How Investor Carrot Quietly Grew Their Brand into a 7-Figure Business with Trevor Mauch

ThoughtLeaderRetreat.com/TrevorM – Episode #4

Title, with Trevor Mauch ______________________________________________________________________________

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Alan: Good morning, afternoon or evening, everyone. Welcome to Episode 4 of Thought Leader Retreat. I’m your host

Alan Brymer.

I’m happy to kick off this call with none other than Trevor Mauch of Carrotly who is an old friend of mine, and I’m

actually a customer of his, as a result of his own content marketing efforts. We’re going to talk about that a little bit.

This week, not a whole lot new. I did just start sipping on a new batch of beer that we made. It’s a dark wheat beer my

roommate and I brewed from home with orange zest and coriander.

I know that may not sound good to you Trevor, I know you’re living in the beer mecca, but I didn’t ask what your

particular style of beer is. What do you drink?

Trevor: Man, I’m not a guy who’s married to any particular type. We’ve got a lot of IPA drinkers here in Oregon, some

really, really hard core IPA drinkers. Man, I love a really crisp beer like a belgian white on some days and some days I

love the chocolate porter. Yeah, man, I love it all.

Alan: I thought that IPAs were just a California thing. Apparently, it’s a West Coast thing, because that’s about all I drink

when I lived out there. Since I moved here, I’ve been trying more belgians and more whacky stuff like Girl Scout Cookie

Coconut-Tasting Chocolate Stout.

Trevor: Yeah - no, we have a lot of IPAs here, a lot of double IPAs here, but I’ve heard - I’ve heard Richmond is really

coming on lately as far as with the restaurants, with the foodie scene, with the breweries, with the distilleries, so it

sounds like you guys are in a really exciting time there in Richmond on what’s happening.



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Alan: It is. Everyone says, “this place is nothing like it was ten years ago.” It’s on all these lists for top places for food, for

beer, for tattoos, for music, so yeah, it’s an interesting time to be here, that’s for sure.

Trevor: That is cool.

Trevor’s Entrepreneurial Journey: Software as a Service

Alan: Why don’t we jump into who you are and what you do? I know the answer to this, but can you tell our listeners

your story of how you started your various businesses over the years, and then what it is that you do now?

Trevor: Yeah, so the cliff notes version of it…I’m an entrepreneur here in Oregon, actually a small town in Oregon, a

town called Roseburg, OR which is about 25,000 to 30,000 people, a couple hours south of Portland, just to kind of give

people some perspective of where I’m at, and where we’re working.

I started my entrepreneurship journey right out of college actually. I love marketing, found the internet that year, which

would have been in 2005, 2006. Ever since then I’ve built a few different companies leveraging the internet, usually

based around content.

Creating content and attracting people to my website, building a good quality email list of great people, then turning

that into different - it could be educational products, or in this case, our current focus this past year and a half or so with

Carrotly is software as a service company has grown really fast.

We’re now at a million dollar a year run rate right now, which is kind of cool, as just literally January our revenue

numbers hit $85,000 a month. It’s mainly built around creating great content and becoming a thought leader. That’s

what we’re focused on.

On the other side of things, and we were talking about this just before the call, kind of by accident, I’ve got a consulting

business. It leverages a lot of the same stuff that we’re doing online to grow Carrot and software companies so fast on

how to really control the conversation online, or around your own brand better, and also how to control or join the

conversation online around the product industry that you’re in, so people start to find out about you.

Achieving Thought Leadership on a Local Scale

We’re working with some really cool companies over there and having fun doing it. That’s kind of it in a nutshell. The

business side, I have to throw this part into my own - because I’m so passionate about entrepreneurship and I’ve kind of

gained this passion for rural entrepreneurship, since my wife and I moved to this town in Oregon a few years back.

If you ever come through Oregon, guys and gals, and you’re on I-5, hit me up, you’re going to drive through Roseburg,

we have a lot of great wineries, great beer, great rivers, great mountain biking, but we’ve got a really cool thing that

we’ve got going here with our new entrepreneurship community, our startup community that we’ve built.



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It’s 100 percent based on kind of the things I’m sure we’re going to talk about today around thought leadership, and

what you can do to really strengthen your own community and be the go to person, whether it’s in your local

community, or online community for the service that you provide.

Alan: I think one perspective that you’re bringing to this today is about accomplishing this on a local scale.

Trevor: Um-hmm.

Alan: Because there’s people who want to position themselves as the expert in [insert topic here] everywhere in

America, but then there’s other people, like local businesses or real estate investors, like myself, that want to generate

leads on a local scale.

Not only leads, but in case those leads are checking out multiple people and deciding who to call, or even calling several

and deciding who to do business with, you still want to be positioned as the authority or the top person who knows

what they’re talking about, is not going to jerk them around, etc.

Content Marketing Case Study: From Blog Post to Paying Client

You all listening specifically what Trevor is doing is this, I started real estate investing in 2002 and it was ’03 or ’04 when I

finally got my first website. I wanted to promote what it is that I did.

If you’re not aware of it, there’s a lot of people who want to buy real estate to fix up and sell, or be a landlord, but they

don’t go about it the usual route of asking a realtor to find them properties or go into the auction and bidding.

Some people advertise, saying we buy houses, so you’ve seen those signs, billboards, etc. There’s all kinds of ways to get

your name out. The whole point is to get people to call you saying sure, I’d like to get an offer on my house and a

percentage of them will accept your offer which is low enough to make money off of, since we don’t pay full market

value for houses.

Actually Trevor, that first website I got was a done for you website as well, because I didn’t know anything about making

websites or what to put on it and I didn’t want to take the time to write it all out, etc. I later made my own website in ’07

and ’08, and then I stopped online marketing for real estate investing.

Then last year, because most of my leads for the last couple years have been through referrals, word of mouth, last year

I got serious about it, starting advertising again, and said you know what, I need a website.

It was a blog post of Trevor’s as a matter of fact that finally got me to take action, because for the last couple of months

I had been like okay, when it’s time to get a site, here’s four or five services to look into to either build a site or software

or services, or whatever. I kind of knew what you did, Trevor, but I didn’t know all the details.



