IAM466- T Shaped Marketer Oversees Multiple Digital Marketing Campaigns

Boni Satani is a T Shaped Marketer with a Huge Interest in SEO & Link Building. He is currently the Director of Marketing at Zestard Technologies, overseeing multiple digital marketing campaigns for clients.

• CEO Hack: Book – Scaling up
• CEO Nugget: Keep going despite the ups and downs
• CEO Defined: A leader who inspires and coaches

Website: http://www.zestard.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zestard/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bonirulzz
https://twitter.com/zestardtech

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonirulzz
https://www.linkedin.com/company/zestard/

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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, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today at Boni Satani of Zestard Technologies. Boni, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Boni Satani 0:40

Thank you so much for inviting me. It's a pleasure.

Gresham Harkless 0:42

No problem. pleasure is all mine. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Boni so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Boni is a T-shaped marketer with a huge interest in SEO and Link building is currently the director of marketing at Zestard Technologies, overseeing multiple digital marketing campaigns for clients Boney, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Boni Satani 1:02

I am.

Gresham Harkless 1:03

Awesome. Let's do it. So they kick everything off. I just wanted to hear a little bit more about your story and your background. And what led you to your current position? Yeah,

Boni Satani 1:10

Absolutely.! Currently, I am the director of and slash head of marketing of Zestard Technologies. If so, let me just go back to the whole story of how I came here, right? And, um, it's pretty interesting. I studied engineering and engineering in instrumentation controls. It's a pretty different field than what I am right now. But I was a huge fan of Steve Jobs. And I used to read almost all of his biographies. I was like, I remember.

When I was in my third year of college, I was just reading all of his biographies, and all of his work, and I just one thing, stick to me follow your passion and everything will else fall in place. So even though I was in a very different field, I knew that this was not something that I wanted to do. Hence, online marketing on the other end, which was just booming and growing up, and it was no people were getting more aware, also got in touch with that particular field.

And eventually, once I graduated from college, I took a job in online marketing. And from that, I started my career. So today, I have almost eight years of experience in online marketing. And I have expertise in SEO. There is one, this link-building section, which is a very controversial area where people say it's not good, and it's not right. So there, I have a very narrow expertise with white hat link-building activity.

So someone, so if the business owners who are listening, and if they may have outsourced their SEO services, they may have, you know, speak with the agency owner saying about link building techniques and stuff like that. So that's where I specialize. So for almost six years, I did the job and later realized I wanted to help more people.

As we all know when we do a job, we have limitations, we cannot do all sorts of activities, and try and explain because there are always some barriers. So I thought, let me get into my bills and get on more clients who, you know, match my interest levels and stuff like that, and so that I can experiment and help them also, like, that's what the story is about as a start with me.

Gresham Harkless 3:18

Nice. Well, I definitely, appreciate that. And I feel like definitely correct me if I'm wrong, like that engineering background, a lot of it is all about kind of problem-solving. And I'm sure you run into the kind of same thing with SEO, while there are certain, you know, principles or practices you should follow. A lot of times you do have to do a little bit of engineering, so to speak, to make sure that you're, you're getting the rankings you want.

Boni Satani 3:37

Oh, yeah. You know, so it's always like connecting the dots. So again, something gets the job, say, so anything you study doesn't go anywhere. So engineering has helped me a lot to, approach various SEO tasks, right? So it's either understanding how the algorithm works, to performing on executing Google penalty on stuff like that. So absolutely. It's more of a problem-solving approach, which has, helped me a lot in performing much better.

Gresham Harkless 4:09

Yeah, absolutely. And I do remember that Steve Jobs quote that sometimes you can only understand why everything happens by looking backward and connecting the dots that way. So I remember I think he gave it speech at Stanford, if I remember correctly, so I know you've been able to connect those dots and I wanted to hear a little bit more about Zestard Technologies. Can you take us through how you're working with the clients?

Boni Satani 4:29
Absolutely. So Zestard Technologies has three to four main services. One is digital marketing. That was something that I just introduced to you guys and the other is e-commerce development. So we are very specialized with the E-commerce services below, helping entrepreneurs/retailers and wholesalers to create pretty engaging online e-commerce stores. So every day, we launch new e-commerce stores for various clients.

