MKJ (00:01.516)
Hey, hey, hey, welcome to the conversation. Mischief makers, MKJ here, Mary Kathryn Johnson. And I cannot wait to introduce you to my guest today, Steven Schneider. Steven, you ready to rock and help people dive into this business journey with us?

Steven Schneider (00:20.061)
I am, let’s do

MKJ (00:21.282)
Let’s do it. All right. So the first thing we’re going to do, obviously today we’re talking about mindset. That’s where we start 30 ,000 feet. Let’s look at the way we need to look at the world in order to make the changes that we need to make in our business and our lives and the world. I really do think we’re all here to make a difference. So, so Steven, start us out with who you are and what you

Steven Schneider (00:42.839)
Yeah, so I am co -founder and CEO of Trio SEO, which is a content marketing agency. Before that, I used to co -own a portfolio of about 40 blogs and we published upwards of about 400 articles per month. So lots of experience in large scale blogging and running massive teams and content systems in general. And now we get to take all of that knowledge that I learned with my first company.

and help clients do that for themselves. So it’s been a lot of fun and yeah, I love SEO, I love content, and I love entrepreneurship. So it’s been a good blend so

MKJ (01:21.356)
Boy, boy, can I, I can’t wait to have a conversation with you about this. And we’ll get into that in a minute when we get more into, excuse me, innovation. But man, here’s something to think about and where I’m gonna go with this conversation, Mischief Makers. SEO or AEO and how they connect? SEO, search engine optimization, AEO, answer engine optimization.

and the world being basically heading toward answer engines or AI. And we’ll get into that because there’s a statistic that just came out about Google and all that kind of stuff. So believe me, hang on for the third conversation when we get to strategy and tactics because you’re going want to be part of this with an amazing expert that you have right at your fingertips. So now that I’ve teased that, well, that’s just where my head is, right? And where the world’s head is.

So tell me you went from a, how many blogs did you say that you were running?

Steven Schneider (02:23.041)
Yeah, we were publishing about three to four hundred per month, depending on any given

MKJ (02:26.242)
my goodness. So three to 400 blogs and that’s, that’s what you were doing. You were writing the content and publishing the content, optimizing it to be searchable and to come up as high as possible in the rankings. And now you took that with the success you had with that and you’re specifically growing a business on SEO and allowing other bloggers to do the same thing you did. Is that

Steven Schneider (02:50.657)
Yeah, so it’s pretty much the exact same model. The only difference is I don’t own all the websites this time. It’s the exact same model in terms of doing the strategy, writing the content, the publishing, the uploading, except that we do it for people’s own brands and their websites and help them funnel high intent traffic to their sites via organic search. yeah, blogging and just kind of everything that is embarked with content SEO.

MKJ (03:16.866)
Wow, okay, so take me through, first off, give me a little bit of background. Before you got into this three and 400 blogs, you had to do something else. You just pop out and go, I’m gonna own three or 400 blogs, right? So something else was going on. What were you doing before

Steven Schneider (03:34.807)
I was studying entrepreneurship in college, actually. This was like many moons ago. And yeah, I was in a class project with a friend of mine and he just kind of told me, he’s like, yeah, I do this thing on the side. And back in the day, like we were in college, he was making 10, 15 grand a month doing this. And I was just instantly hooked and I was gonna get my MBA and do corporate or whatever. And I was like, okay, let’s stop everything, pivot.

If he’s doing this, I can absolutely do this. Let’s just learn this as quickly as possible. And my friend became my mentor and I just kind of started building websites with him and we had a small portfolio, maybe two or three sites before graduation. And that was enough to kind of, you know, give me enough information to be like, let’s double down this. There’s actually something here. And he had some pretty big sites. mean, they were making maybe 30, 40 ,000 a month by himself with his mother partner.

So we kind of merged and hit the ground running straight out of college. So yeah, it was almost like I didn’t really have anything else backed up, but I also didn’t want to have to worry about getting like a real job, quote unquote. So I was just like full steam ahead. was like, I will do whatever it takes. I’ll work as many hours as it takes and I’m not going to give up because this is way more fun and way more lucrative. So what more could you ask for?

MKJ (04:55.65)
Yeah, definitely. So let me take you through that one right there because we’re talking about mindset shifts. So you’re in college, you’re going to get a corporate job, you’re on the regular college hamster wheel of trying to find the career that you’re going to do for the next typically 30 years, right? That most people think about when they’re going to college. You don’t want to invest this kind of money and not think you’re going to be in that career for a long time. At least long enough to pay off the loans if you have them. So what in the world?