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Finally, I think on your personal Facebook page, you announced, “Hey guys have you ever wondered how search traffic

changes for people who want to sell their house in December,” I think that was the title of the post. Like is December a

good month to try to buy houses?

Then you actually showed in that post some stats that the most people are searching, sell my house in Google in like

June, and in the summer months, and not so much in January, but it kind of ramps up until then, and that the opposite

was true for people typing I want to buy houses.

I want to invest in real estate, that the most people were doing that in January, because it was New Year’s resolution

time. It’s probably like the gym. I bet it plummets in February, because that’s what happens at the gym.

Trevor: Exactly.

Alan: Anyway, I read that post and said, damn, this is some good information, saw the link, and said all right I’ll click it,

saw the sales page, and said you know what, this is so ridiculously inexpensive, I’m just going to do this. I just want a

website up, I want it down, and you had some really good training, I’ll just throw that out there, on search engine

optimization on a local scale.

I have pretty much applied it all to my seller site last month, and I think it’s going to take another month or so before I

evaluate it and see the results. I just thought I’d clarify that for people listening.

Trevor is showing people, investors specifically, but so that it’s more applicable to everyone, let’s just say he’s showing

small business owners how they can use content marketing and search engine optimization in order to generate leads

locally.

If that’s what you’re trying to do, then that’s what you’re going to learn about today. Actually, I know quite a few

speakers, experts, authors, service business owners, etc., that make more than enough just from their local market.

Trevor: Totally, and it’s cool that you told the story of how you found us, because you and I have known each other for

years, but I’m kind of the type of guy who - I’m kind of like a behind the scenes kind of guy.

I think even the people that are in the community - one of the communities I started for the real estate investor

industry, the one that you’re a member of - I think most people in that group really don’t know what I do.

Tracking results…Which content pieces are the sales coming from?

The past six months I’ve gotten a lot more intentional on telling that story, and really being insanely proud of the

product and service that we’ve built, and it’s cool that you found that post, and it’s cool knowing that you found that

post, and which one ended up guiding you our way.



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That’s actually a totally separate topic than this call, but just the past two months, we had a - brought in a new team

member, a new hire in November to our team, and his role in the company, I call him Head of Technical Marketing,

because we were finding we were bringing in a lot of customers that we had no clue where they came from.

We had no clue which blog post that they saw that they joined. We had no clue where they landed on our website from.

We could only tell if like an affiliate partner sent them our way.

That data, that information that you told me, that’s insanely valuable for a content marketer to know, is to know which

content you’re putting out there that actually works. Which content is resonating with people, and which content is

getting people not to just read it, but to take action on it.

That’s been a big gap in our business this past year, a little over a year since we’ve ran this company and literally this

month, we’re implementing things actively to know which content pushes customers.

Yesterday we put out our Thursday blog post for this week, and it was our very first blog post now where we’re tracking

in Google Analytics the conversions based on blog posts, and based on emails that we’re sending out.

We know for a fact that we got a handful of people to take the demo, who clicked the email that we sent them, that

went to the blog post. And we got at least one person who already has purchased Carrot, who was not a customer

before, but read this blog post, clicked the email that we sent through, and then they ended up joining.

That side of things is a whole other call, guys and gals, but getting great content out there is great. The next step you

need to have in the back of your mind as you start to get in that content cadence and taking the thought leadership is

tracking and doing simple stuff to know what’s actually working.

Alan: That’s awesome. I can check my blog posts and see which ones had the most views. I can assume from that that

the topics of those most popular posts are the ones I should write about the most.

But…what if I knew which posts generate the most sales? They might get a fraction of the traffic, because they appeal to

a very small number of people, but the few who read it and get all the way through it are like, “Whoa, I’m ready to buy

now,” those would be the type of posts I’d want to write more of, and you have a way to do that now it seems.

Trevor: Yeah, exactly. I wrote that down when you said that you joined through that post. Because that post honestly,

that one was probably one of the quickest and easiest posts that I’ve written in months. I could tell when we sent it out

that it resonated with people. It was a quick, simple message…a really quick read. It wasn’t over complicated, but you

walked away with something usable.

Alan: What got me was the data. I think the photo - you showed screen shots of the traffic summaries from Google

Analytics, and I saw that photo in your post thumbnail and I said okay, this post is going to have some actual data. I’m a

data-head, show me the data and so that’s what got me interested.

Trevor: Nice, I like it, I like it man.



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Alan: Well, I like you too. Behind the scenes is your style. It’s my style too. You’ve been doing this for a while, but I

never got an email from you or a private message, “Hey buddy, I have this new opportunity for you!” I didn’t hear about

it.

I didn’t see a bunch of ads in my face. But when the fruit is ready, it will fall from the tree, and that’s exactly what

happened over the last couple of months. I kind of had yes, I need to get a website on my radar, but now is not the time,

and then finally I saw the right post at the right time, and things clicked for me, things got clear.

I was this is - I should check out his actual site, because I knew you were really good at SEO and I kind of knew what your

service was; it was investor websites. But I didn’t actually sit down and look at the sales page and go through a details

and make a decision until that triggering event, so you never know when it will be.

Trevor: That’s huge, that’s huge.

Trevor’s Definition of a Thought Leader

Alan: Well, let’s talk about thought leadership on a local, national or global scale. There’s a lot of definitions for it. How

would you define what a thought leader is?

Trevor: Yeah, kind of zeroing in on two specific examples for me is with Carrot, so with the software company. One

thing that we’re really, really intentional on is we want people to know, and when they think about online lead

generation for real estate investors.

No matter what type of investing you’re in, and eventually for anyone involved in real estate in general, when people

think about hey where do I go to learn the best information, to generate leads online, we want them to think of Carrot.

Here locally with the entrepreneurship scene that we’ve started, when people think of the heart of the

entrepreneurship scene in Roseburg, Oregon, we want them to think of me.

We want them to think of our Oregon entrepreneur group and that’s what thought leadership is for me is whatever

topic that you’re in that you really want to be great at, that you want to be the center at, whether it’s very local in your

city, or whether it’s national, is when someone thinks about that topic, you want them to think about you - you, your

name, your picture, your brand, whatever it is, should be the thing that pops up in their mind. Once you’ve got that,

then I believe you are considered a thought leader.

