So, we are back at our desks and raring to go…. OK, we are back at our desks at least. I always get a mixture of feelings on my first day back, excitement – what’s in store? who’s going to ring? and trepidation – what’s in store? who’s going to ring?

At least I know there have been no big website drama’s this holiday, because for the first time I have been able to offer proper emergency support over this holiday break. I now have an iPad which monitors my email so I was able to respond to a couple of clients who needed website updates and email support without turning on my computer. While a ‘shut down’ period should be just that, I didn’t and don’t mind having the odd call from clients who need help, after all if they are working and need support then I’d rather they call and get sorted than feel they can’t and get frustrated.

Adding value

Thinking about the new year lead me to thoughts of what I want to achieve in 2012, because by all accounts this could be a critical year for many businesses. I identified a couple of areas to focus on, get more clients, stay in profit but most importantly look after my existing customers. Looking after people is something I hope I have always done, but I feel there is always scope for more effort. This year I hope to give you all: added value. I already try and be as fair as I can with my pricing, so my thoughts were to try and improve the service I give to my clients.

I’ve joined a Google program called Google Engage – it should help me get a better understanding of Adwords and some of the other offerings from Google. You may not be interested in advertising with Google so I have something up my sleeve that is twitter based. Also, I realise that I haven’t really explained the control panel that you get with your hosting account, there are features in there that you might find useful, so I will point out a few things to you in subsequent emails.

I want to hear from you

I was reminded while my mind was rambling over how to add value, of something that a marketing guy once said to me, the best way to decide how to improve your service is to ask the market place, so, I’d like to invite you to email me with your requests and ideas of what you need help with or what you want to get done with your website. Don’t worry if it’s a small thing, or something that might seem obvious, any feedback you give will help me formulate an action plan.

Contact me

Please email ian@designconscious.com with your needs or ideas however big or small, I’m not looking for an in-depth explanation just a few lines mentioning your thoughts.

Also…

While I’m on the subject of contacting me, I need to let you all know that as of the 1st February my 0845 number will cease working, please make sure you have updated your speed dials and contact details and have replaced the 0845 number with:

01952 414 003

2012

So, here’s to a good year for us all (I’m lifting my coffee cup in a toast) and I look forward to receiving your ideas.

Speak to you soon

symeco

Environmental advice and action

Symeco is a new start up company giving quality, independent and affordable environmental advice. The website was the second part of the design job that Design Conscious took on, the first part was the logo design.

Symeco is an environmentally aware company and the logo needed to reflect that, but it really didn’t need the cliched ‘recycled’ imagery that people immediately think of when anything environmental is mentioned. The logo needed a sympathic nod towards the green issues, but nothing over the top. It also need to read as one word even though the name is derived from two words, the brief was challenging and needed some sensitive consideration.

On designing the logo Ian Blackford said:

After researching the keywords and phrases that are associated with the market that Symeco are in, it became apparent that a font based logo would serve better than the overtly ‘green’ imagery I was seeing. I chose two weightd of the font Brink and if you look very closely the word is split into light weight ‘sym’ and heavier weight ‘eco’. The stylised world became an obvious choice of graphical device as it suggests enough of the ethos of the company without going to far, and could if needed, be a graphical device that could be used in the future.

Richard from Symeco was so pleased with the work produced so far that he extended the brief and ask me to design some business cards for him. I supplied a number of front and back variations from which his final business cards were produced.

Telford Community Transport

TCT

At Design Conscious we do a lot of work with small and large businesses so it’s nice to be able to work for a different market sector for a change. Telford Community Transport are a local organisation that assist people with mobility issues or find it difficult to use public transport. This job came about as a recommendation from another client of mine RHCS who were also involved with TCT on a different project.

The website is WordPress based and as part of the package Ian Blackford from Design Conscious has been to the TCT offices to train the staff on how to access the admin and update the site themselves.

Ian said:

Karen and Janine from TCT were surprised to see how easy it was to add and update the content on their website and even though they took notes they very quickly found they didn’t need to refer to them. WordPress is perfect for this type of client as it removes future update cost and means they can actually have a website they can use.

