Building a Business That Travels the World with Eric Dingler

Tim Melanson: Hello and welcome to today’s episode, the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of In Transit Studios, and what he does is he helps local businesses in the US increase customer activity by re-engaging with past clients and attracting new ones. Super excited to be rocking out today with Eric Dingler.

Hey Eric, you ready to rock?

Eric Dingler: I am ready to rock and really excited that I get to do it from the birthplace of the Beatles.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s a rockstar episode right there. So, cool. You’re in, you’re in Liverpool with no Liverpool accent. Can you give us a, a try at it?

Eric Dingler: Oh, a scouts, uh, chicken had, we had some chicken last night for dinner. That’s a, that’s how the scousers would say it.

Tim Melanson: So awesome. So we always, I mean, that was already a good note, but we always start off in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we could be inspired by.

Eric Dingler: Hey, uh, I’ll, so I’ll, I’ll say this. It’s the big one for us. Uh, the last four years, my wife and I, along with our now [00:01:00] 13, 15, 17, and 18-year-old. The last four years, we have lived out of carry on luggage and we have lived in 20 countries around the world. Um, so we’ve, we’ve gone from spending eight nights in the depths of the Amazon jungle where we’ve caught Piana and cooked them on a fire next to the Amazon River.

To the top of the Eiffel Tower, having baguettes and my wife and I having a, a glass of wine. So we’re just, it’s been an unbelievable, something I never thought possible, um, to do this with my kids. So, uh, and what most people are surprised to find out is, um, we do it on about eight to 9,000 US dollars a month.

So it’s very affordable. It’s been a great life for the last four years.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So what’s next?

Eric Dingler: Uh, what’s next is we’re actually gonna start settling down. We’re [00:02:00] looking to actually immigrate to the uk. That’s what we’re here for right now. Um, we can get settled down, get our kids set up independent life and doing their thing. And then my wife and I, we can keep traveling around Europe ’cause we just, we love Europe.

Tim Melanson: Wow. What are the chances that your kids are gonna start traveling now?

Eric Dingler: Uh, I don’t know. It’d be interesting. I, I could see some of ’em do, I could, we’ve encouraged them to take a year and go travel. Um, I don’t think, I think three of them won’t, but I, I could see our 15-year-old packing up a bag and, and hitting the open road with a, a friend one day

Tim Melanson: Yeah, you might have gotten the travel bug out them.

Eric Dingler: and. And that’s just as far they are so excited to own more than like four outfit. Like I own, I own four black t-shirts and one red button up shirt for date night. Like, that’s the extent of my, my clothes because we live in Carry on, lugging everything we own, fits [00:03:00] in, carry on in one personal bag. Um, you know, for the six, you know, each person has their own.

So, uh. Yeah, so they’re all excited. My, uh, our 13-year-old is, is excited to have more than four pairs of socks.

Tim Melanson: So cool. Yeah. Well, I mean, you’re always in a different place so you can wear the same outfit.

Eric Dingler: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s, he’s tired of having to do laundry more than once. He, he’s just like, oh, I, I’m gonna have enough clothes. I never have to do laundry, but maybe once a month.

Tim Melanson: Well, well, you know what, so along with the good note, sometimes there are things that don’t go as planned. And I mean, hey, that, with that story, I bet you there are a few things that didn’t go as planned, you know, over that journey. So I’m wondering, can you share something with us that you recovered from?

Eric Dingler: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I, I transitioned into the business world from the nonprofit world, um, and, uh, thought I knew enough and, uh, I, I didn’t, there’s a big difference between running a [00:04:00] for-profit and a, and a and a church. Um, and, uh, a couple years ago we, we started, things were financially. Tight and kept getting tighter.

Uh, and I just kept hiding it from my wife. Um, until I finally got to the point I had no choice. And I tell you what, we’ve, you know, we have recovered, but we would’ve never had to be in that situation. If the first month it got tight, I wouldn’t have been prideful. Um, and, and if I just would’ve went and said, Hey, listen, I, I need some help here.

So, um, so that was a path we had to walk for a year. Some, some significant financial difficulty that we could have avoided if I wouldn’t have been so prideful.

Tim Melanson: Wow, Eric, that is amazing. So I’ve heard a lot of bad notes and that is probably the most relatable one that no one said So I mean,

Eric Dingler: my wife and I we’re, we’re an open book.[00:05:00]

Tim Melanson: wow. Well, I mean, what, what do you think, uh, what was going through your, your head? Maybe we can, maybe somebody is in this situation right now and they’re thinking something in their head right now. What was going through your head when you weren’t telling her?

Eric Dingler: I’ll fix it next month. And we were always, and then, and then it would get, and then, and then we would get a lead and I was just like, oh man, this is going to fix it. And it would be like that would come in and be like, yes, this is great. And I would like the next two nights I would sleep so good. And then a client that had been with us for three years would call and leave or like. We had a client decide to just sell his business and retire. And, um, we had a client one time brought in a new general manager who had a strong working relationship with another agency. And so she, she kept that. And so there were all these things that happened that wasn’t because of anything we were doing.[00:06:00]

Uh, it just the nature of of things. And so I just. I just kept thinking I can fix. I just, you know, I just thought I was better than I, I was. Um, but, uh, yeah, so it, it was.

