Instant Love Instagram

Be still, my beating heart...

Last week I fell in love with Instagram. Finally.

Many people: "Emma, with your pretty chairs and everything, you really should be on Instagram."

Me: "But I don't have time. Besides, I'm loyal to Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter."

Many people: "Stop making excuses. It's a match made in heaven."

As with much of social media, when you're new to it, you wonder how on earth it works and how on earth is anyone going to find you, let alone follow you. And is it really worth it? But we all know that you just have to begin. Don't question why. Build it and they will come.

As an Instagram newbie, I thought I'd choose a gentle way to ease myself into the community; through a competition ran by Jen from Interiors Addict. 7 Vignettes is a photo-sharing competition with a different topic each day, for one week. You create an attractive still-life (vignette) that relates to the day's topic and post it on Instagram using #7vignettes. That way everyone can see what everyone is posting for the competition.

Simple. And in a space of a week, My Bespoke Chair gained 52 followers and over 314 likes. Plus I've 'met' many fellow Instagramers through the comments.

Here are my entries for 7 Vignettes:

Bedside

Elegant 

Emotional 

Handmade

Tea

Monochrome

Window

But..so what?  What are the benefits of being on Instagram for a business?

• Showcase your products, campaigns, services in a creative manner; we all like nice photos.
• Connect with customers and prospects directly. Everyone can comment and share.
• Share your company's latest updates.
• Offer a fascinating behind-the-scenes, off-topic glimpse of your company.
• Use the # to find a wide audience.
• Use the @ to directly contact specific people.
• Share your photos instantly on other social platforms. 
• It's the fun side of business!

I'm probably preaching to the choir in this blog post - but when you first fall in love, you just need to shout it from the roof tops!

Join me on Instagram - it's so much fun and we can hang out together through our photos!


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My Top 5 List of Stuff

I have started this blog post many times, only to abandon one topic for another. Brain chaos!

I think, "Ooh, yes, a blog post on Google Analytics - good for understanding site traffic data."

Then I think, "But no, explaining what an Elevator Pitch is might be more useful."

And then I remember my excitement at the record number of people who signed up for my newsletter today.

Plus, I received a really lovely email that I wanted to share with you. Not forgetting how I smashed it up at the gym this morning too - the endorphin rush was magical.

Focus. This is what I am lacking today. Generally I am very good at focusing. I have a plan. Tasks lined up to get me from A to B and onwards to Z.

So, I will harness the chaos and turn it into order. Here are my micro-blog posts:

1. Google Analytics
Numbers and I do not get on. I'm a words and pictures girl. But understanding the traffic flow to your site is crucial. You've got to know what's going on 'under the hood'. So here's some key points for My Bespoke Chair:

75% of visitors are new, 25% returning
Visitor Location - Australia 80.85%, UK 5.39%, USA 4.92%
Sales Location - Australia 100%
Traffic Sources - Direct 44.9%, Search 25.4%, Referral 29.7%
Homepage Bounce Rate - 31.5% (industry average is 20-40%, so we're doing OK)
Average pages per visit - 3.62
Best referral sites - Pinterest (averaging 8:36 minutes on site) Facebook (46.53% of all referral visitors)
Ranking on Google for 'chairs' - 3rd (behind Ikea, Ebay)
Ranking on Google for 'custom chairs' - 1st and 2nd

 Conclusions - as a school report card, it says "Good effort, some nice results but could do better."
   
2. Elevator Pitches
Imagine you have 1 minute to tell someone what you do. What do you say? How can you possibly convey your passion, knowledge and the complexities of your business in just 60 seconds?

This is called the Elevator Pitch - simulating the short time alone with someone in a lift before they reach their floor. The door opens half way through your fascinating, long-winded explanation and Ciao, they're gone. Opportunity missed.

You will need an Elevator Pitch when speaking to a) potential investors b) potential customers c) key influencers

My elevator pitch:
Design your perfect chair online. At My Bespoke Chair the customer is the designer. We are part of a growing, global retail trend called Mass Customisation or Co-Designing. Using our intuitive and simple design tool, you can choose the chair style, wood finish, trim and fabric combinations. Spin your design 360 degrees and view it from 8 angles. You design it - we create it and deliver it to your door. Feel the joy of designing something yourself. We want you to say "I designed this."

