Kate Davis is a leadership coach for business founders. She believes passionately that everyone should be able to do work that makes them happy, in an environment that makes them feel valued and heard. Happy people are motivated, energised, more efficient, and more profitable. Happy people make for better, more sustainable businesses. Kate is an ICF accredited and giant certified coach. She has 20+ years experience in growing, developing and mentoring teams in high pressure operational businesses. And as an experienced corporate Change Manager. Kate, welcome to where ideas lunch.
It's such a pleasure to host you. So Kate, I'd like to start with how did you get into leadership coaching in the first place?
Kate Davis 1:12
So I'm going to give you the abridged version because it's a bit of a long story. Apparently everybody has at least three careers in them. And I'm definitely like that cat. I'm on my ninth life, I think. So I started out as a solicitor I worked in the city and property litigation, I hated it. I love working with people. I hated being the bad guy. I hated working with people when they didn't want this thing to be happening to them. They didn't want to be changing, they didn't want to change. And so I rebelled.
I worked in live events management for nearly 20 years. I was the director of operations. And I loved being able to work in environments with people, where the idea was to actually go out there to inspire, innovate, amaze and, wow, people. And seeing teams that were under enormous pressure, a lot of the time event management, one of the most stressful jobs along with being an ambulance driver, But because people loved what they did, and because they were, they were energised and motivated by what they did. Then it was very easy to put teams together and keep them motivated, then I had two wonderful children and flying off all over the place wasn't wasn't sustainable with mum-life. So I moved into transformational change management and business architecture, again, helping people to navigate change, helping people to understand themselves and the processes that they work under better.
But I came to the conclusion that I'm not very good at working for anybody else. And I wanted to really develop this side of the mentoring and the coaching. So hence where I am now. And having seen leadership at its best and its worst over the last 30 years, it's really important for me to be able to develop people into being great leaders. So you know, as you said in the intro, enabling leaders to create environments where people feel valued and heard, and that their work is important, is really important to me.
Katherine Ann Byam 3:13
I hear that. What do you see as the biggest challenges for startups today, when it comes to moving from early stage to maturity, so I'm talking about, stepping into the shoes of the CEO,
Kate Davis 3:25
The challenges that are normally brought to people are obviously heightened at the moment, because hopefully post coming out post pandemic, the same problems are still there, but they're just, you know, the data has been turned up. So in terms of competition, especially with business founders, there are an awful lot of people who started their own business over the last couple of years. And you know, the online space is a very noisy place. There. Obviously, the global challenges, pandemics, Brexit, climate change, you know, all of those different global issues, national and global, global issues. But I also see in all of this and trying to grow a business, especially one that has grown well, where I can see people struggling is where their businesses almost outgrown them, and they're finding themselves overwhelmed. They want to be a good leader, they want to be able to grow their business, they want to be the boss that they never had, perhaps, but they find it very overwhelming. And that's where I think people like you and I are best able to step in and say, right, let's take a breath. Let's see what's important. Let's see, do we need to move things around? But also understanding that idea of self leadership and self management, so that you can be the leader that you need to be as well as the needs of everybody else needs you to be? And I'm always going to go back to how to fix it by being clear about your mission and your vision. You know, you and I are big Simon Sinek fans, understanding why you do what you do, keeping that at the core of everything you do and how you're doing what you do around that, but really staying true to the mission. And the vision, the purpose behind your businesses is definitely the way to help people to move from startup to CEO, should we say,
Katherine Ann Byam 5:09
Yeah, my podcast addresses sustainable businesses. And I think that we have an additional challenge to the normal business. And I say this in quotations, because we have three bottom lines to take care of. So we constantly have to be thinking about what we are doing to take care of the business and the people in it. So making sure that it's sustainable for us, making sure that we're relevant to the people around us in our communities, and making sure that we're fit for the planet? And what are your thoughts on ways that sustainable businesses can sort of enhance their reach and impact while balancing the sort of three things that they're juggling? It's a complicated question, I guess, but
Kate Davis 5:57
Well, it's, it's not a complicated question, your questions, there are many possible answers. I think in terms of trying to elevate your reach on your impact. Networking is incredibly important in business anyway. But I think it's even more important when you have when you are able to find people or other businesses who share common values, being able to network so that you can actually help it to support one another, you can collaborate together, that actually anything where we are effectively fighting against a common enemy at you know, we're trying to educate and, and inform, we're trying to spread that, that that wider message, whilst also running, running a business that supports that having people around you who who get that and where you can help them. And they can help you as I say, collaborations, or whether it's simply another, you know, another sounding board to go, you know, am I on the right track, am I banging my head against a brick wall, that's really important from from the business perspective, but also the business owners perspective, because it can feel very lonely doing it on your own.
