Tommy reflects on 7 months apprenticeship

Tommy Dellar reflects on the oh-so-quickly-passing 7 months since joining Custwin on the apprenticeships scheme …

This month marks the end of my apprenticeship – well, the college course part anyway.  Although I will be receiving a certificate from the NVQ course I have been attending at college, I haven’t really witnessed any benefits from attending the lessons.  It seems to me that everything I have learnt has been within the workplace, and then the course is there just to test me on what I’ve experienced.

Overall the apprenticeship has been a positive experience for me so far.  I seem to have learnt a lot from my workplace, and have been asked a lot of questions at college, but it’s all helping me gain good experience and better my knowledge of the services that Custwin offers.

Before I started my apprenticeship I had very little knowledge on how organisations gained business through their website – I just had the idea that people would naturally go to their website, buy their product and that was that.  Obviously I now know differently, but a lot of businesses still have no clue.

When it comes to things like SEO or PPC, most companies will either have absolutely no knowledge on the subjects and have no idea of the benefits of implementing them, or have heard about them, but can’t be bothered to find out more.  Getting the help to implement SEO onto your website, and getting a decent PPC campaign set up can be the difference between a lonely website, and a website generating a lot of business.

Whilst working at Custwin I have witnessed the obvious benefits of the services being offered, however, what I have also noticed is that after awhile, some businesses think they have learnt everything there is to know about what is being done for them, and can handle the work themselves.  This is a huge downfall for some people, simply because they don’t seem to realise how much work is put into implementing the changes we make to their websites, and the hours spent deliberating and deciding on the right keywords to use in their SEO and PPC campaigns.  There’s no way that someone could learn everything you’d need to know about SEO and PPC campaigns simply by witnessing the benefits of the work being completed.

I’ve been at Custwin for 7 months now, and although I have learnt a lot, I still have nowhere near enough knowledge on the subjects of SEO and PPC campaigns if I wanted to become an expert by myself.  There are so many different aspects and so many rules and features that are constantly changing that it will take a while longer before I become completely productive with everything that Custwin offers.  But one thing I have definitely mastered is tea making, which means it’s now Tristan’s turn to get a bit more practice!

Getting more involved at Custwin

Contrary to popular belief, our apprentice Tommy doesn’t spend all day crunching data and making cups of tea.   Sometimes he takes the rubbish out too.  This month he tells us about some of the more exciting work he’s been involved in …

Since the beginning of my time at Custwin, I have been doing administrative type jobs, mostly involving the analysis of data and websites. However, as of late I have been very much involved in the development of a new software system Custwin is building.

The system, which is speedily developing, is an online access system that lets companies view details of visitors that have been to company websites.  It’s also designed to allow organisations (for example, web developers, business consultants, accountants) to analyse their client’s website visitors, and provide input on refinements that would be beneficial (and so encourage client loyalty).

The features of the system are very strongly customer focused (as you’d expect them to be), built from what we at Custwin feel would be useful and practical for companies.  At its most simple level it shows a company which other companies/organisations have been visiting their website, what they typed, and how they moved through their website.   Many similar systems exist, but not in the way that we’re creating.

Every week I use another programme which allows me to analyse visitors that have visited our client’s websites, and I am forever cursing the system because it doesn’t allow me to view something, or is unable to create something I need; and so, the programme we are creating will have features incorporated that will not only do the same as other systems, but will do more, and do it better.

Working through the developmental stages of the system has been a lot of fun, and through my experience of using existing systems, I am able to incorporate my ideas into the development and help to create new features that I feel will be highly beneficial and productive.

Our vision for the software is beginning to become real and all features are close to being finalised, with the usability of the software almost complete.  As always, when creating a product that you want to sell, you need it to be at its best (I don’t know this through experience, but I do watch Dragon’s Den) and so there are on-going alterations that we need to address before we’re happy to launch it onto the market.  However, we’re not too far off and it’s really exciting being part of something that could be bought by many thousands of companies throughout the UK and beyond.

