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Sage Insights is a podcast about business, digital marketing, website design, and the real work behind building a strong brand online.
Hosted by Alex Jariv of Sage Digital Agency, the show features honest conversations with business owners, entrepreneurs, creatives, and industry experts about what actually drives growth: better strategy, stronger websites, clearer messaging, smarter marketing, and the right people behind the work.
From web design and WordPress to paid media, branding, client experience, leadership, and the lessons learned from building real businesses.
0:00
Jack
0:01
>> sir,
0:01
>> owner Atomic Wraps.
0:03
>> That's me.
0:04
>> Can we talk a little bit about uh how we met?
0:07
>> Yeah. You want to talk or don't you want me to talk?
0:09
>> Yeah, I'll start a little bit. Go ahead. Uh
0:12
>> All right.
0:12
>> Your voice is so soothing.
0:13
>> Thank you.
0:15
>> I watch your your commercials uh come up online and I just get entranced by your
0:19
voice.
0:20
>> I'm happy to hear that. I' i've heard that.
0:22
>> It's like I'm in the Matrix when I listen to you.
0:24
>> Listen, it's not nothing that I've done. It's just like it is what it is. Yeah.
0:27
So, okay. So you we we started what maybe five six months ago.
0:31
>> Yep. For sure.
0:32
>> You called and something happened that doesn't happen too often. I said, "Sir,
0:36
you have a cool brand as it is. Let's not go crazy with trying to change too
0:39
much." Yeah. Right. Doesn't happen that often.
0:41
>> Yeah. That's what you said.
0:43
>> I said, "Look, look, I'm generally a fan of what least can I do in order to net a
0:48
good result?" Happens that happens to me a lot where I'm like,
0:53
"You want to redesign a site with 75 pages? Just chill out for a second."
0:56
Yeah. Like let's do uh homepage, header, footer, major service pages. Is there
1:02
some data analytics as to who's coming to where, right? Let's focus on those.
1:05
>> Sure.
1:05
>> And like do the least harm, so to speak.
1:08
>> And when I first saw you saw your site, I was like, I like this. This is cool.
1:11
This is a great look and feel. Let's not turn the whole thing around.
1:13
>> Yeah. No, that you did. I remember you saying, I dig the brand. You got you got
1:17
good bones here.
1:18
>> Yes.
1:18
>> So, let's not go crazy trying to reinvent the wheel. Let's just take what
1:22
you have,
1:23
>> make it function a little better, make it make it look a little more current.
1:26
And
1:26
>> your site's in bakery, which I have to tell you, I love
1:29
>> your what? My what?
1:30
>> Your your website, the theme builder is is uh
1:32
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:33
>> Which I love cuz I grew up with bakery.
1:36
>> Yeah. Yeah.
1:36
>> Now we're on Elementor. We have been for a while. And
1:39
>> And I'm not, you know, I used to do uh websites when I first my first company
1:43
was Safari Marketing
1:44
>> uh back in Indiana. And that's what we did, digital marketing. So we did SEO,
1:48
SEM, websites, development, branding, all that stuff. And uh
1:54
>> you know when we first started there was not even there was no WordPress, there
1:58
was no GoDaddy and Wix. Everything was code. You had to know how to write code
2:03
to do a website. So they all dep everybody depended on you also for every
2:07
change
2:07
>> and they paid you what you wanted. Yeah.
2:09
>> And then you know everything started popping up with WordPress and and Wix
2:14
and all these quick quick builders, you know. and and and that's when I got
2:19
frustrated with it. Uh so, you know, bless you for having the patience to
2:24
deal with customers and and and that kind of stuff. I wanted more quick in
2:28
and out.
2:28
>> I get it.
2:29
>> I didn't want to wait four months for information.
2:31
>> I get it.
2:32
>> Right.
2:32
>> I get it. I have some clients that are very honest. Some clients takes, you
2:36
know, let's say we said, "Hey, we want to get this done in six to eight weeks,
2:38
but I don't get content for long periods of time." Yeah,
2:41
>> it's uh
2:41
>> and you know the funny thing is that that kind of gave me a slap in the face
2:45
of reality when I worked with you was when I was doing websites I would get uh
2:52
you know I'd have my initial meeting, right? I'd get a deposit on the website
2:57
to start working on it and then and once I got the deposit I would send them an
3:00
email saying here's what I need from you.
3:03
>> Mhm. which they never they you know they were
3:06
so excited when they came in and gave you the deposit and I can't wait to get
3:09
this done but then I would have to pull teeth and babysit to get the content
3:13
that I needed and of course there was no chat GPT back then uh to help you out
3:17
but um so you know websites could take up to like six months b you know if
3:23
these people just were not on their game I'm busy
3:26
>> well I come to you
3:28
>> and I'm like hey let's get my site done and then of course now I'm the guy
3:32
dropping the sending you what you need
3:36
>> because I'm a busy business owner who's you know going back and forth, you know,
3:40
going crazy. So now I, you know, I apologize to all my former clients that
3:45
I yelled at because now I get it.
3:46
>> You get it. But look, you're running a business and it's a priority, but it's
3:49
not the only priority.
3:51
>> Uh even though you spend money on something, right? So look,
3:54
>> your business, I think, so interesting because super creative, right?
3:59
>> Yep.
3:59
>> Super creative. I actually would like you to explain to didn't get to be
4:03
creative, I probably wouldn't like it so much.
4:05
>> There's that, but there's also the fitting it to some vehicle or some van
4:09
or some building or whatever that you're doing that I find very interesting. Your
4:13
shop is so cool, too. Like, thank you.
4:15
>> I haven't been there physically, but the photos, wow, this is serious. So,
4:18
>> I am very interested in that. Like, let's talk about I'm just for my own
4:22
education. Like,
4:23
>> someone comes to you. I think you told me once like I'd rather do a massive box
4:29
truck than a Tesla or whatever just because of the Am I correct on that?
4:33
Because of the
4:34
>> Yeah, kind of. I'd rather I'd rather do three cars than a motorcycle.
4:37
>> I see.
4:38
>> For sure.
4:39
>> And people think that motorcycles are going to be cheap because
4:42
>> it's there's not a lot of vinyl involved. It's a tank. It's a couple
4:45
little fenders,
4:46
>> but it's having to take it apart. It's
4:49
>> Yes. taking up the floor space in the shop.
