#172 – Scale with Stability: Adding Recurring Revenue With Local SEO ft. Sam Sarsten of Local SEO Academy

Shannon Mattern (00:00.978)

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. And today I am joined by Sam Sarsen. Sam is the founder of BenCant Designs, which is a web design agency in Bend, Oregon, web design and SEO agency in Bend, Oregon. But he's also the creator of Local SEO Academy. And he teaches web designers how to add high value local SEO services to their offerings.

without drowning in complexity or losing focus on design. So Sam and I got to meet in person at Josh's Web Designer Pro Conference. We were both speakers, we hit it off. We've been collaborating and now I finally, finally, finally get to have Sam on the Profitable Web Designer podcast to ask him all of the questions that I haven't been able to ask him since we first met. So Sam, welcome to the Profitable Web Designer podcast.

Sam Sarsten (00:57.102)

Whew, it's an honor. I've listened to not every episode, but I've listened to a lot of episodes. so like whenever I get to be on like, like some of your episodes are what I was listening to when I was just dreaming of becoming a web designer. So to be here, it's an honor. It really is.

Shannon Mattern (00:57.854)

you

Shannon Mattern (01:08.87)

Wow.

Shannon Mattern (01:12.318)

I would have never have known that because, so we went to Josh Hall's web designer pro conference in May and the lineup changed someone, Sam took the spot for someone else. And I remember talking to you about it and you were just like, yeah, like a, like a spot opened up and I pitched myself to go ahead and speak at the conference. And I just remember thinking like, you're such an action taker, like.

You make bold moves and you take risks. So I'm sure we'll talk more about that. tell everyone a little bit more. I know I've just been talking all about you, but can you tell everyone a little bit more about you and your background and why you started your web design studio?

Sam Sarsten (01:51.352)

Ha ha ha.

Sam Sarsten (02:03.63)

Yeah, where does it all begin? Well, it all starts with Roger and Stephanie back in 1989. No, I'm just kidding. Okay, okay, I'll fast forward a little bit. You know, for me, I've always felt this, I don't know about a lot of people, but you I've always felt this draw towards helping people. And my, you know, original plan A going into college was to go down the medical route and that was sort of my plan, but.

Shannon Mattern (02:06.878)

Spare me the details.

Sam Sarsten (02:31.214)

As I started to go through my 20s, I realized that everything I said I was doing was not actually aligned with what I was doing. And that ended up leading to bad roads. And at some point I kind of had to reset. Instead of having my midlife crisis early, I had it in my mid 20s. And when I sat down and kind of looked at all the pieces on the ground, I said, what do I really want to do? And it was true that I wanted to help people. And so I was like, okay, like...

you know, if I'm not applying pressure, if I'm not putting on a tourniquet or something like that, right, giving someone medicine, like how else can I help people? And I've always really been interested in technology ever since I learned I could play NBA Jam on my PSP when I was 13. I was like, how could I figure this out? And so I started on this kind of new journey where I was starting to figure out different things and I, you know, played around with programming for a little bit. And honestly, that started to become plan B where I was like, okay, like I'll just go back to school for computer science.

And right when I was at that crossroads where I was starting to take pre-rec courses for that, and I had a stable job that was a great nine to five and I loved everybody I worked with, but just had that salary cap that a lot of us hit where it's like, I know I can't afford a home in central Oregon where I live on that salary. And so, you know, was like either continue down the school route or I've always had this inclination that I wanted to start a business, you know, be my own boss and get that time freedom. That's really...

That's really what I was looking for. At that time, I was working about 45 hours a week at my job, which again was okay, but I was the office manager and I was the office everything. So I couldn't, I felt a lot of pressure, probably unnecessary, to take any time off. And so when I wanted to go spend Christmas with my family, a lot of times I'd leave Friday night and come back Monday morning just so that I wouldn't cause any turmoil with the company or anything like that. And so...

I was like, how could I unlock some time freedom? And it felt like, you know, being an entrepreneur might be the way to do that. And so I had a friend reach out to me and this is back in towards the end of 2022. So almost this was probably almost exactly three years ago. And he said, Hey, can you build me a website for my small business? And I said, Oh yeah, I'm going to make it sick. know all these coding things. It's going to be awesome. And he said, Hey man, can you just use WordPress so that I could manage it too?

Sam Sarsten (04:57.1)

And I was like, okay. And it was like a Friday. And I said, I'll get you something by Monday, because that's one of my secret, one of my superpowers is I can figure stuff out really quickly. So I hopped on YouTube university, download like a Daryl Wilson Elementor template and you know, what up party people. And I just started to fill it out. and, and, know, I got to the end and it was only like 70 % done. Stripe wasn't hooked up or anything like that. But by the end of it, I was like, Whoa, wait a minute. That was way easier than.

trying to custom code a website. And so that was eye-opening. And that started to get me thinking like, hmm, is this what web designers do? And so on all those drives back and forth to see my family, because they live about three hours away, I started to look up podcasts. And when I looked up web design podcasts, I found Josh Hall and I found Shannon Maddern. And so those were literally the first voices in my ears for hours at a time trying to figure out how am I going to

figure this out. And then when I figured out that Shannon was awesome community is more geared for female webpreneurs, I was like, all right, well, I guess I'll gravitate more towards Josh. And so I started taking his courses. I ended up joining his community way too early. And I sat there on January 1st, 2023. And I said,

think I'm gonna start a business this year. And it sounded crazy, but that's what I set out to do. And you mentioned a second ago, being action oriented. I have really tried to stay in that mindset. And so that first month I was like, okay, I gotta make sure I not only register the LLC, but I get the business card, I wanna get the website up, I wanna get my packages together and all this stuff. And so I was diving in headfirst and I was trying to use community as much as possible. I don't care if you're in Web Designer Pro, if you're in the Web Designer Academy.

having that community around you, it's like a superpower. Like I've had a lot of people ask me like, how do you do it? Like how did you grow this so quickly? And I'm like, well, surround yourself by people that are better than you. And you you'll kind of watch yourself elevate. so during that first year, I'll try to get down to, you know, Cliff Notes at this point. During the first year, I got a prospect that I thought was a client. I learned that lesson the hard way. I put in my two months notice at my job. And when I went to leave my job, I had zero paid clients.

