Flourish Stuff

I class myself as one of life’s impatient. Once I’ve made a decision to do something, I want to get on with it right away. I struggled heavily with the concept of waiting six months for the right builder to be available to work on our house (especially as I’d been super organised and waited until we had Building Regs before going out to tender). And so I totally get the look of terror in your eyes when you learn that a decent website may take around 3 months (or more…) from concept to completion. If it was me, I’d want it right away too!

But consider this. Nothing good ever happens without thought, care and attention. And just as you could go into any fast food outlet and grab yourself an instant hit of something very unsatisfactory, far better to wait at a pub or restaurant for something homecooked. Sure, it costs more, but it’s better value for money, you have a more enjoyable experience and you’re fuller and happier when you leave.

The best things come to those who wait

It’s a bit like this with websites. You can get yourself a cheap and not so cheerful website and you can probably get it turned around in a matter of weeks. But you’ll find that there physically isn’t the time to plan the customer journey, develop a creative concept, pay time, care and attention to the details and execute with style. It’ll be a short lived web-calorie hit.

The alternative is much more satisfying (are you with me on this slightly odd analogy?). Having a new website created is a journey to be savoured. It’s an opportunity to bring some clarity to your thinking about your business, to take what you’re doing up a level and be blown away by someone else’s interpretation of your business. You can’t rush stuff like this. And whilst I don’t want you to think we sit around in meditations all day waiting for ideas to come (I can just hear the design team scoffing at that thought!) it is important that we create a design that is creatively strong and wins you business. And that means we need time to do it. Timelines will vary from project to project, and sometimes things will unexpectedly take longer than you think because (often) you may need more time to think about the creative or getting your copy right. But it’s always, always worth it in the end.

So more than anything, if you are desperate for a new website, get organised and start talking to us sooner rather than later! Don’t think about it for four months and then leave it so late that you need a microwave meal of a website! Allow yourself time to do it properly. 

Tagged as in Flourish Stuff, Marketing, Websites

A few weeks back we invited multi-award winning photographer Matt Pereira to take some team photographs of Flourish for our website. I’ll share the actual images with you next, but I thought you might like to see some of the shots that I took “behind the scenes”.

Matt and I decided that we’d use the afternoon to bring the team together, have a bit of a giggle and exercise our creative muscles. I have to say, we had a huge amount of fun, Matt took some corking images and it was a fab experience. I love working with Matt. He has incredibly high standards, he knows what I’ll like and we’ve worked together enough now to be able to push the boundaries whilst still getting the shots we need.

We roped in various members of the team to hold the equipment…

It all got a bit much for Ian.

Some of my ideas worked… Others really didn’t. We thought the “Stuart under the bridge” concept might look kooky and fun. We thought we might use it to advertise the Web Developer position. Actually we decided he just looked a bit like a hobbit (much to the amusement of Guildford’s lunching public).

Some of the shots in and around the high street attracted a lot of interest. Especially when Ian told one lady that we were the production team for Britain’s Next Top Model.

By the end of the afternoon we’d got (almost all) of the shots we needed, had a lot of fun and have some gorgeous pics to put onto the website. Now we just need to start using them…

Tagged as , matt pereira in Flourish Stuff

Every business has times of the year when it’s quieter than you’d like. In our case, come December to January our clients are usually thinking about anything other than their websites and logos. And whilst we relish the opportunity to work on our own design, catch up on the dreaded admin and stock up on mince pies, we’d much rather be helping you grow your business.

Our carrot dangling plan

This year we’ve decided to do a little experiment. Can we make a “sale” work for a service business? Can we incentivise our customers to focus on their marketing a bit earlier than they usually would and commit to some flourishing creative or digital work?

We’re inviting our customers to share some of the things they have on their to do list (but have been putting off) and we’ll let them know if we can make it worth their while committing to them now.

The idea is that of course it’s about saving money, but it’s also about getting ahead of the competition! Whilst they start thinking about marketing their businesses in February/ March, Flourish clients will be ready to go! We’re really excited to see how it’s going to work. Who is focused enough on their business and forward thinking enough to invest a bit of time in getting organised for the new year? We’re excited about the results!

So if you have a bunch of things that are moving further and further down your to-do list, why don’t you share them with us, and see if we can make it worth your while doing now? And if you’re not currently a client of Flourish but fancy working with us, we’d love you to get involved too.

Visit http://www.flourishstudios.co.uk/carrots for more details

Simply visit our website, share your to do list with us and we’ll be in touch!

Tagged as in Flourish Stuff

I am super, super excited to be launching our first Branding Your Small Business eCourse and I’d like to invite you to join me on our first course! The eCourse builds on the creative and positioning work we do in the one day Branding workshop and takes the concept to a whole new level. We’re going to [...]

Tagged as , branding your small business ecourse in Flourish Stuff, Inspirations, Workshops

I’m delighted to (finally) be able to introduce you to our fabulous new Account Executive Dani McDonald. Dani joined us at the start of August and has settled into the team beautifully. Her effervescent, creative and enthusiastic personality are just perfect for Flourish and I know she’s making a strong impression on those of you [...]

Tagged as in Flourish Stuff

Clare Yarwood-White may be taking a break from the business in order to focus on her two young boys and her health but her website has just been shortlisted for no less than two prestigious Sheerluxe Online Shopping Awards. Although Clare’s website isn’t taking orders right now we’re all chuffed to bits that she has [...]

Tagged as , sheerluxe, yarwood-white in Case Studies, Flourish Stuff, From The Studio

Over the last week or so I’ve been carving out a little time to pick back up the branding book that I started writing in February. And in a vain attempt to get me motivated and moving forwards (as opposed to procrastinating by writing blog posts) I thought I’d share with you my plans for [...]

Tagged as in Fiona's Book

So how has your first week “back” gone? I know that sounds very silly to those of you that don’t have children/ didn’t take the summer holidays off but I do find that the world seems to wake up once the schools go back. Even people that don’t have children seem to put things off [...]

Tagged as in Flourish Stuff

I know, I know, apologising to your blog readers for your lack of posting is a heinous crime, so I shan’t open this first post in a few weeks by saying sorry. But what I will do is say that I am now back from an amazing break with family and friends in the Lake [...]

Tagged as in Flourish Stuff

Earlier I explained some of our thoughts behind the final design for the full bloom blog. And I thought it might be fun for you to see the journey we took. It’s worth bearing in mind that some of the early designs would never have made it to an external client – we’d have intercepted [...]

Tagged as , blogging my way, blogging your way in Flourish Stuff, The Flourish Identity