I can spill the beans about this great big strategic idea of mine now, because we’ve decided to abandon it, after realising that we really had to focus on our core product offering and the launch of the site.
We’d found out that there was a company for sale in a related field to ours, selling software to childcare organisations. It had gone into liquidation, so obviously wasn’t in a good state. However the software itself really appealed to us, plus the skills and contacts of the former directors, who may have been willing to be involved with the handover.
I felt that the pricing of the software, and the business strategy in general, was completely wrong. The former directors had their hands tied a bit due to having to recoup their overheads and costs of development, so if we could start with a clean slate, I was sure we’d be able to use this software, and the customer base, to develop our own company aswell.
The synergies were fantastic, and in theory it would have made an ideal acquisition for us. However, after spending the last few weeks on this, I think it’s still going to take quite a bit of time investment from us, which is all time away from developing the site and our existing business, so we’ve decided to walk away.
The timing of this was just awful for us. The bank are bound to be nervous that we haven’t even started trading yet, so are going to be reluctant to lend us further funds to purchase any further assets, and whilst there are potentially other ways to finance the deal, at the end of the day you’ve got to admit that the bank have every right to be nervous. And much as it pains me in a way, I’ve got to walk away from this one.
My background is corporate finance, and I’ve assisted countless companies to buy businesses, so the process itself doesn’t worry me at all, in fact it’s quite exciting! It’s generally accepted that there’s always a higher risk of acquisitive growth than organic growth. ie buying a company to grow your business quickly, rather than just waiting for the natural, but usually much slower, growth of your own businesses. However as long as you do thorough due diligence, investigating all the risks, financial, commercial, operational, legal etc, then you can make a judgment about whether you are willing to take those risks. But you need to be able to make an informed judgment with as much knowledge as you can get.
Our risks were mainly operational & commercial. I was fairly confident that my financial projections were achievable, based on the existing customer base, and my (albeit limited) research of their market and reputation. The legal due diligence would have been taken care of by Nick (our lawyer), and if we couldn’t prove title, trademarks etc, then the deal would never have happened anyway. So that didn’t concern me either. Our biggest worry and risk was the investment of management time, both during the acquisition process itself and after we’d bought the assets. The knowledge gap was considerable, and we’d have needed my time, Ross’s time and Lee’s time to understand the software/technology and the market and customers. This market, whilst it still has huge potential for growth, is governed by legislation and public policy that I’ve never had to get to grips with before. So these would all be key areas for us to spend time on.
After tracking down the liquidator, we made the initial approach, and found that they had appointed a sales agent, who duly forwarded the information pack. After a few questions back and forth, we then took part in a conference call two weeks ago with the liquidators, the sales agent and one of the former directors, and were generally quite happy at that point. So we put together a business plan and made a conditional offer.
Our conditions were the usual ones, subject to raising sufficient finance and satisfactory completion of all due diligence. However we added in one more condition, which concerned the involvement of the former directors. They had said they were willing to be involved on a consultancy basis to assist with handover, however I was insistent that if the acquisition went ahead, it had to be as part of some sort of partnership with the former directors. I didn’t want them to be involved as a temporary measure.
In my view, we needed them on board permanently, taking responsibility for running and developing that division, reporting in to the main board. I’d hoped they would be keen, as they wouldn’t have to walk away from something they’d spend years of their lives developing, and yet wouldn’t have the full responsibility of running a business. This was the only way we would have reduced the largest risk that we’d identified.
I’d based our offer on just one year’s worth of earnings (ie profits). Businesses are normally valued on a multiple of earnings, so if you offer 4 times earnings, you are effectively saying you are prepared to wait for 4 years before you get your investment back. Because of the risk associated with the insolvency, and therefore the potential damage to the brand with both its existing customers and the wider market, I wasn’t prepared to wait any longer than 12 months. Also, due to both the technological nature of the product, and the legislative nature of the sector, I didn’t want to assume that we’d be able to use this product in its current state for longer than one year either. Ideally we wanted to bring it online, linked to our website, but after Lee had a conference call with the company’s IT contractor, it became obvious that this wasn’t going to be a simple process. We’d have to invest further considerable time and money to develop this product for the web, so it then becomes another investment decision.
The sales agent informed us that our offer was ‘sound and not unreasonable’, however the deadline for accepting offers was extended several times, as he was waiting for a further offer, from a ‘late entrant’. This meant that it was getting closer and closer to our planned launch date, and it began to concern me that the process itself was just going to drag on and so distract us from other things we could be doing to develop and promote our own business.
Plus the fact, the directors did not appear to want to be involved in any form of partnership or permanent position, and whilst we may have managed to negotiate something that suited everyone, it wasn’t going to be a quick process. We certainly needed to meet with them face to face to discuss this, and that meeting didn’t appear to be being progressed by the sales agent. I guess he was waiting to see whether our offer was the strongest before trying to organise that, and instead he wanted us to clarify what role we wanted the directors to undertake, so he could try and negotiate between us and the directors, and therefore assess the strength of our offer.
This just wasn’t something I was prepared to do by email, it needs to be a round-table discussion. I think things can be explained much better face to face, and you can more understand someone’s viewpoint, emotions and wishes if you can see their face, body language and generally start to build a relationship with them. Email is fantastic for many things, but negotiating an emotive deal which is based upon personal issues, is not one of them. So we found ourselves in a ‘catch 22’ situation.
After a few hours of mulling this over, I rang Ross and we agreed we’d withdraw our offer. So I sent the email to the sales agent on Tuesday, and haven’t heard anything since! Perhaps the offer from the other interested party arrived and was better than ours, so we’d have had to walk away anyhow. That’s fine, because I was very sure of what I was prepared to pay for this, and I wasn’t going to be persuaded to pay anymore. Good luck to someone if their business model shows they can pay more. I wasn’t prepared to risk it.
Maybe we’ll hear next week, because we’ve offered a much lower amount for just one of the software products, that we can easily use on our site. If the sales agent doesn’t sell all the assets to one purchaser, he said he would sell them individually, so we may still be in the running for this one.
So, back to our own business. What’s happened this week then? Well lots of planning for the exhibition in March. Ross and I had a meeting on Saturday and now I feel much happier that we are organised. We’ve got to things I hadn’t even thought about initially, such as writing a health & safety policy for the stand and training our team, obtaining public liability insurance, getting all our equipment PAT tested for electrical safety etc etc. Ross is planning the layout and design of the stand. And I’m doing the admin stuff. Plus we had a trip over on Sunday to check out some hotels, and find the venue itself.
Looks like most of our team will be there on at least one of the days. So it’ll be great for everyone to meet each other. Everyone’s met me, some have met Ross, but that’s it! So it’ll be an ideal opportunity to get together. Plus, we have a new Regional Manager for Liverpool & North Wales (which includes Chester and Warrington too). She’s called Mel, and she’s got a 19 month old son and lives near Warrington. She came along to one of our preview evenings, and liked what she saw so much, that she said she may like to be involved. Perfect! So I trained her yesterday, and now she’s ready to start!
After our meeting with Lee’s designers last week, we met at their offices on Tuesday morning to have a look at their concept, with a mock-up of the home page. I have to say it’s fab! We discussed a few things on it, made the odd change, but now we’re there! I was insistent that it still had to be a calm site, ie not too busy or difficult to navigate. And they’ve managed to do that, whilst making the look much more modern and eye-catching. Have a look at our new logo on www.entertainthekids.com . It’s just a bit brighter and bolder than the earlier one. They’re now working on the programming itself, so hopefully we’ll have some parts of the new site to look at next week.
Our two journalist students have both written their first articles for us, and are now doing a bit of research for us.
And that’s about it! It’s certainly never dull around here!
Kirsty
entertainthekids.com
24 February 2006
17 February 2006
The thing I’ve been dreading
Remember last week how I said that we were going to launch with version 1, and gradually rebuild the site? Well, it’s amazing how much can change in a week!
It was ‘cards on the table’ time yesterday, when Lee told us we really need to rebuild it now. And I agree it’s ridiculous trying to manage with something that is just causing his team too many inefficiencies to develop, it’s just a complete waste of time. And so we’ve bitten the bullet, and yesterday we decided we’d overhaul the site before we launch, and yes, you’ve guessed it, the launch date is no longer 1 March!
However, it’s absolutely, definitely, without a doubt, going to be Monday 13 March, so we’ve only slipped a few days. I’d always said ‘March’ launch date, but was hoping it would be very early March. Partly because I suppose I was kind of expecting something to happen, and wanted to give us plenty of leeway just in case. I’ve seen it so many times with businesses, whether they’re technological or not, that planned timetables nearly always end up moving a bit. But I’m having nightmares about “Boo!” Do you remember that fashion retail website that was so hyped up in the early dot com days, apparently the launch date got moved so many times and it was months and months late by the time they’d launched. However, their budget of £ms is hardly the same situation that we’re in now, but still it does keep cropping up in the back of my mind.
We have set a March 13th deadline, which is going to be very tight now, because that’s the start of the TOAST awareness week that we’re supporting and also the week of the Harrogate Bambinos exhibition. So there’s no way at all that we can’t be live by then!
It does give us a couple more weeks of time to enter more fantastic content though, so that’s an advantage. And we’ve secured the services of a couple of journalist students to help us with this. They’re going to be doing a mix of researching, entering content and writing press releases. So it’s excellent experience and exposure for them too.
Our beta testers are now testing the site and completing our questionnaires. They’re coming back with some really useful comments, lots and lots of positive things too, which really keeps our spirits up. I think they’re going to be so useful to us, to road-test the site as we continue to develop it.
We had a great meeting with the Princess Royal Trust for Carers this week at their Northern office, and it looks all positive for a charity partnership with them. It will work in their favour too, that we have delayed launch for a couple of days, because it will give them more time to get the proposal through their internal structures. If they could be on board with us right from launch, it would be excellent.
My big strategic idea (see diaries end Jan/early Feb) is still rumbling along…and it took a very interesting turn for the better this week, but that’s still not resolved one way or the other, so I’m not spilling the beans just yet! Hopefully more news about this next week. I think its time for me to write a new team newsletter too. The team has changed so much since the last one at New Year, amazingly only about 7 weeks ago, because a massive amount has happened in between. As we’ve lots of new team members it’d just be useful to start communicating with them a bit more effectively, and the newsletter is one way of doing it in a lighthearted but thorough way, making sure you get all the information out to everyone. It’d be good to issue one just before launch (ie now!), and then one just after we launch. Another thing for my task list.
But for now, it’s Friday morning and Luke has been great occupying himself for the last couple of hours, so I’m off to give him a bit of attention. Then probably a quick trip to the shops is called for, or I’m in danger of becoming Old Mother Hubbard!
Kirsty
It was ‘cards on the table’ time yesterday, when Lee told us we really need to rebuild it now. And I agree it’s ridiculous trying to manage with something that is just causing his team too many inefficiencies to develop, it’s just a complete waste of time. And so we’ve bitten the bullet, and yesterday we decided we’d overhaul the site before we launch, and yes, you’ve guessed it, the launch date is no longer 1 March!
However, it’s absolutely, definitely, without a doubt, going to be Monday 13 March, so we’ve only slipped a few days. I’d always said ‘March’ launch date, but was hoping it would be very early March. Partly because I suppose I was kind of expecting something to happen, and wanted to give us plenty of leeway just in case. I’ve seen it so many times with businesses, whether they’re technological or not, that planned timetables nearly always end up moving a bit. But I’m having nightmares about “Boo!” Do you remember that fashion retail website that was so hyped up in the early dot com days, apparently the launch date got moved so many times and it was months and months late by the time they’d launched. However, their budget of £ms is hardly the same situation that we’re in now, but still it does keep cropping up in the back of my mind.
We have set a March 13th deadline, which is going to be very tight now, because that’s the start of the TOAST awareness week that we’re supporting and also the week of the Harrogate Bambinos exhibition. So there’s no way at all that we can’t be live by then!
It does give us a couple more weeks of time to enter more fantastic content though, so that’s an advantage. And we’ve secured the services of a couple of journalist students to help us with this. They’re going to be doing a mix of researching, entering content and writing press releases. So it’s excellent experience and exposure for them too.
Our beta testers are now testing the site and completing our questionnaires. They’re coming back with some really useful comments, lots and lots of positive things too, which really keeps our spirits up. I think they’re going to be so useful to us, to road-test the site as we continue to develop it.
We had a great meeting with the Princess Royal Trust for Carers this week at their Northern office, and it looks all positive for a charity partnership with them. It will work in their favour too, that we have delayed launch for a couple of days, because it will give them more time to get the proposal through their internal structures. If they could be on board with us right from launch, it would be excellent.
My big strategic idea (see diaries end Jan/early Feb) is still rumbling along…and it took a very interesting turn for the better this week, but that’s still not resolved one way or the other, so I’m not spilling the beans just yet! Hopefully more news about this next week. I think its time for me to write a new team newsletter too. The team has changed so much since the last one at New Year, amazingly only about 7 weeks ago, because a massive amount has happened in between. As we’ve lots of new team members it’d just be useful to start communicating with them a bit more effectively, and the newsletter is one way of doing it in a lighthearted but thorough way, making sure you get all the information out to everyone. It’d be good to issue one just before launch (ie now!), and then one just after we launch. Another thing for my task list.
But for now, it’s Friday morning and Luke has been great occupying himself for the last couple of hours, so I’m off to give him a bit of attention. Then probably a quick trip to the shops is called for, or I’m in danger of becoming Old Mother Hubbard!
Kirsty
10 February 2006
Oh heck - we need a complete redesign!
Not exactly the news you want to hear from your webdesigner (& Chief Technology Officer), just weeks away from the launch of your website.
I think I just laughed!
We met Lee yesterday for an update, and he explained the situation…
One member of his team has spent the last 3 weeks trying to make the last few amends on the site before we launch, pretty much working full time. This work has taken ages because they didn’t design the site in the first place, and there’s certain approaches they use to build websites, design the coding and generally just lay things out, that haven’t been followed by the previous designer/ programmer.
So it’s causing them no end of headache to even make small changes on the site.
There’s nothing else for it, but to completely rebuild the site from scratch. In the long run, this will make much more sense, as we’ll be able to add functions and content to it much easier and quicker in the future.
However, there’s no way I’m delaying the launch now. We’ve done too much, have a great site from a member’s point of view (albeit a bit of a nightmare to work with for our programmers), and we’ll gain nothing by delaying the launch for another month. Plus the fact we’ve got too many promotional events lined up for March now, which will be completely wasted if we’re not live.
So we’re going ahead with the current site, as version 1. And we’ll just rebuild and redesign the ‘back-end’ much quicker than we originally thought we would need to. It will also give us the opportunity to ask our members what else they’d like to see in version 2.
The focus groups thought the site looked great, had superb content and was unbelieveably good value, so I want to get it out there as soon as possible. I had a comment from a reader of my diary the other day that said “The site is everything that a mother will need. I am sure that you know that”. She’s from Luton, and so now we’re talking to her about becoming our Regional Manager for Herts/Beds/Essex – I like enthusiastic people! We also had an email just wishing us luck, from someone who has recently set up their own business, so good luck to Payroll Excel too!
So now over the next day I need to go through the changes that have been made, and check for any bugs/misunderstandings etc.
I finally got to meet up with Wendy, our Travel Editor on Monday evening in London. Had a lovely evening, and I think we’ve really got some good ideas to progress in the next few weeks. She’s sorted out quite a few holidays for her team to review over the next couple of months. We’re trying to get a good spread, in the South, the North and Scotland, Wales and Ireland aswell. Also a mix of hotels, leisure parks, city breaks and seaside holidays.
We finally made a decision about which baby show we are going exhibit at. And we went with the larger one, Bambinos in Harrogate, North Yorkshire on 18/19 March. It’s going to attract over 5,000 visitors, so should be a great opportunity to meet customers face to face! (www.ottimoevents.com)
So now we’re into the realm of planning the stand, and I’ve approached a local college to see if any graphic design students want to design some posters for us as work experience. Another completely new area for me!
We are having a prize draw competition for anyone who becomes a member over the weekend. And so far we’ve already got offers of prizes from DIG (a new attraction in York), some books/DVDs from Magic Wanda, and we’re hoping to get a family holiday and some baby toys aswell! Any offers, please email!!
Also met the Charity Director of TOAST this week, and have agreed that we are going to support their National Obesity Awareness Week in March, to encourage parents to get their kids more active, and away from the TV/computer/games console. There’s a real lack of practical advice out there, and our site can just provide tons of ideas for parents. Hopefully our joint approach will mean we’ll get some extra publicity. We’re also going to be featured on their website every month. We’re collecting a few publications now where we are going to provide regular columns.
