While visiting good friends in the Asheville, N.C. area, we walked by the restaurant in the photo (click to enlarge). Its sign says "Mellow Mushroom - Feed Your Head". Don't feed it with psychedelics (not served there), feed it with "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy".
I have been doing research for quite some time now to help the SEO-SEM (Search Marketing) Industry grow. It is a good thing that after a lifetime of marketing, sales, and management training & experience, I have come to understand human nature from an objective (as well as the "easy" subjective) point of view. If you are going to get better and better at almost any business skill (or personal skill), you almost have to employ "Cognitive restructuring" on yourself in order for your objective self-awareness to EFFECTIVELY improve yourself. While the definition of "CBT" in Wikipedia relates mostly to the extreme of clinical depression, the main keywords in it that apply here are: "It involves recognizing distorted (incorrect) thinking and learning to replace it with more realistic substitute ideas."
The reason those keywords apply here is definitively brought out in this great 11/1/05 article by Paul Bruemmer entitled "Cracking the SEO Mystique". By that I mean that both buyers and sellers need to do "CBT" in order to truly make long term progress, in my opinion. Why? Because if you look at the SEO vs. PPC investment facts, as Paul enumerates in his article, it doesn't make good long term sense for most buyers of SEO-SEM to put so much more money into PPC! I believe there is " distorted-incorrect thinking" going on by both buyer and seller of SEO services. The proof of this is the fact that the researchers Paul quotes are "appalled at the 'continuing disconnect between paid search spending and SEO investment'." I am also "appalled", and my goal is to help by making a difference, even if it winds up being a small one.
Since this post is getting too long, I will go into a more detailed explanation of my opinion in my next post. But, one of the main reasons that I like Paul's article so much is that he places a good portion of the responsibility to correct the "continuing disconnect" on the SEO vendor (seller). He says "It is the vendor's responsibility to guide the client to success. Failure occurs when the vendor fails to communicate what is required of the client prior to signing a contract." He is talking about Open, Honest, UPFRONT, Good Communication ("O'HUG") here! Of course, the buyer needs to do the same thing. However, it is my opinion that the reason that there is a breakdown in communication, is that there isn't enough self cognitive behavioral therapy, combined with EMPATHETIC "O'HUG" Communication by both buyer and seller in the process.
For buyers of SEO, they need to educate themselves more, empathetically communicate more, and cooperate with their chosen SEO Consultant more. For sellers of SEO, they need to be more empathetically communicative, upfront and throughout the relationship, along with having REAL EMPATHY for the buyer's many challenges of first emphasizing (education) SEO, and then choosing (credibility) which SEO Consultant they will try to form a long term relationship with. I'm reminded of Jim Cathcart's quote "If you want to improve your circumstances, begin by improving yourself."
A link to Jim Cathcart's book on "Relationship Selling", and a more complete understanding of where I'm coming from, is in these three previous posts of mine on 11/2/05, 11/3/05, and 11/4/05.
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