Trunk Media

SuperNews! – Social Networking Wars

30 September 2008

This is great, I felt exactly like this guy some time ago. In fact, I got so fed up with having all these different profiles on all these different social networking sites like myspace, bebo and facebook, just to name a few, I ended up going through and deleting all of them!

Let the socal networking wars begin!

Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Free Enterprise Training Programme for small business owners

24 September 2008

We love websites. And our clients love us. As small business owners we are always trying to find ways to spread the word about what we do and why we are different. There are many different hats you need to wear when you’re trying to expand (and I’m not talking baseball caps and beanies). It’s important to step back from the business and take the time to look at your processes and business strategies. There are always lessons to be learnt and it’s important to have a self-improvement focus.

We recently found out that WHK Gosling Chapman (a chartered accountancy firm based in Auckland) run free full-day and half-day training programmes for small business owners.

The courses are funded by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. Apparently WHK have been running these for eight years! They are a great resource for small business owners and entreprenuers – in particular those that are first-timers.

There are a range of courses on business planning / strategy, marketing / sales, accounting / office systems, employment / people management and exporting. There are also more specific industry-related workshops.

I have been to a marketing and an accounting workshop (with a sales workshop coming up soon). Whilst I have a fair amount of knowledge in these areas, I have still gleaned some handy tips. It is also a great opportunity to network with like-minded business owners. The workshop is followed by a one-on-one coaching session, which is more specific to your particular business.

The courses are practical with take-home notes. They should not be seen as a “get everything done in one day” solution where you can complete the course and have a functioning marketing plan or cash flow projection. These courses are instead designed to give you an understanding of the steps you need to take and a framework from which to work. You must be prepared to take the advice given and apply it to your business and particular situation.

Have a look on the WHK Business Growth website and see if there are any programmes that will help you upskill. To register you need to complete an application form, this is then reviewed by one of the Business Growth team and followed up with a phone call to assess which courses will be most beneficial to your business.

If you are a first-time business owner you should grab the opportunity to learn from these workshops!

Posted in Marketing, Other | 2 Comments »

Updated your Facebook profile lately?

22 August 2008

This is a great Seth Godin blog article about how the little things you do online everyday affect how people perceive you:

Who’s telling you the truth about your online personal marketing?

I’m off to change my Facebook profile photo now…

Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

First In but never served…

7 March 2008

I have been meaning to write a post about First In – www.firstin.co.nz for the last few weeks. First In is a site which has special deals of limited stock available for a certain timeframe. It is a similar concept to 1-day – www.1-day.co.nz a site run by torpedo7.

These two sites really are at opposite poles in terms of customer service and delivery.

A friend ordered an item on the First In website at the beginning of January; the product is yet to turn up despite the amount being debited from his Visa on the day of purchase. Any attempt to contact First In – including the cellphone of one of the owners (Adam Brown) has been fruitless.

Three emails were sent but never replied to, and two phone calls to the 0800 customer service centre resulted in messages being taken so that Adam could “look into it” and “return your call”. Having had no communication my friend is now in a position where the only thing he is able to do is to lodge a dispute with his bank and have them investigate, get a lawyer to write First In a nasty letter and hope for a better (or any) response or take them to the Disputes Tribunal. It’s tantamount to theft.

On investigation since his purchase I have found several forums with other people complaining about this exact same problem. In fact, they appeared on Fair Go in 2006. It seems that nothing much has changed since then.

Do yourself a favour and do not buy anything from First In.

In contrast I have used 1-day a few times as have a lot of my friends; I have never had a problem with them. The goods always arrive, usually within a day.

I do not understand how companies can get away with this lack of customer service and quite frankly robbery.

Posted in Marketing | 4 Comments »

Wake up Skycity Cinemas!

5 March 2008

The Skycity Cinemas www.skycitycinemas.co.nz website was redesigned a couple of years ago. I have always found the site clunky with an ugly, unintuitive user interface. I was surprised on going to their website the other day to see it has again been overhauled. Two complete redesigns in a couple of years – a lot of companies would love that budget!

Unfortunately the site doesn’t seem to have improved in terms of user-friendliness, indeed the site is just as unintuitive as previously and is actually a lot uglier. It screams early nineties mashed with a slow Flash interface for selecting movies. The drop-down menus are just nasty.

I actually don’t know where to start so I’m just going to highlight a few of the shiners.
(more…)

Posted in Creative, Marketing | 5 Comments »