4:51
>> It's it's having all that stuff laying in my shop, taking up real estate. Uh
4:55
the wrapping of it is more labor intensive because instead of wrapping
4:59
one big side of a car where you can just start squeegeeing. Uh now you have to
5:03
get around all these different convexes and curves and make everything work and
5:07
not overstretch and
5:08
>> Yeah. They're they're not fun. Um what you're talking about what I said was the
5:13
difference between a personal or a color change wrap
5:18
>> mainly on a high-end car as opposed to a fleet wrap for a company. So, with a
5:24
fleet wrap, right? Like a box truck, they're in and out, right? They're
5:28
quick. You don't have to worry as much about taking the whole vehicle apart or
5:32
seams because it's a work truck. I see.
5:34
>> Right. I mean, we obviously want it to look as good as possible. We want to
5:37
hide as many seams as possible, but it's not like if somebody brought me an
5:40
escalator, Lamborghini,
5:42
>> it's got to be
5:43
>> like a paint job, right? So, that whole car has to come apart.
5:47
>> I see. Wow. So, for the five or six days that that vehicle's in my shop with the
5:52
bumper over here and the rear bumper here and the headlight taking up real
5:56
estate for x amount of dollars,
5:59
>> I could wrap, you know, 15 box trucks in that time using that same space of real
6:05
estate. So, it does does it look cool at the end of the day when you post online
6:09
that we did this
6:10
>> red chrome Lamborghini? Absolutely. But profitabilitywise,
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you know, it's better to the fleet stuff's where the money's at.
6:18
>> I see. I see. I um Look, I come to you
6:23
>> and your response although like we're quote unquote designers, right? I don't
6:26
know what I'm doing with the car. I could never I don't even know where I
6:28
would be. Two totally different worlds.
6:30
>> Yeah. I don't know where I would begin. Like I would say, "Here's my brand
6:32
styling guy. Here's whatever." But I'm relying on you to do it. Although we're
6:35
creative, right? Like I don't know what I'm doing. And I do have a lot of
6:39
clients that will come to me and say, um, I don't need you to design this rap.
6:44
I have a designer.
6:46
>> And that's usually when I go,
6:47
>> oh, here we go.
6:48
>> Here we go.
6:50
>> Because designing a wrap on a screen,
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>> not knowing what's involved with
6:56
>> angles and door handles and hinges and what can and cannot work.
7:00
>> They usually give me the files, and I always have to have the working files,
7:03
obviously. Y,
7:04
>> but I have to change everything. bring them into my world and my templates. So,
7:09
there's still
7:11
>> there's still design costs there.
7:13
>> It reminds me I can't It reminds me like look some of my best clients, media
7:18
buyers, marketing companies, and sometimes I'm told, "Hey, we don't need
7:23
you to design anything. Just go build this." And I'm like,
7:26
>> "Are you sure?"
7:26
>> Yeah. Yeah.
7:27
>> You're sure? You're very sure. And we look at something and we're just like,
7:33
"It just misses the mark." and and and now with the curse of AI, everyone's a
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designer. So, you know, we have people that come to us on a daily going,
7:46
>> you don't have to design my rap.
7:47
>> Meaning, what is that? That means give me a better price because you're not
7:50
going to design,
7:50
>> right? You don't have to design it. I don't have to pay for that.
7:53
>> That's here's my from my from my Canva, you know, whatever that I have to now
7:59
tell them, listen, this is great. This is a great start to give me some
8:04
direction. Yes.
8:05
>> But I can't use this.
8:05
>> Yeah. It's like a wireframe.
8:06
>> If I blow it up, it's going to get all pixelated and and and then you sent them
8:10
a picture of your truck at an angle. So that's what I've got to work with. Uh so
8:15
yes, I still have to redesign this and you're still going to have to pay.
8:18
>> Yeah. And there might be an extra I saw, by the way, I saw a funny thing once
8:21
that said like I'm going to butcher it now, but it was like we design it 4,000.
8:26
We design it together with you 5,000.
8:29
>> For sure. you design it alone 6,000 whatever you know so so
8:34
>> I um
8:35
>> I really resonate with that because I'll tell you now again with AI I'm thinking
8:40
about one or two particular clients of mine these are people I have ongoing
8:43
relationships with there's lots of benefit in the sense of like hey Alex
8:47
here's a wire generally I'll call it a wireframe it looks way better than a
8:51
wireframe it's a functional little prototype but
8:55
>> look right now any site you go to
8:58
>> I know in two seconds if it was made obviously that 100%.
9:02
>> By the way, there's like there's
9:04
>> it almost seems like AI was designed for people to make Facebook ads.
9:07
>> Yeah, it's it's like the same it's like the same site over and over and they
9:11
keep saying the word you know what I've noticed recently every AI site I open
9:15
>> uses the word ship too much like if it doesn't work we don't ship it. If it
9:20
doesn't it's every single site has the word ship. Stop using the word ship.
9:24
Anyway, I I but in all fairness, media buyer, client of mine sends to me, I
9:29
want this landing page generally. Here's the here's the content. I'm happy with
9:32
the wording. I'm happy with this.
9:34
>> Make it real. Make it what it should be. I'm happy with that. Better than
9:38
starting from zero, right? Saves us some time.
9:41
>> I'm happy with those.
9:42
>> Uh but
9:43
>> that's what I said. It's good for direction. Good for direction. But you
9:46
must be the designer. You know how that thing goes, right? Obviously, you've
9:49
done it a thousand times. uh and you have the benefit of that knowledge that
9:52
uh obviously others don't and then what someone comes to you and they approve
9:56
the design they bring you the vehicle and that's it right
9:59
>> so the process usually starts with an email or a phone call hey I own a
10:03
construction company and I have three vans that I need wrapped how much
10:09
>> uh what's the year making model of the vans so let's say they're all the same
10:13
they're all 2025 Ford F-150 cargo vans no windows
10:17
>> perfect what color are they all white awesome Awesome. Send me some photos. I
10:23
have templates for every vehicle.
10:24
>> Yep.
10:25
>> So then I can go in and find that template, right? Uh and it's
10:29
>> means what you're actually sorry. What you're actually printing, correct? Like
10:31
it's the file one must design and then print. Yeah, I see.
