Catalytic Leadership
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Catalytic Leadership
Why Most White Label SEO Fails, And What Actually Works
If you've ever sold SEO and regretted it, this episode is for you.
I sat down with Nic Padilla, Business Development Director at Boostability, one of the top white label SEO providers in the world, to unpack why most white label SEO partnerships fall flat... and what actually drives long-term results.
Nic has trained sales teams in 14 countries, helped agencies generate millions in recurring revenue, and leads a system that gets 86% of clients to page one in six months. We talk about more than SEO; we dig into the systems, retention strategies, sales handoffs, team alignment, and automation that make this work without burning you or your team out.
You’ll walk away with a clear look at how to scale your SEO offering without doing all the work yourself, and how the right white label SEO partner can increase retention, simplify ops, and protect your margin.
📚 Books Mentioned
- Kick Ass by Mel Robbins
- The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins
- Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
- Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
- Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Want to learn more about Nic’s work or how Boostability could support your agency’s SEO growth? Visit the partner page at Boostability.com or connect with Nic directly on LinkedIn — just search Nic Padilla, like tortilla. He’d love to hear from you.
Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.
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I'm excited today to have Nick Padilla on the podcast. Nick is the Business Development Director at Boostability, one of the world's leading white-label SEO providers. With over 15 years of experience in digital marketing, Nick has trained sales teams across 14 countries and helped agencies generate millions in recurring revenue. He specializes in building scalable SEO partnerships that drive long-term growth and client retention. Passionate about relationships and results, Nick bridges the gap between service fulfillment and agency success with a consultative, value-driven approach. Nick, I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 2:Thanks for being on the show. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and thank you so much for that introduction. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.
Speaker 1:Nick, I'd love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How?
Speaker 2:did you get started? You know what I always have believed that being a leader is something that is taught with experience and it comes down from playing school sports, from when I was a little kid a captain, like you know, on the soccer team making sure that we could rally up and try and do those things. And then from there, starting at Boostability, I mean in 2012, I moved from Colorado here to Utah and I said you know what I'm excited for this opportunity, but also, at the same time, I need to make some money. So I started where everybody else did, on the account management side, and I said you know what if I were to learn this process very well? What if I were to learn this process very well and then, from there, sell? And then they realize you know what, why is this kid able to sell? How do we make it to where he can then teach others to do the same?
Speaker 2:Then it came to mentorship. Then it became becoming a leader through osmosis and being around people and teaching people to introduce things in a specific way, and then, from there, managing teams and then relationships. So for me, being a leader started from when I was young and the parents that I've got the sports that I participated in and making sure that it was a team approach. And then being around other people and pushing and making sure that we're all on the same. Then being around other people and pushing and making sure that we're all on the same goal and the same track in mind.
Speaker 1:You know that alignment is so important and I can remember times early in my leadership journey where I was not as focused on alignment with the team as I should have been, and that came back and bit me later as you think about your journey. What are some things that you've learned along the way, as you've begun to lead, and now lead teams at a very high level?
Speaker 2:If we don't have a clear vision into who and what we are and what the purpose is, none of us are going to know where to go right. That, to me, is integral to everything that we do. I'm an animal lover. I like the idea of being this system, this hive of bees or ants, and going and creating something for the betterment of whatever you're working on. And if these ants can just say, okay, cool, I'm going to go find this source of food and then come back to the hive and make everybody succeed. And if we can all work together, we can do some amazing things.
Speaker 2:On BoostAbility's side, we started in 2009 and we had this one thought process of how we were going to gain business, and we were wrong. We thought we created this DIY platform and we realized business owners don't have time, we need to pivot, we need to make a change. And we all had the exact same thought process at that point of we're going to pivot, we're going to make a change and this is how we're going to speak no-transcript getting small businesses online, but supporting them along the way to make sure that nothing drops. And it is making sure that we're all in alignment. We're all speaking the same language. We all have the same thought processes.
Speaker 1:You know many of our listeners may not be familiar with Boostability. If you're in the agency world I think you guys are pretty well known. But maybe just for those who are listening who may not be as familiar, can you talk about what Boostability is all about?
Speaker 2:Of course, boostability. We're a white label SEO team out of Utah. We're in 15 countries, nine different languages. We've helped over 200,000 small businesses get on the first page and succeed online. The thought process that we've got is we want to allow marketing agencies to have a scalable SEO product that they can sell to their customers and they don't have to do the work. We will help them with sales. You can call it and our team will hop on as an SEO expert and then you put the program inside of our system called Launchpad.
