E64: I Am Back! Let's Recap Trademarks, Brand Videos, My Last Day of Work, and What Is Next!

I am back!  I have accidently been out for almost a month.  It was not intentional, but I didn't have have a laptop for several weeks.  

There is a lot to catch you up on since the last episode.  This week we recap what has been going on for the last several weeks.  Between Amazon trademarks, recording content, and finishing my last day of work, there is a lot to catch you up on.   

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

If this is your first time here, I recommend you start at episode one because the story is told in chronological order. Also, if you find this really entertaining or even a little bit helpful, I would really appreciate it. If you could share this with someone that might also find it entertaining or helpful. Spreading the word really does help keep me going. 

I am finally back. Honestly, I am so happy to be back. But I do owe you guys an apology. I took an accidental month off of podcasting. Which has been the longest amount of time that I have not published an episode since I started podcasting about a year and a half ago. I say it's an accidental month off because I did not intend to go dark on y'all. 

 Let me explain. After I had to return my laptop back to my employer. It took me about three weeks to get another one. [00:01:00] I thought I could get by with maybe publishing an episode from my phone. But that wasn't very much fun. So I just decided to wait until I had a laptop. 

 I do apologize that it has taken me a full month to release this episode. Now that we're here. There is so much to catch you up on the last month has been a wild. In the last four weeks, I've been trying to wrap everything up at my nine to five job. I returned to my laptop back to the company. I continue to work on my Amazon store. 

And now. As you know, I'm gearing up to move back to the us. I feel like if there was ever a moment of truly starting over in life, It is this moment right now. 

In the last episode. 

I had let you know about a couple of big announcements that I had going on at the time. 

I had two more weeks of work left. My beach bags finally went live on Amazon. And I was moving [00:02:00] back to America. 

This week, we are going to backtrack to about three to four weeks ago. You will hear my audio diaries from three or four weeks ago so that I can catch you up to the present day.

Currently...

I am now on my third week of self-employment and I've been purging my entire apartment. Getting ready to move out of Dubai and back to America. Very very soon. So let's get started.

intro

[00:03:00] 

 I am on my way to the beach. I'm meeting up with some friends there., I'm excited to go spend some time on the beach. It's starting to get a little bit too hot to enjoy the beach. I mean, we probably still have maybe a few more weeks left where you can still go to the beach and not feel like it's miserably hot.

 I mean, I think of people People do still go to the beach when it is still miserably hot in the summer, but yeah, a lot of people just try to avoid anything that's outdoors because it starts to get ridiculously hot, to just even stay outside. So yeah, it's a good day. It does feel nice and warm, so it'll be a good day at the 

Just add a little context to summer's in Dubai. The temperatures and may can reach almost a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, [00:04:00] or almost 40 degrees Celsius. Mix in the summer humidity that starts rolling in. And you start to get some, really hot days in may. 

Dune talk Tober. 

Forget it. It's incredibly hot and humid with temperatures being oh, well, over a hundred degrees on a daily basis, which is equal to about 50 degrees Celsius. To me. I don't know who wants to be out at the beach in that weather, outdoor activities that usually slow down quite a bit in the summer because it is just too miserably hot.

one of the reasons I'm also going to the

Besides to just go have fun with friends and get to spend time with them before I moved to the U. S. I actually had a call with, somebody that helps people with their Amazon businesses. So I was looking to see if I could get some outside opinions or outside help on my Amazon listing [00:05:00] since it's newly live.

And so, when she looked at my listing, she said she wanted to talk over the phone about it. So we had a conversation the other day and she told me that in terms of her wanting to help me, she said that what I've done so far is pretty good and the help that she would have given, are things that I've already completed.

And the other thing she said was that my product on Amazon is not like most products on Amazon. She said when she was looking at competitors of my bag, she couldn't really find very many and she especially didn't find, other bags like mine that were very actively selling a lot on Amazon.

So she said in terms of just following the normal Amazon algorithms of like, most searched items and people just searching for things that they buy every day, and then you're competing against all those searches., it's not like people are [00:06:00] searching for beach bag with spout attachment.

So I definitely have to build this up on my own. She actually asked me, why did I choose to sell this product? And I told her that I was actually looking to create a brand that I could build, not just sell another product on Amazon like a kitchen item or just something small.

