We spent our first night visiting at the opening party. Christian Giannelli snapped a picture of us with many of the individuals we work with for our state association sites. It was fun to see all of them!

From left to right, Beth Logan, Pat Detwiler of Florida association, Jeff Logan, Sara of New Mexico and Adobe Nido, Steven, Jeanna of Nebraska, Pat Fischbeck from Wisconsin Association and Speckled Hen Inn, and our Pat.

Steven, Jeff and Katie did a joint presentation on Beginning and Advanced Blogging, broken into two sessions over two days. The sessions were well attended, and we were able to share some of our favorite techniques on how innkeepers can make a blog successful.

We enjoyed the “night on the town” where we toured the BedandBreakfast.com offices while enjoying margaritas and cold Lone Star beer. There was a BBQ dinner and dancing at the spectacular Long Center, which was just across the river and had one heck of a view of the city! As Northwesterners, it was fun and refreshing to be out in the warm night air – compared to home where you can never go outside at night without your sweater.

We shot off to the famed 6th Street for some local culture after the dinner with Niles and Annie Deneen of Deneen Pottery, along with some of the PAII staff and David Hiler of Hiler Hospitality. We had a hilarious evening watching “live band karaoke”. David was even brave enough to go up onstage and for a couple songs. Way to go David!

Overall, it was a great trip and a wonderful show. We look forward to next year in Charleston South Carolina!

Our President Pat McCauley

“I love it. I love talking and checking in with clients on a regular basis like this. I get to hear about what is working for them and what is not, who they talk to the most in the office, who they feel like is most helpful. It keeps me more informed, and I also get to be their first resource for trying to solve a problem or direct an inquiry in the right direction. So, if I’m sitting at my desk and and not in a meeting when the phone rings, I will answer it at 90% of the time”.

Plus, it frees up the valuable time of our accountant, Beth Klaus. With keeping track of over 700 clients’ billing cycles, Beth needs all the time and space possible for her work.

So next time you call InsideOut, you will probably have the chance to talk with our fearless leader. How many web companies do you know answer their phone when you call, let alone the President herself? This is just one steps we have taken to make our business more personable. We want our clients to feel like they receive great customer service from every staff member.

“Call me and let me know how we’re doing”.

The British Columbia Bed and Breakfast Guild held their annual Conference and Trade Show last week on Vancouver Island. Pat McCauley and Katie Pate were there for day one, the trade show, and Jeff Logan took the second shift.

Pat and Katie enjoyed meeting the BC innkeepers – this was the first time InsideOut had attended their conference.  There were distinct differences in the Innkeepers that we met and many of those we work with here. Smaller, more residential-based inns seemed to be the typical style, versus large historic homes turned into lodging like so many bed and breakfasts in the states.

Jeff was very busy at this conference, presenting on three different marketing subjects and presenting the Guild with their new site design that InsideOut has created. The Guild knew our great reputation for Association designs, and were excited to work with us and our great designers and programmers. Getting British Columbia’s business was compliment for us. They are our Northern neighbors. I can see Victoria from my house! This is InsideOut’s first international association web site.

Over the next day and a half Jeff presented “Get Going with Google”, “Facebook Marketing” and “Blogging for Success”. These presentations were so well attended that 30 additional chairs were necessary to accommodate the attendees.

Jeff was excited to be in Nanaimo, a charming port city on the 90 minutes north of Victoria. He was hoping to have a “Nanaimo bar” while in the city, but everywhere he went to find one, they were always sold out. I guess they are even more popular in their hometown than down here!

Jeff arrived in Nanaimo on Tuesday night, quite late, with Jay Karen, the CEO/director of PAII. They had been at the Michigan Lake to Lake Conference over the weekend before heading to Britich Columbia. After their busy stint in Naniamo, Jay and Jeff traveled back to Sequim together.  Jay got a tour of the InsideOut office, and met our staff. After that,  Jeff and his family took Jay to the Seattle/Bainbridge Island ferry dock. He was picked up by Joyce Schulte of Chambered Nautilus, a Seattle B&B where Jay was staying until his flight home the next day.

It was a great conference with friends and new clients. We are excited to get to know our neighboring BC innkeepers better, and spend time exploring this new market.

New brochure design for the Boys & Girls Clubs Foundation of the Olympic Peninsula puts the focus on helping children.

A foundation helping children
The Boys & Girls Clubs Foundation of the Olympic Peninsula is a nonprofit organization which helps fund the good work of our local Boys & Girls Clubs. To this day, thousands of children in our community have benefited from the opportunities and inspiration provided by the Clubs. Foundation board members (and InsideOut partners) Pat & Jim McCauley were happy to donate InsideOut’s services to design a logo and brochure for this worthy cause.

Logo distills the message
The Foundation focused on potential donors who were planning their finances and seeking opportunities for charitable giving. The board wanted donors to know they were joining in a special endeavor to help local children. After some brainstorming, the board’s members decided to create a club of donors: “The Legacy Society”.

InsideOut designer Jennifer Lozada sketched out a number of logos based on the concepts of “legacy, growth and helping local kids”. The final version exemplifies these ideas with images of helping hands and a bright green sprout.

Communicating the benefits of giving
The next project was the brochure. Brochures would be distributed in local financial planning offices and mailed to potential donors. We decided that an 11″ x 17″ piece folded to 8.5″ x 11″ would give us plenty of room for necessary text and many photos.

Financial planning brochures often use dark conservative colors. To help our brochure stand out, we chose a sunny color which also contributed to our growth theme. The logo with its sprout worked well over the background of an old, established oak. Both the sunshine yellow and the oak also communicated the idea of “local” (the nickname for one of the area towns is “Sunny Sequim” and Garry Oaks are a protected species here.)

The Foundation has many wonderful photos from the local Boys & Girls Clubs. The brochure features these photos very prominently. With all the images of local kids, it’s clear that they are the main reason to give. The text supports this idea by providing potential donors with necessary information about the organizations involved, a reply form, and types of contributions accepted. The brochure makes it clear that the nonprofit Foundation and Clubs are long-standing legitimate contributors to the community, worthy of support.

The result
The Boys & Girls Clubs Foundation of the Olympic Peninsula is delighted with the result. Board Member, Billy Nagler’s comments sum up the board’s reaction:

“I am so impressed! The pictures of the kids are precious… the organization of the whole thing is marvelous, the copy is very very informative and well done. What a piece of work, folks… you can be proud of this.”

Click here to view pdf of entire brochure.

Steven Dunston, myself (Katie Pate) and company President Pat McCauley will be leaving this weekend to fly over to Granbury Texas for the annual Texas Bed and Breakfast Convention. We are pleased to be presenting on multiple subjects throughout the event, including Facebook marketing, blogging and general marketing makeovers. In fact, SEO Manager Steven Dunston will be presenting the kick off talk, “Web Stats Boot Camp”.

Steven will also be presenting some of the great results we have seen since launching the new Texas association site about one year ago (in September). Not only did we design the site for them, we are also helping them with their blog, and running AdWords for them.

InsideOut is heading to Granbury TX for the B&B Association Convention

It is going to be great to share with the Texas association how all of their different marketing efforts have really paid off for their members!

We are also looking forward to sharing our insights on the emerging marketing opportunities that are present in blogging and Facebook. Since we began giving lectures on Facebook last Spring, the format for the social networking site has gone through adjustments, and we have learned more about this ever-growing social platform.

Of course we will also be giving out our complementary ranking reports to all innkeepers that registered ahead of time for the conference . We look forward to seeing current clients, and maybe making some more new friends!

See ya’ll in Texas!