E06: How I Became an Entrepreneur with John Pace

Jim: What is up Remote Start Nation! Let's get something started. I'm Jim Doyon. Welcome to another episode of Remote Start where I bring you stories and strategies on how to start a business, build a brand and create a desired lifestyle.

Today's  show is brought to you by our sponsor Woodward Movement, every company has a story to tell and Woodward Movement is on a mission to visually tell that story. So, if you're looking to grow your brand through branded merchandise, that could be teased, hats, giveaways, and even premium retail gear for you to sell and store head over to Woodwardmovement.com and set up your free 15 minute consultation.

Today, we're going to have a conversation on how to get from where you are now to where you want to be.

Career pathing and the importance of making sure your business is found online organically with Search Engine Optimization also known as SEO. I've brought on a very special guest today to share his journey and to help you Remote Start Nation of the mistakes that he learned along the way. This guest is a dear friend of mine, a college friend, and someone I deeply admire and look up to. He went from selling beer to starting a successful business that allows him to generate the money and time freedom needed to live an incredible life with his wife and two kids. John Pace, owner of Vima Internet Marketing, a digital marketing agency, based out of Arizona, specializes in creating your foundation of a great website design and then driving the traffic that you need to succeed using search engine optimization as well as pay-per-click PPC advertising. Today, John is going to share with us his career journey, and in listening I hope you've learned from John and understand that regardless of what but you're doing now, if you make the right moves, take calculated risks and don't quit, then you can live the lifestyle you want. John's also going to be sharing with us for those of you who have already got a business going, you're driving traffic, things are going good, but you're not getting the amount of business that you want from your website, he's going to share with us the importance of why SEO can help to jump start that, how SEO done right can bring leads that can take your business to another level. John, welcome to the Remote Start Nation.

John: Thanks, Jim.

Jim: See, I am so excited to have you

John: I'm excited.

Jim: Yes, dude, it's been a while, it's been a while talking about it, we're here, man. So I want to start this off. I will want you to tell everyone, tell the Remote Start Nation, something about you that if they were to go to your LinkedIn profile or if they were to meet you in person in five minutes you probably wouldn't share with them.

John: Well, I was a pretty average to horrible student, my mom, I was talking to her recently about it and my brother would get home from parent-teacher conferences, really, every year this happened until he graduated, like “body, keep it up, you're doing awesome, John, sit down, you know, we need to talk”, and it was, it was hard, later by my senior year my parents are like, all right, we know this kids, not an idiot, so it took me to Lansing and had me checked out and turns out I have a pretty severe case of ADD and I was Dyslexic. So yeah, now that's something that's obviously not on my LinkedIn profile, but you're just some we're come and kind of use almost as an advantage.

Jim: And you have like you've taken, you know, from where you were and even dyslexia and I didn't know that, but that is so interesting to share and I appreciate you sharing that with us, you've overcome that and even a lot of different jobs that you've had like reading up to starting your own business and, it really shows that if you put your mind to it and I know you're a very dedicated person, you're somebody, I want you to put your mind to something, you're going to accomplish it, and it just shows that if you can do that, you can accomplish anything, so, you know, one question I had for you John and it is, I'm glad you brought in, like, when you were a kid and shared that with us because, a lot of times people think that being an entrepreneur, starting your own business, like, you're just, it's something that happens when you're young, right, but, tell me when you were younger, did you ever think you were going to be your own boss, did you ever have the idea of starting your own company?

John: Well, my grandpa did and so did my dad, so I knew entrepreneurship was in my blood, but it was weird because I grew up in Saginaw Michigan which is an old gym town and how do I say this but it's kind of a town of the haves and have nots and fortunately, like, my parents both work so I spent a lot of time at this country club and all the people that I looked up to there, you know, including my dad were, you know, doctors lawyers accountants, you know, white collar professionals, and I was like, man, you know, I'm not doing well in school, what am I going to do? And so I've spent a lot of those years, like, you know, to answer your question I wasn't really sure what I thought possibly, I would open my own business, my dad actually thought I should open a custom closet business, but I just didn't have that background a really interesting, so, I did, yeah, go for it. But it really wasn't until I started working for other companies, other people that are like, I going to do something, I going to figure this out.

