From Military Communications to Telecom Millionaire

I asked Ronald about his telecom business and how he became a millionaire by 27.

Ronald came from a military family. His old man was Two Commandos, his uncle Two Commandos, which is like Australian Special Forces. They all got him interested in joining up. He turned out to be really good on communications equipment, which makes sense because that's where all the secrets are in the military.

When he left, he started a telecom company with his brother and an Army buddy. It grew to 30 employees almost overnight. One day they looked around and were like what the hell is going on here?

The Secret: No Life in Your 20s

I asked what went into that success, what was the secret.

Ronald's answer was brutally honest: "Not having a life in my 20s bro, straight up."

He told a story about his sister's ex-partner who lived with him. Ronald was grooming him to take over the company, teaching him everything. One night the guy came in and said he couldn't do it. He saw how much Ronald worked and wasn't prepared to make that sacrifice.

The formula is simple but not easy: work harder than everyone else. Make sure everything you're doing actually gets results. Build relationships. Ronald made this point about the SEO industry - too many people are happy to screw others over for a quick $50, $500, or $1,000. That's short-term thinking.

When Ronald was in Dubai and wanted to make more money, he went back to Australia. First month back, he made an extra 12 grand in revenue. How? He reached out to people he'd worked with in the past. That's the power of relationships. "Main thing for me is like you've got to work really really hard and build awesome relationships," Ronald said. "You do that bro, everything will work itself out."

Why Australia Is Terrible for Business

I asked what happened after that telecom company.

Ronald tried to sell it but Australia's regulatory environment made it brutal. All of his partnerships are silent in Australia now, that's how bad it is. He gave me an example from 2014-15 where he was approaching a million dollars in wages and needed more employees. He went to his accountant to check the books.

She told him no, you've crossed the $650,000 threshold in salary payouts so now the tax is going up by 5%. He couldn't hire the extra person he needed and ended up paying like 75 grand in additional taxes. That's the kind of stuff that kneecaps entrepreneurs in Australia.

Eventually the company faded away and he cashed out. The lesson? Make the money while it's there because eventually it's not going to be there. That applies to telecom and SEO.

Transitioning to Consulting and Digital Marketing

Ronald was always in consulting. Around 2015, his Army friends who were getting out started asking for help setting up companies. The Army is very different from civilian life. You can yell at people to get things done in the military. In civilian life? Ronald learned the hard way that doesn't work.

The transition to digital marketing happened because of plumbing businesses he was involved in. They'd exhausted the traditional channels - referrals, Post-it notes, going down to the footy clubs. They needed the next step to generate leads.

Ronald had learned to build websites in the Army. Then he stumbled on Daniel Kopov in Russia, who has the second biggest digital marketing agency there. They ran into each other at the gym. Ronald thought he was a jerk at first, but turned out he's just Russian. Good dude. He really brought Ronald into the fold of proper SEO.

How Ronald Approaches Consulting

I asked about his consulting approach since I also do some consulting work.

Ronald doesn't do packages. He tried that for years and it doesn't work. What works is being unique and approaching everyone uniquely. He focuses on one question: tell me your problem. Why are we even talking?

Most people come in wanting SEO because they want leads. But Ronald digs deeper. Maybe ranking for roofer in Miami is going to cost 3 grand a month for 12 months. Or maybe there's a better option. Do you have a CRM with a long list of customers from 15 years in business? Start there with a massive email campaign.

"If you address people's problems they always want to work with you," Ronald said. That's the key.

Offline Marketing: Taking People to Lunch

I asked about offline marketing Ronald recommends.

He brought up something Trump said on the Joe Rogan podcast: no one's taking these people out to dinner anymore. That hit Ronald because he used to love going to lunch with everyone he worked with. Project managers, general managers, COOs of companies, supervisors. Just eating together and talking about problems.

That's the offline marketing and relationship building you should focus on. Still to this day, Ronald can call up guys he did business with a decade ago and they're ready to work together.

The other offline component? Teaching business owners how to sell. Most local business owners, especially in home services, are terrible at selling. Ronald has saved calls where the owner picks up the phone like "who's this, who's it?" You can't answer the phone like that and then wonder why you're not closing leads.

The Million Dollar Threshold for Clients

I mentioned I don't take on clients under a million dollars a year now and asked Ronald's thoughts.

