SEO Pro and Keynote Speaker Steve Wiiderman

I love this interview for two different reasons.

First of all, I had a really interesting guest. Steve Wiideman is a keynote speaker, search engine optimization ration expert and guru, entrepreneur and just a really nice guy. He is a technical expert in SEO, which means he is probably pretty left brained and very analytical. He’s had tremendous success in the world of search engines, and has grown a very successful business.

He’s just an interesting guy. Period. He’s the kind of person you want to hang out with because he’s smart, clever, and a super high achiever.

The second reason I love this interview is because it was a microcosm of my work talking about social and emotional support for business audiences. Although I vary my talks to match my clients, I’m generally a keynote speaker about soft and people skills to business and healthcare audiences. As I’ve written before in this blog sometimes my clients have trouble seeing the business value of people skills and soft skills.

In this interview Steve tells a story about how he achieved something remarkable: he earned top Google rankings for the search phrase “SEO Expert.” This is a phenomenally difficult task. And the fact that he was able to achieve number one proved that he’s a player in this very difficult and complex technical industry. It was a badge of honor and proof of his skills. Sounds pretty great, right? Wrong.

What Steve learned over time, and with the help of a particularly close friend, was that people in his industry were turned off by the fact that he was promoting himself as an SEO Expert. Yes this might be a helpful phrase for clients and potential clients, but people in his peer group and industry were not impressed by this guy they felt was a braggart.

When Steve decided to take a massive leap and deleted the page talking about his SEO expertise, which rendered all of his hard work optimizing for that search phrase moot, it was a big risk. But good things began to happen. It was a tremendously difficult choice to abandon this search phrase. But it turns out the gains outweighed any costs.

The main change was that he was welcomed back into his industry. People wanted him to talk to their conferences. They wanted him to keynote their events. And they welcomed him into masterminds and other networking meetings. And perhaps most telling of all, they referred work to him.

Here’s the bottom line. When Steve found out that something in his business was successful in one way, but creating tremendous damage to his personal brand in a different way, he made a massive change. He made himself warmer. He made himself more likable. He focused on building relationships and community. And guess what? The payoff was massive.

What’s this got to do with us? I’m glad you asked. We traditionally find it easier to invest in hard skill training and competence building efforts. We rarely feel that growing our own personal network, mastering or improving people skills, or focusing on projecting warmth is valuable. But it isn’t. And this interview with Steve Wiideman proves it.

Steve is a really nice guy. I’m so glad I got to meet him. If you listen to the interview you’ll learn that I have interviewed him twice. And I thought the story behind it was worth a listen too. I hope you feel the same way.

Thanks Steve. It’s a pleasure being on your team!!!