Well done to my daughter Matilda (age 6) who
yesteray started her first website on Aquariums
and Tropical Fish.
Like her dad, not only does she enjoy making websites, but also
has a mind for biology, chemistry, physics and maths. I only wish
that I'd had these interests when I was at school!
Sponsorship 25th June 2008
I'm going to give out some free advertizing!
Firstly, I have done a page on Rough
Cut Racing.
We can't sponsor everybody who asks, but if you have a racing team,
or a championship and you are looking for sponsors, I'm more than
happy to publicize the fact for you. Just as long as I'm sent
stuff I can copy/paste into a page.
Next, and advert for the VW GTI...
I keep hearing the song... I keep seeing
videos, but you can't beat this performance by David Elsewhere!
I keep thinking, what would Gene Kelly think if he could see this?
And I think he'd be thrilled!
Finally, my old mates over at MotorTrades have
expaneded to include a London
Section, in addition to the
Essex section. This is becomming a very useful directory... I'm
using it. And I'm refering other people there. And
of course, we are listed in it under car valeting!
Q&A 7th June 2008
The new Questions
and Answers System is now
live and working!
Just send us your questions and upload your photos and we will give
you our best advice on any car care related matters such as dents,
kerbed wheels, scuffs
on bumpers, discoloured upholstery etc. There
is no obligation, anybody can ask us a question even if they have
no intention of using our services.
The
Interceptor helicopter is frequently seen circling over
our building. But I'm not paranoid.
As Seen on TV! Have you been watching Interceptors on Friday nights?
It's great fun because it's the Essex
Interceptor teams that are featured. So not only do we get
to see cops in really fast cars chasing down scaly-wags, we
can spot lots of local landmarks while they are doing it. In
the first episode they arrested a burger a few hundred yards
from my house. They often feature Chelmsford Basildon and Grays
on the program. Not to mention the infamous A12 (its infamous
for being in poor condition).
The Evos and Scoobies of the Interceptor teams
seem to be based in Laindon, and unfortunately we have never
had the pleasure of working on them. But being very close to
Essex Police HQ, their helicopter is often overhead.
A Huddle of home
made videos 2nd June 2008
I'm back... my broken ribs didn't bother me
until I got bronchitis and I felt the need to take some time
off, but I'm back. Gary has been playing with our new camera
and taken lots of video of the stuff that we do. Unfortunately,
he is no Cecil B. Demille and I don't see any academy awards
on the horizon... which is okay. I don't think you need to have
highly polished video in order to get your message across. The
rise and rise of YouTube has gotten us used to a new style of
film making which is low-tech and low-buget.
...which brought to mind the hugely talented Go!
Team, and in particular
the multitude of homemade videos set to their song, Huddle Formation.
I went looking for one video which I felt could serve as an example
of the style we could adopt when editing our videos, I couldn't
find the one I was looking for, but here for your entertainment
are some of the more amusing ones... they made me smile anyway!
New Article 7th May 2008
I have uploaded a new article by our Supagard representative, Steve Polain. The
article is of course all about Supagard.
New videos 6th May 2008
I have added promotional video clips to both Diamondbrite and
Supagard Pages... so if you are thinking of having a paint sealant
package, you can now sit back and learn all about what's on offer.
I have also updated the movie clips for our 'Things
to do in Chelmsford Page', and Alpha
Medical.
Here comes the Sun! 6th May 2008
The phone has rung constantly this morning... virtually every enquiry
is about paint sealants. I'd like to think that this has something
to do with my recently completed Paint
Sealant FAQ, but suspect
it's just because the sun is shining.
Today is the first day of the year I have been able to come to
work in just a shirt without a coat or jumper. I came in to work
today, and is often the case, put some music on. As it's hot and
hazy, selected some Garage music -- buzzy, fuzzy humming psychedelic
stuff somehow seems appropriate. So for your pleasure, here's a
movie clip of Five Years Ahead of my Time by Third Bardo. No live
footage I'm afraid... Garage tended to be somewhat underground
(Collage kids practicing in Dad's garage, which is how the music
got it's name) but some clever chap has coupled the song with some
footage from Riot on Sunset Strip.
I'm currently trying to put some movies on the website...
I know you'd rather sit back, sip tea and watch movies than read all my gumpf,
so that's the direction we are going with this website now. We have movies
from Supagard and Diamondbrite, and some we made ourselves.
Advertising and
affiliates 29th April 2008
Since my last update, advertising has appeared on this site in
the form of Google ads and Affiliate ads. I hope you don't think
I have sold out... it's my bonus and it keeps me in silk ties
and aftershave.
