In this motivational interview Anna Seager tells 2Inspire how she managed to develop a business that draws on her previous experience as a distributor. Her company supplies handmade nursery prints designed by her good friend Sarah Howell. Read on to see how Anna manages her business life.
Please tell us what is a typical
business day for you?
My day starts early – I usually have
a cup of tea and check emails, twitter and facebook before the family get up and
I have to get them breakfast and ready for school. I also check my calendar at this time so I
can see what I need to do that day and can plan my time accordingly. After I have taken the kids to school I will
process any new orders, check stock and frames and get started with any sanding
or painting that needs doing – the majority of our pictures are finished in
hand-painted frames. Any pictures that
are ready to go will get packed up and postage labels printed off.
I might then do some marketing work
such as writing a blog post, do some twitter networking or some online research
in our industry looking for PR opportunities, studying the competition and so
on.
In the afternoon before I get the
kids from school I walk the dog to the post office with any parcels to be sent
out that day. I usually spend half an
hour after the children have gone to bed finishing off any emails and
scheduling any tweets or facebook posts for the next day.
What made you start the business and how did you get started?
I had worked
as a distributor for a nutrition company when the kids were tiny but this
totally took over my life and I was unhappy with the impact it was having on
family life. I was looking for a way to
change this, when in the summer of 2006 I was staying with my artist friend,
Sarah Howell and she said she wanted to get back to work after taking time out
to have her family. I absolutely loved
her work and felt sure the style would work well in the children’s sector and
so the idea for Little Crab Designs was born.
She supplies me with the original designs (I do some too occasionally
when I have the time!) and I turn them into finished products. The business is mine and Sarah is a supplier
if you like. I pay her a commission on
every product sold that is created from her artwork.
What would you say has been your greatest accomplishment in the business world to date? Getting a £25 DIY website to feature in the top three positions for organic search in Google for my most important keywords, entirely through my own efforts of learning how to rank well on the search engines. I created a stable, growing business with no advertising at all.
What has been your biggest challenge in business so far?
Watching this go into free-fall about 9
months ago! Literally, overnight the
website traffic dropped by 60%. This has
been attributed to the Penguin updates Google made to their algorithm and I
know many other small businesses have been affected. On top of this, we were the victim of
negative back-linking. Someone had
connected some very nasty adult links to our site and again we were penalised
by Google. It has been a huge lesson in
how “not to put all your eggs in one basket”!!
What are your future plans for the business?
We have just launched a new
website – the plans were already in place to do this when our traffic went over
a cliff edge. We now have a much more
professional looking ecommerce website with hugely improved customer experience
and all importantly is now mobile friendly – many of our users are on ipads
these days! It has had a fantastic
response and we recently won a Jacqueline Gold #WOW award which has given us a
boost in our business credibility. We
plan to capitalise on this, increase our international sales and have some
exciting new products launching in the second half of 2013.
If you had to do it all over again, what would you do
differently?
I don’t think it’s a case of doing
anything particularly differently as even the bad has been good in that I have
learnt some great lessons from it. But
if I had to say, I would probably not have bothered with all the fairs I did in
the early days – hugely time consuming and not very profitable.
Why is it so important to inspire young women in particular to
follow their dreams?
What advice would you give to somebody who wants to start a
business in your industry?
What or who inspires you in business and why?
The Enterprise Nation website has
some great articles, tips and advice for small businesses that I dig into on a
weekly business. Pinterest is brilliant
for getting ideas and inspirations for new product lines and keeping up to date
with nursery décor trends. And I have to
mention my husband – he is the voice of calm and reason when times get tough
and a huge supporter of Little Crab designs.
What is your favourite
inspirational quote?
“Just keep swimming, just keep
swimming” Dory from Finding Nemo!
Contact Details
Website: www.littlecrab.co.uk
Email:
anna@littlecrab.co.uk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/annalittlecrab
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/alittlecrab
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