How Small Professional Service Providers Can Attract More Clients
Direct Answer: Small professional service providers attract more clients by building trust, creating consistent content, improving visibility, and clearly communicating how they solve client problems.
Why Many Small Professional Service Providers Struggle With Marketing
Most small professional service providers are overwhelmed.
They spend their time serving clients, handling operations, answering emails, and managing day-to-day responsibilities. Marketing often becomes an afterthought.
The problem is that even excellent professionals can remain invisible online if they do not actively build credibility and visibility.
Whether you are an attorney, therapist, accountant, consultant, or realtor, the professionals who consistently attract clients usually follow the same core marketing principles.
1. Understand What Your Clients Are Actually Worried About
Stop Talking About Yourself First
One of the biggest mistakes professionals make is focusing their marketing entirely on credentials, awards, or years of experience.
Clients care more about whether you understand their problems.
Instead of saying:
“We are experienced business attorneys.”
Try:
“If your business partnership is becoming stressful or unpredictable, you may need legal guidance before the situation escalates.”
The second message connects emotionally because it reflects the client’s real concerns.
This approach is especially effective for:
Law firm content marketing
Therapist marketing
Consultant branding
Accountant digital marketing
Professional services SEO
2. Build a Website That Creates Trust
Your website is often the first impression potential clients have of your business.
A professional website should:
Load quickly
Be easy to navigate
Clearly explain your services
Include educational content
Answer common questions
Establish credibility
Why SEO Still Matters
Search engine optimization remains essential because people still search for professionals online every day.
However, modern SEO is evolving beyond keywords alone.
Today’s best-performing websites also include:
FAQ content
Blog articles
Videos
Client-focused messaging
AI-search-friendly answers
This helps professional service providers appear in:
Google results
AI search tools
Voice search
Local map listings
3. Use Social Media to Build Familiarity
Consistency Builds Credibility
Many professionals either avoid social media entirely or post inconsistently.
The goal is not becoming an influencer.
The goal is becoming familiar and trustworthy.
Platforms like LinkedIn allow professional service providers to:
Share insights
Answer questions
Demonstrate expertise
Stay visible
Build referral relationships
Even one helpful post per week can compound credibility over time.
4. Relationships Still Drive Professional Services Growth
Referrals and Networking Still Matter
Professional services are built on trust.
That means referrals, networking, and professional relationships remain extremely important.
Strong referral strategies include:
Staying visible to past clients
Building relationships with complementary professionals
Attending industry events
Following up consistently
Sharing educational content others can pass along
The professionals who remain top-of-mind often receive the most referrals.
5. Consider Outsourcing Marketing Strategically
You Do Not Have to Do Everything Yourself
Many professionals delay marketing because they believe they must personally manage every platform and every piece of content.
That often leads to burnout and inconsistency.
Working with a professional marketing agency or content system can help you:
Maintain consistency
Improve SEO
Build authority
Save time
Stay active online
This is especially valuable for busy practices that struggle to create ongoing content.
The Professionals Who Win Online Build Trust First
The future of professional services marketing is not just about visibility.
It is about credibility.
Clients are asking:
Do I trust this person?
Do they understand my problem?
Do they appear established?
Have they answered my questions already?
The professionals who consistently answer those questions online are far more likely to get picked.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best marketing strategy for professional service providers?
Consistent educational content combined with SEO, referrals, and credibility-building usually produces the best long-term results.
How important is social media for small professional businesses?
Social media helps build familiarity and trust, especially when professionals consistently share helpful insights.
Should small professional service providers hire a marketing agency?
If marketing becomes overwhelming or inconsistent, outsourcing can help maintain visibility and free up time for client work.
-
DescriptioAndrew Colsky (00:12)
Welcome to Be Picked, the podcast for small professional service providers who are looking to build and grow their practices. There's a lot of things these days you need to do and a lot of things you need to know about, and we bring you the guests and experts who can tell you the benefits of their knowledge and experience. Today, we have Tom Molesick. He is founder of Easy Marketing and author of the book, They're Looking for You. Tom, welcome to the show.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (00:40)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Andrew.
