#inthezone 35: The importance of compromise!
The importance of compromise!
Yesterday was amazing, we simply can’t describe it. To everyone that was involved, we thank you! In case you missed it, yesterday was the return of #DigitalZone, in conjunction with #GetConnectedinSandwell. This time around, it was only Qasim and Ammaar that went from Wow Zone, but they described the whole thing as amazing. We had around 60 businesses in the room, all from different backgrounds and business types, it was truly a great experience!
Whilst we were there, we captured some amazing pictures which will be up on social media soon. Make sure you follow our social media channels because you could be featured in our photo album!
Qasim was first up to educate the audience with his “Digital Field of Dreams” presentation, talking about the evolution of search engine optimisation whilst dropping knowledge about brand marketing and much more. We won’t go into it, but some of the key “takeaways” from his presentation were:
- Do not optimise for Google, optimise for your audience and the rest will come.
- Do not focus on making quick sales, focus on being helpful.
- Join online communities and aim to create value for your audience.
Following these are long-term strategies, but anything worth having is usually long term anyway! Think ahead, people usually want sales right away, which will usually result in a short term return but will not be effective in a month’s/years’ time! Just remember this last piece of advice, “People don’t like being sold too, they like being advised”.
Next up was to speak was Julia Hackett from Sandwell College talking about apprenticeships. The audience was really surprised when they heard about the flexibility and wide variety of their apprenticeship schemes. When Julia told them that an apprenticeship scheme can even be valid for employees already in your organisation, there were faces of shock around the room. The best part? Sandwell College can provide up to 100% of the funding for your business to take on apprentices. What could be better, a helping hand with funding to pay them?! If you think this is something that interests you, get in touch with Sandwell College ASAP!
On top of all this, the audience was very engaging and asked a lot of questions (to both Qasim and Julia). If you’re reading this, and you were there yesterday, THANK YOU!
This brings us on to something slightly unfortunate, which was Simon Guest from Google not being able to attend the seminar yesterday. Although he was not physically there, he did send his presentation slides which were included in the delegate packs for people to take home. Alongside this, there was a 20-minute video which was sent by him for the audience to watch. The video was what his presentation was based on, so all was not lost. There were also some great tips that people picked up on, so if you’d like to watch the video here it is:
Although not everything went to plan, we learnt the importance of compromise! Sometimes things just don’t go according to plan, full stop. In our case, this was Google not being able to attend. Although It’s not really their fault, unfortunately, that’s just how things go sometimes. If you’re a business owner, you’ve probably experienced something of a similar nature. In this scenario, you can either panic or do what you can do and not worry about the rest. You should be going for the former, but you’d be surprised at how many people go for the latter. Even though Google did not attend and speak, we still received amazing feedback from our delegates and overall it was an awesome event. Never forget the importance of compromise…
