This is the journal written by Tom, a year 10 student from Carrum Downs Secondary College regarding his four days of work experience with Out of the Box Consulting. He was a great student who learned tasks quickly and was a pleasure to have. Day 1My first day working with Nicola from Out Of the Box Consulting was very interesting. We started off introducing ourselves. Nicola explained what the job involved briefly touching on everything that we were going to do for the day, showing me some tip and tricks on multimedia marketing etc and then we dived straight into the first task. I was very impressed by the amount of effort and thought that was obviously put in to squeeze me into her busy schedule already. We started off doing some social media managing for a mechanic franchise, figuring out a clever post to hook in readers and hopefully keep readers engaged and thinking about their company. I learned that you can schedule posts using Hootsuite which links multiple accounts together or pages in this case. I was very intrigued to learn this not having any knowledge this existed. Nicola then showed me how to manage and design a website using Weebly giving me the basic tools and knowledge so I could then make a slide show using Weebly for one of her clients Mim’s Boxing. She then showed me what a favicon was, having little prior knowledge I was fascinated to know that you could link something to your home page like an icon not really knowing what it was. I was even more fascinated to learn how create one using a favicon website. After tinkering around with the Mim’s Boxing website and creating a favicon I was the introduced to Canva a website for designing cool photos and making ads. After having a little play around with Canva I was then set a task to make an ad for Mim’s Boxing focusing on advertising a kid’s party. I found myself very engaged at the task at hand not realising I had gone into my lunch break. After finishing my lunch I moved onto making a second ad which I spent a lot more time on it, not being happy with my first copy I made a second one which took a lot longer than I expected but I was very happy with the finished product. Day 2We started off doing a review of day 1 and touched on everything we did with Nicola making sure I understood everything. I was still very interested and looking forward to meeting a Google Partner who does similar work to Nicola with web design and SEO that gets your website higher on the Google search. I was disappointed to find out the meeting was cancelled. I went straight into writing my blog/journal and before I knew it I had finished writing my first day. Today Nicola showed me the grid rule for a Facebook ad which could only have 20% writing thus I could do my ads without any help only approval. I was eager to jump into some more design in Canva where I had to redo one of the Mim’s Boxing ads but was happy to do so. I felt pretty happy with the ads end result and so did Nicola. But when we compared it with the Facebook grid rule it was too large. I soon learned that this was all a part of the job and sometimes these things happen and there is nothing you can do about it. I finally finished the ad and I was very pleased with the final copy. Our next client was 3X Personal Training who had requested a progression video for his business' two year anniversary. I was tasked with designing some famous quotes and putting them with a background that represented something meaningful this took me the majority of the rest of the day to complete. Day 3After having an amazing day at the Frankston Arts Centre and Cube 37 for my day 3 we went over to Rapid Click to start the day. I was looking forward to meeting Chris who does Google advertising and web design. We discussed how he did the SEO wording, Nicola and Chris talked about social media and how they would incorporate it for their clients and then I got a proper introduction to web design. I got shown various examples of how to manage a website and I was shown an in progress website and a finished product which was fascinating because I had only really done some basic website design. Back at Out of the Box Consulting we changed some quotes and touched up the image for 3XPT to suit the clients requirements. This was a quick and easy fix that didn’t take us to long to complete. Nicola then got me to work on my blog/journal where I spent the remainder of the day completing. I took a short break while I was introduced to a webinar about phycology in marketing I was very interested to see how people brains work when buying things or making a decision which is 90% unconscious. Unfortunately we couldn’t hear the webinar properly so I let Nicola plug in a pair of headphones because she needed to listen. She then summarised the whole webinar I found this to be great general knowledge that I can use in everyday life and maybe for a future job option. Day 4Today we worked on a 3XPT post for social media which I put in Canva and worked my magic for a food called Omega ABC spread which has almond, hazelnut and cashew in it. I where I edited the post and wrote down a quirky and engaging post for the reader. I jumped straight into some Hootsuite where I truly learnt how to use it and learnt how to schedule social media posts in advance. I learnt what times are good and what times wouldn’t suit particular audiences. I had no idea that about some of the times people above my age would go online with social media. This was all great knowledge I could take into my everyday life and how I use social media. Nicola then asked me to finish my blog/journal where I really sat down gave it some thought. That concludes my week of work experience with Out of the Box Consulting.