10:34
>> So I'll go find that template based on the correct wheelbase and everything and
10:38
then and I open it in Photoshop
10:41
>> and then you know I have them send me their logos which hopefully are vector
10:45
>> and not Canva.
10:47
>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and if they do have Canva or something like that that I
10:51
can't use, I tell them I have to reproduce this, but for design sake, for
10:56
proofs, we can use this for now.
10:57
>> Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Yeah.
10:58
>> Uh, and everything's already in this. These templates I use is great. They're
11:02
all masked out. So, you just Oh, you just drag in it. Automasks it. You can
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see all the lines and the body lines of the vehicle. It has where badges are,
11:10
where handles are.
11:11
>> Um, pretty accurate. It's a great uh it's called bad wraps. Mh.
11:16
>> It's for the rap industry.
11:17
>> I see.
11:18
>> Um, so I lay it all out usually one side, driver's side.
11:22
>> I don't want to do everything and send it to them and they're like, I hate it.
11:25
Or, you know, let's get the driver side done to say, is this the right direction
11:30
we're moving in?
11:31
>> It's like me doing the homepage first and not going and doing the entire
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website.
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>> Driver side's my home page.
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>> I love that.
11:37
>> If you're if you're good with the direction we're going here in the
11:40
placement, then I'll go ahead and finish everything else. Send it to you. I just
11:45
send them screenshots. Uh, and then they'll make notes. Hey, you know, I
11:49
don't Let's take this this badge off. Let's take this move this logo. I don't
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like this color. Uh, we make the adjustments in a day.
11:58
>> Mhm.
11:58
>> And then once we get their blessing, we schedule a drop off date. I need the car
12:03
for depending on the vehicle, could be two days, could be four or five days.
12:07
Uh, depends if we have to strip old wrap off of it, which out here in Nevada is
12:12
>> because it's baked on, right?
12:13
>> It's the worst. But you know what? Two things come to my mind. One, I love the
12:17
point you made about In-N-Out. This isn't a fivemon ordeal of chasing. I
12:21
love that. And another thing comes to my mind is uh the risk and liability you
12:25
take on with these things, right? You're taking apart the whole vehicle. You're
12:28
doing all this stuff. That's quite a bit of risk,
12:30
>> right?
12:31
>> You've seen you'd see my mouth drop a few times when
12:35
we were taking apart some Lamborghinis and I hear clips break and I'm like,
12:40
"Oh,
12:41
>> wow. that clip on a Lambo's going to cost me, you know.
12:45
>> Oh, yeah.
12:45
>> So, you know, higherend cars like that obviously have a higher price tag. Um,
12:49
but yeah, we, you know, out here in Vegas,
12:54
>> I'm not saying we don't do color changes or personal wraps. Uh, we just don't
12:59
really advertise it a lot.
13:00
>> You'll do it if it's the right situation.
13:02
>> Right. We're businessto business out here. We're working with casinos,
13:05
exhibit houses, the convention center, vehicle reps. We're doing fleet work for
13:10
companies with multiple vehicles, multiple food trucks, things like that.
13:14
Um, now if I do work for a guy who owns a construction company, I do all of his
13:18
stuff and he comes to me and says, "Hey man, I just bought a Escalade and I like
13:21
the color." Of course, I'm going to do it for him. He's a good customer. I want
13:24
to keep him happy.
13:26
>> Um, but the majority of that stuff that's back in the other
13:30
>> shop in Indiana outside Chicago. We do tons of personal stuff out there.
13:35
>> Now, what happens when your web designer comes to you and says, "Hey, I got a
13:37
white Tesla. I don't want to do the whole thing. I just want to do something
13:39
for Sage. Like you're like, "Oh, here we go again."
13:42
>> No, you're my guy. I got you all day long.
13:44
>> I don't know what to do. Something. I don't want to do the whole thing. Just
13:47
something.
13:48
>> And the thing I love about I've done so many Teslas and I'll tell you why. Uh
13:53
when the Teslas first came out,
13:56
>> I want to say around the time of the pandemic, you
14:00
could everybody was ordering them, but you could only get like two or three
14:03
color. Like there wasn't a big
14:05
>> Everybody was getting Teslas, but they were all white. Mhm.
14:07
>> Or they were all gray, whatever it was,
14:10
>> but everybody wanted to be themselves and look different. So, everyone was
14:14
wrapping their Teslas. I loved it.
14:17
>> That's fun. Yeah, it's great. It's great.
14:19
>> So, we've done a ton of Teslas and we've done color changes on them and we've
14:22
done them for businesses and we've done custom kind of cool paint. I say paint
14:28
because, you know, custom paint job with like
14:30
>> stripes, lines, and whatever. But it's all done in wraps, you know, it's all
14:33
designed in the computer.
14:34
>> Incredible. Incredible.
14:35
>> Yeah, it's fun.
14:36
>> I see. So, there's just so many similarities which I love what you said.
14:39
It's like my what is it? Driver door is your home.
14:42
>> The driver side is my home page.
14:43
>> I love that. I love that. I
14:45
>> It actually might be a good t-shirt.
14:46
>> It's a good one. That's a good one. I think only web people would uh Yeah.
14:51
>> What um I want to tell like what what's been on
14:55
my mind a lot recently. Like I started to tell you
14:59
this whole stuff with uh AI, build your site on your own,
15:02
>> all of that. Did a piece of content yesterday. I read a book. Let me start
15:06
back. I read a book called Outlive by a doctor named uh AIA. Interesting book
15:11
about longevity, health span, lifespan. I got a lot out of it.
15:14
>> One of the interesting things was called the uh Dunning Krueger effect. Some
15:19
psychology thing that said essentially uh it's a it's a graph that measures
15:25
confidence and competence, right? And why I liked it so was a couple of
15:31
reasons I liked it so much, but it essentially said somebody with no
15:34
experience, zero, did something one time, right? All of a sudden confidence
15:38
shoots to the roof, right? And the curve just goes way up, right? Right away.
15:43
>> Uh so they have very little competence but very very high confidence.
15:47
>> Yeah.