Andrew Colsky (00:42)
We love talking with people like yourself who are in the trenches doing the work and know all the pitfalls to avoid and the good things to go after. So let me start us off with this. Imagine you are talking to a group of small professional service providers. We've got
lawyers, doctors, dentists, realtors, insurance folks, anyone who does a professional service. And they are telling you, you know, I really need to get more clients, but I don't know how to do it. And I am so busy with all the work that I'm doing for the clients that I have, all
this stuff that I hear about, I got to do a million different things. I don't have any time to do that. So what
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (01:30)
Right.
Andrew Colsky (01:32)
do I do? Where do I start? What should I be thinking about? Give me a roadmap.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (01:36)
Yeah, so I think for in the professional services industry, this is the easiest conversation ever because the stuff they do for their clients, they do because that the client, their client doesn't have that expertise or the time to do it. So, you know, the quick and dirty answer is, well, don't do it. Hire somebody that does it for you.
It's rare that in that professional services, lawyers, accountants, they don't have the time or the desire. Let's go with that. They're not marketers as a general rule. So it's really easy to outsource that to a digital marketing
agency that can really help you grow the business and you just field the leads. As long as you can do that part, the marketing agency can easily take that over.
Andrew Colsky (02:22)
Okay, Excuse me. So what does that mean in reality? What types of things would a marketing agency do because you know if I'm
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (02:32)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (02:32)
an attorney I'm concerned about the message that's being put out number one because It's gonna be my credibility and number two. I don't want to put anything out that's gonna violate legal ethics or anything So how do I
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (02:43)
Yeah, exactly.
Andrew Colsky (02:44)
deal with that stuff?
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (02:46)
Yeah, well, make sure your agency understands the topic that you talk about or has at least done a couple other lawyers and certainly look at...
look at their work. For us, the starting point is to look at what you have right now and say what's good about it, what's bad about it, and where will we make those improvements. And the first place we look at is your website. And to be honest, Andrew, it's hardly ever good. You take a look at somebody's website and there's probably 30 things, then in two minutes I can tell you, should fix these things. We can certainly talk about what those things are. But you start there.
And then and then we would do some kind of SEO Google Ads analysis to say what's next, right? So do people actually find you on Google? What keywords are you ranking on? What aren't you ranking on and why and generally we can look at your website and tell you why
Andrew Colsky (03:42)
So, okay, then why don't we actually start with that? If I am getting ready to open a practice and I want to build a proper website from scratch, I don't have one yet, haven't done word number one, what do I need to be thinking about if I'm gonna do it the right way?
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (04:02)
Yeah, the first thing you need to think about is what's the problem you solve? So who do you help and what's their challenge? Like why are they coming to you?
And we always start there because if you read most law firms, gosh, their website's horrible, right? It starts with, here at Molesik Smith and Asbury, we're experts in personal injury law and we can show you all these cases of what we've done and we're just amazing and you should hire us, right? That's what they do.
Andrew Colsky (04:40)
Well, what's wrong with that? makes total sense, of course.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (04:43)
Right and people think what's wrong with that? You said my company name like seven times on the home page and You just said what everybody else says, you know, we're good at our jobs. Let's hope so, right? Or my favorite is We value customer service
Andrew Colsky (04:59)
You
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (05:00)
Okay, we were setting the bar really low right but it's not about that. It's about telling the story of The of why I might have been coming here
Right? So I'd start with, you know, if you've been injured in a traffic accident and you have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? We want to move into what...
What's the problem that they have? What's their fear, frustrations, concerns on what's going on in their life? And then you can say how we help them with that. But you can't say that until you can get it in their head. And you need to know your customer well enough to be able to be in their head.
Right? And that's the kind of copy we write. So we're going to talk to you and better understand it. We're going to look at, what do we think people's fears and frustrations? And we write it up and the customer says, my gosh, yeah, that's us. That's exactly what we do. We're like, yeah, that's right. And that's what the customer says when they get there. If the customer doesn't read themselves in that opening paragraph, they're moving on. Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (06:07)
Right, wow, okay,
so let me see if I'm getting this right then. So I am getting ready to open my practice. I know I need a website. I go and I have somebody design a website for me and I put in all this stuff showing that I understand what the concerns are that my ideal client has. And I put it all up and I make it look really, really pretty and I launch it, I'm done, right? People are just gonna forever more come into my door.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (06:36)
yeah. I wish
the movie Field of Dreams was actually like a reality. Like, it's not if you build it, they will come. Right now, we've got to put the work into that they will come. Right?
