Jason Hennessey is the CEO of Hennessey Digital, a digital marketing agency specializing in legal marketing using a holistic approach. In his role, he grew the small consultancy to a multimillion-dollar business that made the Inc. 5000 list three years in a row. As an entrepreneur, internationally recognized SEO expert, author, speaker, podcast host, and business coach, Jason has scaled and sold multiple businesses. He has been reverse-engineering the Google algorithm since 2001.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Jason Hennessey talks about his emergence into SEO
- Do SEO strategies differ between industries?
- How to set expectations when selling services
- The importance of building vendor relationships
- Jason’s meaning of passion and his opinion about happiness
- Fundamental priorities for scaling a business to eight figures and beyond
- Finding success through the toughest challenges
- Primary considerations for assessing and hiring talent
- Jason discusses his upcoming book, Honest SEO
In this episode…
Despite what some entrepreneurs believe, SEO is not dead. In fact, it’s one of the core components of building an eight-figure business. What are some other leading strategies for building and scaling a multimillion-dollar company?
According to renowned SEO authority Jason Hennessey, SEO strategies are consistent throughout industries, and any organization can benefit from them. His top tips for entering the next stage of business growth are to acquire an experienced mentor to help you learn from failures and achieve results, upgrade your systems and processes, and delegate tasks. When reaching eight figures, developing and demonstrating your core values and building a gratifying culture is essential.
Tune in to this episode of The Guts and Glory Show as Luis Scott sits down with Jason Hennessey, the CEO of Hennessey Digital, to discuss SEO and other fundamental strategies for scaling a business. Jason talks about the meaning of passion, how to set expectations when selling services, and how he found success through the most difficult challenges.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Luis Scott’s Website | LinkedIn
- 8 Figure Firm
- Bader Scott Injury Lawyers
- Jason Hennessey on LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter
- Hennessey Digital
- Jason Hennessey’s email: jason@hennesseydigital.com
- Law Firm SEO: Exposing the Google Algorithm to Help You Get More Cases by Jason Hennessey
- Honest SEO: Demystifying the Google Algorithm to Help You Get More Traffic and Revenue by Jason Hennessey
- Gary Vaynerchuk
- Cameron Herold
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by 8 Figure Firm.
Co-founded by Luis Scott and Seth Bader of Bader Scott Injury Lawyers, 8 Figure Firm helps transform your law firm into a seven-figure or even eight-figure firm.
After their own law firm scaled from $3.5 million to $30 million in annual revenue in just two years, Luis and Seth started 8 Figure Firm to share their strategies and help other law firms achieve exponential growth.
Visit www.8figurefirm.com to receive a consult call and start scaling your business today.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:00
No one needs another guru. What you need is real talk. Talk from real people, real people who’ve lived it, and breathe it. Get ready to learn the secrets to scale on The Guts and Glory Show with your host, Luis Scott.
Luis Scott 0:22
Alright guys, welcome to The Guts and Glory Show a show dedicated to helping you learn just a little more, so you can be better and bigger than you were before. And I’m really excited to have my good friend Jason Hennessey from Hennessey Digital here on today’s show. And he is an author, a business owner, a father, a world traveler, a mentor, I mean, just a bunch of things to a lot of people. But he’s written two books that you need to learn from because SEO is not dead. And he’s written a Law Firm SEO and Honest SEO, which I believe will give you the secrets to unlocking your business, your lead generation, and ultimately, more predictable sales and more predictable profits. And so let’s welcome together. Jason Hennessey. Thanks for being here.
Jason Hennessey 1:06
Luis. Thank you so much, man. I’m honored to be here.
Luis Scott 1:09
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I’m really excited because you are a second time guest on the show. And I was joking before we got on, on the call that when I first had you on you were my beta test. Like I didn’t know how to run a show. I didn’t know how to make it fun and engaging. I was reading every single line like, you know, how are you today? Can you tell us your name? That was so boring. And I said, you know, now that I’ve revamped it, and getting 1000s of downloads, I wanted to bring on some of my favorite guests that can really impact the people who are listening. And so I, I’m so thankful that you came on, and so thankful that you’re adding this kind of value to our audience. So I’d love to hear a little bit more about you just tell the audience kind of your background and how you even got into SEO, because I think this is actually a really great story. So tell us about how you got into SEO.