Jim: So you so you go through high school, not really sure what you want to do, it get in a Michigan State.

John: No, I didn't even get into Michigan's. I had to go to Community College years.

Jim: Okay, so you go to Community College, I mean in a community college, did you kind of know what you want to do or at that point where you still having this job with that?

John:Like I knew like this is going to sound bad, but I knew I didn't want to be a loser and I was starting to kind of feel like a loser and like, even I remember, talking to girls to be like, know, what class do you have, like, you know, they'd ask me like some insight question about Michigan State really? Well actually don't go there, I go to Lazy Community College in that really kind of help me to like, okay, I need to buckle down, I going to get things figured out and I did eventually.

Jim: We all need that little kick in the ball and it is definitely different from for everybody.

John: Because I was never lazy, like, yeah, always worked hard, it's just it's just you going to use something to get you motivated.

Jim: Well, you found your motivation and you went with it and so you went to Community College for how long?

John: Two years.

Jim: Two years and then you transfer to Michigan State, and then, you know, at that point, did you think, Hey, I was going to run my business.

John: Well, I started to take marketing, and advertising classes, and I really enjoyed it, I enjoyed the creativity, I enjoyed my teachers, I enjoyed just the creativity and even before that, like to your listeners, like Community College, I'll tell you what, I had amazing teachers there so like if you don't have things figured out go there, figure it out, like I can't say enough good things, especially about LCC, it was fantastic.

Jim:  And Remote Start Nation, that's a great point that I really want to hit on, and you know, to John's point I graduated high school signed up to go Michigan State late, so I got accepted second semester but not the first semester, so I went to a junior college, actually played soccer there, but some of my favorite classes were at the Community College and it helped me, it kind of took the pressure I got to live with my aunt and uncle, it took the pressure of you know, not being ready to go to a big school and maybe not knowing what you're going to do with yourself and you know, kind of going there and it took that pressure away and just allow me to kind of focus and you know, that was that was huge for me, so you don't always have to know what you're going to do, you don't always have to know your trajectory of what you're going to be when you get older and I know that, you know, for us their Remote Start Nation are a little bit older, I'm sure we have very similar stories that we can look back to and relate, so, yeah, I'm feeling a John, I was there with you and I think, if you're not ready to jump into a big school, a junior college is a great place to start. So you know with Michigan State you go there, you start taking marketing classes, you start to really enjoy marketing and business, so tell us, you graduate, what you graduate with, what was your degree?

John: Advertising Marketing.

Jim: So you ended up going into that and it sounds to me like almost, you know, growing up, you weren't sure what you want to do, you looked up to these country club, you know, mentors of yours and the business owners and professionals that you saw and you know, you really use them as a role model to understand what you wanted to do one day, but you still weren't focused on school because you didn't know what you wanted to do until you found these marketing and advertising classes and decided like this is me, right.

John: Well, I always knew like then, 

Jim: So then from that point, you know, graduating school, did you still know what kind of job you want to get into or like, what were you going on?

John: Oh God no, I knew by that point I knew what I enjoyed, it's just and that's the crazy thing to I don't know how you are about we graduate college and I wish I could go back and just tell myself like relax, you know, everything's going to be all right. Enjoy being young,  so I just took like you said I my friend John got me an interview at this beer distributor called Dan Henry and I did okay in the interview eventually they hired me and that was my first job out of college was, I'm correct in sales or account executive for, you’re like a Miller like beer distributor and I am know if you remember me driving around in my wife, yeah, in my khakis, but you know what? I mean, the pay was terrible but those jobs along the way are so valuable because again if you realize what you don't want to do, who you don't want to be, and again, like just you got to start somewhere I guess.

Jim: So, what's the one thing? if you look back at it because you went from beer distributing, beer sales, into a couple other careers, what was the one thing, the day, do you remember a day or time that like struck you like, this is it I'm done, I have to start my own business, I have to do this myself, or was it more of a calculated, you know, you thought about it some things happen or you got it just opportunity that was too good to be true, what was it?

