Smart Virtual Tours

As I re-launch my business with new branding, website, the works, come with me on my journey and lets discover a few things together.

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Woohoo, another happy client!

If ever you wanted to know what's the best bit about my job it's this, getting feedback from my clients. Hardly ever is it less that great but we aren't usually good at taking the time to give praise are we, so when a client does, I'm going to highlight it.

Armadale Academy, Scotland

I visited this school back in December through E4Education who are building a new website for them. I spent 2 days on site and then have designed a custom virtual tour that I'm really pleased with, and from this email so are they...

Adrian   Epic!  Thanks for the work that you have done.  I’ve been really impressed with your professionalism and flexibility to our needs.  The advice you have given and the quality of work has been superb.  I am happy for you to share it on your website and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend you to other schools or clients.

Now I can't show the photos due to permission but here's the tour in question.

http://www.smartvirtualtours.com/subdomains/armadale/

I'd love to hear what you think?

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Front & Centre gets the hits!

Well done to Harbour Hotels who have recently launched their new virtual tours and are seeing excellent click-throughs to the tour.

Why?

Because they've placed the tour link front and centre, and so they should, it's gorgeous!

Time and again I visit a website after it's just launched it's virtual tour and I can't find it! They get buried deep into the sites and not surprisingly get few hits. Alternatively Harbour Hotels have done a beautiful job of their home page and this month across the 3 hotels we've created tours of, they've received over 60,000 views of their tours!

Take a lesson from these guys, if you are going to invest in a virtual tour, and you should, then be sure to give it prominence if you want to really use it and  see the return we know they can give.

Well done Will, I wish you every success with the hotels.

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How long since my last post!?!

Oh dear, I had to blow the dust off this blog just now as I realise it's been months since I last posted an article on here.

Well I just thought I'd update you on a new client I had the privilege of working with a few months back.

Eterniti Caravans are in my opinion the most innovative and forward thinking caravan manufacturer in the UK. I don't say that to suck up to them, but after being at the NEC's Caravan show there really is nothing like them! 

When Neil, the Commercial Director approached me about creating virtual tours through their range I was delighted, as I'd worked with him at Fleetwood some years before. I visited their factory in Widnes for the shoot and was blown away by the space they had created in these caravans. It was one of those moment when you think 'why has no-one thought of this before?'

In the beginning...

Phil Daniels - Managing Director explained that he loved caravaning but his wife disliked the lack of space. He knew of the American models with their expanding sides and imported a model for their own use. They were so impressed and had such great comments that Phil, like any successful entrepreneur, decided to create his own line of caravans and 'Eterniti Caravans' was born.

Well I have loved being welcomed into the Eterniti family and that's exactly how it has felt working with them. Phil and Neil are two of the nicest businessmen I've ever worked with and I look forward to continuing the relationship as their name and reputation grows into what I'm convinced will be a true market leader. Watch this space!

See them on SmartVirtualTours website  - here

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Macbook Pro Retina - Optical Drive Workaround

I recently bought myself the new Mac Book Pro with retina display and absolutely love it! The new screen is so sharp and even working on text documents is more of a pleasure.

The main drawback I found though when trying to set up my software is the lack of an optical drive. Clearly this was explained to me in the store and I figured it wouldn't be that big a deal actually, however now I'm sitting here with an Aperture install disk and don't know what to do. I've just looked on Amazon at external drives and to be honest, I could get one for under £20 so it's no big deal but I wanted to double check there wasn't another way to work around it and guess what?

There is a workaround!

Well assuming you have another PC or Mac anyway. For me I have a big ol' Mac Pro and so for those of you with an iMac or Mac Pro here's the workaround.

Be sure both computers are on the same local network.

On the Mac with the optical drive, choose System Preferences from the Apple () menu.

Choose Sharing from the View menu.

Enable the checkbox for DVD or CD Sharing.

If you want to be asked for permission before others can use the optical drive on the computer, enable the "Ask me before allowing others to use my DVD drive" checkbox.

