This is a story about the living hell of building and managing websites. I am a freelance contract sales and digital marketing director. I coach, teach, and train. I manage marketing for a fee. And I wear a bulletproof vest to work every day. Here’s why.
It is 3 a.m. on Wednesday. I’m awake, on my second cup of coffee. My daily routine is to scan the news on my phone, absorb a small dose of the insanity, and then read a book. Right now I’m reading, Neuroscience for Leadership by Tara Swart, Kitty Chisholm, and Paul Brown. The book is brilliantly helpful.
Today, I stopped reading earlier than normal, because I had the massive urge to write this article, now. I’m managing, not building myself, at least five websites right now and today is a very big day.
I need to write this article. But, wait – I must put on my bulletproof vest, because I recently learned that even when I do the work I love the most, like write, teach, coach, and manage marketing campaigns, I must wear my metaphorical bulletproof vest.
Mortal Combat?
My job is akin to mortal combat, because marketing is extremely emotional. Fear compels otherwise rational human beings to do the dumbest stuff. Like screw the creative team over and stiff them on the bill. Or rip their faces off for not keeping up with the 10,000 changes the boss keeps making. This guy is blind to what it takes to make marketing work, and he is our worst nightmare.
Digital marketing is a business of failure, and on the worst days, it’s utter insanity. I love the challenge, even though there are bullets flying and mortar shells are exploding. People get pissed, because most marketing doesn’t work. This is normal, but people forget normal in marketing.
Think about the massive failure rates in sales and marketing. There’s a 98% bounce rate on your landing page or website, a 99% “we ignore your stupid email rate” on your email marketing, and there’s the 10% close rate your star sales schmuck is pinning. Marketing failure can be so bad that it literally wipes people and businesses out. It’s my job to figure out the strategy, build and write the sales and marketing action plan, and make sure everyone on the team is happy and producing results – the “one thing” a client wants.
The bulletproof vest metaphor is real. I am serious; it shields me from the emotional turbulence and bullets that fly – missed deadlines, blown budgets, insane hires, more insane owners, 10,000 changes, no one thing, no semblance of a plan. When these things happen, nobody wants to go to work. It gets so bad that I have literally been sick to my stomach, unable to eat for two days. I have a dear friend who owned a digital marketing agency, and the stress from clients over websites and integrations nearly killed her, literally.
I’m paid to perform, or I die. If I really suck at my job, I could do so much damage to a business, it would make Zika look mild.
Pain
Why do websites cause so much pain? Because the internet, search engines, email, and social media changed the way everyone works. Every business needs a functional website.
People like me, creative, outlying misfits who are on personal missions to save the world, get to freelance, bootstrap a startup on credit cards (NOT recommended), build a website, open a bank account, and be in business. The best part of the internet (in a business like mine) is that it frees us to work anywhere we can get online. Having a “normal” spouse with a “real” job helps too. We all need websites to compete in business, desperately. I don’t need the stress of managing them, but they are essential. Yet, it’s part of the job.
Getting the right people to work together is another major reason website project management can be so painful. Website building and digital marketing/sales, is a team sport. This all has to integrate and flow. Software today is more affordable than ever, if you know how to implement it. But getting the software to work with other software, and that software, then this, compels otherwise rock solid business owners to lose their minds.
Again, websites, an essential element for marketing success, are created by teams of people who must work well together; in sync. Few people can do it all, well. Designing, coding, writing, integrating, hosting, and managing a website usually requires more than one person to get the job done right. The business owner writes the check. The project manager manages the mayhem. Designers design. Designers may not be coders/programmers. Some can be, but it is two skill sets. Programmers write the code that makes your website do what you want it to do. Copywriters write and edit the content that makes your website helpful to people. Everybody needs to get along.
My experience with hundreds of website projects, including those I need for the various businesses I own, is that they always suck to build and manage, even when you have tons of experience and a killer system to keep people on track. Why? Again, people, software, etc. not performing. In many cases, the technology won’t or can’t do what you want it to do. But some software goof, or design dude tells you he can do it, so you give him a deposit, and he’s laughing all the way to his bank in Puerto Rico. This is the same jerk who “lost his iPhone” when he was surfing, so he couldn’t finish a website project on time. True story.
Humans Being Human
Then there was the story about the college kid hired by the $120 million bank’s marketing team. That was brilliant. They redesigned their website, launched it, found out the quality control was nonexistent, and when all the emergency alarms went off in the IT security department, the website guy was nowhere to be found, because he was cramming for his final exams at his community college. True story.
I will never forget the rich and famous people for whom I’ve tried to help build websites, integrate ecommerce platforms, marketing automation, landing pages, Google Adwords ad campaigns, and social media management. I could be wrong, but it seems statistically valid to me that the wealthier and more famous people are, the less coachable they tend to be, because their egos tend to be massive. They don’t want to know what it takes to build a website and make it produce revenue, because the only websites that produce revenue are built and managed by a team of highly paid professionals, not some kid who goes dark for finals. That’s insane.
Look, I’m not complaining about this. I wrote this article, because if more of us realize how much work and talent, both creative and technical, it takes to build a website and manage it so it produces meaningful results, we can have more peace. People can be happier at work! Imagine that.
Why do I manage websites for clients? Because everyone has to make marketing work. Marketing drives sales. Sales drive a profit for well-run businesses. People are paid to work. They can go home to their families and buy clothes for their kids, tutors, pay the mortgage or rent, and live a nice life.
Websites are big part of the living hell you find in marketing. Sales can be its own brutal, struggle. This is why the best sales and marketing pros make hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, every year. One of my friends works in sales and makes over $100,000 a month. That’s more than $1.2 million a year. And, no, he’s not in the 1%. He drives a Honda. He pays his fair share in taxes now, but deals with more stress. Nobody makes big money without learning to master their stress, or they die young.
The Road To Sanity - Focus On Your Plan
If you own a business or lead a company as CEO, COO, or CFO, you need to know your people are screwed unless you get it when it comes to marketing. You have to know what you don’t know about marketing, because your people need you on the same bus that they’re on every day.
You don’t need to be on the marketing bus much. Just enough to stick to your team’s sales and marketing action plan, love them for doing great work, and hold them accountable for keeping their words on deadlines and budgets. Stop asking for free work and too many changes. Hire the best people your money can buy and get the hell out of the way once you give the team and the plan of action your blessing.
If you don’t have a plan of action, even if you have the right people, you’re screwed. Because without a clear, written plan of action for marketing, an editorial calendar, and an amazing blog and website, you’re screwed.
You must have a plan of action, a blueprint, some documentation suitable for building your website; it’s only one part of your overall sales, marketing, and business plan. If you want to build a successful company, even a successful lifestyle business like mine, you need a plan that fits you, and you need to work, amend, and improve your plan every step of the way.
Wow. I feel so much better now. I may even take off my bulletproof vest.