An Ideal Location Independent Business Model: Reputation Management with Craig Muthard

Eric Dingler: So what was the one thing I started to sell that made our entire location independent lifestyle possible. Well, my friends, it’s a sas, but I don’t mean software as a service now, instead of explaining what I do me here in a few minutes, I’m gonna let my friend Craig, do that. He is here to help us explore the review pro system, and I’m really excited to unpack that with him in just a few minutes. But before we get to that

Eric Dingler: welcome to the digital nomad entrepreneur podcast everyone, my name is Eric and I am a full time traveling, digital nomad, getting to explore the world with my wife and our children, and I just wanted to say that because of review lead.

Eric Dingler: I have been able to run my business from countries in the last years and months, and we have no signs of slowing down as a family anytime soon. So if you are looking to get started as a digital nomad, or if you’re out there and and struggling a little bit, and and wanting to add some revenue or a really great product to your service lineup. Then you are in the right place. and with that let’s get right into it and say hello to Craig Craig. Welcome to the digital nomad, entrepreneur, podcast.

Craig Muthard: Hey, Eric, great to be here and thank you for having me.

Craig Muthard: Yeah, I’ve missed seeing you every week. We used to get to hang out every week in a Zoom Meeting every week. Yeah, we miss you. Yeah, but sounds like you’re doing great things. And this is an awesome podcast

Eric Dingler: well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So yeah, so you are with agency coach. And I was with agency coach getting coaching for just a little over a year. And one of the things that you guys do besides coaching for digital marketing agencies and actually gonna have Mike and Craig on in a in a upcoming Mike and Aj on in an upcoming episode. But today we’re gonna talk about review, lead and review pro launch pad?

Eric Dingler: So I’m excited about it. So why don’t we just go ahead and get started with?

Eric Dingler: Could you kind of. Just take the podcast over here and and give us an overview of of what review pro launch, pad is, and what review lead is

Craig Muthard: absolutely happy to so little back story Mike and Aj. That Eric just mentioned. Founded agency coach back in and we introduced the review pro launch pad course in late early .

Craig Muthard: We’ve been using it ever since, and we have roughly , users on the platform that have gone through this course over the years.

Craig Muthard: The review pro launch pad, and if you hear me abbreviate that into Rpl. You know what I’m talking about, because I may just slip into that that on you.

Craig Muthard: The review pro launchpad course is designed for audiences.

Craig Muthard: The person who’s looking to get into offering digital marketing services, either as a side hustle or the person who already has an agency and is looking to add a new service to their offering.

Craig Muthard: When we first started it, it was primarily aimed at people who were looking to

Craig Muthard: just make some side income and offer and and solution. In the concept of reputation management for local businesses was really untouched territory. And I still think it’s very underserved today. We have a lot of agencies that sell websites and and local SEO and those sorts of things. But reputation, management and review generation. Is still a niche that a lot of agencies aren’t exploring.

Craig Muthard: and the best part about it is, you don’t have to be an expert in digital marketing to talk to people about reviews.

Craig Muthard: Every business owner knows they’re important, and all of us use reviews in our daily lives. So it’s really a great service. To talk about and just to differentiate the . So review pro launch pad is a course that we offer.

Craig Muthard: It is a top to bottom nuts and bolts.

Craig Muthard: prospecting tools, proposals, technical support, and a weekly live coaching call that I host with members of our community.

Craig Muthard: That teaches you how to sell the review lead service.

Craig Muthard: Eric touched on it a little bit at the beginning of the podcast, so it’s it’s sass. But by a different name.

Craig Muthard: The reason we we call it that is, there’s a lot of review and reputation software solutions on the market.

Craig Muthard: But they’re just that. They’re software and they require the business owner to manage them or to do something.

Craig Muthard: Review lead is positioned as a done for you service, meaning we as the agency

Craig Muthard: alls we need from our clients are names emails and phone numbers, and we handle the rest.

Craig Muthard: So the beauty is is, it gives the business owner time

Craig Muthard: that they could use to be doing things to grow their business, not spending time managing reviews.

