The annual 2 year check in
Yes I am fully aware of what I wrote. Its been a good 2 years since I updated this blog, which one could argue means its basically dead…
And yet, here we are.
So why don’t I use this time to fill you in on whats been going on with my career in the last couple years. (All the other interesting things happen over on Instagram).
Most significantly, I joined SimilarWeb about a year and a half ago as a pre-sales consultant, effectively putting a halt on my career as an SEO professional. It had been going that way for a while, but this was the most significant change in my career that I can remember, and I had a very clear reason for why. I wanted to expand.
Expand to what?
Well, that was what I was trying to figure out. But what I did know was that I was feeling stuck and I needed to do something to fully work out what I was looking for.
Review of the past 10 years
I suppose this is as good a time as any to do a career review over the past 10 years as it’s the big “online fad” right now. (And what better thing to blog about than a fad that becomes outdated (see post on pinterest, post on when Uber was the god guy, post on Yo!)
I started working in SEO because, well… it kinda just happened. I was new to my career and looking for something to do with myself. So I did what every aspirational kid out of college did. I became a social media marketer.
The only difference was, at the time, marketing for brands on Social media had only just begun. Twitter was new. Most people were NOT comfortable with this way of thinking. This was real opportunity. My family made fun of me nonstop, but I got through it. I ultimately joined Resolution Media, where I began and shaped my career in SEO, then moved to Spark where I expanded my career, started and built the SEO team. After we moved to Israel, I held various roles in agencies expanding from managing an SEO team, to more broader holistic marketing, and business development roles, pitching marketing services. And I was good at it.
But, at some point, I felt capped. I needed more, and I needed to push beyond the agency world to grow my career. That was when I joined SimilarWeb in what I thought was “a career change” in me leaving my career in SEO.
It wasn’t.
At SimilarWeb, I joined as a Pre-Sales Consultant. My job was to support the sales team by providing high quality marketing insights and presentations to dive deep into the use cases. Simply put, to help prove the value of the product, and give answers to the marketing problems that customers have.
What I thought was a career change was really just my ow misinterpretation of what career path I was on.
This was not a career change for me.
It was just the next progression.
My Career was never in SEO. My Career was in Experience.
SEO is the hard skill I developed. But the common denominator in every job I have ever had that I loved more than anything else is the customer. In my core, what drives me is the people, the problem solving, the proposing a solution, the planning of a strategy. Seeing it’s success. What drives me is the audience centricity. Being that problem solver and helping the audience, whoever they may be, get the answers they need, by pitching that solution, or that marketing plan, or frankly, whatever needs pitching.
“Search” is the problem I am trying to solve. SEO is the solution I am proposing. Developing and implementing a strategy is how I solve it.
It’s not the thing that makes me tick. It’s the why.
SEO is the thing. The problem solving and strategy is the why.
What I have learned along the way was that my love for the industry is less about the thing. Its the problem solving and reaching their goals. I think that’s why I did well in agencies.
I remember the old post Angie wrote on SEWatch and I think I am probably an SEO Jedi Consular. My love is not for tactical SEO. I know SEO and I feel privileged that I started my career at a time when I can say ” back in my day, when we optimized sites…”, but that’s not what drives me. What drives me, what I have been passionate about throughout my career, and what gives me that rush of success and pushes me to keep going, growing, and developing, it’s the strategy, and right now, at this current point in time, that’s also the customer.
My Job is a Continuation of my 10+ Year Career
Today I manage a team of Solution Engineers and Solutions Implementation. What that means is, we help the customer realize the value of the product before they purchase the product, and work to on-board the customer at the earliest stage so they have a simple integration with our product.
Solution engineering, which was how I began here, was only one part of the customer experience. Implementation is the next, and I will argue one of the most crucial parts of the customer journey. It’s one thing for a customer to know what they are getting before they buy. Solution engineering was all about the art of what’s possible. Implementation / On-boarding follows that through and helps the customer remove any barriers that stand between them and what they can experience with what we are offering to make sure they achieve their goals when they use our product.
This is experience.
And it sounds an awful lot like what I have done throughout my career.
It just took me a bit of time to realize what it was called.
Please note: Due to a new “professional challenge” that has been waged, I fully plan on keeping up with this blog on a monthly basis. Please hold me accountable. 🙂