Important Major Business Decision

Swedish translation

My company has expanded far more than expected. Today I have partnership with over 10 companies and individuals around the world and additionally my father, brother and sister are working with administrative duties.

It has come to a critical point in which I impossible can deliver from the demand of service that I get, even if I turn down more than half of the clients. The increase of prices in May did not help. Only keeping up with the e-mail from swedish and international clients is a full time job. Add to that the running of 50 web sites, 2 forums and a blog.

What do you do in such a situation? Either you employ more staff that can deliver your service, grow your business or you change your business. I decided the latter, why? Am I stupid? Let me explain.

It has never been my intention to run a big company with many staff working on clients sites. In my soul I am a writer, an artist - not a business executive. I like to create things, make new ideas, see my creations grow and write. I rather want to finish and publish my books then to make a million bucks. You don’t agree? Well, I am not you.

So my business is today changed (Oct 2nd, 2006).

My business is no longer a full SEO service company for both swedish and english web sites. My business is from today on a business that provides link building. For English clients I have today four different link building services and for Swedish sites one. But I will be working on something very big that will be finished sometime in 2007, perhaps in the summer. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime ideas that I got 2 days ago. The idea will also be patented and has to do with link building for both English and Swedish sites. I will in addition to my link building services offer smaller forms of expesive consultations. Current full SEO service clients is of course not affected by this decision.

In 2007 when I have my new major link building service set up I will withdraw a bit from the SEO world and I will then go back to my writings and write the 4 novels I long wanted to write. Perhaps I will take a laptop and travel somewhere far away …

This decision will also enable me to improve on what I am best at and niche myself to be best in the field on that thing. My goal is that by 2008 I will be the name everyone in Sweden thinks about when it comes to getting links for both SEOs and web site owners.

It feels like a good desicion and I am happy that I established it.


Viktigt stort affärsbeslut

Mitt företag har ökat i tillväxt mer än jag kunde tänka mig. Jag har idag partnerskap med över 10 företag och individer runt om i världen och dessutom jobbar även min pappa, bror och syster med administrativa uppgifter.

Det har nu kommit till en kritisk punkt där jag omöjligen kan leverera all den efterfråga jag får, även om jag tackar nej till hälvften av kunderna. Ökning av mina priser i maj månad hjälpte inte. Bara att hålla ikapp med e-posten från svenska och internationella kunder är ett fulltidsjobb och lägg då till jobbet att underhålla 50 hemsidor, 2 forum och en blogg.

Vad gör man i en sådan situation? Antingen anställer man fler medarbetare som kan leverera ens tjänst och bygger ut sitt företag eller så ändrar man på sin företagsverksamhet. Jag bestämde mig för att ändra min företagsverksamhet, låter kanske korkat men låt mig förklara.

Det har aldrig varit min avsikt att driva ett stort företag med många medarbetare som jobbar på kunders hemsidor. I min själ är jag en författare, en konstnär - ingen företagschef. Det jag gillar är att skapa saker, få nya ideér, se mina skapelser växa och att skriva. Jag skriver hellre klart och publicerar mina böcker än att göra en miljon dollar. Du håller inte med? Nej, men jag är inte du.

Så från och med idag är min företagsverksamhet ändrad.

Min verksamhet är inte längre en verksamhet som erbjuder hela lösningar inom sökmotoroptimering (SEO) får både internationella och svenska webbplatser. Från och med idag handlar min verksamhet om att skaffa länkar till kunders hemsidor. För engelska kunder har jag idag fyra olika tjänster inom länkbygge och för svenska kunder en. Men jag kommer att jobba på något riktigt stort som kommer bli klart någon gång under 2007, kanske under sommaren. Det var en riktig snilleblixt som jag fick för 2 dagar sedan. Denna idé kommer även att patenteras. Den har att göra med länkbygge för både engelska och svenska kunder. Jag kommer utöver mina tjänster inom länkbygge även erbjuda mindre konsultation i det dyrare slaget. Nuvarande kunder inom hela SEO-lösningar är såklart inte påverkade av detta beslut.

Under 2007 när jag har min nya stora länkbyggetjänst igång så kommer jag dra mig undan något från SEO-världen och jag kommer då återgå till mitt skrivande och skriva de där 4 romanerna jag länge velat skriva. Kanske jag tar en laptop och reser långt bort någonstans …

Detta beslut kommer även göra det lättare för mig att koncentrera mig på och förbättra det som jag är bäst på. Jag kommer nisha mig och mitt mål är att under 2008 är jag det namn alla i Sverige tänker på i samband med att skaffa länkar till sin sida.

Det känns som ett bra beslut och jag är glad att jag gjorde det.

Mer om detta: Diskussion på SEO-forum

23 responses » Leave a comment
  1. Praveen said on October 3, 2006 at 7:30 am

    Jim,

    that is a brave decision.

    My Best Wishes to you and I sincerely hope you succeed in your efforts :)

    Which i am sure you will.

    As long as your are happy, nothing else matters.

    Take Care and hope to see you soon in person ;)

  2. Paul Shallow said on October 3, 2006 at 2:08 pm

    Best of Luck to you Jim.

    It cant be easy to combine the Consulting business with the developing of homepages together with the ambition of writing..

    I think your focus on building your website empire and combining it with your passion, writing is a good choice..

