IAM456- Digital Marketer Brings a Unique Approach to SEM

Ryan Baker is the founder of Kingly Consulting.

Kingly Consulting was founded to help SEO Focused Digital Marketing Agencies improve their PPC services. He has had the privilege of working with a lot of agencies and loves the energy and the people in that world.

As a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), Ryan brings a unique approach to the SEM side of digital marketing. He loves helping to shift the focus of agencies and their clients from the shorter-term numbers games to the long-term human-centric approach.

Ryan enjoys long-standing relationships with his clients and thrives on under-promising and over-delivering. Outside of work, he has a beautiful wife and two adorable daughters. They enjoy spending time with their church family, traveling and exploring, drinking coffee, playing music, and board games.

• CEO Hack: Audible
• CEO Nugget: Focus on people and understand them
• CEO Defined: A father of a family

Website: https://kinglyconsulting.com/home

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kinglyconsulting/

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today at Ryan Baker of Kingly Consulting. Ryan, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Ryan Baker 0:38

It's great to be here. Gresh. Appreciate your time.

Gresham Harkless 0:39

No problem appreciate you. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Ryan so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Ryan Baker is the CEO of Kingly Consulting and the founder of Kingly Consulting was founded to help SEO-focused digital marketing agencies improve their PPC services. He's had the privilege of working with a lot of agencies and he loves the energy and the people in the world.

As a certified customer experience professional, he brings a unique approach to the SEM side of digital marketing. He loves helping to shift the focus of agencies and their clients from the short-term numbers game to the long-term human-centric approach. He enjoys long-standing relationships with his clients and thrives on underpromising and over-delivering. Outside of work, he has a beautiful wife and two adorable daughters. He enjoys spending time with their family at church traveling and exploring drinking coffee, playing music, and of course, board games. Ryan, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Ryan Baker 1:27

I'm ready.

Gresham Harkless 1:28

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. When did you get started with a business?

Ryan Baker 1:35

Yeah, so man, for the better part of the last decade, I just had this dream of freedom I was working your standard, you know, relatively young person jobs and just kind of not moving anywhere and did not have a goal or a vision. But I heard about people starting online businesses.

So I started kind of studying that idea. The strategy, the marketing, the culture, anything I could get my hands on, and just trying to pursue this dream of freedom, whatever that looks like, for me. And in those different jobs that I was working, as I was studying all of that I, I gained a lot of experience in leadership and marketing, and all the things I was studying kind of got some hands-on real-world experience with it. And it kind of led me toward the digital marketing agency environment.

So my last job I worked at, was at a digital marketing agency and phenomenal agency, one of the top agencies in the world, great, great people. I managed to gain some consulting experience. They're just one of the owners who was supposed to consult with somebody and couldn't make it in and asked me to jump in instead. Of course, I was honored, but jumped in and just fell in love with it felt fulfilled to be able to share the knowledge and experience that I had learned over the years with this team of people.

So I'm, you know, went on and I ended up leaving that job, but jumped immediately into consulting two weeks later, started working with a local digital marketing agency and just never looked back.

Gresham Harkless 3:15

Nice. Well, I appreciate that it sounds like you've had kind of had that opportunity to be that I guess, the entrepreneur by having that work with the agency and then being able to kind of get your feet wet and then start to plant the seeds for your business.

Ryan Baker 3:28

Oh, yeah.

Gresham Harkless 3:29

Nice. So I know I touched on it a little bit. But I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper here a little bit more about how you're serving the clients and what you're doing to support them.

Ryan Baker 3:37

Yeah, so providing growth strategy consulting, really to digital marketing agencies. Generally, the agencies I work with, have a really strong SEO service, but their SEM or PPC is pretty weak. A lot of times they'll reach out to me if they're starting to lose their SEO clients, because they're PPC, you know, whether it'd be like Google ads, or Facebook ads or something like that. It's just not up to spec. It's not delivering the results that they expect.

So what a lot of people do here is just kind of focus on improving the performance of the campaigns. That's generally what you need to do to start. So I'll usually perform an audit of their PPC, you know, that like an account that's not doing well. But generally after that, I go in and focus on a much more comprehensive solution. So look at the people involved, look at the processes that they're following. If there are any, a lot of times there aren't.

Just really address super important things like communication with the client and inter-agency communication and just kind of fine-tune or even create sometimes new ways that they can approach this service that delivers more value to the client more efficiently for the agency.

