[00:00:48.700] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:49.400] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:49.870] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:51.850] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:53.920] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon." Now for those of you who've been watching past episodes, you'll know that this episode is all about The Creative Tinker. So The Creative Tinker is your company Taylor.
[00:01:07.480] - Taylor
It is indeed.
[00:01:08.320] - Gordon
So we are going to spend our episode talking about that. So let's start right at the beginning. Why did you start The Creative Tinker?
[00:01:18.910] - Taylor
So four, about four years ago or so, I started helping you, in fact, and a couple of your friends and clients who, with you know, ad hoc web design and stuff like that, either doing data entry or, you know, just doing simple design and things like that. And I really enjoyed it. I used to do it just to pass the time in between playing video games and stuff. And then when I got to college, I kind of needed a job and, you know, I didn't want to do the standard job that's just kind of, you know, the boring either working in a restaurant or working in retail. And luckily enough, at the time, one of your good friends Nick needed some help, and he put out on Facebook saying, you know, I'm looking for someone to help me with web design. So I kind of, you put a good word in for me, and we had a meeting and yeah, I started working for him during college. And I got really well paid for that, you know, at college at the time, you know, compared to my friends, I was earning you know, a lot more than what they were earning and I was enjoying it a lot more. I used to fit it in between kind of college. So if I was only at college in the afternoon, I'd go to the office in the morning and then go on to college, or vice versa; come, go to the office after college if I finished kind of lunch time-ish. And I really enjoyed that, and then when I finished college, I was a bit unsure what to do because some people go travelling, some people just go straight to uni. And I wasn't sure what to do because I just...
[00:02:59.740] - Gordon
You were thinking about going travelling for a year if I remember rightly.
[00:03:01.360] - Taylor
Yeah. I was going to go travelling, but in the end I decided that instead of going to university, I didn't really like the idea of getting into debt because I don't really like the thought of it at all, I try and pay people back as soon as possible really.
[00:03:15.490] - Gordon
Sounds just like me. You got that from me, I think.
[00:03:18.130] - Taylor
And it was either kind of maybe get a job doing web design or carry on working for Nick. But I kind of took the inspiration from you because you were self-employed, to kind of do it myself and, you know, have my own clients, which allowed me to have control of all my projects and do things the way I want to do them. So I decided to set up "The Creative Tinker" and that was kind of how it was born.
[00:03:43.030] - Gordon
So how did the name come about? The Creative Tinker.
[00:03:46.630] - Taylor
Well, one of my nicknames when I was younger, which I won't say because I don't want people to know, but it was linked to that. And kind of creative is the design kind of how I you know, how people express themselves. And then the second part was a, partly do with a nickname which I kind of adapted to kind of fit. And I think it works quite well. My little slogan that I have is "tinkering until it's right." Which I think's quite cool.
[00:04:18.080] - Gordon
So you started up your own business. You started to take some of my customers away. That's fine. It's not that he took them away, it's that he was doing things for them that I either didn't have the time for or he was better placed to do. But I mean, what is it you enjoy about the job? Why have you chosen to go into this line?
[00:04:46.300] - Taylor
I found that it, in terms of my lifestyle, it really helps because I have a chronic disease, basically, and because of that, some days I can wake up and I feel absolutely terrible.
[00:05:00.580] - Gordon
So just to make it clear, this is just something he can't, it's not curable, but it's something he has to live with. But it doesn't affect in any way what he does. It just means sometimes he wakes up and is a little bit tired that's all.
[00:05:13.070] - Taylor
Yeah. And so because I am self-employed, it allows me the flexibility and freedom to be able to sleep in longer, be able to, you know, stay at home if I...
[00:05:23.380] - Gordon
Recover, if you're not feeling great that day.
[00:05:25.540] - Taylor
Which has really helped because it means I can play to my strengths where if I am having a really good day I can, I'll work a bit later maybe and do more work while I'm feeling great, because I know that some days I may not want to do any work and so it kind of balances out, and it doesn't put the pressure on me to kind of feel bad for taking a sick day or per se, if I were to, you know, have to call into work.
[00:05:49.210] - Gordon
Which you would have to do if you were working for someone else.
[00:05:51.190] - Taylor
Yeah, definitely.
[00:05:51.730] - Gordon
Yeah.
[00:05:52.000] - Taylor
So that's one reason which...
[00:05:54.190] - Gordon
And you're still doing work for Nick as and when you have the time.
[00:05:57.140] - Taylor
Yeah, so I still work for him like on a contract basis.
[00:06:00.890] - Gordon
So he'll come to you with, he's like a customer now, he'll come to you with various jobs and he'll say, "can you do this?" And you go, "yeah, yeah I'll fit that in for you." You schedule it into your diary, and then get it done.
