How Allen Kaplun Transformed a Side Hustle into a Cash Machine

Jim Banks [00:00:00]:
So, hello and welcome to this episode of Digital Marketing Stories. My name's Jim Banks, I'm your host and I'm absolutely delighted to have on the show today Alan Kaplan, who was just telling me in the green room he's just come back from Vegas, so he's probably a bit jaded. But Alan, great to have you on the show.

Allen Kaplun [00:00:14]:
Thanks for having me, Jim.

Jim Banks [00:00:16]:
Appreciate it. So, Alan, like I always kind of try and start the show with, with a little bit of a background in terms of like, who you are and where you're, where you're all about. So you're in Texas, is that right?

Allen Kaplun [00:00:28]:
Yes. So I ended up in Texas originally. I was in New York. You know, I'm a native New Yorker, had a law practice and I had a side hustle on Amazon. That thing took off and now I had to figure out, okay, well what do I do now? My side hustle is now a full fledged business. It's generating a lot of cash flow and it, it, it's just, you know, growing in leaps and bounds. So I, I had to, you know, make a really hard decision. I had to figure out what do I do with my law practice.

Allen Kaplun [00:01:05]:
And I ended up, it took me a little bit over a year to wind it down and commit myself fully to E commerce. Yeah.

Jim Banks [00:01:11]:
Cause most people would, would assume that you'd make more money as a lawyer than you would do as a E commerce person. But like, I'm, I'm, I'm amazed. I've got a lot of friends that started off in, in, you know, law and ended up kind of doing, you know, like digital marketing in one way, shape or form.

Allen Kaplun [00:01:28]:
Yeah, the money was pretty good. I mean, but it was 60 to 80 hours a week. It was just a daily grind and, and just very monotonous. I just, you know, I would hop on the bus, go into the city, go to court, come back, rinse, repeat, and you know, the E commerce business was just, I mean, it was just night and day, just growing exponentially. And that's one of the things that, you know, people tend to have a hard time grappling with. What happens when you have exponential growth. It's, it's just so hard to identify. You know, if you have a business growing 50% per week, I mean, that's really hard to compute.

Allen Kaplun [00:02:08]:
Right? So I, I, I managed to eventually identify it and I said to myself, okay, well, I started from my apartment and you know, then it grew into, I had, I, I, I had a second law office in, in New Jersey. So had A source of inventory over there and some unused space. And it just kept growing, it kept growing in leaps and bounds and very rapidly. So it, it, it was just a decision I had to make. And law is great and everything but. Well, maybe not that great, but the, the E commerce business was so much more exciting. Absolutely. More exciting.

Jim Banks [00:02:45]:
Yeah. I know, like everyone I know that's involved in E commerce in one way, shape or form just loves, loves the vibe of the industry. It's a kind of great industry to be because it is so diverse. There's so many different strings to it. It's not, not everyone's doing the same thing. Everyone's doing something completely different. Tell us a little bit about gds and kind of like the, the reason that you set it up and who you work with.

Allen Kaplun [00:03:05]:
Yes. Was the next stage after E Commerce. So I started out as an Amazon seller. Then I grew the business and having multiple warehouses, started wholesaling, doing. And GDS arose from just my, my desire to bring over brands from abroad into the US and build out their distribution. So I, I felt I, I had the infrastructure for it. I, I had the operations in place, I had some of the marketing in place. So what GDS does is they, they take on brands that have some kind of a presence internationally and want to establish themselves in the US Want to build our distribution there.

Allen Kaplun [00:03:43]:
And that's what we do. We, we take on these brands, we sign them up on an exclusive distributorship, get them FDA ready. There's a compliance process in there which they really don't like. And from the other side, they're actually, there's a lot of fear about complying with the fda, but we get them FDA ready and you know, make sure everything is, you know, from the logistics standpoint, make sure everything is intact there. And then we start marketing their products. We start with E commerce campaigns, influencer campaigns. Yesterday I just flew back from a trade show and that's actually to get these brands into brick and mortar stores. So it's, you know, it's pretty exciting because you bring over a brand that has a presence, let's say in a small country in Europe, for them to get any kind of, you know, distribution in the US is just life changing for them.

