From SEO to CEO: How to become a successful SEO or Digital Marketing Agency Founder and CEO

Welcome to a new edition of Crawling Mondays. Today, I am delighted to cover a topic that is not very common. From SEO to CEO, how do you become an entrepreneur after being an SEO? And I have with me 2 of the people that I admire the most from the industry, who after being very successful SEOs themselves, they started to develop as entrepreneurs. They became CEOs of their company, and one of them already sold her company. And today will be a very special edition in which they will share their journeys, their dos and don'ts, all those tips, and potentially advice that you really, really, really want to know if you want to follow this journey. So on one hand, I have the wonderful Lisa Pasque, who's now an entrepreneur and consulting and advising and providing mentorship through her own company that is called Ecta. On the other hand, I have Bastiaan Grim, who's the CEO of PKays, his online marketing agency. So thank you very much for joining me, Lisa and Bastiaan.

Thank you. Thank you so much. This is going to be exciting.

Yeah, thanks for having us.

It will, it will. So I will start with the first question to spark the conversation.

How did you make the decision I was working as an SEO head of search for an agency, a marketing agency. And for me, like getting into SEO was quite interesting. And, you know, I had no idea what it was. And I kind of landed into it. And it just made so much sense to me. And I really think that I was like, actually falling in love with the role, where I was like, this totally makes sense. Why are people thinking this is This is so complicated, you know. And I tried to really convince the people that I worked with that this had so much potential. This was in 2005 when I started. And it was about 2007, 2008 where I was like, look, I'd already grown the team then to like 5 people. It was really profitable, but it wasn't at all charging the amount of money that I thought it should be. And it was more like typical agency life where, you know, they added SEO as an extra at the end. Asked, you know, you can get this for £1,500. I was like, hey, I'm not doing anything for £1,500. What the hell? And so, I tried to convince them to like, just to actually do like an arm that would be an actual SEA agency. And they just didn't want to hear it. So, in November 2008, literally the height of the recession, I was like, fuck it, I'm going to do it myself. So, January 2009, I set up Verbssearch. The big thing for me is like, I was, already fortunate enough to have a profile in the industry. So, I had already spoken at a couple of conferences, not loads, but, you know, SES, for those who remember that, and SMX. And that had already helped me kind of build my profile. So, although I couldn't take any clients, I couldn't take any staff, you know, I was quite confident that I could get some clients within the first few months. I kind of grew up with not having any money. My parents didn't have any money. They were both bankrupt. So, I'd been used to not having anything. So, I think that was a huge advantage really in starting a business, 'cause I didn't think that, you know, if I fuck this up, it would be a disaster. I was like, if I fuck this up, I will be exactly where I was. It's not really a big deal. So, that's really how I decided to start the journey and I set up Verve Search. in 2009.

I love that it was because you wanted to continue growing and developing yourself and you didn't find a way. And I always thought myself about that, like, if you're not lucky enough to have people to show you the way or to give you the opportunities, give yourself the opportunity. Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's so important. And also, that's when you— and I also think, like, I'm not really a person that fits in with the kind of the typical mold in agency life. And so, you know, I realized that I also wanted to create somewhere, a place of working, which was very different to what I experienced. Like, I'd experienced like really stupid things like sexism in the workplace, obvious, but also kind of bullying behavior. And, you know, the agencies back in those days were very much like everything was about pretending to stay late and wasn't really about doing the best work you could. And so, I was like, I want to do something great. I want to create something where people are proud of working there. And so, that also spurred me on to go like, well, fuck it, I can do it myself.

Love it. Amazing. In your case, Bastiaan?

