Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now, here's your host, Blake Elsner.

Welcome back to another episode of Elevate with Ellsner. I'm your host, Blake Elsner and I'm beyond excited to bring you today's guest, someone who's not just elevating his own life, but has been instrumental in elevating countless others along the way. Joining us today is Lewis Vandervalk a true visionary, a serial entrepreneur, and published author based in New Brunswick, Canada. Lewis has an impressive background in construction and trades, coupled with a degree in mechanical engineering. But it doesn't stop there. Lewis is the perfect example of how passion and perseverance can lead you to incredible places. Without any formal business or sales experience, he launched a digital marketing business in 2009, focused on helping contractors achieve results-driven growth. As the owner of Blue Crocus Solutions, Lewis specializes in web design and SEO for contractors, delivering real measurable impact for his clients. In May of 21, he took his expertise a step further by partnering with a local junk removal company, driving extreme growth through his proven marketing strategies. Lewis is someone who has truly embraced the roller coaster of business and personal development, surrounding himself with coaches and mentors to sharpen his skills and deepen his impact. His journey is packed with lessons, insights, and takeaways that will resonate with anyone looking to elevate themselves in business or in life. So get ready for an inspiring conversation as we dive into Lewis's entrepreneurial journey, his successes, challenges, and the strategies that have fueled his growth. So let's get started. Welcome.

Blake Elsner

My man. That's a lot. That's a big introduction to live up to. I appreciate it.

That's right. I like to get it going. So give us a little insight into that guy.

That guy, well, we can kind of take it back to the start. And I think this is probably where it did start, the kind of the drive to keep going, the drive to work through the hardships and whatnot. I grew up on a farm. It didn't really have summers off. I can't ever really remember summer being taken off. We worked on the farm. for, you know, as early as I can remember, you know, got into construction, building fences, you know, doing roofing, that sort of thing on the farm and, you know, keeping myself busy in the summer. Through high school, I did that. After high school, I did that for four years, roofing, you know, plumbing, installing pools. Um, just kept, kept busy. You know, at one point I was working from like five 30 to 1130, uh, paying off some debt that I had incurred, uh, through a few different things. Um, and then one of them was I wrecked a friend's car that I was borrowing to go visit a girlfriend, like three hours away. So I had to pay off the car. Basically buy him a new car than buy myself a car. So yeah, I just just kept busy doing that and then realized that I needed to, you know, kind of get something planned for the future if I wanted to, you know, find a wife, start a family, and go that route. So, you know, didn't none of my family had gone to school, university, college, and I one of my cousins had. And I was like, well, maybe that's the path to, you know, riches, right? You know, that's what everyone says. And so, you know, he, he did computer science, he basically said, you know, you like science, you like fixing things, you kind of like math, so mechanical engineering, you should try. So I just applied, I needed like an extra calculus credit. I did that over the summer and then got in in 2014 as a mature student, which was an interesting experience, jumping in with a bunch of youngsters who were starting freshman year. I jumped in, did the degree, got a job my second summer. So I did construction my first summer in university and then got a job in mechanical engineering design the second summer. So I made my way through university. with that paid for our marriage, paid for the proposal, all of that stuff in opposite order, proposal and then marriage. Um, and then when I graduated in 2019, we had our first kid like, uh, two months after I graduated. And, uh, I realized really quickly, you know, I liked the engineering design. Um, I found it stimulating. I found it, you know, it was always something different every day. I was doing a really cool job, um, designing. aftermarket parts for people who are handicapped to be able to drive vehicles. So like hand controls was the main thing. And then there's all the, like you, you push for break, you pull back for accelerator and they're attached to the pedals. Um, so that if you can't use your legs, you can still drive a car. Super cool thing. And then, you know, people who are amputated, uh, amputees would have like special cops who would design and 3d print to fit their, you know, their stuff basically. And yeah, so did that, was enjoying that, but realized this, again, looking at my future, I was like, I don't know if this is the flexibility that I need. At the time, I knew we wanted four kids. We have four kids now. And that's just a lot of going to games and a lot of appointments and all of that, that I was like, I don't know if I can have the flexibility or the income you know, cap that I need to, you know, feed for hungry monsters. And so I started looking at, you know, other ways to make money. And I was thinking at the time of just doing a side hustle and supplementing the income. Um, and so I started looking online. Dropshipping was something I'd been exposed to in university at a classmate of mine who was doing like 30 K a month in dropshipping. And I was like, that's insane. Like I'd never heard of money like that being made per month by one person. Um, now I know, you know, it wasn't all profit, but, uh, it's still like set me on that path. So I started looking at that. I went down the path there, realized dropshipping wasn't for me. Um, I just couldn't push consumerism on people like that consistently. But I started being shown all the ads on Facebook for every type of marketing thing under the sun. And one of them landed with me. One of them resonated. It basically combined the concept of So you build a website, get leads coming in, and then basically sell them to contractors. I was like, I can do that. And so that's how I learned SEO, was doing that. My first one was a snow removal site. And then I did masonry, I did carpentry, I did home remodeling, bathroom renovations. I built like 100 sites within the first year, doing just that, building them out and then ranking them and renting the leads out to contractors. In the process, I started meeting people, started doing SEO directly for their business, kind of shifted to that after about two years to more just working directly with someone's brand. And then, uh, you know, kept, kept honing those skills. Then a drunk removal company opportunity kind of came up in 2021, started that with a buddy of mine from university. We took over the market, got it up to like, I think in the first, I always get the numbers a little foggy, but within the first four to six months, we were up to like 30k per month. First year, we were up to like 60 to 70k per month doing junk removal and demolition. And so it really embedded us in the junk removal industry and niche and groups as someone who knew what they were talking about. So drunk removal became a really big niche that we started playing in as an agency as well. I moved away from the drunk removal company in about Uh, 2023 or four. Um, yeah, I guess it was 2023. Um, that I, that I moved away from that cause I needed to focus back on the agency. I kept going in junk removal. Um, you and I were just talking, we know a mutual friend, uh, who does junk removal, but, uh, yeah, that's kind of been the journey, man, still going strong in the agency. Um, working with, you know, home service as, as a general niche and then a lot of junk removal, plumbers, asphalt paving companies, that sort of thing.

