Been working with a new start-up recently. The customer, who is a well put-together, determined and super-duper good guy, has decided, like many of us, to give his own abilities and skills an opportunity to flourish, after an unfortunate (but perhaps pre-destined) redundancy at a large corporate.
In my own experience … starting a new business in this big scary world is a heck of a scary process for many of us. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed thinking of names, and colour schemes, and ideas for logos and designs… I enjoyed looking at potential customers, and dreamed huge dreams of where I’d love to be one day. Those dreams never stop. But there had to be a time where I learnt how to balance dream and reality in order to:
The only thing I was able to relate starting a new business to, was planning our wedding.
It was a fantastic day, our wedding day. Filled with sunshine, and bunting, fancy little tea cakes, and the best South African bubbly that we could afford. Filled with special friends and family and a DJ that played every whimsical song we loved, including the Airwolf TV Theme song. (Don’t ask).
Getting to that point, though, was not as idyllic. At the very early beginning of my planning phase, the very mention of the word “WEDDING”, seemed to automatically add an extra £100 to the quote, an extra “procedural legality”, an additional “OH! You should see what THESE people did with THEIR flower arrangements”. So much so that the process that I’d dreamed of for many years, moved away from being an idyllic fairy-like dream-phase, and turned into a horrible overwhelming struggle to absorb and remember everything that I could and still try add our own personal flavour to all that we did.
Starting a new business has been no different. Being new to the business world, one thinks that all the advice received is critical – with equal weight – that we need to absorb, remember and implement. Ultimately, our dream of starting our own home bakery, or corner art gallery turns into an impersonal, run-of-the-mill business where we sit at the end of the day and question our reason for starting it in the first place.
The best advice that I received as a novice in the business world, was to identify the “Must-Do” stuff from the “Better-than-the-Jones’ ” stuff. I was told to make a list of all the critical things that my new business needed, in order to get started. Basic things like:
What made you start your business in the first place?
Go back to those questions – re-discover the things that drive you. You will soon see that things fall into place and that these “gurus” that are pushing you to sprint, also had to start at the VERY beginning. So take a moment, relax, and start with a To-Do list.
And that still, to this day, continues to work for me.
So as I continue to work with this new start-up client of mine, taking things one step at a time and bringing focus back to the key list of things that need to be done – is how he will overcome the nerves, the competition, and most of all, become the business that he is destined to be.
Armchair politicians: those who believe they can put things right in the world – from the comfort the anonymous dim haze of a computer monitor.
Also defined as: Social Media Rant-Mongers (and admit it… we’ve all done it!)
We rant… and more often than not, we keep it “not really aimed at anyone in particular” but laden it with a huge spoonful of “you know who you are”…. (even if they are not your Facebook friend / Twitter follower / LinkedIn contact.
We moan, because
So inevitably, we rant at those who DO want to be our friends, who DO want to hear what we have to say, who DO already support us (generally). What good is that at all?
I received an email a little while back, which made me chuckle. The intention of the email was to have a moan about a situation that has become quite a hot topic for one of our customers. The email was not constructive, nor was it unbiased. It was simply a good-old-fashioned-I’ll-stand-up-for-what-I-believe-in-but-not-too-much-in-case-someone-objects moan. The subject of the email was in a question format, however, it was delivered as rhetorical, and ending with a sentence that starts with the words, “I just don’t see…”. (We all love those).
What made me chuckle is that the sender did not, by any means, want to be associated with the content of the mail, nor did they want their name to be mentioned anywhere.
I have to ask – what good is an objection if you are not willing to:
Does the fact that you portray yourself as a moaner MAKE me want to get involved with your cause and join you in your fight, or does it merely just make me roll my eyes, and hit the big red X in the top right hand corner of my screen?
The reality is, many of us (and I include myself) have become experts at tv-watching, armchair-straddling, political council-ling. When the going gets tough, there are VERY few of us who will actually have the courage to stand up for our convictions, and roll our sleeves up to get involved with that which will help to improve the apparent dire situation. We appear to choose our moan-audience so well – as they are always there with an ear, and an equal moan.
