Business Strategy

It’s quite a simple question really… Many of us are passionate about selling products and/or services that we wholeheartedly believe in. Because let’s face it, if we aren’t passionate about our own product then we can’t expect our customers to be. But selling someone something they need but don’t particularly want can be incredibly difficult.

Selling someone a product or service they want is often just a matter of closing the deal. What many people fail to realise is that it’s incredibly difficult – perhaps nigh on impossible, to sell someone something they need but don’t want.

Occassionally I’ll meet a business owner struggling to make their business model work. And often, the root cause lies in the fact that they’re on a crusade to change the world. They believe quite so passionately in their business/ product/ service that they believe everyone else should too. They look to the branding and the marketing to solve the problem. They revisit their sales process. If they’re not careful they can embark on incredibly expensive campaigns that result in very little. Why? Because they’ve failed to grasp that their customers don’t want what they’re selling.

They might need it. But they don’t want it. Nightmare.

Tagged as in Branding, Business Strategy, Marketing

On Monday I ran a mood board session with one of the most experiential and inspiring people I’ve worked with all year. Tim Martin, Harley Street hypnotherapist and lifestyle coach has been working with us on his brand strategy and marketing planning for the past couple of weeks. Yesterday it was time to get our thoughts in order and visualise exactly how we saw his brand “feeling”.

Tim is no ordinary hypnotherapist. Not only is he based at the most prestigious medical address in the UK (No 1, Harley Street) he also has a vision for his business. No longer will he simply be offering hypnotherapy. Tim is mentoring a collection of hand-picked professionals to provide a unique service. The Mind Boutique will be the place to go to if you’re looking for help and support in growing as a person. That might be stopping smoking, losing weight, resolving relationship problems or simply (she says airily, as if it is ever simple) achieving a better work-life balance.

Tim visualises a congruent, professional and stigma-free approach to his clients. The word “therapy” will be banned And he and his team of Life Calibrators will guide people through their journey with the Mind Boutique. The plan is that in the long term these people will be self sufficient, and won’t be reliant on “therapy”.

Tim will use a collection of therapists (for want of a better word – he has all sorts of funky names planned for them!) to work on the whole person – from NLP and CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) practitioners to Yoga teachers, Life Coaches and nutritionists. And his Life Calibrators will tailor a programme to suit the individual’s needs.

Longer term this prototype will be rolled out across prestigious establishments across the UK. This is particularly exciting for me as I was heavily involved in printing.com’s franchise operation – both the setup and sale as well as the local operational elements so I always find franchising interesting.

And as you can see from the mood board – this brand is going to be funky, contemporary and aspirational. After much debate we agreed on the Autumn colour personality: authentic, ambitious, challenger of traditional norms, intelligent and of substance. Tim will be launching a range of product to complement the practice and I am particularly excited about that! Lots of scope to create some fabulous items. I’m looking forward to showing you the designs…

{‘scuse the rubbish pic quality… from left to right: Ben, Tim and Sheila}

As far as The Mind Boutique is concerned, Tim brought along two key stakeholders in his business: wife Sheila and right hand man Ben. I think all three of them found the session really helpful to both clarify their objectives and vision for the business (and make sure they were all on the same page) and as a springboard for them to move the business forwards. Mood board sessions tend to be very motivational because they clarify (often muddled) thoughts and enable you to get on and plan.

Of course you’ll be one of the first to see the new designs as soon as we’ve worked on them. We’ve already done one round of brainstorming and have some great concepts as well as a beautiful colour palette. More brainstorming tomorrow and then some mockups for Tim – if he’s happy I will make sure I share them with you as well.

Tagged as , hypnotherapy logo design, nlp logo design, the mind boutique in Branding, Business Strategy, Colour Psychology, Logo Design, Marketing, Mood Boards

I’m not normally one to outright plug things on this blog, but Thursday 9th December sees the last marketing workshop of the year so I thought I should let you know . I’ve teamed up with Elizabeth Cairns and it’s going to be a cracker!

Focus and Flourish is designed to help those of you that dread the thought of writing your marketing plan. We’ll help you get focused, and erm, plan how to get your business flourishing for the new year. Elizabeth’s effervescent and inspirational facilitative style will really help you focus on what’s important to you about next year: whether it’s about paying off your mortgage or getting a better work life balance (or something in between!) she’ll use a range of techniques to get you focused.

You’ll be creating a visual mood board before the workshop that we’ll use in the session as an aid, as well as walking along the beautiful River Wey (bring waterproofs and your woolies – we’ll be out whatever the weather) and some group sessions.

Once we’ve got you focused, following some delicious homemade cakes, and probably mince pies since it’ll be nearly Christmas, I’ll help you create a marketing plan that’ll help your business flourish. We’ll explore your niche, and whether it’s relevant for the year ahead and we’ll look at some low cost and no cost marketing activities to help you communicate your brand strategy as well as the activities that require a little investment in exchange for a high return.

We only have 5 spaces left and I would hate for you to miss out! To secure your place simply book online, and if you book before Thursday you’ll save £30. Go on, join us for a fabulous day and get focused and help your business flourish!

Oh and one more thing… we are desperately trying to get our calendar of workshops together for next year and we’d love to know what you want. Would you fill out our two minute questionnaire so that we can make sure we deliver the workshops you want?

Tagged as in Business Strategy, Marketing, Workshops

We often start our businesses because of a deep seated passion for what we do. Perhaps we have a flair for something and we want to spend all of our time doing it, perhaps we want to turn a hobby into a business, perhaps we just want to do what we do best. I have [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Business Strategy, Marketing

How often do your clients say that to you? In a competitive marketplace it’s so tempting to feel like you need to compete on price. After all, if you’re the cheapest, clients will flock to you won’t they? Take a look at your marketing literature: your website, your latest leaflets or flyers. What’s the main [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Business Strategy, Marketing

I started running marketing workshops for my customers back in January 2007 and I haven’t looked back since. Each workshop has helped me to develop relationships with my customers, find new customers, demonstrate my expertise and most importantly, help my clients grow their businesses. Some workshops have been easy to fill, others harder. And whilst [...]

Tagged as in Business Strategy, Marketing, Workshops

After years of believing that the holy grail of marketing was a flashy website with plenty of SEO activity, online retailers are getting back to basics and placing the catalogue at the very heart of their marketing campaigns. It’s a clever strategy and something small businesses would do well to take heed of. In our [...]

Tagged as in Business Strategy, Marketing

I do realise that we’re in the hottest week of the year and to be talking about Christmas is probably going to get me lynched, but if you sell a product or service that might be suitable as a gift, then you need to be thinking about Christmas right now. Izzy and I spent a [...]

Tagged as , christmas marketing, sheerluxe conference in Business Strategy, Marketing

Running a business is tough isn’t it? Marketing, budgeting, planning, sales, people management, troubleshooting and then those “challenges” that seem to crop up that throw us off track – for a matter of hours, days, weeks, whatever! It’s sometimes easy to lose track of why you went into business in the first place. We’ve certainly [...]

Tagged as , branding, garden designer, marketing strategy in Branding, Business Strategy, Case Studies, Flourish Stuff, From The Studio, Marketing

There’s an important, and often overlooked, correlation between the strength of your brand strategy and the effectiveness of your marketing activity. In other words, people who have defined their niche in the market and communicate that consistently, find it much more cost effective to market their businesses than those that don’t. Have you defined your [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Business Strategy, Marketing