So that's one of our expertise. Then we have WordPress development services where we help individual bloggers or Service website companies to create professional-looking websites that can, help them retain the users who are coming on their website and generate leads for them.

So we are more of a in general an IT company, where our goal is to give a web presence to an entrepreneur so that they can expand their footprint on digital media get more exposure, and get more customers so that they can increase their businesses. So yeah, that's where we've come into place.

Gresham Harkless 5:36

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And a lot of times I say, the name of the game is being found, and make sure that you have that presence online, and you're taking advantage of, all the different tools, or some of the different tools, let's just say out, there is a way to break through the noise and make sure that you're able to provide those products and services that all these entrepreneurs and business owners are creating.

Boni Satani 5:53

Absolutely. It's super important to, know those tools. And, we had a lot of time, that, that's an easy task, or that's an easy marketing activity to perform. And, more often than not, the client on the other end doesn't know that it all came through an experience where we learned that, okay, this activity can be done and, you know, can be automated and stuff like that. So, yeah, tools help us scale a lot of activities.

Gresham Harkless 6:26

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's like a quote there. I think it's sort of for a plumber that a lot of times, when you are hiring like an agency, or you're hiring an expert, a lot of people say, Oh, they can do that fast. So it shouldn't cost that much. But in reality, you're not paying for the time that they did it, you're paying for all the expertise, all the experience that they put into everything that they're doing for you.

Boni Satani 6:45

Absolutely. bang on.

Gresham Harkless 6:46

Nice! And I know you touched on the phrase in the word link building, could you break that down a little bit more for those that aren't familiar with it? And tell us a little bit more about what that is.

Boni Satani 6:54

Absolutely. That's my favorite topic. So link, so Google, everybody knows Google, it's a search engine. And Google itself is a software technically, and there are a lot of ways like there are a lot of factors through which Google ranks the top 10 websites. So whenever you search, any keyword in Google, say, for example, “best blue shoes”, and something like that, you will always see some top 10 results.

Now, company owners who, for example, sell shoes, always come up to say, hey, I want to rank for this top position. Because, when you rank for these top positions, you get traffic, and hence you get the sales. So now there are a lot of factors. Number one that comes into play for ranking those websites in the Google top 10. One of the most important factors, I would say another top three factors, which Google has also confirmed multiple times during the events are backlinks.

So backlink in a general sense is you can consider that it's a kind of a vote. Vote given by one website to another website. And in the sense that, hey, I recommend this particular website, you can go for that. So backlink is something similar to that where, for example, there are three websites A, B, and C, and B, and C websites. They give you a backlink.

Or, for example, a link to the website for sale, for example, white color shoes. What happens for Google is Google comes in crawls these three websites and they say, okay, hey, B and C websites are linking back to the website a, and that tells Google Hey, out of all these three websites, for the white color shoes, I should rank the website.

So what happened was B and C websites gave a backlink to website A and hence its authority increased. Now that's so that's the whole fundamental of backlink link building means identifying or executing such activities. So that different websites link back to the client's website so that Google sees the client's website as an authority website in that particular industry.

So for example, if you look at I AM CEO's example itself, then if over some time as you can see that we have here, Gresham is producing a lot of podcast videos, and over some time, he's going to add a lot of backlinks from, say, agency owners like us, and like for example, we I create a blog and then I publish an article and say, Hey, I just got interviewed by Gresham because on I AM CEO podcast and I link back to the actual code castling, which is on I AM CEO.

What happened was I gave a backlink to Gresham. So in a way, this activity can be called a link-building activity. This helps in letting Google discover clients' websites as well as helping them rank more for their important business keywords. It's a pretty it's a little complex thing. Maybe someone who's listening for the first time may not find it so easy to understand but yeah, it's it's one of the most important things to rank websites in Google and for SEO in general. Yeah!

Gresham Harkless 10:05

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of times, especially in the very beginning stages of SEO it was like the only thing. Now it's not the only thing. But it still is of extreme importance, because just like you said, it builds that authority for the website.