John: Acouple thing, so I was working at ADP and I was doing well, I repay me great, and I just was not happy, and I remember we had like a team meeting and it was fine in my boss, the next day, Rodney in and he's like, “how do you think that meeting?” when I was like “Man, it's good, yeah, I enjoyed it”, and we just kept talking in all of a sudden this crazy story I was quitting, it just kind of like it came out of nowhere, yeah, I do not recommend that but that's the route I took I just ended up like I'm jumping ahead but like I had a couple clients before for legal marketing company called FindLaw, and some relationships that I was kind of doing some marketing stuff on the side, so I was making a little money doing that and I was enjoying it really enjoying it and so I just quit, it was nuts and I came home and I told my wife and she's like, “what? You got a kidding me” and that Monday, man I joined up with this guy and we were, we were off and running.

Jim: That's a great advice going to go back to that for a second, and your story, there's a lot of a lot of other stories like that it relates to even mind and in a way but you know, a lot of times people don't start something because they're too comfortable, maybe they're scared, and they're afraid to jump out and start their own thing, so, you know, you didn't just jump the quit one day and like, oh, “what I'm going to start? I'm leaving myself open, you actually said like, “hey don't recommend even just quit like maybe have more of a plan in place than you did, but what I can see, what that did was that put your back against the wall and there was no going back at that point. Well, leading up to that, you had experience in your field, you had taken your career path and you learn something from the job you had and you had learned the marketing to other lawyers, which is what got you started and you had clients that we're coming to you for side work and you knew you loved it, you knew you were good at it, you knew it was what you wanted to do, but it was that one, spark that one thing, I'm meeting just happen to be a meeting of all things, like, if you went back right now and said, “you know, hey, John you're going to quit next week it's going to be because you just it were in a meeting and change your mind that you don't want to be there like a million years, would you think that would be at what happened?

John: No, God no, because my wife was also pregnant that time so like just even thinking back to those just, you know, God bless her she's stuck by me and also like after she got over the shock of like, “okay, I can't believe you quit your job and I'm pregnant” she believed in me and you need that too, just because it is scary it's fun, it's scary like that's the cool thing about it, there's so much unknown, but you just going to, you going to go for it, I mean, so that's why didn't.

Jim: that support system is huge and that's something that a lot of people, you know before you jump in two feet forward make sure you have those people built up around you and it sounds like you had to you had your wife who I bet now is so thankful that she was so supportive of as she was because now you have built an empire and secondly, it sounds like.

John: I don’t know about empire and I don't know but yeah, like we have a nice business.

Jim: Something that you can, when I say empire I mean you have built something that isn't going away tomorrow it's not going away anytime soon, you get to live your life however you want to live it, you are, you are your own boss, every day, something your family is benefiting from because of the work and everything, you've done to build it to where it is today. So, you know, and one other partner or one other thing that you mentioned that I think is so important and in my case it was it helped me to make that jump as well but having a partner that you can go in with that you can, you know, go to battle with and work as a team instead of just going solo on your own, So if you take a step back and you're like, hey, I'm out of here, you've already in the first day, you've got your wife behind you and you have your business partner behind you, now, it's time to start running.

John: Yes.

Jim: So what happened next?

John: Well, that first point, I scheduled 16 meetings, and I mean, you like being in sales, like I was hammering the phones and I'm good at cold calling once I get my groove and that's I don't know how much cold calling you did, but that's always the thing that's worked best for me and you kind of suck at first, but like once you get your groove, you know, you can just really get it going in that's what I did and from there we just slowly started to get clients and that's what we did, I mean so I can't, I guess I do, were like, what's next? That's why we just started working and that's what you have to do, like, that's why another  reason I did it because I knew I wasn't and I knew, you got to have some guts, you can't be lazy, there's a very lazy, you're not.

