Business Interview with Andrew Wood - 3

The final part of the interview with Andrew Wood, the MD of Trainer Bubble...

If you had an unlimited budget, how would you change?

There is a lot going on in the serious gaming market, where customers will play business simulations in order to develop their skills. I see this being a real interesting area in the future and I think the demographic of learners coming through will demand this. I'd also like to market overseas in a more substantial way, as we get a lot of new business from this area and could expand here.

What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?

It was a shock to me how much of a money pit marketing can be. I don't remember who it was that said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. I only wish I knew which half." They were right.

What has been your biggest challenge?

It has to be in the early days of the website, when I felt that my programmers did not have the same sense of urgency about my website as I did. It was frustrating to have to wait a few days for a couple of lines of text to be changed. Eventually I decided I'd have to learn how to programme and edit the website myself. I became self taught, which was a major uphill struggle to begin with. I can now design, edit and pretty much do all the basics. I also learnt a lot about search engine optimisation as I knew this was the cheapest form of advertising, it certainly beat paying for an seo company!

How has running your website differed from your expectations?

It's a lot more work than I thought it would be. I didn't realise how much time and effort I'd need to put into the website from inception to now. The idea of, 'If you build it they will come.' is not a sound one!

How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?

The site has been running for three years now and we are enjoying continual success. I don't see the need to stop as long as we can diversify into new areas and keep offering customers what they want.

Business Interview with Andrew Wood - 2

More from the interview with Andrew Wood, the MD of Trainer Bubble...

What is your eventual goal?

We hope to continue building on our offering and eventually expand into other areas. I am currently in talks with many different training related groups about offering something just that little bit different. I'm hopeful we'll have some serious gaming and e-learning products ready for 2009.

How does your investment of time balance against your success?

Because our materials are downloadable, most of the work is put in at the design and development stage and for the rest of the time we kick back and relax...I wish! We are continually working to improve things and spend a lot of time marketing and promoting the website. Of course the development time is continual and we are always striving to make each product better than the last. It is all really hard work, but we are very successful and it's definitely worth it.

If you had an unlimited budget, how would you change?

There is a lot going on in the serious gaming market, where customers will play business simulations in order to develop their skills. I see this being a real interesting area in the future and I think the demographic of learners coming through will demand this. I'd also like to market overseas in a more substantial way, as we get a lot of new business from this area and could expand here.

What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?

It was a shock to me how much of a money pit marketing can be. I don't remember who it was that said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. I only wish I knew which half." They were right.

Business Interview with Andrew Wood

The Managing Director of Trainer Bubble, Andrew Wood was recently interviewed for an article in a local paper regarding his experiences with the Trainer Bubble website and his general thoughts on training. We thought it would be interesting for our customers to view the article and Andrew's views on the website and training, so we will display section of the article bit by bit over the coming weeks. Here's the first instalment...

Please give us a short summary of the website.

Trainer Bubble provides accredited training resources and course materials that trainers and leaders can download and use to run their own training sessions. When you purchase from our website, you receive a complete training pack of trainer’s notes and slides etc. ready to run your own training course. We also have a rapidly growing free section, where you will find training games, exercises, icebreakers and many other useful training tools.

What inspired you to launch the website?

We wanted to make training accessible to all and felt that a method of delivering training resources instantly to trainers and leaders was something that would really benefit our customers. We were also keen to develop a free collection of all the useful training games, icebreakers and tools that we have used in the past.

How did you come up with the name for Trainer Bubble?

The name came from a conversation/debate I had with a participant on one of my courses many years ago in which he said to me, "It's alright for you *bleeping* trainers, you all live in a bubble!' This statement always stuck with me and reminded me to remain objective and link learning to business needs. When I set up the business I decided to pay homage to the guy (whose name I sadly forget) and create a 'bubble' for trainers, hence, Trainer Bubble.

What makes Trainer Bubble different to other websites of the same type?

We were the first business of this specific nature to set up in the UK and since then we have been able to grow our offering beyond that of anyone else. We also have full accreditation for our training materials from ITOL, which really sets us apart. We are also proud that our free section is becoming one of the largest on the web.