Have a Crisis

Whether you’ve hit your mid-life, or you’re a bit before or a bit after, now’s a good time for a crisis. No, I don’t mean go tanning and buy a corvette. I mean it’s time to step back and assess the road behind. Take a look back on the past decade or two. You might be thinking, “Wow. Where did the time go?”…”Will the next decade blow by even faster?”

Why do you work at your current job? Is it the company mission? Pause a moment, and in your own words, describe your company’s mission.

Go ahead, we’ll wait.

…

When referring to your company, did you say “They” or did you say “We”?

If you said “they,” then maybe you’re not as connected as you want to believe you are. If you’re not in it for the mission, then maybe it’s your profit motive.

Listen to MasterCard

You know the ads, and they all end up with, “There are some things money can’t buy.” As it turns out, on the top of that list is genuine job satisfaction. As Dan Pink cites in his book, ”the correlation between money and happiness is weak – that past a certain (and quite modest level), a larger pile of cash doesn’t bring people a higher level of satisfaction.” According to strategy guru Gary Hamel, “as an emotional catalyst, wealth maximization lacks the power to fully mobilize human energies.”

This doesn’t mean you should disregard profits, but that you should see profit and purpose as equal. Dan goes on to explain that purpose-oriented goals, on the other hand, reliably produce higher levels of satisfaction and subjective well-being.

Purpose to the Rescue

As Dan says in the video, “Companies that are flourishing are animated by purpose.” And his book goes on to say that ”Autonomous people working toward mastery perform at very high levels. But those who do so in the service of some greater objective can achieve even more.”

It’s only when businesses disregard the purpose motive that “bad things happen.” Like bad ethics, bad products, bad customer service, or a bad work environment.

Your purpose can be as simple as turning any one of those bad things on its head. Like Zappos, who pledged to give great customer service, no matter what. Or Skype, who wanted to create a free internet-powered phone service, and succeeded.

But it can be more personal than that, too. Many of our Agency Owners value the freedom, or autonomy, to work how they want to work. Most of them are simply thankful for the extra time they get to spend with their family, or doing the simple things that they love, like golfing or gardening.

And studies have shown that if people can’t find their purpose already packaged up in that once-in-a-blue-moon job opening, “they’ll create a venture of their own.”

How to Shape the World

If you’re reading this, chances are that you come from the world of marketing, or are interested in getting involved. That’s a good thing! One of the greatest forces for change on this planet is the economy, both broad market development as well as granular customer choices. Marketing is the catalyst for that change. Great marketing can galvanize a local economy, reunite a community, or tip the scales on our scientific advancement. Great marketing can.

As an internet marketing Agency Owner, you will have the opportunity to choose how to shape the world. You can choose who to work with, what to work on, when to do it, where to do it, how to do it, and most of all, why to do it. You’ll have full autonomy, mastery, and purpose in your work.

Your dream job is not a job, it is your own internet marketing business.

To learn more about the SearchMarketMe internet marketing Agency Owner program, check out our website at www.SearchMarketMe.com. To receive our new “5 Steps to Success” PDF, feel free to email 5steps@searchmarketme.com or give us a call at (206) 201-2320.

Check out the first two parts of “Your Dream Job is Not A Job”:

Part 1 of 3: Autonomy

Part 2 of 3: Mastery

Also check out Dan Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Are You Bored, or Are You Stressed Out?

These are the two most common complaints people make about their jobs. You’re either given boring and uninspiring tasks that fail to take advantage of your skills and talents, or you’re given frustrating and stressful tasks that demand skills and talents you don’t have.

“In the United States, more than 50 percent are not engaged at work — and nearly 20 percent are actively disengaged.” Whichever side you fall on, whether you’re bored or you’re stressed out, your employer is failing to engage you. Your work doesn’t let you “tune in” or “get in the zone” or, to use Dan Pink’s terminology, it doesn’t let you flow.

“In flow, the relationship between what a person had to do and what he could do was perfect,” he writes. The work was not too easy and not too hard, not too rigid but not too open-ended. Dan Pink calls them “Goldilocks tasks”: just the right balance and fit to engage you. 

“Only engagement can produce mastery,” says Pink.

People Want and Need Mastery.

That’s why we’re seeing more and more world-changing innovations that are free and open-source, like Linux, Wikipedia, and Joomla CMS. Moreover, companies like Microsoft, Patagonia, and Toyota promote a flow-friendly workplace because it has proven to “increase productivity and satisfaction at work.“ In a study of over 11,000 scientists and engineers, the capacity for “flow” was the best predictor of productivity.

“The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging,” says Harvard Professor Teresa Amabile, “inspires the highest levels of creativity, whether it’s in the arts, sciences, or business.”

So how do you become a master? Here’s 2 straightforward steps:

Step 1: Know Thyself

See if you can answer these questions about yourself:

• Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
• Are you more intellectual or intuitive?
• What kinds of tasks are your really good at?
• What tasks do you really love doing?

