by Roman on December 10, 2011
I typically fly to Israel 3-4 times per year and this time it coincides with Search Marketing Expo in Jerusalem on January 15th. I’ve been meaning to do a presentation on some of the SEO tests we’ve been doing with creating legitimated multiple websites for clients. I think when you work as SEO even though there are so much information available – you still work in vacuum. There is no exact science that will work every time and you forced to be creative in your approach.
I like sharing what we do and see what other SEO experts say. It is always cool to see other people doing the same thing, it validates what we are doing. Anyways I applied to present at this event and got approved. We still ironing out details on what I am going to present (there will be couple of other guys in the same time slot), but I think I will be able to do the presentation on just that – legitimate ways of using satellite websites.
I am very exited its been awhile since I presented and presented back home. If you are an SEO and in Israel, you should for sure check it out this event. The prices are very reasonable!
by Roman on November 11, 2011
This summer I finally decided to take a plunge cancel some of our contracts to free up the time and jumped into our own project, committing both financially and time wise. Of course it seemed easier than it really was. My partner and I thought that the first month we will bring every dollar back. We are on a 3rd month and we didn’t even broke even yet, but the project finally moved into the right direction and now it is the matter of time when the risk will finally pay off.
This was not an easy time for us, we had to pay our employees steady salary while my partner and I would not get anything as all of the money we got was invested in marketing. After we finally reached the level of income we wanted, we again said no to it – buckled up and lived off (still living) our credit lines. This obviously takes emotional toll, but it is a great motivator and we learned so many lessons from it:
- As an entrepreneur you conquer the fear – you can’t let fear of loosing your toys, home or a car to paralyze you. You need to sleep well at night to be energized. Instead of thinking about the money problem, you need to think about the solution – how to make your business work as fast as possible. At the end of the day you will!
- You need to be ready to start from scratch - entrepreneur are similar to gamblers. We earn our money hard and then we are ready to risk it all, for the next big thing. We can’t do it any other way, risk and reward is in our blood. If you want to be entrepreneur, you need to be ready to go back to square one at any day and any time. Your ideas might fail and you need to have enough believe in yourself to get up and do it ALL OVER AGAIN.
- Don’t cheat- when times get tough, a desire to cut corners (fake some marketing tests, scoop leads) is right there. It is so easy to cheat, however the only one who you are cheating is yourself! You need to be able to make your business work long term. If you need to rely on cheating, the business will eventually crumble. Stick to your guns (principles) and make your business work (or get into another business). That is the only way. Adherence to principles in tough times builds character and self respect.
Be positive and have fun Most of the entrepreneurs like what they do and in the beginning had a passion about their business. In tough times don’t loose this passion, be a kid and have fun. If you are not having fun, get the hell out of that business and do something else. Life is to short to be slaving away for something you don’t like!
Just some of my thoughts for Friday, feeling the positive energy is flowing through me and wanted to share it!
