Brian Brady, Pres. of Integrated Digital Solutions, Inc. and owner of WSI Digital Marketing in WV.

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor implied shall be extended to W four CY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Kevin helen n believes that certainly applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at W four CY Radio. That's W fourcy dot com and now your host, Kevin Helena, Thanks for joining in today again.

0:54 Everybody. I am Kevin Haleanan and welcome back to another episode of Winning Business TV and Radio on W four c why dot com. We're streaming live on talkfortv dot com, and of course we're on Facebook and that's at Winning Business Radio. Of course, we're also available in podcasts after the live show on as many platforms as you can name. YouTube iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, pretty much wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, we're there. The mission of Winning Business radio and TV, as regular viewers and listeners know, is to offer insights and advice, to help people avoid the mistakes of others, right to learn best practices. That's the how tos, the what tos, the what not tos, and to be challenged and certainly and hopefully to be inspired by the successes of others. But you know, virtually every successful person that I've ever talked to has said some form of failure in their lives and careers. Listen, I say it every week. We all have to get our knees skinned once in a while. I'm just driven to keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it today. My guest is Brian Bray, president of Integrated Digital Solutions, Incorporated and owner of WSI Digital Marketing in Vienna, West Virginia. Here's his bile. Prior to starting WSI in July twenty three, excuse me, Brian worked for the Department of Treasury Bureau of Fiscal Service in Parksburg Parkersburg, West Virginia from twenty two to twenty three, where he managed the technical staff of database administrators from two thousand, excuse me. From nineteen eighty nine to

2:27 two thousand and two, Brian worked for Crown American Hotels Company in Johnstown, PA, in a wide range of hotel development and operational positions. From ninety nine to two, he was the company's Information Systems Director. In February of twenty three, Brian retired from the US Navy Reserves at the rank of Captain six after serving for thirty five years. He's earned fourteen personal decorations throughout his career and served in three deployments in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Currently, Brian is a WSI Digital Marketing consultant. WAI is a leading provider of sales and marketing consulting services focused on increasing leads and top line sales performance. He's at his best when helping business owners and executives understand how to take advantage of social media technologies to support their business objective objectives. His ideal clients are those that know they need to engage in social media, but struggle to see how to use it in their business. He's a graduate of penn State University and holds a Master's of Business administ I can talk business administration from Bristol University, Bristol, Tennessee. Brian and his wife Tammy are natives of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. They have one son, Brian Junior, who's married, and they have three children, McKenna age nine, Carter aged six, and Brooklyn age four. When he's not saving the world from bad guys or was or countless clients from the perils of poor digital marketing, he likes to golf, spend time on the beach and at their cottage in Bedford County, PA. Brian

3:57 also plays guitar, loves to explore his family history using ancestry dot Com, and, of course, like me, spending time with his grandkids. Brian, Welcome to Winning Business Radio TV. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Kevin. It's a pleasure to be here. Oh I'm glad. I'm looking forward to this. So I want to get you know, I like to ask every guest for a little bit of background. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Okay, so tell us about that town, how big, how small? Kind of what that kind of give us give us a flavor of the upbringing in that town. Yeah. So, Johnstown, Pennsylvania is about seventy miles east of Pittsburgh, so western Pennsylvania and the beautiful Laurel Highlands. Johnstown was a steel town, so it was thriving in steel industry from the late eighteen hundreds on up to the mid nineteen seventies. Probably our biggest claim to fame is the Great Johnstown Flood of eighteen eighty nine. Yeah. That was a devastating flood that was caused by a dam that failed. And that dam also happened to be a resort area for many of the steel and industrial tycoons from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So they built this beautiful resort on this beautiful lake, and without you know, being too controversial, they just didn't quite maintain it the way they should have and the dam failed and I wiped out the town of Johnstown. Now,

5:27 yeah, yeah, it's pretty famous, it is. Yeah. There were two subsequent floods, nineteen thirty six and nineteen seventy seven, And I grew up in the downtown area of Johnstown, and so I survived or lived through the seventy seven flood. Wow. A lot of businesses affected, homes affected. Yeah, in seventy seven, I want to say there were a couple hundred people unfortunately, that were killed in that flood due to different you know, all sorts of different reasons. Really was the last nail in the coffin of the steel industry instown. And then you know, probably for a lot of small towns in that same time frame, that was about when the growth of suburban shopping malls started to become very strong. And you know, our little downtown area with our two department stores and many other boutique you know, shoe stores and clothing stores just you know, virtually died. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. So what were your early interests like as a young guy? Uh, you know, when I was a kid, I mean, you get again, like, you know, growing up in those days was just so kind of care free, you know, just getting out on your bike and riding with your buddies, and you know, my dad would whistle on the front porch when it was time to come home for dinner.

