So what does selecting an SEO company have to do with Vinny Chase? I’ll tell you, but first watch this video then read the inspiration below:
If you were Vinny, how would that experience have helped or not helped you choose an agent?
Here’s how this came to me…
This week we turned down the opportunity to work with a great organization because they required us to come in with a presentation for their selection committee. We don’t have canned presentations for “pitches.” Instead we like to sit down with a potential client figure out who they are, what makes them unique, what their needs are and THEN see if we are a good fit to help. After explaining this, it was still required for “participating firms” to have a thirty minute presentation or the deal was off (yes it had to be 30 minutes). So for now we walked away (remember walking away from deals is one of my ways to grow a stress free agency.)
When I am given the opportunity to speak with people about SEO/SEM, I tell all of them that the decision of selecting a search company is one that will be made with the GUT. Why? Because every SEO/SEM company is going to sound the same, talk the same game, and use the same shtick.
Every company will have slides on:
- The team’s experience
- How they alter on-site factors
- Their linking strategy
- Results for past clients
- Bid management
- Blah, blah, blah
While some may have one or two unique features, most people purchasing search marketing services (especially SEO) still don’t have enough knowledge of the space to know if those differentiating factors mean anything to their bottom line.
At the end of the lineup, most search companies will sound the same, leaving you to scratch your head and say, “What now. They all sound the same, so how do I pick?”
For those of you seeking great search companies, you will need to be Vinny Chase. Look for the company that shows some passion, something different, and is at least somewhat discriminating about the opportunities they take on.
If you want a second or third place search firm, ask them to come in and do a presentation or answer an RFP. The ones that jump at the opportunity without qualifying you are hungry for business.
In the search space where rip off artists are everywhere, the GOOD search companies that you WANT to work with will at least want to speak with you before running off to blindly answer an RFP/presentation. The ones that come on in with presentation in hand without first asking you about your goals and how you plan on achieving them, etc, etc might be dangerous, so do your due diligence on them.
All in all, If you want to make Medellin you need Billy Walsh (), not some suit!
Finally, let’s not forget the lesson learned at the end of this episode: After seeing so many canned, unoriginal presentations, Vinny decided to stay with Ari. When he arrived at Ari’s office to tell him, Ari proceeded to deliver the exact same type of canned presentation as all of his competition, prompting Vinny to can him!
The client may think they want a full presentation at the beginning of their search for a great SEO company, like Vinny thought when he began his search for a new agent, but they’re better off getting a company that doesn’t try to fit themselves into a mold and actually takes a chance doing something unique.
Inspiration for this post:
Rachael Levenson — she brought up this episode while in the car coming back from a results & ROI review up with a current client. Rachael, we gotta take more road trips!
Entourage — please come back soon. Without The Wire, Sopranos, and Sex & the City, the lineup is looking weak.
So what does selecting an SEO company have to do with Vinny Chase? I’ll tell you, but first watch this video then read the inspiration below:
If you were Vinny, how would that experience have helped or not helped you choose an agent?
Here’s how this came to meâ¦
This week we turned down the opportunity to work with a great organization because they required us to come in with a presentation for their selection committee. We don’t have canned presentations for “pitches.” Instead we like to sit down with a potential client figure out who they are, what makes them unique, what their needs are and THEN see if we are a good fit to help. After explaining this, it was still required for “participating firms” to have a thirty minute presentation or the deal was off (yes it had to be 30 minutes). So for now we walked away (remember walking away from deals is one of my ways to grow a stress free agency.)
When I am given the opportunity to speak with people about SEO/SEM, I tell all of them that the decision of selecting a search company is one that will be made with the GUT. Why? Because every SEO/SEM company is going to sound the same, talk the same game, and use the same shtick.
Every company will have slides on:
⢠The team’s experience
⢠How they alter on-site factors
⢠Their linking strategy
⢠Results for past clients
⢠Bid management
⢠Blah, blah, blah
While some may have one or two unique features, most people purchasing search marketing services (especially SEO) still don’t have enough knowledge of the space to know if those differentiating factors mean anything to their bottom line.
At the end of the lineup, most search companies will sound the same, leaving you to scratch your head and say, “What now. They all sound the same, so how do I pick?”
For those of you seeking great search companies, you will need to be Vinny Chase. Look for the company that shows some passion, something different, and is at least somewhat discriminating about the opportunities they take on.
If you want a second or third place search firm, ask them to come in and do a presentation or answer an RFP. The ones that jump at the opportunity without qualifying you are hungry for business.
In the search space where rip off artists are everywhere, the GOOD search companies that you WANT to work with will at least want to speak with you before running off to blindly answer an RFP/presentation. The ones that come on in with presentation in hand without first asking you about your goals and how you plan on achieving them, etc, etc might be dangerous, so do your due diligence on them.