[00:06:12.610] - Taylor
And the other thing is I really enjoy kind of the design and creative aspect of it, kind of the building of it. And then I also like the development, if it's a more complex website that requires me to either learn or find something out or try and problem-solve or figure something out. I quite like that as well because it, you know, it's something different and I really like logical puzzles and thinking like that. So that gives me the kind of freedom to do that.
[00:06:44.410] - Gordon
And there's a great sense of achievement when you get a brief from a customer who says, "this is what I want to achieve," and then you deliver it and you wait for them to come back to you. And most of the time they go, "that is brilliant! That's just what I wanted." And it's a really nice feeling to get that coming back to you. As an entertainer myself, the way that I know when I'm entertaining, if people are enjoying what I do is that they clap, they laugh and they enjoy it. You don't get that with many other jobs. So it's nice when you have a creative job like this where you can get praise and feedback from customers which are normally completely different to any other job that you would expect. You don't go into a restaurant and stand up and applaud the chef for example. Well it does happen, but very, very rarely. But you do get lots of people coming back and being over-enthusiastic about how happy they are with the work you've done.
[00:07:46.030] - Taylor
Yeah, definitely.
[00:07:46.960] - Gordon
So with that in mind, where do you actually get most of your customers from at the moment?
[00:07:51.160] - Taylor
I would say probably 80% of my work at the moment comes from my networking group, so BNI. And that has been an absolute, you know, really, really helpful tool.
[00:08:02.140] - Gordon
So for those who don't know what BNI is, do you want to just explain it very briefly?
[00:08:05.500] - Taylor
BNI is, stands for Business Networking something. And it basically is a referral marketing organization based on your, you each have your own chapter, which is a group, in simple terms, and there are a limited, there's one profession per chapter. So you can only have one web designer, you can only have one electrician, one plumber in that, in your chapter. And what it is based on, it's based on the idea of 'givers gain,' which is if I were to give you business, then you'll want to give me business in return. So you kind of, it was set up by Ivan Meisner who, he had just been made redundant of his job actually, when he set it up and he didn't want to go out and cold call, he hated the idea of it. And so he got all of his friends together...
[00:08:57.970] - Gordon
Don't we all.
[00:08:58.510] - Taylor
And said kind of, "if I go out looking for business for you, will you do the same in return for me?" So he went and told these twenty people in the room saying, "I do this, this, this and this. If you hear people say, 'Oh, I need a plumber,' you go, 'Oh, I know a plumber,'" and you refer them. And that's kind of how it works. And it...
[00:09:17.650] - Gordon
And these normally take the form of a breakfast meeting don't they? But...
[00:09:21.340] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:09:21.790] - Gordon
Not currently. So this is once a week, right?
[00:09:23.980] - Taylor
Yes. So we meet once a week. Normally it's in person at the location that the chapter decides, and you get a breakfast, which is one of my favourite parts, but you get to network with other people. There are actually a couple of chapters that meet in the evening, there was one called Dusk after Dawn, which they met in the evening. So for people that either couldn't make the early mornings because of their job or just preferred it, they have that, they had that as well.
[00:09:55.950] - Gordon
And you get lots of referrals and work through them.
[00:09:58.530] - Taylor
Yeah, so a lot of my work comes from that because of kind of my age, and things like that. And I'm more lower end of the kind of market, I would say, for web design in terms of compared to the big agencies.
[00:10:14.190] - Gordon
Just because you're new to it.
[00:10:15.240] - Taylor
Yeah. A lot, I'm quite appealing to a lot of people. And so a lot of people have come to me and say, "look, Taylor, can you do my website?" and stuff, because 1. I'm affordable, and 2. I like to think I'm quite a friendly face to talk to and, you know, I know what I'm talking about, and people kind of trust that.
[00:10:33.780] - Gordon
And for those of you who may want to look into BNI as a networking, one of the things that is quite interesting with the way BNI works, is that you have to commit if you become a member, you have to commit to go to BNI meetings every single week. You can't wake up in the morning and go, "oh, do you know what? I just don't fancy it today." You have to go. And if for whatever reason you're unable to go...
[00:10:59.160] - Taylor
You have to find a sub. So you can basically, you put out a request in, well for us we put a request in our region, and say, "I'm looking for a sub." And then someone from one of the other chapters can then, if they're not locked out, of course, can say, "yes, I'd like to attend" and they will then...
[00:11:16.620] - Gordon
Or somebody who's nothing to do with BNI.
[00:11:19.260] - Taylor
Yeah. And they will attend on your behalf and they will kind of stand up and give your pitch. However, they also get the opportunity to give...
[00:11:27.870] - Gordon
Their pitch, not your pitch.
[00:11:29.220] - Taylor
No, they stand up and they give my pitch.
[00:11:31.650] - Gordon
OK.
