cultureblog

Years ago when I was a high school wrestler my coach Jeff Perkins used to recite this poem. It has stuck with me ever since and I keep a copy in my wallet at all times. It is something to truly live by in all aspects of life personally and professionally.

THE GUY IN THE GLASS

by Peter “Dale” Wimbrow, Sr.

When you get all you want and you struggle for pelf,

and the world makes you king for a day,

then go to the mirror and look at yourself

and see what that man has to say.

For it isn’t your mother, your father or wife

whose judgment upon you must pass,

but the man, whose verdict counts most in your life

is the one staring back from the glass.

He’s the fellow to please,

never mind all the rest.

For he’s with you right to the end,

and you’ve passed your most difficult test

if the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and “chisel” a plum,

And think you’re a wonderful guy,

But the guy in the glass says you’re only a bum

If you can’t look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world,

down the highway of years,

and take pats on the back as you pass.

But your final reward will be heartache and tears

if you’ve cheated the guy in the glass.

Imagine this if you will; you have an amazing vision for a new restaurant. You decide on the cuisine, the décor and ambience is nothing short of fabulous, you hire a world famous Chef, you bring in only the finest ingredients, your wine selection is filled with the crème de la crème, yet you don’t have any patrons. What happened you might ask yourself? Then you realize that the location you have chosen to open your restaurant is in the middle of nowhere and in the back of an old strip mall where all the other stores are closed down. You have no visibility. Sure you can pay for advertisements but that will only get you so far. Location, location, location this is perhaps the most important factor to any brick and mortar businesses success. Life isn’t different on the World Wide Web either. So many people have great visions of creating an online business or presence and put in an amazing effort to produce a beautiful web site, only to find that they don’t get any traffic. With the amount of like businesses to be found on the web what are you doing to stand out in the crowd? This is where SEO “Search Engine Optimization” comes in to play. Although SEO is not a new term, you maybe hearing more and more about it everyday when it comes to your online presence. The term, which was first used back in 1997, is one of your greatest weapons when it comes to exposure of your web site. Research will tell you that the majority of “searchers” will skip over the paid for placements and go right to the top of the Organic listings. This is where you want to be. The good news is that you can get there; the bad news is that it will take more effort than simply adding a few choice key words to your code. Durrani Design being a San Diego based business we know how much competition is out there. The quality of your work may be the best around but if people can’t find you then the opportunity to be noticed is drastically reduced. Our suggestion is to take pride in every aspect of your business, don’t be fooled by people claiming they can get you to the top of the listings by just adding 5 key words to your site. This would be like claiming you have the best burger in town all the while using frozen patty’s from your national food distribution chain. When it comes to SEO there should be no backing down, it’s full time job making sure that you not only get to the top of the list but that you stay there as well. Just like anything in life the more you give to something the better results you will get.

What kind of additional value or experience do you provide to your customers? This is a question that everyone in business should be asking themselves on a daily basis.  With the amount of competition out there anything extra that you can possibly do will help you get a leg up. The funny thing is that many people feel that creating a unique experience to their customers on-line is not an important part of their business model. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only is it important to take pride in your on-line business, it’s a necessity. When potential customer’s visit your site do they leave feeling like they wasted their time or do they leave feeling as if they just experienced something fun, entertaining, educational, or unique. When they get these great experiences they are more apt to not only stay on your site and buy but also to return and refer their friends and colleagues onto your business. First impressions are so vital to the interaction with your customers. If you had lights out in your store or chipped paint would you leave it that way or would you take pride in your space and invest in improvements so that your customers enjoyed their overall experience. Walt Disney got his inspiration for Disney Land when he used to visit the carousel on the Santa Monica Pier. He was always fascinated with the way it looked at night. When all the horses would be jumping up and down with all the lights twinkling and the music playing he found the carousel to be magical. When it stopped he noticed that only some of the horses actually moved and that the paint on them was chipped and worn down. From this he developed his vision for Disney Land, that all the horses would jump and there would be no chipped paint.

Lastly in order to create that great experience you can’t stop visually, there has to be great functionality and flow. Just as you wouldn’t crowd your store with racks and shelves that are hard to maneuver around you shouldn’t want your on-line business to overly busy and cumbersome. The flow of it should be easy for the customer. Easy to find information and have questions answered, easy for them to get to specific product pages and most importantly easy for them to check out. So much business is lost abandoning the cart because your visitors find it tedious and difficult to look at and navigate through your site. Think back to anytime you have been in a purchasing situation, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The ones that you that gave you the best experience you usually feel good making the decision to buy. The ones that gave you the bad experience you usually regret making that purchase. The two go hand and hand. When you add something more to the buying experience you not only will add to your revenue stream but the more repeat business you will receive. Remember that the investment you put into your online presence will produce the type of return you receive.