Tim Melanson: Yep. You know what, and and I think that with, with many, or probably even most entrepreneurs or people that are, you know, forging their own path. I mean, we wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t have this kind of overconfidence in a way, right? Where we’re sort of going like, Hey, I’m gonna take nothing.

I’m gonna make something out of it and I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, but I’m just gonna do it anyway. And off you go. Right? So I would imagine that that kind of personality would get into trouble because you Yeah. Like you say, you, you sort of think you’re better than you are, and then when something happens, you’re like, ah, you know, maybe fine, I’ll get, I’ll, I’ll figure it out.

Right,

Eric Dingler: I’ll figure it out. Well, I tell people I’ve never met a problem that didn’t have a solution. Um, so the problem is, or not the problem, the, the issue is my [00:07:00] solutions already always aren’t that great.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Dingler: So, um, but since I came, you know, since I, you know, since we, we came through and came over that and have had.

Total transparency and rebuilt that trust. Um, it, it, things really have changed. I mean, it’s, it’s just been a, an amazing blessing since then.

Tim Melanson: Well, so what was it like? How would telling your wife fix it?

Eric Dingler: Uh, the, the accountability, I think. Um, and then just like her reaction of being, you know, okay. You know, we may not have it all together, but together we have it all. So let me, let me do my part and help you. Um, and so it was just that, you know, and just then, and realizing I had been telling myself this false narrative that, uh, it was, you know, her reaction wasn’t gonna be that when in re [00:08:00] reality it was, no, I’m in this corner with you.

I don’t wanna be here. You know, but I’m here with you and so let’s fight together now. Um, and so since then we’ve been fighting together and it’s just been, you know, better.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So you felt like maybe you were protecting her from those bad, from that bad news.

Eric Dingler: A hundred percent. A hundred. I didn’t wanna stress her out. She already, you know, and, you know, struggles with some anxiety and safe stuff like that. And I really did think I was protecting her that, uh, a yes. And I even said that multiple times. And in reality I was, you know, dismissing her and, and downplaying what, you know, her real strengths and capabilities are.

So it was a big, it, it was a. And it, and it sounds kind of dumb now. I, I wish I could learn the same lessons from that experience with having, having to go through that experience, but I just don’t know if I would’ve learned the [00:09:00] same lessons otherwise. So, yeah. But now, like it’s, we’re on the other side of it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I get it too. And, and I mean, the other part of it is that if you’re not on the same page, I mean you, you know that things are not going as well as they should be. But you’re also telling yourself this story that, that everything’s gonna be fine. I’m gonna fix it. So you’re projecting that onto her and she has no idea.

So she’s spending and probably acting just as though everything’s going great, which is probably stressing you out more. Like, you’re like, oh no man, we didn’t, we couldn’t afford that. Okay, here we go. Right?

Eric Dingler: Yeah. You’ve, you nailed it. You nailed it. And it was exactly that. It was exactly that, so,

Tim Melanson: Whereas on, on the other hand, now you, you tell her, not only does, I mean, like you say, you work together to find a solution, but you’re not also, you’re also, she’s also not making the problem worse because you didn’t even tell her. Right.

Eric Dingler: right, right. Yep. It’s[00:10:00]

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Eric Dingler: like you read, it’s like you read my personal mail right there, a hundred percent.

Tim Melanson: well, I, I, I, I’m, I’ve been there too. I mean, I, it’s, I I think that, I think that. We men, I mean, for whatever reason, I guess programming, we’re supposed to protect our women from these bad bunny problems, whereas, I mean, I, I don’t, I mean, I. I, I think maybe because when I grew up, my dad worked, my mom stayed at home.

He was in, you know, in charge of the finances. Or, sorry, not really. She was in charge of the finances, but he was in charge of bringing the money in and all that stuff. And that, and you know, with a job, you know, everything’s predictable and all that stuff. But then when you start to work your own business.

Now all of a sudden you get these ups and downs and everything’s all a lot more complicated. And if you have, you know, you sort of think, oh, I can just weather this all on my own. So I I, I know because I was there too. You know, there’s been a lot of ups and downs. Uh, good news is that I did actually tell my wife [00:11:00] pretty quickly, and we ended up fixing it the same way as you did.

She would, uh, you know, actually she was pretty good at going like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, so you’re telling me this. Okay. Then we’re not spinning on this. We’re not spinning on this. You know,

Eric Dingler: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: of a sudden like solutions are all over the place. Right.

Eric Dingler: Yeah. Yeah. Which is

Tim Melanson: don’t act the way you think they will.

Eric Dingler: Right, right. Which is why we got married to make life better.

Tim Melanson: That’s right. So now let’s talk a little bit more about the rest of the band. Like, so who else do you have that’s working with you?

