Hi there!

Yesterday was a tremendously exciting day for us as we found ourselves in Crewe at 12 o’clock discussing a new radio venture taking place.

The internet radio station, RedShiftRadio.co.uk (Internet Radio), will be launching on the 6th September and has a fantastic variety of shows for its listeners.  From gardening to business start ups, music to the news and everything in between RedShiftRadio.co.uk is bound to have something you’ll enjoy.

Now for the exciting news…we have been asked if we would like to co-host a show!  How exciting is that?  We haven’t set out a schedule as of yet, but we’ll be talking about various areas of business that you need to pay particular attention to, so it’s definitely worth a listen!

Internet radio is a fantastic way to reach people on a global scale and it allows you to listen to a show after being aired, so you’ll never miss out on your favourite one.  At the office, we regularly play a pod cast, or something equivalent, in the background whilst we work a.k.a when we’re supposedly having our lunch.  It’s a great way to learn a bit more about a topic you’re not familiar with and in helping you to relax after a stressful morning or get motivated for your next job through playing music.

Even though RedShiftRadio.co.uk is an internet station at the moment, it still functions like a digital/FM station in that it will play music, have the news on the hour and have sponsors of shows as well as adverts in between.  They’re still on the look out for sponsors and welcome any ideas for future shows.  This is a brilliant opportunity to meet new people and we are thrilled to have been asked to take part.

We wish the RedShiftRadio.co.uk team the best of luck as we’re sure the next two weeks, before they launch, are going to be stressful yet filled with excitement.

How many opportunities escape our attention daily?

Whether the opportunity is reaching out to potential customers, acknowledging a new customer, welcoming someone to your network circle or helping them out; the keyword is ENGAGEMENT.

Engaging other people takes:

• Forethought to know about a contact’s needs, what a potential customer wants and what a new member can gain from a network circle.
• Awareness of situations, who you are meeting and how these can benefit your new or potential customers.
• Effort to find out about others and follow up with them.

A good example is networking as this provides plently of opportunities to engage with others, making new contacts and establishing business connections. 

When networking you need to put forethought into what type of event it is, what businesses will be there and who you are looking to meet.  It is always a benefit to know exactly what you want to get out of a networking event. 

You need to be aware of networking circles- who is having a closed, private conversation and who is open and approachable.  It is good to be aware of what people are saying to you as although they may not be a useful contact for yourself they might be perfect for one of your contacts. 

Finally, you need to make an effort.  It’s no good standing in the corner and waiting for people to come to you.  You must be motivated to go up to people and introduce yourself!

So, remember the rules of engagement; Forethought, Awareness and Effort to prevent missed opportunities.

Over the last week we have been getting ourselves re-acquainted with the concepts of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), because we just love to learn!

We took part, at the end of last week, in a workshop detailing the fundamentals of SEO and new analytical tools that have become available.  As you can imagine we were very excited with introducing new tools into our working day, especially those which will definitely benefit our clients!

Earlier this week we followed up our SEO basics by going along to a seminar in Whiston to get a broad update on the subject.  I have to admit some of it went a little over my head as I’m not the web developer of the group, but over all it re-affirmed what I knew about SEO.

So for those of you who are still wondering what exactly SEO involves, here’s a few tips:

1. Make sure your key words are not too broad, but at the same time ensure they are widely used.

2. You should have different keywords for each page of your web site, but be careful not to use your keywords too much within the text or too little as it could result in that page being blacklisted.

3. Remember, no-one can promise you the number one spot on a search engine!

Obviously there is a lot more to it than that, but hopefully this will give you a better idea of what is SEO.

It’s a bit of a different title, I know, but that’s what the past week has been like for us…different to say the least.

It started off with a meeting, which in actual fact, only one party knew about.  Suffice to say it was a pointless trip, but not entirely wasted as we took a lovely drive through suburban streets and many country lanes, which we have the Sat Nav to thank for. 

Despite the random occurences on our journey there were consistent incidents concerning creatures of the winged variety.  Several birds along our route, whether we were on a motorway, a quiet street or on a country lane, decided to play chicken with the car- diving right in front of us without a care in their feathery world!  Hence why we gave them the nickname of Kamikaze birds (fortunately none of them succeeded in their mission)!

The rest of the week was filled with yet more meetings which took up the whole of Thursday, but all went swimmingly and we got through a lot, which left happy (if not a little tired) faces around the office. 

So, from a meeting that didn’t happen and suicidal birds to numerous meetings that did happen and went very well (despite us not being able to eat cake), welcome to a week in the life of Koogar…

That’s right, I’ve been an official member of the Koogar team for a whole month and it has flown by!

Over the last four weeks I’ve thrown myself into the weird and wonderful world that is networking, created my own documents such as questionnaires and proposals, created my own marketing and pages on the Koogar web site and have even conducted my first meeting!  WOW!

I’m still looking around for a regular networking group I can get stuck into as I think it’s important for people to see me regularly in order to build up trust, rapport and a relationship.  However, I’ve also been to some entertaining yet random events including Speed Networking, which was brilliant!

Overall, it was a slow start to the month as I was busy creating copy writing pages and marketing materials for our new service, but now my weeks are getting fully booked with meetings, 1-2-1’s and my first group of clients.

I’m sure you’ll all wish me luck with Koogar and I look forward to meeting some of you soon!

Some of you may have realised that I stopped writing in my diary last week and the days leading up to that were all very cloak and dagger, well I can now (finally) spill the beans!

As many of you know, I have been on a work placement with Koogar for the past three months.   Well I am very pleased to announce that I have been offered a job with Koogar, offering copywriting and marketing services.  As you can imagine I am thrilled and extremely excitied to become part of the team and hope I can generate new business for Koogar and help Koogar expand.

Despite coming into the office in the horrible weather (with an umbrella, which to be honest is on it’s last legs) I was really excited.  However, when I walked into the office I was greeted with my new business cards, new name badges and a lovely congratulations card from Amanda, which increased my excitedness and gave me an even bigger boost to kick start my first day!

I’m hoping to meet clients soon in order to introduce myself and the new services Koogar has to offer.  My employment has led Koogar in a new and different direction in terms of being able to offer an in house copywriter as well as offering marketing advice to clients. 

So that’s me, Koogar’s newest member.  Hopefully I’ll speak to/meet some of you soon!

You will have noticed things with Koogar are changing and changing for the better.

The Telephone

When you call us you will no longer get a greating message due to new telephone lines in the office. This will be rectified over the next month.

Emails and Internet

Also this week we have been experiencing technical issues which means we haven’t got a broadband connection for the next week or so until BT have added it to our new telephone line.

We truly apologise for the inconvenience of this as we have a bit of work that is outstanding with a few of our clients. Koogar is doing the best we can to keep in touch with you and get back to you as soon as we can.

If you can bear with us through these “NEW office” teething problems of that we would be grateful!

This morning we finished painting the office. We also got the carpet back down and some of the furniture in.

Its starting to take shape and I cannot tell you how excited we are to be moving in! 1 week today and we will have moved in…

Koogar has been asking over the last few months lots of questions about offices, telephone systems, broadband and much more. We have now chosen the offices we are going to move into and thought it would be nice to see our journey.

Here are a few photographs of what we have been doing during January ready for the move in February!

I went to have a look at this place to see a NEW office for Koogar… Hmm… I like it!