OK, off to the library now with Luke to take his books back! Could really do with him having another day in nursery (he’s back to just 2 days a week) because I’ve got so much to do at the moment. But I’m just going to have to organise myself a bit better (and work every evening possible when Gregg’s home!) because he’s getting a bit clingy and I think he needs me around a bit more. Now where are those books.....?
Kirsty
I think I just laughed!
We met Lee yesterday for an update, and he explained the situation…
One member of his team has spent the last 3 weeks trying to make the last few amends on the site before we launch, pretty much working full time. This work has taken ages because they didn’t design the site in the first place, and there’s certain approaches they use to build websites, design the coding and generally just lay things out, that haven’t been followed by the previous designer/ programmer.
So it’s causing them no end of headache to even make small changes on the site.
There’s nothing else for it, but to completely rebuild the site from scratch. In the long run, this will make much more sense, as we’ll be able to add functions and content to it much easier and quicker in the future.
However, there’s no way I’m delaying the launch now. We’ve done too much, have a great site from a member’s point of view (albeit a bit of a nightmare to work with for our programmers), and we’ll gain nothing by delaying the launch for another month. Plus the fact we’ve got too many promotional events lined up for March now, which will be completely wasted if we’re not live.
So we’re going ahead with the current site, as version 1. And we’ll just rebuild and redesign the ‘back-end’ much quicker than we originally thought we would need to. It will also give us the opportunity to ask our members what else they’d like to see in version 2.
The focus groups thought the site looked great, had superb content and was unbelieveably good value, so I want to get it out there as soon as possible. I had a comment from a reader of my diary the other day that said “The site is everything that a mother will need. I am sure that you know that”. She’s from Luton, and so now we’re talking to her about becoming our Regional Manager for Herts/Beds/Essex – I like enthusiastic people! We also had an email just wishing us luck, from someone who has recently set up their own business, so good luck to Payroll Excel too!
So now over the next day I need to go through the changes that have been made, and check for any bugs/misunderstandings etc.
I finally got to meet up with Wendy, our Travel Editor on Monday evening in London. Had a lovely evening, and I think we’ve really got some good ideas to progress in the next few weeks. She’s sorted out quite a few holidays for her team to review over the next couple of months. We’re trying to get a good spread, in the South, the North and Scotland, Wales and Ireland aswell. Also a mix of hotels, leisure parks, city breaks and seaside holidays.
We finally made a decision about which baby show we are going exhibit at. And we went with the larger one, Bambinos in Harrogate, North Yorkshire on 18/19 March. It’s going to attract over 5,000 visitors, so should be a great opportunity to meet customers face to face! (www.ottimoevents.com)
So now we’re into the realm of planning the stand, and I’ve approached a local college to see if any graphic design students want to design some posters for us as work experience. Another completely new area for me!
We are having a prize draw competition for anyone who becomes a member over the weekend. And so far we’ve already got offers of prizes from DIG (a new attraction in York), some books/DVDs from Magic Wanda, and we’re hoping to get a family holiday and some baby toys aswell! Any offers, please email!!
Also met the Charity Director of TOAST this week, and have agreed that we are going to support their National Obesity Awareness Week in March, to encourage parents to get their kids more active, and away from the TV/computer/games console. There’s a real lack of practical advice out there, and our site can just provide tons of ideas for parents. Hopefully our joint approach will mean we’ll get some extra publicity. We’re also going to be featured on their website every month. We’re collecting a few publications now where we are going to provide regular columns.
OK, off to the library now with Luke to take his books back! Could really do with him having another day in nursery (he’s back to just 2 days a week) because I’ve got so much to do at the moment. But I’m just going to have to organise myself a bit better (and work every evening possible when Gregg’s home!) because he’s getting a bit clingy and I think he needs me around a bit more. Now where are those books.....?
Kirsty
Less than 4 weeks to go!
(written on Friday 3 Feb)
Oh heck, it’s February. The last month we aren’t yet live (is that English?)
We had the last three preview evenings this week, and again had a superb response. Some really good feedback, lots of ideas, some great contacts, and even an offer from an investor! - which we haven’t pursued by the way – yet!
We may have to rewrite the planned rollout programme, because it looks like we have identified some potentially great regional managers in regions we weren’t planning on launching yet. That was always a possibility, and ideally I’d rollout the local information to the whole of the UK immediately, but that would bring with it other challenges. Such as:
- Information systems. We need to know exactly how to keep the information current, where to get it from and how to be as efficient as possible when organising it and ourselves. We can’t offer up a near-perfect system to a new regional manager until we’ve experienced it ourselves, hands-on, in the Greater Manchester region at least. So that’s a work in progress, and can’t be rushed.
- Managing teams. If we have another 20 people on our team, we will need to ensure we have sorted all the training, motivational and operational issues. We’re not there yet, simply because it’s not been a priority so far, and is something that needs planning strategically. The regional managers are such a key part of our business that I want to make sure I get the right people, and that they absolutely love being a part of this. This isn’t trial and error, it’s got to be right first time.
- PR. To promote the site thoroughly around the media in each of our regions would be very time consuming. I’m realizing that just to manage the national publicity campaign and try to focus on Greater Manchester aswell is proving challenging. It’s taking up a large proportion of my time at the moment. So to attempt all regions at once would mean we wouldn’t achieve the best results for any region. You only launch a region once, so we need to make the most of it every time.
So today (Friday) I’m meeting with Lee to discuss the way forward. We’ve a lot of ideas from the preview evenings, and we need to see what’s possible from a technical and time perspective.
We’re no closer to deciding which show we are going to exhibit at in March. We have a preference now though, but it all comes down to cashflow. There’s potentially some extra cash coming our way (not from an investor!) and if that happens then we’ll be laughing. But we won’t know for another week or so yet. So the decision’s still on hold for the time being.
In terms of my big strategic idea I mentioned in the last diary entry, I have made some progress. My problem was that I wasn’t an expert in the area concerned, and I needed to get some advice from someone who was. So I’ve used my local contacts in Manchester at one of the world’s largest consultancy firms, to get to the right person in London, who in turn has directed me to a member of his team who specialises in this area. She’s now making some of her own enquiries, to see if there’s any mileage in my idea, and we should hear back from her next week. Having been a professional advisor myself, I’ve met many people who have suffered for not getting the right advice (not mine, I hasten to add!), and wherever possible you should always use people who are experts in their field. So hopefully we’ll get an answer either way quite soon, and we won’t be wasting our time ‘going around the houses’ if it’s a non-starter.
We’ve been looking for a ‘charity of the year’ to support. We particularly wanted to support a young carers charity to provide respite care for those children who can’t do normal kids’ things, because they have other responsibilities most of the time. Occasionally they get some respite, where someone else takes over their responsibilities for a while, so they can go and enjoy some leisure activities or a holiday, just like ‘normal’ kids do.
It’s something I feel quite passionate about. I’ve always done some sort of voluntary work, ever since I was 13. I think that whenever you have an opportunity to give something back, you should do so. I’m a firm believer in ‘What goes around, comes around!’ There’s a few ways we think we can help raise funds and we met a PR consultant for the Princess Royal Trust for Carers last week, and have now arranged to meet the trust themselves at their North West regional office. The meeting’s in mid-February, so hopefully we can pursue this quite quickly afterwards, because I’d love it to be all in place by launch. They specialise in supporting carers, and have many young carers projects around the country, so it seems an ideal match for us.
We’ve now started requesting information about family & children’s events/exhibitions/activities for March onwards, and have been added to quite a few PR company’s mailing lists if they have appropriate clients. This is by far the easiest and quickest way for us to keep our content updated, but not every venue has a PR company, so we’re going to still have to sort out our system for obtaining all the information and keeping it current. Finalising and refining our system for this is the subject of this weekend’s management meeting!
By the way, if you know any leisure venues/attractions etc, please also add me onto their mailing lists kirsty@entertainthekids.com
Wow – it’s picking up apace now!
I’m not sure this diary writing and reviewing events is therapeutic or if it’s just plain terrifying me!
Kirsty
Oh heck, it’s February. The last month we aren’t yet live (is that English?)
We had the last three preview evenings this week, and again had a superb response. Some really good feedback, lots of ideas, some great contacts, and even an offer from an investor! - which we haven’t pursued by the way – yet!
We may have to rewrite the planned rollout programme, because it looks like we have identified some potentially great regional managers in regions we weren’t planning on launching yet. That was always a possibility, and ideally I’d rollout the local information to the whole of the UK immediately, but that would bring with it other challenges. Such as:
- Information systems. We need to know exactly how to keep the information current, where to get it from and how to be as efficient as possible when organising it and ourselves. We can’t offer up a near-perfect system to a new regional manager until we’ve experienced it ourselves, hands-on, in the Greater Manchester region at least. So that’s a work in progress, and can’t be rushed.
- Managing teams. If we have another 20 people on our team, we will need to ensure we have sorted all the training, motivational and operational issues. We’re not there yet, simply because it’s not been a priority so far, and is something that needs planning strategically. The regional managers are such a key part of our business that I want to make sure I get the right people, and that they absolutely love being a part of this. This isn’t trial and error, it’s got to be right first time.
- PR. To promote the site thoroughly around the media in each of our regions would be very time consuming. I’m realizing that just to manage the national publicity campaign and try to focus on Greater Manchester aswell is proving challenging. It’s taking up a large proportion of my time at the moment. So to attempt all regions at once would mean we wouldn’t achieve the best results for any region. You only launch a region once, so we need to make the most of it every time.
So today (Friday) I’m meeting with Lee to discuss the way forward. We’ve a lot of ideas from the preview evenings, and we need to see what’s possible from a technical and time perspective.
We’re no closer to deciding which show we are going to exhibit at in March. We have a preference now though, but it all comes down to cashflow. There’s potentially some extra cash coming our way (not from an investor!) and if that happens then we’ll be laughing. But we won’t know for another week or so yet. So the decision’s still on hold for the time being.
In terms of my big strategic idea I mentioned in the last diary entry, I have made some progress. My problem was that I wasn’t an expert in the area concerned, and I needed to get some advice from someone who was. So I’ve used my local contacts in Manchester at one of the world’s largest consultancy firms, to get to the right person in London, who in turn has directed me to a member of his team who specialises in this area. She’s now making some of her own enquiries, to see if there’s any mileage in my idea, and we should hear back from her next week. Having been a professional advisor myself, I’ve met many people who have suffered for not getting the right advice (not mine, I hasten to add!), and wherever possible you should always use people who are experts in their field. So hopefully we’ll get an answer either way quite soon, and we won’t be wasting our time ‘going around the houses’ if it’s a non-starter.
We’ve been looking for a ‘charity of the year’ to support. We particularly wanted to support a young carers charity to provide respite care for those children who can’t do normal kids’ things, because they have other responsibilities most of the time. Occasionally they get some respite, where someone else takes over their responsibilities for a while, so they can go and enjoy some leisure activities or a holiday, just like ‘normal’ kids do.
It’s something I feel quite passionate about. I’ve always done some sort of voluntary work, ever since I was 13. I think that whenever you have an opportunity to give something back, you should do so. I’m a firm believer in ‘What goes around, comes around!’ There’s a few ways we think we can help raise funds and we met a PR consultant for the Princess Royal Trust for Carers last week, and have now arranged to meet the trust themselves at their North West regional office. The meeting’s in mid-February, so hopefully we can pursue this quite quickly afterwards, because I’d love it to be all in place by launch. They specialise in supporting carers, and have many young carers projects around the country, so it seems an ideal match for us.
We’ve now started requesting information about family & children’s events/exhibitions/activities for March onwards, and have been added to quite a few PR company’s mailing lists if they have appropriate clients. This is by far the easiest and quickest way for us to keep our content updated, but not every venue has a PR company, so we’re going to still have to sort out our system for obtaining all the information and keeping it current. Finalising and refining our system for this is the subject of this weekend’s management meeting!
By the way, if you know any leisure venues/attractions etc, please also add me onto their mailing lists kirsty@entertainthekids.com
Wow – it’s picking up apace now!
I’m not sure this diary writing and reviewing events is therapeutic or if it’s just plain terrifying me!
Kirsty
02 February 2006
entertainthekids.com sets parents a challenge!
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION
entertainthekids.com is delighted to suggest a range of activities, for parents to entertain their children this half-term, no matter what the weather or the budget constraints. The challenge……to ensure no-one ever hears the strains of “I’m bored!”, or the endless beep of the X-box!
“There is a phenomenal range of activities and events available for children and parents this half term.” said Kirsty McGregor, co-founder of entertainthekids.com. “The hardest thing for parents is getting hold of this information, in a relevant form, from just one point of reference. There are so many places to find listings of events that it can take hours to actually find something useful for your child’s age, location and your budget. And not everyone can afford, or would choose, to visit a major theme park everyday”. entertainthekids.com is a new concept, as it will provide this one-stop-shop for parents, simply providing them with loads of inspiration. But until it actually launches in March, Kirsty has suggested some ideas from their website to make this half-term holiday a ‘walk in the park’!
Museums
Don’t just assume museums are dreary, dark and dusty places. Most have special workshops or tours for children in the school holidays. For example:
entertainthekids.com is delighted to suggest a range of activities, for parents to entertain their children this half-term, no matter what the weather or the budget constraints. The challenge……to ensure no-one ever hears the strains of “I’m bored!”, or the endless beep of the X-box!
“There is a phenomenal range of activities and events available for children and parents this half term.” said Kirsty McGregor, co-founder of entertainthekids.com. “The hardest thing for parents is getting hold of this information, in a relevant form, from just one point of reference. There are so many places to find listings of events that it can take hours to actually find something useful for your child’s age, location and your budget. And not everyone can afford, or would choose, to visit a major theme park everyday”. entertainthekids.com is a new concept, as it will provide this one-stop-shop for parents, simply providing them with loads of inspiration. But until it actually launches in March, Kirsty has suggested some ideas from their website to make this half-term holiday a ‘walk in the park’!
Museums
Don’t just assume museums are dreary, dark and dusty places. Most have special workshops or tours for children in the school holidays. For example:
- The Hat Works Museum in Stockport, Cheshire is providing a jewellery workshop for kids every day during half term, where for £3.00 boys and girls can design and make some ‘funky jewellery’ to take home.
- Children under 12 are admitted free to The Scottish Museum of Country Life (adults £4.00), 170 acres of a working farm and museum, situated between Glasgow and East Kilbride. Just like a normal farm, there’s something happening at all times of the year, and you can even take a ride on a tractor trailer up to the Georgian farmhouse.
- At the Pitt Rivers and the University Museum of Natural History in Oxford, every afternoon from 15 - 17 February, there’s magic in the air, looking at magic in the world around us, and magic that people create, plus activities about mythical creatures, witches and even charms that ‘Muggles’ will enjoy! Another free event for children.
The great outdoors
No matter what the weather, kids love getting outside and it’s guaranteed to wear them out! Don’t worry if it’s cold or rainy, dress everyone appropriately in woollies and wellies and get some fresh air away from the central heating. Combine it with a ‘nature walk’ or a ‘scavenger hunt’ or just a ‘silly walks day’, and the children will remember it long after they go back to school.
Inside the house
Tents and tunnels always create a sense of mystery and make-believe and before you know it, a few hours have whizzed past.
Dig out all those empty cardboard boxes left over from Christmas presents, or pop round to your local supermarket and ask them for some they’ve finished with. Open up both ends, and tape them together, crossing them over in places, and to make it even more fun, you could lie materials on the base (bubble wrap, carpets, towels) or hang things from the ‘roof’ such as ribbons, toy spiders, wet gloves and balloons.
Add a couple of chairs with a blanket or sheet thrown over, and you’ve got yourself a scene from a planet in outer space, a battle scene from medieval times, or a maze of secret underground tunnels in a fairytale castle!
Ends
23 January 2006
Notes for editors
entertainthekids.com launches in March 2006, and is a new concept in parenting websites, helping parents & carers find inspiration from the hundreds of ideas on the site, covering arts & crafts, days out (major attractions and very local), games, kids parties, gardening, outside activities, music and lots more. The site will also provide regular reviews of family holidays and suggested activities when travelling with children.
Parents are able to search for exciting activities based upon their child’s age (birth to 11 years old) and their location. The site will also provide lots of inspiration for seasonal activities relevant to the time of year, eg mother’s day crafts, things to do on a windy day, Easter activities etc. It also includes details of sports, children’s pre-school and after school membership organisations & clubs.
To request a complimentary media membership (to be issued end January 06), to review the site, or for further details, please contact Kirsty McGregor at kirsty@entertainthekids.com or telephone 07867 982561.
Kirsty is also offering to redraft the above press release for any regional publication that would prefer some more local events to be listed. Please contact her if this is appropriate.