Jason Hennessey 1:58
Yeah. Thanks, Luis. And again, honored to be back. Thank you so much for having me. So I got into SEO in the early days. Back in 2001. Out of a necessity, I was going to college at UNLV contemplate going to law school style and studying for the LSAT. And I was in on the weekends I had a DJ company I was DJing weddings and parties and whatnot. And so that DJ company grew into a bigger company. And, and the website that I had wasn’t really attracting brides from all over the country because I lived in Las Vegas going to UNLV. So I said, let me create a website called Vegas wedding Ma, right. As an entrepreneur, you always have ideas, right? And I kind of write and I created a website. And after about three months after the site was built, nobody was coming to the website and said that the developer, in my case, Stalin, the website that you developed, it’s great, but nobody’s coming to it. He goes, Oh, yeah, that’s called like SEO, search engine optimization, or so I don’t do that. And I’m like, Ah, shit. So I guess I’m gonna have to teach myself that stuff. And so I bought a book, I studied it, you know, read it front to back twice. And then I just became really passionate about that topic. And so again, that was 22 years ago, and I’m still as passionate about that subject.
Luis Scott 3:15
So what happened to that website?
Jason Hennessey 3:17
So I built it up. And it was great. You know, I did a lot of practice on that website. I was able to rank on Google, I turned it into a whole business, which then I sold. We built Seattle wedding mall, Los Angeles wedding mall, right. Wow. And so I really kind of like, you know, got my start kind of practicing on those websites. And SEO was a lot easier back then don’t get me wrong. But still the core principles that I learned back then still applicable today.
Luis Scott 3:40
That’s amazing. That’s a huge transition from being in the wedding industry to now being in the law firm industry. Yeah. How do how do these businesses differ? Or are they are as business all the same?
Jason Hennessey 3:51
No, I mean, they, you know, SEO strategies are all the same. You know, it’s, it’s just different. vernacular, I guess, right? You know, like, if I go to a legal conference, they’re speaking a different language. And if I were to go to like a wedding or plumbing conference, right, but, you know, core principles, you know, SEO is basically kind of like the same, you know, you write content that’s relevant to somebody that’s searching, granted, like being in the industry, like, you know, so long I’ve got into legal in 2008 is when I started, like that journey, you know, you start to learn lessons, you know, and you know, what people are searching for, and, you know, just kind of having conversation like, you know, me and you like sitting at my team, you know, just kind of having a casual conversation, right? You learn it, right. So it becomes more of a strength for you. Absolutely.