Yeah, that's one thing that you and I both know that people have a lot of junk. People like to hoard stuff. I go in houses all the time and I'm like, oh boy, someone's going to have to clean this up. And that industry is very smart. And the mutual friend we have, we can say Jack. Jack Lauber and Mason Hudson, who own American Junkers, they've built, like you say, a tremendous, tremendous business. And they saw that and the amount of junk and realized, wow, we could build a whole entire business. But obviously, yourself having four kids, you kind of had to go, wow, I got to find some more time for the kids and make sure all the games and whatnot. So how did you pivot back into the marketing side?

Yeah, I guess I skipped a step there. So I started August 1st of 2019, pivoting into marketing, learning it, you know, I didn't know anything about, I knew a bit about marketing, because I'd done some side hustles, grew an Instagram account, doing blacksmithing to like 2k followers, back in 2017, I think. So I kind of like started to love that marketing aspect, but didn't know anything about online stuff as far as websites and SEO. So I jumped in August 1st of 2019 and by August 22nd of 2019, so like 22 days later, I was let go of my engineering job. And what happened was I, excuse me, I started, you know, being exposed to this whole entrepreneurial community I'd never been exposed to before. And everybody was like, read the four hour work week and yada yada. Well, that book cost me my job. I'm really grateful it did, but basically he was like a concept and there was like, if you know, you need to be making more, if you know, you want something in life, go get it. Go ask for it. And so I got to that point in the book and I was like, man, like I really need to be making more of my job. And I know I can't be because I've been working here for four years at that time, I think. Um, and my friends were graduating from university with no experience and doing like a bunch more than I was making a bunch more than I was. So I was like, Hey, I should just go ask. And I did. And I was like, I need to be making this lunch or, you know, we should talk about, you know, what that could look like. And that was on a Tuesday on a Thursday. He was like, come back to me Thursday and we'll, and we'll chat. I'll chat with my dad. Um, and we'll go through it and go into his office. And he's like, yep. So you're done pack up tomorrow and you're, you're out of here. We just can't make it work. And I was like, like, are you serious? Like, I have a newborn. Like, can we talk about this at all? You know, I probably would have played my cards differently if it were me now, but it's the best thing that happened to me because I might still have been at that job now because it was comfortable. Um, and it just, it was uncomfortable to think about doing anything else, but my hand was forced. And at that point, like it convinced Alyssa that no career is. Uh, permanent either, you know, no matter how permanent you think it is, like, Nothing is permanent in life. You have to be able to figure out and pivot and move and go from there.

