have probably lost my job.

Anyway, so you, you took that time off your wife went back to work and started your business. So was that agency five?

Sam Lui: Yeah. So what’s really interesting with me with that is she took a year off. So when I when I came back, I became, I guess, Mr. Mom.

Sam Lui: And the reason for that was because during the two years that my after my son was born, I was never around because I was putting so many hours. And what really changed my mind was one day when he got injured and he was right beside me literally sitting beside me. He looked at me and then he ran over to his mom. He didn’t know me knew me as someone that was always there, but he didn’t know me as his father. And that was a bit of a wake up call and I said, you know, if I’m going to raise a son or daughter to, to have a father figure life, I need to be much more present in their lives.

Sam Lui: So after I left my job, I basically took a year off and all I did was spend time with them. So my son went to Montessori school and my daughter… I basically took care of throughout the through her second year of life, I guess. So.

Kim Sutton: That’s amazing. And I think so…. Well, number one, my husband is the manny right now. But I have found myself even in my own business, just getting caught up in the business and saying one moment, one moment, one moment and I really I need to step back and spend more time with my kids.

Right?

Sam Lui: Yes, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think, you know, and I think that was probably the best decision I made, because now the relationship that I have with my son and my daughter is essentially priceless. And we know that without being too cliche, because, you know, I can speak to them, I can talk to them, I can have that closeness with them. And that’s, and that takes time. That’s not something that happens overnight.

Sam Lui: That’s, you know, with me being there as a constant presence in their life. Whether it you know, be there at nighttime, you know, when they go to bed or when they get up in the morning or picking up from school. You know, the fact that I’m always there, it makes an impact in their lives.

Kim Sutton: Sam, am I doing my math right? is your oldest 12 13 somewhere in there.

Sam Lui: Yeah, he’s 12 now, that’s correct.

Kim Sutton: Okay, my 13 year old. I just want to know if I’m alone on this… Does your 12 year old tell you more than you really need to hear sometimes?

Sam Lui: My 12 year old son sometimes tells me more than I need to know, but he’s also a bit of a sly one. He’ll always joke about certain things just to see if he can get underneath my skin. 

Kim Sutton: Oh yeah, I’ve got one of those too. Well, my, my 13 year old is a little bit popular. But he’s known because I mean, and I, I would like to think that is because I’ve been around and I haven’t been working outside the home, that he can tell me stuff and I’m not going to judge. I’m going to listen. I’m going to give him feedback if he asks for it.

Holy moly, some of the stuff that I hear things about friends not about him, hopefully, unless he’s using the my friend. Yes. in quotes. Yes, yes. Yes, his his girlfriend, by the way, texted me at 715 this morning to tell me to have a great day. Oh, I thought was just so sweet.

Sam Lui: Wow, that’s great.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. So, you know, maybe he’s 13. So I can’t, I’m not going to say maybe this is it? No, please. But you know, I hope to have that type of relationship with in laws, kids in law. How do you say that? Because I’m not trying to say daughter in law, our son in law or something, but you know that they can feel the same way.

Okay, so you started your business and it was a journey of growth and faith and so many other words, but what… What were some of the early major distinctions that you saw and that you had to make between working in corporate and also in your, in your dad role when you went into being an entrepreneur,

Sam Lui: So I guess really initially I did struggle. And I will share with you that first year that I launched my business, I will say that it was a dismal failure.

Sam Lui: I made $600 in 12 months. Now, most people would think those people would give up and say that’s that, but I was fairly determined that this was the way to go to move forward. I knew that I couldn’t put as much time into the business as much as I wanted, but at the same time, I realized that I vowed that I would not leave my kids hanging like I would not put necessarily work before my kids because of what had happened.

Sam Lui: That incident that happened with my son early on, I just didn’t want that to have happened later on in life. So I would rather make less now and pay less later. And when I say that was because if in the event that I didn’t have a good relationship with my son, let’s say 10-15 years down the road, the amount of trouble that he probably could have caused will probably cost me more money than the money that I would have made in the same amount of time.