Luis Scott 4:39
Now, I have clients because at 8 Figure Firm, obviously, we coach a lot of law firms, and they don’t believe in SEO, and I’m just floored, like, they think that SEO is like the Yellow Pages book and it’s not it’s so how do you get people out of that headspace where they’re just not committed to investing In their website and content creation,
Jason Hennessey 5:03
there’s an old saying, right, you know, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago or today. You know, and that’s as really accurate with with SEO, you know, I think the only way that I can get people to kind of buy into it that it works is a managing expectations from the start, you know, like, letting him know that, hey, listen, you know, if you just got a brand new website that doesn’t have any content, you’re probably like, a year and a half, two years before you even see your first lead in a competitive market, you name it. And if they don’t want to play ball at that point, like I’d rather than save the money on the headache of trying to invest in somebody like me, like, I don’t want to, like that’s the thing about me is like, I don’t ever want to be at a conference and like I’m hiding behind like a booth because somebody’s walking over that I screwed them over. I don’t live my life like that. I’d rather just kind of be upfront honest, manage expectations, and then let them know that it works. Right. You know, I can show them case studies of clients that we’ve been working with for seven, eight years, and kind of what that looks like, you know, so that’s, that’s how I do. And
Luis Scott 6:03
I think one of the problems though, is that people, even when you tell them about the expectation, they do expect immediate results, like, what is the right line to set expectations? I think this is important, not just when you’re selling SEO, but when you’re selling any kind of product, any kind of service, what is the line? How do you get a person to truly understand the expectation that you’re, you’re giving them
Jason Hennessey 6:25
by educating them? You know, that’s, that’s the most important thing, like, rather than selling somebody, it is one thing to get on a call and be like, hey, you know, and start speaking a different language of SEO and h1 tags and canonical, like, you know, like, don’t care about that, right? You know, but it’s really just kind of educating them right about the process and looking at the competition and showing them the difference between them. And you. And, you know, and just basically taking them on the journey, and then continuing to educate them along the way, right? It’s really, it’s really important. Now, granted, don’t get me wrong, some people don’t like that, right. Some people, you know, when when the frigerators broken, you know, they call the appliance guy, and they don’t want to learn how to fix the frigerator. Right, they just turn on and keep their milk, all right. You know, so there is a balance there. But it’s important, because if you know, the clients that are actively engaged, you know, really get more value from us, because they start to buy into it and believe it and celebrate when we celebrate.
Luis Scott 7:21
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you touched on kind of the clients who are engaged. I’ve talked about building relationships with vendors. And when people have a business, they fail to build those relationships. What’s been your experience in building relationships with your vendors, not just the law firm clients, but like, with vendors that you work with? What’s been your experience there?
Jason Hennessey 7:43
Oh, it’s, it’s, it’s so important, right? Just just kind of like the relationship, you know, trust is built upon a better relationship, right? And, you know, those like to do business with with that, you know, you trust and you like, right, and so, you know, if, if you’re just kind of distant, there’s no communication, like, you know, it’s not going to end well, you know, like you’re paying for a service, you don’t know what they’re doing. They’re always questioning it. So it’s better just kind of have a good relationship and keep the lines of communication open. That’s just the key.
Intro 8:15
This show has been brought to you by 8 Figure, Firm Consulting. At 8 Figure Firm, we help law firms turn into law businesses. Stop wasting your time with gurus who’ve never built a successful business at eight-figure firm will show you how to unleash the power of your law firm for personal and financial freedom. For more information, go to 8figurefirm.com. Welcome back to The Guts and Glory Show with your host, Luis Scott.
Luis Scott 8:52
Now, I want to segue to something you said earlier, because I think there’s there’s a large contingency of people listening, who are wanting to get into business, who want to do something different with their life, and they don’t know how to get started, or how to generate leads or how to do anything in their business. And you said this word passion you like you read the book cover to cover, and then you became passionate about it. What is passion? What is passion mean to you? Because so many people are like, I don’t I can’t I don’t know what my passion is like, I don’t know how I can start a business or get out of the rat race and, and I’m in a rut, like, what does passion mean to you?
Jason Hennessey 9:24
I think passion is, you know, are you willing, you know, to do what you do day in and day out without collecting a paycheck, right? You actually like love what you do so much that you wake up in the morning, and you’re just super excited to kind of do what you do. Right. I think if that’s the way you feel when you wake up in the morning, you probably found your passion. Yeah,
Luis Scott 9:47
not now. Here’s the thing. loving what you do doesn’t mean that you love it all the time. That’s right, right. You know, I recently and I don’t I don’t know if he’s ever going to hear this but I want you to give me your opinion. Something that Gary Vee says, Gary Vee talks about, you have to be happy, you have to be happy, you have to be happy. And my position on this has always been that happiness is a fleeting emotion. If you’re chasing happiness, you may be chasing something that’s always going to disappear from you. What’s your take on it?
