Author: wilreynolds

Today rocked, spending two days in London (where I am now) with Distilled peeps (yes my #1 competitor, whom I respect deeply) speaking about where this industry should be headed to gain real respect was awesome, learning from my peers, etc.  I have been an SEO since 1999, and I believe that what we are doing is a good thing, and I want to see the industry step its game up and get better and do real marketing. It also makes this tough, that I am exhausted and jetlagged (landed in london 2 ½ days ago leaving tomorrow morning), I haven’t seen my wife in 33 days, and should be thinking about one thing…seeing her tomorrow (hope our flights don’t get cancelled), and I want to enjoy that time with her.

A little history on me, I never wanted to grow a company, I wanted to build a remarkable kick ass culture, one that kills shit for our clients, cares about our community, and cares about making our industry respectable.  The reason why SEER is at almost 60 people is because I kept meeting people who I thought would be good to work with, and meeting prospective clients who in my heart I thought we could help. Helping businesses and people is what is in the core of my soul.

As we got bigger I knew that I couldn’t manage the brand promise SEER made by myself, people like Crystal, Jamie, Larry, Rachael, and Adam have helped me day in and day out deliver on those promises, and I can’t thank them enough. There is nothing I believe in more than delivering on our promises. And our promise is that we will do great work and we will work our asses off to create success.  Sometimes along the way we make mistakes, and I’m OK with that, but there are some mistakes that hit you in the gut and you cant recover from as “learning”.

I promised these clients something when I signed that contract & where things fall short I always feel that when that happens, shit rolls up hill to me and I’ll do whatever is in my power to let our clients know I’ll die trying to deliver on what we said we would do. Why? Because that is what I would want someone to do for me.

This approach to running a business doesn’t scale, but I hope it leaves our clients with a deep feeling that we care. And I’ll take that sentiment (and less money) over scale any day.

I think caring about what your company name stands for makes growth very difficult.  At some point things get dropped and you have a choice, deal with client churn (add another sales person to offset it) or fight it with every fiber of your being.  I choose the latter every single day of my life. This is why some CEOs get hardened, I refuse to let that happen to me.

While that was disappointing  what made me leave dinner 2 hours ago, with 2 of my teammates was when I got an email from Jen Lopez from SEOmoz that was like dude, really, you guys sent this?? It made me sick.  Here is the outreach:

Did we just email SEOmoz asking for a “guest post” … yup.  That stings. How did a message go out from someone who definitely knows what whiteboard friday?

I could get that link pretty easy (I am able to post to SEOmoz).  Its these moments in your company where you say…is this what I built?  Is this what I’ve allowed us to become? (If you haven’t noticed the hockey goalie in me, thinks every goal against is MY fault, and it is). This is NOT the company we built, its an isolated mistake, there is a difference, but my teams mistakes are my mistakes.

How did we ask SEOmoz (and several other quality blogs in the industry) for a “guest post”?  Well I dunno, but I gotta find out.

I thought I was doing shit right…SEER was already not taking on any new business until late Q1 2013 because I wanted to make sure we weren’t growing too fast – I wanted to make sure that we gave ourselves time to make sure we delivered and I guess this is one area where I needed to work on more. I am going to have to brush myself off and keep on trying, but I dunno how I am going to feel about giving a presentation next week, I’m going to feel like a bit of a hypocrite, my preso is probably going to suck, but I had to write this because I didn’t want the few people who knew to be like, wil says one thing on stage but then has people sending out low quality link requests. I don’t.

These are the types of things that go on behind the scenes that NO ONE ever wants to talk about (well rand does), this is the inside of the guts of a growing company, shit gets hectic, and I guess if I cared about hitting X million next year then I could brush off mistakes and keep growing, but that’s not me – I wanna know primarily that SEER stands for quality.

I feel like SEER has a lot to offer our industry and we’ll correct this, but remember we make mistakes too, even on the path of doing great shit, we’ll give people second chances because we all make mistakes, its about learning from those mistakes, and I hope we’ll be better off for it.

FYI, I felt I had to write this, as the message went out to more than just SEOmoz, and while Jen sent this to me privately (much love for trying to keep it between us), I had to pull a B-rabbit vs Papa Doc and not let others pull the “can you believe what I got from SEER” card, yes we sent out shitty outreach, and yes we’re going to learn, and yes we’re gonna be stronger at the end of it.

Hi I need your help through something, but it will start with 3 years of lessons I’ve learned in giving out bonuses. I write this up as therapy.  There are stories in here I have wanted to tell for years, and after this years bonus round I felt the time was right.  I needed to get this down on paper and get it out.  I needed to show other people in the position to give out bonuses, how your greatest intentions can blow up on you before you know it, and to save you from the mistakes I have made and how bonuses also give you an opportunity to create the right kind of culture.  I hope the stories and insights help you, and at the end I hope you leave me ideas on how to overcome my next big problem. I applaud Whole Foods for their transparency in pay decisions and also how they post everyone’s salary to the company intranet.

