What Rank Are You?

This post is not about traffic ranking, this is a military analogy (yes another one) which will hopefully get you to think what type of person you are and how that could reflect on your site.If you are honest with your site and not pretending to be someone else, then knowing what type of person you are is useful in helping you understand how your site or business is thought of by your visitors.

• General

The policy maker, the top of the tree. What a General decides, happens. A General is in charge of a lot of people and makes decisions that really does affect peoples lives, you could call them the corporations. It’s good to be at the top of the pile, especially when you have gone through the ranks to get there, but is being the General really the best place to be?

The thing with corporate style websites and Generals is that they , by nature, are way out of touch with the people who are talking their orders or buying their products. If you have ever been in the military, you will never see a General anywhere near the battle field, unless you’re way behind in HQ, they have done their time and now spend their remaining years in the war office pushing pieces around a board, never actually talking to the troops on the ground . Getting to the top of your game is a great dream, but remember the people underneath you.

• Lieutenant

Lieutenants are regarding as the headless chickens of the military. They come straight from Sandhurst or any other military officer training unit across the world and thrown into leading a platoon of seasoned soldiers. I feel for them a bit, because they (usually) have a high amount of intelligence as they mostly come from university, trained in equitet and battle history etc, but absolutely no idea how to lead, motivate or speak to people.

This type of site is the all talk and no listen, the clearly educated writer, but with no inspiration or motivation behind it. Don’t get me wrong here, you can and do get these types of sites that achieve great success, but in my eyes they limit themselves by not living and eating with the very people who are meant to follow them into battle. Life experience is in my opinion, better than any education in the world.

• RSM

Regimental Sergeant Major, the person who is in charge of discipline around the camp, the person who enforces military law and makes sure that they are the fittest, most disciplined group of soldiers possible. The RSM of every camp has (in most cases) got there by merit, they have earned their position by putting in the years of hard work on the ground. The RSM is the authority and what they say absolutely goes, they are the commanding officers right hand man and no one dares cross them.

The problem with being an RSM type site is that you always seem to be shouting or ranting about something, always having someone in your sites. So much so that your troops end up avoiding direct contect with you, because you are just too intense. RSM type sites lack personal skills and really don’t like interacting with anyone, unless it’s to put someone in jail.

• Sergeant

A  platoon/troop Sergeant is the glue of any regiment, they live amongst the troops and command a level of respect and loyality that is un-matched by any other rank. Sergeant’s are in the thick of it, the first ones to break up a fight and the first one to help you with your kit. They make sure the soldiers straight out of training settle in and accept them into the family.

This is the type of site who works hard with the readers, leads by example and has broad shoulders. Why broad shoulders? Well because, Sergeant’s get a lot of flack from the senior ranks, things the officers want doing and don’t care how they get done etc. Now to be a true leader in the hardest of times takes a lot of courage, because at no point can you let your readers know that you are faultering and showing signs of weakness. Motivational and market leaders, don’t always get things right but are the very first to admit it.

• Private

The disciplined follower, the private soldier is the one who gets up the earliest, the one who cleans and guards the camp, expected to the first ones on parade and the last ones to eat. Unless you join as an officer, you will join as a private soldier. You have to work you way up the hard way, putting in the hours and swallowing the bull that is thrown your way by the senior ranks until you are in a position of authority yourself.

These are the type of sites that start with nothing, day one week one and put the hours in. It takes a massive amount of work but ultimately it’s worth it, everyone starts somewhere, but the thing to remember about being a private in the military is if you stay a private for too long, you become one of the old soldiers who is actually too old to soldier anymore, but too old to promote.

So what rank are you and how are you going about being promoted?

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