Eric Dingler: Uh, so most of our team then is remote outside of the us. In fact, we’re an entire. Asynchronous remote team. So, you know, Bulgaria, India, El Salvador, um, the United States. We do have one person in the United States that’s, that’s doing sales, um, in one area. And so, yeah, so we’re, we’re spread across Ukraine.

Uh, our [00:12:00] UX UI designer, so for our web design and digital marketing agency. Our ux UI designer is actually in the Ukraine, so, uh, and he’s been there, he’s been with us since before the war started. Um, yeah. And, uh, when, when we were, we were actually in Poland soon after, uh, Russia invaded the Ukraine. And so, you know, we reached out to, uh, him and there were times where.

He’d be able, he’d, he’d email and go, Hey, I, I’m not gonna be able to work the next week. Because him and his buddies were getting together to make Molotov cocktails, you know, to, you know, like they were just still making homemade defensive weapons and attack weapons. I mean, it was, it was crazy to see it unfolding through, through his eyes.

Um, and there was some scary times, you know, there’d be communication blackouts for stuff. Now the last. 18 months. It hasn’t been like, it’s been [00:13:00] very stable. Um, but, uh, but we still have been tracking that world experience through his living, through him living it in the Capitol. So, but uh, yeah, so that’s, that’s our team.

They’re spread around and I, I think the only reason we have a team is when, so we were, I was running a church. Um, we had planted a church for 15 years. I ran a summer camp in Ohio. And then we went to local church ministry and we, we planted a church and my wife and I, uh, wanted to adopt, uh, and what she wanted to adopt first.

Um, and you know, we, we had, we already had to, you know, bio kids and, and she came back. She was like, I, I think we should adopt. And I was like, okay, why don’t we start with an exchange student, you know, because they go home at the end of the school year. So we did that. You know, first, uh, but then I, you know, I, you know, came on board with the idea.

And so we decided to adopt and we wanted to [00:14:00] adopt internationally, um, an older sibling group. Um, so the children we were, we adopted, were labeled Unadoptable because they were an older sibling group. And, um, we, we couldn’t save all of them, but we knew we could come and save two. Um, and so that’s what we did, and.

Uh, they’re great. Absolutely fan, fantastic kids. But when we decided to go full-time into the marketplace, so, oh, because I was so, I was to, I needed to raise $50,000 to fund our adoption. So I started building websites on the side and it turned into a, this little business, a little side hustle business that when we were done with our adoption, my wife and I decided to keep it going to fund a nonprofit that we started to help other families with their adoption.

And I got a business coach and he said to me, he’s like, real estate agents don’t build the houses they sell. He’s like, so, sell [00:15:00] or build, but don’t do both. And. I liked doing the building and the web like that was, you know, I enjoyed it, but I knew it wasn’t going to be the, that I could only do so many at a time like that I was gonna be the bottleneck.

So I decided to switch to being in the leader role and started hiring, um, offshore teams. And, uh, that’s what we’ve done since.

Tim Melanson: Oh, cool. How do you find your offshore teams? Like what, what, what’s, yeah. How do you find

Eric Dingler: Yeah. Uh, a actually we have an entire process, uh, for this, I call it ROD two, uh, ’cause I’m a geek. Um, but, uh, it’s, it’s recruiting the right people, onboarding them the right way, delegating the right things, and then leading them in the right direction. Um, so we recruit all of our team through Upwork, and I think the reason we have, we’ve never had a bad hire, and it’s not because I’m that [00:16:00] good.

Um, it’s when I ran the summer camp for 15 years, every year I hired a new, I hired staff, and so it was a new team. I had to be, you know, I had to start, I got to start over. So I had to get these like. 15 mini labs where I got to hire and lead a team for three months, and then I had the fall and the winter to evaluate what worked, what didn’t, and then adjust.

Um, and I grew significantly over as a leader each time because I had these, this unique opportunity 15 times over, uh, to do it. So we now are very clear on who we ha you know what we. Who we wanna hire as far as their character do they, is the chemistry work with the team. And then we look at their competency level.

And so that’s, so we use Upwork to recruit. Um, we have a whole system we use. Last week we posted, we we’re hiring [00:17:00] two positions right now. Um, and one of the positions last week, within 24 hours had 38 applications, but only. Two of them, um, actually followed the instructions in the job description, which means only two of them read the job descriptions, even though the other 30 said something along the lines of, oh, I’m a perfect fit.

Oh, I read your description and I can definitely do this. Well, there were some things they were supposed to share with us. For example, their favorite candy bar, um, and only two. Because way down the job description we have buried when you write your cover letter, share your favorite candy bar.

Tim Melanson: Brilliant. Brilliant.

Eric Dingler: right away we can, all those people that said they read the job description, either they lied, which is bad character, I don’t want them on the team, or their English isn’t as good as they’re per, uh, portraying it to be.

