Ta da! The brand, spanking new website for the Branding Masterclass is now live, and with the next class less than four weeks away, I wanted to share the design with you.

I’m not one to hang about (as my team will testify) and so when I made the decision to launch our first masterclass back in late November 2011 I knew we had our work cut out preparing the “classroom” (aka the blog), the brand, a promo video, writing the content and the sales copy as well as all the back end admin it takes to run a course. We did a LOT in that two-ish months and fitting in a stand alone website was always going to be impossible. But I did want to pull one together for the next class.

Both James and Stuart have worked incredibly hard to pull this together before Easter, and I want to say a very big and public thank you to both of them (and Caroline) for making sure the site was ready. I know it wasn’t easy, especially with your current workload, but it is very much appreciated.

The Designs

The designs are very much rooted in the brand identity James created back in January for my masterclass classroom. I wanted everything to feel clean, easy to read and welcoming but also with some substance. This isn’t airy fairy stuff, despite the prolific use of flowery pictures! There’s real, commercial meat behind what I’m writing about, even if much of it is delivered in a light and easy to understand way. And so I love James’ use of type, colour and white space.

There’s a bit of work to be done after the Easter hols on the about page – I wanted to put a quick showreel together of our work for anyone that hadn’t come via our website or blog, so we’ll add that in over time. We also plan to integrate our event booking system into the website and be done with the horrible shopping cart once and for all! But I think that realistically that’s going to need to wait until after May…

We wanted to bring the testimonials to life and as they’re such a photogenic bunch, the social media avatars work quite well don’t you think?

You can see the website in action over at brandingmasterclass.com

I’m really excited to share the new Branding Masterclass video with you. We recorded it last Friday and I spent much of Wednesday editing it all together, with James working frantically behind the scenes to put together the fab stills with all the lovely student testimonials.

I never thought I’d say this, but I really enjoyed creating this video, and I think that was mostly down to the team that worked on the project. James, one of our Graphic Designers, worked on the visuals, and I just love how they look. Remember the video from before Christmas? We hadn’t formalised the brand identity back then, and I just love the fresh, clean look James has given the testimonials. Dani, our Account Exec was a real trooper. She did the recording as well as charging round styling the “set” (aka a corner of my kitchen!) with me and cheering me on! And Adrian Kirk, who you’ll meet next week properly, who helped me get a bit more of my sparkle onto the camera.

I wouldn’t say that I struggle to speak in public (what am I saying? Those of you that know me well know that I love it!) but I’ve never been one for am-dram. I was never in any plays at school and I have zero to none experience of performing on camera. So even though I felt pretty happy with the original masterclass video, I hope you can see a difference in this one?

Adrian was amazing at getting me relaxed, helping me focus on my message and get more of “me” across on camera. I know I have some way to go, and I’m not quite ready to be a TV presenter yet (ha ha!) but I think he achieved great things in just a few short hours. I’ll definitely be working with him when we produce our next video for Flourish.

Behind the scenes…

The “Set” and Adrian and I discussing the next take

We spent the morning practicing in the studio which was great for practice, but the light is pretty dreadful, the dark, tudor beams make it a difficult set to work with and most of the rooms have phones in, so we were convinced that we’d end up with a great take that was ruined by a phone ringing halfway through. Our studio is so lovely and charming when you’re actually there, but it’s really not great for the camera. So we decided to up sticks and relocate to my house, which has lovely light and a few more props on tap to make things a bit more beautiful!

I was a little concerned that a home setting would look a little unprofessional, but ultimately this is a class that most people work through from home, so we felt it made sense. Hey, if I had a funky loft studio that might have done, but I did feel very relaxed in my own home.

We had to do a little shifting around and remove all of my personal photos but I think it worked out quite nicely. And it was a real shame we couldn’t have got my pretty tissue paper pom poms in on the shoot, but they were a little out of context! I’d made them for my daughter’s birthday and they did look lovely, but maybe a little irrelevant for the video?

I loved the excuse to rush out and buy a new dress (well obviously?!) and get my hair done (not sure that you’d know it especially but it felt nice to be pampered ). Is it just me, or do you do that before a photoshoot as well?

And the music…

Oh, and one last thing. The music. When I bought the music before Christmas I fell in love with the emotional feel it had to it, it seemed just perfect for the masterclass. Uplifting and a bit spine tingling at the same time. But it really bugged me because I knew that it reminded me of a pop song, and I couldn’t work out which one. Nor could anyone else I spoke to. And then I realised, it’s Mika! And it all makes sense…

Ok so the sentiment of the song isn’t quite what I’d have chosen but I think the melody is perfect. What do you think?