Jim: Yeah, and I like to, like so a lot of people will focus on, I have to have the right business model, I have to have the you know, I focus a lot and help businesses with their brand identity and making sure that their brand matches their value statement and that they look their best, and that you know, there's all these things but for a startup for someone that is going out on their own a lot of that, doesn't matter, you don't need to be perfect, you don't need to go out and like you, did you knew that in order to succeed, you had to get in front of as many people as you could to get them to buy your service and so you pick up the phone and started calling, you didn't worry about a fancy website, you didn't worry about your logo and even if we just go, but it wasn't your key focus, it wasn't something that held you back from making those calls, you did it because you knew you had to get revenue coming in yesterday.

John: Yeah.

Jim: That's awesome.

John: Yeah, and it's funny, I was when you asked me to do this, you know, I was just thinking of kind of our relationship and produced enough you remember this, I remember when so, we were waiters together for your audience, that's at Walnut Hills Country Club Lansing, Michigan, that's how we met Gemini, and I always thought this was really cool something, you did, I remember you waited on this table, I don't remember who you didn't like the service you gave them and I remember you called that night from the phone of, do you remember that from all that? You know?

Jim: No, I mean, I remember Walnut Hills, I love Walnut Hills is a great part of my life.

John: I was like, damn, it’s going to be alright.

Jim: And is that what help to get your friendship?

John: No, I mean I was just like, that's, that's so important, it's just like, you know, a lot of people get me the jobs that's not going to be your career and don't take them serious and I guess they not, I guess I will give some advice, like, take every job seriously and learn from and that's what you were doing, I thought that was really, I just wanted to make sure I did because I've never told you

Jim: that's awesome, and I thank you for sharing that and that's really cool because I don't remember that but that doesn't, it doesn't surprise me that I would do something like that because obviously I know that you know, customer service is so damn important and it's something that you know, just can't build a business, yeah, you know, in something to your point and Remote Start Nation, I want you to know if you're not already doing this and in your career path and you're looking at starting your own job and you just like thinking about how much you hate it, where you work, or whatever it is, take what John just said and take it to heart and, you know, it's something that I personally have also done at every job  I've been at, I try to take the best from it and I try to learn and I try to, you know, my business partner Nathan always says, like “make mistakes on our dime”, right? So do that when you work with for someone else like make the mistakes to learn and understand, so when you're on your own, you know what it takes and it's embedded in you and you it's easier than trying to get out and just recreate yourself, do it while you're building your career path and learning along the way, so Jay John, that was great advice, dude. Thank you for sharing that. So I want to switch gears a little bit. You talks a lot about, you know, your childhood and come coming up and school and your career path and how you got started with your marketing, so we've got that and now you've got you move from Chicago to Arizona, you had Did you know your business is going at this point, pretty good, right? You've got a good, a good steady base. A lot of your clients, you can kind of manage remotely, correct?

John: Yep.

Jim: Awesome. 

John: I mean as long as you're not connection, I can do my job, so it's great.

Jim: Which is also helped you to, you know, kind of live that life you want to live and, and you've always been in the Midwest and it's time to make a change and, you know, in Arizona.

John: Is like she just fits my personality, like ATP for example, great company, but you sit in a cubicle all day and unless you have an appointment and you know, that that open floor plan, which I didn't like you just all you do is hear other people's conversations of Thai, Pongal, really distracting, and annoying but I just knew like I couldn't just be stuck in that office, like I just, so that's the beauty to is I can Just kind of create the environment that works for me, the work schedule that works for me and just know, it's been huge.

Jim: It's awesome. So, for the Remote Start Nation that, you know, has already established a business, they jumped out on their own, they're listening to this, they have a business, and they want to grow it, they want to take it to the next level. What's the one thing right now that you would recommend for any business owner to do, to put money into could be something they're doing or not, but put money into that's going to drive more opportunities for them for business.

John: That’s a tough one. Just because I mean you have to have somebody on your team, that's good sense and if it's not you got to get somebody on your staff has good sales, I'm good, I think even our company down the line of new really, really want to get growth, and probably even need somebody better than me, something that you got to have your messaging tight and you got to have some self.

