BEING FREE

Being well nourished helps with energy, mood and productivity.

Every Monday morning the Ocado man arrives with fresh provisions for the week. Eggs, salads, chicken, couscous, smoothies – whatever anybody asks for, we buy. Breakfast is the first order of the day.

We often make it together or for each other. It tastes nicer that way.

Annual reviews are not a good way to develop people. At best, they’re a yearly pat on the back, at worst, adversarial and demotivating. They’re not inspiring nor that effective. Forbes calls them “artefacts left over from the Industrial Revolution.”

We do something different – triannual previews – a sit down every four months. Any shorter and there’s no time to make real progress. Any longer and the focus is lost. In a preview each person gets to set smart goals for the following period.

Smart goals, for the uninitiated, are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound. We set goals that we want to achieve for our clients, for our business and for ourselves. It’s all about looking forward and working with a high level of autonomy. We believe the role of management is to ensure everyone is on track. And if they’re not, to intervene, and support them to success. So that as individuals, and as a team, we grow strong.

Like anybody, we enjoy the hit of satisfaction you get from making progress.

But we don’t leave it to chance. We set up our process to deliver it – for us and for our clients. No matter what we’re doing, whether we’re defining a brand, building a website, creating content or running a campaign, we divide the job into milestones, or sprints, that are delivered in under two weeks.

Regular, progressive steps towards your goals. It’s a more rewarding way to work. It keeps the energy high. It keeps the momentum flowing. And gives everyone a sense of completion. Of course, two weeks is the maximum, not the minimum. The idea for the photos that accompany our blogs was conceived, shot and uploaded to our website in under two hours.

Visit our studio and you’ll see our brand vision up on our wall. It is our constant visual reminder of who we are and what we’re up to in the world. It provides context, purpose and clarity. If we’re doing something that doesn’t fulfil on our mission, we stop and ask why.

It’s the same when we’re working on a project for a client. Whether that’s a new website, an integrated campaign, a content strategy or an automated email workflow, their Brand Vision is up on our screens, guiding us to fresh ideas and neat solutions that bring their mission one step closer.

There have been thousands of very clever people in marketing and sales over the decades. Hundreds of processes, models and systems developed. Dozens of iterations and refinements.

We have researched, tested, discarded and adapted a number of these over the years and united the best of them into a cohesive system that is as simple as it is powerful. We didn’t invent this stuff. We just brought it together.

Personality is key to defining a brand. Carl Gustav Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, pioneered the understanding of personality types, derivatives of which we use in our Brand Vision model.

A brand that has purpose has power. Simon Sinek the author and motivational speaker who simplified and systematised brand purpose in Start with Why, has the cleanest format we know of for defining brand mission statements. So that’s what we use.

Understanding where your difference, and therefore your value lies is critical to success in marketing. We have used the work of Steve Doyle as the framework for our value proposition workshop where we define the things that set you apart.

Our 20 second pitch, originally adapted from the Elevator Pitch formula devised by Robert Craven in Bright Marketing, has been updated and refined over the years. It enables everyone in your organisation to give a powerful introduction to your business.

HubSpot provides us with the marketing technology to plan, conduct and measure our marketing campaigns

Partnership is a nice thing to talk about. It sounds so seamless, aligned, perfect. But real life, real business, is often messier than that. Briefs change, deadlines move forward, budgets need to go further. In short, it’s demanding. It has to be. But it still has to work. For our clients. And for us. That’s why we have created a Working in Partnership booklet that sets out a way of working designed to help us succeed.

Because ultimately partnership is about managing a relationship together.

Our mission is to help people and business unleash the full power of their value so that they stand out in their environment. To do that we have a range of tools at our disposal. Tools that help define and articulate your difference. Tools that help you understand your audience. Tools that help you reach them. And tools that help you sell to them.

Depending on where you are and what roadblock you’ve hit that has caused you to come to our website, we can create a plan for you.

Defining your brand

• Brand persona
• Brand mission
• Brand values and value functions
• Brand message
• Competitive positioning

Getting your pitch perfect

• Brand value proposition
• Product value propositions
• Brand elevator pitch
• Product elevator pitches

Visualising your brand

• Design concepts
• Logo
• Identity
• Environment
• Website look and feel
• Style guide

Making your brand real for others

• Website sitemap and messaging
• Website design and build
• Stationery
• MS Office templates
• Brand collateral
• Brand guidelines

Your marketing campaigns

• Marketing strategy
• Marketing plan
• Integrated campaign concept
• Internal marketing
• Behaviours and culture
• External marketing
• Content, PR, social, PPC, SEO

Attributable results

• KPIs
• Campaign dashboard and tools
• Lead capture
• CRM
• Campaign tracking
• Campaign optimisation
• ROI reporting