Legendary NFL Owner to Coach — Nobody Cares

0:28You remember Bill Parcells? in general, right? And then Al Davis was on the phone with this guy. It was just like, nobody cares, Bill, just coach. And that applies directly to business as well. We can talk about all the problems we're having, whatever, but nobody cares at the end of the day, just go, just do it. So if you're a high performer, high performing leader, if you're working with someone, like you're working with the owner, you're working with the founder, like nobody cares, just figure it out. Like, and I think back to the, like, you having multiple businesses, but me working at that one startup back in the day.

1:01So, oh, CEO pulls me aside. Hey, if you don't hit numbers in the next month, we're going to have to fire you. And I was like three weeks into the job. I was like 25 years old. That was an education startup. Yeah. And in that scenario, it's like, what am I going to do? Bitch about it? What am I going to do? Cry about it? Nobody cares. Just do the job. And those are the people who get paid at the end of the day. I'm not saying I'm amazing or anything. And I've seen that time and time again in my career. The people who figure it out and don't complain and just carry it, those are the people that get everything that they want in their life.

1:28They end up starting their own companies, all these things, right? You've seen it time and time again too. Nobody cares, just do the job. That's why I love my CEO at NP Digital. He doesn't come to me with problems unless he needs my help. And if he comes to me, I'm there to help and he can come to me anytime, but he just goes and figures it out and he brings things to my attention where i can add value versus um or a better way to put it is in an organization i hate people or not hate that's a strong word you hate when people do this i hate when people do this and that is they come to you with problems and they don't even try to provide any solutions yep and if you can't provide any solutions that's okay you could say you at least tried or whatever, or you thought about it, but you know it won't work.

2:16Um, because if they give you something, even if the something is, I thought about doing this, but I know that won't work. It allows me to come up. It, it, it provides more creativity to me, right? It helps you at least get 60, 70 % of the idea. Yes. And it helps like spur more ideas. Exactly. Yeah. So I love when people come with ideas. Um, and when there are problems like players getting injured and I'm the owner, if I was hypothetically of a sports team and there's nothing that could be done about it, just coach, I would just, this is my personality, I would just want to know about it because I would want to have a discussion on, hey, what are potential solutions?

2:56Should we trade these people and we can have a better year? Or do we call the year a wash and we just cut costs and we try to maximize our profit because we know next year is going to be our year and this year is already too late. And if we trade short term, it would be great. But long term for the next five, 10 years, it'd be terrible for the organization. I'd be like, cool, optimized for profitability. Yeah. So by the way, you brought up something really important. And so at our organization, so if people are required, if they go to their manager, if you bring a problem, you're supposed to, you're supposed to bring, you know, you're talking about the problem and then offer a couple of solutions, right?

3:30Two, three solutions or whatever, and then pick the best one. Now, that being said, if that is a requirement, that's not enough. They actually, if they've tried it already and made an honest attempt, that's still fine. They should still bring it to the leader, right? But sometimes they might not have the solution. That's okay. But like, at least make the leader aware of and say, hey, like I honestly tried. That part's important. You can't just expect them to come up with a solution every time. Otherwise, it's like, then what are you here for, right? Totally agree. In addition to that, when there is a problem, people should bring it up as quick as possible.

4:00And if they haven't thought of a solution or they don't know of one on the spa, they can say, I'm going to work on some potential solutions and come back. And if you have solutions as well, you could just be like, no, no need. Here's a solution. What do you think? But what I found in an organization is, is if you require people to come up with a solution to a problem, when they address it to you, a lot of people won't address the problems to you and it starts compounding and it makes things much worse than knowing when a problem is happening right then and there. Exactly. So if someone's a leader, right?

4:30And if they let a problem sit there and they don't bring it to me. And by the way, it's even worse when I come and I start solving the problem for them and they don't like it when I come solve the problem for them, right? Which is ironic because it's like, well, that's a problem you should have solved. It's the actions. We want to criticize the actions at the end of the day. It's not necessarily the people, but it happens all the time. So it just hit me. I actually think Chad GPT is right. You're a Formula One driver and a Honda Civic. You need to fix a business and processes and systems. And there's nothing wrong with the Honda Civic.