And the thank you’s

Thank you so much to some of the lovely Branding Masterclass students who supplied such fabulous words. I really appreciate it And so in order of appearance…

Lisa Whitty

Emma McLaughlin

Vicky Tipton

Tracy Stonard

Isabel Nieto

Gabriella Buckingham

Chrissie Slade

And if you’re tempted to join us, do! You will love it. And I would love to have you. Registration closes on 6th May and you’ll save £30 when you book before 23rd April so just do it now before you forget Booking and full details here… 

Thank you, thank you, thank you to each and everyone that poured your love, energy and efforts into our competition to Win a Place on the Branding Masterclass. So many of you worked so hard to creatively tell us why you felt you should win your place, and I’m afraid in the end we just couldn’t pick a winner, so we thought it fairer to draw instead.

Huge congratulations to Kate Fletcher who has won a place. We’ll be in touch to book you on.

For those of you that didn’t win, don’t forget that booking is now open , I do hope to see you in class anyhow, it’s going to be a lot of fun. Warmest, Fiona

Just wanted to thank you for such a professionally run course, the content and information is fantastic. The course lived up to all my expectations …. which were pretty high.

Jo Norman, Daisyley

We had such a phenomenal response to our February Branding Masterclass, and I enjoyed teaching it so much, that we have decided to launch a May class and we would love for you to join us! Full details on the website here and to celebrate the launch of our new class we’re giving away a place on us (details below) so you could be joining us gratis.

Why join us?

A huge thank you from me for opening doors and making me stop and think

Zoe Grant, Zoe and Drew

The class is ideal for you if:

• You know you need to redesign your website/ branding and you want to make sure you get it right this time
• You are just about to launch your business and want to make the right impact
• You currently do all your own design work and want to gain some confidence
• You’re feeling uninspired about your business and need to reconnect with your passion
• You’re happy with your website and logo but you need more clients

Depending on where you’re at in your business journey you’ll find different elements of the class benefit you in different ways. Overall my students have told me that they loved the time to really focus on their businesses and think about what message they wanted to send out; the colour psychology and typography elements of the class and the website planning. It’s really all about making sure that when you work on your branding, you’re doing it with the knowledge you need to really make a difference.

 I cannot begin to explain just how timely this master class is…

Julie Davenport

I am enjoying hugely these sessions, and your inputs – being based on your experience – keep pushing me outside the little, self-limiting box that’s sitting on my shoulders.

Isabel Nieto

What you’ll gain

You’ll get out what you put in and many of my students have raved about the intangible elements of the class: the clarity, inspiration and motivation, but the course is designed for you to gain the following as a minimum

• know where your niche is in the market
• be clear about your messaging: what you want to be known for
• have identified your profitable customers
• be able to critique your brand identity
• have a marketing plan that will help you own and defend your niche
• be able to critique your website and gather ideas for your supercharged new one

Not bad for just £225 (+VAT and when you book before 23rd April) I hope you’ll agree?

Win your place on the class

To celebrate the launch of the May class we’re giving away a space to one of you lovely blog readers as a thank you for all your support. Remember that this class is delivered online via a password protected blog and you work through at your own pace: so where ever you are in the world, whatever your commitments, if you can find just a few hours a week this will work for you.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply comment below telling us why you want to win. We’ll draw the winner on Monday 26th March so get commenting people!

Full details of the class on our website. Good luck!

The boring terms: Judges decision final, no correspondence will be entered in to, no cash alternative.

Wow. We are almost at the end of my the Branding Masterclass and maaaaan has it been a journey! 42 inspirational entrepreneurs joined me for my very first online four week class into branding greatness.

We’ve had people from all walks of life and from all over the world, including Canada, France and New Zealand. Each student has been an absolute pleasure to work with and I’m really sad that it’s coming to an end.

When I’d first conceived of the class I’d hoped that a few pennies might drop, a few lightbulbs might ping and that we’d get some positive feedback at the end.

What I hadn’t prepared for was the overwhelming whoosh of enthusiasm and sheer hard work many of these students put in. It’s true but you absolutely get out what you put in don’t you? If you’re prepared to set time aside to work on your brand, what you can achieve in a really short space of time is truly inspirational and many of these students are already reaping the benefits of what we started working on back in February.