6:54 You know, we knew it was time to get home, and my mother had a bell yep. Yeah. Yeah, So those types of things just being a kid, you know, played played a little bit of baseball when I was a kid, and but mostly just kind of running around with my buddies and hanging out, you know, on our bikes and things like that. So that was his job. Yeah, yeah, where did you develop the affinity towards accounting? Well, let's see, So I when I I went to Penn State, I start my my my original goal was to go to law school, and I thought, probably like a lot of lost law students do, like the the most complimentary undergraduate degree for law school was political science. Well, I took my first political science course, and I can't remember if I didn't like the instructor or if I just didn't like the topic, And maybe it was the instructor that just didn't make the topic great.

7:53 And I changed my major, like immediately dropped that political science class, and I chose I wanted to you know, I chose like a business degree. I guess maybe with the still with aspiration of law school, probably advised in an accounting degree is also a complimentary degree for you know, for law school. So I chose I chose accounting as ash. Yeah, and that was probably like my freshman year of college. I got it. Yeah, all right, we're going to back up a little or maybe it's in that timeframe. Maybe maybe it's not tell us about your wife Tammy. Uh, yeah, it's a little bit after that. So Tammy and I met in Johnstown. Uh. We were working at a restaurant, just a mom and pop owned restaurant. She was a waitress there and I had a little part time job tending bar. And it was a really it was one of the better restaurants in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It was a seafood restaurant, if you can believe it or not. But I'll tell you what. If you ever talked to anybody that had a crab cake at Serpent Turfy in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, they will tell you that it is probably one of the best crab cakes they ever had. The chef slash owner just had a fantastic knack for preparing, you know, all sorts of good seatfood and things like that. He used to go to Pittsburgh to a wholesale fish market to pick up his seafood.

9:18 So we met there. We met there. I'm glad she's not here because it was probably around like nineteen eighty six, I think somewhere in that time frame, so after I graduated from Penn State. Cool. Yeah, And so tell us about Brian and his family. So, my son is thirty two three years old, thirty three years old, his wife Kayla. He and his wife Kayla have three children. They live in They live not too far from us. We live in Vienna, West Virginia. They live in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He's a general manager at a Harty's restaurant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. It's like one of the few parties in this area that's open twenty four to seven, so it's a pretty high volume place and he's the general manager there. He started at Hardy's. He's worked his way from the ground floor literally up to general manager. Very cool with that, with the organization that operates those restaurants. And the three kids, you know, nine they're all two. They're two years apart. So right now they're nine, six and four, but by August they'll be nine, seven and five. And yeah, they're just a lot of fun. The half of ground So kidding, I'm with you there. We have two so far.

10:33 So yeah, yeah, all right, let's take a look at some of your previous positions. Crown American Hotels. You were there for quite a while, You've had various roles, and yeah, the reason I want to take you there is just to see how people just show people how you kind of progress, what your background is. You know, we'll talk about treasury, we'll talk about the Navy a bit, and then we'll certainly dig into what you do now, but talk about that first couple of role as the internal auditor to the GM of the hotel. Yeah, so I'll go back even a little bit further than that, if you don't mind. Kevin my first well, you know, I guess the other thing. As a kid, I always had paper route, you know, so I probably probably started working when I was like, you know, ten to eleven, twelve years old, having a paper route. But on my sixteenth birthday, and that was you know what happened. I was supposed to go to with my high school buddies. We were supposed to go to like a lake and have fun and goof off at a lake. But like I got stood up. My friends never picked me up. But that day, it was my sixteenth birthday, and that didn't happen often. That was just yeah, yeah, on my sixteenth birthday, I got a call from the hotel, one of the hotels that Crown American owned, and it's like a block and a half from my house. I applied for a bus boy position and I got hired on my sixteenth birthday, and so a company that owned the Crown American owned and operated at that time, it was a Sheraton Inn in Johnson, and I just