Sam Sarsten (07:13.518)

So that was a little rough, but luckily I had saved up about six months of a runway, which I highly recommend. And I was able to get my first couple of clients that first month just by going out and networking in person and reaching out to my current base of people that I knew. And I'd already built some portfolio projects before I launched. But then for the rest of the year, what I really noticed through these networking efforts is a lot of feast or famine. It's like I would have a couple of projects and then I wouldn't be getting any money for a walk because I was building the website.

And then I'd have a couple projects or I get that final payment and, you know, and eventually got to the point to the end of the year where I was actually starting to dip back into that savings. That runway was starting to run out. And I just didn't want to, I couldn't deal with that. And the one thing that I, you know, I haven't learned much in my 35 years on this earth, but I have learned that if you can find people that you can learn from, like learn from them, right, learn as much as you can. That's the easiest way to short circuit growth. And so

So not only was I learning from Josh and all the amazing people at pro at this point But I'd also reached out to score which is a local nonprofit tied to the SBA I think they're in a lot of cities So you should look that up if you're looking for mentoring ended up getting Brooke shout out to Brooke And she had done digital marketing for 15 years and I was like, what should I do Brooke? She said well, you know one way where you can get consistent stable income is by adding some kind of Marketing service, you know, Josh calls this a growth service adding something like this to a web design company

is what can give you that stable income. And I had remembered that when I showed up to networking events, people were like, that's cool that you build websites. So does everybody and so does Squarespace. But do you know how to rank higher on Google? And so I saw this opportunity. And so I started to work on SEO for my own website. I started to work on it for the first couple of clients' websites that I had done and started to see success for them. And I decided to package it up and I went.

out to my first SEO client and I'll remember, I'll speak this transparently because I always encourage people to charge more, but that very first client, I came in and I said, I was like, okay, it's gonna be $400 a month and I'm gonna try to get a three month commitment. And he said, I don't know. And so I said, I'll do 800 for three months. And he still said, I don't know. And it was only by the grace of the universe that this was somebody that I built their website that some little job came in during that week.

Sam Sarsten (09:31.682)

And he said, you know what, I'm just gonna take the money from that job and invest in this. Let's try it out. And that client is George, he's a cabinet maker in our town. And at that time, he had pretty much an empty cabinet shop because he'd moved town. So he'd lost out on his pipeline of leads. And we've been working together now for over two years. And in that time, he's been able to fill that shop back up, have to expand to a new space, hire not just one, two, three, but four extra helpers.

And now he has a project manager. We're going to meet with the project manager soon. And so it's been amazing to the growth and he continues to attribute that a lot of that growth has come straight from Google. And so like that was the evidence to me, like even in the early days, I was seeing the progress and I was like, okay, now it's time to do this. And so in year two, my big goals were how do I turn this into a business and not a job? Because I didn't want to just be trapped by this because I was already working 80 hours a week.

what I was doing already and I wanted to figure out how do I eventually get out of this. And so I started hiring team members. I realized that I could systematize the website process with all the SOPs that Josh had given me. So I hired a designer locally. I hired a developer, not so locally, but that's okay because you can make these amazing relationships with people all over the world while you're building your business. I got an SEO assistant a couple months later who has over time held pretty much every role in the company and now is our client success manager.

And eventually we needed another SEO assistant to kind of take his role. This job was evolving. And so by the end of 2024, you know, or yeah, I'm like, what year is it? By the end of 2024, I hit one of my big goals where I was like, Oh, holy smokes. The gross revenue at the end of the first year or the first full year in business was six figures. Like we hit 125,000. I was like, Holy smokes. I did it. The thing Josh Hall said I was going to do. did. But

there was still lot to be figured out because now that I had a team, I noticed that we were starting to drop the ball on some things. Some clients were getting responded to right away. And really I was still making less than I did at my last job as an office manager because you got to share that money with everybody else. You got expenses to pay for. And so my big goal for this year has been how do we systematize things more and how do we grow sustainably? And so I really kind of took my foot off the gas pedal and

Sam Sarsten (11:52.502)

stopped worrying so much about getting new clients and figuring out how do we serve our current clients better. We brought on an operations person, Eleanor from Web Designer Pro shop to Eleanor. And she came in and really helped us out as far as the internal operations go. And now I feel like super dialed in as far as everything goes there. I'm starting to get to step into more of that like visionary sales marketing role and you know, well probably.

talk more about how I've used some of Shannon's techniques to close some higher ticket clients this year. But we are on track to finish this year with 250,000 or more. Probably we just hit 200,000 today at the start of October. so amazing and actually getting paid quite a bit more than I did as an office manager with really growth for the future and also growth that'll trickle down to all my team members, which is amazing. And so that's probably way too long, but the shortest version I could do of what's happened over the last three years.

Shannon Mattern (12:47.485)

It's incredible. And I was like, no, please don't give me the cliff notes version. I want like all of the things. And there are so many really fascinating threads that we can pull out. But I think the thing that really stood out to me, I'm like sitting here thinking, I'm like, you started in 2022. It's 2025. I think of my first three years in business and how painfully

Sam Sarsten (12:52.056)

You

Shannon Mattern (13:17.337)

challenging they were because I didn't put myself in any type of community or work with any coach or anything like that. was just constantly searching and reverse engineering and trying so many things and failing a lot learning a lot of course but failing a lot and I it took me three years from the time that I decided I was gonna

start freelancing as a side hustle to my day job to like get to the point where I felt comfortable enough to even quit my day job. So you were able to accomplish in three years what it probably took me a total of like seven years to even get to that place. And I think about that and I think about what you said of like,

You said, you want to really accomplish the thing, like put yourself in the community with the people who are doing the thing. And, you know, the web designer Academy is for women web designers. And that's like what our program's geared towards. And I love that my SEO, my podcast SEO is working because you found me and Josh. And I couldn't think of a better person to be in community with.