Sam Lui: It’s not very optimistic, but it the cost is not just monetary, right? It’s everything to do with, you know, the way you parent like there’s like the cost of you know, guilt, the cost of shame, the cost of all these other things that come with, you know, trading off, you know, monetary gain versus building a solid relationship with your with your kids on my laptop.

(Transcription still being cleaned up. Thanks for checking it out!)

This would probably drive Some people crazy will probably drive some of you, my listeners crazy. I actually have words written on it to remind me every day when I’m focused on. And one of the things that I have written on it is ROI, a return on action. And that’s, that can so much apply to our kids. There’s a song I am so horrible about song names, but this it’s about a father and a son and the father while the kids growing up as always saying I can’t right now I can’t right now I can’t right now. And then the father gets old and he keeps on asking the son to do things. And the son keeps on saying I can’t right now. I can’t right now. I can’t right now. It is, you know, it struck me when I was young. Because Well, I’m just gonna put it out there. I often heard it from my father. And I don’t want to be that to my, to my children as well. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t you know, and I and I don’t want them to feel like that’s okay in the future. either. I want them to you know, Want to come home to see mom even though we’re going to change the locks as soon as they’re all out of the house?

Yes, yes. Yes.

So I want to go back to the $600. Was it at least profit? Like in your pocket?

No. Okay. Um, and I would say that because the amount of time so that’s $600 was basically I tried to start out small, I tried to start up a hosting company to see if I can gain any type of traction because I was doing a lot of reading at the time when I, you know, when my kids were having their naps at the time because they were young. I did a lot of reading online and I thought, Oh, you know, we will try out hosting. And so the first year, you know, I had a few clients and probably I had about maybe 510 clients or so, at the time and if you think about it, time that you put in versus, you know, the actual cost of hosting? No, I wasn’t profitable at all, like, not in the least.

Didn’t need to buy a server to. Yeah, I did. Oh my goodness.

Yeah. So those were the early days. And then I got into the web design business. And that was better. So I started designing websites for clients. Because part of my background when I was an undergrad, I knew how to code. So I knew how to basically put websites together and how to make a work. And from there, I moved into doing also SEO work, which I did quite a bit of, and that’s where a huge chunk of my business was was basically in search engine optimization, as well as other websites, but then I really did focus more of my effort into certain Engine Optimization because that was the one business that actually had recurring revenue. And it’s something that I could do month in and month out without without breaking a sweat. And I really enjoyed it. It was just it was very technical. It was

it was

enjoyable for me in the sense that, you know, I was kind of sort of playing how to is sort of a game for me in terms of how I can get websites to rank and doing so ethically and white hat. So, to me, that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that.

Please don’t think I’m saying that website design is not providing a tangible product.

Right? No,

I don’t mean that at all. But like you can show you can deliver somebody a website. Yes, but whether or not it ever does anything for them. That’s really up to them, unless they do create regular content, put the content out there. and have an awesome SEO strategy. Right. So I love I love the transition into the SEO because you I mean, they could see. And I know what was it you had an attorney or a dentist or somebody who ended up ranking number one?

Yes. Yes. Yeah. So I had this one client that came to me was a personal injury lawyer. And as everyone knows personal injury lawyers are there a lot of them. It’s a highly competitive industry. And unlike the US and Canada, you cannot make claims about your success. You cannot make those type of you cannot advertise in such a way where you would, you know, talk about your success, like that’s just not possible. It goes against the simplicity society rules up here, which is advertising guidelines. So we really had to really focus on what you know, what does the client bring to the table? No, how is it? What’s their voice? What’s their brand, you know, what’s their personality, and we had to bring it through the website. So we built a website for them. And keep in mind, this is a one ran firm. And, and, and then we basically start doing blogging for them. And we did a lot of keyword research for them. And they’ve been my client now for almost five years now. And they consistently rank on the first page. And they are essentially outranking. Some firms that have 20 or 30 people in that firm, they so they have a lot more resources. But we’re all ranking them and he’s now having his pick of clients. So he gets enough leads every single month that he can choose who he wants to bring on as a client. And to me that’s music to my ears because it means now that I’ve really done my job, I’ve really helped this guy sort of cut through the clutter and outrank the competition. Especially when you’re a one man firm, you don’t necessarily have a budget, like a 30 minute for what have you. And so that’s, that’s probably one of my crowning achievements. And I’m really, really proud of that.

