Colonial Van Lines completely misrepresented themselves

Everything on their website, in my discussion with their estimator, and even their name seemed to indicate that they were a regular moving company, instead of what they actually are, which is a company that facilitates moves by sub-contracting with other businesses to handle the actual move. We were expecting what they promised – the 4 experienced movers and the semi with enough room for our stuff. What actually showed up, when they finally showed up, was two men and two rented trucks. They had NO MOVING EQUIPMENT except the rinky-dink dolly that came with one of the trucks and about 3 moving blankets. For the first several hours, only one of the guys really did much work, and he was as slow as molasses. We were backing up against the time when our storage unit was going to close, and my husband and I jumped in to help get the stuff loaded. We spoke with Colonial’s customer service multiple times, with no real result, other than they assured us they’d make sure there were 4 guys to unload the stuff.

We headed off to our destination city, really wondering whether the guys would show up at all. They did arrive on the day promised, several hours late. But, it was the same 2 guys and still no moving equipment. We moved into a brand new house, so were understandably concerned when these guys were trying to bring in appliances and large furniture with inadequate equipment. Sure enough almost immediately, they put a big scratch in the kitchen floor trying to drag the refrigerator across using the little dolly. As we began to unwrap the furniture, we saw the results of their lack of experience and equipment everywhere: gouges out of our dining table, the ends of our leather living room furniture rubbed off, our dryer not working at all because of damage to the top, and more. They also paid little attention to the labels on the boxes, just putting things down in whatever room seemed convenient, and in such a way that you couldn’t even get in the room. We were told, like a regular moving company, they would do things like set up the beds. They were in too much of a hurry to leave to do this, and couldn’t have even if they wanted to because of the way they had put the boxes in the rooms.

Worst moving experience ever

If we had paid $4,000 for the move, we probably would have chalked it up to “you get what you pay for”, but they charged us over $10,000. This was multiple thousands of dollars above the high end of the estimate they had provided. Even paying them was challenging. We had to pay them before they would unload the stuff, and the claimed they couldn’t take a credit card because of some problem with their merchant account and they needed us to use a debit card. We pushed back on that of course, and they managed to figure out how to take our credit card after all.

After the move

Colonial sent a customer satisfaction survey almost immediately after the move was complete. We filled this out describing every detail of the horrible service. No response. I wrote a scathing review on Google, and guess who called within hours of it posting? They apologized for the bad experience, and wanted me to know that they weren’t going to do business with the subcontracted movers any longer, and would I please take down the review. We have since learned that they spend a ton of time and resources working to get people to take down bad reviews. If only they spent as much time trying to fix their horrible business model. The truth is, when you pretend to be a real moving company and then subcontract out all the actual moving, you have almost no control over the quality of service people are going to receive.

Lessons learned

• Finding a good moving company is REALLY hard. I’ve heard that over and over from people.
• Read as many reviews as possible before committing to a company to handle your move.
• Post reviews about your experience with companies – good and bad. In the past, there would have been very little we could do beyond simple word of mouth to warn others or recommend companies to others, but with the power of social media, consumers have the ability to really impact a business tangibly. The reason I’m writing this article is not vindictiveness, but rather in hope that others won’t have to experience what we did.
• Subcontracting is fraught with danger – you’d better be really sure you’re working with people who are as committed to good service as you are, because when it goes badly, it’s your reputation that will be damaged.
• Don’t misrepresent your business as something it’s not. You may make a buck in the short term, but in the long run it was just result in failure.

1. Download the icons you want to use

You need to have the images/icons saved onto your computer, so download them from whatever site you found them on. It’s easiest if you download them to your desktop. Usually they are in a “zip” file, so if you’ve downloaded the zip file, double-click it to open and drag the contents onto to your desktop. By doing this you have “extracted” the file and you can now use it.

2. Upload the images to use on your site

Now log in to your site and click on Media/Add New. Then click on the Select Files button and find the images you had saved on your computer. You can upload multiple images at one time- just hold down Cntl while you’re selecting them. Then click Open and they will upload.

Now, it’s easiest to have two tabs open, so you can work on the widget and o back and forth, copying image URLs for multiple icons. Right click on Appearance/Widgets and choose Open in in New Tab.