3. The Importance and Joy of Newsletters
Growing your online business means growing your list. Not everyone who visits your site is ready to buy; sometimes it takes months for someone to be ready, if ever. But they love your product. You want your product to be top of mind, tip of tongue. So you invite them to subscribe to your company newsletter. You offer an ethical bribe in exchange for their email address; a free e-book or gift voucher etc.

Now you can communicate directly with them. They have invited you into their private email in-box and it's your duty to deliver value. Special offers, company news, product information, competitions and related topics of interest.

Yesterday was a booming day for us in the media; interview with Women Love Tech, articles on Babyology and in Real Weddings magazine. Site traffic surged, newsletter subscriptions rocketed. I felt such joy knowing that people loved My Bespoke Chair and felt inspired to discover more and be part of our community.

4. The lovely email
Getting emails and feedback from customers and people who follow us, our community, is always brilliant. Recently, we ran a 'Win a Cushion' competition on social media and through the newsletter. A winner was drawn and emailed the good news.

Here is our winner's response:

Thank you! I'm looking forward to receiving it! 

I've just been reading your blog and I just wanted to say I've really enjoyed what I've read so far, particularly the 'How to Get Media Coverage' post.  I've just moved to Sydney from the UK and I'm interning for an interior design company and it's been really interesting to find out about My Bespoke Chair.  I love how you personalise everything, it really does feel like a community! 

Thanks again for the cushion, 

5. Gym Bunnies
By now, you probably know that I love, love, love spin classes. But....

Have you ever rowed 200m in 46 seconds? Three times. That is what I did at the gym this morning. Fi, my fabulous personal trainer, was impressed. After the PTS nausea subsided (which Fi didn't see after I staggered out!) the rush of endorphins was amazing. Bring on Friday's double spin, I say!


So there you have it - a comprehensive brain dump. Next time I promise to be more focused!




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Radio Interview

Warning - this program contains strong language. 

Parental guidance is recommended.

This week I was interviewed by The Start-Up Show on Eaglewaves radio, Sydney.

Click here to listen....

My interview starts at around 10:45 minutes. But watch out for Matt and Shona's fruity language!

I guest wrote a blog post "You are the New Design Star" - co-designing and the positive psychological effects of designing things yourself.

Click here to read....

Meet The A-Team

"If you have a problem, if no-one else can help, and if you can find them, 

maybe you can hire the A-Team."

Everyone in business needs to have their own "A-Team". A group of crack commandos in their fields of expertise. I may appear to be a solopreneur, but the reality is that there are many people making sure that your chair is easy to design, perfectly made and delivered on time.

Let me introduce the web development team, headed up by Steven and Jo.  From the moment I met with them, in Feb 2012, when I was putting the site build out to tender, they were infectiously enthusiastic about my product. Bingo! It is a non-standard site with no existing templates to build on. You need people who "get it". And they continue to help me improve the site and keep it up-to-date.

The pre-production preparation of my fabric designs and the chair illustrations on the site require Photoshop/Illustrator intervention. Being a "paintbrush and pencil girl", I hired Neha who is a whizz at putting my ideas into digital reality; preparing files for the printers in Portugal and the web development team here in Sydney.

The best chairs are sourced from a family-run furniture wholesaler who import the carved wooden frames from factories in Indonesia. Located just outside Sydney, and easy for me to drive the van to, Jill and Darryl are great to work with.

Our master upholsterers, a team of 3, are responsible for transforming your designs into stunning reality. This is Rachel in the workshop; Oz and Tony were out when I visited last week. I love the workshop; design alchemy occurs here. From the chaos of chair frames, bolts of fabric, tools, machinery and blaring music, emerges exquisite and beautiful furniture.

And then when it's all wrapped up, our friendly delivery man collects your chair for distribution across Australia. He really is very nice (a lady's man, I suspect!) and he understands how important these chairs are to me and my customers; "They are precious, like children."

So, there you have it. My A-Team. Who's on your A-Team?

Sign up HERE for the My Bespoke Chair newsletter; $300 off your perfect chair plus free design tips, offers and behind-the-scenes pics.

How to Get Media Coverage

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (London, actually) I got my first job as Press Office Assistant for a well-known UK fashion brand; Hobbs. As a fashion graduate, this was as close as I was ever going to get to fashion glory. To be honest, I was a dreadful fashion designer and can hardly believe I was awarded my degree - my saving grace was the 1st I got for my dissertation 'How Can We Justify Fashion?' (a clue to my attitude towards fashion in 1996!)