And if you want to rank higher, the more links, generally speaking, the more links you have going back to your site, the higher you're going to rank because you're seen as a more reputable site. So I appreciate you for sharing that with us. That would be what you would consider to be like your secret sauce, what you feel kind of sets you and your organization apart. Is that focus?

Boni Satani 10:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's secret sauce, I would add one more thing on top of that, is that, so whenever we get a new client, our number one goal is to always understand their business. So for example, give you a very recent example, something that happened last week, someone came to us and told us, they wanted to develop a website on a Magento platform.

So they wanted to develop an e-commerce Store on a Magento platform, we had a normal discussion over the call, and we just learned that the entrepreneurs, they just they were just starting, they didn't had any of any presents before and stuff like that. Now Magento X store itself is for, you know, established businesses, or someone who is very big business because it's very difficult to maintain and stuff like that.

So after a conversation, and after we learned their business, it's gonna stay the standard to go for a different platform like Shopify, where it's very easy to manage, and, doesn't have a lot of costs to maintain and stuff. So what happens is, is that when we suggest such personalized solutions to customers, after understanding the requirement, they start trusting us.

And that's what we have found over some time as a secret sauce. Like, there is another example. Something happened two days back, we had a client come to us, and they said, Hey, we are not happy with our existing link-building, SEO Services Agency. And, what are your services? And how do you differ and stuff like that?

So there are questions that they ask us. And we are supposed to respond and let them know that about how we are different. Our email that went back to them was something that we responded to all the queries. But you also added a note, one more thing, after reviewing the website, we said that look, your website, like the existing agency has been just six months.

We think that it will continue with that agency for another six months unless you think they're not good with their expertise because your website is in a very competitive niche. And it can easily take eight to 12 months for your website to get the rankings. So be quite open and trustful. Like we didn't want the business. We just wanted to, ensure and give them the right feedback.

And, guess what, what they responded was that, hey, thank you for your real advice. As per your notes, we are sticking with the existing agency. But if something changes, we'll get back to you. And just yesterday, that entrepreneur referred us to one of his friends, like, technically just introduced the internal risk these guys a pretty good they just give me real feedback and stuff like that. So I would say that is something which is our DNA, our secret sauce of running the business.

Gresham Harkless 13:27

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And to be able to have somebody you can lean on to get the correct advice. And the information is huge. So I appreciate you for sharing that with us. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Boni Satani 13:45

Absolutely. So I read a lot of books, I have a lot of things on my Kindle, one of the best books I have read, you know, run the business is number one is Scaling up. It's a book by Verne Harnish. It's a fantastic book. So if you're looking for a very if you're looking for a process, a blueprint, like something that you can go and, implement in your organizations to make it more structured. And to get more understanding of what's happening in your organization just go and buy Scale Up. It's a wonderful book.

Gresham Harkless 14:18

Thank you for sharing that. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can hop into a time machine. What would you tell your younger self?

Boni Satani 14:28

Oh, that's amazing. So I would tell my younger self that the road is quite full of ups and downs. And don't be afraid, keep going to the lead road because eventually there will be a success.

Gresham Harkless 14:43

I appreciate that, that nugget. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Bonnie, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Boni Satani 14:54

What I see as a CEO is someone, who is a leader. A leader is someone who takes initiative and, you know, takes care of everyone and is supposed to do what his designation is not supposed to do. So he is required to lead the people, inspire them coach them. A lot of CEOs don't coach employees or their second line of managers. So one of the most important jobs of a CEO is also to coach employees so that they can create second-level leaders.

Gresham Harkless 15:25

I think that's an incredible definition. And I appreciate it and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and then of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome thanks guys are working on.

Boni Satani 15:39

Sure. So yeah, I just want to share two couple of things. I'm also a big fan of Tim Ferriss and love his book, four-hour workweek. I don't like all the chapters but I specifically love the chapter on productivity the best so the best way is to get in touch with me or email which is boni@zestard.com you can also reach out to me on Twitter as well as LinkedIn. So my Twitter handle and LinkedIn handle both are the same, which is bonirulzz

Gresham Harkless 16:13

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Boni. We will have those links in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But again, I appreciate your time and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 16:22

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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