Yeah. And sometimes we do things like out of scarcity because I'm there too. It's kind of like when your heart and your mind aren't there, it's just not going to work out and you just do it just to pay the bills, just to keep going. And then it's like the universe kind of rewards you in a strange way. Like you say, you lose your job, but then at the same time, you're kind of like, Hell yeah. It's one of those things that you don't realize it happens for the benefit of yourself and your family.

It was equal parts sheer panic and relief when he told me that. It's the weirdest mixture of emotions I've felt. I didn't really want to convince him too hard for me to stay. I was like, what if he says I can? I'll probably take it. And then I just asked him a couple of things and he was like, no, I'm going out on maternity leave soon, so I can't monitor your projects. I was like, all right, cool. I'll come in tomorrow and pack up. And then it was a 20-minute drive home to just go tell my wife that you have a two-month-old baby and I just lost my job.

You know, that's sometimes they say, Hey, you know, like, like things happen for a reason. I mean, it, you know, not, not a great time with a two month old, but look at you now, here you are with what four, four healthy kids and, and, uh, a great four monsters as I expected, eating us out of house and home. You know how, yeah, you know how it is the time I was telling you, gosh, I was, we were down, down with the flu for a little while. Then that is, that, that was rough. I'm like, I don't, I don't like all those germs.

It's nonstop for sure.

Yeah, it really is. So you went the mechanical engineering side. That's pretty cool that you did that because there is a lot of purpose in that. Obviously, you tried to figure out how to get your heart into it by helping people who needed those designs or those implementations on the car. That obviously shows a lot of purpose. So you had to continue in that path of trying to figure out how to help people. So SEO and the marketing was the way to go.

Yeah, I just felt it. I mean, the ad worked on me. I think I still have the ad copy saved somewhere. Because it just worked. It made so much sense to me because I knew contracting and instruction. I'd been in that world. And I knew that a lot of people in that world knew absolutely nothing about the online space. And so it made sense to me. And again, I wanted to help exactly what you're saying and make a difference in someone's life. Not just sell you the latest, you know, slime color on Alibaba, right. You know, through drop shipping.

I know how that drop shipping is. I, yeah, I had a, had a relative do that and you're like, wow, nothing wrong with that.

I just couldn't get behind it and doing that grind over and over.

Yeah. And then you see, you know, some of these, obviously people caught on to that stuff or the corporations caught on to it. So I think it's gotten a little more challenging. You don't, you don't hear about the, the drop shipping as much anymore.

Well, Facebook ads became way more difficult and really knocked a lot of people out, I think.

Yeah, that's spot on. As somebody that knows, you'd be the one. So how do you help? What's your specialty? If you got a contract or a junk company that comes up to you and they say, man, I need some leads. And it's like, you got to start with the big bad wolf of Google, right?

