What a pair of bollards, a career threatening crash and 100 deal clinching words
I’m cycling from London to Amsterdam this summer in aid of Prostate Cancer UK.
Which means I’ve had to start training for it on my bike.
Now I’m more Bradley Walsh than Bradley Wiggins and as much as I enjoy the peace and fresh air cycling brings I’m not very good at it.
Just this weekend I had a crash. It was my fault. No inconsiderate driver to blame, no pothole to curse. Simply me.
Racing down a cycle path on a chilly Sunday morning I was faced with two, looming bollards.
Do I go left? Do I go right? Do I squeeze through the middle?
In the end I hesitated so long I ended up clipping one of the bollards and skidding across the gravel using my bum as a brake.
It hurt a bit but at the same time was enlightening.
Why?
Well I see that kind of do I, don’t I, indecision from a lot of estate agents.
Do we embrace blogging now? Shall we invest in content for our website? Should we get a professional in to write up our About Us sections? Do we invest in a PR strategy for the future?
Often by the time they’ve decided what they’re going to do their rivals are months further down the road of using regular content and profile raising techniques to win more instructions.
Back to the bike.
Following my potentially career ending crash (it was just a graze but where’s the drama in that) I noticed one of the brakes had got damaged.
Now living in a part of the UK where a lot of people cycle I’m spoiled for choice when it comes to bike repair shops.
But I made my choice using a method I’d use to choose an estate agent to come and give me a valuation.
I jumped on Google. Narrowed the search down to bike shops within 10 miles of where I live and looked at their websites.
Website A was lame. Generic photos, spelling errors galore, tired looking and didn’t work well on my iphone.
Website B was better. Easy to navigate and good images. But poorly written, felt bland and didn’t include testimonials.
Website C was the winner by a mountain mile. Obviously the content was written by someone who knew what they were doing, there was a page filled with testimonials from delighted clients and the clincher was its About Us page.
It showed me in no more than 100 words that Dan was the store’s mechanic. It had a photo of Dan, he looks a friendly bloke. It told me Dan’s favourite local cycle routes and shared a useful cycling tip.
This clinched the deal. I called feeling as if I already knew Dan, booked in the repairs and they even upsold me a bike fit session which I’ve been thinking about for ages.
There are parallels to estate agency in this tale. All of which are pretty obvious and I don’t want to patronise anyone by spelling them out.
So if you need help with your website content, newsletters, PR advice etc then I’m your man and feel free to get in touch.
If you need cycling tips and advice I’m rubbish, but Dan’s your man.
Thanks for reading and here’s to your next instruction.
Jerry
PS: Below is a link to my Just Giving Page explaining my motivation behind taking on the London to Amsterdam Cycle Challenge.
https://www.justgiving.com/Jerry-Lyons1/?utm_id=13
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