"We are a young, dynamically developing company" copy on your web does not work any more. 
In the article, I discuss how to obtain a cool texture for your website without struggling with the text and without inundating future readers with watery content.

I'm Pasha Molyanov, the head of the "Sdelaem" ("Let's Do It") agency. We create content for businesses, launch remote editorial offices, and, among other things, design landing pages.

When clients come to us for a new website, I often inquire about how they came up with the old one. The process typically goes like this: a marketer or company leader solemnly declares, “Let’s create a corporate website!” Then everyone starts scratching their heads and begins to laboriously present themselves:

→ Individual approach to each client…

→ Working with Scrum and Agile…

→ Our story began back in 2003…

→ We love our work more than life…

→ More than mom…

In general, employees do their best to praise themselves and their company. It’s good if they do it sincerely, but even with such content for the website, there remains a problem:

This is how every other company writes about itself. It’s a dull nonsense that can be placed on the website of almost any business without losing its meaning. Both plumbers and dentists and photographers individually cater to each client—just that it doesn’t say anything about the business ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

For a website to turn out genuinely impressive, preparation is key. Dig up information about the business and its customers. It’s worth compiling the main advantages of the company and also understanding the interests and needs of the customers. At the intersection of these realms, a good commercial website will emerge.

What information about the business is worth seeking for a good copy

The task of a corporate website is to introduce the user to the company and convince them that you’re impressive. It’s crucial to structure the narrative so that the reader has no lingering uncertainties after viewing the page. To achieve this, it’s essential to address three overarching questions:

Question 1: “What do we do?” Provide information about the product directly on the first screen. It should be unequivocal, clear, and concise. To formulate key points, consider the following additional questions:

• What is the essence of our product?

• How can the product be described in a couple of sentences?

• Who needs the product and why?

• In what situations is the product beneficial?

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The complex Digital Foreign Trade service has been encapsulated in a couple of sentences by our company’s specialists. These highlight the main aspects, with details available on subsequent screens.

Question 2: “Why is what we do considered impressive?”

Having introduced the website visitor to the company, it’s now essential to convince them of our professionalism. To achieve this, gather information that highlights the company’s advantages and distinguishes it from competitors. Here are some guiding questions:

• How is our product superior to competitors?

• What features are exclusive to our product?

• What are we particularly proud of?

• What do customers praise most frequently?

…

The document workflow service EnDocs lists all its advantages in a concise list, then further elaborates on each of them in detail.

Question 3: “How does it work?”

Explain to the reader the mechanics of interacting with your business. Users should understand how the service is provided, what the product looks like, and how to use it. This alleviates concerns before making a purchase. Consider the following points:

• How is our product structured?

• What happens after placing an order?

• What additional perks do we offer?

• What aspects are typically unclear to buyers?

…

Dasha.AI, the conversational AI, can be a complex product for the average user. That’s why the company has placed a video explaining its functions on the second screen to make it more understandable.

All the information for the future website can be squeezed out through independent brainstorming, but it’s time-consuming, challenging, and it’s easy to miss important details. Instead, it’s better to use more reliable methods. More about them in the next section ↓

How to extract meaningful information about the product

When a company has been operating for a while, it accumulates a wealth of valuable data about its own product. This includes marketing statistics, customer correspondence, technical support reports, and much more. All this data should be extracted and processed. Where to dig:

Talk to employees. Inside any company, there are specialists who can share interesting information about the product. A sample interview list might look like this:

• Company Director: Most likely, they know almost everything about the business. You can inquire about how the product is structured, its purpose, and why it is designed the way it is.

• Product Manager: This specialist can provide additional information complementing what the director shared. As they are usually more involved in operational work, they can share finer details that may be overlooked by the director.

• Sales Department Manager: This employee has a better understanding of what motivates potential customers to make a purchase. You can find out which product features seem more attractive to the audience and which ones might be off-putting.

• Marketer: This professional can provide insights into the company’s strategies for product promotion and what proves to be more effective. This data can be a basis for crafting future text.

• Technical Support Operator: This employee knows the challenges customers face. They can share information about which parts of the product are more prone to issues, what tends to break most frequently, and what customers struggle with. This information allows for a more detailed exploration of nuances and helps navigate controversial details.

