Isn’t it time we make offer letters non-negotiable? Companies, isn’t it time we just make true offers? Companies want people to come in day 1 stoked to work there and adding value, yet the path to get to day 1 often requires negotiation, beating each other up a bit, its bullshit.
What does a company gain, when they hold back 5-10% on an offer? If I think this job is worth 10% more than I am going to offer you, that is kind of a slimy thing to do, save 10% but start off a relationship on the wrong foot.
When offers are given out, companies should start giving them in a way that they are non negotiable, and the company says, this is what we value you in this position. Maybe you negotiate some extra vacation time or something, but a company’s primary goal in hiring is to get great people. So why in the process of getting great people would you try to cut great people out of 5-10% you have that you COULD offer but you want them to negotiate for? I see no upside.
By not taking this approach what companies have bred is the common sentiment that you shouldn’t take the first offer you are given. Heck, even Sheryl Sandberg in Lean In mentioned that her husband gave her a hard time on negotiating her offer for Facebook, saying you never accept the first offer. She negotiated and got a raise. Zuck, what did that communicate? If you had the extra to give her, why not just start off at what you think she is worth? You don’t need the money. You wanted her bad. Just doesn’t make sense to me to take someone you want that bad and start off the relationship holding something from them, you have no problem giving them.
This story just perpetuates the cycle, sadly. Let’s start a new cycle.
Because the company probably has more it won’t give you unless you ask. Or in other words they are trying to low-ball you.
No one likes being low balled, low balling doesn’t build trust, yet it is a common practice for companies to “low ball” or at least not show the max offer they could put on the table.
So as companies we reap what we sow. Employees often don’t trust us and I think the first way to start building trust is in offering people offers that are based on how you value the position and their experience in that position, not on that estimation minus 10 percent.
Offering people what you think they are worth to your company communicates that your company isn’t trying to squeeze every little bit out of an offer and starts off the relationship on on of honesty and integrity. It says something about the company.
Companies, managers, etc we talk about people not being loyal and being skeptical, I think this is the first step we can take in mending that bridge. GIVE REAL OFFERS!
I’ve talked a lot about turnover. After sending this tweet I decided to calculate the numbers, I was off a bit, keep reading.
To me, turnover falls into 4 categories (there can be some overlap between #1 & #4)
1 – People you’ll miss, leaders, potential leaders – people who if they were in your company today would be doing amazing things, helping you to see new things, new business units, etc. (Note to me this is the ONLY turnover that matters). They chose to leave, and you wish they did not.
2 – People who left before you fired them (they probably saw it wasn’t a good match too). Note: These people left b/c you probably saw they weren’t right, put pressure on them and they realized it was not what they wanted.
3 – People you had to fire
4 – Life changed – Strong performers (not always people in #1, might be) but people who’s path changed so much you couldn’t help (family, wanted to go back home, new career path, etc).
So over the last 5 years we’ve hired about 80 people and had about 30 leave.
Here is how they break down into the categories above:
#1 – The people who we are worse off for them not being here – 4 (10%)
#2 – People who left before we let them go – 8 (30%)
#3 – People who were fired 14 (46%)
#4 – Life changes 4 (13%)
In the last year people hired in 2012 we are closer to 15%, so we are getting better and better. If your business in year 1 has the same turnover in year 5 you are either a GREAT judge of character or you aren’t pushing yourself to greatness. New businesses, new managers often settle, or we convince ourselves of people who aren’t right for us.
I used to always try to see the best in people in interviews and that is NO WAY to hire, being overly positive in your thinking causes you to ignore the bad parts and focus way too much on the good.
I phrased the 50% turnover # wrong (I meant people who left or were fired) over a 5 year period. So Its really 23 of 80 or 30%, but I will say that in the earliest years voluntary turnover was non-existent, no really it was ZERO, involuntary turnover was like 65%). I sucked at interviewing, and the cost of being a bad interviewer is having to look a lot of people in the face and say sorry, and that sucks. So I have gotten a lot better.
I could hire a LOT better now than I could 7 years ago, 7 years ago I had NO experience hiring. Sometimes you get lucky (Like I did with Adam, Crystal, and Rachael, all at 5+ years at SEER) but those 3 out of maybe 10 made it from my first 10 hires, now remember I am great friends with 2 hires from back then, but 5 were complete disasters.
The data
I don’t have the data going back to 2005-2008, so I am trying to look at the last 5 years super quick if numbers don’t add up LMK. I am pulling interns out, since they have a purposeful limited life span.
Are people scared for their jobs?
Unfortunately sometimes, and i fucking hate that!!! But I understand why, 3 team mates in the last 4 weeks brought this up, and I asked them how could I fix it, help me. I don’t want people worried or nervous and one of them said that if SEER implemented a more direct “warning system” people would know…oh if I have never had an official warning, then I am good. So I learned from that and I trying that. I’ll let you know how it goes.
The lessons
NEVER EVER APOLOGIZE for trying to build the best team possible, that will be your guide when tough decisions have to be made.
The sooner you can get your company to the point where you can get people to relocate several states away… YOU WIN! (62% of SEER’s hires in the last 18 months relocated, form TX, CA, SC, MA, IL, MN, GA, KC, FL etc etc). The 102 months before combined… ZERO.
Clients hate project turbulence, but if you articulate your vision on building the best team possible, I have found they put trust in YOU / the team / the system.
Open another office if you feel you are tapping out of local talent or can’t get people to relocate.
“If you are running a business for the first time, and you last more than 4 years, if you have too many of the same folks you hired in the beginning that is a problem.” That is a quote from one of my advisers she said that to me many years ago when I would brag that voluntary turnover was ZERO. Since I didn’t know squat about hiring, it should be expected that I made some mistakes right, turnover that low was a PROBLEM, and I had to have the cajones to fire.
Beat yourself up over category #1, those are the people you couldn’t retain but if they were with you today would be KILLING shit. Of the 30 who are not here, its the 3-4 in that top category that I beat myself up over.
Its ok to have high expectations. Every morning I go through my team by name and see who I remember and what I know unique about them. Its just one of the many pressures I put on myself to create a great company. I personally invest a lot of time in knowing people personally at SEER, I push my leadership team to do the same, and knowing how we can help them achieve their goals is KEY. I never had a manager ask me what I wanted to accomplish in my personal or professional career.
If I am going to see you as more than a way to make $$$, then I don’t want to invest that time in people who I don’t feel make an equal investment back.
Be resolute in your beliefs…people who are crappy to other people here gotta go, period. Whether that is you spend all day taking smoke breaks and chit chatting while not helping your colleagues who are swamped or if you are a bad cultural fit.
There are a limited number of people who strive for greatness everyday, I want them HERE, not because its “safe” but because if they are good to each other and good to our clients they’ll always know there is room on the SEER bus…indefinitely. The world is full of people who interview well and have temporary hustle.
IS THIS BAD PR for SEER?
Maybe. But its the truth, my team knows this already, and they still refer people like crazy, they see the insides of what this company’s heart is.