12:05 loved it, you know, I mean, I it was my first real paid job. It was at a great hotel. I got to learn so much and work with so many great people and worked for so many great managed you know, hotel managers that are just really customer service oriented and really like just cut my teeth in the in the hospitality industry there. So, you know, all through high school then bus boy. I think one summer I worked in the kitchen because I had like a fascination with food. That's the other, you know story. Like at one point I really wanted to go to culinary school because of the experiences I was gaining at the hotel, But I only wanted to go to one Culinary Institute of America and that was like two probably unaffordable, very expensive, So I never pursued my culinary education.

12:56 But so worked there through high school, probably came back and worked summers through college, and then sure enough, in nineteen eighty nine, I guess well, actually I started working there, probably in like also about the time I met my wife. Eighty seven, I was a night auditor at the hotel. So if anybody knows about the hotel, night audit is eleven to eleven PM to seven am. And the purpose of the night auditor of position is basically just to reconcile the books from all the day's business activity. And then in our case, we reported to our corporate office, Crown American, which was also located right there in Johnstown. So night auditor at the hotel.

13:43 And then in nineteen eighty nine, after I came home from boot camp and I guess you know, we'll could get to that in a few minutes, I was hired as an internal auditor, so internal audit for the type of position I was doing, or our department, we were more i'll call it operational auditing. So Crown American also operated many shopping centers throughout the mid Atlantic, and so we would a lot of times we would go to the corporate offices of some of the major retailers to to audit their sales activity that they were reporting to us, because there's a you know, percentage rent category, so there's a base rent and then for x amount of dollars over sale a sales threshold, there's a percentage rent. So we would audit their sales reporting.

14:39 Uh. We also went out to the hotels and did operational audits. We would do cash counts. Uh. We would do inventory, you know, end of the month inventory with the food and beverage staff, you know, counting food account eggs, counting you know, you know, the on the beverage side, you know, verifying the liquor you know, you know, beer, wine and liquor sales through monthly inventory and Okay. So also at that time, really throughout a lot of my years at Crown American, we were going through a lot of growth and acquisition and we were building hotels and I one of my jobs also as internal auditor, because I had the hotel experience, is I would go out to our new hotels and train them to our procedures, to our processes and especially especially like our night auditing and reporting procedures. UH. And I really loved that operational environment being out in the hotels, and I mean there were I mean there were times. There were a couple of occasions where we were getting ready to open the hotel, you know, the hotels opening was coming and some of the rooms weren't ready and we were like it was all hands on deck, were out there cleaning rooms and getting rooms ready to rent and everything, and I just I just loved that environment. So it was kind of natural for me to want to and then apply and then be selected to go out and manage a hotel,

16:11 which in this case it was in Oakridge, Tennessee. Very cool. So before we go to break, last question before break, what's your key takeaway from working for them? Uh? Again, I learned so much about good customer service. Being at the hotel in Tennessee, far away from the corporate office. I had a lot of autonomy to operate the hotel, almost as if it were my own. I had we had a you know, I mean, I had sales goals and budget goals and bottom line goals. As you can imagine. Sure, I was out in the community, you know, a lot, doing a lot of networking, and I really, I think the one thing that really instilled in me working at the managing that hotel was like like a desire to someday own my own business. Yeah, that's cool you. I was going to comment on that, but I wanted to let you go. Yeah, when you have that autonomy, it does give you that mindset. Yeah for sure, Yeah, it did for sure.