Jason Hennessey 10:18
I think happiness is kind of defined so many different ways. You know, sometimes, you know, happiness could be landing a new big client, right? You’re high fiving at work, right? Happiness can be just sitting at the park on a Saturday with your dog. Right? You know, I mean, I think it all comes down to your perspective on on life. You know, there’s rough days, and anything, there’s rough days, as a parent, there’s rough days as an entrepreneur, there’s rough days, just in life, right, you know, as a Braves fan, whatever. Right. But, um, but you know, I think it just comes down to your perspective, right? Like, you have to kind of be grateful for some of your failures, right? I think it kind of makes, it makes you better. At least that’s kind of how I live my life. Right? Like, like, like, for example, like I grew up, I didn’t have like a father figure, right. My father left, my mom raised me at 16 years old, she had me single mom working like a job cleaning houses, right? To kind of, you know, we didn’t have a car, right? We walked everywhere, right? So like, I could be super angry at my father. And like, you know, like, be disappointed, right? Instead, I look at as, like, that’s a that’s a blessing, right? Because of that. Now, I’m the father that I am. And so I’m grateful for that. Right. So like, so a matter of just perspective on things. I think that’s very true. You know, I
Luis Scott 11:39
in the past, I struggled with depression, I tell people about my experience, where I spent 20 years of my life, just feeling very sad about things. I had a hard time overcoming it. I’ve written a book about this that is actually being released here shortly. And one of the things that I realized in that moment was that I didn’t have the right perspective on things. Everything felt like it weighed me down. And when I started developing the right perspective, things, did it start to change. But how do you get that perspective? Like, for me, it took me 20 years counseling, going on a retreat where I was completely unplugged, matza prayer, you know, I’m a faith based person. Sure. How does a person get that?
Jason Hennessey 12:21
Yeah. Well, first, it’s who you surround yourself with, right? You know, the people that you surround yourself with, I mean, if you’re around people that are just constantly kind of, you know, being negative and gossiping about things and right, you know, I mean, that kind of like changes your perspective, right? You know, there’s the force of, of positive energy and the force force of negative energy, in some cases, like the force of negative energy can really, like be stronger than the force of positive energy. Right? So for me, I’m just like, I don’t I wouldn’t say I was always like this were like, consciously I was aware. And I think in the past, as I was kind of growing up, I had no clue. I wish I would know now what I when I when you know, back in those days, but I think it’s just coming down to awareness, surrounding yourself with the right people. You know, like you said, you watch Gary Vee videos, right? That’s inspiration. That’s motivation, right? That’s going to kind of create more positive energy for you, right? So I think, just surround yourself with more positivity, and I think your life becomes more positive.
Luis Scott 13:23
I do think that people who listen to the news, too often, who listen to negative things too often tend to have a worse outlook in life. And so in the same way, if you’re not around the right, people, it’s hard to have the right perspective.
Jason Hennessey 13:38
And the other thing too, I’d say Luis, too, is by doing things for others, right? I mean, like, smallest thing, like when you open up a door for somebody, you hold the door for somebody that’s coming with like a baby stroller, right? They’re thankful, but it makes you feel better. Yeah. Right. If, if it makes you feel better start to do more of that stuff. Right? Without any like, you know, without, you know, expecting anything in return.
Luis Scott 14:04
When and I agree with that. And when I think about your business trajectory, and I think about the, the, because you’re talking about not having an expectation of something in return immediately and so forth. Did you ever find yourself in building a business that you had to exhibit a tremendous amount of patience? Or did things just kind of happened naturally for you?
Jason Hennessey 14:25
Boy, man, I have no patience. And I’m like, I’m just wired that way. Like, I can’t even sit and watch a movie, man. It’s really bad. So like, I always like and kind of like instant gratification, you know, with with things, you know, and I think that’s definitely like my weakness in life and has always been I’ve had to think by having a daughter, I’ve learned to kind of have more patience, which is great, you know, you’re a faithful person. I think that’s God sending a blessing, you know, obviously, you know, so I think, you know, and also surrounding myself with with a good leadership team I am. And then the people that we hire, you know, like, everybody’s got a different zone of genius, right? I don’t want to, I don’t want to lie and say that, you know, accounting is my zone of genius. Right, but I’ve got somebody in place that that’s their zone of genius, they’ve got somebody in place in HR, that that there’s an A genius, and collectively we build a strong company, you know,
Luis Scott 15:24
so talk to me about this company, because like, you have an eight figure business, and you’ve gone through multiple different stages of building the business. So talk to the audience member who is just starting off, what should they be focusing on? When they’re going from about zero to 3 million? What is What do you believe the focus should be?
