Sean Gerrie

Name:

Sean Gerrie

Business:

Seeded SEO

Web site:

www.seeded-seo.com

Years in business:

Number of businesses:

1

I'm always willing to take risks for what I believe in. For years I’ve had the idea of setting up my own Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) consultancy, and I’ve now planted the seed. I changed my contract to work part time with my current employer, but I’m now working my notice, ready to go it alone.

Essentially SEO is concerned with growing websites to the top of the natural organic search results. But what I’ve found is that the SEO industry is somewhat convoluted, with many cowboys exploiting spammy and unethical techniques expensively.

To offer ethical, effective and affordable SEO is my aim, passion, and now my livelihood. The fact that after I work my notice I’ll be going out and doing my own thing full time, is exciting but also somewhat daunting.

Several years ago whilst my business idea was spawning I kept it very much to myself, however as I began realising ‘this is it’, it literally started to consume my thoughts, time and energies dramatically, I soon realised I needed to start taking action.

I began branching out to anybody who listened, friends and family initially, however soon work colleagues and support networks – I realised the importance of networking, and in particular listening to feedback.

I’m bursting with determination, enthusiasm, and have always employed a ‘can do’ attitude. I am cautious however, to remain grounded and adopt a realistic, down to earth approach as I still need support and am continuing to exhaustively explore all possible routes.

I’ve had my head in books recently and am trying to absorb as much as I can in relation to keeping my idea and imminent business alive.

I have very much a creative approach to business with logical and realistic roots grounding me. I literally have a wall of inspiration, whereby any thoughts, ideas or sudden eureka moments are added, and inspiration shoots down like lightening at any point, examples being when brushing my teeth, watching tv or even asleep when I’m suddenly noting down a thought at 3am.

Contrastingly worry does come into play, especially when your starting out on your own, there are many concerns and particularly if you’re conscientious by nature, you want to get it right and do it right. Seeking as much viable support as possible is vital.

Cash flow will obviously be a consistent concern. Initially I’ll be working from home and within other organisations and I’m already gaining some good feedback and interest.

Capacity is a major ongoing challenge; there really aren’t enough hours in the day! Particularly when starting out, time is the best investment, closely linked with support and finance of course.

For me timing has been integral, not just in line with the market you wish to enter, but personally. Making the time right is also possible, previously when employed and watering my business seed in evenings and weekends, I steadily worked towards a safe, predetermined point to turn a new leaf.

In terms of your window of opportunity that naturally feeds into your business capital. Securing actual custom from the offset was made possible thanks to word of mouth (slightly more and sooner than I expected), however a major challenge I now face is not having enough time to spend internally to get the business up and growing further in the summer as ambitiously anticipated.

To describe this more relatively, many aspects of my business require a higher volume of resources to manage, specifically the completion and launch of the website, business development, marketing and accounts.

My hope and strategy is to continue growing in a sustainable method whereby I can grow with my business, and I recognise, welcome and seek as much support that I can get – in a personal and business context, as after all my business is now personal.

Support is the solution to my biggest challenge at the moment; growing. At this moment in time cash flow is good to sustain just myself and gradually build up capital, however I need additional resources whether it is internally or via outsourcing, to keep the window of opportunity open.

I exhaustively and regularly contact as many sources of support as possible, recently including Business Link, One North East, Entrust, the Council, N E Life, Arts Council, Northern Film and Media and Northumbria University to name a few, it’s still early days and meetings are still to happen.

In a post I made on my blog recently (http://www.organic-seo-blog.com), I stated “Searching brings results, researching often brings better results!” To date most of my support has come from just that… searching and researching!

My quest is to make sure I apply what is relevant, that’s right not only for SEO, but also for me and my business operations.

It is difficult and time consuming, but I’m prepared for this. Qualifying and quantifying support is hard to truly measure, especially its influence/impact, however whether the support is from interactions both personally and professionally, books, search results etc - I appreciate the positive collective value all sources of support have in helping my business and me.

To apply a fitting metaphor, every piece of relevant support, no matter how small or large, whether it be guidance on tax, a new business contact or thousands of pounds, they all act as droplets of water, breaths of fresh air and rays of sunshine that will not only ultimately keep your business alive, but also keep it healthy and growing. Support means growth and sustainability for me.

Stories provide great insightful and inspiring snippets that you can takeaway with you – whether online like this one, or in real life. I was lucky to see some successful entrepreneurs talk about their businesses at the Entrepreneurs Forum in 2006; certain pertaining snippets from that event are still inspiring and useful to me today.

Ultimately it will be best to start looking at growing to accommodate a) myself and b) eventually an employee. At this stage that wouldn’t be financially feasible, but at the moment I’m eagerly looking into any grants or funds I may be entitled to.

Help is particularly sought after, as already I’m almost at full capacity, hence the increasing need for a tactical cash/ resource injection to grow accordingly.

As SEO is a creative science and often misunderstood, mislead, and missing the point altogether, my plan/hope is to have a really creative, informative solution.

My vision and ethos is strongly based on ethics and transparency, so Seeded SEO will not be a faceless, personality- less money devouring machine- no unrealistic explanations, definitions or guarantees. What will be guaranteed is a down to earth assurance and commitment, all done in a realistically green and sustainable way, both environmentally and financially.

The feedback to date has been extremely encouraging, and my approach has been recognised as refreshingly honest, passionately personal, and credible. I’ve just managed to secure an exciting and promising deal, providing SEO consultancy services, and I recognise that I need support at this critical point.

My dream and business objective is to grow organically, ideally to accommodate and nurture staff imminently, inspiring as many people as I can along the way, directly and indirectly.

Being in control of your time management is a somewhat liberating lifestyle joy, motivation can often feel like it suddenly grows out of control particularly when I happily work through the night and don’t want to stop for sleep because I’m so engrossed.

Of course some tasks are more enjoyable than others, registering with HMRC isn’t exactly thrilling for example, however I realise the importance to address many business related matters methodically and dedicate time to these also.

It’s still early days, and I have a lot of ground to gain. I find the most important element is to have moments where your head is in the sky, an intrinsic visionary attribute of an entrepreneur, because often the best ideas come from this.

To do a lifestyle snapshot at this moment in time, my lifestyle is more enriched not necessarily financially at this point but with a real labour of love, your entire lifestyle is inherently linked to your job, your business – you have strategic control!

If you’re thinking about taking the plunge yourself, do it… but when the time is right, and plan well to work towards the right time for you and your business.

I found thinking of my business in the seed/growth analogy really does act as a guiding outline and principle. After all we’re all growing in different ways, however to grow your seeded business sky high you really do need to utilise many other supporting and sustaining elements.

Remember inspiration and support shouldn’t be and isn’t just centred around money, real value comes from people, directly via conversing with those you interact with but also indirectly with the wealth of information available online as well as offline. Stay focused, informed and guided then business really can be green!

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