The Hardest Blog Post of My Life

I am so sorry that you are battling with these questions so far from home. I know that that must be difficult.

1. I feel you should stop when you feel you have gotten all you possibly could from South Africa. Once you feel you have gotten all and given all you can and you could do more (and get more) elsewhere it is time to leave.
2. I would keep blogging, Glen. You said part of the reason you started your Blog was to build your name. Well, I don’t see any reason why an occasional post here and there wouldn’t continue doing so. Even if you aren’t looking for more clients writing a post here and there will keep your name and your blog’s name fresh in people’s mind. When the time comes to start looking for Clients your name will be still be known…. Blogging couldn’t hurt. Plus, I miss reading your blog. But, that would be Selfish of me to tell you to write purely for my enjoyment.
3. 4 days of sitting at home doing nothing would drive me crazy. If doing some side jobs won’t interfere with your full-time job and it is something that will make you happy then I say go for it. If it’s going to cause you stress or cause hostility at work then don’t. Bottom line you need to do what makes you happy. Yes, you signed a 12 month contract to the S.A. job, but I think there is a way to finish your contract and do what makes you happy as well. It’s all about compromise.
4. You are not being an idiot at all. You are asking for help and direction from people you like and respect. There is nothing idiotic about that.

I hope this helps you. I hate when my friends are struggling with decisions or are stressed out. Please keep us informed of what you decide to do.

Shana

I feel your pain. I may eventually be involved in something where I can have no interaction with the SEO community, at least about things that matter. And I have no idea what I’ll be doing then. I’ll also be in a completely new place to me, surrounded by those I don’t know.
My advice to you, so long as you don’t have an NDA like I will most likely have, is to keep blogging. For me, it makes me better at what I do, and I think you’ll find it does the same for you(if you have not found this already). Being young people within the industry(I’m 19), we have an odd place indeed.
If you’d like to, please send some instant messenger info to the e-mail I used to make this post. I’d love to chat, and feel that we could both probably gain something from it.

Congrats man, I know whats it can be like. Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning head hunted me away from another firm. I got to set my title, wage and much more…. this industry is great!

Hey Glen,

First off, I’m glad that you are back at home in a place where you can think about these things (probably) more clearly.

As far as your questions…besides reiterating Shana’s points, I would add that there really is nothing wrong with going forward for a year with Bluesouth. You’ll then have ever more top notch client experience and still be 2 years away from having a beer with us in the USA

Also, if you are sitting at home for 4 days a week, I see no reason to give up blogging. You might not be able to actively solicit clients, but you’ve already built a following and have a genuine and unique voice in the field…one of the reasons that I pursued you to write for Collective Thoughts in the first place

Lastly, about whether or not posting this in the first place is stupid. It often makes sense to bounce off ideas with those you are friends with / those you respect the opinions of. Whether you chose to make that a public or private discussion is up to you, but there’s nothing wrong with asking advice.

Best of luck Glen - I personally think you’re making the right move, and wish you much success and happiness.

Brian Wallace

1. When do I stop

Life and marketing is somewhat interwined… I would stay stop when you’re not getting the ROI that you want. If you’re putting in your time and energy to be some place, make sure its worth it… because life is short and you’re only young once.

I am totally unfamiliar with South Africa but I’m guessing that there might be more opportunities in other parts of the world… like UK or North America.

2. Do I keep blogging.

Definitely. Just write about general topics… no need to go into specifics on client details. Most of the SEO/SMM blogs do a great job writing ‘around’ what they do on the job.

3. Should I still work?

My opinion would be to work solo and build up your company brand (Viperchill). I’m not a fan of working for people and having earned enough money online every month to pay for almost everything I want/need… it’s a sweet deal. It’s awesome to do what you want with your time and be an entrepreneur… build something Glen, maybe that nightclub in America.

4. Am I being an idiot by writing this post

You are actually being smart because its good to always get feedback from people with more experience in the industry… so don’t think you’re naive. I always liked the gung-ho-hey-lets-just-move-to-another-continent-now attitude you had so keep that up. Props for the honesty too

Hope this helps, Glen!
Maki

One option would be to create a few of your own sites in different niches and use your skills to promote them.

That way you avoid any potential problems of trespassing on clients for your employer.

Regarding what you do bloging here on Viperchill, it should probably be cleared by your employer some ground rules, as you would want to avoid specific proprietary information. Whether you blog here as Viperchill or as an employee of a particular firm is really down to contract terms and a little negotiation.