Announcing our imminent arrival
Written on Friday 27 Jan
I’ve had a real sense this week that we’ve now started telling people that we exist, and what we’re going to be doing. And it’s actually quite nerve-racking.
The thought that, after all that planning, secrecy and decision-making, we are now opening ourselves up for scrutiny, announcing what we’re going to be doing, and then just holding our breath for the reaction.
We’ve had the second week of preview evenings (6 out of 9 now done), and those in themselves have made me feel quite exposed. I’m an experienced trainer, so the nerves don’t get to me because I’m presenting using the PC in front of a group of strangers. It’s more that I’m looking straight at people’s faces when I tell them about our ‘baby’, the thing we think is really fantastic, and I’m imagining they are (or maybe they really are) just sat there thinking “well go on then, show me what you think is so good, try to impress me!” You’ve got to appear really confident, when in actual fact underneath you’re quivering!
Thankfully, they’ve all been, without exception, just so worth our while. We’ve had amazingly positive feedback from all of them, but we’ve also acquired some very useful contacts. Not just for the marketing of our site, but also for the operational side aswell. Although the numbers have been a lot lower than we expected (I booked rooms with capacity of 50, and we’ve had much less than that), but they have been worth every penny of the cost. That’s even without the general profile raising and marketing from the mailings we’ve did with the invitations.
Still 3 more to go, so hopefully we’ll have more feedback and good comments from those too. I’ll report back next week.
Lots of ideas have been generated from the preview evenings, some good, some not really appropriate or not so good. However all have been welcome, and we will be making some changes to the site to reflect some of these comments.
However, the time this week I felt really vulnerable, was when I’d sent out a press release to the national media. It was meant to be introducing our brand, by offering ideas for parents about how to entertain their children in the half-term holiday - I'll post it on the next blog entry in case you want to read it. And after I’d sent it, it suddenly occurred to me that it made us quite exposed. We had told so many people, with hundreds of contacts themselves, what we were going to be doing. What if someone else decided to jump on the bandwagon and had a far larger marketing budget behind them than we did? What if they stole our ideas?
Then, I pulled myself together! After all, you can’t keep yourself and your ideas a secret for ever. And our idea has been done before anyway, in a different format (and obviously not as good!), so let’s tell the world I say!
We’ve been discussing our site changes with Fluid and progress is being made slowly but surely. I really want to instruct our beta-testers next week, and then shortly after we can issue the media packs. We’re reaching a critical time, and ideally we would have already done this by now.
Another piece of fantastic news is that we’ve appointed a Travel Editor. Wendy Sloane, a freelance journalist for many parenting, women’s and travel publications, is going to edit our Family Holidays pages for us. Whilst we aren’t providing a database of children’s holidays as such, it’s still an area we need to cover because so many people are asking us about it. We were thinking we’d leave it until after we’d launched, but the appointment of Wendy has allowed us to provide it from launch. So she’s currently commissioning various journalists to review some breaks over the half-term holiday, and we’ll have these articles in time for our launch in March. This should help us get some
We’ve also been considering exhibiting at some Baby Shows in March. There’s a large show in Harrogate (albeit an unknown quantity because it’s the first time it’s been run), and a couple of smaller shows in Cheshire and down at Kempton Racecourse. We’d like to be able to let people use our site, so the big logistical problem (and cost factor) is accessing the internet. We have a few alternatives, but none of them are particularly cheap. Cost is obviously a key concern for us, so we’re just holding fire on that decision for a couple of weeks.
So all in all, it’s been a great week, can’t quite believe we’ve crammed everything in that we have. Next week is the final run of Preview Evenings, and I’m currently investigating a few major strategic initiatives, so if they get anywhere, I’ll let you know about those too.
Kirsty
I’ve had a real sense this week that we’ve now started telling people that we exist, and what we’re going to be doing. And it’s actually quite nerve-racking.
The thought that, after all that planning, secrecy and decision-making, we are now opening ourselves up for scrutiny, announcing what we’re going to be doing, and then just holding our breath for the reaction.
We’ve had the second week of preview evenings (6 out of 9 now done), and those in themselves have made me feel quite exposed. I’m an experienced trainer, so the nerves don’t get to me because I’m presenting using the PC in front of a group of strangers. It’s more that I’m looking straight at people’s faces when I tell them about our ‘baby’, the thing we think is really fantastic, and I’m imagining they are (or maybe they really are) just sat there thinking “well go on then, show me what you think is so good, try to impress me!” You’ve got to appear really confident, when in actual fact underneath you’re quivering!
Thankfully, they’ve all been, without exception, just so worth our while. We’ve had amazingly positive feedback from all of them, but we’ve also acquired some very useful contacts. Not just for the marketing of our site, but also for the operational side aswell. Although the numbers have been a lot lower than we expected (I booked rooms with capacity of 50, and we’ve had much less than that), but they have been worth every penny of the cost. That’s even without the general profile raising and marketing from the mailings we’ve did with the invitations.
Still 3 more to go, so hopefully we’ll have more feedback and good comments from those too. I’ll report back next week.
Lots of ideas have been generated from the preview evenings, some good, some not really appropriate or not so good. However all have been welcome, and we will be making some changes to the site to reflect some of these comments.
However, the time this week I felt really vulnerable, was when I’d sent out a press release to the national media. It was meant to be introducing our brand, by offering ideas for parents about how to entertain their children in the half-term holiday - I'll post it on the next blog entry in case you want to read it. And after I’d sent it, it suddenly occurred to me that it made us quite exposed. We had told so many people, with hundreds of contacts themselves, what we were going to be doing. What if someone else decided to jump on the bandwagon and had a far larger marketing budget behind them than we did? What if they stole our ideas?
Then, I pulled myself together! After all, you can’t keep yourself and your ideas a secret for ever. And our idea has been done before anyway, in a different format (and obviously not as good!), so let’s tell the world I say!
We’ve been discussing our site changes with Fluid and progress is being made slowly but surely. I really want to instruct our beta-testers next week, and then shortly after we can issue the media packs. We’re reaching a critical time, and ideally we would have already done this by now.
Another piece of fantastic news is that we’ve appointed a Travel Editor. Wendy Sloane, a freelance journalist for many parenting, women’s and travel publications, is going to edit our Family Holidays pages for us. Whilst we aren’t providing a database of children’s holidays as such, it’s still an area we need to cover because so many people are asking us about it. We were thinking we’d leave it until after we’d launched, but the appointment of Wendy has allowed us to provide it from launch. So she’s currently commissioning various journalists to review some breaks over the half-term holiday, and we’ll have these articles in time for our launch in March. This should help us get some
We’ve also been considering exhibiting at some Baby Shows in March. There’s a large show in Harrogate (albeit an unknown quantity because it’s the first time it’s been run), and a couple of smaller shows in Cheshire and down at Kempton Racecourse. We’d like to be able to let people use our site, so the big logistical problem (and cost factor) is accessing the internet. We have a few alternatives, but none of them are particularly cheap. Cost is obviously a key concern for us, so we’re just holding fire on that decision for a couple of weeks.
So all in all, it’s been a great week, can’t quite believe we’ve crammed everything in that we have. Next week is the final run of Preview Evenings, and I’m currently investigating a few major strategic initiatives, so if they get anywhere, I’ll let you know about those too.
Kirsty
20 January 2006
A trip to Alton Towers?
No, unfortunately not, it just feels like we’ve been on a complete rollercoaster this week! But we’ve come through it and I’m sat here at some ungodly hour on Friday morning (rain woke me up, then mind starting racing, and then couldn’t sleep!) just reflecting on the events of the last few days.
If I can offer anyone some advice as a result of bitter experience, do not, under any circumstances, decide to make a major strategic change to your business, before a crucial event. Does that sound obvious? Of course it does! Let me explain.
We’d decide to change web designer, and hoped to move our site from our old supplier’s server to Fluid’s server by the first week in January. Which would have been in plenty of time for our first preview evening on Tuesday 17th January. In fact, the plan was that Fluid would even be able to make some minor improvements to the site within that timescale.
Well events just dragged on, and for one reason and another, with lots of emails, alleged blame by/from all parties and general stress, by 3pm on the afternoon of the first preview evening, we still didn’t even have a website to show the attendees, who were due to arrive at 6.30pm! The site had been taken off the old supplier’s servers, and hadn’t yet been built and uploaded onto Fluid’s servers. However, after some great work by Lee at Fluid, by 3.15pm we had our website back, and by 5.30pm we also had the ‘back-end’ content management system available to use, so we could enter a few activities into the database, which were of particular relevance for the town we were presenting in, during the few minutes we had spare before delegates starting arriving.
I can honestly say that was the most stressful day in my whole life. I had a pain like a stitch for about 3 days, and I’m sure it was all related, psychosomatic I think they call it. I can see how the human body can’t possibly cope with stress for long periods of time, because it seems to translate into physical pain aswell.
How had this managed to happen, when we’d tried to plan so meticulously for it? Some things are unfortunately completely out of your control, and you’ve got to allow so much more time than you ever think you will need. I was led to believe the site transfer would have happened very quickly, which in theory it should’ve done. But it wasn’t to be.
I think we made a mistake because when we first realised that things were going to take longer than expected, we should’ve just left the site where it was until after the preview evenings, instead of trying to accomplish too much. Of course, at the time, we didn’t think it was too much, and we thought we were being realistic, but as soon as things started to go wrong, we should’ve stopped moving in that direction, and just held fire for a bit longer. We were so close to not even having a site to show, and that would’ve been disastrous for our public relations. We had a backup plan (hastily made on Tuesday morning!), screen prints on powerpoint, but that would not have been ideal by any stretch of the imagination.
However, now back to the positives.
Fluid are currently looking at the site, firstly to ensure they are completely acquainted with the coding and structure. I’ve provided them with a workplan of my priorities, based on changes I’d like to be made before the site is offered to the beta testers to complete our research questionnaire (we have around 20 willing independent beta testers waiting to review the site), and before we allow various members of the media/press to access it.
However, Fluid may alter the priorities slightly, to allow them to work more efficiently, which makes perfect sense. So by mid next week, we should know where we stand in terms of timescale.
We’ve also had some fantastic feedback/emails, both from a press release I issued about our partnership with Fluid, and from requests for regional managers I mentioned in my last diary. In fact, I’m now considering amending the planned rollout we had, because we’ve uncovered some quality people, and it’d be a shame not to be able to use them. So even if you’re not based in one of the regions I mentioned last time, please get in touch if you’d like to become a regional manager with us, because we may well decide to alter the rollout programme. Thanks to those who have already contacted us, we’ll be in touch again shortly.
So back to the supposed focus of this week’s activities.
The preview evenings have been going well. We had 3 so far, and have another 6 planned over the next 2 weeks. We’ve not had massive groups, but that means they’ve been able to be quite interactive, which has given us a much better indication of how users will think, and we’ve also had some good ideas from the attendees, many of which we’ll try to incorporate into the site pre launch. So as focus groups they have been very useful, plus they have really worked well for promoting the site too.
It’s incredibly nerve-racking. I’m normally so confident, and have such a strong belief in the site. But just prior to the start time I got so nervous. Would anyone show up? What would they think of it? Would they tell us something that we hadn’t realised that would make the site useless, or certainly not as good an idea as we thought it was? Etc etc. Your self-confidence plummets, so you have to pull yourselves up by the bootstraps, smile, and wait to see what happens.
On the whole they have been very positive, although we had a real wobble at 6.30pm on Wednesday evening when no-one had arrived. Thankfully that wasn’t the case by 6.40pm. Attendance on that night was certainly down, probably not helped by the fact that Manchester United’s cup replay against Burton Albion was being shown on BBC1 - you just can’t plan for everything!
However that ended up being an excellent night in the end, albeit with a very low attendance, so all was not lost.
Next week brings 3 more preview evenings, and hopefully some progress with the site and a firm timescale for launch. Only 6 weeks to go!
Kirsty
If I can offer anyone some advice as a result of bitter experience, do not, under any circumstances, decide to make a major strategic change to your business, before a crucial event. Does that sound obvious? Of course it does! Let me explain.
We’d decide to change web designer, and hoped to move our site from our old supplier’s server to Fluid’s server by the first week in January. Which would have been in plenty of time for our first preview evening on Tuesday 17th January. In fact, the plan was that Fluid would even be able to make some minor improvements to the site within that timescale.
Well events just dragged on, and for one reason and another, with lots of emails, alleged blame by/from all parties and general stress, by 3pm on the afternoon of the first preview evening, we still didn’t even have a website to show the attendees, who were due to arrive at 6.30pm! The site had been taken off the old supplier’s servers, and hadn’t yet been built and uploaded onto Fluid’s servers. However, after some great work by Lee at Fluid, by 3.15pm we had our website back, and by 5.30pm we also had the ‘back-end’ content management system available to use, so we could enter a few activities into the database, which were of particular relevance for the town we were presenting in, during the few minutes we had spare before delegates starting arriving.
I can honestly say that was the most stressful day in my whole life. I had a pain like a stitch for about 3 days, and I’m sure it was all related, psychosomatic I think they call it. I can see how the human body can’t possibly cope with stress for long periods of time, because it seems to translate into physical pain aswell.
How had this managed to happen, when we’d tried to plan so meticulously for it? Some things are unfortunately completely out of your control, and you’ve got to allow so much more time than you ever think you will need. I was led to believe the site transfer would have happened very quickly, which in theory it should’ve done. But it wasn’t to be.
I think we made a mistake because when we first realised that things were going to take longer than expected, we should’ve just left the site where it was until after the preview evenings, instead of trying to accomplish too much. Of course, at the time, we didn’t think it was too much, and we thought we were being realistic, but as soon as things started to go wrong, we should’ve stopped moving in that direction, and just held fire for a bit longer. We were so close to not even having a site to show, and that would’ve been disastrous for our public relations. We had a backup plan (hastily made on Tuesday morning!), screen prints on powerpoint, but that would not have been ideal by any stretch of the imagination.
However, now back to the positives.
Fluid are currently looking at the site, firstly to ensure they are completely acquainted with the coding and structure. I’ve provided them with a workplan of my priorities, based on changes I’d like to be made before the site is offered to the beta testers to complete our research questionnaire (we have around 20 willing independent beta testers waiting to review the site), and before we allow various members of the media/press to access it.
However, Fluid may alter the priorities slightly, to allow them to work more efficiently, which makes perfect sense. So by mid next week, we should know where we stand in terms of timescale.
We’ve also had some fantastic feedback/emails, both from a press release I issued about our partnership with Fluid, and from requests for regional managers I mentioned in my last diary. In fact, I’m now considering amending the planned rollout we had, because we’ve uncovered some quality people, and it’d be a shame not to be able to use them. So even if you’re not based in one of the regions I mentioned last time, please get in touch if you’d like to become a regional manager with us, because we may well decide to alter the rollout programme. Thanks to those who have already contacted us, we’ll be in touch again shortly.
So back to the supposed focus of this week’s activities.
The preview evenings have been going well. We had 3 so far, and have another 6 planned over the next 2 weeks. We’ve not had massive groups, but that means they’ve been able to be quite interactive, which has given us a much better indication of how users will think, and we’ve also had some good ideas from the attendees, many of which we’ll try to incorporate into the site pre launch. So as focus groups they have been very useful, plus they have really worked well for promoting the site too.
It’s incredibly nerve-racking. I’m normally so confident, and have such a strong belief in the site. But just prior to the start time I got so nervous. Would anyone show up? What would they think of it? Would they tell us something that we hadn’t realised that would make the site useless, or certainly not as good an idea as we thought it was? Etc etc. Your self-confidence plummets, so you have to pull yourselves up by the bootstraps, smile, and wait to see what happens.
On the whole they have been very positive, although we had a real wobble at 6.30pm on Wednesday evening when no-one had arrived. Thankfully that wasn’t the case by 6.40pm. Attendance on that night was certainly down, probably not helped by the fact that Manchester United’s cup replay against Burton Albion was being shown on BBC1 - you just can’t plan for everything!
However that ended up being an excellent night in the end, albeit with a very low attendance, so all was not lost.
Next week brings 3 more preview evenings, and hopefully some progress with the site and a firm timescale for launch. Only 6 weeks to go!
Kirsty
16 January 2006
Time to move on
It’s been a real time of change in the business this week. In some cases it’s been quite hard to deal with, but upon reflection I think it’s all been for the best and I’m sure we now have a much stronger outlook, with a committed and capable team.
Firstly I had to deal with the change of our webdesigner from accsys, to our new supplier (& shareholder) Fluid Creativity. After many emails back and forth, I think we have resolved the issue now, and hopefully by the time you read this, Fluid will have control of the site on their servers. We, (Lee, Ross & I), are trying to draw up a hitlist of planned work, once they’ve had chance to review the site’s files and coding.
