Recent Brainwave
Believe it or not, it only occurred to me very recently that, with all the wonderful things available on our new site, we had never actually asked our loyal users where they want us to go next. I’ve told you on my blog here what we’ve planned, but I haven’t asked you what you think we should be planning. We do think we’re doing pretty well, and you seem to agree, but we want to get better, and to do that, I think we need to hear from you.
Credit Where Credit is Due
I have to give credit for this to Cathy, who hit on to something really critical in her blog, which was to ask about you – specifically where you’re from. Among a flood of responses from all over the world came the push-pin idea, which was fantastic. I used to run an ESL school, and the map in our lobby with the push pins showing which countries all the students were from was always a huge hit with visitors, but I’d never have thought of it for our site. Great ideas like this reflect the power of an engaged community. Then we had my challenge to you, to post in our Reviews, Testimonials and Critiques forum, and from that came not only some great product reviews, but that great idea about the e-directory, which I’ve already started working on. And Pat, wow, what can I say. She is our toughest critic (I probably get five e-mails a day from her telling me how the site could be better) and biggest supporter all rolled into one. Pat, I know you’re reading this, because you read everything! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Our community is truly lucky to have you.
Something to Bear in Mind
As you the AnnTheGran Community is formulating what will certainly be a bunch of great ideas, I have only one thing I would ask you to keep in mind, and that is that we are working with limited resources. Everyone knows AnnTheGran for free designs -- indeed, we still hear regularly that, wherever embroidery machines are sold, whatever the brand of machine, the first thing a new machine embroiderer is told is to go to AnnTheGran and stock up on free designs. Ann is very proud of that, and she should be, but of course, we all know that all this stuff isn’t really free. It takes a lot of time and money, more than you might realize. So we do need to sell stuff. When people ask me what exactly my job is, I usually make a joke about being responsible for Ann’s retirement, but the fact of the matter is that, as a company, we are responsible for a lot more than Ann not having to start selling family members to make ends meet. Like any company, we have staff with families to feed. Ann would have loved to be able to provide everything free for all time, and unlimited support on everything, but that isn’t the way the world works. So, we sell things, so that we can continue to do what we love and we can help you continue to do what you love. Please keep that in mind as you open up the brainwaves.
Just For the Fun of It
So, I ask you now how we can do a better job of what we do. Up until now, we’ve been deciding what the Magic Bookshelf looks like. Now it’s your turn. Use the Comments field below to give us your ideas (if any of our competition is reading this, please stop reading here
). Tell us what we can do to make ourselves look nicer, be easier to use, have better information, become a better store, and, most importantly, be more fun. Because whether the beautiful things you make are for yourself, for your family and friends, or for a customer, I hope I’m not too far off the mark to assume that you’re in it at least partly to have fun.
Simply put then, tell us how we can help you have more fun!