Louise: Have you ever had a day when you couldn’t put on your pajamas? Or those where you marked your entire inbox as “read.” Even the ones where you find yourself googling, “How do you do marketing?” I’m Louise, the content manager at BuzzSumo — the best content marketing tool in the world — this is Marketing IRL, where we strip the gloss look and talk about the realities of marketing efforts.This podcast is part of a recent podcast we started at BuzzSumo called Welfare Center.
It’s a place for you to seek advice, real-life experience, and the lessons marketers have learned throughout their careers.check it out buzzsumo.com/wellbeing-hub/.
Today, we’re talking about dealing with layoffs, and I’m excited to be joining Ryan Jones. Hi Ryan. how’s it going?
Ryan: Yes, not bad. Still just getting ready for Christmas. I work in e-commerce, so we only have Black Friday, which is a big time of year for us.
Louise: So for those who don’t know, Ryan is an SEO expert country of carpets, that’s the UK’s e-commerce rug specialist. He has been working in digital since 2015. Earlier this year, he spoke at Brighton SEO, the world’s largest search marketing conference, and he also gave BuzzSumo’s Wellbeing Hub some very smart advice on tackling burnout.
right. So we’re talking about a topic that will resonate with many of you, which is layoffs. According to mental health charity Mind, redundancy can lead to enormous uncertainty, stress and anxiety. So, Ryan, can you tell us more about your own experience and what made you want to talk about it today?
Ryan: Yes. So, in my own experience, before I started working at Land of Rugs, we had a lockdown in March 2020 and I’ve been fired almost since then. There is still some back-and-forth about changing job roles, or possibly reducing them to part-time jobs, to try and fit business needs. But September 2020 is approaching, the cancellation of my position was a joint decision, and I’ve obviously been laid off since then. This is not an uncommon situation. I think a lot of people, whether they work in marketing or not, have gone through something similar. I mean, because of COVID and the lockdown, I think my last company’s revenue almost halved. Clearly a lot of businesses need cost savings, and unfortunately, people are pretty much the number one priority. As far as wanting to be on the podcast, I want to start a conversation about how being laid off doesn’t have to be the end of anything. I mean, if anything, I’ve done bigger and better things since being laid off. So I want to open up the conversation and not see it as the end of something, but as the beginning of something new.
Louise: Yes, absolutely. Can you tell us what was the first thing that helped you deal with layoffs and the first time you realized it could actually be a positive? Or can you get a positive result from a situation like this?
Ryan: When I was laid off, I decided to spend a week, two weeks, doing almost nothing and just sit back and accept everything because even when I was fired, I didn’t really take the time to sit down and evaluate my personal and professional life what happened in.
So I had two weeks off and I didn’t do anything, really. Then obviously start looking for and applying for jobs, whether you’re in marketing or not, you need to be able to market yourself, especially with more people being laid off.
So, if you were going to have an interview, before COVID, you were probably interviewing four or five other people, and that could easily scale to 10, 20, 30 people, all in the same position. So really took the time to sit down and look at my resume. I mean my resume is weird because I had two jobs in the last two years before COVID. So I work as an SEO at an agency, but I’m also in a sales role for one of the agency’s clients. This is an odd setup. So it’s a little weird to try to put it on a resume, especially when you’re going into an SEO role, and you have to explain why a lot of your work is also in sales and not SEO.
So, I had to sit down and tell a story about how my sales experience helped my SEO and things like that. Really just making sure my resume tells my story and not a half-assed person, if you will, or half in SEO and half in sales.
Louise: Yes. So it ends up being your opportunity to assess and think about what the next step is for you and where you want to go.
Ryan: must. It’s really just about making the “right” decision. Is SEO the place I want to be? Or do I really want to pursue another sales role? I really don’t want to sit in two camps anymore. ” SEO was clearly the right choice for my character. After two weeks of not doing anything, the decision was made quickly. From there, it pretty much only applies to the SEO role.
Louise: Do you have any wise advice or tips to pass on to others in layoff situations?
Ryan: Yeah, so I mean, forbid me to say in the first place that it’s the beginning of something, not the end of something, obviously there’s a lot of pressure that comes with it. I live at home, but I still have a car to pay and bills to pay. So the first step is to pretty much eliminate this panic and stop applying it to everything unnecessarily. Because what I found when applying for a new position was when I applied for a job that I really cared about, I was more successful in getting into the interview phase and during the interview process. Because that’s what happens in interviews, even with a magnifying glass, even when you’re doing a virtual interview. If you’re really passionate about something, especially when it comes to SEO, you can usually make it work. Sitting here explaining how I got my site to rank higher in search results is fine for me. But if it is, if it’s a company I don’t really care about, then it’s going to show up that way, and the hiring manager can definitely see that. So you have to connect it to your story, where you want to go in your career, connect it to the job role you want.
