Enough To Be Dangerous...
Do you know your profession inside and out? Do you live it, eat it, drink it, breathe it daily? Can you hold your own with a room full of peers because you know your “stuff” so well? Yes. The answer is yes. You, my friend are an expert. Experts know the ins and outs, experts have walked the walk and bitten the dust a few times. Experts know how to get it done without blinking an eye. Then there’s Mike.
Mike knows a little bit about everything. He dabbles here, he dabbles there. He tells you how it should be because he read that article once about the thing with the widget and the flux capacitor. He gets news alerts in his inbox about widgets and trusts everything. Heck, he’s even listened to a podcast or two about a thing or two and NOW he knows. Yes my fellow experts, Mike is real, and Mike is here to tell you how you should skin the cat, how you should roll, how you should focus on this or not focus on this. Mike has never actually done what you do, but gosh darnit, he read that article on LinkedIn and has a friend on Twitter who agrees most of the time.
The Mike’s of the world distract the experts of the world. The Mike’s of the world become the CEO’s “consultant” and throw everything off course so that they can simply keep their gig. The Mike’s of the world can ultimately end up single-handily throwing an entire company off course just because of a shiny object.
Knowing enough to be dangerous is a huge danger. Learning by doing, learning by experience, learning by the ole’ school of hard knocks is what makes an expert an expert. A never ending quest for learning coupled with a never-ending zest for finding a better, newer and more relevant way of doing this is what makes YOU an expert. Learning to trust your gut is challenging, but will ultimately insulate you from the many Mike’s of the world.
In my world, there are millions of Mike’s. They know how to do SEO better because their cousin Joey once got a site ranked in Bing by altering some code. They think Social Media isn’t right for your business because it simply just doesn’t ROI, they think that content can be churned out quicker, faster and cheaper in India and simply don’t get why we’re creating it in the first place. The Mike’s of the world are fixated on one particular portion of marketing and never look at the big picture because they kind of sorta know something about that particular portion. The Mike’s of the Digital Marketing world are everywhere and news-flash, the Mike’s aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
How do you keep the Mike’s out? You don’t budge. You stay the course. You stay grounded. You challenge. If you’re not allowed to challenge, you get the hell away from Mike. The Internet has made it stupid simple to get to see what Mike is really about. Use it. Challenge him. Avoid him, take his advice ALWAYS with a grain of salt.
My Latest Media Appearances
Stay Connected
Don't Feed The Suckerfish
I love to help people. It’s a passion, it’s a part of who I am as an individual. It gives me great satisfaction to help a community along, to help a business along, to help a non-profit move the needle, it’s just a good feeling. UNTIL I meet a suckerfish.
Suckerfish will suck the life out of you. Suckerfish will show up un-announced, suckerfish will EXPECT your time, suckerfish will not thank you for the knowledge they have sucked out of your brain. Once they determine that you no longer will provide them with free work / information / knowledge, they will move on to another victim within either your organization or your industry and suck them dry as well and then proceed to complain / bash YOU for cutting them off.
How to spot a suckerfish:
– They pit you against other businesses.
– They never really accomplish anything of business worth.
– They break down and belittle others with zero remorse.
– They oftentimes talk out of their ass and don’t have a clue.
– They are very quick to judge others but never look at themselves.
Suckerfish can be found everywhere, sometimes consultants, sometimes competitors, sometimes members of an organization you are a part of, sometimes disguised as friends. Suckerfish will completely distract you. It’s imperative that you spot them quickly and cut them off from the source as rapidly as you can.
It all comes down to boundaries and valuing your own time, so here are some ways to bypass suckerfish all together:
– Never let people just pick your brain without billing them for the time or only giving them 15 minute increments, etc.
– Create boundaries and stick to them. Don’t answer their call every time, don’t answer every email. If you aren’t getting paid for this time, you’re simply losing money.
– Don’t accept dangled carrots. If I had a nickel for everytime I heard that someone would be connecting me with so and so, or that they will get business if I give them some time in exchange, I’d be a freaking millionaire. Dangled carrots NEVER work.
– Get a gatekeeper. Putting someone in front of you as a line of defense is amazing if you can afford it. Let them answer your phone calls / set your appointments, etc.. Hire a tough one. Suckerfish are good at getting past enemy lines.
If you feel called to help folks out, volunteer on a board (with your boundaries) or offer to mentor an MBA or graduate student at a local college, you’ll find this to be way more gratifying.
Thanks for reading and sharing.
@TomJelneck
My Latest Media Appearances
Stay Connected With Me On Twitter
It’s Not You, It’s Us. Oh Wait, No, It’s You.
Being in business for over 10 years has exposed my company to a wide variety of characters. I’ve meet amazing people. I’ve meet not-so-amazing people. I’ve meet people who would give you the shirt off of their back, I’ve met people who live to rip other people off. I’ve met people who tell the truth, I’ve met people who don’t have an honest bone in their body. Over the years I’ve learned MANY lessons. Lessons of humility, lessons of practicality and PLENTY of lessons about humanity.
I do consider myself a good judge of character but sometimes, I completely miss the call. I’ll see a prospect that I think we should pursue, their story checks out, their budget seems legit, they talk the right talk, they agree and shake their head when I try my darndest to manage expectations, I take on their project and within a month, I regret every second of it and EVERY dollar of it.
We recently took on a digital marketing job that was packaged just right. It looked right, the product looked right, the foundation was in place, but when I met the folks in our conference room, I could tell that something wasn’t quite right. I should have trusted that feeling. 2 months went by, after we went overboard explaining what to expect out of an SEO campaign and then they wanted to meet. No big deal, it will be an opportunity to show them the amazing results that our team has produced. Analytics were all way up over the last 3 months, search results were WAY up way quicker than expected, leads were up by 60% over the previous quarter, things were looking way up.
24 hours after that productive meeting, they fired us. The ex-client exclaimed how SEO just takes way too long. They noted that they received 0 leads, (totally incorrect.) They noted that their search results were not as expected (despite several number one rankings in 2 months). They noted that their son-in-law could do the job and will do it for free from here. This is always frustrating for my team. They truly put their hearts and souls into each client campaign. They all go the extra mile, they all take a loss personally. I feel partially responsible for that. I should have said no to their business from the beginning. I should have realized that they would bail as soon as they actually started to get rankings. This would probably explain why they had been through 4 SEO / Digital Marketing companies in a one year period. Lesson learned.
A wise man once told me, you can’t expect your business to grow if you never say no. In fact, I read an article just this week that illustrated how some of the world’s most successful CEO’s say no 78% of the time. Saying no means saying no to new business that just doesn’t feel right. Saying no means not letting customers work around your boundaries. Saying no means not dropping your pants on pricing just to get the business. Saying no can sometimes SUCK. But, it HAS to be said. It’s not easy. It’s not fun. It’s NEVER popular, but at the end of the day, it’s your organization. It’s your products and services that people need. It’s your business process, employees, your bottom line, your life. I should have listened to that wise man AND my gut with this particular client.
The bottom line, if you ever feel that the person / company you’re about to do business with is not above board, you owe it to yourself, to the integrity of your business, to the sanity of your employees and to the bottom line of your company to walk away. Practice saying no. Practice it often. You can still provide excellent customer service by creating boundaries. Could you lose clients? Sure. Will some clients expect a YES all of the time? Yes. The truth is, great clients will understand that you need boundaries, that you have a process, a system and a method to your operations. Those, my friends, are golden clients.