February 14. Tuesday Night.

Hi Journey.

No lunch with Eddie. Instead I got out from underneath two huge proofing projects Joni laid on my desk yesterday by working straight through lunch right up until Eddie picked me up for dinner at Big Mike's.

It's the newsletter. She's conned one of Brady's web-designer friends into cooking up a new website for our shop on the cheap. There are a few perks to having your office manager go out with your computer repairman, after all, Journey.

They are talking about all kinds of really cool ideas for our website. A place where we can upload photos and a little “home-bio” of our latest completed projects (along with a few well-placed client testimonials, of course, J), a tool where clients can log-in to look at some of our floor plans on-line, all kinds of neat ideas.

No, Journey, I'm not going to post the floor-plans or any of our ideas on-line prior to showing them to the clients. No way. We need that personal, one-on-one touch to make double-sure a client understands the direction we are trying to take with her home. But, right now all our sketches and swatches and photos are isolated inside a little portfolio we leave with them. There's no way she can browse it at work, or look through it with her friends, unless she actually lugs it along with her.

But, if we supply her with her own space on our website, with her private password, then she can dream over the ideas during lunchtime or even email the password and log-in over to her friends or family and they can give her their two-cents worth on what she's considering for her home's new look.

OK, I know that might be a two-edged sword, but right now the option isn't even there. With our new enhanced website we could at least offer our clients the opportunity to choose whether or not they let their friends see their progress.

Plus it's one more way to wedge us away from the competition.

I was going to call a Bloom Team meeting today, Journey, but since it is Valentine's Day I just thought hey, let's keep things light and not get into any big arguments or discussions. But we do need one. Between the Holiday and our January focus on Tea-times and then my trip out West we've really only generated one or two decent ideas all year—and we're six weeks into it already.

Joni wrote two newsletters. Both were well-done, both analytical. Each was a bit heavy on the money-side; she plays the “how much more your home will be worth after you remodel” card too much. Maybe one in ten of my clients would list that among their top reasons for re-working a room.

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