Work work work work...
Philmophlegm and I have been working like blue-arsed flies lately: hence rather less posting than normal. We decided that rather than move house, or end up with Pp having to take a job that he didn't really want that would pay not very much, we would try and make my business, which has been bumping along for a good few years now as a one-person business with occasional help from freelancers, into a two-person business.
This has meant adding on a bunch of services that Pp can do rather than me (mostly business development) and Pp training up in some extra Google services, so we can now advertise ourselves as Google Adwords certified partners!
It's a bit scary that both of us are entirely depending on the business now - but after all, I've been doing it for 11 years now, it really should be possible to scale it up a bit. We've joined a local trade group (Tamar Valley Tourism) and we did a free workshop for them on Tuesday, as a means of getting the name a bit more widely known locally. We've also joined the Federation of Small Businesses - an organisation that always makes me think of these guys :
I am quite dubious about the FSB, but I'm not yet sure if it's just because I am worried they may be in league with the Sith. We're looking at Chambers of Commerce too. They are probably less likely to tend to the Dark Side, I hope.
Our website was a classic case of cobbler's children having no shoes, having not been significantly updated for many years - so we had to completely revamp that. It's still not perfect, but it is at least a bit more 2013 than 2003 now, and does a better job of explaining what we do, although it could still use more work, of course!
If anyone reading this has a few minutes and would be prepared to take a quick look and let me know your immediate impressions - whether indifferent, bad, or good - it's here:
http://www.clareassoc.co.uk/ I'd really like to know if you spot anything that would make you think 'hmm, not sure about hiring these people!' (I mean, I may not agree with you. But I'd really, really like to know.)
This has meant adding on a bunch of services that Pp can do rather than me (mostly business development) and Pp training up in some extra Google services, so we can now advertise ourselves as Google Adwords certified partners!
It's a bit scary that both of us are entirely depending on the business now - but after all, I've been doing it for 11 years now, it really should be possible to scale it up a bit. We've joined a local trade group (Tamar Valley Tourism) and we did a free workshop for them on Tuesday, as a means of getting the name a bit more widely known locally. We've also joined the Federation of Small Businesses - an organisation that always makes me think of these guys :
I am quite dubious about the FSB, but I'm not yet sure if it's just because I am worried they may be in league with the Sith. We're looking at Chambers of Commerce too. They are probably less likely to tend to the Dark Side, I hope.
Our website was a classic case of cobbler's children having no shoes, having not been significantly updated for many years - so we had to completely revamp that. It's still not perfect, but it is at least a bit more 2013 than 2003 now, and does a better job of explaining what we do, although it could still use more work, of course!
If anyone reading this has a few minutes and would be prepared to take a quick look and let me know your immediate impressions - whether indifferent, bad, or good - it's here:
http://www.clareassoc.co.uk/ I'd really like to know if you spot anything that would make you think 'hmm, not sure about hiring these people!' (I mean, I may not agree with you. But I'd really, really like to know.)