After you've enabled DVD or CD Sharing, insert the disc that you want to share.

Go to your Mac that does not have an optical drive and open a Finder window.

Select Remote Disc in the DEVICES sidebar list. You should see the computer that has DVD or CD Sharing enabled.

Double-click the computer's icon and click Connect. If the computer that is sharing its optical drive has "Ask me before allowing others to use my DVD drive" enabled, click "Ask to use."

On the computer sharing its optical drive, acknowledge the request by clicking Accept.

From this point on you can see the drive from your new MBP and load your software.

I am literally just loading Aperture now while writing this and all is good!

I hope this is a help to someone, if you've not seen what I do over here please take a look at my virtual tours while you're passing by.

The above information was found at the apple support site and you can see more information including screen shots here.

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30% of your website hits are coming from mobile devices!

Do you know how well your website looks on an iPad?

I recently looked at my Google Analytics stats  and was surprised to see that almost 30% of the visits were done from mobile devices! Then I remembered back to an interview I heard on a podcast 6 months ago when a researcher was predicting that by the end of 2013 50% of traffic would come through mobile devices and I think he could be right. That's astounding to think that a few years ago it was ridiculous to consider web browsing on your phone.

What does this mean for me? Well sadly it's very likely that your website will look poor on such a device unless it's been build with mobile viewing in mind. If someone visits your site and has to scroll left and right to view the whole page they're likely to be turned off and go elsewhere. That means you're losing business!

If you use virtual tours that are built in Flash then your potential customer is going to be hit with a big fat error message, not good!

What should I be doing? Well, if your company has a website you'd first better check how it looks on a phone and tablet. My stats go on to reveal that 80% of my mobile traffic was from an iOS device (iPad or iPhone) so I'd check it on them first. If you don't own an iPad I suggest you either pop round a friend's house who does or visit your local PC World or Apple Store and look at your site on their iPad. Try it in both landscape and portrait mode as it will change.

Having a website 'optimised' for tablets and phones doesn't just mean that it shrinks to fit the small screen but it wants to be laid out in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to the user, typically with a totally different layout including big buttons and text. 

These new technologies shouldn't just be tolerated but embraced. We for example have been creating our 360 virtual tours with iPads in mind as they are possibly the best way to view them. Thanks to the gyroscope functionality in the iPad you can hold your iPad in front of you and as you move it around the tour moves with it, as if you were looking through a portal to another scene. It's amazing, and rather than saying 'oh great, we've got to work out how to get our flash tours working on iPads' we've said 'wouldn't it be great to pioneer with this technology and embrace it'. My recommendation is to get yourself ready now for a day when your website is almost entirely viewed from mobile devices and impress your next customer by standing out against your competitors. Please feel free to visit my website www.smartvirtualtours.com and see how it can be done... and don't forget to take a look at one of my virtual tours from an iPad... awesome!

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Editing is far more pleasant with decent coffee!

Maybe I'm just behind the times but I saw this genius invention and just had to get one!

I love filtered coffee rather than instant but when I'm making it just for myself I can't be bothered to use the cafetiere but this little darling lets me make one just for myself!

I bought it from Amazon after seeing it here:

http://www.presents-for-dads.co.uk/smartcafe-cafetiere-hot-mug/

Just thought I'd spread the love and let you know what gets me through my day ;-)

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Is working from home so bad?

So, I just read about the CEO at Yahoo, Marissa Mayer enforcing a new rule that all 'remote workers' had to come on in. 

This report on All Things D claims the change in policy will impact several hundred employees, some of whom signed up based on this arrangement.

Now most of you will will work in an office anyway and possibly agree that this makes good sense but as a home worker it's made me question if I'm doing the best thing.

Only a few months back I did look into hiring office space in a local business centre so it's genuinely on my mind but here's where I'm at.

Working from Home

There are some pretty obvious reasons why this is beneficial:

No Commute - add up the time I save across the year, and even the most conservative estimate would be approximately 240 hours! And aren't we supposed to be reducing our nasty gasses?

