Surviving the Side Hustle

From College Entrepreneur to SEO Expert: Eric Monie's Journey of Mentorship and Building Business Success

• Coach Rob • Season 1 • Episode 80

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Unlock the secrets to skyrocketing your business's online presence with insights from Eric Monies, the mastermind behind Online Biz Builders. Ever wondered how to climb to the top of Google rankings? Eric shares his proven SEO strategies that have catapulted his clients, particularly in the healthcare industry, to success. As CEO, he’s not just an expert in digital marketing but also a mentor, guiding budding entrepreneurs to reach significant financial milestones. Eric's journey from college entrepreneur to sought-after business coach is filled with valuable lessons on personal growth, the power of learning, and the transformative impact of genuine connections.

We also navigate the fascinating intersections of mentorship, motivation, and technology. Reflecting on the teachers who shaped Eric's path—one through doubt and the other through unwavering support—highlights the powerful role mentors play in our professional journeys. As we approach the end of 2024, the excitement is palpable with the rollout of a customized CRM system poised to revolutionize business operations. From the art of networking to the challenges of delegation, this episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to carve out their niche and expand their business horizons. Get ready to take action, build a capable team, and see your entrepreneurial dreams come to life.

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Speaker 1:

What's going on, guys? Today we've got a special guest on the show. We've got Eric Moniz Moniz, money man. Eric. What's up, dude. It's been a little while since we've connected and I'm excited to have you on today.

Speaker 2:

Hey man, and I really appreciate you having me on here. It has been a little while since we connected, but I know you're doing a bunch of great things and we've both been crazy busy building ourselves up, building that in business and in personal life. So it's long overdue that we connected, but happy it's finally happening.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'm excited to kind of hopefully dive into a little bit about what you're sharing. Just before we started recording. I know you got a lot of new adventures and things. You're kind of kicking off new adventures and things that are kicking off. But before we dive into all that, would you mind just giving a brief, quick little introduction who you are, who you help, kind of thing and how'd you get to where you're at?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. I'm Eric Moniz Monet it depends on who I'm talking to. I change it up every now and then and I am the CEO of Online Biz Builders, where we focus on helping local, national, international businesses obtain new clients, primarily through Google. Getting to this point has been definitely interesting a lot of ups and downs and I would say at this point we're actually coming up on our five-year mark, which is crazy to see. I still remember telling people yeah, we're two years old.

Speaker 2:

And now when people ask me how long you've been in business, I'm just like I have to think about it.

Speaker 2:

But time flies when you're having fun or when you're crazy, stressed out one or the other.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, so to start to give you kind of a quick brief overview, started the business in college with my father's IT company. Actually, he has a cybersecurity company been in business for now 27, 28 years and they were looking to get more exposure on Google and first got them ranking in Stanford, then Greenwich, norwalk, darien, then all the way up to, you know, connecticut, so ranking number one in Connecticut as well. And then I also got them to rank number one in Manhattan, but that was just to show off, because they don't even service Manhattan. But at that point I was kind of reflecting back and said, okay, I've got something here, you know, I know I've got a pretty valid and valuable skill. So at that point we just started expanding and started bringing on new clients, started working on getting deeper into SEO, because that is something that is always changing, always growing, and that's just how Google is and there's definitely a lot of ups and downs and lessons I'd love to share that went into all of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, so, um, so where are you at now with your business? You've cause I know you were talking how you just got brought on as a mentor. For one thing, are you working with a lot of local businesses still? Are you connecting with people and companies all over the country and worldwide?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So, regarding OBV online biz builders, I always have to make sure I say that, because I start saying OBV and nobody knows what I'm talking about. So, regarding OBV, we definitely still have a lot of local clients and we are bringing on more local clients, but we're actually aggressively pushing our marketing and focusing them down in the healthcare space. So we've worked with ketamine practices like ketamine therapy for depression and stuff like that, home care, things like that. We've been able to get some fantastic results in those spaces in a ton of other spaces as well, but that's one area that we've seen a lot of people coming on with recently, and outside of that, the mentoring aspect was. I started giving you a little overview of that. It was an interesting story and this is a great piece of advice that leads up into how I got into this.

Speaker 2:

Your biggest investment is going to be yourself. So one of the biggest things that I'm always doing is trying to find how can I get in the room with people who are bigger than I am and who know more than I do and, at the same time, people who are actually genuine about it as well, because you see people selling courses online and they're making their money and they're growing their business by selling you the course, not actually implementing what they're teaching. They're making their money and they're growing their business by selling you the course, not actually implementing what they're teaching. So you know, over the past couple years I couldn't even tell you how much I've spent between courses and masterminds and all kinds of different things. I can tell you it's a lot more than I should have, but I learned from all of it, the good and the bad. But, um, about six months ago I actually joined a program and it was an amazing program.

