Overview:
We caught up with the winner of last year’s Christmas Giveaway to discuss why he entered, what the journey was like and the winning results!
Sam Sayer 0:02
Yeah, cool. How you doing James?
James Bremridge 0:04
I am very well, very well yourself.
Sam Sayer 0:07
Yeah, good, thanks. Good, good. So it’s been almost a year since you entered our traditional Christmas website giveaway and won
James Bremridge 0:18
Yeah, yeah.
Sam Sayer 0:21
Glad to have your website live.
James Bremridge 0:22
Who doesn’t like free stuff?
Sam Sayer 0:23
Yes, absolutely. So yeah, I just wanted to just ask a few things about the sort of journey you went through with us. So of course, first of all, let’s start off with, why did you enter it in the first place?
James Bremridge 0:38
Why did I enter it? Well, like I say, Who doesn’t like free stuff at first off? You know, who doesn’t like a chance to win a competition? It was also at the point in the business where I need, I needed their website, so I originally started with GoDaddy, and it was fine. It’s just like a placeholder of to send people there. But it didn’t boot up very quickly. It wasn’t very It wasn’t very much functionality. It looks very like Cookie, cookie as I describe it, you know, similar template. And just not, you know, just not as professional as I’d like. And then obviously, I saw that you were doing the Christmas competition. And I know you obviously from, from our networking groups and things like that. And I thought, wow, Sam, must know what he’s doing. Looks like a good competition. Who doesn’t like getting a new website for free? And also, you know, it was just a good opportunity to see if I could be lucky and win something which was quite nice.
Sam Sayer 1:26
And yeah, you are. We had quite a few entries, actually. So yeah, you You did well to win it. So, yeah, this is quite a common story, really. We, we tend to work with people who either done a DIY and a glass part of the camera. We need something more professional, yeah? Or it’s, you know, someone’s got a website that’s reached end of life, and we sort of rejuvenate it and get them set on the right road.
James Bremridge 1:51
Yeah
Sam Sayer 1:51
Let’s talk about the process. How do you find the process of working with us?
James Bremridge 1:56
Yeah, great, great. You know, relatively straightforward. You know, you’re helpful to answer any questions. You could do is, you know, help me with many pages or functionalities and links through as a one, it was, it was good, straightforward, obviously, you assigned me with with Richard, who was great. He was always there. He and I had, like, a meeting. It was every week, or every two weeks as it was going along, just to keep each other updated on those calls. Once we actually started to put stuff up online, he would go through and show us all the different bits he was doing. And, you know, we he said, Oh, would you like this? Then he gave me access, and I was allowed to make some tweaks or advice on tweaks. I think you were still doing all the back end stuff at that point. But, you know, I would say, oh, no, can we have that here? Can we move this around? And then also, actually, the the general sort of design of the website that you know, how it’s sort of laid out and with the principal P that I’ve got, and it moves, and you cut that open and use that as I don’t know how to describe it, but it just, you just did a great job of sort of taking my existing logo, already, yeah, and influencing that throughout the rest of the page. You’ll have to see that. You have to go on this. Go on and see the website to see what I mean. But that part might be, yeah, you took the logo that I already had that I like this. Oh, this is right behind me here. I sort of made that as like a bookmark within the page and things like that. So it was quite nice for you to just take that initiative to do that.
Sam Sayer 3:18
Oh, great feedback. Yeah, we like to, you know, we don’t paint by numbers. We like to dig a bit deeper and understand a, what your goals are. B, what we’re working with, how we can add value and bring it more to life. In that sense. So cool. What did you what the kind of the results of your new website? Then, how has it made how’s it made you feel?
James Bremridge 3:40
How it made me feel? Makes me feel more professional, bigger than I am. You know, at the moment, is just me, so I am a small one man band, but it’s definitely set us up to look a lot more professional, look like a bigger company. But also, when we do start taking people on board, we’ve already got that sort of professional looking corporate website available. I can take some things through. I’ve had compliments on it. I’ve been to a couple shows, and a couple of people checked it out and said, Oh, it looks really nice. You know, it’s really smart. Things like that. We’ve had a few extra inquiries through, coming through the website, which you guys link to my CRM, so they’ll get uploaded straight to my CRM, which is quite nice. And, yeah, just overall, it’s just a better face for principle. Really, I want to eventually update it with some more personalized photos when we get an office and employees, you know. So if you stock image at the moment, but for the meantime, it all fits in terms of what we want, which is nice, right?
Sam Sayer 4:35
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, a website’s not a certificate thing. It’s not like painting a picture of it on your wall. That’s the starting point. Then it’s adding your testimonials on it, updating, I think, yeah, this is something we always talk about. It’s hard early days when it’s especially when it’s just yourself, to have your own photography unit always makes the difference with it. But you know, the beauty is, it’s very fluid. Right? So it’s modular, so we can grow an update as you go.
James Bremridge 5:03
So, yeah, yeah. And on that point as well, you know, I’ve as working in finance, there’s different products or different initiatives that the government announced. And after we had done the website and finished everything, we then added another page about the growth guarantee scheme. And that was fine. I just sent you guys the information that I needed in a couple of images, and then within like, 24 hours, that was an additional page that we were that was on the website straight away, and we’ve had some traffic to it as well straight away. So it’s worked out quite well. And you guys are flexible with, you know, if, like you say, if we need it and we want to update a page or add a new page or some sort of functionality, you know, within a day or so, it’s been, yep, been up there.
Sam Sayer 5:40
We’ve got your back. Good stuff, good stuff, cool. Well, in January, we’ll be doing our one year check in with you. So we’ll look at your next goals, what you want to achieve from the website and your business, and then see how that ties in. Again, things can change a hell of a lot in just 12 months, as you know, yeah, servicing. So yeah, yeah, looking forward to going through that. And yeah, we’ll be, by then, we’ll have announced our next new winner as well.
James Bremridge 6:06
We’re excited. Looking forward to, who doesn’t want that at Christmas anyway. That’s a nice little surprise. Absolutely, at Christmas, and like I say, you guys were, I think, before, the website was taking, like, a few seconds, almost five seconds, to boot in. But now, you know, you click on it, it boots up straight away, which was, I think we were losing a lot of customers through that using, you know, the GoDaddy and the other guys, it just wasn’t booting quick enough. And I think we lost quite a few click offs from there, because people can’t be bothered to wait and then, like I say, the functionality and how it flows through to all the different things just wasn’t there. It doesn’t just have that nice flow as you guys are able to capture that nice flow and functionality really, which is great, excellent.
Sam Sayer 6:46
Yeah, it does make the difference what you know, people are so time poor these days, they want to, like, straight in and get what they go into.
James Bremridge 6:53
It certainly helps. And you’re a nice chap, it’s nice to have you. And, like, you know, a DeType, you think outside the box in terms of your branding and everything that you’ve said anyway, in all the groups that we’ve been to and things like that, you know, you want to do it outside the box. You want to get your shifting gear and all that sort of stuff. You know, that is eventually what we want to go down for our business as well. So it’s just nice to work with somebody that has the sort of same, same train of thought, really?
Sam Sayer 7:19
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, most businesses, you know, there’s hundreds of people who got loads of competition out there. So, yeah, being different, you know, making that Mark is the name of the game these days.
James Bremridge 7:29
Absolutely, definitely. I look forward to, I look forward to seeing who wins this time.
Sam Sayer 7:33
Excellent. Alright, thank you, James, appreciate your time. We’ll catch up soon. Alright, speak to you soon!
James Bremridge 7:38
All the best, Bye, bye, bye.
