Now, where was I… Oh Yeah, I was telling you about selling vacuumn cleaners and telemarketing health insurance leads for the NASE.

The Day The Compound Burned

I remember the month was April, it seems like everthing crazy that happens in America happens in April, and I was sitting in the break room watching TV. How could I forget that day? I was watching David Koresh’s compound down in Waco TX burn to the ground. Yeah, you remember where you were on that day too, don’t you?

Shortly after leaving my break, everyone in the office was called into the manager’s office to find out we were getting a $1 an hour cut in pay. He put it something like this, “If you don’t want to play, punt!”. Indignant – I quit on the spot. I don’t have to put up with this! Telemarketing is hard enough, and now you want to pay me even less to torture myself? I don’t think so!

Back at home (1 bedroom apartment), I explained the situation to my wife – who then told me I had to go back right away and beg for my job back.  

So, I drug myself back to ”Mr. Punt or Play” and humbly asked for my job handcuffs back. He took me back (after a short, well-deserved rebuke) and I hooked my weary ear up to that merciless auto-dialer for another several months while looking for a new, better-paying job.  

$1 MORE AN HOUR @ AT&T

As you can probably guess by the title above, I found a job doing contract labor for AT&T. At the time they were upgrading existing customers to their new (more expensive) business service. Once again, my weary ear was attached to the merciless auto-dialer… “Beep… Hello! This is Mike with AT&T. May I please speak with Mr. Jones?”

Somebody around there thought I was doing a good job. So, I was “promoted” to their new personal 800 service. After a few days of training, I was off and running taking phone calls (rather than making phone calls!). That’s when I had a earth-shattering enlightenment – There’s a world of difference when somebody calls you and when you have to call them.

Okay, time is ticking away again… hopefully, I’ll get to the usefulness of humility in my next Dallas SEO post on this topic.

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More Honor = More Humiliation

It’s not that I miss my $60 because that full gas tank represents freedom for me and my family. I would rather have my freedom than my $60. It seems like a fair exchange for 350 miles of go anywhere you want to go unrestrained freedom, but it started me to thinking – twenty years ago, $60 meant different things to me.

Twenty years ago, I would have to mow 4-5 yards to make $60.

I probably had a dozen or more lawn customers. At the low-end I would get $7 and at the high-end $20 per yard. I did have one customer willing pay $30, but I ditched them because they were 10 times the hassle of my $10 customers.

Twenty years ago, I would have to put in 20 hours at the local pizza place to make $60.

My dad got me a job at the local pizza place one summer back in the ’80’s. Funny thing, I really liked that place until I started working there. Since I didn’t have much enthusiasm for my job, my boss didn’t have much enthusiasm to put me on the schedule.

I never got fired, they just lowered my hours from 20 a week to 10 a week to 5 a week to 3 a week to check back next week. Eventually, I just quit checking back… I had lawns to mow!

Twenty years ago, my Grandma would sneak me $60 every once in awhile.

Her first husband died several years before I was born. I called her second husband “PaPa” and loved him very dearly. However, it wasn’t until “PaPa” passed away that I figured out Grandma didn’t have a whole lot of freedom to spend money. She had to scrimp, sneak and salvage to put together a little bit of cash… which she would then promptly pass on to me and my siblings.

Funny thing is, I always thought Grandma’s came pre-loaded with $20 bills to hand out at all the special occasions or for no occasion at all. Right about now, I would give back all those twenty’s and double it for another Thanksgiving with Grandma.

Peace,
Mike
Dallas SEO

Dallas SEO and Pay Per Click Management

$60

That’s her way of saying, “You better show me some attention – NOW!” Since I’m not completely stupid, I’ll shut down the computer for several hours and join the land of the living. Some days, I need to quit being the Dallas SEO and concentrate on being my wife’s husband.

It’s not that I don’t know there’s a whole world going on outside of cyber-space – it’s just that I sometimes forget what’s really important. Days like to today, Father’s Day, help bring things back into focus for me.

Running another landing page split-test or finding another 100 keywords to explore will seem like a trivial thing when I think back and wish I would have spent more time with the kids growing up.

The sad thing is, I hadn’t really noticed how much my daughter had grown until I took a good look at my screensaver . “Holy Cow! I think she’s getting taller”. I needed my screensaver to tell me that? (That’s why they call it a screen “saver”).

So, what am I going to do today – on this day devoted to Father’s?