Work Life Balance - it’s what many of us strive to achieve but not many of us actually get. We may think we have it because we work part time (school hours) and close to home, but seriously, do you really have it?
"You get up, go to work put in your eight hours plus the rest, go home, cook dinner, go to bed, get up and do it all again." After my second child I cut down to four days a week so I could have some extra time with my baby. However that ‘day off’ was spent running around, grocery shopping, washing, cleaning and even working. So much for spending quality time with my baby who was growing up so quickly. In 2013 I decided to start my own business, ‘Out of the Box Consulting’ in the hope that perhaps I could have some real work life balance. However at the time I was still working in corporate. I managed to cut down my four days to three days, school hours and worked on the business on the other two days, after work and on weekends. I still didn’t have the work life balance thing sorted out though, but I was a step closer to where I wanted to be. Ten months ago the opportunity arose allowing me to work in my business full time, and to be honest I haven’t looked back. Here are my Top 10 benefits of running my own business and having work life balance:
If you like our blog make sure you share it and follow Out of the Box Consulting on social media. I often get asked what is a Google Plus account? What do I do with it? And why do I need it for my business? To be honest I asked myself the same questions not too long ago. The answer is simple. A Google+ account for business is the easiest way to increase your presence on Google for FREE! So what exactly is a Google+ account you’re asking? It’s similar to a Facebook profile, but it’s like it’s on steroids! What I mean is, the reach of your Google Plus account is incredible, even without many likes or followers. For example in the last 30 days my Google+ business account has had nearly 2000 views. Why? Because Google loves you and if Google loves you then Google will help people find you when they search key words relevant to your business. So here are reasons I give my clients when they ask why do I need a Google Plus account for my business?
Here’s an example of how my business looks when you type “Out of the Box Consulting” into Google. As you can see half the search page is taken up of a link to my Google+ business page with a map, contact details, my latest post. It looks like a paid ad, but it has cost me absolutely nothing! So what are you waiting for? If you’re not on Google+, do yourself a massive favour and get on it. Visit my Google+ page you will see that it is a really simple layout providing very similar information to what's on my Facebook business page.
If you need help creating a Google+ account for your business, or would like training in any form of social media please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. We run a social media training course which gives you hands on experience to get you up and running. Email admin@outoftheboxconsulting.com.au or phone 0407 642 995. A lot of large organisations underestimate the importance of good or even great internal communications. Senior management seem to think that internal communications is the responsibility of the HR or the communications department. This is not the case. In fact, like customer service, internal communication is everyone's responsibility. "Like customer service, internal communications is everyone's responsibility" So what does internal communications look like? Is it the monthly staff newsletter, an all staff email, or the internal staff intranet? It's true that all of these things form a part of internal communications, and they are great tools to keep staff updated, but they are just tools, and done on their own they are often ineffective. Staff need to feel appreciated, valued and respected. They like to be acknowledged for the work they do. After all we're only human! In life in general we like to be thanked and feel loved, it's the same at work. A workplace where staff do not feel appreciated, valued or respected will create a difficult work environment, and will result in lack of productivity and motivation. "A workplace where staff do not feel appreciated, valued Internal communication is so much more than just the 'tools of the trade', it is the feeling that staff have and that is created from the top down. Staff who feel valued will want to deliver, they will want to give back to the organisation, they will be productive, creative, motivated and loyal staff. Who wouldn't want to work in a workplace like that?!