Speaker 2:

So I started jumping in, getting involved, really started implementing a lot of the things that they were teaching and started helping a lot of people that were coming in that were smaller than I was.

Speaker 2:

So, you know, I came in at the size that I'm at and there's a lot of people that were coming in that were smaller than I was.

Speaker 2:

So, you know, I came in at the size that I'm at and there's a lot of people coming in that were just getting started or only had one or two clients, and a lot of them were. You know, their clients were asking about Google and stuff like that. So, outside of the actual thing that I was in there, for I was jumping on with all the younger people, all the people who were smaller than I was teaching them how to actually operate and implement Google and implement certain strategies and that kind of thing. So when I got almost to the end of the program period that I was in, they actually asked me to come on and start teaching and advise on how to get these people to their first 10K, first 20K months, which has been pretty amazing. Being able to help people in Australia or Europe or India it's all over the world and just helping them make their first dollar online, let alone their first 10,000 or 20,000, has been pretty amazing.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, I know firsthand how rewarding it is to be a coach and a mentor because I've had tons of coaches and mentors over the years. I coach tons of athletes and entrepreneurs past years and for me I know how awesome it feels. And then when you get paid for something that you enjoy doing helping others and grow and build dude it's like you can't lose. It's just like some of the greatest things in the world and, um, it always has me questioning like why aren't people doing more things of what they love to do? Which brings me to my next question for you is how did you, how did you get into online coaching or these other businesses and just this builder um itself? Like what brought you into it? Like when you're from your dad's family, when your family was first starting the thing, like what was what clicked in your head? And you're like you know what? I can help with this yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I was always looking for something different. Um, and you know, in college I didn't realize it was an entrepreneur aspect, but I actually I ran a party house and we got it to a point where it was five, six K a month just from party profits, I mean, and that's that's what we use to then fuel the next party. You know five, 600 people parties, but it wasn't just like a ragtag, you know, open the door and hear people come. I mean, it was like an actual elaborate system. We had security teams. We had, you know, beverage teams.

Speaker 2:

Don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but you know we had beverage teams, we had security teams. We had, you know, entertainment team that handles with djs and all the music and stuff. Um, and one of the funniest parts about it is it wasn't just, you know, this big glorious mansion that you you picture in like movies and stuff. It was this old beat-up house you could punch your whole your hand through the wall and you'd be outside easily. Um, but that that was one of the areas where I was like, okay, this is, this is, you know, end of the night, counting up thousands of dollars. They're all crumpled up and gross, but still thousands of dollars.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but um that was yeah, that was a uh uh one part of it. And then the actual marketing aspect um, I got introduced in a couple of different ways. So one was just starting to do my own research, just starting to look into different various online business opportunities. So I traded Forex, traded crypto not part of like any MLM or anything like that. It was just primarily me, and actually my father introduced me to a lot of that. And then one of the ways so I would say there's two big factors that had me really jump into it One was when my father's company, when they were starting to look into this thing, they were saying this is the kind of thing that they're looking into Like they want SEO, they want to be on top of it. So that's where I started digging further into it. And then, excuse me, actually in school, in college, I did have a couple of courses where they didn't really talk about SEO, but I really started to learn more about different marketing channels and that's where I started to dig into it.

Speaker 2:

And I've actually got an interesting piece from college that I'll always remember and everybody that I tell it to usually finds it pretty interesting. But I had two teachers in college that I will remember for the rest of my life. One of them told me when I showed them what I know how to do because I started to figure out the SEO process in college. So I showed him what I know how to do and I told him I think I'm gonna start a business doing this and he said there's no way you'll be able to do it.

Speaker 2:

And then the other one was actually a teacher that said I see what you're doing, I can see your passion about it and you're really involved in this. If you need to, you can work in the back of class. I'm still going to push you. I'm actually going to push you harder than everybody else, but if you need to, you can take care of whatever you need to in the back of class. And I was just like whoa. So two distinct people that I will remember for the rest of my life Wow.

Speaker 1:

That's pretty awesome, though, because you need that. Sometimes you need one person that'll kind of instill some doubt and kind of motivate you to get some success in spite of them. Then you also have somebody else the mentor there. That's like pulling you or pushing you to make sure that, like, hey, you gotta, yeah, take this. If you want to dive into this, by all means go ahead. You still got to get the stuff done that you need to get done, and I'm going to hold you accountable to it. So I love that. That's great. And two, two great, uh, two great people that you're probably never going to forget. So that's awesome. What I mean? I've been asking a lot of guests lately because we're time of recording. We're getting close to the end of 2024. So perfect time to kind of start thinking ahead to 2025. I know you got a lot of projects and stuff, but what are you most excited for for next year to get into?