Jason Hennessey 15:41
Yes. So I think, you know, a, you’re gonna make a lot of mistakes during that period. It’s, it’s gonna happen, you know, I think, you know, the best thing that I wish I would have done back then, would be find a mentor earlier. Right. You know, I know, that’s kind of like your business. And I’m not just not to plug your business. You know, I genuinely mean that, you know, like, I found a mentor, as I was kind of graduating from a seven figure company to an eight-figure. Right, you know, and that really helped me a lot. But boy, if I were to learn the lessons back when I was just a $2 million, I would have achieved the results a lot faster. Right. You know, so I think, I think that’s important is finding a good mentor, somebody that you that you trust, you know, and, you know, and to really, like, be grateful for your failures, like, you know, learn from it. Like, you know, I think early on, like, when you first started company, I think one of the reasons why most small businesses fail is because you can only afford to hire the talent that you can afford to hire. Right? You know, and so like, if you think that you’re going to basically build the most successful law firm in the country by hiring, you know, an intern that just graduated college, and then just kind of saying, hey, after three months, you’re my director of marketing. And you’re right, you know, I mean, now you’re giving out titles where it’s not deserved, they don’t have the experience, right? I think those are a lot of mistakes, and I’ve made those mistakes, and then you got to kind of have to work backwards and trying to fix them, you know. So, you know, boy,
Luis Scott 17:14
having a mentor is actually a huge way to avoid a lot of those mistakes. It really absolutely.
Jason Hennessey 17:18
And, and accountability, they hold you accountable. Yes, me too, right. It’s not just a matter of showing you the cliffnotes of being successful, but it’s about accountability,
Luis Scott 17:27
and making sure that it gets done. Yeah, now you’ve graduated from you got to 3 million, what is what is the next thing that they need to know from three to 8 million? Like what needs to happen in that time period?
Jason Hennessey 17:39
Well, you know, I think we learned this from our mutual coach, right? Because we had a mutual coach and Cameron, Harold, you know, he, he taught me that, you know, there’s the three and 10 rule, right, you know, like, you know, the systems and processes that work for or three and one rather, right, the systems and processes that work for one won’t work for three, this isn’t as impressive that worked for three won’t work for 10, right? So you have to kind of like, adjust and be agile and make sure that the systems and processes are changing, right. And so that’s key. And so I think as you’re moving from like 3 million, and you’re trying to go to five or 6 million in a now you might need layered management, right, you might not be able to do everything that you used to do when you’re a $3 million company, you might have to, like hire somebody and, and be good at delegation. And, and, you know, now when we’re like, you know, a 10 million plus agency, you know, then you’re getting into other problems, right? Now, you have to hire like, somebody that does training and curriculum, right, you know, systems and processes are updated, and that people are trained on that, right? Otherwise, it’s just, you know, it’s just this the sink, will the ship will sink at some point, you know,
Luis Scott 18:46
I always say that, that building an eight figure business is not like building 10, seven figure businesses, right? Because that’s what a lot of people think, well, if I built it to one, then I naturally I can just do one twice. And I could do it three times. And I can do four times, but that’s not how it actually works. You could build to 1 million, and never get to 2 million, even trying to replicate what you’re doing. So now you’re in the eight-figure territory, how does how does it change at that level? Because now we talked about layered management, so you know, mentorship, making mistakes, now you’re into layered management, and finding finding people that can that are, you know, specialized. And that are that have that giftedness, what’s happening at eight figures, how are you getting there?