Andrew Colsky (06:48)
But wait a
minute, Tom, you just told me I needed to put all this stuff in. I put it in.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (06:53)
Right you have to have a starting point. So I think of it like um so when you were dating and I don't know about you but my buddy Mike and I we'd go to this bar on a regular basis to try to meet women we weren't that good at the meeting part but
Andrew Colsky (07:07)
You
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (07:08)
so we would go and if if Mike and I just um we were just done
We mowed the lawn and then we played a Church League softball game and we're kind of dirty and we smell bad and our hair's a mess. And then we show up. Is anyone wanna talk to us? No, we're the stinky guy, right? That's not good, right? So the website has to look good. And then let's say we look good, right? I got a nice polo shirt on, I took a shower, I put cologne on. I'm looking pretty good at the bar. And then if when I open my mouth, I'm an absolute jerk.
That's the copy, right? Do I sound good? Those two things have to be true. But then we have to actually show up where we think we can find somebody to date. Right? So that's the Google piece of it, right? I gotta show up on Google and I have to be at the top of that list. So whether I pay to be the top, or I pay in the map pack, or I'm good at ranking naturally in the map pack, or I'm right below it, right? Those are our options. Now, we've got ChatGPT and all the other...
AI models that we need to show up into. But those
Andrew Colsky (08:17)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (08:18)
are our easiest ways because that's where people are actively looking for us compared to everything else is we're looking for them. If I run a Facebook ad, I run a LinkedIn ad, I do email marketing, everything else is I'm actively looking for my customer versus the customer's looking for me.
So these small businesses, they don't have a lot of cash, right?
Andrew Colsky (08:40)
Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (08:41)
So you got to do the stuff that has the quickest ROI for the least amount of money, which is all the they're looking for you stuff, right? So that's where I start every time.
Andrew Colsky (08:49)
Right.
okay. So, let me try this again. I build a website. I make it look professional. I address the type of client that I have and that I expect. I understand I got to show up on Google. Lucky for me, somehow or other I got on this email distribution list.
And I got hundreds of people emailing me how they're going to give me first page ranking SEO on Google. Just give
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (09:24)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (09:24)
them some money and magically I'm going to be there. So
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (09:27)
Right.
Andrew Colsky (09:28)
I'm supposed to hire one of these people, magically show up
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (09:30)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (09:31)
on Google, and then I'm set, right?
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (09:34)
Then you got to feel the leads. You got to track, measure, and feel the leads, right?
Andrew Colsky (09:40)
So now there's more work for me.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (09:43)
is not the part of running your business.
Andrew Colsky (09:46)
Yeah, but I don't have time
for that. I gotta do the business.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (09:50)
If you don't have time to answer the phone or respond to a form, shouldn't be in business.
Andrew Colsky (09:58)
Okay, so now now I got to actually be present when they call me so and it's and I have to tell you it's
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (10:03)
It'd be great. Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (10:07)
amazing I I recently was trying to reach out to several attorneys for an issue that I wanted to discuss with them and I
must called probably 10 different offices. I was actually trying to, because I'm interning myself, was trying to refer a case over. I must have called 10 different practices. Nobody answered the phone. If the phone got answered, it was from a phone operator system who knew nothing about anything.
They took messages or I left a message. Nobody calls you back. It's amazing to
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (10:54)
It is. So it makes it so much easier for people who can run a good clean business when the bar is so low.
Andrew Colsky (11:04)
Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (11:05)
Like, you know, hey, try to, that's attorneys, try to go by a fence.
Like no one's calling you back, right? So if you can get your client to do foundational fundamentals of what a good business is, even better. I didn't tell you this at beginning. I'm also a certified EOS implementer. So EOS is the entrepreneurial operating system. It's based on the book Traction by Gina Wickman. And it's all about how do you run a better business, right? So, you know, one of the components of a good business is you have a good sales and marketing.
area of your business, right? Every business has to have sales and marketing. Every business has to have operations, which is what you're talking about now, right? How do you answer the phone? Right?
Andrew Colsky (11:47)
Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (11:48)
How do you do good at your job? How are you a good attorney? Right? That's the I'm good at the work and you have to be able to build and collect money, right? That's finance. And then
if it's beyond just you as a solopreneur, right? Now you have to have some kind of HR, right? How do we manage people? How do we hire people? Those are the big pillars of running a good business.
