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Yes We Are Hiring, No We Aren’t Hiring
By Alex Kim · Co-founder, Workbench SEOI used to get nervous when someone would ask me how many people work at Workbench SEO.
Think about it. LinkedIn, BBB, Clutch, Crunchbase, Glassdoor… these hiring sites all ask how many employees a company has. And I used to shamefully input 2-10 employees, like I was somehow going to be laughed at by anyone looking because we aren’t a big company.
Then I started talking to prospects, and I found out something very interesting. A lot of people wanted to work with us because we are small. It’s literally me and Carmen, and sometimes we get assists from family and close friends on a contract basis.
But that’s the thing. Companies hire agencies for one thing: results. They don’t care if we have a team of 20 SEOs or it’s just me, Carmen, and our AI agents.
They are paying for results and those results come from judgment. If you are a business owner, can you just let Claude handle all of your SEO and marketing? Go ahead and let me know in 3 months how that goes.
You still need a tremendous amount of judgment. AI, in its current state, is a massive productivity enhancer for those who have good judgment and can make good business and implementation decisions. Without those human decisions, you get what a lot of the internet is seeing now: AI slop.
In my estimation, I get over $1m worth of salaries of work from 5 $200 Claude and ChatGPT subscriptions. $12k < $1m.
And the last I heard, a business is trying to lower its expenses, not increase them.
Because of this, we can charge less than other companies who have 30-40% of their revenue in payroll.
But it’s not only a monetary decision.
Carmen and I are building this business from scratch, and every client has to receive 100% service and results.
Obsessive service and results.
Without that, what are we even doing here?
So the answer to the original question: are we hiring?
Yes and no.
If you read this post and think I’m a lunatic, no, we are not hiring.
If you read this post and the hairs on your arms stick up from excitement, we just might have a spot for you (SEO experience required).
But can we agree to stop playing this game of thinking that a business with a ton of employees is winning? Some of the worst businesses I have seen have 50-150+ employees and a revolving door of hiring.
We have signed over 25 clients this year through sheer will and dedication, and we aren’t slowing down.
And you know what? Our clients are happy :)
