From 0 To 31 Million Dollars With Search Engine Marketing & Inventory Financing: Kim Pedersen, CEO of 1000 Bulbs (Part 4)

Sramana: Even though you had no formal metric tools, you must have had some sense of the impact these ads were having on your business.

Kim Pedersen: That is a correct statement. I could tell by the number of sales orders I received each day because the number kept going up.

Sramana: How did you impact your business by introducing PPC? Do you think you doubled your business?

Kim Pederson: It kept us on a 50% to 70% growth trajectory for several years. Pay-per-click was huge for us and it still is today. After a year, I believe 80% of our business came through pay-per-click.

Sramana: When you saw 80% of your business was coming from pay-per-click without formal metrics and systems, what was your reaction?

Kim Pedersen: I committed to pay-per-click methods because I knew that would make me successful. The problem was the lack to tools that could be used for pay-per-click advertising. I had a couple of companies contact me offering to help me by using their tools and methods. I used those companies, and it turned out to be a bad decision both times. I performed better than the companies that were offering me tools.

Sramana: What was going on in the rest of the business at this time? Were you still a solo operation?

Kim Pedersen: I had three people working for me at that point. I spent a lot of money on advertising, so I had some major financial issues that prevented me from hiring highly qualified people. The first issue is that I had been a salesperson my entire life and now I was an employer. I was not a very good employer in the very beginning, so I had a lot of internal management problems. I had to learn how to be a manager.

Sramana: How do you do that?

Kim Pedersen: When you recognize the problems you have in your company, you have to be determined to solve them. You have to climb mountains and walk on water. Some of the problems that arise are ones that I caused, and I had to recognize that it was my fault. For instance, my warehouse personel would shift $5,000 worth of inventory to Florida when it was supposed to be in Washington state.

I would tell my office manager that I was upset with the wasted money it would require for us to move the inventory back, and I would express my discontent of the situation to her. She thought I was directing my frustrations at her and would get upset. My communication skills with my employees were not very good. I did not recognize how I was hurting my employees.

In 2003, I recognized that a lot of the problems with the business were mine, and not my employee’s problems. I had to make an hourly, conscious effort to control my attitude with my employees. I had to understand what their goals in life were rather than just what my goals are. Once I understood what made them tick, then I could sell them my vision for the company and let them know exactly what role they had in the company. I also had to learn how to apologize for my mistakes. I made a conscious effort to start caring for my employees. Just telling you that is actually very embarrassing.

Sramana: It is very important that you expressed that. People need to learn from what you have just said. When you start being a manager for the first time, you don’t have the experience. It is what it is and you have to learn.

Kim Pedersen: I have failed in that area in the past, but I have now fallen in love with my employees. We don’t have turnover in the company anymore. We do a better job of hiring highly qualified people to perform the needed tasks.

This segment is part 4 in the series : From 0 To 31 Million Dollars With Search Engine Marketing & Inventory Financing: Kim Pedersen, CEO of 1000 Bulbs
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