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Company: Curved Vision
Project: Blog up

http://www.curved-vision.co.uk/presentation-skills-blog/

Dates: Jun 2006 to Nov 2007

How did the project start?

Way, way back we wanted potential clients to have an idea of our style before they contacted us (so the proportion of 'warm' contacts increased) - not only that, but we knew of a lot of people who were looking for some free, down-to-earth advice...

Not to put too fine a point on it, we were getting a lot of enquiries and were having to spend quite a long time taking them from 'first contact' to booking - they tended to come in 'cold'. So we wanted them to be 'warmed up' a little before they contacted us, to shorten the time-lag before a booking.

Warm contacts also mean less work of course, but that's just a happy accident, honest.... :)

What options did you consider?

Blog was the obvious choice. We skipped quickly through the alternatives, such as podcasting.

Things like that required the user to have reasonable hardware - if they didn't our videos or recordings would play back as though they were poor quality... and obviously we couldn't have that! Because of what we do, it's important that our presentation image is pretty high.

The only real question was whether to host it ourselves or host it on a blogging site. We opted for the latter originally, and then migrated the content when we realised how easy it was to get Wordpress up and running.

What help and expertise did you receive?

Lots - but not from any one place. People online are so very kind that all we had to do was ask for help and some kind soul would answer our questions....

Did you face any challenges or learn any lessons?

.... but not always correctly! :)

What are the outcomes and how has it improved your business?

There have been two (planned) advantages for us.

Firstly, we've now got a (growing) resourse we can point people to who ask for our advice for free - they get the advice and we don't spend time helping them, but they still get the help.

Secondly, the people who go as far as calling or emailing are much (much!) more likely to know what sort of things we do and how we do it - saving time all ways around.

There's also been a third, unexpected, benefit to the blog. We're getting interest now from people who wouldn't have tended to contact us before - people who regard the kinds of things we do as "not for them". Once they read the blog and realise what it's all about they see that our training and coaching might be just what they've been looking for but didn't know it.

What are your plans for the future?

More of the same! :)

We're not in any immediate rush to change what we're doing, on the grounds that it's working and - as the old saying goes - if it ain't bust, don't fix it!

Ultimately, of course, we'll develop the format and so on, but we're thinking more in terms of 'evolution' rather than 'revolution'.