SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Ask for the Skinny Podcast with a guest. I'm proud to present Matt Diamante. Matt, welcome to the show. Please tell us more about yourself. What is your story?

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Oh my God. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to talk about this because I feel like this topic is something that entrepreneurs and business owners don't talk about enough. So a little bit about me. I run an SEO agency. We have about 20, I think it's 21 people on the team now, which is absolutely insane. I have never had a real job. I've always kind of been an entrepreneur, even from back in the day. I was talking about this the other day where uh I was never really even into team sports. I was all like, maybe I'll do skateboarding. Maybe I'll skateboard. And I did that when I was a teenager, and then I started a band, and then I had to figure out how to market the band. Then I went to school for advertising, and then I graduated from that and never really had a real job. I've always kind of freelanced, done my own thing, and I've dealt with the highs and lows of doing that, the pros and cons. Um, so that's what I do. I also um I also teach people, business owners, how to do their own SEO so that they don't have to pay an agency thousands of dollars to do it for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Amazing. I would like to first start with burnout.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

And oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

How do you avoid burnout? Do you have any experience, your first hand experience with burnout? How do you help your co-workers? You said that you have now 21 people in the team, help avoid burnout, and how important is that for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

So, burnout is the biggest thing that is preventing your business from growing or preventing you from moving forward. And there's a lot of people out there who talk about, you know, the the side hustle or the grind or the work, you know, work. My my parents would always say this, and you know, growing up, I would always hear this like work really hard, work long hours when you're young, because when you're older, you won't be able to do it. And I was always like, I don't want to do that, that's crazy. But when I graduated, I was freelancing, I had to make money, so that's what I did. I worked my ass off, uh, you know, 14 hours a day, building websites, doing Google ads, doing SEO, doing like literally anything a business would be like, Hey, can you do this? I'd be like, Yeah. Um, and then it got it started getting really bad. So I'm not an anxious person. Um, or I wasn't an anxious person until uh this is about like 2022. Um, I started just my heart rate would just go up to like 120 beats a minute. And I was wearing an Apple Watch at the time, and I'm like sitting on the couch playing video games. I'm like, what is going on? And I realized that I was working so much and only thinking about work and only you know focusing on that aspect of my life that I was burning out. I was I started having anxiety attacks. I remember one at one point I was laying on my kitchen floor, my heart's beating like 120 beats a minute. I'm anxious, I'm freaking out, all this stuff, and my wife's trying to calm me down. So yeah, and that happened a lot that year in 2023. That also was happening quite a bit. Um, and I still get bouts of it now and then, it's nowhere near as bad. Um, but the way that I deal with the the whole burnout thing is just you need to live your life, you need to do things outside of work and not do the grind, not do the hustle. Like I forget, I was watching a video on social media. It was like the top 500 businesses in the US, or the Forbes 500, whatever, like 99% of those people are hustling, grinding every single day. And I'm like, I don't want to be on the Forbes 500 list. I don't want to be on any, you know, list for making a certain amount of money. I just want I want to have a good work-life balance. And for me, when I'm done working, I close my laptop and I want to say that I'm done. I'm still thinking about stuff, but um there's also I think it's the four uh the four-hour work week um by Tim Ferris. That was a great book. I read it a couple times, and it's really interesting when you revisit a book after years of not reading it and you're in a different position in life. When I first read it, I was like, man, working four hours a week would be sick. I'm gonna take all this stuff, I'm gonna do this in my business, and you know, and I at the time it was completely different than it is now. I reread the book, I think it was last year, and I was like, oh, there's good principles in here. Like it's not about working four hours a week because that would also drive you insane, right? If you don't have anything to do, you start getting anxious, you start getting like it's like the reverse burnout. You're burning out from not working, um, which I know sounds weird. But um, in in the book uh four-hour work week, um, he says, I forget the exact line, but it's something like you will fill the hours you give yourself with work. So if you give yourself 80 hours a week, you will spend those 80 hours a week working. If you give yourself four hours a week, you will spend four hours a week working and surprisingly get a lot done. It's like, do you remember when you were in school? It's and I don't know if you're like this, I was very much like this. You wait till the last minute, the night before you have to submit the assignment, and guess what happens?

