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Mealsinfields.co.uk – the Story so Far.
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Inventrepreneur
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10 August 2012
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Life has a habit of throwing co-incidences into your path that seem to have a purpose. So, follow them, you never know where they might lead you.
In the summer of 2009 there was a letter in the Camping and Caravanning Club magazine from a young lady who had cut her holiday short as she only knew how to cook sausages on a BBQ. The last line of the letter asked, “is there a website out there to help me?” The answer at the time was, well, no, not really.
The co-incidence was that a few days earlier a friend had asked what we intended to do as we approached retirement age. Five times he asked the question, and all I could say was that I did not intend to sit around at home and vegetate, and my husband insisted that fishing is not his bag. As for ideas on how we would spend our time – our minds were complete blanks.
Seeing the letter sparked an idea, initially intended to be nothing more than a hobby to while away the hours of retirement and to give us a reason to get out and about in our caravan with a purpose to visiting different parts of the country. The original idea was a simple online cookbook which would capture the knowledge of my generation, men and women who learned the basics of cooking at school and who have learned how to prepare simple but healthy meals on restricted budgets and in restricted spaces.
At this point I should explain that I am allergic to nickel, which is found in almost all green vegetables, brown rice, wholewheat, brown sugars and all tinned foods. I had to work hard to find ways of using vegetables that do not cause me to react to them, and so the idea of collating and storing that knowledge for the next generation had an appeal of its own. The strap line “can the can” emerged in the very early days.
When I ran out of ideas, it was reasonably easy to cajole friends and family into noting how they cook in caravans and tents, and so the collection of recipes began to grow. Everyone I spoke to thought it was a great idea to harness the knowledge of the silverbacks and store it in a media used and understood by the youth.
Total pigheadedness now kicked in. My background is as a trainer in management and customer service skills and the use of IT, using my own training as a technical author to put together detailed training materials and instruction books. So, if I can write marketing materials, design courseware, surely I can create a website. What is the problem – surely I can do this without any help at all! Or so I thought. I wasted at least a year and several hundred pounds by buying website software and ‘hacking’ at it to create – well not a lot really. I did try to get onto a suitable course, but with my background I needed something intensive, not the one evening a week at the local college for the next forty weeks. The costs were beginning to look prohibitive. I still had the day job which was very demanding, and I really thought that the whole project was going to flounder.
Eventually I realised that working with a professional website design company would be cheaper, easier and quicker, and located a very good company just a few miles from my home. The first meeting took place at the end of October 2010 – yes I had wasted a whole year being too obstinate to see sense. The company were great and asked how I intended to make money from the website. To be honest up to that point I hadn’t really considered creating a business, this was just a hobby. We threw around a few ideas, got a basic design for the website and five days after my 60th birthday, on 11/Jan/11 www.mealsinfields.co.uk went live, with just 80 recipes. We left space for Google to add adverts but it took a couple of months for anything to happen.
I continued to work on a very complex project which involved training others in both management marketing skills. Another helpful co-incidence, because it meant that I could use my own business as an example and model, gaining helpful insights from my trainees, and generating all the research I needed. I sat down and wrote a full business plan, complete with cash flow predictions, marketing strategy and a detailed marketing plan. Thankfully plans are made to be changed!!
The business plan showed income streams from selling advertising space in three directory areas, where to stop (campsites and caravan parks) where to shop (farm shops, small high street specialists) and where to dine. Our slogan then became “Where to Stop, Where to Shop, Where to Dine.
Our vision statement (I did warn you that I am a management trainer, and that I do practice what I preach) reads:-
Our vision is to provide, in one place, information to promote the use of local, small, specialist businesses through promoting healthy eating using a limited number of ingredients in a restricted area, such as is found in a caravan, motorhome, boat or tent.
Next problem – make the vision happen, but where do you start? Once you understand that you have two sets of ‘customers’ the promotion of the website starts to become clear. No-one is going to pay to advertise on a website that cannot demonstrate a good hit rate and visitor statistics. The first step must be to encourage visitors to the website, and make sure they keep coming back for more.
The recipes provided a good focal point to attract caravan and camping enthusiasts. As members of both major clubs in the UK we booked trade stands at the Caravan Club National Rally in May 2011 and the Camping and Caravanning Club National Feast of Lanterns in August 2011. We went with a poster declaring “We want your dinner” and two banners attached to the side of the caravan to make an exhibition stand. The strategy worked, and visitor numbers began a steady and sustained rise. People began submitting recipes via e-mail and a community grew around the website.
