SELF EMPLOYEED

Coach

US Navy

Special Operations Medic

I help high-achieving professionals achieve peak performance in high-stress situations without falling victim to stress and burnout. From college dropout to Special Operations team, I share my lessons learned.

Hey, I'm Joel.

TLDR people

I spent 12 years on a Marine Special Operations team. I have dedicated my life to mastering the art of discipline, mental toughness, and resilience. I help clients to harness their inner warrior to conquer life's challenges and emerge stronger. 

The long story. 

I spent the first 22 years of my life lost. Dropped out of college, and worked dead-end jobs. No direction in life. Through finding discipline and mental toughness I was able to enlist in the military and build a career in Special Operations.

Mental toughness and discipline have allowed me to do things I never thought possible: 

- 50-mile runs
- 10 mile swims
- 20 Mile ruck runs

Plus much more.

Most people go through life never realizing what they are capable of. 

Come learn with me. 

You can find me on X here : https://twitter.com/TheSuccessCycle

Joel Blades

Brian Dordevic

Delivering profitable web design with SEO first approach. Official Google partner.

I started as a $4/hr offshore virtual assistant and became a USA citizen & business owner.

I help you generate more profit with your existing traffic efforts by optimizing conversion rates, improving your site speed & content strategy.

Chief Executive Officer

As the CEO of Alpha Efficiency, I steer the strategic direction of the company while managing an expanding team of 30+ professionals, spearheading growth initiatives, and driving operational efficiency.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) & Achievements:

Team Leadership & Management: Championed a culture of performance and accountability that led to a 35% boost in operational efficiency. Regularly oversee talent acquisition and retention strategies to ensure our team is well-equipped for success.

SEO & Content Management: Supervised the creation and execution of our SEO strategy, which saw a remarkable 60% surge in organic website traffic within six months, augmenting our brand's digital visibility.

Paid Media Strategies: Pioneered the deployment of innovative paid media campaigns, resulting in a 50% increase in brand awareness and a 30% rise in customer acquisition, significantly expanding our market footprint.

Performance Benchmarking: Developed and implemented performance benchmarks to ensure constant progress. The systematic monitoring of these metrics brought about a 20% improvement in overall productivity.

Stakeholder Management: Successfully maintained robust relationships with key stakeholders, attaining a 90% satisfaction rate, testament to our commitment to delivering value and fostering transparency.

Financial Management: Maintained stringent control over fiscal operations, consistently delivering profitability and surpassing financial objectives by 15% in the previous year, solidifying our position in the market.

This multifaceted role requires a delicate balance of leadership, strategic thinking, and operational excellence. It's my mission to continue propelling Alpha Efficiency forward, driving sustainable growth, and adding value for our stakeholders.

Most web devs ship the site and disappear.

Client is left with:

• Title tag: “Just another WordPress site”
• /wp-admin begging to get hacked
• No favicon, no brand memory

Client never checks this stuff.
But Google and bots do.

Amateurs build pages.
Pros protect assets.

Be the dev who makes them money and keeps them safe.

Helping Law Firms increase local AI SEO visibility and maximize perceived reputation | Hubspot, Google & SEMRush Partner | View portfolio for inspiration

Here is how my web design agency hit $500,000 this year (without burning out and drowning in sales calls):

1. Build an infinitely recurring offer

We stopped selling random projects.
We focused on three core outcomes:

• Tech stack we can support for years
• Clear care plan attached to each client
• Design that loads fast and CONVERTS

Every new website came with maintenance baked in, not as an optional extra.

This moved us from 80% one time revenue to 80% RECURRING revenue. 

Life gets easier when you know where your next payment is coming from.

2. Then we stacked layered recurring revenue

Instead of pitching “full service marketing” up front, we did:

• Website first
• Then Local SEO
• Then email automations
• Then grow into ads management

One win at a time.

Clients stayed because each layer made their funnel more profitable, not more complicated.

3. Make recurring work feel like a product, not chaos

We treated retainers like products:

• Fixed deliverables
• Fixed reporting rhythm
• Fixed weekly meeting cadence

Clients knew what was happening every month.
Team knew what to ship every week.
This killed most of the “emergency” calls.

4. Do the hard things competitors avoid

While others chased AI short term tactics to avoid hard work, we:

• Fixed technical SEO properly
• Cleaned tracking and analytics
• Optimized page speed and UX
• Talked to clients’ intake teams about lead quality

Unsexy work.

But it is what moved revenue for clients and made our retainers untouchable.

