Episode 3

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Published on:

26th Jan 2023

Differences between Leadership and Management with Chris Simmance

This week on the podcast, Chris joins Sarah to talk about the differences between managing and leading teams, and why it matters.

About Chris:

Chris Simmance - The Agency Coach With 10 years of leadership experience, Chris knows how to get things done. He’s worked with clients across all levels and been exposed to multiple layers in order for him to help you reach your goals as quickly or slowly as is right for YOU! Chris has the ability to get deep into your organisation and understand how it operates on all levels. He listens carefully, then sorts out what needs changing or improving with his insightful questions that will challenge any status quo – but always in a way which produces results! He coaches people to think critically and build an integrated picture, which generates better bottom-line success. His style helps teams generate accountability for their projects as well as traction with the goals they’ve set out together – all translating into happier customers who buy more from you!

Where to find Chris:

@ChrisSimmance on Twitter

Chris's Website

Chris on YouTube

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Transcript

Sarah 0:02

This is the SEO mindset podcast with your hosts Sarah McDowell and Tazmin Suleman. This podcast is for SEO professionals. And each week with the help of our wonderful guests, we discuss the important stuff that actually affects our careers and progression. But sadly, often doesn't get talked about, you know, the invaluable, soft and interpersonal skills that are often taken for granted, such as the skills we need for listening, time management, communication, and more. We also talk about the big issues that affect us in our careers such as burnout, impostor syndrome, self belief, saying no, plus other big issues and obstacles. With this podcast, we want to share knowledge on topics that unlock our listeners true potential, and enhance not only their careers but all parts of their lives. So are you ready to prioritise your own personal growth and career development? Then let's crack on with this week's episode.

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for another episode of the SEO mindset podcast. This week, we have the wonderful Chris Simmance joining us. And we're going to be talking about managing and leading teams. So who is Chris, who is Chris Simmance. So he is the founder of the OMG centre, where digital agencies learn, build, grow and exit. Chris is known as the agency coach and has around 10 years of leadership coaching experience. Now, before I get Chris into the episode, I just want to give you all a little reminder that if you do enjoy our podcast, you can support us by donating via buy me a coffee. So there will be a link in the show notes where you get more information on that. And you can also connect with us. If you want to shout out to us we want to get in touch you want to say hi, whatever. Like you can do that on Twitter. So we are if you follow the SEO mindset dot code at UK forward slash Twitter, you'll be able to find us there. There's also a link in the show notes. Right. Let's welcome Chris to the show. Hello, Chris.

Chris 2:15

Hello. I'd love to be bought a coffee. I was just thinking about that.

Sarah 2:19

Are you coffee or tea?

Chris 2:22

Very strong, very black coffee.

Sarah 2:26

Me too.

Chris 2:27

Yeah. Apparently makes you a psychopath, according to someone on Twitter I mean, it's not the coffee that makes you a psychopath. You are one if you like coffee.

Sarah 2:37

I mean, people have some weird, like ideas about food and drink and what it means doesn't it? Like all the stuff that I've read? Yes, it is. But anyway,

I can still say Happy New Year. Because it's relatively new, isn't it? So Happy New Year.

Chris 2:55

Happy New Year to you. I I really wish there was some kind of deadline at which you stop having to say that. I feel like every call and every email, you have to say it because it's polite. But actually you just everyone's done it now. We've all been there.

Sarah 3:12

I think that people like say it right up until like the 31st of January, don't they in February? Yeah. Oh, anyway, Happy New Year. There we go. We've got we've got the admin the way so yeah, so earlier, I said that me and you would be discussing managing and leading teams. So I think a good place for us to start is for you to answer the question, what is the difference between management and leadership?

Chris 3:44

So there's a really simple sentence that explains the difference, I think. And then there's obviously a little bit more depth behind it. But I think many managers do things well. leaders do good things. So a leader is someone that essentially, they set the vision, they create a culture, they create values for people to be led, hence the title, you want to follow someone who is the leader, if you've got someone who's in a leadership position, who you have to follow and you're not that keen on and you don't like the things that they have to say and whatever, then actually, you're you're not being led by that person, you're having to just follow them through hierarchy. Whereas with a manager, that person is that again, it's in the name, they manage tasks, they manage people, they manage things. So a manager is given direction in which way to go by the leader, and the leader sets the direction.