The other really important thing is to get really clear on your message, being able to translate something that you feel really passionately about into language that the people you're trying to impact will understand, being able to have that, that that line of communication, where, you know, you may be talking about concepts they don't understand, but you really want them to be able to understand and you need them to buy into that message, getting that line of communication and getting that message really clear, I think is paramount
And get used to banging that drum, you know, the online and even bricks and mortar business everywhere is very busy. And we often think well, I can't keep talking about that same thing again, surely everybody's bored. No, most people are not hearing things. You know, how many times have we said that in terms of social media posts, how many times you have to post for somebody to actually be able to see it get used to banging the drum get used to keep saying the same message over and over again, you may be bored hearing yourself, but other people need to hear what you have to say.
Yeah, and I think that the same that I would say with any business customer service, making sure that the customers that you that you're bringing in feel in the same way that I'd like your employees to fill this out in the same way of being feeling valued and heard and that they understand you and you understand them. If you are delivering exceptional customer service, they will bang your drum for you, they will help to spread your message, they will help to elevate your impact.
Katherine Ann Byam 8:28
What are your top tips for growing and shaping great teams?
Kate Davis 8:32
That's a good one. Um, I think first of all, I'm going to get back to mission and mission and purpose. If your values and your mission are clear, and people are on board with that, then you are a long way down the line to building a great team. If you're operating in different directions, it doesn't matter how good everybody is at their job, if everybody is working towards the same aim that's really important. And being able to paint that picture for people. You know, as I was saying before, getting really clear on your message outwardly, it's just as important to have that message clear inward as well.
And then get really clear on what you need. We all have strengths and weaknesses. We all have natural talents and the things that are learned behaviours that do not sit very well with us. And that's absolutely fine. really understanding where you have gaps. I, for example, are not very good at being in the here and now. Give me a spreadsheet with lots of data on it and I'm really falling asleep but I know it's important so I know I need somebody on my team you can do that. Whilst I go, hey, let's go and create some stuff. Understanding where your skills and talents are, where other people's skills and talents are and so so that you're matching each other's gaps so that you've got a really strong foundation on which to build.
And being able to communicate properly with them. If you're bringing different people who have different skills and qualifications, different natural talents, they will communicate in different ways to you. Understanding yourself and how you communicate what it's like to be on the other side of you is really important. So that you can communicate properly making people feel, as I say, valued and heard, and people will therefore be able to work better with you, and be able to pull better together to be able to form a great team and a great business.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:21
Yeah, absolutely. great tips. What are the mindset shifts that a new leader of teams needs to make in order to make that transition? And that leap? Let's call it the up-level?
Kate Davis 10:33
A really good question. And again, I could go on forever, but I'm not going to, I think the key thing is, it is about self-leadership is understanding yourself, being able to see how you are as I was just saying about being able to hear what other people hear from you, being able to check in with yourself, seeing your limits, but just seeing them as not as you know, I'm failing at this. But actually, okay, that's something I need to work on. Or that's something that I'm never going to be great at, can I get somebody else to come in to support me in that area,
Understanding that you are actually a piece in the puzzle rather than it being all on you owning those feelings as well, allowing yourself to say, you know what, I've got a bit of imposter syndrome here, I can't believe I'm in this situation. And these people are now listening to me and, and looking to me for answers, call yourself up on things. Don't call yourself out. This isn't it isn't a blame thing. But call yourself up on things and recognise things, own that reaction, own the way that you're behaving. And therefore, you'll know how to respond, bringing the support in when you need to.
And making sure that you're looking at after your mental and physical health, you will be going through all sorts of changes, you'll be working hours or working in different ways that you're not expecting to making sure that you those old adages about how you can't pour from an empty cup, empty jug, and all those things are more or more important than ever, making sure that you are fit and healthy mind and body is really important to be able to lead people because they need you to be helpful and healthy,
Katherine Ann Byam 12:04
Absolutely could not agree more. What role would you hire first?
Kate Davis 12:08
Oh, that's a really good one that depends on what you need.
So you need to do that skills gap, you need to work out where your skills and strengths are.
And where you know that you're not very good at. So say, Don't ask me to look at numbers because I can't do them. And I'm totally cool with that. The first person that I would always bring in is somebody who's comfortable with the numbers because I'm not, you need to do that skills analysis, which sounds very formal, but it's basically what am I not very good at? But what do I know I need? That's where I would go first?
Katherine Ann Byam 12:43
Yeah. What about the things that you can't outsource?
Kate Davis 12:47
What are your thoughts on what those are the things that you can't outsource? I would always say, just go easy on yourself. If you know that you need to do them and you know that they're not within your zone of genius. You know, they're YouTube has an answer for everything Google has an answer for you know that there aren't the answers out there. Take it easy on yourself. If you're learning something that is not something that is in you know, within your within your natural talents, but you know, you need to do it. Just be kind to yourself, because you'll do it, you'll manage to do it. But you'll it'll take you twice as long as if you're telling yourself off about it as well.