Jim Banks [00:04:36]:
Yeah, I think so many businesses not aware logistically of what's involved in sort of, you know, going from one country to another and it, I mean it happens in reverse. So we, we, you know, we, we see a lot of American companies that want, that think they can just kind of come over and do the Same thing in the UK and in Europe. And obviously the legislation, red tape, you know, the European Union, all this sort of stuff is, it's, you know, the barriers are really, really challenging. And I think sometimes, as you say, like, if you can find somebody like yourself who can kind of handle all, all aspects of it. So it's just the, you know, the logistics, the regulation, compliance, but also then the kind of, the marketing and promotion of the products, you know, is invaluable to, to people that kind of, you know, want to do that.

Allen Kaplun [00:05:21]:
Yeah, yeah, the, the, the marketing is definitely essential because you need to drive consumer demand and that's something they're not used to. They're used to just opening up in the supermarket in, in the country, let's say like in Spain or something, and that's it. They've planted their flag. They have distribution and there's not much else to do. The US is a different animal. So we have to talk, think in terms of regional distribution. We have to think in terms of getting consumers to actually want the product. Right? Stirring up that kind of engagement, driving that kind of demand.

Allen Kaplun [00:05:54]:
So that, that's, that's something they all want to take into account.

Jim Banks [00:05:58]:
Products. Is it mostly nostalgia products, people that, you know, like, maybe have come across to Europe and they've enjoyed a particular product that they go, I really wish you could kind of get that in the States. And they, they, they struggle to.

Allen Kaplun [00:06:09]:
I mean, it's, it's more like. Well, I, I'll tell you what it is. So for this trade show, I was representing a, a line of coffee syrups and it's actually a beverage company that has cocktail mixers ready to drink cocktails or just anything associated with the bar industry or the coffee industry. So the, the key differentiator is it's just a very high quality product, great flavor profile. But that's also a challenge because nowadays everyone's looking for functional. Everyone's looking for, you know, something that has that magic keyword to just, you know, drive those sales, you know, and this is not one of those products, but we're able to work around it. We're able to, you know, get the correct marketing in place to, to actually build up that kind of momentum. So unlike other products which are functional, you know, it, it doesn't have some sort of a chia seed and it doesn't, it doesn't have those buzzwords.

Allen Kaplun [00:07:06]:
I mean, it is gluten free, it is vegan. But that's, that's very, I, I would even argue that's Very tertiary compared to, you know, what the quality of that product is.

Jim Banks [00:07:14]:
So it's funny, I'm always amazed at how much coffee, like, people in America drink, but, like, more so now, like across the world. I mean, I think for some reason coffee's become a major sort of selling proposition. And again, I mean, like, we have a brand over here that's been around Since, I think, 60, 1960, something called Costa Coffee. But, you know, they're, they're probably on a par with Starbucks here in the UK and, you know, like, neither of them have got a kind of can hold a candle to a lot of the Italian coffees that you can kind of get in, in, you know, if you go to Italy or something like that. All these, like, beautiful, beautiful Italian coffees that taste delicious and, and just, you know, again, I know a lot of people kind of, you know, want to, to enjoy that sort of Italian barista experience, but not having to kind of go to Italy to get it, to be able to get it.

Allen Kaplun [00:08:04]:
Yeah, exactly. And arguably in, in many of the chain stores, you, you taste the coffee here in the US and that it could be pretty mediocre at times, but, you know, we're with this brand. I'm trying to change all of that. So it does have distribution in Italy, and that's kind of a big deal for Italy to accept that brand. That, that's major.

Jim Banks [00:08:25]:
Yeah.

Allen Kaplun [00:08:25]:
All right. That's a big nod to it.

Jim Banks [00:08:28]:
So most of the guests that I've had on at some point in time, their, their lives were touched in some way during the pandemic in terms of, you know, things going a little bit wonky as a result of just, you know, things that were happening that side they control. How was, how was the pandemic for your line of business? I would imagine it would have probably been kind of tough.

Allen Kaplun [00:08:50]:
So it, it kind of, it, it, it probably aged me about 10 years during, during that time span. But yeah, it, it was absolutely sleepless for me. I, I forgot about stay at home for me. I, I, I was pretty much, you know, living in airports. Absolutely living in airports. Just flying around from one warehouse to another and, or, or for whatever business purpose just trying to keep up with demand and sales. It was just, it was, it wasn't one of those things. I mean, I, I envied the people that were staying at home.