So here is something SEER believes in…sharing in the success of this company with the people who create it and have shown commitment to SEER. That is a CORE belief that will never change. But I am also a complete hard ass, I expect success, I expect people to live up to their promises, and I fire quick as hell for those who don’t fit the mold.

Our bonus program has taken many shapes over 3 years and I have learned a LOT over the years and figured I’d share the ups and downs.

I also believe in being transparent with people in the company about what this company is making. So every quarter we go over our bottom line profitability with our company. Everyone knows what we’re making and how that funnels into our bonus pool. The way our bonus program is structured is that there is net growth hurdle, once we hit that hurdle (probably set way too low) then every dollar that comes into the company 50 cents goes to the company and 50 cents goes into the pool. That bonus pool is divided up amongst everyone (except me).

Lets go through a history of our programs, trials, tribulations, and successes…

BONUS PROGRAM YEAR 1

The structure was this, if you’ve been at SEER for 2 years, whatever is in the bonus pool gets divided up amongst everyone eligible, unlimited.  This was the ultimate in transparency.  Everyone knew what was in the pool, and everyone knew who was eligible. People want transparency and I wanted to give that to them. Unfortunately this completely blew up on us, I was way naive, and didn’t see the big issue here, so if this sounds like a good idea to you let me show you why it is not.

Problems

The numbers were huge, people who had only been with us 2 years were eligible for checks well over 15k. 

I knew that was freaking NUTS – especially given that most people who were eligible were receiving 1-2 double digit raises per year (at that time).

How I reacted:

I had a simple choice, go back on my word (since the bonuses were insane) or give them out.

My decision…Give them out, learn from the “mistake” and move on.

Outcome:

Gave my team the PROOF that Wil is a man of his word.  

The upside: People paid off student loans, all credit card debt, bought cars, you name it.  I’ve always wanted my bonuses to my biggest contributors to be large enough to allow them to leapfrog to do something that might take them a year or more to save towards.

My Hope: The hope that my team realized that even when a lot of the increase came from my decisions to speak more, travel more, and to raise rates, that we win as a team and lose as a team and that I wasn’t going to start dividing up contributions. This would be changed in our third year, so stay tuned.

But I had to reflect, how did this happen?

How did we absolutely DESTROY the bonus hurdle to get bonuses this large?  I realized that I was under charging (one of the problems of LOVING what you do). So while we all celebrated in the victory, I knew that 65% of that bonus pool came from me making one decision, increase rates. If the increase came from people upselling, or going to conferences to bring in new clients that would have been one thing, but it wasn’t…I think 65% of the growth came from speaking gigs and raising rates and 35% came from our team’s ability to just kill it for clients, and get referrals and retain them.

The changes:

2 years is too short of a timeframe to be giving out checks like that unless the direct contributions warrant it (which I can do with side bonuses all day) but not for bonuses that were expected. We also were looking strong on retention – we werent losing anyone, meaning the pool just got divided up more and more and bonuses would get smaller and smaller. YIKES!

I shifted the bonus pool eligibility to 3 years, I realized that if we continued to double our team almost every year and not lose hardly anyone, the folks who had been here the longest, would get their bonuses CRUSHED by newbies flooding the pool.  All of a sudden someone who’s been here for 5 years sees us add employees and goes, wow that is GREAT, but wait a second…I’ve been here for 5 years and this person who’s been here for 2 gets the same exact bonus as me, even though I am their manager.  This had to change, I had created a DISINCENTIVE for my tenured employees. This resulted in some newbies not being too happy with me. That brings me to the next problem.

Outcome: 90% of the people who would be impacted for the most part understood, and even though they knew that this would set them back a year.

A few people who were there for 1 year and got nothing (because you had to be there for 2 years) got upset when I said we need to shift this out to 3 years. Ok upset is an understatement. They were young, so was I, but I always tell our team that I am trying to do what is right, but I am doing a lot of on the job learning and will make mistakes.  I always figured it was better to work at a company that PROVED they were trying to share and do what was right than one that does not, but that was not the case. I listened and heard them out one by one on how they were disappointed.  Deep down I was pissed. 

Reaction: I listened, but I didn’t change the policy, I knew I had to create a higher threshold.  Heck I stayed at a job I didn’t like for 3.5 years.  So we could also create an incentive whereby people stayed to have the shot at getting these big bonuses. I’m impulsive as hell so I wonder if those 2 people knew that I had decided to fire them that day?  Luckily someone talked me out of it.  I looked at it like this… 1 – you are not KILLING it, you have been here for 1 year and are just doing your job, so even having a CHANCE to get a bonus should have been great.  