Kate Davis 13:21
Absolutely. Kate, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your advice with us. And thanks for joining the show.
Unknown Speaker 13:29
Thanks so much. It's been lovely to talk to you.
Kate Davis 13:33
This episode was brought to you today by the Eco business growth Club by Katherine Ann Byam and by the space where ideas launch, the Eco business growth club supports positive impact SMEs with coaching new health, and community support toward achieving the impact and reach they set out to meet. You can find out more by connecting with where ideas launch on Instagram or following the hashtag where it is launched across all of your social media.
052 Becoming The CEO
About this Episode
Are you building a green business that works for you and for the planet? Season three of where ideas launch walks you through the process of ideas and creating, developing and scaling and green idea from start to success. I leverage my experience along with the experts and micro-entrepreneurs running green business models today. Join us for this short series of 16 episodes of positive business impact for change.
It really fascinates me how much reference we place in titles, it seems they are woven into the fabric of the story, we tell ourselves every day about our accomplishments, or what is what we're entitled to. But the titles truly serve us, or more importantly, help us to become better servant leaders?
This is the question that I put to myself today on this episode. Servant leadership came into my vernacular in 2016. When I returned to regular work, after my sabbatical year, it was all the rage, and certainly everyone talked about it. But quickly, it was clear that too many artefacts to an old world existed in our structures, which made servant leadership hard to digest.
For example, the parking privilege of the heads of function, or the titles that they have stored, or the frameworks that we had for decision making. Most of the artefacts supported a pre-existing world, as much as we tried to become better servant leaders to our teams. When I started my business, I immediately promoted myself to the CEO, I was the only employee on record. But I immediately wanted to step up into my role of shaping the business in the likeness of a strong and connected thought leader. I'll tell you what, though, the trouble is that although it's not impossible, it's very, very difficult to step into a true place of leadership, when you are also the lady simultaneously driving the bus, handing out the flyers, serving the drinks, checking the tab, and trying to figure out the best way to minimise waste, recycle, or build a circular business model from your business. There's a lot that we have to digest and figure out when we're leading businesses that offer a modern age, when you're trying to operate within the heart of the doughnut, or let's say the green ring of the donut that keeps rearward speaks about in her work on donut economics, you have a lot to consider beyond just the team, the business fundamentals, but you also have to consider your impact. And the doughnut philosophy is, is pretty much this, that there's a sort of social foundation that we can't drop beneath. So we can't get into the hole of the middle of the doughnut, because that's where the social foundation doesn't exist. They're basic necessities that don't exist for some people. And then we have an ecological ceiling, a boundary to the donut that we kind of go beyond. So this is where you have climate change, ozone layer depletion, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, nitrogen, freshwater withdrawals, land conversion, biodiversity loss, and air pollution, among other things. So the idea when you're designing your business is to design to stay within this lovely green band, which is considered the social ingest space for humanity. But taking that on as a single intrapreneur, trying to create that framework while trying to save yourself. So often pretty difficult, right. And the essential thing that we need to do first is make sure that our business stands on good foundation of itself, almost before we can pull anyone else from outside of that ring. Or we can design our business models to simultaneously pull ourselves and others out of the middle of that circle. So this is a lot to think about. And definitely it's a challenge for many of us building our businesses today. The CEO mindset therefore starts with building a great support team. And nowadays I'm calling it a hybrid team, with people automation and great slick systems, as well as building a fit for purpose business model. Now, when you're building a team, it seems scary at first. What if I have a poor month and then another poor month? What responsibility Am I taking for someone else's income? If you're thinking like that, this is a good thing. It means you understand the stakes, it means you understand what it means to be inside that circle. But the B track to that soundtrack in your head is how do you hire so that the additional headcount that you bring in so the people you decide to lift up or expense that you take on unlocks more capacity to expand the reach of your business? If you're a solopreneur, your first hire can be among perhaps three key roles, or possibly all of them, if you are able to afford it. So the first is an operations expert to help you set up the right automated and technical solutions in your business. If these are not already in place, then you have virtual assistant, so someone to help manage your time and your diary. And then you can choose from another three sets. Depending on your ability to afford them, perhaps you can do all of them, or perhaps just one. But the three that I'm talking about are a social media manager, who takes the load off the organic lead generation and your business, an ads manager if you prefer to use ads, rather than organic traction. And that person can also take some weight off the lead generation activity, or a PR manager or a team who writes content for you to be featured in press and other media. So all of these are all of these activities are needed to help grow and scale your business. It's up to you to decide what balance you want to inject into your team, and what fits with your business best, what fits the interest and the need and the design of your business model best as well. Other hires would considering an associate or an understudy, who can start delivering some of the more routine aspects of what you do. And this can potentially overlap with your operations manager depending on the skills required. You may also want to consider an accountant. That's a hugely for many business owners, knowing that someone competent is looking after their books, and preparing financial statements, things that you're going to rely on in your business. You can also think about a business development manager to look at bigger contracts, collaborations and partnerships going out there to strategically make connections for you and your business. If you're scaling, you need to be mindful of the bandwidth you have for your business. And as such, you may need to look at your service model. For example, perhaps you might need to add more group services rather than one to one services. Or you need to bring up that team of understudies to be able to provide some of that one to one basis so that you only provide the absolute bit that you need to provide it giving some of the more routine aspects to that understudy.