Wow.

So I was going through Dayton airport when I was traveling last week, and right there on the wall is this huge personal injury firm? Like, they basically have a billboard inside the airport. Yes. And it just struck me and then, okay, when I go on trips, it’s so quiet. When I get to the hotel room. It’s like strangely quiet. So I always have the TV on unless I’m recording. Yes, and there was a movie Susan Sarandon. I can’t remember the other people but It was I am horrible out names this morning. There was that guy got author who wrote all the attorney books back in the 90s and 80s. But she was a she was an attorney for a little boy. And he’s sitting in the the hospital waiting room and there’s personal injury attorneys all over. I mean, I don’t know what they call them in Canada, but the ambulance chasers? Yes. So it’s just, it’s awesome to hear. He’s not having the ambulance Chase. whether or not he has billboards, you know, I’m not even gonna go there, but that he has his pick.

I want that. Right. I think he’ll do.

Yeah, I think I think what’s interesting about this particular case was this personal injury lawyer. I advised him that to move away from yellow pages. I advised him not to do any billboards. I advise them not to Do Google pay per click, or Facebook ads, all I did was advise him to basically do SEO work. And to really just sort of present his side like to really show his brand through his website, because it’s kind of permanent, right? Like, we we have a certain voice that we write in for him that is reflective of him. So when people meet him, he really is like that. And so people feel really comfortable about him. And he’s one of the very few lawyers who has consistently gotten five star reviews on Google without any shenanigans because there’s other tools out there that basically can limit you know, what, five star reviews go to Google reviews, right? But he doesn’t use any of those two tools. He genuinely gets those reviews naturally. And so that really speaks to another thing, which is you know, making sure that you have the right client right You want to make sure that you have a client that sort of reflects your views and is aligned with what you align with your values really. So.

Hey there, my friend, I hope you’re enjoying this episode of the positive productivity podcast. I wanted to take a quick moment to invite you to join the work smarter, not harder challenge over the course of 30 days these free Yes, free short videos will teach you a few of the systems and strategies I set up in my business so I can get away from my computer and back to the people I love. I invite you to sign up now at work smarter, not harder. challenge.com. Again, you can sign up at work smarter, not harder. challenge.com

sam, what does integrity mean to you?

That’s, that’s that’s an excellent question because that’s there’s very shades of it, of course, but for me personally It is really just doing the right thing when no one’s looking. Right, like it’s always doing the right thing. So that when you when someone were to question you, you don’t have to go through your mind say, oh, what did I do here? What did I say here? You just say exactly what it is your truth and that’s it because that’s the way you are. So there’s there’s no hiding, there’s no ducking, it’s just being who you are. And you know, interesting enough, not everybody likes that. So, you’re going to have to learn to accept that. You know, what you say may not be acceptable to everybody which is fine because personalities don’t always mix. Right? Everybody has their own quirks and everybody has their own little you know, unique this about them and it doesn’t always mesh with everyone.

You’re talking to me.

So I finally figured out how I’m going to start my book, like what my introduction is going to be. That’s all I’m going to say about that, except for the fact that I realized some people are not going to like it. And I’m okay with that. I mean, when you and I met, I was in the state of trying to please everybody.

Yes, I remember that. We have many conversations about this.