Speaker 2:

From a business perspective.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it could be business could be, it could be personal, professional, whichever one you kind of want to dive into. What are you excited for for next year?

Speaker 2:

from a business perspective, the past six months we have been putting so many different pieces in place for growth, like we've got a fully built out CRM. That's pretty amazing. We have a full team, we've got a bunch of new marketing channels that are being launched, tested, and we're I'm not one to say, you know, like new year, new me, new year. Let's do this Like I get started now, but I'm really excited to see everything being fully implemented over the next couple of months into the next year.

Speaker 1:

Nice, you want to share what kind of CRM software you use.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we actually started with a base of one of these softwares and then we've been building it out, so at this point it's pretty customized.

Speaker 2:

We're at a point where we can actually launch and manage full ads campaigns inside of the CRM, be able to have clients go in and see and review what kind of ads are going out, whether that's in Google or Facebook. We do primarily focus in Google, but sometimes you have certain companies where Facebook is a great add-on. I always prefer Google, though, but yeah, we've been putting a lot of time and a lot of money into it to build it out to be exactly what we were looking for, and I can tell you so our three main services are web design, SEO and Google pay-per-click and, like I said, occasionally, Facebook. The reason I actually brought a CRM into the mix because I really didn't have any plan on that initially is we were onboarding a bunch of new clients, and the amount of people that I talk to that they say oh well, when we get a lead, if we get a lead, it just comes into our email. Well, Rob, how many emails do you get a day?

Speaker 1:

I get a ton.

Speaker 2:

Exactly so if we're putting in all this effort, doing the marketing from SEO or Google Pay-Per-Click, where we're paying for every click, we can't have things falling through the cracks. We need to make sure that everything that's coming in is being accounted for, every dollar is being tracked and we can see what's working and what's not working and cut off what's not working and boost up what is working. So at that point I was like, okay, we need to find a solution for this. So that's when I started running through your typical CRMs and testing them out and finally found one that we were able to heavily modify and then took that one off from there.

Speaker 1:

Nice, nice. Yeah, I just recently started working with the software. Are you familiar with that? I am, yeah. So I just kind of started very early stages of that. I'm still kind of like onboarding, but I'm excited for that too for next year, especially because that's going to help me kind of eliminate a lot of different, different softwares that I kind of been using. So like I currently, at this time I've been using like Calendly for booking for different things, for podcasts or clients, just for catching up and coffee meetings and stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

Um, and then like my crm previously or I guess currently still is um, basically just a, it's like a digital, like rolodex, it's like, but I don't have anything, it's just like linked or anything. I just have people's names like. I don't have their emails. I don't like it's such a mess. So I'm really excited to get things kind of like optimized and cleaned up um, because I know that it's going to be extremely beneficial to my business and just growth and everything as we kind of move into the next year. And, uh, at that point where optimizing a lot of things is really really what's going to help me bring me to the next level. You said that you had teams and stuff like that. What would you say was one of the most beneficial? I guess roles that you've hired or you've started working with that's helped you with your business.

Speaker 2:

That's a little difficult because the way that we have it structured is like our three main services. We have a head of each department, pretty much so we have an SEO specialist, a web design specialist and a PPC specialist, and then we do have a Facebook ads team, but that's still being built out to an extent. It's hard to pick one because typically when we're bringing somebody on, they're moving forward with the whole piece, the whole package, so every aspect plays its own part. So it's hard for me to say like this is the most important, this is the most important. I am definitely getting to a point where, like, an admin assistant would be extremely beneficial, but it's not required yet.

Speaker 1:

Well, so let me ask you then because I still consider coaches and mentors part of my team who has been like your most helpful coach and coach and like what did they teach you? Is it just? Is it just like youtube university? Or how? Where did you get to your leaps and bounds, for all your knowledge for search engine optimization and such?

Speaker 2:

um, so it would be. There would be a mix. A lot of it was youtube university, a lot of his testing. Um, you know, if we're talking about original mentors, my, my father, for bringing me into the space, of course, into the entrepreneur, the real entrepreneur world, not the, the college parties, but, um, I mean from there, definitely a lot of youtube university.

Speaker 2:

From an SEO perspective, I've actually gotten to know some of the top SEO guys in the nation and some of them internationally.