And [00:18:00] so again, that comes to a character. Character issue. So anyway, it’s recruiting the right people. And then we have, um, we’ve developed a self onboarding tool. So all of our team, their first week, they spend about 40 hours their first week training themselves. So nobody, nobody has to stop working. Nobody has to stop doing what they’re doing to now teach the new person something.

They train themselves. We call it first generation training. In week two, they’re able to show up to a team meeting or a project meeting, and they know all of our terminology, lingo, tools. They have access. They know how the project management system works. They’re able to just come on board and start running with our SOPs and all of that.

Because they’ve trained themselves through the first week. Um, so that’s onboarding the right way and then delegating. We’re very careful how we delegate. We have a whole process for that. And then leadership is my favorite topic in the world to talk about. [00:19:00] Um, and so then it’s leading them. So I’m constantly talking to my team about vision, mission, core values.

How to solve problems, you know, uh, how to respond to things like, it’s just I’m constantly training and developing my team. Um, so that’s our, that’s, that’s the system with the framework is ROD two.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s so awesome. Uh, now I wonder with, uh, with chat GPT if that little buried thing is gonna work as well. So I was thinking about it when you were, when you were saying that I was like, I would, I would run that through chat GPT and he would tell me what I need to say.

Eric Dingler: Good point. So I, I have a coaching program called Team Engine, where in 90, it’s a 90 day accelerator. And in those 90 days I work with the cohort to, they build their own ROD two system. They take all of our tools and contextualize ’em to them, and then we do coaching and stuff like that. One of the guys said that, um, in one of the last cohorts, and I was like, you know what?

I never thought about it. And so I took the [00:20:00] job description and ran it through, and AI did right away pick it up in, in the cover letter.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Dingler: So then I actually used AI to help me figure out how to write it in a way. Uh, that it isn’t as verbatim as what I just, I just said there’s more of an illusion to it, and it’s broke up in a way because AI says it’s, it looks for concrete concepts

Tim Melanson: Yes.

Eric Dingler: it’s kind of what it explained.

And, and I don’t know much about LMM or you know, any of that kinda stuff. But, um, so we crafted a couple and then from chat GPT and then went and tested it with Gemini and Claude and, you know, a few others and stuff. And, uh, it wasn’t picking up on it. And so eventually,

Tim Melanson: Brilliant.

Eric Dingler: yeah, eventually my, but then there’s all, and that’s fine.

You know, that, that’s, that’s totally fine. That’s just one thing we do when, now this is, this is also different between hiring a [00:21:00] freelancer and a team member. We don’t go through all of this when we hire a freelancer. ’cause I. I need you to come in and I need you to spend 20 hours and do this project. You know, like that’s what I’m looking for.

Um, but to be on the team that’s different. And you actually, it takes three interviews to get on our team and three different people do the interviews. So then we can all compare notes and we all asked the same exact question. We all ask very different questions, but one question gets repeated and then we compare the notes to each other to make sure that the, the answer stayed consistent.

Yeah. Yeah. So that’s one thing. So they’re just all, there’s, we’ll look at their portfolio and we’ll put out, you know, a couple specific things that they list in their portfolio, and then we ask them. The question and look and see if we get the same. So there’s, there’s a handful of things we do to test for character, but I [00:22:00] can, I tell my team all the time, we can get through anything as long as you’re honest.

So,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. That’s, that’s awesome tho. Those are so many great tips. I’m wondering now, so for the next part of it, I mean, you mentioned earlier that, you know, you want to move into the sales area. How do you get fans nowadays? I mean, there’s a lot of noise out there, so how, how do you get people to just hire you rather than somebody else?

Eric Dingler: Sure. So for our agency, um, well for everybody, this is one of the things I’ve learned about traveling or from traveling is human nature’s human nature. Um, and so we have actually seen. And, and have pivoted, to be quite honest, our marketing approach that we do for ourselves and our clients based upon our travel experiences, because we’ve realized like there are some human nature things that just happen there.

There are four steps. I don’t care if you’re buying a pack of bubble gum, choosing to [00:23:00] donate to a cause, buying a house, hiring a plumber, hiring a digital marketer, I a web designer, everybody goes through the exact same four steps. Consideration. Nobody. Nobody, you know, or I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I got ahead of myself.

Awareness is first, you know, there, there are two kinds of awareness, self discovered, awareness, created awareness, but everybody has to start with awareness. Then they go to consideration. Then the purchase experience and then advocacy. So we build marketing strategies that, that follow those people, that follow people through those four steps.

Um, I should say, really guides them through those four steps. But for us, there’s only four ways to find new clients. Content, cold outreach, paid ads, networking. Everything goes into one of those four. I mean, you know, there’s, there’s variations in those, but those are only those four. Um, and I’d always tell people, [00:24:00] choose one until your first million.

Once you’re over a million dollars, this is US dollars, but over a million US dollars a year. You need to pick one of those and master it. So ours is networking. So we just, we do networking, networking, networking, and how we contextualize it for travel because of my digital nomad lifestyle is, and this is a little bit different than our.