Sarah 4:47

Right. And I think that's a really key. Just just what's that word, this distinction? Thank you. Thank you, struggling at the beginning that you know when where it's just like go from your mind Oh, yeah, like I've committed now. Okay, so would you say then that there are situations where you have both then?

Chris 5:10

Yeah, so in many smaller businesses, the leader will also be the manager. Because there isn't a availability for any kind of hierarchy. And in other situations, you may have a manager who stepped into a leadership position for certain tasks or certain roles. So let's say it's a small business. I'm the owner, and therefore the leader, I set the tone, I set the direction, but I also have to create briefs for people, I have to check in on those briefs, I have to delegate clearly, I have to provide the right levels of feedback and things like that, I also have to take feedback as the manager who's also the leader. If you then open the business up, and you grow, and you're much larger, and you have a management layer, I may as a manager of a SEO team, or a PPC team, or content team or a PR team have to lead them in my own way as well, because they have to follow me because they're on their main point of port of call all the time. But I'm still given guidance on the direction that the business and the leader of the business wants to wants to head into. So if you look at it from a perspective of say, let's not get into politics, but a political party, you've got the prime minister or the president, they set the leadership direction for the country. Whereas the managers in this hierarchy would be MPs or senators or whatever. So they lead their constituencies, but they're actually managing the activity that is directed by the top level of leadership.

Sarah 6:43

So I'm guessing then, that they're quite different roles, then. So being a manager or leader, you probably need different skills.

Chris 6:54

That yeah, very much so. And it's, it's, it's not something everyone wants to hear, but you're not everyone can be a leader. And it's not because they're bad people or anything like that. It's because it's, it's not necessarily necessarily something you can actually learn to be, you can learn to do it, but you can't learn to be it. And that comes from a certain type of mindset, and maybe maybe something to do with upbringing, or just the way that you are as a human being. I'm not sure. But you know, how they say like, not everyone wants leadership, but sometimes it's thrust upon them. Well, those people are usually mentioned in the in the, in the turn of in a kind of way, based around what they were pretty good leaders, you don't say they didn't want leadership, but it was thrust upon them. And they were terrible, and we hated them. And the history book sale, actually, most of the people that that you say, who had leadership thrust on them, somehow, they were actually turned out to be pretty good leaders, because quite a lot of the leadership characteristics are relatively innate, the the mechanical part of leadership is learning how to deliver it consistently. Because your basic human traits usually get in the way of being a good leader quite a lot of the time. With management, it is a lot more granular people focused, you focus a lot more on on individuals as opposed to a group. And you have to be a lot more methodical. So quite a lot of people can learn to be a manager, once you've got a good level of experience in a in a certain role. And you've got a lot of experience in an industry as well as the role. So you know, the how the business functions, you know how the business works, you know how to be excellent at a role. You can learn management skills, and you can be a good manager, because you're good at following that kind of process. And as long as you're not a bad person, you can usually be quite a good manager. You can't just magic being a leader. And I think sometimes when I speak to digital agency leaders in particular, they're really good at being delivering work, but they're not necessarily good at the people bit. And that's because they haven't necessarily worked out the leadership layer yet.

Sarah 9:11

So I suppose what's important then is to have a bit of awareness about yourself. So let's say for example, you find yourself so you're a manager, right? And you find yourself like, you're expected to lead and that's where you're kind of like being led into, that's where you're leaning in towards it, I suppose you've got to have the awareness of like questioning like, am I am I good for this role, or does this role suit me? And it's okay. It's not a failure, if it doesn't suit you, because not everyone can be a leader, right? But I suppose it's about having that awareness and then having that courage to speak up and say, and speak to who your bosses are All stakeholders are people at the top and be like, we need to discuss this i, this is the I've found myself in a leadership role. And yeah, I suppose about having that awareness in that conversation, isn't it?