There are still a few things I want sorting before Tuesday’s preview evening (yes, that’s tomorrow!), so that we can show the site in the best light at that stage.
The timing of these preview evenings now work perfectly for us, because we can use them as focus groups and see what other changes users would like to see. Again, there are certain other things that need changing before we send the media packs out to the journalists for review, so we’re going to have to consider our workplan very carefully.
In the end it was obvious that accsys didn’t have the necessary setup for our requirements, and I think this is a positive move, although probably long overdue. Unfortunately it’s going to be more stressful now, due to the timing of this handover, but it wasn’t really something that could’ve been done before. Negotiations, meetings, reviewing legal documents, more meetings etc all take time, and it’s not surprising that, although Fluid and etk first starting discussing the possibility of this relationship in mid November, it’s taken two months for it to actually happen. Of course, the break at Christmas, which inevitably probably loses businesses about three weeks of effective working time, hasn’t helped with that timescale.
The second change this week has been the appointment of a new regional manager for Greater Manchester. It became obvious that our existing regional manager couldn’t provide us with the commitment we needed.
I understand that we are really asking a lot of anyone who comes on board with us, because the bulk of the work is always going to be up front (to get the regional content researched and entered), and yet the reward is always going to be longer term, as we are providing share incentives, instead of salary. Hopefully this will change when we start trading, and we’ll be able to use a more conventional method of remuneration, but at this stage it’s a big ask.
I’m also really aiming to get the team so enthusiastic about the possibilities of this business, and I want them to as excited as I am, a very big ask!
It’s therefore only suitable for certain people who have a lifestyle that can accommodate it. And it became apparent that our first choice of Regional Manager couldn’t commit to the hours we needed, especially at this crucial stage in the business when there’s an awful lot to do in a (now) short timescale. She’s now working a 40 hour week, plus has a home business herself, and has a little girl and house to look after.
It’s been quite traumatic dealing with this over recent days, and whilst we have both finally agreed to part ways on a business level, it hasn’t been without some heartache, as we have been good friends for years, and confrontation with a personal friend is not pleasant.
However, I think this is best solution for all of us. We’re out of her hair and we are one less commitment in her life, and we can find someone who has the time and energy available. Which I’m delighted to announce, we have done!
Pauline is actually someone I met whilst at ante-natal classes, and we’ve kept in touch ever since, so she has a 2 year old boy too. She helps in her husband’s business, but hasn’t a full time role, and has the time and energy to get stuck in. So, I’m going to temporarily take over the Greater Manchester role until we can get Pauline trained. But as she was so enthusiastic, she’s already received a lot of information on email to get her immersed in who we are, what we do, her role, and our future plans.
When I was training our other regional managers, I set up a pack of information, which I can just update as each new regional manager comes on board. So this was ideal because it meant I could get the information over to her quickly and quite succinctly. The power of having systems in place! It always seems a pain to set everything up at the beginning, but it always pays dividends later when it saves you reinventing the wheel every time. In our RM pack we have:
Mission statement, first year objectives & USPs
Regional structure & planned rollout programme
RM’s role & characteristics
Overview of task
Instructions for task
PR activities – successes & planned
Share subscription letter (the legal docs)
Company structure
Copy of latest team newsletter
Which brings me onto this, we are now looking for Regional Managers for our 3 planned October launches in Herts/Beds/Essex, West Midlands and North East England. So if anyone knows any potential regional managers (preferably a mum who lives in that area) please get in touch!!
I’ve also been busy preparing the media packs which we’re starting to send out in a couple of weeks, I’ve recorded an audio cd in a recording studio (quite surreal!) and I’ve been entering content as fast as possible! Luke is going to be in nursery for an extra day a week, and will also be at one or other of his grandparents for probably half a day a week aswell, so I can dedicate as much time as possible over the next few weeks to getting us over this crucial time.
By mid February things should start to calm down and we should (in theory!) just gracefully arrive at our launch. Ha! What do you reckon?
Had a comment posted to me about last week’s blog where I was lamenting about the lower than expected % uptake we got from our promotional work. It was very useful, from someone who says he is a successful website owner himself, and all his income is derived from advertising. He stated that £2,500 spend on ‘well targeted online advertising’ should reach about 100,000 people in a year, with at least 10,000 click throughs, and that should generate 7-10% of members. This was really useful information so I thank him for posting that, and we’ll certainly be considering online advertising when we do actually launch.
However, his final comment was really interesting. He said that a website business shouldn’t be advertising offline, as ‘almost no one who is not online already will become your customer’. Is that really the case? Would appreciate to know what other’s think about this aswell.
So our preview evenings start tomorrow evening….eek, lots more opinion no doubt. Marvellous!
Kirsty
Firstly I had to deal with the change of our webdesigner from accsys, to our new supplier (& shareholder) Fluid Creativity. After many emails back and forth, I think we have resolved the issue now, and hopefully by the time you read this, Fluid will have control of the site on their servers. We, (Lee, Ross & I), are trying to draw up a hitlist of planned work, once they’ve had chance to review the site’s files and coding.
There are still a few things I want sorting before Tuesday’s preview evening (yes, that’s tomorrow!), so that we can show the site in the best light at that stage.
The timing of these preview evenings now work perfectly for us, because we can use them as focus groups and see what other changes users would like to see. Again, there are certain other things that need changing before we send the media packs out to the journalists for review, so we’re going to have to consider our workplan very carefully.
In the end it was obvious that accsys didn’t have the necessary setup for our requirements, and I think this is a positive move, although probably long overdue. Unfortunately it’s going to be more stressful now, due to the timing of this handover, but it wasn’t really something that could’ve been done before. Negotiations, meetings, reviewing legal documents, more meetings etc all take time, and it’s not surprising that, although Fluid and etk first starting discussing the possibility of this relationship in mid November, it’s taken two months for it to actually happen. Of course, the break at Christmas, which inevitably probably loses businesses about three weeks of effective working time, hasn’t helped with that timescale.
The second change this week has been the appointment of a new regional manager for Greater Manchester. It became obvious that our existing regional manager couldn’t provide us with the commitment we needed.
I understand that we are really asking a lot of anyone who comes on board with us, because the bulk of the work is always going to be up front (to get the regional content researched and entered), and yet the reward is always going to be longer term, as we are providing share incentives, instead of salary. Hopefully this will change when we start trading, and we’ll be able to use a more conventional method of remuneration, but at this stage it’s a big ask.
I’m also really aiming to get the team so enthusiastic about the possibilities of this business, and I want them to as excited as I am, a very big ask!
It’s therefore only suitable for certain people who have a lifestyle that can accommodate it. And it became apparent that our first choice of Regional Manager couldn’t commit to the hours we needed, especially at this crucial stage in the business when there’s an awful lot to do in a (now) short timescale. She’s now working a 40 hour week, plus has a home business herself, and has a little girl and house to look after.
It’s been quite traumatic dealing with this over recent days, and whilst we have both finally agreed to part ways on a business level, it hasn’t been without some heartache, as we have been good friends for years, and confrontation with a personal friend is not pleasant.
However, I think this is best solution for all of us. We’re out of her hair and we are one less commitment in her life, and we can find someone who has the time and energy available. Which I’m delighted to announce, we have done!
Pauline is actually someone I met whilst at ante-natal classes, and we’ve kept in touch ever since, so she has a 2 year old boy too. She helps in her husband’s business, but hasn’t a full time role, and has the time and energy to get stuck in. So, I’m going to temporarily take over the Greater Manchester role until we can get Pauline trained. But as she was so enthusiastic, she’s already received a lot of information on email to get her immersed in who we are, what we do, her role, and our future plans.
When I was training our other regional managers, I set up a pack of information, which I can just update as each new regional manager comes on board. So this was ideal because it meant I could get the information over to her quickly and quite succinctly. The power of having systems in place! It always seems a pain to set everything up at the beginning, but it always pays dividends later when it saves you reinventing the wheel every time. In our RM pack we have:
Mission statement, first year objectives & USPs
Regional structure & planned rollout programme
RM’s role & characteristics
Overview of task
Instructions for task
PR activities – successes & planned
Share subscription letter (the legal docs)
Company structure
Copy of latest team newsletter
Which brings me onto this, we are now looking for Regional Managers for our 3 planned October launches in Herts/Beds/Essex, West Midlands and North East England. So if anyone knows any potential regional managers (preferably a mum who lives in that area) please get in touch!!
I’ve also been busy preparing the media packs which we’re starting to send out in a couple of weeks, I’ve recorded an audio cd in a recording studio (quite surreal!) and I’ve been entering content as fast as possible! Luke is going to be in nursery for an extra day a week, and will also be at one or other of his grandparents for probably half a day a week aswell, so I can dedicate as much time as possible over the next few weeks to getting us over this crucial time.
By mid February things should start to calm down and we should (in theory!) just gracefully arrive at our launch. Ha! What do you reckon?
Had a comment posted to me about last week’s blog where I was lamenting about the lower than expected % uptake we got from our promotional work. It was very useful, from someone who says he is a successful website owner himself, and all his income is derived from advertising. He stated that £2,500 spend on ‘well targeted online advertising’ should reach about 100,000 people in a year, with at least 10,000 click throughs, and that should generate 7-10% of members. This was really useful information so I thank him for posting that, and we’ll certainly be considering online advertising when we do actually launch.
However, his final comment was really interesting. He said that a website business shouldn’t be advertising offline, as ‘almost no one who is not online already will become your customer’. Is that really the case? Would appreciate to know what other’s think about this aswell.
So our preview evenings start tomorrow evening….eek, lots more opinion no doubt. Marvellous!
Kirsty
09 January 2006
Break, what break?
Happy New Year, and I hope you all had a relaxing time over Christmas. Although I think if you run your own business it’s so hard to stop working for such a long time. For us, it was very busy indeed.
After our promotional work outside the CBeebies concerts in Manchester, we then spent days on end collating address lists, stuffing envelopes, and sticking stamps to send out a 7,000 mailing which was finally finished last Friday. This mailing is to invite those who work with children (nurseries, kids clubs, childminders, football clubs, primary teachers, tutors etc) to our preview evenings which begin in mid January – which will be another massive milestone for us.
We also found out that we’d not won the MEN Venture Awards, but we have been asked to reapply next year when we have some trading under our belt, and we wrote our first newsletter which we distributed to the team. We’ve also been designing the media packs which we’ll be sending out to the press in the next couple of weeks too. So you see we’ve had quite a bit going on!
Some excellent news is that our proposed ‘mentor’ has agreed to work with us as a shareholder in our company. So here is his first introduction….Lee Turner, MD of Fluid Creativity (www.fluidcreativity.co.uk) who Ross and I have both known for some time, and is someone we have a great deal of respect for. So we are delighted that we effectively now have our own in-house new media company, which is going to provide us with massive strategic benefits. Can’t wait to get working with him over the next couple of weeks, to take the functionality, the look of the site, and the e-marketing onto another level. Now I’ve just got to sort out our incumbent web design company, hopefully without leaving any bitter taste. I’m sure they will understand that this was just too good an opportunity for us to miss, and their experience and skills just seem to far outweigh our current supplier.
Now, back to the promotional work at CBeebies…..
I think if any other business is going to benefit from what we have experienced, then we have to be brutally honest about what happened, because we were so frustrated, when we were initially discussing this event back in Sept/Oct, because we couldn’t get any answers to our questions, and felt we were completely floundering around in the dark. So I promised I would tell you the costs and what we actually achieved, so here goes.
First of all, the costs:
Crayons 1,098
(10,000 packs (min order) – although we probably only used 7,000)
Business cards detailing competition (7,500) 510
Promotional staff (6 staff x 4 hours x 2 days) 675
10 Bags (to put the crayons and cards in for the staff) 50
Total (excl VAT) £2,333
OK, so nearly £2,500 is a lot of money to us, so what results did we get?
Well we reckon we handed crayons/cards out to around 6,000 adults with children, so we hit our target market perfectly. We have raised our profile and begun to introduce the brand to our market. Now exactly how that translates into actual members, I can’t say. And this is where it is so difficult to establish how effective marketing is.
But in terms of how many email addresses we captured (we asked people to enter a competition to win a free membership, by going to our website and entering their email address so we can email them when we launch), well we just about had enough email addresses registered for the number of free memberships we were offering as prizes – 50! So virtually everyone who registered actually gets to join for free. Therefore in terms of potential paying members, we more or less got none. 50 email addresses as a percentage of 6,000 is only 0.83%, not even 1%, when I was expecting around 5% and hoping for 10% or more. We asked them to register over the Christmas period, so that could’ve had a bearing on it, as they may have forgotten or not had access to a PC, but I don’t know.
So would we have done this work if we’d known the numbers? No, probably not.
However, we are hoping that we are still going to benefit from this work because we are now offering those members the chance to attend a preview evening, and use the site immediately, as we want to use them for market research, almost as beta testers. If they were keen enough to register then they must be interested, so let’s use that to our advantage, and see they can help us improve the site, along with the others we’ve invited to the preview evenings.
And of course there’s still that elusive question of how many will join when we launch because they’ve already heard of us once before, from a pack of crayons they received at the CBeebies concert. I fear that no-one will ever be able to measure the success of ‘profile raising’ events. It’s purely guesswork.
Just one other lesson we learnt from the promotional work, is to make sure you have all the necessary permissions you need, from the various authorities. Our (ex) PR agency were frankly terrible with this advice or information, and the promotions agency just said it was our responsibility to sort out. And whilst we thought we had spoken to all the necessary organisations, and didn’t need a licence because we weren’t trading, in fact there were many more than we realised and it caused us undue stress on the day to try and resolve these issues. If you want to know more, read my blog of 24th December because I rant on about that in there.
However, it’s all done and the money’s been spent now, and now we move onto another exciting phase of our launch with the Fluid partnership and the preview evenings. This week I concentrate on the media packs and content (again, still, I’ll get there eventually!) and also plan the final bits of the preview evenings. This year has started off as hectic as the last one ended!
Kirsty
After our promotional work outside the CBeebies concerts in Manchester, we then spent days on end collating address lists, stuffing envelopes, and sticking stamps to send out a 7,000 mailing which was finally finished last Friday. This mailing is to invite those who work with children (nurseries, kids clubs, childminders, football clubs, primary teachers, tutors etc) to our preview evenings which begin in mid January – which will be another massive milestone for us.
We also found out that we’d not won the MEN Venture Awards, but we have been asked to reapply next year when we have some trading under our belt, and we wrote our first newsletter which we distributed to the team. We’ve also been designing the media packs which we’ll be sending out to the press in the next couple of weeks too. So you see we’ve had quite a bit going on!
Some excellent news is that our proposed ‘mentor’ has agreed to work with us as a shareholder in our company. So here is his first introduction….Lee Turner, MD of Fluid Creativity (www.fluidcreativity.co.uk) who Ross and I have both known for some time, and is someone we have a great deal of respect for. So we are delighted that we effectively now have our own in-house new media company, which is going to provide us with massive strategic benefits. Can’t wait to get working with him over the next couple of weeks, to take the functionality, the look of the site, and the e-marketing onto another level. Now I’ve just got to sort out our incumbent web design company, hopefully without leaving any bitter taste. I’m sure they will understand that this was just too good an opportunity for us to miss, and their experience and skills just seem to far outweigh our current supplier.
Now, back to the promotional work at CBeebies…..
I think if any other business is going to benefit from what we have experienced, then we have to be brutally honest about what happened, because we were so frustrated, when we were initially discussing this event back in Sept/Oct, because we couldn’t get any answers to our questions, and felt we were completely floundering around in the dark. So I promised I would tell you the costs and what we actually achieved, so here goes.
First of all, the costs:
Crayons 1,098
(10,000 packs (min order) – although we probably only used 7,000)
Business cards detailing competition (7,500) 510
Promotional staff (6 staff x 4 hours x 2 days) 675
10 Bags (to put the crayons and cards in for the staff) 50
Total (excl VAT) £2,333
OK, so nearly £2,500 is a lot of money to us, so what results did we get?
Well we reckon we handed crayons/cards out to around 6,000 adults with children, so we hit our target market perfectly. We have raised our profile and begun to introduce the brand to our market. Now exactly how that translates into actual members, I can’t say. And this is where it is so difficult to establish how effective marketing is.
But in terms of how many email addresses we captured (we asked people to enter a competition to win a free membership, by going to our website and entering their email address so we can email them when we launch), well we just about had enough email addresses registered for the number of free memberships we were offering as prizes – 50! So virtually everyone who registered actually gets to join for free. Therefore in terms of potential paying members, we more or less got none. 50 email addresses as a percentage of 6,000 is only 0.83%, not even 1%, when I was expecting around 5% and hoping for 10% or more. We asked them to register over the Christmas period, so that could’ve had a bearing on it, as they may have forgotten or not had access to a PC, but I don’t know.