I think it was slightly different. I was trying to recall what really sparked it. I'm not sure I've yet figured it out, but I think like when I started like as an affiliate in like end of the '99, 2000s, like, and then moved into some like in-house roles, I kind of always didn't really like the service that I got from agencies, to be very honest. So I think that was one thing where I like really felt that there needs to be something else out there that kind of is up to standard with what I would expect when I pay someone a certain amount of money, which was a big issue in the time because you had those black box retainer situations where like no one really knew. And it's similar to what Lisa was saying. I think agencies were behaving and kind of acting very differently back in the day. And I always felt, I wouldn't say betrayed, but like I always felt it was not the kind of best investment that you could make as a client. I think that was one thing. But on the other hand, the funny, I guess, the funny part of the story is that I never actually never wanted to run an agency ever. ever. Like, so my now partner, Marcel, who is like my kind of co-founder in PKs, he started out kind of at the same time just from the paid search side. And he kind of already had set up like a small, like it was 6 or 7 people at the time when we started kind of to partner. But I always said, look, I don't want to deal with staff. I don't want to deal with all of that. I just, I do SEO and that's about it. So yeah, I'm not sure what really kind of made me do it. But I think the funny turning point for us was then— so when— that was 2011, actually, when we kind of decided to go together. And then I think I recall when at 25 and staff, like half a year later, we decided— well, we had to decide if we either stay at that size or start scaling up. This is more like the milestone that I recall, like being like this 25-ish people agency and then deciding to kind of grow further. That's more that kind of, for whatever reason, stayed in my mind, to be honest.

And just one question before moving forward, right? Because from what I understand, neither of you had a business background, isn't it?

You didn't study— I don't even have a degree. I like— it was like literally no kind of likelihood that— there was nothing that would say that I would be a— apart from in here. Like, I always felt like I I believed in my own ability to figure things out. And again, I think that I said previously when we talked a bit before we started was that, you know, I think SEOs are actually quite equipped to be CEOs because they are by DNA almost the kind of people that likes to figure things out. And the most curious minds in those kind of roles is like, you know, you're not gonna know everything. Yeah. It's all different. You have to just be able to figure out. And that's such a— in entrepreneurship, that's literally the number one attitude to have is, you know, I don't really know, but I'm pretty sure I can figure out. And if you have that kind of feeling, you're likely to be a good entrepreneur. It doesn't necessarily mean you're a good CEO because it takes a lot of other things, especially around people. But, you know, that's the seed. That's where you need to start.

Yeah. Amazing to hear. And my next question, I think it has a lot to do with it. What will be the one thing that you will change if you could? Right? When you moved into this journey to become an entrepreneur, business leader, and a CEO at some point, if I ask you, if you could change one thing, what that will be?

I don't really believe in changing anything because I really, really think that Everything, even when you do mistakes, is really— well, especially when you do mistakes, that's when you really learn something. And, you know, there are loads of things I think to myself, well, I wish I didn't do that, or I wish I've made that decision sooner. But, you know, that is part of development, of your own personal development. But if you told me I could go back in time and talk to myself at that point, Yeah, to make you aware of something challenging or to be— Yeah, give a heads up. I think one of the things I would really tell myself is like, don't take everything so personally. And it's gonna be really hard. And people, you know, the thing that I really struggled throughout my year, especially the last few years, is, you know, when you're a leader, you have to take a lot of flak from people when you might not even deserve it. But it is your job as a leader to be able to stand tall, even when you think, fuck, this is bullshit. And I wish I could tell myself, you can't be a friend and a CEO. And I think the confusion in a lot of people saying, you can do both, is like, you can totally be a good friend and a boss, but you can't be a good boss and a friend.

Yeah.

Because, you know, it's like actual raising children. And that sounds ridiculous, but it's like, you have to do what's right for them and you as a group. And they might not always understand that, but you still have to do it. And that is really hard on you as an individual. And I think the toughest bit as a CEO is just how much of this you have to take on your own personal kind of, hit on your personal mental health. So I would have gone back to myself, get that therapist straight away, lady. Don't worry about it. People will hate you. You're gonna have to keep on going. Don't take it personally and try to enjoy it a bit more. You know, it's so stressful and, you know, have some fun.

I love that you talk about this because literally I do believe that one of the most complex things things in life is to manage people.

Yeah.

Like inspire people, try to guide them, but in a good way, be empathic and be like— it's very complex. And indeed, it can be a lonely journey if you're the one at the top doing all of the work and you have all the responsibility, also not only from a productivity perspective, but also to make money and to deliver to clients, et cetera. We don't talk a lot about the soft skills that are necessary, how you need to be very strong mentally to be able to handle all of this, not only the business side of things, but the people side of it and the aspect of things. So, yes.