How about you flip the situation. Next time, when you catch yourself with a moan and a grumble on the tip of your tongue, why not ask yourself the very simple, and succinct question, “What can I (or my business) do to help the situation?”. Strangely enough, when you ask THAT question, you’ll be pleased to discover that there are a whole bunch of us who (surprisingly) share your positive take – and are willing to be your action-audience.
No greater marketing excitement is watching the progression of an idea become a reality.
As you may know, Fresh Brew has been involved in developing a local Beaminster community website in the Dorset region. Subsequent to some hiccups which have resulted in local businesses feeling the pinch even more so, a team of people have grouped together to see what we can do to raise awareness of what we HAVE, as opposed to focus on what we have lost. As a result, the Beaminster Community Website was born.
Following in the footsteps of numerous other campaigns, the idea behind the website was to serve as an information portal which provided information not only to the local residents of the town, but to all visitors who were looking for places to see, places to eat, things to do, places to stay etc.
As the months have passed, the website has grown even more – with so many new avenues taking shape within the site. With a marketing cap on, we’ve been so excited to see how the website has moved from being non-existent in Google searches…. to appearing on page 4 … to moving up (s.l.o.w.l.y) towards page 2… and then finally, hitting page 1!
Our big challenge now, is to keep the content going – keep it updated – so that the Beaminster listing will move from number 4 on page 1, to number 1.
People underestimate the power of Content. Of a decent content strategy. In this case, as many of us were doing as a sideline to our 9-5 jobs… it was critical for us to have a clear game-plan about how we wanted to tackle this project. We wanted to keep it credible, but we also didn’t want to take something on that would soon, like many other “community” projects, appear outdated, tired and simply incorrect. The answer was to divide up all tasks to those who were already running similar channels of work / information. And it was only in doing that, that we, as a team, have been able to make this work.
The website continues to gather momentum. Our daily unique user number has risen from 9, to 45 on average, and has started to hit the 65 user mark. These are unique (NEW) users – not returning visitors.
For something that was non-existent before November 2012, I’d say that getting the site up and running, contributed to on a regular basis, and being recognised as a reputable source of information – all within 6 months – is not bad going at all.
I drive home to pick up a few things and go through the mental list of things I need to sort out in the hour break I have between meetings.
I am blessed. I live and work in one of the most beautiful parts of England. The rolling green hills and hedges guide my little Terios, adorned with South African memorabilia, to it’s next destination – Larcombes – to have a key cut, The Pharmacy – to pick up a prescription the doc has left there for us, and a quick nosey at what Lynette in the local patisserie has on her lunchtime nibbles counter.
I drive off with a home-made sausage role and a coeur d’amande – it seems perfect for this thunder-showery Friday.
It used to be often that I long for a past life of corporate structure, visionary product plans and extensive review meetings, but these occurrences are being slowly overshadowed by the joys of small-town living, countryside delving, and the thought of a forage for some wild garlic this evening to serve with the salmon.
This is Beaminster.
And it is great.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Beaminster launches brand new community website
Beaminster, 16 March 2013
Beaminster businesses and residents are proud to announce the launch of a brand new community website. After a year of challenges within the community, a group of businesses and residents grouped together to launch ideas that would promote Beaminster as the idyllic place to visit as well as promote the local services and suppliers to local residents.
With the first launch of the Be Local, Buy Local, Buy in Beaminster campaign, all businesses in Beaminster were encouraged to get involved in a promotion of the town’s services and supplies and the awareness of all that the town offers. All businesses were encouraged to put the Be Local, Buy Local posters in shop windows and a social media campaign was launched.
Following on from the success of the campaign launch, the group then got together to develop the town’s first community website. Recognising the need to have a central portal which local residents and businesses, as well as visitors, could access in order to obtain useful information about the history of the town, the businesses, events, town news, important links to other key organisations such as the Beaminster & District Business Chamber, the Beaminster Town Council and the Yarn Barton Centre.
The Beaminster Community Website also provides access to places to eat, drink and stay as well as various campaigns running throughout the town which people can become more involved in.
The launch of the website will be done mainly via Social Media, as well as via press and community notice boards. The Beaminster Community Website can be found at www.beaminster.net.