Eric Dingler: Yeah. And IA couple of months ago. I would I had the TV on the background, and I think I can say it. I don’t think I’m gonna get in any copyright law problems. But I heard a a commercial for reputation defender

Eric Dingler: and it caught my attention. I listened, and the the next day I heard it again. And it’s a a a service out there for businesses, talking to business owners about doing this exact thing and it and it got me really excited. Because right away, a lot of small businesses are gonna you know, be exposed to that. But they’re not gonna think they can afford something

Eric Dingler: on off of off of TV. But

Eric Dingler: so it’s it’s great. When we come in. Now, even

Eric Dingler: you know, we? I haven’t. I haven’t talked to a business owner and and months that didn’t know what I meant when I said reputation, you know. on my reputation. Things like that like it’s just everybody knows it now, like you said

Eric Dingler: but I thought it was interesting. I don’t see Tvs commercials for SEO services. But now I see TV commercials for reputation services to which to me, just highlights that now the market is is aware they’re they’re out there doing all of this aware, creating all of this awareness.

Eric Dingler: and, like you said, we can step in with a system with with a service that says, yes, we can help you with this, mister, Mrs. Business owner. And it’s not gonna add one more thing to your plate. And

Eric Dingler: the it’s I think it’s really priced at a price level that

Eric Dingler: any small business can afford it.

Craig Muthard: That’s my absolutely, absolutely. And and that’s the key. You know, a lot of times when we’re talking about this product. Sometimes it is with maybe small. You know, Mom and pop type businesses who really haven’t ever thought about marketing in the traditional sense.

Craig Muthard: But once they’re educated on the fact that, you know, I think the latest statistic was % of people are using Google and reading Google reviews before selecting a local business. I mean it. It’s it may as well be every single person.

Craig Muthard: And when the local plumber or the mover or the landscaper understands that their real world reputation is now influenced by their online reviews.

Craig Muthard: That’s something that maybe they didn’t think about in the traditional vein of marketing if you will.

Eric Dingler: Yeah. And this isn’t just a Us. Economy-based thing. This is. This is literally worldwide.

Craig Muthard: Absolutely. We have. We have users all over the world. Using this this service. We have Australia, you know, a lot of Europeans. Some South Americans, you know it. It really can be done anywhere. There’s a Google business listing, which is

Craig Muthard: pretty much everywhere.

Eric Dingler: everywhere, everywhere, absolutely and it doesn’t even have to be Google. I mean, you know, this is the review. You can get reviews for people on any any website that that has reviews. We’ve even. We even had a client. We ran review seats. For them. We did a public one for their public Google business and and Facebook. But then they had.

Eric Dingler: They had about employees, and they had about. They had about

Eric Dingler: , employees turnover every year, and so they were doing a lot of employee recruitment on like, indeed, and glass door, and

Eric Dingler: of course the only people that ever went there to leave a review was ticked off. Employees, or

Eric Dingler: some of them, they swore to me were competitors. So we ran a campaign just for their employees, but not for Google cause that that’d be against Google terms of service. But for last, or indeed and it it significantly improved their whole hiring process. Because now people saw their

Eric Dingler: you know, they’re they’re the company. This company’s profile on there. and they saw a bunch of people. you know, raving and reviewing about. This is a place to work. So there’s a lot of ways to use this

Craig Muthard: absolutely. I mean, I haven’t looked for a job for for many, many years. But when I, when I was looking for a job specifically with agency coach and and our agency anchor wave. One of the first things I did was jumped onto their site and looked at their reviews. Is this a company I want to hitch my wag into.

Craig Muthard: And yeah, thankfully they were, and the rest is history, if you will. But there’s lots of job seekers out there who are making that decision? Not just based on the salary, but on

Craig Muthard: is this a good company?

Eric Dingler: Right? So there’s a just a whole nother way. If you have somebody that’s not a mom. And pop, I mean, this was this was a nonprofit that that ran a facility that they needed a lot of staff and had a lot of staff lot of staff turnover. So we were able to to do that for them. So that was really cool.

Eric Dingler: Now, I can’t say I’m curious to know to see if you have any opinion on this, but as I’ve been traveling you know, I don’t see other people in the places I’ve been

Eric Dingler: selling this you know. I talked to a lot of business owners when I was in Mexico. Nobody we’ve got a we currently got a full time employee on the ground in El Salvador, and we’re starting. We’re we’re getting up to start selling this in El Salvador cause we found literally

Eric Dingler: nobody selling this service in the capital of el Salvador and San Salvador. And we I mean, we have to price it for their market. But we have the. There’s. There’s plenty of margin to to do that within.

