Who should call and when to call
This page is for two kinds of people:
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People who are well-connected enough, and kind enough, to make some introductions. If that’s you, I want you to know you’re a rockstar. Not literally, but just about.
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People who are considering hiring me, and who have been referred by others. If you’re thinking about being my next client, thanks in advance. You’re the best.
My ideal clients (who should call)
I work at my best with assertive decision makers: founders, CEOs, heads of marketing.
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They’re frustrated because they have a vision of where things should be, but for some reason their brand, communications or content aren’t quite there yet.
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They know the biggest risk they can take is to keep doing a bit more of the same thing for another year.
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They already have a marketing team, but they’re all too busy actually running the day to day tasks.
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They may have capacity in the business, but not necessarily the right capabilities to truly nail it.
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I specialise in B2B and service businesses who are not afraid to get some honest outside-in views of what their customers really think about them. You’re not afraid of working with your eyes wide open.
Their typical problems (when to call)
The problems I solve are mostly around top-of-funnel stuff. The positioning isn’t reflecting what the brand truly wants to be about. The communications aren’t landing the right kinds of things. The campaigns aren’t making the most of their resources. The content strategy is playing it too safe, and based on a playbook that might have been relevant 5 years ago, but the platforms have moved on.
These are the types of questions I like to wrestle with:
Are you trying to clarify the problems your brand is there to solve?
Are you swimming in research that makes it hard, if not impossible, to decide what you should do next?
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Then you should talk to me about how I can decode all of that and make it applicable.
Do you need a sharper narrative for how your brand shows up?
Do you have existing brand strategy documentation, but it all feels a bit over-layered to your taste?
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Then you should talk to me about how I can sharpen the work you already have.
Do you need a more commercially-minded view of what communications are there to do?
Are people so focused on ‘awareness’ that they ignore all other reasons people might actually buy from you?
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Then you should talk to me about how to think more rigorously about Category Entry Points.
Are you trying to make sense of the 7 competing ‘lead messages’ the business thinks are important?
And do you instead need a more customer-centric view of what truly matters for people to choose you?
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Then you should talk to me about how I can help with qual and quant research, done in days not weeks.
Do you need a shared understanding of who your audience really is?
Is most of the insight you’re given a mix of media behaviour and a bunch of vague assumptions on top?
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Then you should talk to me about how to create pen portraits your team will actually know what to do with.
Do you feel your team doesn’t have a robust enough understanding of what content strategy is for?
Are people not able to see where in the customer journey different types of content can make a difference?
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Then you should talk to me about how we can plot roles of content across your entire customer experience.
Do you feel people are treating content as a box-ticking exercise, instead of a brand building channel?
Are people seeing content as something to ‘churn out’, instead of being rigorous and consistent with it?
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Then you should talk to me about how we can find content themes your audience will actually care about.
Is there a fundamental gap between your brand idea and your comms strategy?
Are you sitting on a TV-centric concept that doesn’t quite land in literally every other channel in the mix?
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Then you should talk to me about how to apply creative comms planning principles to your brand work.
Is there a lot of strategy talk and not a lot of practical implementation talk?
Do you feel like any semblances of a GTM strategy always end up in the file folder of doom?
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Then you should talk to me about how we develop a roadmap to help you meet people where they are.
Does your heart sink at what people think ‘objectives and KPIs’ actually are?
Do you need an informed view, grounded in the latest in marketing effectiveness, about how to prove success?
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Then you should talk to me about the clear logic between business, marketing and comms objectives.
Is the business addicted to bland engagement over brand equity?
Do you feel like you can’t piece together your digital metrics with what the board actually respects?
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Then you should talk to me about how we can equip you with the right ammo to justify future budgets.
Does your team need to add an injection of creativity and intellectual divergence into their jobs?
Are people more focused on getting things ‘done right’, instead of trying potentially new ‘right things’?
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Then you should talk to me about my training or workshop modules on creative thinking.
Does your team need to improve their own skills about how to think about and sell strategy?
Are you on the receiving end of 100-page documents but not enough conscious choices made within them?
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Then you should talk to me about my training and workshop modules on sharper strategy.
Are your teams more scared about AI than excited by how it can help them do better work?
And does this mean they either don’t use it, or use it once and then immediately forget about it?
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Then you should talk to me about my training or workshop modules on practical applications on AI.
Process (I know!)
I’m pretty easy to work with. My process should fit yours, never the other way around. I call this ‘radical collaboration’ and most clients are huge fans of it. I’ve done strategy sprints with CMOs. I’ve done weekly sessions with founders. I’ve run workshops with global marketing directors. Name your preferred method!