So would we have done this work if we’d known the numbers? No, probably not.
However, we are hoping that we are still going to benefit from this work because we are now offering those members the chance to attend a preview evening, and use the site immediately, as we want to use them for market research, almost as beta testers. If they were keen enough to register then they must be interested, so let’s use that to our advantage, and see they can help us improve the site, along with the others we’ve invited to the preview evenings.
And of course there’s still that elusive question of how many will join when we launch because they’ve already heard of us once before, from a pack of crayons they received at the CBeebies concert. I fear that no-one will ever be able to measure the success of ‘profile raising’ events. It’s purely guesswork.
Just one other lesson we learnt from the promotional work, is to make sure you have all the necessary permissions you need, from the various authorities. Our (ex) PR agency were frankly terrible with this advice or information, and the promotions agency just said it was our responsibility to sort out. And whilst we thought we had spoken to all the necessary organisations, and didn’t need a licence because we weren’t trading, in fact there were many more than we realised and it caused us undue stress on the day to try and resolve these issues. If you want to know more, read my blog of 24th December because I rant on about that in there.
However, it’s all done and the money’s been spent now, and now we move onto another exciting phase of our launch with the Fluid partnership and the preview evenings. This week I concentrate on the media packs and content (again, still, I’ll get there eventually!) and also plan the final bits of the preview evenings. This year has started off as hectic as the last one ended!
Kirsty
24 December 2005
Phew, that was hard work!
Phew – that was hard work!
Just thought I’d write up the events of the last couple of days, before I forget!
I’m really pleased with how much we achieved, but it wasn’t all plain sailing.
The biggest issue was about permission from all the various authorities, which we thought we’d sorted weeks ago, but we were nowhere near sorted. There were so many organisations we didn’t even know were involved or that we had to contact!
Here are all the parties that have some authority in the area we were working (MEN Arena/Victoria station and surrounding areas):
MEN Arena incl their security/safety staff
Victoria Station management and Network Rail
Landlord of the building the Arena is in (SMG Europe) and their agent (DTZ)
Manchester City Council & Greater Manchester Police
NCP Car Parks (with direct access to the Arena)
CBeebies show promoter
BBC Children’s TV
I ask you! We had cleared things with some of them, but others just kept coming out of the woodwork! On the first day, (Thursday) we were refused permission from the landlord to stand in an area that was considered a fire exit, but were given permission on Friday morning to go inside the Arena foyer area itself (which is still their land), only after they’d cleared it with the Arena safety staff (who keep track of numbers of personnel in the building) for fire safety purposes.
Great news, eh! Well so it started, but then we were stopped from handing out crayons to the children going into the concert, because the Arena staff were worried that they would crayon all over the walls and furniture. I was completely dumbfounded but had to obey them and we were told to come back after the concert, and we could hand out to children/parents leaving the concert. This also applied to those other entrances from outside where we were handing out crayons. So we went back at the end, and carried on, taking care just to hand out to those leaving the first concert, and not those arriving for the next concert!
All going well, then we were told that our permission had been revoked. By this time I’d had enough, and wasn’t just going to obey them, I needed to know their reasons, and had to speak to the decision maker. After speaking to the Safety Manager at the Arena, I was told it was actually the promoter who was upset because he said we were taking business away from their merchandising stands. I countered by stating that as we were handing out to those exiting the Arena, they had already passed all the merchandising opportunities, so it wasn’t a valid argument. And then I got told that it was actually the BBC and the Head of Children’s Entertainment that wasn’t allowing us to do it, because the parents may think we have something to do with the BBC or have been recommended by them. What?!! Would parents think the same of all the traders selling cowboy hats and sparkly shiny things too? Because believe me, I’ve bought some of these things (at CBeebies Tweenies concert last year) and the quality is extremely suspect. Which certainly isn’t something you could say about our business. The crayons all have the necessary safety mark and the website certainly won’t cause anyone any harm.
Well at that point, I just gave up. I’d had enough of fighting, and to be honest we’d probably already managed to distribute 6,000 of the 7,500 cards we’d brought over the two days. Plus the fact it was absolutely torrential rain outside, and the girls were soaked.
I reckon we covered over 50% of those attending the 4 concerts in total. So that’s not bad. And it also proved to me that the figures of attendees that we were told by our PR company (before we parted company) weren’t correct.
When I’m reflecting on this, the thing that astonishes me about it all, is that no-one seems to know who you have to get permission from. I suppose if you are a large company and do this type of promotion all the time, then you know automatically what you need and from whom. But it was our first time, and as a small company, I had to do the legwork myself. Our PR company had no idea, it was obviously not something they’d done before for any of their clients – another reason why I’m glad they’re no longer acting for us, they just don’t have the specific experience we can benefit from. The promotions agency we hired the staff from, told us it was our responsibility to obtain all the necessary permissions. And I just got passed from pillar to post when trying to speak to these organisations. I think we were a bit of an anomaly for them. We weren’t trading/selling, or collecting donations. And we didn’t have a large fixed stand or were interviewing people. We must have had a bit of a novel idea!
However, on the positive side, we got a great response from parents and kids. They were delighted to be receiving packs of crayons and were quite happy to take the cards to see the details of the competition. One telltale sign is that over the 2 days, when I was circulating around the whole of the station, outside on the streets, the car park and in the Arena itself, I only picked up one card off the floor. All the rest had been taken home.
So hopefully the parents really appreciated the crayons, the kids made good use of them, thus allowing the parents to relax (“…..& now you can relax” is our strapline, and we included it on the crayon packs) and over the festive period they’ll remember/be bothered/have access to enter our competition.
Well, more news of that in the New Year when our web programmer can tell us how many people have registered their email address on our holding page. I'll also tell you then exactly how much it cost us to do this promotion, just so you know!
Next week is mega busy again. Got to get more content entered, as the final deadline is now mid Jan for media & editors. And we’ve got to prepare our promotional mailing to referrers. Lots more address/contacts research to do, sticky labels to print and envelopes to stuff! And this is twice over! Once for the jigsaw and once for the invitation that is being sent a couple of days later. The first mailing has to be ready to be posted on Tue 3 January, and second one on Thursday 5 January.
We also have to prepare the media packs and I want to do a newsletter for our team and other stakeholders, to update them on all recent events – which have been numerous! Not a very restful time planned then, but very very exciting, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Now I'm off to peel vegetables, wrap presents and write cards in time for 11 people descending on us tomorrow for Christmas dinner. By the way, Luke had a lovely birthday party yesterday - amazing how you can knock up a buffet for 20 people an hour after you've finished upsetting the BBC!
And I didn't mention how much Ross & I are both aching! Poor Ross, he had to go to work last night aswell! Our feet, legs, arms, shoulders and back are all sore. We can't say we haven't struggled for our cause! And if that's anything to go by, we deserve to be successful eventually.
Kirsty
Just thought I’d write up the events of the last couple of days, before I forget!
I’m really pleased with how much we achieved, but it wasn’t all plain sailing.
The biggest issue was about permission from all the various authorities, which we thought we’d sorted weeks ago, but we were nowhere near sorted. There were so many organisations we didn’t even know were involved or that we had to contact!
Here are all the parties that have some authority in the area we were working (MEN Arena/Victoria station and surrounding areas):
MEN Arena incl their security/safety staff
Victoria Station management and Network Rail
Landlord of the building the Arena is in (SMG Europe) and their agent (DTZ)
Manchester City Council & Greater Manchester Police
NCP Car Parks (with direct access to the Arena)
CBeebies show promoter
BBC Children’s TV
I ask you! We had cleared things with some of them, but others just kept coming out of the woodwork! On the first day, (Thursday) we were refused permission from the landlord to stand in an area that was considered a fire exit, but were given permission on Friday morning to go inside the Arena foyer area itself (which is still their land), only after they’d cleared it with the Arena safety staff (who keep track of numbers of personnel in the building) for fire safety purposes.
Great news, eh! Well so it started, but then we were stopped from handing out crayons to the children going into the concert, because the Arena staff were worried that they would crayon all over the walls and furniture. I was completely dumbfounded but had to obey them and we were told to come back after the concert, and we could hand out to children/parents leaving the concert. This also applied to those other entrances from outside where we were handing out crayons. So we went back at the end, and carried on, taking care just to hand out to those leaving the first concert, and not those arriving for the next concert!
All going well, then we were told that our permission had been revoked. By this time I’d had enough, and wasn’t just going to obey them, I needed to know their reasons, and had to speak to the decision maker. After speaking to the Safety Manager at the Arena, I was told it was actually the promoter who was upset because he said we were taking business away from their merchandising stands. I countered by stating that as we were handing out to those exiting the Arena, they had already passed all the merchandising opportunities, so it wasn’t a valid argument. And then I got told that it was actually the BBC and the Head of Children’s Entertainment that wasn’t allowing us to do it, because the parents may think we have something to do with the BBC or have been recommended by them. What?!! Would parents think the same of all the traders selling cowboy hats and sparkly shiny things too? Because believe me, I’ve bought some of these things (at CBeebies Tweenies concert last year) and the quality is extremely suspect. Which certainly isn’t something you could say about our business. The crayons all have the necessary safety mark and the website certainly won’t cause anyone any harm.
Well at that point, I just gave up. I’d had enough of fighting, and to be honest we’d probably already managed to distribute 6,000 of the 7,500 cards we’d brought over the two days. Plus the fact it was absolutely torrential rain outside, and the girls were soaked.
I reckon we covered over 50% of those attending the 4 concerts in total. So that’s not bad. And it also proved to me that the figures of attendees that we were told by our PR company (before we parted company) weren’t correct.
When I’m reflecting on this, the thing that astonishes me about it all, is that no-one seems to know who you have to get permission from. I suppose if you are a large company and do this type of promotion all the time, then you know automatically what you need and from whom. But it was our first time, and as a small company, I had to do the legwork myself. Our PR company had no idea, it was obviously not something they’d done before for any of their clients – another reason why I’m glad they’re no longer acting for us, they just don’t have the specific experience we can benefit from. The promotions agency we hired the staff from, told us it was our responsibility to obtain all the necessary permissions. And I just got passed from pillar to post when trying to speak to these organisations. I think we were a bit of an anomaly for them. We weren’t trading/selling, or collecting donations. And we didn’t have a large fixed stand or were interviewing people. We must have had a bit of a novel idea!
However, on the positive side, we got a great response from parents and kids. They were delighted to be receiving packs of crayons and were quite happy to take the cards to see the details of the competition. One telltale sign is that over the 2 days, when I was circulating around the whole of the station, outside on the streets, the car park and in the Arena itself, I only picked up one card off the floor. All the rest had been taken home.
So hopefully the parents really appreciated the crayons, the kids made good use of them, thus allowing the parents to relax (“…..& now you can relax” is our strapline, and we included it on the crayon packs) and over the festive period they’ll remember/be bothered/have access to enter our competition.
Well, more news of that in the New Year when our web programmer can tell us how many people have registered their email address on our holding page. I'll also tell you then exactly how much it cost us to do this promotion, just so you know!
Next week is mega busy again. Got to get more content entered, as the final deadline is now mid Jan for media & editors. And we’ve got to prepare our promotional mailing to referrers. Lots more address/contacts research to do, sticky labels to print and envelopes to stuff! And this is twice over! Once for the jigsaw and once for the invitation that is being sent a couple of days later. The first mailing has to be ready to be posted on Tue 3 January, and second one on Thursday 5 January.
We also have to prepare the media packs and I want to do a newsletter for our team and other stakeholders, to update them on all recent events – which have been numerous! Not a very restful time planned then, but very very exciting, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Now I'm off to peel vegetables, wrap presents and write cards in time for 11 people descending on us tomorrow for Christmas dinner. By the way, Luke had a lovely birthday party yesterday - amazing how you can knock up a buffet for 20 people an hour after you've finished upsetting the BBC!
And I didn't mention how much Ross & I are both aching! Poor Ross, he had to go to work last night aswell! Our feet, legs, arms, shoulders and back are all sore. We can't say we haven't struggled for our cause! And if that's anything to go by, we deserve to be successful eventually.
Kirsty
22 December 2005
I'm so nervous!
Well this is it, it’s the morning of Thursday 22nd December and the first day of our promotional work outside the CBeebies concerts in Manchester. This is an ideal target market for us, because these are parents/carers who:
- have pre-school children (and therefore several more years before their kids are 11, our cut off age); and
- have bothered to find out about the concerts (therefore are likely to be internet users or research activities for kids); and
- are willing to pay for their kids’ entertainment
A couple of months ago we were discussing this event at length, weighing up all the pros and cons of doing it, compared to the cost, and eventually, after much deliberating and soul searching, we decided to go ahead with the promotion.
Our aims of today and tomorrow are:
- to make our market aware of our brand and the website’s launch date
- to drive people to the holding page (www.entertainthekids.com) to register their email address, so we can email them when we launch. We are trying to build up our database.
So we had to think of something that would get attention, would be favourably received, and would meet our aims. At first we were just going to hand out crayons (kids need occupying before the concert starts and in the interval, and will probably have a programme with some colouring pages in it), but after discussing this we realised that just presenting them with our brand, wasn’t sufficient to get them to go to the website. So then we decided that we would also hand out a card (business card size, so they can put it in their purse, pocket etc, and hopefully not just throw it away) giving details of a competition.
Even this took ages to decide upon. We wanted to make the prize something that people would value, and would be bothered to enter, because there was a really good chance of them winning – that’s why we’ve offered 50 free memberships as prizes. And we put a deadline on it of 1 January 2006, because it’s a memorable date, people will hopefully get chance to do it over the Christmas period sometime, and yet it instills some urgency in them to get on with it!
So you can see an awful lot of thought has gone into this promotion.
We’ve had 10,000 packs of crayons delivered (see last week’s diary), and 7,500 cards (which look great by the way – thank you Andy at Fluid Creativity!).
We originally looked to family and friends to help us find some volunteers to distribute the crayons, but in the end decided to do it professionally. So we’ve booked 6 promotional staff from Oz Promotions in Manchester, who so far have proved to be very professional. I’ve got the names and phone numbers of the team, just in case we can’t find them at our meeting point. We have allocated 2 staff to each of the 3 possible entrances to the venue, and as some are outside, I’m praying it doesn’t rain today or tomorrow!
I’ve packed 8 bags with crayons and cards, and have bought Santa hats for everyone. We had a nightmare with branding the bags (again, see earlier diary), so decided in the end not to bother, and we are just giving them plain black bags with long shoulder straps so they can put them over their shoulder and across their chest. So the Santa hats are being used instead to get some attention. The car is packed with spare crayons and cards, in case we run out and I envisage Ross and I will be circling around the team filling their bags up during the day.
I’ve printed off our home page for each of the team, so I can brief them a bit about who we are and what the website will do, and I also think I’ll offer them a bonus if we hit a target of emails registered by 1 January 2006 – just need to confirm this with Ross later this morning.
So here we are. The first big promotional event we’ve done, which we’ve spent a fair bit of our budget on, and I’m very very nervous! It's the first time that our assumptions about our market will be tested. Are we thinking the same way they are? Have we made the correct decisions? Will it pay off financially (which we won't know until after launch) or will it be a complete waste of money, time and energy?
I will update you again in the New Year, when we’ll know how successful the promotion was, and then we’ll be right on top of our Preview Evenings to potential referrers and our presentations to the media.
By the way it’s my father in law’s birthday today, and Luke’s 2nd birthday tomorrow – not a busy time at all really!! Stop the world, I want to get off! Wish us luck! And Happy Christmas!
Kirsty
- have pre-school children (and therefore several more years before their kids are 11, our cut off age); and
- have bothered to find out about the concerts (therefore are likely to be internet users or research activities for kids); and
- are willing to pay for their kids’ entertainment
A couple of months ago we were discussing this event at length, weighing up all the pros and cons of doing it, compared to the cost, and eventually, after much deliberating and soul searching, we decided to go ahead with the promotion.
Our aims of today and tomorrow are:
- to make our market aware of our brand and the website’s launch date
- to drive people to the holding page (www.entertainthekids.com) to register their email address, so we can email them when we launch. We are trying to build up our database.
So we had to think of something that would get attention, would be favourably received, and would meet our aims. At first we were just going to hand out crayons (kids need occupying before the concert starts and in the interval, and will probably have a programme with some colouring pages in it), but after discussing this we realised that just presenting them with our brand, wasn’t sufficient to get them to go to the website. So then we decided that we would also hand out a card (business card size, so they can put it in their purse, pocket etc, and hopefully not just throw it away) giving details of a competition.