These days we are building more and more e-commerce sites for clients and Miva Merchant has proven itself to be one of our more valuable tools in really delivering a top-notch storefront. So when the folks over at Miva Merchant HQ asked us to guest author a post on their blog, we jumped at the opportunity. We’ve developed a wide range of online stores using many different shopping cart platforms over the years, such as osCommerce, CRE-Loaded, Zen-cart, Magento (Community & Enterprise), Yahoo Stores, eBay Stores, Drupal and even Wordpress to name a few. With this kind of experience under our belt, we can tell you without hesitation that the road to success is much smoother with Miva Merchant.

This month at the Miva blog we discuss making your website design top-notch while also keeping it relevant to your industry and audience.

I first started working with Miva Merchant back in 2001 as a freelance developer. Back then, most people’s first exposure to Miva Merchant (originally Miva) was the result of it being offered as a free shopping cart add-on to their hosting plan. Since it was free software, many small businesses began using it without even really considering other choices. Over the years since then, many free open source shopping cart platforms have come and gone; and while many of those original Miva Merchant customers may have jumped ship along the way in pursuit of that mythical perfect free shopping cart, those who stuck with Miva have been the beneficiaries of a mature, solid, well-built platform that has made millionaires of many of those first small business owners.

Read our complete post at the Miva Merchant Blog.

We’re pleased to announce the launch of  our latest client website at www.flipnfit.com for    Flip N Fit, a San Diego-based designer and manufacturer of gymnastic, cheer and dance apparel. The client came to us to utilize a MIVA Merchant shopping cart to generate greater sales and overhaul their previous design to better showcase their unique, hand sewn products.

We gave Flip N Fit a fun, energetic design to attract their young, female demographic and easy-to-use navigation to make finding products and checking out a breeze! Since Flip N Fit does not have a retail storefront but sells to gymnastics centers and dance studios in the greater San Diego region, they wanted an efficient way to track referrals and offer personal discounts. We employed a variety of MIVA modules, including one that would allow the client to track how the shopper learned about the company.

To create the retail-store experience for Flip N Fit’s customers, we customized their MIVA Merchant cart to allow for color swatch options, related products, a detailed size chart, and easy shipping options. The result? A virtual storefront that Flip N Fit was missing. Flip N Fit’s new online home is the perfect way to have a face in the community—both online and locally.

In late November, one of our longstanding clients, Harvest Farms, approached us with a  challenging proposition. By January 15, 2010, could we create a custom-designed database application on their existing website that would allow their customers to “build a box” of food products and tally each nutritional value? Needless to say, Durrani happily rose to the challenge.

Harvest Farms supplies a variety of food products on a weekly basis to numerous institutions throughout the country. The food products offered include boxed meals—customized based on dietary and budget requirements, sandwiches, sliced lunchmeats and cheeses. But instead of ordering these boxes via the standard phone call or e-mail, Harvest Farms wanted to make building a box fun and interactive for their customers.

After compiling the nutritional values and photographing over 70 products that would go into the boxed meals, we swiftly moved into development. The database, built from scratch in PHP and MYSQL, allows the user to select one product from each food category, creating the meal of their choice. All the while, the total calories, fat grams, carbohydrates, etc. of each item are being added together. The user can view the total nutritional summary along the way and then submit their boxed meal to a Harvest Farms account rep.

Now Harvest Farms’ customers are able to build their food boxes and obtain the nutritional value for not only an individual product—but the entire box—within moments. Check out the new “Build-A-Box” application at Harvest Farms.

Congratulations to Encinitas Foreign & Domestic Auto Repair! Their website, at www.runcarrun.com, has just been named one of  the Top 10 Automotive Repair Web Sites by industry leading magazine Auto Inc.

The Auto Inc. “Top 10” contest includes submissions from companies all over North America, and the results were just published in the January edition of the magazine, in an article called “Cream of the Crop.” The start of the article reads, “As usual, we were overwhelmed by the number of entries we received this year for Auto Inc.’s 12^th annual Top 10 Automotive Repair Web Sites awards,” and goes on to say that the sites were evaluated using the following criteria: First impression, visual design, appearance, navigation, consumer friendliness, technical, objective/ purpose, innovation, credibility, interactivity, and encouraging action.

The EFADAR site was designed with user-ease and interactivity as a top priority. Aesthetically, we created the graphics with EFADAR’s neighborhood, the southern-California beach town of Encinitas, in mind. “Very unique-looking site,” said one of the contest’s judges. “Nice use of color and design to reflect the surrounding community.”

EFADAR co-owner Julie Macaluso said, “Our Web site combines innovative design with user ease, large iconic buttons, easy-to-understand graphics and all vital information at the customer’s fingertips. We had a lot of fun with the redesign and are extremely happy with the results.”