Here’s how a few students described the class

Business-transforming, brain-overloading, inspiring, confidence-boosting, hard work(!), amazing…

Emma McLaughlin, Kullakita Cards

…probably the best thing I have done for my business in around 5 years

For someone like me, who started the business by accident with few ‘business savvy’ skills, this course has been a complete eye-opener and source of focus and inspiration. Frankly, I see it as a must for anyone serious about their business.

Lisa Whitty, The Hay Experts

An online course to help you to clarify your brand, focussing on who your customer is and how you can convey your brand through good design of your logo and website.

Jo Norman, Daisyley

Having now written and delivered the first class I see that two very distinctive (but complementary) groups benefit from the masterclass. Firstly, the startups and “up our gamers”: the people who want to take their brand up a gear and need help and support in doing that. These people really benefitted from having a roadmap and inside information on how to create a powerful brand, even if they didn’t intend on implementing it themselves. As I’d hoped, knowledge really is power and these students really benefitted from help in getting focused on the message they wanted to send out as well as understanding what’s possible.

The second group, excitingly I hadn’t envisaged when I wrote the class, and they are the “DIY-ers”. These students really benefitted from the design tips and knowledge as well as the positioning and strategy bits. It’s interesting because whilst I firmly believe that you should use an experienced and creative designer for your branding (I would, wouldn’t I?) I do appreciate that some people want to do it themselves, and that some people simply have to do it themselves at the outset. And what I really loved about the class was that I was able to support those people and help them make smarter decisions. I hope that I’ve got them to think more carefully about the colour, font and creative choices that they make and focus in much more on why they’re doing what they’re doing and what signal that’s sending out.

Something I hadn’t planned on doing, but that just came naturally as we worked through the class, was the pep talks and inspirational phrases to encourage people to think differently. I’ve really enjoyed doing that and I hope to share more on the blog with you as I write throughout the year.

From the feedback that’s come through so far I’m thoroughly spurred on, inspired and so pleased that I did it. I’m really going to miss the lovely community of students we’ve built up over the past five weeks and I wish each and every one of you well.

Some of the feedback from class

This class was both relevant and vital to my business. My current site has been active for around four years; it is dated, badly constructed, part-completed and lacking so much. I have been struggling for the last year to find direction following a number of problems including past developer issues and also feel I had lost some of my own personal inspiration. The course has given focus, direction and inspiration – plus it has endorsed some of the things we already do (quite pleasing!). I have a clearer picture of where I want the business to be, plus I am less daunted about the steps I need to take to take the journey.

Lisa Whitty, The Hay Experts

 This course has been an amazing rollercoaster ride that I am incredibly glad I took. I feel incredibly focused on making Zoe & Drew a real brand, something worthy of being shouted about. There is so much still to do but armed with a folder full of each post in this class I know that I will be guided into making both small and big decisions over the next few weeks and for years to come.

Sitting down and focussing on who my customer is and why they buy from me was a HUGE turning point. Having a visual reference point as to who I’m trying to attract has already had a big impact on my business as I completely changed a product which had an immediate effect on sales

No pretentious talk, tons of down-to-earth, practical advice, very nicely laid out (use of pictures, slogans, colours). The structure and content of the weekly lessons… Loads of contributions from other attendees. Lovely atmosphere: plenty of positive messages and confidence building comments. Great pace: keeps you on your toes yet without pressure. Provides a road map for us to carry on.

Good Luck!

Lots of luck for the future lovelies! And do keep me posted, I can’t wait to see how you transform your brands

With less than two weeks to go until the launch of the fabulous online Branding Masterclass the team in the studio are working incredibly hard dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the brand identity and blogsite. You can see the brand elements below.

You’re going to see a bit of a nip tuck to the Flourish brand identity over the next couple of months as we prepare for a very exciting extension and refocus on our own brand. I’ll be sharing more about the story behind that soon, but in the meantime, this gives you a flavour for where we’re headed. The Branding Masterclass needs to reflect and work with our brand, but it’s also a brand in it’s own right, with it’s own attributes and characteristics, so we needed to keep it all similar but not the same.

The colour palette focuses on creativity, communication, logic and clarity. The graph paper gives a nod to work (yes, it will be a lot of fun, but I will be working them hard too!) and the icons give direction around the site.