Even this took ages to decide upon. We wanted to make the prize something that people would value, and would be bothered to enter, because there was a really good chance of them winning – that’s why we’ve offered 50 free memberships as prizes. And we put a deadline on it of 1 January 2006, because it’s a memorable date, people will hopefully get chance to do it over the Christmas period sometime, and yet it instills some urgency in them to get on with it!
So you can see an awful lot of thought has gone into this promotion.
We’ve had 10,000 packs of crayons delivered (see last week’s diary), and 7,500 cards (which look great by the way – thank you Andy at Fluid Creativity!).
We originally looked to family and friends to help us find some volunteers to distribute the crayons, but in the end decided to do it professionally. So we’ve booked 6 promotional staff from Oz Promotions in Manchester, who so far have proved to be very professional. I’ve got the names and phone numbers of the team, just in case we can’t find them at our meeting point. We have allocated 2 staff to each of the 3 possible entrances to the venue, and as some are outside, I’m praying it doesn’t rain today or tomorrow!
I’ve packed 8 bags with crayons and cards, and have bought Santa hats for everyone. We had a nightmare with branding the bags (again, see earlier diary), so decided in the end not to bother, and we are just giving them plain black bags with long shoulder straps so they can put them over their shoulder and across their chest. So the Santa hats are being used instead to get some attention. The car is packed with spare crayons and cards, in case we run out and I envisage Ross and I will be circling around the team filling their bags up during the day.
I’ve printed off our home page for each of the team, so I can brief them a bit about who we are and what the website will do, and I also think I’ll offer them a bonus if we hit a target of emails registered by 1 January 2006 – just need to confirm this with Ross later this morning.
So here we are. The first big promotional event we’ve done, which we’ve spent a fair bit of our budget on, and I’m very very nervous! It's the first time that our assumptions about our market will be tested. Are we thinking the same way they are? Have we made the correct decisions? Will it pay off financially (which we won't know until after launch) or will it be a complete waste of money, time and energy?
I will update you again in the New Year, when we’ll know how successful the promotion was, and then we’ll be right on top of our Preview Evenings to potential referrers and our presentations to the media.
By the way it’s my father in law’s birthday today, and Luke’s 2nd birthday tomorrow – not a busy time at all really!! Stop the world, I want to get off! Wish us luck! And Happy Christmas!
Kirsty
20 December 2005
How to save the planet!
I think the best ideas to save the planet will be long-term - getting the next generation involved so that they just become used to doing things that are environmentally friendly. It worked in Australia for the 'slip, slop, slap' health promotion, and it has been proven time and time again that you need to change the kids' attitudes before you'll make any major difference in society.
So here's ten ideas below for children to get involved with, whether they're your kids, your nieces/nephews or neighbour's children.
1. With your children, build a compost heap and recycle your kitchen and garden waste
2. Show them how worms break the waste down, by building a wormery in a plastic bottle, so they can observe the worms at work
3. Give your children responsibility for splitting the recycling piles between newspaper, plastic bottles, cans etc. Help them decorate and colour the boxes that they are kept in, labelling each one for each type of waste
4. Make it an 'event' to go to the recycling station every week - same time, same place, so it just becomes a habit. Preferably with a small 'treat' afterwards, so they link it with positive things
5. Encourage a love of nature wherever possible - collect natural materials and make a collage, or make home-made environmentally friendly cards, make bird feeders and nesting boxes
6. Make your own recycled wrapping paper and always try to buy recycled paper and cards
7. Teach your children about organic growing - start with growing carrot tops in water, and cress/grass in eggshells, then progress to giving them a patch of land or a container tub to grow their own flowers or vegetables without using chemicals
8. Water is a lifeline for sanitation, hygiene and health. Children should learn how vital it is to those in developing countries and how lucky we are in UK, yet we waste so much. Did you know that the average person in the UK uses 135 litres of water every day, but the average person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. This is the same amount used in the average flush of a UK toilet. On current trends over the next 20 years humans will use 40% more water than they do now (source www.WaterAid.org). See if they can guess how much water is in a bath, or get them to carry water from one container to another, on their heads, just like they have to do in many parts of Africa and Asia.
9. Conserving energy to minimise carbon dioxide emissions. According to the Energy Saving Trust (www.est.org.uk), each household in the UK creates around six tonnes of carbon dioxide a year which is enough to fill six hot air balloons (10 metres in diameter). So involve the children in doing some small but effective things - If everyone put an insulation jacket on their hot water tank, we'd cut carbon dioxide emissions by 600,000 tonnes - enough to fill around 120,000 hot air balloons. If everyone in the UK installed one energy saving light bulb, we'd save enough carbon dioxide to fill the Albert Hall nearly 2,000 times.
10. Plant a tree to encourage oxygenation, home for our wildlife and to build a lovely environment around us. The Tree Council hold special days if you want to join an organised event, or if you want to set up a family tree scheme by helping to build a new forest. www.treecouncil.org.uk
Kirsty
So here's ten ideas below for children to get involved with, whether they're your kids, your nieces/nephews or neighbour's children.
1. With your children, build a compost heap and recycle your kitchen and garden waste
2. Show them how worms break the waste down, by building a wormery in a plastic bottle, so they can observe the worms at work
3. Give your children responsibility for splitting the recycling piles between newspaper, plastic bottles, cans etc. Help them decorate and colour the boxes that they are kept in, labelling each one for each type of waste
4. Make it an 'event' to go to the recycling station every week - same time, same place, so it just becomes a habit. Preferably with a small 'treat' afterwards, so they link it with positive things
5. Encourage a love of nature wherever possible - collect natural materials and make a collage, or make home-made environmentally friendly cards, make bird feeders and nesting boxes
6. Make your own recycled wrapping paper and always try to buy recycled paper and cards
7. Teach your children about organic growing - start with growing carrot tops in water, and cress/grass in eggshells, then progress to giving them a patch of land or a container tub to grow their own flowers or vegetables without using chemicals
8. Water is a lifeline for sanitation, hygiene and health. Children should learn how vital it is to those in developing countries and how lucky we are in UK, yet we waste so much. Did you know that the average person in the UK uses 135 litres of water every day, but the average person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. This is the same amount used in the average flush of a UK toilet. On current trends over the next 20 years humans will use 40% more water than they do now (source www.WaterAid.org). See if they can guess how much water is in a bath, or get them to carry water from one container to another, on their heads, just like they have to do in many parts of Africa and Asia.
9. Conserving energy to minimise carbon dioxide emissions. According to the Energy Saving Trust (www.est.org.uk), each household in the UK creates around six tonnes of carbon dioxide a year which is enough to fill six hot air balloons (10 metres in diameter). So involve the children in doing some small but effective things - If everyone put an insulation jacket on their hot water tank, we'd cut carbon dioxide emissions by 600,000 tonnes - enough to fill around 120,000 hot air balloons. If everyone in the UK installed one energy saving light bulb, we'd save enough carbon dioxide to fill the Albert Hall nearly 2,000 times.
10. Plant a tree to encourage oxygenation, home for our wildlife and to build a lovely environment around us. The Tree Council hold special days if you want to join an organised event, or if you want to set up a family tree scheme by helping to build a new forest. www.treecouncil.org.uk
Kirsty
What has happened to customer service?
Written on 18 December 2005
I’ve had a very annoying week this week. I really feel that customer service is a thing of the past for most companies, especially when their customer is a small start-up company, who is really having to watch every penny.
I can see that the business we are giving to others is obviously minimal compared to the level of orders they usually get from established businesses, but how short-sighted are they? How do they know that in 12 months’ time we could be making the same large orders, when we are more established. Well you always remember who’s let you down, so bear that in mind when you are dealing with customers yourself!
There’s been a few incidents this week which have caused the above rant. And after the PC World fiasco last week, I was in no mood for them!
Firstly, I rang the printing supplier on Tuesday. We had travelled over to St Helens (Merseyside, a good 90 minute journey for me) the previous week to see the (supposed final) artwork and the bag samples for some screen printing we wanted doing on some bags for the promotional work we are doing on 22nd and 23rd December. When we got there, the artwork hadn’t been done, in fact what had been very hastily printed off was something that bore no resemblance to our logo at all, and the colours were completely different. Now I remember how much care we took with our logo, branding and the colours, and I’m quite protective of it now I think we’ve got it right! So I was not impressed at all. One bag we should’ve seen a sample of hadn’t arrived, and the other bag just wasn’t suitable. So we left it with them that they would email me the final artwork and the quote, for both the bags and 2 fleeces we left with them, and came away. I should’ve received this email on Monday. So by Tuesday, nothing had arrived, and I rang them up. The salesman I had spoken to wasn’t in, so I was put through to a printer (I think, but he may have been a designer, he didn’t say who he was). He told me it wasn’t possible to screen print in the number of colours we needed (3) onto the bags/fleeces. Not sure why, I didn’t even stop to ask. I was furious. Why had no-one rung me? We were up against a tight deadline, and I’d just been ignored. Charming.
Second incident, again due to printers. We were supposed to collect some promotional cards when we met our mentor on Thursday (which itself went very well, but more of that later), as they have done the design and dealt with the printers. Despite giving us a due date of Thursday, they then informed us that the cards were still drying, and so they wouldn’t arrive until Friday. Apparently, the factory was too cold, and the drying was taking longer than anticipated. I ask you, British Rail and leaves on the track ring any bells? Okay, so not a disaster, and they did arrive as promised on Friday. But still a bit niggling.
Then on Thursday evening we had to do to the UPS depot to collect 10,000 packs of crayons, again for our promotional event. Now I’ll give UPS their due. I’m very impressed with their service. We had missed the attempted delivery on Thursday morning, so rather than them attempt a second delivery on Friday, we arranged to collect them from the depot. And our promotional supplier, Angus Limelight, helped us out with tracking numbers etc, so we could arrange this. He really tried his best and I thank him for this.
However, when I looked at the crayons I was a bit disappointed. The branded packs were smashing, really good quality. But the crayons themselves were about 2cm shorter than the box, and when they were laid side by side, they were quite a bit narrower than the box. It looked like we’d put the wrong crayons in the box.
After speaking to Angus Limelight about this, he told me it was really difficult to get crayons in such small quantities, and the choice around the world was very limited. I appreciate to him, and worldwide crayon suppliers, that 10,000 packs is small-fry, but to us it was a massive investment. And it took a lot of discussion and research before we made the decision to go ahead with this promotional event, simply because of the cost to us. (see diary post on November 10th).
I suppose I blame myself, because I didn’t ask enough questions about the product. I knew the size of the box, but just assumed it had been measured to match the size of the crayons. Well I’ll know in future to ask a lot more, and think of every possible thing that may not be as I expect.
I think the motto here is just to keep on top of your suppliers. Confirm every detail of your purchase order, put everything in writing, and keep chasing them and double-checking delivery dates until it arrives. Insist on good customer service, even if it means you make yourself a nuisance. Good suppliers won’t mind because they’ll realise the possible lifetime value of your business with them.
The last things we’ve already ordered, for our preview evenings in January, are due to arrive on Tuesday and Thursday next week. I’ll be really hassling about them keeping those delivery dates, because if we miss them, we are right on top of Christmas, and I bet most suppliers are closing down on Friday. We have a lot to do over the Christmas break, and we really need these deliveries to plan ahead for the first week in January.
Some excellent news this week. We met again with our proposed ‘mentor’, and went through the nitty-gritty of the deal with him. Everything seems fine. Just one minor change to the documents for tax reasons, and he should be signing this week. So more about him and his planned role in our business next week.
Kirsty
I’ve had a very annoying week this week. I really feel that customer service is a thing of the past for most companies, especially when their customer is a small start-up company, who is really having to watch every penny.
I can see that the business we are giving to others is obviously minimal compared to the level of orders they usually get from established businesses, but how short-sighted are they? How do they know that in 12 months’ time we could be making the same large orders, when we are more established. Well you always remember who’s let you down, so bear that in mind when you are dealing with customers yourself!
There’s been a few incidents this week which have caused the above rant. And after the PC World fiasco last week, I was in no mood for them!
Firstly, I rang the printing supplier on Tuesday. We had travelled over to St Helens (Merseyside, a good 90 minute journey for me) the previous week to see the (supposed final) artwork and the bag samples for some screen printing we wanted doing on some bags for the promotional work we are doing on 22nd and 23rd December. When we got there, the artwork hadn’t been done, in fact what had been very hastily printed off was something that bore no resemblance to our logo at all, and the colours were completely different. Now I remember how much care we took with our logo, branding and the colours, and I’m quite protective of it now I think we’ve got it right! So I was not impressed at all. One bag we should’ve seen a sample of hadn’t arrived, and the other bag just wasn’t suitable. So we left it with them that they would email me the final artwork and the quote, for both the bags and 2 fleeces we left with them, and came away. I should’ve received this email on Monday. So by Tuesday, nothing had arrived, and I rang them up. The salesman I had spoken to wasn’t in, so I was put through to a printer (I think, but he may have been a designer, he didn’t say who he was). He told me it wasn’t possible to screen print in the number of colours we needed (3) onto the bags/fleeces. Not sure why, I didn’t even stop to ask. I was furious. Why had no-one rung me? We were up against a tight deadline, and I’d just been ignored. Charming.
Second incident, again due to printers. We were supposed to collect some promotional cards when we met our mentor on Thursday (which itself went very well, but more of that later), as they have done the design and dealt with the printers. Despite giving us a due date of Thursday, they then informed us that the cards were still drying, and so they wouldn’t arrive until Friday. Apparently, the factory was too cold, and the drying was taking longer than anticipated. I ask you, British Rail and leaves on the track ring any bells? Okay, so not a disaster, and they did arrive as promised on Friday. But still a bit niggling.
Then on Thursday evening we had to do to the UPS depot to collect 10,000 packs of crayons, again for our promotional event. Now I’ll give UPS their due. I’m very impressed with their service. We had missed the attempted delivery on Thursday morning, so rather than them attempt a second delivery on Friday, we arranged to collect them from the depot. And our promotional supplier, Angus Limelight, helped us out with tracking numbers etc, so we could arrange this. He really tried his best and I thank him for this.
However, when I looked at the crayons I was a bit disappointed. The branded packs were smashing, really good quality. But the crayons themselves were about 2cm shorter than the box, and when they were laid side by side, they were quite a bit narrower than the box. It looked like we’d put the wrong crayons in the box.
After speaking to Angus Limelight about this, he told me it was really difficult to get crayons in such small quantities, and the choice around the world was very limited. I appreciate to him, and worldwide crayon suppliers, that 10,000 packs is small-fry, but to us it was a massive investment. And it took a lot of discussion and research before we made the decision to go ahead with this promotional event, simply because of the cost to us. (see diary post on November 10th).
I suppose I blame myself, because I didn’t ask enough questions about the product. I knew the size of the box, but just assumed it had been measured to match the size of the crayons. Well I’ll know in future to ask a lot more, and think of every possible thing that may not be as I expect.
I think the motto here is just to keep on top of your suppliers. Confirm every detail of your purchase order, put everything in writing, and keep chasing them and double-checking delivery dates until it arrives. Insist on good customer service, even if it means you make yourself a nuisance. Good suppliers won’t mind because they’ll realise the possible lifetime value of your business with them.
The last things we’ve already ordered, for our preview evenings in January, are due to arrive on Tuesday and Thursday next week. I’ll be really hassling about them keeping those delivery dates, because if we miss them, we are right on top of Christmas, and I bet most suppliers are closing down on Friday. We have a lot to do over the Christmas break, and we really need these deliveries to plan ahead for the first week in January.
Some excellent news this week. We met again with our proposed ‘mentor’, and went through the nitty-gritty of the deal with him. Everything seems fine. Just one minor change to the documents for tax reasons, and he should be signing this week. So more about him and his planned role in our business next week.
Kirsty
Let's get on with it!
Written on 9 December 2005
This week has definitely been much less traumatic than last, and looking back on it, I actually feel we have made some good progress.
Technology issues at the weekend. We really needed to upgrade our scanner as it just wasn’t performing well and was causing us some real inefficiencies. I roped in Ross, as his technical mind is far superior to mine. After a visit to PC World, we were exasperated! No-one there could tell us about the scanners’ functions, capabilities or what all the technical jargon meant.
They were busy, and, as always it’s a nightmare trying to find anyone to help. We were passed from pillar to post, from a salesman who knew nothing about scanners at all, to someone who was just responsible for demonstrating and flogging a 3 in 1 printer/fax/scanner, which was just too slow for our needs, and anyhow we only wanted a scanner. He then sent us to the business customers’ area, and of course there was no-one around. So we managed to find a manager who was supposedly directing staff to the required customers, so we waited, and waited and waited, and then walked out. One hour wasted and PC World have lost a sale.
