DIGITAL CONSULTANCY SERVICES
Helping small businesses and charities navigate the digital world through consultancy.
The Smart Bear is your trustworthy guide through the digital business jungle ensuring you spend your budget wisely, get what you pay for, and with the right people for you
At The Smart Bear, with our years of experience owning a digital business, building websites and running marketing campaigns, we can offer advice to other businesses on a consultancy basis. Our goal is to give you a helping hand when you need it.
We’ve been working with businesses just like yours, for a long time, by helping them build a new website, improve their SEO or social media and implement social media strategies. But you may not want someone to do it for you, maybe you just need some advice along the way…. and so, we’ve introduced several business consultancy services which are at an affordable rate for charities, freelancers and micro/small businesses.
WHAT AREA ARE YOU INTERESTED IN?
BIDS AND TENDER REVIEW CONSULTANCY SERVICE
Helping businesses get the most from the budget
Writing a brief
If you’re looking to hire a web developer, an app developer, a branding specialist or a marketing guru, you’ll probably need to provide them with a brief. And, writing this when you’ve not done it before is daunting. Have you included everything? Does it make sense? Is something important missing? Will they understand what you need?
After an initial consultation with you to find out what you’re looking to achieve from the brief, we’ll help you structure and word it in a way to make sure it’s understandable and that you’ve included everything you need. We can also help you find suppliers or help distribute your brief to relevant parties, if required.
Reading bid tenders
After you’ve sent out a brief to various potential digital suppliers like website designers, marketing agencies or brand specialists, you’ll then have to pick one to move the project forward with.
And, it’s not always dependent on the quote price – for example, are they providing good value? Have they understood the brief? Have they provided solutions for any potential obstacles? Have they even noticed there could be potential obstacles?
We can read through all the tenders/bids for you, organise the data into a spreadsheet to compare the main points, and then consult with you and your team to discuss the pros and cons which should help to make your decision easier.
Writing a bid/tender proposal
If you’re the business writing the pitch proposal document, you may need a professional second pair of eyes to run over the brief, especially if you’re new to producing these type of quotes, to make sure you’ve covered everything.
We understand that bid proposals can be very time consuming and often leave you with eye strain unless you’ve stumbled upon a secret winning formula that guarantees you’re the bid winner!
If you’re not there yet, let us help you! As an unbiased third party, we’ll be honest about the good, the bad and the ugly about your tender document. We’ve seen a few in our time and we can look at it from the client’s side to give you a fresh perspective.
DIGITAL REVIEW AND ADVICE CONSULTANCY
Making your business more digitally efficient
We are passionate about transforming businesses by making them more technically and digitally proficient, especially in a post-pandemic world where more and more businesses are working online. Perhaps you set up some systems in a rush at the start of lockdown and now you’re wanting to review them, or perhaps you’re just testing the waters of moving everything online.
We can also offer advice for Online Business Managers and Tech VAs on how to improve their client’s systems and digital automations.
Whatever the situation, we will work with you to consider your vision and create a plan to reach your goals.
Some of the things we can help with are:
Finding the perfect Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool for you and your clients
Researching tools and software for you, in-line with your brief
Find an e-commerce solution or platform that will work for your product, your clients and your bottom line
Choosing invoicing software
Finding and setting up automation or AI tools
Deciding on where to host or build your website
Picking an email provider
Selecting webinar or online training tools
Where to learn more about technical subjects like SEO, and HTML/CSS
With our help, you can transform your business into a successful business using time saving digital tools.
SOLUTIONS FOR BUSINESS OR CHARITY GROWTH WITH A DIGITAL STRATEGY
Turning a Digital Strategy into a Reality
Planning a digital strategy
At The Smart Bear we try to make the digital world accessible and understandable. We know how important it is for business owners and those running not-for-profits or charities, to focus on running their own organisation, so we will work with you to help you achieve your digital goals – with as little or as much input from you as you choose.
We understand the challenges facing organisations in the digital era, and how daunting it can be to get started with a digital strategy. From taking your customers online, to having more efficient data storage, or help with websites and social media.
We can help you plan a digital strategy, advising you on the best options along the way. And then, we’re here to help you take your digital strategy from a great idea into a reality that works for you and your budget.
Project management and liaison
If your next digital project needs direction and someone knowledgeable to take the reins then The Smart Bear can help. From full project management to liaison between designers and developers, we can help you get the job done.
We have experience of managing our own projects and those of our clients – liaising with many different sub-contractors to ensure a smoother process.
We can help plan a strategy, implement project management tools or just facilitate regular meetings to keep everyone up-to-date and on the same page.
ADVICE ON STARTING A DIGITAL BUSINESS OR A DIGITAL DEPARTMENT
We’ll help you get your ideas off the ground
Start-up advice
If you want to start a digital business or go self employed, ditching the corporate rat-race, we can help you decide if it’s a viable option. We offer mentoring services to help you reach your goals.
From writing a business plan, to deciding on a pricing structure or working out cash flow projections, we’re experienced training providers and business mentors; we’ll guide you every step of the way, so you have all the information you need to get started.
If you’re ready to start – with all your documentation at the ready – we can check it over, help look for funding options or even assist you in choosing the right office space and finding the right employees and suppliers.
We’ll walk you through your first day of business—and beyond. We’ll talk about what your first steps should be, and we’ll be there if you need us for advice along the way, as you focus on getting your business off the ground.
Digital vacancy job spec and role
If you’re looking to employ staff or freelancers like tech VA’s or marketing assistants for a digital position within your business, we’ll find out what you need help with, before working out what skills will be needed – and then we can help you spec up that role to ensure you get the best match.
We can even provide assistance with the interview process so you can source the best talent who will help grow your business.
Website Designer Mentoring
Step by step help and advice from a seasoned professional
Help when you need it
If you’re starting out as a website designer, and you feel like you’d like someone to hold your hand through your first big project, or you’d like mentoring on how to make your work and business better going forward then mentoring might be the answer!
You choose how much mentoring, training or hand-holding you want; from regular one-to-ones, ‘as and when’ how-to-help and videos when you get stuck, or a one-off deep dive into your processes and work-flow. We can build you a package of on-going help, or quote for one-off ‘on demand’ sessions.
Whatever your skill level
Whether you’re just starting out, going it alone after working for an agency, or whether your business has been around a while but growth has stalled, we’re able to help you with our experience – over 11 years in the industry working with small businesses across the globe.
Your preferred website building platform
We are obviously specialists in WordPress but we have worked with a number of other platforms over the years, including Kajabi, Shopify, Squarespace, Laravel, Drupal, Magento, Wix, Webflow, FEA Create, Godaddy Builder and a number of others – if we don’t already know the software, we’re happy to study it and we’re quick to learn new software!
Investing in your future
Having a senior designer on hand – and a self-employed veteran – gives you knowledge at your fingertips which will help your skills continued development without having to stop the business to go on lengthy courses. Learn as you build your next project and continue to bill for the services you’re providing your clients.
Women in tech
We’re particularly keen to work with Women designers to help increase their tech skills. You may have already got the design side down but your tech skills are leaving you with imposter syndrome, you want to apply for a different job to boost your career, or you want to be able to offer more services to clients but lack the confidence. If this is you, get in touch as we can definitely help you build on your skills and gain confidence.