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Archive for May, 2012

Don’t head for extinction, come to Brighton instead – how we brought #dontignoreit to Brighton

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

Emma, Keren, Alicia and Esme

On the 18th of May, Alicia Cowan and I went to Brighton to run our now famous “Social Media – can you afford to ignore it?” workshop – which we have now run over 6 times (with the Twitter hashtag #dontignoreit). The reason we went to Brighton is because we had 2 girls from our December seminar -Emma and Esme from My Special PA – come up to us as and ask us if we would like to consider taking the course to Brighton. They had found our workshop so enlightening they could see it being of huge value to the Brighton business community.

In the weeks running up to our big event, Emma and Esme worked tirelessly spreading the word. In the end we had 40 attendees – and on the workshop day we found the audience to be energetic and interesting – asking lots of questions! The best thing is reading all the wonderful tweets and feedback from the day.

We have since got together to plan our next Brighton based seminar for November – we will of course be keeping all you lovely readers posted! In the meantime, enjoy some pictures below from the day!

Keren and Alicia

The food at our seminar

Emma de Polnay - from My Special PA

Keren making a very important point

Further reading:

You can read a blog post about Why My Special PA’s take on bringing us to Brighton here.

There is also an interview about Emma and Esme here on our blog – check it out!

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Getting ready for the EU cookie law

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

In our industry – like in many – sometimes we get affected by legislation within our industry.

There is a law coming into enforcement at the end of this month – on the 26th May – which is called “The EU Cookie Directive”. It’s been on the cards for the last year, but the actual deadline is now looming.

It applies to websites in the EU, and it’s all about protecting people’s privacy. The law is about letting people know when there are “cookies” on a website – bits of code that let the website know information about its users. So, users on websites need to know about the cookies on a website and “opt in” to allow them to work. Because “cookies” on websites mean that websites collect data from users, it’s important for privacy laws to alert clients so they can consciously opt in to having cookies.

(more…)

Posted in Advice on Websites | 2 Comments »

Shiny new Mitravitae website

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

Mitravitae home page

Recently we worked with the fantastic Noël McWilliam from Mitravitae, who wanted to refresh the Mitravitae website and social media so it would accurately reflect the brand. Mitravitae is all about renewable energy, water and food production inspired by nature – value and profit with a social conscience.

We really enjoyed working with Noël and judging by the fabulous testimonial he sent us, the feeling’s mutual!

    “Right from our first meeting I knew that Top Left Design had won our business from a choice of two other strong candidates. In retrospect we’re very glad we made that decision. The team at Top Left are passionate, committed and uncompromising in the quality of their work. From the initial questionnaire and discussion, to social media training and launching the finished product, TLD have been faultless. Through their guidance and support we have been able to create a beautiful and effective site, offering excellent value for money and going beyond all initial expectations. We thoroughly enjoyed working with TLD and will miss not having regular contact – for a short while we felt as though we were part of the team!”

Mitravitae blog
 
We love the fresh clean look of the Mitravitae website. The site features a WordPress blog which regularly posts thought provoking articles on green business, politics and research.
 
Mitravitae 404
 
We designed a custom 404 page to guide customers back to the home page or about us page in style.
 
Mitravitae Twitter background
 
Links for Twitter and Linkedin were designed into the website to connect all of Mitravitae’s online activity. To connect them even more we designed Noël McWilliam a bespoke Mitravitae themed Twitter background.

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Posted in Our Work | No Comments »

An interview with Emma and Esme from My Special PA

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

Last year, when Alicia Cowan and I put on one of our now famous “Social Media – Can you afford to ignore it” seminars (with the hashtag #dontignoreit) we had 2 very lovely ladies come along. They are now bringing us to Brighton to do our next seminar in May. Since they are so fantastic, I thought it would be a good idea to interview them about their business and their story – so you can get to know them – hence the Q+A session below:

