Central Perk

vineri, 10 ianuarie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Humorous Quote of the Day
Employment vs. Jobs Discrepancy - December 2013 Data
Greece Industrial Production Declines 5th Consecutive Month, Unemployment New High of 27.8%; How Long Can Greek Coalition Last?
Big Miss: Nonfarm Payrolls +74,000 vs. 205,000 Expected; Unemployment Rate 6.7% as Labor Force Shrinks by 347,000
Investors Most Bullish in Nearly 27 Years

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 07:39 PM PST

A tip of the hat goes to Huky Guru at Guru's Blog regarding the non-shocking announcement that "One of the rescued countries provided "misleading" information to the troika as the ECB"

"In some cases, the information was incomplete, particularly in a country, even misleading at the beginning of the program," says the company chaired by Mario Draghi in the European Parliament formulated to evaluate the work of the troika questionnaire.

Guru Commented "Just one country provided misleading information? And it took four years to realize?"

That's pretty funny, but actually it is a sign the ECB thinks the bottom is in. That's when these kind of revelations come out.

Yet, as Guru implies, it likely was every country that received a bailout, that fabricated data.

Going back further still, I find it hard to believe that the ECB and the Brussels nanncrats did not know upfront that Greece was not ready for Eurozone membership, and that Greece lied on its application.

And finally, regardless of what these guys think, it's highly doubtful the crisis is over. The biggest eurozone trials are yet to come.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Employment vs. Jobs Discrepancy - December 2013 Data

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 01:02 PM PST

The wide discrepancy between jobs and employment continues for a third month.

Jobs vs. Employment Discussion

Before diving into the details, it is important to understand limits on data, and how the BLS measures jobs in the establishment survey vs. employment in the household survey.

Establishment Survey: If you work one hour that counts as a job. There is no difference between one hour and 50 hours.
Establishment Survey: If you work multiple jobs you are counted twice. Neither the BLS nor ADP weed out duplicate social security numbers.

Household Survey: If you work one hour or 80 you are employed.
Household Survey: If you work a total of 35 hours you are considered a full time employee. If you work 25 hours at one job and 10 hours at another, you are a fulltime employee.

Following are numbers from today's BLS jobs releases.

December 2013 vs. December Prior Years

Category	DEC 2008	DEC 2009	DEC 2010	DEC 2011	DEC 2012	DEC 2013
Employed Household	143,369	138,013	139,266	140,836	143,212	144,586
Jobs Establishment	134,425	129,373	130,395	132,498	134,691	136,877

Monthly Averages December 2013 vs. December Prior Years

Category	DEC 2009	DEC 2010	DEC 2011	DEC 2012	DEC 2013
Yoy Change Household	(5,356)	1,253	1,570	2,376	1,374
Yoy Change establishment	(5,052)	1,022	2,103	2,193	2,186
Monthly Average Household	-446	104	131	198	115
Monthly Average Establishment	-421	85	175	183	182

Notice how closely in sync the household survey has been to the establishment survey in terms of average gains or losses. A divergence developed in 2013.

Here is the data I posted last month (I did not check for revisions).

November 2013 vs. November Prior Years

Category	Nov 2008	Nov 2009	Nov 2010	Nov 2011	Nov 2012	Nov 2013
Employed Household	144,100	138,665	139,046	140,771	143,277	144,386
Jobs Establishment	135,130	129,593	130,300	132,268	134,472	136,765

Monthly Averages November 2013 vs. November Prior Years

Category	Nov 2009	Nov 2010	Nov 2011	Nov 2012	Nov 2013
Yoy Change Household	(5,435)	381	1,725	2,506	1,109
Yoy Change establishment	(5,537)	707	1,968	2,204	2,293
Monthly Average Household	-453	32	144	209	92
Monthly Average Establishment	-461	59	164	184	191

Last month the discrepancy between reported employment and reported jobs was 191,000 - 92,000 = 99,000.

This month the discrepancy between reported employment and reported jobs is 182,000 - 115,000 = 67,000.

These discrepancies started in 2013.

I asked the BLS to take multiple social security numbers into consideration. They cannot because all they have is raw counts. ADP could, but wouldn't, citing privacy issues.

However, there are no privacy issues. A program would be trivial to write, but most likely one would not even have to do that. A sort utility extracting and counting duplicate social security numbers would suffice.