Sam Sarsten (14:34.838)

Yep.

Shannon Mattern (14:41.989)

other than Josh Hall and what he's got going on over at Web Designer Pro. And that's just like so impressive to me to see what you accomplished in three years. And I wrote down once I finally did hire a business coach because I was like trying 50 different things all at once. That's the other thing that I'm seeing. Yeah, right. She told me she was like, you need to slow down.

Sam Sarsten (15:05.25)

You too?

Shannon Mattern (15:11.811)

Stabilize and systematize. Slow down, stabilize and systematize. And I was just like, I don't think I can slow down, but I will do my best. And that's what I hear you saying is that you're like, I did these things. I built this, I did this, I did this. And now I'm really seeing the opportunity to slow down, stabilize and systematize, but look at the growth that you're experiencing from doing that, from slowing down.

Sam Sarsten (15:42.37)

And it's really turned from, did this to we did this. And it's really truly feeling like that. And that's pretty cool.

Shannon Mattern (15:44.849)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (15:49.477)

Yeah. So I don't know where I want to start. I'm thinking, like, I'm thinking what, how has your leadership developed from Sam running solo agency to Sam hiring a team? Like, what was that shift like for you? Because I know that that can be, an area where we

where we were like, I didn't realize I needed to grow in these ways. At least it was for me. So what has that been like for you?

Sam Sarsten (16:26.22)

Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of Eric Dingler as well, who's kind of in our circles as well. And one of the things he repeats a lot is, know, your, he says, the capacity of your business is your leadership capacity. And I agree with that a thousand percent. Like,

Shannon Mattern (16:39.706)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Sarsten (16:42.914)

And I didn't even know that, It's kind of like, you I love Josh's story and some of our these other, what does he call it sometimes? He calls it like an accidental printer or something like that. And some of his podcast episodes where it's like, you just kind of like fall into it. at least that was a little more intentional. I was like, okay, I am going to start a business, right? But some people, you know, you hear these stories a lot where like somebody does like a website for the business they work for. And then next thing you know, they're doing a couple of side things. But I think it kind of sounds like Shannon's story, you know?

Shannon Mattern (16:53.916)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (17:08.966)

Yep, a little bit.

Sam Sarsten (17:10.924)

And then next thing you know, you're doing all this stuff and you're teaching people all over the world, probably one of the best web design academies that exist right now. And it's cool to see the different journeys that we go on, but...

Like, there's no way I would have sat down, like I said, January 1st, 2023, like making that decision, like this week I'm gonna go register an LLC with the state of Oregon. Like, I would not have thought like, and the most important thing I need to focus on now is my ability to lead because I'm gonna be building a business, not a job. Like, no, I'm like, is it Divi or Elementor? Or actually is it Webflow, right? And these are the conversations that, you know, happen in pro. And it's almost like, it's so easy to get jaded, I think, where you're just sitting there like rolling your eyes and be like,

Doesn't really matter, just pick one and then move forward, right? But I try to remember, it hasn't been that long. And so I can remember what it was like trying to say, God, do I really wanna go with Dibby forever? And the answer's probably no. But anyway, it's like, even if you think you make a mistake with your website builder, you can always change the tools later. it's like, I think a lot of people that listen to this podcast, because I've been to my list of this podcast, probably somebody that's either dreaming or they're somewhere on their journey, right? And so,

You know, probably the best thing I can say is like, if you think you're gonna be able to build something completely by yourself, then I think that you're getting told a lie that a lot of talking heads that kind of look like us on YouTube say, or you can build this solo agency and it's gonna be super easy and it's gonna be fine. But the thing is, unless you're able to charge like $10,000 for a website, which you probably can if you go through Web Designer Academy, but until you get to that point,

you're probably going to be doing websites for a couple thousand dollars and maybe up to 5,000 eventually. And you might be able to add some growth services, but you're going to undercharge it first. And then what's going to happen is you're going to have too many clients to handle and you're either going to provide crappy service. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to swear here, so I'll say crappy service. And then, which is going to reflect poorly on you and might stunt your business growth from there. Or, you know, you're just going to completely burn yourself out. You're going to run out of time. Like time is our most valuable asset. It's a hundred percent true.

Shannon Mattern (19:11.643)

you

Sam Sarsten (19:25.302)

And it's so finite. so like being able to lead is what unlocks that ability. Even if you get to the point where you're like, man, I am one of the best designers in the world. It still wouldn't hurt to have a VA that's managing your email because guess what? You're going to get 50 emails a day reaching out to you. If you actually have some success, you know, even if you hire a developer, cause you're like, I'm really good at the design, but I don't want to do the development, you know, or even if you hire like a white label local SEO provider, cause you're like, I have all these web design clients, but I don't want to actually do.

the SEO myself, like that's not a bad thing. Like that's building a team. Like maybe that unlocks the ability where you only need a handful of clients. And also like everybody's at a different place. Like, you know, I have like my compass set from where I am. It's like a single, you know, 35 year old male with no kids, right? And that's different for somebody that's a mom, you know, especially a single mom that's trying to still like pay the bills while get this side hustle going. Like you can do it and your timeline doesn't have to be like mine.

