QdM News

Its been a bit mad here lately. So this years newsletter is pretty much strictly the holiday dates for you all.

Here they are:

• Office Holiday: 13th December – January 16th
• Last Website Updates in by: 10th of December
• Maternity Leave: 16th March – 31st June 2012.

Work has been mostly website upkeeps but I have one new one that I MUST post about… sometime soon. Happy Holidays everyone. Get in touch anytime with urgent matters. Get in touch with new work or ideas before the 10th of December or after the 16th of January. I will be ready to work hard when I get back refreshed and ready to go.

Dusk up until now, has been strictly a bricks and mortar shop, it stocks a beautiful collection of products mostly designed and made by New Zealanders. Now it is one little shop in Hanmer Springs and one well stocked online shop!

The earthquake threw Lenore from Dusk into some trouble, her store’s Christchurch premises was deemed unsafe and marked for demolition. Thankfully no-one was hurt and she still had a little shop in Hanmer. She even after some waiting managed to recover stock and furniture. Once the dust had finally settled she called me, “Simone, we are going to actually do the online shop this time” (we have had talks about doing this twice already!) The earth might have changed a few things, but it certainly did nothing to her dedication to her shop.

Dusk needed a simple to operate store that reflected Dusk’s design sensibilities, integrated well with her newsletter software MailChimp, had useful add ons to help run the shop, it need features we could add later as the shop grew and not to forget I needed to like the process involved to build it. After giving her a few options she decided to go with Shopify. What made me even more excited was when she said, “and Simone, I want and illustration of a caravan on it..” Eeek! I get to draw things and get paid for it!

This I was very excited about Shopify, I had played with it a bit myself but never developed an online shop with it from scratch. Now here we have it, Dusk’s online shop is ready and waiting for you to shop to hearts content! Be prepared there are lots of lovely things to inspire and get you excited. The shop has only been live for only a few days but already the “CHCH Sure to Rise Tea Towels” are going like hot cakes!

click image to see the site!

Mhor is a women’s clothing shop based in Hanmer. They sell lovely fashionable clothes you would expect in a big city boutique – but in Hanmer so you can shop while on holiday! Perfect! Soon to open another store they needed a website to showcase their huge selection of top notch labels and designers, giving people the opportunity to check where their stores are located and if they wanted something in particular to give them a call.

I set them up with my WordPress 5 page package – that allows them to edit their content, change featured images and even have an enquiry form on every page. Simple but easy to alter as they grow and change their online requirements! It was a fun project to do and I enjoyed creating a design that reflected the experience you should inspect in-store.

When your next in town you should pop by and admire the lovely threads.

Click to visit the site

A bit of an experiment I am running at the moment – is having two blogs. I know that its well documented that you should have only one. I think these people assume we all have one main passion and interest and they most certainly overlap. Sometimes my interests MIGHT overlap, but really, sewing, fibre and art don’t really mix with geeky old web design. When it comes to getting good visitors to my business blog – ones that have been searching for banana cake really are not the people I am after.

In the interest of keeping my life simple – all of my old posts will stay on this blog, but from now on my physical world the latest crafty project or sharing links and photos – these will be done on the other blog – called “Made Happy”. I chose the name after alot of thought and brainstorming and it felt pretty accurate.  The design is super simple. I have lots of design in my life – infact I am still trying to redesign this site! I thought I would like it all pared back to basics so that photos and content took center stage. Enjoy having a look around I have written a few posts to start on. You will still get web design related information here and whatever is happening in my business’s world.

I do quite a bit of online shopping. More so now that Christchurch’s shops are mainly in malls. I also am a bargain hunter – the web lets you do this without inconveniencing any sales clerk and asking about prices, without buying. Not to forget that in NZ we don’t really have huge amounts of selection nor I am afraid, when it comes to things like fabric and books, do we have the best prices. You could say I buy a bit online.

It quite common for the eagrly anticipated parcel to arrive in a standard box or postal bag, the product is then wrapped in transparent plastic and the invoice is somewhere in there. Bit of a buzz kill – but acceptable. Lately I have found the shops I brought things at have appeared to put a little more care in their product’s presentation.

-Fabric wrapped in tissue paper and string, the invoice has a hand written note on it to say thanks.

-A wrought iron recipe rack wrapped protectively then wrapped up again in brown paper and string with a stamped swing tag with the shops logo on it (I love swing tags – so this does not get chucked!) I also love brown paper. So old school.

-Craft supplies arrived in a little box with a chocolate and notepad. I love chocolate… a bit too much!

Now I realize they are clever online shop owners who know all about their target market – people like me! Whom buy these things with the excitement of future projects or decorating their nest. To help the process along the company is making sure they are remembered fondly and possibly brought from again. Anyone that offers this sort of service has me talking about them and thinking nice things.