I believe Obamacare is the reason for the discrepancy.

Obamacare Effect

Prior to Obamacare
34 hours worked = 1 parttime job household survey
34 hours worked = 1 job establishment survey

Enter obamacare
Person cut back to 25 hours and takes a second job for 10 hours
Here is the new math

25 + 10 = 1 fulltime job on the household survey.
25 + 10 = 2 jobs on the establishment survey.

In my example, the household survey totals up all the hours and says, voilla! (35 hours = full time). So a few extra hours that people pick up working 2 part time jobs now throws someone into full time status – thus no surge in part-time employment, but there is a surge in jobs.

Establishment Survey Jobs Surge Ended This Month

Interestingly, the surge in jobs in the establishment survey ended today. See Big Miss: Nonfarm Payrolls +74,000 vs. 205,000 Expected; Unemployment Rate 6.7% as Labor Force Shrinks by 347,000.

Two Possibilities

Perhaps today's weak job report is a one-time thing. Some economists blamed the weather.
The other possibility is the Obamacare effect has mostly played out, and Establishment Survey results going forward will not get a multiple job boost for the rest of the year.

If the Obamacare multiple job surge has indeed played out, monthly establishment survey job gains are going to be weaker than most expect for 2014.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Greece Industrial Production Declines 5th Consecutive Month, Unemployment New High of 27.8%; How Long Can Greek Coalition Last?

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 10:26 AM PST

Those expecting an uptick in Greek GDP received some sobering news this past week. Macropolis reports Unemployment hit new high of 27.8 pct in October, set to rise further.

According to the Hellenic Statistical Agency (ELSTAT), the seasonally adjusted jobless rate in October stood at 27.8 percent from an upwards revised 27.7 percent in the month of September. After the previous months' revisions, the October rate now holds the new high.

Women lead the way in the unemployment stakes with 32.1 percent lacking jobs compared to 24.7 percent for men.

All age groups are severely impacted by the devastating impact of the Greek depression with the unemployment rate having roughly tripled for each bracket compared to October 2009. For 25-34 year olds it stands at 37.8 percent from 13; for 35-44 at 23.8 percent from 8.3; 20.3 percent for the 45-54 age group and 16.6 percent for the 55-64 year olds. Youth unemployment impacts more than half of those between 15 and 24 looking for a job with the rate standing at 57.9 percent.

Greek Industrial Production Declines 5th Consecutive Month

RT reports Greek Industrial Output Downturn Worsens In November.

Greece's industrial production decreased for the fifth consecutive month in November, and at a faster pace than in the previous month, with all of the major industrial sectors recording decline in activity, data released by the Hellenic Statistical Authority showed Thursday.

Industrial production fell a working-day adjusted 6.1 percent on an annual basis in November, following the previous month's 4.7 percent decrease.

Sequentially, industrial production dropped 4.8 percent in November, after falling 7.9 percent in October, the agency said.

During the January-November period, overall industrial production dropped 3.9 percent from the corresponding period of last year.

With these kinds of numbers I keep wondering how long the coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras can last.

Coalition Majority Reduced to Three Seats

Reuters reports Fragile Greek coalition's majority shrinks

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's majority of 26 seats after last year's election has dwindled to the point where it raises the risk of political instability that could hamper recovery and Greece's ability to meet targets for its international bailout.

Samaras expelled lawmaker Byron Polydoras from the conservatives' parliamentary group after he refused to back the new tax law demanded by Greece's lenders.

His expulsion reduces the parliamentary group of Samaras' conservative-Socialist coalition government to 153 in the 300-seat parliament.

Samaras's coalition falls when three more seats go. Polls show that opposition party Syriza would likely win the next election.

Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras has vowed to scrap the country's bailout agreement as noted in Prisoner's Dilemma Game in Greece.

Given Greece's current account surplus (ignoring interest on bailout debt), Greece would indeed be in a good position to default.

When they do, and I believe they will, it will be interesting to watch the reactions of nannycrats in Brussels and Angela Merkel supporters in Germany.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Big Miss: Nonfarm Payrolls +74,000 vs. 205,000 Expected; Unemployment Rate 6.7% as Labor Force Shrinks by 347,000

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 08:38 AM PST

Initial Reaction

Once again, the stats reveal much weakness.

