Getting Promotions with Dan Saunders
This week we have Dan joining Sarah on the podcast to discuss promotions, an often scary or taboo subject, so that you can progress in your career.
About Dan:
I've worked in Digital for 18 years. Within Digital marketing I work closely with the directors and heads of service to identify new business opportunities and Strategies. Having an in-depth understanding of different markets and competitors in the area to maintain a competitive advantage which is used to work alongside key stakeholders in managing the translation of the business strategy into clear plans. Proactively researching markets, competitors within different regions and establishing ways to develop a competitive advantage within our strategies.
Where to find Dan:
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Each week we will cover topics specific to careers in the SEO industry but also broader topics too including professional and personal development.
Your hosts are Life Coach Tazmin Suleman and SEO Manager Sarah McDowell, who between them have over 20 years of experience working in the industry.
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Transcript
Hello, and a very warm welcome to the SEO Mindset podcast. This is your go to podcast for SEO professionals who want to do better within their career, work on themselves personal growth and all of that, and doing that for themselves and not just the algorithms. So yes, that's, that's what we're hoping to achieve with this podcast. Your hosts are myself, Sarah McDowell and the wonderful Tazmin Sulleman. Unfortunately Tazmin isn't here, but do not fret because I have an awesome guest for you. And his name is Dan Saunders. Now, Dan has worked in digital for 18 years, and within digital marketing, he works closely with the directors and heads of service to identify new business opportunities and strategies, having an in depth understanding of different markets and competitors in the area to maintain a competitive advantage, which is used to work alongside key stakeholders in managing the translation of the business strategy into clear plants. Welcome to the podcast, Dan.
Dan (:Thank you very much having me, Sarah. You can tell that's just literally lifted out of my CV that I spent ages trying to get it right, just trying to hit all the key buzzword in there that anyone that uses for a cv,
Sarah (:I mean, you did it smashed it, smashed it out the part.
Dan (:Appreciate it. Thank you very much,
Sarah (:Thank you. It is one of my all time favorite jumpers. I am very stereotypical northern, and the fact that I still refuse to put my heating on, even though it is like five degrees outside. Yeah, I couple that with the fact that I'm part of Syrian. So, like British summertime is still quite cool for me. But still in case of, no, no, no, no. If I'd not been here today, I'd have had this on a blanket, I'm more than likely my dressing gown as well. So this is, this is me dressed up now in the work from home era
I very much appreciate it. I mean, I'm in so I, I'm wearing a fleece. And yes, I bought, this is a recent purchase, and all my days it is very warm, very, very nice and warm. Right. So we are not obviously here to talk about clothing. Like I, I know that we could be fashion Easters here and we could be talking fashion
That's a really, really interesting question, because to me, it's just not been like that. And I get, it might just be like different mentalities and it's it's just something, you know, I came from a very sales background, so it was a case of I always had to sort of prove what I was worth. And then I got into the habit of doing that, where we work in seo, it's very difficult sometimes to have that. And I, I don't, I don't know if you see the same thing, but I always feel that when I'm speaking to some people in our industry that they sort of feel like they've got the, they've, they're privileged to be where they are, and they don't want to sort of upset that. Or it might just be the, the sense that, you know, it could be the typical British thing.
Dan (:We don't like confrontation. It can lead directly to confrontation, but, you know, not to stereotype as all, but, you know, we are very much the stereotype for the reason. Or just the or just the, the lack of confidence in ourselves and what we're doing. Because, you know, I've, I can't remember the last time I met someone that did SEO and did it poorly. Every, you know, through, you know, through networks like Brighton seo all the different events, when I get to speak to people and talk about anyone that's done the research or anyone that's even attending events needs to have more confidence in themselves because it we're all just human. Whether that's the case or not is, yeah, to me it's gotta be one of those three things. I'm really happy to hear from anyone else that have other struggles with that when they come to talk about their promotions or a pay rise or anything along those sort lines. But those are the ones that I, I tend to come across the most.
Sarah (:I mean, it's interesting because you started by saying about mentality, right? And it sounds like you've always had a positive mentality when it comes to this kind of area and stuff. And as you were saying, the sort of reasons why people are scared or nervous I definitely, I can relate to it, and I think a lot of our listeners can relate to it as well, because yeah, like you said people don't like confrontation. People in it can sometimes be an awkward topic to bring up. And when do you bring it up? And I think there's a, a bit of vulnerability as well, because if you're bringing this up with your, with your manager or whoever's in in control of promotions and pay rises and all of that like you don't know what the reaction's gonna be like, right? So I think we can really get into our heads about it sometimes. And that leads back to your, to your mindset, I suppose.