But that leadership skill is going to be massively helpful because you don't want to fill up your time with all this work stuff and then take away from little man, right? You want to be able to fill it up just enough so you can hire that person to help you so that you can get that time back, right? Like the time freedom is probably one of the best things. I mean getting more money is great, but it's really just an analog for the freedoms that we're getting from it. So, so my leadership mission has been totally haphazard and accidental it feels like but

You know, I just keep trying to check in and at this point, like realizing like in 2024, I was like, okay, I think I know enough and I can kind of do this on my own and kind of step back from the coaching aspects. Um, and that was so foolish. remember, you know, a million years ago, I was an EMT and I had this trainer, Jim, with his stupid glasses and a stupid mustache. And he was really getting to me the first day. Cause he kept asking me all these questions. I didn't know as a new guy. And, uh, finally I just said, dang it, Jim, I don't know. And he said,

And you know what a lot of people don't realize there's a lot of know-it-allism in EMS emergency medical systems and so it's like You know, kind of to break that down out of the new guys out of the new gals and be like hey like sometimes you're not gonna know and You know the lesson the gym shared with me that day was hey the day you think you know everything you don't know anything and that stuck with me for the rest of my life and I ignored it for many years, but it came back to me in more clarity later on and I was like, dang, that's so true, right and so

Shannon Mattern (21:39.804)

You

Sam Sarsten (21:50.658)

kind of as I was feeling that turmoil in 2024, was like, I need to start getting more help. I, you know, I was pretty close to burning out in the middle of this year by trying to do it on my own. And it's like getting help from Eleanor and starting to reach out to more coaches, including a leadership coach, including a health coach, you know, and then having like an old school business coach in my community, like, and still like leaning back on pro and having my own community where I can now reach out to has been super helpful. so yeah, like just, and also realizing you can't do it all in a day. Like just like you like,

can't grow your web design company overnight, these leadership skills are gonna grow over time. So I've made a ton of mistakes when it comes to delegation and communication and all this stuff. And I'm just grateful that most of the people stuck around to get to this part, because I feel like I'm just starting to get kind of good at it. But still have long way to go.

Shannon Mattern (22:39.676)

I can relate to a lot of that. It's like, know you need help. You can't get there alone. And what you don't realize. And you're like, it's SOPs, it's systems, it's all of these things. it's kind of like this, yeah, right? And so it's almost like I equate it to like how it used to be like, I'm learning how to build websites. It's really easy and fun.

Sam Sarsten (22:53.166)

Yeah

I just need more AI. I need more Zapier workflows.

Shannon Mattern (23:06.694)

throw a client into the mix and now it takes three times longer and it's like way harder and there's all of these different variables when you put another human in place and then you're like, right. And then it's like, I have SOPs for my business. I understand how these processes run. Like this is pretty plug and play. Let me just bring someone in to execute and implement these things. And then it's like, mix two personalities or two.

Sam Sarsten (23:14.786)

And for some reason they keep wanting the logo to get bigger.

Shannon Mattern (23:34.129)

communication styles or to, like different sets of goals and reasons for even doing this together. And now you have a whole like different, it's, it's not just SOPs, it's people and it's communication and it's expectation setting. it's, it's cleaning up your own, your own stuff. Like my big thing right now is you said delegation. I have.

historically had such a hard time delegating and it's not because I'm a control freak. It's because I don't want to give feedback if someone doesn't meet my uncommunicated expectations because I didn't, why can't I know what I should have said that I forgot to say and then they like, there's a gap in between what they delivered and what my brain thought I would be seeing. And then I go to, but if I tell them.

Sam Sarsten (24:12.748)

Why can't they read our brains, Shannon?

Shannon Mattern (24:28.678)

that they didn't do it right, then they might not like me. And if they don't like me, then they might leave and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so you don't know your own stuff until you, I work with a coach to help me through my leadership ability so that I don't hold the whole company in my hands because I'm assuming that I could hurt someone else's feelings. Who's just like, please just tell me what I need to do my job well. And.

stop treating me like I'm a glass egg that could break at any moment. So that's like, you have, and so many people tell me, I don't want to, I want to grow my business. I want to make like, have a big impact, make a lot of money, which we can help you with that with strategy, all of those things, but they're, like you said, there does become a point where at what cost and they're like, but I don't want to manage people. And I'm like,

Sam Sarsten (25:24.942)

Hmm.

Shannon Mattern (25:25.596)

If you're thinking of it as managing people, you're missing out on so much. So that's like where I'm at in terms of like team. Erica has worked at the web designer Academy, Erica Nash, our client success coordinator. She's been a W2 employee since 2022. And I'm still looking at ways where I'm like, Oh, I'm like disempowering her. I'm holding onto this. I'm not like, I'm like all of these things. And so it's a constant.

Sam Sarsten (25:29.549)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (25:56.037)

It's that next level of like personal development and growth that has been extremely rewarding. So yeah, I totally agree with you that your leadership capacity, your income and the growth of your company is directly proportionate to your capacity to grow your leadership for sure.

Sam Sarsten (26:17.388)

Yeah. And shout out to Erica. We know Erica is awesome. I've got to interact with her a couple of times. one thing I was thinking, I was thinking about a Shannonism while you were saying that, you you always say, stay out of your client's pockets. Right. And I don't have a Samism for this yet, but it's, it's like, you know, with team members, I feel the same thing, you know, chronic people, please, sir. I don't want them to not like me because you know, what's my next fear? I'm going to have to do all this by myself. I'm not going to be able to, they're going to leave, right? They don't really like me, whatever.

Shannon Mattern (26:20.452)

Yeah, she's pretty amazing.

Sam Sarsten (26:47.182)

Whatever it is, whatever the mind junk is, that's probably not true.

But I need to get out of their, you know, it's not their pockets, but it's like their brains, right? I like think like, I need to protect them from this, or I just need to do this five minute thing to get it done. when it's like really like stunting the growth and it's like, when I've really actually just been like, I'm just going to trust the process and let this work out. Like everybody on my team has amazed me every single time. And so it's like, I don't know, that's one of the hardest things to get over, but I think it's one of those.

Shannon Mattern (26:57.276)

Yeah.

Sam Sarsten (27:18.966)

Like that's one thing I've been learning is like, feels like some of these lessons, like we could try to teach as many times as we want, but some of these lessons you just got to go through the hard way and feel it. Cause it feels crappy once you realize it, or it's like an epiphany where you're just like, I'm the problem. I need to get the hell out of the way. And then when you do that, it's, you know, things start to unlock and it's pretty cool. So, yeah, leadership massively important.