Big Miss: Nonfarm Payrolls rose by 74,000. The median forecast of 37 economists was 205,000 jobs according to USA Today.
The civilian institutional population rose by 178,000 but the labor force declined by 347,000.
Nonfarm payroll growth is the smallest number since January 2011.

Clearly, this is yet another bad report, with people dropping out of the labor force like mad.

Blaming the Weather

Amusingly, USA Today reports that "Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics says severe winter was the main culprit behind the disappointing job gains."

Did economists not know it was cold outside when they gave USA today their estimates? I guess not.

December BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance

Nonfarm Payroll: +74,000 - Establishment Survey
Employment: +143,000 - Household Survey
Unemployment: -490,000 - Household Survey
Involuntary Part-Time Work: +48,000 - Household Survey
Voluntary Part-Time Work: -127,000 - Household Survey
Baseline Unemployment Rate: -0.3 to 6.7% - Household Survey
U-6 unemployment: +0.0 to 13.1% - Household Survey
Civilian Non-institutional Population: +178,000
Civilian Labor Force: -347,000 - Household Survey
Not in Labor Force: +525,000 - Household Survey
Participation Rate: -0.2 at 62.8 - Household Survey

Additional Notes About the Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate varies in accordance with the Household Survey, not the reported headline jobs number, and not in accordance with the weekly claims data.
In the past year the population rose by 2,395,000.
In the last year the labor force fell by 547,000.
In the last year, those "not" in the labor force rose by 2,943,000
Over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by a mere 1,374,000 (an average of 114,500 a month)

The population rose by over 2 million, but the labor force fell by over a half-million. That's your declining unemployment rate in a nutshell.

Note last bullet point above.

The household survey shows a gain of employment averaging a mere 114,500 a month. Meanwhile, the payroll survey shows a rise of 182,000 jobs a month.

The rational explanation is a massive growth in part-time jobs.

I asked the BLS to investigate this but they do not have the data. ADP has the data but denied the request citing privacy issues.

There are no privacy issues - All ADP need do is take counts of people working more than one job and compare to historical trends.

December 2013 Jobs Report

Please consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) December 2013 Employment Report.

The unemployment rate declined from 7.0 percent to 6.7 percent in December, while total nonfarm payroll employment edged up (+74,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in retail trade and wholesale trade but was down in information.

Click on Any Chart in this Report to See a Sharper Image

Unemployment Rate - Seasonally Adjusted

Employment History Since January 2009

click on chart for sharper image

Change from Previous Month by Job Type

Hours and Wages

Average weekly hours of all private employees fell 0.1 to 34.4 hours. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees rose 0.1 to 33.2 hours.

Average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory private workers rose $0.05 to $20.32. Average hourly earnings of private service-providing employees rose $0.03 to $20.12.

Real wages have been declining. Add in increases in state taxes and the average Joe has been hammered pretty badly. For 2013, one needs to factor in the increase in payroll taxes for Social Security.

For further discussion of income distribution, please see What's "Really" Behind Gross Inequalities In Income Distribution?

BLS Birth-Death Model Black Box

The BLS Birth/Death Model is an estimation by the BLS as to how many jobs the economy created that were not picked up in the payroll survey.

The Birth-Death numbers are not seasonally adjusted, while the reported headline number is. In the black box the BLS combines the two, coming up with a total.

The Birth Death number influences the overall totals, but the math is not as simple as it appears. Moreover, the effect is nowhere near as big as it might logically appear at first glance.

Do not add or subtract the Birth-Death numbers from the reported headline totals. It does not work that way.

Birth/Death assumptions are supposedly made according to estimates of where the BLS thinks we are in the economic cycle. Theory is one thing. Practice is clearly another as noted by numerous recent revisions.

Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2012

Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2013

Birth-Death Notes

Once again: Do NOT subtract the Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.

In general, analysts attribute much more to birth-death numbers than they should. Except at economic turns, BLS Birth/Death errors are reasonably small.

For a discussion of how little birth-death numbers affect actual monthly reporting, please see BLS Birth/Death Model Yet Again.

Table 15 BLS Alternate Measures of Unemployment

click on chart for sharper image

Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.

Notice I said "better" approximation not to be confused with "good" approximation.

The official unemployment rate is 6.7%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 13.1%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Labor Force Factors

Discouraged workers stop looking for jobs
People retire because they cannot find jobs
People go back to school hoping it will improve their chances of getting a job
People stay in school longer because they cannot find a job
Disability and disability fraud

Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 9%.