Thankfully Ross knew of an independent company called Scan Computers, who luckily are based just down the road. So we went there instead. Should’ve gone their in the first place. We thought PC World would have a broader range and someone we could ask questions to, but obviously not. Scan helped us out, only had a few models in stock, but we found what we needed and came away much happier. I finally managed to install it on Thursday, as I’d just not had the time without Luke around, before then. It works great. Now I just need to get my memory on my computer upgraded, because it’s starting to plod.
Also had a great coup when we got an email from Denise Robertson, the agony aunt on This Morning. We’d written to her back in September to see if she liked the idea of our site, and she’s finally replied with some fantastic comments. So they’re going straight onto the holding page, along with Kym Marsh’s comments!
We’ve also managed to subscribe (courtesy of Venturepoint, the company organising the MEN Venture Awards), to ResponseSource.com which is an email notification system for journalists to contact PR companies with their requirements for features/case studies. I’ve already replied to 3 journalists, so you never know, we may be in print soon. Think we also have to find a cuttings service too, we can’t possibly keep track of all these publications ourselves, and we need to know when we make it into print, so we can track our marketing work.
Today’s major task is to go to the printers to see the design for our screen printing, choose the bags we require for our promotional staff to hold the branded crayons in, and get our fleeces printed with our logo. All with Luke in tow!
I really feel that we are beginning to make progress again with the PR/marketing, something that I really thought had become stagnant over the past few weeks, as we had mistakenly begun to expect the PR agency to fulfill this role. Oh well, you live and learn!
Next week we are meeting our ‘mentor’ to agree terms with him, but more about that later. And I’ve got nearly 2 full days to concentrate on finishing off the content for the site. Can’t wait! I’m under pressure from Ross now who’s now managed to enter over 1,000 items in the database. Let the contest begin!
Kirsty
This week has definitely been much less traumatic than last, and looking back on it, I actually feel we have made some good progress.
Technology issues at the weekend. We really needed to upgrade our scanner as it just wasn’t performing well and was causing us some real inefficiencies. I roped in Ross, as his technical mind is far superior to mine. After a visit to PC World, we were exasperated! No-one there could tell us about the scanners’ functions, capabilities or what all the technical jargon meant.
They were busy, and, as always it’s a nightmare trying to find anyone to help. We were passed from pillar to post, from a salesman who knew nothing about scanners at all, to someone who was just responsible for demonstrating and flogging a 3 in 1 printer/fax/scanner, which was just too slow for our needs, and anyhow we only wanted a scanner. He then sent us to the business customers’ area, and of course there was no-one around. So we managed to find a manager who was supposedly directing staff to the required customers, so we waited, and waited and waited, and then walked out. One hour wasted and PC World have lost a sale.
Thankfully Ross knew of an independent company called Scan Computers, who luckily are based just down the road. So we went there instead. Should’ve gone their in the first place. We thought PC World would have a broader range and someone we could ask questions to, but obviously not. Scan helped us out, only had a few models in stock, but we found what we needed and came away much happier. I finally managed to install it on Thursday, as I’d just not had the time without Luke around, before then. It works great. Now I just need to get my memory on my computer upgraded, because it’s starting to plod.
Also had a great coup when we got an email from Denise Robertson, the agony aunt on This Morning. We’d written to her back in September to see if she liked the idea of our site, and she’s finally replied with some fantastic comments. So they’re going straight onto the holding page, along with Kym Marsh’s comments!
We’ve also managed to subscribe (courtesy of Venturepoint, the company organising the MEN Venture Awards), to ResponseSource.com which is an email notification system for journalists to contact PR companies with their requirements for features/case studies. I’ve already replied to 3 journalists, so you never know, we may be in print soon. Think we also have to find a cuttings service too, we can’t possibly keep track of all these publications ourselves, and we need to know when we make it into print, so we can track our marketing work.
Today’s major task is to go to the printers to see the design for our screen printing, choose the bags we require for our promotional staff to hold the branded crayons in, and get our fleeces printed with our logo. All with Luke in tow!
I really feel that we are beginning to make progress again with the PR/marketing, something that I really thought had become stagnant over the past few weeks, as we had mistakenly begun to expect the PR agency to fulfill this role. Oh well, you live and learn!
Next week we are meeting our ‘mentor’ to agree terms with him, but more about that later. And I’ve got nearly 2 full days to concentrate on finishing off the content for the site. Can’t wait! I’m under pressure from Ross now who’s now managed to enter over 1,000 items in the database. Let the contest begin!
Kirsty
04 December 2005
Advent Activities
Children are going to be eating enough chocolate over Christmas, so if you don’t want to start them on 1 December with the standard chocolate advent calendar, how about doing something different this year? A few ideas below to build up to the excitement of Christmas……
Build a nativity
Each day make another piece of the nativity scene, and gradually build up your model every day until Christmas. It doesn’t have to take very long, for example:
1 Dec – get a cardboard box, cut off one side, and let the children decorate it for the stable
2 Dec – collect some grass, and leave it to dry, so it can be used as straw
3 Dec – make some lambs. Use cotton wool balls, draw on their eyes with black pen, & matchsticks for legs
4 Dec – make some shepherds or wise men or Mary/Joseph – for all the people, cut out a shape from card, leaving a rectangle tab under their feet, so that it can be turned backwards as a stand
etc
Handprint advent wreath
Draw around your children’s hands at least 8 times and cut out. Use green paper or get them to colour them in afterwards, to make green leaves. Cut out a disc of cardboard, and stick the hands around the edge of the disc.
Roll up pieces of coloured paper (or plain paper that has been coloured in by the kids), to make a thin tube. Make 4 of these to be candles. Stick on some orange/yellow paper to be the flame.
You could make a candle each week, and build up to the 4 weeks of Christmas, ‘lighting’ the last one on Christmas Eve.
Advent paper chain
Make a paper chain, with 24 links of paper strips taped together. Number each from 1 to 24. And write an activity for the children to do on that day. For example, make/write Christmas cards, buy present for xxx, decorate the Christmas tree, hang up the cards, collect evergreens from the garden to decorate the picture frames, wrap up presents, make/write gift tags, bake some Christmas shaped biscuits etc!
Build a nativity
Each day make another piece of the nativity scene, and gradually build up your model every day until Christmas. It doesn’t have to take very long, for example:
1 Dec – get a cardboard box, cut off one side, and let the children decorate it for the stable
2 Dec – collect some grass, and leave it to dry, so it can be used as straw
3 Dec – make some lambs. Use cotton wool balls, draw on their eyes with black pen, & matchsticks for legs
4 Dec – make some shepherds or wise men or Mary/Joseph – for all the people, cut out a shape from card, leaving a rectangle tab under their feet, so that it can be turned backwards as a stand
etc
Handprint advent wreath
Draw around your children’s hands at least 8 times and cut out. Use green paper or get them to colour them in afterwards, to make green leaves. Cut out a disc of cardboard, and stick the hands around the edge of the disc.
Roll up pieces of coloured paper (or plain paper that has been coloured in by the kids), to make a thin tube. Make 4 of these to be candles. Stick on some orange/yellow paper to be the flame.
You could make a candle each week, and build up to the 4 weeks of Christmas, ‘lighting’ the last one on Christmas Eve.
Advent paper chain
Make a paper chain, with 24 links of paper strips taped together. Number each from 1 to 24. And write an activity for the children to do on that day. For example, make/write Christmas cards, buy present for xxx, decorate the Christmas tree, hang up the cards, collect evergreens from the garden to decorate the picture frames, wrap up presents, make/write gift tags, bake some Christmas shaped biscuits etc!
Have a wizarding time
Harry Potter mania has struck again, so use this theme to entertain your kids (& their friends if you want to make a party of it) for an afternoon…..
Wizarding makes
Making a cloak or wizard’s cape:
The material:
If you have some old sheets you can cut to size & dye black in the washing machine, then great, but if you don’t have the time, consider getting an old adult’s shirt, turning the sleeves inside out (or cutting them off) and sealing the armholes up (sew them, sellotape them or glue them!)
Decorate it:
Get the kids to decorate with felt tips, draw a crest on paper & pin or glue onto the back, add sequins or glitter onto the collar, glue tinsel around the edges etc etc
The wizard’s hat:
Use old wallpaper (turned inside out if it’s patterned) or wrapping paper and make a cone with it, glue or sellotape to hold in place. Get the kids to decorate with sparkly bits, foil, paint, glitter etc
The all-important wand:
Get a dead twig, as curly and knotted as possible, or a few chopsticks tied together, or even a roll of newspaper, covered with papier mache (flour, water mixed into a sloppy paste added to more newspaper bits stuck on). When it’s dry it can be decorated, again with ribbons, wool, tinsel, foil, glitter, stars and anything else you can find!
A Wizard’s feast
Okay, so it’s not exactly a balanced meal, but great fun for a one-off! Serve in old glass jars, or on tin foil
Eyes of newt – squirty aerosol cream with a raisin in the middle
Bashed beetles – small lumps of cornflakes or rice crispies covered in chocolate
Slimy pond sludge – green jelly
Wriggly worms – cold spaghetti (esp if cooked in boiling water with red food colouring)
Witches fingers – cocktail sausages
Blind eyes – half boiled egg, remove the yolk and add a grape or pickled onion instead
Bats’ wings – chicken wings (cooked!)
Dead bugs & flies – raisins frozen in ice cube trays of water, and added to drinks
Mixing Potions – lemonade coloured with green food colouring
Dragon’s blood – blue coloured water
HAVE FUN!
Wizarding makes
Making a cloak or wizard’s cape:
The material:
If you have some old sheets you can cut to size & dye black in the washing machine, then great, but if you don’t have the time, consider getting an old adult’s shirt, turning the sleeves inside out (or cutting them off) and sealing the armholes up (sew them, sellotape them or glue them!)
Decorate it:
Get the kids to decorate with felt tips, draw a crest on paper & pin or glue onto the back, add sequins or glitter onto the collar, glue tinsel around the edges etc etc
The wizard’s hat:
Use old wallpaper (turned inside out if it’s patterned) or wrapping paper and make a cone with it, glue or sellotape to hold in place. Get the kids to decorate with sparkly bits, foil, paint, glitter etc
The all-important wand:
Get a dead twig, as curly and knotted as possible, or a few chopsticks tied together, or even a roll of newspaper, covered with papier mache (flour, water mixed into a sloppy paste added to more newspaper bits stuck on). When it’s dry it can be decorated, again with ribbons, wool, tinsel, foil, glitter, stars and anything else you can find!
A Wizard’s feast
Okay, so it’s not exactly a balanced meal, but great fun for a one-off! Serve in old glass jars, or on tin foil
Eyes of newt – squirty aerosol cream with a raisin in the middle
Bashed beetles – small lumps of cornflakes or rice crispies covered in chocolate
Slimy pond sludge – green jelly
Wriggly worms – cold spaghetti (esp if cooked in boiling water with red food colouring)
Witches fingers – cocktail sausages
Blind eyes – half boiled egg, remove the yolk and add a grape or pickled onion instead
Bats’ wings – chicken wings (cooked!)
Dead bugs & flies – raisins frozen in ice cube trays of water, and added to drinks
Mixing Potions – lemonade coloured with green food colouring
Dragon’s blood – blue coloured water
HAVE FUN!
A tale of two halves
We always knew this week was going to be important. Ross and I had decided back in October that we were going impose a deadline upon ourselves for entering content. So we decided we would both clear this week of other work/activities and aim for 5 full days of working on the business.
I booked extra childcare for Luke, and Ross took holidays from work. So apart from a couple of hours here and there, with things that couldn’t be avoided, we have pretty much worked full time on the site. And what a difference it has made!
In terms of my emotional state, I just felt so much more relaxed in the evenings, feeling that I had really done a good day’s work. Unfortunately the house is a complete tip!
Content has been added apace. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning were very productive. However, things slowed down a bit from then on, because we were having trouble with the scanner. It just isn’t up to the job of scanning the volume we need to, and at the speed we want to go. So after a lot of messing about and time wasting, we’ve decided to invest in another one. We’re off to the shops this weekend to have a look at what’s around. In the meantime I’ve managed to get nearly all the content entered, that doesn’t require any attached scanned images, and I’ve just got a couple of categories left (arts/crafts, colouring/puzzles & kids parties). Ross has also made great progress with Days Out, and has nearly entered 1,000 venues now.
So the story of the second half of the week starts to unfold…
Besides the technology causing frustrations, we also had a couple of other major business issues to deal with.
Firstly, another website has launched doing exactly what we are doing, albeit to a much lesser degree and on a smaller scale. However it’s a bit disconcerting that it’s so like our offering, and I’m wondering if we shouldn’t have been so public about what we were doing. I thought we’d left it late enough, so that someone else couldn’t get in on the act before we launched, but I suppose if you already have the main requirements of a website (from an affiliated company) and an existing customer base, it doesn’t take long. This particular site is run by another trading company, who are of course advertising all over the place, so it is a bit distracting. This is exactly one of the things we are staying away from, it’s one of our Unique Selling Points (USPs) that we don’t have any advertising on the site that distracts you from the content, and also we don’t have links that take you completely away from our site.
Having looked at the site in some detail, I don’t think it’s going to pose us much of a threat. Technically it’s not great. Links are missing, search results are returning incorrect activities for the search parameters you have requested, and the content is absolutely minimal. They are relying on others providing content, which could take an awful long time to build up. Whereas we are putting the hard work and long hours in ourselves to ensure that there’s a minimum of 2,000 items already on our site when we launch. Then we will be adding more every week aswell. We believe we had to launch with a complete offering from the start, especially since we are charging our members. But every search will return at least 8 items that are relevant to those search parameters. Most will return a minimum of 25 items. This is something we are taking great care (& therefore time) over.
But at least it shows us that someone else also thinks there is a big gap in the market for our idea!
We had another blow on Thursday. We had got to final stages of agreeing the legal contracts with Fido, the company we had chosen to be our Public Relations advisors, and had a meeting to conclude the deal, one way or another, and the result is that unfortunately we’ve decided to walk away from them. The deal had just changed so much from the initial discussions we had with them, and what they wanted, compared to what we were willing to offer, were poles apart. They were quite adamant they weren’t going to budge one inch.
It’s a real shame, mainly because I think we have completely wasted three months of potential marketing time, which we’re never going to get back. I had sent over several press releases with themes of wizarding activities, and advent, and nothing has happened to them at all. But also because I think the relationship has just totally broken down now, and there’s no way Ross & I want them to be a part of our company. We just won’t be able to work with them in the future, even if we could thrash something out to resolve the deal.
This is something that I was concerned would happen once lawyers got involved. I have worked with lawyers on many deals (I have advised countless businesses on buy-outs, buy-ins, mergers, disposals & fundraising). It is always the case that lawyers advise you of the most risk that you could be facing. Don’t get me wrong, that’s great, that’s exactly what we pay them for. But then it’s up to the client to judge the commercial risk, and what they are prepared to accept in those particular circumstances.
The lawyers don’t always know the full story about the full strength of their client’s negotiating position. I had hoped that our lawyer and their’s would discuss this deal between them, which is the usual way things go. Things are normally much smoother that way, but is does mean that you incur more fees. When the clients negotiate the deal between themselves, it usually means things end up getting more heated, simply due to the inexperience of the parties who are doing the negotiating. In fact I felt that they made a couple of classic mistakes in our meeting.
Firstly, they completely misjudged the strength of their negotiating position. They thought they were invaluable to us, and we were worthless in the scheme of things. They totally missed the point that we don’t actually need a PR company at the start. Yes, it would be useful and we would certainly benefit. But we started the PR work ourselves before they were involved, and made huge strides forward. (getting on startups for instance!) Since they have been ‘on board’ (or not actually on board as it turns out) nothing has happened, because we took our foot off the pedal, thinking they were taking care of it, when actually they were waiting until the legals were signed.
Secondly, they stated at the beginning of the meeting that their offer was non-negotiable. They didn’t want to enter into negotiations (when in fact we already were, because it was nothing like the first offer we discussed!) and actually backed themselves into a corner. I asked them several times to clarify that this offer was ‘take it or leave it’ which they confirmed. Very foolish. I actually teach negotiating skills to accountants who are acting for clients, and this is one of those things you see inexperienced negotiators do. They didn’t leave us with any option or any alternative route to go. Their offer was certainly not acceptable, so after just 30 minutes in the meeting, we left it!