Yeah. So we play, uh, we play on Google, that's our sandbox. Um, and with us, it's, we're selling a, um, a compound interest dream is essentially what SEO is. Uh, it doesn't have to be a dream, but, but I'm selling something that they can't tangibly touch. I can't tell you in two weeks, you're going to get X number of leads. Um, cause we're just going to turn on the faucet. What we're doing is saying, Hey, I can do work that even if you end up leaving us, it still is. going to stick on your website. Whereas Google ads or Facebook ads, you turn them off, you've just, you know, turned your faucet of leads off, and you now no longer see the result of that money working for you continuously. So that is exactly what we do is help someone get to where, when someone searches for roofing near me, or plumbing near me, or junk removal near me, they're the ones that show up in, you know, preferably the top three spots for the keywords that people are searching for. so that they click on their website or their Google business profile, they call them, they have a chance to land that job and, uh, and make that money. That's, that's exactly what it is. So it's, it's basically building up their website, their online presence, their authority so that they can earn a top spot. You can't, you can give the system, but you're not going to earn a longterm spot at the, you know, at the winner's table. If you, if you gain the system, it's going to catch up with you eventually.

And it's kind of like no matter how pretty or decked out the website is, it really doesn't matter, right, per se, when it comes to... It's certainly not the only thing.

I've got some really, really ugly roofing sites. Well, I've got an ugly roofing and an ugly decking site that I built in 2019 myself on Weebly. And they're still live here in my city and they're still pulling in leads. I still have like five websites rented out. And they look awful, but they get leads, and they're ranked number one. So I'm not going to change it, because it's not, it doesn't gain me anything. And it's kind of a cool case study to show people like, hey, it doesn't matter how amazing your site looks. Does it has it earned the authority to to be something that Google shows because Google's selfish, essentially, Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, they want people to use their search engine, they get money from ads, they get money from, you know, a bunch of different things. And so if they can do their best to show the most useful stuff to consumers, they're going to keep them on their platform longer. So ultimately you want to play to the consumers inside Google's rules.

And when you, you know, Google, obviously some people might not know this. I know you would know this, that Google owns YouTube. So what is it? Some crazy statistic when somebody Googles you, there's an X amount of short reels or videos. How does that exactly work when?

Well, there's so yeah, so people think of like your website or your Google business profile being at the top, but you can have a ton of different properties at the top. YouTube is one. So if you're, if you have a presence on YouTube, you can show up at the, you know, in the top results. Um, I like to say, what if you could take up the whole first page? That's kind of where you want to be thinking about as a business, not just, Hey, can I take one keyword in the top? If you take up the whole first page, maybe your LinkedIn page as a business is ranking, maybe your Facebook page, maybe your YouTube channel, your Google business profile, your website. We've had three different pages on a website, take up three different spots on a, on a page because they all had, you know, related, but different keywords that were writing for a term someone was searching for. So if you can think about it that way, again, it's earning your spot as the authority in your market for that service.

And I noticed you got to keep... You got to post pictures on your Google business profile. And is there something like... They said... I always heard about... I don't know if this was just pushed from a lot of agencies in the beginning, but they always talked about the Google... To be at the Google top or be at Google's top, to be on the map. And then there was a third thing. It was like the three things of Google you wanted to be. And now you see that Google screened or whatnot. So I know that's paid for.

Yeah, I mean, Google Maps and the website, the snap pack or the map pack, people call it a bunch of different things. But but those, unless I'm just having a complete brain fart, but I think it's the map.

I work, I work on the side on the map.

Yeah, yeah. Now it's just the maps and the yeah.

So that's that's all. I just heard that always being pushed through, you know, the agencies and when it kind of started popping up like in 2019 or during I guess the COVID years as people sat on computers. Give us some case studies. Give me a good case study. You just did the roofing one where I'm sure it's just a three-step or a four-step form and they click submit.

It is. It looks ugly. It looks really ugly. We've got the roofing one. We've got obviously the junk removal one here still crushing it. We've got a decking one. And I think I've got like an excavating one as well. That's just kind of sitting there. It doesn't really get any leads, but it's, it's ranking. It's just not like a, it's a very word of mouth market here for that. But yeah, and then there's clients, you know, if we look at other clients around, I wouldn't be doing a very good job of just my properties were the ones that are ranking. But, you know, San Diego junk removal, you know, some of the different, you know, pretty competitive terms are ones that we've gone after for clients and help them take over. And again, it's how have they earned their spot at the top? We've helped add fuel to that fire, but they've done a good job on social media or they've done a good job giving us pictures or videos or content to use to help them, you know, really get to where they need to be.