I really wanted to build a brand and I felt like this particular bag that I've designed can do that and can pave the way for that. And, she agreed. So I have to build the market for it. I have to build the audience for it. And I have to build the brand around it.

And she even told me something that I didn't realize. One of the things that I thought was my next step, I mean, it is kind of my next step, but one of the things is that I need to, start doing Amazon ads. And she told me that even if I was doing Amazon ads, I'm not going to see much return at all on [00:07:00] it because people are not looking specifically for my type of product. So the strategy I need to have is not the normal Amazon strategy. I am essentially just building my own brand. So she said the first thing that I actually should go do is start making videos and get a trademark.

Her suggesting that I need to start getting more video content of my beach bag is another reason why I'm heading to the beach today. I need to start working on creating more content for this bag.

She also said that I need to get a trademark for my brand. The reason for that is because if your product is trademarked, you can apply to Amazon to become brand registered. Being brand registered on. Amazon gives you more brand protection. From things like people potentially stealing your listing, but even more importantly, for me at this stage, It opens up the ability to create videos of my product on [00:08:00] Amazon. 

She said that people need to better understand how my beach bag works and videos will convert much higher than product images. 

She said I could look into getting a trademark in the us or the UK first, because those trademarks are much cheaper. She said it's between 200 to $300 in the UK. And around 400 to $500 in the us. Getting trademarked in either of those countries only protects my brand in that specific country. So if I wanted to get brand protection from Amazon in the UAE marketplace, which I'm selling from, I would actually need to get a trademark in the UAE. But the UAE trademarks cost around 9,000 dirhams, which is about $2,500. 

Since for now, I only need to get access to the product video feature from Amazon's brand registry program she said to just get one of the cheaper trademarks first. [00:09:00] And once I get more profitable, then I can apply for the UAE trademark. 

Which will then protect my brand overall in the same marketplace that I'm selling it in right now.

So she encouraged me to go get my trademark. That will just allow me to be able to upload product how to videos , on Amazon and that is what would sell my product. 

 And she encouraged me to also start building the social media for it and start pushing social media content. So that is what I'm going to do. I'm. I'm just gonna follow her lead because it does make sense, so, yeah, I'm excited, to go to the beach because that'll give me the opportunity to take some videos and use it with friends and stuff, but, yeah, I'm excited to maybe try to get some content out of today and enjoy time with my friends.

I [00:10:00] am on my way home from spending a few hours at the beach. It was pretty hot, not going to lie, but it was nice. It was relaxing. Got to hang out with some friends. And also I was able to take a few videos and a few photos of the beach bag. So mission accomplished. And hopefully I can just start making some content cause I really need to start building up the, profile page , for the bag. So that will be something I work on this week. 

 Also I need to start working on figuring out the trademarks. So I think I'm going to get the trademark from the U S it just makes sense. So that's something I need to start figuring out next as well.

I'm also about to hit my last seven, no, my last five days of work. I've one week left. I go back to work tomorrow on Monday. And this will be the last week that I will [00:11:00] work at this company. Which is really crazy to think that. Yeah. It's wild. Don't think it's really hit me yet, to be honest. 

I have so much work to do. So, I think that's why

going into the final week of work was a stressful. I still had so much work to finish before I would get kicked out 

all my accounts at work. I didn't want to leave on the last day with any of my work half done. That mindset didn't really allow for me to just take it easy. In fact, it gave me more stress than I have had in a long time at work.

 Today is Monday, and I just got to the office. [00:12:00] I'm about to go inside, but I just realized that today is the very last Monday I will ever be in this office. This is my last week of work out of an eight week notice period that I had to do. And, yeah, it's a big deal. Bit strange, I think, realizing that this is the last week I'm going to work.

I know the week is going to go by so fast. I'm going to blink and it's going to be Friday, end of day. And it'll all be over. And that's weird. Like, I'm a little bit nervous about that feeling, but I also have way too much work to really, , think about it, which is another reason why it's going to go by so fast, because the last five days is not even enough time to finish everything.

