Paul James has been a digital marketing entrepreneur for over a decade. He is a best-selling author who shares his knowledge on all things digital marketing on YouTube and Instagram. Paul James has scaled several companies to over 7-figures in revenue, including all 3 versions of his Maps Mentor course and his software DialHawk. He's also sold a book called Reverse Engineer Your Future. Since 2012, Paul has helped thousands of people make money with the SEO.
Reviews for Paul James' SEO courses and tools are mixed. Students praise Paul's clear teaching style and useful strategies for building and ranking websites. His "Maps Mentor Unleashed" course is popular among beginners for its step-by-step approach to SEO. Criticism points to his over-hyped promises and some even question the effectiveness of his strategies.
This article will reveal if the skills and software he teaches can really help you earn a passive income each month. I'll then compare how an SEO agency differs from local lead generation, which offers you more control and a passive income.
Paul James Pros and Cons
Pros
Paul James teaches legitimate internet skills, including SEO and lead generation, which can make you thousands of dollars a month
Paul created a software that few marketers use, which is beneficial to any business with a website.
You learn many marketing tips on Paul's YouTube channel few marketers talk about.
Cons
Paul's SEO and traffic generation strategies are good, but not high-level enough to dominate a niche and market.
Paul only posts content on YouTube (videos & shorts) a few times per month.
SEO clients can fire you even after you've ranked their website.
Paul sells the cheapest rank and rent course online. What he teaches is just the basics of how to generate leads locally for contractors.
Who Is Paul James?
Paul James is an internet marketer from a town called Oak Creek in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After dropping out of South Milwaukee High School, he started working at an HVAC company. When they laid him off because of a lack of work, he enrolled at Cardinal Stritch University to get a degree in nursing. In 2009, he started learning about SEO and began his own SEO business as a side business while in nursing school. Paul built a website and sold flashcards to help anatomy and physiology students study.
It didn't take long for Paul to realize that are career in nursing or any 9-5 corporate job wasn't what was going to make him feel fulfilled in life. Therefore, he dropped out of nursing school and started focusing his efforts on his SEO side business. He began using his skills to consult for marketing agencies and businesses on how they can improve their online marketing strategies.
Paul made a name for himself online through the Warrior Forum. In it, Paul began sharing his SEO experience and knowledge with other digital marketers. By helping people learn more about the business model, Paul grew his SEO businesses to over 7-figures in sales.
A year later, Paul married his wife. In 2012, he started the iampauljames YouTube Channel. Today, his channel has over 305K subscribers and he posts content several times per month about SEO, lead generation, and websites you didn't know existed that have some value in business and in life. Paul James posts more content each day on his hellopauljames Instagram account about where he has over 364K followers.
Is Paul James a Scam?
Paul James is not a scam because he teaches valuable online skills that can pay you a recurring income each month. Paul has also posted valuable content on his YouTube channel since 2012. He's also had some positive testimonials back then from students that were in the Warrior Forum. The DialHawk software is also a great tool he created for the lead generation business he promotes. It's clear that Paul is a legit online entrepreneur and all you have to do is look at the money he's made for himself and his students. On platforms like Reddit or Quora, you won't find anyone talking badly about Paul. All reviews on Paul James and his courses and software are positive.
Paul is good at posting valuable content about online marketing, and his DialHawk software does work, but his Maps Mentor course leaves something to be desired because you only get basic training on the rank and rent business.
Paul James Courses and Software
Passive AI Money Machine
Passive AI Money Machine is Paul James' latest course. It teaches you how to use AI to create lead generation systems called “money machines.” He teaches 2 systems, the website strategy and the social media content strategy. These systems focus on industries like roofing and plumbing. You start by picking a profitable niche from platforms like Home Advisor. Then you create a targeted website or social media content. You then AI tools help automate content creation and lead management. You forward the leads to businesses and charge around $50 per lead. James highlights choosing proven niches, creating relevant content, and using tools like ManyChat for managing leads.
Price: Passive AI Money Machine costs $149
Maps Mentor Unleashed
Maps Mentor Unleashed is a course Paul James put together to teach people how to make money online by building an SEO agency that ranks websites for high-ticket clients. This is the updated version of Maps Mentor 2.0. Maps Mentor 2.0 was a course that taught you how to rank client sites on Google. In Unleashed, Paul guides you through all the steps that will help find businesses that want to work with you, and get you to rank their sites on Google. He even provides you with the tools you'll need to monitor and track your progress. Along with your purchase of Maps Mentor Unleashed, you get access to a software that automates your process of finding unverified Google Business profiles. Those businesses that have unverified listings are potential SEO clients. There are over 30 training videos divided into 6 modules that will teach you all the search engine optimization strategies that have worked for Paul and his students. Finally, you get access to a private members forum where everyone posts their questions and wins.