We asked for recommendations on where to stop, shop and dine. It was, and remains, very difficult to predict and organise a UK wide site. Information came in droves whenever we attended an event in an area, but that left other areas completely devoid of data. We revisited the marketing plan, and decided that for 2012 we would concentrate in the middle of the country, move down the eastern side to accommodate areas that would be the focus of the Olympics, then move north. We also changed the focus of event and aimed to attend at least one food and drink show per month.
January 2012 brought another unexpected event. I was informed that my services were no longer required, and the day job came to a very abrupt end, co-inciding with the successful conclusion of the project. I was able to draw my pension which meant that I could devote myself 100% to the website, whilst my husband continued to work four days a week.
One of the important things I always told my trainees was to identify your personal strengths and play to them, finding others to provide skills to counter your weaknesses. I am a lousy salesman, but was fortunate to find a sales professional who works with us.
On 12 January 2012, we realised that for the business to grow and develop effectively, it had to become a limited company. A number of names were banded around, but when we applied for them they had either been taken or in one case the company had just failed leaving severe debts behind it. On the spur of the moment, sitting in the accountants office, Seasoned Solutions rolled off my tongue. The name was available, and we claimed it. It works on many levels, using my name, my husband’s initial to create Seasoned but it also captures the essence of something well tried and trusted.
Since January we have attended a variety of food and drink based festivals, some indoor and some out, in all weather conditions. Slowly the strategy is paying off. But again the focus has changed a little. We realised that there are many directory websites out there competing for business and targeting small companies. We wanted to be ethical and to offer some true reason for joining us.
We saw that small businesses cannot compete with the national and multi-national companies that offer places to stop, shop and dine. The flip side is that the big boys can’t touch the quality of food provided by the small local producer. We decided that if enough little guys join together, we can create marketing campaigns to rival the big boys – and that is exactly what will happen. We already advertise regularly in special interest magazines, and have plans for a radio campaign in the Autumn, provided the number of advertisers hits the trigger point.
What advice would I offer to others starting a business, particularly one based on the internet? Whatever your budget says in terms of outlay – double it and whatever your timescale, treble it. It takes time to develop a reputation and it is only when people trust you that they will do business with you. Business is about people and relationships – financial success follows on behind.
In the summer of 2009 there was a letter in the Camping and Caravanning Club magazine from a young lady who had cut her holiday short as she only knew how to cook sausages on a BBQ. The last line of the letter asked, “is there a website out there to help me?” The answer at the time was, well, no, not really.
The co-incidence was that a few days earlier a friend had asked what we intended to do as we approached retirement age. Five times he asked the question, and all I could say was that I did not intend to sit around at home and vegetate, and my husband insisted that fishing is not his bag. As for ideas on how we would spend our time – our minds were complete blanks.
Seeing the letter sparked an idea, initially intended to be nothing more than a hobby to while away the hours of retirement and to give us a reason to get out and about in our caravan with a purpose to visiting different parts of the country. The original idea was a simple online cookbook which would capture the knowledge of my generation, men and women who learned the basics of cooking at school and who have learned how to prepare simple but healthy meals on restricted budgets and in restricted spaces.
At this point I should explain that I am allergic to nickel, which is found in almost all green vegetables, brown rice, wholewheat, brown sugars and all tinned foods. I had to work hard to find ways of using vegetables that do not cause me to react to them, and so the idea of collating and storing that knowledge for the next generation had an appeal of its own. The strap line “can the can” emerged in the very early days.
When I ran out of ideas, it was reasonably easy to cajole friends and family into noting how they cook in caravans and tents, and so the collection of recipes began to grow. Everyone I spoke to thought it was a great idea to harness the knowledge of the silverbacks and store it in a media used and understood by the youth.
Total pigheadedness now kicked in. My background is as a trainer in management and customer service skills and the use of IT, using my own training as a technical author to put together detailed training materials and instruction books. So, if I can write marketing materials, design courseware, surely I can create a website. What is the problem – surely I can do this without any help at all! Or so I thought. I wasted at least a year and several hundred pounds by buying website software and ‘hacking’ at it to create – well not a lot really. I did try to get onto a suitable course, but with my background I needed something intensive, not the one evening a week at the local college for the next forty weeks. The costs were beginning to look prohibitive. I still had the day job which was very demanding, and I really thought that the whole project was going to flounder.