The first and foremost requirement for letting your talents shine is autonomy, or the freedom to choose your own task, time, technique, and team. And the best way to get all of those things is by becoming an entrepreneur.

However, running your own business can be a stressful experience. It can sometimes seem like you’ve got to accomplish tasks that you’re just not prepared for. Many first-time entrepreneurs throw in the towel precisely because they cannot flow.

We’ve heard business owners express that feeling time and again, and that’s why we’ve created a program that lets every one of our internet marketing Agency Owners find their own sweet spot, without getting bored or stressed out.

• Our Training Portal contains over 300 individual resources across all 6 major internet marketing categories, so you have the freedom to match your innate talents with tasks that let you shine
• Our Network of over 100 online marketing agencies allows you to specialize in what you love, and provides the perfect support system for professional advice, assistance, or hands-free outsourcing
• Our Ongoing Support is always there when you need it, to answer any question you might have and to deliver the resources you need

To learn more about the SearchMarketMe internet marketing Agency Owner program, check out our website at www.SearchMarketMe.com. To receive our Opportunity Overview document, to schedule a personal walk-through of the program, or to sit in on one of our classes, feel free to email kristib@searchmarketme.com or give us a call at (206) 201-2320.

Check back next week for “Your Dream Job is Not A Job – Part 3 of 3: Purpose”

Check out last week’s post, “Your Dream Job is Not A Job - Part 1 of 3: Autonomy”

Check out Dan Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Will Rak

Director of Education

Well, it turns out your dream job is not a job.

This week, we’re looking a quick, entertaining video narrated by Dan Pink on what really drives us, and turning it into very practical advice: your definitive guide to the first of 3 essential qualities of your dream job.

Who here loves to be managed?

Being an employee means you’ll be managed. There’s no two ways about it. The traditional view of management is that the more rigid the system, the more reliable the results will be.

But who does this model benefit? Certainly not the people doing the work. Daniel Pink asserts that, “our basic nature is to be curious and self-directed.” But management isn’t recognizing this need of yours, and it really ought to.

Pink cites several studies which show that autonomy in the workplace produces:

• greater conceptual understanding
• better grades
• enhanced persistence
• higher productivity
• less burnout
• greater levels of psychological well-being

And “businesses that offered autonomy grew at four times the rate of the control-oriented firms and had one-third the turnover.”

Who here loves to be managed? Nobody does. And it just doesn’t work.

The 4 T-Essentials of Autonomy

#1 – Task

Instead, imagine having almost a full week every month to work on whatever you wanted to. And imagine that, when you were all finished, your boss loved it. Sounds like a dream, right?

Try working for Atlassian, 3M, or Google. Companies like these regularly schedule 20% of employees’ time for whatever the employees want. One Google engineer, Alec Proudfoot, remarks, “Just about all the good ideas here at Google have bubbled up from 20 percent time.” On that list are popular services like: Gmail, Google News, Orkut, Google Talk, Google Translate, and more.

You know you’re just brimming with great ideas, perhaps very profitable ideas. You just need the freedom to pursue them.

#2 – Time

“Ever wonder why lawyers, as a group, are so miserable?” asks Dan Pink.

It mostly comes down to the fact that at the core of law firms is the most mechanistic business model imaginable: the billable hour. Imagine an inventor like Thomas Edison or an actor like George Clooney billing hourly. Imagine a painting race between Picasso and Dali. It would never work. Autonomy over your own time is the key to creative growth. ”If the billable hour has an antithesis, it’s the results-only work environment,” summarizes Pink.

SearchMarketMe Agency Owners typically charge their clients on a per-project basis, or on a monthly retainer contract. Both models are perfect examples of a results-only work environment. You’re accountable for results, but you set your own schedule and you get the work done when you want to.

#3 – Technique

Do you ever feel like a cog in the machine?

To best illustrate a lack of autonomy, take the example of a call center representative. With conversation flowcharts, scripts, and quotas, they are little more than a cog with a voice.

Yet companies like Zappos.com, JetBlue, 1-800-Flowers, and even the IRS let their customer service reps work from home, which means no commuting, and nobody peering over your shoulder and watching your every move. Employees have autonomy over their own technique.

Likewise, Dan Pink notes that “Zappos consistently ranks as one of the best companies for customer service in the United States…roughly equal to ritzy brands like Jaguar and the Ritz-Carlton.”

Most SearchMarketMe Agency Owners start out their businesses working right from the comfort of their own homes. For client meetings, they go to the client or otherwise meet at a neutral location, like a luncheon out. It works for their clients, and they absolutely love it.

#4 – Team

Unlike Whole Foods, very few companies allow the employees to choose their own coworkers. ”Enterprising souls might be able to scratch out some autonomy over task, time, and technique — but autonomy over team is a taller order,” says Pink “That’s one reason people are drawn to entrepreneurship — the chance to build a team of their own.”

Now we come full circle. Maybe you’ll find a company that lets you choose a project or two of your own. Maybe you’ll be held acc0untable for results instead of hours. Maybe you can even work from home.