4:58I drive a Honda Odyssey, but I get where it's getting with this. You got a great business. You have a lot of ideas. And if you can build up your team. Are you just getting the expression? No, no, no, not getting the expression. Now, when it said it was your business, I'm now actually just thinking about your organization and your products that you have and where you're at. Yeah. Like I see it. It's actually giving you spot on. It's a very simple calculus. It's you're just saying it right now. It's a very simple calculus. It's just how do we continue to upgrade the team? How do we continue to update the systems, right?

5:33And you just do it for a very long time. Eventually the car will become a Camry. And then we mentioned it will become a Sienna. You have a Sienna, right? And then eventually we'll get it to an F1 car, right? Let me ask you this. What car do you think you're in right now? Me? Yeah. Maybe a cheap Mercedes. What do you think you need? I like how tough you are on yourself, but I think it's a good Mercedes. I think you have a solid Mercedes, like S-Class. No. Yeah. Okay. I think my management team is an S-Class or a Maybach or a Ferrari. I think I have amazing management teams. S-tier you mean? S-tier.

6:10S-tier? Oh, so S-tier, there's A-tier, B-tier, C-tier, S-tier, special tier. Special tier is the highest tier. I think that's what you're trying to say, right? I think my management team is best in class for my space. I think the business... If you've ever built a website, you know how tough it can be to keep a strong design while ensuring site performance is fast. That's where Framer comes in, and it totally changes the game. Framer is the design-first, no-code website builder that lets anyone ship a production-ready site in minutes. I recently built a custom landing page in just a few hours.

6:43Animations, fast load times, responsive layouts, all without writing a single line of code. It was easy to use, and the end result was polished enough to look like a developer spent days on it. One of my favorite things is that Framer's AI handles translations with a single click. So your site can be up and running in multiple languages almost instantly. And with real-time collaboration, your whole team can jump in and work together. No issues with versions or miscommunication. Whether you're starting from scratch or using one of their templates, Framer lets you focus on design while handling the technical side for you.

7:13Animations, responsive layouts, search optimization, and all the things that matter. Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded without hiring a developer? launch your site for free at framer.com and use code MS to get your first month of pro on the house. That's framer.com, promo code MS, framer.com, promo code MS, rules and restrictions may apply. When I first started my business, the overwhelm was real. I didn't have the tools to help me scale. If only I had Shopify from the start to handle all the behind the scenes work. Shopify is the platform behind millions of businesses globally from huge names like Mattel and Gymshark to the smallest brands just getting started.

7:49The best part about it, it has everything you could need. Say you're ready to launch your own design studio. Shopify has hundreds of templates to create a beautiful store that matches your brand style. Or if you need help with content creation, Shopify's got AI tools that write your product descriptions, craft page headlines, and even enhance your product photos. Shopify lets you easily create email and social media campaigns to reach customers wherever they are, whether they're scrolling or strolling. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side.

8:19Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash marketing school. Go to shopify.com slash marketing school. Shopify.com slash marketing school is too small for the management team. I have a management team for where the business should be five, 10 years from now. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that they're bad in today's world. They're used to just doing things at a much bigger scale. They do well in this environment as well, because we're not a startup, but I hire people for a billion plus dollar revenue organization. We're not there yet. Yeah. Yeah. So you have a couple more notches to go, right?

9:02But I think what you're trying to say is your management team is maybe the F1 drivers, and then you need to upgrade the car, right? Because in F1, you need to have a good driver, like a Max Verstappen, but if the car's not good enough, he's still not going to win, right? So we got to upgrade the car. I think we've done pretty good on the staff end, including management. I think I look at it as not a car in this analogy. I look at it as time. Your brand new F1 team, even if you have the best team and all the capital you need, and we don't have unlimited pools of money, you just need time for the team working together, fixing things, working out the kinks and the bugs, getting used to the new car, the technology.