    If i can decide i wanna be in the same position in a couple of years, but traveling instead of writing and ownling a website empire of domains… i have 11 now, and my first checkpoint on the 31:st of January this year these shall be 19..

    I have also been inspired by your post earlier about your goals in life.

    Best of luck Jim.

  3. Nikke said on October 3, 2006 at 3:02 pm

    Möjligen ett klokt beslut, för det öppnar för dig att bli underkonsult till andra sökmotoroptiemringsföretag inom det område som verkar ha intresserat dig mest, d.v.s. länkbyggandet.

    Hoppas nu bara att du inte lämnar oss alltför brådstörtat utan håller dig kvar till början av maj åtminstone…

  4. Markus Jalmerot said on October 3, 2006 at 4:09 pm

    Önskar dig lycka till Jim. Ett lite oväntat beslut, att det kom så tidigt, men klart spännande..

  5. Marcus Westberg said on October 3, 2006 at 10:46 pm

    Det var lite av en chock detta för mig!
    Jag önskar dig lycka till med dina nya planer :) och ser även fram emot att se vad det är du hittar på.

    Lyckönskningar från mig Jim!

  6. Manish Mathukiya said on October 8, 2006 at 9:28 am

    You have brave heart Jim,
    Best wishes and do not fogot to put link of amazon when your novel will up ;)

  7. Jim Westergren said on October 8, 2006 at 7:28 pm

    Thanks all for your comments! It will go well, I am sure.

  8. Nathan said on October 26, 2006 at 12:38 am

    How horrible it has to be, when you are having a tough time that you have to hire work, :). Congrats on your success.

  9. Bulbboy said on November 7, 2006 at 4:57 am

    Ah, a victim of your own success.
    Well there could be worse things I suppose. :)

    I’m sure you will meet your 2008 goals, good luck Jim.

  10. Ray Dube said on November 29, 2006 at 8:02 pm

    Congratulations!

    Seriously, it is a brave and wonderful step you make, an I wish you all the best in your writing and travels.

    It is a wise person who decides to stay true to themselves and has the courage to put aside business gain for personal fulfillment.

    Ray

  11. Peter Gillberg - SoftwareCasa said on December 1, 2006 at 4:53 pm

    Jim,

    Det verkar som jag hittade dig en månad för sent. Hmm, det var synd. Nåväl - lycka till med dina nya mål.

  12. Jim Westergren said on December 2, 2006 at 4:24 pm

    Tack Peter.

    Jag var lite osäker om jag fortfarande skulle ha bra med business men jag har nu funnit ut att det inte var några problem.

    Kontakta mig så ger jag dig en lista på svenska optimerare som har mitt förtroende.

  13. Darcie said on December 5, 2006 at 11:25 pm

    So proud of you,

    Canada is a beautiful place to re-group! Hope you find what you are looking for!

  14. Vipin Singh said on December 22, 2006 at 9:36 am

    Jim, i admire your decision. I like that you read more about Personal Development rather than SEO. I wrote a personal development book last year, instead of getting it published, which 7 literary agents wanted to represent me, I started http://www.XoomPad.com. I love Personal Development stuff, so please view http://www.SoulVerite.com may explain our connection too. We need help with http://www.UrbanTango.com SEO or links, please help, we need someone very good to take us to the top 10 in Google again in the keywords Seattle Real Estate

  15. Mark said on January 2, 2007 at 3:51 am

    I like this blog, always provide new and fresh information,i usually visit it to check some new stuff and discussion
    MY new Website

  16. Rae said on January 25, 2007 at 3:13 am

    Wandered over here from Jim’s blog… read quite a few posts… good luck with everything. And thanks for taking the time to write the posts in both languages. I know a very small bit of swedish, but nothing I’d repeat in front of my dad. ;-)

  17. Stephen Weir said on February 5, 2007 at 4:49 pm

    I admire the decisions you’ve made in terms of what you want to do with your career. It’s too easy to continue with work that pays whether or not you enjoy it. If everyone came to the realisation that doing what they enjoy is more important than making the most money I think we would have a lot more happy people walking around our world.

    I wish you all the best with your novels and link building services and I will most certainly be watching your blogs to see how you’re getting on with them.

    Good luck!

  18. Nikki said on February 24, 2007 at 9:44 am

    Hi Jim Good Idea. Our wishes are with you.

    Life is great, make the most of it!

    Enjoy.
    there is always something to be happy about!

  19. Jesicaas said on July 24, 2007 at 11:03 pm

    easy to continue with work that pays whether or not you enjoy it. If everyone came to the realisation that doing what they enjoy is more important

  20. Steve said on August 30, 2007 at 1:26 am

    Hi, This post is very informative. If someone can help me then please send me a private message. Best Regards,

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  1. [...] I know all the above subjects, some areas more than others but I have actually stopped providing optimization services as announced here and I am now specialized in link building. If you need help in getting links, feel free to contact me. [...]

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  3. [...] Almost a year back jim expanded with 10 companies and individuals and now he is leaving this business because he wants to continue as a writer. In 2007 when I have my new major link building service set up I will withdraw a bit from the SEO world and I will then go back to my writings and write the 4 novels I long wanted to write. Perhaps I will take a laptop and travel somewhere far away … [...]

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