5. Turn happy clients into a referral engine

We did not beg for referrals.
We engineered them:

• Case studies that show revenue growth
• Simple “Who do you know like X?” asks
• Partner deals with vendors already serving our clients

Result: referrals drove more revenue than cold outreach.

6. Protect energy, not just profit

To avoid dying on sales calls, we:

• Had short, focused discovery calls
• Said “no” to clients who wanted chaos
• Used templates and checklists to scope fast
• Pre qualified leads through forms and content

Fewer calls.
Better clients.
More energy for actually building.

If you run a service business and want to turn it into a recurring revenue machine without living on sales calls, reply “SYSTEM” and I will send you a breakdown you can implement in your agency.

B2B is hard. It also pays the most.

Premium B2B services sell in the $10,000 to $50,000 range. And the buyers spend fast when the problem is real.

Yet too many teams sit back and wait for a form fill. Average conversion rate is around 2.5%. That is 1 lead for every 40 clicks.

This means your business is missing out on 97.5% of opportunities that come your way.

Exact reason why most companies stop advertising on Google and Meta.

Inbound vs outbound is a fake war. Champions run both.

Here’s my Eastern European take:

I used to be 100% inbound.
No permission? Don’t bother them.

That mindset is expensive.

Then I went outbound-only and booked 100 sales calls on a lean budget, fast. It worked, but the targeting was weak, so it turned into a hamster wheel.

Not fun, do not recommend.

Everything changed when we paired outbound with website intent data.

Inbound and outbound are tools.
Use one in isolation and you cap growth.

The Real Play: Turn Website Traffic Into Outreach

Every visit to a money page happened for a reason.
They clicked because the pain is real, even if they never fill out your form.

When you can identify the company behind the click, the game changes:

 • You stop guessing
 • You stop chasing random lists
 • You start contacting people who already touched your brand

Your outreach is no longer cold. It’s informed.

How to build your B2B list the smart way:

 • Map pain points
 • Match each pain point to a landing page (SEO or paid)
 • Capture visits to money pages as lead sources
 • Segment in your CRM
 • Retarget by pain point
 • Run manual outreach and sequences to the same audience

That is how you stack touch points and win B2B.

Want me to audit your B2B marketing strategy?
Reply AUDIT and if your business qualifies, I’ll send my calendar link.

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Corporate HATES remote work.

That's why my team loves our 100% remote agency (and ZERO commute).

Yet that doesn't stop us from:

• Driving around $2,000,000 in revenue for a disability law firm
• Shipping enterprise grade web development for a major non profit
• Adding over $4,000,000 in revenue for a home improvement business

All delivered from laptops in Ibiza, Paris, Palma de Mallorca and Chicago.

No HQ. No fancy boardroom. No glass tower with a logo on it.

Just:

• A MacBook
• Nitro cold brew
• Blazing fast internet
• Senior operators who care more about results than clocking in

Here is what we do not have:

• Office politics
• Pointless water cooler talk
• Commutes that drain everyone before work even starts

Here is what we do have:

• Deep work
• Fast shipping cycles
• Clients who measure us on revenue, not timesheets

Remote is not an excuse for lower standards.
For us it is the reason we can focus on the only thing that matters: 

RESULTS.

Want to see what this kind of fully remote operation produces?

Check out our portfolio!

Developer made $3,246 mistake that blew up our advertising budget. (And the easy fix no one talks about)

When I worked at eTech, the SEO team pushed a site update in the middle of the day...

• No warning
• No coordination
• Just a routine update

Except it crashed the website.

And our Google Ads kept spending.

For three straight hours, every click went to a dead page.

By the time the site came back up, we burned $3,246 on nothing.

That one screw-up taught me a rule I still follow today:

Never send PPC traffic to your main website.
Ever.

Use a landing page platform that doesn’t break when someone edits a menu, updates a plugin, or pushes a deploy.

That’s why I run everything on HubSpot landing pages now.

Cleaner. Faster. Safer. Built for conversion, not chaos.

Here’s what it gives you:

• Your ads keep running even if your site goes down
• Predictable performance while others burn money
• A/B tests without asking a dev to push code
• Tracking that doesn’t leak data
• No SEO signal pollution
• Faster load speeds
• No team collisions

Three hours.
Three thousand two hundred forty six dollars.

One rule that never fails me.

If you're running paid traffic, book a call with me on ways I can setup your Google and Meta Ads for success. (Link in comments)

People flex with watches.
But owning your time is the real flex.

Most people signal status with what is on their wrist.
I use mine to remember I never want to sell my time again.

I own three watches:

• A $1,000 Apple Watch Ultra
• A $5,000 Breitling
• A $500 Tissot

You would think I wear the Breitling the most.