Out of the Box Consulting can work with your organisation to develop and implement an Internal Communications Strategies. However the strategy alone will not improve the internal communications in the workforce, it's the people, the management team in particular, that will have to drive the strategy to create the feeling that all employees want to feel. Until next time, Keep Smiling! :) Nicola. Director - Out of the Box Consulting Most of us in the marketing business have heard of SMART goals, but what are SMARTER goals? SMART goals are goals that are SPECIFIC MEASURABLE ACHIEVABLE RELEVANT TIMELY So what does the E and R stand for? This is actually the most important part, it's the research component, a time to check and review to make sure you are achieving your goals. EVALUATE RE-EVALUATE It's really important when you are setting your goals for your business or marketing plan that they are specific. Make sure they are not too wordy and that they only include one goal, not three! A short precise sentence is sufficient. Make your goals measurable, include a quantity or percentage, something you can measure. For example "increase income from sales by 10%". This makes it much easier to evaluate later. Are your goals achievable or attainable? It's great to 'reach for the stars', but don't set a goal that is going to be too hard to achieve. Be realistic. It's not that it won't be achievable ever, it's more likely that it's just not achievable yet, take baby steps first and set bigger goals as your business grows. Make your goals relevant or realistic. If they're not relevant to your business or what you have control over then they're going to be very difficult if not impossible to achieve. Make your goal timely or time bound - when do you want to achieve this goal? For example "Increase income from sales by 10% by December 2014." Again this helps you track your progress and of course will help when you evaluate your success. The only way to know if your strategy has been successful is to evaluate it. Did you achieve your goals within the time you set? Were you way off, or close but not quite close enough? Or did you over achieve what you set out to do? This is the opportunity where you can adjust your goals, maybe you need to change your income from sales to 8% by February 2015, or 15% by February 2015. Make the necessary adjustments and come back and re-evaluate and adjust again in a month or so. Make your plan a working document, not a static document that sits on the shelf and you forget about it. What's the point of preparing a plan or strategy for it to collect dust? Remember setting SMARTER goals is just one step in developing your strategy. There is a lot more to it and if you need help or advice don't hesitate to contact us. We're more than happy to help. Until next time...I hope you're kicking goals! Take care, Nicola Director - Out of the Box Consulting. Social Media - are you on it? Is your business on it? What sites are you on? How many followers/likes do you have? How many people like, share or re-tweet your posts? Who are you following and who is following you? These are all important questions to ask yourself. You need to know if your social media is working for you. It is far better to have a couple of social media accounts that you do well, than have various accounts that you can't keep up with. It's also far better to have people following you who are engaged in your messages, rather than hundreds of likes/followers and no engagement. So how do you do it? What do you post? How do you engage with your audience in the social media space? For each of us it depends on the business we have. If you have a cake shop then being on Instagram and Pinterest are more likely to work better for you than having a Twitter account. I've seen quite a few businesses who set up their Facebook page and think, oh great that's done, and rarely post anything. If you don't post something at least once a day, or once every couple of days then what's the point? You shouldn't bother 'doing' social media at all! Out of the Box Consulting has a Twitter and a Facebook account that we manage through Facebook Pages ap and the Hootsuite ap. We think about what we want to post in advance and schedule posts a week in advance so we don't have to think of something new every day. However we look at our page two to three times a day. We check our insights, and monitor who is liking and sharing our content. We also develop creative, engaging posts to encourage our audience to like, share and re-tweet. Out of the Box Consulting is working with other businesses to develop Social Media strategies and content to help their business expand into the social media space. One of the Facebook sites we developed recently for one of our clients went from zero likes to over 200 likes in approximately two weeks. This was helped by a Facebook ad which we targeted to people within the clients target market. E-newsletters and Blogs are also a great way to get information out to your audience. Again Out of the Box Consulting has been working with a couple of clients lately to develop e-newsletters, blogs and website content to spread the word to people via various communications mediums.
