"I believe in business as in life we are continually learning, how much we take on board is up to each one of us as individuals."
Amit Raj Tweet
Amit Raj is the Founder of The Links Guy – a bespoke link-building company that works with a global clientele, building high-quality links using ethical and sustainable white hat techniques.
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Table of Contents
Thank you for joining us today. Please introduce yourself to our readers. They want to know you, some of the background story to bring some context to your interview.
Amit Raj: I originally trained and worked as a pharmacist and qualified back in 2009. But I had been dabbling in internet marketing and trying to learn the ropes in various things – until I met Dan Ray around 2014 and stumbled across white hat link building. From there, it was a pretty slow process, but (under Dan’s advice) this was the way it had to be. I had zero contacts in the industry, had no formal sales experience – but I knew how to do email outreach and get very good links. I slowly picked up clients and started to build a fully remote team under the banner of “Amit Digital Marketing” and had a mixture of experiences along the way. Clients who expected too much or had mismatched expectations – while others we helped triple or quadruple their business and who have referred us or used us for multiple projects.
Now in 2021, I have re-branded the agency to “The Links Guy” – as it isn’t just a personal brand anymore, and there is a whole team of amazing people who work for me and are securing amazing results for our clients. I thought it was the right time to slowly step back from being the “name of the brand”.
You are a successful entrepreneur, so we’d like your view point, do you believe entrepreneurs are born or made? Explain.
Amit Raj: I believe in business as in life we are continually learning, how much we take on board is up to each one of us as individuals. In my opinion, some people have more of the necessary skills to become an entrepreneur and others have to work harder to cultivate those skills. So I guess some entrepreneurs are born but there’s nothing to stop anyone from becoming one if they are willing to apply themselves and work hard.
If you were asked to describe yourself as an entrepreneur in a few words, what would you say?
Amit Raj: I see my position as not just a manager but also a leader. That means I also need to serve the team and support them with whatever they need to do their job effectively.
Tell us about what your company does and how did it change over the years?
Amit Raj: Through from 2015 onwards, I’ve always offered the same core offering. Custom-built link-building campaigns, which are created with the client’s business in mind. It has been a monthly service, where we aim to guarantee a minimum number of links, depending on the client’s budget and aims.
I would say around 2020 onwards, is where I felt it was reaching the point where I could take a step back from day to day link building, and focus more on just supporting the team, and giving them what they need, doing their job effectively, and helping them upskill.
Thank you for all that. Now for the main focus of this interview. With close to 11.000 new businesses registered daily in the US, what must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business?
Amit Raj: Be prepared to give it your all!
Thankfully my wasn’t a business that seemed like it was going to take a lot of capital to get going. However, what it was going to take was a lot of sweat equity, and time to get to the stage where I could either attract clients without having to actively get them, or get to the stage where I knew which clients to approach, and close them efficiently.
Did you make any wrong assumptions before starting a business that you ended up paying dearly for?
Amit Raj: One thing I struggled with at the start, was trying to sell link-building services to decision-makers at businesses, who were not as clued up about SEO and link building as I was. What I didn’t realize back then, was that I was getting far too specific and technical when pitching my company’s services. While pitching, I’d use SEO jargon they didn’t understand, go off on tangents, or they’d ask me a question – and I would spend too long on the answer or elaborate on it so much, I just ended up just leaving them with more questions!
I’ve learned a few really important rules now:
- Tailor your pitch to your audience a whole lot more.
- Only put in enough information necessary to get your point across and get the sale. If it’s not 100% necessary and is something you can clarify later, do that instead.
- Make your pitch (whether it’s what you’re saying or what’s in your pitch deck), easy to digest and understand. Having a tool like Pikochart is one awesome way of doing that!
If you could go back in time to when you first started your business, what advice would you give yourself and why? Explain.
Amit Raj: The biggest things we had to change and where you can make or break any business – is improving our ability to hire and retain the right people, and also improving the processes that our team follows. Even if things are going well, you’re turning a profit and doing ok, you have to constantly be thinking about how you can improve things and stay ahead of the curve.