3. Put the code into your widget

This is where it gets a little hairy for those who have never done anything with code, but hang in there- it’s not as hard as it looks at first glance! Drag a text widget into  the widget section where you want your icons to show up. Then put the following code in the text widget:

<a href="http://URLofsite.com">
<img src="http://yoursiteURL.com/URLofimage.png" /></a>

First, replace the URL in red with the site you’re linking to, such as http://www.facebook.com/DivaThemes orhttp://twitter.com/randaclay. Then, click back over to the Media Library tab, and click on Show next to the icon you want to use (or if you’re in the Library view, hover over the name of the file and click on Edit). Find the File URL field and highlight the whole URL. Then click on Cntl-C to copy it. Click back over to the Widgets tab and put the URL of the image you just copied where I have the blue text above- replace the dummy URL I have there. The result will look something like this:

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/DivaThemes">
<img src="http://divathemes.com.com/facebook.png" /></a>

Repeat for every icon you want to insert. You can put a space between the code for each. Save the widget and view your site to see what it looks like.

4. Add space between the icons if needed

I usually have to add a bit of space between the icons for it to look right- you may want to as well. Here’s an extra snippet of code to add:

<a href="http://URLofsite.com">
<img src="http://yoursiteURL.com/URLofimage.png" style="margin-right: 10px" /></a>

See the green code? This adds a little CSS to each image that adds some space to the right of each. You can change the amount of space by changing the 10 to whatever you like. Also, obviously you wouldn’t need to add it to the last icon.

5. Center the icons

If you’d like to center the group of icons within the space add this bit of code before everything:

<div style="text-align:center">

Then this bit of code after everything:

</div>

Beware! If you don’t put that closing div code on, you will probably goof up your whole page. Every time you open a div, you have to close it.

Your widget will look something like this when you’re done:

The images are priced at $2 for a small (864px) image, up to $20 for a large (3600px) image. Vector images are $30, which is comparable to other stock sites. They offer fonts as well- all the ones I viewed were priced at $49.95. Subscription prices start at $429 a year for 500 downloads a month.

Pros:

• No credits! I hate having to buy credits and then only partially use them, so I really appreciate not having to do that on PhotoSpin.
• I like the option of searching vectors separate from illustrations. Some stock image sites just allow a search of illustrations and don’t separate out the vectors.

Cons:

• You can sort the results of your search by Random, Newest or Similar, but I missed having a “Most Popular” sort option, which can frequently help sort the best images to the top.
• They have a lightbox feature, but when you click the little plus (+) below the thumbnail of the image, you can’t choose which lightbox it puts the image into.
• Less selection than other sites.

My conclusion: while the selection might not yet be as large as some of the more well-known sites, if you can find what you need and don’t need the extra large images, you can save some money.

So, check out PhotoSpin and if you decide to get a subscription, PhotoSpin has generously offered my readers a 10% off coupon! Just use the coupon code CLAY10 when signing up!

Because of my general suspicions of networking, I’m not one of these people that get real excited about networking strategies. I don’t deal in Handshakes per Hour (HPH) or talk at length about ‘leave-behinds’. But again, I know that smart businesspeople prepare for networking events, and so I’ve picked up a few pointers along the way.

One of the take-aways from years of awkward and slightly-less-awkward dealings with networking is to bring supplies. Honestly, it had never occurred to me to bring anything more than a fat stack of business cards to these events, one that has my relevant information and a link to my website. More and more though, I’ve been seeing people hand out mini-flyers or postcard-sized cards to people they meet at conferences. These offer a number of benefits:

• Handy size. Even though the flyers I’ve seen aren’t small enough to fit into a wallet or business card holder, they are still plenty small to carry in a pocket and take home. Anything larger than a quarter-sheet of paper gets annoying to carry around, but postcard-sized sheets work great.
• More information. A business card really doesn’t tell a stranger much about your business. With two or three times the space, a postcard or mini-flyer allows you to give your company’s vital stats, any awards or recognitions you’ve gained, and a short company bio that gives the reader a background on what you’re all about. This is especially helpful when folks are meeting tons of other people and need a hint to remember you among dozens of others.
• Time-sensitive info. If you have a sale or a special promotion going on at the time of the event, postcards are a great way to get the word out at a big conference. Another option is to include a promotion or discount code on the flyers that gives a special deal to convention-goers who do business with you.