Chris:

Yeah. And I think all of any kind of role in which you're working with people from a from a position of say power from for better, one of a better way of putting it. So you have people who report to you, whether that's a leadership or a management role. A high level of self awareness is, is essential. And you need to be able to be honest with yourself as well. Something which, which I've found in bad managers and bad leaders, is they behave like they want one thing, but they feel like they want something else. And usually the conflict internally, there creates a bit of a bit of a poisonous toxic culture. And if you know what you want, and you know, roughly how to get there, then you can, then you can create a set of values and purpose, which allows for people to follow you more easily. You create clarity, you create consistency, and it feels more natural. So you don't feel like you're having to do you don't feel like you're having to lead you feel like you're just being yourself, and people will follow you because they want to go where you're going. With from a management point of view, I don't know what your career history is like. But I'm pretty sure that at some point in your history, you've had a bad manager. And those people have probably been, you probably remember them because of their personality versus their ability to do their job, in most cases, and sometimes both. But for the most part, if you've if you're kind of not not aware of your own kind of pitfalls, paths, personal pitfalls, like for me, I'm, I'm really good at listening when I remind myself to listen. But as a conscious thing I have to do. And that's when I'm in more of a conversational mode or trying to manage people. So I have to be I have to go into a conversation reminding myself, I need to listen to this person, otherwise, I can't really help them or do do what I need to do. Yeah, and the bad manager wouldn't necessarily know that.

Sarah:

And also, you have to have, it's interesting, because me and Tazmin did an episode about the different types of listening, and then when to apply each one. So thank you for that promo, because we can link to that in the show notes

Chris:

Done, buy me coffee later.

Sarah:

But yeah, so because if you're not listening as a leader or a manager, then you sort of you end up hearing what you want to hear, don't you or and then you provide a solution to that. And then it's not going to work because you've not understood what is the root problem.

Chris:

Exactly. And I think there's, there's other layers to this as well, which is not just self awareness, but kind of the awareness of the other people, the other person that you're listening to, and their strengths and weaknesses as well. And I'm not saying weaknesses in a negative light, I mean, in the sense of things they could learn or maybe things that they might be their blind spots. So at the OMG centre, what we have is a part of a training programme, of workplace strengths you do. I don't know if you've ever heard of epigenetics?

Sarah:

No, sounds fancy.

Chris:

It is, there's all these psychometric tests, you know, Myers, Briggs, all those sorts of things. So epigenetics essentially helps you to understand what if you were to say, see a pie chart of all of the energy you spend a day doing thinking based stuff, which percentages of your energy is best used in areas. So if you spend a lot of time doing analytical work, and you're really, really enjoy spending that time doing lots of analytical work, and spreadsheets and things like that, then then that's great, you're using that energy in a good way. So it's quite positive use of time and you feel good. Conversely, if you're not very good at analytics work, but you have to do a lot of it, then it's then then you you feel like you've had a drudge of a day and things like that. What that does as a as a tool is it also helps to break down a bit like a personality profile, you can understand whether or not someone's going to be able to listen to a certain level of briefing because if I go into too much depth in one vein or another, they might not quite capture it. But if I know what I'm like, and I know what the individuals are managing, like, then I can tailor and tailor the same brief to a smaller group of people much better. And it reduces any kind of friction because you're creating clarity.

Sarah:

I think that is something that is often overlooked is the importance of understanding Your team and who you are working with because, yeah, like, if because we were all different. Yeah, we all have our own strengths. We all have our own weaknesses, right? It's okay to have weaknesses, because we're human at the end of the day. I think you call them blind spots. Yeah. and stuff. Yeah. And yeah, it's so important to know who, what you're what you've got to work with, and the different personalities and yeah, who you've got in your team, because then you can be more successful, right?

Chris:

Absolutely. If you, if you, I'm gonna get this wrong, I can't remember. So in from from there was a researcher, I think his surname was Tenenbaum. I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna say that that's wrong, probably wrong. So actually, it's definitely Tenenbaum, if you disagree, comment on the post, or whatever. So there's a type of management sort of methodology around looking at the situation or aspects of, of the task or the project and the traits of the the person. So you balance these things together. So it may well be that in certain instances, you spend more time giving more information to someone to help them do a task, and you're managing them more kind of hands on. Because either they're really stressed or they're really busy, or they're just they just need a lot more effort. Versus other people who may know exactly what they have to do exactly what they want to do. And those things balance with the workload, and they're fine, you would know that the situation and the traits of that person aligned to this is kind of like a low task job. I give you the give you the brief in a Slack message, you understand me? I understand you, you know, it's got to be done by Wednesday, and it's done.

