Combining digital marketing and a great cup of coffee.
Tom Jelneck is the CEO of On Target Web Solutions.
On Target Web Solutions is a full-service digital marketing agency that partners with national and international brands. An in-house team of editors, account managers, and designers works with a network of 500 content creators to tell brand stories that inspire, educate and entertain. The OT team believes the internet should be populated with remarkable content rather than littered with nonsense.
Learn more about how On Target Web Solutions can help you create captivating content 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 UpMyInfluence.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, Tom Jelneck. You are the CEO of On Target Web Solutions. Tom, you and I been buddies for a while. And we've spent plenty of time in the green rooms together. That's right, and particularly with Fox 35 here in Orlando. And so Tom, it start off by talking about who's On Target Web Solutions is what you do. And then I really want to get into why you and I are spending time Green rooms. What's up with that?
1:02
So Josh, thank you so much. First and foremost, it's an honor and a privilege. And great to spend some time with you today. A little bit about on target. So I started this company 14 years ago. I have a lot of gray hair to prove that I know SEO and stuff around the sun. But I started on target to be an SEO company primarily. And over time, obviously evolved and kept adding services and services. It turns out everybody read SEO for Dummies. And so my space that was once very, it was like me and two other companies in town. Now you find an SEO SEO guy anywhere you turn. So yeah, we've evolved to we still do SEO, but I put that English degree to good use. And my company now creates content for clients all over the United States. So you know, from b2b to Chemical manufacturers to, to some Ford dealerships, we create content that really engages people and, and brings people back to their sites. That's kind of us in a nutshell.
2:11
Yeah. When you started this, how did you get the word out?
2:16
So I literally sat in a 10 by 10 Office Suite down by UCF. And every single day when I went to work I would sit there and create blog posts and content for our website and then start kept sharing it and sharing it and sharing it and honestly worked on our own SEO so that we climb the rankings and Google and I'm dating myself, Josh, but back in when Yahoo was a thing and MSN and ask jeeves and hot bot. So I would just get us found there. And that's what really started to get the word out about about on target.
2:56
Wow, you are taking me back I just I have I bought had left had completely left my, my mind and you just brought me way, way, way back.
3:07
Yeah remember AltaVista? I mean, I can I could go all day. But yeah. So the world has changed quite a bit in the in these in the past 14 years.
3:16
Sure. Okay. So at some point then you you know you're here based in Central Florida. What was the first time that you had reached out to local media? And what was your approach? Was it hey, I want to talk all about On Target.
3:39
So I have I have a funny story about this.
3:43
One day, I'm a very shy person, by the way, so I'm extremely introverted. And one of my weaknesses, Josh is that I never really went and put myself out there. Like the thought of networking, or going to these events. sends shivers up my spine. And I just that's not who I am as a human. But one day, I'm sitting in my office and I'll never forget this. I looked down at the caller ID I'm getting a phone call. And it said Fox 35 on the caller ID. And I answered it. And I don't know if you remember Josh Heidi hatch. Do you remember her from Heidi was
4:20
my first she writes,
4:22
she was the first reporter I worked with. She was awesome. So she and I knew she was because I had watched you know, I was watching Fox in the mornings. So I'm on the phone with her. And she's asking me Google had just rolled out a new product. And I knew I knew about the product, and I knew what it did. And I knew what it was. And she wanted to come interview me about this particular product. And I, Josh, the stupidest move I've ever made. I said, Oh my gosh, I don't think I know enough about that to be on camera to talk about it. No, I freaked out. Like Yeah, you know, instantly in that moment. There's all these gears Spinning of like, your peers are going to make fun of you that you're going to say something stupid or you're going to say something wrong. So all of this self doubt, like smacked me in the face. And I turned it down like a like like a doofus. So I get off the phone, and I sat I remember kicking back in my chair and just like, what the heck did I just do? And thankfully, I'm getting to the point. So thankfully, a week later, the daily buzz that was filmed at universe was at full sail right up the street. Yep. They reached out to me and that was a that's a live nationwide broadcast. And they had asked me to come talk about social media and privacy, because they read an article that I posted online. So they came to me. I went there it like five in the morning. I threw up like three times before I ever did it, Josh. And in fact, that's kind of what started me getting all these media hits? So to answer your question, I've actually never gone to them. They've always come to me and I don't mean that in like a cocky way. It just means I kind of had a breakthrough in my own content when I got confident enough and I started writing the word expert after every single thing that I wrote. So these particular news agencies found me by typing social media expert Orlando now or, you know, Orlando SEO expert, a Google expert, because I had positioned myself that way. And it worked. So like 400 appearances, and I know that's nothing for yours. I know you got a lot on me, but 400 appearances across multiple channels, just because I wrote blog posts.