And the discrepancy between the Household Survey and the Establishment survey sticks out like a sore thumb.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Investors Most Bullish in Nearly 27 Years

Posted: 10 Jan 2014 07:41 AM PST

Sentiment is not a timing indicator, but it is an indicator of problems. And bullish sentiment is greater today than at any time in the past 27 years according to Asbury Research.

Please consider When Being Bullish Can Become Problematic.

Investor sentiment is an important component of financial market analysis because it tells us what investors are collectively thinking. More specifically, when a certain type of investor gets either too bullish or too bearish on an asset, it usually means something important — that investors have become "off-sides" — and typically precedes a important trend reversal in the price of that asset.

One of the dozen or so data series that we track, the Investors Intelligence data, was particularly interesting this past week because the Bulls minus Bears subset of this series (blue line, lower panel of chart below) rose to an historic most bullish extreme that hasn't been seen since February 1987.

More simply stated, the stock market newsletter writers that have comprised this series since 1963 have not been this bullish in almost 27 years.

The red highlights on the show that, at 46, this series as at an historic high extreme, and that similar or lesser extremes have coincided with or led some of the most important peaks in the S&P 500 (black bars, upper panel) in recent history including October 2007, April 2010, and 2011.

Sentiment can always get more extreme, and indeed that is how it reached higher levels than the stock market peaks in 2000 and 2007. Thus my caution "sentiment is not a timing indicator."

Nonetheless, history suggests those plowing into the market today are going to regret it.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

You can say this better than we ever could

The very best people to describe what having new health insurance means -- what it feels like -- isn't me, or any White House policy staffer. It's not even the President.

It's you. Or your neighbor, coworker, sister, or partner.

It's anyone who woke up on the morning of January 1st with the peace of mind, security, and quiet dignity that comes with taking your health care into your own hands.

We've been hearing from a lot of you. Your stories are powerful, and they keep coming in.

Read what 10 different Americans had to say about what being covered now means to them. Then, join them and share a story of your own.

JoAnn S., Florida
"I haven't had insurance in years and my husband had a shared insurance junk-type policy. The day I signed up on Dec 10, I actually cried when the application went through. I got my first premium notice in the mail yesterday and was never so happy to see a bill before."

Gayla W., New Hampshire
"I lost my job last April. My partner and I both have pre-existing conditions so our only option was to COBRA my employer-provided plan -- at a cost of $1,676 a month. It was a good plan, but now we have a comparable plan through the ACA for $87 a month. I can't describe just how life changing this is for us. We can afford to live again."

Stella R., California
"For me this makes all the difference between having good health or not. I recently had a CAT scan (which I had to pay out of pocket for) because I was losing a lot of weight. It turns out that something was found and now I will need to see specialists and have further procedures done to make sure it is not cancer. My first appointment is on January 6 with a specialist. If I did not have health insurance, I would not be able to see a specialist. It would wipe out any savings I have and leave me medically at high risk."

Brian F., Florida
"I have not had Insurance for over 10 years. I had a pre-existing condition that made me uninsurable -- even though I was perfectly healthy. The last quote I got was in 2008: It was $1,750 a month with a $10,000 deductible. There was no way to ever afford that. …This insurance changes everything for me. I do not have to worry anymore when I get a sore throat or an infected cut that I will have to go to the emergency room -- run up thousands in bills and then have to file bankruptcy. This is a great day. Thank you for the ACA. It is a life changer."

Elina K., Colorado
"My mom, who is 61 and works as a freelance Russian interpreter, went to the ER in November. She, her partner and myself are uninsured. Tests confirmed she had a major blockage and would need surgery. The mass appears to be cancerous and is pushing down on her internal organs. She has been in severe pain for weeks. … Last night, around 3 a.m., she was admitted to the hospital and will be having surgery which she had to put off until her ACA policy kicked in at midnight. She now has expert care in a facility that in less than 24 hours changed her medication and treated her symptoms with noticeable results. When my stepdad came home tonight, exhausted after spending all day at the hospital, all he could say was 'thank god for Obamacare' …It may well end up saving her life."