Price also becomes a consideration if you only have so much capacity to scale your service in terms of hours. But most of all, as you scale, you need to consider that your impact is becoming more we talk about growth. And we know that cannot be infinite growth in a finite world. However, when we talk about growth, sustainable businesses, we're really talking about untapped capacity, untapped demand, we're also talking about sort of head on competition with businesses that are operating in a less sustainable way. So in a way, your untapped demand is a latent demand in the market for things that are more sustainable. So if people find things that are more sustainable, they're going to reallocate funds, and allocate them to your product. There is some competition, there is some head on competition that you will be taking on in order to grow. And you need to be aware of that too. That part of your game is going to be competing with businesses that haven't made the transition that haven't made the commitment to lifting people to the right place and to and supporting initiatives for the planet. As you scale and grow your impact. Your advocacy work becomes even more important. The funds you can contribute to helping people escape, the doughnut expands and management of that impact becomes even more important ensuring it's reaching the right people, the contributions you were making to reduce your impact on the outer limits of the doughnut also become more important. And ensuring your growth is neutral or positive for the planet will be essential. In the next episode, we go into the mindset of becoming the leader of your business, and some of the things that can derail you. Before we close However, there are two more important things that we do need to cover when you're building out your scale and your business to grow for the future. And they are legal, and HR. Please don't underestimate the importance of having good legal contracts in place for looking at the right ways to put those contracts in place so that they are fair to both parties. And also looking at the employment law as the employment rules, especially as we move towards more remote working more flexible working employees living in different countries and different jurisdictions from where your business is based. So you do need to get expert support to do those kinds of roles. But the good news is you don't have to hire them full time anymore. So tune in to the next episode to understand the kind of leader you need to become in order to really be able to deliver On these goals that you've set yourself, I'm looking forward to supporting you through this in the next episode with my guest. See you soon. This episode was brought to you today by the Eco business growth Club by Katherine Ann Byam. And by the space where ideas launch. The eco-business growth club supports positive impact SMEs with coaching new health, and community support toward achieving the impact and reach they set out to meet. You can find out more by connecting with where ideas launch on Instagram or following the hashtag where it is launched across all of your social media.
051 Operations and Growth
About this Episode
My next guest is Katy Davies from Piece of Cake Coaching. She's a strategy coach, and before coaching, she actually started her own cake business, KatyBakey. Katy's natural ability to break things down and explain them in simple terms means she can help her clients cut through the overwhelm, gain clarity in their business and take action to get the life that they want. Using her business MOT, she works with her clients to sort through the tangle of ideas in their heads and helps them create a clear and actionable plan to achieve their goals. solving any problems that pop up along the way, helping them get organised, manage their time more efficiently, and understanding the online social media world and how to market their business is part of Katy's expertise.
Wonderful to have you. And you know, in this season, I've been digging into things like the idea to CEO and how green businesses can make their start, and then grow and scale. And now you're coming in to talk about the growth part, which I'm really excited about. Because I think a lot of people aren't sure about their businesses. They step tentatively into it, they use it as a side gig, they're not sure they're ever gonna replace their income. But I know that you were able to successfully replace your income with your cake business even before you started your coaching business. So it's a pleasure to have you on the show. And it's a pleasure to get into that journey that you've had as well.
Katy Davies 1:52
Yeah, I can't wait to tell you.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:54
So tell me how you got started, Katy. Share with all listeners how you decided to move from where you will tell us where you were before, and how you leverage the skills that you had to use in your cake business.
Katy Davies 2:07
Okay, so where I was, my journey is a little bit convoluted. And I never really knew exactly what I wanted to do. Like a lot of people, we don't really necessarily have a calling and our higher purpose always and we don't know what it is right away. So I did a physics degree at uni, I lacked that. And I didn't really know what to do. So I got a job as a receptionist in a design agency marketing agency in the West End. And I quickly became an office manager and I worked through all of the roles in the business, HR, Finance, invoicing contracts. And I did all of the different roles within the agency. And I went there for 12 years and had different roles throughout the whole time I was there. And eventually, by the time I left, I was upstairs in the studio. And I was a project manager and I ended up doing marketing for the agency themselves. Because typically, they were lousy agency and they were terrible at doing their marketing. So 12 years, I did all sorts of things and learn all areas of the business. And I became really frustrated. So what I had on the agency was kind of run by the finance director, the creative director. And when I worked on the back end, I kind of was under the direction of the finance director. When I moved to the front, I kind of had these two bosses, and they couldn't decide what to do. And I found it really frustrating. And I just kind of thought, you know what, I can do a better job of running a company myself as you do.
