This is an ongoing series in no particular order addressing some concerns when joining up with a search agency for the first time

Many people I have talked with have had similar experiences joining up with larger internet marketing agencies. When coming from a non-traditional work environment i.e. rent paid by Google Adsense or 5 person link brokerage firm, things can be a little rough and seemingly tedious. Here are some tips for the “non-traditional new hires”:

Reporting is big when handling over 5 clients, this can literally take up 50 percent of your week. You will become close friends with Excel.

Phone time with clients can be a little nerve racking in the beginning. Since many SEO/SEM wizards are not used to chatting on the phone as part of a job, its best to ease yourself in but to not be afraid of saying something you need to defend. Basically as long as your doing good work, clients can on occasion, be forgiving.

Even though work attire may be casual, email attire needs a little bit more business flare to it. Unfortunately, many of us who grew up on Instant Messengers as our sole communication device suffered in the grammar department.

You WILL be thrown into the fire! The big agencies need people very bad, specifically SEO/SEM strategists/managers etc. Expect to be working on your first day.

Not everyone who works for agencies actually loves SEO strategy and is interested in your latest Adwords tweak. Fortunately you will find those that do.

These tips seem obvious, although for someone like myself, who 5 years ago came out of the Adsense/Arbitrage/Affiliate personal business straight to the agencies, there was a bit of culture shock. Fortunately, the industry moves so quickly that the new-guy title never really sticks and seniority is basically a 6 month process. The next few articles in this series will explore the crazy internet marketing business and how to successfully navigate it.