Danielle Holmes from Black Nova Designs - Summer Q&A 2021

Let's continue to celebrate the variety of business owners we have in our region and beyond. Today we're talking to Danielle Holmes who is the

sales and marketing manager at Black Nova Designs which is a Calne-based IT firm specialising in website design and hosting, cyber security, Wi-Fi troubleshooting and installation, CCTV installation and maintenance and IT hardware repair.

JUNE is the first month of summer – what will you be doing this summer in your business? 

We’re working hard to generate leads for the summer ahead, particularly the school holidays. When people are away on annual leave or more focused on childcare, we can see the website hosting and design enquiries drop off a little bit, but this year we’re hoping to change that. 

It goes without saying that it’s easier to allocate work to staff and keep customers happy if the number of leads stays stable throughout the year. 

What are your personal plans for summer activities?

I'm hoping to enjoy lots of time outside with the kids and some long rides with my horse in the Wiltshire countryside. 

I will also be enjoying meeting lots of friends and people in my business network for lunches and dinners now that the world is starting to open up - I can’t wait! 

Does June hold any particular significance for you or your business?

This month marks exactly a year since we managed something I thought would be impossible in March 2020 when the lockdown hit! 

We hired two new members of staff – Richard and Steve - in June 2020 thanks to a lot of hard work driving amazing growth for Black Nova Designs. 

I’m so proud of all our staff for their dedication and customer service during all the Covid-19 uncertainty.

June is National Smile Month. With that in mind, what things in your business make you smile?

Simplifying IT for our customers so that they are more confident in using technology to make their business run more smoothly and grow year on year. 

When the team brings a client’s dream website to life, and it really blows them away. It’s just such a great moment and brilliant seeing people’s business dreams come to life.  

Hiring more people and growing our team as the business gets bigger and better! 

Are there any things in business generally which make you ‘less smiley’?

People who get cross with me and the other staff here because they are frustrated with IT issues and their emotions boil over.

Technology is wonderful when it works, less so when it doesn’t but please remember we are only here to help you. 

June is often associated in nature with growth and abundance – what are your plans for growth this year? 

We’re hoping to grow awareness of the anti-virus packages we sell as cyber security is a real threat to businesses in 2021. 

With many staff working remotely and more businesses moving to online selling, hackers and other criminals are working hard to take advantage. So many business owners don’t act until it’s too late, so my job is to spread the word about taking proactive steps to stop anything bad happening in the first place! 

As we hit this mid point in 2021 and we’re still coming out of the pandemic – which one business has really supported or helped you over the last quarter? 

Our director Kyle is a qualified WiFi Ubiquiti optimisation specialist and it’s fantastic to have the association with Ubiquiti. Their Wi-Fi and networking solutions are the best on the market with high performance and reliability. 

Working with their kit means we can help people get better Wi-Fi throughout their home or business - even large warehouses, farms and conference facilities!

Have you got any events planned for the coming months which you’d like to mention?

We don’t have any of our own events planned for the next few months, however given that the whole team are big fans of sport (in particular equestrian sport!) we’re really looking forward to the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics kicking off!

Have you got any summer services or special offers you’d like to mention? 

We’re really promoting the benefits of our website hosting service this month! I love this example of why proper web hosting is so important: You have just milliseconds in which someone decides whether to stay on your website or click off and go to the next search result. That’s why it’s so important that your homepage loads quickly to display the images, videos and words which tell that visitor what you do and why you’re amazing at it. If it doesn’t load, they might just end up interested in your nearest competitor instead. Now that really isn’t helpful for your business growth goals…

Our servers run on super-fast SSD hard drives which help to optimise the performance of the websites we host. Your website will be able to work just as hard as you do to share all the information you need and help people buy from you. Just another reason why our hosting services are so popular!

And finally:

The ongoing Covid-19 uncertainty even as we race towards July 19 and (hopefully!) more freedom shows how important it is for businesses to have an online presence. 

It means you can still reach customers and generate leads even if our lives are restricted again in the future, and you’ll be able to cater for those who have embraced life online. 

If you would like to chat to us about web hosting and design services, drop us a line! 

For more information visit https://www.blacknovadesigns.co.uk/