IAM1276 – CEO Competes by Leveraging on the Weaknesses of the Opponent

I'm CEO at SEOquick which ranks #7 in Ukraine and #15 in Russia. My company also serves customers in the US, UK, and Canada to launch effective content marketing campaigns. I'm not a big fan of paid marketing because of getting high engagement with organic reach. My loving approach is the consistency of testing.

• CEO Story: Anatolii lost two businesses that he started. Eventually, he rose and learned the internet, and he was surprised when his friends asked him to help them promote their company. That was the start of his journey to dig deeper and build his agency. Despite being a late bloomer with big players in the area, Anatolii’s effort has paved off and got high ranking in Ukraine and Russia as an SEO Agency.
• Business Service: SEO strategy and optimization. Content marketing campaigns and engagement through organic reach.
• Secret Sauce: Spending more time and providing value to clients. Understanding strategically what is the current state of the client and finding a solution.
• CEO Hack: Researching what new social campaigns are, and learning from them online.
• CEO Nugget: Find your way. Don’t limit yourself to some rules. Play yourself along.
• CEO Defined: Freedom. Motivate and empower them. Building relationships and transparency. Get positive people, to achieve happiness.

Website: seotools.tv

LinkedIn: anatolii-ulitovskyi

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Transcription

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00:30 – Intro

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 Harker 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.

00:49 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Anatoly Ulyutovsky of SEOquick. Anatoly, it's great to have you on the show.

00:59 – Anatolii Ulitovskyi

Yeah, thanks for having me.

01:00 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, super excited to have you on. And before we jump to the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Anatoly so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Anatoly is a CEO at SEOquick ranks number 7 in Ukraine and number 15 in Russia. He also has a company called Unis in the United States. His company also serves customers in the United States, the UK, and Canada to launch effective content marketing campaigns. And he's not a big fan of paid marketing because of getting high engagement with his organic reach. His loving approach is the consistency of testing. And it's totally super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:35 – Anatolii Ulitovskyi

Yeah, let's share values maximum as possible.

01:39 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you guys started what I call your CEO story.

01:47 – Anatolii Ulitovskyi

I think that my story started when I graduated from my university in Ukraine, Odesa. I got a financial education and worked in this niche. I launched my first company, but in 2008, the whole crisis destroyed this company. I was bankrupt. I lost all my money, all my resources, and even worse. I had a debt that was equal to 3, 000. It's like, yeah, 3, 000 times daily salary in Ukraine. It's a lot. And that was a hard time. However, I decided to find a new way because the Ukrainian government decided to disallow all banking loans. And I couldn't help and serve my clients. That's why I started to learn more about the internet online and I launched my online shop.

And in 2013, the Ukrainian revolution destroyed my second business. I lost all my investments 1 more time. But you know, luckily, I didn't have any debts. I had experience and During this time, I learned a lot more about digital marketing because I needed to promote my online shop. And many of my friends asked me, please help to promote my websites. And that's why I chose a new direction in digital marketing. Today I have this agency, it works well in Ukraine and Russia. We rank high and have good positions, but you know, for some time, Many clients came to us from the US, UK, and Canada.

Most of them are Russian and Ukrainian immigrants because we speak 1 language. And we decided to extend our services to English-speaking countries. I spent some time on how I can get the same level of engagement that I have in Russian-speaking countries because we have a YouTube channel that brings a lot of customers, and sales, and we have our blog and many other campaigns, and most of them were related to organic-rich. So that was hard, you know, because in the US and Canada, English-speaking countries, you know, we have high competition fears. And I decided to find another way because I can't use totally the same approaches.

That's why I found LinkedIn, because today on LinkedIn, we have 800 million users, and only 3 million of them post content. The rest post content on Facebook and Instagram, they ignore this channel. I've learned more about LinkedIn from Gary Vee that you need to post a lot to be consistent in this way. That was hard because English is only my third language. But you know, if you wanna get something If you have some dreams, you can do it. It doesn't matter. For me, it's more important passion, not your experience. If you are passionate, you can do it, some job without waiting for some revenue, or money.

And today I often get requests. I don't know what's going on with my LinkedIn. I can't get engagement. And when I check out their profiles, they care about revenue, about money to sell products. But it doesn't work today. You need to bring value to share, value as much as possible to help others, to support them and yeah, you can get insight. It's my journey today. I spent probably 2, or 3 years on LinkedIn. I have a mass following and I use many different approaches, including audio podcasts as well. I have this format. I invite some awesome experts in digital marketing. Some of them, are Craig Campbell, Rand Fishting, Lily Ray, and many others.

I have a few people, who usually help me with creating content, editing some video stuff, images, and something like this. But in most cases, I create all this content myself. And that was a hard experience because many people told me it was impossible to do it. You need to create value and high-quality content. But you know, I like the approach from Gary Vee who shares that you need to post as maximum as possible and forget about quality. For example, if you are talking about Google, yes, it's important to have high-quality content. But on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram, you need to be consistent to post anything. When I unite my ideas, and experience with new stuff, I can get high engagement. Yeah, something like this.

07:04 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. No, I love that. And I appreciate you giving, you know, so much knowledge and information that we can kind of, you know, take advantage of as well, too. And I know you touch a little bit upon like how you work with your clients, but I want to drill down, spend a little bit of time there so I can hear how you serve your clients, but also to hear what you feel might be what I like to call your secret sauce, what you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique.