Yeah, I think of myself as a people person. But, you know, the business side, I think, is relatively easy. You know, there's black and white. It's like maths. While the people thing is where you're likely to screw up most. And it's also likely where it hits you the most. And the hardest thing is by far the most challenging part of it because no one is the same. So, the thing that you learn from one is not going to be the same the next time. So, you have to always listen differently and be able to adapt to each person. So, you know, it's kind of where my interest in psychology started was from people. You know, I need to learn to understand people better. be a leader at all. Anyway.

No, that's very true. And I think the complexity gets even worse when you have then like, I think we have 20+ nations in the office right now, because then I completely agree with what you've been saying, but it gets even worse when you have different nations and nationalities that somewhat have a very different perception of certain things that you are saying. And then Mix that up with being German and very direct and very straight in your communication, I can tell from experience that that doesn't always go down really well. So I think— but like one great piece of advice that I kind of really love is the fact that you said, look, enjoy the ride. I think I would also— I would add to that, that I think the willingness and openness to kind of change is also very important in regards to your job is different literally every other day. And it's changing over time when the company is growing, your responsibilities are changing. So I think if you as a person are not open to change yourself, you're likely gonna fail. And I think it goes as far as like, you know, you're picking up certain things as an SEO, you're right. You've probably figured out or you know someone. I think this is also like network and kind of your backup support group, however you want to call it, is super important. But I think like this, if you're not willing to do that and if you're not also, let's say, a tiny bit crazy and do enjoy it somehow, I think you're not likely to succeed. So I think that's a very big portion, at least for me. Like if you don't enjoy it, it's going to be very hard.

I love that you mentioned this because I do believe that this is also true as a freelance, as a solo consultant. Even if you're solo, you need to be comfortable being a salesperson, to promote yourself. It can be even a little bit harder because it's about you. So it looks like very egocentric, right? But indeed, I do believe that some people, especially in SEO, we have— even if we're marketers. So for me, it's very shocking to see that some people have a hard time self-promoting or networking or communicating and marketing their own services. And I do believe also that if you don't enjoy it, There's no point on trying to push something if there's no fit. And it's okay, it's more than okay. But if you want to really grow a business, it's something fundamental. You need to sell.

Yeah. And let's be honest, I think it probably goes for most digital marketing agencies that somewhat start out, they really suck at doing sales. Like there's literally no processes. They're all like, you know what, like we live off referrals. You know, trust me, been there, done that. But that is not— this is not a sustainable growth strategy, I can tell you that much. So I think Invest in that early. Similar, and that's probably the other big thing that made a significant difference for us over time is, and it goes back to what Lisa was saying, because HR or like people is gonna make and break it. And having a properly staffed and experienced HR team was something that really helped us along the journey, even though, especially if you're somewhat smaller, that's a significant investment to do if you kind of get people on the payroll just to kind of manage the team, grow the team, and have someone that kind of takes care of culture and whatnot. But it's, from our experience, it's money well spent. So I would take that off my margin every day.

I definitely wouldn't. I'd really disagree with the HR thing. I think HR people are like devils from a depth dive. No, they're not. I know loads of lovely HR people, but unfortunately, usually when you bring HR in, is something that you've really done wrong. So, I think it's a bit of like a plaster that is unlikely to fix anything. And, you know, when I sold and I was part of big agencies, they had HR teams and stuff, but they were only really brought in when there were things really difficult. And I, yeah, I actually went the opposite and very specifically didn't hire HR, but I invested a lot in personal development and, you know, therapy approach kind of management for people, understanding people and stuff. Because unfortunately, HR is very legal-based. And it might be different in Germany, but yeah, probably in the UK, it's mostly legal-based. And it's like what you're— and they mostly work from the employer's point of view. And so quite often—

I know it's entirely opposite here then. Okay. Yeah. No, that's okay.

It might be a different thing. But, um, what I also— I wanted to just pick on something you said, which I, which I really agree with. We also were an international agency, and, you know, it was one of the hardest things, but also one of the most interesting things, how many people from different nationalities. I think at the, the highest, we had like 18 different nationalities. And, you know, what it— but what was so amazing with that is like you can almost fast-track your understanding because it gets kind of almost like caricature, the different confrontation that can happen.

Mm-hmm.