Our conversation. ’cause I, I, I wanna help people do what we do. I wanna help people have this location, independent lifestyle. So that’s what we’re kind of, we’re talking about. But for my agency, I’m on two or three podcasts a week talking about specifically just marketing. Um, and then we offer a lead magnet and people sign up for that and we, so we’re, we’re networking with podcast, uh, [00:25:00] host.

We’re networking with them and their audience,

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow.

Eric Dingler: so

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s really cool. So now your, your four buckets. I, I, I like that. ’cause I agree and I, I’ve never heard anybody say pick one and stick with that one. Usually people will say, put a little bit of time in all of them. Right. But, uh, I, I love that more because really, I mean, it’s the same thing with, uh, with even just choosing your niche.

I mean, the, the more specific you get into something and the more specialized you be, you become, the better you get at creating the systems in that one area, right? I mean, it, you know, it just so it does make sense. If you spread yourself too thin, then you’re never gonna get any real traction in either one of them, right?

Eric Dingler: Well, let’s, so let’s look at paid ads just real quick. Um, you know. People will try, well, they’ll, they’ll get excited about some paid ads and so they’ll, they’ll run some paid ads and it doesn’t quite get the results they want. [00:26:00] Um, but they don’t have time to really try to figure out why, because they also have to write their blog posts for the, and they also, they also have to do this, and they’re just doing all of this random acts of marketing where instead.

What they could do is they could look down and, and analyze the ad and go, okay, well I wonder what part didn’t work. You know? And so many times we’ll see something, they’ll run ads and we just had a co, we had one of our own clients do it over this last weekend. Um, they, they ran an ad and the ad link to the homepage of their website.

You’re, you’re just never going to get anything that way.

Tim Melanson: Unless your homepage is built that for that, but yeah.

Eric Dingler: Yeah. Most people’s, it’s, it’s not, it needs to go to a specific landing page that continues the conversation from the ad. The ad opens free loop. That’s the awareness. Now, people go from awareness to consideration. In consideration, they have these pre-qualifying questions they want [00:27:00] answered, so the next step needs to go to pre-qualifying questions.

Is it in my price range? Do I have to have an appointment? What are their hours? You know, depending, every industry has different pre-qualifying questions, but that landing page has to answer those. Um, and then you have to take ’em then to the next step, you know, in, in consideration. And so if you don’t take the time, and it takes time to figure all of this out and get it, and so we tell people, choose one.

You’re gonna suck at first, but just suck. Just launch, get it going, and then analyze the results. Optimize and launch again. And then just keep repeating over and over and over because you’re, you’re so much sooner, you’re gonna start getting really great results with your ads than if you’re also trying to figure out YouTube.

You know, like if you wanna go to YouTube, like, we have a [00:28:00] client. Does great with YouTube, but this lady knows every detail about the YouTube settings. Uh, she studies YouTube. She studies the backend. She studies her, you know, how far do people watch the videos? Like she rees videos her videos two months later and nitpicks ’em apart and analyzes and makes adjustments into, she’s just obsessed with making every video better.

You can’t do that if you’re trying to do all these different marketing things. So that’s why I’m like, pick one, master it.

Tim Melanson: And that’s actually kind of similar to what you said earlier about picking one, meaning you’re either the salesperson or you’re building the house, right?

Eric Dingler: Yeah, exactly.

Tim Melanson: picking one.

Eric Dingler: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Tim Melanson: And, and I mean even from the other, from the other end, like you just said, I mean, if you were looking for a, a YouTube expert, wouldn’t you look for a YouTube [00:29:00] expert?

You look for someone who just does that rather than, oh yeah, I do a whole bunch of other stuff too, but one of the things I do is YouTube and you’re like, okay, well then you’re not really a specialist in this thing, are you? Right?

Eric Dingler: my 13-year-old has a YouTube channel. You don’t wanna hire him. Like he ain’t, he ain’t good, you know, but he wanted to, he wanted to post some of his brawl star games. And I mean, his videos, they ram, they go on and on and on. But you know, anybody can post to, anybody can post YouTube. That doesn’t make money.

Um, and so that’s the thing. People misunderstand a tactic for a strategy and. All the time, you know, well, I, you know, I, I’m sending an email newsletter and I’m getting clicks, but I’m not sure why it’s not working. Well, again, they’re clicking people, everybody to the homepage, and they’re not every link in the email clicks to the same thing, and they’re not tracking with individual UTMs and, and, you know, all this stuff.

And so they’re not gathering data to [00:30:00] know what’s working, because here’s the thing about a system. You, and this happens a lot of times. Somebody will go learn, somebody will go copy somebody’s system and it starts working for them. But they never took the time to learn why the system works. So the moment it breaks, they don’t know how to fix it. Um, and so. So you’re gonna have to spend money on a mechanic or you’re gonna struggle. So we like to always wrestle with the principal behind the practice before we do something, we wanna know why is this working? Because it is eventually gonna stop. I need to know why this worked. So then when something stops working, I can step back and go, oh, wait a minute.