I do not.

The Apple Watch used to run my life.
Notifications. Activity rings. Constant pressure to do more.

It made me productive.
It did not make me free.

Then two clients came along.

We built and scaled their crypto platform.
Those projects alone brought over $200,000 for Alpha Efficiency.

As a thank you, they sent me the Tissot.
Paid for in crypto. (reminder that tech moves fast)

That watch did something the Apple Watch never could:

It disconnected my self worth from the clock.

I stopped timing my workouts.
Stopped checking messages every few minutes.
Stopped living by notifications.

Every time I look at that Tissot, it reminds me:

• Technology should serve you, not own you
• One right deal can buy you years of optionality
• Your time is a reflection of the clients you choose

Later I bought the Breitling to prove something.
To myself. To the industry. To people who play status games.

It mostly sits at home now.

Because the real status upgrade was not the luxury brand. It was a regulated nervous system.

Learning how to get clients that pay you so well that you stop trading hours for money.

That is the game I care about teaching.

If you want more clients like that, and fewer that drain your energy and calendar,
I broke down my systems inside Infinite Deals.

It is where I document how I:

• Attract high ticket clients online
• Buy back more of my own time each year
• Turn a few great projects into multiple six figures

The watch is just a reminder.

The real asset is the skill of getting the right deals.

Landed in Chicago 12 years ago (photo from THE South Side)

Rented room
Cracked laptop 
Safety Net ZERO

No investors. No agency mastermind.
Just wifi and the decision to figure it out.

Fast forward.
Last quarter my agency helped clients add multiple seven figures in revenue.

Concrete wins, not theory:

• Around $2,000,000 in revenue for a disability law firm
• Over $4,000,000 in revenue for a home improvement company
• Enterprise grade web development shipped for a major non profit

None of that happened by accident.

Here is the operating system behind it:

Pick a painful problem

I focused on lawyers and local pros.
When their leads stop, payroll hurts.
Solve that consistently and they remember your name.

Sell the smallest real win

Not a massive “done for you everything” promise.
Just one clear outcome: Website + Local SEO sprint.

Easy yes.

Once they see it working, bigger checks make sense.

Create proof in public

Endless hundreds of proposals on Upwork
Daily posts on X and LinkedIn
Documenting what works

The content brings people in already half sold.

Let systems do the follow up

HubSpot workflows, intent data, and simple pipelines.
No “just checking in” energy.

Prospects move through a process whether I am online or not.

Stack rare skills

AI, technical SEO, CRO, local search.
Enough depth to solve hard problems.
Enough range to connect the whole funnel.

Treat cash like oxygen

Weekly money reviews.
Profit targets.
I built for boring predictability instead of viral spikes.

Borrow other people’s trust

Partner with vendors who already serve attorneys.
They send us their clients.
We send them better performing websites.

Everyone wins.

If you are in a new city, with no network and nothing but a laptop, you do not need permission.

Steal one of these.
Stack all seven.

Then let the internet do what it does best:
Turn specific skills into an agency that quietly prints results.

Your pal, Brian
P.S. I'm getting that hairline BACK.

The first time I “celebrated” Thanksgiving, I was not even in America.
I was in a small apartment in Serbia.

Cracked laptop. Weak WiFi.
Working remotely for an American tech company for $700 per month.

On my screen I saw what Thanksgiving was supposed to look like.

Big tables. Big families. Big bird in the middle.
Football on TV. Warm light. Full plates.

On my side of the screen?

Cheap food.
Cold apartment.
Trying to make the numbers work so I could get to that country one day.

Back then, Thanksgiving felt like another planet.

And here is what always fascinated me about it:

On Thursday, everyone is grateful.
On Friday, everyone loses their mind over fake discounts.

• Same people
• Same houses
• Different tabs open

They say a prayer over the turkey, then twenty four hours later they fight over televisions that were “discounted” after the price was quietly increased.

While that was happening, I was grinding for $700, trying to answer a much simpler question:

“How do I build a life where gratitude is not a costume I wear once a year?”

So I did the only thing I could control.
I stopped waiting for a good break.
I started becoming more valuable.

SEO. Content. Design. Systems.
Anything that made me harder to replace than the next resume in the pile.

One skill at a time.
One client at a time.
One small win at a time.

Then came the leap.

• I moved to the U.S.
• Built a 20 person SEO team.
• Drove over a million dollars in organic calls.
• Started my own agency.
• Hit consistent six figure months.

The plates at Thanksgiving look very different now.