6:50
That's incredible. So So here's the thing. I remember the day that I became a consumer expert and that that day was someone asked me, they said, so are you a consumer expert? Okay, look to the left and right. And I said, Yes, I am. Yes.
7:07
That's awesome.
7:09
And that's, that was kind of the birth of it. Right. You know, it's like, and here's the thing. I don't think that it's a super high bar to be and what is an expert? Me? I mean, an expert, I think in my opinion, is do you know enough about this so that you'd be willing to share with others what you know? Sure. And so expert to me just means like, teacher, you know, and our teachers are experts. And sometimes, and I'm sure you've done this, a lot of you know, your 400 appearances. Was that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that is that you know, someone asked you about something, you're like, Okay, and then you go and you start studying and you reading up on it, like, Okay, ready to go. Absolutely. just regurgitating what you've learned, you know, maybe in some cases Like there's been, you know, once you do it for a while you get it's like improv right? You know, it's like once you get good at improv, like, you don't have to really prep. We don't you don't prep for improv. In this case, you know where it's a little bit extemporaneous. You don't, you know, I'm like printing out notes, grabbing it in the car, you know, looking at my notes in the stop, you know it a step, you know, at the stoplight, and then when I get, you know, to the studio, I'm sitting in the chair, kind of like boning up on like, some of the facts and figures and stuff. That's exactly what I do.
7:38
What do you feel about, quote, unquote, living life in balance?
8:28
I in fact, I don't even know, I've talked about cell phone plans, you know, and I was like, I'm a digital marketer, you know, but I know enough about tech to be dangerous. But I will literally wait till I get to the parking lot at Fox or channel 13 or whatever, and yell it up on my phone and read it really quick. So I have a general overview. But to your point, like, I've been on the station with, you know, where they have a panel, and it's kind of I don't mean this again, I'm not trying to be cocky about it. Like I remember doing an interview where there was a gentleman that worked in HR, and it was about, you know, tacking HR and how they work together. But the guy had printed out like 19 index cards and was, like, trying to memorize all of his index cards now. And he's like, What? Are you prepared? I'm like, Yeah, man, I just, you just gotta, you gotta take it. You gotta wing it like, yeah, if no idea what those reporters are going to ask you until that can write on
9:29
your feet. Yeah, and I'm sure, Tom, you've been asked questions that you legitimately don't know, right? You don't have an answer for that. But you have a way then of managing that, like, so. If, you know, if someone does ask you a question, like, you know, what do you say?
9:47
Yeah, so, I mean, there's always a well, you know, research is showing this or I, there's a way that your brain can, I don't want to say reroute the question but but yeah, certainly if you don't know the answer is okay. So you don't know the answer to that. I, I've had them ask me questions about, you know, will this fail or, you know, speculative stuff. This, you gotta you gotta be real, you got to be you. I always I don't know about, like, I add humor into a lot of my, you know, appearances because I want to be relatable and, like, I don't want to over geek stuff because most of the stuff I do is, is geek stuff. But I really think it's the ability to, to talk at a level that the audience is going to understand. And I think, you know, like we were talking about a lot of people just overthink this and freak out and and want to be really rehearsed and polished. And I mean, there's a place for that, but like, you're just being real and you're being you and you're being an expert, and you just gotta go with it.
10:50
Yeah. Is this good for business when you get this kind of visibility?
10:53
It's not bad for business, Josh, I think
10:57
you know, a lot of people ask me that question. You know, have you gotten a lot of business because you're on TV? And I'm like, I think it's more so a credibility thing. You notice my, my social media, you know, profile picture is me on Fox or whatever. that's by design. You know, it obviously instills confidence in people that they're not working with the slacker. From my experience, people want to work with people who know their stuff. And I know that's exactly your your angle to like, now I want to work with experts. So, you know, does my phone ringing off the hook every single time on my TV? No, yeah. In fact, I'll get more response after the fact because I know I ordered the clip and I use social media to blow it out. So yeah, yep. It let's be honest, are people watching news as much today as they used to know right? Right. So I just got to put it in the right spot to get the eyeballs on it.
