Rasheed Ogunlaru's Blog, page 40

Getting your first – or tenth – website in place

Getting the best out of your website – and getting a website to start with – is a big issue for pretty much any business owner or self employed person. Someone who I have used many times to help me is the fantastic Suzanne Whitby, a fellow expert at Zestworks and who runs her own website design and branding agency Future Makers. So I asked her to write a guest blog with top tips. Here it is and I hope you find it very useful

Getting your first (or your tenth) website in place

At Future Makers we work with a range of new and established business owners to help them build their website, develop their brand and boost their impact on the internet. Essentially what they all have in common is the wish or need to gain a presence, sell more, reach more people or be more effective with their sales and marketing.  

When it comes to website, there are a number of things to consider before getting going. You can of course choose to dive straight in without any real thought, but you risk paying a lot of money for something that doesn’t do what you want it do. Best case scenario: you can live with your mistake. Worst case scenario: you have to start again.

Let’s avoid that, shall we?

Here are our top ten (plus one extra!) things you should think about before getting started.

1. You and Your Business
Before doing anything else, you need to be crystal clear about your business: who are you, what do you do, what are your key differentiators, what are your values, what qualities and keywords come to mind when you think about your business.

Why? If you aren’t clear about your business, then your website designer can’t design something that aptly represents who you are.

2. Purpose

Why are you in the market for a website? You need to think about this so that you can articulate your thoughts to your web designer or creative team. One or two sentences is all that’s needed here.

Why? This allows your web designer to gain an understand of where you’re coming from. Maybe you just want a couple of informational pages; maybe you intend to start an empire selling T-shirts; perhaps you want to start a lively social network along the lines of Facebook. You web expert will then be able to keep your purpose in mind when looking at your brief, and should be able to point out ideas and suggestions and any potential risks as they go along.

3. Audience
Who are you creating trying to reach with your website? Be as specific as possible. For example, if you are an acupuncture, you may say:

“I help anyone who is ill and who has been unsuccessful with traditional medical solutions”

It would be better, however, to say something like:

“I help women between the ages of 25 and 60 who are experiencing life changes treat a range of illnesses with accupuncture. These women are financially independent, well-educated and disillusioned with traditional medicine. I have a particular passion for pregnant women, women suffering from post-natal depression and women going through the menopause.”

Why: This helps you hone in on your core audience, and allows you to speak to them specifically through your content. From your web designer’s perspective, this information allows them to think about how your demographic might use the website and make relevant suggestions AND is invaluable in considering the look-and-feel and design – a site that targets hip, young men in their 20′s is going to look radically different to a site that targets 60+ individuals looking for insurance, for example!

4. Research
Take a good look online and take a critical look at other websites, especially those in who are in a similar field to you. See what they are doing, try to understand why – often, if it’s working across the industry, it’s likely to work for you (unless you’re radically different!).

Look at websites for businesses who aren’t in your industry too and gather ideas of functionality that you like. For example, you might notice that one of your competitors has images on the home page that change every few seconds and you want to do the same.

Why? This will help you work out what content and functionality you may need and may also be helpful in explaining what you want. Instead of trying to describe what you’ve see, you can simply tell your designer that you want to have a rotating main image that works in a similar way to website XXX.

5. Content

Ideally, you’ve already worked with a copywriter and have a clear idea of the content you want to include on your website. In reality, most people choose to write their content themselves (although I always recommend investing in time with our copywriter, even if it’s only an hour or two, in order to give you a clear idea of content needs and how people will engage with your content).

Whatever you choose to do, you should have a list of pages / content that you want on your site, with a short description of each page. For example, a simple brochure site may have:

• Home: short introduction to my business; a client testimonial; latest news
• Services: 2-3 paragraphs with bullets listing services; client testimonials; link to contact form
• News: an area with industry news (added weekly)
• About: an overview of the business with a short biography of the owner
• Contact: contact information with an online contact form; Twitter feed; link to LinkedIn

Why? This helps your web designer get an understanding of both the number of pages you need as well as any extra functionality you need so that they can make suggestions as to approach.