Speaker 2:

I've been flown out to Vegas to speak with some of them Pretty awesome conference out there and just by honestly joining in masterminds that they were hosting, groups they were hosting, so that's where I got super deep into seo. Um, I mean, I've met people like chris palmer, um, craig campbell, which to most people these names don't mean much, but these are, these are some guys that have been at the top of the seo space for years. Um, and you know, I know brian, brian Stewart and some like a lot of these other guys, but again, a lot of them meeting them by just jumping in to any masterminds they might have and going up and saying hello. You know, a lot of people jump into these masterminds and they kind of take a backseat, but like one you're paying to be there to. The only way you're going to get the true value out of it is pushing yourself to the front of the line and kind of making yourself known, because they're dealing with hundreds of people. So get up there and introduce yourself. That's one of the biggest things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and can you talk a little bit about doing that actually, because I know a lot of people. It can be difficult to go into networking events and connecting and finding crowds of people that you really align with with your business. I'm thinking of like, thinking of like a the kind of person who's starting their business but they they are like kind of lacking the direction. They know they need to be talking to more people and they know that they need to get around other people that are positive and building forward, but they might not know where to start. So, like, what do you recommend for people to like kind of get the ball rolling?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so two, two areas to that. Um, your first, that's going to be actually this one wouldn't be the quickest, but this one would be. One of the easiest is going out and finding those networking events. Going out and finding your local chamber, going out and finding other nonprofit events, finding events of like-minded entrepreneurs online. Some way, shape or how you can find them. They're there. You might not think they're there, but they're there. Um, I mean, that's how we came to know each other was from a networking event and through people that we knew mutually. So that's one way.

Speaker 2:

Another way is, if you're really looking to start your business and get everything moving, one of the best things you can do and it's something that definitely held us back for a long time is find a niche that you're comfortable in, that you enjoy, that you enjoy Like, you can talk about it. Maybe you've got some experience in it, you've got a family member in it, something like that. Pick up the phone and start dialing. It sounds crazy and, don't get me wrong, cold calling is awful, but if you want to get everything started as fast as possible, you can literally pick a niche today and start cold calling tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can guarantee you from.

Speaker 2:

I don't even know how many people I've mentored this time, but I've seen a kid who's 20 years old and he came in the program, just started doing 300 cold calls a day and in three months started making 20 grand a month. So just put yourself out there and it sucks at first, feels super awkward at first, but the only way that you're going to get through that is just doing it. You know, one of the worst things it's not the worst thing, I just I want people to push themselves more. But like when you see somebody at an event and they you know they've got all these great aspirations, they've got all these great plans, and then you don't go out for a while and you know it's a year later and you go to talk to them and they're like oh well, I'm still planning it out, I'm still planning it out. You're not going to get anywhere doing that, because next year you're still going to be planning it out. There's no reason, except for your own limitations, that you can't make something happen today or tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

Dude, that's so true, true, um and you know it's not not necessarily the same thing, concept or um like idea, but I've been um this whole month, month of november. I've been really focusing on connections and like, like I've been doing a pretty poor job staying in touch with a lot of my friends and I've made a conscious effort this month to challenge myself. So, like, I'm trying to reach out, I'm trying to have coffees, I'm trying to have dinners and connect with other people in any way I can. And you know a lot of people. They kind of related to that. They're like, yeah, I could probably be doing a better job. And that really stemmed together for this challenge that I've been doing this month on connecting with more individuals.

Speaker 1:

It is kind of scary to kind of reach out and cold call people. But if you're just starting with your friends, your family, you should be checking in with your family and friends anyways. But if you've got a business, you should just call, check in and see what's going on and then share a little bit about what you're doing. I think a lot of people when they start their business, they want to try to sell immediately to all their friends and the family and your friends and family. They might buy, they might support, just to help you out a little bit, but you should be leveraging them and asking them for help to branch out to their networks too, and using that checking cold call of your friends and family it helps drop the level of scariness of calling people out the first time, so I think that's a good tip for people who are listening today too.

Speaker 1:

You said it right Just get on the phones there, donald. You saw that guy who was doing 300 calls and now he's making like 20 grand a month. Like, if you don't have that many people, start with people that you do have, so family, friends. Social media is a very easy one too, so I think that's that's really important stuff there. Thank you for sharing that, and I wanted to ask you, though are, are? And I wanted to ask you, though are you currently, are you taking on new clients for online business builder, or what are you kind of? Is it just like a role, like mentoring thing that you got going on, or are you actively taking on new people right now?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so online business builders are still growing. We just onboarded a couple of people last week and still pushing it to grow. One of the biggest things has definitely been delegating that's with you know, having these people that are all over the world that I'm mentoring my time. I'm very particular with you know. I've got time blocks of what I'm doing throughout the day and making sure that I'm getting work done for online biz builders, collaborating with my team, talking to new prospects or new clients, and then, of course, making time to work with you know anybody that I'm actually mentoring. So definitely still growing and, um, pushing pretty aggressively through different avenues to grow nice, I love that.