Yeah. I like, uh, I like the content part because that seems to be when I go on Google and if I type in my name, I, I feel like I see, you know, the other podcasts I've been on, or like if I type in your name after this podcast come, you know, launches, it comes down on my short, my short reel clips and whatnot. So it just, like you're saying, it's building your brand.

So one thing, one thing people don't understand is that Google Yeah, you, you brought up a really good point. So like Blake Elsner if you search that, right. Or if you search Lewis or you search, um, you know, your, your real estate company, the more chances you can show up on all these different platforms, whether it be, you know, someone shares your website to Facebook or whether they, um, you know, you go on a podcast or, you know, you get featured in a reel, or you get featured in a best of directory locally, or you're in your chamber of commerce, those are all points that Google can look at. And it sees your name, it sees your website, it sees your phone number, it sees your address matching up. And it's starting to build that trust and that authority with Google around, okay, this is legit. Other people are saying it's legit. Other people are linking back to you. Um, there's all this magic that's happening, showing Google that, you know, you are, it's like check marks and votes towards your brand and your, your authority.

Yeah, that's a good point. Now, I don't know if you played baseball back in the day or remember Perfect Game and all those scouting websites. I picture that as an early form of brand awareness. Do you ever think about those scouting websites as a start of some of the I don't want to say SEO, but you built a perfect game profile and you would rank yourself on Google if you were a better player, if you're throwing 90 miles an hour, etc.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't understand the baseball analogy, having lived it or done it. But yeah, that's exactly right. Now it's just a bigger and more complex algorithm that has more data points that's being used, but it's the exact same concept.

Yeah. So just obviously I love the, you know, put you on the whole first page. Um, it's kind of a thing, I guess, a goal, right?

Yeah. People are like, oh, SEO is dead. I think our clients would disagree. It's a real thing still. It's dead because they maybe tried it for a few months with someone that didn't know what they were doing. And it just didn't work. And they're like, Oh, I invested a bunch of money. We have it so that we didn't do this at the beginning, but we get clients to stick around for at least six months. Because what happens is if they jump out too early, yes, they've invested a fair amount, but then they just haven't seen any result. Are you going to invest a bunch in the stock market and then pull it out two months later?

Yeah. It's like, yeah, no, not going to day trade on your, on your marketing. I know that. See, yeah, you have to be, yeah, I know. Right. Yeah. You have to be in there for the, for the long haul and a lot of, a lot of the top SEO individuals like yourself. Yeah. They, they understand that because, um, it's a, it's a, it's a big, big part of, uh, staying in front of people, but yeah, you also have to do your own job too. Right. It's not, it's like, you're not just, and there's stuff you can do before you hire someone too. That is true. So what would you say, like one of your, as we kind of wrap it up, would be your biggest lesson I would say learned from your time through, you know, even from university all the way up to where you are now, like advice, I guess you would say.

Well, one, get a cough drop before you hop on a podcast. That's a good one. Because I'm dying over here, but I think I'm holding it together okay. Oh, yeah. The other one would be imperfect action beats perfect inaction. That's something that I actually heard from that group that I jumped into in 2019. And I really, that was like a big leaping point for me. University was my first one, really expanded my horizons. And then, you know, jumping into that mastermind that I did in 2019 to basically learn everything I'd know about, you know, set the foundation anyway for what I know about SEO. The guy in their teaching was basically like imperfect action beats perfect inaction every day of the week. And that's hard when you're starting out because you want to analyze and you want to procrastinate productively by mentally masturbating and figuring out exactly what, you know, you need to be doing. Right. We all do it. Um, and, and that helped me kind of just take action and not really care about the results. And then the results followed or not really care if I did it perfectly, I think is a better way to say it. And then the results just happen and you learn along the way, um, way more than you do by planning before it happens.

Yeah. And it's a good, it's a good part to our point to say like, Hey, you do have to stick around. Like it doesn't happen overnight, that type of stuff. Like you do have to put in the work, like, you know, that'll show up.