But here is the part most people miss:

Gratitude is not what you post on Thursday.
Gratitude is the work your past self did when nobody watched.
The sacrifices nobody clapped for.

The discipline that did not get likes and comments.

Your former self paid the price.
You live the upside.

So the real question is not “What are you thankful for this year?”

The real question is:
Are you living in a way that makes your past sacrifices worth it?

This Thanksgiving I am giving back.

While many throw out Fake Discounts and hope you won’t notice.
I am running my best sale yet. One that will change your life if you act on it.

My Substack yearly plan includes my two best selling courses - (people valued them at $349). Link to my substack is in the comments.

Infinite Deals - That teaches you how to get clients on repeat.
Profitable Websites from Scratch - That teaches you how to build websites that convince AI and Google that your website is the real deal.

Add the community, and you’ll get all of this for $99. I am pulling this offer 23:59 EST. And won’t run it again. Sign up on my Substack profile and DM me your email for the bonuses.

A decade-old SEO is sold as an AI breakthrough.

And somehow, everyone’s acting like they’ve uncovered a hidden variable.

• 90% of “AI visibility” is just SEO.
• One lucky mention doesn’t make you relevant.
• The “new tactics” are just retrieval doing it's thing.

5 pieces last week shattered the illusion that AI changed everything:

1. Your "AI Strategy" is "Just SEO" with Better Marketing

Behind the hype, AI visibility still depends on the same technical foundations that power traditional search. Most supposed breakthroughs are just old SEO principles dressed as something new. 
https://hubs.la/Q03WywpV0

2. ChatGPT Turns Shopping Into a Personalized Research Engine

ChatGPT now adapts to your product preferences in real time. Shopping becomes a guided conversation powered by real-time data and personalized context. 
https://hubs.la/Q03WyCl10

3. The Hidden Cost Behind “Fast and Cheap” SEO

SEO still runs on the same triangle of time, cost, and quality, and cutting corners always comes back as rework and lost visibility. 
https://hubs.la/Q03Wyy5s0

4. A 50% Deletion Test Boosted Traffic Instead of Killing It

Deleting over half a site’s content sounds reckless, but this audit proved the opposite. Removing 1,000 outdated, low-value pages boosted organic traffic, tightened funnel performance, and raised conversions.
https://hubs.la/Q03WyzRR0

5. $227M Went Into the Wrong AI SEO Trend

Investors poured millions into LLM monitoring while the real defensibility sat in agentic SEO tools. The competitive edge is in shipping faster, better, and across more channels.  
https://hubs.la/Q03Wyv050

Clarity and structure have carried brands for years.

But the pressure to use them is rising...

If you want yours to hold up, join me on a quick call: https://hubs.la/Q03Wyvqh0

Why 99% Stay Addicted and 1% Get Rich

When I was a kid, technology was a TV in the living room and a plastic shovel in the sandbox.

Today I walked past my old kindergarten and remembered how we used to dig holes in the playground.

• No apps
• No screens
• No notifications

Just dirt, tiny shovels, and a group of kids trying to reach the center of the earth.

Now look around.

Heads down. Blue light. Infinite scroll.

We removed boredom from life, and with it a lot of real growth.

Yet your entire financial future depends on attention.

If you cannot capture and direct attention, you are invisible.
If you can, you are playing a different game.

When I quit my job, it was not bravery. It was math.

I knew I could take a stranger from the internet and turn them into a paying client often enough that I would be fine.

• Not warm leads
• Not referrals

Cold traffic.

That one skill quietly funded my life:

• Training without guilt
• Travel without panic about money
• Good restaurants instead of counting every bill
• Time to think while my team and AI agents do the boring parts

None of that came from hacks.
It came from learning how to turn cold to closed.

Most people treat Black Friday as a chance to buy another screen.

New gadget
Same income
Same calendar
Same problems

If I could only buy one thing on Black Friday, it would not be hardware.
It would be the skill of converting cold attention into buyers.

Once you can turn:

Stranger to visitor
Visitor to booked call
Call resulting in a paying client

You stop worrying about opportunity. You decide when to turn it on.

That is what I am teaching in alphaOS.

How I think about attention.
How I structure offers so strangers get it in seconds.
How I turn cold traffic into booked calls.
How I run most of it from my phone with a lean team.
How doctors, lawyers, dentists and other local businesses can plug this into what they already sell.

For Black Friday I opened a short presale on Substack (on yearly plan).

You get included with Substack annual subscription:

• Access to a community for a full year (where you can ask me questions)
• Profitable Websites from Scratch (my web design course)
• Infinite Deals (how to turn prospects into clients)

You are already surrounded by overstimulated attention.