The design of the site stems from some pre-designed literature that TCT had, matching the style and colours was very easy and has produced a very striking website

da Vinci Restaurant Ironbridge

da Vinci Restaurant

All you Italian food lovers out there are in for a treat, the latest website to come out of the Design Conscious kitchen is for da Vinci’s Italian Restaurant in Ironbridge. The site has been crafted for Nadia using photos taken of their fine cuisine by Studio 72. It’s been a pleasure to work on this site and I’m very much looking forward to booking a table very soon.

At Design Conscious we are going through a bit of a rebrand, our logo is changing slightly and our website is going to become easier to use with less waffle and more to the point information.

All Telford websites should work this way

We think all websites should work this way, quick to load, easy to use and it should direct the person browsing to pick up the phone and call the company in question. That’s why we are launching the ‘Website design for Telford Companies’ idea. We are crafting this page to rank highly for the keywords of ‘Telford’ and ‘Website design’ with the idea that YOU, upon reading this page will call us and tell us your requirements. We then will give you an on-the-spot deal based on what you tell us.

We are not offering a blanket money off deal with this idea (if you want that see our website scrappage page) but we wont to find out what you need and offer you the best deal we can for your needs.

Sounds like a good website deal? We hope so!

The only way you will find out is to call us on 01952 414 003 and talk us through your website needs

p.s. – don’t forget to tell Ian that you found this page in google!

Welcome to the Design Conscious July update

News In A Nutshell

Holiday done – office now re-open

I’m back off holiday so it’s back to my desk and business as usual.

Email Outage

While I was away it seems the Design Conscious hosting account had a blip which affected my email from Wednesday 1st July onwards till Sunday 5th July so if you emailed me anything between those days I won’t have received it. If you are at all unsure please resend your email.  I’d hate to miss anything important so I don’t mind getting the same email twice. It looks like the blip did not affect anyone else and all sites operated normally with nobody needing to email ermergency@…

Feedback Required Please

Discounts

I had a couple of ideas last week which I would love for you to comment on. In an effort to improve cash flow I’ve had the idea to offer a 14 day discount on all my invoices. That would work like this: when I quote a job I will quote it at normal full price. When the job is invoiced and if it is paid within 14 days I will apply a % based discount as a thank you for settling the account quickly. If the invoice is paid on 30 days then the discount is not applied and the full quoted price becomes payable.

I don’t really know if that’s acceptable practice or even a good idea. I also don’t know if there is a mechanism for this in Sage, I don’t want to be issuing credit notes all the time for the discount so it might need some more thought. If you have any ideas or opinions then please let me know.

Bank Transfer Payments

I’m contemplating only accepting bank transfer payments and of course paying my bills by bank transfer too. Banks seem to be charging less for this method of payment so should help to keep costs down for everyone. If you have any thoughts or opinions then please let me know.

Quick Edits

Very often I get asked to do a quick edit to someone’s site which literally takes 5 minutes to do. I don’t normally charge for this as raising an invoice for 5 minutes worth of work is pointless, however over the year these edits mount up into a block of time that actually is worth charging for. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to rock the boat and refuse to do this work unless I get paid as that would be a major backward step, but I was wandering if a single yearly ‘maintenance’ charge would be acceptable if it was a sensible low amount? Perhaps even a tiered charge, a low charge for anyone who knows their site only needs minor modifications, a slightly higher charge for those people who need more work done, and so on.

This idea came from two thought processes, the first was to try and cover my time ‘costs’ doing the 5 minute jobs and secondly (and more importantly) I realised that some of my clients don’t update their site from one year to the next. I have a client who’s leaving me because (I suspect) their site isn’t performing very well and (I guess) that’s being blamed on me. The reality is if you don’t update your site and add new content your site will never perform very well. This particular site has not been updated for a while which illustrates my point. I swapped to WordPress as a way of generating websites because it has a fantastic admin system that allows my clients to get in and update the site themselves, yes it’s a learning curve but it’s definitely worth worth it in the end. However, those that can’t get to grips with it, or don’t have the time can always ask me to do it for them, but if they are afraid of the costs running away with them then that’s not going to happen, and this is the second reason why I came up with the idea of the tiered maintenance charge. If you know that your amendments are covered and you have already paid in advance at the beginning of the year, there is no reason why you shouldn’t update your site a little.