I'm going to have to be working late nights this week just to make sure I've got everything organized to hand off to everybody. Someone said, why did I care so much about making sure I'm finishing everything off at work? [00:13:00] And I just really don't want to look back and regret after almost eight years of working at this company.

I just kind of let things fall by the wayside in the very last week. I want to Make sure I've put as much effort in the last week as I did in the last Seven and a half years. So yeah, I don't know I care and I also really don't want people talking bad about me After I leave the office because I feel that can happen if you let things slide and then someone has to take over and then they have to kind of I Don't know pick a person The pieces of your work I just don't want people to pick up my pieces and be like, oh man This is all messed up.

I want it to be very organized and they can easily Continue the work that I am handing off to them so that matters to me a lot

Yeah, it's time to go inside I guess the five day countdown starts now.

 [00:14:00] 

It is Friday, May 17th, and I just got to the parking garage of my office, which is going to be the last time I ever park in this parking garage, the last time I ever walk through these doors, the last time I am ever at this office, and it's really bittersweet. It's exciting because I'm excited to start the next chapter of my life.

 But it's sad to have almost eight years of your time at a company come to an end, I think Even though it's good that I'm working towards different goals.

It's still sad to leave something behind because It's not like I hated my team or my boss or anything like that. I actually Really really really loved working with [00:15:00] my team, and I really appreciated how my boss Handled everything and I think the only reason I ended up My time at this company is because it's been almost eight years and I'm really excited to move on to something different.

So, and I got really burnt out. Okay, let's not forget about that because my burnout has been going on for several years. So yes, burnt out is definitely one of the main drivers of quitting. But also, I'm excited to have different goals now I'm excited to pursue. A different way of life, potentially. And I'm excited to move back to the U.

S. Which is next on my to do list. So, yeah, a lot of bittersweet emotions today. I've gotten a lot of messages from both the customers I've been working with and people that I worked with in the office. A lot of really sweet, kind messages. Everyone shows you a lot of appreciation for all the work you did when you're leaving, which is kind of [00:16:00] ironic, but yeah, I am going to walk into the office.

I have just a couple of things left to do and then I have to turn in my laptop never to see it again. I will get disconnected from everything, which is kind of scary, but it'll be good to let it go.

The irony of your last day of work big on a Friday is that no one goes to the office on Fridays. I did see a few people, but for the most part, I spent my last day of work sitting alone. Sending off a few final work emails and making sure my job here was done. I had a meeting with the it guy at 4:00 PM. I turned in my laptop. And that was it. It was over. 

I just left the office for the very last time. My laptop was completely wiped. I turned everything into and yeah, I don't have anything work related [00:17:00] left at all. It's really weird realizing that I don't have to worry about what I have to prepare for for next week, or Monday, or presentations, Yeah, It's weird actually to realize you don't have to do all of that work anymore.

It's a little bit jarring, I'm not gonna lie. I think after almost eight years of Worrying about that every weekend or not necessarily every weekend, but like, yeah, worrying about what I have to work on the week after. It's weird to just let it all go suddenly. But I'm happy. I will just take some time to get used to it.

I'm sure by tomorrow I won't care about anything. But I guess now I need to actually start emptying out my apartment. So. That's the next thing on the list. And then I have to get back on track with Amazon. This week has just been so incredibly busy to finish work. I wanted to make sure I handed off all of my work, all of my accounts [00:18:00] to everyone that's taking over for me.

And I. worked really late nights this week to email all of my customers, wrap everything up, close out any email threads that were still pending, hand things off to everybody say goodbyes, email out goodbyes. Yeah, I stayed up pretty late a lot of the nights this week to make sure I could get it all done before I got kicked out of all my work stuff today.

So I'm really tired. Actually, I'm really tired. I didn't get a chance to release a podcast last weekend. I didn't get a chance to do much on the Amazon stuff yet. And I didn't get a chance to prepare for anything other than just finishing work. , and I also don't have a laptop anymore because, I mean, maybe not the greatest move on my part, but, I use my work laptop for everything, but everything's in the cloud, so.

It's not like I was storing a bunch of stuff in my work laptop, it's just all in the cloud. But yeah, I need to [00:19:00] go get me a new laptop now, cause I literally don't even have one right now. So I gotta get that done.

Let's keep the journey going. 

Stay tuned. 

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