There’s a lot of people who put out content. Look at real estate agents, they always - a lot of them just purchase those

you know done for you weekly newsletters that are just straight up stock newsletters, they don’t change any of it,

there’s no personality in there and it’s all just 100 percent on auto pilot.



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You’re not going to become a thought leader in your local market doing that. We’ve got a real estate agent here that he

has somehow found his way to get into the radio stations, to get into the newspaper and the de facto real estate

updates for our newspaper and radio stations is from this one guy, every single month, he’s the guy who regurgitates

information, but in his own voice on how the market’s doing that month.

So you want people to think about your name, your brand, your likeness when they think about a topic. That’s when

you’re a thought leader.

The Difference Between a Content Curator and a Thought Leader

Alan: So not only the expertise but originality as well as popularity, actual awareness.

Trevor: Yeah, totally, totally. There’s a difference between a curator and a thought leader, I believe. You look at a lot of

the big websites out there like mashable.com for the tech world. If you’re in the tech world, you’re probably pretty

familiar with Mashable or Tech Crunch or something like that.

Alan: Um-hmm, very popular.

Trevor: Yeah, very popular and to me when you think of Mashable today versus when it started, Mashable was one guy,

it was Pete Cashmere, Cashmere, whatever his name is. It was one dude, he wrote everybody.

At that time Pete was the thought leader. He was like the thought leader in that marketplace. Now, Mashable is more

like a curation of a bunch of thought leaders.

So if you want to become the thought leader, yeah, you’ve got to have your own voice, you’ve got to have your own

opinion, you’ve got to have your own unique take or content that you’re putting out there yourself, and other than just

regurgitating information.

I think Mashable, if we’re on that example, Mashable the website is considered a thought leader in this space I believe,

but it’s not really tied to any one particular person, because they’re just really curating a lot of content that’s already out

there.

Alan: It seems like some folks too are really good at advertising, building a list, they become super popular, but when

you compare their actual content or teachings or whatever to other people, it’s not necessarily as good.

On the other hand, there’s people who are the most innovative, awesome experts out there, but no one’s heard of

them, because they don’t do what it takes in order to promote themselves effectively.

I think ideally, a thought leader would be the best of both worlds, and this kind of reminds me of Tesla and Edison. Do

you follow their lives much?

Trevor: Yeah, have you watched the series, The Men Who Built America?



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Alan: No, I only saw their epic rap battle on YouTube.

Trevor: You need to watch that series, number one. But both Tesla and Edison are in a couple of the episodes there,

tied to J. P. Morgan and Westinghouse. You would love that series, and it talks about essentially how electricity came to

be with Tesla with Edison.

Alan: Oh that’s awesome. I’ll give a quick cliff notes of what I learned from Tesla’s biography about a year ago, which of

course is biased, but there’s this war between Tesla and Edison. They were both very smart, except that Tesla was a true

genius.

He had true innovative ideas that would shake the earth, that no one had thought of before and you haven’t seen too

many things people have thought of since then. However, he is not as big of a household name. You didn’t even hear

about him much until the last ten years or so, as Edison is.

Edison on the other hand was more of an opportunist. He didn’t actually sit down and use his mega brain to think - to

dream up a lightbulb. And you hear the quote about him trying 10,000 ways of making a lightbulb that didn’t work.

Well, it was actually a team of interns that he hardly paid anything to and worked like dogs, figuring out 10,000 ways

that don’t work to make those.

So he was more of a businessman - even taking ideas, evidence of just straight-up stealing ideas maybe back when

trademarking was less clear, or perhaps it was clear, but anyway he was just like, “This would work, get it out there, get

it to market - do it, do it, do it.” Total businessman as opposed to like a genius.

On one hand, he was kind of a dick, but on the other hand, he made a lot more money, he didn’t die broke, and he is the

one I heard about as one of America’s major inventors growing up. So I would say go for an approach that has some kind

of balance of the two - take care of business, but be original at the same time.

Trevor: Yeah, and kind of going back to The Men Who Built America episode, and everyone listening, if you love hearing

stories, if you love hearing startup stories, the ultimate startup story is America, right? It’s how America came to be, and

how it became the most innovative country in the world.

Now you can argue that we’re not heading in the right direction now, but at one time, it was the most innovative

country in the world, and those two guys were a big part of it, and when they were talking about that story, at least in

this version of it, Tesla was one of those interns or he worked for Edison, I’m not sure which one it was, but he worked

for him.

An aside, like you’re mentioning, Tesla had his DC current, I believe, I could be opposite on these, but I believe he was

DC current, had his DC current that he was working on and Edison had his AC current. And like I said, it could be totally

the opposite.



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Alan: I forget which it is, too.

Trevor: Yeah, but anyway, and then Tesla brought the idea to Edison. Edison kind of poo-pooed it and then Tesla took

that to Westinghouse, basically, who then put the money behind it, and they pushed it.

The whole ending is what’s really heart-breaking, I’m going to wrap it around to how everyone in this call can make sure

that you’re - like you said, you’re not just coming up with the cool ideas that are stuck in a silo, you’re actually being able

to help people with those, you’re actually able to profit from those - is J. P. Morgan who was backing Edison (and they

quickly realized that Edison’s idea with his version of the current AC or DC, I can’t remember what it is) just didn’t work,

and so then he went and basically hijacked Westinghouse.

Westinghouse had to give him the copyrights or the patents for the DC current, or whatever current he was working on,

and then J. P. Morgan took that, and really that’s what our modern day power system is built off of.

Through all of that, even when Tesla created the idea, like you’re saying he didn’t get out there and really trumpet it big

time like Edison was doing. He really didn’t get out there and do what a lot of people would consider publicity stunts,

becoming the thought leader and not just the inventor.

Launching a Product, Creating the Content and Brand, and Attracting an Audience

With our own businesses, the same thing with Carrot, and this is a really, really great example. We could have done

exactly what every single other company in our market has done - launched a product and just sat back and just did

webinars or whatever all the time.

What we decided to do was go, “Okay, we’re going to launch this product and we really believe that this product is the

best product in the market for what it does, for the value that we’re going after, and the way that we’re going to relay

that to people is by having such great content that is more innovative, that is more transparent, that is more actionable

and databased than any other person’s entire market, that when you see our content, you immediately get a different

perception of value for what our company can provide you.”

