Search Influence laid off 5 full-time employees today and eliminated 2 part-time jobs.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint” they say. Except they don’t tell you it’s a marathon through a battlefield. That at mile 12 you might get shot. And at mile 19 the bridge might be out and at mile 25 — I don’t know. I’ll tell you when we get there.

Don’t get me wrong, there are great days too — when you see the business you helped your clients build, when you see your teammates grow, professionally and personally, and when you have the opportunity to give back to the community.

It’s not the easy days that test a business, it’s the hard days.

This is one of those days.

Today is one of the hardest days since Angie and I started of Search Influence. For the first time, ever, the loss of a client — really the change of a client relationship in which they’ve decided to take our work in house (see “SEO/SMO strategy team” note) — is causing us to eliminate jobs. Lay people off. Let people go.

In other words, today we say goodbye to some teammates who had little, if anything, to do with the cause of their exit.

Could we have made different choices along the way? Yes.

Could we have had put fewer eggs in more baskets? Maybe.

But we didn’t. And today that means we’ve got to let some people go.

And it sucks.

And I’m sorry.

And we’ll do everything we can to avoid having it happen again.

For tomorrow, though, we’re going to be rebuilding and re-engineering as we go. We’ve learned a lot as a leadership team and we’re continuing to learn.

As a company we feel great about the results we’ve delivered, the jobs we’ve created and the careers we’ve launched.

We intend to keep doing all of those things. We intend to do them better.

And most importantly, we intend to control our own destiny by being among the best at finding opportunities and developing strategies and optimizing the potential of our customers and our team.

If you see chatter about Search Influence layoffs, please be charitable in your assessment of both those who were laid off and the managers who had to make the hard decisions. If you’ve never had to contemplate such a thing count yourself lucky.

And to the team at Search Influence who helps, every day, to grow the businesses of our customers — still greater than 65 strong — thank you!

We don’t take our responsibility to you lightly and we couldn’t do it without you.