So how well are you 'doing' social media? Are you making an impact, or are you just on there with no strategy or idea of where to from here? If your answer is the later, then give us a call or email us or any of our social media sites. We would be happy to help you 'do' social media well and make it worth your while. It's like anything really, it's about what you put into it and what other get out of it that makes it worthwhile. Until next time, stay social, communicate freely, and enjoy life! Nicola Out of the Box Consulting - Director. Small businesses can often struggle to get themselves known out in the big wide world. They may start as a home based business, with no staff, and not much money to advertise, finding it hard to compete against the big businesses and household brands. "Every small business has to start somewhere" Everyone has to start somewhere. Look at McDonalds for example, a household name recognised in every country throughout the world. Even this company started somewhere too. Just a couple of brothers making great burgers, but with the help of a friend and business partner this business grew throughout the 60's and 70's and now there are over 34,000 franchises worldwide! Of course not all small businesses have dreams of global domination, and I'm sure the McDonald brothers didn't imagine that their small burger business would be a successful as it is today with over 1,800,000 employees and net income of US$5.46 billion. Perhaps you just want to take your small business to the next level. Maybe you have a great product that is selling well, but you have dreams of expanding to sell your product throughout Australia both within shop fronts and online. It can all be very daunting, but if you have a the desire and the determination, along with a great business plan and marketing strategy, what's stopping you? For most small businesses the only thing stopping them is money. But what if I could give you some ideas that won't cost you a cent, just some common sense and a little bit of time? Sounds too good to be true doesn't it?! "...if you have the desire and the determination, along with a great business plan and marketing strategy, what's stopping you?" The great thing about marketing in the 21st century is the technology that is available to us. The power of social media, the ease of creating your own website for free or low cost is something that small businesses need to harness and use to their advantage. Now here is a secret that I will share with you. There are lots of online bloggers out there who blog about a variety of things from exercise, to hair products, to pets, to God knows what. By identifying bloggers who have a strong following and are influential, you may be able to tap into them and get them blogging about your product, and from there, who knows what could happen. You can also create your own blog (like I have), and share your blog via your business networks and social media sites. Social media is another great way to engage an audience in real time and create interesting content for your followers. By creating interactive online competitions which encourage followers to share or retweet you can easily increase followers and interest in your product which will soon convert into sales. Although it takes time, it is low or no cost to do this, and if done well can be the best form of advertising or promotion for your business. Word of mouth (or WOM as marketers call it), is one of the best forms of promotion, and can make or break a product. Positive WOM is invaluable and can be worth more than any expensive advertising campaign. "Positive Word of Mouth is invaluable and can be worth more than any expensive advertising campaign" Having your own website is a must for any small business. Social media is great, but if I want to know more about a business or a product I will always look on the website.
Websites are fairly easy to create, I've used Weebly, which is free and extremely easy to use. The trick to your website is creating content that is interesting and valuable to your customers. Make it simple to navigate, easy to search, use easy language, large font, headings, dot points, links. I like to use the KISS theory with websites - Keep It Short and Simple! People don't like to trudge through heaps of information, they want to find what they are looking for easily, as we are all time poor. Something else to be mindful of when creating your website is making sure it has responsive design, meaning that if it is being viewed on a iPad or iPhone it will look different to how it does on a PC, making it easy to use for people on portable devices. If you're selling products online, I would recommend making this easy too. Make sure that products, quantities, colours, sizes, flavours etc, are easy to select and that checking out is secure and easy too. Give an expected date for product delivery, you don't want customers becoming upset because they expected delivery within five days and it took 15! Manage customer expectations, its far better to under promise and over deliver. So there you have it, just a few simple tips to help small businesses to get out there and known for not much more than a bit of time and effort. If you would like to know more or discuss marketing techniques for small business with me further, feel free to contact me via the contact form on this website, email admin@outoftheboxconsulting.com.au or phone 0407 642 995. Until next time - happy marketing and remember two golden rules: 1. WOM - The power of Word of Mouth is invaluable 2. KISS - Keep It Short and Simple Take care, Nicola Director - Out of the Box Consulting I'm currently lucky enough to be working with a group of University students as they prepare a low budget campaign to reduce cigarette butt