All in all, If you want to make Medellin you need Billy Walsh (), not some suit!
Finally, let’s not forget the lesson learned at the end of this episode: After seeing so many canned, unoriginal presentations, Vinny decided to stay with Ari. When he arrived at Ari’s office to tell him, Ari proceeded to deliver the exact same type of canned presentation as all of his competition, prompting Vinny to can him!
The client may think they want a full presentation at the beginning of their search for a great SEO company, like Vinny thought when he began his search for a new agent, but they’re better off getting a company that doesn’t try to fit themselves into a mold and actually takes a chance doing something unique.
Inspiration for this post:
Rachael Levenson â she brought up this episode while in the car coming back from a results & ROI review up with a current client. Rachael, we gotta take more road trips!
Entourage â please come back soon. Without The Wire, Sopranos, and Sex & the City, the lineup is looking weak.
As a celebration for the 76ers being in the playoffs, a local Philadelphia gas station is selling gas for $0.76 per gallon for exactly 76 minutes today. Three hours ahead of time, the line of cars already extended over three blocks, with everyone waiting anxiously to get their cheap gas and celebrate Philadelphia sports teams.
Obviously this isn’t the typical SEO and SEM update we post on our blog, but we’re not just SEO consultants — We’re Philadelphia enthusiasts who know just how heartbreaking it can be to be a Philly sports fan and are happy to celebrate Philadelphia whenever there’s a good reason.
Having trouble loading the image. Here it is in flickr:
As a celebration for the 76ers being in the playoffs, a local Philadelphia gas station is selling gas for $0.76 per gallon for exactly 76 minutes today. Three hours ahead of time, the line of cars already extended over three blocks, with everyone waiting anxiously to get their cheap gas and celebrate Philadelphia sports teams.
Obviously this isn’t the typical SEO and SEM update we post on our blog, but we’re not just SEO consultants â We’re Philadelphia enthusiasts who know just how heartbreaking it can be to be a Philly sports fan and are happy to celebrate Philadelphia whenever there’s a good reason.
Having trouble loading the image. Here it is in flickr:
Being a PPC marketer, I guess you could say I am a bit biased when it comes to thinking of reasons why everyone else should love PPC. It’s hard to imagine when you are entrenched in the industry, but those same simple reasons why we PPC marketers love the industry are not always so apparent to everyone else. In fact, most times, they are not known at all. Inspired by my recent SES NY attendance, I quickly realized that the best part of actually sitting down to think about these reasons, is that I began to conceptualize that somehow not only have some of these reasons slipped by business owners (read: potential clients), but have often times they’ve slipped by them because us (PPC marketers) often forget how important these reasons are to share with our (potential) clients.
Trying to narrow the list to just 10 was a bit difficult, but I was able to manage (Again, I’m biased – I could probably create a never ending list).
1. YOU have the Control â There are very few mediums of marketing where you have COMPLETE control over your users. PPC gives you the ability to choose your target audience, choose regions, choose the ads they see, choose what you are willing to pay to show your audience those ads, choose your budget limit, choose when you’d like your ads to show and the list goes on and on….
2.You can take IMMEDIATE action â Say you turn on an ad and it fails horribly. You are not bond by any out-clauses, contracts, etc. to keep that ad running and wasting your money. Simply TURN IT OFF. Not to mention, you can respond to offline events more quickly with PPC than with any other medium. This blog written by my colleague is a perfect example of how you can capitalize on offline events.
3.You can test, EASILY and QUICKLY â There are unlimited possibilities when it comes to testing. Maybe you have new promotions you want to test, new ad copy, or new landing pages. Tools such as Google’s Website Optimizer allow you to quickly and efficiently run landing page tests (for FREE). In addition to the above testing options, you can quickly test terms you may be considering to target with an SEO campaign. If those terms aren’t driving conversions from PPC, you probably don’t want to spend the time or resources to launch an SEO campaign for those terms.
4. Try NEW markets â If you are launching your products in new markets, be it new countries, new age groups, etc. you can quickly test the success rate in those markets with PPC at a fraction of the cost, before launching a full blown marketing campaign.
5. Run Promotions â Have a last minute promotion? You can develop an ad and tweak your landing page within minutes to run new promotions. Not to mention you can use geo-targeting to tailor your promotions to specific regions if necessary.
6. It’s COST EFFICIENT â When you compare PPC to other advertising mediums, such as online banners, it is typical to see a much higher return on investment. Also for companies that may have a limited, you can run a very tightly targeted campaign. Whereas with online banners, geo-targeting actually drives your cost UP.
7. It’s RESULTS DRIVEN(not to mention you see results in (almost) real time) â You can easily track down to the exact conversion with PPC. If a certain campaign is not performing well, you have various choices to cut the inefficient spend. For example; reallocate your budget, try new landing pages, try new ad copy, etc. Real time reporting also allows you to see if campaigns are performing quickly. Those that are performing under metric can be identified within a few hours and turned off immediately.
