Project25 Planning

I’m spending my 25 minutes today doing some initial planning. I need some idea of what I’m aiming for!

What is drawing me at the moment is a resource for other web designers – that is people running web design businesses or working freelance. Specifically businesses like mine:

• Local web designers
• UK-based
• Have a strong sense of wanting to do things the right way

There are a lot of resources out there for “online businesses” and I want to put it out there that working as a lcoal business is still absolutely valid and a great way to make you stand out.

I guess my ultimate goal is some kind of community for web design business owners – hey, if you are reading this and thinking this would be useful for you, get in touch and we can get the ball rolling. Wouldn’t it be lovely if I could go “ta-da, here’s my offering”. But in reality it’s not that straightforward. I need some stuff in place first, like:

• audience
• resources
• a solid offering

I’m all for taking it a step at a time. I’m thinking the steps can look something like this.

1. Get my website shipshape:
   • Updated strapline for my logo
   • Move any useful content to my own web design business website
   • Home page – focus on blog posts
   • About page
   • Contact page
   • Blog – I’m going to use this blog to discuss my progress, so ideally would like to add to it at least once a week. But it will also be the place for useful articles to introduce the theme of local web design businesses.
2. Create a freebie and set up a mailing list.
3. Send regular emails – get into the habit of sending a weekly (or monthly?) email update – even if I don’t have any subscribers yet.
4. Set up social media – a Facebook page and Facebook group, and also promote on LinkedIn.
5. Create a resource that I can sell – this will be a low cost item. The important thing is that I get something out there as quickly as possible – something that is propery useful to my target audience.
6. Create a higher cost item – course or bundle of resources.
7. Build my audience and paid resources up to a point I’m happy (need to decide what that is).
8. Set up my community.

Hey, this is a loose plan at the moment. I’m sure it will change but the important thing is to get moving and start by doing something. I know I won’t git it right straight away, but I can have some fun trying things and working it out as I go along.