Andrew Colsky (12:08)
Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (12:09)
So, look, being a small business owner is hard because you have to be good at more than the skill set that you're good at. You could be a great attorney. It doesn't make you a great business owner. Maybe you should go work for someone else.
Andrew Colsky (12:22)
Great.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (12:22)
But being a business owner is something completely different. You got to be better than just the job. I started as a web developer. I rapidly figured out that I couldn't build websites and sell websites at the same time and invoice for websites. So I hired employee number one. His name was Fred. Fred and I shared a desk and a computer because I was too poor in 1997 that I couldn't buy him a computer. So I
Andrew Colsky (12:48)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (12:49)
was out selling. Fred was sitting in my desk programming.
It just grows, you know, it grows from there. Now we have 25 employees all across the country working for us. And I'm not the doer of the work. So that small business has to, you have to transition from being the doer of the work to being the leader of the company.
Andrew Colsky (13:08)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (13:09)
doesn't mean you still don't understand law and you still don't understand customer service, you just gotta understand it all. So that
Andrew Colsky (13:13)
Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (13:13)
you can be the person that runs the show.
Andrew Colsky (13:17)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (13:17)
Or you can pay somebody to run the show and you can just be the person that's out there thinking of new cool ideas, right?
Andrew Colsky (13:23)
Right,
Well, so, so, but, you know, practical boots on the ground. I am starting my business. I realize now that I need to be doing these things. I also realize I don't have the time or the knowledge
to do them correctly. I could drop everything and go take a course in LinkedIn and take a course in YouTube and take a course in all these things, of course.
By the I learn that it's all changed again because it changes so quickly.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (13:54)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (13:55)
So I make a decision. say, you know what? I heard this guy, Tom, from Easy Marketing talking. It seems like he does this type of stuff. Let me give him a call. Let me hire him. So I call you up. You answer the phone, of course, and I hire you.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (14:10)
Yep.
Andrew Colsky (14:11)
Now, then I'm saying, OK, so I get a plan from you as to what you're going to do for me and what it's going to cost.
Now, how does that work? In other words, what are you going to do for me and how do I know if you're putting something out there on LinkedIn or you're putting something out how do I know that it's me? Like that I can trust it, that I can be comfortable with it.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (14:37)
Yeah, so then it it comes out of tracking
So we have a dashboard that we give every client that tracks every phone call that comes in and every form fill that comes in so that you can go back and look at all the data, make sure you didn't miss anything. And then we give you a dedicated marketing consultant that reviews that with you and talks about the results, right? Because marketing is only as good as the leads that it's generating. So everything can look amazing. Hey, I'm happy with the blogs you're doing. I love this. I love that. But if it doesn't turn into a result, then it's not good marketing.
So.
Andrew Colsky (15:13)
So from your side, now I want to kind of get a look at how the sausage is made for a second. So you get me as a client, and I am a, I'm trying to think of a professional service provider. I, how about, I'm a real estate agent, and I'm trying to attract clients, and I know that I want to give them information that is going to be helpful, like,
How far in advance should I plan to get a storage facility if I move out of my house and I don't have a new place yet? Or any of the common questions people may have. Where
do you get the ideas from or do I have to give them to you? And where do you get the content from to address those things or do I have to give it to you? Like how involved do I need
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (16:06)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (16:06)
to be?
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (16:07)
Every agency works very differently. We don't want you to do anything. So we might come up with a list of these common questions. If there's something you run into all the time, by all means, we want you to give it to us. But we
Andrew Colsky (16:20)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (16:21)
don't expect that. We assume that our clients are not marketers. If they were, they wouldn't need me.
Andrew Colsky (16:27)
Yeah
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (16:27)
So we're going to generate that list for you. And we're going to write all the content. it doesn't, that's what my team does. So they're experts in being experts
and lots of things and you just need to be good enough, you need enough knowledge to write the content.
And, you know, years ago, we did was we went to Google and we'd read 10 articles on that exact topic of how long ahead do I need to have a storage facility? What types of storage facilities? What am I looking at? Are the indoor temperature controlled? Are you going to come up and pack my stuff? Or am I just going to like a outdoor crappy storage facility? I'm going to pay 40 bucks a month for it. Like, you're right. We could have all those choices of storage facilities. But now what we do is we use AI, right? So AI assists us writing it. Our writers are
now editors and make sure that those keywords are in it that we're trying to rank for. Because at the end of the day, I'm writing that article more for the person, but I'm really writing for Google.
