What an incredible week this has been !
There have been lots of ups and downs getting things established and trying to get our name out to the general public. I have started running some basic advertisements on Facebook and Gumtree which are trickling along nicely. On Facebook I set a budget of only £1.00 per day just for a start to see how it performs and I am quite happy with it so far. On Gumtree I spent £5.00 to get our listing into the Clubs & Associations page. I will be constantly updating and changing my layouts on the social media and blogs etc until I get something that I am 100% happy with, and then will just set myself a schedule in the diary that I will follow religiously every week. I have now created this new blog which will just be for Kilmarnock Group - the other one I originally showed you will be used for the National Company going forwards which I have not registered yet as the name is still being finalised with domain companies for internet hosting. http://kilmarnocksupperclub.blogspot.co.uk/
I have now registered three websites altogether under my name and will be developing two new companies at the same time, while also having my own business running along in the background which has been doing very little. I have put in requests for another three website addresses and all of them will eventually feed into the major membership website which I haven't started developing yet!
On the upside the interest in our product on Twitter has been taking off, and we have had some excellent feedback and retweets from people who like our product when we have followed them!
I only moved house only two months ago, and haven't had a great deal of time to get organised since we moved in. However, now that I am working full-time on getting the Kilmarnock Supper Club set up, I am able to stay home during the daytimes when the kids are at school, and I have been unpacking boxes and finding places for our belongings to go! I managed to get some great office equipment from another business owner on Gumtree who was closing down and moving back to Australia of all places would you believe - and so now I have a lovely new desk, filing cabinets, loads of stationary and a fantastic Brother Colour Printer ! I finally have trays to put things in, and am finally getting back to some sense of normality and into my daily routine of checking my tasks off in my diary as I complete them. I like to be an organised person.
My mind is still racing all the time with new ideas and slogans and guidelines that that I want to put into place for this new venture. It has been really hard to drag myself away from the computer at times - especially at night-time which is when I am usually at my best. I have never been this excited about a new venture in my entire life before because I am finally helping people to live a better life, and am just so eager to share it with them.
This house is quite a bit bigger than the last one that we were in, so I have converted the dining room into my office and took some pictures to keep on file. It isn't much just yet, and I am sharing it with my two cats who sleep in here at night-time with a Cat Tower next to my desk which I can not bear to do away with.
Last week I registered the Company Name with Companies House as a Limited Company by Guarantee and I am a Director. Received all of the paperwork in the mail this week, and now have to write up an official Articles of Association from the template. That should be interesting.
This is rather challenging altogether and is an enormous learning curve for me - not to mention sometimes a little frustrating. I am doing all of the marketing and social media myself and probably struggle with the templates for design the most. I tend to know the basics of most of the social media outlets as have been blogging on and off for about ten years now. and have used some of them but certainly not all of them and there are new things all the time. I started on Twitter for the first time a couple of years ago and it is fantastic for marketing and promoting products, but not enjoyable for personal use. Have set up accounts for Pinterest and Instagram, and enrolled with some courses being held to expand my knowledge of digital media - and know a few really clever people in the area that I can turn to for advice.
The new logo is being done by Paul Nimmo from PN Design and his work is really fantastic. He sent me through a few ideas for us to begin with this week, and the majority of members liked the one on the top left!
Have been working away at booking events for the next 2-3 weeks, however, we are not in a position to pre-purchase tickets for seated events just yet. I believe that 100% trust is needed before sending out invoices to people and asking them to pay in advance over the internet and will not do that until I have earned their trust completely.
My background over the years in Australia has been a mix of hospitality, events and tourism, and real estate, and I worked with the Sydney Convention & Visitors Bureau for four years (which is now called Business Sydney). My major expertise was creating events, and showcasing products, and packaging experiences together into a 3-5 day tour of Sydney, and then I would act as their tour leader. Since then my career has struggled a bit, and I am so happy to finally be in a position to be my own boss for a change, and to be able to market my own company and to be able to do things the way I know they are meant to be done.
The numbers for our first dinner club (Burns Supper) tonight are not as good as they were for last week, but I am really looking forward to dressing up and going out and getting to know everyone a little better over a more intimate setting!
We have the first of our regular meetups happening at the Clubhouse tomorrow afternoon, from 2:00 - 4:00 pm at the Black Cat Cafe in Kilmarnock. We will have a hot cuppa and a freshly-baked scone or cake waiting for anyone who is able to join us. Here is the map for you...
We have some great events coming up, with an Early Bird Menu at the Longhouse on the 3rd February, and some theme nights at the new Ayrshire College in March which sound like great fun and will give us a chance to dress up in costume perhaps!
Look forward to speaking with you, and meeting up in person if we have not already! Please let me know if you ever need anything.
Warmest regards always,
Tamara :)