Bruce Clay Interview

George Andrews
Organizational Leadership
May 5, 2008
Informational Interview

Bruce Clay, Inc.

My research for this informational interview would result in more than just answers to the few questions that I would have about leaders in the industry that I am entering upon completion of my degree: search engine marketing. The answers to these questions would be great to have, but more importantly I came away with something much better than that, I came away with a vision. After a fortunate chain of events I would find myself interviewing the industry leader in search engine marketing, Bruce Clay, Inc. at www.bruceclay.com. My interview would result in a preparatory vision for what I will need to accomplish if I desire to be successful as a search engine marketer and optimizer myself.

My search for an industry leader in search engine marketing (SEM) began locally, but I soon found that this industry is full of amateurs and fly-by-night search engine optimization (SEO) companies. It was difficult for me to find an expert so I turned to the Internet and after some more research and extensive reading I was able to find a number of articles and videos that referred me to www.bruceclay.com. This information resulted in the phone call that would bring me together with not just a manager or other leader in the company, as I had hoped, but with Bruce Clay himself.

Wow! How ecstatic was I when Gary Luke, Bruce Clay, Inc.’s Business Development Manager, told me that, not only was he going to get me the answers that I was looking for, but he was also going to try to put me in contact with the best source for those answers. And so, here follows the summary of my informational interview with the industry leader in search engine marketing, Bruce Clay, in my own words:

Tell me a little bit about your company; how long have you worked there; and how you grew into your current position?

Bruce went on to explain how he, in 1996, happened upon a fortunate and lucky string of events. He had already worked with and ran four multi-million dollar companies, but had decided that he wanted to work on a smaller scale, doing consulting and working from a notebook computer on his own time and at his own pace. Bruce has a BS in Math and Computer Science and an MBA from Pepperdine University. He found his opportunity to perform consulting by using his knowledge of information technology and business marketing to analyze the Internet, he found that businesses on the Internet received the majority of their traffic from search engines, and with a little bit of programming he could get web sites well ranked on those engines in a very little amount of time. This success would cause him to purchase the domain www.bruceclay.com and through that site he would start to receive calls, way too many calls in fact, and his business would grow as the demand for his search engine marketing services continued to rise (Bruce Clay, Inc.).

What is the motto that you choose to live by in the workplace?

Bruce was able to answer this question with one word. That word was “family.” In his company, Bruce has come up with an orientation that is more of a “we adopt” rather than a “we hire” them mentality. Employees are embraced rather than looked upon as commodities used to perform services. Employees at Bruce Clay, Inc. are encouraged to like their jobs and the environment they are working in. I could see this motto in effect while I was attempting to contact someone in management for this very interview. Each person I came into contact with on the telephone told me that there was someone better suited to answer my questions and they would refer me further up the chain until Gary Luke would finally put me in touch with Bruce himself. When Gary spoke to me about Bruce it wasn’t “Mr. Clay” or “my boss”, he spoke of him as “Bruce” just like one might speak of their brother. I could definitely see what Bruce meant as he described his motto in the workplace being “family.”

What specifically do you do to set an example for your employees?

Bruce wasn’t sure whether his first answer was a good or a bad example when he spoke of how he “worked around the clock.” But he went on to describe how he demonstrates approachability, excitement, and happiness to his employees. He described setting an example for learning from your mistakes and solving problems when they arise. His demeanor seemed very open to me as he described how, of the thirteen people that have left the company for over the years, three of them were welcomed back upon realizing that the grass wasn’t greener on the other side and that Bruce Clay, Inc. is where they were happiest.

How would you describe your leadership style? Can you give any
examples for how you implement this leadership style in the workplace?

Bruce is a very big believer in situational leadership. I listened intently as he described the situational leadership model because I had heard about it before, but not in the context that it was being described by Bruce. I had remembered that Ken Blanchard was involved with the development of the situational leadership model and that he’s the author of the book, The One Minute Manager, which I had summarized already for this course. Bruce described how he is very strict about the use of this leadership style and how he implements this leadership style by sending every one of his leaders and managers to the American Management Association’s Situational Leadership Workshop in San Francisco, California.

What qualities do you look for when hiring new employees?

