Maxxd Business Blog

Things are going absolutely mad here, we have not been pro actively looking for business lately and work seems to be landing on our doorstep through word of mouth.

Recommendations, passing conversations and being in the right time at the right place really. Its shocking, We’re up to the neck in webdesign.

The Sage we bought yesterday was the wrong one, PC World gave us the wrong version so we have sorted that out and now have ACT 2007. This is the best sales management software known to man.

We have had a bit of a nightmare installing it as it takes up alot or resources and the PC we are running it on was not quite up to scratch so we’ve unfortunately had to waste alot of time messing about with it.

The rest of the day has been spent working on customers sites and doing admin, updating Sage and chasing people for money. (The boring bit)

Today has been fairly steady to be honest. We started the day off by tying up a few loose ends.

We finished the first set of amendments to a clients website, she sent us a few emails with things to finish off, and things to add. After that, we finished a website for a local bodystyling company. Their site is one that we will be constantly updating and looking out for new ideas. This year we are hoping to give them alot more backing and hopefully generate alot more work for them.

Dave is the happiest person in the world today, he’s finally got Sage Act which is a contact and customer management program. He has used this in other sales jobs and swears by it. Saying that, he swears by all Sage programs. We should be updating our accounts package soon to Version 11 (Line50).
We have also created what we like to call, the wall of inspiration. Check it out.

Whenever we need inspiration, or need to sit and think or focus on something, then all we need to do is turn round, and look at the wall. It contains pictures from the shows and events we have attended since 2001. Just looking at it brings back so many memories.

We received the first “I want to advertise with you” call today. A company in Chesterfield are really interested in the Directory and are having a listing. We’ll get the banners and logos sorted in the morning and sort their advert out.

Dave now has some SERIOUS work to do, there are over a thousand letters to be sent out and followed up. Looks like we will both be in our own bubble for the forseeable future.

Roll on the sales

Hometime (18:54)

Monday morning! Ahh! There is no better way to start the day then by picking up your very own company headed paper. Over the last month dave has been getting everything ready for his massive sales drive. Flyers, envelopes, contacts… and finally.. Headed paper!

Its really strange seeing your company name on the top of some amazingly cool paper. It has our address on it, our website, our phone number. Its surreal! It almost feels like its not us doing this, its someone else, and were gonna be shouted at and told to “Stop having such a good time!!!!!!!“ But, it is real and this is us doing these things.

We also had a meeting with a friend today, who would like to help us branch out and form a small printing division to run alongside Maxxd. This would be excellent for some of the customers we deal with, as some only want small runs of flyers, for example they may only want 300 making, as the flyer may be specific to a certain event. We didnt decide on anything, but the ideas are floating about in the MMS office.

We had a meeting with our business mentor too today, but as it was the first meeting it was sort of an introduction. He is a bank manager for Barclays, so he knows a LOT about the financial side of business. Dave talked him to death and didn’t seem to stop asking questions.
The third and final meeting of the day was with a client to discuss further website amendments. This meeting started at 19:30, and finished at 20:50.. By 21:00 we left the office, and i went straight home to bed!

Today was a very VERY long day and i’m sure theres many more in the pipeline!!

Spent a few hours on the internet submitting our company onto various internet search engines and directories. There are hundreds out there. Yell.com, Thomsons Local, Nottingham Businesses, etc etc.

Alot of them give you a free link and basic listing in a certain category. We are not expecting anything to come from these, or should I say we are not depending on business from these, BUT, it helps having links in from other sites and having your name plastered all over the place.

We are off to a photoshoot this afternoon for a local company and to get some pictures for the new magazine. Lets hope the weather stays nice.

Back on Monday morning.

Have a nice weekend.

A quick run down of today:

• The Getting Into Work Team logo has been changed again, we have done about 10-15 different designs. They now have a final version which they should get approved over the next few days.
• The “Maxxd Magazine” is currently being designed and we should have some visuals in the next few days. If all goes well, we’ll have the advertising and editorial sorted in time so they can be printed and given out at the Donny Show in April.
• More market research has been carried out, this time about the car insurance market. We have been finding out who the best companies are to use for modified and performance vehicles. As we are going out and grabbing the busienss we need to make sure we are approaching the right ones. We have alot of affiliates at the moment that are not really working right, mainly due to them not being “mod friendly”
• Maxxd.com is still undergoing maintenance and updates, Olly is always on the look out for new plug ins for the site and finding any useful information that may help the members. We need a constant flow of new stories and cars to feature.
• The hosting side of the business is looking promising, each week there seems to be another addition to the server. Its not a massive earner but it helps pay the bills.

Next week should be the one we have all been waiting for, the sales drive. Phone call after phone call and as many letters as possible will leave the building along with our sales literature. CANT WAIT..

Looking at what lies ahead, we are gonna be very busy, the hard work hasn’t really started yet. We are coming in tomorrow to do a few bits and release a bit of pressure for next week. ROCK ON !!!!

Today has been the busiest day ever.

