Meetings are a big productivity killer that you can control by working together better. Studies have shown the cost of meetings, you probably spend a week per month in meetings, and you can calculate your own cost of meetings. The issue isn’t just where you spend your team’s time, but how you spend it. Vinnie Mirchandani, following my post in Forbes on Email Hell, points out the productivity problem isn’t just email.

The other big productivity killer in corporations is meetings. I am constantly surprised to see too many of my client employees just go from meeting to meeting – then, of course come back to their desks to handle the deluge of email!

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One of the hardest thing for an SEO to manage is expectations. For many SEO consultants and firms, part of closing the deal is to get the client to believe that the work they provide is going to get them “results,” however that is defined. But in doing so, many of those charged with getting the client to sign on the dotted line can easily make things sound better than they really are. That’s a product of sales.

Just look at any commercial for a new health or diet product. At the bottom of the screen you read something like “these results are atypical, your results may vary.” That’s almost the exact disclaimer that could benefit many SEOs as they push through their sales cycles.

A good SEO can undersell and overperform. The problem is getting the sale. That’s not always an easy task when underselling, especially when you’re going after businesses with limited budgets but want sometimes unrealistic achievement for the money they are willing to pay.
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