At Design Experts, we specialise in giving you the tools you need to grow your business online.

To do this, we have partnered with Continuing Education Bendigo and Small Business Victoria to host a series of great workshops designed to teach you how you and your business can make the most out of the internet.

Now that 2012 has arrived, we are happy to announce our workshops schedule for the next couple of months. 

Make sure that if you want to attend any one of these courses you enrol early.  You don't want to miss out on these great resources!

Do-It-Yourself Workshop - 1 of 3	08th February 2012 0930-1230	CEB, 18 Meyers St, Bendigo	CEB
Choosing The Right Website For Your Business And Budget	14th February 2012 – 1630-1930	Rochester	CEB
Do-It-Yourself Workshop – 2 of 3	15th February 2012 0930-1230	CEB, 18 Meyers St, Bendigo	CEB
Your Business Online	15th February 2012 1730-2100	76 Deakin Avenue, Mildura	SBV
Facebook for Business	16th February 2012 – 1730-2030	Campaspe College, Echuca	SBV
Do-It-Yourself Workshop – 3 of 3	22nd February 2012 – 1930-1230	CEB, 18 Meyers St, Bendigo	CEB
Marketing Basics	22nd February 2012 – 1800-2000	602 Urquhart St, Ballarat	SBV
Hay (TBC)	27th February 2012 0930-1230	Hay	Hay
Choosing The Right Website For Your Business And Budget	1st March 2012 1730-2030	CEB, Castlemaine	CEB
How to get Google to find your website	6th March 2012 –     1730-2000	Rochester	CEB
How to get Google to find your website	14th March 2012 0930-1230	CEB, 18 Meyers St, Bendigo	CEB
Marketing Basics	20th March 2012 1800-2100	62 Darlot St, Horsham	SBV
All you need to know to start selling online	21st March 2012 1730-2030	Rochester	CEB
Online learning for Inductions, Training, Customer service and Sales	28th March 2012 0930-1230	CEB, 18 Meyers St, Bendigo	CEB
Marketing for Growth	29th March 2012 1800-2100	28 High St, Seymour	SBV

14th December 9.30am-10.30am

"Youtube Explained - Creating your own channel, adding and optimising video"

RESERVE YOUR SEAT

Last week, Tim graduated from the Small Business Victoria’s “Masterclass For Growth” pilot program for
small business that had experienced Rapid Growth over the past 3 years. 40 businesses, made up of 20
metro and 20 regional were selected to participate.


Delivered by Pyksis, the course consisted of four full day sessions, several special interest sessions and follow up mentoring. Topics included, branding, systems and process, social media, HR, Intellectual Property, carbon tax and financial management.

Since the course Design Experts made some changes to how we do things, including introducing a new
slogan “Get informed, Get Online and Grow your business”, implemented Xero and Workflow Max,
have commenced recruitment for a non executive Board and we now use Fox Personal for all of our
recruitment.

We highly recommend that you consider applying for the course, it subsidised and only cost $950.

You can fill out the Masterclass for Growth application form HERE

Can you imagine what is possible if the internet is 100 times faster? A hospital could free up valuable beds by monitoring patients in their homes! You could “tele-commute” to your office job in the big smoke whilst never leaving your home in the country!

Design Experts are right behind the push to have Bendigo named in next February’s announcement to receive high speed broadband via the National Broadband Network rollout.

So much so that Tim is on the NBN4Bendigo committee, designed the logo, developed the website and has been involved in several PR initiatives – Check out our the article. Tim was also lucky enough to meet Paul Budde, an NBN Evangelist who recently presented at a business breakfast Echuca on how the NBN will benefit the local community.  In his speech he mentioned the example of Gabby driving a large file down from Echuca to Bendigo because it was faster to do that than send it via the web – all that will be a thing of the past!

EVERYONE BENEFITS - If Bendigo is announced to receive the NBN next February, then the vast majority of Design Experts customers will benefit. So please support the bid by registering on www.NBN4Bendigo.com.au and LIKING the NBN4Bendigo Facebook Page.

Having a poor performing PC is not only costing you money, but is actually quite easy to fix if you know the right people, and we do!

As part of our commitment to our customers and subscribers, we have organised a FREE PC Health Check for 1 computer and $95p/h to check subsequent computers and/or for travel time outside of Bendigo. 

It’s FREE for 1 PC, so don’t make excuses, just make a booking, this is what you get;

• Windows updates check
• Microsoft security updates
• System restore check
• Internet security check
• Useless program removal, eg. advertising toolbars
• Backup check
• Suggestions on what areas need to be addressed

To book your Free PC Health Check, call Lawrence a call on (03) 5444 5442 or 0417 033 229 or info@ecopc.com.au

You’ll need to mention “Design Experts” to get the FREE check!  Go on, what's stopping you.

We would like to thank our clients, team and the judges (who were not bribed by the way) on helping us to win the Small Business of the Year in the Rotary Bendigo Business Excellence Award.  Without your support, we would not have achieved this.

We’d also like to congratulate our Head of Design Gabrielle Quirk who was a finalist in Employee of the Year and Tim Gentle, our Managing Director, who was a finalist in the Young Entrepreneur category in the 2011 Campapse Murray Business Awards.

It has been a massive journey and learning curve for the Design Experts team and it was nice to be recognised for all the effort to date.

Check out some pictures of the night on our facebook page.

Technically speaking, a QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) created by Toyota in 1994 to track vehicles during the manufacturing process.

The QR code has now become mainstream as is being cleverly used to communicate with Smartphone owners, who make up 60% of the mobile phone market place.