Speaker 2:We will do all of the fulfillment and we could also do the account management. We'll reach out to your customer on your behalf with a branded phone number and email address. Literally, it's hands-off in the SEO world. We can get you on the first page, get your customers on the first page, and 86% of the time, we're getting a customer on the first page within six months. It's great. That's remarkable. It's been a fun ride. It's a great company to work for. We've got great people that really care about these small businesses getting on the first page and succeeding.
Speaker 1:Now, there's so much change going on in the agency world these days, and one of the big change movers in the space is AI. Yeah, people are using AI as a search tool. Yeah, people are using AI as a search tool. Yeah, something that you know. Even two, three years ago wasn't even on the radar, I think, for most of us. How does SEO work in light of that?
Speaker 2:If we look at the fundamental and we go as far back as possible and we say, okay, search engine optimization, at some point, seo, was this defining factor? Right, yeah, with the new articles that have come out from Rand, frishkin and thought processes, we agree that SEO now has got a new definition and it is search everywhere, optimization, nice. That means that you need to make it to where your website is understandable for these large language models just as much as it is understandable for Google or, in the past, bing, just as much as it is understandable for Google or, in the past, bing. So you need to make sure that when these different crawlers or bots or whatever it is come onto your website, they understand what they're looking at and you are optimized that is never going to change for making sure that they understand exactly what they're looking at. When you do that, you will be found on Google or ChatGPT or Gemini, and when it's done correctly, that's when you will succeed. That's brilliant.
Speaker 1:And I think that is such a clear and concise way of talking about that. So often I hear people really trying to obfuscate the question and dodge and bounce around in different places. You dealt with that pretty directly.
Speaker 2:You know, I've been in the SEO world since 2009. I've heard SEO is dead by somebody on a stage and for me, I mean it's not annoying, I get it. Everybody needs to get their click, everybody needs to get their voice out there. But the most important thing is it is not dead, it is just evolving. I've always said search engine manipulation is dying. You're correct. Right, with every algorithm update that's ever been out, we're trying to Google's trying to define what they agree with and what they don't agree with. But search engine optimization, or that optimization, is always going to be there. We're always going to have tweaks to make ourselves look better on.
Speaker 1:I like that word evolving, you know, and continually tweaking and optimizing. I think that's the mindset that leads to success, Not okay, I got this dialed in. Now this is going to work for the next 40 years. Good luck with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was having this conversation with my mom this last week and I was like, mom, you've been through some crazy different stages in life where you her penmanship man, if you saw her penmanship, it is beautiful, her signature is just this work of art. And I remember hearing a typewriter growing up and I remember being in first and second grade and there was a typewriter and then it turned into all right, we're going to play Oregon Trail and I couldn't imagine what my mom had been through, where it's like, okay, they had to manually ship letters and then wait for a letter to come back, and that might be weeks at a time. And I was stating to my mom that's not how it is for me. I've got an email inbox right now. That's probably getting, you know, 20 to 50 emails individually to me. That's cutting out all spam where I have to go in between and figure out exactly what's needed, and then it's back and forth on a day.
Speaker 2:So that timeline that she had oh man, the amount of work that I could have done but is now shortened into hours, if not minutes. If you don't evolve, you're going to be stuck, and technology is a tool and we just need to make sure that we utilize it in the correct way. On my side, the way that I like to think of AI is it is that tool. It is not the solution, and if you don't know how to use that tool correctly, it won't be the solution that you want.
Speaker 1:That's really good. A guest that I had on the show about a year ago talked about AI as an amplifier. Yeah, it amplifies the person who's using it. It amplifies you know your voice. It amplifies your expertise yeah, or your lack of.
Speaker 2:Of course. Of course, a couple of stories that I like to do. I've got some amazing kids. I've got a 17-year-old daughter. She's a junior in high school and she's like I hate school, I don't care about school, I hate English. I'll go to anything when it comes to science or any of the fun classes, but on English I don't care. And I'm like okay, well, let's learn something, what do you think you can do? And she's like well, I've been using ChatGPT but they keep on catching me. And this is you can judge me a little bit. I get it, it's okay. I'm like how are they catching you? And she's like well, it doesn't look like I wrote it. Well, I said well, it sounds like you need.
Speaker 2:So maybe there's mistakes or there's spelling mistakes that sometimes you do. And I taught her how to prompt and on my side it was okay. I could either have my daughter just not learn something and she's just turning in something to turn it in, or she's learned how to prompt, where she's saying there's no em dashes, because I don't type with em dashes. I usually make grammatical mistakes here. The voice that I've got are here. These are the types of songs that I listen to, and she created this whole persona, that now she can get stuff done 10 times quicker and she's starting to write blogs for different companies online because of this prompting that she's learned. So for me, it's more valuable for me to teach her that than, okay, write an essay on why Anne Frank did a certain thing in a certain way. So I don't know. I think if you don't evolve, you're stuck.