07:23 – Anatolii Ulitovskyi

I think that I remember when I started my Ukrainian agency, that was hard as well. We had a competition. I started late and we had a lot of big companies in this field, but I found 1 way that you need to spend more time with potential clients. For example, I use this approach for English-speaking countries as well. For example, if companies spend 15 minutes with clients to have a meeting or call, I can spend a few hours. I filter out them. For example, if I feel that I can't get these clients on my board. I can't sell them. I usually deny this request. I tell them, sorry, I can't help you.

But if I see the potential, if I know that I can help them, I usually spend more time, and provide some technical audit and many different insights. And most webmasters can't get traffic for a few years. They tell me, I don't know what's going on, please tell me. When I check out, I tell them we don't need to compete with competitors because in most cases, marketing agencies share some generic methods. It doesn't work today.

It's better to find competitors' weaknesses and try to take them. That's why we usually lead clients in this direction and can get traffic much faster than competitors. And I tell them, you don't need to think only about sales. Think about creating brand awareness, how you can get trust, authority, and many other factors. And sales will come with that, especially if you have no traffic, if you have big competitors, I just lead them in the right direction.

09:19 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes so much sense. I appreciate you, you know, sharing that. And the saying is, I think in life is that it's never crowded the extra mile. So as you said, if you're able to spend more time, you're able to provide, you know, value to somebody that somebody is quote unquote, charging for, if you're able to understand that, for what you do with your clients, but also your clients are able to understand that too for their clients, provide value in ways that other people aren't, whether it be, like you said, those long tail searches, those searches that people might not realize are really valuable, but there's low competition. That's understanding strategically is really the way that you're able to kind of get ahead. So I love that you have your approach for your clients.

09:56 – Anatolii Ulitovskyi

Yeah. You know, because Today we have a lot of generic knowledge skills. For example, when I started my LinkedIn journey, I could share how I usually learn about new channels. I go to Google, and type, For example, LinkedIn marketing or LinkedIn guide or any similar keywords. Then I spent a few days reading all of them, learning all of them. I can use the same approach on YouTube, but video is not my loving format. I love audio experience because I can tell why because when I read, I can consume content much faster. I can scan.

10:39 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I appreciate you sharing that. And especially the hack about like how you're able to find like what those new social media sites are and how you kind of do that research and kind of test that out and how you're able to read it. And so I was going to ask you for a CEO nugget. You might've already touched on that, but it's kind of a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I usually say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you hopped into a time machine, would you tell your younger business self?

11:03 – Anatolii Ulitovskyi

The first thing that you need to consider is to find your way. And don't care if some guides, or courses claim it's not your way. Because you don't need to limit yourself with some rules play yourself when you go ahead and don't care about some negative thoughts or something like this, yeah, what we have today.

11:34 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. It's so important to ignore the haters because the haters don't necessarily know where things are going, as you said, going into those comments and looking at those things. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO or hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Anatoly, what does being a CEO mean to you?

11:50 – Anatolii Ulitovskyi

For me, it's freedom, more freedom and passion. I'm looking for a way to extend my business. I'm looking for a way to serve my employees because I like the idea that you don't need to ask your employees to work more. It's better to provide a reason to work more. For example, if you can motivate them, empower them, encourage them to provide more, to be innovative. And yeah, I love it this way. I love to talk to them. And if they tell me, you know, I don't want to lie to you, but I can go tomorrow because of my private reasons. Okay, It's your way, and no problem with that.

And today I'm trying to build this relationship with transparency because I had a bad experience when Many key players left my company and I didn't know what was going on. I tried to research and I got it that we got a toxic environment. So I decided to change many approaches today. I can provide a day off, I can spend more time with them, talk to them. I ask if you need any help, just tell me. I want to create this environment when people go to my job, to my company and want to improve it, and want to feel much better than they spend time with their families. It's my approach and I'm going on this way.

I have the goal to extend, to grow, and to find people who are passionate about it. I don't want to cooperate with negative people. For example, even if you have the skills, awesome skills, but if you are negative, I had this experience with a toxic environment. I'm not sure that we can cooperate together. It's better for me to even get less, but with positive people because why we are living for? To be happy. Yeah, happiness is the first thing that I want to get.

14:24 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And we start to embed that within the culture as you said so many times, you know, when we forget that sometimes the less-than-ideal experiences give us some of the best lessons. So I love how you talked about that passion and of course happiness and all those aspects that we have the responsibility as leaders. I think, I guess you don't have to do it, but I think it's important to do it because you get to build those really strong relationships.

You get to build that really strong environment, and people feel, you know, bought in and tied in and ownership, I think, to some degree, over everything that you're building and you're growing. So I love that, that perspective, and of course, that definition. And appreciate that. And I appreciate your time even more. What I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all those things you and your team are working on.

15:13 – Anatolii Ulitovskyi

The best way is to open my LinkedIn profile, Anatolii Ulitovskyi, and use my website on miss.com for English English-speaking audience. I provide a lot of content and educational content, learn more about me on my YouTube. I think that's it, yeah, the best channel that I have.

15:38 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I appreciate that, Anatolii, to make it even easier, We'll have the links and information shown to us as well too, but truly appreciate you for providing so much value today. And of course, on your sites and all across the interwebs and the internet. So thank you so much, my friend. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

15:54 – Anatolii Ulitovskyi

Yeah, thanks for having me.

15:55 – Outro

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.

16:36 – Speaker 4

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