Dan (:Exactly. And from, from my standpoint though, there can be no negative answer if, even if voice case scenario, you've put the case together, you said, right, I want a promotion for X, Y, and Z reason, any manager worth assault? We'll, if they say no, we'll say no because of this, but then that gives you a plan of what you can do to get that. You can say, right, okay, what are my next steps? How do I hit this? And then you build up a plan from that. If your employer says, no, I don't wanna talk about it then it's a case of, right, okay. Then that's another conversation to have from it, because in the age that, that we're in at the moment everyone that works in seo, everyone that works in PPC or digital marketing as a whole, we are a finite resource.
Dan (:And we need to take into a consideration that when we doing our job well, and we know in our heart of hearts, if we're doing our job well, we can have that, we can have that conversation with them as well. And like I said, there's, there is no for any solid employer that you've got faith in, there is no negative answer in this. If they say, no, you know what, that's fine. Talk me through the steps that I can get there. If they say, yes, bang, we're happy. But this is talking through the steps. And then it's also, it is really good to bring these up in your one-to-ones course, whatever you have, making sure you're asking about your yourself, because that's what they're about. And people tend to when I've been in one-to-ones or held one-to-ones, people have always been, you know, what have always sort of just been accepting of what the manager's saying instead of, you know, sort of challenging them to say, right, I wanna do this, I wanna do this. I wanna grow and do this. They're kind of just sort of like, I'm gonna stick in my lane and just go with that
Sarah (:A hundred percent. And part two we will go into more detail and give our listeners actionable things that they can do when they're bringing up promotions with their manager or people above them and stuff. So let's, I think we should give Alice a bit of a pep talk. I know that we've kind of already done that. But what are some of the reasons why we should be asking for a promotion?
Dan (:I think you know, cost of living crisis to one side, we take this, you know? Yeah. Because if we go back to track and do history, there's always the cost of living crisis. There's covid, there's you know, what did we have before Covid? We had Brexit. What did we have before Brexit? We had Scottish referendum. Then we had, like, you know, taking a jump back. We had the war in Iraq, and then, you know, there's, there's always gonna be a reason to say, this is not a good time to do it. There's always, always gonna be a good reason. When I first started, I learned how to when I first came into like sort full-time employment, I was selling houses in in 2009. And for those was old enough, like me to remember that that was when the bottom had fallen out the market completely, and no one was buying.
Dan (:So you just had to have that sort of go get it attitude. And I think when you're asking for a promotion, you need to know your own value. And if you've done, you know, you've done all these courses, or you've made a significant gain in a certain area, you've gotta be shouting about how good you are all the time. Because in our, you know, I know it's specifically in my industry at the moment, it's very, very old hat, you know, in the DIY sphere, it's very much, you know, the person that's got the biggest sales numbers is the winner. But when we come into digital marketing, we're sort of seen as an add-on from that. Making sure you're shouting about your successes. It's something that you think is a personal achievement, but maybe you don't think the rest of your group or the rest of the marketing team or the rest of the company wouldn't care about. You'd be surprised about how talking about it, how posting about it, how emailing out to them to show this is a massive achievement resonates with your colleagues.
Sarah (:Yes, a hundred percent. So if I'm following correctly the reason, one reason why people should be asking promotion is to kind of like shout about the good stuff that they're doing and to show their work within a company, right? Because I think sometimes we get so focused or we get so honed in on a project or what we're working on stuff, we, we tend to like forget to shout about our wins or what we are doing and stuff. So I think obviously yeah, like bringing this up with your, with your company, your business, your manager is a good way of giving yourself some validation as well, I suppose.
Dan (:Yeah, exactly. If you just spent absolute ages going through a, a big old project, your eyes are burnt out from looking at the screen, you don't think you can deal with numbers or you can deal with any sort of content anymore, and you've just done that massive achievement where you've just take, you've had to sit back and take that break and go, I can't believe I've just got through that. Or when you see the other side of how well it's worked, shout about that. Those two instances, you should have shouted out about how good you've done or how hard it was to do that. So people can appreciate it. And it's not, oh, you know, it's not always a case of, oh look, you know, I, I changed this one title tag. That's great. That's fantastic. It's about when you've done the project and you've said, yeah, this is what we do. And you know, coming back into the actual advice and the second half you know, it's about putting the it's about putting the monetary value to it, because that's what the, the big, you know, most businesses care about.
Sarah (:Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Okay. Okey dokey. Is there any other reasons that we should be asking? So obviously we're saying it gives you recognition, it gives you validation. The other thing is you can make sure that you are that you know your worth and you're being paid your worth. So especially like, say if you've been in a job for a long time and maybe you've just got used to that you haven't had a pay rise in a while. Like, maybe, maybe there's that side of it as well.