• Who are you? How did you two meet/ start working together? Emma de Polnay and Esme Lynch - Directors of My Special PA - Bespoke PA Services for Creative Professionals I started the company solo in 2009, building up from one client to approx. 6 within 7-8 months. I always imagined I would expand but wasn't sure exactly when or exactly how that would happen. In February 2011 I needed to go overseas for a friends wedding. I'd prepared well and made provisions for all my existing clients to make sure their requirements were taken care of whilst I was absent. At the last minute, however a very important contact approached me to help him with a project. With just a few days to spare, I had to think fast to find someone smart and adaptable with the right sales and CRM (Contact Relation Management) experience who understood me and the My Special PA brand. Cue Esme Lynch…. Esme Lynch has over 10 years experience in the interior design industry; she has a great eye for design, brilliant business acumen and first class sales skills. She is also my oldest and best friend. Esme settled in instantly and took excellent care of the project whilst I was away. Our client was really pleased with the service and provided a glowing testimonial. From there, I invited Esme Lynch to become the first team member and 1 year later, she is now my co-director. Esme and I have known each other since we were very small. Our mothers have always been close, so we were thrown together practically from birth. Fortunately we became firm friends and both adored art and design from a young age. We remember sitting at my Mother's kitchen table as little girls, creating weird and wonderful fashion designs and declaring that one day we would have our own business. Well we seem to have manifested that and Esme has been an amazing asset to My Special PA. We're well aware that it's considered very risky adding business to a friendship, but we've always had an amazing culture of honesty as friends. This culture feeds into our working relationship as we grow the company together. • What does your company do? My Special PA is a business service for creative professionals, run by creative professionals with business and administration skills. We offer freelance (ad-hoc) specialist PA and VA services to artists, designers, media professionals and other creative business owners, including business development, supplier liaison and marketing. • Who do you work with? We work with a broad range of individuals and SME's (Small-Medium Enterprise) within the Creative Industries: - Arts (cross discipline) Designers (cross industry) MarComms, PR and Events Media Performing Arts Entrepreneurs Alternative lifestyle Teachers and trainers • How do you market your business? Networking, Social Media Marketing inc. Twitter, Facebook & Blogging. We've also just added a newsletter sign-up and we're about to start using email newsletters to promote our services, our clients and their work. We have been very lucky as we work with a very niche market and 70% of our business has come from client referrals. • What one thing do you find most of your clients struggle with? And how do you help them Our clients have very different challenges depending on their professions, the one thing they all struggle with is actually keeping focussed on their creative work. As with all business, there's a continuous flow of other demands that need to be attended to to make creative work profitable. 'Leapfrogging' from invoicing and business development to finishing a painting, creating an inspired new brand design or working on concepts for a pitch can prove almost impossible at times. Without the right support, certain areas of a business will get neglected which can stunt success. Our core proposition is to liberate our clients from their administrative and commercial tasks, taking away the distractions and hassle so they can remain focussed. We have experienced many of our clients' challenges so we have considerable insight into how to help them. Our services are always tailored to the clients specific needs. We have some more senior clients who hate computers, so they delegate most of their desk based work to us and 'rush' back to their studios / workshops. Some clients are already highly organised but find they spend all their time at a computer and dealing with clients - if this is the case, they may hire us to look for new business opportunities, write proposals and attend networking events on their behalf. • Tell us about your most unusual task you have had to do for a client I work frequently and very closely for one of my clients, a fine artist called Bella Pieroni. I help Bella deliver specialist life drawing workshops in different parts of the UK. I do all the administration, the schedule etc but on one occasion I even did some life modelling. It was a blast from my old art school days and it was quite fun. Bella's drawings of me were really great. Esme set off for a clients house one day all geared up to work on a specific project. On arrival the client was in a bit of a spin about her daughters 2nd birthday, which was taking place the next afternoon. They ended up spending the day decorating cakes and cookies and hanging bunting. We just adapt to whatever our clients most need help with. • How do you see your business in 2-3 years time? Expanded to a core team of 5-6. Working with existing and new clients on larger, longer running projects, workshops and events. • What is a common misconception about the work you do – and how would you help people understand the truth better? That we can just walk in, know exactly what's going on and 'quick fix' everything. I realised very early on that it's all very Jerry MacGuire - 'Help us to Help You' - So we are very clear with our potential and existing clients that the only way for us to be truly effective at supporting them, is for them to take time out (no matter how busy they are) to write 'To Do' lists and supply us with essential information (contacts, briefing, documents) If that's done, we can land with our feet running, be proactive and become an invaluable asset to them. Our most successful and long standing client relationships are based on this crucial sharing of information from the outset. • What makes you stand out? Each team member is a specialist with a unique combination of creative, business and commercial skills and experience. Creativity is invariably paired with feelings. Our clients definitely have their 'moments' both professionally and personally and in a support role we have to help them as best we can. Sometimes they just need to talk things through. We pride ourselves on understanding the creative temperament and providing a level of support that is adaptable and truly caring, whilst very professional.

Who are you? How did you two meet / start working together?

I am Emma de Polnay and my business partner is Esme Lynch  and we are Directors of My Special PA – Bespoke PA Services for Creative Professionals.

I started the company solo in 2009, building up from one client to approx. 6 within 7-8 months. I always imagined I would expand but wasn’t sure exactly when or exactly how that would happen.

In February 2011 I needed to go overseas for a friends wedding. I’d prepared well and made provisions for all my existing clients to make sure their requirements were taken care of whilst I was absent. At the last minute, however a very important contact approached me to help him with a project. With just a few days to spare, I had to think fast to find someone smart and adaptable with the right sales and CRM (Contact Relation Management) experience who understood me and the My Special PA brand. (more…)

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Our Oyster Card holders have arrived – hooray!

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

Top Left Design Oyster Card Holders

One of the first jobs we got our newest team member, Aric to do, was make our very own Oyster card holders. We want poeple who commute in London to think of us every single day and the ones that they give you when you sign up for Oyster card holders are just so BORING looking. And we want to make sure we included owls (some of you already know the 3 reasons why we use owls in our branding – but if not – read this post!)

Top Left Design branded Oyster Card Holders

Top Left Design branded Oyster Card Holders

If you are reading this, and you want an Oyster card holder – comment below and we can arrange for you to get one!

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Posted in How We Do Things, Team TLD | 2 Comments »

Dinosaurs in Spaceships – a TLD special offer

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

Dinosaur in a spaceship - we are sending 8 to space!

Are you heading for extinction?

Do you want to bring yourself out of the Jurassic Age and into the Space Age? And, do you want one of our superduper sites but you also feel you deserve a special offer?

Following our previous post – Are you heading for extinction? Don’t be left behind like the dinosaurs!

Is this you?

  1. You don’t ever win anything
  2. You aren’t fast enough at reacting to offers
  3. You love your business
  4. You want to have a website you can be truly proud of
  5. You feel that you are ready to jump both feet into the world of blogging and social media, but you want someone by your side, holding your hand
  6. You want your new website launched by mid July 2012
  7. You have checked what’s included in our “Bestseller Sites” description and feel “that’s perfect for me!”
  8. You want to come in and meet with us in the next 2-3 weeks to get started.

That’s where we come in!

Our team at TLD want to work on projects with clients like you!

So we are doing a special offer – a full £800 pounds off our usual “bestseller sites” price (usually £5200) – offer open to the first 8 people who get in touch this month (we like the number 8 – and there are 8 ways we improve your presence online) (more…)

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Posted in Advice on Websites | No Comments »