Like the stats that you showed, Alan…if I was just to do a blog post on how to do SEO for a real estate study, which we’ve

done blog posts on that, rather than showing data, rather than like showing actual data and actual transparency under

our own data a lot of the times, the value that you would perceive as the reader is way, way, way lower, because now

we’re seen as this person who knew this company that controls - we’re kind of like seen as the Wizard of Oz behind a

curtain. We’ve got the data that no one else in the industry has, and we’re sharing that with you.

Finding your particular business what is that thing that you have or that your company has, or what can you build into

what your company has that no one else in the market quite has it like that. It doesn’t have to be that no one else in the

market has that all, it’s how can you frame that benefit to look like, or be perceived as something no one else in the

entire market has or is as good as you’re doing.



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Alan: When I think of SEO experts, quite a few people come to mind. When I think of local business SEO experts, there’s

maybe a handful of people that I’ve met at networking events and online and whatnot. When I think real estate

investing SEO, there’s one person I think of and that would be you, because you have picked your pond to be a big fish

in, and it’s not even a little pond is it? It’s just a very clearly-defined one.

Benefits of Consulting Other Businesses on Your Expertise

Trevor: Exactly, exactly. And dude, I’m glad you said that because kind of going over to the consulting side of things

now, so if you’re listening to this call and you are a consultant, or you want to be a consultant, and hopefully you like to

do high-paid consulting, because not only is the money better, but it tends to be that the clients that you’re working

with are a lot more awesome.

We did the exactly same thing with your consulting side is we didn’t go out there and say “Okay, we know how to do

online marketing and we’re just going to do any kind of consulting for anyone who we can do online marketing for.”

We kind of stumbled into this model and you and I will talk about it some other time, I’m sure, but we stumbled into this

model, and this exact problem that we decided to solve with that first client, the exact problem we decided to solve with

that first client. We niche that down and we go okay, this right here, we found that this is really compelling for these

types of clients.

We really love this client, and the price that they’re willing to pay is something that makes sense for us and fits within

their budget big time.

So let’s find other companies very, very similar to them, to have the exact same problem and we’re not saying let’s try to

find one of our hundred tools in our tool bag and how we can help everyone, it’s this one problem. That’s the exact thing

that we built that product around, or that consulting service around it for all of our other clients, all six of those people I

mentioned to you before, we’re doing the exact same thing for all of them, and they pay us very, very well for it.

Using Proof, Examples, Statistics and Arguments for B2B Sales

Alan: For those of you listening, I don’t know what each of you do individually but if your product or service is business

to business, then facts and statistics and examples and proof, logical arguments, they’re a lot more impactful on

business people than just regular consumers who buy something because it’s popular, or they feel prestige or

something.

Business people are pretty straightforward. They want to do this in order to make more money. So show me the money,

show me the proof. That’s my kind of client. I don’t know what yours is, but the way you make a post would vary

depending on what that is.

Trevor’s market is obviously small business people and so he shows proof, and that’s what got me, that’s what got me.

That’s what I wanted to see, and I’m going to probably keep paying for it, forever.



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Trevor: One thing on the proof side of things, so it obviously has worked very well for attracting our audience for the

software company. We’ve grown that at a good clip, and now we’re seven figure a year recurring revenue business,

which we’re really, really proud of.

The same thing applies to the high-paid consulting, like I was mentioning before the largest client we have, did about

600 million dollars last year, awesome company, great people to work with.

The problem that we really identified with them was that they were growing their company so much in this one way that

they’re really, really good at, but the conversation around their brand online, they weren’t just not controlling it, they

weren’t even a part of the conversation online.

What we did, Alan, with that client, and with all of the other clients that we’ve signed on, we use data to support the

fact that they needed what we had, and it’s simple data that every single person on this call can access for free.

We just knew how to show it, and show it with a compelling story that shows “here’s why you really need this.” So that’s

one thing that I feel that a thought leader can and should be good with, is you shouldn’t just good at being able to put

ideas out there.

You shouldn’t be good at just being able to put out an inspiring message. There should be some sort of data behind it

that helps show the proof behind why you believe something or why you believe that you are a thought leader here, or

what validates you to be a thought leader with that.

Even if you’re brand new and you don’t believe that you are a thought leader, and you don’t have that credibility or

track record yet, you don’t have to, as long as you can show that client or that customer, that perspective customer a

really compelling argument, show transparency for yourself, vulnerability is a big thing, better vision for the future, etc.

If you can show them that, just paint out the picture of what their future could be, not really saying that you’re going to

do it, just paint out the picture of what their future could be with this little area that you can tackle.

Then show the data behind why it is that it’s an opportunity that they should go after. With the internet, there’s so

much great - so many great tools out there that if we’re paining a vision for here’s why you need to be joining the

conversation with your brand around these keywords.

What we do next would be pull up the Google keyword planner, we find out how many people are searching those

keywords for their brand every month.

We go and look at the websites that are already ranked there, and show how many hundreds of comments are on these

websites. And we show the bad stuff that has infiltrated into that market, so that you get the rogue customers who

every now or then are going to post something bad, and this company is a big company. They have tens of thousands of

customers a year, you get two a year that post something bad, those things come up to the top.



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We show them the data around all this stuff, and we let them make the decision, and when you’re a thought leader,

guys and gals, the cool thing about being a thought leader is you don’t have to sell people anything. You don’t have to

sell people anything.

You show them the data, you paint them the better vision for the future, and then they end up coming to you and

making that decision and they likely pay a heck of a lot more money to you because of that thought leadership and that

position, than you would otherwise.

Alan: That’s the direction the world is going, I think. How firm of a customer is someone that you really had to sell and

convince and follow up, follow up, it’s like - can you imagine marrying someone that you had to convince like that?

Trevor: Yep.

Alan: To like you?

Trevor: Exactly.

Promoting Your Brand, Product, or Service through Online Groups

Alan: It wouldn’t work. Now in your own efforts, Trevor, to promote yourself, obviously you have been blogging for at

least the last year and announcing that on your various social media channels, but I want to know what else you’re

doing.

I know that you put together at least one online email group, and I think some local business networking groups, can you

tell us about those, and how they’ve helped you out?