9:38And I think our businesses eight years in, I know they say things really change at the 10 plus year mark. So we need two more years, but I don't think that's enough. I think we really need five or so years and then we'll be humming on all wheels. The way I see this is for us to get to an F1 car, right? You nailed it. I think it's just a matter of time. As long as you're focused, you're moving quickly. And over a long period of time, you continue to upgrade your team to continue to upgrade the car. you're going to be fine, right? And that's why, like, I don't think there's anything wrong with private equity or venture capital, but they're on different time horizons, right?

10:16If you own a VC firm, sure, you're actually on a 20 to 30 year time horizon because you could just keep making bets. That's the name of the game. But their bet is like, you have an outcome in five to seven years. So it's like the incentives are at odds, right? But if we're playing for, you know, 15, 20, 25, 30 years or so, inevitably it should become an F1 car. Otherwise something's wrong. So here's a question for you. So speaking of private equity, you said you had some charts to show. Oh, yeah. Was that related to private equity on a pull them up? It was. Yeah, I'll pull them up. But I do here.

10:45I'll give you a topic to chew on while I pull this up. Okay. So Jason Lemkin tweets this. I wake up, have some coffee, answer a few emails, and then I fire up Replit. And we just pick up right where we were yesterday. No complaints, no arguments, no forgetting, no sick days, no BS, no drama, no pretending, no quitting. The reality is this is the way we all want to work now or will soon. We'd rather work with an AI agent that is easy to work with than a human that isn't. If an AI agent can do it, we'll prefer it, even if it's not great as a great sales exec, marketer, developer, et cetera. A B, AI SDR over a B plus human with a lot of drama, an easy call for the AI SDR.

11:21It's not enough of a delta. What do you think as I pulled a private? I agree from B to B plus, but I think the real delta you get is from hiring A players and you have to go and find those people. and I think that's what makes a business or organization amazing. It requires work. It's not easy, but it's worth finding those A players. And I think the combo is you give those A players AI and then your business is really going to start growing. Yep. So, okay. Here's what I got for you. I have two things I saved this week on private equity. So this guy on Twitter, his name is PE Operator. Private Equity Operator, okay?

12:00He wants to be anonymous, I'm assuming. He's anonymous, actually, yeah. So good call. So he tweets this. This is not the charts. I'm trying to find a chart still. But he says private equity is the doctors and lawyers of 30 years ago. High achievers looking for the highest floor path. And then this guy says my prediction is LMM and what's long term management. Is that what LLM? Not LLM. LMM. I don't know, dude. So my prediction is LMM will succeed and megas will succeed. LMM? Yeah, I think he probably means lower middle market. There we go. Lower middle market. There you go. See? private equity operator over here.

12:34So his predictions, lower middle market private equity will succeed and megas will succeed, which is what you're talking about. The largest firms that we know will continue to win, but all the ones, just like all these VC firms that just spun up out of nowhere in these last couple of years, they're going to be in trouble. So he's saying the lower middle market is what's going to do really well and the big massive funds. And the megas. Yeah, because the masses won't focus on lower middle market. Correct. Yeah. And so - And you gobble them up, you combine them, and then you sell them to the massive ones.

13:02Yeah, but you just keep packaging these things, sell it to the next one and sell it to the next one. And then private equity. I was talking to, I hung out with a private equity guy on Monday for lunch. And it's a big firm around here. And he was like, dude, you're in the agency world? Oh my God, I see a lot of trash all the time, right? He's like, dude, all these private equity firms are just trying to gobble up agencies. And I was like, so where do you think that game goes? He's like, oh, they're going to move on to another game soon. But it's like, they just keep finding the game to play. I think they already have.

13:27Not too many private equity companies are buying agencies anymore. Yeah, so they come across his desk, but he doesn't even look at them, really. He looks at other technology companies and things like that. So anyway, we have five minutes more here. So here's one thing. So I'm going to be at the Ahrefs conference next Tuesday. And I thought this was an interesting prompt here. So the question here, Neil, is SEO still a relevant career in this new world? Yeah, I think it's actually a very booming career in this world, as long as you adapt. I was at an event in Denver a few days ago. I think, what day is today?