Being able to sit in your boxer shorts all day

Being able to manage your own time - I get to work more flexible hours  and at the times I'm most productive. I was just listening to a podcast from Pat Flinn at Smart Passive Income earlier and he only works 4 hours a day, from 9pm - 1am! I don't think I'd get away with that but the point is I could if I wanted to.

I save money - For us as a small business, my wife and I both work from home and we are saving around £600/month by not hiring a serviced office.

On the flip side:

I get distracted - now I should have explained that although I 'work from home' I actually have a 200 sq ft office to myself (aka converted double garage) so it's not a desk at the foot of my bed but still, I go in to make a drink, raid the fridge and inevitably find something to take me off at a tangent.

School holidays - I hate them! Trying to work in an office with a football being kicked at your window is not cool. Plus my kids don't get that I'm trying to work and can't just go play. Which leads me onto:

Never switching off - This is the worst one for me and the biggest attraction of office working. In theory anyway I reckon I could leave work at the office and during that daily commute totally transform into the undistracted Dad my kids long for. 

  Working from an Office

Benefits:

Getting to talk to other business people - This is definitely something I miss, chatting with other guys about the common challenges we face over the water fountain.

Work at work, not at home - Having clear boundaries, although I'd probably still load work onto a laptop and sit in the lounge doing it.

Feeling more professional - Heading to an office, sitting in my big chair, I'd feel like I had a 'proper job'.

Downsides:

Actually, I reckon I've covered these above.

So in conclusion I think I'll be staying at home and am disapointed that such an influencial player has made a decision like this but I guess not everyone's self motivated and disciplined and there will always be those that spoil it for the rest. 

So anyway, there's my rant. I'd love to hear what others think, and if you work from home how you cope with the challenges I mention above.

Thanks for reading :-)

    (Photo Credit: Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images)

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My killer marketing strategy...

Ok, so things have been tight over the past month since walking away from a client who fed me nearly all my work and to say the least I've been rather anxious about where my work will come from now.

As I've mentioned in my previous post I'm no believer in Cold-Calling and so spent a week working on my Facebook page, inviting people to LinkedIn and generally trying to get out there so interested people can find me.

Has it worked? I can't really tell yet, all these things are long term softly, softly approaches and I'm sure in time they will.

So what's the big tip?

              - I put God back in his right place!

Now I know many of you will be rolling your eyes now and might not have made it to this line but I kid you not, since I started really praying about this AMAZING things are happening.

Thursday, I met an old customer at a trade show who used to love my virtual tours and now he's director at a new company wants to work together again.

Yesterday, I had a phone call out of the blue asking if I was interested in doing virtual tours of yachts. Hello! My web developer will tell you that 6 months ago I told him this is the exact market I want to work in and I've just quoted for the first yacht in the south of France.

One of my old clients and biggest evangelists called my a few hours after the last call and explained he wanted to give my details to a client of his who has a private collection of aeroplanes and would like cockpit tours like I did for the Battle of Britain. Now that doesn't happen every day!

A cynic will say these are all coincidences but as close friends will confirm I have been asking them to specifically pray over my business and I in turn made a decision yesterday morning to hand this problem over to God and trust him to help.

I wrote down these two verses yesterday before any of these calls came in:

"I will honour those who honour me, but I will dishonour those who ignore me" 1 Samuel 2:30

"Be strong and confident, all you who wait on the Lord!" Psalms 31:24

I am proving time and time again that God is not Dead, that he is not just there for the old ladies who fill the pews each Sunday, he is alive and interested in us. 

Mock away if you wish but I've got a Marketing Agent that will blow all others away and I'm sticking to his strategy for my business ;-) 

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Cold Calling - is it dead?

Ok, I'm coming at this as a very reluctant salesman so I'm hoping the answer is yes!

As a small business owner there is a constant need to reach new customers and demonstrate my Virtual Tours. When I visit trade shows and demonstrate my work on an iPad I always get a great response but phoning someone who doesn't know me and trying to convince them about a product they haven't yet seen is a whole different game, and one which I dread.

