Hi, it's me Tom Critchlow - I'm an independent consultant, blogger and jazz-lover. Last week I emailed you about my book chapter, this week a new project launch.
When I first launched my consulting practice I wanted to distance myself from the SEO industry. After working at Google for two years on things like Google Glass, quantum computing and VR it felt like a step backwards to do SEO audits.
The truth is that being a pure-play SEO consultant felt limiting. However what I was really struggling with was not being senior enough and not strategic enough. As I evolved my consulting practice I managed to work with more interesting clients on more interesting projects. And because most of my clients are content businesses at heart - everything touches and informs SEO.
SEO is inherently a cross-disciplinary activity and requires working across multiple stakeholders on a wide range of projects. That's set me up well to be a consultant - helping teach me how to operate cross-functionally and how to get things done.
I need to stop pretending that SEO clients cant be interesting and SEO clients cant be strategic.
Rather than hiding and disguising my work here I think it's important to acknowledge that some of my most interesting clients have involved some portion of SEO work. Yes, there's also product development, leadership, org design and such but there's SEO too. With this new launch it pulls my personal identity back closer to the SEO world but also opens up a strong theme of education and teaching (something I care a lot about).
One thing I've spent a lot of time doing over the past few years is hiring and helping clients structure and build teams. And it's clear that there's a big talent gap in the SEO industry for senior talent that can interface with the executive layer. Which is why I'm launching a new project:
the SEO MBA.
The SEO MBA is a free newsletter and (soon) an online course. Designed to teach executive presence for SEO professionals. You can
read and share the full launch announcement here, but I've also copy and pasted it below in full.
For those with an SEO-interest I hope you'll sign up and help share the new project.
Much love, Tom.
Welcome to the SEO MBA
Hi, I’m Tom. I’ve spent the last 15 years working in SEO and digital media. I opened up the Distilled NYC office in 2011, worked at Google for a few years and have been running my own consulting business for the last 6 years.
I’ve spent the last two years embedded inside some large organizations helping them restructure and build new SEO teams - and my latest gig involved hiring a VP SEO position and several senior SEO roles underneath.
From running a bunch of senior level interviews it became clear to me that the biggest skills gap in the industry is the ability to get things done and operate at the executive layer of an organization.
SEO is by nature a cross-disciplinary activity - it requires collaboration between product, technology, content, PR, marketing and more. So, it’s no surprise that the number one frustration for SEO professionals is getting things done.
“The top 5 failure causes all had something to do with SEO execution challenges.” - Aleyda Solis
And
“The average SEO at a big company has been waiting over six months for their highest priority technical change and doesn’t anticipate seeing it deployed for at least another six months” - Will Critchlow
To be an effective senior SEO professional you need some business skills. You need the ability to present ideas to the c-suite, create a compelling business case for multi-million dollar investments and work cross-functionally to gather buy-in from stakeholders.
I call this executive presence.
Executive presence is essential whether you’re working in-house, agency side or freelance. Unfortunately, learning executive presence is hard - it’s a tacit set of skills that are best learned from observation, imitation and practice.
That’s why I’m launching not only this newsletter but also a hands-on online course - to provide an environment for learning and growth that can actually teach you some of these skills.
There are plenty of people in the industry who are knowledgeable SEOs, well versed in the technical specifics, data analysis, algorithm updates and ranking signals. While interviewing senior SEOs I spoke to a lot of people who know more than I do about some of the technical aspects of how SEO works.
Unfortunately, technical expertise doesn’t matter if you can’t operate at the executive layer of an organization. Too many SEOs lack the ability to create a compelling vision, tell a persuasive story, gather buy-in across the organization or work with other departments.
So, here’s the summary:
- I'm launching the SEO MBA - a free newsletter focused on the business & leadership skills necessary for SEOs to succeed at the executive level.
- There’s going to be very little technical SEO advice. Instead I’m going to focus on helping you become a more confident and effective executive-level professional.
- In addition to the newsletter (which is free) I’m developing some online training programs to teach executive presence. Sign up for updates and more info.
What are we going to talk about?
Here’s what I’m planning to write about:
SEO x Business
Operating at the executive layer of a business requires understanding some of the fundamentals of business, and how businesses operate. We’ll explore building revenue forecasts and models, estimating project impacts and creating compelling narratives for your work.
Consulting Skills for Getting Things Done
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I’ve spent the last 6 years as an independent consultant and study consulting skills as a kind of weird hobby (I’m even writing a book about it…). The heart of consulting skills is how to be effective at getting things done.
From creating executive ready presentations to building a business case, consulting skills can help you align stakeholders, pitch projects and gain buy-in and resources for your work.
SEO Careers
Where do you go beyond SEO Director? There are very few VP SEO positions - and honestly that’s as it should be (more on that in a future email). So how do you advance your career? What skills are important? How do you position yourself as a senior SEO? Are there things we can learn from looking at some example career paths?
Q&A
I’m open to reader suggestions and want to keep the advice grounded and relevant. So if you have a question you’d like me to address drop me a note. Some things that people have asked me recently:
- How do I make my agency the “McKinsey of SEO”?
- How do I actually convince this organization to implement my SEO recommendations?
- How do I get a company to invest millions of dollars into SEO initiatives?
- How do I structure an SEO team for success?
- How do you effectively manage an SEO team?
Yes, there’s a course coming soon
This newsletter is free. I’m also in the process of building out a hands-on course to teach executive presence that is designed to provide senior skills for SEO professionals to be more effective at business strategy and management, and ultimately to make change happen either internally or with your clients
Much love,
Tom
Same system, nothing changed. Just pure chaos. (Play around yourself with a visualization of your own career. Be sure to select chaos mode: 
Same system, nothing changed. Just pure chaos. (Play around yourself with a visualization of your own career. Be sure to select chaos mode: 
Orientation: I'm Tom Critchlow and this is my newsletter where I talk about independent consulting, blogging, content stuff and other hijinks. You likely signed up on my (bright green) website: tomcritchlow.com.
WFH consulting has it's perks - like when your 4 year old daughter doodles in your notebook
Let's unpack this:
Read more 
What is this image all about? It's a 2x2 on blog vs book / fiction vs non-fiction. It maps the spectrum of writing choices you have (loosely, weirdly). I'll explain later in a post soon.
I've written before about the tensions of branding your consulting practice. In my post (from 2016!) I explain why 
The second kind of feedback I love is friends helping reign me in or add counters to my points, this really helps tighten up the "wild" sections and make my whole piece stronger and better. For example here's Thomas keeping me in check:
And finally - here's a really insightful remark from my friend Toby that cuts to the real "why" of the piece to help make it stronger. This comment forced me re-work the piece from start to finish to add a theme beyond "just" ways of seeing. Thank you Toby!
Anyway - I always enjoy this kind of insider baseball and I hope you do too. And of course hello and thank you to all who contributed thoughtful edits and comments!
Anyway.
Sure, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense on it's own. But this is the kernel of the idea of "Media Design" coming to life. A unifying idea to tie together the threads of my work.
There must be a theory on the internet that any blogger left alone to their own devices eventually starts a podcast right? Or perhaps the theory is that *anyone* left to their own devices will eventually start a podcast? Either way - here we are.
Aside from the fact that "infrastructural violence" is a beautiful (and haunting) phrase there's something interesting here. We don't have tools to understand what's happening. What exactly is the issue? How big is it? How deep does it go?
The networked age is maturing and we're starting to see some weird structural effects emerge. It's a fascinating, if troubling, time to be working in the digital world.