Sarah:

Yes, yeah.

Chris:

So being aware of the people you're managing is just as important to being aware of yourself as the manager. Now, if you then extrapolate that into leadership, the big distinction there is that you're setting the course. And essentially, you know, you're setting the course, of course of the ship, you're saying where you're going, you're saying generally how you're going to get there. And because you've done that, and you've set the values, the people that you bring into onto that ship, there should be people that meet the values, which then allow you to have better management of them later.

Sarah:

I just had a thought. So you're kind of like you're acting as the captain of the ship, right? Yeah. Because you're steering. Like, anything goes wrong, people come to you. And then the people in your team are the crew members.

Chris:

The captain of the ship doesn't steer either. That's the direction they set the tone. And they decide how, how problems are dealt with. But they don't do the steering, they don't clean the toilet, they don't mop the deck, they don't do any of those things. Those people they stay, are they there? They're the the person at the front of the thing on a podium telling everyone where to go, how to behave, what to do. And everyone else is then the management of that direction. So if the if the course goes awry, the person who manages the navigation deals with the person who manages the steering, and so on.

Sarah:

I mean, in in this scenario, I think I'd rather be the captain.

Chris:

Oh, yeah, most people would rather be the captain.

Sarah:

But anyway, right, Chris, we are going to take a short break now. And write first part, I think, very valuable. Lots for our listeners. When we are back, we're going to be talking about more skills and general advice for managing leadership. And also what to do if you've got awkward feelings around how often to manage your lead friends, right, because I think that's a that's an important one to discuss too. So we will be back folks. Hey, Sarah, here from the SEO mindset. Just a quick message to say if you would like to support the podcast. If you love what me and Tasman are doing, then please do head on over to the SEO mindset dot code at UK forward slash donate. I'll make sure there's a link in this episode, show notes. And that will take you to our buy me a coffee page. So here you can buy us as many coffees as you like to support us. So each coffee is a donation. And also you can leave us a message. So that will make it easy for us to give you a shout out. Also, if you'd like to reach out to us, maybe you want to say hello ask us a question. Request a shout out. Maybe you want to come on as a guest. We have Twitter. Yes. So, then if you head on over to the seomindset.co.uk/twitter, again, I'll put a link in the show notes. That's how you can reach out to us both me and Tazmin. So yes, thank you very much. Welcome back, Chris, are you still with us? Are you still with us for part two?

Chris:

No, I'm on mute. Yep, I'm here, hello.

Sarah:

That shouldn't still be a thing, should it? But hey, hey, hey, hey, all right.

So let's get into part two, then. And yeah, like, obviously, we've sort of touched on what makes you a good leader, manager, and we've touched on skills. But is there anything else that you want to sort of talk about about how to be a good leader or manager.

Chris:

So management is typically a sort of a short horizon, in terms of timeframe. Leadership is a longer horizon in terms of timeframe, you know, where you're going in five years. So whereas a manager, you're dealing in, usually quarters or half years, or at a push an entire year. So with management, your, you need to be very patient because you're dealing with people, and you need to be very patient, because you're delegating, and you're giving and receiving feedback a lot a lot. You also need to be a to be a good manager, the, the, the ability to leave Shi T at the door when you come into work, so to speak. So if you've had a bad day or a bad evening, and you've got to look up, look, you've got to manage people, you can't, you shouldn't be bringing that to work with you. You can have a bad day. And you can say, hey, look, guys, I had a really bad night last night, or had an argument with someone or dad's ill, or mom's ill or something like that. And that if you've got the good team with good people, they'll understand that, but if you treat people badly, because you've had a bad day, you've got to you've got to be mindful. But short horizons of, of, of intense patience is required if you're a manager, because almost almost every time something will be delivered back to you the first time and it won't be quite right. And you know, in your head what it's supposed to be. But it's very hard for someone else to deliver exactly how you want. So you need to be very patient. With leadership, you need to have a, if it's your own business, especially, you need to be able to have a lot of patience for all the other people and all the other issues that will come through as a leader. But you need to have the patience for this five year plan that you should have. And you should be following along that course. Because it doesn't happen immediately. So you need to build in sort of the leading measures of success as you go. So you feel like you're succeeding as you go. The the problem with that, obviously, is course corrections. And, of course, correction is essentially a euphemism for the business equivalent of a punch in the face, something didn't go to plan. And if if you run any kind of digital agency business or digital marketing business, you're gonna get a lot of punches in the face, it's going to be client stuff, it's going to be algorithmic stuff, there's gonna be all sorts of things that go on that essentially force you to have to change something. And you're having to deal with clients, and sales and marketing and all those other things as well as the people in the setting of the leadership direction. And I think a really good leader goes, Okay, that hurt a little bit. I'll deal with that next. But we've got a direction, we know where we're going to be in five years. And you maintain a level of calm around the rest of your team. Otherwise, that kind of thing, kind of can kill the leadership, or the trust that people have in you. And you look at any popular leader who was popular at the time, they were popular, the second that there's a chink in the armour, because they've done something that they shouldn't have done or said something they shouldn't have said, or have let something get the better of them. It's very easy to start kind of pulling it that and, and that's it.

