John McGarvey – web copywriter

There are lots of important decisions to be made when going freelance. Like what sort of office chair to buy. And what to put on your business cards.

One of the trickier ones is working out how to position yourself. Do you want to be totally upfront that it’s just you on your own, or would you rather project the air of a slightly larger business?

At its simplest, this comes down to whether you talk about “me” or “we”.

So, for instance if you’ve decided to go down the route of personal branding – you are the business and you’re happy to admit it – you’d probably trade under your own name and have an “about me” page on your website.

Alternatively, if you’ve decided you want to be a little more vague about the people working in your business, you’ll have to think up a name for the company and call the equivalent page on your website “about us”.

Neither of these is the right or wrong approach. Plenty of people take the “me” route and lots go down the “we” road -  I haven’t noticed either approach resulting in noticeably more successful businesses. So in some respects, it doesn’t really matter which you choose.

But in others, it does. And if you’re starting out, it’s worth taking a bit of time working out which is right for you. It makes those other important decisions – like what to put on your business cards and website – a whole lot easier.

As you’ll have noticed, I picked the “me” option. This is why:

• I don’t have any intention of employing people. I’ve consciously decided I don’t want to bring more people into the business. Should I reach the stage where there’s more work than I can handle, I’ll look to other (carefully chosen) freelancers.
• I’ve decided to sell my skills and experience. On this site and when I talk to prospective clients, I try to explain what it is that I can offer them. It’s about how my particular experience and abilities are useful to them – and that means I have to talk about me.
• I want clients who I like and who like me. While I can maintain a good working relationship just about anyone, the clients I get a real buzz out of working with are the ones I get on with best. It’s easier to build this sort of partnership when I’m open about who I am from the start.
• My name was already out there. I’ve been working in this business for a while and have had a blog or website for several years. That gave me the beginnings of a profile – online and offline. Why waste that by starting from scratch under another name?
• I wanted to be completely honest with potential clients. The thing about being a one-person “we” is that you have to explain it’s just you at some point. That’s not to say this is a difficult thing to do – I just feel more comfortable not having to bother doing it at all.

There are some downsides, of course:

Continue reading ‘Freelancers: is it “me” or is it “we”?’

What’s with the rash of everyday things being renamed in complicated ways?

First up is Pizza Hut. For years, this chain has been synonymous with pizza, salad bars and, if you’re a kid, their ice cream factory, which lets you keep returning to eat more ice-cream until you’re actually sick.

But what’s this? They don’t seem to have a salad bar anymore. For 2009, they appear to have renamed it the Salad Station. As their website explains:

“Grab a bowl & help yourself. Check out our all-new Salad Station, and get creative with new ingredients, dressings, drizzles and toppings.”

Umm, sounds a little bit like a good old salad bar to me. So what’s with the name change?

Ready what?

Next is that rather well-known US chain of coffee shops: Starbucks. As you might have seen, they recently launched a brand of instant coffee called VIA.

No, I don’t know why they’ve capitalised the name. And I also don’t know why they’ve decided to call it ‘ready brew’ instead of instant coffee.

Continue reading ‘Sometimes it’s best to call a spade a spade’

I went to the Taste Festival in London the other week (if you’re thinking of going next year, it was a collosal, pretentious waste of money).

But one of the companies promoting its wares there was Gü, the people who make those nice puddings you can buy in Sainsbury’s. Not exactly Michelin-starred cuisine, but very nice nonetheless.

I just got around to visiting the company’s website. I was immediately irritated by the gimmicky use of the umlauted ‘ü’ wherever a ‘u’ or ‘you’ would normally suffice. Check this out:

“So over to ü! Just upload ür masterpiece here and get ür friends, family, neighbours, people in the street, long-lost Facebook friends… (ü get the drift!) to vote for ü. Ü can view all the entries in the Gallery and see who’s currently in the Top 5 on the right here.”

Honestly, it’s hurting my eyes just to read that. Stop it. Right now.

I don’t honestly know if the ‘ü’ within the name of the company is an affectation or not (the company website suggests the name’s origins are in Belgium). Either way, the use of the letter like this is quite ridiculous.

I suppose it’s an attempt to be quirky, friendly, and echo the brand throughout the promotional copy. But actually it comes off as clumsy and makes the text less readable because your eyes jolt each time they run into a ‘ü’ in an unexpected place.

I can’t imagine it’s particularly screenreader or search engine friendly either. In all, a big thümbs down.

When did Sainsbury’s start checking your ID before letting you buy cornflakes? They really could have thought of a more sensible name. Like simply ‘cereals’, for instance.

I don’t want to feel like I’m buying restricted goods when I’m just after a bit of breakfast. And what on earth constitutes an ‘adult cereal’ anyway? Honestly – no wonder Tesco is the market leader by a mile.

Sarah Jessica Parker doesn’t seem to have done much since Sex and the City (this isn’t a typical start to a blog posting, I know, but bear with me for a minute).

However, she has launched a couple of perfumes. The first was called ‘Lovely‘. As product names go, this is like launching a car called the Toyota Fast, or flogging bottled water called Damp. I think there’s a slight possibility it’s some sort of parody, but even if it is, that’s just the sort of contrived nonsense only a perfume manufacturer could come up with.

It doesn’t get any better. The second fragrance is called ‘Covet‘. Covet? You’d never buy a mobile phone called the Nokia You Really Want This. And neither should you buy this perfume. If they can’t be bothered thinking up a good name, do you think they took much time worrying about the smell?

If I’m honest, I’m not sure what conclusions to draw from this. I really just wanted to point out a truly dire piece of naming. Lovely? It isn’t. Covet? I don’t. Sarah Jessica Parker should probably stick to acting.