Although many people know us as PearlyWrites, the history of how we became PW needs to be shared. In 1994, I started as a freelancer where I consulted small businesses on how to be found in the search engines like Ask, AOL and Netscape. My father is the person who got me interested in search engines, thanks to his engineering and government background, he was on the Internet, even before AOL! (Yes the Al Gore Internet…)
So when my parents launched their housecleaning business website and I saw how using keywords brought in traffic to the site, I wanted to learn more. My thirst for knowledge about search led me to finding mentors in Internet marketing and learning more technical items like back end coding and how search engines work.
Jump ahead to 2002, while completing my Masters degree in education, I decided to start PearlyWrites. I began transitioning from individual freelancer to business owner. Although I was already a business owner of a private tutoring service, the new venture was a business which was based on gaining exposure online and through referrals which was different than the tutoring service where we were the first choice by 4 synagogues in Northern New Jersey and was referred new business every week due to my reputation of “being able to teach a bear to dance”.
And PearlyWrites.com was born and we were the second choice of many of the proposals we sent. It was a different world for me; from being first choice to now fighting to create a reputation in a whole other field. BUT the cool thing was the new business was virtual which meant business could come from anywhere! No longer did I have to be marketing just to the local market, I could market all throughout the world.
While based in New Jersey, our first client was based in the UK which was awesome! Our second client was based in Australia where we provided all their web copy, marketing collateral and email campaigns for UnlocktheGame.com. Ari Galper was great to work for and very innovative. Then we signed our first client in the mid-west who we signed a contract for a year. Within 3 months of officially launching the business, we set a year goal which we hit 3 months later.
Now in month 6, it was time to bring on contractors to help with the client work and I went from freelancer to project manager to business owner. Although we grew by yards quicker than we planned, many of the clients who signed with PearlyWrites, we were actually their second choice. The first few times got me aggravated and then I realized, “Who cares! They want PW to do their work.”
Thanks to my earlier years of SEO experience, when Google came into the search world, understanding the algorithm was easy for me to connect it to content development and promoting to gain the most exposure and engagement which today is considered social media. So when PearlyWrites started we may have been the second choice for many of our first clients, but without them we wouldn’t be where we are today. We wouldn’t have gained the experience or even walked through the doors that have opened for myself and our team, would have never been possible without taking those first steps and taking the chance of being the second choice.
Going from a business where we were the first and only choice to a new business endevour and being the second choice allowed us to realize that sometimes a different approach and change is good. From the beginning of PW, we have relocated 3 times thanks to the lessons the business has taught us.
Change is good! Change lends itself to the continuation of learning!
So if a client comes back to you and you are their second choice, if the project is something that benefits you or your business, don’t say no right away. It may surprise you 10 years later when you look back and see how far you have come.
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