Just keep a couple things in mind with these kinds of promotional materials: these are widely circulated representations of your brand. Design them carefully or get a designer to make sure these print products match your logos, color schemes, and font families on your website, storefront, etc. Some online printing companies offer design services along with postcard printing and for a low, flat rate. The biggest online print companies won’t be able to give you one-on-one design help, even if their printing is cheap. Not only does this brand coordination look more professional, it helps you and your company stick in peoples’ minds. Get your order in well before the big convention or event so you can be sure to have them when the time comes, even if they have to be reprinted. This is especially important if you have time-sensitive information printed on your cards. Getting a shipment of discount cards for attendees of a conference don’t do much if they arrive two days after the event.

Remember, adding professional images to your blog posts can make a huge difference in how your site is perceived, and when you can get them so cheaply, why not?

Win a trial subscription

Would YOU like to try out Fotolia? I have 3 coupon codes for a 2 week trial subscription to give away! The winners will be able to download 3 images a day during  the 14 day trial.

To enter: simply leave a comment in the area below. I will choose 3 winners randomly on Monday, August 8th at 9pm central time. Good luck!

*while Fotolia did give me a free month’s subscription, I was under no obligation to review their service positively.

/* Disable the Admin Bar for all but admins. */
if(!current_user_can(‘administrator’)):
show_admin_bar(false);
endif;

If you want to disable the admin bar completely, add this to your functions.php file:

/* Disable the Admin Bar for everyone. */
show_admin_bar(false);

Has this happened to you? You’re laying in bed at night and can’t sleep, and suddenly you have an idea for a site. It’s unique! It’s perfect! You jump up and buy the domain before someone else thinks of the idea… As tempting as it is to jump in with both feet, I’ve learned that no matter how good you think the idea is, it’s best to do some research first.

1. Keyword research – is anyone searching for what your site is going to offer? At a bare minimum do some basic keyword research to understand what kind of search volume you might expect.

2. Competition – are there other sites out there with the same idea?  How many other pages are there on the topic in the Google index? If there are a ton of awesome sites, it might be best to go back to the drawing board. Sometimes you find that there are lots of sites, but you know you could do it better and overcome the competition.

3. Reality check – ask people you respect if it’s a good idea. See if it still seems like a good idea after you sleep on it.  Trying writing some content for the site, especially if it’s blog oriented, and see if you still have lots of ideas and energy for the topic after you’ve spent some time writing.

Sometimes, after doing some research, you end up realizing it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Sometimes you adjust your concept just a bit before buying a domain name.

Make sure you have adequate time (and money) to devote to the site

You can only do so much, so you have to choose wisely where to put your resources of time and money. Sometimes it’s better to put resources into a site you already have, rather than start a new one. Remember that overloading oneself can create burnout and that just sucks all the fun out of it.

Consider monetization

If you’re going to invest time and money into a site, be sure you have a plan for getting a return on that investment.  Would it be a good Adsense site? Are you going to do affiliate marketing or try and get into an ad network? It’s never too early to monetize a site.

Be prepared for the long haul

There are plenty of sites that succeed in a relatively short amount of time, but for the most part, you should be prepared to allow at least a year for a site to be generating traffic and a decent income. Persistence pays off though, and as long as you continue to see growth, stick with it.

Be prepared to throw in the towel

Some ideas will fail. In some cases you’ll spend hours and hours building a site’s content, persist for months and get nowhere. Sometimes you have to cut your losses, move on and be glad for what you learned in the process. My first two sites were started about the same time. I put a LOT more time into one than I did the other, and finally after about 18 months I had to give up on the one I’d invested so much time into. It still makes a small income each month, just sitting there, but I stopped pouring resources into it and focused on the other site, which has become my leading money-maker.

Don’t be discouraged

If you really believe in your idea, go for it. Even if it fails you will have learned a lot and be more likely to be successful with the next idea. Every experienced entrepreneur will tell you that failure is just a part of the game, and a necessary stepping stone to eventual success.