MD’s View – My Background and Content Writing

Never Written My Own Blog

Anyway back to this Blog that I am trying to write. Firstly, I guess I should explain who I am and why I am writing a Blog for the first time in my life (considering I have worked 17 years in the web development industry). My name is Gary Sweeney and I own Blue Whale Media Ltd. My official tile is Managing Director however you could say I am the Water Boy, Tea Boy, Sales Guy, Lunch Runner, Sales Trainer and now Blogger/ Content Writer. Anybody reading this who runs as small business will understand what I mean when I say I am not just a Managing Director, if only life was that easy.

Anyway, I was going to talk about how I came up with the name Blue Whale Media and what I did as a job just before Blue Whale Media Ltd was formed, but I think that needs its own dedicated section in my next blog.

Blog Your Way

As I mention in the first line of this blog, I was not keen on trying to put pen to paper so to speak. My initial reaction was poor and after taking a few days to think things through and decide what I wanted to blog about; I actually found myself wanting to make time to pick up the Mac and start my Blogging/Content Writing Career. However, I want to do things differently to how most people with my Job Title write blogs. I don’t see the point in trying to write an SEO Blog to get high rankings in the search engines as to be honest writing is not my strongest area. Which is why I employ very good content writers and SEO consultants to write the professional content for Blue Whale Media and our customers. I want my blog to be personal as well as business like.

Each of my blogs are going to give you an insight into me on a personal level, tell you about my work background, explain what challenges we faced in the first 5 years Blue Whale Media Ltd traded and also cover events that take place right now whilst running Blue Whale Media Ltd.

Before the Blogging

So we had better start at the beginning. I left John Moores University with a 2:2 in International Leisure & Tourism Management. I bet you are thinking ‘is that even a real course?’ Or ‘Has he just made that name up?’ I can honestly tell you it is and my dad can even vouch for me as he had to pay my fees (privileged I know, please forgive me).  I think the only reason I managed to get the 2:2 is due to the IT section of the course, hence my interest in the Internet and computers. 

Straight after I left University it was straight onto a holiday for a couple of weeks and after that, back home to living with my parents. Once I returned home it was made clear that I needed to find a job. After a couple of Interviews and a lot of ‘thanks for the interest but..’ I finally found a job at a company called Freecom.net. Freecom.net is still operating now and is currently ran by a guy called Chris who was just a techy for the company back when I worked there.

Now as I am going to talk about my work history and lessons learned during each of my blogs, I will be changing customer and colleagues’ names as they have no idea that I am writing a weekly Blog.

Freecom.net was my fist ‘proper job’ after getting two ‘thanks but no thanks’. For some unknown reason a guy who I will refer to as ‘Hale The Sale’ finally related and gave me my first Website Design Sales Job. I am not going to lie and say I took to selling websites to small business like a duck to water as I did not. However, this was back in 2001, the Internet was still a baby and businesses still didn’t even understand what a domain name was and that they could buy their own business name.  I can tell you this with authority, as after 2 weeks training I was put in my first Tele Sales Team selling .co.uk and .com Domain Names to new and small businesses. I didn’t even sell websites at this point and there was definitely no such thing as having in house content writers available to craft content for new customers. Pretty far from today’s standards where ‘Content Is King’ in the fight to gain 1^st page positions on all the major search engines.

Professional Blogging  Service

This brings me back to why I am writing a Blog. Well as I mentioned at the very start, I was asked by our Operations Director and Social Media Account Manager during a Marketing Review to do a weekly Blog. Considering I tell our clients that they should write their own blogs as well as buy professional SEO Blogs from us, I didn’t really have any grounds to say no. So here I am…writing my weekly blog.

Creating professional blogs and SEO content for websites is Blue Whale Media Ltd  2^nd most popular product and its only increasing each month. So, after years of using Content Writers that I know and trust without ever having them employed. It’s now been suggested to me that we should recruit and hire an in-house website content writer. I have to say it’s not something I have ever thought to do as things work great just the way they are. However, as I have previously said I am not always right. Sometimes in life you need to take on board other peoples’ ideas which can increase work output and increase profit and with it being such a growing division, I cannot argue more control would be good. It also might get me out of writing a blog a week…joking of course.

So, after advertising for an in-house website design content writer, we have 8 interviews lined up for next week. I am looking forward to meeting the candidates and hearing what they believe they can add to the mix to help improve our business. I will provide an update on this in my next blog.

Anyway, its 12.49 and that’s my signal to put the Mac away and end my first Blue Whale Media Ltd blog. I’ll check in with you all next week.