I started this morning by visiting a podcast which I've come to love, the Advanced Selling Podcast - http://www.caskeyone.com/ . Their series aimed at accidental salespeople is spot on for me and the first video I watched - Cold Calling In a Modern World confirmed that cold calling as we know it IS DEAD, or should be in the steriotypical way we've seen it done.

Pheww! I don't have to put on my smile and get on the phone after all!

So how are you supposed to get new business?

I'm no expert but I totally resonate with the idea of becoming an expert within your field, posting as much 'good quality' information and content as possible and education people about the service / product you provide.

For me, I'm off to write a case study on a recent College virtual tour I created over a year and hope that will be of interest to other Colleges rather than a sales message. I'll simply inform them of what's working for their competitors and introduce myself as a provider of such a product.

Rachael is also as I write getting busy on our Facebook page and I'll be getting to grips with LinkedIn too.

Nobody like receiving cold calls anyway!

You only have to stop and think how unsuccessful sales people are at getting through to you and how frustrated they make you when they 'butt in' to your busy day.

If I want something I go looking for it on Google and that to me is the challenge, being visible to the companies searching for my virtual tours.

Having said all that there are plenty of YouTube videos still out there with killer cold calling tips so are they out of touch or is there still a pulse in this marketing technique?

I'd be interested to hear what you think to this by commenting below.

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Is there a better WYSIWYG editor for Tumblr?

Well this has turned into quite a quest for me and I've just realised I've wasted an hour of unfruitful time so I'll stop here.

I have adopted tumblr as my blog platform and been advised that running it along side my website could be more beneficial than building it onto my site, we'll have to see. 

The thing I struggle with is the limited formatting functionality and wondered if I was missing something. Several google searches later for 'WYSIWYG editor for tumblr' and similar phrases I have come to the conclusion that there isn't anything. 

I should explain that WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get and is the term for an editor like this one (image below) in Tumblr that allows you to see how the post will look and edit it without typing html code like <b>..</b> to block your headings.

So, am I right, is this all I get or have people found plug-ins that can improve my posting experience?

I'd love to hear from you.

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High Level Virtual Tours - Offer your visitors a totally new perspective

We're always looking at different, better ways to do what we do and these High Level Virtual Tours are one thing that sets us apart from many of our competitors.

This video demonstrates the unique view these high level tours offer. It's not for everyone but if you have a large area to cover, getting higher can be a real benefit to you. With our 8m tripod we can achieve great aerial shots. All the examples used in this video can be found here: http://pioneer.smartvirtualtours.com http://truckfest.smartvirtualtours.com If you have any questions please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page, email us, or better still leave a comment below.

Thanks for watching.

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Custom Navigation brings your Virtual Tour to life

80% of the virtual tours you see on-line don't have any corporate branding or navigation to help you browse through the scenes but we feel this is a must-have for anyone serious about promoting themselves on-line.

This video goes through a selection of our virtual tours and demonstrates the different designs we have come up with for customers.

Some of the tours are branded 'Optical FX' as this was our previous trading name, don't panic, I haven't stolen a competitors work!

Here are all the virtual tours I run through in the video so you can check them out for yourself.

http://coop.smartvirtualtours.com http://homeseeker.smartvirtualtours.com/graceland http://kingsgate.smartvirtualtours.com http://peterboroughhospital.smartvirtualtours.com/emergency http://truckfest.smartvirtualtours.com http://kimbolton.smartvirtualtours.com http://maternity.smartvirtualtours.com http://tresham.smartvirtualtours.com/corby

If you have any questions please check out our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page , send us an email or better still leave a comment below.

Thanks, Adrian.

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Audio hotspots can now be built into your virtual tour

Not everything can be captured by a standard Virtual Tour so we offer the option to add information through hotspots.

In this video I demonstrates how 'audio hotspots' can be used within your virtual tour to offer additional information to the user.