Jason Hennessey 19:28
Well, that point, then it’s really trying to find your core values. As a company, like, you know, like back when I was like a company of three, you mean like, oh, yeah, these are my core values. This is my mission statement. Right? You didn’t this is our culture, right? You didn’t really have that. Right? Because there wasn’t enough people to kind of support that. Right. You know, I think, you know, once you start getting past like, you know, we’ve got 100 plus employees, you know, like, you have to really truly have core values as a company and you have to make sure that like people are living it every day and, and you got to make sure that you know that you’re building the right culture, like you guys like, like, are literally like, set the standard for that kind of stuff, you know, at Bader Scott, you know, with the culture and you know, you don’t have to invest in this big office building with all the nice equipment and you know, in lunch providing lunch and doing big party like, no, that’s why people like working for you, right? Because now you want to kind of create the glue where people enjoy coming to work, and they find their passion by working at Bader Scott, right? Yes. So that’s really what you have to think about as you’re trying to go from an eight figure company to a nine figure company is that kind of
Luis Scott 20:34
stuff. Yeah, and I think and I think that you hit something because one of our company goals this year was to create an to create an environment where people want to come to work. Like, that’s, that’s an important thing. And one of the things that I say is that eight figures, now, you’re not just training people, but you’re developing leadership, and you have to be constantly in this, you know, development of leaders position, because if you’re not, you’re going to lose leaders. And that’s going to be very problematic for you scaling and growing.
Jason Hennessey 21:01
And one of the things too, is like, you know, like, like, when we hired, you know, when the time was right, where we needed, like an HR person, so we’ve got a director of people’s success, when she first came in, like, her whole job is to fight for the employees of the company, right? So like, she’s looking, how do we get better benefits, like, you know, anybody that you know, is, you know, on the scale of salary that’s lower than it should be, we need to kind of get them up, you know, that’s kind of like a key routine, right? You know, we got to figure out how do we even get them higher on the percentage skill salary? So like, all that stuff, like, you know, I love that, you know, while cost me money to kind of support all of her initiatives, I love that she’s in the role that she’s in, because she’s fighting for all of the people in finding opportunities for us to kind of make their lives better, you know, so important.
Luis Scott 21:49
Absolutely. What’s the hardest part of building a business?
Jason Hennessey 21:55
What’s the harder experience man, like, I think, you know, as as an entrepreneur, you know, we live and die by the one constraint, right? You know, and so, you know, we’re always trying to figure out, like, whether or not we’re trying to make our first $1 million, what’s the one constraint that I can fix right now? Right, and then you fix it. And then you get to the next constraint, you fix that? Right. Yeah, I think I think the challenge as an entrepreneur is that you never stop and celebrate. You know, like, I think, you know, there’s always something else to do, right? And it’s like, how do I fix this next constraint? Right? And, you know, I don’t think you ever really kind of stop and just kind of look back and take a deep breath and like, realize Holy shit, like, what did we build? Like, this is pretty cool, right? And celebrate once? No,
Luis Scott 22:45
I do think that is a very big problem with entrepreneurs, for sure. Because I meet so many of them. And they’re not happy about anything like it, they can have this thriving business. And they’re just like, but but we didn’t answer the phone correctly. Anyway,
Jason Hennessey 23:01
exactly. Right. And that’s the thing, too, is like, sometimes when you have that mentality as an entrepreneur, you could seem like you’re coming down on the staff, like, they could be doing nine, nine things. Right, right. But you’re kind of tuned in on the one thing that we can get better at, right. And instead of, like, you know, thanking them and being so proud, you can kind of come across as like, yes, we got to fix this one thing, though, right? We got to fix this one thing. So there’s a balance there, for sure.