6. Functionality
You may not know the answer to this in techie-speak, but be clear about things that you want to be able to do and things that you want visitors to be able to do on the site.

For example:

• Do you need to be able to update your site yourself or do you want your web team to manage that?
• Do you need a blog (and can you commit to writing regularly)?
• Do you use social media and should it be integrated with your site?
• Do you want people to be able to sign up to your newsletter?
• Do you want to be able to create forms for users to complete?
• Are you selling something online?
• Do you need to promote events and have a calendar?
• Do you need include videos on your site?

Why? First, because if you want your website to work in a certain way, your website team needs to know that in order to ensure that your website meets your needs. Second, because your website expert may be able to ask you sensible questions about the functionality you want and suggest alternative or better ways of achieving what you want to achieve. Third, because the more complex the functionality, the more time and effort needed to build the site and this may affect costs.

Tip: It might be an idea to prioritise your functionality wish list into “essentials” and “nice-to-haves”. Your website team can then quote for both, so that you can work out what’s best for your website AND your budget.

7. Design
Think about the aesthetics of your website. Think about your business and what image you want to convey. Do you have strong views on colours or images? Is there a particular feeling that you want to capture? Think about your audience. Jot down some ideas about how you want to be perceived.

It’s useful to think of design in terms of what you like and dislike AND also in terms of who your audience is and what they may like and dislike.

As part of this stage, find 5 websites that you love and 5 that you hate (they don’t have to operate in the same sector or industry as you). Write down the website URLs, and explain why you like or hate each one, being as descriptive as you can and share this with your website designer.

An example would be:

Love: www.url.com The site feels very soft and feminine but still professional. I like the way that the images rotate on the top, and I really like the layout of the services page.

Don’t love: www.url2.com  This site is way too busy. I don’t know where to go and just want to click “back”. I don’t like the yellow and red – this feels cheap to me and I want a more premium feel.

Why? Most people stuggle to describe what they like or dislike. Being able to give your web designer examples and illustrate those examples with other websites really makes your design preferences clear. It’s also important to have examples of sites you like AND dislike because design can be subjective: a site that one person sees as calming might be seen by someone else as boring! Again, this subjective view also depends on the audience: if you’re targeting people a meditation group, a minimalistic site with muted colours may work. If you’re selling pre-school games and want to capture the attention of a 2-year-old, those muted colours may flop and it might be better to consider something brighter and a site with a lot more action.

8. Budget
Have a budget in mind before you get going and if you’re worried about costs, ask your developer to provide a proposal that gives you a staged approach, with the first stage being the “essential”, and costs to extend or scale the website to include all your sexy “nice-to-have-but-not-essential” features.

Why? This approach will allow you to see the minimum and maximum costs based on your needs and you can then have a conversation about how to incorporate more or less features.

Tip: If your budget is really low, it’s sensible to be upfront about this so that the developer can look at your list of requirements (purpose, content and functionality above) and your budget and can give you an idea of what you can get for your money. Most developers will want to help if they can.

One more thing: Be realistic. If you’re trying to replicate Facebook, a multi-million dollar company with a website that has taken several years and hundreds of thousands of hours to develop, don’t be surprised when your web developer laughs when you say “I have a budget of £500 and I need to create a website that’s similar to Facebook”.

9. Contact designers and developers
How you do this is a whole different article, but briefly:
• ask friends, clients, acquaintances for recommendations
• search for designers in your area
• find websites that you like and get in touch for the contact details of their designer

Once you have a list of creative teams, visit their websites – do you like their style? Contact them for a short call – do they know what they’re doing? Can you communicate with them? These are important.

You need to find someone who can shows an interest in what you do and who can make suggestions and contribute ideas to help you make your project a success.