Am I wrong in this thinking?  Should I have fired them both right then and there?

Learnings:

I learned that when you are THAT transparent you can create haves and have nots, so on one side of the room you have the I got a huge bonus people, and on the other you have the we got nothing and wil’s just pushed out my 10k+ check out 1 more year.  That is how it was perceived, there was less perception around…what can we do to improve, upsell, grow the company together.  I saw something ugly…I saw the outcome of haves and have nots, and the outcome of expected bonuses. People were thinking “Next year I would have gotten a 10k+ check, Wil took that away from me”.  With no regard that the company had to hit milestones and do certain things that we’d all have to work our assess off for. Its amazing to see that when you are THAT transparent, how people don’t make the connection of what THEY can do to get us to that point, they just think its gonna happen again.

It piles on…The most pissed I’ve ever been EVER…

I am a dude who believes in doing the right thing. So I had a stellar employee who was leaving the company for a family issue at the end of December. They left Dec 20th.  When bonuses were calculated I realized I had another employee who was contributing their ass off but was not eligible. I had to figure out how to rectify an employee leaving who was helpful in getting us to that point and an employee who was going to miss by a few weeks.

The decision

I IM’ed the employee who had left about 6 weeks after their departure.  I called with Good news (so I thought) – I said…look, I know you don’t work here anymore and will be staying home for the foreseeable future, but as a token of my appreciation, I want to give you a third of the bonus (which was a HUGE bonus) because over the past few years you CONTRIBUTED to getting us to where we are, check has already been deposited. There was a pause.

I waited

and waited

and waited 

(now I am thinking, damn, “thank you” doesn’t take that long to type up on IM)

They read me the riot act 

Someone who had left (on GREAT terms) was upset that they didn’t get the full bonus.  But they voluntarily decided to quit!!

This was one of the biggest lessons I learned about fairness and how perceptions are all that matters.  I was an ASSHOLE in that persons eyes, in my eyes I was a SAINT.  I did what NO company I know ever does (on their own) give an employee who voluntarily left a bonus between 5-10k after their departure date.

I was thinking hey, we’re transparent, we’re giving a bonus to someone who quit, this is a GOOD thing right? WRONG.

The next day was the only day in my life that I didn’t feel like seeing anyone at the office, I’ve never felt that way in my life.  The day after telling people we would move out bonuses 1 more year (was 3 years really THAT much to ask) combined with the above issue, I wanted to stay home and punch holes in walls over and over and over again, fire someone and use 5% of their bonus to fix my walls. I wanted to get rid of the bonus pool and the transparency and give HUGE spot bonuses out at my own discretion.

But I didn’t, the CORE of the company was about transparency and sharing in the success, going to a system like that would be to turn my back on one of those beliefs, and I don’t believe a company should change policy for 1 or 2 people who piss you off when 25 of them are thinking you are doing a great job, fire the 1-2 people and find the RIGHT people.

One person knew I was just having a tough time and that I was getting shit from all angles and since we talk about things in the open as a company they also knew that a lot of others were giving me a hard time too. He told me at his old company, he didn’t know the numbers, and didn’t get a bonus and that he was just happy to be somewhere where he saw that at the CORE the company had beliefs about sharing with people and doing what was right.  That was the ray of light that shined through at a VERY dark time for me.  You know who you are and for that I will be forever grateful.  I dusted myself off and trudged forward, lets keep growing this thing!!

BONUS PROGRAM YEAR 2

Ahhh we fixed it… 3 years for eligibility.  Some how I thought that would solve the problem, boy was I wrong. Another year came and went and we again we CRUSHED it, checks were divvied out, and we were even able to give the “have nots” a bonus since we killed it. All was right in the world.

WRONG!

Problem. 

3 years was the wrong amount of time still.  There was no cap.  I had to finally realize this is NOT some utopia at SEER, being here for 3 years was NOT equal for all people.

Yet giving out equal bonuses was not right. The idea that how long you’ve been here directly correlates to your impact is crazy.  (The beauty is that for people who were not eligible, but were working as hard or harder than the people who were, I could spot bonus them).  But what we were communicating to the company is that if you are here for 3 years, YOU get the same bonus as others who have been here for 3 years.  It doesn’t matter that one is a manager responsible for a division that does a million dollars and that one person does not.  Again I could see the dis-incentive there.  I could see my senior leaders saying, so I work my ass off to grow a division or retain my clients and my team and I get the same bonus as someone else who does a great job but doesn’t have those responsibilities. No one said that to me, but I realized that would be a problem and had to fix it.

