The Support Wealden website has come to an end. It has been a brilliant initiative to be involved in and we would like to thank all of you who had a listing, contributed to the newsletters, joined in with the social media projects or participated in our Midweek Wealden broadcasts. You can still watch the first 6 broadcasts on Youtube here and the final one is on Facebook. We had a lot of fun and it certainly gave us something to do to keep us all going during lockdown! But we now need to concentrate on our own business, Hailsham Creative, so have decided to let Support Wealden go.
When we first set up the Support Wealden website, we had envisaged it being a short term project. Something to help businesses let customers know their new opening hours, and for the local community to find out how they could help. Supporting a business on social media, or just keeping in touch, meant a lot.
Now what?
Well, with the lockdown continuing, many businesses have changed the way they work. Some are offering Click and Collect services, some have gone completely online. While others have decided they just need to close and ride it out until they can re-open. But everyone is adapting. We are busy updating their listings on the website, as soon as we get new information.
We have created additional features on the site – logos and images with the listings, some featured listings and a Special Love section. This is for businesses to share offers just with other businesses listed on the site. A social media campaign will start in February and all of our monthly newsletters can now be downloaded from the News page.
Once we can all start meeting again, we will have a get together in the gardens of Pickhams. Until then we are going to start an online event, interviewing one business owner and featuring some music, with a Question and Answer section so viewers can contribute too.
Keep an eye on the website for full details and sign up for the Newsletter.
Like many business we have had to re-invent ourselves over the past few weeks. After an initial ‘Lance Corporal Jones’ moment (“Don’t panic!”) and a period of shock, we talked to our franchise operators and were offered an opportunity we couldn’t refuse. To become a Nettl partner, enabling us to deliver better designed and more responsive websites.
Franchise?
You have in the past known us as Hailsham Creative @ Printing.com – printing.com is the franchise that we bought into several years ago, run by Grafenia PLC. This enabled us to offer, alongside our design services, competitively priced, good quality print from printing.com’s main hub while at the same time being able to shop around local suppliers to ensure we got the best price and product for our customers. Brilliant.
So who is Nettl?
Nettl is another arm of Grafenia PLC. It came into being as Grafenia’s response to the changes in the world of print. An increase in the use of websites and in viewing those sites on mobile devices has meant a great change in the design and coding process. Pretty much every business, large or small, that needs printing, also needs a website and, more often than not, signage. Now Nettl can offer it all.
Doesn’t it take years to learn coding and SEO? Don’t you have to keep up to date with fast moving technology?
Yes and yes and the beauty of Nettl is that we are part of a much larger team that includes the ‘Geeks’ – these brain boxes have all of those skills and knowledge and have their fingers firmly on the pulse of the technology world. And they are ours! This leaves us free to do the designing and building of the websites using the latest Nettl software with a wealth of expert support behind us.
So, having made use of the quiet lockdown weeks by doing online training courses, video seminars, test projects and sample sites, we have now gone from offering the very simplest, basic starter websites to being able to offer the best website solution for pretty much any project, with added functionality and integrations, totally responsive for viewing on any platform. See, we’ve even started to talk ‘website’.
Here are some examples of sites created using the Nettl system
inspireplus.org.uk
supportwealden.co.uk
pickhams.com
So where does Accomplice Ltd fit in all of this?
Accomplice Ltd is the name we registered when we became a limited company way back in 2004, having been trading simply as Accomplice before then. When we moved to offices in Hailsham we started the trading name of Hailsham Creative as that better explained what we offered… and where. When we joined printing.com we added that to the name. We now work from a home office in Wilmington, East Sussex and still have close connections with Hailsham so, rather than change name once again when we left Hailsham, we kept the Hailsham Creative name as we’d grown fond of it and our branding was pretty well known. Now we’ve swapped the added printing.com to Nettl and we are offering exactly the same service as before but with with added website ‘wow’.
In a nutshell, we’ve evolved and are pretty excited about it!
So next time you see the name Hailsham Creative or Nettl of Eastbourne North, you’ll know that we are the ones for web… and whatever other design, print and signage needs you may have.
So you have had a brilliant idea for a business, you’ve done the research and found there is a market and decided this is something you really want to do.
You then need to decide on what format your business will take and consider other matters such as accounting, staffing, location and licences – look at the advice on www.gov.uk/set-up-business and more general advice on www.gov.uk/business-support-helpline.
Still want to start your business?
What is the next thing to think about?
Name Come up with a long list of possible names. To help you shortlist, do internet searches for each possibility and see if there is someone else with the same name and check Companies House and see if the name is registered. Also check on web domain companies to see if the name is used in a domain already. Once you’ve crossed off the impossibles, you can then look again at your possibles.
