Barely had time to read it, but I have to share - Top 10 Business Mistakes Search Marketing Firms Make. Which ones am I guilty of?
#3 - Their Business Doesn’t Scale
#7 - They Rely On One “Expert” to Provide All Client Recommendations
#8 - Client Information is Silo’d
Now's probably a good time to mention that as soon as I read Jim's blog on Andy Beal's consulting services, I shot Andy an email. We've actually contracted him to come up to Seattle and help make SEOmoz a better company - something I'm really looking forward to. I'll be posting more on that later.
BTW - A note for interviewees coming in this week - don't wear a tie or sportcoat; we don't mind, but you'll probably feel awkwardly overdressed.
I agree that SEOmoz is guilty of commiting #7 and #8. Rand is definitely the SEO expert--Matt and Jeff focus more on web design and development, while I do a lot of SEO for our clients. However, since I'm still new and learning, I fall nowhere near Rand's level of expertise. Thankfully, lately Rand has been trying to take some time out of his day to train me and teach me so that I can be Rand-level savvy.
Oh, and as for #8, often times Rand will say something about a client when a lot of us had no idea we were even working with that company. Chalk it up to Rand being a bit scatterbrained at times and forgetting to inform us of when we acquire a new client, even if he's only consulting with him and we aren't expected to contribute any work for them.
Hey Rebecca, as Rand, and indeed Andy, already know, you can't be guilty of #7 without automatically falling into the issue of #3 too. One man can't scale. Not even Rand. ;)
On that note, I have to say to Rand that you need to effectively replicate yourself right now. This minute. Start right away.
That's because when you actually need those replicas, is exactly when you've left it too late to have the time to train them.
I had a very similar conversation with my friend and colleage at Fresh Egg, Lee Colbran, very recently. We've just taken on a new member of the SEO team at Fresh Egg, and to be realistic, an incredibly long period of training/mentoring is now beginning.
So much of SEO, like a great many other professions, is in the experience. A good SEO has a feel for his work, seeming to instinctively know just what small changes will yield the biggest effect. That is pure experience, and it cannot be taught. It absolutely has to be garnered and gained by doing, though the watchful eye of a mentor can shorten the learning curve.
I have been in this field for pretty much as long as there has been a field. I have well over a decade of experience to draw upon at will. It is simply not possible to sit next to a trainee and pass all of that on in a few weeks, nor even a few months. It will take years for that trainee to truly get up to the same level, with the confidence of his own experience to draw on, not simple guidelines.
With that in mind, Rand, how many years before you want offices in other states, or even other countries? So get started today. Get out there and find the best, brightest and most experienced trainee(s) you can, and certainly start in-house in that search for talent and potential in SEO.
Your own SEO Rating scale is something to think about in this regard. How do you get someone to the 6+ level of SEO in the timeframe your business plans might require?
There's as many different answers to that as your own imagination and ingenuity can provide (and always a few more, just to keep you reaching). Find the solution that is optimal for you and for your business. :)
I completely agree with you, Ammon. You really need hands-on experience in SEO in order to become a bona fide expert. If Rand's level of expertise could be taught in a day, then I would be an expert, too; rather, he's been doing it for years, while I've been doing it for months. I think he's caught onto this, which is why he's adament about training me and about hiring someone who's passionate and eager to learn.
I briefly debated applying for the job, just so that I'd have someone like Rand to learn from, but I'm getting such a wide amount of latitude at Marketsync to learn about all facets of marketing, it would be hard to compete with.
I'm intentionally leaving out the lewd thoughts that came to mind in the suggestion that Rand was trying to replicate with Rebecca. :P
Bearded children *shudder*
You dislike beards? Darn, you seemed so perfect until then. :)
No problem with beards, but bearded children...I suppose instead of mowing lawns for extra cash, they could work weekends at the circus.
I think it's appropriate to share my experience with trying to scale. I was recruited by a marketing firm to dig their SEO business out of a hole. They had 2 team members who were trained by their previous SEO "Expert" Director to create doorway pages all day long using the same content and just swapping out the keyword for that page. Building links meant putting a link to every other doorway page on the universal footer. It was like a blast to the past, these guys were using 3 year old blackhat strategies thinking it still worked.
I took six months to retrain them how to properly write content and build links and hired on two additional staff members: one that could build sites from the ground up (using templates, CMS, our IT dept, whatever he needed) and the other to interface with our design and IT departments while also carrying the duty of creating content.
Armed and ready, my team set out to create a new presence. We created several new viral sites, niche directories, and niche sites. We re-launched our old sites and dug out half of the previous mess that was banned by Google (lots of pleading to the G engineers that we had changed our ways) and increased traffic to the company's lead pages by over 2000%. I recieved an excellent review as a manager from the COO and a raise, and had excellent peer reviews from my staff.
Two weeks later our investor came in, realized that I had trained up a staff capable of most of the things I could do, and they could do it on half the salary, and canned me.