17:15 All right, thanks, We're going to be right back Brian in one minute. Everybody will be back with Brian Brady. He is, uh, where's the I thought I had a tet up there. A president of Integrated Digital Solutions and owner of WSI Digital Marketing in Vienna, West Virginia. Be right back right. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Have you ever dreamt of being on the radio, Well, now is your chance be a radio show guest on the number one ranked internet radio station and promote you and your business for free. Yes you heard it, free business advertising right here on W four cy dot com. Call five six one five zero six four zero three one now to get booked on one of our shows. That's five six one five zero six four zero three one. Get your free advertising now and now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin helenan presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helena. All right, we're back with Brian Brady,

18:48 President of Integrated Digital Solutions and owner of WSI Digital Marketing. All right, so now move over. How did you get the job? And tell us about working for Treasury Bureau of Fiscal So everyone tell us about the Bureau. Well, I got to Can I finish my career at Crown America? I beg your pardon? Yes, we did a little bit of them ahead of myself. Yep, yeah, no, no, no problem. So again my you know, right after we got so, I had the job in Oakridge, Tennessee, the same year we got married. So we got married and we lived in Tennessee and it was like a great two and a half years. We lived there for two and a half years, just loved it. Really great part of the country, really interesting town. Oakridge, Tennessee was one of the three sites of in the Manhattan Project, So really interesting.

19:34 Yeah, that's right, huh Oakridge, Tennessee. So but my we you know, we became pregnant, like in nineteen ninety two, my wife became pregnant, became expecting, and there was an opportunity to take a position back at the corporate office in back in Johnstown, and that, of course was a great opportunity to return to our families, with our you know, when our son was going to be born, and so you know, live among our friends and family. So we moved back to Johnstown and then stayed there from ninety two until when we left in two thousand and two, for about ten years. And so what happened there was so first of all, the patriarch of the company, chron American, passed away. Suddenly he had his son was a primary, you know, second in command. He had a daughter that was also involved in the business. The daughter wasn't never really involved in a lot of the operations, but the son very heavily involved.

20:37 However, then let's see, in the late nineties, I guess they started to tell off some of the shopping malls. September eleventh comes along, tourism industry goes down the tubes hotel. The writing's kind of on the wall that the hotel side of the company is probably not going to survive either last or just an interest in not. I mean when I left, we had twenty seven hotels, and I don't think he really wanted he the owner, the son that the owner's son really wanted to have that hands on kind of involvement. So I had an opportunity to move to West Virginia come to work for the Department of Treasury. At the time, it was called Bureau of Public Debt. So if you ever bought a savings bond, I don't know a lot of people in your audience know what a savings bond is anymore, but if you ever bought a savings bond, were those are? Those were issued issue thank you through the Bureau of Public Debt. Through the Bureau of Public Debt. So, and then about probably ten years ago or so, Public Debt merged with the Financial Management Service, So if you ever got a check from the federal government, it said Financial Management Service on it, and those two bureaus merged to become the Bureau of Fiscal Service. Their mission so the mission of the Bureau of Fiscal Service is primarily all federal payment activity, all

22:07 federal debt collection activity, and when a lot of people don't even know. I was talking to somebody last week right here in Parkersburg. Didn't even realize. You know, all the Treasury auctions for the industrial you know, commercial industrial securities, personal securities, all that happens here in Parkersburg, West Virginia. So the T Bill, the T bill auctions, the Treasury auctions happened a couple of times a week. Those are all run right here in Parkersburg, West Virginia. I never really worked in that side of the of the of the Bureau. I always worked in kind of the information system side. And so my you mentioned, I managed the staff of database Administrators DBAs, and we my staff supported you know, many of the applications that Bureau Fiscal Service, and also other Treasury bureaus and another non Treasury government organizations. We supported applications really across a lot of a lot of federal government do just out of curiosity, do aid payments to countries or NGOs, so they go through there as well. Let's say, you know, Congress approves of aid package.

23:15 Is that is that what that goes from? I don't think so, Kevin, I don't know for sure. That seems sounds to me like that would go through Department of State. I think the US AID is a subordinate in Department of State, but all other federal payments come through our bureau. Now the payment payment Payment Management Service actually is located in Kansas City, but again it's all part of Kansasity, Missouri, but it's all part of Bureau Fiscal Service. Most recently and most significantly during the pandemic in twenty twenty, Remember there were a lot of like aid checks going out to certain categories of citizens. I can't remember if everybody got a payment of some sort. Yeah, everybody did it based on filmily, So all those all those payments came through you know, we're we're you know, organized and managed through the Bureau Fiscal Service, whether they were physical paper checks or digital payments. I think also we were putting payments on we were mailing depit cards. Yeah, so that was a little bit of that was high, a little bit of pressure.

