Cha-cha-changes!

Posted on December 19, 2006 | Permalink

By Lane Casteix

Welcome to the new SPAR Web site. The old one was way past due for a change. Actually, we have been working on changing the site since the summer of 2005, but on August 29 of that year we went through a life-altering experience called Katrina that kind of set our plans back some. The last quarter of '05 and much of '06 was devoted to fully supporting our rapidly growing business and giving our clients the service they deserve, and doing that under, shall we say, "less than ideal conditions." The SPAR web site took a back seat.

For those who don't know, SPAR is located just outside New Orleans in one of the areas that experienced flooding. We had a little over a foot of water in the building. Fortunately, every SPARtian had evacuated, ending up in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. But unfortunately, only some of those with laptops had them with them. Most of our computers and our server were in the flooded building! The city went under lock-down right after the storm, but I snuck back in five days after Katrina to attempt to retrieve the computers.

As a life-long resident of the area, having experienced numerous hurricanes, but never before evacuated, I was shocked at the destruction I found. Because of the water I was unable to get into the office for nearly two weeks. When I did I filled my truck to the top of the bed and the rear seats to the roof with computers and files and began delivering everything to SPARtians, so we could go back to work.

Some of our clients really helped us out. I have to single out Diageo, who put us to the test. They pointedly and appropriately asked Lisa Wells, the assigned AE, if we could service the business if they gave it to us. To which she guaranteed we would. They then asked other divisions to help us out and, boy, did they! As a result of Diageo's support and support from some of our other clients, our business shot up dramatically! Gross sales in 2006 was nearly doubled that of 2005!

And we did it displaced while the office was gutted and rebuilt. In January we moved back in but used folding tables from Lowe's and cheap chairs from Office Max while we fought with our insurance company. Well, in September we finally won and they paid up - and we ordered new furniture, which is scheduled to be installed about Christmas!

Wait until you see the place! Meanwhile I have attached some images from right after the storm along with images of conditions once we moved back in. This will serve to really set off the new look of the New SPAR once the offices are finished. I will post pictures of that as soon as it is done.

What we learned? For starters every computer must be portable and every SPARtian WILL evacuate with theirs. All computers have been replaced with new portable versions, laptops for everyone but the designers, who got iMacs because of their "need for speed".

The second thing we learned is servers can't swim. We moved all our important job-related files to a hosting service whose secure server is in another state. With the portable computers and this system, no matter where we have to evacuate to, as long as we can get online we can go back to work immediately and continue servicing our clients a lot easier than right after Katrina.

The third thing we learned is something we already knew: Placing clients before self will pay off in the end.

New computers, new system, new offices, new furniture, blessed with lots of new business, and finally with some time to spend on self, we redesigned our identity and built this new web site.

The site is mostly "blog-ified" (is that a real word?), so we can make changes quickly and easily. It is designed to become a key communication tool with our clients and an ever-changing and exciting place to visit.

Our portfolio will change more often than before, because it will be easily updatable. Also note the new Intel page, where you will find articles and links to important intelligence about our business and yours; information that you can use. More features will be added later.

I want to close this piece by saying we are grateful to all our clients, especially those who really stepped out and supported us during a very difficult time. Thanks to that kind of support SPAR is back, and bigger and better than ever.

Welcome to the New SPAR.