Allen Kaplun [00:09:20]:
I, I longed to go back to my house. It was like I was living a corrupted wish, honestly, because you're getting just a flood of sales coming in. All this money is just gushing in. And so you.

Jim Banks [00:09:33]:
And the opposite of, of what most people experience. Most people experience a shutdown and a dramatic drop in, in kind of their, their normal kind of day to day. But I'm guessing things like home delivery, curbside delivery, all that sort of stuff really, really took off. I mean, I was working with some brands that were doing E Commerce and all of them were net winners. Right. They were all selling products that benefited from having the ability to be able to buy it without having to go into a shop to get it. Right. They could kind of get it and just have it delivered to them, left on the doorstep, you know, whether it was it through an Amazon delivery or somewhere else, but they could kind of do a door drop or curbside pickup or whatever it might be.

Jim Banks [00:10:10]:
They were able to pick, kind of do that and it really dramatically improved the, the volume of sales that they were able to do, you know, throughout that entire pandemic period. Because people were sitting home bored out their minds, going, I need to kind of do stuff, something. So they were just sitting there all day kind of credit card buying stuff that they really didn't need.

Allen Kaplun [00:10:27]:
But yeah, I mean, it, it advanced the number of brands. It gave exposure to just so many brands out there, and there was just so much demand for just anything and everything, really. Right. I mean, people were stuck at home and supply was short. So, you know, in my case, it was just. People were just ordering things like rice, you know, the very basic essentials. Couldn't keep up with that. So it was, it was something.

Jim Banks [00:10:55]:
I remember telling the story of one of the companies that I was doing some consulting for. They were selling Magnetic Eyelashes. And I think during the first month of lockdown, they did something like four and a half million dollars worth of sales of magnetic eyelashes. And I just couldn't get my head around why so many people were buying it. And it was because they were going online and doing Tiktoks and things like that. And they wanted to have something that made them look amazing. Right. So they were doing like tons of makeup, you know, magnetic eyelashes with the ostriches that kind of flap up and down and, you know, and it, and for me, I just thought, yeah, okay.

Jim Banks [00:11:31]:
I mean, you, you know, I think sometimes you, you don't realize something until you've thought it through in a little bit more detail after the event. Right. But at the time it was like crazy. Just crazy. The amount of money that was being sort of spent on just, like I said, needless products. Yeah.

Allen Kaplun [00:11:47]:
And, and the number of FBA businesses Finally made their exit. They, they peaked out, you know, got some buyers made, made a killing, just absolutely made a killing on it.

Jim Banks [00:11:56]:
So, so you got into, you got into digital marketing quite by accident. It, it, you know, you had the side hustle which really became your kind of main, your main thing. If you were, if you were going to go back to, to kind of, you know, at the point in time when maybe you're at sort of school, college, university, whatever, and you were going to go, right, I'm going to break into digital marketing. What would you tell your younger self to say? This is what, this is kind of the reason why you should pursue this as a career.

Allen Kaplun [00:12:20]:
Well, it's interesting you brought it up. So while I was in college I actually had a little thing where I was selling cameras, you know, digital cameras on ebay and I didn't really take that seriously enough. I was more focused on finishing my studies, moving on to a professional career. We're talking about the late 90s there. The Internet really didn't take off until later. But one of the things I would probably tell my younger self is to you know, get an understanding of what SEO is, get an understanding of what PPC is because that could just do wonders. I, I remember, well, this is years after I graduated, but I remember when, you know, Google PPC was all the rage back in 2008. The, it was just so cheap and so easy to take a budget from just a few dollars a day to you know, scale it out into millions a year.

Allen Kaplun [00:13:14]:
It was just very doable. But yeah, I, I, I would tell myself, look, if, if I could redo it over and if I were going to go the digital marketing route, I would probably do some SEO, some lead gen and sell leads to local businesses. I, I, I'd probably do it that way.

Jim Banks [00:13:31]:
Yeah, it's right.

Allen Kaplun [00:13:31]:
I mean back then, yeah, in the early 2000s, late 90s, there was a real need for sales and not too much infrastructure to cover that.