I feel like I'm just starting still. Like it's crazy. Like I'm five years, five plus years into the agency. And I feel like I'm just starting, um, which is crazy, but it's like also that momentum has built over five years and like clients that I sent or prospects that I sent, uh, proposals to like four years ago are reaching back out and they've been through three agencies since then. And they're like, Hey, you know, we're ready to go. You know, we, we've tried everything that was cheaper than you and didn't work and you know, we're ready now to go. And so it's, yeah, you got to stick in the game too.

Yeah, and clearly it's a passion because when you, obviously a passion and a purpose because I always say when somebody says like, hey, it feels like your first day of just doing it for five years, clearly you love what you're doing because it doesn't feel like work, right?

Yeah, I suppose I'd be here like, man, Blake, when I can get out of this SEO game, make enough money and go live on the beach, I'm going to be so glad, right?

Yeah, I'm sure that's why you, you know, luckily you got fired from your, your engineering job. Cause I'm sure that's what would be happening. Right. Had you, had you not been here, you just would have been scarcity complacent and you would have probably been perfectly fine. Right. But it might not have been as happy.

Yeah. Yeah. It, uh, it's actually crazy to think about it. Yeah. It's crazy to think about like that was, that was the biggest turning point and then, you know, launching, launching into this, but, uh, yeah. Crazy, crazy looking at the little timeline, you know, milestones.

Yeah, so what would you say, you know, the future of Blue CS, as I call it, solutions, right? Your blue, it's blue crocus. How do you exactly say that?

Blue crocus, like the flower.

Crocus, like the flower. Blue crocus. Oh, duh. Blue crocus solutions. And so what would you say the vision of that? Yeah, like what?

Yeah, the vision I have is to I have to keep pushing the vision to be bigger than my teams. So I have a pretty big revenue goal in the next five years, which has to be backed by results for clients, which leads to referrals, which leads to continuing to expand our network and our marketing and whatnot. But more than that, it's to continue to stay on the cutting edge. continue to do the foundational stuff, but the SEO game is changing, it always has been since I got into it, and it will continue to, but there's a lot of exciting stuff happening with AI, there's a lot of exciting stuff happening with all of that, some which you need to grab onto, some of which you have to wait until it gets developed, and some of which you still need to hit the foundational stuff. So making that balance, who knows where we'll be in five years? But we're going to figure it out along the way and make sure that we're still offering value to clients and coming up with some way to continue to do that.

Yeah, I love that. Because everything's always changing. And every time I look at Crocs, I think of Crocs. So maybe Croc will call up and they want you to do their marketing.

Maybe there's a rebrand.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Just Blue Croc, right? Yeah. I know my kid has Crocs.

We'll just call it Blue Crocs and then they'll try and sue us. And then we'll say, Oh, we can do your marketing.

I know a very high company that was in a similar situation like that. And it's a very generic term. So yeah, it's very funny how that works.

I'll play it up and be like, no, no, actually I'm just trying to get your attention for marketing.

Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. I love that. Well, Lewis it's it's been a pleasure having you on here. And obviously your story is a testament to the power of perseverance, adaptability and surrounding yourself with the right people, because clearly that's what you've done. You've the universe is obviously Taking you to the right spot. So it's awesome to have you on here. And I appreciate you, uh, you know, describing SEO and website and kind of giving people information that they can take and improve their lives.

Appreciate it, man. No, it was a blast coming on and, uh, If nothing else, let's make Crocs great again.

Yeah, let's make Crocs great. Hey, I love Crocs. I'll slip those things on, take the trash out real fast. They're like minivans, about as practical as they come.

This is your engagement hack for this episode. Yes, right. Hopefully people... Crocs or not, drop it in the comments, guys.

Yeah. And if anybody wants to get a hold of Lewis all his links are in the show notes. So as always, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Elevate with Ellsner. If this episode inspired you, please share it with someone who needs a little extra motivation today. So keep elevating your life and your business. We'll see you next time.

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