Trevor: Yeah, so this would have been back in 2007, 2008, when I was starting our little online publishing company and

in the real estate market, and going into that market man, I was - just like most people start in most markets, I was a

nobody.

No one really knew who I was and I was really wanting to find a way to kind of join that circle of thought leaders, getting

the ear of people who had been doing this for a while, people who had some influence, and I really didn’t know how to

do that…

Alan: Wait a minute. Are you talking about real estate investing speakers and authors, publishers?

Trevor: Yes.

Alan: Yes, okay.



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Trevor: Exactly, so with that example, this is the first time that I did this strategy right here, and I would highly suggest

everyone to think about doing something like this, as I was getting into a market that I didn’t know many people, that I

really didn’t have any pull, and I was not a big player in the market, so there was no reason for me to be a thought

leader in the market quite yet.

But what I noticed was that the market was really fragmented. The market as far as the people - the educators and

promoters in that market - being able to communicate back and forth well. Of course there were pods here and there

where these people knew each other and they got together, and these people knew each other and they got together.

There was no one source, no one group to be able to connect with everyone else in the industry, so I created that, and it

was just a simple Google group. You’re a member of it.

By being the center of that little group, it did huge, huge things for my brand, for the perception of my brand, and I

honestly had never really thought about this, because I haven’t taken it as far as I could have in the group, with really

being intentional about being a thought leader for that group.

You’re kind of seen as a de facto thought leader, even if you’re not trying to, if you’re the person who can bring that

industry together.

Promoting Your Brand, Product, or Service through Local Groups

Trevor: I’m just going to show you a simpler version of this. Here locally in Roseburg, Oregon, a small town like I said, so

in 2008 is when my wife and I, we moved here.

In the first two years I was just working my butt off, growing my company, I had a home office, so I didn’t really - I

honestly didn’t really get out much. I didn’t go out there and meet a whole lot of people. I didn’t go to any networking

things for the first year or so and then I joined the Rotary. I joined the Chamber of Commerce just kind of thinking that

those would be my outlet to get to know people better.

Pretty quickly, I realized that for me, I wasn’t getting what I needed out of those groups, and I wasn’t able to give to

those groups as well, either.

Alan: Let me jump in here too. I used to go to Chamber meetings all the time, and I enjoyed meeting people, getting out

of the house, I learned a few things; but it was just too random, the audience was too random, it’s not like you have a

group just of potential clients unless you’re selling insurance or something like that.

Trevor: Exactly, and the thing is just inherently with, let’s say the Chamber or Rotary, it’s not your group, so you’re

playing by their rules. You don’t have control over the conversation that happens each meeting, unless of course you’re

the head of the group, which there’s a little bit of thought leadership that could be gained there if you did it right.



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What I did was, I said, “Okay so these aren’t really exactly what I want, but I would really love to find other people like

me…you know other people who are young entrepreneurs, and want to make stuff happen.”

We ended up creating what we call the young entrepreneur society, here in our town, and that group all - and it’s grown

word of mouth, the whole time, we’ve never marketed it. Other people have started to market it for us, which is a by-

product of becoming a thought leader is people want to be involved with you, and we have just under 200 members in

the group now.

We have between 40 and 70 people showing up every single month in our monthly meet-ups. And that’s a big deal for a

small town like ours, you look in other towns in Oregon that have - Medford as an example - has double, triple our

population, and they don’t have a group like this.

The thought leadership that that has provided for me in this market is now what happens is I’ve been connected with

some really, really influential people in the area…the largest private foundation in Oregon, they manage almost a billion

dollars, they’ve been coming to me, and they’ve coming to us, they want to work with us.

That never would have happened if I wouldn’t have created this very simple group, a way for people, like-minded people

to connect and make that happen.

Also, now they’re starting to invite us to speak up in Portland, and to speak in Medford, and to speak in all kinds of

places about rural entrepreneurship.

Alan: They want to work with you in what way? Because I was about to ask meeting all those local entrepreneurs

sounds fun in order to make friends, but what does it have to do with promoting your business of software as a service?

Trevor: Yes, and that’s the part that we really haven’t done a good job with so far as we built that group, that young

entrepreneur society group mainly because I wanted to connect with other people, like-minded people in the area.

The foundation here locally that managed almost a billion dollars, they’ve been wanting to connect with us, because

they have an agenda, and they have to give away a certain amount of money every single year, and part of their agenda

is economic development in rural communities and they just haven’t been doing that very well.

They’ve been connecting with us - they want to give us money to do cool projects. Is that going to equal profit in my

pocket? No, but you never know where that relationship is going to go in a year, in two years, three years.

I’m just throwing this out there, but that could turn into your next consulting client, if they see that you’re just really

providing them value, they see that - let’s say that they give us a grant for $50,000 to do youth entrepreneurship

project, which they’ve already verbally said that they would, we actually need to implement it now.

Let’s say we do that well, and we do another project well, and they have a huge budget for consultants at that

foundation, and they see that we’ve got this local track record, and they hire us for $100,000 for consulting for a year.

That’s something that could be very, very viable in a year, and two years down the road.



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As far as Carrot, what we’re doing now with the startup communities, literally just this year, is we said, “Okay, in order

to build this startup community here in small town, rural Oregon and have it be even more vibrant, we need some more

tech-type stuff to happen here.” Carrot is a really great example for a good young tech company that starting to see

some success.

So what I’ve been doing now, Alan, is any time that they invite me to come speak at an Oregon startup or tech-type

conference, you better bet that I’m showing up there in my full Carrot regalia, my Carrot T-shirt, and the story is about

rural entrepreneurship, but the story that I tell now is a Carrot story, and we happen to be in rural Oregon.

That’s opened us up to investors looking at us. That’s opened us up to potential acquires looking at us, and that’s all by

being a thought leader and doing that model of finding in your community or your industry…

Let’s say you’re a real estate agent in a local market and you want to find a way to be a thought leader in your market,

can you get together all of the business owners that have anything to do with the real estate market, it could be

mortgage brokers. It could be real estate, it could be property managers, it could be title companies. You get it…real

estate attorneys, insurance companies.