Jim Banks [00:13:41]:
Yeah. And I think, I think it still exists. I think there is still a massive demand for service based businesses. You know, things like lawyers, you know, pest control. You know, again you look at California, they must be like inundated with, you know, fire damage and all that sort of stuff that like so many different service based businesses that will be benefiting as a result of people's misfortune. And I, as much as I, I hate the fact that it's happening, it's kind of like, you know, these people need solutions for some of the challenges and problems that they Have. Right. So you know, it's important that there are people there to provide those sorts of services.

Jim Banks [00:14:20]:
And as you say, like, you know, if you're a nimble minded, you know, performance based marketer, you can kind of really do pretty well on the back of that if you understand some, the technology that sort of sits behind it.

Allen Kaplun [00:14:33]:
Yeah. Especially if you could provide a service to a local based business, you know, get them up and running. Because there, there seems to be a big gap between the businesses that have a huge online presence and the businesses that could compete just as well. But they're, they're, they haven't really made the effort to get up to get online. They haven't really made an effort to boost their profile. So they're losing out market share to those who can. So local is definitely, you know, it's a lot easier to, to target also. So I, I, I mean legion on the local level seems to be a lot easier to, to manage.

Allen Kaplun [00:15:12]:
Right. So the more local in nature the better and you get an easier understanding of the market there.

Jim Banks [00:15:18]:
Yeah. And there are, there, there are plenty of, you know, networks out there that can provide that support to enable you to kind of buy leads. So again, like let's say you need three leads a day or something like that. You can kind of go and find those leads pretty easily. So you don't need to necessarily go into the, the whole, the weeds of trying to go, right, I need to create a website, need to do this, needs to do that. You can kind of just literally go and say, I want to buy three leads a day. I'm prepared to pay a certain amount of money for each lead that I get, you know, and again, working on the base, those leads can translate into, you know, call out fee or something like that. It's very easy for you to cover your overheads, you know, by doing that without again, not having to kind of worry too much about it.

Jim Banks [00:15:57]:
And you don't have to commit. It's not something you have to say. Again, the thing that's always worried me with some E commerce businesses is in a lot of cases they have to spend a huge amount of money on, on product. Right. So they have to kind of go through the manufacturing side of things and incur a great deal of expense. And there's no guarantee that what they produce they're going to be able to sell. Right. So you know, they could be sort of sitting with products that they just can't get rid of and that's clearly money that they, they, they don't Have.

Jim Banks [00:16:23]:
Right. They haven't have the money anymore. They got products that they can't sell for what they're hoping to sell it for. So, you know, whereas obviously lead generation, they can kind of, like I said, they can, they can buy as, as few or as many leads as they need. So, so if they decide to take two weeks off, they can go, you know what? I don't need any leads at the moment. Stop buying and, and it's done. They kind of like worry about, and.

Allen Kaplun [00:16:43]:
And it's interesting you brought that up because that, that's actually one of the concerns with gds. So when I was thinking of launching products, well, there, there's a lot to take into account. You could hop on these trends. I mean, there, there are plenty of services that, that you could, you know, look toward to, to find what's trending, but by the time you actually produce it, by the time you, you figure out all the quirks, that trend might be over.

Jim Banks [00:17:06]:
Yeah.

Allen Kaplun [00:17:06]:
Right. So, and you, you do run the risk of being stuck with the inventory. So I instead chose the route of partnering with established brands that have established infrastructure, piggybacking off their brand, try to just get them coverage in the U.S. so, you know, it's, it's definitely a consideration. So it depends on your resources. You know, if, if you have your manufacturing intact, you're good at product development, you know, if you have all your ducks lined up in a row, you know, probably take that risk. But to go in cold into E Commerce and take on the inventory risk, I don't know, it could backfire. It could backfire quickly.

Allen Kaplun [00:17:44]:
You know, there, there does seem to be a need, particularly in California, because it's a very competitive space when it comes to that. So lead gen could definitely work out. And these days it doesn't even cost that much. I mean, to get a landing page going and to get a lead generation workflow happening, you could sign up with, go high level, create a landing page, and create a whole automated workflow to get that kind of lead gen, you know, and there are plenty of providers that could do that, you know, that could get people set up with that.

Jim Banks [00:18:15]:
Yeah, results. Right. You can typically you pay once you get the results right. So, you know, if you, if you don't get the leads, you don't have to pay for them because you're obviously only paying for the success rather than, you know, you commit a ton of money up front.

