When you start your own business a few things become swiftly apparent, the biggest one being that there’s no-one there to do anything for you. The company secretary won’t answer any phone calls or emails for you because you ARE the company secretary. The marketing team won’t be driving business towards you because that’s you too. You’re on your own and its up to you to work out how to make it a success. If you get it right you pay the bills that month. If you don’t… well that’s not an option.
Having a business of your own throws you well and truly in at the deep end, and you have to learn all kinds of new skills…FAST! You can’t just stick to your comfort zone because if you do then what you have is an idea, not a business. At times it’s unbelievably hard work, but ultimately it’s incredibly rewarding.
The latest project I’ve been working on for a while now is something I’ve never really done before and has been a huge learning curve. Back in January when we gave Bride Vs Groom a bit of a makeover there was one element we had been talking about for a while and decided we wanted to add to try and make the site a better resource for all those struggling Brides and Grooms out there, an element that we’re now finally just about ready to launch : Our Supplier Directory.
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Building an online directory isn’t something either of us have ever done before and working out how best to do it involved a lot of research and plenty of trial and error. In a short period I had to go from no real knowledge to being an expert, and in more ways than one. I initially built two systems alongside each other to try out two different techniques and ascertain which would be most effective. The systems were completely different but both based on structures I could understand and develop. Building two systems was extremely time consuming but by building both I could see the advantages and disadvantages of each and understand what was, theoretically, possible. Part way through I decided the negatives of one system were too high and abandoned it, focussing my attentions exclusively on overcoming the smaller issues with the other.
What I ended up with was a complete directory that was fully functional but… boring. There was no originality about it, nothing unique about it and nothing to make me feel like all the hard work had been worthwhile. And at this point another major business lesson was learned: Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and do be willing to admit you got it wrong.
With the directory more or less complete I made the decision to scrap it and start again. Using my new-found directory knowledge I found a better way to do it, but in doing so set myself a new challenge: building a website.
I wanted to make the directory an integrated part of Bride Vs Groom but also something that could stand alone as a useful resource in its own right. The way we came up with was basically to build an entirely separate website that had more powerful features than our current framework but could still fit into the Bride Vs Groom style. I was excited about doing it, but it’s again not something I’ve ever really done before and so meant learning another brand new skill-set. What we’ve ended up with is the kind of directory that we as wedding professionals ourselves felt that we would want to be a part of and one that we felt could genuinely help all of our lovely readers to find what they were looking for. The supplier list itself will be growing over time but I hope we have managed to create a structure that you’ll find useful and (hopefully) user-friendly. If not, well at least I’ve learnt some useful new skills in the process.
I can’t wait to finally share it with you all… watch this space!
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