Recaps

Step Up or Sit Down: Grow Your Business the State of Search Way

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The Search Doctors delivered a booster shot to SMBs and freelancers

Duane Forrester, Wil Reynolds and Zeph Snapp on stage at Gilley's Texas for the Let's Get Real session at State of Search 2016 — Duane Forrester, Wil Reynolds and Zeph Snapp took on the “Let’s Get Real” challenge issued by State of Search, and the result was an epic session with advice and insights for SMBs and Freelancers. Sean Dolan served it up to the panel as moderator, inviting some epic insights from the hugely successful session.

State of Search 2016 was bigger and better than we ever could have hoped for, but one of the stand-out presentations was a Q/A session with Duane Forrester (Bruce Clay International), Wil Reynolds (SEER Interactive, whose keynote we covered earlier), and Zeph Snapp (Altura Interactive), moderated by Sean Dolan (Pushfire). Things got up close and personal as the panelists each shared their journeys toward building their brands and businesses, while delivering candid, meaningful advice as to how the audience could do the same.

But back to the beginnings – did you know Duane started out as the guy who crawled behind ATMs to fix them back when banks first started rolling them out? He remembered one time a lady put her card in the machine and it fell through, and he silently picked it up and pushed it back through without her ever knowing. Zeph used to be a Dippin’ Dots salesman – you heard that right, he used to see the ice cream of the future. And Wil started out as a paperboy, which taught him how to “get out of bed and get the hard work done.” After that, he went to school to be a high school economics teacher!

State of Search | An Eye-Opener For a First Time Speaker

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Even a fender-bender did not take the shine off for Kirk Williams.

The following is a guest post by Kirk Williams, who shares his experience as a first-time speaker at State of Search 2015 – we hope you enjoy!

Before State of Search, someone asked me “What do you think of when you think of Dallas?”

I was under the gun (a fitting analogy when speaking to a Texan, right??) so I spouted the first 4 things that came to mind: “Deion Sanders, the Cowboys, BBQ, and PPC friends on Twitter.”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Had I more time to think I would have said…

Spice Up Your Reporting by Changing the Sheets

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Nobody likes a dull report…

State of Search has come and gone, but everyone is still buzzing with excitement over the amazing venue, incredible speakers, and killer happy hours. There was so much goodness at this year’s conference, I’m not sure it’ll ever get out of my system (nor would I want it to!), but you’ve got to get back to work at some point. Thankfully, Ryan McLaughlin was there to deliver a phenomenal presentation – Custom Marketing Dashboards in Google Sheets – where he took us all back to school about our reporting.

John Gagnon Says Arizona State Basketball Fans Are Better At Strategy Than You

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Find success by taking a different approach with your marketing campaigns

It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. This holds truer at no time more than it does when fans at basketball games attempt to distract players on the opposing team while they shoot free throws; many players have learned to tune the fans and the distraction out.

However, Arizona State fans have taken a different approach with their free-throw distraction, called the “Curtain of Distraction”. Each time a player on the opposing team attempts to shoot a free throw, something different pops out from behind the curtain.

Duane Forrester’s Next Gig

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Bing’s loss is someone else’s gain. After coming and going (and coming and going) from Microsoft, Duane Forrester is heading to sunny Malibu to join Bruce Clay, Inc. as VP of Organic Search Operations.

Duane and Bruce go back 18 years, but most recently worked together when they took their show on the road with Marty Weintraub and Maisha Walker for Search + Social. Now they’ll be working together full time and Duane couldn’t be happier.

Seriously. Y’all should’ve seen him grinning.