Hiring Talent, Running Multiple Companies and Winning With SEO: Business Lessons From Neil Patel

If you’ve spent any length of time in digital marketing, you know the man, the myth, the legend, Neil Patel. But besides running CrazyEgg, Neil Patel Digital, Ubersuggest and a handful of other companies, he’s also my cousin. 

Recently, I sat down with Neil to get his insight on everything from hiring to his biggest SEO wins. Here are some of the top takeaways from our conversation.

Hiring “A” Talent

Neil has a great rule of thumb for hiring “A” talent. “I look at what my goals are and I go and try to find someone who has done it at least twice,” he explained. “Because if someone has done it twice, then there’s a good shot that they’ll do it a third time.” 

That said, top talent isn’t easy to reach. In Neil’s experience, “Most ‘A players’ are going to ignore you when you email them or hit them up on LinkedIn. The biggest thing we found that works really well is messaging them and saying, ‘Hey, love what you do. We’re actually looking for someone similar in one of our companies. Do you know anyone who does something similar to you or has the same skill sets?’”

Once he reaches out to candidates, Neil looks for longevity. “We’re looking for people who have been at their job for a very long time,” he said. “We don’t like people that quit; people that bounce around. Because if you have an ‘A player,’ the last thing you’re going to want to do is build the team around somebody who moves from job to job every 2-3 years.” 

Neil’s interviewing style is tough, but fair, and grounded in real-world scenarios. “We’ll say, ‘Here’s your current business, or here’s this current department. These are the issues. How would you solve them?’ And we don’t give them too much time. We want to know right then and there how they’d solve it.”

He’s also a huge advocate for getting – and checking – references. “We always get references before we make the hire. And you’ll be shocked – just because somebody gives you a reference doesn’t mean they’re going to say good things.” 

Starting and Running Multiple Companies

I’ve been running several companies for a few years now, but Neil has me beat. He’s been in the game of multi-entrepreneurship for over a decade, and in his experience, “The big lesson I’ve learned over ten years is, no matter how many companies you create or start or run, the chances that they’re going to succeed are small – even if you have the right processes, the framework and enough capital.” 

For Neil, increasing his odds of winning comes down to focusing in on his strengths. “Over the years, I’ve realized that my strength is traffic, and the best way to monetize that traffic is a sales team,” he observed. “I focus very heavily on building an amazing sales organization. If you can drive revenue, and you can convince people to pay, eventually you can build something that people want.” 

Neil’s focus on sales also means he’s gotten really good at delegating leadership responsibilities. “Don’t ever try to run multiple businesses unless there’s a GM or CEO or a president running each and every single one,” he stated. “They’re never going to grow as fast unless someone’s focused on it 110% of their time.” 

Rather than trying to do everything, Neil applies his focus to the areas where he can be most effective. “I look at everything as a funnel in a business, and I just look at where the biggest drop-offs are, or the biggest areas for improvements. Then I just go and fix them, or find people who can fix them.”

Biggest Impact on SEO

Finally, Neil and I talked about the evolution of SEO, including the surprising element he believes has the biggest impact on SEO success. According to Neil, “The biggest impact on SEO, I believe, is brands. Eric Schmidt, the ex-CEO of Google, once said, ‘Brands are the solution, they’re not the problem.’ I’m paraphrasing his quote, but he’s pretty much saying brands are important, and brands are a key factor in Google’s rankings.”

Neil has seen evidence of this play out again and again at his companies. “Over time, I noticed a trend. More and more people were typing in my domain name, Neil Patel, Neil Patel tools, Neil Patel Ubersuggest, Neil Patel content marketing and other variations of my name into Google. 

“Even if we didn’t build links or anything, our brand spiked. And even when the PR went down and the brand queries went down, our rankings maintained their peaks. Google loves brands. We’ve seen and tested sites in different regions, globally. And even if you build links, you write the right content, and you’re super thorough, we’ve found that if you don’t have brand queries, you don’t rank as high.”

Fortunately, Neil believes that “You don’t have to be a Nike or Wikipedia. You just have to be a big brand for the keywords you’re trying to rank for.” Some of his favorite brand-building techniques include: 

• Collecting emails and push notification subscriptions so that you can blast out new content to them whenever you publish. 
• Leveraging as many social media channels as possible to increase your odds of reaching the right people. 
• Engaging with people and interacting with them in person to form personal connections.

But his favorite tactic overall? This one surprised me, but according to Neil, it’s releasing free tools. “I’ve found that beats everything,” he stated.

Does that surprise you too? Do you agree or disagree with any of his other advice? Leave me a note below sharing your thoughts: 

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