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It's been a rough couple of weeks here, sick kids and school holidays do not make for an easy time of it. Work commitments took a backseat to being mum, sometimes its the way its gotta be.
I am currently in the design stage of the Beauty Therapy project. I need to give the client a few options for how she wants the imagery for her Facebook page and website to look. The brief so far is that she doesn't want things to be too "pretty" because her salon isn't about pampering, its about beautifying yourself. I've got a few stock sites I use for this type of thing but its been tough because it seems as though when the world thinks of beauty therapy, they associate it with the exact type of things my client doesn't want to display. Makes my job a bit tougher but I do enjoy a challenge. I am going to try and give the client some images to consider, see where her preferences lie and then take it from there. Wish me luck! Until next time... Fx I've had two situations recently where a client was about head down a track that I thought was not such a great idea and I found myself in a tricky situation; do I tell them how bad their idea is, or do I try to make lemonade?
The first time I took the easy way out, I provided other ideas and encouraged them to think about their options instead of rushing in with the current "winner". It worked, but it almost didn't. I was discussing it with a friend of mine she said, "but this is why they've come to you, so you can tell them something isn't going to work. You should have told them how bad that idea was." She had a point but I didn't want to offend a client, I felt that in a roundabout way I had let them know the idea wasn't gold in my opinion. But should I have taken a stronger stance? What would I have done if they had decided to run with the original plan? Later on I found myself in a similar situation, where a client's enthusiasm for a bad idea put me in a spot of bother, I took more decisive action; I told them about the wasted opportunity if they continued down that track and gave them alternative ideas. I figured that if I presented things professionally, they would understand. And they did! It's hard trying to sidestep other people's ideas without upsetting them, but I have to trust my professional instincts and give the client alternative ideas. It's what I'm there for. Until next time... Fx As mentioned in my rather pitiful previous post, I feel fortunate to have welcomed several new clients into the All Sorted family. The funny thing is that all four of these wonderful newbies are all in the creative sphere; arts and crafts.
Every time I visit one of them, I feel a bit in awe of what they sell/produce. The creativity and ingenuity that surrounds me is spectacular, and I can't help but feel so proud they have chosen me to help them "go loud" about how awesome they are. Three of these clients are well established art, craft and gift shops in Auckland and Wellington, but the one I'm going to talk about here is very small and sweet and has only just come to being earlier this year. CraftyKins is the brainchild of a creative new mum; Anne (the artist) finds seriously cute soft toys and then paints a gorgeous painting of it to sell them as a pair. I may not be describing this very well but its a lovely little business venture for the baby and child market. As this is just a new thing Anne she's trying out, she's started off using Facebook as her platform. I've created her some business cards and branded stickers to put on all of her original artworks but she's holding off on a website for now until she knows how much of a market there is for this kind of thing. If her first few months are anything to go by, I'm pretty sure a CraftyKins website won't be too far away. The main point for this post - other than welcoming CraftyKins on board - is to remind small businesses that you don't have to do everything straight away. Go at your own pace and start off doing things you know you can manage on your own. It's important to learn how to walk before you can run. Good luck Anne, and good luck CraftyKins! Until next time... Fx Wowsers, that was a tough one.
Have you ever had a job that just doesn't seem to end; whether it be due to a 'to do' list that just keeps increasing, or because nothing seems to go right? I've just had one of those for both reasons. I've been pretty open about my feelings for WordPress, and before anyone gets offended that I have disparaged their favourite web platform, I can admit that it's my hang-up and not actually the fault of WordPress itself. I've just worked across a number of CMS options and this one doesn't make sense to me. Anyhoo, my most recent client came to me in tears late last year. She had been taken advantage of by several website designers/developers and had paid thousands for a site that she was desperately unhappy with, so much so that she didn't even want to tell potential clients that she had a site for them to view. This client had been let down and abandoned by everyone she had previously turned to, but she wanted to take another shot with me. No pressure! I set myself two goals; improve and refresh her website so the client could be proud of what she was offering, and I couldn't be another person to let her down professionally. There were countless emails and phone calls going back and fourth and there were times that I was tempted to say, "this is just a bit too much for me" but I didn't. Granted, the job took a bit longer than it should have - school holidays can be hard, yo! - but as long as I communicated with the client, she understood and continued to be patient. Long story short (too late!), the client called me yesterday with happiness in her voice. She had showed the new site to her teenage son and he had given her the seal of approval, he even said he would be willing to help her with photos and videos whereas before he wouldn't even look at what she had before. The client was overjoyed with how the site looked and showcased her services! She was excited about her business again and what 2017 might bring for her. And if that's not a happy ending, I don't know what is. Until next time.. Fx January 2017 is nearly done and dusted and I haven't had the chance to wish you a Happy New Year.