Kendra S., Oklahoma
"Just this past October, my husband was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. This devastating news was compounded by the fact we were not insured, my husband could no longer work, and the rapid medical procedures that occurred quickly ran up thousands of dollars that we don't have the money to pay. We quickly began researching the ACA, made an appointment with a local Community Care office and after many hours of research, to determine the coverage that we could afford. We are so grateful for the ACA. With the incredibly terrible stress that has befallen upon our family, at least now we know his medical expenses are covered."

Rachelle L., Florida
"My 28-year-old daughter was able to get healthcare coverage on her own for the first time through the ACA. She has a pre-existing condition, a genetic kidney disease that prevented her from getting coverage in 2009 at the age of 24 when she had to come off of our policy due to the age requirement. Her Cobra payments were $650 a month because she could not get more reasonable private coverage due to her pre-existing condition. In 2010, she was able to come back on our BCBS plan because of the ACA and was able to remain there until she finished school. We signed her up through the website and paid for her plan directly through Cigna on December 2: $298/month for a silver plan with a $0 deductible! She received her new insurance card on December 27th for coverage starting Jan 1! We now have peace of mind that all of her medical needs will be covered at a reasonable cost."

Curtis D., Washington
"Our new coverage has begun. I am 62, and my wife is 55. We are both self employed and neither of us have had coverage for the past seven years. Thankfully we are both pretty healthy, but it feels good to know we can schedule a checkup and take care of any lingering issues we've been putting off. Thank you for making improvements to the health care of the country."

Kelly M., Maryland
"I have a new plan. I haven't had insurance for years. When I applied for insurance before, I was denied for pre-existing conditions, even for plans with huge deductibles. I signed up on the Maryland Healthcare Exchange back in October, and by January 1st, I was holding an insurance card from Carefirst Blueshield and have already had my first doctor's appointment. It works. I am proof. And I'm so grateful that I can take care of myself with dignity without having to go to the ER whenever I'm sick or have to spend half of my paycheck at an urgent care center. I can do all of the preventative measures that I have been putting off, and get back on the road to health. It's a good feeling."

Kate S., Connecticut
"This healthcare reform is a life-changing event for my family. My husband and I have had to carry our own insurance for the past 25 years and, with the family insurance we had, we were paying $2,500.00 a MONTH for coverage, which we could not afford. Once the children graduated from high school, we had to take them off our policy because we could not afford it anymore. … We have never been high wage earners and the costs of our insurance have for years been an impossible burden. Now that the system is fair and goes by our income, we finally may be able to set money aside and save for our future."

Simply put, for millions of Americans: Health reform matters.

If you've got a story of your own, share it with us here.

And if you don't think stories like these ones get told enough -- then do something to change that. Pass this on.

Thank you,

David

David Simas
Deputy Senior Advisor
The White House
@Simas44

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My Client Won't Do - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 09 Jan 2014 03:15 PM PST

Posted by wilreynolds

One of the most common challenges for web marketers is dealing with clients (or bosses, etc.) who either ask the impossible of us or don't think we're worth their time and money. In today's Whiteboard Friday (filmed during October's CEO swap), Wil Reynolds offers up all the techniques and tips you need to win their favor, their support, their resources, and their business.

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans. This is Wil Reynolds, the CEO of Moz, for this week at least [Note: This Whiteboard Friday was filmed during October's CEO Swap], and I want to talk about this quote that we all have said at some point, which is: "My client or boss won't do." I would like to help you get your boss or your client to do stuff so that you can then do awesome things. So I'm going to walk you guys through the way that we kind of do this at SEER.

We specifically had a client call us out and say, "Don't want to build anything new. Challenge, game on. Can you guys take this stuff we've already done and not do anything new, don't ask for anymore resources or assets, and create success for us?" We took that as a challenge. So we said, "You're damn right we will."

So this is what we did. First thing you do when you're trying to get someone to adopt content marketing, inbound, whatever it is they've been saying no to, look at what they've already done. Start with their old assets. There are two ways you can go about finding these.

First, you can find them online. Super easy. Look at their old e-mail campaigns. What kind of things were they promoting in those e-mails? Are they consistently promoting in those e-mails? If you look over time, you'll get an understanding for what it is they're trying to promote. There's usually some gold in there in terms of understanding the old assets that they had built and promoted in the past.