Have you ever had someone give you one perception of a company and then when you get there its different? We’ve all been there.
Wouldn’t the world be better if people told you the truth about their companies vs. trying to convince you of all the good things? I tell every interviewer what causes people to NOT work out at SEER, why? Because I have to be honest with them, about our good and bad. In that way I never mislead them.
The cool part is that I go OVERBOARD for every employee that I can, I attend funerals, baptisms, weddings, I front load raises as bonuses so they can pay down debt, give 5 figure bonuses several times (and that doesn’t get them to stay FYI), my average annual raise the first 5 years of our existence was 22% (those days are over, but for our first 9 years of existence we budgeted double digit raises). I fly people to places they’ve wanted to go to see family members, I build their links when they go home for emergencies. I have sent their mothers thank you notes, I’ve paid for parent’s hotel rooms to come visit their kids who have relocated, I fire the clients who treat them poorly. The monsters at SEER know I’ll die trying to make this the BEST place to work, but there is an equal responsibility back to be the BEST they can to our clients and each other.
So I think my desire to only work with the best, is because I want to be the best boss anyone has ever had. I want to care more, take more time to know what makes them tick, etc and I guess what I want back are people worthy of doing that for.
I think deep down my clients appreciate my unyielding desire to put the best people I can possibly get on the front lines.
Keep in mind guys, I could blog about our vacation policy and how awesome it is, the intent of this site is to be the “anti-cheerleading entrepreneur" that tells you how awesome you are, that you can go build great stuff and make millions like instagram, or that 17 year old kid who sold to Yahoo for 30 MIllion, it is is to talk about failure, mistakes, and the hard road of running a business even with an amazing team. There’s enough of the rah-rah blogs out there that inspire me, I just decided to take a different bend.
If you have people that are more gritty, and real, let me know, I find that I learn more when people tell me their mistakes, then when they tell me their successes and I hope this blog serves that purpose for people like me.
That quote is from Bram Cohen, founder of BitTorrent, see it in the video above. I loved hearing him say that it is so succinct because it is something I have writtenthousandsof words trying to convey.
This quote from Yvon Chouinard the founder of Patagonia has always resonated with me:
“I had always avoided thinking of myself as a businessman. I was a climber, a surfer, a kayaker, a skier and a blacksmith. We simply enjoyed making good tools and functional clothes that we, and our friends, wanted”
I have been reluctant for a long time to tag myself an “entrepreneur” or “CEO”, b/c I believe the shit is over hyped. Its like nails on a chalkboard when someone says it along side my name. CEO of SEER Interactive….yelch!
I don’t like talking about entrepreneurship, which people ask me to talk about all the time. I decline it in most instances or change it to what I like talking about…doing what you love in a way that lets you live the life you want to live with the people you want to live it out with. I prefer to talk about failure, maybe its because I am insanely hard on myself.
I hang out with company founders all the time, so I don’t have a problem with it, it just doesn’t fit me. I don’t wanna sell, I don’t wanna go IPO, I don’t have an exit plan, I don’t have a get to 20 million by X date goal, I just wanna wake up and love what I do and the people I do it for and with.
My business cards have showed my reluctance from day 1, they just say associate. I once had cards printed up, and someone allowed them to be printed with CEO, I threw them out and ordered new ones. That is how much I detest it.
I guess I am trying to avoid the things that let people start down that slippery slope of thinking they’re awesome. Big dreams for instance, everyone talks about dreaming big. You know what…I dream small. I dream in taking care of one client at a time. I believe with ever fiber of my being that if we do what’s right by our clients, the growth will take care of itself. It has so far.
Who are the other CEO’s/founders/associates that you know that have a contrarian view on entrepreneurship? I’d like to meet more of them.
I am so lucky to have met Brad, and thank my lucky stars that he takes time for me from time to time. He is who I aspire to be in so many ways. Brad cares about people, and as an ex-CEO of a multi-office, 150 person, multi million dollar search company back in the late 90’s – you would think that when we get together, we would talk about growth and expansion. He’s been there, he’s done that, so he is a wealth of knowledge. But what many people don’t know is that he worked in a group home as a counselor to kids before starting this business. So he has that volunteer and business side. I bet at some point he spent time in Oregon Truffle Hunting, ha!
Yet so often our conversations go from Revenue to Relationships. What people don’t know about Brad is that he started off
Where am I volunteering my TIME, how he can support my charities, how am I making Nora feel special, am I taking the time out I should be for my team, my wife, etc.
Brad has grown a business, sold a business, hired, and fired, he’s made tough decisions that people may not have liked, so he’s no sap, he is tough on me on firing quickly.
I wanted to write this little quick piece to remind people of this…
For anyone out there who has a mentor or is seeking out mentors, my advice for you is find balance. Keep in mind mentors also give bad advice sometimes, and don’t follow it blindly.
Surrounding yourself with people who only talk about revenue growth is fine, if growth equals happiness for you. For me it does not, so while Brad drills me on revenue growth, he’s equally as interested in my relationship growth.
He knows how to probe on the revenue side and he knows how to probe deep on the relationship side too. For me happiness is about balance, its not becoming a 10 Million dollar company if that gets in the way of my happiness. Happiness is about helping people and if my mentors were focused on revenue growth only, I think I’d need new mentors.
While Brad is the “super mentor” because he:
built and sold a business that is in my industry
lives 10 minutes away
makes himself available often
big on family
big on volunteering, community impact
I would recommend that you don’t look for super mentors, instead find the things you need advice on, the things you need to be kept honest on, and find mentors who fill those gaps for you.
Now I gotta figure out how to take the 42 little things and implement them, for my clients, my team, my wife, and my family. Nora and I just has a conversation last night about traveling, and I think I might be able to take 1-2 of his ideas and turn them into something that can bridge that gap when we are apart.
If you don’t bite off more than you can chew sometimes, how will you ever know how much to bite next time?
So, I was looking at my travel schedule last night, and Nora could just tell I was exhausted just thinking about it. Its NYC -> Philly -> London -> Amsterdam -> Phily -> Munich -> Croatia -> Instanbul -> Philly -> San Diego (Driving to open our new office) -> Philly -> Boston -> San Diego. That is over a course of 8 weeks. Its exhausting, but Nora and I are “Hitting it Hard” before she won’t be able to travel with me as much due to her work.
So I sit thinking, OMG did I just bite off more than even I can chew, AGAIN? Answer is probably. Will I get through all of this? DEFINITELY!
In looking at this crazy schedule I got to thinking…its good to bite off more than you can chew sometimes. You learn a LOT about yourself. So go for it (once in a while).
The key when you bite off more than you can chew is you MUST continue to get everything done or else you risk breaking trust.
So go for it. Here are just a few things you will learn.
1 – You will learn your breaking point.
Its good to know that as early as possible. For instance I know I can work off of 4 hours of sleep, 2 nights in a row, but never more than that, how did I learn it? Its critical to know your breaking point, we all have it, go find it.
2 – You will learn to delegate.
