Clarihon blog

• Welcome to Clarihon Web Service’s blog

The last few weeks have been good for us with the acquisition of at least 3 new clients.

The first has started a new business selling viable businesses. They came to us from another client who passed them our details nearly 3 years ago!

The second runs a new business very dear to our hearts – a wine shop! The shop is in Leamington Spa where I spent 3 happy years when I was at Warwick University. With an e-commerce facility in the pipeline for next year and possibly a newsletter too, it should be a very enjoyable project.

The third has two business projects. The first project is for a new surf board enhancement plus related surfing equipment and clothing. Aimed at 30-40 year-olds with money to burn it’ll be a great opportunity to provide a site that’s not so ‘corporate’ and is a bit more ‘flashy’ than most of the sites we’ve done to date. The second project is a sort of social networking web site for boat restorers. Now that WILL be fun!

Networking and referrals have been our most productive sources of new clients.

With the short life of the Liskeard Club of the Business League and the dearth of business networking opportunities here in SE Cornwall I thought it was time to start something up myself.

The SE Cornwall Business Club (SECBC) had it’s first meeting over breakfast on Wednesday 8th September. 18 people booked for it and 15 made it to the meeting.

A very good and useful time was had by all and it was attended by  a good cross-section of local businesses. Everybody seemed to have enjoyed themselves and thought it worthwhile.

Thanks go to the fellow ‘Steering Group’ members Anne, Malcolm and John for their help. The next meeting is on Wednesday 6th October and involves a buffet lunch.

More details can be found at the SECBC web site: www.secornwallbusinessclub.co.uk

We lost 2 clients this month, for very different reasons.

The first we lost because of a breakdown in communication and a difference in expectations.

He came to us as a new business for a web site. At the start we said that ongoing work would need to be done to ensure the site was ranked on Google and that as he was in a competitive business it wouldn’t be quick, easy or cheap. We designed and built the site (optimising it for localised key terms) and he provided the text.

Over the next 6 months we had some conversations about the number of visits to the web site and what could be done to improve it. We felt he was expecting big results for little or no investment and he saw our services as expensive. In the end, with no great success from the site in terms of actual business gained, he’s taking the site and SEO to someone else.

It looks likely that they’ll have little more success than we had unless he’s suddenly prepared to invest a lot more money.

We’ve learnt some valuable lessons about expectation management.

The second client is a victim of the current economic downturn and a change in buyer’s behaviour. His orders have dried up through the recession and he doesn’t sell on line. The cost of a new site (or extensive revamp of the existing, 4-year old site) with full e-commerce facilities was beyond his current budget. He’s in the fortunate position of being able to get help from his principal supplier and has been offered an e-commerce facility at 1/3 of the price we’d have needed to charge.

He’s been a model client so we’ve agreed to help his new providers migrate the existing site and facilities and will continue to provide advice and a second opinion. With luck he’ll pull through and be able to go for a full-blown replacement site. Even if not, we wish him better luck in the next year and hope he’s able to pull through.

Back in April I bought/funded/sponsored a single Shelterbox. It’s one of those green boxes with a tent and a lot of equipment vital for people in a disaster zone.

It’s finally been shipped out and there’s no surprise that it’s gone to the flood relief effort in Pakistan.

It’s a tiny contribution to the huge effort over there but hopefully it’s keeping one family warm and dry.

Nigel