Are you in need of marketing help?
Andy Walker is the CEO and Senior Strategist at CyberWalker Digital, a marketing agency that guarantees excellent services to clients looking for a marketing edge.
The team at CyberWalker Digital listens to what their clients need and use their expertise to craft innovative digital strategies to best market their client’s company.
Their team of experts uses the latest digital tools and tactics to ensure the final product is perfection.
Besides running CyberWalker Digital, Andy is also a technology strategist, keynote speaker, and award-winning author.
Learn more about how CyberWalker Digital can help you market your company by listening to this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur above and don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify –Google Play –Castbox – TuneIn – RSS.
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0:00
Welcome to the thoughtful entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, founder and CEO of up my influence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. stick around to the end of the show, where I'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go. All right, Andy Walker, you're the owner and founder of Cyber Walker Digital. Thank you so much for joining us.
0:41
Yeah, it's great to be here.
0:43
And Andy, give us a 411. What does Cyber Walker do?
0:47
Well, we kind of got founded as a digital marketing agency, you know, the traditional stuff, online lead generation, content, marketing, SEO, social media, that sort of thing. And we really largely worked in the materials handling industry. forklift dealerships, heavy equipment dealerships, that kind of thing that was sort of our core business over the last five years.
1:08
And Andy, you and I, before we jumped on to record the interview here, we had talked quite a bit about something that I think you've kind of made part of your specialty. And that is, it's, it's about choosing a product or service. And can you kind of give me kind of share your philosophy on that?
1:30
Yeah. So, you know, in terms of our marketing agency business, you know, we had decided to experiment with some e-commerce properties to show our clients how some strategies work really effectively, you know, they were a hard sell, and we wouldn't want to show them tactics. So I thought, well, what e-commerce properties can we get into what can we do just- just as an experiment to sort of actually show them real-world experiences? And I tried a bunch of different things, but one of the things I settled in on was this business It's called sour, soft, store dot com and it's basically selling sound software tropical fruit. And I wanted to get that business started to work very, very effectively, effectively for us very fast and added a couple other properties. And it was because I went through this process of picking an in-demand niche. It was an area where I had failed before when I tried other businesses. And so here's my process. If you're going to sell something, sell something that people not just need but desperately need. So in the case of sour sob, it's a tropical fruit that has anti-cancer properties. So you sound good people that have a problem there are they have been diagnosed with cancer, they may have limited resources in terms of dealing with their traditional doctor, or they want to augment and fight their cancer effectively. And so sour salt basically helps them not die, right. It has ends and they'd heard of it through a family member or something usually comes through a natural medicine connection of some- some sort. So the thing about that niche is that somebody has a problem called cancer. They are terrified and they need to solve this problem in a hurry. So they're looking for all kinds of solutions. And then they come across our solution which is consuming sour sauce. Okay, so that's, that's one demonstration of the niche. We have a completely separate e-commerce business that we started as well because we were in the materials handling business. We were working with forklift dealerships. And that is we came across the need for forklift repair manuals. So things that are no longer in pub- published by the big dealers that people need because they have a 25-year-old forklift sitting in their warehouse and it's broken down. So we would sell these- these out of date magnetosphere 35 to 85 bucks a pop. Now, why would that sell well because a dead forklift on the floor of a warehouse costs hundreds of dollars an hour in a lack of productivity. So somebody has a pressing problem that's costing them money, not their life, just their money. And so that business was remarkably it grew quickly. There was a demand for Was unmet unserved. And then the second part of it was we started to grow very quickly and I just knew it was the right business to be in. So that's kind of my philosophy, find the niche unserved. And, and- and make sure that something that somebody desperately wants, desperately wants and needs to solve a really big problem in their lives, and you will then find yourself with a healthy business.
4:22
Still Take for example, like what I do, and maybe you can help me with your view of it. So, you know, and that's one thing that we learned at the beginning is, you know, rather than teach someone, well, here's how you can get in the media. I think what we really have learned a lot, and we have a lot of evidence behind us and certainly consumer behavior has certainly shown us this, and that is, is that if you're a brand and you have zero authority, and it looks like you just don't have any social proof, you don't have any authority through associations, there's no buzz around you. You're just a plain old boring store or something. It's going to be a lot harder. And so I think what we've learned is that, you know, what we sell is not media placements, but what we sell is significance. Yeah. And I think that that starts to get a little warmer to what you're talking about, would you say?
5:17
Yeah, well, what you've done is you've basically selling so your ideal customer will be sitting there and not have much sales. Nobody really knows what they do. They're just another one of those cookie-cutter businesses in that line, whether a local business or a more of a national business. But if nobody knows about you, then you're going to sit there in the middle of the market. But all of a sudden, now once people say, hey, you're something you're, you're important because the media is covering you. Right? The business is going to grow. So what you sell is, is credibility. Right? And so if you can do that effectively at a low cost, and show somebody fast, how to do that get into the media and get exposure, their businesses going to grow. And so of course, they're going to pay your fee, of course, yeah, and they're gonna die if they don't Right, and they're gonna dive, right another flower shop is going to go nowhere. But if you can somehow get them covered by the local ABC affiliate, right, because of something unique that they do, there's something about that specialness, of being on TV and being recognized people go, I want to go there, it just, it makes you the alpha and the market. So you helping people become the alpha in their marketplace.
6:23
And so, once somebody has, like, you know, they've kind of gone beyond just their product, but they've, they're really talking about the- the benefit that they- that they provide, and they focus in on that and that benefit truly is rather unique in the market. Then what do you do by it, like in terms of I know you with, with cyber Walker, you do lead gen? What are some of your main ways that you're in favor of in terms of just generating visibility and exposure or letting people know about the problem you solve. Take, for example, your econ business, like how did you get that into the marketplace?