Not telling this as a sap story, just offering a different outcome than most would expect. Will I continue to empower and train staff to be just as successful, if not more, than I am at SEO? Absolutely. It made our team all the better, and we had much greater success.
In retrospect, I personally should have been more of a voice at the company. I could have offered free seminars for management (we had a lot of different business units that ran their own sites) or for the community. I had a quick tip I put in the newsletter each month, but that was the extent of my visibility. There was a lot of frustration within the company that I was let go by the investors, but they deemed me replaceable and it was so.
Roadies said: "Two weeks later our investor came in, realized that I had trained up a staff capable of most of the things I could do, and they could do it on half the salary, and canned me."
The idiot.
What he did in one feel swoop was tell those juniors that they were your equals, and worth the same as you. It wasn't even quite true. But you can bet your life that it put such thoughts in their head, at the precise same time as showing them that this wasn't a company that cared about loyalty...
The suicidal move of more than one bean-counter, and why very very few real leaders ever come from the ranks of bean-counters.
I really appreciate that you've shared that experience, roadies. It's remarkable to read about and a story that's valuable to everyone here.
I think the bigger issue there is the lack of business acumen shown by the investor. No matter your salary, the ROI from your efforts was phenomenal - it is a foolish investor indeed who puts costs ahead of returns.
Ammon and Rand, thanks for the support. I couldn't agree more. :D
Here's the rest of the story: in the 3 to 4 months following my departure 2 employees were let go because they couldn't work unsupervised, one quit, and the last guy standing was left with all the workload. He dropped most of the SEO work to focus on PPC (something he did very well). I haven't followed up on the company in a while, but I'm betting it isn't pretty. Or maybe they pulled their heads out and tried to rebuild again. If so, I hope the new Director doesn't face the same fate as I in his future.
I came from a fairly large marketing agency in Kansas City prior to SEO. I was used to the agency culture and enjoyed it when I didn't know better. But since my departure from the above company, and by reading about places like SEOmoz and WeBuildPages, I've learned that the smaller shops, or at least the ones with the smaller shop mentality, are the way to go. Join the team, help build it up, and enjoy the success as a team!
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Brilliant choice, Rand. Andy definitely has the knowledge to help improve SEOMoz. I just wish I could be a fly on the wall for some of those conversations. :)
As for the list, I mentioned at my Marketsync blog (https://blog.marketsync.com) that most of Andy's points are valid for any business, not just SEM. It could also use a little consolidation, since some of the points come back to key business decisions. It's a great list, though, and I'm very interested to hear what he comes up with for the next installment.
Rand,
I think those three that you identified are the most common and some of the most difficult.
Focusing on SEO side, is it ever scalable? Can you scale keyword research, content consulting? Link, Ranking and Competitive Analysis tools can do so much (all number crunchers), but than comes the analysis and reporting.
See you tomorrow.
Cheers,
Daniel
I think scalability in this sector is all about being able to effectively train people. It can also be about specialization. Is it more effective to try and train all your seo employees on how to be all around SEOs or train different employees to be gurus in specific tasks such as link building and so on?
One idea I had was to have an internal SEO wiki with company best practices. Each section of SEO will be covered. There would even be sections on trends to watch out for.
Each person on the team will be required to keep their section / expertise updated with the latest best practices. Each update will then be approved by the head SEO of the company like programming changes are approved by a lead architect. Every member of the SEO team will be emailed or notified in some way of the changes once approved and each member will be required to keep up with all wiki changes.
This does many things for the company. It allows everyone to be on the same page as to the best practices. It allows the lead SEO to guide the direction of the companies SEO activities. Every team member, while concentrating on their job role, stays in the loop as to what the rest of the team is doing and how the seo landscape is changing. And the biggest benefit would be when someone new comes on board they can get up to speed quickly on the companies best practices. They then in turn add their own twists and thoughts on the processes which are run through the lead SEO.
Rand, when you have a moment, would you mind elaborating on how numbers seven and eight relate to your business? It seems like a certain amount of expertise would have to rub off on the rest of your team in an atmosphere as comfortable and open as you advocate.
The eighth point is even more baffling; is everyone simply too busy to be kept up to date on all of your clients, or was this a deliberate decision?
Finally, about the note; are you staggering the interview process, or did you schedule applicants you were interested in as the resumés arrived?
We scheduled interviews for this week and hope to have someone hired within one to two weeks.
#10 seems like one of those items every person in management does indeed fear, but no one will admit too.
Sometimes I love top 10 lists, as over-played as they are. Andy's list is definitely one of those times.
I've had the privilege of working with Andy for a few years. He's a great guy and will offer you some excellent insight on how to grow SEOmoz without losing what makes you guys special.
That was nice and sneaky of you Rand. Now if anyone shows-up in a tie you will know that they did not do their homework.