15:47
>> And at the top it said you're at the peak of Mount Stupid. Right. That's what
15:52
they said. Right. And then very quickly you realize you know nothing. So it
15:55
shoots down again and then very very very very slowly does it go towards I
15:59
think it was called the uh plateau of sustainability
16:02
>> where your confidence increases your competence increases etc. And I found so
16:06
much interest in that because it's so correct in what's going on today.
16:10
>> Again, like my view is this. For the last 15 years,
16:15
I've always said I'm not a template designer. Okay? When I first started
16:19
this 2012, knew nothing. Had no experience. Peak of mount stupid, right?
16:23
Had no clue what I was doing. I was going to some repository. I was
16:27
downloading pre-made templates, right? And doing the best I possibly could in
16:31
order to make my clients happy. And somehow I made it through that, right?
16:35
However, it's very bad for the customer, not good for me. Too much back and forth
16:39
and and and no custom like certainly not design. It's not I don't know what it
16:42
is, but it's not web.
16:43
>> See, when I started with web design, there were no templates.
16:46
>> Not even templates. You're even pre-
16:47
>> we were building everything. It's sometimes an in design.
16:50
>> Yeah. It's unbelievable. But but but now that's over, dead, gone
16:54
>> for sure.
16:55
>> Like I can't imagine that anyone for very much longer would ever go and
17:00
choose the template $79 themeforest.net. net option. Why would you do that? You
17:07
might as well just go to one of these platforms.
17:09
>> And you know, when I first came in here to meet you, one of the first things out
17:13
of my mouth was,
17:16
>> I want my website to have personality.
17:18
>> Of course. Yeah.
17:18
>> Because of my brand and uh you agreed with me 100%. We had a great
17:23
conversation and I understand that there's, you know, there's all these
17:27
different platforms out there, WordPress and things like that, but you can still
17:30
do custom work, right? But a lot of people don't do that. They want to cut
17:34
corners and get it done quick. And I remember back when Apple
17:38
first came out with their website that was just like white.
17:44
>> High-res photo. High-res photo. You know what I mean?
17:48
>> It was so clean.
17:50
>> And I thought, "This is so badass and it's so less is more."
17:54
>> Yeah.
17:55
>> And I started building all these websites just like Apple.
17:58
>> It just looked just like Apple. Uh but yeah, that was like when that first came
18:03
out, it was like why are people over why are people overthinking stuff? But they
18:08
started that and that was their brand. Anybody else, you know, like we tried to
18:12
emulate that people would go, it looks like Apple's website.
18:15
>> But look, it's hard to be simple. Also, sometimes people confuse excellent with
18:20
too much. Too much. Yeah. You don't need to be too much.
18:22
>> No, less is more.
18:23
>> Less is more. That's right. But again, now
18:26
>> look, we're I'll just say my opinion. WordPress 40% of the entire internet. Do
18:32
I want to be like the I think it's an ostrich that puts the head in the sand
18:35
and doesn't pay attention. No, I don't want to do that. That's probably not a
18:38
good idea.
18:39
>> But I also don't want to
18:41
>> gamble or learn on your account, so to speak.
18:44
>> Someone came to me once and said, "Alex, can you do this in breakdance or can you
18:48
build it in this other builder, this kind of fad new builder?" Right?
18:52
>> No, I'm not going to do that. Go hire someone that that specializes in that. I
18:56
don't want to play around on your account. Maybe it's fantastic. The
18:59
marketing certainly is great, but maybe it isn't. And I've got the benefit of
19:05
>> thousand projects or whatever over the last 15 years. Let me just do my way.
19:09
Okay. Because I know I can control my way. I can I'm not saying it's the only
19:12
way, but it's the way I can fully control.
19:14
>> Absolutely. It's this, you know, and websites are kind of like vehicle wraps,
19:18
right? Guys come to me with a big van, so they figure I have this huge canvas.
19:22
I want to put 10 pounds of [ __ ] in a two pound bag. Yeah.
19:25
>> And I'm like,
19:27
>> listen, the first of all, when the vehicle's moving, people can't read all
19:30
that stuff.
19:31
>> Let's make the sides all about the brand.
19:34
>> Big as we can get it, pop.
19:37
>> Make it noticeable, but not difficult to read as it's driving down the road.
19:41
>> If you want to put more stuff on there, like list services or something like
19:44
that, do it on the back
19:45
>> cuz that's when people are behind you.
19:47
>> They have time to read and comprehend.
19:50
>> I like that.
19:51
>> Don't make it look like an ice cream truck. You know what I mean? Less is
19:54
more.
19:54
>> Less is more. Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree. And now again coming back
19:58
to WordPress 40% of the entire internet. It's not the only builder. There's other
20:02
great things for for specific use cases, but I like to control and have full
20:06
control over the process. Something that I can own. I don't mean own from an
20:08
ownership perspective. But own meaning I can see it to the end and I can know
20:12
I've done a good job.
20:13
>> And so so what what is my view on what's going to happen? No more templates.
20:17
That's going away. Why would anyone do that? Go prompt any of these platforms.
20:22
You can output. Yes, it's what what's the word? Vanilla.
20:26
Looks like a lot of everything else. But hey, keep prompting. Keep doing I've
20:30
seen some decent stuff come out. Now, will it hold the test of time? Will it
20:34
be good for SEO? Will it be good for ABCD EFG? Will it be good for paid
20:38
media? I have no idea, right?
20:40
>> I have absolutely no idea. And I
20:43
>> am strongly of the opinion that you should leave the tools to the
20:46
professionals, not pretend that you're the professional because you have a tool
20:49
and you did it once%
20:50
>> big mistake. big mistake. I think that you don't know what you don't know. And
20:55
there's there's this like weird thing in design, web design. I don't know about
21:00
in yours, but like just because you did it once or twice doesn't mean you should
21:04
actually be doing it at all.
21:06
>> Well, in in in my field, it's YouTube videos.
21:11
>> Everybody watches an install on YouTube from somebody who's been doing it for 30
21:14
years and they're like, "That's easy. It's just a sticker.
21:19
Why are these guys charging so much?
21:21
>> You You know what would be a great ad? You you were one of your guys doing it
21:25
and then getting a guy like me that watched one video trying to do it and
21:28
just just hammering the thing just absolutely just ripping it and whatever.
21:32
>> It's like uh
21:33
>> it's very funny.
