Another week of living the dream, doing business, making sales, & dreaming some more.
Here’s our list of projects started and completed during the week:
1. The new workshop got insulated. Now I can stay warm for the rest of the winter.
2. I started looking for an improved FedEx account so I can have deliveries picked up here and hopefully at a better rate.
3. I began setting up another weekly Blog that will be focused on bike cargo trailers: news & reviews called the Bike Trailer Blog . This effort will be in part to help raise the profile of the Bike Trailer Shop.
4. Wandertec workshop expansion drawings were started in my CAD program.
On the somewhat downside of things, my part-time employee decided he wanted to focus in on his classes. So I am back to being a one-manned operation. Having worked with my first employee for about 4 months now, I’ve come to one main conclusion. The next time I hire an employee, it should be ready to offer a full time gig. Hiring employees on a part-time basis only works if there are plenty of very basic tasks available. At the moment, the work that is available takes some time and training. After investing in an employee’s training, I would like to have them committed to the business just as I would be committed to offering them steady employment. Perhaps, I will be in the position to make this next step once the summer sales get underway.
The plan for the new Bike Trailer Blog was come up with by my web designer, Ben Robinson – Chicago Style SEO. He explained to me how blogs can be a powerful marketing tool in conjunction with an Ecommerce website. A blog can get very high in the Search Engine Rankings because it contains up to date and specific information. As it grows it will gain links as a reference point from other blogs and websites. The blog will conversely pass on these benefits to a sales website by being linked to it. The traffic from the blog will also pass directly onto the sales site through the numerous reference links to it.
The most successful blogs are generally those blogs that provide expert knowledge in a specific area. I realized that given my extensive work with selling and developing add-ons for bike cargo trailers, I had this knowledge. The blog is an opportunity for me to share, not just about the trailers and accessories that I offer, but also about all of the other bike cargo trailers available in various forms. I can do so in a way that instead of being sales oriented, shows other areas of interest such as in depth trailer comparisons, a variety of uses for trailers, tours trailers are being used on and much more.