And, and I’m finally out of that. Like, who cares? Who cares? I know, I take people off, including my kids and my husband on a daily basis. Now, they are not so much intentional, actually, none of them are intentional. But if I’m going to hide who I am, then I’m then or if any of us are going to hide who we are, and not be our true selves. And we’re doing a disservice to the people who actually need us. listeners, I want you to know that you We switched over from Skype to zoom to do this recording because my computer was just being difficult this morning. And it’s been probably a couple years since I turned on the video to talk to Sam in the last the last time that he saw me I was truly a mombi. And there’s a reason why I’m bringing this up. personal integrity has become I was introduced to personal integrity this year on an earlier episode with Lauren Zander. And I never thought about the fact that we can be, we can have integrity with other people. But having integrity with ourselves is just as important. Like when we say that we’re going to do something to ourselves. We have to do it. I mean, this morning I told myself, I’m going to take a shower. I am not on any video calls today. I’m not planning on doing any Facebook Lives. I don’t even have to leave my house. But I told myself last night In the morning, you’re gonna take a shower, you’re gonna put on makeup, you’re gonna brush your hair, that’s the key, brush your hair. And you’re gonna do it. And I realized that when I stopped doing what I tell myself, I’m going to do, I start doubting what I tell myself, I’m going to do. And if I want to grow my business to the next level, then I need to do what I tell myself, I’m going to do not just everybody else. I mean, they’re important to if I say, I’m going to do something, I need to do it.

Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s the other thing too is about, you know, making sure that you’re gonna follow through. And that’s, you know, that I kind of learned that with my kids, right? Like, you know, my kids now know that when I say something I’m always gonna fall through and so there’s that expectation created now that you know, if I say something, I mean it and it just kind of makes things really easy now also from a discipline standpoint, right? I don’t They don’t have to raise my voice, I don’t have to do anything else, I just have to say a few words, no nice words, I’d say, Hey, you know, this is what we need to do, and they just go about doing it. And so, you know, having targeted really is also about setting expectations with other people as well. And I see that with my kids, I see that, you know, with my clients, and they know that when I say something, I’m going to do it.

I have thought about it in terms of clients before you know, when I say I’m going to send an email, I’ve learned that I need to just start opening up Gmail while I’m still in the conversation and start writing the email. I know that’s not really responsible everybody, you know, I should be putting my whole self into the email or into the conversation. But I’ll forget, even if I have a notepad like 30,000 other things are going to come flying my way as soon as I hang up. So I better start drafting the email, or at least bullet pointing it so I can go write the email afterwards. While I’m right there, but Sam, I want to thank you because regarding my kids, that it’s something that I work on on a daily basis. If I, if I tell my six year old I’m going to play uno with her after dinner. I better play uno with her after dinner. Yes. I don’t want her to get used to a let down with Mama.

Yes. Yeah. And that’s and that and that’s, and that’s just one of those things that, you know, this is where priorities come into play, right? So, if you don’t

put those priorities into place in terms of

making sure that you know what’s the most important, then you’re going to have a great deal of difficulty in terms of just carry that throughout, like, you know, making that a habit making that something that you just do consistently and consistently without having to think about it. And so that’s, that’s kind of a That’s something that I learned are very early on with. In when I started my business and you know, and I actually learned it from my kids is that, you know, if I, if I want to have any credibility with my kids, I have to be, I have to have integrity. I have to be honest, I have to basically carry through.

Absolutely. Now, I don’t want to dig into the stress related incident, to be totally honest. So I mean, I had a stress related incident at my last corporate job. And I needed to take time off, but I do want to fast forward into your entrepreneurial journey. What do you do to make sure that you are taking care of yourself now?