Jim: So let's talk about Search Engine Optimization. So for those out there that don't understand, you know, the basic foundation of SEO, tell us a little bit about it.

John: Really, it's just so we work a lot of with a lot of lawyers some service industry people, it's really just getting your website showing up for the right search terms in search engines that are going to grow your business, the right way, and what I mean by that is If your divorce attorney, you don't want to be getting calls from people, that just got a DUI so it's just getting the right content on your website, the right messaging I mean, there's so much that goes into it but really it's just like I said getting your business in front of the room on the internet, that's really what we do, lead generation.

Jim: And so to do that, you sit down a client, you walk through, I mean, I imagine, so if it's all three of their website, I imagine you probably see some clients have some pretty bad websites, so, is that like you start first and look at their website and make sure that their website set up to rank high with because I know a lot of that has to do with, with Google and other search engines, right?

John: Like, the ideal client for us is like, somebody that's already doing some marketing, like, showing up, okay, because it’s just starting from scratch, especially in competitive market areas, it's just such a grind and it's such a, it's going to take a long time that I really like somebody at like even if their website is bad like that the ranking, like something's been established, you know, we it's nice to have, like what I like to do is go in and just really improve upon with there.

Jim: That makes sense, but for someone that doesn't have, you know, they don't have that Foundation, right? They have something but it's not ranking at all it isn't doing well, like is that where you also your team also focuses on the pay per click because it's the timeframe that it's going to take for us to see? And explain that a little bit.

John: Yeah, that's a really good point and something actually I've been dealing with like in the last year this guy broke off from another firm if we wouldn't have done AdWords for him, he just he wouldn't have succeeded, yeah, and that's why you have to have somebody experiences huge in my industry there, it's very competitive, there's a lot of people doing it, there's a lot of people doing it poorly, so, you have to have a real honest conversation and you can over promise and that's what I'm really good at is, just coming up with the game plan because even SEO is like, if you are starting out, you can pick a niche within your business and just hit that really hard.

Jim: So if someone wanted to you know, learn more they need to get going, they understand, you know, they need more traffic and you kind of recommend and I you know, if you go to your website and it shows like you guys don't just focus on a SEO for that reason, right? Because there are so many different pieces and you can for you it's about creating that honesty that you know, SEO might not be right, right now you could get the foundation started we're going to focus on a marketing strategy that is AdWords related and, you know, whatever it is and like if that's it almost seems like you start with that consultation aspect to look at like what they really need and giving that honest feedback.

John: And I have programs that, you know, I can do a very thorough analysis of where they're at now, you know, so I'm not going in there completely cold, but that's something I really enjoy about my job is, like, insulting part so yeah, like that education pieces, it's fun for me.

Jim: Yeah, that's good.

John: Put something together that works especially if you're charging a lot of money now like they're going to leave a like if it's three months in the phone's, not ringing they're gone, like what? You don't work really with contracts we have people sign an agreement, and we asked him to give us at least 60 to 90 days.

Jim: Because it takes time, it's nothing happens overnight.

John: Especially if they don't give us that great of a budget which sometimes you have to walk away and just say, there's nothing I can do.

Jim: Yeah, and you've grown a great business on word of mouth and referrals and you know, you've been in this business for how long now?

John: Five or six five years maybe I don't know. Yeah, I think 5 years or 6 years.

Jim: Okay, and that's on your own.

John: I've been in the industry for like close at ten.

Jim: Yeah, that's what I knew it was a longer than five and five on your own 10.

John: Have been out on my own 5.

Jim: So this has been great information John, I you know, I think if you have a business, I think it you know, talking to someone like yourself is a great way to start and really looking getting an honest approach to what could work us with your site, so I thank you for sharing that with us and, you know, the Remote Start Nation today, I've got one more question for you but before I do, can you tell everybody where they can find you?

John: Yeah, vimamarketing.com , we're on Facebook and email marketing and actually were I don't know when this is going to come up but we're in the process of redoing our site so if you get to the site and you don't absolutely love it, keep in mind that there's a new one coming.

