Stateside SEM

It’s official. Keenan Internet Marketing is officially and legally a company – became a Limited Liability Company today after registering with NJ and the IRS.

To be fair, setting up a company was not that difficult a process. You just go to the NJ Online Filling Page, https://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/treasury/revenue/dcr/filing/page1.cgi, fill in information, pay a hundred bucks and change, and boom you’re now an LLC.

Still, it’s nice to be able to put on my proposals Keenan Internet Marketing LLC instead of Chris Keenan. Besides looking professional, it grants me legal protection should I get sued for whatever reason.

After going through all the digital paperwork to get the LLC squared away, I made the final tweaks to the proposal/agreement to my LLC’s first client and sent it off. A phone conversation later in the day to discuss the changes to the proposal and I got the OK – deposit check is being cut and agreement signed and sent back. I’m officially in business.

In other exciting news, I was asked to return for a second interview at a web development company I interviewed with last week. They originally told me I’d hear back in 3 weeks as they are interviewing a number of candidates. I heard from my former boss they called after my interview for a referral, to which he gave a positive one.

So…we’ll see. Could be very exciting on Monday. But let’s see what they want to talk about.

What a busy day. A good day. I’m beat. See ya!

I feel like today was spent running in place, and no, I wasn’t exercising.

Scratched only a few things off my to do list, while adding a few more. The majority of the day was sucked up revising, revising, revising a proposal and agreement. I want to get the language just right, even though I know it isn’t going to be perfect and I’ll be revising based on what I learn once I start work with this client. But still, that doesn’t stop me from trying to get the best foot forward out the gate.

Aside from that, I had a short call with a prospective freelance client. What he is looking to do is somewhat is probably something I could help him with, and indeed if it was me a year ago when I was just starting out freelancing I would have taken him. But you reach a point where you can get a feel just from a conversation how much work is going to be required, and just how cut out you are for the job. This job was going to be too much work, with too many open ended items, and too much hassle.

That isn’t to say I wouldn’t have given the job my best and gotten the fellow good results. But:

A) I have too much else going on that I am comfortable turning down work (a milestone in your career I think!)

and B) I honestly thought someone else could do a better job than me. It wasn’t my specialty. The theory is there sure but the market was completely different. Like being in fragrance industry all your life than suddenly trying to promote a rock band (Does that analogy work? I’m tired. It was first thing that came to mind for some reason).

Anyway, I referred the fellow to an SEM company I knew here in NJ that I had stumbled across, but have no connection with, as I recalled they deal with this fellow’s industry. Made me feel good sending him on to someone who might be able to help.

Aside from not accomplishing much on my to do list and having a busy day, I had a nice day. Baby Boy isn’t feeling himself, he’s got a runny nose and he’s just been very tired. After his mid day nap he wanted me. I stopped working, held him tight, and let him rest his little head on my shoulder while I slowly walked around the house, gently bouncing as I go. He was just relaxing, not sleeping, but it reminded me of when he was a newborn and holding him was the only way to get him to nap during the day. It was nice. And special. Very special knowing this little guy isn’t feeling good and wanted his Daddy for comfort (not that Mommy isn’t a comfort either. He was just disposed to me this particular moment. And I didn’t mind).

Ok. Enough rambling. Need to get off this computer, been sitting here for 12 hours. Tomorrow – interesting job interview. More details tomorrow after I return from the interview.

Things are busy. I feel like I’m busier than when I was working – though upon consideration I think it’s because work life was much more structured and routine than this new life.

My week is split into two parts. Part of the week I head up to my parents with Baby Boy when Rachel has work so my Mom can watch him and I can do work and job hunt. The other part of the week I get to stay home on Rachel’s days off.

Today was a head up to my parents day. These days consist of getting ourselves packed up and ready in the morning, heading out to my parents, unpacking and feeding Baby Boy breakfast, then letting my Mom play with and watch him while I have breakfast and put together my to do list.

Today’s to do list started with about a dozen items and expanded throughout the day to include another 6. I break my to do list up into time sensitivities. At the top are things I need to take care of ASAP like outstanding freelance work, phone calls, or following up on job prospects. At the bottom of the list are things I’d like to do but when I get the time, like updating my little start up website that was created two years ago and has sat idle since.