21:33
>> I believe you did one of your podcast and you were talking about a place out
21:38
here that does tints. Yes, I did.
21:39
>> That says we fix $99 tents. Yep. That that ad by by the way that comment
21:45
became an ad
21:46
>> and I cannot believe how much business I got in that one statement. I remember a
21:51
couple of serious business guys, yourself included, comes to me and says,
21:55
>> "Make me the same version of what you just said about that." I was like, "Wow,
21:58
this thing was crazy."
21:59
>> And and and I've had people come to me and go, "Hey, I have a uh this car and I
22:05
want to wrap it with this color. How much?" And let's just say I $4,000.
22:11
$4,000. It's just a sticker. I can buy it on eBay. Go do it yourself. I can buy
22:16
it on Amazon. Well, first of all, those are all crap. Those are all garbage
22:20
vinyls. They're going to ruin your paint. They're they're terrible at
22:23
installing because they're super aggressive tack. You know, good wrap
22:26
vinyl has certain attributes about it that make the job go better.
22:30
>> Sure.
22:31
>> But you have to know the vinyl and know how it reacts to heat and stretch and
22:34
all that. So, you know, I can't believe you're charging. And I'm like, listen,
22:38
man. If I were you, I would finish watching that YouTube video.
22:44
>> Yeah.
22:44
>> Get on Amazon, buy your little roll of Chinese material.
22:47
>> Yeah.
22:48
>> And then once you mess it all up,
22:50
>> bring it to me. But now my price is going to be more
22:54
>> because I have to remove all the crap that you put on the car, clean all the
22:57
adhesive off, and get it prepped for a proper wrap. That happens all the time.
23:00
>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh similarly, again, to keep comparing notes here, I've quoted before
23:06
X price. Someone says, "Hey, I like you. I can't afford it. It doesn't fit my
23:10
budget.
23:11
>> Yeah.
23:11
>> They leave.
23:12
>> They pay someone half price. They screw around for 9 months and they come back
23:17
and said, "I should have hired you." And I'm
23:19
>> So now they spent that money. They're not getting
23:21
>> And the one to me. Yeah. And the one to me.
23:23
>> Yeah.
23:23
>> I talked to a guy the other day. This was shocking. I'd given him a price for
23:27
a project, a relatively bigger than normal one.
23:30
>> This is a guy doing like serious like high-end work in in in luxury homes. And
23:36
he doesn't hire me because of the price. We did an outreach to him. It had been
23:39
about a year since we talked. And he tells me paid some company $3,600.
23:44
Uh they screwed around with me for two months on a logo that we never liked.
23:48
Then when I asked why haven't we done our onboarding, they literally dis
23:51
literally disappeared. Okay, disappeared. Now wait, this is even
23:54
worse. They had some POS website up the owner, right, that he' done himself or
24:00
whatever, not from any other company.
24:02
>> So they do a chargeback, which he should have, and good for him. The company goes
24:07
and quickly duplicates the live site of the owner. It was a couple page BS site
24:12
and says to the credit card company, "He's scamming me. We we made the
24:16
website. Look,
24:17
>> wow. They turned
24:18
>> here's the development that they turned it around. So, he's in like some battle
24:21
over $3,600." I'm like,
24:23
>> "Wow,
24:24
>> what do you need this for?" I'm not saying every
24:26
>> Look, there's wonderful freelancers. There's wonderful talented people that
24:29
have a lesser price than Alex or Sage 100%.
24:33
>> There's lots with lots more, too. Can they see it through the end? I
24:37
always say very easy to start projects, not so easy to finish projects.
24:40
>> So yeah,
24:41
>> so similar what we both do because you're talking about that and the first
24:45
thing that comes to my mind are what we call rat rappers. So somebody calls me
24:50
and says, "How much to wrap my car? It's this, this, and this." And I say, "Uh,
24:54
3,800." And they go, "3,800?" I got a guy that'll do it for 1,200.
24:59
>> Well, go do it.
25:00
>> Okay. Well, 1,200. Let me just tell you, a roll of vinyl is a,000.
25:03
>> Wow. So, he's making $200. He's doing it out of his garage. He has
25:08
no insurance. He has no overhead on a on a brick-andmortar place. He has no
25:12
employees, right?
25:14
>> He's obviously desperate for money if he's doing something like this to make
25:17
200 bucks. You're not going to get a warranty.
25:19
>> Uh but we get those calls all the time. I got somebody that'll do it for 1,200
25:23
bucks, 1,500 bucks. Go. Bye. Do it.
25:26
>> I don't have time. You're the guy that I don't want to deal with.
25:28
>> Those that pay the least complain the most.
25:30
>> 100%.
25:31
>> Okay. And I can't help everyone. I'm not saying everyone should overpay, but
25:35
listen, for goodness, it's exactly the same. I want a custom website for
25:38
$1,500. Like, if you understood what it took, you would you would be embarrassed
25:42
to even say such a thing. It doesn't make any sense, right? It doesn't make
25:46
any sense. And I'll tell you, in my industry, it's particularly interesting
25:49
from a paid media perspective.
25:51
>> I'm battling with very high cost per click, right, in paid media.
25:55
>> Very high. You know how much cost Las Vegas web design, web designer, Las
25:59
Vegas, take a guess. Cost per click Google ads
26:03
>> $2.
26:04
>> I wish I would be
26:05
>> Oh, you for me?
26:06
>> Oh, for you?
26:07
>> Yeah.
26:07
>> Oh, jeez. It's got to be around 20.
26:09
>> It's more. It's 50, 60, 70, $80 a click.
26:12
>> Wow.
26:13
>> So, so how does one succeed with that when, hey, the keyword that is on point,
26:18
the customer put the exact term that makes sense. That's what we do. It's in
26:22
our city, right?
26:23
>> Uh, and I get a call. I pick up a how many clicks do you need to get one form
26:27
submission? I do the math and the the the logic is I want a $1,500 website.
26:31
Like it's doesn't make any sense. Yeah.
26:34
>> Doesn't make any sense. So, but that's the reality of what it is for me. So,
26:37
>> so I used to sell SEM and SEO back in the day when I worked for a newspaper
26:41
and uh it was when it just started the internet was just kind of blowing up.