Luis Scott 23:26
It creates a high level of intentionality to be more affirming, because that’s like, that’s something that we have to be better at as leaders, or people will just always assume that we’re not happy. And then nobody wants to work for somebody who’s not happy with the results. So here’s a here’s a question that I that I always ask and, man, I don’t want to tell you my answer without hearing yours first. But can anyone be successful? Do you really think that
Jason Hennessey 23:52
can anyone be successful? us I think, just kind of defining, defining success, right? I think not anyone can build an eight figure company, you know, I mean, but, you know, somebody can go out and start a job, start a business and make $70,000 a year and maybe that’s, that’s, that’s success for them. Right. You know, like, I think sometimes you just kind of have to make the scoreboard winnable. Right. And if the scoreboard is winnable, I mean, it’s like high school, high school basketball team is never going to beat the Lakers, right? Possible, right? They train really hard every day. They’re just never going to be the Lakers, right? So in their mind, they won’t be successful, right? But if they play in their league with people that are just you know, so that’s basically I guess how I would answer that.
Luis Scott 24:49
So understanding where you are and what your capability is, and then going back to that word, celebrating that your success where you are. That’s right sounds what it sounds like?
Jason Hennessey 25:00
100% Yeah,
Luis Scott 25:02
what is the most important thing that that, you know, as you’re developing your team and, and bringing more people on and building this big business? Like, what is the most important thing that you look for in an employee? And what should people be looking for when they’re hiring teams? So,
Jason Hennessey 25:19
you know, me personally, you know, I mean, like, they can send over the greatest resume ever, you know, they can have an Ivy League education, like, that’s great, right, you know, but I, I prefer somebody that is that, that comes that is not basically coachable. Somebody that is coachable that you, you know, you’re not going to bring somebody in, and they just kind of do it their way, unless they’re hired specifically to kind of do that. And then the other thing I would say, as somebody that’s kind of creative, you know, like, I always love like, when when people send me like, an email on like, a Saturday morning about, like, you know, here’s six things that you might think about doing differently. And it’s a video that’s customized to me, and you know, maybe it kind of gets my mind thinking, like, I love when people kind of take action like that, you know, and it’s kind of like, out of the box, right? So for me, that’s one of the things that I look for. But you know, not everybody does that. Yeah, it’s I mean, it’s, it’s
Luis Scott 26:23
tough I, we’ve had a lot of wins in hiring, and we’ve had a lot of strikeouts in hiring. And sometimes, sometimes the strikeouts are really bad. When you strike out with someone, it’s really tough to recover from. But fortunately, you can, you can recover that. Now as it relates to being an entrepreneur, what is being an entrepreneur mean? Because you know, the show’s called The Guts and Glory Show. And we like to talk about kind of the guts it takes to be successful. Yeah. What is entrepreneurship mean in that context?
Jason Hennessey 26:57
So, entrepreneurship, I think one of the biggest things is knowing when to say no, to things, right, because as an entrepreneur, you’re usually like a fast starter, right? But your implementation skills aren’t really all that great, right? And so for me, I think one of the greatest things when I brought on my CEO, and he became my No, man, right? You’re no woman, right? Because like, you know, I can only imagine your balance with SATs, right? It’s probably this thing, right? There’s all kinds of ideas, we can do this, we can solve that, right. But sometimes you lose focus, right? And if your attention is on 12 Different things instead of one, you’re just gonna have a bunch of parts in a in a garage with no car, right? So I think I think it’s really important as an entrepreneur is to, is to stay focused, which is really hard, because most entrepreneurs have ADHD and all this other stuff. Right. So, so just trying to stay focused. And if you can’t have somebody in place that helps you stay focused.
Luis Scott 28:04
Yeah, I think broken focus is a real big problem. And you know, it’s interesting, because as I started getting into kind of the, the entrepreneur space and meeting a lot of founders, I mean, we, you know, people who start businesses, I started realizing, like, I was not like them. I didn’t have that gene. I used to think like, I was so entrepreneurial. And I really wasn’t, I was just super ambitious. Yeah, but I don’t have that, like idea, Gene. I’m just very good at staying focused. So if you are the idea, guy, you need to have someone like me. And if you’re me, you need to have somebody like an idea. That’s right.