It depends. On the consulting side, absolutely. It's self-vetting. If you've gotten your company to at least $350,000 annually, Ronald knows you've worked hard. You've given up Saturdays. You've told your wife no to date night because work had to get done. Those people have proven themselves.

With SEO? Not so much. Someone might have deep pockets. If Ronald was starting a new venture tomorrow, he'd spend 20 grand a month on it if it gets him a return. The money's coming in and that venture can be started quickly with capital.

Rank Lightning: The Local SEO Tool Born from Frustration

I asked about Rank Lightning.

Ronald created this tool because he's not a fan of Ahrefs after they did him dirty with a billing nightmare. He loves SEMrush but it's expensive and you don't need all the functions. Rank Lightning is his answer - a competitive analysis tool focused specifically on local SEO.

You put in Roofing Miami and you see the volume, the map pack rankings 1-2-3, the average and median reviews, and it selects the top three results. You immediately know how many referring domains you need, how many backlinks, and the domain snapshot showing how powerful the domain is overall.

It's targeted at newer people and local businesses. If you're an experienced SEO, Rank Lightning is really only valuable for the Google Business Profile monitor. But for local business owners trying to figure out what they need to do, it handles backlink gaps and competitor analysis without breaking the bank.

CTR Driver: The Click-Through Rate Secret

Ronald also created CTR Driver for click-through rate manipulation.

If your Google Business Profile isn't moving, you need CTR engagement. It's about optimized profiles, reviews, and engagement. The key difference with Ronald's tool? They use real mobile devices, real infrastructure. Google sees real devices, making it easier to rank.

Most CTR services sell 100 clicks, 300 clicks. Ronald doesn't do that because it's unnecessary. They look at each case individually because they have real phones in the back end handling everything.

Here's the crazy part: a year and a half ago you'd need to run 1,000 or 2,000 impressions through tools like CTR Booster just to get a little movement. Ronald's been able to move rankings with just five searches a month. Five. They've ranked for crazy competitive terms like lawyers in big cities using just CTR.

I asked if he's faced Google cracking down on this.

Nope. They make sure everything is legitimate. When you look at the back end, it just looks like the business is getting more of what they're already getting. Other tools are obvious when driving directions suddenly spike or calls jump unnaturally. Ronald's set it up the right way so Google sees it as organic growth.

The Biggest Mistakes Local Business Owners Make

I asked what the biggest mistakes are that local business owners make.

The biggest thing? They have no direction. They wander aimlessly. Ronald jumps on calls with guys who say they want SEO because they want leads. He asks why they want the leads. Is this actually right for you?

The first thing you need is to have your stuff squared away. You want SEO services because you're trying to grow your company to where you can have three employees working for you so you can be the guy in the office managing everything. Okay, yes, SEO will work for you. There's alignment there.

But some people watch YouTube and see those income calculators showing you could make 100 grand a month from SEO, which is actually true. But then Ronald gets guys who think they'll give him $1,000 bucks and he'll make them that 100 grand. That's not how it works. You've got to make sure everything's aligned with the organization and the direction you want to run in first.

Topical Maps Are Crushing It Right Now

I asked Ronald about his content strategy for local businesses.

His answer was immediate: topical maps are killing it right now. The concept is simple but powerful - cover the whole area completely. You take a location like Miami and create comprehensive content about it. Feed Wikipedia URLs into AI prompts to get all the information about Miami. The attractions, things to do, what to do when it's raining, when it's cold. Really talk about the area in depth.

Here's the key insight Ronald shared: "There's a direct correlation with, this is what I have seen, with how many times you talk about a location to how well you're doing in the map pack on your website."

He put out a secret spreadsheet showing this. You'll notice businesses with way fewer reviews ranking above companies with 500 reviews. When you analyze their entire website and count how many times the keyword and variations are mentioned, you get it.

Ronald's success rate with SEO sits around 70-80%. He doesn't win them all. But with topical maps? They're hitting for every single campaign. They're doing exceptionally well in the local space. Covering the topic and talking about the area multiple times makes it hard for Google to ignore you.

Internal Links Are More Powerful Than You Think

Ronald emphasized something most people undervalue: internal linking.

His formula: "I always look at internal links as like three internal links equals a backlink."

This is why topical maps are so powerful. When you've got Roofing Miami as your main page, and you're creating content about best time to replace your roof in Miami, how much roof replacement costs in Miami, and all of it links together, you're creating hundreds of internal links passing authority around.