The other thing is use your Moz tools. Open Site Explorer, you can see what content they've built that has already taken off and gotten social shares and links on its own naturally, even if they didn't promote it. Followerwonk. Who's following them? So who is following them online that might work at some of their target trade publications that they're interested in getting into or some of the other larger news outlets that they might be interested in?

New link notifications. Obviously, there's just the Just Discovered Links beta. It is sitting there telling you that old stuff potentially gets new links. So what you're not doing is asking to build anything new. You're just starting off by finding out some of the things they've already done.

Continuing on that path. Marketers who sometimes can't get things done in organizations love to build microsites, and then they leave and they go to some other company. No one in the company remembers that campaign that they put together on that Tumblr site or whatever site it may be.

So shout out to Annie Cushing who told me about Reverse Internet. Reverse Internet, simple tool. You go there, ReverseInternet.com, put in your domain. It will tell you other sub-domains that exist on that server. It'll also tell you things like where else the Google Analytics code has been placed for that company. That will help you discover old assets that the company maybe had done at some point and is no longer supporting. The beauty is then you can find if they've got links or not, and then you can start to promote them or repurpose those links in some way.

Misspelled domains. So Allie O'Brien and I came up with this one for one of our clients. What we basically did is we went into Google Analytics and looked all the different, it's not 100% "not provided" yet. But we took all the misspellings of their brand name as some of the individual keywords. What we were able to do is realize, "Oh, my God. These are the most popular misspellings of our domain. I wonder if anybody has ever linked, to the client, with the wrong domain? Not everybody checks their links."

Sure enough, we found about 54 linking root domains where people had linked to the wrong site. Some of them were our friend, the girl with the backpack and the blonde that we see on every like landing page. Yeah, some of them were even to that.

So we found people that were trying to link to my client and just made the mistake of linking to the wrong site. They didn't have to do anything. We found it for them and created value.

The last thing is Image Raider. Hannah from Distilled told me about this a long time ago. The beauty is that you can take things like the client's logo. You can take custom images that they've procured. Image Raider will just tell you when somebody has copied them somewhere on the Web.

The beauty of that is now you're finding people who have copied your stuff. Start a relationship, start a dialogue. Maybe they haven't linked, maybe they have. Either way, go work with them, start a relationship or re-spark a relationship.

Finding things offline. So we have clients all the time that have done studies, and they're sitting somewhere on a shelf that they've done and no one is using them for online. Yet they have talked about them in other places. We also find that clients have grants and scholarships and things like that that they've always been doing. They just don't exist online.

That's just a matter of asking clients some questions to uncover from them what have they been doing in their business, because they might not be doing inbound yet, but they have been doing some kind of marketing. As you unearth what they've done and ask those questions, you will inevitably find things that they've been doing.

You can always look at their subject matter experts. I've got to kind of go online for that with GPlusData.com. So GPlusData is a tool that basically you can sort by people's followership on Google+. But you can do that by employer. If the employer is large enough, they won't even know the people inside their own company who are really active on Google+ who have a lot of followers who can help to push and promote their old assets.

Obviously, as well here, we've got speaking. You want to know where people are speaking in the company if it's like a B2B and they're going out to different conferences and speaking. Easy way to say, "Oh, well you're speaking at these events and these conferences. Let's make sure we understand how to get some link value out of you going to those conferences."

So now that you've kind of indexed the old assets, you've got to promote them somewhere. So what you can do is you can just look at the things you've promoted or the assets you've got. See if they've already got links. See if they've got social movement.

I did this for Starbucks. Not a client, but I took their domain and dropped it into Reverse Internet and found out that they had a Hawaii microsite that had built hundreds and hundreds of linking root domains, and somebody there just pulled it down. They didn't say, "Hey, maybe we should actually try to redirect that somewhere. Maybe we should put content up."

Also look at who's commenting on your blog. It's funny how we'll often look out and try to create new relationships when we're not looking at the people who already love us and comment on our blogs. So, if you've got assets that are making all this stuff happen, then you can just pay for links. I mean you can pay for exposure, because you're not going to buy links. The beauty is that people have already linked, commented, and shared these things socially. So you already have proof that people actually like this stuff. You found it all.

So now what you can do is you can use networks like -- not link networks -- content exposure promotion networks, like Outbrain, Taboola. You can even use Twitter.

You can use newsletters in the industry. So often I don't think that we will pay for exposure in a newsletter, because we're thinking, "There are no links in the newsletter. Do they put an archive up and link to me with a followed link?" Wrong way of thinking about it.