Outcome:

We gave out equal bonuses again, but something still didn’t feel right. So I didn’t have the people drama, but I could still see that given our team member growth and our retention of team members that the DIS-INCENTIVE was still there.  We implemented bonus caps…. You would receive up to a % of your salary instead of this unlimited tenure based bonus.

BONUS PROGRAM YEAR 3

ALMOST THERE, now we got a new issue.

• We kept the bonus pool concept (sharing in the success)
• We kept the 3 year eligibility requirement (with discretionary bonuses for people under 3 years)
• We kept the transparency (quarterly meetings with the team to share numbers)
• We kept being…US

The beauty of keeping the bonus based on a % of salary is that it made it somewhat more private. Minimizing the “they just all got 1k, 3k, 5k,10k finger pointing.

Last year we KILLED it again.  But since there were caps now on the max a person could receive we had a new problem…

Problem: There was a lot more in the bonus pool than we expected, so what do we do?

Solution: We bump everyone, so we gave all employees who worked hard a higher percentage than they were eligible for.

WE still had a lot left over, so we bonused people who had been here for 3 months, 1 year, 2 years, you name it.  All discretionary.  People were pumped.  Well NOT REALLY.

New Problem: There was an entirely new dynamic we have to battle…expectations.

We had people who had been here for a 3-4 months who got small bonuses – and they reacted with more gratitude than some of our people who had 10x or 15x more money in their bonuses.  I mean its crazy to give someone a 3 figure bonus and someone else a 4-5 figure bonus and watch person after person after person who got a symbolic 3 digit bonus leave the meeting ecstatic saying things like I’ve never gotten a bonus EVER, or I can go by X with that now, thank you, and then watch those who expect it to come shrug, give a thanks and walk out.

I understand that of course bonuses become expected (especially the way we have set them up) – how could they not? 

And that is my challenge for you all to help me with.  Hopefully I have helped you up to this point giving you ideas.  Now tell me…

1 – Should I shut up and just say – Wil that comes with the territory. Get back to work.

or

2 – Here is a way to keep your core values and still make the bonuses something that doesn’t become expected.

Lessons for bonus givers: No matter how often you tell your team bonuses are likely to change, since we are feeling this out, every change brings about some level of negativity. That is OK, shoulder that, if your real goal is to improve your bonus program you gotta listen to people (only listen to the ones you really want to retain, b/c everyone will have an opinion) and let people know you are trying to do what is right.

Lessons for bonus recipients: Don’t be a brown noser in bonus meetings like "OMG you are the bestest boss ever, no really ever, ever”. But acting like its expected, doesn’t really encourage someone to do it again next year.

The next years

In 2013 we will develop a phantom stock plan where we set up the facility for people to have an ownership stake in SEER, I don’t know if anyone is going to get any in 2013, but the system will be put in place that will allow me to do it, its going to take a lot of time and money, but again I hope this communicates to our team where this company is going and that we will be creating wealth for people here, its my goal.  I know some people will feel they deserve to own a piece of the company, and they won’t get it and will leave, and now that I’ve grown, I’m OK with that.

With the lessons I have learned I’ll be VERY cautious about how to share in that, but I’ll be PUMPED to give the ultimate THANK YOU (ownership) to people on my team in 2013, 14, and beyond! I’ll chronicle that process here too.

Now what Wil?

There are even more challenges ahead.  The biggest one was brought up by one of my mentors…lets say I decide to make a BIG move, one that is costly, like buying out a company, or buying our building, something major like that. Well a BIG expense like that costs the company a LOT of money, and my decision that year to increase expenses can hurt our bonus pool and hurt everyone’s bonus as a result.  

I don’t think it is entirely right to have 100% of someone bonus potentially impacted based on me making a decision that costs the company a LOT of money right?

So something I am going to work on in years 4-5 of our bonus plan is trying to tie closer the incentive plan to peoples sphere of influence.  If you don’t have influence over expenses, then why should your bonus potentially be significantly for something you can’t control, right?

That will be the next challenge in a VERY evolutionary process, and again if you have suggestions on how to keep bonuses from becoming “expected” I am all ears. As I understand it is natural, so a creative solution is likely needed.

I just read John Doherty’s post on don’t hire remote workers.  From the title alone I was rubbing my hands saying YES! THIS! Then I read it and was a little disappointed (but pumped that it inspired me to write this post).  John I LOVE ya buddy but I was hoping the piece could have more smack us in the virtual face PUNCH!!! But I also appreicate you taking a more balanced approach than I did and I learned a lot from it.