Allen Kaplun [00:18:30]:
So it's definitely a possibility if you think about it. Well, I, I don't want to go into the fires and everything. I mean that's kind of an outlier. But you know, suppose you're so supposedly do pools, you're in the pool business and you're a pool builder. Well, we're talking about a hundred thousand dollars and up as a ticket, you know, for, for you to buy a lead. You know, your, your cost of acquisition is just, you know, just nothing compared to the, the price tag of this type of project. What, what could possibly be paying for, you know, the cost of acquisition? Maybe a few thousand dollars compared to a hundred thousand dollar project. So it, it, it could, it could be successful for, for many contractors definitely.

Allen Kaplun [00:19:10]:
That definitely seems to be the trend. And you would get the leads through typically Google PPC Meta, you know, the, the typical channels. If you're in auto insurance. I, I, I've seen TikTok. TikTok is doing, you know, pretty well for auto insurance providers, especially those in, you know, kind of the subprime markets. So that seems to be working pretty well.

Jim Banks [00:19:31]:
Yeah, and, and, and again I think a lot of places like are doing native advertising now. So their ads that appear on sort of websites, they, they might be advertorials but they're ads that appear and they just blend into the publisher's website. So the publisher, you know, a lot of people will buy ads on MSN and they can make the ads look native to the MSN platform. So it looks like it's a editorial piece that maybe MSN have done when really it's an advert that's been bought by an advertiser promoting a particular thing. And you know, again, I mean in the Legion space, I'm always amazed, like there's a lot of people that are doing tattoo removal and cosmetic surgery and dental work and implants and all sorts of different things that you know, if you look at it, you could sit down and model it. And there is so many opportunities for people to kind of get involved. Some of them will be more heavily regulated. So you need some, you know, to kind of get some licenses and things like that.

Jim Banks [00:20:27]:
So if you're going to do real estate or Medicare or something like that, you need to make sure you fall, you don't fall foul of compliance and, and end up on the wrong side of the FCC coming after you. So you know that those sorts of things are quite important to make sure you, you don't kind of fall foul of, of the regulators because yeah, well.

Allen Kaplun [00:20:44]:
Yeah, you have to balance the hook with the right disclaimers. That's true. But as far as native is concerned. It's really. I see it as no different as other channels. So you're always camouflaging yourself in. So if you're on Facebook, you have to take on a certain tone in how you're advertising. If you're on TikTok, it also has to have a certain mood, a certain tone to it.

Allen Kaplun [00:21:07]:
So it's all really just camouflaging. The difference is, well, you might be camouflaging yourself as a VSL native. Right. Or an advertorial. So. But you also have to be very careful.

Jim Banks [00:21:20]:
What are your thoughts on TikTok? Do you think it's going to kind of like stay the distance or do you think it's. Something's going to happen? I know it's got a stay of execution, but you know, it's just a temporary one rather than the permanent one.

Allen Kaplun [00:21:32]:
Okay. I don't think it's going to go dark. I don't think so. And it's interesting you mentioned that. So I was approached, I guess about a year or so ago regarding investing in ByteDance. And I had one question, I had one question for that broker. What happens when they have to sell off TikTok? And they had no answer for me. I mean, there's no plan B, so Bytedance might take a loss.

Allen Kaplun [00:21:55]:
I think TikTok is here to stay. It's going to be interesting to see what's going to happen, how it's going to evolve. I mean, if it falls into the hands of Elon Musk, what, what is he going to do with that? It, it, you know, it just remains to be said. But I'll, I'll tell you this. I was at a recent conference in Budapest for a TikTok workshop. You would be amazed at their technology, the technology they're. That they're rolling out. From what I could tell there, they could basically replace UGC with very advanced avatars.

Allen Kaplun [00:22:25]:
And it's to the point where you could not even tell the difference. I mean, it would be wise for them to have some kind of disclaimers to the audience to say, hey, this is an AI generated ad. Because I mean, they could just take your product, take all your collateral, apply an avatar that you won't even know the difference between whether it's a real human or not. And it'll just make an unbelievable script and a whole ad for you. So that, that's something that they're, you know, that they invited participants in and experimenting and, you know, eventually we'll be rolling out to the masses. So I think TikTok is here to stay. I can't imagine a world where it's just going to go dark. The question is who's going to own it?