Dan (:I, yeah, a hundred percent that it's you know, the life span of a digital marketer on average at the moment in time is about 18 months. So most
Sarah (:Companies ingesting
Dan (:I are really, you know, if you've been in a company more than 18 months, you've lasted more than a company is boded for you there. And this is just, this is just data I've pulled from LinkedIn and just following like key people you know, in the digital sphere and just looking at how often we're all changing roles. So if you look at what you've done in the last 18 months, you might be thinking, oh, actually maybe it's time to change role change to a different company where you could actually look internally and be honest with you manager and said, look, you know, I've done this, this, this and this. I've been doing this for this amount of time. I've pretty much got it nailed on. I'd like to grow, I'd like to do something else and add this to your development.
Sarah (:Yeah, yeah, definitely. And so personal development as well, right? Yeah. awesome point, awesome point. Yeah, I mean, that's quite shocking, isn't it? 18 months isn't, isn't long
At all. It, it really isn't. But then when you know, look it back at my cv, I think, oh, yeah, yeah, that, that looks about right. You know I stayed in my first job for what, nine years didn't get a you know, went from slight promotions to just different, you know, just different titles in the job. But there was no, there was no real increase. You know, I think I went from, you know starting out on like 14 k year and I finished up that nine year period on 18 K.
Sarah (:So
Dan (:There was no even, like, if you could say considered inflation at the time, and yeah, that wasn't, that just wasn't right. I think I just got to the point where I'm looking at some other people that were doing the same job, and I'm like, how are they living that life, you know, on, on what I'm earning? And then, you know, you have that honest conversation with somebody, it's like, well hang about, they're, they're on significantly more. And I think that's where I really kind of got this whole be in my body about knowing what my worth is. Yeah. And how do I translate that to other people?
Sarah (:A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Right. so we've obviously given people quite a lot of information here. So hopefully they're geared up now. They're like, yes, I need to, I need to go and sort this out. I need, I need to ask about promotion. I need to ask about a pre rise. So I reckon we're in a good place to take a short break. And when we are back in part two, we'll be discussing about lots of different ways that you can go about asking for a promotion and maybe even get into like other, so if a promotion isn't available, what else, what else can you look into? Which isn't always just moving on from that role or that company. We are back for part two. Did you have a nice break, Dan?
Dan (:I did. Thank you very much. I had a very nice cup of tea in between time.
Sarah (:I mean, again, it's a shame people can't see, but he's got a humongous mug, listeners like, yeah. And it says, size matters on there. And I think that's very much the case when it comes to cups of tea and coffee.
Dan (:That would be very hardcore. Right. before we end up on another rabbit hole talking about clothing, now we're talking about hot beverages. Need to yes. Right. So what is the main key takeaway you want people to take away? I need to think of a better way of saying that. I've said it now from part one.
Dan (:The key takeaway I want you to swim away from part one is that you are a lot more valuable than you think.
Sarah (:Yes. Self worth people.
Dan (:A hundred percent. I couldn't. It's, it's one of those things that everyone says, but so do they really believe that, just to give you a bit of context, it's gonna be a bit morbid. Now thinking about it, if you died, your work wouldn't hesitate to replace you. You know, they'll have a little bit of a morning period then there 2, 2, 3 weeks later. So one has picked up your workload, you've been replaced, carry on. But for you, you know, that's it. That's it. So you need to remember that, that as much as you love your job, and as much as you love the people you're working, you've got to think about you and how good you are and what your life's around. And it's a horrible, horrible truth. And it's very, very morbid of me to say. But that's, that's the fact. And that's what sort of drives the mentalizing behind it.
Sarah (:Well, I have like a little less morbid that doesn't involve death
Exactly. I mean, you look at companies like you know, misguided ma.com, you know, these are brands that I remember as an agency trying to target them thinking, oh, these are really great brands, I really wanna work with them. But look, you know, look where they are now. They're all part of the Frazier group at the moment, or or partly part of next. I do like the Elon Musk analogy, rather than if you were dead, I think I'm gonna use Elon Musk as the boogeyman that's gonna come in and buy your company and make you redundant rather than if you were dead
Sarah (:You
Sarah (:Can
Dan (:So you've just gotta take care of yourself. Right, exactly. So part two, then, let's give people some actionable stuff that they can do to help bring up the conversation of promotions with their, with their manager or things that they can do to make sure that they're in the right direction or they're a step towards asking.