Sarah:

Yes, yes, definitely. And I mean, there's so much that you just said there that I think is really important. And yeah, I like essential to sort of be mindful of and yeah, I think part of it is as well is not taking things personally.

Chris:

Yeah and it's not often it's not, but it's so easy for it to be taken personally because you're a human being.

Sarah:

It is it is but then like I suppose that's where that Like if you have empathy and hopefully the other people that you're working with has empathy as well. Then, like, Yeah, you don't know what's going on in someone else's life do you or like, but there should always like, you always need to remain calm, like you say don't use no. I like the analogy of like, you know, when you see a graceful swan and then underneath it's chaos underneath with their feet paddling quickly. So So yeah, and yeah, and I love the point about not bring in Shi to, to work, like, leave that. And it's going to be hard, isn't it, but I think if you're, if you can just explain and just say, look, I had a bad night or a bad day, I might be a bit snappy, I'm sorry. Like, and yeah, it's about not being defensive, as well

Chris:

as exactly if you're a leader. And I learned this the hard way by being terrible at it. So if you're a leader who say you've had a bad day, bad night, or something, metaphorical punch in the face, hopefully not a real one. And you, you let it get the better of you impacts the people around you. And, and if you foster a culture of trust, and in that trust, you allow vulnerability, people speak up when they're not feeling quite right. And they don't feel like it's a sign of weakness or lack of value, or inability. So if you have that culture where you where you allow vulnerability at the very top and at the very bottom, but the vulnerability is based entirely on trust, then you can have a bad day as a leader or a manager or as a member of the team. And you can say, Look, just say no, cat died last night. Really, really sad. Got a lot of work to do. If I'm a bit snippy. That's why sorry.

Sarah:

Take accountability. Own it. Yeah. Wonderful. All right. Well, I'm going to move the conversation on slightly. And so what advice would you give to those that have that have awkward feelings around how often to manage or lead employees who are friends? So let's, let's say for example, someone has worked in a company for a while, and they've, they've worked hard, and they've got promotions, and they've made friends within the team, but their last promotion has actually meant, okay, now, I'm having to lead and manage, like employees who are actually my friends, like, that's a hard transition, isn't it? So? Yeah,

Chris:

it's, it's really hard. The flippant answer is try and fire that other person. Get rid of them. Just just just find the new subordinate, just get rid of them, never speak to them, again, delete them on Twitter, and Facebook. And that's it done. No, but a little extreme, it's a bit extreme, probably illegal from an HR point of view. So that was not real advice. And so it is super hard, the thing that you always have to take into account is that the relationship with the person that you have, is based on a parity in terms of the hierarchy. Now, obviously, outside of work, everyone's just everyone's the same more or less outside of work, you don't have hierarchy in many senses, professionally, at least. So when you come into work, and it's that first day, the first thing you should do as a manager anyway, when you take a management position is do one to ones with your team, you should be having conversations openly with your team and saying, Hey, you may or should, or you do already know who I am as a person in the team, you know, in the business. This is what I stand for, in that sense, make it super clear. And I think one thing that's lacking an awful lot in, in general profession, professional life is this ability to create clarity and I feel like I've said clarity about eight times you have to have a little look on the transcription. But clarity is usually the thing that causes conflict. Now, if I have a one to one with my entire team, and it's the same one to one agenda, but I'm dealing with each person individually, if I then have that one to one with someone who is a friend, or a good acquaintance in work and you had a good laugh at work and things like that, you set the expectations and you say, personally, my feelings don't change obviously. Last week, I was your friend. Now I'm your manager, but I'm also I can be your friend outside of work, but there are no preferential treatments. There's there's no Who, we cannot now go out for lunch together every every day because it does foster a sense of them and us and I don't. And that isn't a thing that I want to do. I'm sacrificing that friend, that part of my friendship with you as much as you are. Because I'm losing what you're losing. But outside of work, we can still be friends.

