Working in restaurants shaped the lens through which I view a wide swath of my everyday marketing activities, including client relationships, teamwork & task management, building rapport, wondering why well-done steaks exist. I wouldn’t be the SEO I am today without the tables I waited. 

The pepper grinder and its handy belt-clipping holster from my last server gig at The Melting Pot sits on a bookshelf in my office. It’s a reminder of the hours spent over a decade in various restaurants learning how to talk to humans, how to handle stress while building great experiences for guests, how to get that consistent garlic smell out of car upholstery. None of those skills were left behind when I transitioned to a full-time SEO career in 2009.

My Opinion: every SEO (or any marketer) needs to spend at least six months working in a restaurant. Let’s have a real look at how the skills transfer, and why they’re so important.

Incidentally, the Google Analytics certification test has nothing on the fondue recipe exam: 300+ questions, 95% passes. Fail it twice? Melted cheese service is not in your future.

The Fish is No Good Today

Menus – you may be shocked to learn – have just as much marketing forethought poured into them as any SEO or paid media campaign you’ve run over the past year. Owners and chefs know which ingredients tend to excite guests, what words usually turn them off to a dish, and how to phrase a preparation method that might carry a negative connotation.

Example: It’s not “spicy seafood sauce” on the menu. It’s “XO Sauce”.

If you’re the server, your job is not only to know the menu inside and out, but also the quality of ingredients available on a given night. If the fish didn’t look great coming in from the market, you’re doing your guests a service by steering them away from it.

The same is absolutely true for any SEO working with an in-house team. Saying your next agenda topic is “Bidirectional Encoder Representation for Transformers” might as well be daylily kimchi and fog leaf. It’s your job to break down complex, seemingly impenetrable topics down into their approachable components. Just as you’re helping in the explanation department, you’re also guiding teams to the best organic search decisions for their business. 

Example: You know that guest poster offering dofollow backlinks from their “portfolio of websites” is toxic at best. Help them build their own content audience instead. 

Task Management When Under Fire

Managing a full book of business at a marketing agency is no different than a crowded restaurant on a Friday night. You’re going to have some guests who can’t be bothered to even look at the menu while other tables are waving their water glasses in the air, gesticulating like their starvation is imminent.  

Waiting tables helped me learn how to task manage on the fly. There’s an internal clock that develops based on how long tasks take to complete, and the relative order they need to occur in, while accounting for roadblocks (meaning humans) that could pop up while attempting to complete them: greet guests, answer menu questions, run entrees, take a pic for the bachelor party, change a keg.

It’s one thing to get off a call with the client and plan, but quite a different experience to be able to hold those moving parts in your brain while collaborating in real time. That learned ability to see the whole picture and manipulate it provides real value and gives a better sense of how committed you are to learning a client’s business.

Client Relationships & A Backed-Up Kitchen

Speaking of clients, remember the last time the development queue didn’t move for three months and no JIRA ticket you entered was remotely close to completed? SEO engagements thrive on momentum, just like any restaurant kitchen. It’s the engine that makes the whole system move.

If you’ve waited tables, then you have experience focusing the client (I mean…table) on other projects i.e. pouring more content project wine, refreshing that keyword intent analysis and competitive gap, being an entertaining host who takes their attention off of the team who needs to focus to clear a crowded row of tickets.

Learn How to Expedite

Ah, the Expo. The last line of defense. The only one who talks to the kitchen. The general, the maestro. Remember those episodes of MasterChef where Gordon Ramsay announces he’ll be expediting for the teams of panic-eyed home cooks at the Michelin-starred restaurant takeover? Nothing gets by the man because of the standard he sets.

Learning how the machine works well enough to guide the creation of its product and conduct quality assurance as the last check is what every SEO does (or should be doing) for their clients. Dev release going live? You check it. Content and semantic markup rolling out? Break out the Structured Data Testing Tool. Clients expect you to know what you’re looking at. The developers will respect you for acknowledging how hard they work to put out bug free releases.

Don’t Skimp on the Side Work

Side work, sucks. The guests are gone, tabs long since paid, and there you are searching lemon zest leavings on plush carpeting ’til midnight (or later). You can’t leave until it’s done, and it’s not done until it’s checked by another server, so you might as well do it well the first time. Cutting corners here only hurts the larger team, who’ll be wondering why no one stocked the napkins tomorrow night.

You earn no additional revenue in the client services game for the quality of your agendas, the timeliness of your email responses, and clarity in assigning tasks. But, doing these support tasks well lifts up the entire team as a whole, makes everyone else’s job easier, and even encourages others to mimic your behavior. Dedication and quality standards are actually (if I can use the word in these times) contagious.

Your Regulars Will Follow You Anywhere

Do your job right, and the guests who trust you won’t want anyone else to guide them through a meal. You’ve become synonymous with an excellent dining experience, regardless of the sign above the door. How Did they come to trust you the exclusion of anyone else? Because of the value you built for them, your honesty and dedication.

SEO, and digital marketing in general, thrives on relationships. How many of us have points of contact who go to other companies and instantly get in contact for help? Dozens to hundreds. Relationships keep the lights on, keep the wheels turning. Any diner or client can get two eggs the way they like ’em and a paid search campaign just about anywhere. They choose you, because of you.