Andrew Colsky (17:24)
Right, right, okay, so you're referencing what we hear as SEO, right?
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (17:30)
Correct.
Andrew Colsky (17:31)
Okay, so.
Tell me, as you draft this content for me, your client, and you are looking for the SEO terms and doing all the things you just said, what, if anything, do I need to be thinking about differently today with AI is one question. And the second question
is,
How does that interplay or does it with any sort
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (18:04)
or anything.
Andrew Colsky (18:06)
of Google Ads or any other things that are out
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (18:10)
Got it. So let's start with question number one is about how do I get it to rank on Google? Rephrase that question for me. What am I doing or?
Andrew Colsky (18:21)
Well, so, so is there
a difference between what I would do for traditional SEO versus now with AI search? Do
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (18:31)
AI.
Andrew Colsky (18:31)
I need to be doing something different?
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (18:33)
Got it. So it's very similar. The difference, so here's the similar. The similar is Google likes to read content and AI likes to read content. And where does AI read the content? On your website, right? So your website and having content on your website is absolutely the number one thing. Okay. Now the difference is AI wants to read questions.
so that it gives answers to it. That's why when you go to Google and you type in something, it does the AI thing at first now, which is amazing, but it also has now reduced the clicks to your website because Google's answered it in its little AI thing at the top. So what we need to get mentioned on in the AI models is based on questions. So the content in your website, instead of just having a statement in the heading, know sometimes you'll have like
big print on your website and then, you know, in other words, category topic description. Now that category topic is now in the form of a question, right? So it's now a jeopardy, right?
Andrew Colsky (19:42)
Yeah
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (19:44)
Can you phrase that in a question, Alex? So that's helping. So we're doing that. We're seeing a lot more FAQs within the page content than ever before. And you're going to see that because of AI.
But it's all the same, the more content the better, right? That's probably the number one complaint of small business owners. Tom, that's way too much copy on the homepage. Okay, you'll get over it. Like, I need the content for Google. So, yeah.
Andrew Colsky (20:09)
Yeah.
Wow. OK. So then question
two was, if at all, how does all that play into this concept of Google Ads and other types of things that I need to do? Or do I need to
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (20:25)
Yeah.
You only need to do whatever takes the energy to generate the leads that you want. Let's start with that. That's the baseline as to what you need to do is the... I'm gonna go with the teenage answer, which is I need to do the very minimum to get what I want, right? I don't want
Andrew Colsky (20:44)
Right. Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (20:45)
to study an extra 15 minutes if I didn't need to, Dad, right? Like that's the answer. I don't need to spend one more dollar on marketing that I don't need to, right? If spending...
$2,500 a month is getting me the number of leads and the number of sales that I want for my business at this point in time that that's what you need to spend. But if that doesn't generate enough, do we need to spend more money at? Do we need to switch tactics? Right? So Google Ads doesn't have a...
doesn't have the direct correlation to natural rankings or AI. Like that's not a factor. But all the other content that you produce on social media does, right? Because again, AI is reading stuff about you, right?
Andrew Colsky (21:25)
Right, okay.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (21:26)
Me being on this podcast helps my AI.
Because it's gonna see the YouTube video, it's gonna see both of our social posts, and it's gonna say, Tom's an expert in marketing, in websites, in SEO. And that's a benefit to me and to you from an AI ranking, which is why people do podcasts, it's why people write blogs, it's why people submit
answers to articles. All those things add to your credibility and position you as the authority.
Which is in the professional services world is what we're trying to do. We're trying to position Andrew as the authority on this specific topic.
Andrew Colsky (22:10)
Right, right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (22:10)
And the
more we do around that, heck, let's do AI cloned videos, right? I mean, I think you do that, Like you have, we have other versions of Andrew that aren't Andrew and we type and make Andrew say whatever we want. And now we have all these video content. It's amazing, right? We're doing it for accountants. Like, you know, it's brilliant. Like, right? Cause accountants, they, like, they don't want to be in front of the camera. They like they're accountants.
