Employee Mentality will Destroy Your Business

This week on SEO B.S., we are going to take a spin on the topic of your business, marketing and search engine optimization. With SEO, remember, it is best that the SEO expert has an in-depth knowledge in Business. For example, being an entrepreneur; building business, departments, and accounts; and even doing mergers and acquisitions. Further, having a deep knowledge in Human Resources. At this point, this leads us to your topic on an “Employee Mentality will Destroy Your Business, marketing and search engine optimizations efforts.”

What Do I mean an “Employee Mentality?”

When I search on Google the words ’employee mentality’ it comes up as an employee mindset with a definition of…

What is an employee mindset?
Workers with an ‘Employee mindset‘ are concerned about the increment of the colleagues. They work hard with the intention of getting a better position and a high salary. Entrepreneurs work hard with the intention of learning new ideas. They are busy in finding various ways to uplift their business dreams.

Now, I do agree with the above definition but with experience an employee mentality goes much deeper than stated above. Further, I think it is hard to have an actual definition. At this point, I can only write about my own experiences, personal development and entrepreneurship.

Employee Mentality Versus an Entrepreneur

1. For myself, I use to be a professional athlete in martial arts. So, my first experience of entrepreneurship was having a martial arts school and competing professionally. But, this is what I learned during this period that every athlete can relate is personal development.

As an athlete, you are continually training, improving and getting better.

When you compare this to an employee mentality, an employee with a J.O.B., they go to work and do what they have to do and come home. There is no or very little continuous training, improving and getting better. Yes, they have a degree or some certifications but afterwards the learning usually stops or they only learn what they have to learn to keep their job.

2. Later on, when I Shifted careers over to the financial industry, I can never forget the questions my mentor (at the time) asked me. My mentor asked…

• What books do you read Chad?

At the time, I hated reading! I never even read a book in high school. If I had to do some type of book report, I would read the beginning and the end, and make up the rest (laughing). Now, the only books I did read was on martial arts, training, exercise and nutrition because this is what I was into.

• What seminars or trainings do you attend?

You can guess what this answer was…lol.  It was a “NO!” Except for martial arts seminars and trainings, of course.

My mentor said,

Chad, how can you expect to mentor people in business, when you yourself are not receiving any mentorship and/or doing any type of personal development and continuing personal achievement?

I was speechless at the question!

Personal Development & Entrepreneurship

At this point in my career, my mind just shifted. I immediately started to link being a professional athlete to business. So, I started buying personal development and business books – John Maxwell, Robert Kiyosaki, Bob Proctor, Blair Singer, and the list goes on and on. 

I then started attending business seminars every quarter in the areas of business, how to run a business, marketing, sales, and much more.

I started to “practice what I preached!” Eventually, if I was going to help guide people with their business or help build a department, I needed to continually learn and grow myself.

You are NOT an EXPERT!

The biggest downside with an employee mentality is that people think they are an expert! You hear it everyday at work and even see it all over social media. I am an expert at Facebook ads! But they only been doing it for six months. Students say right after college graduation, “I am an expert in this industry!” Seriously!

You will very rarely hear me say “I am an expert! Or I am an expert at marketing and SEO!” Why? Because, an EXPERT means you know everything; and usually if someone believes they know everything, learning stops.

How Does an Employee Mentality Destroy Your Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Efforts?

When we start to discuss exactly how an Employee Mentality will Destroy Your Business especially within the areas of marketing and search engine optimization, there are many factors at hand. And, on top of this, this is a loaded subject.

At this point, let’s focus our attention on marketing and SEO, either in-house services or marketing agencies.

1. The biggest drawback with marketing is that the salaries are usually low. So, think about it this way, low salaries reflect either newbies in the field, people with 1 or 2 years of experience and interns.
2. With most people with a job, they only know what they are taught at work. Or lets put it this way…

By stats, employees only know about 10% ABOVE their job description. They only know just enough not to get fired!

3. I ask employees all the time in marketing departments, the same questions that were asked to me from my mentor, and guess what, their answers are “no.” But yet, they call themselves experts and these so-called experts are managing your marketing and SEO! Kind of an oxymoron to me. 
4. Mostly, the employee mentality loves to waste time because they get paid no matter what. Employees want their job to be easy, not hard. They want to create short-cuts and cut-corners. 

Employees Love to Waste Time

Real entrepreneurs love to be efficient. If you are running your own business, efficiency is the top priority because you don’t want time to be wasted, or yet, people waste your time. Let me give you an example, the most popular among Corporate America is to have an “Open Door Policy!”

An open-door policy looks good on paper; sounds good talking about it but is an efficiency disaster. Every large company that tries to implement this type of policy is disastrous.

It’s mostly a disaster because companies or the employee minded tries to implement it as verbatim. Meaning, any employee in the organization can come and interrupt you at any time; and you are expected to drop what your are currently working on and attend to that person.

The Open-Door Policy is an Efficiency Nightmare…

The proper way to implement an Open Door Policy is to access between emergencies and non-emergencies. For example, if an employee need to speak with me, I may look at my schedule and set a time for 1pm. This is me working efficiently and taking control of my time. Because I know if you are constantly pulling me from my focus points throughout the door, I am not going to get anything done, or I am going to have to work massive overtime.

The same thing happens to salary positions. Yes, most companies try to put you on salary to overwork you but it’s not efficient for your time. Most salary positions can be down in eight hours or less, if the company is efficient. If you are working 12 hour days, most of the time, you are inefficient. You are wasting time throughout the day. 

The reason why you waste time is because your thinking like an employee! Or because, it’s not your business and you don’t care.

Here are Some Walk Aways from the
Employee Mentality will Destroy Your Business

1. Continue your Personal Development.

• Buy and read books in your area of expertise.
• Attend seminars.

2. Find a Mentor that can help you.
3. If you are an entrepreneur, you have to learn marketing and sales, bottom line. You have to do it yourself, period. At least in the beginning.

• Read my blog on “should I hire a marketing agency” and “SEO for Small Businesses” to give you some insights. 

 

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