Why? Web design and development is a collaborative process and one in which a lot of trust is involved. If you can’t communicate with them, or don’t feel confident in their abilities, or dislike the sort of work they do, don’t work with them.
Then: Narrow your list down to 1-3 creative teams.
Request a proposal
Use all the information you have above to create a brief – a very thorough document detailing all your needs and preferences. You can even use some of the heading we have used in this document:

• Business (you and your business)
• Purpose
• Audience
• Content
• Functionality
• Design (including websites you like & dislike & why)
• Budget (if you don’t want to include your budget, ask for a phased approach based on your essential and non-essential functionality list)

You may also want to include:

• Timescales: when do you want to start and complete the work?
• Brand material: do you have a logo and brand guidelines or do you need this work to be completed first? Do you want the creative team to quote to create your logo and brand? If you already have your brand in place, you may want to send this along with the brief.
• Additional information: anything that you feel is important that isn’t included in the above!
•
10. Select a web team and get going!
Once you’ve received proposals, you can review them, discuss them, narrow them down and hopefully select the team who are going to help you create a shiny new website!

Still unsure and need help?
Feel free to get in touch for a quick chat and I’d be happy to guide you through the murky waters of getting a website in place. You can contact me directly via email at suzanne [at] future-makers.co.uk (trying to avoid pesky spammers!) or visit www.future-makers.co.uk and get in touch via our contact form.

Win FREE coaching with Rasheed worth over £500

Win Free Coaching: with Rasheed worth over £500
October 9, 2012 By Rasheed Leave a Comment

This month I have lots to celebrate: The launch of my new self development website Evolved Heart (which is packed full of free tips and videos) and I’m also celebrating the launch of my new book Soul Trader Putting the Heart Back into Your Business

So to mark these special occasions were running a competition on Evolved Heart’s new FaceBook page in which you can win free coaching …and free coach yourself prizes. 

* 1st prize: 5 hours of free coaching with me, Rasheed, worth over £500

+  a copy of my Become who you are – coach yourself video worth £97

+ a copy of my Become who you are semi meditative talk worth £6.99

* 10 runners up: will all win my Become who you are coach yourself video and the Become who you are semi meditative talk.

Check out the video below to find out more about the prizes on offer. You’ve got to be in it to win it as they say and to do that all you need to do is visit our Facebook page,click the like button and you’re away. Full terms and conditions can be see on the page. Hurry the competition ends at the end October.

Rasheed’s Facebook Page launched

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve now created and launched the Rasheed Ogunlaru, coach – speaker -author Facebook Page  

Ideal for those of you who are keen Facebookers and who like to stay in touch with new via social media, I hope to keep the page up to date with news, clips, events, information and inspiration. So it will help you stay in touch via new posts and updates. 

I hope that it will help to reach those of you who turn to social media as you first media …and builds on my presence on YouTube and Facebook. Stop on by and take a look.

Wishing you all the best and see you there.

 

Rave Reviews…

I’ve always talked about the importance of giving people rich, positive feedback and it’s wonderful just what an impact it can have. But it’s something you really only appreciate when you hear that feedback first hand. I remember getting ‘honest’ but positive feedback from my English teacher many years ago that really impacted on me positively and actually encouraged me back then in my dream of being an author…

…Many years on his has been a very busy and touching week, with the publication of my new book Soul Trader on Wednesday. Tuesday was especially busy -pre-publication days often are – and the British Library’s Business & IP Centre ran a wonderful Open Evening to tie in with publication in which I shared tips from the book that was open to new and emerging entrepreneurs. It was a truly magical evening and was very humbling to hear people you respect offer warm genuine praise. That was an opportunity for me to feedback and encourage the many emerging entrepreneurs . And during that evening I got to hear some very touching positive feedback.

That day on the way in to the centre I realised that I better quickly read the first review of the book by the BIPC Centre Manager Neil Infield on his much respected and well read blog In Through the Outfield. I was very touched by what he wrote below. 

 

Here is Neil’s Review from   In Through The Outfield:

Soul Trader – Putting the heart back into your business

Rasheed Ogunlaru, life and business coach has been a Business & IP Centre partner since our earliest days. In addition to running the Your life, your business workshop once a month in the Centre and mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs with TieUK, he singlehandedly converted me to the benefits of life coaching.