Jim Banks [00:23:04]:
Yeah, so, and obviously, you know, there's, there's always going to be like, you know, so people that don't want them around because they're, they see them as competition are always going to fuel the fire and say, well, I think they need to go, I think they need to be shut down. You know, if you look at, if you look at, you know, like Google were originally kind of just Google and they became too monopolistic, too big, too powerful. Right. So they set up Alphabet that then give them a bit of distance between, you know, well, Google's actually this and Alphabet something completely different. It's not, it's sort of, they did their own sort of breakup of the, their internal business units. Right. So they had this sort of the AdSense bit sort of broken up from the Google Ads bit, from the, you know, the Android bit and everything else. And it sort of, it all works as the same company but it all sort of does it under the umbrella.

Jim Banks [00:23:54]:
And Meta's done the same thing with you know, Facebook and Instagram and everything. They got everything under the umbrella. Right. So they can, they can't really be accused of being monopolistic because you know, it's all sort of separate companies underneath, underneath the umbrella. So. And I can almost imagine might end up.

Allen Kaplun [00:24:11]:
Yeah, and keep in mind, well, what, you know, what, what is the point of, you know, having this check against the monopoly? Well, it's for a consumer benefit, right? So the question becomes how does the consumer suffer if, if Meta is a monopoly or if TikTok is a monopoly. And TikTok, I mean, it's still pretty small in E Commerce revenues in the grand scheme of things. I mean they're the shill, you know, just marching up to Walmart.com right now. But you know, the question to ask is, well, you know, what happens to the consumer? And that's something the government is traditionally looking out for. So you know, if Meta's running the ad world and then they're pro price gouging on the ppc. Well now we have an issue, now we have a serious issue. So as long as they can keep their prices low and demonstrate that they're not anti competitive, they could probably stay under the radar and away from the scrutiny of regulators.

Jim Banks [00:25:11]:
I thought it was quite interesting in that period, the, the very short period of time that TikTok was dark as in it sort of was, was shut down. What was quite ironic was that the TikTok pixel that most advertisers that needed to kind of like run ads on TikTok put in place was still live on every single site that existed. So all of the data was still being captured by ByteDance, even though they had no kind of like authority to kind of do it because the, the app wasn't working.

Allen Kaplun [00:25:40]:
Yeah, yeah, they were still hanging on to that hope of, you know, going back live. But they're, they, they also went out on the limb, they, their assurances, you know, I mean, it could end up pretty illusory too, but I, I, I trust that they're going to work something out with the White House and, and just stay in existence.

Jim Banks [00:25:58]:
Yeah. So, yeah, because again, I don't know the full ins and outs of what actually went down to kind of cause it to be banned in the first place. Right. But you know, we've had the same thing here in the uk where you know, there are certain pieces of technology that they say got too big for their own boots and they, they wanted to try and sort of put in place some regulations and that's one of the beauties of the kind of the cross border functionality of most of these apps. It's just, you know, that's, that's the way things work. You can't really impose your rules and regulations on us if we don't think the same thing. Right. I mean, that's part of the reason why UK decided to come out of the European Union.

Jim Banks [00:26:36]:
We wanted to be able to kind of do our own deals rather than having to be part of this kind of group deal. Right. So, you know, we wanted to be able to say if we decide that we're going to sell a banana that's sort of not bent in a certain way because the European Union doesn't meet the European requirements. We're going to sell it. Right. So, you know, and we should be sort of able to control our own destiny in that respect.

Allen Kaplun [00:26:57]:
So it's a valid point. I just hate having to go through passport controls twice, you know, to go through London, then, you know, through into the eu. But it's a valid point. You know, countries should have their autonomy and I, I guess the UK kind of felt that they were just, just too restricted by the bureaucracy of the eu.

Jim Banks [00:27:17]:
Right. And, and, and you know, the, the same challenges and issues. We had issues with border control. We didn't really feel we had control over our border. We, we felt that, you know, there was always this Kind of everything could be escalated up to what they call the European Court, human rights. So we have our own laws here, but everything kind of got bumped up there and it's a bit like everything getting bumped up the Supreme Court, you know, sort of, you know, as much as they might say it's kind of impartial, it's kind of, it's not really impartial at all. Right. Is there? Because the people were put in place by certain people in the past and you know, and yeah, I mean, it's always going to have that sort of the override to be able to say, well, okay, fine, everything's done at state level, bump it up to the Supreme Court.