It’s a bit cliche, but the success of a company does rely on the strength of its employees. And even with the strongest employees in the world, you need to ensure you’re utilizing them effectively. If they follow the wrong processes, they may get burnt out, work inefficiently, or get frustrated.
What is the worst advice you received regarding running a business and what lesson would you like others to learn from your experience?
Amit Raj: The worst advice I was given was not to bother keeping track of your competitors, just focus on your own business.
But by looking at where competitors were getting mentions, backlinks, and podcast appearances, it taught me the value of knowing your target audience and having the right messaging.
In your opinion, how has COVID-19 changed what entrepreneurs should assume before starting a business? What hasn’t changed?
Amit Raj: This is cliche and you’ve heard it before, but can’t emphasize it enough – stop thinking about what to do and just take action! There is never a perfect time to start – taking imperfect action is better than pondering and thinking about what to do. That’s the only reason I made any kind of progress and have had any success. Whether it’s with regards to me getting clients or being ballsy about getting some particularly big wins for clients.
The pandemic has not actually affected us badly at all. In fact, we’ve had an influx of inquiries, and some of our clients are doubling down on their SEO and link-building efforts.
What is a common myth about entrepreneurship that aspiring entrepreneurs and would-be business owners believe in? What advice would you give them?
Amit Raj: You may be the owner/CEO/manager – but that doesn’t mean you always have the answers and it doesn’t always mean you’re always right.
Listen to your team more! They’re doing the job day-in, day-out. They may have fresh ideas they can bring to the table, stuff they’ve learned from their previous companies, or just things about the way your company works that they think needs improvement.
What traits, qualities, and assumptions do you believe are most important to have before starting a business?
Amit Raj: In my experience the traits and skills you are going to need to have or develop if you want to own or run a business are:
Vision, every business starts with an idea, but being able to motivate people and have them flocking to be with you for the ride is another thing entirely. Being a good storyteller and having the ability to clearly transmit your ideas is a good place to start.
You’ve got to be able to lead, manage people and be at the helm like the captain of your own ship, chartering the course ahead. You have to be resilient and remain positive when things don’t always go to plan, be an example of how to pick yourself up, take responsibility, and learn from failed plans.
Along with these important characteristics, you’ve also got to possess great communication skills, be willing to go hard 24/7/365 to get your business off the ground and have excellent organizational skills.
How can aspiring leaders prepare themselves for the future challenges of entrepreneurship? Are there any books, websites, or even movies to learn from?
Amit Raj: Oversubscribed by Daniel Priestley – this book was great even just for shifting mindset. If you want to get out of the cycle of scrambling for customers in a crowded marketplace and think about how you can have people queuing up to hire you instead, I thoroughly recommend this.
Other than that, I don’t tend to read a lot of books or listen to podcasts, as I did that a lot when I was younger, and feel I have to now learn by doing, and figuring stuff out along the way.
You have shared quite a bit of your wisdom and our readers thank you for your generosity but would also love to know: If you could choose any job other than being an entrepreneur, what would it be?
Amit Raj: I really am loving my work and there’s nothing that could tempt me away from this current trajectory, there’s so much more to do! SEO and link building is a minefield in terms of information, and there are a lot of mistruths (or half-truths) being pushed out there.
With that said, The Links Guy is going to be pushing out some content in the coming year and beyond, giving people a “warts and all” look into how link building and digital PR really works, what you need to be wary of, and also all the little things we do to land these links, do it at scale and most importantly, get consistent results for clients.
Thank you so much for your time, I believe I speak for all of our readers when I say that this has been incredibly insightful. We do have one more question: If you could add anyone to Mount Rushmore, but not a politician, who would it be; why?
Amit Raj: I’m not sure there are any more American “heroes” that should be there. If Mount Rushmore had to have another carving maybe we should place a Native American on the mountain.
Mike Weiss, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Amit Raj for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Amit Raj or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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