Yeah but it has to come from like a bit of you have to suffer the pain of that conversation.

Sarah:

Yeah, I was just gonna say like it's going to be, I think you need to be aware that it's going to be an awkward conversation, right? And you don't know how that other person is going to react. You can't control how they're going to react. But I suppose you just need to be prepared for that. Right? Like, I think need to have this conversation.

Chris:

If you have the conversation, you create the clarity. If that person takes it the wrong way and behaves badly, then perhaps they weren't the friend you thought they were?

Sarah:

I mean, that's deep in it. Yeah. Exactly. No, I get it. I get it. Yeah. And yeah, and as adults, you have to have these awkward conversations from time like now and then don't you? And like, yes, it feels awkward. Yes, it's not gonna feel nice at the time, but it's gonna help you out massively in the long run.

Chris:

Yeah, and I know, we passed this bit a second ago about tips for being good manager leader thing. But one thing, which I think if you are, if you're in any of those situations, being comfortable with silences is like, super powerful. So if you have to have an awkward conversation, or you have to have a difficult conversation, or you have to have a conversation with anyone where they need to produce or provide some kind of feedback to you, when you've said the thing you have to say, and it's been prepared in the right way, and you said it in the right way. You say no more, and you remain silent until that person speaks. It feels really horrible. You get used to it. You get used to it,

Sarah:

it must feel long as well, like you probably only silent for what, like five seconds. But

Chris:

yeah. So a good example would be you have to give feedback to someone that's not that good, have a good level of feedback, and they're a friend of yours. And you say, you know, how do you feel that that project was delivered, and you then stay silent, they know that they don't want to have to say bad stuff. And they're not willing to come out and speak next. Often, if you're not comfortable with the silences you go, you know, from this perspective, or from that perspective, is there anything you could have done here, and you kind of start putting the words in their mouth, which doesn't do them any good? Because they don't own anything. There's no accountability. But it also doesn't do you any good, because you need to create this kind of segregation of, of, I'm managing and feeding back and you're taking the feedback. And it's really hard if you haven't started that conversation with your current friend, or any of your new team members around how you will behave. And owning that silence is hugely valuable.

Sarah:

Yes. So get get familiar with that people think that's what we're saying. And fortunately, Chris, we have run out of time. And I do need to Don't apologise, it's on me, right? I am the host, I am controlling the time. If I mean, I wish I could control time. Anyway. Right. That's a that's a side point. So there's a couple of questions that I want to squeeze in before we finish it. This is a great I just dropped my pencil. Sorry about that. This has been a great episode. So yeah, just a couple more questions just to to wrap up. So first one key thing people should take away from today's episode. Go.

Chris:

Leadership and Management are two totally separate things. You can make a manager but you can't make a leader.

Sarah:

Nice. Love it short, snappy to the point full of value. Next question, best career advice you have ever received?

Chris:

Okay, so this one's a little bit longer, but only because there's a point point to so the best ever piece piece of piece of career advice I ever got from someone was, Chris, you're excellent at solving problems. But the reason you're excellent at solving problems is because you create so many problems to solve. Think before you act. So the best piece of career advice I had was Think before you act which then lead me into thinking around critical thinking, and how does that work? And critical thinking is what prevents screw ups most of the time. So thinking before you act isn't just do I press save on that htaccess file? It's what happens after I've pressed save on the htaccess file. Is there anything I can test after that thing? What's the long term implications of doing it this way or whatever?

Sarah:

And love that bit of advice. I love asking that question because I get so many varied answers. And it's wonderful. Right? Last question, and then this is an easy one to answer. Where can people find you if they've listened to you? And like, Oh, I like the sound of Chris. I want to carry on the conversation. I want him to help me with stuff. Where can they find you?

