Planning the Next Stage of OMLogic With SEOmom

Team OML with SEOmom

Friday was an unusual day by any standard. Shortly after midnight, it was hailing in Delhi so hard that OMLogic's CCO thought people were dancing on her roof. By mid-morning, an uncharacteristic-for-January hard rain was washing the dust from the streets and trees. Clearly something was about to change. And change, it did, when Gillian Muessig, co-founder of SEOmoz, aka SEOmom, came to town to help OMLogic plan a course for the future.

SEOmoz provides the world's most popular Inbound Marketing software. The brand community spans the globe, including more than a million digital marketers. Over the past years, OMLogic has risen from a boutique agency to become one of the India's largest and most respected social media agencies. We now provide consulting services to some of India's largest brands. Gillian was in the office to work with the management team to determine where OMLogic is headed in 2013 and beyond.

THE ROAD MAP

• Productization of Service
  OMLogic's R&D team has been working on numerous internal projects; one of them is about to take center stage. Gillian worked with the dev team to build out the user interface for V1 of an exciting new web service product to be launched later in 2013.

• Becoming a Social Change Agent
  OMLogic is working with government departments and NGOs to bring about positive social change throughout India. At SEOmoz, the term TAGFEE is used every day to determine what to do, what resources to allocate, and to govern communication between team members and customers alike. Gillian spent time helping the management team to create a Mission and Vision for the company to share with the entire team. Understanding the greater purpose of our work will help to keep every decision we make, large and small, in focus.

• Growing Up Fast
  OMLogic is poised to grow very quickly in the coming months and years. As the products and services we offer increase in complexity and value to ever larger customers, we were all reminded that continuously increasing our knowledge of the industry through daily research and reading of blogs and industry news sites, as well as increasing our skills through trial and experimentation will keep us at the bleeding edge of the industry. More about that, with some tactical tips for getting it done below.

Gillian, who helped to shepherd SEOmoz through the transition from services to product in 2007/8, assures us that 2013 and beyond promises to be an exciting ride for OMLogic as we make the same transition and address an increasingly powerful market.

One Plus One Equals Three

Gillian met with team members one on one for an "Ask Me Anything" session. She reports that almost everyone had a question focused on how to get to the level in terms of personal skills. We're all looking for a clear personal road map. Gillian shared her thoughts with all of us here.

The questions all sounded very much like this:

What do I need to do to get to the next level in my job?

The answer lies in looking at the real meaning of the question. The real meaning is most often:

How do I earn a higher salary?

It's a personal question. It doesn't have to do with moving the company forward or understanding our personal roles as part of a larger, more powerful organization. Understanding the real question helps to formulate a real answer.

Don’t chase after the higher paycheck. Chase after becoming a far more powerful marketer and the money will follow naturally. Once you're truly focused on becoming a better marketer, what to do becomes very clear.

1. Read what the world's top marketers are reading and writing every day.
   This will keep you up to date, increase your knowledge in the field, and enhance the value of yourself and your entire team.These posts are free. Read for at least one hour every day. If you commute by train, bus or cab, download and put these posts on your web enabled cell, laptop, or tablet and read on the way to and from work. If you drive, read at home before you come to work or in the evening before you sleep. If you don't have any of those devices, put them on your wish list for every holiday in which you might receive a gift until you get one. Save money to get one. Pass up new shoes, dresses, makeup, cricket match tickets. Obtain a device that will enable you to learn during every minute/hour that you are now not taking advantage of.Optimizing your time every day will make you powerful in every way. Being able to connect to the web and read up to one hour a day will do more to improve your career and therefore your lifetime income more than anything else you can own.
2. Follow the world's leaders on Twitter - It's your RSS feed
   Use Twitter. In India, it's still a cutting edge technology used mostly by technologists. You are one. Follow @randfish, @DharmeshShah, @efishkin, @Weave, @SEOmoz, @SEOmom, @ @LisaDMyers, @BaldSEO, @wilreynolds, @mattcutts, @portent, @duaneforrester, @ipullrank, @papaslingshot, @iStratBuzz. Share excellent articles you are reading with your followers and your own following will increase. RT thought leaders and the links they share to excellent content. If thought leaders read and share it, you read it. If you think it’s relevant to your team, share it with them and all your own followers.
3. Read the Top Industry Blogs
   Beyond what’s being tweeted and RT’d, daily reading should include: www.seomoz.org and check out Whiteboard Friday videos every week. www.SearchEngineLand.com, www.searchenginewatch.com, www.brickmarketing.com, www.searchengineroundtable.com, www.socialmediaexaminer.com, www.fastcompany.com. You needn't read every post every day. But you do need to take a look at each of the blogs every day to see if the post is relevant to the work you do. If it is, download it and read it during those ‘off minutes’ referenced above.

4. Practice True Leadership
To be powerful, you need to make the people around you powerful. A brilliant leader is someone who never speaks down to others, but increases the value of everyone who comes in contact with him/her. Most importantly, a true leader is someone whose followers, with his/her constant support, all achieve more than they ever thought they could and think they did it on their own.

Want to increase your financial worth? Increase the power and value of your skills and knowledge and those of everyone around you. As OMLogic grows, it becomes a rising tide. And a rising tide will lift all boats.