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Most often, employees willingly engage and even propose their own solutions for gathering information.

Send the brief to the product manager. It’s a straightforward method of information gathering: you work through the questions in the document once, and then you can use it dozens of times in similar situations. The product manager will independently approach all specialists in the company and extract valuable data from them.

Briefs come with their drawbacks—sometimes, documents are filled in haphazardly, during smoke breaks or lunch breaks. As a result, the information in the file turns out fragmented and not detailed enough—details still need to be extracted independently.

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Fragment of the brief we send to clients. In the document, we include an example so that the client better understands what information to provide.

Refer to the knowledge base. The company almost certainly has repositories from which you can extract a bit more data. This includes the old website, product presentations, sales instructions, technical support scripts, and marketing reports. Ask the company specialists if you can access these files and thoroughly sift through them—perhaps you’ll discover interesting details.

When you receive the files, immediately click on all the links and open all the archives. It would be awkward if the client provides links, and you come back for access a week later.

If you gather information about the product following this algorithm, you’ll likely have more than you need. Don’t force-fit it all onto the website. Leave space for the client.

Where to get information about the client

When the entire landing page is dedicated to the company, it turns into continuous self-admiration. Clients will find such content uninteresting—what’s crucial for them is understanding what they will gain from your product. To achieve this, gather information about the audience, their interests, and needs.

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What is important to the reader versus what you wrote.

Talk to the employees again. Consult with the director, product manager, sales department manager, marketer, and technical support operator. Inquire about how customers choose a product, what factors they consider, and what problems they solve with it. This will give you an initial understanding of the audience.

Questions to ask include:

• Who uses our product?

• Into which segments can they be divided?

• Where can these people be found?

Surveying employees in this case is just the first step in gathering information. Beyond that, extensive research begins. Ideally, after the interviews, you’ll compile a list of information sources. This could include a collection of blogs followed by the audience, contacts of regular customers, or a database of customer reviews.

Explore social media. Find relevant public pages and groups, join thematic chats, and subscribe to competitors’ pages. Then, read comments on posts, follow discussions, and note popular topics. You need detailed answers to five questions:

• What do people find confusing?

• What questions do they commonly ask?

• What can’t they find?

• What frustrates them?

• What do they praise and why?

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I have a community called “Overheard in Copywriting” with 30 thousand subscribers. When launching a new product for authors, we draw inspiration from the discussions in it.

Listen to recorded calls and review correspondences. You can gain access to them through sales representatives, account managers, and technical support. It’s beneficial if you’re provided with the password to a work account so that you can review everything yourself. Ideally, gaining access to the CRM system allows you not only to extract compelling arguments but also to see the outcomes of the conversations.

In CRM, you can filter calls that resulted in a sale. By listening to them, you can understand which arguments or statements are most effective in convincing people to make a purchase.

Conduct surveys. Create a list of questions that will help better understand the audience. For each company, these questions will be unique, so it’s better to focus on global blocks that need to be covered:

• What does our average buyer look like?

• What convinces the user to make a purchase?

• What prevents users from making a purchase?

…

For creating surveys, we often use Google Forms. It’s a free tool, users don’t need to register, and the data can be easily uploaded to CRM.

Once the questions are ready, it’s time to distribute the survey. You can reach out to the existing customer database and also publish the questionnaire on social media, your website, and send it to customers via email.

If the existing customer base is insufficient to gather enough information, consider joining relevant communities. If you sell fishing hooks and lines, reach out to the administrator of a “Fishing Club”; if you offer services for digital marketers, contact the owner of an advertising-related community. It’s likely that you’ll have to pay for placement in an external community, but the insights you gain will justify the investment.

To obtain more surveys, you can use survey services. For example, you can organize information gathering through Yandex Vzglyad. In the service, you can create a form and then launch the survey. The target audience will see the questionnaire, but you’ll need to pay for promotion.

5 rules for conducting in-depth interviews

A complex but highly effective way to gather important information about clients is to conduct in-depth interviews with them. Request contacts for a few clients from company employees; in most cases, 10 people are sufficient. Call them and inquire extensively about their interests, needs, perceptions of the product, and decision-making motivators.