The challenge of not working in an office is of course the standard fare of distractions. You can easily turn on the tv, grab something from the fridge, flip through the news paper while waiting for that website to open… But having a baby nearby is especially distracting. My Mom does her best to keep Baby Boy out of sight, lest I get distracted and want to start tickling him or grab him for a hug. But Baby Boy also serves as a good reminder of why I need to get my work done. Because his little belly will go hungry if I don’t make money (we aren’t close to that yet. Don’t worry.)

Today was a good day for freelance. I made some progress in a couple projects and had a good phone call with a new prospective freelance client. He wants help boosting his rank in Google for a couple of important keywords for his business. I offer him some tips on other things I can do to help him, but he is pretty certain he just wants to start with this. No problem, I tell him, improving Google position is something I can take care of for him. We end the call and I add another item to my to do list – send him a proposal.

I also took a call from my start up’s first client. He asks me to make minor tweaks to the proposal to better clarify some legalese language. My full time job comes up – or lack thereof – and I explain how I was let go and how it wont effect what I am doing for him; to the contrary, I explain how it will actually benefit him as I can now focus all of my attention on what I’m doing for him (and my start up).

Of all the clients to start with, I so far am very thankful it is this fellow. He sounds understanding and excited of my decision to launch into my start up, rather than continue in a freelance capacity, and offers some words of wisdom from having been there himself years ago. One entrepreneur to another.

We won’t sign off on this revised proposal until after I get him a non disclosure agreement, my request, and another document I want to draft to protect the content and layout, the idea really, of the website solution I’m building for him. I’m no lawyer, so I asked Rachel’s Uncle, who is one, for any templates he can share to help me. They’re good but not quite tailored to what I need.

It’s time to go home at this point. I pack up Baby Boy and our gear and head home. He naps in the car, I think he’s coming down with a cold. He’s snotty after his afternoon nap, and extra snuggly and whiny. Rachel get’s home and after we all get situated I decide to try modifying or making my own legal document. It’s challenging. I didn’t complete it, and I’m wiped out. It’s going to be something I need to confront with a fresh set of eyes, and a hot cup of tea, tomorrow morning.

My to do list is sitting next to my laptop, some items scratched out, most not. It’s waiting for me, for tomorrow. Today was a good day. A busy day. Tomorrow is going to be more of the same.

Had a nice day off Monday hanging out with Baby Boy – we went and visited Rachel at work, had fun playing together, made a mess eating (me, not the baby…hah)

Then came Tuesday and I got the wonderful news that my position had been eliminated and I was no longer needed – the bosses wanted to cut costs so me and the videographer were being laid off in favor of having India do our jobs.

What started as a great week turned horrible. But now, here at the end of the week, the mood ring has changed color back to great.

What happened? Attitude, mostly. Rather than sit and sulk about what happened, I made the decision to move on and pursue those things I had put off.

Today was the best day of the week. I closed a deal on a big freelance gig I’d been working on for the past few weeks. It’s a great collaboration between myself and a small business, and I’m confident both of us are going to be quite happy with what I’ll be doing for them. I can’t give details yet. Hush hush and all that. But it has the potential to be something I could even turn into a full fledged start up and make a business out of. Baby steps and lots of knocking on wood. But it was a good step in the right direction.

Also had a great interview with a local web development company that needs someone with my skill set to help them manage and grow their clients PPC and SEM campaigns. The position sounded really interesting going in, but after meeting with the owners, two young guys like me, I think I would do really well working there; a great professional and intellectual opportunity. I’ll hear back next month. We’ll see.

Those were really the highlights of the day, but it was pretty darn busy. I’m beat. It was an emotional week. But it was a good week.

Day two of unemployment and things are looking very good, knock on wood.

Here’s what I accomplished today:

-Lined up an interview for a Search Marketing position at a Web Development company. Everything they are looking for in the position, from what was posted, I’m experienced at and I like doing. And the company gets big bonus points for being close to my parents house.

