Recently, one of my juniors called me.
I’ve known him for many years, and I was involved in training him early in his SEO career. He’s good at what most people would call execution-level SEO. He can handle day-to-day tasks well, but I wouldn’t consider him someone who specializes in solving highly complex SEO problems or building large-scale strategies.
Yet today, he earns significantly more than I do. And honestly, I’m happy for him.
He’s an excellent communicator, naturally extroverted, and very good at building relationships. He knows how to present himself, earn trust, and make people confident in his abilities. Those are valuable skills.
His success made me think about something I’ve discussed with many of my former teammates.
Throughout our careers, we’ve spent countless hours learning. We studied technical SEO, reporting, strategy, website development, analytics, AI, and new technologies. Our knowledge kept increasing, but our financial growth didn’t always move at the same pace.
It made me question something.
Does earning more really depend only on becoming more skilled?
Years ago, when I was working in sales, my regional manager shared a lesson that has stayed with me ever since.
He asked me to imagine standing at a bus stop selling bottles of water.
Every time a bus arrived, I would step inside and ask if anyone wanted to buy a bottle of water. Most people would say no. Some buses would leave without a single sale.
The lesson was simple. Keep asking.
Eventually, someone buys.
Persistence matters.
Then he shared another lesson that helped me understand the concept of someone’s value.
The same bottle of water costs around ₹20 at a roadside shop.
Put that exact bottle inside a restaurant, and it might cost ₹50.
Serve it in a luxury hotel, and suddenly it’s worth several hundred rupees.
Take it to a remote mountain destination where clean drinking water is scarce, and the price can increase even further.
The water didn’t become better.
The environment changed.
Its value changed because of where it was being sold.
I think careers work in a similar way. For a long time, I thought being a generalist was a weakness.
I work across SEO, website development, hosting, servers, client communication, stakeholder management, content strategy, and even a bit of coding.
I’m not the world’s best at any one of those areas. Instead, I know enough to connect all of them together.
People often quote the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none.”
The version I like is:
“Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
A fast-moving startup may value someone who can solve problems across multiple teams.
A large enterprise may instead pay a premium for someone who specializes deeply in analytics, JavaScript SEO, or data engineering.
Neither is inherently more valuable.
They’re simply valuable in different environments.
This reminded me of something we often discuss in SaaS marketing.
You don’t try to sell your product to everyone.
You define your ideal customer profile.
You identify the people who receive the most value from what you’ve built.
Then you focus your efforts there.
Maybe careers work the same way.
Instead of endlessly improving our skills while hoping someone notices, perhaps we should spend more time finding the environments where those skills naturally create the most value.
The goal isn’t only to become better.
It’s to stand in the right place.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe this idea will change as I gain more experience.
But it’s a thought I’ve been reflecting on lately.