I have to admit that perhaps due to a scientific background, or perhaps just plain old cynicism, I had always been wary of life coaching. I decided the only way to address this prejudice was to attend Rasheed’s workshop five years ago. After three hours I was entirely convinced by his eminently practical approach, to putting your heart and soul into your business.
So it is great to see his practical philosophy translated from workshop to published book in the form of Soul Trader published by Kogan Page. And having read it through this week,  I would put it at the top of my list of recommended reading for everyone starting (or growing) a business. I am still a big fan of Starting Your Own Business: The Good, The Bad and The Unexpected by David Lester, but Rasheed has addressed the key issue of what you really want to get from starting a business, and to make sure you end up running it, instead of it running you and your life.

His introduction sums it up nicely:

Most people do not go into business solely to make money. They want to make a living, make an impact, make a contribution, make a statement, make something of real worth and value. They want to enjoy what they do, and make themselves happy and their families secure and proud. They want to make a break from the humdrum, and express their skill and abilities. But sooner or later many business owners fall into the same old trap, lose sight of what’s important and struggle with life balance.

The book consists of eight C’s made up of seven chapters and a ‘plus’ which focusses on insights to help anticipate and embrace Change.

Clarity: Know your mission, talents and values.
Customers: See life through customers’ eyes to win their custom and loyalty.
Courage:  Unleash your inspiration / wisdom and adopt an athlete’s attitude.
Co-operation: Punch over your weight; collaborate. Use / build your network.
Conversations: Learn the art to connect, converse, create and convert leads.
Creativity: Know when to work, rest and be at your best, (re)gain life balance.
Compassion: Connect from the heart – be transformational not transactional.

Early on Rasheed gets the you to conduct a personal SWOT analysis. Which is an excellent way of discovering what you do well, and what you need to work on or get help with.

The book is peppered with examples from his hundreds of clients over the years, and covers a problem I have encountered many times, which he calls the ‘blindness of the visionary’. People become so (understandably) obsessed by their business idea or invention, they completely forget about their customers. This leads to a very expensive and risky approach to market research, where you bring your product or service to the market and then find out if anyone will buy it. Much better to find out as you develop your idea and tailor it to what you customers say they want.

Once again Rasheed gives a practical solution to this problem by showing how to map out your customers. He also explains how to develop a set of customer ‘scenarios’, to help understand the psychology of your customers. He doesn’t shy away from the realities of doing business in the real world as a soul trader. Without sufficient income (and avoiding the number one cause of failure – cash-flow) your business will not survive. Even social enterprises have to generate enough money to pay their staff and to invest in growth if they are to succeed. These are the hard questions that so many avoid tackling in their business plans:

How much money to you need to live on, and to break even in business?
How much money do you seek to make this year, next year and the year after in turnover – before costs and tax – and in your personal profit after cost and tax?
On average how many sales or customer does that equate to per month and year?
What specific action are needed to reach those goals, and what are the challenges?
What evidence, research and assumptions are those figures based on?
Looking again at those figures, what are a) realistic, b) optimistic and c) pessimistic sales figures for the next 12 months, and what would they mean to you and your business?
What are your main products and services? How are they priced? What are all the costs involved? Which are the most lucrative? Which incur the most costs? Which involve the most hard work? Which are most dear to your heart and to your customers?

I have been talking to lots of makers recently such as jewellers, and many haven’t properly come to terms with the issue of wanting to make everything by hand themselves, but also selling enough items to make a living.

Courage is term one doesn’t  come across often in business books, but Rasheed rightly recognises that this is an essential ingredient in business, and gives practical tips on how you can develop it. I am constantly in awe of the people I meet who are at the beginning of a journey that would terrify me. The book contains an example from ex-Dragon and Business & IP Centre supporter Rachel Elnaugh.Rasheed asked one simple question during an advice session, and at a stroke gave her an insight which revolutionised her life. “I can honestly say that session with Rasheed was like walking through a doorway that has led me into a completely new and completely fulfilling life where success, money and love are all now flowering.”

Cooperation is an undervalued aspect of business, with many people I meet worrying about their competition before they have even started trading. The book talks about the importance of developing business partnerships through cooperation. And again Rasheed gives practical advice on how to grow and then utilize your support networks.