The example we show is the virtual tour of Peterborough Hospital's Maternity Unit and you can see it live by clicking the link on their name above.

The audio itself can either be recorded by your self or the better option may be to agree a script with us and have a professional read it for you.

If you have any questions please check out our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page , send us an email or leave a comment below.

Thank you.

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Adding a voice-over commentary to your virtual tour

As your virtual tour loads a pre recorded script is read to the user explaining what isn't obvious from the tour itself.

Why would I need it?

As I mention in the video you wouldn't be very impressed with an estate agent who opened the door to a property, stood you in the living room and never said a word, or maybe you would! Anyway, my point is that there is often more information you could be passing on to your visitors than is obvious from the image itself. 

This video shows gives more information on voice over commentaries and demonstrates how useful they can be in your tour.

The example shown here is Peterborough Maternity Unit but others can be found at A.Bells and MKTWO.

If you have any questions please check out our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page , send us an email or leave a comment below.

My experience is that voice-overs can be a bit like marmite, so do you love it or hate it?

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HDR virtual tours - what do they mean?

HDR (high dynamic range) is one of those mysteries around photography that seems to separate the would be 'serious photographers' from the rest.

Now if you are looking for some seriously heavy bedtime reading feel free to google the term but there's a very easy way to explain what it's refering to and I cover that in this video.

To any prospective customers, you don't need to worry about whether we will use it for your tour or not, you just need to trust that we use it if we believe it will add to your scene and don't if we don't.

If you have any questions please check out our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page , send me an email or leave a comment below.

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Let people share your virtual tour with built in 'share buttons'

Share buttons are on every website now (oops, except for ours!) and they can be very powerful but if someone wants to share your amazing new virtual tour they want to link straight into it, and we're one of the fist virtual tour providers to offer that!

This video shows social media 'share buttons' in action. The are a great addition to your virtual tour and as I explain, are a powerful way to market yourself through social media channels. I show you what the interface is like and what the pop-up pages are like that your customer would see as they post to their friends.

The example we show is London Management Centre's virtual tour and you can see it live by clicking their name above.

If you have any questions please check out our 'Frequently Asked Questions' page , send me an email or leave a comment below.

Thanks, Adrian.

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God's not Dead!

It's a strange title for a blog post I know but if you give me a few minutes I'll tell you how I came to this.

I've had a pretty turbulent few days and ended up walking away from a customer yesterday who fed me about 80% of my work! Yes, I said 80%.

Now I know some of you will be saying 'and that's why you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket' and I know that but it's hard not to accept work that literally is handed to you on a plate (or in an email). I don't intend to go into details but I knew it was my time to move on.

Then reality kicked in and I had an afternoon of panic, wondering whatever I'll do now!

So where does God fit into all this I hear you say, well I try to read my bible daily, or at least get a verse for the day and while I was sitting having my little pity party yesterday afternoon my wife text me the verse I had read that morning

'Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34

God knew what was coming before I did and not only gave me a verse but prompted my wife to remind me that I shouldn't worry about the future.

Today I wake and find my verse for the day (on my free Bible app) is

'Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning'. Psalm 30:5b

I then start thinking as I'm out walking my dog this morning that I have heard those lyrics in a song but can't for the life of me think where.

As I get to my office and before getting stuck into work I decide to read a little more from one of my devotional plans in the bible app 'Newsboys-The overflow Devo', this day's thought is based around their song 'Your love never fails' and what's the line from the song they focus on? 'Sometimes there's pain in the night but joy comes in the morning'! It was the song I had heard but couldn't remember, honestly!

Check out the song on YouTube

Now if you're a non-believer you'll think I'm a fruitcake and see this as a whole load of coincidences but for me it gives me huge confidence that God's not dead, he's active in my life and he's not only got my back but he's got a plan ahead for both our family and  business.

So I'm not going to panic about the future but I genuinely feel like this is day 1 of a new and exciting journey so watch this space and let me know if this was a help and encouragement to you... and go listen to that song ;-)