Eric Dingler: So I know you said you have people selling this from from all over. But do you get a sense that there’s significant worldwide markets still wide open for this?

Craig Muthard: Absolutely we have probably one of our our fastest growing markets is Australia.

Australia, and New Zealand.

Craig Muthard: Everyone that that comes on board from those markets just crushes it, cause there’s just this vacuum of no one talking about it. and it’s an easy conversation to have, and it’s an underserved niche if you will.

Craig Muthard: Europeans. We got a lot of Europeans. Some South America, but not

Craig Muthard: as many, but sounds like you’re pushing into that. That niche which is great and the beauty is is, you know you can, you know which kind of fits into this whole nomad thing? You can live in these places and sell this thing anywhere.

Craig Muthard: I have a new student that just joined probably , months ago. He’s currently living in Turkey.

Craig Muthard: As a missionary.

Craig Muthard: Nice.

Craig Muthard: He has roots in Omaha, Nebraska. So he is selling review lead

Craig Muthard: businesses in Omaha, Nebraska, from

Turkey.

Eric Dingler: Yeah, this is a great. I’ve shared this with a few missionaries. This is a I think this is a great tech maker type side hustle for missionaries that are that are in organizations are allowed to do this. Yeah, II think it’s a really cool service.

Eric Dingler: You can sell it remotely like for a long like, you know.

Eric Dingler: You, you can have your client base, be wherever you want as you’re traveling. That’s not a problem. But this is unique. In that you can actually be building a a worldwide customer base as you’re traveling.

Eric Dingler: which is really hard to do with web design and digital marketing services. Now, depending on where you are depending on where you are. But those are such a higher price ticket option item like

Eric Dingler: the, it would be hard for us to make the profit margin that I would want to make on digital marketing services in Central and South America.

Eric Dingler: But on review lead, I totally can. And so that’s why we’re going to really push on that.

Eric Dingler: So that’s really kind of cool. Yeah. So hey? Before we get into the the next question here, I just wanted to take a second and remind everybody that I am recording and releasing this episode

Eric Dingler: in the spring of we’ll be right around in in March, as this is coming out, and I’m actually still gonna be in Costa Rica until

Eric Dingler: April of . So if you are. excuse me if you are here in Costa Rica.

Eric Dingler: Hit me up. Let’s get together. Let me buy you a cup of coffee. We can top shop and

Eric Dingler: excuse me. hit me up. We’ll this is the part I’m gonna have to edit out right?

Craig Muthard: No worries.

Eric Dingler: Yeah. I just got something on top of my throat that won’t go away.

Craig Muthard: I just can’t get it there. I think I got it. Okay. I don’t know what that was.

Eric Dingler: Volcano volcano dust. We’re constantly breathing volcano dust here as one.

Eric Dingler: Yeah, it’s not. It’s sounds worse than it is.

Eric Dingler: right? So before I get into my next question here, I just want to take a second and remind everybody that’s listening. So I am recording this while I’m in Costa Rica.

Eric Dingler: we’re gonna be in Costa Rica until April .

Eric Dingler: And so if you are listening to this. and it is before April

Eric Dingler: hit me up, [email protected], and I would love to buy you a cup of coffee, and we can talk shop, get to know each other, talk, digital nomadding, and

Eric Dingler: and all of that fun stuff!

Eric Dingler: After that I will be in Spain. so we’re headed to Spain in April. Do you have anybody in Spain yet? Do you know of Craig.

Craig Muthard: Not that I’m aware of, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there.

Eric Dingler: Oh, there you go! That’s true, that’s true. So that’s very cool.

Eric Dingler: So what is it you think makes review

Eric Dingler: review lead so attractive to the average small business owner.

Craig Muthard: The the beauty of review lead is is in its simplicity and the fact that it’s done for you. So there’s there’s a number of reputation management solutions on the market

Craig Muthard: and where I think we’re unique is that

Craig Muthard: we focus on getting reviews, not just on the places that most do Google, we actually have over different sites that you can connect to, to gather reviews on.