litter. The students are working in groups to come up with a targeted campaign that Council's could possibly implement. I've come in as a guest to assist the students with their campaign ideas, work out target markets, and how to get your message across with limited funds. "We really have to rely on the power of PR and our networks to help get the messages out to the community." The students were surprised to hear that Council's marketing budgets are extremely low, and we really have to rely on the power of PR and our networks to help get the messages out to the community. Of course social media helps too, it's all about creating interesting content that people will like and share. The students are coming up with some really great ideas in terms of how to get to some of the worst cigarette butt litter offenders. It's simple really, think about where do the majority of smoke during the day. At their place of work somewhere right?! Or waiting for public transport. It's the same with any targeted campaign, really think about where your target market hang out, what they read, what they listen to and so on. For example when I'm promoting something like the local Senior's Festival I would be placing brochures in pharmacy's, doctors surgeries, community hubs, bowling clubs and so on. On the other hand if you're promoting something to mums with young children, then play groups, kinders, maternal and child health centres, facebook, online event sites are definitely the way to go. "It's the same with any targeted campaign, really think about where your target market hang out, what they read, what they listen to and so on." The great thing about "going back to Uni" so to speak, is that it has reinforced the theory behind what we do and why we do it. Nowadays for me it all comes so naturally, it's like basic instinct, backed up by research of course, but when you know your stuff, you know your stuff. One of the first things they teach you in marketing is the four P's - Product, Price, Place, Promotion. Thinking about the cigarette butt campaign, we're not selling a product, we're actually trying to change behaviour, which is very different to marketing a product. This is social marketing, making 'binning your butts' part of the social norm, like putting on your seat belt. We still have to think about place and promotion through. But we also have to think about local laws, enforcement, and providing infrastructure to help people to do the right thing and put it in the bin. "As marketers, we need to think for them, be one step ahead, to help make their lives easier, and at the same time achieve our marketing goals and objectives." One thing I've realised over the years is that people have so much going on these don't like to have to think about other things. So, as marketers, we need to think for them, be one step ahead, to help make their lives easier, and at the same time achieve our marketing goals and objectives.
I'll be interested to see what the students present to us in a couple of weeks time. I'm hoping for some exciting fresh ideas, that really target the right demographic and are easy to implement on a small budget, but will effectively help to achieve the overall goal. So until next time - happy marketing - and don't forget about who you're marketing to and make the message relevant to them. Well hello there! It's been a while I know, I think I'm a bit slack in the blogging scene. I get busy and I keep thinking 'I need to sit down and write a blog' but then sometimes a girl just needs a break.So much for the weekly blog, I think it's currently bi-monthly!! I'll have to try and fix that!
Anyway I've been pretty busy lately with lots of irons in the fire so to speak. Hoping that my hard work will pay off soon. What I really wanted to chat about today is social media. It's basically taken over our world, and I don't think it's ever going away, instead it is here to stay and you need to either jump on board and keep up with it all or you are going to miss out. The whole social media thing is a complete mine field for most people like me. I'm only in my mid thirty's and yet things have advanced so much since I was at high school and Uni it is amazing. I remember thinking fax machines were awesome! I learned to type on an electronic type writer and thought the white out key was the best thing invented (well maybe not the best, but pretty cool at the time). I also remember in year 12 when we got our own internal email accounts so we could email our friends and I said "why would you want to do that when you can just go and talk to them?" Yet here we are 15 years or so later and we email the person at the desk next to us, we text our friends, we know what people are up to because we checked Facebook and Twitter, we can Skype or Google Chat with people from anywhere in the world, and we are never too far away from our smart phone. In fact I heard recently that the majority of people, me included, will never have their smart phone more than 2 metres away from them at any time, it is the first thing they look at when they wake up and the last thing they look at before they go to sleep. Kind of sad, but it's reality. We are addicted to technology, it is ruling our lives. There's an app for this and an app for that. Even my parents who are in their 60's have an ipad each. Dad got one first, and Mum was like "why would you want that?" Then she started playing around with it, so much so that Dad went out and brought her one for herself. At the moment they're traveling around the UK and Europe with their ipads, connecting to wifi and emailing and skyping us kids to stay in touch, only because they refuse to get on Facebook. Yet I know other 50 and 60 year olds and even older who are on Facebook and they love it because they