And I found it's usually, it was usually the Germans or the Scandinavians that were part of the clashes, 'cause they would say something really abrupt. And usually the British would be like, oh my God, you're so rude. I'm like, what was I? But, you know, it can also be really good. And also I think, Interestingly, I think people are more forgiving with people from another nationality because they're like, oh well, you know, she's Norwegian, so, you know, you can— she is a bit rude and whatever. So it also helps the openness to be able to get on with the, you know, acceptance that people are different. And so I— that's one of my favorite things about running Verve was the international kind of mix. And the creative thinking and stuff that came with that. Loved it.

Amazing. I love that you already shared tips of what to do and not only what to avoid, right? Because that was going to be my next question. What would you advise to do or top tip, actual thing that you do believe can be a game changer as a leader, as a manager, as a CEO, the top steps? that you need to follow?

I think for me, the biggest turnaround in my career was when I got pregnant at 25, and it wasn't exactly planned. And I had postnatal depression after I had the baby. And then I went back into work. And the really amazing thing that happened was that I was too tired and too depressed to pretend to be someone I wasn't. So, it took away all those layers of the, that I call the onion. You know, in Shrek, he says like, people are like layers of onion. And how I projected things that I thought people wanted, or, you know, at work, I need to be this way, and with friends, I need to be this way. And what actually then happened, and what I find really interesting, and I really think this is the biggest turnaround for me, was that, you know, people are okay with you being a bit aggressive or being a bit rude or— Any kind of even slightly negative things, as long as you are authentic. Because that's actually neuroscience. It's your limbic system, which is inside your brain and has no capacity for language, and it's where you make decisions. This is behaviors. And so, when you meet someone and you are like, you know, oh, I'm not sure about this person, it's probably because your behavioral thing is saying, wow, there's something here. And more often than not, what is actually what the bells, the alarm bells are, is that they are reflecting a different person than who they are. And that is basically the biggest kind of shortcut to any success in any kind of industry is being who you are. Because once you are, people will listen and they will buy from you. They will trust you. They will work for you. And really, that is the biggest turnaround I had. I basically, I got depressed, too tired to pretend to be someone else, just was who I was. And suddenly I did really well at work. I won some awards. And then that also continued in my working life, like being really open and honest with how you're feeling and how, what your limits are.

Yeah, I think one of the things that we like, founded the company on, I mean, next to, I think, having a relatively broad set of corporate values in general, I think the one thing that always stood out to me, and that's kind of the same personally as well as I think from a business perspective, is just transparency in pretty much everything that we do. I'm also like a very transparent person. Like, I have high standards for myself. And I think if you then have like the ability to, well, to be open about why you do that and how you do that and what you expect in return. I think this is something that you— then people would basically understand you better as to why you're doing certain things. Because you mentioned funny earlier, you said like leading can be lonely, and I think that is very true. But I think it's also about not necessarily explaining, but just like by your actions showing why you do certain things and how you do them and then be accountable for them. And I think this all kind of ties back into standards that you have for yourself and that you probably also then need to live by. And this is something that I always was that way, relatively straightforward, and that never changed. So I think it goes back to literally what Lisa was saying. Each and every one is different, but as long as you are real and you stay real, and you don't pretend. I think that's a very, very big thing, whatever direction you're heading, right? And I think also admitting weaknesses and kind of shortcomings in every sense is fine, right? So that's the one thing. And I think the other thing that I had a hard time with in the beginning, especially because I'm— you could probably say a control freak to an extent. That goes back to the issue with having very high standards, I think. But delegation doesn't come easy if you're not used to it, at least for me, because I always felt— I think that changed. Some people might disagree, some might agree, either way. But like, I think what it really is, is that if you find like-minded people that live up to the same standards, it becomes much easier. And again, then you build up this trust that, you know, what you expect them for whatever reason, deliver, it comes back and then you're into this kind of working relationship. But yeah, delegation in where you grow companies, especially as a CEO, is crucial. And you should plan for things to kind of break and fail because that's necessarily going to happen at some point. But I think this is like, you can't— like opposite to freelancing or like very small businesses, at some point you basically need counterparts that you can trust blindly. That's basically the nature of the beast because you can't be involved and can't control every aspect of the business anymore.