Again it’s just an idea right now, I’d like to gather your opinions. I would need to work out some ground rules because some amendments I’m asked to do can’t be covered under this idea as they are just too big, so I would need to work some structure into it all. If the general consensus is positive then I will apply some proper thought to it and ask for opinions on what I come up with.

Save The Children Charity

Do you ever have things happen to you that seem totally independent instances but you get a sudden realisation that they can be linked? I do, and I did the other day. My bookkeeper, Diane, asked me about a payment I make every month to Currys electrical store for £4.99. I told her it’s a ‘what ever happens’ plan which protects my TV, basically they will fix it or replace it if it breaks down. A few days later a pack came through the post from Save The Children thanking me for the donation I made when the Tsunami hit Japan and could I help again. It didn’t strike me at first but after a while I realised that I was blindly paying £4.99 a month to insure a TV when millions of children in the world don’t even have basic clothes, food, water or access to medical help.

I felt bad and decided to do something about it… then forgot and didn’t.

Last week my son fell over and split his knee which required 8 stitches. We were in Spain but he got treatment in just a few hours, we were lucky for it to happen in a developed country, just image if we had been elsewhere in the world.

So today I am cancelling the Currys payment and setting up a new direct debit to Save The Children, it’s not going to cost me anything but it might just help somebody else.

End Note

Thanks for reading this update, don’t forget to resend any email to me that you think might have gone astray and please let me know your thoughts on the ideas above, your input is of vital importance.

I’m looking forward to sending you another update soon.

Best Regards

ICB

—————

. Ian Blackford
Owner Manager – Design conscious .com

Welcome to the Design Conscious spring news round up. It’s been an eventful time here in the DC studio these last few months. I’ve learned a few lessons and been thankful of a few of my work practices.

News In A Nutshell

Away on holiday – office closed

I’m away on holiday for one week from 28th May – 4th June so the office will be closed that week.

Website emergency whilst office is closed

I’ve attempted in the past to try and read my email while I’m away but to be honest it’s never been successful. If you experience a major emergency with your website that can’t wait till I return, I have set up this email address:

emergency@designconscious.com

This mailbox is being monitored by someone local who has the ability to try and resolve your problem. Please only use this as a last resort, if the issue can wait till I get back please send me a normal email and I will attend to it for you after the 4th June. The person monitoring the emergency email address is remote to my office and so may not have full access to all the files and so may not be able to fully remedy any problems.

Telephone and mobile numbers

Since moving to Madeley my mobile has been worse than useless, the signal here is appalling and the battery life on the Nokia Slide 6700 is rubbish. Because of this my mobile should not be relied upon as a serious means of communicating with me. Please where possible use the landline. For a while now I have used the 0845 number and ported that to my landline, but it was pointed out to me a couple of times that people who have inclusive call packages have to pay for calls to 0845 numbers, so I am now not publicising that number any more. The 0845 number will still work for anyone who wants to call it, but it would be better if you change your address book and use this instead:

01952 414 003

Logo change

I was hoping to have had my new logo changed over at the beginning of the year, new house, new phone number, new look website, new logo. Well my strategy didn’t pan out. I was going to do a big unveil and… anyway that’s gone out the window, as you will notice from the header of this email (and from the website) my logo has changed, it’s still a lighthouse, but it’s now more graphic and stylised than before. I’m getting round to changing my stationery so you might still see the old logo for a little longer.

Other News

Recently two clients have let me down rather badly, one decided to go into voluntary liquidation and the other has over spent on his pet project and now can’t (won’t) pay me. The client who went into liquidation did so because he can’t pay his VAT bill, I had £300ish outstanding with him and a £5,500 job on the go. I was told not to worry because he was starting up again and the new company would honour my invoice and we could continue with the big job. As far as he was concerned it was business as usual but without the burden of a large VAT bill hanging over him.

I get very uneasy at these kind of practices, I’m pretty sure that someone who is capable of doing a runner from their debts is someone who won’t think twice about doing it again, and next time it might be when my £5,500 invoice is due. So as hard as it was to walk away from time and effort invested in the big job (and the outstanding invoice), I rang him and told him I didn’t want to do work for him any more. This didn’t go down well and has caused me a lot of hassle and wasted a lot of my time.