26:45
Yahoo was huge. We partnered with Yahoo at the time.
26:48
>> Um
26:49
>> and uh back then like high-end clicks were like
26:54
five bucks.
26:54
>> That's incredible. Like that was like the [ __ ]
26:57
>> That's incredible. That's incredible. I I wish that was the case.
27:02
>> Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. And by the way, it's not
27:05
other industries, you know, personal injury, um, HVAC, electrical, that kind
27:10
of stuff in certain markets.
27:11
>> Crazy.
27:12
>> Yeah.
27:13
>> 200 bucks a click when the average job is 600 bucks, 800 bucks. It's insane.
27:17
It's insane. Private equity, the whole story. So, so you you Okay. So you have
27:23
uh the benefit of history of being decades in in in what I do, right? So
27:27
I'll tell you where I think all of this is going.
27:30
>> Tell me.
27:31
>> So I already said the template stuff. Why would anybody do it? Go prompt AI.
27:35
You'll get a probably a better product and you don't have to pay. Like someone
27:39
that's still selling templates today and messing around with those doesn't have
27:42
the skill set necessary to do custom designer development. They're not the
27:45
right person for you. Don't do that. Just go do it yourself, right?
27:48
>> Go do it yourself. And good luck with that. And again, maybe you don't have a
27:52
I don't want to be rude here, real business in the sense of like you're not
27:55
doing numbers that like it really matters, right? If you're spending a
27:58
thousand bucks a day on Google Ads and Meta, well, it really matters, right? It
28:02
has to be right. So, maybe you don't have it. Maybe you need proof of concept
28:05
or whatever. That's fine.
28:06
>> But I'll tell you what's been on my mind a lot recently.
28:10
And anyone who's seen any content from me knows, and I just am who I am, and
28:13
that's not going to change, okay? I like to harp on the negative. That's just who
28:16
I am. Okay? I I can't help myself because it's everywhere. It's
28:23
SEO. I did a piece of content a couple of years ago. I called it stop with the
28:27
SEO BS. And and I was ranting. It was my sister. She was here from out of the
28:32
country and I was yelling for 10 or 15 minutes.
28:35
>> You're like the Larry David of
28:37
>> the internet.
28:38
>> I'll take that. I love him. Uh he did a funny thing once. I saw it was around
28:43
the election time. He was like driving his like Prius or whatever and he's got
28:48
uh he would like cut off a biker like a mean angry bike or whatever, right?
28:51
>> Oh, he put on his MAGA hat.
28:53
>> Yes, he's the best.
28:54
>> And the biker's like And then he puts the MAGA hat and the biker's like,
28:57
>> "Sorry, buddy.
28:58
>> I loved it. I love those are great." Anyway, so
29:02
>> there's so much BS.
29:04
>> It's shocking. Okay, I would say 95 I'm being nice. 95% of people have
29:09
absolutely in marketing have absolutely no idea what they're doing, right? Don't
29:11
know what they're doing. Selling air. or pay me three, four, five, $600 uh uh uh
29:16
a month and um we're going to get you so much traffic.
29:21
You're not going to believe it. You're not going to believe it. But guess what?
29:24
They themselves don't have any traffic, right? Look at their websites. Nothing,
29:26
>> right?
29:27
>> And they end up paying for six months. Oh, you know, there's impressions.
29:31
That's really, you know, it's all BS. Okay, I'm sorry. It's BS.
29:34
>> And so difficult to I I used this term before, control the outcome,
29:39
>> right?
29:39
>> Oh, yeah. You could do the best job ever that any professional quoteunquote SEO,
29:42
real SEO person that charges appropriately thousands of dollars a
29:46
month for their work, which is what it should be. You could do all that stuff
29:49
and you could still not have a result. And on top of that, what happens if you
29:52
do have meaningful rankings and that doesn't turn into calls for you? What do
29:55
you do then? Yeah.
29:56
>> Right. So, you spend all this money. So, that's why I like paid media. That's why
29:58
I like owning the whole thing. We call it the Sage Performance System. You come
30:02
to us, we build you the website, we do Google Ads and Meta, we report, we
30:06
track, we analyze, we understand the numbers. Uh, we even go as far as to say
30:10
we set up the CRM for you because so many customers of ours, turn on ads, get
30:15
leads, try to pick up the phone one time, two times, don't follow up ever
30:20
again, don't text, don't email, right? Not good.
30:24
>> So, we have the performance system where we, again, I use the word own the whole
30:28
>> They blame you.
30:29
>> No, not no, not really. I mean, look, I can the lead quality is either good or
30:33
not good and we need to know that, right? So,
30:35
>> cuz you can get you can get a place a ton of leads or get the phone to ring,
30:39
but at the end of the day, they have to
30:42
>> they have to see it to to the end, right?
30:44
>> And it's on them to do.
30:44
>> They got to close the deal.
30:46
>> The point being, there's so much BS out there. And now,
30:50
>> I'll tell you, let me just say it this way.
30:52
>> All this with AI, it's the new grift. Okay? It's the new scam.
30:56
>> Mhm.
30:58
>> SEO has been the scam of the last uh whatever however many decades. this AI,
31:03
GEO, AEO, all this stuff. It's the new scam. All these guys have this new
31:07
beautiful thing to to to sell. I gotta tell you, look, I got to tell you the
31:11
story. I'm on the email list of some marketing
31:14
company in New York, I think. And they have nice emails and doing looks like
31:21
they've doing cool stuff, right? Some content, whatever. And I get a postcard,
31:27
a beautiful postcard in the mail here a week or so ago. I want to say it's like
31:32
a big one too. It's not a normal size one. And on the back there's this phone.
31:35
It's chatgbt and it's prompted and whatever and are you going to show up?
31:40
And on the other side it's like metrics about how many people are going to AI
31:43
search which is all true and I agree and it's important and yes we want to show
31:47
up but you sir or you organization you don't own that. I'm sorry you don't. And
31:52
I look at their own site. I have some tools that I can understand what's going
31:55
on on a site right pretty intelligently. Obviously, it's not analytics and
31:58
everything, but I know it's I have a general sense. And guess what?
32:02
>> They have no citations themselves. Zero.
32:04
>> They have very little rankings and very little traffic from what I can tell.