Andrew Colsky (22:34)
Right. Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (22:35)
Every now and you'll get a charismatic accountant, but for the most part, they don't pick the peep, you know.
They're picking a data profession for reason. That's what the stuff they like. Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (22:43)
Right, It's,
you know, how many times have we said and we have we have we heard other people say, if I could only clone myself, I could get so much more done. And now here we are in 2026. Basically, yeah, you can clone yourself and yeah, you
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (22:59)
You can't.
Andrew Colsky (23:00)
can get more.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (23:01)
That's right. Right. Well,
Andrew Colsky (23:03)
So.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (23:03)
now every every person has their own personal assistant. It's called ChatGPT. Right. Like
Andrew Colsky (23:07)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (23:09)
that's your new personal assistant. And if you want to do video production, you never need to be in a production studio again.
We can just get video that you shoot for five minutes off your iPhone and I use that as a base video and I create endless videos of you in different clothes, different positions, different in a boardroom, not in a boardroom, sitting on a couch like I don't care, I put you anywhere I want you to be.
Andrew Colsky (23:30)
Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (23:30)
Make you say whatever I want. Sounds like you, it looks like you and today it's really good. Two years ago it looked like you, it sounded like you, but your mouth didn't always sync up and you didn't move right. But now it's amazing.
Andrew Colsky (23:41)
Right. Yeah,
yeah. So, you know, and this this gets into really the heart of even why this podcast is called Be Picked, because it's so important that people understand that there's two things at play here. Number one, you got to be found. So people have to find your website. They have to find your content. They have to find that you exist when they're looking for that type of a.
solution to whatever their problem may be. But just because they find you, they're also going to find a hundred other people that do what you do. So how
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (24:19)
That's right.
Andrew Colsky (24:19)
do you move from being someone who was found to being someone who was picked? What are
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (24:24)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (24:25)
the most important strategies that you use?
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (24:28)
It's a lot of credibility building. So I loved your concept in the video
on your home page that says they want to feel safe. And
Andrew Colsky (24:40)
Yeah.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (24:40)
that is it. They want to feel taken care of, which is safe.
So anything you can do to add to that position, the better, right? Video to me is the number one way to do that. So in other words, if I can watch you on the screen, then I start to get like, who's your personality? Am I gonna mesh with you? Is this gonna be a good fit for me? Do I feel safe? And then when you show up for that first meeting, this first sales meeting essentially, here's what they say to me, Tom, I feel like I've known you for years.
Why is that? I watch your videos. Like I feel like I know you. So step number one is to get them to feel like they know you and video is the only way to really do that. You could do testimonials which helps with credibility. You can do, you know, Google reviews, right? You know, we don't want to hire Laura that has a 2.5 rating on Google, right? It better be 4.8 or better. I don't want it to be 5 because that looks fake. You have to make somebody mad at some point in time.
Andrew Colsky (25:43)
Hahaha.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (25:44)
So yeah, it's getting that credibility and getting that comfort and getting that messaging that makes them feel like you're going to take care of them. Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (25:54)
Right, right. And you know, it's
funny and, you know, if I'm speaking live to an audience, you know, I can go on my computer live and just pull up a bunch of stuff so they can see. I'm not making this stuff up. We're doing it live. Here's something I did that I really find to be very
When I'm talking to people and I say, create a YouTube channel and start putting out content that addresses the problems that people are trying to get solved and showing that you can help them to solve those problems, which brings them to that comfort that they're seeking. But I say, you'd be surprised. People think, there's already so many people after doing this. especially professional service providers, you typically serve people.
in a certain geographic range. So if you're an attorney in Miami, Florida, you're probably not doing too much in Jacksonville or in California, right? Because you're
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (26:54)
You got it.
Andrew Colsky (26:55)
in Florida and in a very... So when you go in and you go to YouTube and you search accident attorney Miami, Florida motorcycle accidents, whatever, you try to figure out someone for you. Either nothing comes up,
Or I did one where, I forget if it was a divorce or whatever it was that I was looking for, one video showed up of a guy who clearly just stood in front of his house and held up his phone and he did like this 20 second video. It would not win any awards.
It
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (27:30)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (27:33)
would not rank high anywhere, but you know what? He showed up. He was there. He's the only one. So
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (27:40)
Right?
Andrew Colsky (27:40)
if I'm looking for someone, I can't find anyone.