My primary objective at Hobbs was to get their clothes and shoes into all of the press; Elle, Marie-Clare, Good Housekeeping, all the Sunday papers etc. I worked under a truly wonderful manager; an elegant, professional PR who showed me the ropes. But our Boss was a witch - I think I can safely say that after 17 years. Watching "The Devil Wears Prada" a few years ago brought me out in a cold sweat. I was Anne Hathaway's character. Trembling and in constant fear.

"How many editors did you call? How many journalists have you chased? Why aren't we in Vogue this month?" plus the classic fashionista put-down "What dress size do you wear, Emma?"

It was all about numbers, numbers, numbers. This was all before email and social media, so contact was  made via telephone. Very dry. My eyes swam in mind-boggling lists of editors and journalists to call every day. Relentlessly. And Vogue was her raison d'etre, the Holy Grail. Nothing else mattered. As a naive but hard-working 22 year old, those levels of stress were utterly alien to me.

Fast forward to sunny Sydney, 2010. Time has seen me become a wife, mother, selling artist, newly arrived Aussie Permanent Resident and business owner. As many will know, Bespoke Art launched first and being new to Sydney, I had to promote it, which meant doing my own PR.......flash backs!  Eek! Would I tremble? Would my mind boggle?

No, thankfully. And I continue to do the PR for My Bespoke Chair. Only this time, it's a happy work environment! And I've learnt that individuals matter.  Not numbers or lists.

Everyone has a story to tell and everyone likes to hear a story. Doing your own press is just story telling, and making sure the right people hear it.

Here are 5 tips for getting media coverage:

1. Be a reader. Buy the magazines your ideal customers read. Compile a directory of editors, key journalists and stylists. Update regularly as people move - and it's a great excuse to read magazines under the guise of work! You can buy media lists or employ a PR company, but My Bespoke Chair is bootstrapped and self seed-funded, so I'd rather spend money elsewhere.
2. Be personal. Often I send news and updates via email to groups of key editors, journalists and stylists. That's simply efficiency at work. But just as often I will contact someone individually if I think the news would resonate personally. One-on-one contact is nice. 
3. Be remarkable. Everyone likes nice parcels in the post. Intriguing in this digital age. For an event, I sent beautiful perspex boxes filled with the invite, a press release and great photos to key editors, journalists and stylists. Vogue Living came and a few months later my work graced their hallowed pages.
4. Be chatty. Follow and comment on blogs and e-zines you admire.  Don't write inane "yes" or "I love this." Be respectful and add value to the conversation that someone else started. Blogs and e-zines are the future (and present) of media. Follow in the same vein for social media.
5. Rinse and repeat. Information, opinion and players change so often that you have to be on the ball at all times. It's exhausting, a huge learning curve, but rewarding. 

P.S - I tried not to gloat on the inside when my work was featured in Vogue - in respect for my old boss, you understand. :-) To see the media coverage for My Bespoke Chair, click here

Sign up HERE for the My Bespoke Chair newsletter; $300 off your perfect chair plus free design tips, offers and behind-the-scenes pics.

It's a Lonely Life!

If you know me personally, don't panic and call my mother. I'm not lonely in my real life, nor in my virtual life. My family, friends, gym and cat keep me happy in the real world. My personal and business social media communities keep me happy in the virtual world.

But I am alone in the every day My Bespoke Chair world. Apart from the people who work with me to build the website, print the fabrics and make the chairs, the buck stops with me.

Being a solopreneur is tough and there are times when I sit back from the screen, look around, realise that I've spent the best part of the day clacking away at the keyboard....and for what? For whom? What's the point? Am I a madwoman for starting this impossible journey - building a business with a product, website and ethos that is so unlike my competitors?

Questions:
a) What do I do next and how do I know it's right?
b) Who can I look to for inspiration?
c) Where can I find guidance?
d) Why am I torturing myself by embarking on this journey?