Jim Banks [00:28:00]:
And then all of a sudden it's kind of, it becomes a federal issue.

Allen Kaplun [00:28:02]:
So, yeah, it seems that, well, with the eu, I mean, it just seems that the people themselves haven't really voted for the powers that ultimately control the eu and that might be a little bit unfair.

Jim Banks [00:28:16]:
And again, the beauty of digital marketers. We know a lot of people in a lot of countries, I know lots and lots of friends in other parts of the European Union who are just as pissed off with the European Union as the UK was. Right.

Allen Kaplun [00:28:31]:
But you know, I, I, I'm associated with digital marketers that are shopping countries around that they, they, they don't think they're being treated fairly from a tax perspective. They, I mean, it's just unbelievable. I mean, they're, they're moving out to Dubai or they're taking up residency in South America. You know, they're just, they just don't agree with the policies of the EU as it applies to them.

Jim Banks [00:28:56]:
Yeah, so, and the beauty of digital marketing is you can do it anywhere as long as you've got a laptop or computer and the Internet, you can do your job more often than not in most places. I mean, yours, yours is slightly different because you're, you have a sort of physical infrastructure that you need to kind of manage. But again, you know, you, you, you probably have a team of people that could kind of manage certain aspects of that and you kind of manage it from, from wherever you happen to be at the time.

Allen Kaplun [00:29:20]:
Yeah, I, I have over 60 people in my organization. But in, in retrospect, I mean, I, I, I would have loved to be a, a, a digital nomad. I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's pretty exciting to be that liberated. But also, what I've also noticed, you know, when you're dealing with digital nomads, there's a certain level I, I, I would say I, I feel like there's a certain level of trust, right, because you're, you're dealing on an international scale and you know, you get into agreements with them, they seem to hold up their end of the bargain a lot more than if you were to go with someone, you know, that's established within the US or established within country. The ones that travel around seem to kind of safeguard their reputation. You know, they tend to, just from experience, they, they, they tend to follow through on their deliverables a little bit better.

Jim Banks [00:30:13]:
Yeah, for sure. So Alan, I, I'm sure we could sit and, and sort of jam for, for an awful long time, but I'm very conscious that you've just got back from a show, you've probably got like a whole bunch of stuff to kind of catch up with. So I wanted to thank you so much for being a guest on Digital Marketing Stories. It's been fantastic to meet you first of all and, and, and hear a little bit about what's going on with gds and just some of your thoughts on, on things, all of the people, all your contact details will be available in the show notes. Was there anything that you wanted to kind of leave my, my, kind of my audience with in terms of, you know, ways in which you can, can help them in that respect?

Allen Kaplun [00:30:48]:
Oh, the one thing I would tell the audience is when evaluating a digital marketing firm, first evaluate what your resources are. All right, Go with a digital marketing firm to the extent that, that you really feel you need one, that you can't do it in house. You know, many actually do need digital marketing firms because they're not set up that way that they're, they're set up to produce their product or produce their service. Uh, but you know, once, once you already have your, you know, your in house people that could do the work for you and you need more, then attach a digital marketing firm. All right? So I mean, that's my honest, semi solicited advice and it's just the most prudent thing to do. Don't just go blindly leaping in with the digital marketing firm. You know, see for yourself if you're capable of, you know, doing some of the tasks in house, if you can build some infrastructure behind you first and then bring in the experts, all right. And just evaluate them, just see what they're all about.

Allen Kaplun [00:31:51]:
You know, they all vary.

Jim Banks [00:31:53]:
Absolutely. Thanks again so much for being on the show and look forward to talking to you again at some point in time. And if we ever get to the point where we happen to be in the same place at the same time. We'd love to have a drink with you.

Allen Kaplun [00:32:04]:
Well, I'll be in Dubai in February. I know where you're going to be. I'm going to be at Affiliate World in Dubai.

Jim Banks [00:32:08]:
All right. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's one of those things. I used to have a family member that lived in Abu Dhabi and like we used to kind of go over and I, funny enough, I was in Abu Dhabi at the same time that Affiliate World was on. And I mean, it's only about 45 minutes up the road, so I couldn't kind of make the dates work for me last year. I'm trying to sort of see if I can make them work this year, but, you know, but again, I got a lot, a lot of friends that go to the show and they have a great time. It was, it's great time.