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Not me. I'm oh no, farewell in advance. It's same in the business, like every everything out in in in either way.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

For me, it's everything is just like we're gonna get this done, we're not gonna second think it, we're gonna do it. And guess what? It gets done in the same amount of time. It's probably the exact same quality that it would have been if you took you know weeks or months to do it. Um, maybe not the exact same quality, but it's it's done, right? So even in business, like if I like I could I could work 24-7, right? There's always things to do. There's always you know a new campaign to work on, a new blog post to write, a new email to send. There's always something. But if you limit the amount of time that you're gonna spend on that, that will help you avoid burnout because you're deliberately taking that time to um you know not work, relax.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Okay. What I would like to ask you is more in in line with your profession. Um I I've been following uh search engine optimization since 2004 when uh Google came to London and uh started to educate and uh the data more technical people that we know how to do stuff like that on SEO. And a lot has uh changed everything. Uh and and now we're here in a new chapter because a lot of people are using LLMs like they used to uh use uh Google before. So how important is uh search engine uh in in these times? And um let's start. Let's start uh with this. Yeah, I have another question for you.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Okay, so this is where you can go down a rabbit hole, and especially me, because I love this stuff, like I can work infinity on this stuff and really try to you know be like look into the data of the data, of the data, of the data. So when we're talking about, you know, what's different now in terms of search engines, because there's Google, obviously, there's Bing and Yahoo and all the you know major search engines, but then now we have ChatGPT, we have cloud, we have these LLMs, we have AI where we just ask questions. So for me, I see a massive opportunity because people are using many different platforms to find information. They're not just using one major one like Google, which uh up until I think Google still has majority of the search traffic, but um people using Cloud and uh Chat GPT, um they are asking questions in a different way, they're having more of a conversation, right? So I'll give you an example. I don't know anything about coding. So I and I love vibe coding now. I've been doing it for like eight months, maybe not even eight months, but um, I built a lot of stuff. And when I was first starting it up, I was like, I don't understand how to do any of this. So I would just ask Claude, okay, I want to build this thing. What software do I need? And it would recommend software. What hosting do I need? It would recommend hosting. I'm like, okay, well, what else do I need? It's like you need these things. Cool. What do you recommend? So now it has context on what I'm trying to do, and it's finding things that are very specific towards my problem, which is how people are using uh AI now. Um so and even Google search, like it Google search uh in 2026 this year, replaced their search bar that was keyword-based to now it's you can have a conversation with it. It's actually really, really crazy. And you go into AI mode and all this stuff. Um, so people are using it differently. It is really still important to do proper SEO to try to rank on Google and Bing and all these search engines because LLMs are pulling data from search results, right? So if you ask it a question, what is the best blank you know software I should be using? It's gonna go through your history of the conversation and pull up something specifically to you. So it's it might do up to like let's say 10 searches, right? Of all these different searches, and then look at all the options and figure out the top three for you for you specifically.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

I would like to ask you another thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

I I I think it's relevant for everyone of us or every person in our audience that are in their midlife. And um slowly, slowly it's coming sweep from um corporate brands to personal brand. How does that affect everything in real life? So the service is more connected to the person rendering their service than to the company that renders the service. Uh so how would you say that this is changing the game? And of course uh why I'm asking this is because in midlife a lot of people are considering the new career or switch of the career or upgrade or they start going independent and stuff like that. So how important is personal branding and uh um how should we go about it? Is is is uh is the blog uh still relevant? Is uh our podcast uh still relevant? Is LinkedIn Patrone? How you see the the constellation right now, if we want to be more attractive in let's call it uh job uh marketplace or the project marketplace, because a lot of people are now going into LMs to solve the problem, and uh um the the LM will recommend a person if you ask him. So, uh what's your uh take on that, especially for uh small and medium-sized businesses or for individuals that are getting involved in um different even corporate functions because corporates are now hiring based on the number of followers because they just want they just want uh more followers with uh with every hire.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