Answers:
a) I recently completed an online business marketing course, lead by an incredible woman called Marie Forleo. She's been sought out by Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey for being the voice of the modern woman in online business. This 8 week course taught me customer targeting, marketing strategies, website optimisation, copywriting and lots of American "yay-go-girl" kookiness. I gained precise insights and strategies, I gained affirmation that much of what I am doing naturally is correct and most vitally, gave me access to a community of women (+ a few men) who are starting out, just like me. It is a life-long membership to her course and supportive community.

b) On Saturday, I was humbled to be part of the TEDx Sydney audience. TED is a global organisation, spreading ideas worth sharing. If you haven't experiences a TED talk, hop onto their site and pick any; they are free online and totally awe-inspiring. I sat for 12 hours at the Sydney Opera House, listening to clever people talk about the Digital Data Black-Hole, Housing for Health, Drugs to Slow Aging Genes, Marketing to the Masses and Nature as a Designer. Plus a fabulous chap who created an entire Jazz Band with his mouth, voice-box and a mike. Inspiring stuff.

c) On Monday, I went to a Pitching Competition, organised by TiE and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. This event showcased entrepreneurs pitching for Venture Capital and a 1st Prize to attend TiECom in Silicon Valley. A bit like Dragons Den without the cool warehouse studio. I was encouraged to hear people pitch their dreams and disruptive business ideas. I felt less alone. And TiE is a global mentoring organisation, linking entrepreneurs with Business Angels. I attended a 2 hour mentoring introduction last month but now I shall join the organisation. Launching and working unguided is daunting, but now I have some of Sydney's best business brains on my side. The start-up industry is burgeoning in Sydney especially and there are opportunities to be explored.

d) Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, explains perfectly why I am compelled to run My Bespoke Chair and Bespoke Art, to use my talents and follow my ambitions. I don't want to be 80 years old and regret not exploring my life's possibilities. But he explains it better! Watch it here.

So I'm not alone in being alone.  I'm just alone in pushing my own boundaries.


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The Day My Site Crashed (& I confessed to cheating)

The first 4 months of My Bespoke Chair were spent setting up all the social media requirements of a modern, online business. Job done, boxes ticked, virtual world navigated and mapped. Happy days. Love my online community. Everyone rocks!

But no sooner has one obstacle been overcome, the next looms. And it's more terrifying and less appealing then Pinterest boards, Facebook reach and Twitter #@lingo.... Technology: WP plug-ins, API keys, video embedding, HTML codes, autoresponders, downloads and uploads. Not to mention passwords for every breathe I take.

Google is my IT tutor, my know-it-all mentor. I Google everything techy and it inevitable tells me to watch a YouTube tutorial. I watch endless videos of clever, techy people zipping their mouse across the screen, clicking methodically and instructively. Easy. Simple. Just do this step, then do that step. Done.

Last week, I needed a simple WordPress plug-in to be installed. I decided not to use my actual web developer, but to try out a web company who will "tweak" your site. No contracts, you pay by the "tweak". Seemed fool-proof. To cut a long story short, it was a stressful nightmare for 7 days.

Ok - I can do this myself instead. So, I asked Google and YouTube. I tried installing the WordPress opt-in box to the My Bespoke Chair homepage myself. It's a little dialogue box that appears inviting you to sign up for a newsletter. Nice companies offer you a thank you gift. We're nice; we give you $300 off your perfect chair when you sign up for our newsletter. Then fortnightly, we'll email you a pretty newsletter packed with useful interior design tips, special offers and behind-the-scenes news.

I digress...

It went horribly wrong. The site seemed to crash. When I typed in the URL I saw something like this. My reaction frightened the children. I thought I was going to die.

I made a frantic, embarrassed call to my actual web developer, Matt - at 9pm on a Friday night. Miraculously, he answered, listened patiently and non-judgementally to my choked ramblings...then fixed it in a flash. Back to his beer and NCIS on the TV (I made that bit up)

Lessons learnt: It's OK and necessary to be in charge of your own back-end CMS. Adding new text, pages, images, keeping the site's content fresh and tweaking here and there. WordPress is brilliant and easy to use, even on a site as complex as My Bespoke Chair.  But just because everything is "figure-outable" through Google, YouTube and other sites, doesn't mean you should. A wrongly placed < > and you're doomed. Leave the fiddly stuff to your web developer and stick with what you're excellent at.

Until I can employ an IT/web manager in-house, I shall never again cheat on my web designer and developer.  You always get caught....

(go see the finished result here and sign up....I'm very happy now and it's already proving a success with new subscriber sign-ups increasing)

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