Allen Kaplun [00:32:38]:
And you, you could find some real high quality digital marketers and they tend to be the education you get from there. I'd probably say that it kind of puts you ahead of the curve, right? It kind of puts you ahead of the curve. And they're committed to it. They're not just people learning from YouTube channels. You know, they're, they're not sitting at home in their underwork watching YouTube channels and say, okay, yeah, I can pick up SEO no problem. They're flying there. They're making this commitment. They're, they're networking.

Allen Kaplun [00:33:04]:
They're actually learning the material.

Jim Banks [00:33:06]:
And a lot of them are making really good money as well. For sure.

Allen Kaplun [00:33:09]:
Wild amounts of money. Absolutely wild. I, I mean, just crazy money that they're making. But more importantly, I mean, they're, they're picking up, you know, the skills that they need to really succeed in digital marketing. They're making that kind of solid commitment. You know, there's some marketers I spoke to. I mean, you know, not in the affiliate world, but you know, just on, on various calls. You know, when I connected with them, some of them don't know what a hook is.

Allen Kaplun [00:33:35]:
Some of them don't know what a VSL is. Then I ask them, well, you know, what commitment do you make to your digital marketing agency? Oh, you know, I watch a few YouTube videos. I watch this influencer, that influencer. Yeah, that's not a serious commitment. Would you go to a doctor, Would you go to a surgeon if you heard that? You know, if you heard a surgeon say, yeah, I, I don't go to any of those conferences. I just pick up whatever I can on YouTube.

Jim Banks [00:33:58]:
The one one always kills me.

Allen Kaplun [00:34:00]:
Never do that.

Jim Banks [00:34:01]:
My, my, my best friend's son has like, read a book on SEO from like 12 years ago. And, you know, they, they, they, they can do the SEO for us. And you're like, just doesn't work that way. It really doesn't.

Allen Kaplun [00:34:13]:
I mean, I, I, I went to the Bruce Clay. Yeah, you know, I went to those Bruce Clay classes. I mean, they were great. But after that, I started an internship. I mean, I created an internship. I flew in people from throughout the country, I put them up in apartments, I leased them cars, you know, we created content. And that was the, that was the pilot of my SEO project. That's how committed I was to that.

Allen Kaplun [00:34:37]:
And then I ran SEO team. So I'm just not buying it. I just don't buy those people that say, oh, yeah, I picked it up from a book and I'll now I know everything. No, you have to make a commitment. You have to invest in yourself and you have to demonstrate that.

Jim Banks [00:34:52]:
Yeah, I have so many industry friends who have written books about SEO and they're on version four, version five, version six, you know, because literally the minute they write the end in the book, probably 40, 50% of what's in the book is out of date, outdated, not accurate, incorrect. Right. In some respects, it's like, it's much better to have like a website or something like that that can kind of be constantly updated because a book, just as, again, as much as a book might be great if you're looking to get onto the speaker circuit. Speak. You know, speaking gigs will come on the back of being an author. But, you know, at the same time, you know, it's difficult if the, the information is not factually correct. It does present some challenges for people that may pick up the book and take it as gospel and sort of try and implement.

Allen Kaplun [00:35:40]:
What you have to get from that book is you're always chasing a moving target and you always have to practice that skill set.

Jim Banks [00:35:47]:
For sure.

Allen Kaplun [00:35:48]:
It's ever evolving. Yep.

Jim Banks [00:35:50]:
Great. Alan, thank you again, being on the show and I will talk to everyone on the next episode of Digital Marketing Stories.

Allen Kaplun [00:35:58]:
Thank you, Jim. Thanks for having me.

Jim Banks [00:36:00]:
Great. Thank you. That's really good. I really appreciate you, you being on, taking the time out and yeah, like I said, I'll leave you to kind of get on with the rest of your day and hope you have, have good weather. It's bloody cold here, I'll tell you that.

Allen Kaplun [00:36:13]:
Same year. Enjoy your evening.

Jim Banks [00:36:15]:
Take care. Cheers. Out.

Allen Kaplun [00:36:16]:
Bye.