14:04Friday, Thursday? So Wednesday. Wednesday, I spoke in Denver. And when I was in Denver, someone asked me a question because I was talking about AISEO or GEO or SEO, whatever you want to call it, but doing it for ChatGPT. And they're like, I have a question for you. Isn't it the same? And I responded with two different things, or two points. The first point was it said, how was SEO 15, 20 years ago? Put in some junk keywords on a page. You write copy, you know, that isn't the best. You build some links from high PR sites and you rank much better. Call it 15 plus years ago, maybe 20. And he's like, yeah.

14:45And then I'm like, over time it evolved, you had to start writing good content for humans. You got to update the content. Can't spam as much anymore. Yeah, you can't have duplicate content. Like can't have five pages on the same topic. They want you to merge and prune your content. You know, schema markup starts mattering and a lot of other things. And I'm like, it evolved, right? And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, and now it's evolving all over again. You're creating content for humans, but packaging it for AI. Links matter, but brand mentions matter just as much. And you don't always need people linking to your site.

15:16Well, with SEO, brand mentions didn't help you as much. And I'm like, there's a lot of nuances and differences, right? And he's like, yeah. So I'm like, SEO is just evolving over time, just like how it has been. And you can call it SEO if you still want to. So that was my first point. And he agreed with that. The second point was, if your customers are all calling it AEO or AI SEO or GEO, I'm like, it doesn't matter what you want to call it. If your customers want to call it something else and you don't want to adapt to them, you're probably not going to get the business. else. So I'm like, I'm not disagreeing with you that it should still be called SEO, but I'm like, but if my customers want to call it something else and I'm trying to pitch them and generate revenue, I will adapt to whatever my client wants to call it.

16:02I wouldn't deceive them and tell them that I'm going to do this new thing that you've never heard about before, right? I would not be unethical or anything like that. It's more so I'm willing to change my vernaculars for the customer. And I may even tell them like, yeah, some people call it still SEO, it's just adapting. But sure, let's call it AI SEO for this conversation or G or whatever you want to call it. Because at the end of the day, the customer is always right. I know that's a saying and they're not always really right, but you got to adapt with the customers. It's just like when everyone in corporate America years ago was like, oh, we need a growth hacker.

16:44You remember the debate being like, this is just a normal marketing exec CMO or whatever. People don't really say we need a growth hacker anymore. You agree with that, right? But back then, if you didn't adapt and you were trying to work for a startup, you were less likely to get a job. Do you agree with this? So you kind of had to adapt or else you're going to be - You became a growth marketer. Yeah. Now they're called growth marketers today. Yeah. So you kind of have to adapt. And if you're not willing to adapt, then you're going to be displaced. The way I see this is SEO is still a relevant career in this new world.

17:17Yeah. I mean, here's what I'll say. Like the SEOs that adapt or the business owners who adapt, it's no different than anything. You just have to adapt. Yeah. Like, by the way, what SEO worked back in the day? Oh, yellow pages. Oh, how did you game it? Oh, triple A. The more A's you had, the more you showed up number one, right? That's how SEO was done with the yellow pages. People don't know what the yellow pages are today. And then eventually, oh, what happened? You started spamming Excite Lycos. You started spamming a bunch of keywords. Maybe you hide it in the background text, right? And now it's got more sophisticated.

17:47Now LLMs are multimodal. They're looking at a bunch of things. And I think there's no sacred cows when it comes to having a successful career. The most important thing is that you're curious. The most important thing is that you're adaptable. And the SEOs who complain, the people that you see on X complaining all the time. These are people who haven't adapted. Oh, we should, you know, we should go after Google for this. Oh, they're being unfair to us. This and that. Like that is no different than people in the world who complain all the time about not getting what they want, right? Because everyone wants to win.

18:17Nobody wants to prepare. So as long as you adapt, as long as you prepare, as long as you are curious, you will win. It's still a relevant career. I think more relevant than ever today, if you really look at it. So that is it for today. And we'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.