During interviews, focus on five principles:

1. Don’t sell or praise the product. Sometimes we do this unconsciously when describing a company’s product or service. Neutral characteristics can be easily presented in a way that makes them look advantageous and appealing. This leads to two distortions:

• People agree with you not to offend you.
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• In the moment of the interview, the person might show interest in the product, but in reality, they won’t actually make a purchase in the future.

2. Don’t believe compliments. During interviews, people may offer compliments out of politeness or enthusiasm. It’s not guaranteed that these praises accurately reflect reality. You might even choose not to record compliments to avoid distorting the research with them.

3. Don’t talk about the future. Immediately discard questions in the spirit of “what if… would you buy…”. They don’t contribute to sales because many people simply don’t know what they really want. Right now, the idea may seem cool and interesting to them, but when you come to them with the product, they’ll likely have more important matters to attend to.

Instead of hypothetical reasoning, it’s better to talk with the audience about the past and present:

Would you use an orbital laser with auto-targeting on your car to warm up the engine in half a minute?

How do you usually warm up your car’s engine?

Questions about what is already present in the client’s life will provide much more insight into their needs. Theorizing about the future makes it much more difficult to obtain information that aligns with reality.

4. Ask open-ended questions so that people can elaborate and provide more information:

Do you think this product will solve your problem?

What do you currently see as an issue for yourself?

5. Don’t impose the desired answer. Interviewers often try to confirm an existing hypothesis. Therefore, they unconsciously steer towards the answer they want to hear. This leads to a distorted picture: the buyer agrees with the interviewer on everything, is ready to buy anything, and doesn’t see any flaws in the product.

At the end of all your research, you’ll have a wealth of information that can be used on the website. However, there’s no need to cram everything in – the reader’s head will explode before they buy the product. Organize and structure the data beforehand, extracting the most important elements.

How to link information together

A great website highlights the product’s advantages and takes into account the buyer’s interests. We already have data on both aspects. Now it’s a matter of weaving everything together, discarding the unnecessary, and retaining the essential.

When preparing landing pages, we gather information into five groups:

• What sets the company apart from competitors.
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• What concerns buyers more profoundly.
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• What is unclear to users.
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• What is important to the audience.
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• What solves the problem for consumers.

Almost always, the information we place in these categories finds its way into the final version of the website.

Conduct a consolidated analysis. Read through all your notes again and highlight information that connects customer queries with your solution. For example:

Customer Concern: Not enough time to monitor contractors.

How You Solve It: Clients in your agency are accompanied by an account manager who sends a weekly report on tasks.

Website Text: You won’t have to spend a lot of time monitoring progress – every week, we send a detailed report on tasks. You will always be informed about the project’s progress even without deep immersion.

Segment Your Audience: Organize customer data to better understand which segments to target with website content. Here are common methods:

• Use Customer Avatar descriptions – profiles of the average customer. Describe their age, interests, and why they turn to your company. Multiple avatars may emerge, and you can work with all of them.
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• This method is very visual. When crafting texts, you can envision a real person rather than focusing on dry data. However, it’s not commonly used due to its time-consuming nature.

Example of a Target Audience Portrait for a Self-Employed Service. When designing the website, one can envision this young woman and carefully consider the information she would like to see.

Name: Anna

Age: 28 years

Occupation: Copywriter, freelancer

Lifestyle: Anna values freedom and flexibility in her work. Being self-employed and active, she often finds herself on the go – in cafes, at events, or in the park. Her day is filled with work, creativity, and socialising.

Problems and Needs:

• Financial management: She wants an easy way to track income and expenses to plan her budget effectively.
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• Legislation: Tax-related and self-employment rules interest her, but she prefers the information to be presented in an accessible and understandable way.
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• Insurance: Concerned about her future, she wants to understand how to ensure insurance protection for herself.

Expectations from the website:

• Mobile-friendly interface: Considering her active lifestyle, it’s essential for her to manage all aspects of her business from her phone.
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• Clear articles and guides: Information about taxation and insurance is presented in simple language.
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• Income tracking tools: The ability to manage her finances and generate reports easily.