If you have an asset that you know at one point people really liked, then you put it in the newsletter, it's just going to get take again. But you're going to put in a newsletter of a third party that's in the industry and a trade pub. Those guys are always looking for money. Negotiate them down, put your asset in their newsletter, and you'll be amazed at how all of a sudden you're going to start to be building links off of this.

I'm going to talk about this for our Distilled friends at Distilled London. SEER invested about $10,000 in testing out some of these networks, and I want to share with you what we found. But I will tell you this. One infographic we had done for our client picked up almost 35 links in a month by spending about $100 on Taboola.

So now that you've gotten the old assets, you've promoted the new ones, in a larger organization, you've started to actually prove yourself. So now they're willing to do some RCS. So it's like "Great. Now we can actually pitch some new stuff. We've got a lot of things in the hopper."

Your client is starting to see movement. They're seeing links being built. There's proof that you actually know what you're talking about and that you're creating opportunity.

Another thing about promoting assets is, once in a while, a client can't talk about competitors on their site. So a tip from Rand, the Rand that's in Philly right now running SEER, is optimizing a listing that talks about you positively that might be ranked somewhere on the first five or so and try to build links to that and move it up. So smart. It's funny, I've known that guy for eight years and I think I've heard him say that before, but it just sunk in like two weeks ago. So I'm going to keep trying to trumpet that for Rand.

Now that you can pitch new stuff and do some RCS, you've got to think about who controls the purse strings? Who's going to care the most about this? Because if all your pitches, especially in a larger enterprise, are going to a marketing manager, they may not always be able to get the buy-in, even though they agree with what you're trying to do. So let's make it easy for them.

See, this whole process is about making things easy for your marketing contact. Find their old stuff, promote their old stuff. Now, let's make sure that for our new stuff, it's going to resonate when they bring it up the food chain.

First thing, understand what the CEO and C-level execs are looking for. How do you do that? You're not going to be able to call them up all the time. If they're publicly traded, read their 10-K. It will tell you exactly what they believe the vision of the future is for their business. What's going to happen in the next quarter? What's going to happen in the next year? How are things looking year-over-year?

If you can take that information, now you know what the CEO, the CMO are thinking the future of the company is. So when you go to build RCS, maybe you should be building it on where they think the future is or where things are going to go. That information is just sitting there in their 10-K. Read the executive summary. It usually won't take you more than five minutes. But it will make sure everything you pitch to your client has a high propensity to resonate as they bring it up the food chain, which will then get it funded so we can do fun stuff.

Brand people. If you have a client who's undergone a re-branding recently, the way that we've been pitching this, specifically, for certain clients is they spend countless hours, countless hundreds of thousands of dollars to come up with a new logo and a new brand image. Then what I show those clients is that people, to the tune of thousands of times a month, are searching for their brand and the word "logo."

Then I show them the image search results. Very often, shortly after a re-brand, it's showing people the old brand. So what do you do? You help them build out pages on their site that actually reflect the new brand. Maybe it's a story about the brand, maybe it's multiple different versions of the logo.

Why? Because when somebody does a search for their brand, the last thing these people want to do after a spending a year working on their new brand is to let the old brand continue to perpetuate. So, of course, they're going to say, "Oh, right. If you're trying to help us make sure that no one uses the old logo and the old marketing, we would love to invest in that." It's a great way to use search to get connected with the brand people. Once the brand people and the marketing people love you, you'll be amazed at how many things you can actually push through the funnel that are RCS-style concepts.

PR. PR folks are always, for the most part, looking for exposure. But I believe we can add a little bit of analysis to that. Looking at Twitter followers. Understanding using a tool like Twtrland. It will tell you what someone's most popular tweets are. It will help you to get a feel for what they're all about. Search for some of these folks in Google News.

Once you get an understanding for who their targets are and what they like to write about and what resonates best with their audience, you can help these guys get that much closer to the people they're trying to reach. Super simple.

Last, but not least, something that we've actually found out is cutting people's costs for their call centers is something that CFOs really like. Call centers are often looked at as nothing more than an expense. Not necessarily a place to get across a brand message, even though it can be. I think most businesses look at it as an expense and a big one.