Conversations, which convert contacts into customers replace the ‘hard sell’ for soul traders. After all, no-one wants to be sold to, but everyone wants their opinion to be listened to. This chapter also includes how conversations work via social media channels and what precautions you need to take them online. There a lots of practical examples here, including how to deal with complaints by using, Acknowledge – Reflect back – Say what you can do.

Towards the end of the book Rasheed introduces his two-page business plan. As he says, ‘Business plans are written for two purposes and for two audiences: 1) for you to identify who and where you are, where you’re going and how you’ll get there; and 2) for investors or funders for the same purpose. If you’re seeking funding from others then you’ll need a longer, more detailed business plan…”

To sum up, I found Soul Trader to be clear and simple, friendly and supportive, passionate and soulful – just like Rasheed himself.

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Welcome to the era of The Soul Trader

Last night was a special night as I hosted a special ‘Soul Trader Open Evening’ at the British Library. The evening, coinciding with the launch of my new book Soul Trader was to help new and established entrepreneurs to network, connect, become inspired. It was great to see a range of accomplished entrepreneurs including some who I’d now call friends like Stephen Fear, Leon Fear and Rachel Elnaugh – right through to budding entrepreneurs who are working whilst working on their business ideas. But what is beautiful is that when I meet new and established business owners now they want to do something special for themselves and for others. They want to do business from the heart.

When I woke up this morning I woke up to The UK publication day for Soul Trader Putting the Heart Back into Your Business. It’s been a busy day but a special day. Years ago when I worked for Which? we’d have publication days where I’d be invalid in promoting and publicising books all the time – and even as I write I recall that after a while I was the press officer for Which?  Books. I have produced two other books: A Zest for Business was jointly published by myself and the Zestworks team … and The Gift of Inner Success – a book dear to my heart – that was self published. Today however is different Soul Trader is launched to a worldwide audience and is available in shops. It was always my goal to have some thing that works independently of me that others could happen upon. And funnily enough a few weeks back when I looked t my 2 page business plan (one of the tools I share in the book) I realised I’d achieved a goal I’d set to have a book in bookshops by December 2012. Sure there are anymore that have not been achieved but I am not one to live life by goals. As I have said they are good to have but not to hold too fast too. It is the spirit of why we do what we do – which emerges from who we are and being true to who we are that counts.

Last night at the launch I was touched by wonderful words that Rachel and Stephen said. They both eloquently captured the fact that we are in changing times, new times, times that require a new approach. At the same time there are many magical people who have so much to share: creatives, ethical business owners, healers, those who want to set up businesses that are in keeping with their lives, dreams, family and friendships…and those who have been traditionally minded but now want more balance in their lives – those who may have had success but now who seek fulfilment. It is all these many people that the book Soul Trader is for.

In an hour an a half I will be hosting Soul Trader Live – a live online talk for anybody on this journey – or keen to start on it. It itself takes place on Evolved Heart a new website I have launched this week with internet business specials TJ (Tum) Kazunga, himself one of those featured in the book. The book is really about this new era of running businesses that we love, that others will love, from a place of love. That is the whole deal. But when we do that magic happens. 

Over the last few weeks I’ve heard from a few people who have read the book and really enjoyed it and I was especially touched by the significance that Stephen Fear gave it as a book. For me this is fascinating when I started in business i knew little about business but I knew a lot about people – I am learning every day that if you operate from genuinely and deeply understanding people and service them -and by operating from your heart, passions and magic, then magic can and will happen. This magic goes beyond words and money. It is the magic that transforms the lives of all that you meet and who are involved in your business or who make use of your services. Welcome to the era of The Soul Trader. 

Enjoy the Soul Trader Talk   - Enjoy the book  

Here’s an interview I recorded with Rachel yesterday a few minutes ahead of the book launch. Rachel uses the wonderful term SoulPreneurs to describe this wonderful new wave of conscious business owners and she’s right …here’s what she had to say about the times we are in. Meanwhile both Rachel and I will be speaking at her SoulPreneur event on Oct 18 - aptly at St Paul’s in the heart of London.