And baking was my hobby. I've been doing it for about a year. And I've got really into it where even when it's your hobby, there are lots of rules around food safety. The council has to come down, inspect your kitchen and give you a rating. And so even just doing it as a hobby became quite complicated, and I was putting a lot of effort into it. So I decided to just go for it and I quit my job. And I launched headlong into being a cake maker. And obviously, my growth was helped by the fact that I had that background. I had that background in the agency for 12 years. So I knew how to do my invoicing, I knew how to do my accounts and I have to do my marketing as well as doing the cakes. So that was eight years ago. And my journey through that got me into the entrepreneur world which is very different to the corporate world.
So all of a sudden you have all your friends also run their own business. And because of my background, I ended up helping people. And they'd be like, how did you do this? How did you get to do this, and I don't really understand this. And a lot of entrepreneurs, know what they do, but they don't know how to do the rest of it. So I kind of naturally started coaching people. And eventually, it was my own coach, who said to me, You need to start charging people for this. So about two and a half, three years ago, I actually started the coaching alongside the cakes. And obviously, with the pandemic last year, the focus switched. There weren't any weddings, and I've kind of been doing this much more over the last year with the coaching.
Katherine Ann Byam 5:38
What do you think were the sort of key ingredients that allowed you to have the growth that you had because I'm guessing that you didn't start in the first month replacing your corporate income?
Katy Davies 5:53
No, definitely not. So I mean, I was quite sensible, I made sure I had some off-season savings behind me. And that obviously gave me a bit of a time deadline, which is a bit of a motivator is always good here. But so I think having the background that I had did help with my growth, obviously, because I knew all the whole area of my business. So if you don't know the whole layout of your business, don't be afraid to get help and ask, but I think, especially with the cakes, and with any business, the same with the coaching is, so knowing your audience, and being intentional with your marketing, and because if you know getting your branding, right, getting that kind of thing, right from the start, you might not you might find your way into it, but try and bear it in mind, I think it is critical to attracting the right kind of client, because using the cake example, and you know, there's a whole, are you making birthday cakes? Are you making cream cakes? Are you making cupcakes, you're making wedding cakes? like who are you actually like, Okay, if you just say cake, it's too vague. Who are you actually trying to attract? And then that will filter down to everything you do. So the images of cakes that might be out in the wild are going to attract the people back again, who are going to buy that.
So if you put lots of pictures of tiny cupcakes out, people are going to want cupcakes, if you put lots of stuff out about wedding cakes, people are gonna have a wedding cake. So I think it is really critical to understand your branding, who are you pitching to, who is your audience is your ideal client because you need to grow an audience to be able to kind of grow your business. And you need to make sure you're attracting the people to the audience, to your business, that value your products and services. And by few and having a large audience of the wrong people is not going to help you. It's like it is a numbers game. But you can have the wrong numbers like. You can have millions of people on Instagram following you. But if they're not following you because they want to buy from you, it's not gonna work. So if you have a small committed audience of those right people, then that is going to make it much easier for you to put your efforts in the right place and if you know who you want to attract. Are you going to be doing it on Instagram, or you're going to be doing it on Facebook, or you're going to be doing it on LinkedIn can help you make those decisions early on so that you're not spreading yourself too thin. And you're kind of not putting all of your sufferings on press and you're giving your audience the content that you want. So I think really knowing who is your audience? Who are you trying to attract? Who are you trying to sell to really does help?
Katherine Ann Byam 8:46
That's always a challenge as well because we tend to start with "well, this product can serve anyone, so we want everyone in the audience." And there's an interesting thing in what you were saying I was listening. And one thing that came to my mind is about the whole idea of the product suite. So there's one thing about knowing your audience. So for example, you have a big target for weddings. But once you're finished with the wedding, there are other things, but even before the wedding, there are other things. So it could be a bridal shower, it could be a kids party, it could you know, and I think it's so important to understand your product suite. So tell me a bit about how you develop to that in your business as well.
Katy Davies 9:25
So the product suite so obviously, cake baking is a kind of might be a slightly different business model, but you don't start making five-tier wedding cakes, you start making a single-tier birthday cake, and so you end up with a product suite that actually might kind of drop some of them along the way. But I had a very clear client journey established once I got onto the wedding cake so my client journey my Instagram strategy is very much my grid either wedding cakes and that attracts my client and they order wedding cake but like I say.
