Claire FountainSee more entrepreneur interviews here >>
Entrepreneur Spotlight
Geoff Cudd – Digital Marketing Agency Owner and Website Portfolio Operator
- Favorite Tools & Services: ClickUp, Grammarly Pro, Unlimted Graphic Design Services (why?)
- Where He Finds Talent: Fiverr (for discrete tasks)
- You May Not Know: Geoff is a fan of zombie novels and poker, and even has a poker strategy website.
“The whole idea behind Don't Do It Yourself is to present you with vetted recommendations, after really testing these business tools and services.“
Geoff Cudd, the creator of Don’t Do It Yourself, volunteered himself as the guinea pig for our new entrepreneur interview series.
This series will feature interviews with a wide variety of successful entrepreneurs across different industries. We’ll ask them what are the most important software and SasS tools they use, and where they go to find and hire talent.
But before we talk shop, let’s find out a bit more about Geoff and his background.
Background
“I will go ahead and test the tools where I can, I'll sign up for these services for a week or two and compare them.“
Geoff is a serial entrepreneur with experience running a management consulting firm/software development shop and running a digital marketing agency.
Geoff also runs a small media company that operates a portfolio of web properties, including the site you are on right now, Don't Do It Yourself.
While on the lookout for new tools to operate his business, Geoff is always thorough, using his attention to detail (some might call obsessive) to test out services for himself to find the best.
“Across my ventures, anytime that I need new software or tools or services, I go a little bit overboard. I will create a spreadsheet with the top providers and I'll look at dozens of factors and analyze the crap out of them. I will go ahead and test the tools where I can, I'll sign up for the services for a week or two and compare them.”
He acknowledges that it’s hard to separate the great tools from the bad ones when all you have to go off of is a brochure on the provider's own site.
“Everybody says they're the greatest thing since sliced bread. So you really have to test these tools and services.”
This research left him with a huge amount of insight into these many different tools, which he wanted to share with other entrepreneurs.
“I went to all this trouble for my own business, and I figured, man, I should just publish this stuff on a website and share it with other people. So I did that.
Then I started establishing relationships with the software companies themselves. Oftentimes we negotiate discounts with the companies that we like, and we put coupons on the site.”
The goal for DDIY is simple: to test the tools and services firsthand and help entrepreneurs save time while finding what works best for them.
“The whole idea behind the site is to present you with our best options and different categories, after really testing these tools and services.”
Finding Talent
“If you're looking for a specific discrete task, Fiverr is great for that.“
As for where he finds talent, Geoff first asks for recommendations from colleagues.
“When I’m looking for talent, the first place I always start is asking friends or colleagues for referrals and I usually get the best results that way,” Geoff said.
Then he moves on to talent-specific freelancer marketplace websites. However, his favorite hidden gem? Fiverr.
“If you’re looking for a specific discrete task, Fiverr is great for that. There are a handful of things that we’ve had success with on Fiverr specifically. WordPress edits, voice-over talent, transcription, and logos.” (full list of Geoff's picks at bottom)
Geoff’s current favorite gig is Google Data Studio reports. “You can get great insights on Google Analytics and Google Search Console through a GDS report and you can find super high-quality experts that are really good at diving in and producing great reports for dirt cheap on Fiverr.”
Geoff's Toolkit
Favorite Workflow App
“So we use this to manage our writing workflow. We used to manage this process through Google Sheets and we knew we needed to be a little more formal in order to scale. Now ClickUp manages every step of the process, notifies people when they need to jump in and handle a task, and overall just streamlines our writing workflow.”
Favorite Writing Tool
“Grammarly does more than just spell check. It's really good for finding repetitive sentences and rewording sentences to flow, removing fragments and run-ons, and we've just found that the output we get is much better when we use it.”
Favorite Place to Find Talent:
Check out Geoff's favorite types of Fiverr gigs:
Consider Fiverr Pro, which is essentially a more premium Fiverr marketplace where freelancers come pre-vetted and have been identified by the platform as experts in their niche.
Favorite Graphic Design Tool:
Unlimited Graphic Design Services
“With these types of services, you can pay a fixed monthly fee and you get access to a design team that spends a little bit of time on your account every single day. We use this for three main purposes:
- Custom images for every blog post on our site.
- Animated explainer videos
- UX/UI design
We find that this adds a layer of professionalism to the site. It also helps with search as well. A lot of our custom images rank in the image pack and also because the site looks more professional, it's broken up with high-quality images, our bounce rate is lower so people don't go back to Google as much.”
Where to Find Him
You can reach Geoff through our contact form and his agency website, or follow DDIY through Facebook and Twitter.
You can also talk to him here.
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