100%. So I think uh especially in the age we're in right now where there's all this AI and AI slop and all this kind of stuff, we are looking for more human connection. We're looking to be like, is this authentic? Is this person going to help me? Is this business going to help me? And for me, like my entire business is built off of personal brand. Um and I have a team actually doing the work. So, how do you make that transition? How do you show up? So for me, I'm showing up on social media every single day. I'm writing blog posts on my website with experiments that I'm doing, with uh information that people like questions that my customers are asking. So I'm writing these blog posts. Um, I'm posting on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, uh, X, all of like literally all of the platforms every day. Um, and what that does is it develops trust, right? Because you come up in somebody's feed, you help them, right? You you help them or you entertain them or whatever it is that you do. And over time, people are like, oh, I know that person. And it's not like it's not that you're trying to trick that person, you're trying to show up as you as you like your authentic self. Um, so as you do that, people start wanting to work with you, wanting to or trusting you, wanting to work with you. Um, they agree with you or they absolutely don't like you. Either way, you're finding the right people. Um, but then transitioning that into a, you know, now you have a company or you have freelancers, or you have somebody else helping you out do the work. Um, that's a shift that was tough for me to make at the beginning because I had existing clients that I was like, hey, uh, goodbye. I'm not gonna be answering the emails anymore. I have somebody else who can serve you better. Um, but now it's it's a whole different thing where I used to do literally everything from you know making the content, which I still do, I still make all the content uh myself for the most part. Um, and then now once I fill out the form on the site, they're not talking to me. The expectation is set that this is the team that I've hired, that I've trained, that follow my strategies, that you know, have my stamp of approval on, and they can do a better job and take care of you better than I can. So that it was it was a very weird transition to the point where I'm like, I don't know who's filling out the form, I don't know who the sales team is talking to. Um it's it's very weird.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

What what do you say about AI taking over our jobs? There are so many apps helping us with SEO. What what's your take on that?

SPEAKER_01 14:18

I think it's it's still you still need the expert, right? So yes, AI can do the grunt work, AI can do keyword research for you, AI can um, you know, design a page, AI can diagnose your car, right? Your car's making a weird sound, but until an actual expert gets under the hood and tells you, you know, it's actually a transmission or it's actually this this one thing that costs ten dollars to fix, you're not gonna know, and AI's not gonna know. So it's still information is abundant, is what I'm trying to say. They'll give you all the information you need, but it's how do you um how do you implement that information, right? What is right, what is wrong, and how how can you trust what AI is saying? So you still need an expert. I think it's gonna be a long time before AI is fully taking over all of our jobs. Um, and then like there's some industries and some people that weren't gonna hire that person anyway. So I'll give you an example. Um, I have somebody in my Hey Tony Insiders community, which is what I mentioned before, where I teach people or I teach business owners how to do their own SEO. And they said that every time they needed a new page on their website, they would hire their designer because they wanted it to look a certain way. And they're paying five or six hundred dollars per page on the website. And I said, open up Claude and tell them to design you a page based off of your other pages, give them the the text that you want, the information, the pictures, all that stuff, and have it design a page. And like, I don't feel good about cutting out my designer. And I was like, You're a small business, right? The designer is also a small business, but like they're not doing anything revolutionary, they're copying the page over and changing the text, basically. Why would you pay five, six hundred dollars for that? So is it replacing some jobs? Sure. But at the at the same time, bigger companies are still gonna hire a designer because they want things to be done a certain way and they don't want it run through AI, they don't want any of their brand touched in AI. So it's gonna remove some jobs, it's going to, you know, empower other jobs um or solidify other jobs, I should say. Um, but then there's also the the people, for example. So I run an SEO agency, but I also teach people how to do it their own. And most people are like, why would you do that? You're teaching your potential customers who'll pay you way more money to do it themselves and then pay you nothing. And I'm like, Well, those people wouldn't have hired me in the first place because they don't have the budget to hire me. So is it taking my job? No, because people still come to me and say, uh, I was using AI and I'm still not ranking. What do I do? And then I go, Well, we can help you with that. I can show you how to do it if you want to learn to do it yourself, or you can hire us and we'll take care of it for you.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah, and now you you bring me to the next question that I really like. So um the SEO has become incredibly complex, and and there are good books on SEO, I believe. Um and you said that there are still cases that when when you need an expert. Can we talk a bit more about when the book will do or the online course we'll do and when do you need an expert? How important is to have a manager, a coach, or a consultant to do it for you. And uh how should we decide? Should we go and uh make all the mistakes first so that we understand the value of an expert, or how should we how should we uh go about it?