Could you create the Roseburg Real Estate Alliance or whatever you want to call it and have a monthly meeting that’s

really - whatever culture you want it to have in our culture with our Yes Meetup is very laid back. There’s kegs of beer

there. It’s really fun.

Alan: Kegs? Really? That’s pretty laid back.

Trevor: Well one of our members owns brewery, so he helps us out with some beer. But anyway, make the culture

whatever you wanted to make, but you could do a monthly meeting. I hate the word “meeting,” you could have a

monthly meet-up or a monthly gathering or whatever you want to call it, where you guys are going to make it fun.

But also, you’re going to make it to where that core of people are the people who are pushing forward in the real estate

thought leadership in the entire area.

You as the person that put it together are the head of that, and you’re the person that’s going to get connected to all the

influential people and then what happens is without you marketing your company.

They know you’re a real estate agent, who are they going to go to list their house? It’s going to be you, just because of

the thought leadership, just because you’re the person who’s the apex of that. And that’s something that’s worked

really well with me twice, with the real estate education world, and with our local entrepreneur scene.

Alan: That makes a lot of sense. Thinking about myself, so of course I offer marketing service, content development, I

went to the Chamber of Commerce, in Richmond, they don’t even have a monthly meeting. They have like a government

thing once a month, and that bores me to tears, so I looked for other groups and there’s like a marketing meeting that’s

once a month, except that they stopped a couple months ago.



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I’m just like all right, a local even in addition to everything that someone is doing anyway to promote themselves

nationally makes a lot of sense, because often that’s where speaking engagements start. That’s where getting your work

published, articles published, etc., starts.

Plus you can make a lot of good friends. This month, so far as real estate investing is concerned anyway, I’m about to

create an email list, a Facebook group of local investors to announce deals to.

Trevor: Cool.

Alan: You have expanded my vision. Why not include realtors, insurance companies, people in the whole industry, and I

think that would really help as well.

The Value of a Company Name That Brands You

Speaking of full Carrot regalia, what exactly does that look like?

Your company color is orange obviously, and I’ve seen some of your schwag, some of your merch, but full regalia, are

you going to look like, was it Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber or Jeff Daniels that had the orange suit and not the baby

blue one.

Trevor: No, man, it’s pretty low-key. It’s the T-shirt. Wearing the big old bright orange T-shirt, you cannot miss that. It’s

got Carrot on the front of it.

Dude, that’s another thing, kind of a by-product. I really did not plan this. I just thought Carrot was a cool name, and

there is a story behind why it’s Carrot and how it really directly relates to our product but just having a product name or

a company name that’s fun, that creates a question, that’s been a really, really cool thing because it’s a conversation

starter. It’s very easy for someone to remember.

Like we have competitors in our market, just as you are down into this market. I really love when a brand name is

unique, rather than descriptive…

Alan: It sounds funner. It sounds funner than “real estate investor website done-for-you software dot com.”

Trevor: Yeah, and there’s a competitor of ours where that literally is their domain name, something like that, it’s the

description of it, and if possible, when you’re becoming a thought leader, if possible if you can come up with something

whether it’s your product name, whether it’s your company name, whether it’s - whatever it is come up with something

that is memorable rather than descriptive.



17

A lot of people want to go with a descriptive name, something like if you’re selling medical widgets, it’s Medical Widgets

LLC, or Stenography Machines, Inc., or something like that. But if you can create something that is memorable rather

than descriptive, I found that that’s really, really effective. Carrot for us has done that.

People just know who Carrot is. It’s really recognizable in our market with a sea of other very generic-sounding names,

Carrot pops up there. And also it gives us a really, really easy opportunity to tell the unique story we can tie different

story lines around the Carrot thing and how it works for our customer, we have fun swag, we’ve got the T-shirt, we have

these Carrot bud dolls that we made.

We’ve got the Carrot stickers. We have Carrot notepads that are kind of cool, at the bottom of them they have a little

Carrot growing out of the ground, and it has our core values linked to it. Just really get creative if you can, thinking of a

company name that’s memorable rather than descriptive. I think that gives you your thought leadership legs.

Alan: It makes it fun too. You’ve got this local group started, and although your networking efforts didn’t really result in

your primary type of customer, which would be someone subscribing to Carrot, you found another type of client,

consulting that was pretty substantial.

Trevor: Yep.

Alan: And that reminds me of my own marketing effort. Obviously, there’s a lot of people I could provide services to,

there’s a lot of types of people that everyone listening to this could be providing services to, but it make sense to have

super clear, narrow focus on your ideal type of customer or client and go for them with the bulk of your effort, your

content marketing efforts and certainly your paid advertising efforts.

However, if someone pops out of the woodwork from a different industry or whatever and says, “Hey I’ve heard of you, I

want to talk,” you certainly wouldn’t turn that business down.

The alternative would be trying to be everything to everyone else, and that never works. What you said reminds me of

something I read in a book about what you should read in order to stay informed and make better business decisions, it

might have been Jay Abraham, it might have been Dan Kennedy.

They suggested reading world and national news, reading local news, reading about your specific area of expertise, also

reading about the industry your clients are in, and then in addition to all that, reading totally out-of-the-box stuff, like

Homer’s “The Odyssey,” or science, or just totally random stuff, that’s interesting to keep your brain sharp and well-

read.

I can’t say I apply that, because that’s a lot of reading, but I do see the wisdom in it, and I think that could be applied to

one’s networking efforts as well, national, but then why not local as well, or why not go to the big industry for people

who do what you do. You’re not going to find many clients there, but that’s where you get your skills sharp, and you do

kind of meet some people who could introduce you, referrals, etc.



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But in addition to that, why not network at groups, and events, meetings, conferences, where your target market will be

there. If they’re dentists, and you’re not a dentist, you could still go to dentist-type meetings.

How Marquee or “Gold Card” Clients Can Elevate Your Status

Trevor: Totally. While you were saying that, there were two things that popped up in my mind, that before we wrap up

this call today, that I’d really love people to take away, and these have worked insanely well for me.

One thing for sure is I’ve got a buddy. His name is Ben. He’s an insanely good copyrighter - and I’m going to steal this

term from him - he said that if possible you should have at least one or two gold card clients that you can refer to.