Though breathing is near the top of the list, Bruce described how 60-80% of the interview process is personality. He looks for someone that is at least as intelligent as the people that he surrounds himself with, but also someone without something to prove or with a chip on their shoulder. He admits that knowing design and the Internet might be good skills to have for SEM, but as far as particular qualities he looks for employees that are re-trainable, employees that are not set in their ways. I really liked his next description of the type of employee he likes to see, he described it as, “Intelligent enough to think outside the box, but smart enough to recognize that the box is there.” In a sense he was describing his outlook on search engine marketing in its entirety. While it is important to be able to improvise, adapt, and overcome, the search engine marketer needs to focus on quality. Quality means no spam, no cheating, and keeping up with the times without going outside the boundaries.

How do you handle conflict among your employees while remaining in a neutral position?

Stuffed Dueling Remote-controlled Sumo Wrestlers! Haha! Keeping with the motto that he likes to live by, “family”, the company has purchased remote-controlled sumo wrestlers that employees are able to run into each other as an exercise to relieve stress. This tension reliever brings the conflict level down to the family level. Of course this isn’t always the solution and nobody will have all of the answers, so in the case of disputes or technical differences, he has learned that Human Resource (HR) intervention is necessary and that HR is a critical resource for his company.

What advice would you give someone early in their career about leadership?

The immediate response given for this question was for anyone and everyone interested in leadership to go to a situational leadership class such as the one offered by the American Management Association. Bruce also described how his company uses a mentorship program where new employees are paired up with a mentor. The worst thing that can happen to someone early in their career is for them to develop the wrong habits, the mentor is there to teach them the right habits.

What skills and/or characteristics do you have that you feel make you a good leader?

In order to be a good leader, Bruce describes, that leader needs to be respected and not viewed upon as an idiot. This can be accomplished by surrounding oneself with people that make them a good leader, much like senators surround themselves with knowledgeable people for decision-making. Bruce also described what are known as the “five bases of power” and how he has the information power that makes him a good leader.

I was especially interested in the Wikipedia definition for information power since I believe it describes how to succeed in the search engine marketing industry, “While the difference between expert power and information power is subtle, people with this type of power are well-informed, up-top-date and also have the ability to persuade others” (Wikipedia).

What do you see as the key issues in employee development in your field?

The key issue for development is also a key issue for the entire search engine marketing industry. “We have a moving target,” says Bruce, “Every Monday we have to analyze what has happened.” Every Monday is a new industry, and those in this field need the “box out of the box ability to follow and sort through the meat of what just happened and to recognize the changes that are going on.” There is nothing magical about search and there isn’t one fool proof method for getting your site to the first page.

There are rules, and these rules change. Google alone has changed their algorithms over 400 times in the past year. That means that the rules for search are changing every single day and, in this industry, you need not only that knowledge, but also an approach that will allow you to keep up.

Do you believe that most good leaders are “natural born leaders”? Why or why not?

Overall Bruce gives the impression that he doesn’t believe that good leaders are “natural born leaders”. Instead, he believes that good leaders are natural educators who are in turn good instructors and good mentors.

In order to be a good leader, one must be exposed to the information about proper leading. Perhaps people are first “natural teachers and instructors”, but it takes a process to reach the point of being a good leader. He believes that good leaders are built through training and development.

At the beginning of this paper I stated that my research for this informational interview would result in more than just answers to the questions that I have for leaders in my industry. Not only have I received answers to all of those questions, but I have also received the building blocks for a course of action that will allow me to succeed where others might fail. In this paper I have detailed what I believe to be great advice for myself and anyone else interested in a search engine marketing career. I would like to thank Bruce Clay for his valuable time and honest answers as well as my professor, Dr. Renee Surdick, for the opportunity to write this paper and perform this interview. I have come to the realization that this is not just a learning experience, but a vision for how I can succeed in the search engine marketing industry.

Work Cited
Bruce Clay, Inc. “bruceclay.com – Internet Marketing: Search Engine Optimization, PPC, Analytics, Design, Email, Branding Services and Tools.” Bruce Clay, Inc. Internet Business Consultants. 5 May 2008 http://www.bruceclay.com.

“Power (philosophy) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 5 May 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(sociology).

“Situational leadership theory – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 5 May 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situational_leadership_theory.