Jim: Sounds good and you know, for our listeners, I'd like to bring as much value as possible, there for anybody listening that is kind of thinking to themselves I need that for my website, I'm not 100% happy, I don't get the traffic that I want, you know, what kind of value can you give to our listeners that are is exclusive to Remote Start Nation?

John: I always think the best way to get started is thinking about what your customers are asking you on a regular basis and be running those down and answer those through either like posting on your social media poetry, you know, posting on the blog on your site, posted it on your Google, my business page, but just answer those common questions on the site because that's what they're typing into the search know when they're in advice, you know, when they're in that research, just you deal with anything like you're looking for a new family vehicle, you're going to type, you know, what's the safest car in 2022 and that's what people do in this chapter and, you know, they're savvy now, that's what they do when they shop for a service, start their, get started, you know, like so even with a business like you going to start somewhere and when you know, it's what once you do, it will snowball and sooner or later like you got something going.

Jim: That's great advice John. Remote Start Nation before the call John, and I were talking and he wanted to make sure that he gave each and every one of you, if you wanted to take the opportunity of a free consultation and analysis of your current website and SEO audit and I think from listening to this podcast, you understand John is very genuine, is very true he's not going to bullshit you. So, you know, go to go to his website it's also listed you'll see it on the show notes, go to his website, go to his Facebook, page on up, schedule an appointment and even if you're not in his expertise, even if he says, it's nothing he could do to help you, I can guarantee you, he's going to help you out and push you in the right direction, so John, I thank you for that. One last question, like I said, I have been on this absolute music kick lately of listening to music while I work about, you know, getting it in the right mindset in the morning, and I just had an episode where I asked the Remote Start Nation, you know, how, what do they do every day, do they listen to music in the morning, they, you know, put listen to certain music to get them in certain moods and look at back going back to college days when I met you, always you and Serosi where my go-to for new indie music that came, and even wasn't too long ago you sent me a link to a Spotify to listen to this, “I think you'll enjoy it”, and it's gotten me down this rabbit hole of music similar to that artists that I just have been listening to every day so, with that said.

John: I always say the guy’s name wrong with it’s Emmit Fenn, I listened to a ton of that because I still like, you know, rock but I find when I listen to that, and I'm working, it's distracting.

Jim: Yeah, well yes, want to sing along, right?

John: Yeah, absolutely.

Jim: So I don't listen to Britney Spears while you work.

John: Getting up playing air guitar.

Jim: So tell me when you are working in your office what do you listen to, do you listen to music. Do you like it quite a lot of time?

John: Yeah, but if I really have to get something done, I like it pretty quiet.

Jim: So when you are so quiet when you're focused, when you're just doing.

John: If I have to write something, it's yeah, quiet.

Jim: So then when you are listening to music or podcasts and you're doing it to, you know, get you through your day and other areas where you don't have to sit there and focus and quiet, what are you listening to?

John: I love, I still have serious, I love their chill station, I listen to that that a lot and I like classic rock and I like you know the playlist they make for you on Spotify, listen to those a lot, I'm all over picking, my brother's like I was listening to John Cougar, Mellencamp two days ago.

Jim: Nice!

John: I think he is, I just get a kick out of him as music. I think I'm going to say I think it's underrated, but I really like Emmit Fenn, I think it's Emmit Fenn or Emmit Fann, it’s fantastic.

Jim: Yeah, I enjoyed it. It's someone I can listen to when I'm trying to focus or when I'm, you know, just having in the background as kind of background noise so yeah, John, I want to thank you for all the value today. Thank you so much for joining us, I really look forward to having you back in the future so with that said, thank you very, very much John.

John: Thanks for having me on, I appreciate it.

Jim: Absolutely. With that Remote Start Nation, I hope you can put some of this value that John dropped with us today in your life and start something now.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all for joining me on this journey, as I help you to start your business, grow your brand and create your desired lifestyle.

So remember, leave a comment, subscribe and share this episode with your community who you think could learn from what you've heard today and the other episodes.

Until next time, go start something started today, go build the lifestyle you desire by taking action and get it done.