Meet The Yes Man

 

Around 10 years ago when I trained and started out as a coach a few people mentioned The Yes Group to me. And as I began giving motivational talks, from time to time people mentioned The Yes Group – and again it happened quite recently as I prepared for the launch of my book. Then lo and behold a couple of weeks ago I was leaving another book launch at the British Library and the last person I said hello to (only because they were nearest the exit) was Karl Pearsall. His name was familiar and I think our paths crossed briefly – or perhaps at an event – many years ago, but we hadn’t met. So I asked Karl what he did and he told me he was the Founder of The Yes Group. All I knew about the group is that they met in London and that, the story goes, it was set up by someone who was inspired by a Tony Robbins event. That someone was Karl.

As we spoke what impressed me about Karl was his warmth, his genuineness and his humility. I was also impressed by the story he started to tell me about his own journey and how he set up the group as a result of going on his own self development journey 20 years ago. Many go  on a self development journey but few decide to powerfully embrace it and inspire others to meet. As we spoke Karl told me more about his journey and that the group was a not for profit. Realising that here was someone who was genuinely doing what he was doing, not just for his own growth but for others, I decided that I had to interview him.

So here is that interview which we recorded a week or two ago a week or so on from our meeting. Karl is now expanding the group around the world and I wish him every success. 

 

Rachel Elnaugh, SoulPreneur: a new era in life & business

Yesterday I caught up with entrepreneur, motivational speaker and business mentor, Rachel Elaugh. Rachel is one of the many wonderful people featured in my new book Soul Trader – Putting the Heart Back into Your Business.   Hers has been a remarkable journey from building a multi-million pound business, being a star of the first two series of BBC Dragon’s Den – only for it all to crash. But it is what happened after that crash that is most fascinating. Rachel found herself on a whole new journey of doing business in a whole new different way. In this interview we filmed yesterday ahead of the Open Evening launch of Soul Trader, Rachel discusses business, sustainability, energy and a whole new way of living, being and being in business.

Soul Trader interviews – the tea tycoon

One of the most fascinating of the entrepreneurs who I featured in my book Soul Trader – Putting the Heart Back into Your Business is Hom Paribag. Hom is a very experienced entrepreneur from Nepal. Hom started out as a poet, moved into publishing and became concerned with economic, social and cultural matters which led him into publishing. But after changes in the publishing emerged he has a dream of what his next business should be …and that dream was ‘tea’. Here’s my interview with him.

Rasheed launches Evolved Heart.com – free tips, articles & videos

After months in the making I am really pleased to announce the launch of my new website Evolved Heart. Evolved Heart is a website full of free tips, videos, articles and inspiration for anyone on a journey for greater peace and fulfilment in their life. It extends, supports and compliments the work that I do as a coach-speaker-author. It is to help not only the clients I work with and those that attend my talks but to support, encourage and enable those that I may never meet of all walks of life across countries, backgrounds and walks of life. It includes articles, videos and inspiration to help you in your career, home life, work, business and self. Above all it is an invitation to embrace, life, self and everybody else from a space of deeper compassion and mindfulness.

 

 

Tough a the top!

Life can be crushing at the bottom and it can also be stifling at the top. The sad thing about life is that we often become obsessed with status, position, acquiring, gaining, succeeding. Much of this comes about from good intent and from the perspective of seeking to grow, develop, stretch ourselves, discover our possibilities and sometimes it emerges through necessity to continue to evolve. But very often we seek the power and ‘stuff that we gather’ through a sense of lack. From  sense that we’ve only made it when we have left here and got there. 

The other interesting thing is that to some extent most of us tend to buy into this idea of how life is. So it means that many people feel worthless because they have not ‘made it’ and meanwhile many who have ‘made it’ feel worthless because they are still the same little person who lacks self belief, confidence and esteem within who continues to feel a fraud when they have arrived. And  upon arrival there are all sorts of additional challenges. How do I stay at the top? How do I compete or be worthy of those others at the top? Do these people respect me because of who I am or because of what I have and where I stand? Often there are the pressures of expectation and performance that come with having a top position on the board, on the telly, on the team or wherever it may be. 

Be it that you are an athlete, Chief Executive, politician, pop star or presenter this short video may chime with you. It will also invite you to gently let all the thoughts and fear just be so that you can ‘become who you are’.