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Ling is in the well! Q&A with Ling from lingscars.
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nice1franko wrote: »Also, not a question but a statement... this is brilliant: http://www.lingscars.com/werthers.php
Currently, Age Concern are complaining about it. I am winding them up to give me a formal letter of complaint. Then, that will make a news story
I think it is fun, they think it is ageist and patronising/insulting to old people.
If you want a Chinese Werther's fill in the form.0 -
Q1: What are your 3 best/worst business qualities?
Q2: What do you think is going to be the next big thing online?
Q3: If I didnt know who you were and came across your website I would probably think on a quick first look that it looks fake or some sort of advertising/spam website and would probably move on. Do you think that without the exposure on Dragons Den your business would have taken off like it has and be doing so well?
Q4: If you could start again tomorrow what would you do differently?
aaaaagh multiple questions!
1. I am quite naive, I open my gob and I don't maximise profit on cars. I treat all customers alike, I don't rip people off. I decide margin and stick to it. I could make more money if I was more opportunistic, but I like being nice to customers and will choose to save them cash instead.
2. Live website visitor interaction - I am building this product
3. DD was good, and gives some credibility. Gave me a boost. I thought it was great to get 5,000 visitors a day (day after DD). But now, I often manage to do that midweek, with a bit of tickling. But now, I am past the critical mass. From 100k visitors a month, business cannot fail to happen. Just need to make people react when visiting my site and keep it up the top of Google. Of course the basic service has to be good, and work.
4. Build the website properly in a css framework and a more considered database structure. Doing that at the moment.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 9643
More multiple questions - keeping you on your toes :P
Q1: For someone looking to start out in business online right now what would you suggest as a good place to start, and what type of business for example importing from China or offering a service etc. With the recession etc there are loads of threads here every week with people looking for advice that are starting out.
Q2: Have you any other businesses or areas you want to get into down the line outside of the car trade?
Q3: Who is your favourite Dragon from the Den?
Q4: 3 people in business you most admire?
Q5: Whats your favourite flavour of ice cream? 0 -
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More multiple questions - keeping you on your toes :P
Q1: For someone looking to start out in business online right now what would you suggest as a good place to start, and what type of business for example importing from China or offering a service etc. With the recession etc there are loads of threads here every week with people looking for advice that are starting out.
Q2: Have you any other businesses or areas you want to get into down the line outside of the car trade?
Q3: Who is your favourite Dragon from the Den?
Q4: 3 people in business you most admire?
Q5: Whats your favourite flavour of ice cream?
FFS!
1. Dunno. If I knew I would start it. Data is always a good business.
2. Yep, software.
3. Pshhhhh stupid question. It is a TV programme. All rubbish. I do not know them.
4. O'Leary, Seth Godin, ummm... I like people who hammer away to make stuff work.
5. Stupid question again.0 -
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You know their business backgrounds etc, surely you have a preference of one of them over the others. I for example find Peter Jones to be very shrewd and great on the show.
The last question was a fun question, not every question in the Q&A sessions has to be serious and revolve around business.
Must be my free stater sense of humour..:rolleyes:
Hahaha, well, I do not know them as people. All we see is TV personas. So who knows?
Well, my sense of humour is different Hahahah, ice cream choice isn't a big thing for me, you know Chinese don't do puddings very well. Have a Werthers! 0 -
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Did you start lingscars.com through your own financing or through bank loans etc? Did your business plan include your "Wacky" website design, promotional methods etc? Do you employ someone to make changes to the website or have you learned to do all this yourself?
I did not need financing, it did not need money to start, as I had all the basic stuff (computer, isdn line back in 2000), just needed loads of hard work.
Website just developed, no one planned it. Even now, I added the Werther's on a whim as I saw individual wrapped ones in China and brought 17.5kg back for a laugh.
All just on a whim. That's what makes it such fun. Drives my IT mad.