But my friends is I am not here to play it safe, I’m going to piss some of you off because I try HARD to not hire remote workers (as full time staff) and have fought it for 8 years … as SEER moves into our next phases, we will have remote offices and it will be great for me to revisit this post then and maybe see how wrong I was, but even as we expand I need new offices to start with people who have been at SEER for ages and I have seen how they make decisions / treat their co-workers when no one is looking, it tells you about character in ways that interviews do not.

But my friends I also need your consulting / advice – which is how do you humanize those who are remote and assimilate them into a culture? How did it for you?

For all of you who are going to get pissed off by this, I am only speaking from what little I know, I’m no company guru, just a guy with strong opinions and a track record of extremely strong employee retention. I have only run one company in my life, and its been a marketing agency. So for me this is more about agency life, but might spill over into other things too.

I am a culture junkie, culture is about a company wide belief system and that belief system influences what you will become and who will be attracted to your company. Here are the reasons why I think companies with remote workers may have a harder time building culture and why that is a threat to their businesses:

#1 – I can not high five you over GCHAT

Seriously, I can say great job on IM or email, I can even call you up and say great job, but for me I like to give high fives, I like to give VERY vocal kudos. I want people around the company to say WTF did “Mark/Ethan/Rachael” do that got Wil up out of his chair to go high five him, or go over with a huge smile on his face. People will hear me scream out YESSSSSS, then I launch out of my seat and go over to someone and say “thats what I am talking about, great stuff”. How can I help take this to the next level?  What resources do you need?

Lets talk about what this communicates: People are reminded that they work at a company that praises great work, if we are all remote, it has less impact if shared company wide via an email. People are competitive, they should be thinking, hey I haven’t done anything that got Wil that excited, I need to step up my game, them stepping up their game makes life better for us and for our clients.

Remote workers, ask yourselves when is the last time you got a high five from the boss that everyone else in the company knew? Was it done via email (which is fine). Answer in the comments below, your answers will help me as we have remote offices learn how to do the virtual high fives.

#2 – People can more easily be seen as human capital, or human assets not PEOPLE

If you and I only really know each other via skype chats and emails, you are a conduit to me. Most of our interactions are about what you need from me or what I need from you.

You are someone who helps get something I need done. You are a cost for which I am trying to maximize my return. You are less humanized, I am not saying its impossible, but its harder to humanize someone you’ve never met.  We have all had that client or vendor who we just had hard times connecting with, but once we met face to face it all got worked out right?  The minute you are not part of the team dynamic, the hi-fives, the bigger than me mentality, the small things you see people do for one another, the easier it is to just be a “worker” to your co-workers.

On my vacation (its raining here and I figured I’d write a blog post) I have finalized something that I have thought of for years and it requires SEER people to take three of the open boxes on their cubes and put 1 item in each box  that tells everyone who visits their cube what they are working towards. One is a short term goal (maybe its take my daughter to kiddie yoga 3x a week), another will be a long term goal (teach a college class) and the last will be a company goal (retain 100% of my clients, blog 2x a month). What that does for us is HUMANIZE people. No one at SEER will be “human capital” to anyone else on my watch. People will be mothers, fathers, girlfriends, sons and daughters, AND co-workers, they will be PEOPLE who have dreams (short term and long term), I want to know what those dreams are, remind them that I know about those dreams, and that I am working my ass off to help them achieve them, if they are doing great work. It means that every time I go to anyone’s desk at SEER I (and everyone else who visits) will always be reminded that they are humans with hopes and dreams, not a person who just gets me reports or works on projects.

#3 – No one sees “little things” and the “little things” are what gives companies character  

When you have a group of people together in one room, working toward similar goals there is a mutual concern those people should have for one another’s well being. That mutual concern comes from being close to people. It comes from walking a female co-worker to her car at night, attending a co-workers family funeral, going to a concert with 6 of your team members, ATTENDING a co-workers fundraiser for a friends sick child, meeting a co-workers husband or wife or new boy toy or asking a co-worker about their sibling in Iraq. In other words, I walk the FREAKING walk, or at least I try to. I hope to GOD that people seeing me do those things makes it that much easier when a recruiter calls in to say you know what I am going to stay put, I work at a company that cares about me, my professional growth, my family and my dreams. I hope that everyone on this team knows I try my hardest to make time for them to find out about who they are, what their goals are and what makes them tick. I recently met with Crystal (who runs one of our divisions) about the amazing job one of her team members had been doing, we brainstormed what could we get for her that would tell her “we listen”. We got her an autographed mini-helmet of her favorite Penn State football player, how did I know who that was? Probably some “free drinks on the company” night – that doesn’t happen remote. Lets all grab drinks over skype sounds unappealing.