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Okay, so the first thing you're gonna say is there's a lot of good SEO books. I actually wrote one called Get Found um by Matthew Monte here. So it's in if you're doing this, there's like kind of three tracks. You're doing it by yourself, fully by yourself, you're gathering all the information, you're doing all that stuff. The next track is you have some kind of mentor, coach, a program that you're taking. So the first track is books, courses, uh, online videos that you watch for free, YouTube, Instagram, whatever. The next one is you are sitting with somebody in a room or on a Zoom call and they're helping you through the problem, right? So it's more of like the mentor coaching. And then you have like full-blown um, this person's just gonna do it for me. Right. Each level has its pros and cons. I play in each level with my business and personally. So I read a lot of business books, I read a lot of um, I guess they're all business type books, they're all nonfiction. Um, and that really helps me get a good understanding. And those books then lead me into another path where I'm like, okay, maybe I need help with this. I'm gonna hire this person uh to show me stuff, or I'm gonna join this mentor program, or um, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna learn more that's guided, right? Because the book gives you really great information, but it's not usually tailored to your specific situation. And then the last thing, I'm just gonna hire somebody to do this for me because I don't have the time or the want to do this myself. Like, for example, I could read a book about accounting and taxes. Do I want to do that? No. I can hire a mentor that will show me how to do my bookkeeping, how to get write-offs, whatever, whatever they do. No. I skipped those two steps and I went to, I'm gonna hire somebody to be my accountant and do all my accounting for me because I don't want to do that, right? So you have the three different levels there. Um, each has their benefit, right? If somebody's doing it for you, that's usually the most expensive option. The cheapest option is finding all the information yourself and implementing it, trying it out and giving it time to work, you know, you're gonna make a lot of mistakes over there in that. Um, well, most people will make a lot of mistakes. I know I have. Um, and the learning curve is really steep with learning everything yourself. But when you get a mentor, they're like, actually, all this other stuff doesn't matter. Just do this. And you're like, oh, that makes it easier. I don't have to worry about all this stuff, and then all of a sudden you don't burn out as much because you're like, I'm not trying to do all this stuff, I'm just trying to do the things that work, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:16

So can we can we talk a bit more about your book? Uh yeah. Um so what was the idea behind the book? Uh you already mentioned that there are a couple of uh possible ways to to do the SEO, and one is uh to find a good book. Can we talk a bit more about your book? Uh how did you structure it? Uh what can we uh learn from the book?

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Okay, so I uh the idea of coming of writing a book came from a free course that I have. So the free course is called Understanding SEO, and it teaches people all of the basic uh elements that go into SEO. So if you don't know what a title tag is or a heading tag or heading one tag or a meta description or um anchor text, if you don't know what any of that stuff is, the book breaks it down. And the the course also breaks all that stuff down. What the book does is it breaks that stuff down, but then gives you guidelines, strategies, all this kind of stuff. So if you don't know anything about SEO and you read this book, by the end of it, you can come out with a really good strategy. Um, and I had, I think it was like 30 or 40,000 people take my free course, and I was like, there's some demand here. I'm gonna write a book about this and help even more people.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Okay, Matt, before I let you go, please tell us uh where can our listeners and viewers get in touch with you and where where can they order your book?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Uh well I wouldn't be good at my job if I gave you exact links. Go to Google and type in Matt Diamante, or you can type in my agency's name. Hey Tony, you will find me everywhere on any platform that you're using. Uh I will likely have a profile and be posting there. Um and my book is on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Thank you, Matt. Thank you for being my guest and thank you for all the expertise that you have shared tonight.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Thank you.