24:29 You know, we ran all that on We had a we have a main We still have mainframe technology there, or had when I left a year ago. So all that all of those that payment, those that software, those applications were still kind of housed on our mainframe infrastructure. So is that but is that intentional or is it lack of development or is it a security measure or maybe it's a combination. Man that how much more time do we have? You know, we don't. I just want to Yeah, I want to get into the current stuff. So but yeah, a little bit of all of the above. You know, there's a big initiative now to get to kind of move everything off of that mainframe. So yeah, but they're still in healthcare too. I know a company that there is a staffing company and they sort of have the market on this language on people consultants that still use and some are younger than I just you know, seven year old guys. You know, some of them are younger and they just learned, but that they're specialists to that industry that are still you know, these big mainframes. So yeah, yeah, one of my top mainframe guy, you know, he was I mean he was older, he's probably in his late sixties, early seventies, and just kept on wanting to work. Loved his mainframe and and he you know, maintains that mainframe is probably one of the most secure infrastructures available, you know, and the process, you know, the computing power and the computing capability and so forth is really a second to

26:02 none, but it cannot hurt. Yeah, all right, so kind of a big question a long time mm hmmm. A couple of the best lessons learned from that Treasury From Treasury, well, I was so I was a manager. I managed a staff for most of my time there, and you know, being in I mean, it's just really important to you know, treat your staff like like people, you know too, I was I always felt like I was, you know, a servant type of leadership style and given I would always try to give my employees as much as much autonomy again as possible to operate and make decisions on their own, you know, within our framework and our printers. But that was probably one of one of the biggest lessons learned. Kevin is is just kind of home and home in the leadership side of you know, part of part of my background. So that's a good segue to your Navy career. Uh, why did you join originally?

27:14 And why did you say so long? And I know, I'm guessing you went from active duty for a number of years now. No, you went right into the reserves, rear reservists. Yeah, I joined the Navy because my dad and his brother were in the Navy, and I joined it as you know, as an opportunity. I thought it would just you know, with you know, with the possibility of opening some doors, right my you know, I was my before I went to Crown American, Like, I didn't have like great jobs after college that I was, and so this was just like an opportunity, like I said, to kind of open up another door in my life. I enlisted in nineteen eighty eight. I went to boot camp for the from like September until January of eighty eight into eighty nine, and then through boot After boot camp, I just came right back and was a reservist. Was in the reserves in let me clarify that that's January in Michigan. Yes, no, it's Illinois. It's close enough, Okay, Great Lakes is in Illinois. It's right on Lake Michigan. And yes, I was there until early January. Yes, there were some awful, cold, cold mornings, I bet, you know, forming up getting ready to March of the Chao or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, so thirty

28:47 five years. Yeah, why do you stay? I mean, thank you, by the way, we appreciate I'm sure there were a ton of things that the Navy did for you. Why did you choose to stay and uh, you know, make that long career out of it. It was a great part time job. So you know, from the day I joined, from the day I enlisted, because I because I had already had a college degree and a master's degree. My goal was to become you know, was to get a commission, was to become an officer. So in nineteen ninety six, I was selected for a direct commission in the Reserve Supply Corps.

29:34 So Supply Corp officers in the Navy are the logistics you know, and business side of the Navy. And so the Reserve Supply Corps has a very robust direct commission opportunity meeting like literally candidates could be could be chosen literally office, I mean, with with no background, with no Navy experience whatever, to be selected for a commission. So so I selected for mission in ninety six, and that kind of reset everything, right, so I already served for eight years. That helped me to keep that twenty year goal in focus, you know, and I think by the time I started to approach that twenty years by by now by then I had been selected for uh promotion to lieutenant commander four and I was talking to, you know, a colleague, a mentor, and I think I probably said something like, as soon as I make five, I'm doone. And this person said, I mean, why stop there? Why not try to make six, you know, or even you know state, try to succeed as long as you can. So, so that's what I did. I mean, I loved, I loved, you know, once I went from I mean, I love even when I when I was enlisted, I loved every minute of it. I have absolutely no regret of any moment ever that I've done anything in the Navy reserves.