Craig Muthard: which is great for exposure across the web, because the average consumer, I think, looks at anywhere from to sites before making a decision on what local business they’re gonna work with. So having a good spattering of reviews on on Google or Bbb, or maybe even some international review sites. You know, we have the ability to customize some links to places that aren’t, you know, in the traditional vein we have tons of different segments in terms of, you know, automotive industry, the real estate industry, the

Craig Muthard: apartments ecommerce sites are supported in some capacity depending on. If you’ve got someone who’s selling a product. We can actually set up a review site to send someone to an Amazon

Craig Muthard: account and leave a review there which we all know Amazon reviews are important to sellers there. And

Craig Muthard: one of the really great things about this is and I mentioned this earlier.

Craig Muthard: You don’t have to be an expert in digital marketing to understand and explain this thing.

Craig Muthard: One of the things that actually attracted me to coming to work for agency coach and the guys was

Craig Muthard: I spent almost years in the automotive industry, and the automotive industry was quick to understand that reviews were important probably years ago, and I was part of a team that helped implement a review solution for our dealership.

Craig Muthard: So I understood the power of what good reviews could do to a business that let’s face, it is perceived.

Craig Muthard: not all the best in most markets and when I understood that now I can go talk to nonprofits. I can go talk to the local plumber, the local painter. I can go talk to, you know, fortune phone kind of communities

Craig Muthard: and share with them

Craig Muthard: how we can get them more reviews which is going to enhance their overall customer activity.

Because reviews are

Craig Muthard: in our program. We talk about this a lot. We have a what we call a marketing pyramid.

Craig Muthard: and reviews sit at the very foundation of that pyramid because all of your other marketing efforts

Craig Muthard: are going to be either influenced or deterred by your reviews and your reputation. I can run all the best Facebook ads in the world to your business. But if you’re sitting at a . review star on Google.

Eric Dingler: probably not gonna convert

Craig Muthard: So easy to talk about. The best part about this thing is, though it’s so easy to service from the agency owner side.

Craig Muthard: People often ask me, how much time do I need to spend on this thing. And my honest answer is, you know, if you use the proposal that we provide as part of the course, you’re probably gonna spend maybe to min to put the proposal together. And that’s you know, that’s your first time. It’s really quick. It’s fully customized. And there’s essentially slides that you have to put together. We call it the Review Report card.

Craig Muthard: You’re gonna spend maybe min presenting it.

Craig Muthard: Yeah. And most business owners will happily agree to a min meeting. and then on the fulfillment side.

Craig Muthard: you’re going to spend roughly an hour to set this thing up per client

Craig Muthard: one time, just to get all the technical nuts and bolts set up and connect things and and compose and refine the emails.

Craig Muthard: and then maybe min a month per client. Maybe

Craig Muthard: there’s a lot of automation in terms of reporting

Craig Muthard: that take place that you don’t necessarily have to touch, but we still encourage our agency owners to communicate to their clients, you know, regularly, if not monthly, at minimum quarterly.

Craig Muthard: just to see if there’s any adjustments that need to be made.

Craig Muthard: But really low time.

Craig Muthard: investment on that part of the agency owner which makes this super easy to scale.

Eric Dingler: Yeah, it’s so we we we have a full suite of services, you know, in my in my. So for those that don’t know, I own a web design and digital marketing agency, and be like, you know we’ve got every week from building websites reputation management SEO copywriting, you know. Ads, all of that hands down. This is the easiest thing we sell

Eric Dingler: And the biggest thing I saw the biggest benefit for my business that I saw was this became the thing we focused on over trying to sell websites.

Eric Dingler: This got us started so much sooner with a company, and it was a lot easier for them to say yes to.

Eric Dingler: And then, and this is something I learned from you, Craig, and in in the review pro launch pad video training are not not, maybe not that that, but all the training cause.

Eric Dingler: What once somebody buys into this like, there’s a full suite of training. I mean, it’s it’s just packed full of stuff.

And one of the things I learned in there was.

Eric Dingler: you know, that

Eric Dingler: this is this. This gets such a quick result.

Eric Dingler: Literally within, you know, normally, within a week of of starting, but definitely, when you go and do a you know, we go and do a day, follow up meeting after we launch it, and we schedule that.