Shannon Mattern (27:30.268)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (27:40.571)

That is so good. I personally love when I discover that I am the problem because then I'm like, and I'm the solution. So easy enough. Like that's great. Like I love figuring out when I'm the problem. I think, I think back to like, I've thought about this before. If I had a boss or a team member that like just did quick stuffs, like if, if they did the things at my corporate job that like I do in my company, I would be like, I do not stop.

Sam Sarsten (27:47.65)

Right.

Shannon Mattern (28:09.776)

Like, I don't want this job. Like, leave me alone. Stop jumping in. Stop trying to like, baby me. I've got this. And so it's super interesting to think I'm like, the things that I think that I need to do, I would never allow to be done to me ever. So it's really interesting to think about that. I think about like, if your EMT like, nudged you out of the way to be like, no, don't like give that person that shot. I've got it or something. You'd be like, what are you doing, man?

like

Sam Sarsten (28:39.372)

Yeah, and I can remember that. It was a million years ago now, but I can remember those first couple of shifts where he was just kind of letting me fail. Not to the point where any of the patients were in danger, people, don't worry, but letting me screw up. I'd learn because we learn way more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. And I'm relearning that in a leadership role. Definitely don't have it all figured out. But it's one of the fun side missions that we get to do as entrepreneurs.

Shannon Mattern (28:45.926)

Sure, yeah.

Shannon Mattern (29:02.638)

Yeah. So I want to talk about local SEO Academy because you learned that you were able to add this recurring revenue from your business. You learned that like SEO is where it's at. You spoke at the Simply Profitable Designer Summit this year when we did Recurring Revenue Fest and you put together an incredible presentation on adding SEO services to your business. So tell me.

Sam Sarsten (29:19.96)

Thank you for that opportunity.

Shannon Mattern (29:32.388)

What was the catalyst for you to start local SEO Academy and what has that journey been like in growing that community?

Sam Sarsten (29:42.368)

Yeah, this journey, think less facetiously does start at a much younger age. I remember when I was in kindergarten, they asked us, what do you want to be when you grow up? And all the other little boys put, you know, police officer, firefighter, and I put teacher because it just felt like the thing I wanted to do. And, you know, I've had all these little opportunities from, you know, when I was in calculus, teaching the people in algebra to, you know, mentoring people at jobs and things like that over the years where

Shannon Mattern (29:56.442)

you

Yeah.

Sam Sarsten (30:12.482)

I really enjoy doing that. But I remember like when the rubber met the road and I looked at how much a teacher made, I was like, maybe I should go pre-med when I go to undergrad. And so it just felt like it wasn't a thing that I would do or maybe I'd circle back to later on in life. so, know, to see like what you and Josh do, like I definitely was sitting there in the early days, like an envy where I was like, man, that'd be really cool to be able to do something like that. But then, you know, that imposter syndrome kicks in where it's like,

Shannon Mattern (30:20.23)

You

Sam Sarsten (30:40.366)

well, no one's ever gonna wanna learn from me. I remember very specifically thinking that in the early days. And then as the second year of business started and I started to offer local SEO more and more, I was just staying active and pro. And that's one of my biggest pieces of advice to people, whether you're in the academy, because I'm sure there's a lot of people or a lot of gals in the academy that listen to the podcast as well.

stay active because that's how people don't forget about you. It's like showing up to your BNI meeting or whatever group you go to normally. It's like every time you're not there, people forget about you a little bit more, right? We got our little tick-tocky brains now. You got to keep showing up. And so I was showing up, I was talking about local SEO, sharing little wins. And every time someone asks a question, I try to pop in there and trying to strike that balance and not be annoying, but just be the person that shows up.

And before you know it, somebody actually reached out and they said, Hey, I'm trying to learn local SEO too. Can you share everything you've learned with me? And I was like, I don't really have time to do that. And they're like, I'll pay you. And I was like, how much are we talking? And that kind of started it. And it was not very much, but I was like, I was like, you know, if it's more than zero, then I'll consider it. And, know, her thing was like, Hey, you could maybe take these zoom calls, record them, and then you'll have this in your back pocket for later. And I was like, Hmm.

Like that's kind of a cool idea. And so I started to do that. And then totally randomly at the same time, some person I never met before was watching my YouTube video. Shout out to the YouTube channel, look up then can on YouTube. just hit 2000 subscribers last week. And she was watching the videos and she said, Hey, I want to learn more about Google business profiles. Can you specifically teach me about Google business profiles? And I was like, um, I was like, yeah, I can't do it for free. She's like, yeah, of course. And I was like, oh, like this is a thing now.

And so I did it for her and I kind of recorded everything. And then I kind of leaned on the two of them. was like, what else would you have wanted to learn? And, you know, they gave me some advice and I'd also started to build an email list. At that point, there was like maybe 50 people in it, if that, you know, and most of them were just members of pro. And I reached out and I said, does anybody want to be a beta tester for these? Like I have an idea and I'm going to call this person. I'm going to call Alyssa Todd because she's amazing.

Sam Sarsten (32:52.366)

But she was like, I want to be a beta tester and I was like, okay. And so I literally sat down and just, you know, in between client work and things like that late at night, I record little loom videos and I would just walk through like the rough draft of the lessons. And this is, you know, early 2024 and Alyssa would go through the loom and she would leave comments all over the place. Like, there should be a graphic here. there should be this. And like how invaluable like that experience was. And, you know, hopefully

She learned a lot about local SEO and she's crushing it for her clients now. And then, you know, the stars aligned where I have a friend that does like video editing and he had been helping me with some of the YouTube videos. He lives a couple hours away and I was like, hey, you want to come out and help me shoot this course stuff? And so at that time I was taking over this bedroom in my house that I rent as an office and I was like, we should set it up like a studio. And so, you know, we got a couple stupid.