What he means by gold card clients is that client that when people see their name or when you are associated with a

client like that, that that really elevates your own authority in that space, your own thought leadership. And that’s one

thing that we’re doing with Carrot right now is we’ve been asked by a lot of people internally to do their SEO, to do their

lead generation, that’s not our business model.

We provide the tool, the training, and then we can hook you up with other people to help you, if you don’t have the

time to implement it.

What we have done is just in the past four months, as we become a really good thought leader in the market, we’re

presenting information in a different way than anyone else is, and we’re very, very clear about who our target customer

is…

So we’re not looking to attract any real estate investor, we are looking to track what we call the high achieving investor.

We purposely write our content to speak toward that person. We’re not writing the content to speak towards someone

who’s looking to just into real estate; I mean that’s very, very purposeful.

By knowing exactly who our ideal customer is, we’re attracting them because that’s the way we’re writing our content,

and we’ve been attracting some of the biggest investors in the country. These are people…one of them their biggest

year they did 30 million dollars, that’s gross sales, which of course when you’re selling real estate those numbers add up

quickly, but they netted in the seven figures in their biggest year, and these are big people that have done a lot of deals.

They’re coming to us and what we did was, they needed help, they weren’t a perfect fit for moving everything over to

our software. They wanted to do it, but we suggested that they don’t just because it would have been so much work for

us to do it, and they already had something that was pretty decent.

We saw an opportunity to go “Okay, we don’t just want to turn the business away, and where they’re probably at, it

probably might not make sense for them to move everything over, but they could be an awesome gold card client of

ours.”



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So if we can find a way to make it make sense, and also get paid well to do the work for them for the six months, that

they’re going to be an insanely great person to reference that is associated with, that has hired us, then not only do we

have the best websites, but the biggest investors in the country are leveraging Carrot to get more leads online.

We have two gold card clients right now for Carrot, and we’re going to start telling those stories in our marketing in

things here in the next six to eight months, as we get really good results for them.

With the consulting side, on the other side, we’ve got our largest client does 600 million dollars a year, many of the

people listening to this call, I guarantee you at least one person listening to this call has their product in your house

somewhere, or you at least know someone who does, and they sell a lot of it at one particular retail location.

They’re kind of our gold card client there. If we can leverage that story into other companies and to other customers,

then people really can see, “Okay, they’re legit, they at least have this one client who trusts them to do that.”

The second and last thing, Alan, I’m going to share is probably the biggest asset that I’ve found in my own thought

leadership is kind of the ability to paint a better and brighter picture for our market and everyone the year around. I

found that a lot of people gravitate toward what we’re doing here locally with our entrepreneur thing, because you

show up to our meet-ups, and you’re like inspired at what this area can do.

You show up to other things, and all you hear about is the unemployment. You hear about how bad things are. Oh, my

business isn’t doing this. You show up to ours and you leave it, and you’re like - you’re pumped to go out there and

make stuff happen.

It’s not because we’re doing Tony Robbins stuff and jumping up and down and clapping and giving each other massages,

it’s because we’re painting a better, brighter picture for the future, and we’re the ones who are that bright spot in the

day or in their morale for people.

We do the same thing with Carrot. You show up to our mastermind calls, and those calls are not just about SEO, they’re

not just about driving leads, they’re not just about conversion. They’re about painting a better, brighter picture.

We do that by sharing stories of other people doing really well. We do that by helping to get people in the right mindset,

and really empowering people, and that’s - I do the exact same thing on all of our consulting client pitches.

The pitch isn’t just here’s what we can do, and here’s what it’s going to cost you, it’s visually in their mind, painting a

better, brighter picture that when this is done, here’s how good things are going to be. It’s a realistic picture, it’s not

painting - everything’s going to be all flowers and daises, it’s painting a realistic picture but they want to jump behind

someone with a vision, and a vision that’s better than today’s current reality.

Alan: That makes me really happy to hear that. Realism is very important to me: Not optimism, not pessimism, but

neutral, realism, what is. The vision can be positive, but in some circles just being real is seen as negative, and I don’t get

that.



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Trevor: Exactly.

Alan: They’ll call you the Debbie Downer just for pointing out facts, when facts are friends.

Three Influential Thought Leaders That Have Influenced Trevor

Why don’t we skip to the brain pick section of this episode? What thought leaders have influenced you, Trevor and how

so?

Trevor: Man, that’s a great question. Thinking about on the spot, there’s a lot of them and I think I honestly kind of go

through phases where if I’m looking to up my game in this one area, then I kind of am gravitated toward a thought

leader in that area.

A couple that I can think of at the top of my head that have been really, really influential in kind of some directions that

I’ve gone, and this is probably one that a lot of people are going to recognize, but one of the first ones I can recognize

that kind of made a shift in my mind was four hour work week, was Tim Ferris, right.

At that phase in my life, that was the thought leader that I was following. The message he was trumpeting of course was,

“You can do your own thing. You can create your own company that gives you that lifestyle, the revenue you want.”

Man, I followed - I read every post Tim Ferris was posting for a while and then I got out of that phase, and I got into the

phase of “Okay, now I really want to - now, I really want to be able to grow a company, a publishing company.”

In that space, at that time, and this is someone I know you’re very familiar with, at that time it was a couple guys, Ryan

Deiss, I really do respect the way that he has built his company - and there are some things that I agree with and some

things that I don’t - but his company in general does put out great, great information around online marketing, how to

really leverage the web better to grow your company.

Alan: Great blog posts.

Trevor: Exactly, exactly. Another guy that some of you may have heard about and I believe - I’ve been following him - I

followed him for about a year and a half really, really well as I was in this phase as well, trying to find my way, trying to

find my voice better, trying to find my passion better, it’s a guy named Brendon Burchard.

I know you’ve heard of Brendon, a lot of people have, a lot of people haven’t, but when I started to resonate with him

was before he became big, before he became a New York Times bestseller and all that kind of stuff.

It wasn’t really the message that he was putting out, it was the underlying message of how he did it. This guy virtually no

real experience went out there and became a thought leader, maybe the thought leader in this particular market pretty

darn fast, and I was just all caught up in learning how he did that, and looking behind the scenes and seeing how he

structured things.



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My current guy, and I’m going to give you three right now is going into this year one of my goals this year was to peel

things away and consume less, and that was one of my big goals is to create more things and consume less things.