That was the first eventful happening. The next week whilst chasing up another client for payment on his outstanding invoice, I ended up having strong words with him after he accused me of invoicing him to much for the work done, not telling him the costs up front and generally trying to rip him off. I spent a number of hours that week trawling back through my email archive, finding out the emails that I had sent to him and he to me regarding payment and what to do about it. I shan’t go into the details now but I am 100% confident that I did everything by the book and I have the emails to prove it. You see all email in or out of my office is archived. Every message I send gets saved and every message I receive gets filed and archived, so I know what, when and at what time things are said by whom and to whom. I can state with absolute fact that this guy was told how much I was charging and that he had agreed to the cost up front before the invoices were raised. Basically this client has over spent on something that he couldn’t make a return from and is now refusing to acknowledge that he has any financial commitments to it. I notice that he hasn’t filled his company accounts at Companies House either, he set the project up as a Limited company so it will be interesting to watch what he does now. I’m still contemplating taking him to court over it but in the mean time I have suspended his website and stopped him accessing his email. I have put a holding page up stating that the site is offline because of outstanding debts, he appears not to have woken up to the fact that everybody can plainly see that he has defaulted on my invoices.

His job and some future work to come from a lead that he gave me means that I’m out of pocket by about £1,300, which when you add that to the other work I won’t get paid for it’s been a very expensive spring time here at design conscious!

End Note

I’m happy that I’ve walked away when I did from the one client and that I didn’t spend too much time on the lead for the other guy but what I’m most please about is my practice of archiving all my email. If you don’t do it then I strongly advise that you do.

A few people I deal with always call me on the phone to discuss changes to their websites and I realise that sometimes that’s easier to do than to write it out. However when you call someone there is no written prove that you called or that the resulting changes / work reflects what you actually asked for. An email is dated, time stamped, has a sender, a recipient and leaves a trail in the log files on the mail servers so should you ever need to prove what you said then you can with surprising accuracy. I send my emails out with a receipt request embedded in them so for 90% of my email I get notified when the recipient has read my mail, this is another useful feature and adds weight to your argument should you need it.

I’ve realised these last few months that being a sole trader is getting harder, I have a list of things to do on my desk right now that need my attention, however I need to finish this email, answer the phone, attend to the post and sort some job bags and… and there is always something else to add to the list. Logistically running an office on your own is difficult but it’s more than that, when you set up a business you create a monster that needs feeding. It requires a steady stream of incoming work to feed it or the monster will die. Looking for the work takes a lot of time and effort and as we have all felt it’s gotten a lot worse over the last couple of years. I need to improve my situation because it ultimately impacts on my clients so I’m still going to try and improve my turn around times, I’m fully aware that sometimes I’m not as speedy as perhaps I should be, I was hoping to get some of my admin work or marketing outsourced but with the cash flow hit I’ve just had that’s unlikely any time soon. If I can’t speed up I’m going to improve my communication, there is nothing worse than hearing nothing back and having to chase up the person again to find out what’s going on.

So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support, to apologise if you have had to wait for your projects to get done and to ask you to look out for the next DC.com Newsletter which I’m hoping will discuss happier events!

Best Regards

ICB

—————

. Ian Blackford

Owner Manager – Design conscious .com

Easy In Car Valeting

Easy In Easy Out Car Valeting

Easy In Easy Out Car Valeting is a hand wash – car wash company based in Shrewsbury. They had a need to revamp their website design and at the same time latch onto their unmissable signage carrying that through to their online presence.

The site has been built with future development in mind and is ready for easy inclusion of these ideas.

Budget Water Softeners

Budget Water Softeners

Telford has some very hard water areas so it’s a smart move to make sure your pipework is protected. Budget Water Softeners offer a range of self fit easy install softeners at sensible prices. This site was created following a house style for my client.

Cyprus Apartment Rental

Following in the same house style as: www.nerja-torrox-apartment.co.uk is a website for another holiday let owned by a client of mine www.simplyoverseas.com. They own this wonderful apartment in the Chromata Lagoon apartment complex just South East Coast of Cyprus in the coastal village of Kapparis.

Cyprus Apartment Rental Call Chris Morris on (01743) 343634