What? What part of this chain broke? It’s, oh, it was this one. I can fix it. And the system’s working again.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s brilliant. Yep. Absolutely. And uh, and, and I think, uh, I mean there’s nothing wrong Al also with [00:31:00] finding a system that works and copying it, right. I mean, that that does happen.

Eric Dingler: Reinvent the wheel, but, but don’t just, don’t just copy it and then move on like. Ask yourself, like, learn it, because then you can contextualize it, make it better. You can, you know, uh, double, you know, do it, do it. So once you learn how something works, you’re like, oh, I can use that same concept over here and over there and, you know, so it totally learn from other people, but don’t confuse the tactic for the strategy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like you can reverse engineer it and just play with different parts of the system, you know, change little things around and see if it breaks, and then if it does break, well then you know that, okay, that part’s important.

Eric Dingler: Yeah, that, go back. But if you’re so busy doing this piece of content and trying to do cold outreach, trying to go to the local networking event and trying to do this, you don’t have time to do that. And so. [00:32:00] There’s, you know, so you’re not gonna make any more money by doing other random acts of marketing.

So it’s not like you’re, and I know people’s fear. I under get it. I, I used to be the same way. Like, oh, because I was so, I so desperately wanted to chase the opportunity. Um, and I, and I had to learn. It’s not the opportunity I have to chase. I have to build a system that brings me the opportunities. And, and I had to change that mindset.

And when I focused on, ’cause here’s the other thing, Tim, I will argue with people about this. Um, and I will not change my mind. Um, I believe in leadership and business. It’s always a systems problem. It’s never a people problem. It’s a systems problem. If something’s not working, it’s as like, let’s say ’cause and people will go, oh no, no, no, no.

You know, I’ve got some people on my team and they’re just, you know, it’s constantly struggle to get ’em to show up on time and dah, dah, dah. Well, it sounds like you [00:33:00] have a recruiting system problem.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Eric Dingler: You know, your system is broken to recruit the right people. Um. It comes, it comes down to leadership.

Leadership is the capacity of your business. Your business will never grow beyond your leadership capacity. And so if, if somebody is listening and their business has been stuck for six months or more, I guarantee you it’s a leadership issue. It’s not a market. ’cause like I feel if through market fluctuations, but you can’t blame the market after six months because your leadership.

Skill level isn’t able to navigate that. Uh, why? Because all the other businesses are able to navigate it because of leadership capacity. So lead better to live better. And leaders focus on fixing systems and influencing people, not fixing people. So anyway, that, that’s my soapbox

Tim Melanson: No, [00:34:00] I agree. You know. Runs into some hard times at some at at some points where a lot of people are struggling. However, I don’t know of any time in history where everyone struggled at the same time. There’s always a few that are making money that are growing during those times, right?

Eric Dingler: The pandemic really good for us.

Tim Melanson: us two

Eric Dingler: My business for my business because suddenly everybody needed a website that did e-commerce.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Eric Dingler: I had no problems getting new clients during the pandemic. Now I’m not, I’m not celebrating it. I it, I wish it would’ve never happened, obviously, you know, but that’s an example.

You know, everybody thought that the pandemic hurt everybody.

Tim Melanson: It didn’t, no,

Eric Dingler: If you, if you made masks or websites or plexiglass panels, you did. Okay.

Tim Melanson: he toilet paper.[00:35:00]

Eric Dingler: Yeah. Yeah. From a business perspective, you know, now we have, we all shared the mental and emotional stress of the world collapsing around us and all that. But from a bit, just separating everything as individual pieces and looking just at the business, it, it wasn’t bad for our business.

Tim Melanson: Yep. And, and, and actually there were, there were also people in those. Areas where things would grow that struggled and succeeded too. Like, so it wasn’t even necessarily that everybody who built a website grew their business. There were some that actually struggled too. So there, I think you’re like, it just kind of points towards what you’re saying, like when there’s challenges around us.

It’s, it’s us. It’s, it’s our ability to, to overcome those. Sometimes you might have to pivot. For example, for me, when I was, when the pandemic hit, I actually, I’m a musician. My gigs disappeared.

Eric Dingler: Right,

Tim Melanson: Hey, you know, it is what it is. However, you know, I look around at some of [00:36:00] the, some of the musicians in my area and a few of them just started live channels and started taking don uh, donations on those live channels and did quite well for themselves.

So even in that situation where live music in person sort of went away, there was still musicians that were making money. Isn’t that interesting? Right. You know, you know, it’s just a.

Eric Dingler: leadership. That’s a leadership quality and skillset to step back and say, okay, let’s look at the picture. You know, we need to change the mission. You know, we don’t change the vision. And that’s where leadership, like the vision is the picture of the preferred future. We’re, we’re gonna climb that mountain, right?

That’s the vision. The mission is, this is the vehicle we’re gonna take to get up there. Sometimes the mission breaks. You gotta change vehicles, but you never change the vision. And then your core values are, this is how we behave in the vehicle, even if I’m not in the vehicle. This is how you behave as a team.