How did you go from that to entrepreneurship? mean, it’s one thing to see your friend doing something and talk to them about it, but you really had to have something that made you go, not just this is possible, but it’s possible for me. What was that?

Steven Schneider (05:39.061)
Well, I, yeah, so I knew him. Like I’ve known him, you know, for some time. wasn’t like we just met in college. Like I grew up with his wife and we go way back. And so I was like, well, if you’re doing this, like I can absolutely do this. Like it wasn’t like he was, you know, he’s a smart dude, but it wasn’t like I was looking at Bill Gates sitting next to me thinking this is so out of reach. And also he showed me all this sort of stuff and it wasn’t like it was rocket science. It was write an article and I feel like I’m, you know, naturally.

MKJ (05:57.712)
Right, Right, right.

Steven Schneider (06:08.617)
somewhat of a good writer, publish an article and wait for three months. And I think that that was the biggest mindset shift was SEO came with this massive game of delayed gratification. And so when you publish an article and you have to wait six months for it to even make its first dollar. And so he, or time told me, he’s like, you know, I’ve had plenty of friends do the same thing you’re doing and all of them drop off because no one can actually put in the time and be

I’m okay with that massive game to see it through. So yeah, I was just patient and I knew that had some time before graduation. So I was like, I really don’t have much to lose. And let’s just see what happens. And I made my first like 50 cents online and I’ll never forget that. And then once that came through, I just knew we were kind of going to be off of the races. So we had some couple of lucky strikes early on, which kind of put some wind in the sails. But yeah, it was just fun and it was energizing and it was within reach.

MKJ (07:07.874)
That’s amazing. basically.

We’ve all heard a similar story. I mean, this is like the internet dream, right? You you put in some work and you build something and you build some authority in some particular subject and you write about it and you show your authority and all that stuff and then and you You set it up because a blog is basically a setup process. It’s not just the words, right? It’s not just you talking about a subject It is set up a specific way to allow for that SEO to to be generated that search engine optimization for that

traffic to be generated. So what made you decide that the delayed gratification was worth it?

Steven Schneider (07:48.471)
I mean, he was making 15, 20 grand a month next to me and he was still in college and he’s just doing this thing as a, he was getting his degree as a backup plan pretty much. He had no intention of like studying computer science or anything like that. And I just saw, like, I just had never even fathomed making that much money in one month. And, you know, you kind of hear about, okay, you go to college, you get the six figure salary. You’ll be lucky if you’re making a hundred grand within a couple of years and you play the corporate ladder

It’s just a very rigid model. And here’s this 19 year old kid making 20 grand a month in his apartment. And I’m like, what? Like I remember like getting goosebumps when I first saw it. Cause was like, there’s no way you’re making that much money. He’s like, yeah, here’s all the analytics and blah, blah. And once I saw that, was just like, this

I’ve never seen anything like this. Like I will be your, like I will bow down to the day I die if you just teach me how to do this. And so that’s pretty much what happened. I just like bugged him nonstop to teach me everything he knew.

MKJ (08:50.934)
Yeah. And he wasn’t doing like ads and everything. This is really search engine. This is really organic.

Steven Schneider (08:56.567)
Yeah, so it was all affiliate marketing. So we would write like best of articles, like our first website was like a barbecue website. And so it’d be like the top five barbecues of like 2000 and whatever. And obviously we had never tested anything, but we just did like a bunch of research and like read a lot of consumer reviews and you kind of just get into a flow. But yeah, that’s kind of the name of the game.

MKJ (08:59.958)
Yes. Yes.

MKJ (09:08.855)
Right.

MKJ (09:18.792)
Yeah. And then so that’s I get that I totally, I totally understand it. And it is a machine, you set up the machine, you do the research, you figure out the topic.

I’m sure you used a lot of tools like SEMrush and a bunch of different tools to try and find the topics that you want to write about. Then looked at the affiliate opportunities, probably Amazon and a bunch of other sites, and then just started writing based on that research and the potential affiliates. But now, so that’s awesome, I get it. First off, how long ago was this?

Steven Schneider (09:53.528)
This was like 2017, like eight years ago, nine years ago -ish.