You ring lights and this is just an iPhone and this is just a Yeti and you know That's just the LED light strip from Walmart. You know, that's one of those Walmart book things It falls apart all the time, but it's like, you know, it kind of makes you look legit and he had a DSLR so we sat down we recorded the first couple courses and It took a few months to edit it, but I was able to time it up just right with my pro training from web designer pro and that got me my first couple students and So, you know my vision

When I started to do it, I was like, wait, what the hell am I doing? I just started doing this. I really shouldn't be teaching this, but you know, I'm a big believer in the philosophy of see one, do one, teach one. And so the main reason I was doing it for myself was because I knew if I forced myself to put this content out there, that my level of care for local SEO and like what I would be providing for clients would level up that much. And it really did. It forced me to like,

all the stuff out of my brain and put it on paper and that was incredible. The secondary reason was that as much as I loved pro and you know if I could be in Academy I'm sure I would love it as well but you know having that community was great but I wanted to talk about local SEO stuff and a lot of the SEO communities out there people are secretive or it's just more like open or it's people that are trying to hit like seven figures and so they're kind of you know wham bam thank you ma'am trying to move super fast and I was like I want something that's like pro like Academy.

Shannon Mattern (34:51.644)

You

Sam Sarsten (35:12.152)

but it's for local SEO, you know, and the big difference in case you don't know, cause you're maybe you're newer to web design is, know, SEO is trying to rank for like blogs and compete for everything. You're trying to show up all over the country, usually for informational keywords. When people ask a question, you're trying to show up. It's been really hard in that space lately cause AI overviews kind of started to take over and a lot of people are transitioning to AI search for those types of terms. Local SEO is when you help businesses that serve local clients.

And it doesn't matter where they're at compared to you. It's just they're serving their local clients. And so think about like contractors, holistic medicine, you know, even people like mortgage brokers and things like that. Like these people want local clients. And so, you know, by helping them with their Google business profile, getting them a well structured website that tells Google exactly what they do and where they do it and helping them build authority by getting other links to point back to their website. Don't worry. It's not as scary as it sounds. You could really help these clients show up locally and get more business and

Hopefully, get to take that big step back, hire a team and do all those good things that they started, that they set out to do when they started their business. so I wanted to have those conversations. I was like, I'm going to just build my own community and just see what happens. And it's been growing very slowly and very organically over the last couple, it's been around for about 15 months at this point.

And now we're at 60 members, which is pretty cool because I haven't done any marketing or talked about it all except for at a handful of summits and conferences, like literally like three or four over the last year. And the activity that I've been seeing going on in there is amazing. And we're getting to the point now where not only have people been able to figure out how to offer local SEO that actually gets results for clients, they've been able to integrate those SOPs into their business, but now they're getting out and they're having the confidence to pitch it and they're getting out there and having the confidence to close the deal.

And now we're starting to have conversations in our weekly Q and A's where we're talking about client work and they're saying, okay, so what can I do next for my client? Help me build the strategy, things like that. We're getting a lot more tactile, but we still talk about this stuff. Like how do we get clients? How do we charge more? Because a lot of times you just don't have that bravery to go out just like I did when I charged the first guy, you know, 800 bucks for three months. Well, we just closed the deal the other day where the, like to call it year time value because the yearly value of the deal is going to be over $20,000 and that's the most we've ever gotten. And it's mostly, it's partly because of a

Sam Sarsten (37:31.694)

a little hack that Shannon's taught me, which is really cool. So I appreciate that. Thank you, Shannon. But anyway, those are the kind of conversations that we have. so local SEO Academy is kind of a, at this point right now, I envision more growth as I'm able to kind of take a step back in my business, like a tiny step back in my agency. I feel like I could take a step forward with the Academy. And so I have visions for working on the courses and really building that course bank that we have.

and also increasing the engagement. Right now, I go live every week. We have a Q &A every week. And then once a month, we swap that out with expert training. Shannon's actually been one of our experts. We've had Josh Hall. We've had some really cool people in there recently. And so that's been fun. And I'm excited to maybe turn that up a little bit. And so, yeah, I'm really excited to see where Local SEO Academy keeps growing. And really what it's about for me, again, is having that community of people that are trying to add stable income to their web design business and have those kinds of conversations and really

Really it's about growing like a lean agency because like we talked about today, dispelled that myth of like, you're have a really hard time if you try to this by yourself. But if you just get a little bit of help, you can make a ton of progress really quickly. And then, you know, that's the first part. And the second part is that hopefully these people turn around and are able to grow their businesses and get awesome results for their clients. And we just take over the world in that sense, just getting the last part. But hopefully we do good things.

Shannon Mattern (38:53.628)

I just love that you're very specifically teaching local SEO because it is such a huge opportunity right now for web designers to add that recurring revenue to like to parlay their client relationships into recurring revenue. And I think, you know, for as much time, effort and energy as we spend sourcing clients, building relationships,

you know, onboarding new clients. It's such a missed opportunity to parlay that into recurring revenue. And, you know, I think a lot of web designers shy away from that because they're like, I don't know that much about SER. What if I can't like help get them results? Or what if, what if, what if? And I mean, I think you all have heard

how passionate Sam is about helping people and making sure that they're successful and, you know, like leading them through this process. And also why not just go have somebody who has done what you want to do, show you exactly how to do it. Like, it just makes perfect sense to me that if you're working, if you're spending so much time to get a client, continue the service.

you're done and it doesn't have to just be maintenance and care plans. like local SEO is such a much more lucrative service and so I think it's worth everybody listening who works with those types of, even if you don't work with those types of clients yet that could use that, start like exploring that and considering that so that you can offer those services and

Sam Sarsten (40:22.03)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (40:46.984)

Sam mentioned the little hack that I taught him since Sam can't be in the web designer academy. Cause we serve women web designers. He was at the Josh Hall's web designer pro conference. And at that conference, I taught our package matrix strategy that we teach inside of the web designer academy. And Sam being the action taker that he is basically, I don't know if you implemented it like the very next day, felt like the very next day.

