Who is Todd Herbst and what is Happy Mouth Media all about?

To begin, I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My step father was a commercial real estate broker and my mom owned a trucking brokerage business. We all helped out with each of the businesses so learning how the business world works was just natural.

I did inside phone sales for my mom's company and learned real estate investing all while going to school and working weekends as a Teamster on the trucking docks in Dallas.

So, as a teenager, I gained real world experience in the workforce. This helped me relate to people of all types - business owners, managers, sales teams, blue-collar workers, front office staff and backroom dealmaking. I soaked it up like a sponge.

About 3/4 way through college I got really sick and had to quit to take care of my health. As I did I spent hours in libraries reading business books by the dozens. While most of my buddies where playing video games and drinking beer, I was setting a course for my future, sickness and all.

Soon after I met my real estate mentor. He was a sharp negotiator and business man but redneck at heart. It was an interesting combination that worked for us. Together with a couple other staff we turned a $200,000 a year real estate investment company to a $35 million dollar a year or more company.

It was there I learned the power of marketing and advertising. How just a small classified

"I Buy Houses" ad could bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.  At the time I also worked for a small billboard company (always having multiple streams of income) and we soon combined real estate investing and billboards back when no one had heard of such a thing.

Business boomed and we began to run ads on late night TV. We produced these ourselves and they were terrible but they brought in more houses than we could really handle.

All this showed me the power of marketing and advertising. Even if it isn't perfect it can still work wonders.

The age of the internet changed the business game and by 2009 I was learning all I could about Google advertising and soon Facebook Advertising. I taught myself html/css coding and became dangerous with Wordpress.

Over the course of the next 5-7 years I met and learned from some of the top Facebook advertisers in the world. I would run ads for local businesses and they would love the results. Most don't realize running paid advertising of any form requires a process that is constantly tested and optimized. It is not just "set it and forget it".

In 2018 I discovered my real marketing passion - COPYWRITING. No, not copyrighting (that's a legal term) but copywriting, or sales in print. Copywriting has been around for hundreds of years but really came into focus in the early to mid 1900's. 

Copywriting is using words to convey a message about a product or service that entices the reader to take an action like buying or getting more information. Copywriting, when done correctly, moves the reader down the page or advertisement to a call to action. It persuades the reader to do something and that something is usually spending money.

The next passion I discovered by accident while immersed in the copywriting world was EMAIL. We all know what email is so I won't go into it.

The magic happens when you combine email and copywriting in a series of emails to your prospect to get them to take an action.

My specialty is to use entertaining and informative emails that hook the reader and make them want to read the next sentence. And when they do they find themselves at the bottom of the page and looking at the CTA (Call-To-Action).

The entertainment keeps them reading and the information gives them reasons to buy.

So how does this all apply to you, you might ask?

Another good question! (You're so smart!)

By hiring me to do your marketing and advertising you are getting a well trained copywriter who uses persuasive skills to get people to buy whether it is an email, website, or Facebook Ad.

(and If I'm doing SEO, I use keyword specific copywriting on the webpage that is Google friendly AND gets people to take an action)

• If you hire me for web design I use my copywriting skills on the pages.
• If you hire me for email copywriting I use infotainment to get people to open the emails and take action
• If you hire me to run Facebook Ads I use copywriting and expert targeting to create an Ad that people want to see in their Newsfeed and click a button on the advertisement.

See I got your business covered anyway you want to go.

Now, I'm mostly a one-person shoppe and I like it that way. I'd love to help my clients reach their goals but I don't want to manage people anymore. I do what I do and I do it better than most, especially for the price.

I say "mostly" because my daughter, who is in film school at the University of Texas at Austin, does all the video work for myself and my clients.

One last thing, I don't take on everyone. If I feel I can help you I will but if you need a bigger agency or have goals outside my wheelhouse I'm going to refer you to someone else.

This is only fair to you and me.

Contact me today and let's see if we are a good fit to work together.

Todd Herbst

PS:  Oh, I almost forgot...  the "J" stands for my first name - James.  I go by Todd unless you are a doctor or banker.  :-)

Anticlimactic, I know. But I got you to read all the way down the page!