Its challenging to continue to know people at this depth as we grow, but I am up for the challenge and am adjusting my schedule and making changes in how we do things to make sure I do. What does this also mean? It means this company is building a legacy…my team leaders know what I’ve tried to do to know about them as people, and now when I am long gone and those leaders are running the show, they will know that to live the “SEER way” means taking time to learn about who is on your team and what makes them tick.

Ryan (Fontana) how are we gonna get you to see RHCP on tour this year?

But seriously its the little things, its buying Katy Perry tickets for people (yes we did that too). I think that people appreciate the fact that in spite of my busy schedule I find time (when I can) to ask these things.

#4 – Being close means getting to see your boss’s beliefs battle tested day in day out.

So, people have heard on few occasions me having very tough conversations, ones sometimes I wish people didn’t have to hear. Be they with clients, co-workers, advisers, vendors, where I am backed in a corner and have to react/make a tough decision that I’d prefer not to. They heard that because they where THERE – they were there to hear how I’ve dealt with the WORST advice I was ever given by an adviser, or how I deal with a client who is not being fair, or how I deal with tough financial decisions or a scheduling conflict between a volunteer effort and a business meeting. That empowers them to know what it means to be a “SEER” person, its about integrity. Again, I hope that when people have seen me in a position where a tough decision must be made they get to see what I am made of.

If we were all remote they would never be privy to hearing how I handle those situations. This also works on the flip side, like the co-worker who thought texting was more important than listening to a training session w/ me. It showed me something a LOT sooner than I would have found out otherwise.

When people wonder…how will Wil act in a situation where he has to make a tough decisions about me, they already should have a good feeling on how I will act.

Remote workers, how do you see your boss work in sticky situations, that gives you that sense of “yeah she’s a good egg”?

#5 – Bigger than ME!

If you can’t create an environment where people are part of something bigger than themselves, then you MAY have a retention problem. Why? Well lets think about why…If i am part of a company where I work remote all the time, I’m a lone wolf I don’t get the spill over value of impromptu xbox challenges, random bowling nights, open tabs at the bar or volunteer nights at the Ronald McDonald house – where so much of the walls of “work” are broken down and you find out about people, as just that people. If you have remote workers and are not a 37 signals (in other words a company who has tons of acclaim) – what is the bind that keeps people working with YOU instead of the next company that comes along and lets them work remote? Very few companies are working on something SO unique that team members couldn’t find work elsewhere doing the same thing elsewhere.

Remote workers, what keeps you with your company? Again I want to learn from you so I can do those things too, because in new markets we enter people will be a lone wolf for a little while and will miss out on some of this stuff as we have already learned.

#6 – You can’t eavesdrop

At SEER we encourage eavesdropping, we encourage curiosity, exploration, and ongoing learning.  Very little is off limits. Its why we have no walls between workers, even our “cubes” have holes in them. Sound travels, and that is a good thing.

I love when someone hears me working with a co-worker on something and they roll on over and say, hey that sounded cool, I just want to listen in – then 1 or 2 more do, next thing you know 4 people are around learning about something that only one person would have heard, or its even better when someone overhears one of my bad ideas, and starts to give me food for thought, either killing the idea or refining it to make it better.  

Remote workers, how do you eavesdrop on conversations that you might be able to learn from or improve on, when you don’t even know they are going on? Yammer?

#7 – The talent pool just became an ocean…

The smaller the talent pool is the harder a company has to work on retention and building a culture that is a talent magnet.. If I truly belive I can pick up 5 more amazing account managers tomorrow because I can hire anyone from anywhere in the world, how does that impact how I think about YOU as a co-worker? Do you look a little more like a widget or “human capital to me?” Its also a hell of a lot easier to fire someone who I don’t know anything about beyond their work, but that is another topic. All companies, ask yourself, how do you work on retention? For many of us outside of salaries and working on projects where people feel they can learn, part of it is likely creating something that people want to be a part of and bring their skills and talents to.

My talent pool shrinks significantly when I decide to not hire remote full time workers. It hurts my ability to grow and take on projects, but that is OK with me. It also forces me to work even harder to retain our team and become a company with a culture that makes people want to relocate to be a part of.  

Remote workers, if your company is mostly remote that means you are competing for a job with EVERYONE in the world, as a company if that is my model, it makes it that much easier for me to bounce you out and find someone new, as a remote worker – you better be on top of your game because you my friend are competing with the world (which isn’t a bad thing from a company perspective, and in many ways is a PRO to the company).

#8 – Brainstorms are harder remote, period.

Not impossible, just harder. So I guess the more your job relies on just getting it done, the easier it is to work remote. I know that even for our developer Chris Le, he has said countless times that just being around our team and overhearing things has helped him build better and more useful tools for us.