The class will be held online via a password protected blogsite, so we needed to create a clean and easy to navigate design that  inspired the participants to focus, reflect and take action. Here are a couple of screengrabs:

The login page

We wanted to keep this simple – it’s about getting people to do what you want – login or register for details of the next class. For the people that aren’t registered, obviously this is all they’ll see…

And the class pages themselves

I was in two minds about whether to show you this, but it just looks so beautiful that I couldn’t resist! I am desperate to overhaul the Full Bloom blog design now (yes, I know again but there is so much I’d like to change…). There are still a couple of changes to make but what I hope you can see is how light, airy and neat everything feels. The perfect setting to the inspirational and powerful nature of the content

Registration for the masterclass will close at midnight on Sunday 5th February so if you’d like to get involved, then don’t forget to book – go on, do it now, while you remember… Full details on the website.

Shameless plug alert! We have some wonderful business owners signed up to join me on 6th Feb for the Branding Masterclass but as the Early Bird Offer ends on Sunday I thought I’d give you a quick reminder of the reasons you need to book your place if you haven’t already:

1. Staying ahead of the game. You can never, ever say that your brand is “done”: markets move on, competitors spring up out of nowhere, your skills grow and develop and customer needs change. You need to be able to respond to that quickly and I’ll show you how in Week One.
2. Developing your brand identity to keep it fresh and inspiring. Whether you have a lovely logo and website or not, you’ll gain oodles of value from our forays into colour psychology and the mood board session in Week Two.
3. To ensure you get maximum bang out of this year’s marketing buck. This year is going to be tough, no doubt about it, but that doesn’t mean you need to slink back into the undergrowth and wait until it all passes. Get yourself out there and take advantage of the fact your competitors are shrinking away! We’ll create a powerful marketing plan in Week Three.
4. Because I’ll help you blow your clients away with every communication. We’ll map out your customer journey from the first enquiry to the last invoice and make sure you create a wow at every stage. You’ll love it!
5. Ratcheting up the effectiveness of your website. Because unless you have created your website in the last six months and you know there is nothing you can do to improve it you’ll get loads of value out of the website planning/ overhaul sessions in Week Four.
6. Reconnecting with your business and inspiring you to really get out there and make the most of this year. So it’s going to be tough? Well then let’s get focused and get ready to flourish! We’ll give you a number of exercises over the course of the four weeks to help reignite your passion for your business (even if you don’t think it’s waned), re inspire you and build your confidence.
7. It will help your business thrive this year. Not just grow, not just get your name out there. But really thrive. I’ll help you identify how to attract more of the profitable clients, communicate with flair and passion and inspire people to want to work with you.

A masterclass to inspire, motivate and reconnect you with your business

It’s an online class that starts on 6th Feb and runs for a month. You can pace yourself, so whatever your responsibilities, and where ever you live in the world, it can fit around you. All you need to do is commit to a couple of hours a week where you really focus on your business brand.I promise that it’ll be creative, inspirational and informative, and it will make a big difference to your brand (whether you have a lovely logo and website or not).

• Clarity and purpose around your brand strategy, niche, profitable clients and brand messaging
• A mood board to help you visualise and communicate how you’d like your brand to look and feel
• A marketing plan that helps you own and defend your niche and attract and retain the right sorts of clients
• A communication plan for your clients journey from enquiry to invoice that wows and inspires them
• A plan for a truly powerful website that attracts, engages and wins you business

In addition I’ll be sharing lots of inspirational case studies, behind the scenes insights from the design team at Flourish and plenty of useful tips, tools and techniques you can start using in your business immediately to make 2012 your best year yet.Here are some of the nice things people have said about previous workshops:

“It was very helpful to take time out and refocus on marketing priorities and how to be more consistent with the marketing messages I put out. Lots of clear, practical ideas – thanks!”

Anne Williams, Worklife Balance Solutions

“Thank you so much for a very inspirational and practical workshop. I feel much more confident about promoting my business now.”
Sue Goodson, Floreal Therapies

Investment for the whole four weeks is just £165+VAT when you book your place before 23rd January and this includes all the course notes, follow up support, bags of expert info, a 20 minute one to one with me and a £75 Flourish gift voucher.So why not start your year as you mean to go on – with purpose and inspiration, and join me for a fun, creative and purposeful Branding Masterclass. Book your place today and prepare to take your brand up a gear!

Yesterday saw the first of our Focus and Flourish workshops that I’m running with the fabulous Elizabeth Cairns. And whilst I’m still slightly shattered from such an action packed day, we had such amazing feedback and I saw such leaps forward in each guest that I just had to share some of the highlights of the day with you.