12:00
Yeah, media, there's media you do for authority media you do for visibility, we find that and I coach people coming in, like, you are probably not going to be overwhelmed with the amount of business that you get from that appearance. Because these and here's another thing is like, generally these people are just seeing you for the very first time. And so they're not ready to pay you thousands of dollars, they're just beginning the relationship. However, you could probably get them to maybe take a look at your website, get familiar with you. And then you know, X number of visit, you know, X number of impressions later, you know, they might when it's top of mine, and I'm like, Oh, well, you know, we definitely need to up our content game. I'm in business and you know, we've got an H HVAC company, and we've just got nothing going on in that department. Who do I know? Oh, that one Tom guy from Fox 35. Oh, is that on Tom? And then they do some Google searching they find you. And sure enough, there's Tom Jelinek from on target digital marketing. Calm and it gives them what they need or they follow you on social media and and that's that that's what they're ready to do with that first impression. And now they're seeing your hopefully seeing your posts or your tweets from time to time. Maybe they get on your email list and there it's a nurturing sequence on and at some point, you know, when it's right for them that they can choose to engage but it's, it's it's a great way to just I think that really the name of the game is how many people can you get to know about the problem that you solve?
13:33
It's all about touch points, just like you know, consumers really before they buy anything today will visit up to 22 places or be impacted by 22 different places. So you know, whether they saw me on TV or they saw a tweet to your point or a LinkedIn post or a podcast, it is a variety of things in its they're all touch points. Nobody wants to be sold to today, right now swimmers want to shop on their own, you know It's all about them and the way that they want to do it not pushing anything down their throat. So by being in these various places, and having a plan of attack and being very strategic about it, I mean, that's how I get prospects, because they know I have credibility. They know I know my stuff. And you got to be better at it than anyone else. I mean, honestly, that that's the name of the game too.
14:19
Yeah. Finally, how do I get me some pure grind coffee,
14:22
dude, hang on,
14:26
Josh. Oh, look at that. That's beautiful. Congratulations, you launched your own product.
14:32
I did. And thank you so much for asking about that. It's I love coffee as I'm sitting here, slugging some down at what, three o'clock in the afternoon. It's okay. And it keeps me going. I'm up at like 530 and run all day. So I always I always help other companies sell their products. And of course, on target, we market ourselves as services. I've always, always, always wanted to find a product that we could push or experiment ourselves and so so Why not it'd be coffee so yeah I just launched this two months ago my The coffee is so freshly roasted it's ridiculous Wow. And I built in their whole beans right what's up
15:11
their whole beans right it's holding
15:12
and I've gotten pushback on that I don't have a grinder well go get one because that's the only way to drink coffee if your coffee
15:20
so I just got a what what's the kind of grind or its non burning or what's the there's a
15:25
bird grinder and then just like a like a spice grinder
15:28
oh so bird grinders are generally a little bit better it's going to more evenly grind the coffee correct? Yeah, nice.
15:34
Glad you got congrats man. This is a big step.
15:37
Yeah. So yeah. And and so have you gotten this in the hands of I would think a product like this influencer would be huge for you like just grab like a ton of like Instagram influencers to show them with their you know, hashtag promote the brand. I think it's like it fits. I think you branded it beautifully for like that. That that that growth. You know that entrepreneur that just like grinding it out every day? I love it. That's exactly what I did. And, you know, I got
16:05
to thinking like there's a million people think I'm crazy for trying to sell coffee because there's a million different coffee bean brewers roasters exactly identity. That's it. So it's your so I mean, the beans are great. Don't get me wrong. I'm very proud of it. It's it's an amazing taste, but it's all about it's all about the angle. It's all about the marketing that's behind it. And it's all about who you're talking to. Right. I know. I'm after entrepreneurs like you. I'm after people who bust their butts all day long. Who have this drive humans just like you and I that have built something out
16:36
of this. I'm never going to be a fan of Maxwell House. I mean, come on. No, my first.
16:40
When I was in high school, I would come home in the afternoon and drink Folgers crystals because that's what my dad had. So yeah, my dad have evolved and become more sophisticated and expensive.
16:52
Well, Tom Jelneck, you are the CEO of On Target Web Solutions, on the web at ontargetdigitalmarketing.com, and the proud daddy of a new company puregrindcoffee.com it is fuel for the hustle. Tom, thank you so much for joining us.
17:10
It was a pleasure. And thank you so much for inviting me and I'd love to come back sometime, so talk to you soon.
17:17
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