Since last year, I've been trying to focus on being mum to The Miss and Little Mister but I have had one client I needed to try and get sorted. It's not been easy this one. There have been several strikes against me; the site is using a platform I don't enjoy working with, the initial site set-up was pretty messy so I needed to spend a bit more time than anticipated trying to get it right, and it's school holidays so I often have little faces at my side wondering why I am not devoted to them. Normally I appreciate the freedom and flexibility working for myself and from home gives me. I feel luckier than most and don't want to be a "Moaning Myrtle" but when I couldn't shake the feeling that this job was a curse, I did start to wonder if continuing this way was the smartest thing to do. You guys know as well as I do that when you're working on your own, you have to fight all the fires all by yourself. You need to be the IT person. You have to be accounts payable and receivable. You need to do all the marketing and PR. And you never actually leave your place of work; your laptop/office is always there just whispering all the things you haven't done yet. I guess all I'm really saying, is that if you're soldiering on taking your small business from strength-to-strength, you're awesome and I salute you. It's harder than some people realise. Until next time... Fx Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day! I'm pretty darn happy right now folks, my latest labour of love is alive and open for business. Please take some time out of your busy schedules to check out the newIntuitive Birth. Whilst working on the eCommerce build, I asked SJ what (if anything) there was about her old site that she liked and what she would desperately like to change if given the chance. The response was immediate; her site needed to reflect more cultures and lifestyles than what was currently being shown. The site needed to be more of an obvious online shop, but needed to remain an easy place for parents-to-be to visit and find the information/support they might need. As you all know, this one has been cooking in the background for a while now. SJ was pretty amazing and understanding about how sometimes sick kids and school holidays come up and interrupt the work schedule, but I think it helped her knowing that the build was still very important to me and wasn't being ignored. I had a great time sourcing a selection of imagery that speaks to a range of people from a variety of backgrounds - although I was surprised at the number of times the same pregnant model popped up! It also made me quite happy correcting a few typos and inconsistencies that the previous Intuitive Birth site contained, but that's just of my little idiosyncracies. So, here I am only a few days away from Christmas and then the New Year and I have to say I'm proud as punch of the work I've done in 2016. I've learnt a few things along the way, and I'd like to think I've made some clients pretty happy. Merry Christmas, folks! Stay safe and happy. Until next time... Fx  I'm very pleased to report that the eCommerce website build is going well. After kind of a false start (I thought SquareSpace would be a good CMS for the client, but it turned out it was not), things are progressing well.
I've sent the first demo to the client and she's come back happy with how things are shaping up, and given some feedback to help keep me motivated. I'll keep plugging away entering the products she'll sell online and creating the relevant pages to help educate any future visitors to her site. I'm enjoying the build, and think its looking pretty flash (even if I do say so myself). In other news, I met with a lovely new client today who wants to update her current site to look its best AND maximise sales. This relationship is going to be more collaborative than some of my others, because they want to learn how to do this type of thing for themselves. Makes sense to me. I am going to check out the current site's capabilities and functionality. I'm concerned that the CMS is going to be quite limited and may not do everything we want it to. That being said, I'm going to do everything I can to "make it work". What makes things even trickier is that its school holidays now, so I have less time than usual, but all will be well, I'll get there in the end. Until next time... Fx I'm in currently in the planning stage of an eCommerce website build. I am both excited and just a tiny bit overwhelmed (but not in a bad way). This build is for one of my lovely repeat clients and her needs are very specific. I want to make sure that what we create is what she actually needs, not what I think she should have.
I've done some pretty decent research into eCommerce CMS options available, and I've spent a bit of time on her current site to see what I think works and what we can improve. There's a lot of information she's got on offer right now, which is great but I do wonder if we can simplify her message a bit. This week's task is to start the actual build. I believe that the time I've spent upfront will help in the long-run, but any more reading will just add to the overwhelming feeling. Sometimes its best to just get stuck in and get a handle on things. Or at least it is for me. So, once again, watch this space... Until next time Fx It's been a bit of a slog this one, thanks to a hideous CMS experience that proved to be a complete waste of time (note to anyone interested, avoid IM Creator), but we got there in the end.
A few moments ago I was delighted to be able to 'go live' with the Self Defense Northland site. As mentioned in a previous post, the brief was to avoid any fear tactics and make it more about empowering women. When I presented the site to David, he laughed a little at the images I chose but agreed they did what they are supposed to. It was a nice project to work on, and I hope the organisation goes from strength-to-strength (no pun intended). Until next time... Fx Simple [adjective]; easy to understand, deal with, use etc.
I've been working on a website build for a client and upon sending them the first mock-up, I received the feedback that it was really simple but they liked it. The simple look and feel of the website doesn't truly represent the amount of work that's gone into creating it. I created a simple yet high impact site for the client because that's what works best, in my opinion at least. Flashy websites annoy me; who wants to wait 30 seconds or more for a whizz-bang intro to play, or a new image to open up every time I accidentally hover my mouse over a different part of the screen? Not me. There are a few simple rules I try to adhere to when working on websites;
I won't go into too much detail on those here (if you're curious, just ask), but hopefully you get what I'm saying. I do wonder though; would anyone turn away from a service provider if they thought their website were simple as opposed to flashy? Hopefully not. Until next time... Fx |
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