When designing the website, the designer and copywriter can imagine how Anna interacts with the content and tools, making them as user-friendly as possible for her.

You can simply make a sign with different groups and write down the needs, motivators, interests. Everything is approximately the same, but without representing a specific person.

Here’s a simplified table with different groups and their corresponding needs, motivators, and interests:

This table provides a general overview of the diverse target audience groups, their specific needs, motivators, and interests. Designers and content creators can use this information to tailor the website to meet the expectations of each group effectively.

Create a list of hypotheses. Review all the gathered information and brainstorm ideas for the future website. Highlight the company’s advantages that align with the audience’s needs. Present the theses in a way that is clear and beneficial to the potential user you have identified.

To filter out wild ideas that may arise, present the ideas with reasoning: “Let’s include X on the website because our clients want Y. This will convince them that our product is A and alleviate concern B.”

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Hypotheses that we formulated before designing one of the landing pages. It’s only after confirming such decisions that we should proceed to develop the prototype.

Who should write text for the site?

After preparing the hypotheses, the next step is to defend them before the team. Those that survive the collective brainstorming session will be implemented on the website. When it comes to writing the text, there are different approaches:

1. Do it Yourself: This is a cost-effective option if you’re on a tight budget. If you can dedicate several hours a day to the website, you can manage all the texts within a week.
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2. Hire a Professional Copywriter: Hiring a good copywriter is crucial. Opting for a cheaper specialist might result in low-quality work. Sometimes fixing poorly written text can cost more than hiring a quality professional from the start. The cost of a copywriter could range from 30,000 to 50,000 rubles.
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3. Delegate to a Marketer: A marketer can outline the structure and then find a more affordable copywriter to produce decent texts. The expenses in this case would include paying the marketer for their work and an additional 10,000 rubles for the copywriter.
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4. Engage an Agency: Turning to an agency is a great option for a turnkey solution. Agency specialists will conduct research, identify copywriters, and then design and develop the website. While it provides a hassle-free experience, development costs start from 50,000 rubles.

If you’re interested in content marketing, subscribe to my Telegram blog → @molyanov

Every day I share my experience of attracting clients using blogs, social networks and the media.

BY PAVEL MOLYANOV
I blog about content and marketing. 
I run a content marketing agency.

By Anastasia Umnova, Personal Coach.Psychologist.

Her Telegram channel is here.

Mental obstacles... Most experts (specialists) who use social networks as a workspace endlessly invest money in education instead of applying marketing tools and earning normally. They believe that they lack sufficient experience and knowledge. They suffer from the impostor syndrome and chronic burnout as a result. Meanwhile, others, less talented and intelligent but entrepreneurial, launch 'unique authorship courses,' earn money, and create in people's minds the image of 'info hustlers.'

Allow me to introduce myself; my name is Anastasia Umnova. I am a coach and psychologist. I assist those who work online and face resistance, emotional and physical burnout, self-sabotage, and procrastination. These horsemen of apocalypsis literally cast a shadow over competent professionals and become the cause not only of debts but also of family discord.

Umnova Anastasia, personal coach, consulting psychologist. Telegram channel: @anastasiiaumnova

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Over the course of my 4 years of practice, I’ve even got a classification of experts based on their income levels and the psychological reasons why they don’t earn as much as they could. I’ll share it, perhaps someone will recognize themselves and understand what needs to be addressed.

The husband is an aspiring expert: he tells how much he will earn after completing the courses.

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Mental obstacles and on-line workers

Category 1. Beginners in the profession or in the online space. On one hand, there’s a burning desire to make the first online sales, but the lack of experience (case studies) leads to constant self-doubt. The belief that it’s too early to charge for knowledge often leads to agreeing to any projects, and this can result in becoming a victim of freeloaders and simply “dishonest” people. This situation leads to anxiety, self-devaluation, doubts, and regrets about the time and investments spent.

And true heroes always take a detour! Instead of going to interviews, job boards, promoting their services, communicating and screening out inadequate clients, they choose to wander through channels and accounts in search of some “magic” tools, without realising that these tools do not bring income. Falling into the networks of those who will sell “the same robe, but with mother-of-pearl buttons” is a common mistake. Delaying the unpleasant step of “selling” may reduce anxiety temporarily, but it only lasts until the end of the training, after which the cycle begins anew. And the wallet remains empty.

