Scott Bush- Project Coordinator
Triversal Technologies
www.triversal.com
What does your company do?
Triversal is a web hosting and services company. We work
with clients to determine their needs, then create a site
to meet those needs, and host it on our servers so their
clients can access it.
How do you do most of your promotion or marketing?
As a new company, most of our work comes through referrals
from our former work colleagues. One of them is a real estate
agent, and he recommends us when agents he coaches ask for
a web site. Another is the head of our former company, where
we used to work. When that company's former clients and
other people contact him with projects, he sends them our
way. Plus our other business partner up in Alaska has many
connections that we use.
What are the most difficult things you've encountered?
From a customer standpoint, management of resources is our
biggest concern. Making accurate assessments of how long
a project will take--and what resources it will tie up--is
very tricky. Over-extending yourself can be easy to do if
the scope of one project grows and there are others you've
committed to. This comes on top of the needs of existing
customers who need site updates or minor troubleshooting.
From the business side of things, a second concern is
employee management. Finding quality web developers with
the skill set we need can be hard. When we're not busy with
projects, finding internal projects or learning opportunities
is to keep busy can be hard, especially knowing those projects
are being worked on instead of billable hours. A third concern
is billing, which can be a sensitive issue with many clients.
Accurately tracking and keeping on top of clients' billing
status is very time-consuming.
Despite these difficulties, it's exciting to grow our company.
Each finished project, each new web-hosting client really
pumps us up.
What are your 3 top promotion tips?
Another hard question... especially for someone just getting
started.
-
Customer service. Being great to your customers encourages
them to recommend you to others, which is the best promotion
there is. It's cliche but oh so true!
-
Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Prepping your web
pages so they can be found easily on search engines
is very important, moreso than ever. Everyone uses search
engines, so being targeted for common searches is the
best way to be found. It's a complex issue, however.
"Voodoo magic" some people call it, because
it changes so much and can be hard to understand.
-
Promotional items. Our business really wouldn't use
these, but some businesses might find little items (key
chains, shot glasses, shirts, pens, etc.) with their
logo/name on them very useful to build name recognition.
Are there any other things you wish you had done
differently?
At this point, it's hard to answer that. My situation is
unique (everyone's is) and so far I don't have enough hindsight
to say what I would have done differently. After our former
company shut down, the opportunity to start Triversal was
almost dropped in my lap, so it's hard to say anything I
would have done differently.
What tips would you like to pass along to others?
Go for it! All the people I know who are doing their own
businesses swear by it. Sure, it's rough at first and scary
for a while, but the freedoms and excitement of doing it
yourself are great. Or so I've heard... I'm waiting to experience
them myself soon :-)