The whole premise of the day was to get people to create a vision and marketing plan for their business that was authentically tied in with their personal values. And I know. Yada yada yada whatever, too socks and sandals… Well actually I think it’s essential if you want to truly move your business forwards.

Elizabeth is an excellent coach, facilitor and mentor and she explained that when your head, heart and gut are in alignment that business is easy. Get truly inspired about your vision, your goals and where you’re headed and getting there will be a pleasure.

Anyone can graft, but that makes business difficult. Find your inspiration and you’ll make achieving your goals (more of) a breeze.

And so Elizabeth took us through a number of exercises to get us thinking hard about our values, why we run the businesses that we do and what success will look like at the end of next year. As with last year, I know we all left her session incredibly inspired, invigorated and with a real sense of empowerment.

Ok, so that’s what you want to achieve, how will we get there?

The post coffee and mince pies session was all about checking in with the brand. Re-examining that you still have the right spot in the market, exploring how to innovate in changing market conditions and (a fair bit of time on) pricing. We reminded ourselves that you cannot supply the best product with the best service and be the cheapest! And so there might be a fair bit of realignment going on with some of our guests from yesterday.

I had the group define what they wanted to be known for and the message they wanted to communicate to their ideal clients, which is so key in streamlining your marketing efforts.

After lunch and our riverside networking walk we focused on communication. There is so much noise around what you should and could be doing, but what’s right for you? We explored how to tell which marketing activities to pursue and which to shelve. We also created tailored communication plans as well as looking at general background activity to maintain a profile.

Each and every one of our lovely guests had very different goals – from getting their first clients to launching a franchise offering and everything in between! But we got through a huge amount and I’m really looking forward to seeing what 2012 holds for this lovely bunch. We are running a second workshop on 12th January so if you’re kicking yourself for missing out on yesterday, why don’t you join us in the new year for what promises to be a day filled with inspiration, rejuvenation and focus?

More details on the website http://www.flourishstudios.co.uk

It’s around this time of year that most of us start looking forwards to what we’d like to get out of our businesses next year. And ahead of the first of my Focus and Flourish workshops I have been mulling over a question I ask myself a lot: what does success look like to me?

We live in a society where the trappings of success (and the sacrifices it takes to get there) are all too obvious. And at face value, it seems that we are all after the same thing. But are we really?

I think one of the things that the small business owners I know are very good at, is defining what success means to them.

Forget everyone else’s definition of success: what’s yours?

For one of my friends, her definition of business success is doing something she loves whilst at the same time being able to pay the school fees. For another, it’s about being able to match her city salary (whilst also doing what she loves). Another friend and I were looking at her business plan and goals from 2003 and were knocked sideways at how she’d achieved each and every one of her goals with bells on. And yet in the daily grind of running a business it’s easy to lose sight of what you have achieved.

I was at a seminar a couple of weeks ago where the speaker was geeing us up to think about Super-Success. His personal definition was Financial Freedom (whatever that means to you) and he talked several times about his “very nice lifestyle”. I have no idea of his own personal wealth, but I’d hazard a guess that it’s at the very least in the millions. I sat there listening to what he had to say, all very valid stuff, and I thought, “actually, if this is what it takes, I’m ok thanks.”

You see he made no bones about the fact that to be “super successful” you need to make some big sacrifices. He travels a lot, he works long hours, and from the sounds of things, he works at the weekends too. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but I have made the very conscious decision that’s not for me.

And this is where I think your definition of success needs to be tied into your personal values. Success for you is how you define it. It could be to do with money, it could be wellbeing, it could be enjoying your job, it could be about how much time and flexibility you are able to bring into your life. I suspect that you, like me, can’t have it all. And I suspect that if you can get clear in your mind what you want to achieve next year, reconcile that with your personal values and ensure you’re comfortable with it, that you’ll be halfway there.

The fact is that there is no one-size fits all when it comes to defining success. But I do think it’s important to think about it. Really think about it. Not just pluck an arbitrary number out of thin air with no realistic planning about whether it’s achievable: but to actually think through what you want to achieve, how the market has changed and the steps you need to plan to get there.

And this is why I brought Elizabeth into the Focus and Flourish workshop - because whilst I do all the practical marketing stuff, she has the innate ability to get us all to focus on what we want and tie that back into our personal values. It’s an incredibly inspiring experience, and one that I’d love you to join us on if you can make it. We have a couple of spaces left on our 12th Jan workshop so come and join us, get Focused and then plan to Flourish!

Either way, do just take five minutes out to really focus on what success looks like for next year. It’ll be time really well spent.