As for recommendations:

1. Analyse all your skills, talents, superpowers, and write down what you excel at, what you do exceptionally well, and what sets you apart. This will help you remember that you are not a “blank slate” but a person with a wealth of life experience.
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2. Beginners often lack case studies, but chances are you have already helped someone in your new profession without charging them. Reach out to these individuals, ask for their feedback and reviews. If you haven’t done this before, there’s a high likelihood that you can create your own case study. Share these experiences on your platforms.
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3. Set a realistic financial goal for yourself. If you used to earn 50,000 rubles a month in a job, avoid setting an unreachable goal like 1 million rubles. However, the chosen amount should inspire and motivate you. The path ahead may be long and challenging, but it is also intriguing.
   …

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Category 2. Processors: SMM specialists, marketers, copywriters, and others. These individuals are essentially the same as employees, but they also possess the quality of being “multi-handed and multi-legged.” They excel in various online skills and, as a result, often find themselves in a “Savior or Savior” state. They have a passion for providing free advice and “carrying their clients and customers on their shoulders,” but this does not increase their earnings. On the contrary, people become dependent on them, demanding more: “Well, why not? You can do it, just like yesterday…”

However, as it’s widely known, patience has its limits. Consequently, every processor aspires to become an EXPERT. This initiates the same process as beginners, but with added illusions that results should be swift, as they are already well-versed.

But is it necessary to become an expert? There’s a segment of the information services market that insists it’s a MUST! Nevertheless, each person possesses their unique set of values and psychotype. Not everyone needs to pursue the path of becoming an EXPERT-entrepreneur, as it may not align with their true calling. Not everyone is suited for business planning, product creation, team building, coping with the pressures of “launches,” or embracing intense public exposure. Moreover, not everyone craves financial abundance.

What can be offered?

1. Delve deep into recognizing your uniqueness as a process specialist. Take time to bolster your self-esteem and tackle the imposter syndrome. By doing so, you can confidently adjust your service rates right away. There’s no need to rush into investing in a “new, super profession of the future.” Your wealth of experience will forge neural pathways within your consciousness, thus making the transition to a higher professional tier smoother: without encountering burnout, drama, financial debts, or self-reproach.
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2. If you possess the ambition and determination to become an expert, it’s essential to master the art of setting personal boundaries. Learn to say “no” when the situation warrants it, both to yourself and others. Achieving a higher income level presupposes the development of psychological resilience and the aptitude to assert yourself effectively. (For a more in-depth understanding, consider subscribing to my channel, where I elaborate on this topic.)
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3. Reflect on whether your desire to become an expert aligns harmoniously with your core values. Perhaps you derive genuine fulfilment from being an integral part of a team. Team-oriented objectives, social gatherings, and corporate events invigorate you. If this resonates, actively seek out communities that resonate with your aspirations. Empower yourself to LIVE YOUR LIFE fully, rather than striving to fulfil external goals that are incessantly promoted in the information-saturated environment.
   …

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Category 3: Experts: “Sometimes too busy, sometimes too empty.”

Category 3. Experts: These professionals have the experience and knowledge but are often hesitant to raise their service fees. They doubt whether to offer one-time consultations or switch to a package, group, or course format. It’s because they possess substantial professional competencies, numerous certificates, diplomas, and they are creative and thoughtful. However, they fear “embarrassing themselves” in the eyes of teachers, mentors who might say, “Well, your writing is too simple, and you charge such fees??? Who are you?” They also fear other forms of criticism from unreasonable people, difficult clients, and, ultimately, responsibility.

Financial breakthroughs are usually made out of the motivation to “get it together.” However, burnout, regression, and “indecision” follow, along with sabotaging regular, targeted actions. This happens because they cannot see their own goals, or more accurately, they fear WANTING.

So, what is “misguided intelligence”? It could be said that this term fits because these creative, educated adults were obedient, good, quiet, and non-conflict children in the past.