Then on my stories I show all my other products suite, so they might like say order bridal Hindu cake and then obviously they might do a christening cake and then they might do... because once someone's following you, they don't need another wedding cake. So all my stories I show all the other cakes I do and then they become my repeat customers and they then yeah, as they grow they have the first birthday cake the christening cake, their parents' cakes, their husband's cakes their wife's case. And so yeah, I have a very clear journey for them through my products to keep them as a client you can't always do that depends on your business. But it's good to know what that's going to be so that you can be intentional with it.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:53
This is the second time we've we've touched on social media. So let's get on the visibility part because I think that this is one of the biggest bits of the journey that people initially feel uncomfortable with. You know, people who are doing the do in their business often struggle with being the face of the business also. So tell me about your tips on visibility.
Katy Davies 11:17
So yeah, being visible is kind of key. You have to do it. There are different ways of doing it. And so yeah, you have to put yourself in a position to sell. Now my cake business is very different to my coaching business. So again, if you're a product-based business, or if you're a service-based business, you might have different ways of doing it, I managed to hide behind the cakes in my cake business, I didn't have to put myself front and centre because I was selling a product and so my Instagram grid is full of beautiful pictures of cakes and that kind of does the hydrate. Then obviously they do meet me in the consultation and it's all about personality and making that connection to sell the service as such. But with my coaching, I have to be, "I'm the coach. It's me." so there are pictures in my face all over my quote on Instagram, which took me a while to get over. But if you're not comfortable doing something and you can do baby steps, but depending on what your product is or your services, you know you're putting you in the centre of your business will make a big difference.
But again, it's once you know what you're selling and who you're serving to get your message out there is key and being consistent. So that's I think a mistake a lot of people make is they're not consistent because they've not really necessarily thought it through and they're trying to do it Instagram is trying to Facebook. They're trying to do this, trying to do that. And if you're starting off and you can't afford to outsource while you're in a period of the grind you aren't going to potentially do it all yourself so be consistent pick the things that you know you're that's why it's so important to know who you're selling to and then pick the things and just be consistent with it and get yourself out there.
You're trying to build the know the like and the trust so you want them to know who you are, I know what you do. You want them to like what you do and you want to like you well and you want them to trust that you're going to do a good job and then they will buy from you and so being visible is kind of the only way to do that really you need to get that out there and don't be afraid to get help so if you're not a natural salesperson then you might need to get some help with your sales copy because if you don't sell you won't have any sales is like all the pieces do need to be there for it to work as a whole but you need to ask for this out as well so you need to go out and be visible show what you're doing show up, be consistent, get everyone used to you, what you do need to ask for the sound as well.
So you need to pop that in there and I did of course you know. I wasn't great at selling. It was something I wasn't confident in. I was really lucky. I would manage to convert my consultations to a sale without asking for the sale. But I had to work so much harder to have done all the work before we got there so they're almost ready to buy. But you know, if you answer you need to just yeah, put yourself in a position to sell.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:40
That's so important. And I think the next element of this as you step it's almost it's the other way around even you first have to build the audience and the network. So there's a piece on social media, but then there's also the networking and I think when you're just getting started, networking is probably even more critical at If you agree with that, tell me your thoughts on this.
Katy Davies 15:02
So networking was something I didn't really know what it was to be honest, not in the same format that I do now. So obviously working in an office, there were meetings, and people would come and do things. And I know my boss would take people out for lunch, you know, which is the kind of networking there is the specifically structured networking meetings, but there is also organic networking. So building a network of people connections here will help you in your business. So obviously, in the wedding industry, building a network of florists, and bridal shops, and wedding planners and other people who, you know, depending on which network you're in, that they refer to as a kind of introduces. So instead of constantly trying to find the end client, like a million clients, you make a connection with a florist with a bridal person with somebody else in your industry, who has the same clients as you is adjacent to you, is not your direct competitor.
And then instead of so I was very lucky, I met and worked with a florist very early on in my cake business, who would constantly refer me her clients, so they will go for a consultation with her, and then that she'd say to them, "do you need cake?" and they'll be all and she'd pass in my detail. So you can do that organically. But obviously, if we go to networking meetings, it's a quicker way to kind of find these people. And to do that, there are lots of different ways to do it. I did it very early on. The first things I did, when I started my cake business with I went out looking for a network to join, and I went along as a guest, I went along as a visitor, I kind of scope them all out because they're all very different. So there are some we meet every week, some were every month.
They all have a different demographic of who their members are, there are some industry-specific ones. So if your industry is very niche, like there are specifically wedding networks, or there's the more generic. We have one person from each industry, and the key to networking properly is to do your research. And to go out there and find out what one's around what ones will work for you. And think about how much of your marketing do you want it to take off. So I did join one where I went every week. There’s one you go month there at the moment there is obviously there's the FSB, which has kind of no commitment at all. And you can just go wherever you want. And so there isn't really big brains and different networks and things. But the key to them is to do your research, pick the right ones, and know why you're going and what you want the outcome to be when you actually get there. So the biggest mistake that I see people make networking is they pick something to go to, and that's it, they stop there. That's all they do. They're going to go. And that's it.