Tommy Dellar – virginity gone

Until April 2011, our apprentice, Tommy Dellar, was a business exhibition virgin.  Here he shares his experiences of his first exhibition in his monthly blog …

This month I attended the Kent 2020 event as a delegate along with Andy and Tristan.  This was the first exhibition I have been to and Andy thought it was appropriate to break me into the exhibiting world gently, by taking me to the biggest event in Kent.

We started the day by struggling to find a seating area which we needed so we could sit down and plan a route around the event.  This took us a while longer than we hoped, because Andy knows far too many people so we were finding it impossible to walk for more than 10 seconds without bumping into someone Andy knew.   Although I’d not spoken to a lot of the people we were bumping into, a fair few of them are clients, and it was nice to be able to put faces to the clients I have been dealing with at Custwin.

Once we found an appropriate seating area, and planned our route, we headed out about the stands, meeting new people, finding out information about new organisations, and exchanging business cards.

After a couple of hours of walking around, meeting new people, we came across a speed networking area (much like speed dating, only slightly less rewarding).  The lady in charge sat myself, Andy and Tristan down in different seating areas, and went about trying to find us someone to network with. Whilst Andy and Tristan were content with the people the lady had found them, I was content earwigging on other conversations going on around me.  Then I met my networking partner.  He was very enthusiastic about the organisation he was working for, although when asked questions, got slightly confused and referred me to his stand.  After being given a tutorial and a long explanation of what his organisations product was and what it did, I found myself parted from Andy and Tristan (I was lost!).

After finally finding Andy and Tristan, we again set about visiting more stands and introducing ourselves to new organisations.  Whilst walking around all the stands, I came across a few different ways that companies were getting people involved in particular activities, in order to raise awareness of their business, as well as entertaining anyone visiting their stand.  For example, one particular stand was offering free cocktails; and each colour of cocktail represented different services that the company offered.  Another activity was Wii bowling, which again represented a particular service offered by the business.  I also found that there were plenty of stands offering a competition which allowed you the opportunity to win a bottle of champagne.   This was new to me until I realised that the idea of doing this isn’t just to be nice and give one lucky person a bottle of champagne, but to get a nice collection of business cards, which, as always, gives the opportunity of new business or new relationships.

The aim of me attending this event was so that I could meet new people, see what kinds of business opportunities there were, and to just experience what exhibitions are like.  All of these things I did, and more – including sweating more than I have ever sweated in all my life (the heat was ridiculously intense!) and having the horrific experience of speed networking, which I was forced into, and hope to never experience again.

Tommy’s Blog – 2 months into Custwin

Here’s Tommy’s update on his view of life within Custwin, having survived two months to date …

I’ve now been doing my apprenticeship at Custwin for a little over 2 months, and things are really starting to progress. This month I attended my second ‘First Friday’ networking event. It was much busier this week, probably because the news spread that I was going to be there, but perhaps also because Andy was doing a presentation on Custwin and what we do.

After being humiliated during the presentation, I got the chance to meet new people from different businesses, and get to know their backgrounds and what they’re currently doing. Thankfully everyone had good things to say about the presentation Andy gave, and disappointingly remembered his joke at my expense. In my opinion the event was an overall success; I met new people, and managed to pick up some nice looking business cards from various people.

Another new(ish) experience I’ve had recently is being a part of social media. Of course, as most people do, I already have a Facebook account, but it’s quite different when you’re socialising from a business viewpoint rather than a personal view. I recently signed up to Twitter (@tommycustwin), and have found that it is a great way to business mingle/socialise with people within your area that share your interests, and it’s a great way of meeting new people. I’ve found that through people’s ‘tweets’ I am able to find great tips and free advice, and be able to share the same to the people that follow me. Although I do feel like a little bit of a stalker for following people I haven’t met, I do gain a lot from it, and I recommend using social media to anyone working within a business.

Another social marketing site that I’m now signed up to is LinkedIn.  I’d never heard of it before, but I’ve found it’s an amazing way to gain new connections, and you’re able to join groups to see what other people/companies are doing in your area. Although LinkedIn seems like a social networking site for people in business, you still get the odd suspicious person that you don’t know requesting to be your friend.