There is something about looking and saying “This is too much, but I don’t want to change course” that causes you to look around at your team, identify the people for whom you can share your load with, who care as much as you do, and will be rock solid. People who don’t
delegate well don’t have enough work! Load them up until they say “UNCLE” then have their back to show them that when they ask for help, they’ll always get it.
3 – Your team mates will develop new skills & grow professionally.
See that is the beauty of delegation! By sharing your load with others who are often eager to help, you get to see them grow professionally and personally and being a part of someone’s path, even if they leave is very fulfilling. I learned a whole new way to manage my inbox, by this method, and it helps me feel less stressed every day.
4 – You will place a MUCH greater premium on your time.
Which means those whom you share it with realize that they matter to you.
5 – Leaders in your company will emerge.
Good people want to help, you just gotta let them.
Leaders see you holding on to too much, and if they have a long term track record of performance will see you struggling and they will help. It never ceases to amaze me at how hard people will work to help me out before I even need to ask. I think this happens for several reasons, but I think its important that you have broad shoulders, no leader wants to help someone who poorly prioritizes their time, who isn’t willing to go the extra mile, and doesn’t consistently goes the extra mile.
6 – You will learn that you are better & stronger than you think you are
Once you decide to stretch yourself thin and stop playing it safe, you see that you got through something super difficult just fine. You might decide to never do it again, but you gain confidence in YOURSELF! Knowing that you “did it" regardless of what that challenge to yourself it.
Once you get through biting off more than you can chew, take a break. The goal is to get some level of light at the end of your tunnel even on the way into the tunnel. So for me, its mid may. Up until then, its MAD hustle. Its super important when you have bitten off too much, to be able to look objectively at your situation and say I gotta put something in place to bring light to the end of the tunnel.
After a little bit, go bite off more, each time you do you’ll learn more about yourself, I have found that I’ve learned the most about myself when I have gotten in over my head.
All the while never lose sight of what really matters, if my wife wasn’t able to travel with me on much of these trips, I wouldn’t do them, or I’d be home a HECK of a lot quicker 🙂
So I was in Nicaragua a few weeks ago as many of you know. While most people said, it will be good to have a week of extremely limited Internet, when I asked “why” no one had a good reason, it was all about recharging and being immersed in the experience (which I did) But I actually did learn several things by being unplugged, it wasn’t about recharging it was a lesson in how I could increase my focus.
#1 – Inbox Zero w/o filters is suicide
Knowing that there was a GOOD chance that I would not have Internet I did something I was shown a while ago by Will Critchlow, the inbox delegation feature in Gmail.
It worked like a charm, while down there, I knew that most days I might get between 30-90 minutes of Internet on a 2g connection, doing that for 7 days I knew an “out of office” wouldn’t be enough. So not only was I off of email (critical) I was also off of twitter (not critical but important, and darn it, fun). I couldn’t delegate my twitter, so I just let it sit for a week.
Kristen was able to manage the crazy flow, meaning when I logged in most days I only actually had 20-30 emails (10% of my typical flow) that were really important for me to answer in a 1-2 day turnaround.
That was eye opening, so much so that I kept my inbox delegated when I got back, but I wanted to first try just using filters before having Kristen working on it.
As someone who enjoys SEO and loves working directly with clients, I used to get cc’ed on a LOT of project emails, which I would check immediately, this would constantly break my concentration and have me off on new tangents, breaking my concentration on what I was currently working on.
Upon coming back I decided to filter all basecamp messages out to a different “inbox” and now I have decided to block out 2-3 times every day to go through basecamp, but its more structured and on a schedule, I also now am finding time to just call clients and check in, seeing how we are doing and where their businesses are headed.
#2 – Twitter, do I REALLY need you??
About 50% of the people I follow on twitter are probably SEOs. Its not a secret that I have been struggling with my “role” on social media . I’ve struggled with it since the beginning (this post is 5 years old). I’ve always seen it as something that can go from helpful to narcissistic, ego-filling drivel in a heartbeat, and I am constantly afraid of crossing that line.
I also have a hard time focusing on one thing, I am easily distracted, and that is exactly what social media is great for, distracting you in the middle of trying to do other more important shit. Having a week off from social media, was easier than I thought, because I missed thousands of BS tweets, but I KNEW I also missed some important industry news. So how would I keep up / catch up?
Well since SEO is a major echo chamber, I have a twitter list specifically titled out of the echo chamber, where I don’t have any SEO folks, so I can get new perspectives (just made it public) – https://twitter.com/wilreynolds/out-of-the-echo-chamber – always taking recommendations to add to this list.
The problem is that Twitters use of lists BLOWS, so it means that these lists are “3-4 clicks away” from twitter.com, and I find myself spending a LOT of time on twitter.com
Inbound.org to the rescue!
When I was finally able to reconnect I couldn’t go through thousands of twitter messages just to find the good ones, so what did I do? I went to Inbound.org, and SEOmoz (especially youmoz). I figured that all those SEO people I follow likely tweeted and RT’ed and RT’ed and RT’ed the good stuff from there already, Inbound.org showed me that I could avoid following a lot of the echo chamber or heavy tweeters since most of what they tweet is SEO news or @’s back and forth.
Now for SEOs like Will Critchlow and Rand (yeah you guys are still SEOs to me) who share about wide ranges of topics, INCLUDING SEO, so I knew I wanted to follow them still.
But the hardcore SEO, whom I learn a lot from and LOVE deeply, they do tend to RT the same stuff, so I can unfollow and add them to my list instead.
It’s the people like Ardath Albee, Mike Gadsby, watch out during he phillies season he gets a little crazy, Patrick McKenzie, Cole Nussbaumer, or our own Steph Beadell, who I think are GEMS to follow, they get me thinking differently, but I miss their stuff sometimes when I am on twitter.com, because of the RT machine that goes on in the SEO echo chamber of the same articles buries their tweets.
I had already done this in a more private way. About 3 months ago I unsubscribed to tons of SEO blogs in my feed reader because I was getting the good stuff via twitter, and my Google Reader became useless, I just see this experiment as a tactic in that vein. Today my Google reader is used to get the info from the people who are not well known or haven’t gotten on the radar of the echo chamber, they may blog 1-2 times a month at most, so their stuff easily gets lost. But I don’t need SEOmoz or SEL in my reader anymore, right? Twitter is now able to do that sorting for me, and now I think I can put that in a separate list.
So I am going to try something new, I am going to “unfollow” a lot of SEO people, but add them to a list instead. I will still see their stuff, but just when I block out time for reviewing that list allowing me to stay more focused.
I hope this helps me focus better.
Oh one more thing, Pocket. Ahh Pocket you are a lifesaver, I used to allow myself to get all into reading articles (an important part of my job) becoming yet another distraction, now every time I see something good I pocket it, and then I schedule time to read what is in my pocket.
If you are interested in finding new content that gets you thinking differently, I have found that Zite is also pretty decent for that.
#3 – The last realization I had was that my team is comprised of more managers of one than at any time in SEER’s history, that always lets you maintain focus, so it sharpened my desire to help them continue to make decisions on their own and with the support of their colleagues and me when needed. Nothing like going away for a week, and realizing everything ran great to show you how much people at your company care about delivering for clients and having each others back.
I have always struggled with 2 things, focus and listening. I work on them all the time, I’m wondering how this test will play out. Also guys if I unfollow you, you are ON my SEOs list, its just something new I am trying.
So you are thinking of creating an unlimited vacation day policy at your company??
First step don’t listen to your friends – when I mentioned to friends that SEER was moving to unlimited vacation time, people often were like dude, you are making a big mistake. I get you wanna trust people and all, but how are you going to pull this off. We’ve had unlimited sick days for years, so this year we are rolling out unlimited vacation, and in its first 17 days I already see a potential snag.
Second step, find some parameters and get them down in writing, how long you can take off consecutively, when does managers discretion come into play, how much lead time you need to give when taking a lot of time off, how long you need to NOT take time off in between other longer vacations, etc.
Third step, when people abuse it, don’t change the policy, change the person!!
Welcome to the club, unlimited vacation is NOT commonplace, you are already well on your way to communicating to you team that you trust them! The fact that you are even thinking about it makes you a good egg, even if you don’t do it.
But don’t be naive like me, expect abuse. It’s going to happen, the real question is what are you going to do about it?
Say someone does freelance (which personally I have some issue with if it is not disclosed and they take advantage of unlimited “vacation” or unlimited “sick days” telling you they are going to recharge or take care of a sick parent, when in actuality they are double dipping, getting paid while off, and then getting paid for side work. That is a lapse in character.
As John Wooden said…“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching”. So hire people for whom doing such a thing runs against every fiber of their being.
Abuse of policies like that are the kind of thing that causes a company to not do unlimited vacation policies. I would have never thought of this as a threat if it wasn’t for something that opened my eyes to the potential for abuse of an unlimited vacation policy.
Someone who does this, and has their teammates cover for them or put in a couple extra hours are being very poor team mates, but that is for another day.
So looking back at why I put an unlimited vacation policy in place, its because people work really hard at SEER and I wanted to signal that with policies, we TRUST them and in turn they will not abuse it.
And this is that inflection point in running a business, it stings. It stings so bad that many people abandon these policies, keeping with tradition, because its easier. Its easier to give 5 sick days and 3 weeks. Its easier to treat your people like widgets as if they don’t have their own hopes and dreams. FIGHT THAT! Never allow cynicism to taint the way you look at the people you got into battle with every day.
When you hit these forks in the road, don’t take the easy route of ending the policies that make you unique, start firing!!! Its funny how we overreact to the negative, I think its natural to want to remove perks and go with something that is easier. Yet when you get rid of the perks for 99% of your company because 1% of the jerks abuse it. You lose. Your clients lose. Your team loses. You become just another “good” company vs being an exceptional one.
Never let one person break your trust to the point that you remove the perks for the 99% who don’t abuse it, because most don’t. Don’t let that make you jaded. You lose part of your desire to do whats right for your team when you let things like this eventually chip away at you. That is for ANY policy, sick days, vacation days, professional development budgets, anything.
I hope this post ranks well for unlimited vacation time policy (so if you are linking to it gimme some love on it), because I think you guys, the people who get to this page because you were looking for policies are most likely considering it. And if you’ve read this far, I hope I opened your eyes to the abuse that can happen (don’t be naive), and I’m here to say DO IT ANYWAY!
Saturday I fly to the most remote place on the planet and drive on the worst roads, all in the name of clean drinking water for all, and showing my wife that I got her back.
(Villagers digging 3 ft trenches to lay the pipe to run the water from the mountains to the tap, if you’ve ever donated to water for waslala, your $$ goes to the hardware and tools you see here, not labor).
Not only do I love the challenge of being the best manager, friend, CEO, etc, I often ask myself, am I being the best husband, am I doing what I can to make sure Nora and I spend quality time together, and that this business doesn’t consume our lives.
Do I get consumed by work, then come home and sleep, only to wake up again the next day and do it all over again? Its harder than ever, and I think that is why I smiled when Nora and I compared frequent flier miles to see how we fared this year, she was at about 51k, and I was at 68k…as I looked at those numbers side by side, I smiled a bit. It was my reminder and my proof that although this company takes me all over the world that I keep Nora as a priority and try to move dates around to ensure we get to spend time together as often as humanly possible.
Luckily Nora is getting her PhD in Urban Education at Temple University and that her dissertation work allows her to do some work from anywhere, but she also has made sacrifices (yes traveling the world to Nora in many ways is bittersweet, its a sacrifice too) like not teaching this past year so she and I could be together more, but that is for another day…something many people don’t know is that my wife has a startup as well, its been around a little longer than SEER, as she started it while still in college.
Nora and I never lose track of the fact that we are wickedly lucky, we travel like crazy and have seen so much of the world in the last 2.5 years (I filled a passport in that time) so it came as a shock to me one day in a London hotel, as Nora and I hopped from flight to flight and train to train she turned to me and said… “I don’t want my life to be following you around the world.” – If you know me, you know I react quick, but this time I listened. She went on to explain that if we don’t take time while we are traveling to enjoy where we are, that she might as well stay home.
That kinda hit me like a ton of bricks because, she was right. She had her own startup, and her desires to change the world (at least for people in rural Nicaragua who need clean water and for kids in urban settings to get closer to equal education). That is a BIG part of why I married her, she had real strong desire to have an impact on this world. I put myself in her shoes…I totally got it, and not only did I get it, it made sense, so from that moment forward I have always made sure that when Nora and I travel we always add a day or two so we can just “kick it”, visit one of her friends in that country / city.
So when I get a chance to fully support her startup, I do. Supporting Nora’s startup and being there (Waslala Nicaragua) is the POLAR opposite of her supporting mine. Let me tell you about my first (and I thought last) trip to Waslala Nicaragua, it SUCKED. Our Limo picked us up in Managua, this limo had 3-4 other people in it and was uncovered, oh its called a pickup truck.
View from the “limo” & below was one of the “passengers” 🙂
So we settled in figured who was going to sit where, and off we went….8 hours straight in the back of the truck, over unpaved roads, I had bruising all over my back, I was covered in dirt, and the road was so bumpy (for 6 of the 8 hours) that I couldn’t hold a book, or an iPad in front of me long enough to read anything, I was defeated, and just listened to rage against the machine and gangsta rap for as long as I could, and told no one to talk to me.
Take a look at the road – 8 hours of that was brutal!
Once we got there, Nora was a sight for sore eyes, people throughout the town wanted to catch up. See her “Rand”, “Will”, “Tom” and “Richard” live in waslala and while Nora knows those dudes from our time traveling, I never met those people for her.
We arrived and showered, I can’t speak Spanish that well, so I couldn’t communicate well either. Over the week I was there I met people who Nora’s startup impacted, and while they couldn’t tell me in words, you could see the sincerity in the people, her “startup” was helping them live better healthier lives.
Nora went back for a month recently to complete her research and just couldn’t get it all done, so she asked me if I could go back once again, and given all that was going on in the company (2 new offices, tons of hiring, tons of awesome projects, working on corporate governance, relocations, HR, Re-orgs, etc) I said, I don’t think so…I’m stressed out just thinking about it. It was going to be super tough.
I knew she was disappointed, but to be potentially disconnected at this time (there is often no internet, no electricity and no hot water) would have been way tough. Then I thought, how much it means to her, and how it gives me a chance to support her startup, and I changed my mind, this was a chance for me to put aside my startup for 1 week, for hers. 1 week out of 51 where my startup takes so much of our time is a small investment to make to show her I cared.
After Waslala, its going to be more travel, and then more travel for my work. Who knows what the future holds, because Nora dialed back teaching last year so we could spend time together this year, but now she knows that she misses being a professor, so that’s going to eat into her flexibility with my travel schedule. That’ll be the next challenge, but I think we’re up to figuring out that delicate balance. For now I gotta pack my backpack, some of the crappiest clothes I own, malaria meds, every charger I can get may hands on, water bottles, anti mosquito spray, well you get it…we ain’t staying at “The W” lets put it that way.
Let’s put the 800lb gorilla on the table….People are skeptical of companies, so expect people to come in your company having LOW expectations and low TRUST, its important for companies to begin extending that olive branch from day one, chipping away years of disappointment, resentment, and dishonesty.
How do you do that? Invest time and money in actually building a culture that shows that you have a team of people who care about each other, more than just the work, but about each other as people. This must start from the top.
For SEER, I believe you can communicate this from day 1 with policies:
unlimited sick days (we trust you),
unlimited vacation days (we want you to enjoy life),
a very progressive health insurance plan (we don’t want you to worry about $$ when you are sick),
investments in people’s learning (we want you to grow professionally),
investments in team events (we want you to have FUN!),
firing bad teammates (we want you to enjoy working here w/ people who you feel have your back)
firing bad clients (we want you to work with people who respect you and are fun),
doing the RIGHT thing for clients (we have integrity to do whats right),
volunteering (we care about others)
These are all examples of the kinds of clues you can give your team from day 1, that they are more than “human capital”.
For instance you want people to feel this way when they take vacations, or have a family issue, right?
Imagine what we as a company can accomplish if we all felt this way? If we all hired people who thought this way?
How do you think Ethan & I and others are going to act when Adam takes his honeymoon later this year? Yeah you know! That is the intangible…that is caring about the individual when people step up to help others enjoy their vacation or spend time grieving over family losses (heck, I’ve even gone to funerals of people I never met just to show support for people on my team & their families).
I talked about this in my best wedding gift post, the bonds with those people who stepped up so I could enjoy my honeymoon is exactly why when it is their turn to honeymoon or take time off I’m working OVERTIME to help keep them from having to worry. Those bonds are TIGHT, because they cared about me as a PERSON, not a boss, they wanted to see me enjoy myself w/ my new wife.
Companies need to create THOSE bonds if you want to minimize unwanted turnover and make it hard for people to recruit away your team!
In SEER’s time a lot of people have come and gone, and my feelings on them range the gamut, while I am not proud to say it, it ranges from “wouldn’t pee on you if you were on fire” to “I hope you get the best this world has to offer”. I wish I didn’t carry the first sentiment, but I’ve invested heavily in some people only to be screwed by them. The important thing is that I invest .000001% (still too much) of my time thinking about the negative, and it only happens when a name comes up, or reviewing old phone lists.
I really believe in only giving mind share to the things you can change, but I am also realistic to say “look does that name or face flash into my mind, yes, and do I think good thoughts, no” – I am human.
So I am writing this because I have recently re-connected with the first person who ever worked with me, Joe. As SEER transformed and changed Joe did too, and after a 3-3.5 year run he moved on. I made the mistake when he left that so many young managers do with their first teammates, I got sad (not mad), I was sad b/c Joe was going to explore different projects, he was a GREAT person, and I was sad that he didn’t want to work with “me” anymore. I took it personally, I thought I had done something wrong. I never let that on because I LOVED working with Joe and even though I was sad, he had been so great to us that I couldn’t be angry, only supportive.
So I start there, 3 people who are no longer at SEER, whom I hope are getting the best this world has to offer, and I wish nothing but the best for and what they’ve taught me.
First off, one of my core beliefs is to create happiness where I can, I want people to be happy, I feel life would be better for all if we were more positive. Below you can see a pic of Patrick and I …7 years after it “didn’t work out”… 🙂 We seem pretty happy huh? (in Tamarindo where he lives, he showed me & Nora all around Costa Rica)
So if you are not happy at SEER, so be it move on and find that thing that will make you happy and that is what Joe, Patrick, and Mark have done, and in reflecting on those three dudes I thought, HMMMMMM what is it about working with them that makes them fall into that category, where I LOVE meeting up with them, helping them when I can, they help me when I need it, when I see them…I hug their wives and are interested in how their lives are, if their new endeavors are panning out, and how I can help if they are not…its like we’re old friends, not bitter ex-employee/employer BS.
It all happened this year funny enough…Joe came to our office grand opening party (meant a LOT, my mom ran over and hugged Joe as soon as she saw him) and I’ve seen him twice since including today, I saw Patrick & his wife while in Tamarindo for a friends wedding, and I saw Mark & his wife just a few weeks ago in San Diego as we looked at new office space. There are definitely others (Staci & Bonnie – both left for families, etc) but these three guys will be my focus today:
So here’s my 9 takeaways if you wanna part ways on AMAZING terms, with your teammates (both employee and employer):
1 – You gotta actually care about each other personally and professionally
So I gotta be HAPPY for Mark when he told me he was moving to SD and to go working for an AWESOME company, not sad that I was losing him. I cared about Mark personally, and because I did, the personal side kicked in over the business side when he told me he was leaving. I was like OH crap, how can I ever replace him was my next thought! You aren’t truly wanting happiness for someone if when they discover that “thing” that will make them happiest and it happens to takes them away from you, you get angry.
2 – You have to respect each others paths
Even when you have to let someone go, they should respect that your company has a path and that they may no longer be right for that path, in the same way that they have the right to have a path and even after 2, 5, or 10 years they may choose to change paths. That happened with Patrick who moved out of the country altogether after we parted ways, today he runs a kick ass agency and he too, like Mark, is surfing on the regular (check out this video) I’m PUMPED for him. Having the time (after 5-6 years) to reconnect was awesome and time that I truly cherished, heck if I was able to change my path from teaching to SEO, how can I not be happy for someone else who changed their path!? That even reminds me of Leslie, who left to go back to school to work in non-profits…again how can I not be happy for that?
I think learned this in part from John Pogas & Sharon Cohen at AON (not my direct boss), whom when I told them I was leaving…John seemed truly happy for me – he just gave me travel recommendations yesterday actually! His “boss” Sharon asked me to come into her office and said she heard I was leaving…as I prepared to shake hands and get my cube all packed, she called me a “mensch” (which I was like umm what is that?) Sharon said, its just a “good egg” someone who is a “good guy!” I thought whew! The way I left AON to start SEER, left behind a trail of positive thoughts…why? Hopefully because first they saw my path was taking me in a different direction that would make me happier, but the time while we were together I did everything I could to make sure that for what I controlled I did an AMAZING job for them. How people treat you after you work for them says a LOT about how they thought about you while you did and to this day I love it when I bump into Sharon or chat with John via Facebook which we do often 🙂
3 – Be flexible on the way out
Give more than 2 weeks if you can, or at least make yourself available to help afterwards if its at all possible. Friends don’t leave each other high and dry, its not about 2 weeks, it’s about getting things to a point where the timing is right. I owe it to them to not drag it out, friends want to see friends happy, so its my job to appreciate the willingness but also expedite the process. In a company where you had impact there is a GOOD chance that your impact can’t just be wrapped up in 2 weeks and passed on to someone else.
4 – KICK ASS for your clients
You gotta leave behind you a bunch of clients who are sad to see you go…not thrilled they’ll get someone else. That is your legacy, you want your clients to be like OH NO. I’ll never forget one day I called one of Marks clients saying “there will be changes to how we are structured at SEER” before I finished he said…“You aren’t taking Mark away from my account are you?” in a panic. At the time the answer was no, but as a manager I said holy shit, he’s adding a ton of value, his clients are loving him!! Wow he’s gonna be hard to replace someday. I have a few people who have left a legacy so great that people who were hired after they were gone still hear about their impact. That’s how you want to leave things, on top!
5 – BE GREATAT YOUR JOB
As an employee, you have to do a GREAT WORK and be a person of high integrity, integrity means you work your fingers to the bone your last 2 weeks to make sure your current friends still at the company and your employer aren’t left holding the bag. No one misses sub par employees, actually when they quit you think…thank GOD I don’t have to get dinged for unemployment. But if you want to leave an impression on those around you, go out with integrity and helping make their lives easier.
6 – Minimize “Healing” time
Work to make it non existent, with Joe it took me a year to no longer feel regret that I had let him down or didn’t offer him the right opportunities at SEER, with Mark it was instantaneous happiness. The difference was about 7 years of learning and watching people come in and out. Today people like the above, are the kind of people you are happy for first. Staci, who is my ROCK, started off managing my schedule, then managing payroll, then our books, is leaving to start a larger family. I got the call that she wanted to talk, took a big gulp and returned it from my hotel room – I knew what was coming … I was immediately happy for her, TRULY. Then I thought … oh shit, I’m losing one of the few people who has been around since the beginning, which was a bit sad. I’ll miss her, which is why I had a guy record a BAD rendition of please don’t go girl in a gorilla suit on Fiverr. 🙂
Due to my travel schedule I find myself in the cities of ex-teammates all the time, I still try to hit them up when I can and if I can squeeze it in we meet up. These are PEOPLE, not widgets…just because you don’t work with me anymore shouldn’t stop me from caring about how you are doing and if you are happy. Again this is for the people for whom we ended on good terms obviously.
8 – Don’t hire people you dislike, fire the ones you work with and find over time you don’t like
This sounds obvious, but people get hired all the time by people who don’t like them. Its usually the “I need someone to do X for me” approach, that leads to this or the “they were really good at X part”. Hire for cultural fit first, always. Fire the people you don’t like, no one says be friends with everyone at work. If you work with people you seriously don’t like who don’t fit your culture the damage they do is widespread. If you don’t like them, you probably don’t invest in their happiness like you do others, so why be someone’s anchor? Cut em loose and let them start the process of finding the right match.
9 – Don’t look back in anger…I heard ya say
Once you minimize “healing” time, you’ll start to look back not with anger or sadness, but with happiness, you’ll be happy that you got to know that person, still know them, and still stay in touch, as that gives you a sideline seat to watch them as they find their happiest place. There are tons of other great reasons to love the employees that leave, as my mentor Brad Aronson has said.
Patrick, Joe, Mark, Bonnie, Staci, and so many others have created things or taught people things that are still helping us kick ass for clients today, or helping us in how we manage people today. I’ll tell you this, I’ll take being with them for a time period over never having met them at all, right?
What’s next?!
As Joe and I left Kraftwork for brunch we hugged, it was long enough that someone beeped at us. We laughed (Joe has a funny laugh), thinking they either could feel the love, or they thought we were gay! Joe walked down Girard Ave and headed home, I jumped in my car, we both knew that we’d see each other again and that when we did it would rock.
I opted out of writing a super long list of 2012 learnings, and instead decided to focus on one thing I always knew but could never articulate…the value of TRUST in all relationships. In 2012 I finally got to understand one thing that makes me tick…I’d rather be trusted than liked (obviously both is ideal, but if I had to choose one), but I can work on you liking me over time if you trust me, but if my word means nothing, then I have nothing.
Read this quote below, and DON’T read another thing. Step away from your computer for 2 minutes and just think about it for a sec.
“The moment there is suspicion about someone’s motives everything becomes tainted…” -Gandhi
Now ask yourself…who are you suspicious of at work? When they make a mistake (and we all do), do you give them benefit of the doubt? Or do you spend time trying to hunt down the truth, thinking of their angle, assuming they are doing something bad to you? Think of a time where someone screwed something up and you spent hours trying to verify the “real story” or “creating a case”, whether what that person said was true or not, you have indicated that you have no trust in them.
Now flip it, take another mistake someone made whom you have high trust in, when they came to you and admitted their mistake – did you spend hours digging to verify the truth? NOPE, you gave them benefit of the doubt, if they are someone you trust they probably approached you with a solution or how to avoid this again, and you all went back to work, working on the things that matter most.
In the first scenario (low trust) – you might invest hours or days (and tons of mental anguish) trying to figure out the truth, not working on your job for the day or spending time with your families.
In the second scenario (high trust) – you probably went back to work within minutes.
Which one is a better environment for you? Now ask yourself are you building that kind of environment for your clients and co-workers?
Low trust companies are slower because too often people question each others motives, and as you scale this lack of trust can grind decisions to a halt, while everyone stops to think…what’s the catch, what’s her angle?
This thought process started on a beach in Honduras…Since SEER’s inception we’ve given people the opportunity to work from home for a couple of hours a day (I’ve been logging about 3 hours on average) between Christmas and New Years, that is 12 consecutive days off this year.
Every year, Crystal and I tell our teams, whether or not we do that next year is up to you, don’t slack (keep our trust) and not keep up to date on client work and we’ll do it next year, if trust is broken, we’ll do it again next year just those people will be gone. If you think about it, taking off for 12 days and not expecting anyone to check in, would be detrimental to our clients, as Google, Twitter, Bing are making changes over that time and our paid search teams are managing hundreds of thousands of dollars in that stretch, so completely off doesn’t build that “we’ve got your back” style trust.
So back to the beach…most years because I have this downtime, Nora and I travel, last year it was Honduras, and man within the first day I could tell we were stuck, it was remote, when it rained we couldn’t get off the resort, and Nora and I are not resort people. I frantically jumped on wifi looking for flights to Rio, Medellin, anywhere… the problem is that there were like some days where no flights came onto the island, and we were going to be stuck for 9 days. So I read, a LOT, one book I read was Speed of Trust, and many of you are probably sick of hearing me say this, but that book summed up most of the things I learned this year.
Most of the lessons learned were around trust (duh), how to build it, and more importantly how we destroy it. If you do ONE thing in 2013, its to read that book.
This year I want to keep working on building trust with my team, my wife, and my clients, so when I make mistakes their first reaction is to give me benefit of the doubt, hopefully they in turn will do the same when I make mistakes, because I can guarantee that I will make mistakes, but I never have bad intentions when I do.
If I ask you how do you build integrity? How would you answer that?
My answer is simple…Make and keep commitments not just to your friends , coworkers, or boss, keep commitments to yourself. If you can’t keep commitments to yourself how do you build confidence you can do the same for others? If I see you from a distance committing to one thing and doing the opposite 2 weeks later, how do you think I’ll look at you when I need you?
As with most of my posts, I want to share some big mistakes made at SEER this year and how we used those mistakes to Illustrate trust in our team.
Tolerance for BIG mistakes w/ 3 examples…
On page 117 of the book there is a great example of how a manager at one of Warren Buffet’s companies made a 360 Million dollar mistake, Buffet kept him on board, the lesson there is if the company doesn’t tolerate mistakes, then you will build a culture where people don’t feel comfortable making decisions, grinding your company to a halt or building so many layers of management that you move slower.
The “Guest Post” Mistake
This year, we had someone reach out to SEOmoz for a guest post…(head smack)… OH NO! This person had not made massive contribution to the company yet, as they had only been here for 2-3 months, this would have been easy to fire them (it was not a 360 Million Dollar mistake, but it felt like it to me) we kept this person on board and said, let’s show you how to do REAL outreach and they are committed to getting better everyday! Thats a win, that is a win that builds trust throughout SEER. It builds trust with that person, but also tells the company, we are OK making mistakes…once…and learning from them.
The “oops I spent 15k of the client’s money in 2 weeks” mistake
We had someone spend 15k in PPC when they weren’t supposed to for a client we’ve had for about 6 years, Crystal who is my right hand man, woman, friend, you name it…hit me up, you know what she said…I want to give back all of the money out of SEER’s pocket. That hurt the wallet, but warmed the soul, as I look back at this year, hearing Crystal take that approach was HUGE, she wanted to take 15k of SEER’s money and give it back, ultimately we gave back a little over 50%, but I love that her FIRST reaction was to give it all, then after an analysis of the situation we realized we did get some conversions just at a high CPA, so she gave back half.
What you don’t know is that Crystal has been working tirelessly to work on our SEM team’s profitability (I wish she would blog about this), she knew this would set her back from the goals I set for the year. She also knew that this would show the client how much we cared, and it is how she would like to be treated, did that build trust… YOU BETCHA! She chose relationships over money! NICE!
Now this client has been with us for 6 years and we never made a mistake like that EVER, so we could have chalked it up to “but we never make mistakes like this” and see what happens. I have seen several people at other agencies get fired over offenses like this, again, the person at SEER approached Crystal with a solution (fixing it), immediately told her when they found it (not hiding it), and they were nervous after seeing other people fired at previous agencies for making that same mistake. This person is still one of our rising stars and we can’t wait to see what they do in the future!
This mistake was a HUGE win for Crystal because
She built trust with the client, while hurting her monthly profitability to do what she thought was right
She built trust with her team members, by not firing them, and showing that SEER has tolerance for mistakes (as long as we learn from them)
She built trust with ME, as when I look out at how Crystal makes decisions and as I ask her to do more to help this company and to help me run this company, I know she will do what’s right for the client and her team FIRST
To me it was also a win for her teammate, who immediately admitted his mistake, developed a solution to fix it. Making mistakes is expected, so making mistakes doesn’t break trust, hiding your mistakes and making someone find them does.
I have to write a separate post about this, but I’ll give the TL:DR version here.
The “Another new account manager this year, Wil?” Mistake
One of our best clients ended up having two account managers this year as we either let them go, or they felt the pressure and left. I felt horrible, this client is GREAT to SEER…and I was embarrassed that I had staffed the project with the wrong people (mistakes are mirrors, victories are windows…see below). The second account manager asked for an “opportunity” to show me and the team they could handle this…and I trusted that they would, unfortunately they didn’t handle it, and within 3 months of putting this person on one of my favorite accounts they quit, with no 2 weeks, and no initial offer to help transition. I was stuck.
Immediately I became an account manager, and I managed 5 projects as the day to day contact, on top of my other roles, which already gave me a full workload. I had to tell my wife that for the foreseeable future things would be tough, I would be coming home much later than usual, I would be cranky; I would sacrifice sleep so I could still spend a little time with my mom, wife, friends, etc. See, this is the GLUE that holds a REAL team together…when people care about one another enough that they try to help. So many people jumped in to help!
F being the “CEO”, our reputation was on the line with one client, and the best team members for these jobs were working at capacity. So the best person to move heaven and earth to get a project back on task was me, and I am still the point person for some of these projects, I’m on weekly calls, doing outreach, etc. its been HELL for me the past 4 months adding these to my workload but I felt that I had broken the client’s trust and had to be personally responsible for seeing this through.
When you succeed, do you see a window in front of you or a mirror?
I’ve already talked about why most people will never know if I am successful. However, when I look at my mistakes, I use the window and mirror metaphor, and I recommend all people do this…When things go well, you look through a window, look at everyone out there and give them credit for the success and the contributions they have made to create the success. When things don’t go well, look out at your team like there is a mirror in front of you instead of a window. Meaning, take the blame and don’t accuse others, and learn how to improve.
On Pg 119 – a part of the book that resonated with me was taking responsibility for your results BUILDS trust… (win or lose, own it)
There is a VAST chasm between:
I called the customer vs I closed the sale
I took a class vs I learned how to give an effective presentation
Talking smack on your company vs quitting and finding a company you like working for
I tried vs I did
Remember this… Beginners are many, finishers are few
Getting people to trust you is as much about how they feel as what you freaking deliver. Creating a great plan for the client, builds trust as you manage the day to day of that plan, they will see that you are on time, and are knocking out tasks and moving things along. If that plan doesn’t ultimately drive the outcome this will chip away at their trust over time. Trust is a combination of how you act, but also how you DELIVER. There are 2 dimensions of trust in the book, personal trust and expertise trust. Personal is the warmer & fuzzier part of trust / delivering is the concrete part.
When I took over one of the under-performing projects as the account manager it had 3 keywords on page 1, about 10 on page 2, today there are about 12 on page 1 and about 30 on page 2. In only 2 months after the first account manager worked on it for 6 months. That is STARTING to rebuild trust with that client, but we still have a LONG way to go. This is what I call giving a scent…with every passing week we get closer and closer, and its my hope that the client feels that, and with each week we are re-building trust as the results are taking form.
Guys remember trust is fragile.
This year I had to let someone go who was doing well because they did something to break my trust, it was a hard decision, but one I know was right. As I went through hours trying to see what happened when this client was ignored, I said, hold up! If I am at the point where I am checking your hours, we’re done. I don’t want that for YOU (to feel like someone is always watching you) and I REFUSE to have my job description become “hours checker”, as that is not fun for me.
The trust was broken and it was time to part ways. We both learned and both moved on. The client was shocked, but their response was, we TRUST you and we TRUST SEER, so if you are telling me this was the right thing to do, we believe that these issues would have manifested themselves down the road in ways we don’t see now and you are protecting us from that happening.
So when I look back at 2012, here are some examples that broke and built trust with me, and one thing I am still kicking myself for.
The actions that Broke Down Trust in 2012
This year many relationships were damaged (not always forever) that need repair, simply because of trust…
The company who I respected that I found out had a massive link network, even though on stage they talk all RCS
The company who I respected that charged a client almost to 10k remove links they built after that client got hit, we said F it and hired an intern on our dime to remove the links we felt so bad for this company. Ultimately the client took the project in house, as we couldn’t battle the penalty and their TRUST in agencies was damaged so much
The contractors we used to help us with clients, that wrote “epic” blog posts while not responding to any of my emails asking for updates and constantly talked about how epic the posts were going to be. I had to watch you update twitter about your epic posts right after I had to call my client disappointing them once again that we wouldn’t deliver on our promises this month.
Twitter can break trust! For the record, we as an industry, have to watch what the F we say on twitter!! If you make promises and update twitter 30 times a day and come in late on a deliverable, do you think that BUILDS trust? How would you feel if you @‘ed or emailed support for a company you use, and they never responded but sent 35 tweets out that day about epic content, their dog, and “you go boy”?? There is a person who prompted this post 5 years ago, they broke my trust then, and haven’t been sent a referral since, that one tweet coupled with his actions has impacted easily 200k-300k in referrals over 5 years. Yet he thinks we’re friends.
Now ask yourself, do you do that to your teammates, to your clients, to your family? I’m still struggling with howtousetwitter, but I am cognizant of how that can look,so I watch when I tweet.
The web design firm that won a big award by stuffing the ballot box with their employees and interns, does that build trust? Or does it say that you care so much about winning that you’ll stuff the ballot box? Did your friends just check your name off or did they actually review all the entrants and make an honest vote? This year SEER had a chance to win Philadelphia’s best places to work, I said SEER will never “coach” or “provide guidance” to people on how to answer how they feel about SEER, as a result we came in 3rd place. The company that won…had layoffs and we get a ton of their people’s resumes. Hopefully I showed my team that I don’t place awards or industry perceptions over HONESTY, ever.
Watching their interns vote for a company they only worked at for 5 days, speaks to the company but also the person…how can you vote for a company to win something if you don’t know anything about them, that shows a major lack of integrity. When someone asks you to vote for them for something, ask them “why” – ask them what they have done to deserve winning, if you just check off a check box, that is a lack of personal integrity. I don’t RT stuff b/c people ask me, I RT stuff b/c I think people will get value. Don’t compromise YOUR integrity to do a favor for someone.
The “friend” who talks smack on my real friends in the industry, focus your energy elsewhere.
The person who sold their company to basically cover debt, but talks about their “exit” only showing the good side and not the full truth.
The client who didn’t pay us after we made a strong ROI, but constantly updated Facebook with his trips to Vegas to see various DJs.
The actions that Built Up Trust in 2012
The time Joe Hall, DM’ed me as I shouted out an RCS example where there was tons of spam they were doing I didn’t see, he could have taken that as an opportunity to blow up my spot.
Or when Jen Lopez emailed me about the SUB PAR outreach we did to her
When Tom Critchlow referred a client to us whom we already worked with another division of the company when Distilled had a conflict, that relationship has flourished so much since, by me trusting Tom enough to tell him who our clients are, he actually was able to help us, showed mad integrity on his part.
When stuff hit the fan and John at Designbysoap.com pulled so many late nights to help us deliver for the client, I made a lot of mistakes and was under a lot of pressure after taking this client over, yet I have never seen a contractor take the mistakes that I made and say, I’m here for you and I will help you, like he did.
Paul May of Buzzstream showed amazing patience with our team and a true desire to see us get the most out of their tools, he took the promises they made personally and did everything he could (along with his team) to help us well after the sale.
A certain well known SEO who worked with SEER this year and gave us a lot of critical feedback that is helping me to make a better company, would link to you, but I don’t think you want that out there 😉
Some of my all time favorites, Rand Fishkin, Will Critchlow, and Shawn Collins
Rand I love how you always tell me when you disagree with me, having friends who will tell you straight up is key to building trust, I need critics more than cheerleaders to improve
I’m not going to mention team members b/c the list would get too long (remember if I don’t trust you, I’m recommending we part ways), but I have to shout out Crystal Anderson, the person who when she says she’ll do something never skips a beat…you’ve made growing this business fun, if I had to do it all w/o ya we’d be a LOT smaller.
The friends who work at competing agencies who would let me know if a client of ours was shopping around, I dunno if I could even do that, but you’ve challenged me to with your openness.
The vendors like Rackspace and Basecamp that are always there to help when we have issues
The thing I did to break trust last year that I’m kicking myself over:
The one thing I am still kicking myself over is showing up 5 minutes late for my panel at Distilled’s London conference, I know it was 5 minutes, but the stress I probably put on Will, Duncan, and Lyndsey made me feel horrible. Distilled has been so good to me and the SEER crew over the years, and I let them down, even if it was for 5 minutes. I hated that.
Ask yourself…
Tonight when you put your head on the pillow, think about how you treated people, your family, your clients, your team members, and ask yourself if they treated me that way would I trust them more or less? Remember trust is a lot like cheating on a spouse…the act of cheating can erase 10 years of faithfulness in 10 minutes. If you are faithful for 5,259,480 minutes out of 5,259,490 over 10 years of marriage your significant other ain’t gonna be ok with the argument that you are trustworthy 99.9999% of the time, so lets treat trust that same way, its easy to break in minutes, but takes years to build. (yeah Google how many minutes are in a year, and see a nice surprise)
Lastly, on pg 215 there was a quote…
“When you make a commitment you build hope, when you keep it you build trust.”
If you want the book LMK, I’m willing to send out 50 copies on my dime (US only) that’s how much I believe this book and its core message have impacted me this year, maybe we can get @coveylink to match my 50?? Just leave a comment below with your thoughts (even if you think I’m an ass for writing this) but if you want it let me know. I’ll try to figure out a way to get you a copy – for now reading this might be a great start.