Gresham Harkless 4:57

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think a lot of times it sounds like some of it might be those kinds of soft skills, I guess you can say where you know, you're trying to figure out how best to communicate and you're also bringing on a new, or maybe not even bringing on a new, I guess you from what it sounds like you're perfecting it or making it better that offering that they're providing so that they can continue to provide value on the SEO side, but also have another kind of stream of revenue or service offering.

Ryan Baker 5:19

Nailed it. Yep.

Gresham Harkless 5:21

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, I appreciate that. I think in this day and age, it seems like from a digital marketing perspective, nothing is kind of siloed. It's all kind of integrated. So to be able to provide both sides of the coin, I guess you could say that provides value, of course, to the overall target client, which they're trying to help improve.

Ryan Baker 5:38

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's all related. If it's, if one part of it is suffering, it's just like, you know, whittling the legs of a table down, you know, you got to have them all the same length got to have them all the same strength.

Gresham Harkless 5:50

Exactly, so that you make sure the table doesn't fall over, which nobody ever wants. So, you might have already touched on this, but I want to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. It could be for you or your organization, what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Ryan Baker 6:03

Oh, yeah, well, it's a little cliche. But a big part of what sets me apart is me. I don't want that to sound arrogant, or anything is just with any business, especially consulting you, you can't replicate who a person is their experience, their personality, their approach. You can replicate a lot of things. But a person and everything, all of the intricacies and nuances that make that person who they are, you just can't copy that.

As a consultant, that's part of what makes me unique. I'm also a certified customer experience professional, I'm one of the first 1000 in the world, which is a certification put out by the Customer Experience Professionals Association. It's kind of one of those things that is relatively new but focuses a lot on standardizing the approach of improving and optimizing the experience a customer has when interacting with a business and a lot of digital marketers tend to become CCXPs as a call, but not a lot of CCXPs go back into marketing.

So I have a very good friend who wrote a book on how to pass the exam. He had me kind of beta-testing his exam simulator. I just kind of realized, like, oh, man, this resonates strongly with me and my approach and who I am. So I just went ahead and got the certification. He was providing me with the tools to study and pass and it meshes well, with my overall message and philosophy.

Gresham Harkless 7:51

Yeah, that makes so much sense. I appreciate you sharing that, I was gonna, you know, wonder and ask you that if you know, largely because especially with consulting businesses, a lot of it is you're tapping into the expertise of the person, and all the experiences that they have. So that, you know, makes perfect sense as far as your secret sauce. I like that you, you know, you talked about the CCXP.

But also that, you know, a lot thing a lot of times when we look at businesses and you look at organizations, we kind of forget that human-centric approach that I kind of touched on when I was reading your bio, but that a lot of times we forget the customer, we forget, you know, the human aspect of it. We get so caught up sometimes in the algorithms and all those things that we forget the human aspect.

Ryan Baker 8:28

Yes, foundation is everything, man.

Gresham Harkless 8:30

Absolutely. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit. I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be an app a book or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Ryan Baker 8:40

Yeah, well, man, so I know that this is probably been used over and over and over again. But Audible is just so great. I have consumed a ridiculous amount of volume in audiobooks I love listening in the car, you know, when I'm driving and otherwise would just be you know, angry. Other drivers not using the turn signals or whatever, you know, walks flights, just whenever I have time.

A lot of times I'll listen to you know all of these nonfiction books that are just dumping all this great information in my head, but I like to mix it up and toss it in like a fiction book now and then, like a fantasy novel, read by Michael Kramer or something just really helps to let your mind turn off and then let your subconscious start to work through all of the information you've been processing, and makes it a lot more useful when you go to tackle new problems.

Gresham Harkless 9:33

Absolutely. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Ryan Baker 9:43

Oh, man, way too much to fit in this episode. I think probably the best advice is to focus on people understanding people what they want, how they communicate how they express their needs, fears, and dreams, and how they think understanding people and the relationship between people is gonna help you more than anything else. I mean, in the business world, that's all. I mean, there's no difference between the business world and the quote-unquote, real world.

You're always dealing with people, you're always dealing with relationships of some sort. If you understand how people and relationships work, you understand how things work in the business world, and how things work outside of the business world. It just makes everything so much better.

