Ormskirk entrepreneur and founder of Blue Goblin car care Peter Pincott 'comes clean' on how lockdown has given him the opportunity to take a long, hard look at moving forwards - with exciting news of a new website that's gone live today

https://www.bluegoblincarcare.co.uk/

Our thanks to Peter for these few thoughts: 'Most businesses are feeling the strain of lockdown. And as an owner of a small business that primarily relies on promotion at big events, I’ve had to make adjustments to keep my business alive.

My name is Peter Pincott and own Blue Goblin Car Care Ltd - a small yet feisty company from Ormskirk supplying quality car care products (shampoos, waxes, alloy cleaners etc.) to professional detailers, weekend-warriors - and everyone in-between.

If you like keeping your car in tip-top condition, then we’re here to serve you. Whether you’re a professional or a complete newbie to the car care world, we’re available around the clock to offer our expert advice to anyone who needs it.

One of the main reasons for starting Blue Goblin was my great passion for everything cars. 'Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life' is what they say, so a job that takes me up and down the country attending car shows is ideal!

Every day I feel incredibly grateful for the immense support the business receives, allowing me to continue being immersed in the industry I love.

But the road to where the company is now hasn’t been without obstacles; as with most small businesses, their success is built on the blood, sweat and tears of the owner(s). Increase in market saturation, supplier shortfalls and courier troubles are all problems I’ve personally encountered and had to manage.

Something we’ve all been affected by though is COVID-19.

As a business that relies on physical events for a majority of its sales, promotion, and networking, I knew it would be an uphill struggle to keep it in good financial stead. When lockdown initially started my sales actually increased - through conversations with customers I realised that as a lot of people were out of work, they were restricted to doing things around the house, one of which was cleaning their car.

In the background though scheduled car events were being wiped from the calendar every day, with pre-booked shows being cancelled as far away as August, worrisome, to say the least; I saw future profits dwindling before my eyes.

So, I decided to shift all of my efforts to increase online sales, as they now appeared to be the sole income for the business for the foreseeable future. First, I looked at the Blue Goblin.

Designed in 2017, and hadn’t differed too much since then. Before I started funnelling people to the website I knew it needed revitalising. I researched 2020 website trends and set to work on rebuilding it from the ground up, spending many late nights meticulously obsessing over which font I wanted - and in what precise colour shade.

After countless hours, it was finished. But what’s the point in having a fancy new website if nobody knows about it?

Now the hard part, I had to develop a marketing plan to spread the word... I about to overdose on ‘marketing strategy’ books and TED Talks. I’ve put my efforts into social media promotion, email campaigns, and even writing this article for QLocal...

I’m in the early stages of the marketing plan (as you can tell) but am determined to leave no stone unturned in terms of potential promotion opportunity. I’m sure once lockdown is lifted and some sort of ‘normality’ has returned to our lives the business will be stronger than ever.

In the wild, survival is all about adaptation - the business world is no different.

The brand new site is now live, with a huge sale on to celebrate the launch for this weekend only!

If any key workers miss the sale, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email (info@bluegoblincarcare.co.uk) or our Facebook page and we’ll be happy to arrange a sizeable discount for you during this period. We’ve all got to support each other during this tough time any way we can.