8. Content networks â Coming from a media background, I know that top-quality media buys (banner advertising) can run a high tab. The Content networks offer you a relatively similar advertising experience for a much lower cost.
9. You can easily EXPAND your business â Companies now have the world at their fingertips and are able to reach markets with PPC that before may never have been possible due to the high cost to penetrate those markets.
10. The market is CONTINUING TO GROW despite economic conditions â When looking at at stats of Search Engine growth over the past few years, I am blown away with the continual upward growth we have seen and are continuing to see. The most surprising data is the prediction of continued advertising growth despite the economic downturn we are currently experiencing (granted certain industries may be hit harder than others). I found some interesting research from The Wall Street Journal regarding this issue.
While this list can certainly be expanded, the above reasons can serve as a brief reminder for PPC marketers on why we should continue to stand behind, and promote our industry.
Since I don’t really “DO” web analytics and instead advise from a distance, maybe I am uninformed, but after reading this blog post it got me thinking about this quote in particular from a person at Omniture on the recent purchase of Indextools:
“We at Omniture congratulate IndexTools and welcome Yahoo! back to the Web analytics business. Let’s be clear though: this move by Yahoo! was done to compete with Google. IndexTools does not compete “toe to toe” with Omniture. The majority of their customers are small businesses (80% of IndexTools customers are SMB according to CMS Watch.) This is great news for small businesses that use Yahoo advertising. However, mid-market and enterprise customers demand advanced functionality, deep domain expertise and specialized services.”
I am NO web analyst, but breaking down this quote reeks of arrogance:
1 - IndexTools does not compete “toe to toe” with Omniture – Really?
According to who? PROVE IT! I would love to see IndexTools vs. Omniture vs. Google Analytics reps do an HONEST toe to toe video assessment / webcast. Where they take a business (likely a mid sized business), install their respective tracking systems, and aggregate the data for 3 months. After the end of the 3 months they do this:
Video a LIVE session with the stakeholders who would be impacted by the reports
CEO/ CIO / Marketing / Web Development / Usability / Product Development (are whom I would consider “impacted”)
Have each of the client teams above ask 3-5 questions regarding what their problems are on a day to day basis and how data could help them
Each vendor answers the question, not with talking, but by going right out to their tool and getting that info.
Of course there is a GIGA issue whereby “configurations” impact the resultant data. I’d like to see that “toe to toe” which ones most easily get the team the info they need without additional configuration / costs.
Save the video put it on Youtube for all to see.
I think if you are going to say “your tools are for small businesses” be prepared to back it up by going “toe to toe” with other providers for a mid sized / large business. After all I consider many on this list to be big business, and they are using GA in some ways to get actionable data.
2 – “However, mid-market and enterprise customers demand advanced functionality, deep domain expertise and specialized services.”
I thought that mid-market and enterprise customers demanded accountability and data driven answers to their questions. This quote is prime material for buzzword bingo! I know that our clients, both big and small want answers to their questions about how to better use data to help them make decisions about their web businesses. They aren’t looking for advanced functionality, deep domain expertise, or specialized services if they don’t FIRST help them solve problems in a cost effective way.
I wonder if Yahoo or MSN ever looked down their noses at Google, and thought…people don’t want a search box..they want sports scores, horoscopes, e-mail, and news first!
We were recently nominated for 2 awards that both required me to look back at our growth for the first time with a fine tooth comb. Typically, I judge success by this rule:
1. Am I having fun
2. Are the people I work with challenged and having fun too
3. Can I keep the lights on
When I looked at our growth it was shocking, it got me reflecting â how did this happen?!
Here are my thoughts to how to create & maintain growth (if that is what you want) with minimal stress, I hope you enjoy.
Love what you do, have some stinking passion!
Everyone says this, but you’ll get KILLED by people who just out “heart” you. Since I LOVE search, I have a better chance at getting great results than the guy who is in search because it is a great way to make a ton of money. You know why? Certain things will bother me, I will obsess over things that just don’t add up. The guy who sees it as just business goes to sleep easy when the margins look right, I go to sleep easy when the ROI for our projects is kicking!
Don’t hire douchebags who have no passion & put tenacity over tenure!
Sure every company has “role players” minimize those chumps, they don’t add value to clients, they are easily replaceable. Instead automate as many processes as possible so that every person you hire is working on strategies and not tactics. Don’t confuse passion with staying in the office late or coming in on Saturdays either!
People interview well, so be OK with firing quickly, don’t drag down your superstars with average players. I’m not proud of it, but we’ve let a few people go who were not a good match in less than 3 weeks. I hope they have found what their passion truly is.