I do most basic webpage stuff myself or with hubby Jon. I do things like ani gifs and layout. Basically involves filling all white space with flashing stuff Hahaha! To pull complicated stuff together and maitain all the massive LINGO CRM you never see, we have 3 part-time ubergeeks from Sunderland Uni who love to be set impossible tasks. Begins: "could we", and "what if" and we end up with a 3 month project.
Have done loads of stuff that has not been used but looked like a good idea at the time, or needs integrating into something else. Visitor trolling is one, with chatty divs. Have spent months of wasted time on stuff. It is like advertising, 50% is wasted, but not sure which 50%.
Some stuff starts as one thing, ends up as totally another. Everything takes 3 times as long as planned.0 -
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(((1:12))) "Chinese eat Dragons for breakfast!!" BRILLIANT!!! 0 -
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I quickly give an example of giving the Ling touch:
MY ENVELOPES
I want my customers to like to get my post. No one likes to get franked, plain envelopes, that means : A BILL, BAD NEWS, A LETTER DEMANDING PAYMENT.
So I use very bright envelopes I print myself, these cost a bit in printing (use loads of ink), but never get mislaid. But, in fact these are very cheap, for the effect they have.
I also use real stamps hand licked in small denominations so they end up with 4 or 5 stamps stuck on. Having a franked postmark is cheaper (by pennies), faster (by seconds) but that indicates DONE BY A MACHINE with NO THOUGHT. Licking and sticking stamps higgledy piggedly by hand means A REAL PERSON SENT THIS LETTER, LICKED WITH OWN SPIT and SPENT TIME TO DO IT. Using many stamps means running out of room, the stamps often will not fit well, so get plastered on in the gaps (not many gaps). Hahaha. Everything goes First Class (or Special - £5 if ultra-urgent). I never ever ever EVER use second class. Second class saves a few pence but indicates no one cares about the priority. Second class is used by miserable, spitty, penny-pinchers. I want to give the impression everything is URGENT (it is). If any doubt in the weight/size, envelopes get overstamped.
Also, bulky envelopes are also sellotaped to differentiate them from the rest of someone's morning post, and to indicate thought and care has been taken to ensure the contents are secure. I enclose some sweets (awful Chinese sweets to provoke reaction - customers often reply with goodies for me). This means the letters have some knobbly thing inside. Curiosity means they need to find out what the strange object is.
This is rewarding the customers for opening the letters. Then, my customers look forward to getting my post, open it first, often leaving the rest of the terrible bills and mail till later. I give them a colourful return envelope too, hand stamped, always SAE'd up to make it EASY.
Yes, SAE costs money (about 90p each for document return envelopes) but it avoids the customer having to go out and buy stamps, saves a day in my car cycle. Gives a warm feeling to the customer, also avoids understamping by customers, which is easy in the UK due to the mental confusing postal parameters of size, weight, thickness, class. Who on earth designed a post system with 4 parameters??? Mental. Understamping means about 3 days delay getting it back (plus having to collect plus a surcharge). So, SAE is worth it.
Anyone can do this, very few do. It's a mess, it is brash, but customers LOVE it. It means my envelopes jump out from any other post they get.
Here is my envelope: (Ignore the MS Word Grammar underlines, they do not appear on the envelopes)
Below: here is my return envelope, the sorting office does not lose them:
This is quite important, these envelopes make the life of my local postie very easy as he sorts his mail into the postal round frame. I asked him if it helps and he says YES. He does not have to read the address, he simply knows the envelopes are mine. I never get lost/mis-delivered post. How can a postie push these envelopes through the wrong door? Whereas, I frequently get mis-delivered or badly addressed post meant for other people. As Royal Mail pushes "efficiencies" it means posties have more and more work to do and make more mistakes.
Opening my mail means a customer is rewarded for their action. Easy. So simple. But very few people do this stuff. Very few people even consider the feelings of their customers, except to write banal wordy sh1te on the letter inside the envelope. My letters are fun, to the point, contain lots of pics, contain a clear instruction.0 -
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtmZXZU8LAw
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