Better call Kelly
Director of People Know How, Glenn Lidall, writes about Kelly, who they have recently supported through Power Up to set up her own cleaning business.
People Know How are working towards the shared vision of a more inclusive digital economy, where everyone can benefit from digital to improve their lives, businesses and communities. They have offered a digital skills service since 2017, and it remains a priority for the organisation.
Kelly started working with People Know How in November 2019, having self-referred to our Growing Your Ideas service. We knew Kelly from her role in cleaning our office building, she had told us of her ambitions to start her own cleaning agency, so we were excited to support her to make this dream a reality.
We supported Kelly with her business plan, helping her to develop a brand as well as identifying her target audience and competitors. More importantly, we also devised a package of digital skills support that identified what Kelly would need as she embarked on her new venture. It was clear that Kelly knew more than she thought she did about digital, she just needed support to build her confidence, and encouragement that her existing skills could be transferred to her business.
The first challenge for Kelly was to come up with a name and visual identity for her business. We began to tackle this by performing a naming task, and assessing any existing notions of a colour palette and friendly vs. corporate look and feel. We eventually arrived at the name ‘Better Call Kelly’.
Kelly used her new digital research skills to carry out a supported competitor review. She identified competitor’s strengths and weaknesses by reviewing their websites, marketing and booking methods. We also developed a structure for Kelly’s website based on this research and what Kelly wanted to offer. The more Kelly became comfortable with her new digital skills, the more motivated she became.
Kelly then worked with her Digital Befriender to improve her digital skills further before embarking on building the website together. The main topics Kelly worked on with her Befriender were around online safety and security, since she was quite concerned about how to keep her own and her customers’ data secure. She also wanted some help in integrating her personal and business accounts so that these were easily accessible whilst on the move.
When we met with Kelly again, she was very keen to start looking at her website in greater detail. It was very encouraging to see her so engaged. A new business email was created and she decided to add a ‘Get a Quote’ feature on the website, as well as providing a phone number, in line with competitors.
Social media was also an area Kelly thought her business could benefit from, we spent some time creating, setting up and learning to use Twitter, including who to follow, how and when to tweet and how to use hashtags and handles.
When Kelly saw her website live for the first time, she was very excited. Once live, we tested Kelly’s website contact form and connected her site to Google for SEO. We reviewed her Twitter, and practiced with another post including a photo.
To complete her work on Growing Your Ideas, Kelly wanted to apply what she had learned and order some business cards and embroidered t-shirts as uniforms. We helped her work on a design research the best costs, and we sent them to print together. Kelly was really delighted with everything we’d worked on together. She is continuing to work with her Digital Befriender on topics which will help her with invoicing, bookkeeping and diary management.