Price: Maps Mentor Unleashed costs $297
More Info: Maps Mentor Unleashed Review
DialHawk Software
DialHawk is a lead tracking software for businesses and marketers that Paul James created to help his rank and rent clients increase their lead-to-close ratio by putting them on the phone with leads within seconds of receiving their information. When you sign up for this software after watching the webinar, you'll also get free access to Paul's Pay Per Call Training, DFY website, email, and proposal templates to put to work for you. You also learn Paul's method for landing clients without having to do any cold calling and his team will provide you with one year of free site reviews. This is where you can send them your rank and rent site and they will give you feedback on anything that needs adjusting or changing.
Price: DialHawk costs $497 per year or $49 per month.
More Info: DialHawk Review
Reverse Engineer Your Future: Stop Waiting For Success Go Out and Make it Happen Now
Reverse Engineer Your Future is Paul James' best-selling book that talks about how he overcame adversity on his rise to business and financial success. Paul talks about how he used 7 essential insights to help him change his life for the better. He shares those 7 "keys" to help you reach your maximum potential in life the same way he did. Paul's goal with this book is to get you out of your comfort zone so you can take the action you'll need to overcome any adversity you might go through in your life. You can find this book on Amazon Kindle Publishing.
Price: Reverse Engineer Your Future by Paul James costs $15.99 for the physical book and is free with Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
Paul James Reviews
Derby Perez joined Paul James Maps Mentor business in 2015. Within 24 hours of joining the program, he closed 3 deals. Two weeks later, he landed 5 more clients. This was all possible because of what he learned from Paul James. In the post he shared in the forum, he transmitted the idea that he was happy to be in Paul's course learning SEO. Now, he makes over $10K per month in revenue and has over 20 clients.
Paul is another of Paul James's students from Vancouver, Canada. James was the first coach to teach him about rank and rent. Before joining the Maps Mentor program, he was doing SEO part-time but was only making around $500 per month. After taking Paul's program, he went full-time with his SEO agency and his clients paid him between $400 and $3500 per month, netting him over $20K in revenue per month. Today, he runs a 7-figure agency where, according to him, almost all of his business comes from referrals or ranking himself on Google and sending leads to local business owners.
How To Make Money With SEO?
You can make money with SEO by either offering it as a service or using it to drive leads to your business. You can offer it as a service through an SEO agency, freelancing, or consultations. SEO is also a great low-cost way to promote drive leads to a business. You can use SEO to drive leads to your business, such as a blog or YouTube channel that promotes affiliate products. In my experience, SEO is best used to create passive income, such as with a local lead generation business.
SEO Agency vs Local Lead Generation
To determine which is best for you, you need to understand the differences between an SEO agency vs local lead generation.
SEO Agency
Local Lead Generation
Objective
To rank other businesses' websites above their competitors.
To rank your own websites in any niche and market, funnel the leads to a local small business and get paid each month.
Initial Investment
Pay for an online training program to teach you SEO skills. Also, pay for SEO tools like AHREFS and Moz to help you monitor rankings, keywords, etc.
Buying a domain and hosting is inexpensive. You can outsource the SEO work of your site to a virtual assistant after putting a video training together.
Control
You own nothing, therefore you don't control your clients' website. You need their permission before making any changes or adjustments.
You control every aspect of your business. You decide what niche to generate leads for, what small business you'll work with, if you need to fire your client, how much they will pay you and even how often they pay you. How you layout your site is all up to you.
Profit%
Between 20% to 60%.
Over 75% initially. Once your site ranks, 100% profit.
Clients
SEO clients are high maintenance and can hassle you often. They aren't patient and want to see fast results, not taking into consideration that SEO takes time.
Local lead generation clients only expect leads from you. They don't care about rankings, only leads, which means they won't be nagging you if your site is ranked and generating leads.
Get Paid
SEO clients pay you up front but can stop paying you even if you rank their site.
You can get clients to pay you upfront after you've ranked your site. You can even pre-sell lead generation sites if you're an excellent salesperson. If a client stops paying you, you can stop sending leads their way and look for another business to work with to ensure you get paid every month.
The Best Choice for Learning Lead Generation With Free Traffic
Local Lead Generation Coaching Program by Dan Klein
The original local lead generation coaching program by Dan Klein is the top choice to learn the rank and rent business model. Dan has been making money online since 2008 and has been coaching these skills since 2014. Inside, you learn how to build your digital real estate empire from the foundation all the way to landing local clients. There are over 80 training videos teaching you how to build everything out step by step. You learn all the ranking strategies that will get your sites to stick at the top of the search results, and there is plenty of sales training.
As soon as you sign up, you are given access to the private Facebook community, where you have access to all the resources you need to help you build and scale your business. You can get direct support from Dan himself and other members who are making thousands of dollars per month when you post your questions in the group. Finally, there are two live coaching calls held each week where you can tune in and learn the newest local lead generation strategies, as well as how to become a better businessperson.
I joined this program in 2014 and today, because I learned and took action, I know have over 50 lead generation sites paying me each month without fail. Each site generates $500 to $3,000 a month in passive income. I have sites that I haven't touched in almost a decade and they continue to generate income since they're still ranking.
Thousands of students (over 7400) are building, ranking and renting digital properties they own and control. All while making money on autopilot every month. To build your digital properties that pay you each month without worrying if your clients will fire you, check out the local lead generation training program.