30:56 When I became an officer, that's an opportunity to again become a leader, you know, maybe have a little more opportunity to do other things. And I did in the Reserve Supply Corps, we did a lot of great things. I was been around the world, you know, for different things, different whether it's annual training, you know, my two weeks or three weeks of training, or deployments. I've been around the world and I've never regretted a minute of it. So and yeah, so then yeah, like you can only stay like so at age sixty. Sixty is mandatory retirement and so so I I punched out last year. Well again, thank you. We appreciate it and that's part of who you are. All Right, we're going to take a break right now, everybody. We'll be back with Brian Brady of WSI in just about a minute. Right you're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W fourcy dot com.

32:04 Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. The yp dot com website is your local search engine. If you're looking for a good restaurant, it can help you find the right one nearby with ratings and reviews. Or if your car breaks down, you can use the YP app to find the closest repair shop. Or maybe you're just looking for something to do on a Friday night. While it has great local coupons for all sorts of things in your area. No matter what, when or where. If you're looking for something, YP local search can help you find it. So go to yp dot com or download the app to search local, find local, and save local. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin helenan presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helena. All right, we're back with Brian Brady of w SI Digital Marketing. So tell us about that decision. I'm sure you had thought about it before you left the Navy, but I retired from from deserves. What drove the decision to join WS? I? Uh so, you know, I knew, I knew I was you know, I really didn't have a choice as far as retiring from the Reserves. I made a decision to retire from Treasury at the

33:36 same in the same year. I guess at Treasury, I just kind of hit a point where I wasn't really going I wasn't really going to do much more, go much further, and I just, you know, I mean, I just sad made the decision to leave. I I but I I really didn't want to stop, you know, I always kind of joke, you know, I didn't want to watch prices right for the rest of my days. And I didn't really have the resources to travel the world for the rest of my days either, you know, So I just wanted to do something I met through a Navy Reserve colleague, a franchise consultant, and you know, you know, just kind of entered into a relationship with him, and that was probably about a year process. I mean, I think I've met him in April March or April of twenty twenty two and made my decision to purchase WSI in twenty twenty three. So WSI is a it's a franchise or but WSI itself is a global digital marketing agency and they sell opportunities or have opportunities for people like me, solo entrepreneurs or solopreneurs, I think is a new term to own and operate their own business. And so I went through a couple of different iterations with the franchise consultant. The first couple of positions, the first couple of opportunities we talked about, were kind of home services types of businesses, but more traditional franchises where you have like a geographic,

35:15 you know, area or a territory that you're assigned to. And because of where I live in West Virginia, it's not a very densely populated part of the country, and so in order to achieve the size and the demographics, the territory that some of these other companies were looking for. I mean, it was just a huge territory. It would have been involved like probably like like a two hour radius from where I live, all in all directions. A lot of ground to cover in those types of businesses. So we kind of went back to the drawing board and he presented me with a few opportunities that were more along the line millions of of like consulting. I think I think my my short list was this was w s I and like an IT services, even the IT services, you still had that territory and that you know, a lot of ground to cover with w s I. You know, my choice was either like a state franchise, a national franchise, or a global and uh so I chose a national so I can work with anybody in the in the in the United States, and I don't have that geographic restriction, you know, that geographic like I don't really need that concentration, so I can work with anybody in the in the country. So and it was more of a you know, I could work from home. I

36:46 didn't really need or establish a home office. I didn't really need a brick and mortar and that was another one of my criteria with purchase in a business. I didn't really want brick and mortar. I know, I talked about leadership a little bit ago, but I didn't really want employees initially, And so ws I is just a great fit and for the audience, WSI has the engine, it's the back end in many franchises, it's here's how you run the business. Now go for it, right. WSI is still a partner with you guys. They have that that whole I mean, they call them suppliers that all the folks that have the skills, the capabilities and are often companies themselves, but are vetted and you know, under that umbrella of relationship with ws I. So you have a whole whole bench to pick from.