Speaker 1:I agree, and I think one of the things that we as parents or as mentors or as coaches can do is help people understand how to leverage AI, in particular, in ethical ways. Yeah Right, instead of letting them try to figure it out on their own and stumble into some very well unethical ways of using it. I do the same thing with my daughters, you know, trying to teach them how to use it in a way that is ethical, in a way that is going to help them achieve their goals but does not rob them of the opportunity to be themselves. Exactly, I think that's important, and I think that's a lesson that can translate into the agency world pretty easily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent Right. There's nothing better than a true leader that will sit down and say how do we make this better for you? Yes, for you. And each person is individual, right, I've got different selling techniques than somebody who's on my team, and I'm really relationship-based. I want to make it to where somebody feels comfortable with me, whether or not it's in a year or two years or whenever. The longest lead time that we've had for a partnership is eight years. It took us to close it, but it is creating that relationship. And there's somebody else where they're one time closed and they still do incredible with it.
Speaker 1:But each person is unique and it needs to be tailored to each person it, but each person is unique and it needs to be tailored to each person. I think that happens when we see people as well, actually people as 3D human beings, instead of just as a cog in the machine of the business or the team that fulfills a certain function or does a certain thing. When we see them as actual people, well then we begin to listen, yeah, we begin to ask questions.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of turmoil in this world right now and it doesn't matter where everybody is, but I think if there's mutual respect and understanding where somebody is at, you can do a lot more. Sadly, everybody's got an opinion now and sometimes some people shouldn't have an opinion Like I'm a husky dude. I'm not going to have an opinion on the gym. I do not deserve to have an opinion, right? But there are some keyboard warriors out there that they'll have an opinion on everything until they're in person and that's when it changes. Um, I've, I've, I'm very opinionated on this, but I love the idea of stepping back in these things that allow us to have access to anything and everything in this world. Just put it down, go outside, look at the, look at the clouds, look at the sunset, look at the bugs on the flowers. Life is a little bit easier, and then it it allows you to get some perspective.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so good. I love that and I think that's very needed, particularly in this space.
Speaker 2:It is, it is.
Speaker 1:So if an agency owner is listening and they're like, okay, I'm interested. I've tried SEO white label partners before. Of course, it wasn't a great experience. What's going to make boostability different Like? What does it look like to work with you and why should I consider that?
Speaker 2:If you notice everything that I've stated so far about Boostability, it comes down to the experience that you're going to have. In today's world, everybody knows what SEO is right. Hopefully, hopefully, right, that is very true, hopefully. That being said, there's a lot of companies out there that are treated like vendors, not a partnership. Doctor, if you were to partner with me, this is the first thing that you're going to get. I'm going to introduce you to a partner growth manager. They're a representative of your company here at Boostability. They'll give you sales training, auditing tools, case studies. They will also introduce you to my sales staff, a team of nerds who have been selling SEO only Boostability's SEO only for 40 hours a week for the last eight years. They've heard every objection, they've heard every concern. They can combat it and they've had a 32% close rate over those last eight years. Then it just becomes a math problem. One in three calls closes with us. So if you want 10 accounts, 30 calls, right, that's it. We also give you auditing tools so that you're not driving blind. We teach you how to utilize those auditing tools. That is all pre-sale.
Speaker 2:Then you put an account inside of our system. We're going to treat it like okay, we see this website, how do we organize it for Google to easily navigate and understand what they're looking at? We're going to go off of the website and create individual links pointing back to it, all of which is customized according to the customer's industry and location. You'll have a reporting dashboard that's got your logo in it Beautiful, sexy, simple. We can have it to where it's like SEO reporting at doctorsmarketingagencycom right, and then we also can do the account management for it. So you don't have to ask those hard questions that you might not understand. A lot of the SEO companies that are out there are just saying here's my product, sell it. So we are also trying to give you that white glove service saying we're going to help you sell it, we're going to help you speak to it, we're going to help you show the work. We're going to give you the reporting dashboard.
Speaker 1:It's a lot more than just sell it when you operate and you create that kind of an environment and I do believe that's what you're doing you're creating an environment that is very specific. Of course. What does retention look like in the environment that you're creating?
