Vince Reed built an online business in 2008 after losing everything during the mortgage meltdown. His business failed to earn a single dime for six months, until Reed shifted his focus to mastering internet traffic and leads. After building it up to be a multimillion dollar business, he sold it in 2016 and now operates as the CEO of several online companies, speaks all over the world, and helps entrepreneurs and business owners get more traffic by leveraging the power of the internet.
Time-Stamped Show Notes
[00:00] Welcome and introduction to Vince Reed.
[01:11] Dinner with two famous people.
[02:43] Internet Traffic & Leads: The Past, Present and Future of Internet Marketing for Entrepreneurs Who Want to Win.
[05:04] Starting his company.
[08:50] His unorthodox approach to marketing.
[12:00] Current marketing strategies.
[14:36] Mistakes that raise costs.
[19:01] Failure.
[22:55] Routines that contribute to his success.
[24:14] Book recommendations.
[26:45] The best advice he ever received.
[29:07] Advice to his younger self.
[30:30] Contact information.
Dinner with Two Famous People
If Vince Reed could have dinner with any two famous people, he’d choose President Obama and President Trump. He wants to hear both of their perspectives. “I think both guys are honestly brilliant in their own ways, and I’d be able to learn a lot from them,” he says.
Polarizing politicians get a bigger following, and this year Reed has taken a page out of their book by playing with edgier marketing. “It’s all about the attention,” says Reed. “Sometimes even negative publicity is good publicity.” That’s not to say that businesses have to be negative, but being unorthodox and edgy can get people’s attention.
Internet Traffic & Leads: The Past, Present and Future of Internet Marketing for Entrepreneurs Who Want to Win
Reed’s book came about after people kept telling him to write a book. “I focus on paid advertising, pay-per-click marketing,” he says. He had resisted writing a book because of how quickly technology changes, but after he sold his company, he felt it was time. “In my mind, I was writing it to every single entrepreneur out there who understands how important marketing and lead generation is,” says Reed. “If you have a business and you invest a single dime into paid advertising, I would say this book is definitely for you.”
Starting His First Company
Reed was trying to hold on during the mortgage meltdown, but banks were going under on a daily basis. A friend who was a broker invited Reed to come on at his company because they needed someone to do FHA loans, the only loans that were being approved at the time. During his first week on the job, he submitted about 8 files that were all approved.
His home was in pre-foreclosure, he was leasing a car and the lease was going to expire in about a month, and he had no money. Those files had about fifty thousand dollars riding on them, money that would have saved his home. However, he then received an email stating that the bank couldn’t fund his deals. He had to call all of his customers back, one by one, and tell them. “It was just the worst day of my life,” says Reed. “I packed up my files, and at that point, I was just done.”
He couldn’t go home and tell his girlfriend that there was nothing left, so he went onto Craigslist immediately to find a new job. In the sales section, he found an advertisement to make money on Google. “And that’s where I always say the internet found me,” he says. The advertisement was for an e-book that taught basic Google adword strategies, and the author was selling people into a direct sales opportunity. “I could barely send an attachment on an email,” says Reed. “I was not computer savvy.” He went home and announced to his girlfriend that he was going to make millions on the internet. Instead of knocking his dream, she just told him to go do his research. “And that was literally the defining moment of my life,” he says. If she hadn’t supported him, he wouldn’t be where he is today.
His Unorthodox Approach to Marketing
Many people approach marketing by mirroring things that other companies are doing that appear to be working. However, they don’t take into account things that are happening beneath the surface, so mirroring doesn’t work. For Reed, it’s always been about practicing what he preaches. “It doesn’t matter what I’m selling. The key is to figure out what people are already searching for, and you be there in front of them,” he says. So he puts an advertisement out, and when someone responds to it, he instructs them to Google themselves. When they do, the first thing they’ll find is a video of Reed speaking directly to them. Instead of just preaching to them that he can get them traffic, this approach shows them the power of what he does.
Current Marketing Strategies
Reed does a lot of consulting with a lot of different companies in a lot of niche markets. “Nine times out of ten, the companies are overspending by a lot,” he says. They may spend thousands of dollars on radio or television ads when they could be leveraging the internet for a fraction of the cost. It doesn’t help matters that many internet marketers who claim to be agencies aren’t skilled at producing. “But if you find the right person, hands-down, I believe online is always going to be more cost-effective and more targeted than pretty much any other medium out there,” he says.
Instead of spending $500 on widespread marketing, for example, Reed recommends taking $200 of that to put out free education. Then spend the other $300 specifically targeting the people who took advantage of that free education. Those people already know you and have already gotten something valuable from you, so the conversion rate is higher.
His Best Advice
The best advice Reed ever received was to set only one goal — to break each of his records from the day before.
“Obviously not every day is going to be better than the day before. There’s always going to be ups and downs,” he says. “But if you focus on the numbers and pay attention to them like it’s gold, I guarantee you that you will quadruple your revenue.”
If he could go back in time and speak to his younger self, “I would tell myself to fail faster or to think bigger,” he says. He’d tell himself to get a mentor quicker, and to realize that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
Contact Vince Reed
You can find Reed’s book on Amazon and engage with him on Facebook.