Eventually I realised that working with a professional website design company would be cheaper, easier and quicker, and located a very good company just a few miles from my home. The first meeting took place at the end of October 2010 – yes I had wasted a whole year being too obstinate to see sense. The company were great and asked how I intended to make money from the website. To be honest up to that point I hadn’t really considered creating a business, this was just a hobby. We threw around a few ideas, got a basic design for the website and five days after my 60th birthday, on 11/Jan/11 www.mealsinfields.co.uk went live, with just 80 recipes. We left space for Google to add adverts but it took a couple of months for anything to happen.
I continued to work on a very complex project which involved training others in both management marketing skills. Another helpful co-incidence, because it meant that I could use my own business as an example and model, gaining helpful insights from my trainees, and generating all the research I needed. I sat down and wrote a full business plan, complete with cash flow predictions, marketing strategy and a detailed marketing plan. Thankfully plans are made to be changed!!
The business plan showed income streams from selling advertising space in three directory areas, where to stop (campsites and caravan parks) where to shop (farm shops, small high street specialists) and where to dine. Our slogan then became “Where to Stop, Where to Shop, Where to Dine.
Our vision statement (I did warn you that I am a management trainer, and that I do practice what I preach) reads:-
Our vision is to provide, in one place, information to promote the use of local, small, specialist businesses through promoting healthy eating using a limited number of ingredients in a restricted area, such as is found in a caravan, motorhome, boat or tent.
Next problem – make the vision happen, but where do you start? Once you understand that you have two sets of ‘customers’ the promotion of the website starts to become clear. No-one is going to pay to advertise on a website that cannot demonstrate a good hit rate and visitor statistics. The first step must be to encourage visitors to the website, and make sure they keep coming back for more.
The recipes provided a good focal point to attract caravan and camping enthusiasts. As members of both major clubs in the UK we booked trade stands at the Caravan Club National Rally in May 2011 and the Camping and Caravanning Club National Feast of Lanterns in August 2011. We went with a poster declaring “We want your dinner” and two banners attached to the side of the caravan to make an exhibition stand. The strategy worked, and visitor numbers began a steady and sustained rise. People began submitting recipes via e-mail and a community grew around the website.
We asked for recommendations on where to stop, shop and dine. It was, and remains, very difficult to predict and organise a UK wide site. Information came in droves whenever we attended an event in an area, but that left other areas completely devoid of data. We revisited the marketing plan, and decided that for 2012 we would concentrate in the middle of the country, move down the eastern side to accommodate areas that would be the focus of the Olympics, then move north. We also changed the focus of event and aimed to attend at least one food and drink show per month.
January 2012 brought another unexpected event. I was informed that my services were no longer required, and the day job came to a very abrupt end, co-inciding with the successful conclusion of the project. I was able to draw my pension which meant that I could devote myself 100% to the website, whilst my husband continued to work four days a week.
One of the important things I always told my trainees was to identify your personal strengths and play to them, finding others to provide skills to counter your weaknesses. I am a lousy salesman, but was fortunate to find a sales professional who works with us.
On 12 January 2012, we realised that for the business to grow and develop effectively, it had to become a limited company. A number of names were banded around, but when we applied for them they had either been taken or in one case the company had just failed leaving severe debts behind it. On the spur of the moment, sitting in the accountants office, Seasoned Solutions rolled off my tongue. The name was available, and we claimed it. It works on many levels, using my name, my husband’s initial to create Seasoned but it also captures the essence of something well tried and trusted.
Since January we have attended a variety of food and drink based festivals, some indoor and some out, in all weather conditions. Slowly the strategy is paying off. But again the focus has changed a little. We realised that there are many directory websites out there competing for business and targeting small companies. We wanted to be ethical and to offer some true reason for joining us.
We saw that small businesses cannot compete with the national and multi-national companies that offer places to stop, shop and dine. The flip side is that the big boys can’t touch the quality of food provided by the small local producer. We decided that if enough little guys join together, we can create marketing campaigns to rival the big boys – and that is exactly what will happen. We already advertise regularly in special interest magazines, and have plans for a radio campaign in the Autumn, provided the number of advertisers hits the trigger point.
What advice would I offer to others starting a business, particularly one based on the internet? Whatever your budget says in terms of outlay – double it and whatever your timescale, treble it. It takes time to develop a reputation and it is only when people trust you that they will do business with you. Business is about people and relationships – financial success follows on behind.