Glen, you’ve already made a name for yourself in a very short amount of time. You’re a good writer and a smart guy who is definitely gearing-up to go out on his own. I think signing the 12 month agreement with Bluesouth is good for now. Although SA isn’t very desirable, the experience and income will be important. You already know so much about this industry but you’ll need something to sustain yourself until you’ve networked enough to get a constant stream of private work. Keep pushing at what you want and you’ll get what’s yours. Don’t stop blogging, networking, participating in forums, etc. I would be really surprised if you weren’t in business for yourself by the time you’re 20 - 21. As you can see from Shana’s, Maki’s, and Brian’s comments above, you’ve already made some great connections. Keep at it and you’ll be self sustaining by the time that contact expires.

Of course I read it all… and word to the wise no matter what any employer ever says NEVER take down your website. I’ve fought with my employers for the right to keep it up aging for the search engines (you never know where life will take you). Btw I just noticed your copyright at the bottom of the page isn’t in HTML special chars so I get a nice ? in firefox

Don’t blog anything now that will restrict your choices in the future. You’ll hate yourself for it.

I’ve loads of juicy juicy news from the search engines that I simply can’t post. I’ve enough exclusive stories to be link bait king every week for the next year. Is it frustrating? It is a bit but if I tore myself up over it then I’d go nowhere or backwards. I’m not going to break an NDA with Google for the sake a blog post! The trick is to find something that you think is good enough to blog about and then that way you can keep your blog going.

You need to respect your employer. I imagine you hope to get references from these people. I don’t know the terms of your contract, though. Are you a freelancer on contract? It’s not unusual for you to have other jobs too. Unless, that is, you signed an exclusive deal. It’s not usual for a ‘regular’ employee to sign a 12 month contract at all.

One of the worse things you could do now is burn bridges for yourself and be seen as a someone liable to steal clients. It’s tough, yeah, but the more professional and the more successful you become then the more you find you simply can’t always do what you want to do.

1. When do I stop
a. Start looking for other job after the first day at a new job
b. When you will scream: “How did it get to be routine?!” Routine is a part of business, yet it kills creativity
PS Life is nothing if not change, and so some change will be inevitable. And never regret anything - you are so young for this!

Congrats on the contract, Glenn. I wish you all the best for the year to come (and after)!

HI Glen,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and reaching out to everyone for advice. First of all, congratulations on the success and the opportunities that are coming up. My advice is to make sure that your contract allows you to do anything that you are considering. In most cases I think you would be fine to continue blogging and taking some side jobs if they are not in the same industry as your employer.

I would definitely advise you to keep blogging if at all possible. I don’t think you would have to give details of what you are doing in order to really help your readers. Shana’s advice was really good, in my opinion. A year from now you could be looking for new opportunities and if you continue to build your name through the blog those opportunities could be much easier to find.

Ultimately, you need to do what you feel is best for you. When you really believe that it’s time for you to go out on your own and you’re willing to take the risk and put in the time and effort, I think that is what you need to do. Until that time, get all the experience that you can. If your own company is what you want, eventually no job will truly be able to satisfy you and keep you happy. Good luck.

1) You’ll always know when it’s time to leave, it may not match up financially but you will know when your time is up.

2) Blog until it starts becoming “work” once it is if you are being compensated with adv dollars for blogging give it up

3) All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, spend your off time learning about important things you don’t know PR, Advertising, Marketing, Usability, Design, Layout, etc

4) Looking at everyone who responded I’d say it wasn’t a waste of time at all

Hi Glenn,

Congratulations on your new job. I’m sure that you’ve thought carefully about it before signing up, as I can tell from the year long contract. I expect that you will have opportunities to learn that you otherwise wouldn’t have, and that’s really tremendous.

Happiness is hard to measure, to define, to plan for, and to sometimes even find. By all means you should do what you love, and love what you do. When you work for someone else, it’s possible that you may face challenges that you didn’t expect, be placed in situations that you have little control over, be forced to learn new things that might be less than enjoyable, and follow directions that you may not personally want to follow. Or, your experience could be a profoundly positive one.

Either way, look at it as a chance to grow, and to learn from those experiences, both good and bad. If you someday plan to run your own business, working for someone else can be an opportunity to learn about how a business is run, to learn about things like hiring or accounting or building relationships with clients, or marketing the business. Chances are, when it comes to areas outside of your expertise, there are going to be people whom you are working with who do have expertise in those other areas. Keep your eyes open, and learn from the things that go right, and from the things that go wrong, and it’s possible that there may be somethings that do go wrong.

The time to leave might not be when you are bored, or when you feel like you’re not learning anything, or when you want to do your own thing. The time to leave might be when you feel like you may be able to do your own thing, and do it well. When you might feel comfortable with your business name on your business card, your company being marketed, your business name on the slides during the presentation to potential clients, your business name on the classified ads or the loan request for a business, or the lease on an office space.