Speaker 1:

Um. And yeah, dude, I know you got a lot, of, a lot of business things going on and it's it's a lot of projects and such um. So, and I know it's been a little while. I know we were talking about getting this on here, but we finally got it down. So I want to thank you. I want to show some appreciation, uh, for you for hopping on, sharing some insights on your seo, a little bit about your background, um, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

So, thank you, thanks, dude, appreciate that no problem, appreciate you having me on here but before we kind of wrap up and roll, I gotta ask you you're the master SEO what would be everything you know well, if you could boil it all down into one piece of advice for those entrepreneurs, those side hustlers just starting out? What would be your number one piece of advice helping them not only survive that side hustle but to thrive in their prospering business?

Speaker 2:

So you want a piece of SEO advice, or just a piece of business advice?

Speaker 1:

Whatever you think would be the most beneficial piece of advice for someone starting out.

Speaker 2:

So I've got a pretty good one, and then, if we have an extra minute, I can tell you the story behind why I actually did it, of course, why I say it Stop trying to focus on having 10 different businesses, 10 different streams of income. Because and it's starting to come to light now, but that is probably one of the worst pieces of advice that you could have and if you just think about it, if you're splitting your focus between 10 different businesses whenever a problem happens on one, you're not going to be like, oh, let me solve that problem and get to the next level. You're going to say, oh well, I'm going to go focus on this other business for now. Oh well, there's a problem here, I'm going to go focus on this other business and I'll get back to that. You never get back to it, and that comes from experience.

Speaker 2:

It's something that actually halted the growth of OBB for about two years, because when I first started, I had about 10 different businesses, and I'm not even over exaggerating. It was literally like 10 different businesses. Most of them were online businesses, but you know, I had e-commerce channels, e-commerce websites, I'm sorry, multiple of them. I actually had one that hit 10k a month and I was like, whoa, this is crazy. Revenue, not profit revenue. We had monetized YouTube channels that had nothing to do with anything, so it's not even like we were using them as a lead magnet.

Speaker 2:

To go back to OBB, it was literally just random stuff.

Speaker 2:

Published a book, what else?

Speaker 2:

Sold solar I had like a separate solar company to where I would actually generate solar leads, leave the office and, rob you know, but I'm almost always in a suit, so I would leave the office, go home, change out of my suit, put on something that was a little bit more blue collar and go and sit in people's homes to sell solar and then leave and then go back home, change back into a suit and come back to the office. So my focus was completely scattered and OBB just did not grow. It was just we'd go up a little bit and then just crash back down, up and crash back down, up and crash back down. When I cut everything else off. That's, and that definitely hurt to do. But when I cut everything else off, that's where OBB really started to grow and that's where we were like I was tackling the problems that were coming up and actually like making leeway, making leeway, getting ahead and that's the biggest thing. It's just putting all of your focus into one opportunity and making that opportunity happen, making it grow.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, man, I love that. I appreciate that story too and yeah, I totally can relate. Once you kind of eliminate the distractions, you put all your focus into one avenue, it feels good because then you're you don't have to worry or stress about 20 different things. You can enjoy the progress that you do make. I know for me personally, when I was like working with one thing, I was like supplements are doing well, but then I focus over here so I can't even enjoy these sales. I can't enjoy that and it was just like crazy. And that's the thing, though. A lot of people they try to diversify and get multiple streams of income, because that's what they say everybody who's rich have, but whereas, like you said it perfectly there, eliminate the distractions, focus on one avenue and just go all in on that. So that's powerful advice, man. Thank you for sharing that and again appreciate you taking the time popping on today. Man, we'll have to have you back in the future and, as always, it was great to catch up with you, dude.

Speaker 2:

Likewise, likewise.

Speaker 1:

All right, guys, go follow him on social media. Oh, and onlinebizbuilderscom Anywhere else to kind of find you.

Speaker 2:

That's really the main place. I mean, I've got my Instagram, but it's more so a personal kind of thing, Not big on social media. But you know, if people want to follow me on Instagram, they can. It's edotmoneys. There you go, Give them a follow, Shoot them a message it's EMoneys.

Speaker 1:

There you go, give him a follow, shoot him a message, say what's up. Otherwise, go over to OnlineBizBuilderscom and send him a message and check in with him if you're interested in optimizing and taking your search engine optimization to the next level. Eric dude, thank you so much. This was awesome. I really appreciate you, man. Catch up soon, peace peace.