Chris:

omg.centre.org, spelt the American way. Or you can find us on the OMG community for agency leaders. So it's omg.centre/ join. And unfortunately, almost every single one of you probably sees some kind of stuff on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube shorts, etc. So if you do see us a lot, get in touch. Have a chat.

Sarah:

Sounds like you're out there. Yeah. Easy, easy to connect with. You can see the bags under my eyes, right? Not at all. Oh, good. Cameras. Excellent. Right. So thank you. Big thank you to you, Chris. You've got a very jam packed schedule. So thank you for finding the time to talk to me on the SEO mindset podcast.

Chris:

Thank you. I've been listening for ages. And actually, it was after listening to Jo Turnbull's episode that I thought I'd better better make an effort and see if I can get on as well.

Sarah:

Wonderful. All right. Well, thank you for supporting and listen to us. And now you're on the show. Yeah, it's great. All right. So I would just like to say thank you to our listeners for joining us for another episode of the podcast. Again, a little reminder that if you do enjoy our podcast, you can support us by donating via buy me a coffee. So there's a link in the show notes there. So you donate by donating us a coffee, basically. And again, we're on Twitter. So if you want to reach out to us say hi, suggested topic, give us some feedback, whatever. Then yeah, go on to theseomindset.com/twitter. And that link is also in the show notes. Now, Chris, we always end every episode with a pledge. So this bits, not podcasty, really. But can you put your hand on your heart? And I am going to pledge and I want you to hear the pledge. I am an SEO professional who prioritises mindset and personal growth and not just rankings improving visibility and algorithms. Did you feel that pledge?

Chris:

I felt it yeah. Do I have to do the same? No. Okay. I felt, I felt the pledge. I feel it.

Sarah:

Wonderful. All right. Thank you again, Chris. Thank you. And yes, everyone else take care.

Hey, Sarah, here from the SEO mindset. Just a quick message to say if you would like to support the podcast, if you love what me and Jasmine are doing, then please do head on over to theseomindset.com/donate. I'll make sure there's a link in this episode, show notes. And that will take you to our buy me a coffee page. So here you can buy us as many coffees as you like to support us. So each coffee is a donation. And also you can leave us a message. So that will make it easy for us to give you a shout out. Also, if you'd like to reach out to us, maybe you want to say hello ask us a question or request a shout out. Maybe you want to come on as a guest. We have Twitter. Yes. So again, if you head on over to theseomindset.com/twitter. Again, I'll put a link in the show notes. That's how you can reach out to us both me and Tazmin. So yes, thank you very much.

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About the Podcast

The SEO Mindset Podcast
Personal growth tips to help you to optimise your SEO career and not just the algorithms!
The SEO Mindset is a weekly podcast that gives you actionable, personal growth and development tips, guidance and advice, to help you to optimise your SEO career and not just the algorithms.

The podcast is dedicated to talking about important topics that aren't often spoken about in the industry such as imposter syndrome, burnout, anxiety, self awareness etc. Sarah and Tazmin, along with their special guests highlight important topics, share own experiences as well as giving actionable solutions. Basically we have open, honest and frank conversations to help others in the industry.

Each week we cover topics specific to careers in the SEO industry but also broader topics. We will help you to not only build your inner confidence but to also thrive in your career.

Your hosts are Mindset Coach Tazmin Suleman and SEO Manager Sarah McDowell, who between them have over 20 years experience working in the industry.
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About your hosts

Sarah McDowell

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I've been in Digital Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for around 10 years, currently working as the SEO Manager at Captivate (part of Global), the world's only growth-orientated podcast host. I am a self-confessed SEO nerd (I find the industry fascinated and love learning how search engines like Google work) and a bit of a podcast addict (with this being the fourth podcast I have hosted). I am also a speaker and trainer. I hope you enjoy this podcast!

Tazmin Suleman

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I am a Life Coach, helping people grow and thrive, however my background has included careers in Development, Data Integrity and SEO. Through coaching, mentoring and teaching I help people build happier more fulfilling professional and personal lives by changing their mindset and habits. I teach courses on these topics and have incorporated a lot of the teachings in this podcast. I hope you find it useful.