I really echo that. I have like, I have got impossible standards to a lot of things, especially things like design and stuff. But I think this was actually my biggest, the biggest turnaround in the agency for me was when I, you know, I realized there were a lot of things that I wasn't good at. And, you know, I'm a big visionary kind of strategy kind of person. I'm like, I see the big picture. I'm a push person. But, you know, if someone tells me to read this contract that's 23 pages, I just glaze over and I'm likely to miss things that could really end up being a problem.

Mm-hmm.

And so, I made this— this was actually a really good suggestion. I think it was one of my advisors at that point that said, you know, write down all the things that you do, all the things you do every day, and we make it into a spreadsheet. And then, you rate it for the things that you like doing and you think you're good at, and the things that you don't like doing, What you're good at, and so on. And from that, I created a job description that became the COO, which then I hired Bex, which was one of the best hires I've ever done. She is literally the yin to my yang. We are the same coin. We have the same values, but she's good at all the shit that I am not good at or I don't like doing, and vice versa. And you know, that's really important, finding the person that can be your support. And also, that makes it a lot easier to be the CEO when you have someone that got your back, that are good at the things that, you know, and that had a big impact on the success of the agency, I think, for, you know, I was doing stuff that I really didn't like. It took me like twice the kind of length of doing it. So, I think, you know, being really honest with what you're good at and finding and hiring those people that have those skills or those personality traits that you're missing is huge.

I love that. That is very actionable, really good advice for sure. And then also, I have to point out, right, but completely from an outsider perspective, in both your agencies, I also saw that you were actually very lucky to find amazing, let's say, specialists who were also leaders of the departments or the groups who you could also— I can see that sometimes they were also speaking at events. Posting things, etc.

I did a lot of hires in the senior roles, which didn't manage people, because I really value people that are specialists, that are really good. But, you know, we are missing so many people in leadership roles that are specialists but don't manage people. We're always pushing people to be managers. And, you know, I had 2 people on my management team that didn't manage anyone. And they were amazing at their job, but I really want to know what they thought, but they shouldn't manage people.

It's a classic approach to like the old-fashioned agency world, right? So I think only some of the creative agencies just recently, there was a big thing in the press for any reason, like where they announced, look, you know, we now have a track to go more like consulting-ish specialist track or management track. They now figured it out in 2021.

Yeah.

So yeah, kind of to answer your question, we have the— we kind of have the same. And the other thing that we never— that we usually failed in hiring people that were supposed to be team leads for whatever reason. So like we— I would say like in 8 out of 10 cases, we always ended up having people to be kind of going through the company and then at some point kind of gotten promoted into one or the other role. And those are the ones that we still have. So a great example is like Dominique, who runs our kind of SEO and kind of content teams by now. I think she started as an intern 8 or 9 years ago and now is overseeing probably one-third of the company.

Yeah.

And we have a bunch of those. And I think this is great because this is actually them understanding the DNA and the culture of the company and then being— because that was one of our struggles in the past. Like Marcel and myself, we both obviously have had certain values and we never in the beginning had them really on a paper. And we also failed to transport how we would do certain things. So we ended up, that was, I think we probably were like maybe 40-ish at that time. So a couple of years back, really sitting down for days in a row, nailing kind of core corporate values, giving examples as to how people should behave. Because transparency, like just picking up that example, is a great word, but what does that actually mean? How would you transport that? How would you react to certain things when things go wrong and whatnot? So I think that was one of the also key points, like going back to my HR example from earlier, where like, again, for us, HR probably is more than recruiting, culture, and whatnot. But like, giving them the tools to actually grow the company on that. We never used any recruiters, external job sourcing companies. We do all the hiring on our own because we feel that it's a culture-first hiring. We always did that internally. And I think this was a huge foundation to actually grow beyond kind of that 40, 45 we were at that time.

Actually, that's one of the points where I wish I'd hired an internal recruiter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I meant earlier. Like, so we start like when we were 40-ish, 45 people, we invested into 2 recruiters, like 1 HR admin person and 1 like culture person. So like 3, like 4. And that's what I mean, like if you're kind of smaller, like 4 salaries for that kind of— it's a lot of money, right? But it's money really well spent. And that helped us a lot.