The only real question is whether you keep donating yours, or turn it into income.

alpha-efficiency

act-leadership

fleetwoodlimousineworldwide

cult-of-traffic

digitalcash2go

web-design-chicago-agency

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #ppc, #seo, #webdesign, #ppcmarketing, and #webdevelopment

Helping Law Firms increase local AI SEO visibility and maximize perceived reputation | Hubspot, Google & SEMRush Partner | View my portfolio for inspiration

There is a 44% chance your lawyer is an addict.
Not to alcohol, but to “no new cases” at 1:13 AM.

36% of attorneys screen positive as problem drinkers.
9% report prescription drug misuse.
And no stats for illegal drugs use...

That is one in two.

What pushes them there?

Not the hours
Not the verdicts
Not even the clients

It is the gap between running their own practice vs. being burnt down by corporate management.

Those that went solo suffer when: 

• The phone does not ring
• There is no next case in sight
• Payroll is coming and cash is not

Those that are in corporate are drinking through: 

• Persuasive arguments
• Worrying about the appointed judge
• Client that lied to them in disposition

Those that left Big Law for freedom, quietly count credit karma drops and debt.

Those that stayed worry about their spouse secretly despising them for being absent. (and filing divorce paperwork)

If only they could pick and choose their cases...

The best source of new cases is already decided for them:

• AI Search
• Google Ads
• Google Maps
• Local Service Ads

When someone prompts “disability lawyer New York” or “estate planning attorney Chicago” they are not looking for content...

They are looking for a lawyer.
NOW.

Yet most firms are barely investing into these channels. Or they tried once, burned money, and walked away.

It's not that search doesn't work..
But their investment in it is not.

• No call tracking
• No real lead magnet
• No intake automation

Just a generic homepage and a lonely “Contact us” button that doesn't get any clicks.

So even when Google actually sends them a live prospect, the visitor bounces, gets distracted, or calls a competitor with a better offer, clearer next step, or faster intake.

If half of the energy spent worrying about money went into building one predictable search engine pipeline, a lot of partners would sleep better and drink less.

Here is what the calm firms do differently:

• Treat AI, Google Maps, LSAs and Ads like rent, not a lottery ticket
• Use a clear lead magnet that filters and warms up prospects
• Track every call and form so they know what works
• Turn that data into a repeatable acquisition system

Predictability is the real antidote.
And no engine creates more predictable intent than AI & search.

If you are a lawyer and want to see why your firm is not getting a steady flow of cases from Google Maps, Local Service Ads and Google Ads, comment AUDIT and I will show you exactly where the leaks are in your funnel.

16 years in SEO. 

This is the biggest opportunity I’ve seen.

AI pushed the industry into a reset.

And the advantage moved with it.

These are 5 signals from last week redefining the landscape:

1. You’re Late to SEO. That’s Your Advantage in 2025

If you're only starting now, you get to skip unlearning a decade of tricks. Ride AI tools, and go straight to long-tail keywords that will actually bring you customers. 
https://hubs.la/Q03TNLs70
 
2. AI Sends 1% of Traffic and Controls Most Customers

The new Conductor report reveals AI referrals are tiny in volume but huge in influence, shaping which brands customers trust before they even think about clicking through. 
https://hubs.la/Q03TNBqs0

3. The Smartest Brands Use AI Like a Scalpel, Not a Firehose 
 
If most of your AI effort vanished, would your customers feel the difference, or would your marketing still sound like everyone else’s? That’s your real AI strategy audit. 
https://hubs.la/Q03TNGWB0 

4. Google’s AI Now Shops for Your Customers, Are You Still on the Shelf?

With Search and Gemini comparing options and closing purchases, the brands that earn the spot are the ones the AI sees as the safest, smartest “yes.” 
https://hubs.la/Q03TNFlG0

5. AI Is Killing Data Silos and Forcing Your Team to Share One Customer Reality

As AI connects signals across every system, it also pushes you from tool-centric reporting to a single shared view of the customer that no team can dodge. 
https://hubs.la/Q03TNymt0

Your brand has a split second to make sense. Let's use it wisely. 

Pick a time and upgrade the moment: https://hubs.la/Q03TNLrj0

Add $60,247 per month for your law practice with AI-driven local SEO (without blowing up your Advertising budget). | Hubspot, Google & SEMRush Partner | View my portfolio for inspiration and revenue-generating ideas.

taplio

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Joel Blades

Brian Dordevic

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The Battle

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Brian Dordevic

Followers

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Brian Dordevic's LinkedIn Performance

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