7:06
Well, before we developed sour sub store.com, we do it developed a website about sour, soft, calm and really about sour, salty, calm is just information site. It just tells you what is it What does it taste like? What is the evidence that it can help you as a cancer-fighting tool? What else does it do? Does it help you with your skin? Can you do this you can do different things with it to- to address like stomach upset, and you know, those kinds of things. It just- just didn't sell a thing. And so I and I went after I went, Okay, who else in the market is talking about sounds up but nobody was doing this sort of authority based information. So I built that very, very quickly in 90 days. So now I became the authority on the web. And it was low competition. on Google. I use a tool called HS, which is an SEO tool and I saw that keywords around sour sob were easy to cherry-pick. So I just felt great content and then I started giving away a guide on you know, the anti-cancer guide using sour soft and how to fight your cancer. Right so a lead- lead gen we got lead gen that way and now I had a list of people that were interested in our supplement or to find out about it and it showed that they were serious about it. So then I opened the store I started selling initially, you know, a bunch of lead dried tea leaves that were sour sub tea leaves and saw 300 bucks worth of those in the first month and then using the SAM cart which is just a one-off product type of e-commerce solution. And then I went wow, you know I can now next month I grew to 600 bucks or something. And that's why I built a store on- on Shopify, and now sour sub store existed with a couple of different lines of product and we went from there and so what was really great was now the about sour shop.com was bringing in the leads people were getting the downloads, they were reading up on it that we were getting clout in- in Google and climbing up the ranks there because there was no competition and then soon as Nobody knows where the other article writers will where I base our site? Well, let me tell you, our story tells you you can get it on Amazon and you can get it at Walmart and get the capsules a woman, I do not say we are the only place I said, We are one of the places we are probably the best. But here are the other places you can buy it. So Google sauce is a credible resource. So when somebody typed in Where can I buy sour, soft, they saw this blog post that said, well, when a Walmart, Amazon, eBay, Oh, and by the way, sour shop store.com. That's at the top of the list, of course, and it was very effective.
9:35
Yeah, well, and some marketers might say, Oh, I don't want to tell people that they can buy it at Walmart. But why would you argue that you should tell people that they could buy it at your quote-unquote, competitors?
9:48
Well, because Google saw that as credible and I got far more traffic on that. So first of all, I control the traffic right. So somebody Where do I base our land on a page that says that his five sources minus The top source when I say reasonable, straightforward things is unbiased. Walmart has doesn't have fresh fruit. But they do have these capsules. You know, Amazon's a great source, five or six different vendors, right? I tell you the information, the truth, now, without that page without that Google juice that I was getting for that page, you know, okay, so some people will still buy it my competitors, but now I control the conversation on that particular search term. Right? So yes, sure. Somebody might click Oh, yeah, Amazon sells it cheaper. And they won't see the fact that you know, we do premium and it's organic and blah, blah, blah, right. But okay, but without that page will be getting no traffic. So frankly, I prefer to get one in three sales that I as opposed to none. Like let's say 100 people visit that page, and 30 clicks through to my site and 60 and 70 people click through to the other sites. Now I have 30 potential sales without that page without that cloud. I got zero. So I'm ahead of the game. Right?
10:57
Yeah, you know one thing to Andy, I'm- I'm a big proponent of is just give everyone all the information Don't be for me because people are Listen, people are going to find out about it anyway. It's no it's not like, you know, you're going to keep people from learning the information. So you may as well you know, earn trust with that audience. So the people and say, Hey, that was actually pretty cool have you to tell me all the different ways I feel like I trust you more and so you're not just only selling me your solution to it. But I, you know, as I think as a result, you pick up more sales than if you're trying to hide information from consumers. That's one thing. I've learned a lot about studying and leading consumer behavior over the past 12 years is, you know, in the digital era, you can't get away with too much trickery. No, yeah, you- you got to be upfront with the ball. Don't mess around.
11:58
Yeah, well, my background was as a journalist right work as a journalist, ah, 25 years so, so a man we used to telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, you know, in my training, right? Don't give one source, get multiple sources and give you the reader an overview. And so I brought that into my business as well. Content Marketing is certainly about that, you know, if you use that trick, study, one trick is a strategy, right? People the Trust is everything I nobody buys from somebody they don't trust. So if you can get trust as the first step towards selling anything.
12:28
I love it. I love it. Well, Andy Walker, you are the president of cyber Walker digital guys have been in business for quite a while over five years. You were originally based in Tampa, and I guess you've relocated to north of the border. Is that right?
12:43
Yeah, I'm a Canadian, grew up Canadian. And so we went to the came to the US and five years. I went to Malaysia last year with- on a contract. Wife, and back in Toronto now.
12:53
Awesome. Well, Andy Walker, thank you so much for joining us. And of course Cyber Walker is on the web at CyberWalker.com and- and then how about this our shop? What is the website for that since we've been talking about that?
13:07
Sure The store is sour, soft store dot com and the information site you know is about sour, soft dot com.
13:15
It's wonderful Andy, thank you so much. Thanks, Josh. Thanks for listening to the thoughtful entrepreneur show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up my influence.com slash cast that we've got something out of this interview. Would you share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or posted on the socials. A few do that tag us with the hashtag up my influence. Each month we scour Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. We pick one winner from each platform and you get crowned King or Queen of that social media, what do you win? We're going to promote you and your business to over 120,000 social media fans totally free. Now, can you also hook us up now in your podcast player right now, please give us a thumbs up or a rating and review. We promise to read it all and take action. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. Your feedback helps us fulfill that mission. And while you're at it, hit that subscribe button. You know why tomorrow? That's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed 15 minutes a day. My name is Josh Elledge. Let's connect on the socials. You'll find all the stuff we're doing at up my influence.com Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the thoughtful entrepreneur movement.