Eric Dingler: you know in advance. We’re like, okay, we’re gonna turn this, you know, we’re gonna turn this, you know, service on on Monday. Let’s go ahead and schedule a meeting days from there. However, that goes, and we’re able to go into that meeting and say, Hey, look, Mr. Mrs. Business owner. You know we we got you new star reviews, and and look what Craig said. Craig said. This was the best ice cream he’s had, you know, and what. And you read a couple of those things to them, and they’re sitting there going.

Yeah, okay, nice. Oh, this is great. This is wonderful. And then you’re able to say

Eric Dingler: so. Now, I was looking at your website, you know, are you able to pivot to something? And you’ve built trust

Eric Dingler: they. And and they’ve seen that when they give you money

Eric Dingler: you come back to them with results, and it just makes it easier to upsell them into additional services.

Eric Dingler: so my question is with that, though.

Eric Dingler: do you think this has to be sold alongside additional services? Or could this be a standalone thing.

Craig Muthard: This could actually be absolutely be a standalone offering. Now, if you’re going to offer those other things like Eric just said, it’s a great enhancement. But one of our one of our students.

Craig Muthard: who was the first student. We awarded a million dollar agency award to

Craig Muthard: started his business. As he was. He was a legitimate rock star, like a drummer in a band traveling the world, and decided that that lifestyle was no longer attractive, and he decided he wanted to start selling digital marketing services, and he was one of the first buyers of review pro launch pad, and he turned that into a million dollar agency over the course of about and a half years

Craig Muthard: with just him

Craig Muthard: and one full time employee.

Craig Muthard: And he has a part time. Va, so the the amount of resources for the return.

Craig Muthard: Really low. And he’s now, you know, offering local SEO and reviews, but for many, many years just offered reputation management as a standalone offer.

Eric Dingler: and I think it’s worth met. The one thing we haven’t said mentioned yet is, this is a monthly recurring revenue service. This isn’t a so sell it once and done. This is now you can. You can do it annually. You know you can. You can sell this at an annual rate. If you want to, or you can set it up for monthly recurring revenue, and that’s where I’ll it just gets it grows and grows and grows and grows. Now.

Eric Dingler: the first time I sold it I sold my first couple is annual, because that that boost of cash was nice, and I even

Eric Dingler: watching App. I went and watched the the there was a I think you had a webinar or something, and I went and watched it, and I and I had already used a couple of things from agency coach. So I knew your guys stuff was was totally legit, and your training

Eric Dingler: is is the best I’ve seen anywhere. And I went. Yeah, absolutely. And II mean, I tell that to everybody. It’s absolutely phenomenal. That, I think was the Facebook ads, when that II just couldn’t get over how well it was. But anyway,

Eric Dingler: III went out and sold

Eric Dingler: rep review, lead and charge the client for a year, and told them it would take me weeks to get it set up, and it doesn’t take near it doesn’t take that at all, but that’s because then I had to come back to you and and and buy the the the course and and all of that stuff and access and that’s how I funded it. So it worked out well and

Eric Dingler: haven’t looked back since then. So yeah, alright cool. So I’m going to here in just a moment, share how people can and can actually learn more about this and and find out more about the review. The the review, the review pro launch pad.

Eric Dingler: Now, that’s that’s the course. Or is that the webinar

Craig Muthard: the the so the course, that someone can can purchase is called Review Prolaunchpad, and that yep. And so that course consists of

Craig Muthard: There’s a training library with

Craig Muthard: I I’d be I’d be a miss if I’d say there’s probably hundreds of hours of of training.

Craig Muthard: and the beauty of the training is is it’s geared to all of our audiences. So from the very beginning, if you know nothing about anything digital or even, you know, reputation and reviews, we start you from square one. Why, what is this? Who needs it? How do you sell it? How do you find audiences? We give you a white label, email, campaigns and case studies? We teach you how to use the proposal

Craig Muthard: proposal that’s been presented.

Craig Muthard: but probably hundreds of thousands of times. Yeah, by by not only our agency, but members to our community. In fact.

Craig Muthard: about a week ago. As at the time of this recording, I just introduced the review review lead proposal .. So it’s a brand new variation.

Craig Muthard: We reskinned it. We kind of brought it into . We made some tweaks in the way that the story is told in the proposal that helps it resonate with clients even more powerfully.

But it’s still it’s it’s a slide deck. That’s it’s slides.