From childhood, they were indoctrinated with beliefs and fears about money and social relationships, such as “we are poor but honest people,” and so on. Moreover, they are well-acquainted with feelings of guilt and shame because you can’t raise a “well-behaved child” without manipulating them with these emotions.

My recommendations:

1. Seek help from specialists and address your “childhood” issues. Only after psychological processing can you set financial goals. Before that, everything is futile. Your brain, like burnt-out wiring, will either shut down or redirect its focus to anything but your GOAL.
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2. Examine your beliefs about “money” and “enjoyment in life.”
   
   These beliefs also form during childhood and are lodged like splinters in the subconscious, only to start hurting when it’s time to assert yourself in society and claim what’s rightfully yours.
   …

3. It’s IMPORTANT to deal with shame, guilt, personal boundaries, and then it becomes easier to showcase your professionalism, launch a product or service, and raise your prices. Discipline, endurance, and determination arise from the state of “I know WHO I am and what I WANT in this life.”
   …

No matter which category you place yourself in, if you are 35+ years old, burnout from your activities will always occur if you lack a BIG GOAL, a strategic vision of “How I want to live in 5, 10, 20 years.”

Our brains don’t like expending energy for no reason, but if you follow the path to your Mission, it starts allocating additional resources. Call it “esoteric”? I think it doesn’t matter. It’s proven by the lives of other people, which means it exists.

I hope this article helps someone understand the reasons why so much effort yields no increase in income. I regularly cover topics related to “burnout in the profession, finding uniqueness, factors affecting income and quality of life,” and more on my Telegram channel. If it resonates with you, subscribe, and let’s communicate and grow together.

By Anastasia Umnova. Personal Coach.Psychologist.

Copied with the permission of the author. The original article is here.

By Innokenty Fefilov
Marketing Department
The text is published with the permission of the author.
The original text is here.

In 2014, I moved from Lausanne to Perm. I had a profession as a technical specialist at an exhibition center, but I couldn’t use it because I had parted ways with the only employer. In Perm, I was just sitting with my son, as in Lausanne.

My mom gave me 5000 rubles for living. My wife had a job, but with my son, we couldn’t make ends meet on her income alone.

I had some knowledge of logistics and got a job at “Delovye Linii” (Business Lines). The essence of the position was to coordinate truck routes. As it turned out during the test, I wasn’t a logistician at all. However, I solved one of the tasks mathematically correctly but logistically incorrectly. And the second one correctly and through the center of mass formula. The manager, seeing something like that for the first time in his life, decided to hire me immediately. I passed the test day and received a job offer.

Indeed, it’s nice when the workplace provides corporate clothing.

Seven night shifts, seven day shifts — 36,000 rubles. Not far from home by bus. A good earning base and plenty of time for my constant “sort of” breakthrough ideas.

And then my friend Kolya asked me to check a website. The idea was that he was an auditor but decided to make a rational proposal to management to improve web performance. He considered me smart and asked for help.

The condition: he gets a bonus — treats with cognac. In my database were 2-3 marketing books that I had somehow read (“What Big Mac is Silent About,” “And Botanists Do Business,” and the third) and the entire blog of Artemy Lebedev up to its foundation. I wrote my rational proposal, and it became clear that the work was too extensive, and we wouldn’t claim it as Kolya’s authorship.

The boss (who was also the owner) came up with the idea of trying me out at work. He understood that I was 30 years old, with no work experience in the field and no education.

…

They assigned me a different position.

Kolya immediately mentioned that the company pays little at the beginning. But I didn’t care. I was excited. I went for the interview, and my new boss, Alexey, outlined the scope of work, placed expectations on me, and gave me a carte blanche. During the interview, I didn’t ask about the salary. They offered me a basic salary of 20,000 rubles and the position of “Project Manager for Online Sales Development.” And I had to travel to the middle of nowhere. And I love walking so much… 12 km, darn.

Lost: Almost half of the salary.
Won: An interesting occupation.
Won: The opportunity to grow.

…

I started learning the topic for 5 hours every day, seizing my last chance, and things started to pick up. After a month, Alexey asked how much he was paying me. I said 20,000 rubles and received an increase to 30,000 rubles. Life became easier, but I didn’t really care.