MKJ (09:58.605)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Six, eight, yeah, six or seven years ago now that we’re talking. So now fast forward to now and you’ve made a success of that. And I’m assuming you saw his results and beyond with 300 to 400.

Steven Schneider (10:15.319)
Yeah, yeah, we had a pretty good climb. We grew that to seven figures and, you know, we’re thinking about selling the company and trying to figure out what the next steps were. We got hit with a couple, we got three black swan events in 30 days. One of them being COVID that kind of shook the world. The other one was the fact that Amazon had cut their commission rates in half overnight because of COVID.

MKJ (10:35.457)
Yes.

Steven Schneider (10:42.929)
And then there was a Google algorithm update, which was specifically targeting affiliate product reviews. So it was just this perfect storm of chaos to pretty much chop our company in half. And we were just like, we knew this was a not forever thing, but like, guess it’s happened today. So let’s figure it out. And yeah, so it was kind of just a good, good time to take a lot of those learnings and set our sights on the next thing.

MKJ (11:11.069)
And the next thing is helping other bloggers or businesses do the same thing that you did.

Steven Schneider (11:16.663)
So it’s not with those same partners. So I left that company, Silicon terms, like I golf with them like once a week, great friends still. And yeah, I just kind of like took a year off to figure out what I wanted to do next. And just through random, like serendipitous way of life connected with Connor Gillivan and Nathan Hirsch through LinkedIn and just DM them and started talking to them. And just, was a very natural conversation whenever we spoke. And over time,

just learned that it would be a really good match for us to team up and create an SEO agency. Speaking of I already had the experience, I knew the entire system, how to do it. They had SEO experience, they have a massive network on their side and it really blended perfectly. And so yeah, we started that and we’re coming up on our one year mark now.

MKJ (12:05.836)
That’s fantastic. know Nathan, I don’t know Connor personally, but I know Nathan, I’ve interviewed him several times. And yeah, they have, they’re not just building machines. They know how to build machines. They know how to build machines. Yeah. But it’s not just that they also build relationships. And that’s why we’re still connected. Because I’ve left the world of lead generation and just building a machine to make money.

Steven Schneider (12:18.657)
They’re good at it,

MKJ (12:32.362)
and gone to the world of the way humans have done business since humans have been doing business together. And that is building relationships, know, like and trust. And that takes, that takes a little bit of a different spin, which leads me to the whole answer engine idea and all that kind of stuff. So we can talk about that later,

Okay, so you left there, you had some time, because you had a pocketful of money, I’m sure. And so you could kind of hang out and you’re, I think you’re probably the same age as my son. So if you were 19 at that time, and that was about seven years ago, you’re probably around 26 or 25, something like that.

Steven Schneider (13:07.447)
No, I was actually in college today. I just turned 30.

MKJ (13:10.082)
Okay, similar. Yeah, my son’s just turning 26 tomorrow. So not too different, right? Not, yeah, just a couple. Wow. Okay. So now you partnered with the original guys and now you’re partnering with Nathan. And I know Nathan and Connor had a process where they were looking for companies to give their machine to, right? Not give, but…

Steven Schneider (13:14.466)
nice, yeah, yeah, couple years

MKJ (13:34.454)
participate in that business by taking their machine and putting it into a business. Is that where you came into the play or did they spin this off? Because I know they started, you’re helping them with an SEO agency or they’re helping you, one of the two. Did they just take your, go ahead.

Steven Schneider (13:48.535)
It’s kind of yes, so yeah, so similar. they were kind of looking, they had this idea. So I talked to Connor and he and I text a lot over like a six month period and that was kind of like, you know, breaking brand of how we’re gonna work together and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, one time I was just like, you know, why don’t you guys have an SEO agency? Like this is the most no brainer business for you guys to set up. And he’s like, we have it all mapped out. We have like a 20 page document. They have all the marketing figured out. They have the competition.

literally 25 pages of everything written out and it had just collected dust for a year. And I was just immediately pitched myself and was like, I can do this, no problem. Like I know exactly how to do it. We can get up and running in like 30 days. And if you guys can get some beta clients, like this is a no brainer. And I think that that’s what they were looking for was someone who had already like been there, scaled it and could just immediately be put in a system.

that would at least kind of allow them to create a turnkey business because like, you know, Nathan is just like a networking machine and he handles the sales. And then Connor is a like master SEO on LinkedIn and has like, you know, 80 ,000 followers on LinkedIn, a great guy and just super knowledgeable. And I have the systems in the background and kind of the team building aspect of how to run the company. So it was just like this really eerie fit on how we could each bring our own piece of the puzzle together.

and kind of just like launch it and it would launch really quickly and it’s just kind of been churning ever since.