That’s a great question. So to me, it’s been really interesting because my business is sort of transitioning, but in the past, I’ve always made sure that I slotted my time, so I knew, like my workday is actually quite short. My workday is starts from 9am until 2pm, every day, Monday through Friday, on the weekends, I may work a few hours in there. But most of it’s really solely dedicated spend time with the family or doing other things with friends. But really, it’s just making sure that I set a lot of time to basically be very focused, or what I need to do for work from that time that I set out. And the rest of time is really been focused on the kids. So being in the digital marketing space, I do have a lot more flexibility than my wife. I’m the guy who is taking my kids to every single after school event, whether it be sports, or lessons or whatever else. I’m the guy who’s running around with my head cut off, and I don’t mind it, because it’s a chance for me to somehow unwind at the same time because it becomes a bit of a social life for me because I get to meet other parents, mind you, they’re all mums most of those for the most part, but I get to go out there and just sort of just hang out and just talk with other people. And that’s kind of how I manage it. That’s how I look at it. I don’t look at driving my kids from place to place as a burden, but I look at as a chance for me to just take a break from what I’m doing and just have a normal conversation with other people.

So that’s been one of my journeys this year is realizing that I was back again into the being at the beck and call of clients to the point that my ex husband was picking up 99.9% of soccer games for my 13 year old.

And just in the last month, they realized why am I doing that?

Maybe I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but I realized that what I’m at the beck and call I’m devaluing myself. Yes, extremely devaluing myself. Have Oh, just give it to Kim. She’ll do it. She needs some money. No. I, and I know it rubbed some people the wrong way. But I stopped responding to texts after a certain time. I don’t respond to emails before a certain time. I’m not. I actually turned off Skype notifications, Gmail notifications, any notification on my computer are now off. Because I’m not at the beck and call whether people have you done that. Yes,

yes. So I make it a very specific thing where I try to look at emails once a day, that’s it. And for phone calls, unless I’m in a meeting or scheduled meetings, I usually don’t look at my phone until at the end of the day, so that’s how I kind of try to manage the amount of distractions that I have in my life is to basically limit those things regarding social media regarding all those other Other things I told myself that I would never use those things during the day. And it’s gotten to the point where I really don’t even use them when I’m not working. Because I know that if I opened up social media, I’m just going to go down a huge rabbit hole and I’ve lost a huge amount of time, time that could have been spent with my friends or time that is spent, you know, reading a book that I haven’t read a long time, like just stuff that is really integral to my well being, instead of just staring at a screen and just browsing and scrolling for, you know, hours on it, right.

Yeah, I

I turned off text notifications on my phone, too. I didn’t even know that you could do that. I don’t get it. I’ll see when I check my phone that I have, you know, a hellish amount of new text messages. Right. And that’s that was also a problem on my I work off of a Mac. I was getting text notifications on my Mac all day long. Well, yeah, so I had to turn off those notifications too. And it, it really helped. Now, I’m not going to name any names here, but we did meet through some of these program. Yes, when we were going through that program, there was the Pomodoro Technique and the perito principle. At that point, I just want to say but you know, I was in a different place, then listeners, you can go back and listen to early episodes, which if you’re listening on Apple podcast, I want to say are now in archive one, the first 300 episodes are an archive one, but because I didn’t have an idea of who my ideal client was, where they were spending their time, what I needed to be focusing on my team wasn’t big enough. And I, I got really strong out in that period. And Sam, you know, in just July 2016, I thought about killing myself. And I’m not trying to bring this down. But it was because my focus was all over the place. And I did have all those notifications up. But that is something else and listeners, there will be a link in the show notes at Doug KIM sutton.com, forward slash p p six to one to where you can learn more about the perito principle in the Pomodoro Technique and the Pareto principle because they have been so extremely beneficial to me if you haven’t heard of, I think it’s the Pomodoro Technique. Sam, please correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s five minutes of solid focus on one specific task or multiple specific tasks. And yes, a five minute break. Yeah. That has been life changing for me this year. Yeah. With the first day I did it. I was like, Oh, I should go see what’s going on here. Oh, I should go see what’s going on there. If I could have gotten paid that first day for every time my cursor started trying to move to open up a new tab. I would be rich right now. Yeah, but hey, I wanna I want you to share what you’re working on now. But before you do that, listeners, I want you to know that it’s okay to transition your business. It’s absolutely okay perfectly acceptable to transition your business especially as you begin to understand what you love to do, what you want to do, what you can best you to serve your ideal clients. So with that said, What are you doing now?