37:35 And it's it's really an awesome setup as I see it. You know, I've known about ws I and worked with ws I as a provider. It's one of those suppliers. Sales training, as you know, is what I bring to the table there. But I've met some cool people. But I really like the structure, the way they've the way they've set it up. So let's talk about the work that you do. So digital marketing right, tell the audience what the heck is it? I mean, I think people generally know it's that Internet thing. No, it's I want you to be a little more specific than yeah, it's digital market because some people really don't know what that is. Yeah. So, you know, we always we talk about how WSI has been around since almost thirty years now, since like nineteen ninety five, we were calling the Internet the Information super Highway back and so and so was Al Gore, right, just yeah, yeah, yeah. They identified a need and you know, an opportunity to help business owners navigate this new thing, and it just has continued on up until where we are today, and it's continuing to grow and explode. But in short, you know, we work with business owners or other marketing executives that are that are frustrated or really uncertain about how to increase sales or compete in their marketplace. We work with business owners to get them exposed to advanced lead generation methods using digital marketing tactics like website design and development or content optimization, search

39:13 engine optimization. Social media marketing is so important today and again not going anywhere. We also help with email marketing just overall kind of lead nurturing. So those are the types of tactical if you will, you know, services and products that we provide in the digital marketing space. So tell us why and some will know this, but again just to clarify, why is it important that content what I say, So, we know that content on a website needs to be relevant, but it also needs to be carefully chosen for the search engines. Talk about that, right, yeah, so so yeah, your the content on your website needs should be consistent with you know and and compatible with with Google search results. And so that's one of the things we one of the one of the things we do is we're kind of setting up or talking to customers about search engine optimization, is we'll try to identify the keywords that might be relevant when people are searching for their type of business, and then depending on what those keywords look like or what the keywords are, will build the content of the website around those keywords. The other thing that's

40:47 really important with your website, you mentioned to keep it current, and one of the ways of doing that is by continual blog posting. We'll develop we help our customers with developing. You know, they're developing their blog kind of strategy, their blog posting strategy, or their you know, their calendar, all again relevant to the keywords that are most applicable to them, all you know, most for the main in the main purpose of you know, coming up on that Google search. You know, some of the customers we we work with are just you know, sick and tired of their competitors getting ahead of them on the Google search. You know, so they'll talk to us about how how to you know, how to move up on the Google search, and you guys can run an audit, uh given permission, you guys can run an audit on that company's website and the way they go to market through through online means and really come back with a meaningful set of data.

41:54 What does that data tell you? Uh? Just it can tell us tell us how they rank, how their website ranks like like, uh, comparatively in their industry, how their what their domain we call it domain authority without getting to techie, but what those numbers look like in their industry for their particular type of business. We can show them how they stack up against their competition, which is very important to your point earlier, why they're lower in the search rankings than a competitive act. Yes, yeah, and then you know numerous other kind of analytical types of you know, results and and and data. We can we can help customers understand what their what their web presence kind of looks like. So small companies, medium sized companies, even big huge companies don't manage a lot of this stuff themselves. Why not so for small let's start with small companies. I mean with small companies, you know, many times it's just a very small staff. And if they're a printing shop, let's say they're focused on managing their printing business, or a law firm for example, maybe just a small law firm, single lawyer or maybe a couple of partners. I mean, they're probably working twelve hours a day

43:25 in the legal profession. They just don't have the time or the expertise to focus on digital marketing or to do their own digital marketing. So those are ideal you know, customers of ours because we can step in and help them and become their digital marketing partner while they can take care while they're taking care of their core business. Medium sized companies, you know, and that to so medium and larger sized companies may have the capability in house, depending on the marketing staff, what the what the background is the marketing staff. We can work with marketing executive executives to help, you know, augment their digital strategy or to help them implement their digital strategy. We can work with marketing executives or even in medium or larger sized companies to actually develop a digital strategy that will help them. You know. We we like to say, you know, we'll say, rather than shooting and then aiming, aim and then shoot, so you could spend a fraction of your marketing budget to develop a strategy before you, you know, implement all sorts of tactics that may or may not be beneficial for you. I love that analogy, shoot that aim.