At least he's there. So, you know, the point is, if you start doing what we're talking about, it's not so hard. And, you know, the other thing we, you know, here we are doing a podcast. You can be on podcasts. Both you and I have written books. You, I mentioned your book. It's they're looking for you. Do you have a copy of that by any chance? Just show me what it looks like.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (28:06)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so here's a copy of
Andrew Colsky (28:10)
Excellent.
And it walks them through all the things we're talking about here and more, I'm sure, right? Excellent.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (28:16)
Correct. I'm going
to walk you through what's a great website and why, what's great SEO, what's good Google Ads.
Andrew Colsky (28:24)
Great, great. And then because it's a perfect opportunity for me to shamelessly plug my new book, my book is called Left of Trust. It is available for pre-order now on Amazon. It's coming out officially in September of this year. But what I go into there is I go into the psychology behind the whole message that I give, which is what we're talking about now, which is you gotta be trusted before people are going to call you and wanna hire you. But as soon as you are the trusted one,
it's already a foregone conclusion. They've hired you before they called you.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (28:58)
Thanks
Andrew Colsky (28:59)
you know, learning how to do that, which some of that is all the things that Tom and I are talking about right now. So, you know.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (29:06)
That's right. Yeah,
if they trust you before they pick up the phone or before they fill out that form, so you have a higher percent that they're gonna buy from you instead of buying from somebody else. Right?
Andrew Colsky (29:16)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (29:17)
You know, if they think that you're the kind of person that can help them, then they want you. Sometimes they'll say to me, gosh, Tom, I so wanna hire you, I just can't afford it.
Right, so there's always that. You know, a lot of startup businesses, they're not spending 10, $15,000 on a website. They need to start someplace. And a lot of times that might be they do it themselves, or there's a high school kid, or community college, or something that needs a test project. But yeah, you gotta start someplace. You know, sometimes I think small business owners just get paralyzed and do nothing.
Like doing something is better than doing nothing. So
Andrew Colsky (29:53)
Well, that's generally what happens. Yeah.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (29:56)
just do something somebody will say Tom What's the best marketing that you can do? The one you'll do right like like start someplace and then you get momentum, right? It's pushing that boulder up a hill like once it's moving it's
Which is also the opposite. Like if you have a bunch of business and leads coming in and then you say, look, too much, stop, stop, stop. You've literally stopped the boulder and it's gonna take so much more effort to get it moving.
So like once you get marketing moving,
Andrew Colsky (30:23)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (30:24)
don't stop. Like find something to do with those extra leads. I don't care, sell them to a friend of yours. Like do something with them, but don't stop marketing. It's gonna hurt you in the long run.
Andrew Colsky (30:31)
Right, yeah. And
I mean, you're so on the mark there about, I think people become paralyzed because, well, I don't know where to start, I don't know what to do. And then they get caught up in this trap. And this is, you know, my background being both an attorney and a mental health professional with the mental health clients, which many of them are attorneys. Here's an issue that comes up all the time and it's relevant to this. They're like, well, but.
Want to do this, but I don't know the right way I can't figure out the best way but as soon as I know the best way then I'm gonna be doing it but for three four five ten years now I'm still trying to figure out the best way and I have to get the point across to them Forget about that. There is no such thing as the best way There is no such thing as perfection and I always have them change what they're thinking You're not looking for the best way you're looking for a good way because there's
10, 15, 10,000, 15,000 good ways. So pick one because there is no such thing as the perfect, the best way that just gets you stuck and you do nothing, which is the worst way for sure.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (31:45)
The worst way, yeah. Right,
like, let's just take your book. You could have said, listen, I'm not ready to write the book, because you know, I gotta work on the outline. And I can't work on the outline because I need to do whatever it is.
We just need to take one step forward over and over again. And in marketing, we just need to make the website a little better, a little better, more content, more content, get Google like you. It's a journey, not a destination, and there's never perfection. Never. Which is the greatest thing about marketing, it is always an experiment. Because what worked last year on Google, it doesn't work this year on Google. So there's no perfection, ever.
You know, but we used to have, we used to do like those little slider picture shows, right, on the hero image up, you know, on the homepage. We don't do that anymore, right? No one waits. We used to think, oh, people watch it. And I think people probably did watch it before, but now we're exponentially more impatient than we were five years ago. We're not watching it. Right? So
Andrew Colsky (32:46)
Right,
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (32:48)
stop doing that.