You’re young, and you’ve made great strides in getting your name known, and I suspect that if you apply yourself to learning, so that you can build a future where you can be successful in running a business, and handling hurdles that you might face, that you are likely to do very well.

Sometimes there are people who see remarkable success with everything they do, and breaks just seem to fall their way. But most success is achieved one step at a time, by setting reasonable goals, achieving them, and then setting new reasonable goals that build upon those. Have a strategy in place, but don’t be afraid to change it as situations change.

Should you blog? I think it would be positive for you to continue, even if you face constraints in what you write. The challenge behind that might just make you a better writer, a better blogger, and a more creative person. If you don’t tackle social media head on in your blog, or internet marketing, that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from what you write, from interacting with your audience, and from exploring other interests.

Should you work? One type of work that you could do during your free time is to create a business plan, construct a marketing plan, develop and design sites that could go with those, scope out marketing niches and competition, and create intellectual property for your future business that you can use when you feel like you can go on your own. Read some books and web pages on business, on marketing, on sales, on management, and take notes as you do. Work upon building a greater expertise in social media, and maybe create some hobby sites that aren’t mission critical, and won’t keep food from appearing on your kitchen table if you make mistakes.

Naivety is a great marketing tool for those in a position to use it correctly, which you are. You gotta use what you got.

What makes great blogging is the ability to convey narrative. You spin a great yarn. I don’t mean you make things up. You take elements of your life and you make it into an interesting read. Those of us who have natural story telling ability make great bloggers, something I hardly ever read about. Usually a post about how to blog great includes, use bullet points, keep it short, etc.. and other moronically simple statements.

The skill to write attractively is not given to everyone, sure you can learn the mechanics, the grammar and speeling and stuff (something I could improve on) but story telling ability is something that is very hard to learn.

So, should you stop blogging?

Find a piece of string, measure it and there will be your answer.

Everyone above has contributed so much good advice… I think I’ll just PM you some stuff that I thought of when I was reading your post

Glen,

When I was 21 I was still in college and no one had ever heard of the Internet. Between now and then I was a chef/ski bum, I read screenplays for a film producer, I started (and ended) a film festival of film-school student films, and I helped Las Vegas market itself as a place to locate businesses. All this is to say you’ve got plenty of time to test things out. Right now 12 months might seem like an eternity, but it’s really a drop in the bucket.

Don’t stress out too much about this decision. In the scheme of things this probably will be a very minor event in your life. And if you’re unhappy two months from now, no one is going to hold a 21-year-old to a 12 month contract that they don’t want to be in. Of course you may find that you love working with Bluesouth. Whatever happens, it’s pretty clear from your recent accomplishments that you will be quite successful in whatever you do on your own terms.

I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. You’ll know when to stop. It’ll be obvious to you. The reason why I know you’ll know is because based on your post, you know exactly what you want.

You’re only 18. The many decisions you will make in the future, to be honest, are best made when you need to make them. No one can really help you now because for sure, circumstances would have changed by then. There will be other considerations and you would have changed as well. No one could have told me, even myself, that I would be doing what I am doing now. Life takes us places. Go!

Take care

[...] having wrote the hardest blog post of my life, and being very open and sometimes a little uncomfortable, I thought I would lighten things up and [...]

Dude,
Thank your for the link and invitation to comment. You’re pretty young and there will be a point, say 10 or 20 years from now, where you can’t even REMEMBER the stress you feel right now. You’ll look back on these times and smile a wry and ironic grin-regardless of whether you’ve made the perfect decision or not.

Through my life (and I have faced some adversity at times) I’ve been AMAZED to look back @ how perfectly things always seem to fall into place…even it it’s hard to see in the moment…even if it hurts like hell. Now I trust things. The day I die, I’ll trust that too.

The most brilliant brand evangelists I know preach that “great branding means staking out niche’s, and THAT means giving something up.” If you’re selling clothes, it’s easier to brand “northern wear” than:”north, south, east, and west” wear. Stake your brand-territory out by what you give up! You’re showing focus. That’s good. That’s called “maturity.”

My dad (a pragmatic Jewish business man) would describe the situation you’re in as “crying poor with a loaf of bread under each arm.” Too many exciting options is GOOD problem to have.Go with your gut. Make the best decisions you can with the most applicable information you can figure, Don’t look back. Your blog will be there when you get back. Your absence and/or scarcity will make people MORE fond of you…just ask Elvis OK, that’s right…Elvis has left the building but BOY is he legendary now.

You’re a talented young person with options, cash, vision, chutzpa, friends, and quite a personal and professional life in front of you. Go ahead and take your swing. Drop a couple of hundred grand in the bank before you’re done. We’ll be here when you get back. Happy whatever- you-celebrate and we’re pleased to know you.
aimClear

This can be a time to learn, experiment and think. There will be plenty of time to do your own thing later. Sounds like you have a great future ahead. Best of luck to you.

