Posts Tagged ‘sam jones’

Samantha Jones is an expert Home Sales Strategist. She works with people who own unique houses and are struggling to sell them. These homeowners have often poured decades of love and affection into their homes; they’ve brought up their children their; their friends have commented on how beautiful their home is. And yet no one wants to buy it.

Estate agents tell the buyers to drop the price. But as Sam explains; Flourish wouldn’t advise a business owner that’s struggling to make a profit to drop their prices – so why is a home sale any different? Sam and her team of Home Sale Strategists are experts in understanding why a home isn’t selling, what to do about it and achieving the full asking price. Sam’s website is littered with great stories of couples who Sam and her team have helped sell homes – at the  full asking price, sometimes more!

Sam approached Flourish to help her create a website that would demonstrate her expertise and attract more customers. Sam was already working with a marketing agency and copywriter so we worked alongside them to create something that not only looked lovely – but is sure to win her more business too!

Here’s how Sam’s original website looked…

And here’s Rob’s new design. Personally I think it looks “dead classy”. I love the camel colours (I think Sam said they were some of her favourites?) and the red picks up on her logo. Psychologically speaking red is also a great “action” colour – red is going places, it gets results and it doesn’t give up. That sounds rather fitting for Home Truths don’t you think?

And here are a couple more pages… We’ve deliberately kept the rest of the pages image free at the request of the copywriter who was keen that people didn’t need to scroll “past the fold” for the information they needed. I quite like the stylishness of it and images are always something we can add in at a later date if everyone feels it’s the right thing to do.

And here’s Sam’s blog. She is a prolific blogger and although she’s been a little sidetracked throughout September what with house moves and building her empire, I’m certain that she will pick that back up very soon – she has some great content on there…

What do you think?

Tagged as , homes under the hammer, sam jones, samantha jones in Branding, Online Marketing, Web Design, Websites

We’ve been creating a lot of blogs for people recently, and something I must sound like a broken record on in every briefing meeting is my insistance that bloggers work with a {good} photographer to get a professional headshot. I can’t tell you the difference it makes. Actually I don’t need to tell you the difference. You can see it just from the before and after above. I can’t believe I’m sharing this with you but I’m reminding myself that I’m doing it for the greater good…

Let’s start with the presumption that a good headshot will make you look your most attractive, professional and approachable. By attractive I don’t mean sleazy or sexy or like you’ve just stepped off a boudoir shot. I’m talking about a photograph that strokes your ego and makes you proud. But it also needs to look like you.

Before I met Matt Pereira my headshot was a picture I’d had taken in a studio in Birmingham several years before (see above). I was one of the female entrepreneurs invited to take part in a cover shoot for franchise magazine. They had hired a make up artist and after several hours (I kid you not) primping and preening we were wheeled out into the studio where we were draped over a chaise longue . To get us used to the camera the photographer initially took headshots of us on a bar stool. I looked attractive but nothing like myself. I limped on with this photograph for several years but I had to laugh when I met the lovely Shelly Van Litt from the Elmbridge magazine at an Elmbridge Women In Business event I was speaking at. Shelly said to me “I’ve been looking at your website today, I wanted to meet you. You look nothing like your photo! I wouldn’t have recognised you if you hadn’t introduced yourself”. That was me told.

Fortunately a couple of weeks later I had the most gorgeous shots taken by Matt and I’ve never looked back. Like I said, a good photographer will take photos of you that actually look like you. But they’ll be of your best self. He or she will capture the essence of you and present you as someone people want to get to know. A good social media photograph has got to be engaging and approachable. And so that means eyes to camera, smiling and saving those sexy pouts for the boudoir shoots.

And a good headshot isn’t just about helping you appear more engaging in your social media profile. It’ll also help your website and blog appear more attractive. Let me show you how. This post has been utterly inspired by a blog we created for Sam Jones (herself a fantastic photographer) for her Home Truths blog. I loved the makeover Rob worked up for Sam, but was blown away when I realised she’d changed her photo. Here was the blog with the old photo…

And here’s the new photograph. Personally I think there’s a dramatic difference between the two, and all Sam has done is changed the photograph!

Donna Pourtyemour of Cobham Pilates is so sold on the benefits of having great headshots that she insists that all new staff have a professionally taken headshot. This shows consistency on her website and ensures that all members of staff come across professionally. Something Donna has found is that by having her website revamped she’s been able to attract world class teachers to her studio and her business is now expanding at a rate of knots. I have no doubt that the professional and engaging photographs (along with the gorgeous new branding and design of course!) have a lot to do with this…

So next time you think you’ll just upload that holiday snap from two years ago, think again. Find a great photographer and get some professional headshots done. It will pay dividends.

Tagged as , cobham pilates, home truths, matt pereira, photography, sam jones in Blogging, Graphic Design, Marketing, Online Marketing