Fred’s Oral Prep launched the damn thing!
What was your first reaction to reading "Fred's Oral Prep?" Did it remind you of that O Brother Where Art Thou? line...
"I don't want FOP g*d****t; I'm a Dapper Dan man!"
No? Just me? Probably because of all the places I abbreviated their business name throughout their file folder & portal. 😂
📌 Pin it!
Annnyway, what was your first reaction? Did you smile? Well, Fred & Emma hope so! Grab a beer, have a seat (& a laugh) and let’s dive into that question: –what the hell is Fred’s Oral Prep! 😂🍻
Fred’s –the owner & teacher– nautical career (& his obsession with boats) apparently started when he was about 5. As he grew up, he got a psychology degree –because who the hell knows. Then he had various jobs and trainings that eventually landed him the position as relief captain, then professor to students in United Kingdom Sailing Academy’s Nav & Radar classes.
But he’s not your average teacher, and he realized that his class was just a small piece of the whole puzzle each student needed in order to pass the exam that would allow them to become highly qualified deck crew! So, preferring to use every method (& that ‘ol psych degree) available to him that would help the information actually sink in and STICK there, his students are more likely to pass their oral examination that kickstarts their super-yacht careers.
However, the most fun & interactive teaching methods can’t really be done in a standard classroom –especially not one that tends to be stuck in the past– and that’s when he decided to start teaching exam prep on his own. His way!
And ya know what? It WORKED. Their students have the highest pass rate in the entire industry!
These oral examinations take weeks to prep for, have an incredibly high failure rate (without Fred’s exam prep!), and quite frankly sound a bit terrifying if you don’t know the material. Students sit face-to-face with an examiner in a quiet room, while they pepper you with questions, present you with industry tools & ask you to use them right there on the spot, expecting actual answers without hesitation. No room for error.
Emma is Fred’s wife & business sidekick, a world-traveler, a Mom, –and actual ‘bad guy’ to the students (helping them stay on task among many, many other things that help run this business with Fred!)
I was lucky enough to work with both of them throughout the project, and after every call my cheeks would literally be sore from all the laughter and constant smiling.
Website Features
Fred & Emma came to me with branding partly in place, no set brand colors, lots of great photos, TONS of content and a live site on version 7.0 of Squarespace.
The problem?
The site was mostly text, because there is SO much to info communicate! They lacked sales strategy throughout, or any idea how to organize all of their content to make the site easier to use. They also wanted to be able to reach a younger audience, so the site had to have a much more modern, fun and user-friendly feel.
The solutions:
Brand refresh:
A small brand refresh to establish brand colors, fonts, and add text to their logo icon. We went with a nautical color theme, focusing on calming, sea-worthy blues, with a pop of energetic yellow for the color palette. The fonts are modern in the paragraphs, friendly in the headers, and we’re using a handwritten accent style to give it a touch of personality in between.
Content Guides:
Emma booked this spot months ahead, so she had lots of prep time beforehand! So she got to work on the Content Guides which I provide to all my custom clients in their portal, leading up to the project, which walks you through how to write the copy, the basics for each of the main page types, what’s needed & the strategy behind all of it.
Professional Development & Prep:
Emma knew she wanted to get better at her copywriting skills through all this, so at my recommendation she also read a couple of copywriting books and watched videos by Ashlyn Carter (founder of Copywriting for Creatives) to help get her in the right zone to finish those Content Guides.
Copy Edits:
Between her initial copy drafts (and willingness to step outside the box a bit) and my copy editing, we were able to revamp ALL of the copy on about 30 pages to keep the educational vibe they needed, but piece it out & make everything both easy to find & feel much less daunting to get through. I also gave her a few of my recommendations in case she wanted to hire a copywriter pro in the future.
Results:
Within 12 hours of launching, Fred and Emma got 2 new students!! Talk about fast results. I cannot wait to see how their business and student base grows from here on out!
Experience & Customizations
I had SO much fun editing the copy she submitted because it’s cheeky, conversational, very unexpected at times, & a lot more fun to read now –with, of course, a few choice (bleeped) words thrown in here or there. I mean, Fred IS an actual sailor and curses like one too, ––so potential students: you’ve been warned. 😂
This site has lots of truly custom features to help accomplish their vision & solve their design problems:
2 mega menus for better control over the navigation links
customized section dividers
split layouts & on-page tabs to divide the vast content into chunks
customized buttons, accordions, hyperlink hover effects, summary blocks, text blocks & more
several collection pages to house all of their content
a dedicated collection page for student-only resources (not public!)
–all of that (& much more), but the site is still easy to maintain going forward!
But now it’s time to stop talking about it and do a show & tell!
Gallery
CLICK TO OPEN & SEE THE WHOLE PAGE!