But where on earth will you find all of those?

Only you know the best path for you to be more productive, more successful, and more satisfied with your work. You need the freedom to direct yourself. You need the autonomy to walk that path.

World-famous marketing guru Seth Godin said it best, “As an entrepreneur, I’m blessed with 100% autonomy over task, time, technique, and team.” SearchMarketMe Agency Owners have the added benefit of a Network of over 100 like-minded marketing professionals. So they can collaborate, outsource, and choose who to work with and how.

To learn more about the SearchMarketMe internet marketing Agency Owner program, check out our website at www.SearchMarketMe.com. To receive our Opportunity Overview document, to schedule a personal walk-through of the program, or to sit in on one of our classes, feel free to email kristib@searchmarketme.com or give us a call at (206) 201-2320.

Check back next week for “Your Dream Job is Not A Job – Part 2 of 3: Mastery”

Check out Dan Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Will Rak

Director of Education

This means they open a business doing some technical thing that they know how to do:

• Lawyers open law firms
• Architects open architectural firms
• Graphic designers open graphic design studios

We call these people entrepreneurs, however, it is more accurate to say they are technicians who own their jobs.

True entrepreneurs are different. True entrepreneurs identify business opportunities and then create businesses to profit from those opportunities. 

Our newest Agency Owner, Jan Kaplan, is a true entrepreneur. Jan has built and sold seven different companies. Seven!

WATCH VIDEO

After selling his seventh company, Jan turned his attention to the fast-growing world of internet marketing and wanted to get involved. His research led him to us. He immediately recognized that SearchMarketMe presents a compelling opportunity to build a sustainable and scalable internet marketing business - the very kind that could be attractive to a future buyer (at a nice profit to Jan).

We are working with Jan now, providing training and support in all facets of internet marketing know-how as well as small marketing agency management.

We don’t think it will  be long before Jan builds the kind of business someone else will want to pay top dollar to buy from him.

Interested in opening your own internet marketing business? Visit www.searchmarketme.com and request the newly revised Opportunity Overview today.

“The attention economy  is not growing, which means that we have to grab the attention that someone else has today.” ~Brent Leary

Well the Internet is a mixed blessing for you. On the one hand, the good news is that the answers are out there. On the other hand, it could take months to collect it all and make sense of it.

On Monday, we eliminated much of that struggle for you with our Content-palooza webinar event. In addition to an already robust curriculum in Content Marketing, we added the following:

• Publishing Strategy & Editorial Calendar
  How to use your existing resources to execute an effective publishing strategy that will achieve your client’s goals, as well as how to put together and use an editorial calendar (calendar template included for your use).
  Presented by one of our newest Agency Owners, Farrah Holder, Founder of ThinkNXT Marketing
• 7 Steps to Incredible Copywriting (Without Writing!)
  How to construct website or blog copy to maximize readership, impact, and ultimately action, including proven formulas for headlines, bullet points, and more.
• Multimedia & Re-purposing Content
  How to re-purpose your text content to fit your available distribution channels, encourage interaction, and guide prospects through your sales cycle, how to produce top-notch multimedia content like images, podcasts, videos, presentations, and webinars, and how to manage campaigns large and small, cheap to expensive.
• Keyword Implementation
  The very best ways to embed keywords into your website copy, blog posts, and multimedia to balance readability and SEO benefit, as well as an update on how search engines’ approach to keyword implementation continues to evolve.
• Content Distribution
  Our innovative 4-step process for where and how to publish your content, secrets for leveraging the best distribution channels with the greatest efficiency, and a long list of resources with our top recommendations.

It was quite the event! During our presentations, I heard attendees exclaim, “very thorough” and even “impressive!”

Don’t worry, you didn’t miss it! We recorded nearly 5 hours of webinar presentations, and added almost 20 new professional resources. Our Content Marketing category alone contains over 40 resources, and is only one of several categories in our training database.

OK, so you’ve got content covered. Still wondering how you’re going to defeat that towering Goliath? Sign up to attend our free course on “How to Be a Giant Killer,” and our CEO Boyd Karren will personally help you to form a business model and strategy to dominate your competitors, no matter how big they are. To sign up, send an email to KristiB@SearchMarketMe.com.

To learn more about what makes our opportunity unique, check out the SearchMarketMe Agency Owner program.

Will Rak

Director of Education

SMM can teach you how to unseat giants with your internet marketing agency

We just completed one of the free classes we offer: “MGMT 102 – How to Be a Giant Killer,” and had an absolute break-through moment with a prospective Agency Owner in Tampa, Florida.

He told us at the beginning of the class that he has been really struggling to identify (or think up) a unique selling proposition – and then, half-way through today’s class, he had the “Aha!” moment we love to witness. And we mean L-O-V-E to witness.

Being able to present something truly unique about your internet marketing agency is the key to winning new business and achieving the growth and financial success you want.

We’ll be holding additional “Giant Killers” classes next week – email kristib@searchmarketme.com for a schedule of upcoming days & times!