Thursday, January 04, 2007
STAGE 5: CERTIFICATES
It's not hard with today's home computers and colour printers to design a simple certificate. (See ours for Adoptasheep at www.adoptasheep.com.au) We decided to include a photo of the sheep, and to let the adopter name it, and include the adopter's name on the certificate.
We designed the certificate in PowerPoint and delivered it boht as a PowerPoint file and a JPEG. (To make a JPEG, simply select Save As and scroll down under Format to find Joint Photographic Experts Groups and click Save.)
The certificate is important. Without one, people don't feel they've done anything tangible. A certificate with a photo, personalised with names, makes them feel they've done something real.
People will understand that you can't have each individual animal on each certificate because of the stress on the sheep and the fact that it would bankrupt you given the amount of time it would take. We had 1700 sheep adopted and used 400 photos. Individual sheep die (most graziers budget to lose 5% annually). In 6 weeks a lamb looks nothing like it did when photographed and a sheep with full wool looks different as well.
We didn't print the certificates. We delivered by email and people printed their own. We had only a couple of hundred that we printed and delivered by snail mail.
PROCESSING ORDERS
This was our biggest weakness. We sucked at this. If we had 20 orders or 200, it would have been fine. But the pressure of 20000 hits on the site and close to 2000 orders, we panicked and made a lot of mistakes.
We needed a system for taking the order, making the certificate, delivering the certificate, checking it is accurate, and recording that it has been sent.
TELEPHONE CALLS
Expect the telephone to be ringing all the time with orders, with enquiries about orders, with changes of details, and with complaints. Doing all this just prior to Christmas added pressure like I've never felt before.
The pressure on my laptop (an 80 Gigabyte Apple PowerBook G4) of processing so many photographs and certificates was so great that my system melted down. My email system collapsed and I lost all my files. The solution? Buy an external disk drive to store the photographs (which are all heavy users of memory).
ORDER IDENTIFICATION
You need to be able to find certificates after they're made, for follow up calls like "What happened to my certificate?"
I use the name of the person placing the order. (Multiple orders can be signified by the addition of a numerals at the end of the person's name.) Another approach is to use the email address. Or you can give each a separate code number.
TEAM COMMUNICATIONS
If you are working with a team (we had myself, my wife Louisa, my son Daniel, and my sister-in-law Kerry as well as assistance from the Mudgee Buisness Centre) make sure everyone knows the game plan. So that all the certificates look the same and have the same informaiton. That there are no double ups. That there are no orders missed. Brief everyone thoroughly.
We designed the certificate in PowerPoint and delivered it boht as a PowerPoint file and a JPEG. (To make a JPEG, simply select Save As and scroll down under Format to find Joint Photographic Experts Groups and click Save.)
The certificate is important. Without one, people don't feel they've done anything tangible. A certificate with a photo, personalised with names, makes them feel they've done something real.
People will understand that you can't have each individual animal on each certificate because of the stress on the sheep and the fact that it would bankrupt you given the amount of time it would take. We had 1700 sheep adopted and used 400 photos. Individual sheep die (most graziers budget to lose 5% annually). In 6 weeks a lamb looks nothing like it did when photographed and a sheep with full wool looks different as well.
We didn't print the certificates. We delivered by email and people printed their own. We had only a couple of hundred that we printed and delivered by snail mail.
PROCESSING ORDERS
This was our biggest weakness. We sucked at this. If we had 20 orders or 200, it would have been fine. But the pressure of 20000 hits on the site and close to 2000 orders, we panicked and made a lot of mistakes.
We needed a system for taking the order, making the certificate, delivering the certificate, checking it is accurate, and recording that it has been sent.
TELEPHONE CALLS
Expect the telephone to be ringing all the time with orders, with enquiries about orders, with changes of details, and with complaints. Doing all this just prior to Christmas added pressure like I've never felt before.
The pressure on my laptop (an 80 Gigabyte Apple PowerBook G4) of processing so many photographs and certificates was so great that my system melted down. My email system collapsed and I lost all my files. The solution? Buy an external disk drive to store the photographs (which are all heavy users of memory).
ORDER IDENTIFICATION
You need to be able to find certificates after they're made, for follow up calls like "What happened to my certificate?"
I use the name of the person placing the order. (Multiple orders can be signified by the addition of a numerals at the end of the person's name.) Another approach is to use the email address. Or you can give each a separate code number.
TEAM COMMUNICATIONS
If you are working with a team (we had myself, my wife Louisa, my son Daniel, and my sister-in-law Kerry as well as assistance from the Mudgee Buisness Centre) make sure everyone knows the game plan. So that all the certificates look the same and have the same informaiton. That there are no double ups. That there are no orders missed. Brief everyone thoroughly.