We would agree – this redesign was a particularly fun and rewarding one. The Macalusos found Durrani through the Encinitas Chamber of Commerce, and they came to us seeking a complete overhaul of their online presence. The thing that made their project so fun was that, after discussing their goals and branding, they stepped aside and let us go to work – no interjections or rounds of massive edits. They hired us for our expertise, and they took full advantage of it. Too often, a creative agency becomes a captive of a business-owner’s own personal creative ideas, and the whole reason behind hiring an agency is lost. Design can be seen as subjective, but marketing-driven design is a finely-tuned science, and the EFADAR website is a perfect case study of what can happen when a client trusts the experts.

We are honored to be a part of the EFADAR family and to count them among our clients, and we’re excited that their website has been chosen for this award. Check out the full article online at: www.asashop.org/autoinc/jan2010/topten.htm

Call us cliché, but we think that with the coming of the New Year comes an opportunity to look back on the year that has passed and forward to the year ahead… to realize the things that we have done well and the things we could do better.  On this last day of 2009, each of us at the Durrani office has named one or two of their New Years Resolutions:

I really want to improve the "no reason" surprise gifts and spontaneity so my wife knows how much I love her.  I also want to get in the water and surf way more than I did in ‘09 and just get in better overall shape so I can keep up with my new little girl.” – Matt Harding

My New Years Resolution is about more quality and focus personally and professionally.” – Elise Harding

My new years resolution is quite simple, workout and be active. I did a lot of sports growing up and into high school, but in college for 5 years I didn’t do anything.  Now I want to get back to being active, whether it be sports, karate or working out.” – Tyler Boettcher

Budget, body and burrito detox!” – Michaela McNamara

I’m not shaving my armpits for a whole year.  Just kidding!  I’m not dyeing my hair for a whole year – seriously!” – Brooke Kellestine

In 2010 I will try new things, meet new people, and go new places.” – Carrie Sinclair

Delegate more, work less, and start cycling again.” – Joe McDonald

We’re excited for what the New Year holds… All the best to you in 2010!

We are excited to announce the launch of the new First Aid 2000 website at www.fa2000ca.com!  First Aid 2000 is a local company offering first aid and emergency preparedness supplies to all kinds of businesses and schools.  (Look around your office… do you have a first aid kit handy?  If not, you should probably give them a call.)  As First Aid 2000 realized that their industry was becoming increasingly reliant on the web to gain new business, they came to us to create a website to showcase their company’s services and inventory.

First Aid 2000’s inventory is nothing to sneeze at – with hundreds of products in dozens of categories, the organization of products with their correct product codes, descriptions, and images was quite the feat.  It required a massive product spreadsheet and close monitoring, but the end result is a successful and organized listing of the First Aid 2000 inventory, so that existing and potential clients can view all offerings.

We built the First Aid 2000 website on a WordPress platform; Even though the client isn’t going to utilize the traditional “blogging” functionality of WordPress, the content management system (CMS) that it provides will be invaluable.  If a product code changes, if offerings change, or if new features need to be highlighted, those edits can be made quickly and easily – minimizing the effort of upkeep for the site.   

We’re thrilled about another successful local partnership and the opportunity to take First Aid 2000 into the world wide web. 

We’re pleased to announce the launch of the newly redesigned The Brittle Company website at www.lavacrunch.com! The Brittle Company, whose website is named after its star product—a light and crunchy macadamia nut brittle—produces gourmet candy and is distributed in fine specialty food shops nationwide.

If it hadn’t been for the 2008 economic meltdown on Wall Street, Lois Basiger may have never found her passion in the brittle business. The abrupt halt in the corporate finance world, where she had worked for 30 years, gave her the chance to explore other business opportunities. Namely, the specialty food business! Together with her friend Judy, they formed T.U. Roberta (Thank You, Roberta), named after Judy’s mom and the creator of the delicious LavaCrunch and Gold Country Crunch recipes.

Lois came to Durrani to redesign and develop a site where existing and potential wholesale customers could come to learn about her product and buy her products through a MIVA Merchant shopping cart. We gave The Brittle Company a new logo, applying a wooden, Old West theme and integrated a design that reflected the warm colors of her existing branding. The global footer illustrates the company’s two products—the foliage represents the island-themed LavaCrunch, while the golden foothills represent the Old Western-themed Gold Country Crunch. The site structure is easy to navigate, and incorporates a unique restricted area for wholesalers to access pricing and additional materials which remain hidden from competitors and the general public. But Lois is so pleased with her new site, that she’s already thinking of expanding her e-commerce store to include a retail section to capture a wider audience. We like that!