-Had an awesome 90 minute phone call with my potentially a new start up / potentially still just freelance internet marketing agency. Been in conversation with the company for past few weeks, submitted a proposal under a new business model I came up with, and had a great conversation today. I hear back on the decision tomorrow. Again, knock on wood, 95% sure we are good to go on it.

-Locked down 2 more freelance gigs. They won’t pay all the bills, but they will help.

I didn’t do as much job searching today as I was wrapped up in the above, along with taking care of a few other outstanding freelance items.

I’m somewhat concerned the possible new cash flows are going to impact my unemployment. I don’t want to do just enough work to effectively cancel out my unemployment – meaning I work to get what I was going to get anyway. But I’m more concerned with building my little business than losing out on some unemployment money. So we’ll see how it plays out.

All in all, not bad for a second day of unemployment. I certainly don’t feel unemployed. =D

Well, my first day unemployed (my first day ever being unemployed) is drawing to an end. I thought I would recap it for posterity.

I got to feed Baby Boy breakfast before we packed up and headed to my parents for the day so I could take care of unemployment and job hunting.

I chatted with my Dad about my lay off over a hot cup of oatmeal while Baby Boy played with his Grandma. His feeling is the company has some fundamental problems we (myself and my former co-workers) are not aware about, and the lay offs were a symptom of that. Healthy companies don’t just lay off critical members of their team to have it done by India. But… who knows.

I spent 90 minutes reading about and applying for unemployment. What a process! If you are in NJ, an SEM, and filling unemployment claim here are a few important tips:

1 – Don’t use Chrome as your browser. The website just won’t work on it. Use Firefox instead (or, shudder, IE)

2 – Don’t bother calling the unemployment office phone numbers. Every one I tried had a busy signal. After 5 minutes I gave up. Use online.

3 – NJ does not recognize your career as a search engine marketer. There is a part where you need to search for your position in their database and select the closest match. Here’s what my search resulted in:

I guess NJ thinks I should try a new career as an Aircraft Mechanic. Brilliant.

4 – You can do freelance work or part time work and earn up to 20% of your weekly unemployment benefit without it reducing what the State will pay you. So if you are getting $600 you can generate $120 in freelance cashflow each week. It’s not a huge amount, but when you are unemployed, every little bit counts.

About this time Baby Boy woke up. I got him. I love holding him when he first wakes up. He just snuggles in my shoulder as I rock him gently back and forth. We just kind of chill for 5 minutes enjoying the time. It was especially therapeutic today and much needed. I wonder if he sensed that.

After some lunch, for both him and me, he played with his Grandma and I got back to work. This time, checking out a few job boards (I even heard back from one I applied to already), fielding a couple free lance opportunities, and working on our family budget for the following months given my new “income” level.

I also added an about page here, and updated the theme on the site. I don’t want to invest a huge amount of time on aesthetics here, but little by little I’ll tweak. I can’t help not.

It’s the end of the day. The end of my first day as an unemployed search marketer. It was an organizational day, getting things situated, fielding calls and emails, and giving further thought to my future. Do I start my own business, or join someone else? I’m going to keep working towards both, that’s my plan for now.

Time to pack up the boy, head home, and see my rock and foundation, my wife. It was a good day. A productive day. My first day in this new future. Let’s see what tomorrow brings!

Hi.

My name is Chris. I’m a search engine marketer and today I lost my job to outsourcing.

Although experienced at PPC, SEO, and SEM, my specific job at a search marketing agency was to increase the Google Organic traffic to client websites via link building. I did it well, and I enjoyed it. I built and managed a team of outsourcers (some in the US or Canada, some not) to help me scale and work more efficiently.

Today my company decided they wanted to cut costs. So they laid me off in favor of having everything handled overseas.

I’m the State Side SEM. I live in the States, and even though I lost my job today, I plan on continuing to work in the States.

This blog will chronicle my adventure from unemployed search marketer to…Well..Hopefully employed!

(I slapped this site together after dinner. I had a lot on my mind, and a lot to take care of today so please forgive the appearance of the site. Tweaks are coming.)