[00:37:00] When, when we were in the Amazon jungle, completely off grid, I had no idea what was going on in my business for 10, uh, 10 days. Nobody could reach zero. But I wasn’t worried because my team had the core va, our core values, they had bought into ’em. They, they were in the vehicle. Our mission was solid. They were all headed towards the same vision.

That’s leadership. People that panicked, forgot their vision and there wasn’t core value and they didn’t have systems and, you know, stuff, and they weren’t able to pivot because they had all these other things going on. So you’re, and see, so I’m just, it’s all, leadership is the capacity. Our businesses never go beyond,

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Eric Dingler: but you can always grow.

You can always grow as a leader.

Tim Melanson: You sure can. Wow. I could talk about this for a long time. Okay, it’s time for your guest solo though. So tell me what’s exciting in your business.

Eric Dingler: So what’s exciting in our business? Um, so in our marketing agency, what’s exciting over there is, uh, my wife [00:38:00] is now on the team and we’re running the business together. And, um, we’ve got some really exciting new services and stuff like that, but. What’s exciting me the most is, uh, taking our experience and, and helping others.

Teaching others. I love to teach. Um, it’s, you know, I absolutely love helping people grow as a leader. ’cause I believe with everything I have, I, I believe that leadership is your capacity lead better to live better. And so we have, um, started helping people that have wanted to have location independence, you know, even if they don’t wanna travel.

They just, they wanna have the independence to work at their house or the coffee shop. Like, you know, they wanna start a side hustle, or, uh, a lot of people already have maybe a web design agency or something, but they wanna start offering a second additional service. So we’ve started helping, uh, people, one of our main, what we call foot in the door offers isn’t [00:39:00] websites.

We, we make most of our money from websites, but we don’t market websites. We market what’s called a local SEO boost and the local SEO boost is we are gonna help your business rank better on Google Maps in three months. Excuse me. And so, you know, there’s a few things we can do that very quickly impact a company’s Google ranking.

And so we just, we tell people, Hey. We’ve got this service, it’s called a local SEO boost. Um, it’s a one-time flat fee. We will get you ranking within three months or we’ll keep working for free until we do, and we’ve never had to go beyond the three months. But then after we get their rank up, then we’re able to go to them and say, Hey, we can help you stay there for this monthly recurring service.

And it transitions really nice into a monthly recurring, but I’ve also showed them. When we tell you we’re gonna do something, [00:40:00] we do it. And then I’m starting to build. Now I’ve built trust and a relationship with them. ’cause we’ve met and talked. Then I’m able to say, now that we’ve got more eyeballs on your Google listing and more people coming to your website, I was looking at your website.

I have some. I have some feedback. I have some suggestions, you know. We believe strongly in accessible content. Um, we don’t, we don’t build websites if they don’t, if they, they, they need to be accessible to all people. Um, and so, we’ll, we’ll, really quickly, just so your website doesn’t meet accessibility standards and the user experiences, this and this, it’s the easiest websites I’ve web designs I’ve ever sold.

I’ve built trust. They, they believe us. Um, and I’m able to sell websites and then we’re able to just continue upselling them over time into higher services. Um, and so it all starts with the local SEO boost. Now, [00:41:00] uh, the, the nice thing about local SEO is you could very quickly, ’cause you could do the, you can do the recurring for about $500 a month.

Again, this is us. Numbers. I don’t know what that equates to in, in Canadian dollars, but, um, 500 US dollars a month is what we would sell ongoing care for. Well, you get four clients, that’s an extra $2,000 a month, and you’re gonna be at about a half hour per client per month in delivery. So in about two hours a month, you can get $2,000 a month site income.

Now it’s gonna take you six months. Nine months to get there. This isn’t an overnight thing. Um, but it’s doable. And this is a situation where you can do the fulfillment and do the sales. ’cause you just need four. You just need four. You just need four. Um, and the last Google Report, only [00:42:00] 25% of businesses have even claimed their Google business profile.

So. The majority of business. Yes. So there is, it is a wide open list of opportunities. Um, and everybody wants to rank higher on Google Maps. They shouldn’t know how to do it. It’s not really that hard. And so that’s, we love the local SEO Boost. Now, if you’re an agency and you wanna add this as a service.

Well, then you can, and you can keep adding and prioritizing and having other, you know, having VA or somebody do fulfillment and, and things like that. We’ve actually documented all of our fulfillment for our kids. To do. And so this is, they, they, they can work for the company, um, doing fulfillment for our local SEO services.

So then my wife and I, we decided, we were like, well, what We’ve got all these, this stuff and we’re enjoying helping people. So we’ve put it together [00:43:00] into, uh, a training package, um, that we’ve said, okay, these are the videos. I mean, it’s so easy our 15-year-old can do

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Eric Dingler: Yep. And so, uh, so that’s what we’ve, we’re really excited about right now.

Um, and so if, if people are interested, we’ve put together a checklist. And the checklist is the steps I would go through to start all over today. If I was back pastoring and my wife, we were gonna start this journey over again. I wouldn’t try to start with websites. I would start with local SEO. And so this checklist are the, the, the seven or nine steps that I would go through to, to get it off the, the ground.