Especially when it gets to around 30, 35 people and you're wanting to You're gonna have to speed this up because the growth is much, much more costly if you have to pay like five grand recruitment fees on every person you hire.

I am actually thankful that you brought this up because especially for agencies, right, that are people-based, it's not a SaaS company, right? People-based. I can see this how it is one of the trickiest part of things. It's like chicken on egg, or right, like you close. in one week, 3 new deals, 3 new projects, and all of a sudden you need to hire 5 people, but then one of the contracts falls and you have an extra person to pay for and you need to close another. So chicken and egg, how do you scale in a consistent and sustainable way? From a cost perspective too for the company.

Yeah, no, so that the recruiter thing is like, we had We had a couple of recruiters that we trusted. And to be honest, most of the people working at Verve, they were— like Bastien was saying, there's a lot of people coming in straight from university. In fact, for Verve right now, after I've left, the MD started as an outreach executive. And so, what I would say in that example is the training that you give is so important. And that's, I think, is one of the, you know, we have a very specific approach at Verb of how we do outreach and the tools we use. And so, we developed like a very tight training program that we could train people to be up and running in literally 2 weeks. And most of the people that we hired that had never outreached or done anything like this before would get a national paper link in their first month. So, you have to— if you've got to do that, you know, everyone has to do chicken and egg. And whether it is chicken or egg differs depending on where you're at, you know.

Yeah.

You're just going to have to go with the flow and do what you can. But what I had never been keen on is like, there have been a few instances in my career with Verve where, you know, we had to make cuts and we had to make people redundant and we restructured or things like that. But Until I sold, my idea was that I don't want to ever have to cut someone because of money. And so, I opened, and I think this is really important if you want to be an entrepreneur, you really need to focus on the cash flow in the first 2 years. And I just earned up like a really big cash flow. So, if we lost a client, this didn't matter. We wouldn't have to fucking panic and hire any random person. It has to be someone that really gets it. They have to culturally fit. Yeah. And then we have to train them really well and quickly and onboard. You know, that's that's that part needs to be really really really good and quality. But I yeah, I didn't ever want to be in that position where where you're just like letting people go or not saying that I've never had to to let anyone go at any point. If you have people within your business that are toxic and are really negative and stuff. That shit just spreads faster than anything. And so that's another, another thing that I think is probably— that's— I wish I'd learned that quick— quicker. That's, you know, I always like think that, oh, I can come, I can really get to them, I can develop them, I can, I can figure it out. But, you know, now I really don't believe if people are being toxic, and especially if they're being really negative and and are affecting other people in the business, you need to get them out.

Yeah, there are certain things you can't change. That's true.

Yeah. And like when people do things that are really unacceptable, you know, it can be so damaging to the agency if you don't show that that is not acceptable, you know, to the rest of the employees that, you know, if you don't perform or if you're being really rude or if you're being, you know, Aggressive or anything, then you're— that's not okay.

100%, because it sets a standard that it is okay to do that internally. And yeah, definitely can end up affecting the whole culture of the company. So thank you. Thank you very much. I am like mind-blown myself with so many insights. Hopefully with all of this, people who are watching are much more clear of those dos and don'ts, those challenges, those aspects that are key to take into consideration too. So Thank you very much, Lisa and Bastien. And if you want to follow them, you will see their handles here. And Lisa, you, in your case, you're doing consulting and business advice, isn't it?

Yeah, I do mentoring. So one-on-one mentoring, I can only take on 4 at the moment though, because I don't want to do too much. And then I do non-executive advisory as well, as well as investing in startups.

So if you're looking for an amazing, wonderful mentor, You have Lisa here with limited availability, but you can of course get in touch.

Be fast, be fast.

Be fast indeed. And Bastiaan, of course, who's the CEO of PKays, who I, well, I can see in your background. I don't know how many awards you have anymore, Bastiaan. You probably—

I don't know either. We had a good year last year. Let's put it that way.

I'm going to cut this.

Don't worry.

I'm just teasing you, but thank you. Thank you very much. Really appreciate your time. And if you have any questions, any doubts, please leave them in the comments here below. And of course, if you watch this video and like it, remember to like it, remember to subscribe to the channel. Thank you very much and see you in the next Crawling Monday. Bye-bye.

Bye.

Crawling Mondays.