So yeah, so

I started a business or a side business, that son to grow becoming more part of my major business in addition to websites and SEO, and that is website care. And it’s called local assist local systems SEO. And basically what we do is we take care of your website. What I’ve noticed is a lot of website owners out there just do not maintain their website at all, and they don’t Think about security updates, they don’t think about software updates, they don’t think about all these little things that are happening in the back end that should be managed and taken care of every single month, like these are things that you need to do. And the reason I’m doing this is because I typically get called upon to fix an issue with a website. So because I have SEO clients, I typically focus on SEO, but I always go in there and I realize there’s something wrong with the website, it’s not performing as well and I am fixing the website so that it does do better. So that actually helps with your SEO I know it’s a bit self serving, but you know, site speed and said performance is really sort of important for Google to recognize that you’re the user experience is really up to par or meets their standards. And so I start doing a lot more website man, it’s and now you know, I’m getting more clients who are just looking to have their site taken care of for them because they don’t necessarily have the time they don’t have the the knowledge to do it. And they just don’t care for is it’s kind of well, you know, it’s boring. Like, you’re not talking to people, you’re not selling anything. You’re not writing any content, you’re, you know, you’re not doing anything to sort of promote yourself. This is just, you know, boring, boring work and nobody really wants to do boring work, which is kind of why many people don’t bother what with website magnets. And it’s a real problem because now a lot of websites without proper maintenance gets affected by either malware or it gets hacked, or it affects their SEO. And so yeah, so that’s what I’m doing now. And, you know, I’ve recognized that I need to transition my business I’m sort of pivoting my business away now from doing SEO but doing into Long website means website care. And, you know, it’s it’s really affordable like for for the service. And especially for for for my us clients, it’s extremely affordable because you know you’re paying Canadian dollars versus US dollars. So which is essentially a 30% discount.

I’m going to say regardless of what it costs up front, the savings in the long run, yes, are ridiculous, like ridiculously awesome. And you and I were friends when this happened, but my site was hacked in the fall of 2017. Actually, all my sites were hacked. There was one site that was almost finished, I hadn’t put security up on it. And and the hacker went into the backend and deleted all the data for all the websites. And I thought I had backups. I thought I had security. But I was wrong because that was just one of those things that I was not focusing on. So And I didn’t have it in my budget to get a new web design or a new website designed. I mean, never mind nine websites designed. My poor husband, his website still hasn’t been put back up again. And it’s two years later. But the amount of time that took me and my team, because we had not just invested a small amount every month. And I just want to put this out there, there is no affiliate link in the show notes. Although I am going to strongly encourage all of you to go talk to Sam or check out his services. There’s no affiliate link associated with this. It’s, it’s brainless to me, you need it as an as a result. Like I just want to put this out there. And I won’t name any names here either. But I ended up switching web hosts and I’m paying three times more now. Just because I know that I’m being provided with some of that, but that’s only the beginning.

Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And you know, with the No, with with WordPress, I mean, you got to look at it this way, right? So

it, let’s put aside costs for a second, let’s just say you know, whatever the services this say is put that aside for website care. So you got to look at it from your business, you know, what does it mean for your business for your website to be up and running? Like what is the opportunity for you? So let’s say for example, you’re a coach and you are promoting your website, you’re promoting your business, you know, you’re out there doing your activities and marketing activities, your sales activities, and you send people to your site. And you know, after they hear your spiel, they’re really excited. They want to sign up and go to your site. Well, when they hit your site, it’s not up and running. Or they get a you know, site has been hacked or, or it’s running really, really slow and they get turned off. What does that cost you? Like if if your client if you are bringing in clients That you can charge, let’s say $2,000. Right? Every time. Never least, yeah, you know that that’s your opportunity cost. So if your website’s down for one day, two days, three days, even more four days or five days, that’s five days of potential loss sales. And if you just get one client a day, right at $2,000, that’s $10,000 that you’ve potentially lost revenue, just because you didn’t think to do website maintenance and care. And if you look at it from that perspective, then it makes all the sense in the world because now you know that small costs that you outlay means that your website is up and running. It’s always optimized. It’s always are being protected from malware. You know, it’s just a comfort. It’s just a piece of Mind that you have. I mean, it’s kind of like insurance was not exactly insurance. You know, I’m not a licensed insurance broker, but it is like insurance because you’re doing preventative stuff, right? It’s like, you know, going to a naturopath and getting saved enough and saying, you know, this is what you need to take to maintain, you know, your, your, your hormones to maintain your white cells or red blood cells like these are things that you’d take vitamins, etc. This is all preventative so that when you get with as you age and get older, there’s less and less problems down the road. And so that’s what this is like, right? It’s preventative work that you need to do to, to to, to avoid any of the bigger issues that may come down the road.

Sam, I don’t know if I ever told you what happened the week that my site that all the sites went down. No. And I hope this goes right to the heart of the listener so you understand how important this was. I had been at the new media summit the first ever new media summit and while I was there my podcast hit the top 200 podcasts in all of iTunes.

Wow, iTunes.

And in every single episode I direct people back to the show notes page.

But all of a sudden the website is gone. And 125 episodes of show notes pages are gone. And my my podcast is charging on iTunes. Listeners all it takes is one post. Or one mention for you to go viral. Please make sure that your website is secure and protected. It’s like safe sex. Just had to throw it out there when when you go viral.

Yes.

had to throw that in there totally. But seriously, protect yourself. Yes, you’re gonna go viral and all the best ways. Yes.

Basically, that’s really what it comes down to.

for them if you’re a ringer every day,

yeah. So where can people go to learn more about you about your offerings I know that you’re conditioning out of SEO but I do believe it’s so important. Yes, your website maintenance packages and all that awesome stuff.

Sam Lui: So the website is called Local Assist… localassist.co. And on there, you’ll find sort of three packages, you have your basics you have your pro and you have your essentials. And if you look at the each of those packages, in addition to website maintenance or care if you blog a lot, or if you do anything else that is marketing related on your website? Then, you know, such as content updates, that’s something that we also include in our packages as well, where we’ve also optimize your blog. we optimize your images for SEO so that you don’t have to worry about doing that.

That alone is huge. I shared with you when we spoke a couple weeks ago that we’ve been working on that, listeners in full disclosure, it had been a year since we caught up. So that is something that we’ve been working on in my team and we have seen our web traffic triple. Yes, we started that is so huge, but local assist.co. That will be all the links and everything we’ve talked up, talked about will be in the show notes at Doug KIM sutton.com. forward slash p p six to one. Sam, thank you so much for joining me. I wish. I just gotta tell you, I wish that we had had this conversation like two years ago and you would have just said, Ken, maybe you did. Maybe I just went wasn’t ready to listen yet, because that is me. What do you have for website backups and security? Yes, you know, but don’t let that be you, my friend who’s listening right now and you know that you don’t have backups or security and take care of it today. But, Sam, do you have a parting piece of advice or a golden nugget that you could share with listeners?

Sam Lui: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the really important things in terms of as an individual is really sort of just being aware, like being aware of surroundings, being aware, where your mind space is being where physically where you are. And I think if once you become aware of those things, you will eventually make the right decisions that you will take that’s best for you. So being aware is probably my biggest piece of advice for for yourself.