After six months, website traffic doubled, and sales significantly increased. Alexey announced that now it would be 45,000 rubles. And then it reached 55,000 rubles.

After 1 year and 3 months, I got bored. The new website still hadn’t been released. The job became uninteresting, growth opportunities disappeared. I checked out a competitor’s website (not a direct competitor, some SEO phrases overlapped a bit). I found a serious flaw, remembered that a friend of a friend was the commercial director there. Sent the problem, asked for a bottle of cognac, and a video of beating up the perpetrator. I got it— an invitation for an interview.

…

The company was a leader in windows and related services in Perm and Yekaterinburg. They showed me the scope of work during the interview, and I immediately agreed. My eyes lit up, my palms got sweaty, and ideas started racing in my head. On the way out of the interview, they asked me about salary expectations. I was afraid to ask for too little and be seen as a weak specialist, so I mumbled, “50,000 rubles.”

Lost: Almost half of the salary, as my colleague in a similar position was paid 80k.
Won: An interesting occupation.
Won: The opportunity to grow.

…

Well, what did you think?

Over the next two years, I continued studying for 5 hours a day. I established a complete in-house department with all the employees in internet marketing — from 0 to 10 people. As an internet marketer, I won a competition of classical marketers in Perm (jury by I. Mann). With such power, I could tackle any task and grow in any direction.

I grew. I got bored. And I resigned. I took on a project job for 40k, started my own agency. Honestly, I quit because I convinced myself, “And now, do I have to get up at 7:40 for the rest of my life?” I still do a lot of work for free to this day. It’s interesting to me, so I do it. Then someone comes along and offers to pay for it.

We created a free quest on VK — several clients with some wild budgets for Perm approached us.
I got into comprehensive analytics, did 25 projects for free — now we’re building a whole department.
AB tests were done for free, under a hundred. Clients keep coming, and I’m not sure what to do with them.
Wanted to teach. Invited to HSE. I’m building the teaching branch and enjoying it, but not for the money.

How much do I earn now? I don’t know, it doesn’t bother me. I have 60 clients and 10 colleagues. It’s interesting to me, and I can improve. Any idea I have, there’s someone to try it with and someone for me to help in it.

The story doesn’t end there. But let’s move on to the conclusions.

You have three chairs—money, interest, and self-improvement. Perhaps, it happens that the stars align, and you get to sit on all three. Well done.

But if you have to sacrifice one of them?

Interest.

This is a boost; it enhances any indicator. As long as it’s interesting and fun for you, you’ll rejoice in every new discovery and every challenging yet solved task. As long as you’re driven, you’ll wake up at 3 in the morning, jotting down work thoughts and falling asleep. You’ll have no problem heading to work on a Monday because there’s so much interesting stuff there.

Who are you without interest? Stressed and tired office plankton? A regular visitor to psychologists? A reader of articles about procrastination?

You don’t even need to be that person.

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Leveling up.

Not every job allows you to boost your skills or do it with sufficient intensity. You need tasks that are slightly above your level, so that each solved task compels you to reach higher. I’ve never looked at competitors, only at the tasks. To this day, I don’t care how things are done in other agencies if it doesn’t help solve the tasks.

Who are you without improvement? Treading water. Is that bad? No, if you’re in your comfort zone. But if the zone becomes uncomfortable, how will you get out of it when your skills haven’t grown? Improvement opens up new interesting challenges, sketches out new possibilities, and pulls you into new adventures.

Money.

Let me not sing praises to you about money.

What’s wrong with them? If you’re not an investor, money doesn’t make more money for you. You can invest them in yourself, but not everyone does, and the resource is limited. Money replaces interest, but only temporarily. Each month, the growing income brings less joy until it becomes ordinary. You rarely celebrate the fact that you’re breathing, your heart is pumping blood, and similarly, you’ll rarely remember that your salary is a bit higher than last time. Only occasionally will someone lament, “My 50k rubles are not enough for living,” and you’ll slyly smile with your hundred.

Work. What to do?

Choosing between today and tomorrow. Today is money, and tomorrow is the same money. Or today is interest and self-improvement, and money tomorrow if needed.