Sam Sarsten (40:53.582)

You

Sam Sarsten (41:12.59)

No, it wasn't. It was not the next day.

Shannon Mattern (41:16.164)

and he has told me two separate stories about how it increased his, revenue significantly, above and beyond what he would normally have made on those projects. So shout out to my five secrets to high converting web design proposals training. Go check it out at web designer academy.com forward slash proposals. I'm going to walk you through what that looks like.

So how you can get more yeses at higher prices. I love that it is working so well for you, Sam. I just, it makes me so happy. Yes, right?

Sam Sarsten (41:50.222)

Hashtag Patrick. Just kidding, let's get that trending after this episode. Just kidding, it'll just be a bunch of SpongeBob memes. yeah, mean, you know, I've done a lot of sales training, you know, and I specifically went through a very expensive sales training program, because that was one of the bottlenecks in my business. You know, I think as you start doing web design or any marketing, like you have to realize like one of the bottlenecks, like yeah, one of the big bottlenecks is your capacity to lead, but another big bottleneck is your ability to sell.

Shannon Mattern (42:07.321)

Yeah.

Sam Sarsten (42:20.224)

and people are always like, I hate selling. I don't want to sound too salesy. Well, it's like, well, do you like having food in the fridge? Do you like paying for your rent or your mortgage? Do you want those kids to go to private school? Like at the end of the day, and this is like this, you know, I've had this conversation with a lot of people, you know, and a lot of times sometimes I'll have them sit down. I'll grab them by the shoulders before I shake them. No, I'm just kidding. But, know, but for real, like, you know, sit down and like actually make a human connection with them and I'll ask them this, you know, wherever you're at, you know, if you're driving, maybe don't close your eyes, but if you're at the gym right now, you know, take a moment to just.

Shannon Mattern (42:26.043)

Right.

Shannon Mattern (42:38.843)

I'm

Sam Sarsten (42:49.16)

Close your eyes and think like.

Does what you do really help people?

And if you said yes, then you have a duty to go out there and offer this to as many people as you can. Now, obviously you got to find the right fit people and you'll get better at that as time goes on. You know, I've been getting better at that too in the short and you know, just the last couple of months, even really refining that even more. but once you know that it's like sell baby sell because you've got something that's really going to help people. And so why not? And so anyway, that like, felt pretty good about my sales process, but when I learned about Patrick package matrix, I was like,

Shannon Mattern (43:25.679)

Hahaha

Sam Sarsten (43:27.424)

I was like, this is like, this is a cool little hack, you know, and it's not, right? It's like, you're offering, you know, different tiers, but not in the way I thought it was. And so like, it really dispelled a myth for me, because I am not a fan of having packages. You'll see if you go into Localist Academy, I'm like, I don't like people that have a bronze tier with two blogs and a silver tier with four blogs and a gold tier with eight blogs. Wouldn't it be great if you could just write more blogs to rank higher? You think that's what everybody would do, but spoiler alert, that doesn't work. But anyway.

Shannon Mattern (43:31.621)

Yeah.

Sam Sarsten (43:55.982)

That's why I have one package. I'm like, this is the local SEO package. You're going to do everything your client needs and that's what you're going to do. And so that's why you need to price it, right? But adding on package matrix on top of that is a fun little way where you can anchor high and have some good success. So yeah, so we've had three clients close using that strategy and yeah, I'm just doing some quick back of the napkin math, but it's going to be over 10,000 extra, you know, top line revenue to our business this year.

just by making that little change. Like it's something I already wanted to do, but I was scared because I didn't know how to do it. And it's crazy like going from charging $400 a month to charging $1,000 a month, charging $1,500 a month. It's scary to take these leaps. And sometimes we need encouragement from our friends, right? And so, you hopefully me and Shannon are good enough to be considered friends, but you know, I consider you a friend because you made me bunch of money this year.

Shannon Mattern (44:26.937)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (44:41.263)

We are friends. We are friends. And also, did you hear that Sam just said $1,500 a month for one client for local SEO services? That, where I live in Columbus, Ohio, that is a whole lot of money. That's a significant chunk of my monthly expenses covered by that one client.

And so I know everyone doesn't live in the Midwest where things are, you know, where you get a lot of bang for your buck, but. So, yeah, no, you can get a lot for $750,000 in, in Columbus, Ohio, but, yeah, come that come hang out with me and Josh. That'd be super fun. but $1,500 for one client, like recurring revenue.

Sam Sarsten (45:15.342)

Average house price in Bend, Oregon is $750,000 right now.

Sam Sarsten (45:26.798)

Stop trying to talk me into Columbus. No, I'm just kidding.

Shannon Mattern (45:38.17)

you guys so seriously consider checking out local SEO Academy learning from Sam. He is so passionate about what he does about helping people. The thing that I that I really appreciate about you is how you are really committed to your personal growth. I remember you you

took the opportunity to speak at Josh's conference. And I was like, okay, this, your stage presence and the way that you just, the way that you spoke and how engaging it was. I remember saying to you, like, that was really great. I want to do what you do. And I want to learn to be a better speaker. And like, I was really inspired by how you, how you led people through your presentation. Like it was really fascinating. And

Sam Sarsten (46:33.976)

Shout out to Toastmasters, by the way. I've been in Toastmasters for eight years, yeah. I created that presentation in less than a week.

Shannon Mattern (46:35.163)

That's what you said. That's what you said. you did Toastmasters. Yeah. So you said you did Toastmasters. You're sharing all these people that you learn from. Like you're so committed to your personal growth and development. And when you're learning from someone like Sam, who is like investing his time, energy and mental capacity into

learning from all of these different people. And then he's like distilling that down for you. Like he's exponentially short cutting your, your growth, even beyond just the skill of the local SEO. So that's, that's one of the things that like, when I look for a mentor, I'm not looking for someone who's like in a silo. I just did the thing and now I'm here teaching and I'm the ultimate expert of the world.