• I’m going look intently into the face of my wife and kids.
• I’m going to have real conversations with the ones I love.
• I’m going to connect with the people who most want to connect with me.
• I’m going to think about what it means to be a son.
• I’m going to be available for my family.

So, for all the people out there who just read this and are now wondering, “Hmm. So, does this mean I’m not going to hear back from Mike on my project today?”

 Yeah, if that’s all you got out of reading this… that’s what it means.

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Sorry, I’m not available today…

I read the word humility, but my mind thought the word humiliation. The two words are closely related. A quick glance at Dictionary.com showed me that humilty comes from the word humilitatem meaning “lowness, insignificance.”

This is how that proverb sounded to me: “Honor comes after you’ve been humiliated”

Humiliation! Now that’s something I know a few things about. One of my first jobs out of college was selling FairFax vacumn cleaners door to door. I sold 3… one to my mom, one to my mom’s friend (who couldn’t qualify for financing) and one to a sweet little old lady who used to let me mow her yard when I was a kid. She bought my $1,300 vacumn cleaner and gave me her brand new Kirby as a trade-in. When I think back on that career choice, only one word comes to mind… humiliation!

Actually, my very first job out of college was working for a small church out in the East Texas town of Athens. I was responsible for the teenagers, calling on sick folks and pastoral care (i.e. whatever the pastor doesn’t care to do himself). So much went wrong that the pastor finally asked me and my wife to secretely slip out the side door after telling my Sunday School class I wouldn’t be back again. I don’t know what he told the rest of the church. I can only imagine. That was humiliating! 

I spent the next 12 years, after my debacle in Athens, helping my father-in-law pioneer (start from scratch) a new church. He was willing to take me on even though I had been a glorious failure in my last church. Those were the 12 best years of my life so far. It never paid all the bills. So, I was constantly looking for a way to make more money. That’s how I learned even more humility:

Shortly before selling vacumn cleaners, I had my first stint in telemarketing. I called J.C. Penny cardholders and convinced them to buy AD&D (accidental death & dismemberment) insurance. Now, I couldn’t actually sell the insurance because I wasn’t a licensed, but I could call an agent anytime I had someone ready to buy. They would close the deal and I would take the next call – “beep!”. I guess the only thing more humiliating than being the telemarketer was being a licensed insurance agent working a telemarketing room. 

After I sold those (3) vacumn cleaners, I returned to the fabulous life of telemarketing. This time I was selling long-distance and setting health insurance leads for NASE (National Association of the Self-Employed). It was at about this time that the real hatred for telemarketers started surficing. I got quite a few good comments from the people I called. My favorite retort was short & sweet and went something like this:

Me: “Hello, is Mr. Jones available?”
Them: “No, he’s not here… he has a real job!”

I’m sorry but I’ve got to get some clothes ironed for church this morning. So, I’ll continue this post later in the Dallas SEO Sunday Morning section…

Dallas SEO and Pay Per Click Management

Humility Comes Before Honor

The week started out with a bang. I’ve been testing a new strategy for contacting prospects. In search engine marketing, you’re either doing it yourself (or a friend- same thing), you’ve hired people to take care of it in-house or you’ve hired an agency. So, I’m going straight to the top of the food chain now. I’ll tell you who it works out in a second, but first take a look at what I’m telling them:

Dear Mr/Ms CEO,

You’re search engine marketing blows. Here’s why…

Sincerely,
Mike

You would be amazed at how many Fortune 500 websites don’t have a clue what they’re doing. They are spending thousands and tens of thousands of dollars a week on PPC. In some cases, a big majority of their spend is just getting flushed down the drain. Never underestimate the power of a corporation to waste money.

So, what are the results?

That’s the magic of going straight to the top. The owner/president/ceo is concerned about the bottom line like nobody else in the business. They aren’t worried about losing their job if someone can do their PPC better than what they’re doing now. All they want is results. “Tell me what is going to put more money in my pocket and I’m listening.” Better still, “Tell me how my competitors are beating me and taking my money, and I’m listening intently.”

Out of all the methods I have tested, going straight to the top beats them all. One day this week, in 33% of my attempts to reach up to the top, I received at least an email back telling me they were interested and wanted me to talk to this or that person in their company. That’s 1 in 3!

Okay, that’s all for this morning. Time to jump in the shower and get the family to church.

Peace,
Mike
Dallas SEO

P.S. It’s called “Sunday Morning Soup” because it’s always a bunch of ideas thrown together into one post. This morning was a little more together that what you’ll usually get.

Dallas SEO and Pay Per Click Management

Sunday Morning Soup