Remote workers, I’d love to hear how you brainstorm remote, what tools you use, as SEER will need to tackle this with remote offices at some point, and I’d love your advice.

I have always thought that the always on skype camera that foursquare uses is quite nice. I think deep down most companies fear remote workers because they don’t TRUST them. I fire people I don’t trust. So for me its less about trust (will you take a 2 hour lunch – will you leave early), but more about building something TOGETHER.

The conclusion

So my question to companies is what are you all about if you are mostly remote?

Does your company exist to make money? Great we all do, but what else does your company exist for?

If so what happens at the first sight of you not raising that next round of funding or things get tight and require some belt tightening? What investments have you made so that at the first sign of trouble people don’t choose to start looking for new opportunities? I guess that happens on both sides, but given our culture and what investments we have made in it, I sure hope if some day that becomes our reality that people stick by me and are open and honest with me in the ways that I have hopefully stuck by them and been open and honest with them.

I have no way to back this up, but I feel that if you take 2 companies who are going through industry downturns in tough times, the ones who have CULTURE – give people something to hold onto to get them through the tough times (whether you are remote or not) – all of our companies should be thinking about that.

Caveats, Caveats, Caveats

Now I know that there are tons of companies who have remote workers and it works for them, I am not hating on you. I think there are several advantages like the ability to just focus and not be interrupted and access to talent is easier. I run a marketing agency, so that is the framework by which I have written this piece, I bet if I ran a development shop I would have had a different perspective (possibly the same conclusion, but a different perspective).

I know there are other types of jobs where remote works great, this is just my experience.

I am not comparing SEER to companies that are global web brands, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook are just a few examples of companies that do build culture, but also working remote for them might be a chance of a lifetime to work on something great.

Bootstrapped startups – sometimes you have no choice in the beginning, I get that and feel your pain.

Companies HQ’ed in low population density places, I get it too, you might have to move the whole company or hire talent remote.

Again, culture doesn’t matter to every company, it matters to me, so if it matters to you and you hire a lot of remote workers, I hope this give you some food for thought and I hope you comments give ME food for thought. If culture is not a driving force for you, and you read this far, then thank you for your interest in my piece!

Recently I called into Crayola – a SEER client to talk to our contact there, and he was unable to make the meeting, so I got his voicemail.  That voicemail ws the nail in he coffin that inspired the rest of this post.

The voicemails of our team at Crayola are often left by their kids.  One voicemail for one of our contacts has his two kids on his voicemail…the first of the two kids talks about how their daddy is not there, and how we allllllways (yes they said it that way) – checks his email, then the two kids leave with a “goodbye, see ya later”.

How can you NOT smile when you hear that?  How does something as small as a voicemail change how you think about a company?  It does.  It leaves an inprint that tells you while this is a super huge corporate entity it can still infuse some of its personality, in a non risky way, in the day to day.

It also is a reminder that our contact there is more than a “contact” he is a FATHER, with two kids that he is probably working his ass off for, so when you leave that message you can’t help but be reminded of that…he’s more than a senior level marketing manager, he’s more than someone who needs to get us a yes/no to a question, he’s a Dad. That understanding can only spill over into how you interact with someone.

You call me and get my voicemail, it talks about me kicking some “search engine booty” heck at least its what I feel and what is consistent with who I am.  When I have kids, I’m totally stealing that voicemail idea.

And that leaves me to my conclusion…what are you doing in your company to remind you that the people you work with are not “widgets” or “conduits” to get what you need done and more like people with dreams that your company is hopefully able to help them fulfill?

I know once all this travel is over I am implementing something I have wanted to for ages.  In each person’s desk setup, I want the top corner to be left to something they are working towards, or something that matters to them.  In that way when we visit each others cubes because we “need” something, we can’t help but see what they value / are working towards.

Tying a team together is a critical part of there truly being an “us” versus a bunch of “me’s” in any company – I want everyone at SEER to know what everyone else is working towards, it could be to pay off student loans, save for a vacation, to travel the world, buy a house, see the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Tokyo in 2012, or just to spend more time with a loved one.

Whatever it is, I want everyone in this company to know that, so we realize that when each of us do a good job individually at whatever our jobs are we help each other achieve their goals. That is how combined we can kick a lot more ass than as individuals.

I challenge myself daily to know why people are working with SEER, I hope implementing this idea will only help me know how doing my job well helps them achieve what they are working towards.  We will see how this experiment works, but to be honest I can’t see much downside to trying.

If something like this is too big a change for you, try something smaller like this.

When there is garbage, I take it out, when the phone rings, pick it up…  How can I (as the leader of our company) expect to have team members who “get things done” and have a “whatever it takes” mentality, when I set limitations  on what I (as the “CEO”) will/won’t do?

