I think one of the hardest parts about going out on your own and starting your own business is knowing where to start, and where to find new customers. Part of it is not being afraid of rejection and literally getting in touch with everyone you have ever wanted to work with. And part of it is just putting yourself out there, and hoping that the person you are looking for is also looking for you. My god, this could be the intro profile on a dating website.
What they say really is true – the best opportunities come when you put yourself out there. And in very few instances has that statement been as true as in the work that I have done with Knokal recently. Knokal is the online version of a business directory, specifically designed for small businesses – if you’re looking for an accountant, a graphic designer and even a zoologist, Knokal is the place to go. If you’re working for a big corporation and you need a freelancer or small business person to help you out, Knokal is the place to go. And as a small business owner myself, I wanted to check out the competition, get a bit of work from other small business owners (some of my favourite kinds of client) and generally put get on the page.
I created a profile on Knokal, thanks to a hot tip from other entrepreneurial ladies in the LMBDW Group on Facebook. If you aren’t involved, you really should get on there, it’s a hotbed of badass babes doing good things. Anyway, that aside, I created a profile. Put in some information and thought that at the very least having more information about me around on the interwebs would be good for my SEO, and besides it was totally fee – so I wasn’t loosing anything by putting myself out there.
Then along came David. David is the founder of Knokal, and knew that he needed a homepage redesign to get better conversions and attract more sign ups. He is a big fan of the entrepreneurial theory that business owners should “eat your own dogfood” – that is, if you have a product, use that product when you find yourself in need of whatever it is that you offer. So David needed a graphic designer, and he went to Knokal. I don’t know if it was my written approach, the samples of work I put on there or my snazzy logo, but he got in touch and now we have done some cool work together. All by creating a profile online.
The biggest thing I wanted to focus on for Knokal in their redesign is the human element. Small businesses are run by every day people, who are usually quite aware that they are just a regular person giving business a go. So why not incorporate some human faces, some of the stories that make Knokal great, into the website design? Put it together with some flat design screens, some tonal blues to give a cool relaxed feeling and a cohesiveness to the design, add in a dash of iconography, and folks we are onto a winner.
You can see the homepage redesign for yourself by heading to the Knokal website, www.knokal.com.au. And while you’re there, why don’t you put you and your business onto the page – you never know when something great might come out of it.
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