Realize you can’t teach these things and hire people who have them (sometimes) regardless of experience:
* Work ethic
* Pride in your work
* Passion
* Analytical mindset
Realize your team is talented and could go anywhere else
Don’t kid yourself. By not hiring douchebags you’ll realize that talented people can move on easily. Create a culture that throws this reality on the table and fights hard to keep your team with YOU! That means give real freaking raises! People know when they contribute to the growth, and if the company is doing well they have a hand in it. I think this also helps you retain people with you hit a downturn, cause your team will know that you stick by them and share in the wealth when times are great. Getting rid of or minimizing tactical tasks also gives people strategic challenges to work on daily.
No one is on your team to make YOU rich. What are their goals, aspirations, etc. Knowing that humanizes the company and serves as a constant reminder that people aren’t widgets â they have goals too.
If you have people on your team who consistently work 65+ hours a week, change that or give them equity / profit sharing â let them know that you WILL not build a business predicated upon them burning themselves out â either take less clients and charge higher rates or improve processes â don’t burn them out.
Be high touch if you charge high rates
Many companies charge high prices for their services (to me if your blended hourly rates are 175+ you are charging a good rate). If you do, you better be high touch and have great results darn it! It never ceases to amaze me at the opportunities we get to work on simply because our clients know we really care and that is in stark contrast to many other companies in the agency space â be high touch, call your clients regularly.
Be Analytical
Find ways to minimize clients needing to ask this question -
“What is your work doing for my bottom line”
Ask every client how they will judge the success of the campaign, if they don’t know, DON’T WORK WITH THEM!!!! At some time this question will be asked, if not by them, but by their boss. And if you have no definition (that you all agreed to at the onset of the campaign) for what success is it will come back to bite you!
Be Transparent / Honest
* If someone has unrealistic expectations, tell them. If they don’t change em, don’t work with em.
* If you can only “hope” something is going to work, SAY IT!!!
* If you aren’t happy about how things are going, vocalize that!
* If your numbers suck (assuming you are analytical), spend all your time developing a plan to IMPROVE THEM, not a plan SPIN THEM, say they suck and move on.
I don’t think any client expects you to bat 1.000. Honesty, even about your flaws, agency problems, etc, builds TRUST. And building TRUST is something that is hard to break.
Turn business away, regularly
If you take on every piece of business that comes your way, you’ll have to hire douchebags at some point to just stay on top of it all. Take on new business as you can find superstars to work on the accounts. If you don’t you’ll ultimately have a “B team” and unless you change your prices based on the team assembled, NO client wants to be working with the B squad.
Do what is right before what is profitable
If you make every decision in your company on what’s going to earn you the most money, you’ll lose. If your “clients” truly feel like you are their advocate who puts their interests before your own (to a point) you’ll win. That is simple.
Don’t work for Jerks
Good “clients” realize that if you truly put their interests above yours there will be times when you’ve put in so many hours that then you’ll have to bill, but you could ask any client we’ve ever hadâ¦not a ONE of them has ever had an invoice for 30 minutes or 1 hour. As a result, the right clients don’t abuse this and we can keep doing what is right!
Not to mention working for Jerks adds stress – jerks usually abuse you, get you to do more more than they paid for, are abrasive, change the rules of what success is, don’t pay, etc to me this all equals stress. Get your jerk radar on get good at asking the right questions so you can identify these folks and not fall into the trap of working for them (regardless of how much money they are willing to spend with you)
Fire clients who treat your people poorly, we’re all adults! Show your people that you won’t sell them out for the almighty dollar and they’ll stay â if you sell them out for the almighty dollar then they have every right to do the same to you!
Volunteer
Helping others is a great way to keep you grounded on even the most challenging days! When you work with (NOT JUST DONATE MONEY) and spend your time helping others who have a much more complicated life than you, it helps you realize that no one is going to go hungry, homeless, or die if your agency doesn’t do X or Y. Have FUN! Great people + Build trust w/ Clients + High Touch + Great results = Minimal Marketing / Sales Team and Minimal Stress
Following these steps above has allowed us to experience growth, and have a lot of fun with a great group of good people without:
* Paid search ads
* Booths at tradeshows
* Sales people
* Marketing people
* PR people
* Media Kits
* Mailings
* Whitepapers
And a whole slew of other tactics we are taught to do in order to grow our companies. I did some of these in my first 6 months, sure, but soon realized that by following the above we were going to be much more successful.
Some of this could change someday, but our foundation is not built on PR, Marketing or hype, instead it is built on great relationships and great results.
We have fired 2 clients (one of which was our largest at the time) and have lost NONE, yeah not a ONE in 5 years â because we care. And our clients and friends are in turn are our sales team they introduce us to others who are seeking good partners, thats how we have grown.
Note: The one marketing “thing” we have done is improve our search rankings.