QR codes can be inserted on business cards, printed on mugs, placed in newspaper ads, clothing and signage etc. 

Getting started…

(1)     You’ll need a SmartPhone

(2)     Download and install a “QR reader App” from the SmartPhone app store, eg. Redlaser, ShopSavvy (also a barcode reader)

(3)     Using the QR App, scan the QR code

(4)     You’ll then be prompted to take the next step.

If you’re a bit of a DIY-er and like to create your own QR code, we recommend using http://goqr.me/

QR Code Exercise

 

What website do I take you to?

Who do I help you call?

TIP: Barcode reading & price comparison Apps are also in the market place. To learn more on how you can use QR codes, contact Design Experts (03) 5442 6888

We will be launching our April release on 13 April 2011 at 1:00 AM PST (check local time). The deployment will take a few hours but we anticipate no major disruptions to the Business Catalyst service during this time. The release includes browser compatibility updates for InContext Editing, consistent sales reports and additional tags for the new version of dynamic menus.

InContext Editing
Added support for Firefox 4 Windows, Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome. We still don't support Firefox 4 on Mac, due to this Firefox/Flash bug. Dynamic Menu module version 2

Following up on your feedback on menu module version 2, we are changing the default module templates location from the root of the /ModuleTemplates/Menu folder to /ModuleTemplates/Menu/Default. Now it will be easier to duplicate templates (just copy-paste the entire Default folder), and more clear how module templates work. If you already modified the default menu templates, please download them again locally from their new "Default/" location and remove the old ones. Your changes have been preserved.

We are also introducing 4 new tags, which will avoid getting empty id and class name HTML attributes:

{tag_menuitemcssclass_withclass} - CSS class name, with class attribute e.g. class="itemClass"
{tag_menuitemcssrolloverclass_withclass} - CSS class name for rollover state, with class attribute e.g. class="itemClassRollover"
{tag_menuitemcssselectedclass_withclass} - CSS class name for selected state, with class attribute e.g. class="itemClassSelected"
{tag_menuitemidname_withid} - Item ID, with id attribute e.g. id="myId"

For example, {tag_menuitemcssclass_withclass} will output class="itemClass" if you specified "itemClass" for a menu item, and won't output anything if you didn't specify a custom class.


Ecommerce reports updates
We have made some updates on the e-commerce sales reports to make the data consistent across the 3 reports that were using it: "Site admin > Dashboard", "Reports->Create an eCommerce report-> Sales" and "Reports > Summary >Ecommerce>Sales". These reports now use the following rules to calculate and display sales:

• Calculate sales based on invoice date rather than order create date
• Consider the total order amount, regardless of the order payment status: not paid, partially paid or paid
• Orders linked to deleted customers are ignored from sales reports

In addition, we have removed the Payment type and Payment Status filter option from "Reports->Create an eCommerce report-> Sales" report Issues fixed by the April 2011 release

Fixed an issue on Customers and Web App reporting causing customer CRM fields to not be included in reports if the items was created or updated via Import/Export (bug id: 2814124)
Fixed InternetSecure payment gateway causing all transactions to fail (bug id: 2757483) Fixed an ecommerce API issue causing product updates to not work (bug id: 2831604)

Adobe Business Catalyst

At Design Experts we feel pretty lucky to work in an industry that moves so quickly.  We love the challenge of always keeping up with innovation and working out how to harness new developments to enhance our online solutions.   

In April 2008, we set out with a vision to be ‘Australia’s leader in web marketing solutions, achieved by a network of dedicated and innovative design experts.’  Although we’re not there yet, we think we are well on our way.  Our Mission Statement to achieve this vision was  “We go the distance to create customer delight by providing customised web marketing solutions that deliver results.”  And we do.  And we will keep doing so.  

But as you know – at Design Experts ‘it’s all about you baby!’ – and we think this is much better reflected in our new mission statement:

To educate our customers about the potential of the web

This keeps us focused to achieve our new Vision:

Our clients understand the power of the internet and in partnership we deliver results.

So, what does it mean to you?

Our new mission and vision statements shows how we are different to other on-line marketing companies – it really says ‘we want to give you control.’  It means we’ll educate you about ALL the possibilities and give you the knowledge and tools to make the right decisions to harness the potential of the internet to really achieve the outcomes you want.

So, why now?

We wrote our original mission statement as a brand new start up – bright eyed and bushy tailed.  It definitely provided the focus we needed at the beginning.  But our business has evolved and more to the point –as a team we have evolved.  Our drive used to be websites, very service specific.  We have become more and more involved with education, through the seminars, workshops and webinars that we facilitate.  

Knowledge is power – we give you the power to drive your on-line marketing strategy to eclipse your expectations.

…So what do you think?  We'd love your feedback? – post a comment below to share your thoughts…

An Annual Performance Review – a great idea for anything that works for you, from your team to your website!

Want to ensure the on-going success of your online solution?  Book an Annual Performance Review.  

In a one-hour meeting, we review your website’s objectives.  We look at what’s working and what’s not and then we work out ways to improve it. We look at new online trends and how you might make them a part of your online solution to maximize your results.  At the end of the meeting we prepare a formal report to be the basis for your action plan.  

Email or call the Studio today 03 5482 6777 to book your Annual Performance Review.

And just to prove we walk the talk – we’ve just conducted an Annual Performance Review on our website…  

So we’ll be spring cleaning our website over the next few weeks – watch out for the changes and innovations we realised we need to keep our site performing.  A new simplified menu, virtual tours and some really exciting developments in tools for online learning.  Stay tuned…same bat station…