can stay in touch with their kids and grand kids. Then you've got people who are in the corporate world and what to know how social media works. "Can you teach me how to use Facebook?" they say. "Well not really, it's just something you have to get on, create an account and start using it and teaching yourself." The rest of us taught ourselves, it wasn't like I learned anything about social media at Uni, it wasn't about then. I learned the traditional methods of communication and marketing, and still prcatice them, realising that I also have to integrate online social media and marketing into anything I do now. That's not something I've been taught, its something I've had to teach myself, and move with the times. It's taken over the way we all do business. From a customer service point of view I think sites like Facebook and Twitter are the way to go. People prefer to interact over those mediums than via a phone call. Then if they don't get the answer they're looking for or want to vent a frustration with your product it can go viral in an instant. Companies these days have to be so on the ball and so responsive to the needs of consumers or they are going to get left behind unable to catch up. Customer service staff need to be social media savvy, to respond to their customers in real time, in an instant of a message appearing on Facebook. Traditional PR and Communications has changed so much that it is almost a customer service role at times, which gives so much weight to the argument of up skilling customer services staff to do more than just answer the phones and deal with customers over the counter. It is a fascinating and expanding world, and who knows where we will be in another 10, 15, 20 years time? Who would have imagined where we would be today. Until next time, whenever that may be, be safe in cyberspace and enjoy the expanding world that is. Take care, Nicola. Here we area again, another week and another blog from me. Last week I spoke about getting my business up and running in terms of registering a business name and domain name, setting up a website, designing a logo and some of the technical issues I had to overcome to get where I am today. So with all of the background things now set up it was time for me to get out there and get known, market myself and my business so I can make a real go of it, and of course, get some paid work. I found the best place to start is to network. Having been in the local government sector for over 10 years I have a lot of contacts, so what a great place to start. I also have a number of ex colleagues who have started up their own consultancies in their specialist area, so it was time to get out there and make it known that I now had my own business and was ready, willing and able to do some work in the consulting world. "Having been in the local government sector for over 10 years I have a lot of contacts, so what a great place to start." I also thought I would contact a number of local Council's around my area to let them know about the type of work I've been doing over the last 10 years and what Out of the Box Consulting can offer them. So I contacted them by letter and followed up a week later with a phone call. Not all of them resulted in getting a meeting, but it was a start, and two out of five isn't bad. So most of this week I have been talking to people, handing out business cards, sending emails and letting people know that I'm here, and I'm happy to help. Not only have I spoken with a couple of Council's but I've also touched base with an environment group and some potential tourism opportunities. The only scary thing is that what if I get too much work? But we'll have to cross that bridge if and when we come to it. "So that's how I need to market myself. An expert in local government marketing and communications." It was mentioned to me this week, in one of my many conversations, that I really can offer a great service to local Council's who generally will pay big dollars to get an expensive consultant from a city firm who has no experience in working within the challenges that face local government. That was a real confidence booster for me, because I thought, that's it, they're right, that is my point of difference. I know how local government works, I can work within the limitations that often face us, I can work within a tight budget, providing quality services that will reach the target market without spending huge dollars. So that's how I need to market myself. An expert in local government marketing and communications.
At the moment I'm currently running two community consultations for two different Council's on a next to nothing budget. In fact for one of them we've really spent nothing but time, with most of the consultation happening on line using the Council's website, e-newsletters, along with social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. We've also contacted local schools and had community stalls in two shopping centres, and put entry forms and boxes in Council's customer service centres, library, youth centre and Visitor Information Centre all at no cost. This has generated over 700 responses to our on-line survey, which is a fantastic response considering the financial outlay has been nothing. I'm really excited about the possibilities of working with a variety of different people in different areas. I love what I do and I'm passionate about helping others. It's also so good to feel valued for your knowledge and expertise. Next week I'll tell you about some of the other projects I have worked on over the years. Until then have a great week, and remember that networking is the key to opening doors. Take care, Nicola. :) |
AuthorNicola Symons Archives
September 2019
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