[00:11:32.130] - Taylor
Because I can't be in the room, so they're substituting for me. So they'll stand up and go, "hi, I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker."
[00:11:37.290] - Gordon
OK.
[00:11:37.740] - Taylor
But then they also get the opportunity to have their pitch and tell people about what they're doing. So that's why it's appealing for people because you're substituting for someone, so you're not, they're not losing out on their space that they've paid for, but they also get the chance to share and what they do.
[00:11:54.180] - Gordon
Well, that's interesting because I was, I've been to many BNI meetings, but a long, long time ago, and that's very different. So let's talk about the work you do. One of the questions that you asked me last week is what I specialize in. So I'm going to ask the same back to you. What do you specialize in, as in The Creative Tinker?
[00:12:13.110] - Taylor
I mostly specialize in website design. So yours is more, I would say, more graphic design based in terms of kind of what you what most of your work entails.
[00:12:24.570] - Gordon
Yeah, mine started as website design, but I've kept a lot of the customers that I started with and they already have their website and everything done. So I've now moving on to do other work for them, which involves graphic design.
[00:12:37.950] - Taylor
So most of my work is website design, however, I can do graphic design as well, which is either normally like logos and things, or I will create stuff for websites. And I quite enjoy brochure sites or, which are kind of static sites in a way, where it kind of showcases people's services. So a lot of trades will have a 'home' page, 'about' page, a 'service' page, and then kind of 'portfolio' and 'contact.'
[00:13:04.420] - Gordon
So a website that doesn't change a great deal.
[00:13:06.600] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:13:07.680] - Gordon
Just like if you printed a brochure, you print a ton of them because you know your services aren't going to change a lot, and you're giving these out to people, you know that that's going to be the same for the length of the time that you've got those brochures.
[00:13:20.370] - Taylor
So that's quite a common website I do. I also do e-commerce sites. So I have a couple of clients who are artists, which I've done websites for, so they want to showcase and sell their work. I quite enjoy doing those. And then recently I've started taking on more complex websites. So at the moment I'm in the process of doing a job listing website for recruitment and health care professionals. And it's really interesting because I didn't have any understanding or, not understanding, I had no prior knowledge of creating...
[00:13:55.530] - Gordon
Exactly how you were going to do it.
[00:13:56.850] - Taylor
Yeah, I knew kind of the logistical, as in like, this is what I needed to do. I need to go and like look and research, I knew the areas I need to go. But I'd never actually done it. And it was really interesting, because it gave me a challenge and something to do. And then, you know, now we're in the late, last late stages of the project and it's you know, the client's come back and gone, you know, "it looks absolutely amazing, I'm loving the way it looks."
[00:14:20.520] - Gordon
And the way it works, which is more important because this is a complex website.
[00:14:24.540] - Taylor
To me that's really nice to hear, because before I had no, you know, I'd never done this before. So it was kind of a new territory for me. And the fact that they like it is, you know, and the functionality of it, is really good because...
[00:14:37.650] - Gordon
And this is great because it means that you can now take this knowledge and apply it to future jobs that come in and build upon it and become someone to go to. If you've got a really complex site, go to Taylor because he knows what he's doing, he's got the experience for it now.
[00:14:55.350] - Taylor
Yeah. And I think that even though I've got the understanding of the job listing and how to do that, it's given me the understanding to do different tasks and more advanced websites, even if they're not job listing per se, I now have a better understanding of logical, my logical skills. And also working with PHP and things like that, I have a better understanding because I needed to learn that.
[00:15:21.190] - Gordon
Which is the programming language that a lot of websites are built on, just for those who don't know what PHP stands for. So let's look to the future then. Where do you see The Creative Tinker as a company in the future? You know, let's go, so 5, 10 years time.
[00:15:39.630] - Taylor
It's a really, I've been asked this a few times. I have kind of one to one meetings with BNI members or, you know, other people. And I get asked this question. They go, "where do you see yourself? Where would you, where do you want to be?" And it's a really difficult question because, you know, obviously every business wants to grow and become bigger and earn more money. But for me, I don't want to, I don't like the idea of losing control. And so, you know, giving the creative freedom to somebody else, I think would lose the Creative Tinker 'touch,' because all the designs come from me, all my work is done by me. And so it's a real difficult because as much as I want to grow and become bigger and stuff like that, I don't want to lose control of the...
[00:16:28.380] - Gordon
Quality.
[00:16:28.830] - Taylor
The quality, yeah. Because, you know, obviously as much as you can screen in recruitment, there's still that kind of, you handing off to someone and giving them the control, and I don't like the idea of losing control. So that's been the biggest issue with me in terms of being able to grow. And it's, it will have to come down to whether or not I either get more work in, because I've been really busy. And, you know, you know, if I keep getting more work at the rate I am, I probably might need to b ring someone in because I don't have enough time.
