So what next?

Finding something flexible, fulfilling and rewarding. Should be easy. Right?

After a couple of weeks reflexion and a well needed recharge in the Algarve sun, the question still remains what to do next. In the short term (i.e. this winter) I have a job lined up for a company that shares the values that we ran Alpine Ethos with. Small, highly service driven and offering relentlessly high standards backed up by reviews. They talk the talk and I hope to help them walk the walk (ski the ski?).

Over the past few months I’ve become increasingly interested in online presence, content marketing, social media and the good and bad side of the developing online world. It’s something that we had to be engaged with in our business. In fact all our online marketing and presence was solely down to us. We always liked to keep things in house, it was cheaper that way and left us more money to spend on bikes, snowboards and latterly, house renovations and a small child.

As a small business, getting your voice heard is difficult especially when you are up against bigger players with larger budgets and better connections. You need to be smart and agile otherwise things can feel like a waste of time and effort. In recent years we worked harder on our SEO to convert more bookings via our website and reduce our advertising and booking commission spend. We had a lot of success with the vast majority of our bookings coming either from the website, our TripAdvisor reviews, re-bookings or through word of mouth. We worked hard to make this happen and the return on investment was great.

The biggest thing I’ve learned from that side of the business is that everything has to be linked otherwise it doesn’t work effectively. Working on your SEO is worthless if your product or service isn’t up to scratch. Retaining clients without social media is more difficult, maintaining your online presence and reputation is worthless if your offline reputation isn’t good enough. Your website, reviews and social media presence should reflect best practice in your business and promote what you do.

The problem that I see is that the companies with the best online presence are often not the companies with the best real world product. The big tour ops can out-gun small, independent companies in terms of social media content, SEO spend and web design but can’t hold a candle to the service and dedication provided by their smaller competitors. There are exceptions of course.

I think I can help smaller companies and ventures get their voice heard and say the right things. I know what we did at Alpine Ethos worked and helped us punch above our weight and keep our little business healthy. Now I’d like to put what I learned there to good use elsewhere. In the next few months and over the winter I’ll be making a few steps into the world of digital and content marketing. I have a couple of assignments in the pipeline which will help me learn a few things, cement some skills and start building a portfolio. More than that though I will be able to help some great people get their message out into the world and do some exciting things.

So there you go, as writing these posts is keeping me honest, you can bear witness to this announcement and hold me accountable if I’m procrastinating about it in a few months time.

My next post will hopefully give this thing a name and set out a bit of a manifesto. Kick my ass if it doesn’t.

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