Thinking small may be a big benefit When you’re a small business owner, it can be tempting to dream of global domination and the accompanying megayacht and other trinkets. But a lot of the time thinking small can be the key to small business success. Consider this: For the typical small business, 81% of your…
Read MoreContracting a designer should be a simple process: you outlay your requirements, the designer comes back with a proposal, a price and a timeline. Easy peasy. But if you’re not a designer, how do you know what you’re buying? Like most things, the devil is in the details: most cars have four wheels and an engine, but…
Read MoreWhere it all went wrong For most small businesses, their website is, or should be, a serious bit of their business kit. The days of having a website just to “be on the interweb” are over. To stay ahead of your competitors, you need to make your website matter. Think about it: if a customer…
Read MoreOr Gene Simmons Taught Me Everything I Know. When I was younger, my taste in music was (as I liked to think of it) independent or alternative, when ‘independent’ and ‘alternative’ actually meant something. Rock ‘n’ Roll, as far as I was concerned, had taken a disagreeable nosedive into hippie trite and stonewashed, ostentatious nonsense like Boston…
Read MoreIt’s not exactly ring-a-ding-ding is it? Still, it’s as good a time as any to reflect on business growth and opportunities — both over the last 6–12 months, and looking ahead. In small business, there’s always something that can be done to improve results. Here’s some ideas: Get a website: If you don’t already have…
Read MoreA style guide is a document that helps you keep your branding consistent. It defines usages (and abusages) of style elements across all communication materials, and forms a go-to reference to clarify uncertainties. It helps staff and consultants stick to your corporate style, which in turn yields a more cohesive and coherent design approach across all…
Read MoreI recently stole a circular saw. Right out of the back of a ute. It was just lying there, in public view, and I thought, “I’ll have that”. The carpenter who owned the circular saw was quite indignant when I rang him that night and told him I had stolen his circular saw. Called me…
Read MoreQRC. WTF? Getting people through your website door is not all about Google page rank. Sure, Google is the most pervasive and go-to service for searching for services on the web. But even if you’re number one for your given key phrase on Google’s search results page, you’re still sitting on a page surrounded by…
Read MoreSo, you’ve banging on in the boss’s ear for months now about how the company needs a website because 85% of B2B customers search the web before making a purchase decisions, and 78% of all consumers conduct product research and comparison online. And that the company really needs to engage in some social media marketing,…
Read MoreHey, we love a challenge. Give us a good brief, some firm parameters, a good deal of research to analyse, a tight deadline and high expectations and we’ll get stuck in. And we’ll deliver. But we’re not talking about a challenging brief here. We’re talking about the person delivering that brief. Over many years, some beers…
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