Craig Muthard: So it it’s beautiful. Because again.

Craig Muthard: a min meeting with a client. Most most people aren’t gonna turn down a min, you know. Request for a meeting. Once you have access to the Review Prolaunch Pad course, which and I mentioned this earlier also includes access to a weekly live coaching call with me.

Craig Muthard: So every Wednesday we get together, we bring in students from throughout the program. We talk about what’s working, what’s not working

technical issues that someone might be having

Craig Muthard: client objections, strategies for lead generation, all of those things every week, and then we record them and they’re posted in the member area as well.

Craig Muthard: You then get access to review lead, which is the service that you’re going to be offering to your clients, and and much like Eric talked about earlier. it gets results really fast.

Craig Muthard: The only thing your client needs to have is a database of their customers. That’s it. If they have customers, and they’re a good business. We can’t. We can’t get good reviews for a bad business. This system and this service will work.

Craig Muthard: and it will work quickly. It’s awesome.

Eric Dingler: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I’m I’m gonna share here in just a minute the link that people can go to to to access, that to to learn more about it and and and access it. But before I do that, do you have any final thoughts or anything you want to share?

Craig Muthard: Yeah, absolutely. So, knowing your audience, Eric, I think you know this is a really great solution to to help people break into

Craig Muthard: offering. You know, some sort of service that generates monthly recurring revenue.

Craig Muthard: They don’t have to be an expert, and it can be done from anywhere in the world, and it doesn’t matter if you’re, you know, just a guy on the street, or you’re running a figure agency.

Craig Muthard: This service will enhance your business. and we take a lot of pride in the way that we interact and coach our students. So you’re not just buying a course and bill and set out on your own. There’s

Craig Muthard: there’s thousands of courses

Craig Muthard: on the Internet. We are agency coach, and we are here to make sure that your business is successful by sharing not only our experience with our own agency that we’ve had since ,, and that still runs today.

Craig Muthard: But through the experience of

Craig Muthard: thousands of students who have gone through this program, who sell this every day, who are supporting their families, who are making, you know, a lives for themselves by selling this thing. And that’s that’s the best part of my job is getting to interact with the people who come into this community

Craig Muthard: and seeing the impact that I have in their lives. And then the impact that they have in the businesses that they serve.

Craig Muthard: So there’s there’s there’s an altruistic aspect of this program that I absolutely love.

Eric Dingler: Well, I tell you something you’re you’re not just a guest that I’ve had come on and and talk about something I saw out there, and if that was me we use this

Eric Dingler: you know we we used it to to grow our business to new heights. It’s it’s what allowed my wife and I to to hit the open road with our kids, and we’re loving it. And it is great and everything inside there. When I first started II was a solo renewer on my own and this helped me grow and start to bring on some team members and stuff like that. And when I got to the point that I was ready to

Eric Dingler: to stop being the one that was, you know, taking that about that hour to set a client a new, you know, a new customer up on this, and then and then the follow ups. I was able to, just you know, I hired a part time person for my team to do it, and I was able to give her access into it. And I said, You know what? Instead of me

Eric Dingler: training you on what I’ve learned. I want you to get the first generation training and I want you to learn what I learned. Because you’re not gonna miss anything that way.

Eric Dingler: And you know she went through that and just immediately was able to start taking care of our clients and onboarding and it was just great. We we absolutely love loved that. So

Eric Dingler: before I shared how people can get access. I just wanna take a second and say, if you’re still listening to this point of the episode, I wanna say, thank you. And I’d love to ask you to do all the nice things. And those nice things are well, leaving a review and a rating. Reviews are everything even for podcasts. And so I really appreciate it. But since I have no way to get your

contact information, I just have to ask you to do this. So it would mean a whole lot to me if you would lead a leave rating and review and let other people know, share the podcast do all the nice things. That would mean a great deal. And so thank you for doing that.

Eric Dingler: And I’m gonna share this week’s leadership tip of the week. But before I do, if you wanna learn more about review pro, and how you get started with this, the in the in the course, and all of that

Eric Dingler: just head to DNE, podcast.com, forward, slash reviewpro, again, that’s DNE, podcast.com forward slash reviewpro. I’ll put a link in the show notes. And this is one of the few things I keep listed at all times