Um, and so, yeah. So we’d like to offer that checklist to your, your listeners.

Tim Melanson: That is amazing. That is amazing. Uh, and, and, uh, and the, the numbers too. The number of people that don’t claim their, their Google page. This is blowing my mind [00:44:00] like, like I am. Upset that I didn’t think of it.

Eric Dingler: So, yeah. So what, so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna make the, the checklist available, um, because again, we’ve already established I can be a little prideful. Um, so I, I have. Vanity, URL, so, but eric dingler.com/rockstar. Um, so, you know, so, uh, the, they can head over to, to that eric dingler.com/rockstar and they.

It’s just a, like a link tree. They, they’ll see a link there. They can, you know, jump and connect with me on LinkedIn, and then they can, you know, uh, download the, the checklist, um, box ’em right through the steps. I would do to, uh, to start to either try to, to either try to work towards starting a, an, an agency or just as a side hustle.

Um, and we’ve helped, we’ve helped a lot of [00:45:00] people just do it as a side hustle to make an extra thousand, 2000 a month.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and I mean, I, I think that one of the most common questions that I get asked too is, you know, I wanna start a business from home. What do I do? And you. This sounds like a really good, a really good place for people to start. It’s something that is fairly accessible to just about anybody.

You don’t need a whole lot of clients. I mean, everybody knows at least a couple people that run a business. I mean, they might not be best friends with them, but, but they, they do know of them that they can approach. Right?

Eric Dingler: Oh, so one of the things that we teach people to do is, is how to identify, um, the first people to ask. And, um, the average comes up with a list of, of 30 very quickly because it includes who have you ever give, who have you given money to in the last three months? A dentist, an eye doctor, a, a

Tim Melanson: you go to your own businesses. That’s brilliant.[00:46:00]

Eric Dingler: Hey, if you’re gonna put your mouth or your, if you put your fingers and hands and my mouth and I’ve paid you a lot of money, I’m gonna tell you, Hey, I’ve, and so we call it the beta test, and I’ll just, I’ll share it right now.

People can just take this and even try it. I, I call it the beta test. You know, put out a message on your social media or send an email to some people that you know and say, Hey, listen, I’m going to use this tool that lets, I’m, I’m learning to use this tool that lets me create a map of a, uh, um, um, that shows exactly where you rank on Google Street by street, depending on where a person’s phone is.

I need, I’m looking for a couple businesses that’ll let me use their business and address to run the report in exchange and to say thank you. I’ll share the results with you. That’s it. People are like, oh, yeah, let me help you [00:47:00] out. Yeah, Tim, I, I’m gonna take a look at the report. Great. You go, you sign up for a free trial of the tool that we use.

You put in their name, their business name. You find it, you run the report. And then you can either take it to ’em or create a video and say, here’s where you’re at. You know, you’re only in, you’re in eight plates on average, you know, da da, da. So here’s the results. Thanks for letting me run this. By the way.

I now have a system that helps me help people like you get into the top three. It’s $1,500, and in three months, I’ll get you in the top three. Or I’ll keep working for free until I do.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Eric Dingler: You, you, you get 30 people that you know and already have a warm relationship with. You’ll, you’re gonna get 1, 2, 3, or four of them to say, yes, there’s your first customers, there’s your first customers.

Um, and so that’s, that’s how we teach people to do it. And it just works over when we launch a new service. This is exactly how [00:48:00] we, we still use the beta test method, um, three, four times a year.

Tim Melanson: Wow. How do.

Eric Dingler: Eric dingler.com/rockstar.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. That is great. Okay, I got one more question for you. This might be the hard one though. Who’s your favorite rockstar?

Eric Dingler: Oh my gosh, that is a really hard one. Who’s my favorite rockstar? Um, honestly, I wouldn’t have said it before, spending so much time in Liverpool, but we’ve just rediscovered the Beatles as a family and they’re just always playing through the house and stuff. But before that, um, I was a dead head.

For sure. Uh, I love the Grateful Dead, but, uh, the Beatles of our experiencing a resurgence for sure.

Tim Melanson: Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. Beatles my favorite band. I love it. It was actually when I was learning, when I was learning to play guitar, to play music in the first place. It was, it was mostly Beatles music. And, [00:49:00] uh, yeah, you, you, there’s so much brilliance in what they’ve done, so it’s pretty cool stuff that they’re still around and people are still discovering them.

That’s crazy.

Eric Dingler: Yeah, it was fun to play the music with our kids and then go to Matthew Street and, you know, go to the club where, you know, it all started. And, and then we watched some documentaries and so, you know, and everyone, our kids would be like, do you think, do you think, you know, Ringo walked here. Do you think, you know, Paul walked here.

Do you think John, like, so it’s.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. That’s so awesome. Thank you so much, Eric, for rocking up with me today. This has been a ton of fun.

Eric Dingler: You bet. Thanks for having me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast.