This is it folks, the last session at SearchFest 2009! [Tears...]
Anne Kennedy of Beyond Ink is going to talk about A Proust Questionnaire…for Business
1. What is your idea of perfect business happiness: A great team, contented customers, and profits.
2. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?: A cute farm with a punch clock [I completely agree with Anne]
3. What is the trait you most appreciate in other? Relentless resourcefulness (you have to be to be a great SEO)
4. What is your principal talent? Networking, Anne is a connector. (Read Made to Stick)
5. Where do you most like to run a business? In the Cloud (you have to be everywhere - think virtually and globally)
6. What do you consider the most overrated business virtue? Thrift (you have to spend money to make money)
7. What is your greatest fear? Not making payroll
8. What’s your greatest regret? Having to let people go (don’t hang on too long with an employee that is not performing - You are working for the employees)
9. What is your greatest extravagance? Travel (black town cars that pick up at the airport!]
10. What is the trait you deplore? Wasting time on stupid things.
11. When do I lie? When I have a hair appointment she says she has a meeting
12. What is your motto? Follow the money (This will tell you how it works)
13. What’s your current state of mind? What’s next
Adam Audette with AudetteMedia is up!
He is a big fan of the simple slide show - Thank you Adam! Easier for the live blogging.
A little background on Adam
Second generation search marketer - Adam’s dad, John Audette founded MMG. Adam worked for MMG. MMG is now Outrider.
Adam is now the President, Chief Geek or AudetteMedia, Inc.
Seniro SEO manager for Zappose
Senior SEO strategist of international agency.
Search is Rocking! Search is going off even with the Economy but there has never been so much crap. The market is absolutely saturated. How do you know what is good or not from a client perspective? The industry is immature. It has a lot of growing up to do. So what do you do? Differentiate yourself! Differentiate your marketing, yourself and your services.
Differentiate Yourself
Have skillz - if you don’t have them go to Search Engine Land, SEOmoz, etc.. and read, read, read
Contribute to the industry - offer great blog posts, post on people’s sites, guest post, go to conferences
Put Yourself Out there - introduce yourself at conference, email and say nice to meet you
Ignore “stardom” trap - Think about how you can add value
Differentiate your Services
Core Competencies - What’s your specialty? Excel at them.
Expertise! - Can you help someone or not? Don’t take clients you can’t help
Walk the talk - retainers are not over, performance based marketing
Focus on the client - You need the client, how can they help their business?
Differentiate Your Marketing
Be on Twitter - follow everyone in search. Share information.
Ask for Help - Being willing to ask experts for help
Blog, blog, blog! - Be very active about that, you might end up on Search Engine Land that gets sindicated.
Know Your Values
Core values - know what they, build toward a clear vision.
You build what you practice
Focus your team on their strengths
Build a smart team
Lead by example
Hire great people
Build upward mobility
Foster and reward growth
John Audette wrote The Sweet 16: Principles for Building a Successful Internet Business.
Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz is up
1. Why Start a Business? Rand’s motivation and focus has changed over time.
2002 - Stay Alive [had to decide who to pay. Rand says he had a very nice girlfriend (now his wife) who paid the rent]
2005 - Build a Brand in SEO
2007 - Find the Right Path
2009 - Scale (consulting is a hard business to scale)
2. Who do you hire & how do you find them?
I know, trust & like them
Passionate about their work (look at what they do outside of their career)
“Fit” with the company culture
3. The Most Important Hires You’ve Ever Made?
Sarah Bird - Hired as Counsel, Now COO
Nick Gerner & Cen Hendrickson - Linkscape Engineers
Matt Inman - Former CTO
4. What’s Your Competitive Advantage & How Do You communicate It?
History & Profile (Rand is shy so he had to learn how to promote his company)
Boutique Level of Service (Allows him to do the kind of work that they want to do)
Technology (Link Graph, etc…)
Rigorous Process
5. How Do You Decide What Products/Services To Offer?
Competence with Deliverable (looks inside the company to find what your specialties are)
Passion for the Work (Rand loves site audits)
Scalability of the Deliverable
Educational or Promotional Value to the Company
6. What Payment Model Do You Use & Why?
Consulting - Custom Pricing (He upped his consulting rate and didn’t experience a decrease in demand)
Product - Monthly & Annual Pricing
DVDs/Seminars - Fixed Pricing
7. What Has Been Most Effective?
Consulting - Speaking & Networking
Product: Raising prices, email marketing, testimonials
8. What are you moste exited about trying?
Consulting - Building in Better process
9. What’s It Like Doing Business in The Current Market?
2008=Rough Year
Dec09 through March09=Great months
10. What Behaviors have you had to change to become your organization’s leader?
Personal scalability & tasks
Sensitivity to criticism
Answering email
Employees as friends (It creates conflict)
Product - “I am not the customer”