Paul Woodhouse: Small Business Blog Interview

We managed to feature two blogs by the same author recently, and he was kind enough to reply to my questions. Paul Woodhouse writes the blog for both The Tinbasher and The Tap Room which were featured on May 12 and May 16.

Pajama Market: How have these blogs impacted your companies?

Paul Woodhouse: The Tinbasher accounts for between 30-40% of Butler Sheetmetal turnover and is responsible for 99% of new business. BSM also saw its highest turnover last year, but that has already been equaled in the first six months of this year. We've also been featured in the print and online editions of The Guardian whilst I've been interviewed by BBC radio regarding The Tap Room, which is still in its infancy to be honest.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

PW: Butler Sheetmetal isn't the type of company with a huge client base. If anything we already had/have decent relationships with the vast majority of them. That's just the nature of the type of business it is. The pub is very different as the people I'm talking about I see regularly and other locals offer me snippets and pics for use on the blog. In that respect the feedback can be very immediate and in-your-face. And that can be slightly intimidating. Overall, though, the response has been great.

PJ: What types of things about your work day/pub day inspire you to write posts on your blogs?

PW: The Tap Room is rather easy to write as pubs do tend to be quite entertaining places on the whole. I tend to try and do the same with BSM although it isn't quite as rife with entertaining tales on the whole. However, I try my best to inject a bit of humor into proceedings and try to look at the quirkier side of sheet metal - and believe me, there is such a thing. I'll honestly write about anything I find remotely funny.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blogs so far?

PW: That a few people enjoy them and they've attracted MSM attention - although I think I'm still responsible for a quarter of all UK small business blogs ;-). I'm also surprised by the impact The Tinbasher has had on our web presence overall and, in turn, the success of the business as a whole.

PJ: What blogging program(s) do you use for the blogs? Did you create these blogs yourself? How do you like the program(s)?

PW: I'm a bit of a wordpress junkie. I started out on blogger and typepad but soon found I couldn't do enough tinkering. I moved to wordpress in conjunction with a move to our own host which offered fantastico installation. I love locking myself into a darkened room underneath the hood spending a whole evening trying to get some lame plugin to work. I suppose I'm an intermediate wordpress user. I create my own blogs and can tweak templates to a point, but I can't create them from scratch or write my own php plugins. I'm strictly DIY.

Tags: Tap Room | paul woodhouse | lancashire | england | pub | english pub | tinbasher | sheetmetal | east lancashire