Double check the internet for reviews with the same name – a list of ghastly reviews for a something anywhere with the same name could be a turn off for potential customers.
What’s in a name? It’s really good to have a story behind your name – it doesn’t have to have anything at all to do with the type business, it could be the name of your first pet, or a word based on a favourite quotation, or anything that actually means something to you. You can always add an explanation to the name such as Rex Computer Services. A bit of research around the subject of your business is good – the history behind it, any notable names linked to it, any images that immediately crop up when you do internet searches.
Branding and identity Your name becomes your brand. The story behind the name can help with the identity of your brand. If you’ve named Rex Computer services after your first dog, the dog could become your brand identity.
Website A website that can be viewed on a mobile, tablet and desktop not only helps potential customers to firstly find out about your business, but also adds legitimacy to your business and helps to reinforce your brand and identity.
Social media Many people will immediately search on social media for your business to look for reviews, more information and to find out a bit about you personally. If you don’t have time to spend on regular updates, there are lots of companies out there that can do this for you. A simple Facebook page, Twitter account and linkedIn profile with your company name, details, branding and identity is a good starting point. Remember not to use these solely as a selling platform – mix in personal posts and photos so potential customers get to know you – and interact with other accounts.
Business cards and promotional literature When you are starting out you need to get the word out there as many ways as possible. Always have business cards with you – you’ll be really keen to talk about your business so make sure you hand over a card to everyone you speak to about it. Even if they are not interested in using your services, they may well know someone who is. Leaflets, brochures and other promotional literature are good for direct mail campaigns, instantly handing over more information at face to face meetings, and great to leave in suitable venues for passing potential customers.
Stationery It may seem old fashioned to have printed letterheads, but sometimes you do need to provide your registered company address and other details on a business letterhead. It is also a good introduction to other local business to send an individual letter on your new letterhead. Remember, the more often your brand and identity is seen, the more likely it is that a potential customer will start to recognise it and remember you and your business.
Advertising and signage There are lots of different ways to advertise yourself. Posters, banners, signage if you have a shop front, magazine adverts, newspaper articles. If you have a company vehicle or van, it is a large, free advertising hoarding – get vehicle signage. Spread the word, shout about what you do and get yourself noticed.
So, how can we help you?
We can help with name ideas, branding, identity, promotion, print, signage and websites. We can also suggest some experts to help with social media and marketing.
Have a look at our branding website, By Jimbo! to see some examples of Jim’s work. We have created some great affordable starter websites and of course we specialise in design and print. We won’t persuade you to go full steam ahead with a load of printing that may not suit you at the present moment – we want your business to flourish so we will give you honest advice. We don’t profess to be experts in all aspects of starting a business but we’ve seen a lot of start-ups come through our doors over the past 16 years and we’re good at what we do.
Talk to us when you feel you’re ready to go – we actually love helping to come up with names too, so if you’re struggling, have a word!
This stems from an initiative by Action in Rural Sussex :
“Rural communities across East Sussex are full of small businesses and enterprises many run by a single person, often from home or a small business facility.
Running a business or developing an idea into a business can be challenging, particularly when doing so on your own. Complying with regulations and rules can be overwhelming and scary, and many businesses aren’t sustainable or don’t grow as their owners wish, often because identifying and accessing cost-effective support is seen as difficult, expensive or not a valuable use of their time.
In partnership with Lets Do Business Group, [this is] part of a new initiative which seeks to provide an informal forum for local people to come together and explore both specific and general business issues, but also to hear about the wide range of FREE business support on offer to assist them in growing their business and running it effectively.”
Running our business from a home office in Wilmington, East Sussex, we felt this was a pretty good idea so got involved and agreed to host an event, launching the Cuckmere Rural Business Network in November 2018. Having been to many different styles of networking event, we thought we’d start informal and see how it develops. The next meeting is on Tuesday evening, 19th February at the Berwick Inn (opposite Berwick railway station). Although this is aimed at helping the smaller, rural businesses, anyone in business is welcome to come along to meet those not normally seen at town networking events.
We will have a short presentation by Ian Smallwood of Let’s Do Business and a talk about how to stay focussed on your business – let’s face it, we all struggle with that at times!
Arrival time 6.30pm for time to chat, then introductions at 7.15 followed by the talk, time for discussions then more informal networking.
Remember to bring plenty of business cards and any promotional material you may have. Of course, we can help there if you need something designed or printed. We have lots of good ideas for how to show off your business at its best.
These events are supported by Let’s Do Business and Action in Rural Sussex
We are running the