So what we're doing for a client, this isn't even link-building or SEO. It's just helping their business out. It's to say every time somebody looks for an FAQ and calls you, it means the FAQ probably failed. So what we're doing with one client is we're actually helping them to analyze their FAQs and to see how many times they're getting calls after somebody has viewed the FAQ.

The CFO is going to love us for that. So is the CMO, so is the CEO. Why? Because it's just saving them money by using the Web, which is there and where most people go first to help people get the right answer.

All right. So we've found old assets. We've promoted new ones. We've now got ideas on how to pitch new stuff. Great.

The last step in any relationship is becoming a trusted adviser. The number one thing, if you track hours, you are making it very hard to become a trusted adviser. The reason being, I find that when a client hires you or you're working in-house or wherever you're working, when you go, "Oh, we're out of time to help you with that thing you wanted," you start feeling like an agency, not like a part of the team.

So whether you're an agency or in-house, my recommendation is tracking hours and telling a client you're going to stop certain things that they really want you to do because you're out of hours is a bad idea if your goal is to become a trusted adviser. You can always get those dollars made up later in another project. Trust me, I've seen it work several times.

Internal documentation. So the other thing you want to do is you want to give them leave-behinds. Most people would say, "Well, you do that so that your brand is on the stuff and that people know about you." Well, no. Make your work stand out so that people know about you.

I like internal documentation because it helps their team have processes to follow. Very often, in enterprises or large organizations, people say, "Every time we launch a new this, what are the steps that someone should do at a minimum every time?" That gives you an opportunity to create that thing that keeps your direct point of contact from getting that question every single time.

When you can, work onsite. I think either Tom or Will Critchlow were the first people to mention that to me. But it just makes a ton of sense. When you are around, your clients or your partners will bring you into meetings that you may have otherwise not been brought into, which gets you exposure to people who don't necessarily always know the great work that you're doing.

Training, and I don't mean like charging people for training. Sometime this week, you might say, "This week we're going to put off this thing that we were going to do because, instead, what we're going to do is we're going to work on training your team." People love that. That's an investment that you're making in their team getting smarter, which means sometimes you might actually work yourself out of a job if you level up their team, and that's okay because then you can become part of helping them hire the right replacements for you.

That's how you become a trusted advisor versus just somebody selling a client on something. We've actually done this. We've helped clients hire and eventually replace us. What's interesting is, as their company grows, very often they'll come back to us to help bridge a gap until they can get budget for another hire, and that is completely okay.

Another thing is going to their conferences. So if you go to search conferences, MozCon, Distilled, whatever, that's great. But when you're trying to become a better advocate for your clients, you've got to walk a step in the shoes of their customer. How are you going to do that?

Ask them what conferences that they go to or that their team goes to and go to them. You may not need to sit in every session. You might not have to pay the big costs. But just go around the exhibit hall. See what kind of software is being sold. Keep an ear out. What kind of problems are the softwares out there solving? When you do all that, you're going to understand their customer at a very, very, very deep level, which is how you become a trusted adviser.

I think when you combine all this stuff together, so you're optimizing old assets, which marketers love, because you're not asking them to spend any more time at work. You're going to be able to do all of it yourself. You're promoting these assets, which basically, especially if you use these kinds of outlets, they don't have to do a lot of work. These sites already exist. You've just got to get a sign-off on insertion order. Boom. You're rocking and rolling and helping them to build links.

You're able to pitch your new stuff. You now have the CEO or the CFO or the CMO loving you because you understand where they're going. Your internal marketing team is going to love you because every new idea you come to them with fits the vision of the company.

The brand people are going to love you because you're helping to protect the logo that they've spent hours and hours on and all their new re-branded materials. You're helping to protect that and prevent people from perpetuating their old stuff. The PR team loves you. The CFO loves you.

Now that all those people love you, you're going to have an opportunity to become a trusted adviser to that organization. Just don't screw it up. All you've got to do is act like you were one of them.

Don't do things based off of hours. Create internal documentation that helps everybody get better. Work onsite when you can. Spend your time training them. It doesn't mean you have to have new hours. It just might mean that you change something for a week or two.

You want to help them in hiring if that's what they need. That's okay. Be there to help them in that process. Go to their conferences and understand their clients' needs. And you, my friends, will get a seat at the larger marketing table.

Thank you so much, and I guess I'll be back in Philly next Friday. I hope I do this again soon. Thanks.

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