They don't think about it anymore. So if you can find out beforehand as much as you can, who else is going to make yourself a target Hit List of Who do you want to be introduced to? Who do you want to speak to? And find out for getting on? What do you do when you do speak to that person? What do you want that outcome to be? Do you want to arrange a meeting with them? Do you want to just exchange email addresses and you'll connect with them later? Again, be ready for your audience. So always know your audience for the networking as well. Because depending on what kind of networking you're going to, people have a different connection strategy. So in the wedding world, I was always swapping Instagram accounts at the FSB, everyone's swapping LinkedIn account. So it's kind of knowing what you want out of it. And also, all of these different networking places. You need to find out how long you're going to get to speak. Some of them give you 30 seconds. Some of them give you a minute, you might have five minutes. So how are you going to introduce yourself? What are you actually going to say if I say "Hi, I'm Katy, I'm a business coach."
Katy Davies 19:16
And that's it. If it's kind of forgettable, it's not really gonna have an impact on anybody. They're gonna meet a million business coaches. So if I said something like, Hi, I'm Katy, I'm your strategy coach, I help you get unstuck in your head. I have a free Facebook group where you can go and download my free guide. Five Ways to Up Your Instagram engagement that might get their attention more and tell them something, give them something. What do you want them to do? If you give someone an instruction weirdly, they do tend to follow it. So if you kind of says to them, follow me on Instagram, find me on LinkedIn, this is where you can find me.
This is where I want you to go. This is what I can do for you rather than just being on for guests. Because of these networking events, you do need to kind of stand out. And that is a mistake that I see a lot of people do is they're too vague with their messaging. They have an intent have, they haven't gone with an intention of what they want to get out of it and what they want the people to do, what action do you want them to take? And how do you want to connect them and something else that when everything's on zoom, a lot of things on zoom and the chat function is great?
So while you're saying all this, be prepared, have all your links have your email address or your LinkedIn. And like, as you're saying it, tell them to say, I'm going to pop the links in my in the chat. And then it encourages people to actually connect again, you're giving them an instruction, you know, go there, go to my group, join my group. Let's see you there. So yeah, networking, I really Yes, Katherine, 100%, behind the networking, but be intentional with it, do your research. And don't be vague with it. Be unforgettable. If you're going to spend a few hours out of your day going, make sure you get something out of it.
Katherine Ann Byam 21:08
Yeah. And you know, we're going to slightly move again and pivot a bit, because I want to get into some of the other things that I've talked about on this idea to see your journey which is about automation. So, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of advancements in technology now. And actually, when I got into the business, it was about helping small businesses and medium-sized businesses adapt and adopt more technology in their systems and ways of doing things. So let's, let's talk a little bit about systems that help you scale.
Katy Davies 21:40
One of the key things about setting up systems in automation, I mean, you need some kind of system, even if it's a folder when I very first started now I had an Excel spreadsheet, and I would put my invoices in and I would print them all out. And I'd use that like my kind of workflow guide, you need some kind of system, but as you grow, that's not going to work. It needs to be automated. And what I've done with my coaching business very much, which I didn't do as much with my cake business was I've implemented things before I need them. So I think that is if you know, you want to grow, okay, you can cope at the moment. But then if everything you're doing the networking, being visible that knowing your audience, and so at some point, you're gonna get an influx of sales and inquiries. And can your systems cope with it?
How do you like you have to kind of plot out a client journey, how does someone enter your world? And what happens to them? And what part of that process can you automate? So with the coaching business, I very much have my contracts automated, just been linking up my calendar, so they automatically create the zoom meeting and emails everyone and so you can take hours, think about what takes you time what is a repetitive process? What can you do, and most of it is to do with the communication between yourself and the clients the buying process, the signing contracts, depending on how bespoke your services are. So in my cake business, I can't automate it nearly as much because every cake is bespoke, it's different is handmade, everything's different.
Whereas the coaching business is a lot more formulaic, so I can easily just like they buy a product, they buy services all done automatically. But the biggest thing is to do it early. Don't wait till you're too busy, because then you'll be too busy. And you won't be able to actually spend the time putting in the systems and the processes. So it's kind of admin-based, it's communication-based, it's sending things out, it's the purchasing cycle. It's just plotting out your client journey. And I don't know if you want me to go into the systems I use but it's just trying to take out those things that take up your time.
Katherine Ann Byam 24:06
Do you think that these things are easy to learn? is there one particular piece of automation that you would recommend that people tackle first?
Katy Davies 24:17
What you said by easy to learn, so I find with my coaching clients, it varies. Some people just can't get their head around it and there are tech VAs out there. And if you get to the position where you are really kind of getting to the point where you are growing, outsource it. If it's gonna take you an entire day to do something, outsource it. Get a tech VA and but the other thing is people are so willing to help. I know so many people who pop a question in a Facebook group and "I'm trying to connect my zoom in the gym... it's not working. People will help you so don't be scared to ask.