Jason Hennessey 28:33
That’s exactly right. Yeah. In fact, you should, if you’re looking for it, you should do like a Colby test. Right? That you know, and like, find out your score and try to find somebody that’s a CEO. That’s exactly opposite of you. I mean, yeah, Yang,
Luis Scott 28:49
and I saw your score, you’re really high in Quickstart, which is very common man, entrepreneur. So like, founders, entrepreneurs tend to be really high and Quickstart, my business partner, as well. He’s like a nine or 10, and Quickstart. And then CEOs tend to be really good. In fact, finding exactly. And so you want to be like, so like, I’m really high. I’m like a nine, in fact, fine. So, you know, finding that that that balance is really, really important.
Jason Hennessey 29:12
And that’s a big, that’s one of the core reasons why you’re at your company is your firm is growing, right? It’s just literally little things like that, like matching up with the right people. Right?
Luis Scott 29:21
Absolutely. And knowing that you need them because like a lot of times, we don’t even know we need them. And so it’s learning and identifying that you need someone and being, you know, being humble enough to say, I can’t do this on my own. And here’s the cool part. I don’t need to do this on my own. Yeah, that’s the coolest part about all of it. Yeah. So that’s what I love. So as we wind up I want to ask you two more questions. But I want you to plug your newest book, Honest SEO. I think you said it’s coming out in August. Tell us what we’re going to learn and Honest SEO.
Jason Hennessey 29:53
Yeah, so Honest SEO is, is is a book that was written to keep people like Be honest, right? No, I think that’s part of the reason why people don’t trust agency is because they might have been burned before, right? And they might have made an investment and it didn’t pan out. Maybe the expectations weren’t really aligned, right. So that, you know, by investing 2025 bucks into this book, like, hopefully, you’ll be armed with enough insights and knowledge to hold somebody like me accountable and know, the, you know, know what you’re paying for basic goods.
Luis Scott 30:30
So if you’re out there wondering, does SEO work, and you want to know how you can find out if it works, you get Honest SEO, and you’ll at least know the boundaries in which your agency should be working. So at least you at least you have the tools to identify whether you’re in the right direction or not.
Jason Hennessey 30:46
That’s exactly right. Yes.
Luis Scott 30:48
My last question is, what is the one thing that someone told you the book that you read, something you listened to, that really transformed your business and your life? What was that one thing?
Jason Hennessey 31:03
So the one thing that always sticks out to me is, you have the power to create a future that wasn’t going to exist anyway. All you have to do is take action, right? Like, literally, like, you know, like you wake up on a Sunday morning and you send an email to somebody that you aspire to meet an author that you read their book, right? Maybe if you just emailed them, they might respond, and maybe they’re going to be in California next weekend. And, you know, you acted upon that, right? There’s somebody, something came to you to kind of act on something, a lot of times we don’t act on things. And in you know, it’s but it’s truly the action that you take that gets the result and you create a life that wasn’t going to exist.
Luis Scott 31:48
I love that. I love that. So if somebody wants to send you an email, because they’re going to be in California, and they want to reach out to the author, here, what I’m hearing is that they need to send you that action, like oh, man, I love it. I love it. Jason man, I appreciate this has been awesome. How can someone reach out to you if they want to learn more about SEO? Or if they even have a question about today’s episode and how to build their business to eight figures? Yeah,
Jason Hennessey 32:13
so Instagram, Twitter, just add Jason Hennessey H en en esse e y. And then my email is just jason@hennessey.com my first name and my last name.
Luis Scott 32:23
Awesome. So we’ll put all that in the show notes. Thank you for being here. We really appreciate this. Like, I learned a lot about the wedding business and the legal business, and SEO and good luck on the book, and we will talk soon. Thank you for joining us on The Guts and Glory Show.
Outro 32:37
You’ve been listening to The Guts and Glory Show for more. And to learn more about Luis hit the website at LuisScottjr.com. For consulting opportunities, hit 8figurefirm.com. That’s the number 8figurefirm.com We hope you’ve enjoyed the show. Make sure to like rate and review and we’ll see you next time on The Guts and Glory Show