Google sees this pattern. Your site is saying this page is important through internal links. Other sites are saying it's important through external links. Google puts it together and boosts your rankings.

Ronald shared a killer case study from a year ago. He pointed about 1,000 internal links with exact match and variations in the massage space, extremely competitive in Melbourne, a major city with 5 million people. The page went from position 31 all the way up to position 6. That entire jump came from internal links.

Why Digital PR and HARO Are Critical Now

I asked Ronald about his HARO experiments and why he's pushing so hard on authoritative links.

Ronald thinks about this differently than most SEOs. An SEO might look at it purely as a link. Ronald looks at it as a business decision from Google's perspective. If he's an executive at Google, he needs to cut costs. Every SEO out there is putting up fake AI websites clogging Google's servers. What would he do?

The easiest business decision? Rely more on authoritative backlinks. Google has a list of trusted websites - New York Post, Wall Street Journal, major publications. They know these are credible. If there's a link from one of these sites to another website, that's a vote of confidence Google can trust.

Here's Ronald's logic: if these spammy sites don't have authoritative links, cut them off or give them minimal visibility. But anyone who has lots of votes of confidence from authoritative sources? Give them more visibility. It's how friend groups work in real life.

Ronald gave a great analogy: "If Elon Musk was to sit there and go work with Ronnie Osborne he's a great business coach dude, I'd never need to do anything ever again," Ronald said. "But if there was 1,000 people, just random 1,000 people today said Ronnie Osborne he's an excellent dude go work with him, I'm going to get some work but is it like the same impact as what Elon did on The Joe Rogan podcast? Absolutely not."

That's the difference between one authoritative link and a thousand mediocre ones.

Google's going to save money by putting the fact-checking responsibility on other individuals and authoritative sources. Digital PR and HARO are going to become increasingly important if you want to be around long-term.

SEO Is Dying: The Brutal Truth

For my last question, I asked Ronald about the future of digital marketing and whether SEO is dead.

His answer was blunt: "It's not dead but it's dying bro. Like you're kidding yourself if you don't say it's dying."

Ronald knows four people close to him who don't even use Google anymore. They just use ChatGPT for all their questions. Anyone who says SEO isn't dying is losing their mind.

Here's how he sees the future unfolding. Everything in our society is becoming monopolized, including the small business space. Five or 10 years ago, the average small business was mom and pop operations. Now you've got a few big businesses dominating each local area.

Paid advertisement isn't going anywhere because Google needs to make money. ChatGPT will eventually introduce paid ads, guaranteed. All the AI systems will because they'll become more like search engines and need to monetize.

Ronald wonders if Google might go down the path of a paid search engine. As they start losing people, they might charge $15 a month for Google with AI and custom features built around you. He wouldn't be surprised to see that direction.

The big prediction: "I think SEO as we know it is going to change fundamentally," Ronald said. "I personally think the standard backlink and all of that bro that is going to go the way of the dodo in a couple of years and it'll only be authoritative links that they rely on."

Why? Because everything will be condensed into clear, concise blocks of text. People have brain rot nowadays where they can't focus for two seconds. Everything needs to be served up cleaner and easier.

The future will be hyper-personalized. Google will know you're a guy who likes guns, you're in the Army, you want to work with someone who's a cool dude with an American flag in the background. You'll pay for that personalized experience.

SEO will still be important to have structured, but it'll become more of a one-off service rather than ongoing campaigns like we do now.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest thing I learned from Ronald is that SEO as we know it is fundamentally changing. Standard backlinks are going to matter less and less, while authoritative links from places like Forbes, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal will be critical. Google will likely rely more heavily on these trusted sources to cut costs and fight AI spam.

The second big takeaway is topical maps. If you want to rank in local SEO, you need to cover your entire service area thoroughly and talk about the location multiple times throughout your website. There's a direct correlation between how many times you mention a location and how well you rank in the map pack.

The third thing is internal linking is more powerful than most people realize. Ronald treats three internal links as equivalent to one backlink. Building out comprehensive topical maps naturally creates hundreds or thousands of internal links that pass serious authority to your money pages.

If you want to learn more from Ronald, check out his YouTube channel Osborne Digital Marketing or look up Rank Lightning and CTR Driver. You can also find him on Twitter, though he's not big on social media.

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