But seriously folks, some of the pages on this website get hits
from visitors who are looking for other stuff and really aren't
interested in or don't need our services. So we took the decision
to put ads on these pages... not to squeeze every last penny out
of the website, but because we thought that if they didn't find
what they were looking for on our site, they might find something
they like in the ads - and it seems to be working as people are
clicking on them (which explains why I smell so nice today). Where
possible, we try to point people in the right direction, referring
them on to companies that can provide what they need... we don't
charge for this, and as I keep telling everybody, if you have a
good service that is of interest to our website visitors, I'm happy
to give a link (bribes welcome).
So if you see any ads, I hope they don't distract
you too much, hope you find them useful, let me know either way.
And now for something completely different...
Jackie Wilson - No Pity
It's not like this website is short of pictures
of cars, so I'll give you some music instead (but I will not
be doing politics!).
I was lucky to
find this because there isn't much footage of Jackie Wilson on
YouTube. It wasn't a top 10 hit, but it was a fine song and as
to be expected a superb vocal performance!
If I find any more
Gems, I'll put them here.
Sorry! 29th April 2008
It's already April this is my first posting on this blog... and
I didn't update the news section at all for the last half of last
year. That doesn't mean that nothing has been happening -- quite
the opposite! We are now pretty much a new company, we have changed
the way we do things and even changed our name.
To better reflect what we do, we have changed the company name
from Clean Image (which suggests we just clean stuff), to New Again,
and we have a new tag-line on the front of the building which says
"We make cars like new again".
One of the problems we have faced is that people
come to us for a valet because they want their car cleaned, or
they come to us for a dent or scratch, because they want it repaired.
"What's wrong with that?", you might say?
We recognized a very long time ago that people always have a reason
for coming to us which is deeper than we might initially realize.
For example, there is an Audi in our workshop at the moment which
a lady brought to us to be cleaned. We asked is she was selling
it or just bought it, and it turned out she was selling it. In
light of this information we can approach the car with a view to
maximizing the car's value so that she gets the most money for
it when she sells, and makes a quick sale. It means that the services
we recommend are completely different from is she had brought the
car to us having just bought it.
We have identified that virtually all the cars
we work on are brought to us for the following five reasons:-
The customer just bought the car,
The customer is selling the car,
The customer is returning the car to a lease company,
The customer is keeping the car and wants it made like new,
The customer has had an accident, either a spillage or scrape,
We have been approaching our customer's cars
in this way for quite some kind... it works. It allows us to
better serve our customers and provide a real service. Setting
the company out so that we sell these services instead of valets
and smart repairs means that our customers approach us already
primed, and hopefully we will have gotten the message across
that our services save them money.
Killing time
Our services have thus far proved very successful and popular,
so much so that we are getting cars from all over the country,
and indeed Europe! This has brought to the fore new obstacles
for us to overcome.
For those very long distance customers, there is the problem
of how they get their car to us. For quite a while now we have
collecting and delivering cars using drivers and transporters
and we have become very adept at this.
The bigger problem was for mid-distance customers wishing to
bring their cars to us for the day. Often they would find themselves
kicking their heels all day waiting for their car to be finished.
So we started looking for things that they can do while in
the area. It turns our there are lots of things to do in Chelmsford,
and if they take the courtesy car, they can travel slightly
further out and visit many attractions that the South East
has to offer.
So we have added an entire section of our website devoted to
Things to Do in Chelmsford. This
has proved hugely successful and popular, especially as Chelmsford
can offer Practical things
to do such as re-training
with one day courses,
the opportunity to sort out personal
finances, as well as places to dine out, attractions to
visit, places to pamper
yourself, things
to do on a rainy day, places
to take the family -- and of course, places
to stay overnight should you
require. There is something for everyone, meaning that that
you can make a real day-out of it.
...so we have been really busy, although there
is still much to do! Having just written about this subject that
we don't really get across how fantastic our courtesy car is,
and I have decided that the best way to show you is with a video,
so that's another thing added to my very long things-to-do-list.
And you want to see what we have coming up
in the next few days! You won't be disappointed -- we intend on
adding loads more useful content.
P.S. Since I last posted here, the website
has had it's millionth visitor, and then passed the 1.5 million
mark. Needless to say, I'm fairly pleased about this.
Site Updates
2008
The number of updates over the last few months
are too numerous to list, and involve whole sections totaling
dozens of pages. But here are a few of the more recent articles:-
Video Article:Paint
Spillage Clean Up It happens all too often, paint
and other nasy stuff gets spilt in cars. We don't turn a
drama into a crisis as the saying goes.
Video Article:How
good is Supagard IV Just a quick walk around a 5 year old
car that was treated with Supaguard's 3 year sealant. It still
looks good!.
Guest Article:Supagard An article by Steve Polain, our local Supagard representative
about some of the advantages of the Supagard protection package for the interior
and exterior of your car.
