Do You Have to DO To Successfully Sell?

  I have a question.  Is the old adage true "do as I say, not as I do?"

I have recently come across professionals in the web development/web marketing field that "talk the talk" but don't "walk the walk."  If you were to visit their sites, you wouldn't find evidence of what they recommend to their customers happening on their own site.

I'm reminded of the children's story of the shoemaker whose children were barefoot because he was too busy to make his kids shoes.  I once attended a party where I met a woman whose husband was a carpenter.  He was famous for the beautiful furniture and cabinets he crafted and yet his wife had been waiting years for him to make something for their home.

Is it okay for a developer to talk about the importance of optimizing your site but when you visit theirs you find no sign of meta tags or descriptors and the photos are missing alt tags and the title tag for their home page is...wait for it...."home page."

How important is it for you to take time putting in place for your own business, the elements your recommend for your customers?

And should customers expect to see you providing the example? 

I say yes.  I say - if a marketing expert suggests that you have a monthly newsletter to reach your customers then they had better be setting the example with one of their own.  If a developer talks about the importance of

Meta tags and descriptors, then if I look at the source code for their site I'll see a whole list. 

Am I wrong?  If you are getting ready to hire someone to provide a service for your business; i.e. marketing, writing, web development - do you expect that they do the same for their own business?

Photo courtesy of Questioning

Comments

[Ivana Taylor]

Thanks for reminding those of us that suffer from "Marketer heal thyself" - this would be me. I completely agree with everything you said and you've inspired me to keep moving and drinking my own lemonade.