Speaker 2:So retention is huge for us. Right, hyper-specifically, I want you to use my sales team more than anything else, because when we're selling it, we're utilizing specific terms. We're saying you're going to see the following. Then in six, seven months, the customer is going to see the following and they're going to say, okay, I need to now move on to the next set of keywords or focus on the next area. You know your customer retention goes from six, seven months where somebody says, okay, I got on the first page, I'm done into okay, not only should I be getting my website healthy like a gym, I got to continue going to the gym to maintain the health that I've got. That customer goes from 12 to 18 months easy, because we're selling it. We also have the fulfillment and we're speaking the same language on the account management side.
Speaker 1:I love that Again. The environment that you create has such an incredible impact on the results that you get, of course, particularly relationally, of course.
Speaker 2:Of course I like to listen. Relationship management is one of the most important things, I think. In general Anybody who knows me, I'll try and learn about somebody. I want to know you know, what do they like to eat? What's the music that they've got? Where do they live? What do they like to do? Because the next time that I speak with them I'm going to ask them, hey, how's your daughter or how's your dad Right? Or tell me about you know this specific type of restaurant? I will go back to a place if I can. Recently I was at a conference in Searcy, arkansas. I travel a lot. I forgot toothpaste, toothpaste, and I'm like, oh no, I don't want to travel around. I go to this hotel and I ask the gentleman there, the receptionist. I'm like, hey, I need some toothpaste. He's like, hey, how are you? Doing? What are you doing?
Speaker 2:here and I'm like, okay, cool, I'm going to go talk with him and we'll do this. And he hands me like six or seven tubes of these tiny little toothp is for your pearly whites. And then he saw, while I was waiting, I was looking at the nba uh, playoffs and he's like, oh, what's your team? And it turns out he's a lakers fan. I'm a denver nuggets fan and the nuggets have been owning the lakers for a long time, which I love. Um, and we just start sitting and chatting and the next four days I ended up saying hi and staying and hanging out and talking with this gentleman after the conference and watching the playoffs. Now I know Jamal. I know Jamal has two kids. I know that if I ever go back to North Little Rock, I'm going to go back to that courtyard and I'm going to say I had a great experience with Jamal.
Speaker 2:If we can create the same experience with our employees, if we can say hey, how's your day going so far? What'd you do for Father's Day? Happy Father's Day. I sent you a text message. Or if we could do the exact same thing with our customers. Hey, mrs and Mrs Customer, I'm not going to reach out to you just with bad news. I'm going to reach out to you and say we got you on the freaking first page. We got you there. What's the next step? This is what we're going to do. If we can create that environment everywhere, people will come back and we'll have a better experience across the board. That's so good.
Speaker 1:That cost you nothing, nothing To do that. It costs you nothing, just a little bit of time, yeah, but the investment that you made is significant.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And again you're seeing Jamal as an actual 3D human being, not just as somebody who can get you the toothpaste that you need.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I mean I wasn't ready for it. Usually I'm the one being, you know, a little bit quirky and nerdy and like pearly whites and I'm like I just got Jamal, like I got nicked. That's what I do. I mean, I'm usually the guy getting people out of their comfort zone so we can at least have a conversation, so I'm not bored, right yeah?
Speaker 1:It was beautiful, it was so cool, so cool.
Speaker 2:You got nicked. I'm going to be using that going forward. I'll let you know. I love that I think that's great.
Speaker 2:The day I became a verb, right, but I mean my goal every day is to walk in and make somebody smile. And if I can do that, you know it is a better day for everybody. And the day that somebody is having a tough time, they know that they can come and say hey, Nick, I need your help and I'll be there. And I think that if we can spread that through leadership and proper guidance and helping people, that's the catalyst that will help people become better. And it's only through example, A great mindset I love that and it's only through example, A great mindset.
Speaker 1:I love that, nick, you have to lead at a higher level today than you did three, five, ten years ago, and that same thing is going to be true three, five, ten years from now. Your team, your clients, they're going to need you to lead at a different level. So let me ask you how do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new leadership skills that your team and your clients are going to need you to have in the years to come?
Speaker 2:Well, we spoke about revolution or evolution earlier. Right, in the past it was a little bit easier. I used to run a team of 20 plus people here at Boost in around like 2013 to 2015. It was a little bit easier. Everybody was in office. It was easy for me to create a culture when it's like, all right, daily, stand up guys. And I got Nick there with his funny jokes let's do this. Two hours pressure hour, let's do this. Now it's. You've got some people virtual. You might have some va's somewhere else. You might have somebody out of texas, just as much you might have somebody in you know argentina. Right, it's now.
