IAM2808 – T Shaped Marketer Oversees Multiple Digital Marketing Campaigns

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Transcription:

Boni Satani 00:00
So I would tell my younger self that the road is quite full of ups and down. And don't be afraid, keep going through that road because eventually there will be a success.

Gresham Harkless 00:41
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gretch from the IM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today, AV Boni Santani of zesterd Technologies. Boney, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Boni Santani 00:51
Thank you so much for inviting me. It's a pleasure.

Gresham Harkless 00:54
No problem. Pleasure's all mine. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Boney so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Boney is a T shaped marketer with a huge interest in SEO and link building. He's currently the director of Marketing at zestar Technologies, overseeing multiple digital marketing campaigns for clients. Boney, are you ready to speak to the IM CEO community?

Boni Santani 01:13
Absolutely, I am.

Gresham Harkless 01:14
Awesome. Let's do it. So to 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 now.

Boni Santani 01:21
Absolutely. So currently I am the director of and head of marketing of zestart Technologies. If so, let me just go back to the whole story, how I came here, right? And I mean it's pretty interesting. I studied engineering and engineering in instrumentation and control. So 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 that when I was in third year of my college, I was just reading all of his biographies, all of his work and I just took just one thing, stick to me that follow your passion and everything will else fall in place. So even though I was in a very different field, I knew that this is not something that I want to do and hence but online marketing on the other end, which was just booming up and growing up and it was people were getting more aware. I was also got in touch with that particular field and eventually once I graduated from college I took a job in online marketing and from from that I started my career. So today I have almost like eight years of experience in online marketing. And I basically have an 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 hacking building activities. So someone. So business owners who are listening and if they may have outsourced their SEO services, they may have, you know, speak with the agency owners 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 I realized that I wanted to help more people. And as we all know that when we do a job we have limitations. We cannot do all sort of activities and try and explain because there are always some barriers. So I thought, let me get into my own wheels 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. So that's what the story is about as I start with me.

Gresham Harkless 03:25
Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that and I feel like, and 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 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 rank that you want.

Boni Santani 03:44
Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, so it's always like connecting the dots. So again, something that Steve Jobs say. So anything that 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 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 04:15
Yeah, absolutely. And I do remember that Steve Jobs quotes where sometimes you can only understand why everything happens by looking backwards and connecting the dots that way. So I definitely remember, I think he gave that 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 zestar Technologies. Can you take us through how you're working with the clients?

Boni Santani 04:36
Absolutely. So Zesta Technologies has like three to four main services. One is digital marketing. That what is something that I just introduced you guys. And other is E commerce development. So we are very specialized with E commerce services. We love helping entrepreneurs slash retailers and wholesalers to create a pretty engaging Online e commerce stores. So like every day almost we launch new e commerce stores for various clients. So that's one of our expertise. And then we have WordPress development services where we help individual bloggers or a service website companies to create their professional looking websites that can, you know, help them retain the users who are coming on their website and generate leads for them. So we are more of in general an IT company where our goal is to give a web presence to an entrepreneur so that they can expand their footprint under digital media and get more exposure and get more customers so that they can increase their businesses. So yeah, that's where BS just start coming to place.

Gresham Harkless 05:40
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 are taking advantage of all the different tools or some of the different tools. I should say out there is definitely a way to kind of 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 Santani 05:57
Absolutely, absolutely. And Amy, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's super important to know those tools. And we heard a lot of time that that's an easy task or that's an easy marketing activity to perform and but more often than not the client on the other end doesn't know that. That 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 really help us scale a lot of activities.

Gresham Harkless 06:27
Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's like a quote that I think it's for a plumber that a lot of times, you know, when you are hiring like an agency or you are hiring an expert, a lot of people say, oh, they can do that really 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 all the expertise, all the experience that they put into everything that they're doing for you.

Boni Santani 06:45
Absolutely. Bang on.