So my point? Online shop owners – look at your customer base, look at how they might be emotionally attached to the product you are sending to them, how can you enhance that experience? Wrapping? Chocolates? Handwritten notes? Nice postcards slipped in there, a voucher even. Have fun with it, change it up a bit try new things and see if you get better returning customer results or customer growth. A happy customer is a chatty customer afterall.

Has anyone else out there had great online shopping experience? What was it? OR how would you like to see your products delivered?

Thankfully our neighborhood is on the flat and to the side in what seems like a little island sanctuary to me right now and we have had no damage. No breakages even. I went though the house after the smaller 5.5 one just to check and pushed things to the back of shelves and put a few things away…. which probably stopped the few breakages we may have had in the 6.0. Go across a by two blocks and there the liquefaction starts! Some people homes were thrown around worse or much like the the February one. Its crazy to me how it changes so drastically from house to house. Yay for no deaths or serious injuries! I have already mourned the loss of buildings and how the city was and continue to look forward to the future with anticipation and curiosity on how everything will look in 15 years!

Second item of news is a temporary relocation for me. My partner Kylie is having to work from Te Awamutu in the next three months and I have decided to join him – with cats. I have the luxury of just needing an internet connection and my laptop to earn some money. So I may as well follow him instead of miss him! Have a break from my beloved shaky town and explore the north island. Which I have not done that well yet. So pretty excited! Just letting you all know this is not holiday and I will be working as per usual. Just from a different spot for a little while. Continue to bring forth the work

Stay safe and look after your loved ones!

You know, I keep a list. Well many lists actually, but I have this one list in my “things” application. This list has 20, yes 20 blog post ideas. TWENTY. And yet as you can see I have not really blogged much at all recently. In fact I have not done alot of blogging over at my new blog yet either. I have been busy, which is good, but not busy enough to be such a neglectful blog mother.

So here it is, I have started a blog post. Today I am going to write about things people might want to know about your business. So that you (and I) can get over that writers block and blog more. Or for some of my clients, write it up as “news”. Why you may ask, do we want to blog? Well I say (thinking to myself I am awfully good at talking the talk) showing publishing little bits of news shows:

1. your business is ticking along nicely and looks solid and reliable.
2. you share stories about your business that personalises what you are about therefore embedding your business into future customers minds
3. providing an online presence people can relate to.
4. you get to show off your knowledge of important subjects (like blogging, or not in my case).

There are of course many more, one is, once you are on a roll its actually quite fun. So some tricks on finding topics to write about. Keep a way to note down ideas close by so that you can squiggle them down when a moment of genius flashes through your brain. Use your bookmark function on your browser to catalogue ideas online aswell.

Here is a quick list of things that you might consider – I believe every  type of customer group you have, will relate to certain things, so you wrack your brains to see what you could come up with that people may like to read about that relates in some way to your business.

-Book reviews
-Event reviews
-Movie reviews
-Industry news (news like what the fashion shows in Paris are up to, or whats happening to the building codes now that we have had a major earthquake)
-Business news and events (eg, new staff member or a new product range)
-Whats inspiring you at the moment (if your in that sort of industry!)

Ok so there is a plethora of things to write about out there, how on earth do you find the time to write?!

Habits I have seen that might help you.

- Choose a time each day that you can clear some time to write!
- Start your posts in the morning and finish them off throughout the day in snippets you get available or when need a break
- When you get a chunk of time and inspiration hits you write several posts at once and use WordPress’s excellent timed publication feature that lets you pick the time the new post goes live…. So that you can effectively have an active looking blog but only have worked a chunk on it the week before.

Of course I assume you blog because you have already established its a great way to reach your customer base. However not everyone’s business suits a blog. Its incredible how amazing facebook has been for so many business to reach their client base. But of course thats something else to write about next time….

I am scared but determined. I will make a promise to blog everyday for the next two weeks (not on weekend though!) I have lots going on and have alot to share. I intend to write up a post here every other day and another on the the opposing days over on my personal blog. If i fail – then no cake. If I succeed, then I get to make cake – and I will share the recipe on my other little blog. The idea of this is get back into the habit of blogging – I used to enjoy it rather alot!

On this topic. To all business owners who are based in Christchurch. If you are open for business – make it painfully obvious. No room for shy violets here. Blazen it across the sky’s! Start networking online, among your friends tell everyone to tell everyone to get you some work. Run some sort of special or competition to help motivate people to take action now. People want to help us out right now so you may get much more work through these channels to help get you back on track and not eating into the “incase” over draft or savings account.

I also want to give you some links on way the online community can help you here.