32:08
>> What is going on here? And that's the basis of what you're selling. You can't
32:12
do it for yourself. Why are you trying to do it for other people?
32:14
>> It's it's it's like it's like the guy on Facebook, right? that's got a an ad
32:21
running, a video of him saying that we're gonna get you
32:27
so many hits and so much this and the phone's going to ring and you're going
32:30
to make money and we're legit and you're going to climb and then you look at
32:33
their they got like one like cuz how's it working out for you, buddy?
32:39
>> It's just so easy to promote yourself as an expert. Yeah. You know, coming back
32:43
to the Dunning Krueger point, it's like the ones with the least competence are
32:49
often the loudest ones. Oh, yeah.
32:51
>> Right. Like this person, this example you gave me.
32:54
>> Um whereas the ones that have the competence understand how much actually
33:00
goes into it and it's like, you know what, maybe I should tone down the
33:05
promotional language and the promises that likely I can't control and see
33:09
through all the way through. Right? I really believe that. And it's like have
33:12
some humility, like just chill out a little bit. I think that's why I've been
33:17
blessed, thank God, with many, many, many, many clients is because I am very
33:21
direct in like my this is my opinion. Yeah. I don't have I don't have to be
33:25
the knower of all things. If you came to me right now and said, "Alex, I want
33:28
something specific on the website and I didn't have the experience to do it."
33:30
I'd say, "I'm
33:31
>> not your guy, right?
33:32
>> Let's find somebody. I can't do it. I I can't be the doer of all things."
33:36
>> I'm You're going to laugh. 40 next year. Okay. Good for you.
33:42
>> You're so young.
33:42
>> Two beautiful little children.
33:44
>> Loves of my life. Very busy with them. 16 months and three and a half.
33:48
>> Wow.
33:49
>> Yeah. A wife that requires me to be present.
33:52
>> Yeah. Yeah.
33:53
>> Of some period of time in the evenings, right? I can't be working 24/7 like I
33:56
once did.
33:57
>> So, uh I think it's all a matter of like own a couple of things and just just be
34:02
yourself. Let's Oscar Wild. Be yourself. Everyone else.
34:05
>> Yeah. No, that's 100% true. And it it took me a long time to kind of abide by
34:09
that. Uh and thank God I did because uh I was going to just have a brain
34:14
aneurysm. Uh what I was doing before uh the rap thing, just being a rap place,
34:21
>> I was I was a marketing company.
34:24
>> Not much different from what you're doing here except our list expanded into
34:28
signage and everything else. So when the when the vehicle rap thing all came to
34:34
fruition that that that's just what I want to focus on that was during the
34:37
pandemic. Um because I had a lot of things to think about and you know
34:41
businesses were closing and uh and what they what did they call the business
34:46
that could stay open had to be um
34:48
>> um
34:48
>> essential.
34:49
>> Yes. Yes.
34:50
>> And I'm like yeah I'm essential because if I don't work I don't put food on the
34:53
table pay my rent you know. Um, so, uh, it really worked out well for me and it
35:00
took off. I got in at the right time. But I dropped all this other stuff I was
35:05
doing.
35:06
>> Uh, you know, business cards and door hangers and like I was doing I'll cut
35:11
your grass. If I got time tomorrow, I'll come cut your grass just if you're going
35:14
to pay me. Like, I would do anything for money.
35:16
>> And then I talked to a friend of mine who's a real successful businessman and
35:19
he was like,
35:20
>> "You finally found your niche."
35:22
>> Yeah. I love that
35:23
>> you were wearing too many hats. It was driving you nuts.
35:26
>> You had to clean house and get rid of all that crap to like how much money
35:30
does this really make you?
35:31
>> Yes.
35:31
>> How much money does this really But how much time is it taking?
35:33
>> I bet you the pain in the ass 15 20% was taking up 80% of your stress.
35:38
>> 100%. And I went from working, you know,
35:41
>> from 6:30 in the morning till 1 in the morning.
35:43
>> Wow. Forget it. to now, you know, I I start my day early out here in Vegas
35:50
because my shop back home is two hours ahead.
35:54
>> So, at 7 a.m. here, it's 9:00 a.m. there and they're opening.
35:57
>> So, I'm usually starting here at 6:30 in my home office getting stuff ready,
36:02
answering emails, getting files that have to be printed ready that need to go
36:06
out to them or, you know, uh then I usually talk to them all at 7 when they
36:10
get in it, which is nine for them. And I usually spend a couple hours I got a
36:15
great crew out there. They're self-contained. I don't have to babysit
36:19
them.
36:19
>> Thank God. Yeah.
36:20
>> Oh, they're fantastic. So, I spend a couple hours every morning with these
36:24
guys just making sure.
36:25
>> Here's, you know, Monday is what's on the books for the week. Daily is did
36:30
anybody cancel? Are we still in line for everything? Did this stuff get printed?
36:33
Just quick, you know, I do some computer stuff. I talk to some clients. I jump in
36:37
the shower. Then I'm at my Vegas location. Um, which again there I have
36:42
great guys so I don't have to babysit everyone.
36:44
>> So hard to find good people.
36:45
>> I'm not used to coming home from work and having it still light out for
36:49
another six hours.
36:51
>> I'm used to coming home at night when it's dark.
36:53
>> My girlfriend's like, "This is amazing. Blessing."
36:56
>> Yeah.
36:57
>> It's a blessing. Just, you know,
36:58
>> to specialize is a blessing, right? Like if somebody came to me now and said,
37:00
"Alex, I want you to build our website in some other platform besides
37:03
WordPress." I say, "No." Yeah.
37:04
>> I don't care how much money you pay me. It's not my job. It's not what I do,
37:07
>> right? It's not what I do. And it's great being at that point in my career
37:11
where I can tell people no.
37:13
>> It's very important.
37:14
>> I always said yes, yes, yes to everything just because I needed I
37:16
wanted that money. I needed that money.
37:18
>> I get it.
37:18
>> Now I'm at a point where I can go,
37:20
>> no, we don't do that. Try this guy.
37:22
>> Yeah. I love making referrals. I love it.
37:25
>> Hey, is great. Yes, I love doing that. Call this person. I had great experience
37:29
with them. Call them.
37:31
>> Yeah, 100%. Yeah.
