September 2003

A WIC Success Story
Web design SCOREs high praise

McGlynn Consulting bested four other competitors to win the business of revamping the web site of Silicon Valley SCORE, a non-profit association providing entrepreneurs with free, face-to-face and e-mail business counseling and workshops. McGlynn's unique design and technical tweaks gave a huge boost to the image, identity — and readership — of this gem of a non-profit.

CEO Marianne McGlynn has grown her company into a leader in building high-impact, customer-oriented web sites and products that increase sales leads and profits. She has over ten years of experience working with clients such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, Sony, and LSI Logic. This unique opportunity, however, began with another part of Marianne's life — her passion for small business.

Marianne is so passionate about helping other small businesses that she became a counselor for the Small Business Development Center's Technical Advisory Program (SBDC TAP) where she gives clients advice on e-marketing strategy, including web page design, evaluating technical contractors and the thousands of other technical challenges everyone faces when they conduct business on the Internet. Impressed with Marianne's enthusiasm and competence Andrea Peiro, Director of TAP, heard that SVSCORE needed a hand with its web site and recommended McGlynn Consulting.

SVSCORE was faced with two classic web site problems. First, how could it sustain the SCORE national brand image while retaining its own identity? Then, after all the branding changes were made, the site needed to retain its user-friendliness so clients could easily find what they want.

Preparing her proposal, Marianne immersed herself in learning all about SVSCORE. She soon realized that it is a treasure trove of knowledgeable volunteers, who are retired executives from some of the top companies in the industry and who are available to help small businesses through their growing pains.

Marianne's proposed design featured both an excellent adaptation of National SCORE's brand and a warm and personal treatment of the exceptional volunteers in Silicon Valley. It won a unanimous first place above the more edgy or standard business looks others proposed.

Reworking the design was just the beginning of the job. Marianne made the site easier to use, gave a cleaner look to the visuals and also tackled more technical issues such as browser and platform compatibility.

The new web site transformed SVSCORE's presence from that of a small immature organization to that of a sophisticated leader and major player in Silicon Valley business development. It also attracted major international business traffic for the first time, with an increase from almost nothing to over six hundred user sessions a month.

Marianne has received rave reviews from her clients such as John Edwards, a member of SVSCORE's Executive Committee. "The site reinforces the National SCORE Brand and projects the professional business image we desire," he says. "Feedback from our members and clients is extremely positive and we highly recommend Marianne's work."

"I love seeing the gleam in my clients' eyes when they realize they can pour their passion and vision into their web site, and still have it be practical and grounded," Marianne says. Now Marianne is bringing that vision to SVSCORE's internal web site.

McGlynn Consulting is a leader in building high-impact, customer-oriented web sites and products that increase sales leads and profits. The staff has over ten years of experience working with clients such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, Sony, and LSI Logic, major biotechnology firms, as well as numerous smaller businesses.

For more information on this story:
For McGlynn Consulting, visit www.mariannemcglynn.com
For SVSCORE, visit www.svscore.org
For the National SCORE site, visit http://www.score.org
For SBDCTAP, visit http://www.sbdctap.com/