Social networking

-Setup a Facebook Business Page to get updates out quickly and easily (more on promoting and creating this page later)

-LinkedIn is hugely useful and powerful for business’s and individuals. Setup your account or dust it off and get it full of recent information and start asking for testimonials (this is my weeks task!).

-Twitter. This is popular among some groups of people. Flick me an email to see if yours is one of them.

Newsletters

Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor let you setup account for free and send out beautiful emails to your clients. Use them! They have templates you can personalize for free. But if you need a hand It may cost less than you think for me to set something up for you. So just get in touch.

Blogs/Websites

Blogger and WordPress both let you setup blogs for free using their templates. Perhaps start one of these to keep your customers updated regularly on new premises ect. If you would like a custom one or help setting up the free version let me know.

Online shops

Dremus and Shopify are similar to the above, its online software pre-setup to sell your products. Choose your shop URL (domain name) and template, upload your products and you are away. These are not free. But worth the $$ in my opinion. I have a few shops in the works right now using this software. Let me know if you need a hand setting up and we can get you selling online.

If all of these overwhelm you, just pick ONE that makes the most sense to you. Have a go at setting it up. Don’t forget to talk talk talk… tell everyone you are looking for more work or have products to sell.

Despite the earthquake interrupting some upcoming jobs I seem to of been kept rather busy. Moving house can do that to a person. Also due to the wonderfully timed quake I was way too busy to do lots of pre-packing as I had originally planned – there also being a box shortage (as you can imagine when a large amount of houses in our injured city are left to dangerous to live in) i just had to make do with what we could get – which in the end was plenty, two sets of friends had boxes from moving to Christchurch from overseas and when the word went out we had boxes turn up on our doorstep quite regularly! The packing happened in fits and starts in the week preceding and on the day of the move.

It was a rather exciting full on day of two cars with two trailers, large amounts of helpful hands there to clear the house and much “drop ins” to have a look. I was perpetually packing up the kitchen and then unpacking the kitchen as the rest of the crew emptied our house and probably saw far too much personal items of mine that i hadn’t had time to pack. It was awfully embarrassing when we realized how much stuff we had, when normally as we packed we would have done a great sort out, the sort out is now happening as we unpack.. which is good and therapeutic sometimes (i liked throwing out some more old uni work), but this does nothing for the (mostly mine) reputations as a pack rats has already been fully established. However the packing was done by very forgiving and helpful friends, they seemed to still like me after it all, so can’t be too bad. Afterwards we hosted a large bbq and some nice beers on our new slightly rotten deck and after throwing all boxes from lounge to hallway/bedrooms and wherever else they fit… we could actually sit (and as it turns out sleep!) in our lounge quite comfortably.

As I type I can still see all the boxes left to unpack and all the clutter thats spread out in the rooms we have managed to furnish and get up and running. One more room is left to set up furniture in, then its the unpacking of the boxes in all the corners and garage.

I have not been so much on my feet since the waitressing days and by the end of the day I am even too tired to read, i just lying there decompressing my brain in silence and thinking about our new little house.

For myself I am excited and since we have no internet (will be posting this at the local library) I am not seeing our bank balance become affected by the large loan! I do have internet on my phone, its not too desperate times, since there is so much to do I am ok for the time being. We have tried to get connected but there seems to be a fault with our lines. Funny that.

As i write this (i copied and pasted in the library) I am sitting facing our new backyard and deck with my old bucket garden taking to the new deck nicely, as the new conservatory fills with its sunshine… which it gets practically ALL DAY. Its north facing baby. This place has a very small veggie plot, (soon to be enlarged) and one shared apple tree.

The earthquake has caused some damage. The roof has holes and there are cracks here and there, but we got off very lightly and had zero liquefaction, our foundations are mostly fine. I am feeling extremely blessed at the moment. Insurance is sorting out the the roof, the cracks and even a new paint job on the outside of the house (paints cracked off!) so this designer gets to choose some paint colours. The big grin is currently spreading across my face….  all of this is covered by EQC! We will be getting the contractors to fix other parts of the house at the same time – since its the right time. Which will cost us, we will stick to the essential for waterproofing and conserving, as much as we would love to add in much more extra things, these can wait for when the mortgage has been whittled down quite a bit more and it makes more financial sense. Lets just say we are not banking on our plot of land selling to finance a few improvements any time soon!

After this extremely long winded blog post I have a few last last things to leave you with. One – thank god for friends!, thanks to the gravel soil our house sits on and thank you everyone I know and love are safe and well. And second this may be one of the last personal blog posts on this blog, I am working on a new place for my personal writing so i really can keep this one for work nattering only. With the quieter month for paid work I have been working on this sites re-design and the new personal blog… soon to be uncovered!

Hope this post finds you well and happy. Stay safe and always, always have a plan B… that has plenty of water and canned food somewhere to snatch and grab… xxxx