They say you can’t go home again — but I did. After years of building brands alongside celebrities and jet-setting with names you’d recognize, I returned to Asheville, NC, ready to bring the same firepower to the businesses in my hometown.
But I walked straight into a hurricane — literally and figuratively.
From Chaos to Clarity
After the storm passed, I started helping a few local businesses rebuild — not just their storefronts, but their presence, visibility, and trust. One of those clients had been in business for decades. She was a pillar in the Asheville community, but behind the scenes, her business was barely hanging on.
Why? Because she’d been lied to.
She trusted a local “marketing expert.” Someone who posed as a designer, SEO guru, and social media wizard. He told her blogs were bringing in thousands of readers. She was paying monthly for SEO services. And she was told her website was getting massive traffic.
But her phone wasn’t ringing. Her inbox wasn’t buzzing. Her business was silent.
Smoke, Mirrors, and Bots
We stepped in to support — not to take over, but to collaborate. One of the first things we did? Publish focused, original blog content that actually spoke to her audience.
That’s when the so-called “expert” lost it.
Gossip. Accusations. Emails calling us scammers.
Then, the ultimate power play: he told our shared client to take her website and go.
So we did. But not before auditing the work this guy had done over the past 20 years.
What we found? Straight-up digital fraud:
- Her site wasn’t SEO optimized — at all.
- The embedded HubSpot calendar only showed 1 or 2 appointment slots — making it look like she was booked, when in reality she was desperate for clients.
- And that traffic? Turns out, the vast majority was from a bot.
Not just any bot — a bot called ccdbot. And guess what?
CCD = the initials of his company.
This man built a custom bot to simulate thousands of daily website visits… from himself. Fake clicks. Fake traffic. Zero results.
Gatekeepers, Grifters & Games
To make matters worse, the site was built on custom Joomla code with back-end traps — intentionally designed to make edits difficult unless you went through him.
Classic gatekeeping tactic. You pay, they control. You ask questions, they ghost or gaslight you.
But we don’t play that game.
We rebuilt her entire website — from scratch. Within 20 weeks, she brought in more real business than she had in the past 20 years. And all we did was get the basics right.
✅ Real SEO
✅ Real content
✅ Real visibility
✅ Real traffic
✅ Real results
Asheville: It’s Time to Wake Up
This isn’t just about a sleazy web designer.
This is about the systemic abuse of small businesses by people who hide behind credentials, community ties, and contracts. This man still works with:
- A major grocery chain in Asheville
- Local Lutheran churches
- City and County governments across North Carolina
And he’s still robbing business owners blind.
They’re Chamber-approved. Tourism-endorsed. And yet, behind the curtain? They’re quietly bleeding businesses dry — month after month, with empty metrics and fake wins.
G Social Media Doesn’t Play Nice. We Play to Win.
We knocked this scammer out with one real campaign. One real website. One strategy that wasn’t built to confuse, trap, or deceive.
We don’t just build pretty websites.
We build machines that drive business, build trust, and put power back in your hands.
To every small business owner in Asheville (and beyond):
Don’t let them hold your business hostage.
👉 If your site isn’t converting, if your numbers don’t add up, if your gut is screaming something’s off — you’re probably right.
We see you. And we’re here to help.
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