Gresham Harkless 06:47
Nice. And I know you touched on the phrase and 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 Santani 06:55
Absolutely. Like that's my favorite topic. So link. So Google. So 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'll always see some top 10 results. Now company owners who for example sells shoes, they always, they come up to say that hey I want to rank for this stock position. Because you know 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 factor, I would say one of the top three factors which Google has also confirmed multiple times during 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 a backlink or for example a link to the website A for say for example white color shoes. What happens for Google is Google comes and crawl 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 A. So what happened was B and C website 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 clients website so that Google sees clients website is an authority website in that particular industry. So for example, if you look at my MCO's example itself then if over a period of time, as you can see that we are, he's Grisham is producing a lot of podcast videos and over a period of time he's going to get 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 Gasam on IM CEO podcast and I link back to the actual podcast link which is on IM CEO. What happened was I gave a backlink to gm. So in a way this activity can be called as a link building activity. And 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 was listening for the first time. You may not find it so easily to understand but yeah, it's it's, it's one of the most important thing to rank websites in Google and for SEO in general. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 09:55
And I think a lot of times, especially in the very, I guess, 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 to your site, the, the, 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. And 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 Santani 10:22
Yeah, yeah, 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, I'll give you a pretty 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 entrepreneur, they just, they were just starting out, they didn't had any of any presence before and stuff like that. Now Magento store itself is, is, is for, you know, established businesses or someone who is a very big business because it's very difficult to maintain and stuff like that. So after a conversation and after we learn their business understanding, understand that to go for a different platform like Shopify, where it's very easy to manage and you know, doesn't have a lot of cost to maintain and stuff. So what happens is, is that when we suggest such personalized solutions to customers, after understanding a requirement, they start trusting us. And that's what we have found over time as a cigarette sauce. Like there's another example, like something that happened two days back. We had a client came to us and they said, hey, we are not happy with our existing link building SEO services agency and like 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 how we're different. Our email that went back to them was something that we responded back to all their queries. But we also had a note, one more thing after reviewing their website and we said that look, your website, like your existing agency has spent just six months and we really think that you should still continue with that agency for another 16 months unless you think they are not good with their expertise because your website is in a very competitive niche and it can easily take 8 to 12 months for your website to get the rankings. So we're quite open and trustful. Like we didn't want it the business, we just wanted to, you know, ensure and give them the right feedback. And guess what, what they responded back 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 definitely get back to you. And just yesterday the that entrepreneur referred us one of his friend, like technically he just introduced us and tell us these guys are pretty good. They just gave me a real feedback and stuff like that. So I would say that is something which is our DNA or secret sauce of running the business.

Gresham Harkless 13:02
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And to be able to have somebody you can lean on to get the correct advice and information is definitely huge. So I appreciate you for sharing that with us and I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this might be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Boni Santani 13:20
Absolutely. So I read a lot of books. I have a lot of things on my Kindle. One of the best books that I have read, you know, run the Business is number one, is Scaling Up. It's a book by Vaughn 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 you know, implement it in your organizations to make it more structured and to get more understanding of what's happening in your organizations, just go and buy Scaleup. It's a wonderful book.

Gresham Harkless 13:50
Thank you for sharing that. And now I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is like a word of wisdom or piece of advice or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Boni Santani 14:00
Oh, that's amazing. So I would tell my younger self that the road is quite full of ups and down and don't be afraid, keep going through that growth because eventually there will be a success.

Gresham Harkless 14:16
I appreciate 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 this show. So Boney, what does being a CEO

Boni Santani 14:25
means you what I see as a CEO is someone who is a leader. A leader is someone who takes initiatives and takes care of everyone and he's supposed to do what his designation is? No, he's supposed to do so. He's 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 job of a CEO is also to coach employees so that they can create second level leaders.

Gresham Harkless 14:57
I think that's an incredible definition and I appreciate it and I appreciate your time even more. 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 and then of course how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you guys are working on.

Boni Santani 15:11
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 Work Week. I don't like all the chapters, but I specifically love the chapter on productivity the best. So best way obviously is to get in touch with me or email which is Bonnie B O N I At the rate this is start.com z s t a r d.com and definitely you can also reach out to me on Twitter as well as LinkedIn. So my Twitter handle and LinkedIn handler both are same which is Bonnie Rules B O N I R U L Z awesome.

Gresham Harkless 15:45
Awesome awesome. Well thank you so much again Bonnie. 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.