Gresham Harkless 10:33

Absolutely, yeah. Just as we kind of touched on earlier, you know, you're we're in the relationship business, no matter what business you're in, whether you're doing construction business, or you're an agency or you know, you're an accountant, whatever those are, you know, you have to kind of you should always strive, I should say, towards mastering the people towards understanding, you know, what may cause people to take their motivations, their fears, things like that, it will only help you kind of have a long run, we're always going to be around people.

Ryan Baker 10:57

oh yeah!

Gresham Harkless 10:58

Now, I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on the show. So Ryan, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Ryan Baker 11:07

Yeah, well, man, so the common misconception is that you know, every business owner is the CEO. While I get that idea, generally a CEO is going to be someone who has employees, usually multiple levels of employees. So you've got, you know, upper management, middle management, you know, and entry-level employees. So, generally, a CEO is someone that is like the parent of a family, responsible for the lives and the well-being of this group, you know, and in business, you're not necessarily responsible for their lives, and whether they are eating or not, but everybody has their own goals and dreams in the organization.

Your responsibility is to make sure that everyone is aligned on the same focus the same goals and dreams, and that everyone has everything they need, that they're well taken care of, that they're all getting along that they feel safe, you're empowering them, encouraging them, and ultimately just directing them toward the vision that you cast as the leader of the company. So really, for me, it's, it's very similar to being a father.

Gresham Harkless 12:22

Nice that that makes perfect sense. I appreciate that metaphor, just because I think a lot of times, you know, you forget those aspects. again, going back to what we talked about a couple of times, you know, that people-centric aspect of understanding that each person that's on the ship or the team, you know, has their different goals and aspirations and kind of being able to, to kind of tap into that and understand that on an even deeper level. You know, it allows you to be able to make sure you're charting the course towards exactly where everybody wants to be. You are on the same page, as you said.

Ryan Baker 12:48

Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 12:50

Nice. Well, I appreciate you, Ryan, I appreciate all the awesome things you're doing. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. Then, of course, our best people can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Ryan Baker 13:04

Yeah, well, I would just encourage all of the entrepreneurs out there, man, it's a dream I had for the longest time to be self-employed. I tried several years ago, to start a video production company, it was a passion of mine, and I just, I bombed completely. No, I had just been married, my wife quit her job a few months in, and I was like, I'm gonna be self-employed. I just had no focus on anything that would produce short-term results, I was doing a great long game, building some great relationships, but I had no self-worth, no concept of self worth no confidence in myself.

So I would just encourage all of the entrepreneurs out there, confidence, self-respect, self-worth, is just one of the biggest parts of being able to succeed in starting your own business, in being a leader, even, you know, if you're not confident in who you are, you don't respect who you are. You don't have any concept of self-worth, you're going to struggle to lead other people and help foster that in them.

You're going to struggle to sell anything, as I discovered in that first attempt, and it is essential that you focus on introspectively taking inventory of your life your emotions, and your opinion of yourself and make sure that you take care of yourself and understand your worth and your value as a human.

Gresham Harkless 14:41

Yeah, that's huge. Just because I think it's a lot of times, you know, we're so externally focused on different things that we kind of forget to do that inner work in the inner work is first of all, you know, having that self-awareness and understanding who you are, but, you know, as you said, as well, too. It's just understanding and having that value in yourself because I think sometimes, especially when you're starting a business we can suffer from, impostor syndrome when we think that we aren't valuable, or we don't know how to do enough, but a lot of times, we are more value than we sometimes give ourselves credit for.

We need to make sure that we communicate that when we're asking for, you know, a certain price for whatever services we're providing, in even presenting ourselves on an even deeper level. So I think when we make sure that we have done that work, and we are aware of that, then I think that that can help us increase the likelihood of being successful.

Ryan Baker 15:25

Yep, definitely.

Gresham Harkless 15:27

Nice. Well, that's awesome. Awesome. I'm kind of closing arguments, so to speak, and people that want to reach out to you to find out about all the awesome things you're doing, what's the best way for them to do that?

Ryan Baker 15:38

Man, well, find me on my site. Kinglyconsulting.com but you can reach out to Ryan@Kinglyconsulting.com. Shoot me an email. I'd love to chat with anybody. I like to just, you know, encourage young entrepreneurs and help them achieve their dreams as well. But anybody that wants to chat, hit me up there on LinkedIn.

Gresham Harkless 16:05

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, we'll make sure to have that information and links in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. But I appreciate your time. Appreciate all the encouragement you know that you provided to us today as well. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 16:17

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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