MKJ (15:22.626)
But there’s a big difference, and most people who own an agency become agency owners accidentally.

So, right, mean, and it sounds like you fit that mold, right? You were doing it for yourself, you were doing it, and then people probably were asking you, how are you doing this? How are you doing this? And then you met up with Nathan, they’re like, well, we kind of want to do this too. And you’re like, yeah, why aren’t you doing this? And you kind of accidentally fall into an agency. And it’s usually because you have very strong experience in the thing that you provide as a service. So how was that mindset shift to go from doing it for yourself and now offering it as a service to clients?

Steven Schneider (15:57.655)
It was definitely the most difficult mindset shift I have encountered to date. And that was one of the things that was so interesting to kind of have this like juxtaposition of when I used to work with the first company and we would always joke where we could, we would be so agile because we didn’t have to work with clients. We didn’t have any brand guidelines to adhere to. We could flip an entire site upside down in 24 hours if we needed to. And nowadays it’s like, we’ll be lucky if we get an email back in a

So it’s like this weird thing where something that’s so time sensitive SEO, there’s way more hurdles to jump through. There’s a lot more checks and balances we have to adhere to, brand guidelines, standards, due diligence checks, just research in general, and just communication. We really pride ourselves on good communication. That’s always been our priority since day one. And transparency goes hand in hand with that.

We remember and try to remind our clients that at the end of the day, we’re business owners first and you are too. And so we want to kind of put the hat on as if your site is ours and how would we kind of run your strategy as if it’s our own and then just keep them up to date on everything we’re doing and try to just build that trust in from the start. So massive shift, but we’ve gone through the ups and downs. mean, every company has that in year one, but we have a really solid team and a really solid process in place now.

MKJ (17:24.93)
That’s awesome. Yeah, that mindset shift is it is it. It’s it’s very different because again, you’re working with someone else’s company and somewhat someone else’s sweat equity that they’ve put into this or monetary equity, whatever, or a combination of both. And to go from you make the decision that you know is right because it’s your blog or your product versus I got to check with this person to make sure that this is what they want. How are you? How are

handling that. mean, yes, I hear you that you’re going to treat their business like it’s yours, but that communication and that ability to move quickly when that’s taken away and someone else doesn’t see it the way you see it, because they’ve got how many other things that they’re dealing with. They’ve got other marketing, just business itself. mean, they’re not an SEO expert. They’re an expert in whatever they do.

That isn’t as much your stuff isn’t as much a priority to them as running their business. So how are you handling that that mindset shift to to try and feel like you’re being as successful as you possibly can for them, but at the same time, meeting them where they are in their business?

Steven Schneider (18:34.583)
Yeah, we try and have as little meetings as possible with clients because we know exactly what you just said. Like they’re busy. They don’t have time to jump on meetings once a week and check in and all that sort of stuff. from day one, we have like a meeting once per quarter and that just kind of like sets our 90 day sprint in focus. And we go over analytics and answer any questions. So it’s like one meeting every three months. We also send out weekly emails every Wednesday. And what that does is at least like puts our name.

in their inbox and we go over like content updates. like three or four bullet points on how the content is progressing, like what was published this week, all that sort of stuff. Any growth wins that we see, like two or three bullet points, keep it short, keep it concise. And then like an SEO tip of the week that allows them to kind of take something on outside of our scope that if they wanted to go the extra mile, they have that access. But 90 % of those people don’t reply to the comp, like reply to our emails, but like at least they see it. Like

have to assume that they’re reading all that sort of stuff. And then the other side of it is we just front load a lot of that work and building that trust and building all those questions so that when we do the onboarding process, we just alleviate a lot of that stuff. Like, well, you know, the first 30 days we talk about, like we have a sample article that’s already written, we get their feedback, we create a brand brief with their team, making sure that all the tone, the voice, the guidelines, like we just front load everything and then over time have meetings as they’re needed.

We just have learned that like, if you can just build that trust in from day one, then a lot of it is really smooth from there on out and we can do what we do best and they do what they do best. And it’s just kind of like divide and conquer.