And here, someone in the comments will insert: “If you don’t ask for money, they’ll sit on you, squeeze every drop.” It’s your life; you decide what you take from each job. By default, the employer is not your brother, not your mom, and not universal justice. They may deceive you, lie to you, and use you as they please. But if you find it interesting in this mode, and your skill is gaining momentum at x10, then let them use, squeeze, and throw. It’s a battle with yourself, not with someone else.

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Motivational quote: “I can show you the way. But you choose the path yourself.”

While you’re here contemplating or preparing a fiery comment, I’ll be washing my new sneakers, worth 70k rubles, at the best restaurant in Perm.

Innokentiy Fefilov, blogger on vc.ru

Call me on any topic if it’s interesting and involves self-improvement. No need for money.

Subscribe to the Telegram channel. Every day.

By Innokenty Fefilov
Marketing Department
The text is published with the permission of the author.
The original text is here.

TOP signs that are better not to ignore. The list had been compiled while interviewing for a marketing position at an IT company, but it will be relevant for many positions:

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• “The first six months 20 thousand, and then 200.”
• “And the previous marketer’s eyes were burning…”
• “Already leaving? We usually work until 9…”

1. This is a vacancy from some individual entrepreneur who is on the verge of creating an innovative product. The product will undoubtedly lead both you and the company to unprecedented success. The team needs a natural-born leader with burning eyes (and eventually, burning ass). By the way, what exactly this product is unclear; most likely, it’s a financial pyramid.
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2. The interviews stretch over 5 or more stages. A separate point is the test assignments where you are asked to complete a week’s worth of work. A polite way out is to explain that you are interviewing with several companies/still working in your current position, so you don’t have the time to spend on such a lengthy test assignment. Generally, paying money for a large test assignment is considered good practice.
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3. In one form or another, phrases like the following are present: salary is limited only by your capabilities; we pay as much as you earn; there is no limit to the salary range; the previous marketer became a millionaire.

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4. A powerful sales funnel is needed, with many incoming leads, but there’s no money for advertising. The business owner is fervently shaking the book “Marketing Without a Budget” (a great book, I recommend it).
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5. In the “Advantages” section, it states: no dress code, friendly team, professional team, white salary, and company-sponsored tea.
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6. A random assortment of various requirements, as if someone couldn’t control verbal diarrhea. I’ve seen several job postings where a lone marketer was expected to manage social media, develop a podcast platform, organize offline events, run multiple blogs, launch advertising campaigns, work with printing, participate in industry competitions, rankings – this is an incomplete list, mind you. And all of this for 80 thousand per month, please.
   …

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7. They expect the marketer to start everything from scratch and quickly: positioning, PR strategy, advertising strategy, sales funnel, and a new toilet to replace the wooden one outside. Instead of a logical note saying, “You will build your team for this task,” there’s a phrase, “You are active, work not until 18:00, but until results are achieved.”

8. Office work 5 days a week and no other way. It’s strange in 2023. Such companies still offer corporate transportation because their office is somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

9. It’s unclear what happened to the previous marketer and whether they are even alive. Or former employees are openly criticized during the interview. Or you hear something like, “We’ve already changed three people in this position in a year, can’t find a decent one.”

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They avoid discussing salary until the very end. The second stage of interviews is already completed, and the financial question is pushed back. In one large design studio in St. Petersburg, there’s an interesting principle: torture the person with interviews and tests, not disclosing the salary range until the very end, so that in the end, they would want to join so badly that they would even agree to a salary below expectations. These folks have apparently reread Kurpatov, rewatched Stepanova.

More often than not, these sins are committed by small, quasi-IT companies that have been on the market for a couple of years. During interviews, they still like to say, “We lived for three years on word of mouth; we didn’t need any marketing. And now, with the word of mouth fading, clients shrinking, we’re hiring a marketer to bring us leads. By the way, there’s no budget for marketing, I can handle advertising with my own money. And we’re a big family, incest is not uncommon for us.”

By the way, I run my channel about marketing, horses, relocation, and IT (yes, just like that). Subscribe; there are many posts like these there.

By Diana.
She writes about horses, relocation and work:
https://t.me/marketingandhorses
The text is published with the permission of the author.
The original is here.

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