I'm looking for someone who has a wide range of influences and is always learning because that's just going to shortcut. Now I don't have to go consume all of those things. Like the person who's who I'm learning from is like picking the gold nuggets for me and giving me exactly what I need from all of the places that they've learned. so that's just, that's something that I really, admire about you and what you do.

Sam Sarsten (47:58.507)

I that a lot and big shout out to Jim with his stupid mustache and his stupid glasses for making me realize that I don't know anything and I will continue to keep learning.

Shannon Mattern (47:58.87)

You

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Beginner's mind. That was one thing that I always have to remind myself is like, no matter how much I know, like you said, I don't know anything. And my tell for myself to be onto myself is when someone is offering me advice and I'm like, I already know that or I already did that. That means I don't know that.

Sam Sarsten (48:16.555)

Mm-hmm.

Shannon Mattern (48:29.357)

I didn't do that and I need to really like look underneath why am I being so defensive about whatever is being suggested to me. So Sam, I could talk to you for like two more hours. We're definitely gonna have to have you back on the podcast. I have two more questions for you before we wrap up. What is one belief that you had to change about yourself to get to where you are today?

Sam Sarsten (48:54.19)

Hmm.

Sam Sarsten (49:04.417)

I think probably the biggest belief that I had to change is that I have to do everything perfectly.

Shannon Mattern (49:12.901)

Mm.

Sam Sarsten (49:14.498)

because right from the jump, I was in Web Designer Pro and I had this website and it was almost right, but there was only like six more things I needed to change. And then I changed those six things and then there were like 12 more things I needed to change. But I had a web design, I forget what he calls them now, but like a web design hot seat, right? Where they look at your website in the community and kind of tear it down so that you can make changes.

You know, and one of the lessons Josh says, you know, 80 % good enough is good enough 80 % of the time. And that really stuck with me. And so finally I just, well, whatever here's the website. And there really wasn't that much feedback and I launched it by the end of the week and it didn't feel perfect. But you know, what's crazy is the sky didn't fall. The world didn't crumble and everything was okay. And I do have to constantly keep reminding myself that, but like,

you know, I just, I can't be perfect. You know, I can strive for as close to perfection as possible, but if I am really focused on striving for progress, then I'm usually in a better mindset. And so that's usually where I try to stay. So that's been the biggest shift is to just let go of that perfectionism as much as I can, which is very hard sometimes, and really focus on the progress. Because when I look back at where I was, or now I like to say it, as where we were, we were just talking about this, you know.

Um, at the last meeting before this, we had our manager's meeting and I'm like, think about where we've been in last six months. And then Gabe said, think about where we've been the last 18 months. When I first started, we were sitting at the coffee shop and he was like, how am I supposed to know what tasks to do if there's nowhere where we have the task? And I was like, oh crap, that's a good idea.

Shannon Mattern (50:56.237)

I love that. So I was just coaching one of my private coaching clients on this idea that perfectionism has diminishing returns. You know, we think that it is going to be the thing that ensures our success, but it actually is the thing that slows down and sometimes even prevents our success. so,

Yeah, it's that's something that so many people have to remind themselves of. And so thank you. Thank you for sharing that with us. So can you tell everyone where they can go to learn more about local SEO Academy? Check out your YouTube. Where can they connect with you online, Sam?

Sam Sarsten (51:39.042)

Yeah, if you're looking for some basic stuff, head over to YouTube and search then can and you'll find out a bunch of videos of me looking silly with this orange LED strip behind me, which you can't see if you're listening to your car, but trust me, it's there. And then probably the best place for people to go that, you know, if you're thinking about Web Designer Academy and you're like, I wanna build really awesome websites and we all know you're gonna learn that from Shannon. But if you wanna learn how to add stable income on top of that through a growth service, specifically local SEO.

then you should consider Local SEO Academy. I'm gonna have a really awesome deal where you get a ton of money off of that first month so you can jump in and get the full experience. We're gonna be able to enjoy the community, those Q and A's, and the full bank of all of our old expert trainings as well as all of our courses. And so we'll have that at localseocademy.co slash Shannon. So be sure to check that out. And one last thing I wanted to say, I was just thinking back to the start of, one of the big goals I had of, you know, this whole mission was like time freedom, right?

And over the years, sometimes it's really racked up. And like I said, almost caused me to burn out this year because I was working so dang much. And really just in the last couple weeks, which is so crazy, and that's why I want to share this out loud on a podcast, is like in the last couple of weeks, because we built the systems and because of the help that I've had, we off-boarded team member and onboarded a new team member in the middle of all this, but I have been able to take weekends.

I was able to take a week off recently where I didn't bring my computer with me. I got a girlfriend recently. I know, sorry ladies. And I've been just spending nights with her instead of, know, perseverating and worrying about the next thing I need to do for my business. And, you know, it's funny because she's known me for over a year now and she's like, don't you need to be working right now at night? And I was like, I don't think I ever needed to work at night. And it's been pretty cool to see that even just the last couple of weeks. And so it's like,

Shannon Mattern (53:29.659)

you

Sam Sarsten (53:35.062)

You know, like, yeah, it feels like there's a lot of hustle that needs to be done and there will be seasons of growth where you need to put a little bit more time in, but like, I don't know. feel like if it can keep being like this for the foreseeable future, like now it feels like this is doable long-term. anyway, local SEO Academy.co.

Shannon Mattern (53:56.453)

So good. That is the perfect place to wrap up this episode. Sam, thank you so much for being here, for sharing openly your journey and everything that you've been through. I'm so thrilled for you that you are really settling into the time freedom that you started this for in the first place. Like, enjoy it, keep it, protect it. And yeah, thank you so much for being here.

Sam Sarsten (54:22.808)

Thank you for having me on, seriously, it's been an honor.