Oh dear, what a shame. However, Ross & I actually feel a sense of freedom again now. Not only have we regained part of the company’s shares that we thought we had handed over, we actually feel in control of the PR again. We had been getting a little concerned about how things had been going, and now we have more determination than ever to make a success of this business. We have a couple of other options with PR advisors, so we’ll investigate those. But it’s not the end of the world if we don’t use any external advisors for the moment.
So onwards & upwards! By the way, I’ll include the wizarding activities and the advent activities on the next blogpost, in case anyone who has children would like to use any of them! May as well make use of the work I’ve done!
Kirsty
I booked extra childcare for Luke, and Ross took holidays from work. So apart from a couple of hours here and there, with things that couldn’t be avoided, we have pretty much worked full time on the site. And what a difference it has made!
In terms of my emotional state, I just felt so much more relaxed in the evenings, feeling that I had really done a good day’s work. Unfortunately the house is a complete tip!
Content has been added apace. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning were very productive. However, things slowed down a bit from then on, because we were having trouble with the scanner. It just isn’t up to the job of scanning the volume we need to, and at the speed we want to go. So after a lot of messing about and time wasting, we’ve decided to invest in another one. We’re off to the shops this weekend to have a look at what’s around. In the meantime I’ve managed to get nearly all the content entered, that doesn’t require any attached scanned images, and I’ve just got a couple of categories left (arts/crafts, colouring/puzzles & kids parties). Ross has also made great progress with Days Out, and has nearly entered 1,000 venues now.
So the story of the second half of the week starts to unfold…
Besides the technology causing frustrations, we also had a couple of other major business issues to deal with.
Firstly, another website has launched doing exactly what we are doing, albeit to a much lesser degree and on a smaller scale. However it’s a bit disconcerting that it’s so like our offering, and I’m wondering if we shouldn’t have been so public about what we were doing. I thought we’d left it late enough, so that someone else couldn’t get in on the act before we launched, but I suppose if you already have the main requirements of a website (from an affiliated company) and an existing customer base, it doesn’t take long. This particular site is run by another trading company, who are of course advertising all over the place, so it is a bit distracting. This is exactly one of the things we are staying away from, it’s one of our Unique Selling Points (USPs) that we don’t have any advertising on the site that distracts you from the content, and also we don’t have links that take you completely away from our site.
Having looked at the site in some detail, I don’t think it’s going to pose us much of a threat. Technically it’s not great. Links are missing, search results are returning incorrect activities for the search parameters you have requested, and the content is absolutely minimal. They are relying on others providing content, which could take an awful long time to build up. Whereas we are putting the hard work and long hours in ourselves to ensure that there’s a minimum of 2,000 items already on our site when we launch. Then we will be adding more every week aswell. We believe we had to launch with a complete offering from the start, especially since we are charging our members. But every search will return at least 8 items that are relevant to those search parameters. Most will return a minimum of 25 items. This is something we are taking great care (& therefore time) over.
But at least it shows us that someone else also thinks there is a big gap in the market for our idea!
We had another blow on Thursday. We had got to final stages of agreeing the legal contracts with Fido, the company we had chosen to be our Public Relations advisors, and had a meeting to conclude the deal, one way or another, and the result is that unfortunately we’ve decided to walk away from them. The deal had just changed so much from the initial discussions we had with them, and what they wanted, compared to what we were willing to offer, were poles apart. They were quite adamant they weren’t going to budge one inch.
It’s a real shame, mainly because I think we have completely wasted three months of potential marketing time, which we’re never going to get back. I had sent over several press releases with themes of wizarding activities, and advent, and nothing has happened to them at all. But also because I think the relationship has just totally broken down now, and there’s no way Ross & I want them to be a part of our company. We just won’t be able to work with them in the future, even if we could thrash something out to resolve the deal.
This is something that I was concerned would happen once lawyers got involved. I have worked with lawyers on many deals (I have advised countless businesses on buy-outs, buy-ins, mergers, disposals & fundraising). It is always the case that lawyers advise you of the most risk that you could be facing. Don’t get me wrong, that’s great, that’s exactly what we pay them for. But then it’s up to the client to judge the commercial risk, and what they are prepared to accept in those particular circumstances.
The lawyers don’t always know the full story about the full strength of their client’s negotiating position. I had hoped that our lawyer and their’s would discuss this deal between them, which is the usual way things go. Things are normally much smoother that way, but is does mean that you incur more fees. When the clients negotiate the deal between themselves, it usually means things end up getting more heated, simply due to the inexperience of the parties who are doing the negotiating. In fact I felt that they made a couple of classic mistakes in our meeting.
Firstly, they completely misjudged the strength of their negotiating position. They thought they were invaluable to us, and we were worthless in the scheme of things. They totally missed the point that we don’t actually need a PR company at the start. Yes, it would be useful and we would certainly benefit. But we started the PR work ourselves before they were involved, and made huge strides forward. (getting on startups for instance!) Since they have been ‘on board’ (or not actually on board as it turns out) nothing has happened, because we took our foot off the pedal, thinking they were taking care of it, when actually they were waiting until the legals were signed.
Secondly, they stated at the beginning of the meeting that their offer was non-negotiable. They didn’t want to enter into negotiations (when in fact we already were, because it was nothing like the first offer we discussed!) and actually backed themselves into a corner. I asked them several times to clarify that this offer was ‘take it or leave it’ which they confirmed. Very foolish. I actually teach negotiating skills to accountants who are acting for clients, and this is one of those things you see inexperienced negotiators do. They didn’t leave us with any option or any alternative route to go. Their offer was certainly not acceptable, so after just 30 minutes in the meeting, we left it!
Oh dear, what a shame. However, Ross & I actually feel a sense of freedom again now. Not only have we regained part of the company’s shares that we thought we had handed over, we actually feel in control of the PR again. We had been getting a little concerned about how things had been going, and now we have more determination than ever to make a success of this business. We have a couple of other options with PR advisors, so we’ll investigate those. But it’s not the end of the world if we don’t use any external advisors for the moment.
So onwards & upwards! By the way, I’ll include the wizarding activities and the advent activities on the next blogpost, in case anyone who has children would like to use any of them! May as well make use of the work I’ve done!
Kirsty
24 November 2005
It's all a big foggy!
My working time has really been thrown out this week. I was in London on Tuesday and got fogbound at Heathrow, and the plane was delayed for several hours. I finally got home at 1am. I was so tired on Wednesday, and Luke must have sensed it, because he didn’t sleep at his usual time, so I didn’t get chance to get the work done I’d wanted to. So I got more ratty of course! But after a good night’s sleep last night, I am fine and firing on all cylinders again.
This week has been a bit frustrating generally, as there are some key areas of our business where we just aren’t quite there. Legals, negotiating final bits of deals etc.
But I suppose we have made some progress if I look back over the week. We’re finalizing our arrangement with our mentor and Venturepoint, and the last amends on the site are actually being done as I write, in particular the Worldpay online merchant account. It’s so gratifying to see the functionality and design changes taking effect. Just small things, but they give it a much better look. Sometimes when you’ve been looking at the same thing for weeks and weeks, it’s hard to stand back and be objective. We’ve also had the artwork now for some promotional gimmicks we’re using, and so they are ordered. After all the ‘umm-ing and aaah-ing’ about the cost and whether we should do it, I’m glad it’s finally underway.
On Monday we had a look around Venturepoint’s office space. This would really be useful for us for meetings. It’s not ideal having to meet people in hotels, or rely on them to host the meeting at their offices all the time. Plus it’s quite central for Fido, us and our mentor.
I’m trying to plan in a regular management meeting for all of us to get together once a fortnight. If it’s a set date in the diary then it is more likely to happen, rather than having time drifting in between each meeting. I think they are very useful as they provide a focus for getting things done, especially if you have to report on progress. But I insist on structured meetings. I can’t cope with those meetings that just go on and on. I always set an agenda for a meeting, have action points (not minutes) with responsibility and timescale attached. It just drives your workload much better and ensures you prioritise – it’s me and lists again! Also saves me having to keep everyone ‘in the loop’ all the time. You lose track of who knows what, and with our business structure, all our team should have a good knowledge of everything, not just their own particular area. It will all overlap, and anyway we are all responsible for making sure we hit our goals.
Met up with Jen whilst in London, our Greater London regional manager. Was glad to have sorted the technology, so we could look at the site on my laptap in the hotel, by using my mobile phone. I know, the technology’s been around for ages, but it’s only recently that we decided we needed the ability to do this, particularly with the preview evenings/focus groups coming up in January. And I definitely only have your average user’s technical knowledge. So really chuffed that it actually worked! Made such a difference being able to train Jen whilst showing her things on screen. Sharon (our Greater Manchester regional manager) made some suggestions when I trained her, and it’s fab to see that those have been implemented. Will make entering content a bit easier.
We have been talking about a few business changes. We have an annual membership but are thinking of offering a single month’s membership, which may suit some people better, and may entice those who don’t want to commit to a full year until they know what they’re getting. I’m setting the price at about one third of the annual membership price, so then again, some may go for the full year just to make the saving.
But we are going to have to think about this carefully. We need to convert those who pay for a single month into annual membership, so we are really going to have to market it well to them, probably using emails. This is where our mentor is going to come into his own, and I can’t wait to get things moving on this area.
This week has been a bit frustrating generally, as there are some key areas of our business where we just aren’t quite there. Legals, negotiating final bits of deals etc.
But I suppose we have made some progress if I look back over the week. We’re finalizing our arrangement with our mentor and Venturepoint, and the last amends on the site are actually being done as I write, in particular the Worldpay online merchant account. It’s so gratifying to see the functionality and design changes taking effect. Just small things, but they give it a much better look. Sometimes when you’ve been looking at the same thing for weeks and weeks, it’s hard to stand back and be objective. We’ve also had the artwork now for some promotional gimmicks we’re using, and so they are ordered. After all the ‘umm-ing and aaah-ing’ about the cost and whether we should do it, I’m glad it’s finally underway.
On Monday we had a look around Venturepoint’s office space. This would really be useful for us for meetings. It’s not ideal having to meet people in hotels, or rely on them to host the meeting at their offices all the time. Plus it’s quite central for Fido, us and our mentor.
I’m trying to plan in a regular management meeting for all of us to get together once a fortnight. If it’s a set date in the diary then it is more likely to happen, rather than having time drifting in between each meeting. I think they are very useful as they provide a focus for getting things done, especially if you have to report on progress. But I insist on structured meetings. I can’t cope with those meetings that just go on and on. I always set an agenda for a meeting, have action points (not minutes) with responsibility and timescale attached. It just drives your workload much better and ensures you prioritise – it’s me and lists again! Also saves me having to keep everyone ‘in the loop’ all the time. You lose track of who knows what, and with our business structure, all our team should have a good knowledge of everything, not just their own particular area. It will all overlap, and anyway we are all responsible for making sure we hit our goals.
Met up with Jen whilst in London, our Greater London regional manager. Was glad to have sorted the technology, so we could look at the site on my laptap in the hotel, by using my mobile phone. I know, the technology’s been around for ages, but it’s only recently that we decided we needed the ability to do this, particularly with the preview evenings/focus groups coming up in January. And I definitely only have your average user’s technical knowledge. So really chuffed that it actually worked! Made such a difference being able to train Jen whilst showing her things on screen. Sharon (our Greater Manchester regional manager) made some suggestions when I trained her, and it’s fab to see that those have been implemented. Will make entering content a bit easier.
We have been talking about a few business changes. We have an annual membership but are thinking of offering a single month’s membership, which may suit some people better, and may entice those who don’t want to commit to a full year until they know what they’re getting. I’m setting the price at about one third of the annual membership price, so then again, some may go for the full year just to make the saving.
But we are going to have to think about this carefully. We need to convert those who pay for a single month into annual membership, so we are really going to have to market it well to them, probably using emails. This is where our mentor is going to come into his own, and I can’t wait to get things moving on this area.
18 November 2005
Preview evenings
Another really progressive couple of days. Mainly about finalising designs for various pieces of print and promotional products we need, paying bills (yuk!) and sorting the final bits of the Worldpay application.
We have heard that the MEN Venture Awards will be decided on 7 December, and we should know the results shortly afterwards. But in the meantime we are meeting Venturepoint team to go and have a look at their office space at Venture Space in the brand new massive business park in Manchester call Central Park. We are definitely going to use one of the rooms there for our Manchester preview evening in January. So the preview evenings all booked, and everything more or less ordered for them. Now I just have to plan what I’m going to say and what we’re going to ask them!
We are collating the invite list, which is proving to be quite a mammoth task. Trying to ensure we target as many influential people as we can, so we can get their comments and start the ‘word of mouth’ process going.
We have also been in touch with the local childminders’ associations and children’s information services around Greater Manchester. They all deal with communications to their childminders in slightly different ways, and some will be easier to contact than others. Obviously, because of data protection and privacy laws, we can’t be given the contact details of the childminders directly, so we are working with other agencies who may be able to inform them about these preview evenings.
Going to see Lee Evans tonight, for a bit of light relief!
Then next week, besides meeting with Venturepoint, I’ve also arranged to meet up with Jen our London Regional Manager again. Looking forward to updating her on everything that’s been going on and seeing how she’s doing.
Must get some more content entered…….!
Kirsty
We have heard that the MEN Venture Awards will be decided on 7 December, and we should know the results shortly afterwards. But in the meantime we are meeting Venturepoint team to go and have a look at their office space at Venture Space in the brand new massive business park in Manchester call Central Park. We are definitely going to use one of the rooms there for our Manchester preview evening in January. So the preview evenings all booked, and everything more or less ordered for them. Now I just have to plan what I’m going to say and what we’re going to ask them!
We are collating the invite list, which is proving to be quite a mammoth task. Trying to ensure we target as many influential people as we can, so we can get their comments and start the ‘word of mouth’ process going.
We have also been in touch with the local childminders’ associations and children’s information services around Greater Manchester. They all deal with communications to their childminders in slightly different ways, and some will be easier to contact than others. Obviously, because of data protection and privacy laws, we can’t be given the contact details of the childminders directly, so we are working with other agencies who may be able to inform them about these preview evenings.
Going to see Lee Evans tonight, for a bit of light relief!
Then next week, besides meeting with Venturepoint, I’ve also arranged to meet up with Jen our London Regional Manager again. Looking forward to updating her on everything that’s been going on and seeing how she’s doing.
Must get some more content entered…….!
Kirsty
15 November 2005
First meeting with our new mentor
Very productive meeting today, really think we have made the best choice for a mentor. We’ll really get some good value from him because he fills in all the gaps in our skill base. Just talking to him this afternoon showed us the scope of his knowledge, either that, or he’s very good at winging it! But I’m sure he knows his stuff, I’ve known him for 2 years, seen his own business grow exponentially, and I trust his judgment.
Just been watching 2 shows tonight about start-ups, Make me a Million (C4) and Dragon’s Den (BBC2). When you see some of the other businesses you inevitably begin to compare yourself to them, and I find this even extends to me in my everyday life. I look at haulage trucks on the motorway, or shops in the high street, and think, well if they can make a business work with all their overheads, then surely we can. And I keep looking for any weaknesses in our business, anything at all that might mean we fail. But I can't find anything. And so I have faith. And then I wobble. And then I have undoubted faith!! Is that normal?
Sorted some extra babysitting for Luke tomorrow so I can get 4 hours of solid content into the database. Having 2 days where I’m supposed to be ‘working’ whilst Luke is in nursery is great in theory, but when it’s full of meetings away from the computer, it’s not so good. But essential nevertheless. So I’m starting to get a bit concerned now that I won’t get all the content in, hence I’m sat here tonight at 10.40pm, and I’m making some more hours available tomorrow. Got to really focus now for a few weeks, so that by Christmas we have the site ready to go!
Grit teeth, head down and plough on!
Kirsty
Just been watching 2 shows tonight about start-ups, Make me a Million (C4) and Dragon’s Den (BBC2). When you see some of the other businesses you inevitably begin to compare yourself to them, and I find this even extends to me in my everyday life. I look at haulage trucks on the motorway, or shops in the high street, and think, well if they can make a business work with all their overheads, then surely we can. And I keep looking for any weaknesses in our business, anything at all that might mean we fail. But I can't find anything. And so I have faith. And then I wobble. And then I have undoubted faith!! Is that normal?
Sorted some extra babysitting for Luke tomorrow so I can get 4 hours of solid content into the database. Having 2 days where I’m supposed to be ‘working’ whilst Luke is in nursery is great in theory, but when it’s full of meetings away from the computer, it’s not so good. But essential nevertheless. So I’m starting to get a bit concerned now that I won’t get all the content in, hence I’m sat here tonight at 10.40pm, and I’m making some more hours available tomorrow. Got to really focus now for a few weeks, so that by Christmas we have the site ready to go!
Grit teeth, head down and plough on!
Kirsty
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)