One of the consumption things is content. So I put a little blocker on my Facebook newsfeed on my computer, so I don’t

see the Facebook newsfeed anymore, because when I see a blog post, if someone shares, I click and I’m going to read it.

Now I’m following this guy and there’s 30 people I’m following.

Alan: Whoa, whoa, whoa, you mean you didn’t see the picture of the Mr. T pancakes that me and my kids made?

Trevor: I don’t know, did I? I’m not sure if I did or not.

Alan: I think if you did you would, so I’m going to message you the link to that picture later on.

Trevor: That’s awesome. There’s three guys I’m following now, and my guess is that most people on this call haven’t

heard of any of them. I know you’ve heard of one of them Alan, but I chose to follow just three people this year, and

these are all thought leaders in their own areas, that I’m going to focus on this year, and areas that I want to improve in.

One of them his name is Jason Cohen and he runs a really good company out of Austin, Texas. They do in the tens of

millions, so between 10 and 20 million a year, a recurring revenue company, he’s run multiple companies and just has

really, really good insights on how to grow a company - especially a software and service company. A really good dude

and I’ve connected with him on clarity.fm once or twice and I’m going to hope to connect with him in Austin when I’m

there in April.

Another guy is a guy that’s kind of new on the scene as far as thought leadership goes, but he’s not new on the scene as

far as entrepreneurship goes, and his name is Dale Partridge.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard of Dale, but you can just look him up, dalepartridge.com or startupcamp.com and he started

a company that many of you on this call have heard of, named Sevenly. Have you heard of Sevenly, the T-shirt…

Alan: Yes, heard of it.

Trevor: So Dale is the guy who started Sevenly, they’ve sold millions and millions and millions of dollars of shirts with a

cause. He’s really coming out now, kind of coming into his own, he stepped away from Sevenly, he doesn’t run the day-

to-day, he stills owns the company, but he’s really becoming a thought leader now and growing a startup where you

focus on the people in your company, in your business, your customers and over profits, and he’s coming out with a

book.

Those are the ones I’m focused on now is Jason Cohen for the software side, and Dale Partridge for the - he’s kind of the

really deep at your core, “How do you live and how do you run a company” side of things.



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If today were the last day of your life, would you want to do what you are about to do

today?

Alan: That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. My last question is what’s a really good quote from a thought

leader?

Trevor: The quote that kind of resonates with me a lot right now and it has quite a bit for the last several years is one

from Steve Jobs, and this is one that I try to think about every day, but I don’t, I need to write it down, but this quote

right here and I’m going to butcher it.

Go online and search for it, it’s going to be really powerful when you hear him say it in his words, but it’s something to

effect of, as soon as you wake up too many days in a row and you’re not excited about what you’re about to do that day,

you need to change things.

I think we can all relate to that. We can all relate to the fact that we get in slumps, so we have high points, we have low

points, that’s not going to change.

However, when too many days in a row are a low point, when you’re not excited about what you’re going to do that

day, no matter how much of a hole you’ve dug yourself in or started a company you think you need to finish, you need

to find a way to change that, you need to find a way to make your company more fun.

You need to find a way to make your company more mission-based. Or you need to find a different company, or get a

different job or something like that.

But that quote right there, when you wake up in the morning look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, “Am I

excited about what I’m going to do today? If I knew I was going to die in a week, is what I’m about to do today what

would excite me?” If that’s no for too many days in a row, you need to figure it out and change.

Alan: That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Even if you’re making - I’d say no matter how much money you’re making, if you

don’t get out of bed and have something, you can’t wait to jump into then you do need to change that as well.

Trevor: Exactly, exactly.

Alan: Why don’t you let our listeners know where they can find you online, and also about this free resource that you

have for us?

Trevor: Yeah, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to give you guys a free resource and that’s actually something

we’re going to be putting together here shortly is how we go out there and target which content we’re going to create,

okay.



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There’s all kinds of content you guys can create in your business and one of the biggest questions that we get from our

customers, from our real estate investor customers is “what do I write about?” That’s why we rolled out our content pro

plans to help you with that.

We’re going to create a resource that gives you our process for finding things to write about in your market, that you

can put on your blog post, that you can put in a report, that you can share on Facebook, whatever it is that resonates

with your market, but also what they’re actually looking for. That way you’re getting in front of a stream of customers

that are already there.

The place that you can find me, probably the most direct place and if you’re listening to this podcast ten years from now,

and let’s say I sold Carrot, the one that’s always going to stay with me is my name, so just go to

[email protected].

I’ve got a little simple blog there, it’s nothing fancy. I write content on there from time to time, and we’re actually

starting to write a lot more content on there, because I’m going through my own journey right now, Alan, with really

focusing on personal brand this year, more than I ever have.

I’m going to be going through my own process of becoming a thought leader nationally with being an entrepreneur and

follow me there, I’ve got an email list, you might get an email every two months on there, but it will be the cool stuff

that we’re doing, we have a book club that we’re going to start back up as well, so [email protected].

Alan: That sounds fun. It sounds like something that you’re passionate about, and thank you for this content marketing

resource as well. Everyone listening, I’m going to put that on our blog, the same page that this podcast is available to

listen to on: http://thoughtleaderretreat.com/trevorm

Also, if you have not already, please give us a good review or an honest review rather on ITunes, let us know what you

think, how many stars, what you think of the show, etc., it’s good for feedback. It also helps us with our ratings and

getting found and discovered, so we can have even more people in the thought leader retreat community.

This has been good, Trevor, I knew what we would talk about, but I didn’t know it would go in as many directions as it

did. You are certainly someone I’ve learned a lot from over the years, and I hope to stay in touch. I appreciate you taking

the time today to educate our listeners and to help everyone on their journey, to promote themselves and their

expertise through content marketing.

Trevor: Awesome, thank you for the invite man, and thank you guys for listening. I hope that you got something out of

it, and hopefully we’ll connect sometime in the future. Thanks guys.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://thoughtleaderretreat.com/trevorm

How Investor Carrot Quietly Grew Their Brand into a 7-Figure Business with Trevor Mauch

Presentations & Public Speaking

Transcript of How Investor Carrot Quietly Grew Their Brand into a 7-Figure Business with Trevor Mauch