If the phone is ringing and I don’t pick it up, how can I look at someone else and say…why don’t you ever answer the phone?  If there is garbage around (which annoys me to no end), but I don’t take it out, what right do I have to ask others to do the same?

I think as a leader in any organization you can’t be above doing “whatever it takes” to move your organization forward. Look at this txt from Zappos CEO:

Which leads me to some serious lessons I learned over the last few months.

I have no idea how people in this day and age have “offices” separate from their team, but that is a rant for another day.

In the weeks and months as our old office space, got crunched and crunched, and the team squeezed closer together, and my somewhat larger, offset cube was dismantled to make space for a printer and more desks, I started to realize the value of proximity.

As we ran out of space, new people were placed where my old larger cube used to sit, since we had nowhere to put them.  Doing that helped me learn a lot about myself and my team.

Here goes…

#1: People learned our values quickly.

By sitting near me, our newest team members got to hear how I made decisions about why we are firing a client, or how we are spending money, or how I let people run with their ideas, I hope they got a feel for who this company is and what we believe in, and how we got here, in a VERY real way.  They’ve heard conversations that were hard for me to have with parters, clients, etc.  They got to hear how I handle a client who might be disappoionted and a client who is thrilled with our work.  I hope they take that time when we were so close as a primer for what the heart and soul of this company is all about.

#2: Processes got WAY improved. 

Any company with leaders, senior account members, account members, and newbies inevitably has work pushing down the food chain, so something might come from me, I might meet with my account team, they don’t shoot any holes through the idea and then it get passed down to our newbies to execute.  The newbies are anxious to help, but over time they start realizing that some of this stuff just doesn’t work. 

Sitting close to our newbies resulted in several big changes at SEER, the biggest one was highlighted by Allie, who had been with us for only 3-4 months at the time.  Her insights resulted in how our entire SEO team is organized.  We changed the organizational structure of our team (it had been this way for 6+ years) based on a recommendation from a recent college graduate who had been with us for 3 months. 

LESSON here: Newbies bring perspective, encourage them to speak up!!

How did I give them the platform to speak up??  I made time…

I sat with our newest team members and asked, “tell me the parts of the job you like the least." 

I was told about all kinds of tasks that were important but not very challenging, and I want to keep people challenged damn it!  So I asked the newest team members to provide solutions and they did, some things stayed, some things were outsourced with our oversight, some tasks were just removed, and some were completely revamped.  I would never have had this spark, if I wasn’t sitting close enough to say, wait a sec, I need to get a grasp on what people are tasking you with.  As a result, people are more challenged, clients get better results, and everyone is happier!

#3: We failed quicker.  

Sitting near the folks executing on tasks helps you to extinguish bad ideas, or outsource low level tasks more easily. Very often your new team members want to show your senior team members that they are eager, wiling to hustle, and are talented.  

As such they rarely push back even on tasks they think might not be valuable. Sitting near our newbies allowed me to overhear bad ideas that they might have spent hours on just to get nothing for our clients from that time investment. 

I was able to ask our account managers to explain how doing that task was going to help our clients hit their goals…sometimes I got shaky answers…so I’d probe until I was convinced or the task-giver realized they had some more homework to do before putting someone on this task or it was clear that this task would help us hit client objectives.

I’d save the new team member from wasting their time on an idea that wouldn’t have helped clients achieve their goals. They also were relived to not have to do a task that deep down they felt was not a good use of time.  This allowed me to let the team know, its OK to ask that question yourself, its OK to push back a bit and make sure there is a good reason to be investing our time in a task.  Other tasks I would hear people being asked to do, I thought…wait we can send that out to someone its just data aggregation and not strategy.  But obviously new team members aren’t going to know that we would rather pay someone to execute that task or build a tool to do the data aggregation. That lets them work more on strategy, which they love.

#4: I got to check in with everyone.

In that same vein, the printers got moved right next to my cube…talk about traffic…my god!  My little desk was sandwiched between 3 conference rooms and a printer.  YUCK.  But I learned something about every person that went to that printer, I got to find out how their day was, what they were struggling with, and what they’ve accomplished.  Why?  Things take a while to print out. So while they were standing there it gave me an opportunity to catch up, even if for only 30 seconds.

#5: I connected with them more personally. 

I got to learn more about our newest people, got to learn about their previous jobs, why they left, why they chose SEER, about their brothers and sisters spread out all over the country, their favorite football teams, etc etc.  Knowing the people in your organization at a more intimate level is on of my core beliefs.  I don’t ever want nameless / faceless people, ever.

For the record, I’ve never been a corner office guy but our old setup had me kind of off to the side at a larger cube instead of right in the pit with the team.