I've been a member here on ActiverRain for a long time, having contributed to a wild variety of conversations and debates.
However- one that I've stayed clear of is the "Do it yourself SEO" community here. Just searching for "Do it yourself SEO" here on AR, there are over 300 posts on the subject. I am not against the do it yourself community, but I'm going to draw a very clear comparison of successful, and not so successful businesses.
Besides real estate, I work with a lot of businesses that are in high-growth mode. These range from start-ups with a great idea, to established businesses that are pushing to the "next level"
My #1 piece of advice to 95% of them:
Do what you do best, and have someone else do everything else.
The core element of building a business is management and process development. Whether we like it or not, we are all constrained to the 40-60 hour work week. Some of us work 80 hour weeks... but the end fact is that we all only have so many hours to work.
When working with start-up companies, the founder or CEO is often a genius in their own right. They often have this perfect idea that will change the world, but they don't know how to do anything but create the "perfect widget". As they realize the potential, they have to bring on specialists to grow the company utilizing experience and talent they do not possess.
To believe that one can perfect themselves at many time-demanding skills is simply flawed logic. These start-up geniuses may have an IQ higher than mine, and may actually have the best idea since sliced bread, but they do not have my skills. They do not have my talent or aptitude. They do not have the vision that they need to grow a business team.
Whether or not a real estate agent is singular, working with a partner, or even working with a broker... successful professionals are leveraging a team of people to bring talent and skills into their professional umbrella.
I'll use myself as an example. I'm a tech geek from birth. My mother, father, and grandmother all worked in various encryption roles at the National Security Agency. I remember my father bringing home stacks of coding in huge binders and teaching me how to write code so that I could play a game of Asteroids. You don't have a geekier childhood. Every single position I have held in my career has had a technology description: from Web Manager, Technology Evangelist, to President of SocialMediaSystems.
Like any other company, I took a dose of my own advice. My customer service skills are pretty exemplary, but I have a customer service manager on staff. I can code web pages while half-asleep and wired on ten cups of coffee with the geeks, but my lead developers usually handle 99% of our coding. From a creative artwork perspective, I can create award-winning national graphics... but now I only tweak my occasional article image.
The lesson I practice:
I have many talents, but there is only one of me. There are people who, even though I sometimes do not like it or would rather do it myself, are five times better qualified and even more talented in a specific niche than I am. I only have 40-60 hours a week to work, and if I attempt to "do it myself" then I never have more than 40-60 hours of labor per week.
How does this relate to online marketing and SEO?
I know for a fact that my developers can code things in 15 minutes that would take me an hour or more to do. They have economy of scale, focus on a niche, and the gift of having an uninterrupted schedule. They have the ability to monitor things like Mashable.com and sites like it, watching dozens (sometimes hundreds) of new media tools being launched every month (trust me on this, just reading a few of these announcement sites is a full-time job.)
The lesson to learn:
"Do It Yourself" is not scalable solution. I assume that every real estate professional my team interacts with is a talented business person who knows how to complete the home transaction for a client. When I see someone doing "Do It Yourself" online marketing, I often ask myself if they are the same real estate professional who is doing the landscaping work to get a home ready to sell... when in fact they should be using a professional landscaper.
If you can work 30-40 hours a week at your own profession- the thing you are truly talented at, you will not only have a better business, but you'll be doing the thing you love.
As always, comments are welcome.
Comments(10)