[00:17:04.530] - Gordon
To service them all.
[00:17:04.920] - Taylor
Yeah, because I've only got a limited number of hours in a day. And even though I may be doing long hours, it's still not enough to be able to meet the services in the required time. Most projects don't have a deadline, which is nice. However, you know, you don't want to be waiting four months from when you started.
[00:17:26.830] - Gordon
No, when someone wants a website done, they want it done quickly so they can start.
[00:17:30.120] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:17:30.930] - Gordon
Getting the benefit of it.
[00:17:32.370] - Taylor
So it's trying to find that trade off and find, see if I can find someone that I'm happy that I can trust to pass work to and say, you know, "would you be able to help me?" But at the same time not losing that control.
[00:17:45.960] - Gordon
Yeah it's, it is a difficult thing. And I think if you do find the right person, the important bit is to get the process right. So the process being that you make it very clear what's required from them at every stage and have milestones where you, as soon as you hit them, there's a review and so that you can very quickly pick up on anything that might be going in the wrong direction right at the beginning before it gets too far. And I think that's a big part of growing your business. I've chosen not to grow my business personally because I do so many different things. They, they're all filling my time like entertainment, and the design side of it. I'm the only person who can actually do both of those together. So if I got someone else in and then I end up getting a magic job or a performance job, I'd need to go out and leave it with someone else, and that may not necessarily be the right thing for me to do, but it is difficult. I understand your problem there.
[00:18:57.540] - Taylor
The other issue is being able to find someone to be able to hire, especially right now is, being able to find someone that obviously I wouldn't want to hire an adult who's older than me because they're going to obviously cost more, and I probably wouldn't be able to afford...
[00:19:13.740] - Gordon
Well, only if they have the experience.
[00:19:14.970] - Taylor
Yeah, but a lot more people as you're older that have the experience will cost more. Whereas if you're trying to find someone with the same skillset that I have at my age, would be a lot harder of a task.
[00:19:28.410] - Gordon
Yes, you're right in the middle of a tricky sort of knife's edge, really, as to which way to go.
[00:19:34.260] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:19:34.800] - Gordon
So the answer is you don't really know at the moment.
[00:19:37.320] - Taylor
No.
[00:19:37.890] - Gordon
Ok, well as I'm sure you know, it's quite important to make a decision at some point soon, because if you know where you're going, the reason they ask these questions, because if you know where you're going, pretty much every question that you might ask yourself can be answered very simply by, "where are we heading? How will this help me get there?"
[00:20:00.680] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:20:01.400] - Gordon
So, yeah, I mean, maybe we'll come back to this and talk about it in a future episode and see if you've got any clearer idea of where you might be going.
[00:20:12.020] - Taylor
At the moment, I'm just enjoying building websites, you know.
[00:20:16.040] - Gordon
And making a living.
[00:20:17.090] - Taylor
I have so much passion for building websites and I just enjoy it, that if I could do it for free, I would, but obviously, because I need to make money.
[00:20:26.270] - Gordon
Don't take that as a way to come in and offer him silly money because he won't take it, he's too busy.
[00:20:32.720] - Taylor
No. But if money didn't exist, I mean, in terms of you didn't need money to survive and things like that, then I would be happy to do it because I enjoy it that much. And it's, you know, I just enjoy it.
[00:20:44.540] - Gordon
So if people have listened to this, or watched this, and thought, yeah, d'you know what, I want to get in touch and find out a bit more about what The Creative Tinker can do for them, how do they get in touch with you?
[00:20:56.870] - Taylor
You can visit my website, which is thecreativetinker.com, or you can get in touch by email or phone, which would both be on my website as well so.
[00:21:06.980] - Gordon
And the website has changed recently, but we'll get into that in a future episode.
[00:21:11.540] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:21:12.530] - Gordon
So I think that's pretty much everything we need to talk about for The Creative Tinker. Have you got anything else you want to answer?
[00:21:19.460] - Taylor
No, I think that's everything from me.
[00:21:20.930] - Gordon
So as always, thank you so much for watching. If you'd like to comment or get in contact with us about anything that we've said during this vidcast or podcast, we can be found on Facebook and YouTube, which is where we stream live at 1pm every Friday. We also have the website.
[00:21:42.380] - Taylor
Yeah, thisweekwith.co.uk.
[00:21:45.410] - Gordon
And all of our episodes are on that as well. You can get in contact with us individually on there. And I think that's it, isn't it?
[00:21:53.450] - Taylor
Yeah, I think that's everything.
[00:21:54.500] - Gordon
Thank you for joining us. My name is Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:21:57.740] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:22:00.050] - Gordon
We'll see you next week. Goodbye.
[00:22:02.240] - Taylor
Bye.