Andrew Colsky (32:49)
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It's, know, but the one thing with all the technology changes, with all the updates to the Google algorithm, with all the changes that AI is making, all these, there is one thing that stays constant.
And this is what I talk about in my book. The one thing that stays constant is if you're a professional service provider, clients come to you because they have a
Problem that is causing them some sort of pain could be a pain in the wallet could be a pain in their tooth But they're they have some sort of pain and they are coming to you because they want to achieve comfort period That is the root of every single interaction with any sort of you know professional
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (33:35)
Yes.
Andrew Colsky (33:36)
service provider and If you want to argue with me about that if you're a listener you want to argue come on the show Let's argue about it. You will lose Guarantee you will lose
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (33:44)
Yeah, you're gonna lose.
So here's the thing, this always blows my mind, is people think marketing has really changed and evolved. It hasn't. What you just said is true today, was true five years ago, 10 years ago, and 200 years ago. It's always the same.
It's a business solves a problem for the person and the better you can articulate the problem that they have and make them feel that comfortable, like you're gonna be the one to help them, that's the person who gets the business. And you have to be out there with your message promoting it. No one wants to be the best kept secret.
Andrew Colsky (34:23)
Right.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (34:24)
That just means you suck at marketing. That's what the definition of the best kept secret is.
Andrew Colsky (34:28)
Hahaha
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (34:30)
Like, let's not do that. Be better. Be better at marketing. Be willing to put yourself out there. Right?
Andrew Colsky (34:37)
Yep. Yep.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (34:38)
I think it's easier today. I mean, there's more noise. But it's easier than ever to have a website and to rank on Google. It just is.
Andrew Colsky (34:44)
Yeah, look,
anyone out there that has a successful YouTube channel, a successful website, a successful business, they all started at some point from zero. Every one of them.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (34:56)
Hmm? Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (34:59)
So something made them get
to where they are. And probably part of their formula, no, I'm sorry, guaranteed part of their formula was persistence and doing it, not thinking about it.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (35:12)
Yes! Yes!
Yes. Yeah, you just have to do it, right? Nike has the answer. Just do it.
Andrew Colsky (35:19)
There you go.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (35:20)
You know? Good ol' Phil Knight. Like, it's... If you do
Andrew Colsky (35:24)
Well.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (35:24)
nothing, you get nothing, right? It's...
Andrew Colsky (35:26)
Yes, exactly, exactly.
So unfortunately, I hate to say it, but we are out of time. So let me ask you, number one, can you share with the audience if they wanted to get your book, if they want to get in touch with you, how do they find you? Let's start with that, and then I have a follow-up question.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (35:47)
Okay, so go to EZMarketing.com. It's the letter E, the letter Z, Marketing.com. Or you could just type my name into AI or Google. It's Tom Malesik. It's M-A-L-E-S-I-C. And trust me, you will find so much stuff on me and videos and our website. So that's you can reach me. You can just type in on Amazon, buy my book right there. It's available on Spotify.
Andrew Colsky (36:12)
Great, okay.
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (36:12)
Yeah, I'm super
easy to find. There is only one other Tomalessick and you won't be confused by what you find me or him.
Andrew Colsky (36:20)
Great, great. And my final question for you, and no pressure, but you're on video, this will be on YouTube, it will be forever out there, what is the number one best words of wisdom that Tom Molesik has for a small professional service provider who wants to get started?
Tom Malesic, EZMarketing (36:39)
Never stop marketing. Just continue to market. You know, one step at a time is really how it works. You have start someplace. So just get started and stay with it. Don't quit. So it's that persistency thing that you talked about.
Andrew Colsky (36:54)
Yep, yep.
Well, thank you so much, Tom, for joining us and sharing all this wisdom with our audience. I encourage you all to check out Tom's website, check out his book. This is what he spends his time doing. This is what I spend my time doing. We could do other things, but this is what we chose to do. And so we try to be as best at it as we can be.
Thank you for joining us here on the Be Picked podcast. To find this episode and all of our other episodes and related materials, you can always go to our website www.bepicked.com and you'll find everything you need to know and more. And we look forward to seeing you each week on another episode of Be Picked.