Hey Glenn,

I’m 19 too and can relate to the unique situation individuals such as ourselves present in our industry. Congratulations on your new job! I’ve had to turn down lucrative offers for full time work in the past due to the fact that I’m still in university although graduation is coming up in about a year’s time.

I would suggest keeping on blogging to the best of your abilities. Like your work with HP, I’ve worked with a number of large firms as well, almost of all of whom I cannot disclose. I’ve loved keeping up with your posts, and wish you all the best in your future endeavours

Best —

Dev

I feel your pain. I have a full time job. My blog sucks because just about everything I want to blog about would create a competition hazard for my employer and potentially get me fired.

Oh well… Nothings perfect… I’m just glad that I have a cool job that pays well enough to support a family in Hawaii. (Who cares about the blog?)

Aloha,
Dave.

Hey Glen,

I’m relatively new to your blog and don’t know you as well as some others, but I’ve enjoyed your blog so think it’s only fair to put in my two cents.

First off, keep blogging. It’s not just to get new clients, even though this may be your first objective. From what I gather you have made a lot of friends in the industry and have built up a bit of a following. It would be a shame to lose touch with these people. You can write about what you are doing without being specific or naming your client. It might not be as much fun or as interesting if otherwise, but it can still be off value.

Besides, in my opinion a blog is a learning tool which can help with your personal development. It makes you think just a little bit more about what you are going to say. Also, writing about things helps you remember them better.

Lastly I’d like to say: Do what you want to do. You’re only 18, don’t let you be held back by a job - you’ve got the rest of your life to worry about that. I’m not saying you are doing the wrong thing and you should quit your job, I’m just saying that you make sure you enjoy what you are doing.

You’re 18, this is the point in life when you get to do the fun stuff without having to worry too much. Don’t be restricted by a job you don’t enjoy.

So keep blogging dude, keep up the good work!

Good luck!

Glen, if this change isn’t for a learning experience then… at your age that is THE thing and your better off stumbling along on your own! Learning could be not even related to the profession but more about learning how to build and manage a larger client base and employees. Obviously you have some chops at a skills level… but in my experience sometimes that doesn’t translate into business success! Watching a bigger company may help you decide about your future as an entrepeneur, or, more importantly if that is the path you want. You may even decide to let someone else have those headaches and continue at the present company or another as an associate. For me after 14 years as a one man shop I have chosen the associate route with a firm which can support the expansion plans I have for the future.

I would make no further professional commitments than the 12 month thing and make a personal commitment that you will not seek income from other people after that, even if you starve for awhile (which you won’t if you spend this next year even semi-wisely.

Fuck working for other people.
Are you the king, or are you an employee?

You think well and you blog well and blogging your own stuff is what got you to having so many people comment here.

People mention your age alot but I think that is BS. If anyone, no matter what their age, sex, income, etc. are inspired to do something, they should just go do it.

Every moment you spend on other peoples stuff is a moment you have lost for your own stuff.

Screw that, you got what it takes so do it.

Glen–

You’ve definitely come a long way since I met you on EF, and you’ve got the rest of your (what is shaping up to be successful) life ahead of you. You did the right thing by taking this job and you also did the right thing by limiting yourself to a 12mo contract. I know from experience that age does nothing to dispel feeling of urgency when it comes to your career. My advice would be to USE this company. Use them to feed your future. And let me buy you a pint in about 3 years

I think as more companies ask their employees to blog there are going to be more and more conflicts of interest like this.

Having said that most of the posts that have been successful on viperchill, like the stumble upon guides etc. wouldn’t be a problem for the new company i would have thought…

Hey Glen,

Thanks for the tag. I went dark for 10 days when you wrote this, so just saw it.

Pretty much everyone agrees on these posts, so I won’t add a lot. I’ll just say this: “When you’re 18, you think you need a plan. When you’re 30, you realize the folly of planning.”

I put that in quotes to make it look deep, but I just made it up. If a year gig gets you some experience you learn from, some good cash and a feeling that you’re one step closer to your goals, you’re ahead of 99% of folks out there. And about 9 months from now, you’ll know what to do.

Who knows, you may find yourself in S.A. forever, or working for Ignite in North Carolina next year. You’d be a good fit. One of my friends started with her company, agreeing to work a year because she wanted to be a teacher. She ended up 15 years later running the place… And she’s happy.

DON’T stress about the plan. It will reveal itself.
DO keep blogging. I don’t write much about my clients either, but have never lacked some issue to comment about…

Hang in there… Talk to you soon.

~Jim

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