44:50 Yeah, yeah, but that's what I mean. I've I've never used that term, but I love it. That's what I've seen companies do a lot. Right, Somebody gets it stuck in their brain. They get a do a certain thing without really the evidence that that's the right thing to do, right, and then here's a layup. Why not just set it and forget it? Well, we touched on it earlier. Yeah. Yeah, it's continual, continual optimization, continual you know, you know, management of your content making sure, it's your content's current, making sure you're speaking to your audience, you know, things in terms of items that are relevant to your audience today, to your market target market today. So it's a it's an ongoing management type of process. And the fact that Google changes all the time is and maybe all the time is an overstatement, but often right, Yeah, yeah, the dreaded algorithm, you know, the the Google is changing. You know their algorithms there, you know they're they're kind of back back end processes to again, keep up with what customers are looking for for how businesses connect with their customers. Google's making changes all the time, and it's important to have a partner like us to understand what's going on there to help optimize your front end. Yeah, it would be near impossible for someone

46:21 who's who's not a digital marketing expert to understand all that. And I don't I don't mean to belittle anybody. I'm just saying it changes all the time. You guys are in the business of keeping up with that and making sure you're taking advantage of the latest and greatest. So another reason, right, who is your who is your ideal client? I don't mean by name, but you know, describe what that looks like. Yeah, I kind of touched on a little bit ago. So anybody that's really like not happy with their current digital marketing partner or their website, they might want to just overhaul their website. Maybe it's been out there for a while and it needs refreshed. I'm working you know a lot of people ask me, well, what vertical were you working in? I don't really work in in a specific vertical right now, However, I do several of my clients are in the professional services area, insurance, bookkeeping, and tax preparation, real estate. Those are good clients to have, especially insurance and bookkeeping are really good, good you know, ideal, candid, ideal clients for me. And in terms of the work, uh and the the engagement, there's often some upfront work website, you know, audit results, all that, and then there's an ongoing maintenance component, right yeah, yes, cool. What is it often that you help some prospective clients see that maybe they don't see you know,

47:55 the thing that I mean. I talked to prospect all the time about their their Google business profile and the importance of maintaining that and you know, engage that's like the perfect spot to to engage with your customers outside of your website. You know that you're a business, especially a small medium business. Their the Google business profile is the key to their local presence, their local online presence, their local search presence. That's where their customers go to put their reviews, good or bad. So I talked to prospects all the time about the importance of engaging with the people, your customers that are out there giving you reviews again, good or bad. Learn how to handle those bad reviews knock on wood if you get a bad reviewer, to learn how to handle and engagement those customers. And uh, that's that seems like the one thing that I talked to most of my prospects and clients about pretty regularly. All right, last question, believe it or not, it is time to wrap up. What is the best way for people to connect with you? I noticed some of the contact information you put on this in the crawl I did.

49:17 I put my email address b dot Brady at WSI world dot com. I'm on LinkedIn Brian Brady. WSI search would probably get you to my profile on LinkedIn, you know, and then art or THEWSI world dot com website slash Brian dash Brady. I didn't put that on the crawl. That's all right, that's right. Well, this has been fun. Thank you so much. I know you're busy. Thanks for taking the time to be here. It's been great having you on the show. Thank you, thank you very much. You're more than welcome. And thank you everybody for watching and listening. This is a show about business and business challenges. Often. If you've got concerns about the growth of your company, feel free to reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning Business Radio, or you can drop me a note. One of my many email addresses is Kevin at Winning Business Radio dot com. Our companies Winning Incorporated. We're part of Sandler Training.

50:10 I always say we develop sales teams at the high achievers and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors. We're not a fit for everybody, but hey, maybe we should have a conversation. Thank you to our producer and engineer Wan for another job. Well done one. Thank you so much. Be sure to join us next week Monday, June twenty fourth. We're going to do it all again. Thank you, Brian Brady. Until then, this is Kevin Halenan, you've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host, Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode, the podcast is available on Talk for Podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio dot com or check us out on social media. Tune in again next week and every Monday at four pm Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on w four cy Radio four or Sey dot com. Until then, let's succeed where others have failed and win in business with Kevin Haleanan and Winning Business Radio m