Olly has been working on another website today which is now finished - click HERE for a quick look. This is for a young lady who races a Mk1 Golf at events up and down the country. The content was supplied to us by Karen and we had to design and build the site. We have also designed a logo to give the site a more cutting edge look and create a brand for her racing team.

S&B have sorted out everything that we need to start the website, the domain has been decided on and we are cracking on with it.

The MaxxDirectory re design has been started also, this has been outsourced due to us being too busy. We are told it will be finished by Saturday/Sunday, we’ll be checking it and making a few changes if needed then it’ll be ready for the launch.

Our business cards and letterheads will be ready over the weekend so we’ll be able to start sending letters out on Monday along with flyers of course. We are having a huge push on the sales next week. We need to contact as many companies as possible, starting locally then branching out a county at a time. Theres ALOT to go at but we now have all the tools we need:

Sales Letter
Sales Literature
Letterheads
Business Cards
Data
Phone

All ready to rock. Next week is gonna be crazy. Lets hope the directory starts filling up.

We had to pop to a customers in the afternoon to collect some images for his site, on the way back we called into see a guy from West Notts College who runs the Motorsport department. After a long chat with him it looks like we’ll be doing something in conjunction with them at some point this year. I won’t say much at this stage but it looks positive and there are so many ideas to be put forward.

More networking. We are constantly on the lookout for ways of creating awareness and are willing to get involved with local projects if it helps other people or organisations.

Today has gone so fast its scary.

We have organised to have our letterheads and business cards printed today, the final proofs have gone back and they look amazing. S & B Marketing have been brilliant since day one, i’d give them a free web plug but the domain name has not been decided yet.

The quoted for the design work and printing today has gone in today. We are just awaiting the official order now. It would be nice to get the order complete by the end of next week if everything their end gets sorted in time. Fast turnaround is something that we are aiming for with every job we take on.

The money owed to us is building up now and is quite substancial. We both hate chasing money but it has to be done. Its something that could actually kill the business if we aren’t careful. We tend to pay for things as we buy them and avoid higher purchase, loans and any type of credit facilities. Some things obviously have to go on account but we’ll always pay things on time.

We have collected some more stickers for the members today after being bugged and bugged by certain people. Stickers are always in demand, we need to make sure all the show cars have them on.
The Karenandrews Racing website has been started, we have been thinking about the colours and themes for a while and sorting through the content. We have been given some primary colours to work with and will have something up in the next few days.

Coming soon..

• S & B website
• KarenAndrewsRacing website
• New look to the MaxxDirectory
• Launch of a new Automotive Online Shop

Keep checking back and if you want to subscribe to the blog click HERE

Twenty days passed? Wow. It feels like a few days, but nothing like 20. Today has mostly been a day for tidying up loose ends. We have made a start on a website we are doing for a young female VW racing professional, we aim to have that at a stage so she can review it by the end of the week.

We have also been finalising the designs for our letter headed paper and business cards today. They look amazing! I can safely say that we will have the best “Corporate image” out of all automotive related companies, in the world… EVER!

We have also got more work from the “Getting into work team”. We are finalising their logo design, and they want a flyer and poster designing and printing. So we are working with connections we have made over the last 20 days in order to get these done.

To conclude.. Things are going great.. Oh yeah.. Maxxd Mag? Maxxd Live 2008? Its all going off now!

Week three and things are still going well. We haven’t gone bankrupt yet, the phones are still working. I can’t see that ever happening to be fair, its not like we need credit or will be spending much money on supplies. Our overheads are ridiculously low at the moment and will be for the forseeable future.

Olly has finished a new car parts online shop for a client, we have used X Cart Gold which is one of the best shopping cart packages out there. We are just waiting for the meeting now to show them how to use the software and finalise a few things. Not to mention sorting the invoice out.

We are still working on the logo for the new council project, we are almost there, we have been back and forth making changes and incorporating new ideas into it. It should be finished and approved by the end of the week. This will be a nice job for our portfolio.

Doing work for the council is not something we expected, to say we are a fairly new business it has been a pleasure. We’ll upload the job to the portfolio once its been approved and published.

On the way to fetch lunch earlier, we came across a filing cabinet that someone had left in the reception with a bit of paper on it sayin “FREE”. We thought it would be rude to leave it there on its own so dragged it to our office. We have been after one for ages now but never got round to ordering one. We have no idea who it belonged to but we thank you.

Last but not least, we have been to see a publishing company today and have come up with a few fantastic ideas that will help boost Maxxd. If all goes according to plan, Maxxd as a whole will be taken to a new level and this year will be even better.

Today has been spent cleaning up a few websites and adding content. Body & Tuning’s gallery has been updated again aswell as the Maxxd member galleries.

The current letterhead has been emailed to the printing company along with our logos. We have asked them to design the new letterhead aswell as some new business cards. We have not got the time to be sorting them out to be fair, we need to work on things that bring the money in.

We are currently updating our database of potential clients and adding more as we go along. We are hitting about five hundred companies very soon so watch this space.