Like, when I’m working on the agency side, I’m always happiest working for smaller e-commerce clients, because I mean, when you can see how changes in rankings can affect the business profoundly, and when revenue increases How happy it makes everyone, even if it’s just a small amount. This makes me happy.
So this makes me want to do better. So a small e-commerce company is where I really want to go. That’s when I really started to hone my application for these roles.
Louise: I might preempt what you’re going to say, but I know when I get a new job, I’m like, why didn’t I do this sooner? Why don’t I put myself in a more risky situation and apply for another job? Because at previous companies, where I’ve worked for many years, maybe just a little scared of the unknown. I’m just wondering if that’s what you go through when you get laid off. Is that what you found?
Ryan: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I’ve been at Land of Rugs since December 2020, and for the first two weeks, I kind of sat there like — why didn’t I apply for these positions before? Because I can already say that I’m happier in this role than I’ve done before. But I think we all have situations where you feel like you can do better, or you want a raise or something like that, or whatever your motivation to keep going. I think everyone can get into this cycle of, well, if I apply, then I put in the notice, and the job offer falls through—and then I’m stuck?
So, I think everyone will be blown away by this fear. But I guess the kind of conversation I want to start is: Is it better to be scared for a short period of time and then go on to something bigger, better, happier? For me, a personal example is speaking at Brighton SEO. That’s what I want to take to the next level.
In previous roles, I would not have had such an opportunity. So three months of constant stress and near-panic trying to find a role that is now trivial because where am I happier. I think the conversation people need to have with themselves is, are the short-term worries worth it in the long run? Or do you really just want to stay put for a while?
And then obviously if you get laid off too, it’s easy to get into that kind of panic. But I think it’s important to stay calm and realize that, especially in SEO and marketing, you’re going to find another role.
Companies, especially now—maybe it was a little different when the pandemic first hit—but now they’re really realizing they need to start investing in their marketing.
So you’ll never be short of a marketer job role. If you’re not satisfied with where you are, or if you’re in a situation where you’re being laid off, don’t worry because job roles will come and bigger and better things will come.
Louise: Yes, what you said when you applied to speak at Brighton SEO a minute ago was interesting. This brings me to the upheaval of layoffs, which is actually a dangerous situation. Do you think that would make you more willing to take risks? If you hadn’t been laid off, you might have done more?
Ryan: Yes, one hundred percent. I mean I did my first Brighton SEO in 2017 and 2018. I’m listening to all these great speakers talk and think and yes, I really hope to be able to do that one day. Yes. Public speaking is probably the first thing I fear the most in my life.
Then after being visibly terrified of finding a new job role, I realized if I could go three months without pay and still be very happy and have a safe and secure job role in a well-established company.
If I can get through three months without a paycheck and pay all the bills off my savings, I can definitely speak in a room of 70 to 100 people. If I can handle three months of pure panic, I can definitely handle 20 minutes.
So it definitely makes me more willing to apply for more speaking roles in the future and hopefully in a bigger room to talk about a wider range of topics as well as my speaking, which is about developing your inner career.
Louise: If you were to summarize everything you just said, and you had to give a tip, or a piece of advice, to someone who is going through a layoff, what would it be?
Ryan: I think my biggest advice is to not let fear in.
I mean, as someone who is no longer superfluous, it seems easy, but it definitely hit me and you definitely start to spiral. And then once the spiral goes up and you start applying for anything, you think, I’m just getting some stuff temporarily right now, and then I’ll go ahead and apply.
But if you get another job, even if it’s considered a temporary job, getting back to what you really want can turn into a long process. It gets more difficult. So try not to let the cycle of fear hit you, just realize that something is going to happen. Even if it seems far away, it will definitely appear and then you will be happier.
Louise: Yes. totally agree. Ryan, thank you so much for joining me.
Ryan: no problem.
Louise: If we want to find you online, where or how can we get in touch?
Ryan: yes, so find my sweet spot on twitter @RyanJonesSEO. you can also find me LinkedIn ryan@landofrugs.com is my email. I’m always happy to talk about anything SEO or career related. So hit me on it.
Thanks for listening to the Marketing IRL brought to you by BuzzSumo. You can share your experience with redundancy with us on Twitter. Just tweet @BuzzSumo. You can find us on our website buzzsumo.com. goodbye!