Dan (:Yeah, so the first thing that I would say is audit yourself and be honest. Look where your strengths are, look where your weaknesses are, and then just sort of put it together to say, right, okay, these are my strengths, these are my weakness. What do I need to make weaknesses, my strengths? And I know it sounds very, very, what's the word? Cliche is the word I'm looking for. But once you've got that act of writing it down and actually seeing these things and being honest with yourself, that's where it opens you. You open yourself up to be so much more free cuz you can say, right, okay, I want to do more of this. I want to do less of this. How do I get to do more of this rather than more of this stuff that I hate? Mm-Hmm.
Interesting.
Dan (:That's, and if you're talking to someone, say, right, okay, here's in terms of looking at resource, like, hey, here's what I do in a day. Here's what our competitor my life for like does day to day. Here's what we need to be more successful from them. Here's how much I'm willing to take take on from that. So you are looking at a resource that you've got within the company versus what the company's overarching goals are for that year. More than, more often than not. Your ceo, your managing director, your marketing director will put out a forecast well in advance to say, this is what the company is going to do this year. If you can align yourself to those goals and talk to your, talk to them in terms of resource and how you add value to that, that's automatically clicking with them because you are talking in their language, that's their currency.
Dan (:They're looking at resource their time. And like I said, money is sometimes, you know, is often blown out proportionate of how important it is for somebody for you. You know, say you know, a fair pay rise, someone would say is anywhere between, actually this is, I suppose that's as thick as it is long dependening is depending on what you work as you know, is it really fair to say that someone is you know, it is different levels deserves a 3% or someone deserves a 5%. But I tend, I tend to look at anywhere between three to 5% as a win from my side. So if you can then say, right, by giving me this money, you are then I'll opening up this much resource, you're then opening up this much time or you are opening yourself up to this much money because the time that I take on or the resource that I take on would cost you this in terms of bringing on a new head into the business. And at the time, at the moment where businesses are wanting to make sure there's a squeeze on them. If you can talk if you can understand how your higher ups talk, and like I say, it's more than likely gonna be one of those three languages, if you can then start reporting back to them in that language, then it changes, it opens up a whole new world
Sarah (:For you. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And that speaking, speaking their language is so, so important, especially in the SEO world as well because obviously in SEO we have our own lingo, we have
Definitely. And then the, to couple onto that as well, once you've got that in hand, make sure you book some time and you're clear with your manager why you book some, you want to book that time in with 'em, whether it's face to face, zoom, whatever I want to talk about having a promotion, is this time convenient for you and just being straight to the point
Sarah (:Yes. About it. Yes. Be transparent because you don't want to because I can kind of see that you, you might not want to put it in the writing at first cuz you're like, oh, I don't want them to know because they might just sh shoot it down. But you, you have to be transparent because you don't wanna put your manager on the spot
Exactly. Being as transparent as possible and giving them enough time to consider their options as well so they can then say, you know, if they're given an allocation budget, they could, you know, the best option for you is, yeah, sure, okay, I actually want to talk to you about this. I think we should do it. Here's, here's what we're offering. Or that's interesting as you can understand the time, you know, which is more often the response that you get. As you can understand, times are tough at the moment, but as we've highlighted earlier, when aren't times tough, times just tough full stop. Can we talk, you know, can we talk about it? The main point is having that conversation, and like I said, the worst thing they can do is say no. In which case, yes. Yeah. And, and like I said, the the worst case scenario is no, but then that is open door to say, right, okay, what next? How do we deal with
Sarah (:That? And you need to have a con, what's the word? Con? Const. See plan.
Dan (:Yeah. Oh oh my goodness, I completely forgot what the word
Sarah (:Is.
No, no.
Sarah (:Con contingency. Contingency.
Dan (:That is the word. Oh my gosh, I completely forgot what the word was.
Sarah (:I mean, I, I was the one who was saying it and I forgot halfway through. Yeah. So, and that contingency plan doesn't always have to be like, right, I'm gonna look elsewhere. And I think we sort of said early, didn't, didn't we? About like looking internal, like, okay, so maybe a promotion isn't right now, or maybe a pay rise isn't right now, but what other things can I, is there other benefits that you can, you can get or timelines or Yeah, like yeah,
Dan (:That's the key point. The timelines is the key point. If you can get someone to commit to a timeline, that's your road. That is literally the road, right? Okay, I've hit this this milestone, I've hit this milestone, I've hit this milestone, I've done this, done this, this is what we've agreed before. The last the last part is a little bit more poignant. Don't be afraid to walk away
Sarah (:As well. Oh
Dan (:Yes. And that's you know, it's, it's sort of like playing poker. If you've got the cards then you know you've got the cards, but in the other side of it as well, you've got to be willing to, you've got, got to be willing to lose. And if you're not in that scenario where you're not willing to lose, then, then it's different. It's a different conversation. That's the more drastic end that is, if you've gone to your manager, they've said, no we're not doing any pay rises this year of, okay, alright. Okay. Well what do I, what does the timeline look like? Well, we can't talk about timeliness at the moment. Well, that's, no, that's no good.
Sarah (:Yeah, for
Dan (:Me, I, I've presented a, a fair and logical case to you as to why I deserve this money. If you don't think I deserve it, it's then time to have that on this conversation. And so I'll be honest with you, it's time for me to start looking elsewhere. Yeah.
Sarah (:And like if they've, if they fail to bring up anything as like a compromise or something else, like yeah, like I said, like other perks as well or other, other ways that you can feel a bit more appreciated, appreciated. Words are not my strong point to know, which is
Dan (:No, I, I I get what you're saying. I guess
Sarah (:Exactly. Life is far too short to really worry about this things. And we start, and exactly as you said, Sarah, you know, you spend most of your life working with people, you know. I you know, you, you think about the people that you work with, you spend so much time with them, especially when we were in offices, but now probably even more so we're on Zoom because everyone sees a free spot on your diary and decides to put something in so you're back to back. You see and speak to these people more than you do you, or the halves more than you do your friends. Even in my case, I speak to my manager more than I speak to my little boy. Cause I speak to her like four or five hours a day. Whereas I only get, you know, I'll get to see him when I finish at five and then he's in bed for seven or so.
Dan (:It's, you know, it's, you're spending so much time with these people, you've gotta make sure it's the right fit. And it's also about asking these questions even at interview stage as well as, you know, what are the, you know, what are the chances it is not asking like, you know, what do I need to do to get promoted? It's like, what's the progression roadmap look like? You know, because you don't wanna be seen as to be looking and, you know, oh, I've got, I've got an interview for this job, actually I'm looking for three jobs down from that. It's like, what's the progression look like? Because I'm interested in growing myself. And that's what they, they take away from me is I want to be able to grow. I want to have more, more responsibilities. And that's from someone that's done interviews before. That's one of the key things. I look for someone that's got that growth mentality. You've gotta have that growth mindset.
Sarah (:Yes, definitely. And funny usage, say growth mindset, because we have a podcast episode all about that. So excellent. Thanks there for the the internal promo of the podcast episodes.
Dan (:Excellent. Internal linking
Sarah (:Know yourself worth and have confidence in yourself. That's two things.
Sarah (:You as it's you, Dan. I'll allow it.
Dan (:I'll allow it. Thank you. I'll,
Sarah (:What is the best bit of career advice that you've ever received?
Dan (:I can't think of any one thing in particular, but the person that gave me that advice was Stephen Kenwright. Those, you know, who used to be a big part of branded three co-owner of Rise at seven.
Sarah (:Yes.
Dan (:His advice, anytime I have any sort of career advice whatsoever, I go to him and he smashes it out the park. He, he's always, I think, I like to think that I'm one or two steps ahead of some people, but he's like, he's like a whole marathon ahead of most people that I speak to. Yeah. His mind is just constantly on. So in terms of the actual specific advice, I couldn't give you that, but the person I go to for the advice Steve Kenwright,
Sarah (:Well, there, there is the advice, right? If you do need career advice, find that one person, find that person that you, you can go to. So there you go. You just needed to wear it in a different way.
Dan (:Thank you. I
Where can people find you online if they want to continue the conversation?
Dan (:Probably easiest place to find me at the moment is LinkedIn. It's a picture of me with my dog of my shoulder because that is life at the moment, which when you sort of, you've done that horrible bit piece of content, you can go take the dog for a walk or she'll come and interrupt you Zoom calls or anything like that. Yeah I want Dan Saunders still on Twitter. I've not, I'm definitely not investing in the blue tick. I will keep it as it is for now, but I'm at Dan Saunders, 86.
Sarah (:Well, I'll make sure that all the links to find you are in the show notes if there's podcast episode. So that's great. I just wanna say thank you to Dan, my awesome guest for joining us. Now we do end every episode now with a pledge and I'm gonna put you on the spot and get you to say the pledge cuz that's fun. So are you ready?
Dan (:I am. Do I have to do my hand on my heart or is it just
(:Hand on heart please. Like you need hand
Dan (:On it. Okay. Right. I am an SEO who prioritizes mindset and personal growth and not just rankings to improve visibility and algorithms.
Sarah (:That was such a heartfelt pledge. I could feel it
Dan (:Well, you said it wonderfully and I never want to hear that you hate anything about yourself, Dan, because you're a wonderful human being.