37:32
>> And you know, I would
37:34
>> I would before I lived here, I flew here every 3 weeks and I stayed in casinos.
37:38
Wow.
37:39
>> On Fremont Street because it was close to my shop.
37:41
>> Wow.
37:42
>> And that was for a year.
37:43
>> Wow.
37:44
>> I flew to Vegas every 3 weeks.
37:47
>> And I love Vegas. I started to hate Vegas.
37:51
>> Just the traveling and everything.
37:53
>> Then I moved here and now I'm like, well, now I got to fly back home to
37:57
Indiana every 3 weeks. that lasted two flights.
38:04
>> And I would go to the shop and I'm like sitting there like, they got that under
38:09
control.
38:10
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
38:10
>> Those printers are running.
38:12
>> They're installing.
38:13
>> Those printers are expensive, right?
38:15
>> Oh, yeah.
38:15
>> Oh, yeah.
38:15
>> What am I doing here?
38:16
>> Yeah.
38:17
>> And then I would go out in the shop and be like, "Hey guys, what?" They're like,
38:20
"Get out of here.
38:22
>> You're just getting in the way."
38:22
>> That's funny.
38:23
>> So now I go home like every couple three months.
38:26
>> I visit my family. I stay with my sister. I get to see my nieces. I have
38:31
triplet nieces.
38:32
>> Wow.
38:32
>> So, I get to see them and now they're old enough to where they can hang out
38:35
with Uncle Jack and go to a bar and have a drink and get some food, you know. Um,
38:40
and it's great because now when I go home, it's minimal time just checking on
38:44
the business, going in, seeing my guys. Hey guys, how you been? Let me take you
38:47
to lunch today. And the rest of it's visiting with my family.
38:51
>> Amazing.
38:52
>> A handful of friends that I really care about seeing. And then I'm back home in
38:56
Vegas, you know. Um, and that's just because I took advice from someone and
39:00
cleaned my plate.
39:01
>> I think that's great.
39:02
>> And stuck with one lane and it's just been a blessing.
39:06
>> I think that's fantastic. Yeah, fantastic. I um am interested to see if
39:10
my comments slashpredictions will come true. You know, one point actually
39:14
before I before I uh end, what what does one do now given it's so
39:23
easy to put up a decent looking site, right? like I'm remarketed to all the
39:27
time. I demand genen all these other places like
39:31
I'm seeing stuff that I'm interested obviously that's how these platforms
39:34
work. It's easy to put up a site that looks quasi good. There's no
39:39
misspellings, right? AI is not making mistakes with spelling, right? It uses
39:42
the damn word ship too much, but besides that doesn't make mistakes. And how does
39:47
one differentiate the real from the notreal? The you know what's the term
39:52
the Texas term? All hat, no cattle. Okay. A lot of that going on.
39:57
>> Yeah.
39:57
>> A lot of that. Big big big big hats. Okay. But no experience. How does one
40:02
vet that? Right.
40:04
>> Testimonials.
40:06
>> A bigger a bigger site. So many of these sites, by the way, are two-page sites,
40:09
three-page websites.
40:10
>> Yeah. And and the thing about how can you tell that you just said,
40:13
>> I mean, I can tell
40:14
>> I could I could tell a AI generated anything a mile down the road because
40:19
they all look the same. The coloring's the same. that to the same pill thing
40:24
right on top of the H1 on the website. It's all the same.
40:26
>> And there's always
40:27
>> 10 pounds of [ __ ] in a two-lb bag. There's a million things going on
40:30
because think about who's doing it. The typical person who's not creative, who's
40:34
not a designer, will just go in and go, here's my ad. I wanted to have this. I
40:38
wanted to have that. Have a starburst with this. Put an outline around this.
40:41
Make this flashy. Put some fireworks in the back. You know,
40:43
>> look, look, it they'll get better, right? Better. Who knows where it'll be
40:47
in six months or a year from now? I I suppose much better, but still put it in
40:52
the hands of professionals, let them output the work faster, better, etc.
40:55
I'll tell you even this. If if we're not there, if I get to the point where my
41:00
cost of design, cost of development, cost of account management, all of that
41:04
significantly decreases, I'll pass the cost to my clients with pleasure.
41:08
>> 100%.
41:08
>> I would love to output double the amount of output for the same cost. Would love
41:12
to. That's just not the case currently. Yeah,
41:14
>> I have a massive massive cost associated with the work that we're doing as does
41:19
anyone I think that's doing good work.
41:20
>> Yeah, a huge hike went up uh with us in the last two years on material. There
41:24
was a time we couldn't even get material from certain suppliers.
41:27
>> But people don't understand and they don't want to hear it and they don't
41:30
care.
41:30
>> I get it.
41:31
>> How come you're charging me $4,000 for a truck now when for the same truck two
41:36
years ago it was 3500?
41:38
>> Well, the cost increase.
41:39
>> That was five years ago.
41:41
>> Yeah. tariffs, this that pandemic.
41:44
>> I get it.
41:45
>> They don't get it. They don't want to get it.
41:47
>> But general inflation, everything costs.
41:48
>> General inflation for sure.
41:49
>> Your cost just to turn the light on is more.
41:51
>> Yeah.
41:52
>> I can't go to a Sprouts without spending $150. My wife is shocked all the time.
41:56
It is what it is.
41:57
>> And and and we moved into out in Indiana. We moved into a new facility
42:01
four years ago, which was double the size, more than double the size. Um, so
42:07
you know, our our energy bills went up course. Our every everything went up. So
42:13
overhead, you got more overhead, you got more employees, you got more insurance.
42:17
>> Just is what it is.
42:18
>> Or I could just wrap out of my garage, I guess.
42:20
>> Or you could turn off everything else and wrap. No warranties.
42:22
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck getting any help. So
42:25
>> yeah.
42:25
>> Uh, I really enjoyed it. I don't think I laughed as much uh on a episode to date.
42:31
So thank you for that.
42:32
>> Yeah, for sure. I'll make sure we put your info on the video.
42:35
>> Yeah. Thanks for having
42:37
>> We've been talking about it for seven months.
42:39
>> I'm happy we did it and we should do it again.
42:41
>> 100% we should.
42:42
>> Bless you and thank you.
42:44
>> Thank you, sir.
42:44
>> Thank you.