Speaker 2:It is relationship management, more so than anything else, and then also making sure that you have visibility to understand what somebody's working on. It is so easy today to come off as a micromanager because you're not sitting next to somebody. So now the proof is in the pudding of a true leader than anything else, because you have to regularly check in and understand what is going on with this individual. So for me, the basics are you have to know and have the same vision. You're working on the exact same projects, or each person knows what they're working on and where that cog fits inside of the machine. And then relationship management.
Speaker 2:Right, I travel a lot. I've been to like 12 conferences so far this year and we're in June. It's crazy. But I'll have text message threads, I'll have Slack messages, I'll have check-ins. Hey, how are you doing here? I'm usually connected to all of my employees through you know, whether or not it's LinkedIn or Instagram, and I'll check in and I'll say, oh, your family's beautiful, or that's cool that your daughter played soccer here. Um, or, you know, I'll care about you. Know, your wife just graduated. Here's a gift. But if you're not there, if you're not present, it is very easy to understand how you can lose that morale.
Speaker 1:The power of present. Yeah, that's good If you could go back and talk to yourself earlier in your journey. Nick say you know when you're 20, 25 years old knowing what you know now, if you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice, what would you love to go back and tell yourself?
Speaker 2:I think there's a time when I think everybody goes through it where it's like I deserve this right. It would just be.
Speaker 2:You know, be still, it's okay. Things will come at their appropriate time and you'll know when things are supposed to happen. I think there are plenty of times when I had interviewed for a position or some sort of promotion and it's like dang it, I didn't get it. And you know, boostability was in this hyper stage of growth, right. We went from when I first started I think there was like 40 employees all the way up to 500 employees within Wow, by 2014, 2015. Crazy numbers, right. No matter what, there has to be growth. And it's the idea of just go slow, make sure that you are methodical with your work and when you do it correctly and you have the correct attitude, you will grow. No matter what, whether or not it's here or anywhere else, you will grow. If you're a hard worker, if you have the ability to not only show what you're doing and do it, you will do well, I had this manager when I first started at Boostability and he said about like 90% of your job is just doing your job.
Speaker 2:The other 10% is, if people don't know you're doing your job, you're failing. Because, think of it like this Everybody has had workers where they might be the loudest in the room, but they might not be the best worker, but sometimes the loudest in the room will get that promotion or get moved on. I've seen it plenty of times. My kids are asking me about it now, like why that's true, why she's not working? I'm just putting my head down to work and it's like you have to market yourself. You have to create that cognitive bias that somebody will say oh, I heard about this win that Nick or Sophia or Juan or whatever had because of you know they were talking about it the other day. You have to market yourself, no matter what. It's well said.
Speaker 1:Nick, you're a continual learner. You're always learning, always growing. I'm curious is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening? If you haven't read this, this would be worth your time.
Speaker 2:Lately I've been on this Mel Robbins kick. I've been going back and forth on these Mel Robbins books. Right Right now it's kick-ass it is literally the name of the book, is that? So don't judge me please, but I think for me it's the thought process of finding different ways to go through life and realizing that you're not perfect. That she has that I really appreciate is she realizes she's not perfect. And if you look at the way that she stages questions or, you know, has to put somebody in their place, she'll say we have problems with this and we need to make a change. It is not a you have a problem with this and this is how you need to change.
Speaker 2:You can go back and you can pick up things and you can understand that I also like books like Outliers and you know Effective, seven Habits of Effective I don't remember the full title, but I will go back and I do one fun book, whether or not it's like Fable Haven or Harry Potter, and then one business book and I'm going about, like every other week. I'm going through them when I'm traveling, like last week I went through three Mel Robbins books again just to try and understand. Okay, this five second rule what's the best way to teach my children this? What's the best way to teach my employees this? Or, you know, when somebody is unhappy a customer, let's take a second, let's understand what they're saying, let's relay what they're saying to confirm it and then let's talk about the actual solution, whether or not it's us or anybody else, but finding those different ways to then get it to in your journey and so many insights that you've shared so generously today.
Speaker 1:I'm grateful for that. I know people are going to want to stay connected to you I love it and continue to learn more about you and about Boostability. What is the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm in charge of our business development. So if you go to our partner page on Boostability, you can find me. Also, you can find me on LinkedIn Nick Padilla N-I-C. Padilla P-A-D-I-L-L-A. Padilla like tortilla, Please remember that. But I'm always here to connect. I'm always here to learn more. I want to learn more about businesses. I want to find different ways for Boostability to sit along other products, but I learn more about businesses. I want to find different ways for boostability to sit along other products, but I'm always present. So, whether or not I'm here or I'm traveling, I've got a smartphone and I use it in a smart way.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it, Nick. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2:Thank you have a great day.