And I find it easy so I'm lucky. Tech naturally doesn't faze me. I tend to get to work quite easily. So I mean that things that I think having a good invoicing system having your account set up properly, because as obviously, the bigger picture, you need to know your numbers, you need to know how much money you're making in your business. And if you're sitting there every month spending hours doing your accounts, there's not a really good use of time. So I mean, the system that I find really good with coaching is Dubsado.
I think it was designed for creativity specifically, but you can have all your contacts in there. And it's all automated workflows. So you know, you can, send them the invoice, they pay the invoice, it sends them the contract, they sign the contract, then they pick a date, and it creates the zoom link, and it sends them the meeting and it just does all their stuff when you're not constantly going, Well, if they've signed it, yeah, all I need to send them the next day all they have done this bit. And so I think setting up a calendar so people can meet you easily. It's great, have a good accounting system. And this kind of sending people contracts and things if that's part of your business, they're really key.
Katherine Ann Byam 26:23
Really good tips, probably the last area I want to dabble into is time management. Because you have the queen of this in all of the entrepreneurs that I've met, you will probably be the person that makes time simplest, can you share with us some key tips on managing our time as entrepreneurs
Katy Davies 26:43
Time management. So that was something that I think comes from the fact that I was a cake maker first. You will probably not find a cake maker who is not good at time management because of the nature of the business. Yeah, you've got a wedding cake to deliver at three o'clock on Saturday, you have to be there, you have to get it done, you have to know exactly when you're doing what when and get all the bits of the cake ready. So most cake makers are pretty much on top of their time. And but especially with my coaching clients as well, you can teach people all the things in the world, you can tell it. But if you don't have time to implement that, you don't have time to live your life, it's not going to work. So time management is my favourite topic. We'll talk about this for another whole podcast. But I will try and do it as concisely as quickly as I can.
Essentially, time management is different to having a list. So at least is all the things that need to be done. But there's no specific timeframe in which they're getting done, or the order they're getting done. And so if you have a list of a day or list for the week, you will never reset start at the top. And you work your way down and takes as long as it takes. And you don't ever get some stuff in the bottom and the list goes the next day and the next day, the next step in the next day. And you're kind of constantly never getting through things and projects aren't getting started and things aren't getting done.
So the concept of time management, I mean, you have to make it work for your business there isn't one-size-fits-all. But as an overview, a starting point, you would have that list, you still need the list, you obviously still need to know the things that need to get done. But the way I kind of does it is obviously I have my diary. And I have all the appointments and all the non-negotiables and you put your whole life into it. It's not just working. So if you have a family, if you have children, you know they need to be at school, they need to be picked up, there's a party, you need to go to the gym, you're going to the dentist or having your hair done. You know, you have appointments, you have life.
Katy Davies 29:00
So I have to explain without showing it but basically, a time booking sheet for the week, which is just all the days across the chart Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, through Sunday Times down the side, you know, whatever time you need, start 6 am or 9 am all the way through to bedtime. It's just the kind of chart and you block out the times that you're going to do things so everything I encourage all of my clients to build is down from your strategy. So you would have your overall strategy of the year, the month, the week the things that need to be done things in your diary. But then, every Sunday or beginning of the week, you filter this down into your time blocking sheet for the week. And you take all of those appointments, you take all of your non-negotiables and you put them into the week, and then you basically see what's left.
What time have you got left? And then you know, make sure you eat, make sure you drink make sure you have time off make sure that you are doing all those things, it's not just about work as entrepreneurs. We need to really take care of ourselves as well. And you kind of see how much time you got left. And then that's why that list kind of comes in. And you look at the list. And that's the kind of like working on the business thing. So you've already put in all the things that are the business.
If you're making a cake or something, you work it backwards, fill all that in, but then you fill in all the gaps with the so if you need to write a blog, instead of just having, okay Monday, or this week, I'm going to write a blog, you fill in a gap at 10 o'clock on Monday, I'm writing the blog for an hour, and you stick to it, and you work on it for that hour. And if you don't finish it, you've started it, you're moving projects forward.
And if you work well-doing things all in one go, and you need to finish the block, then maybe you find a gap, that's two hours. But the point of the time blocking is to get everything in place, and move projects forward and keep working on things. And I don't know about you. But if you've got a deadline, you pretty much get it done. Like if I've got a load of emails I haven't answered, and I need to leave the house in an hour. All of a Sunday, I managed to answer all those emails in that one hour, when otherwise I could have quite happily sat there for the entire morning faffing about doing things. So there are different ways to do it work to your strengths.
You need to understand your own personality. If you put yourself under too much pressure, is that gonna be counterproductive? If you work well under pressure, having these time blocks and these things, okay, I'm going to share my social media, I've got an hour to get as much done as I can. Piggybacking things as I say, if there's something you procrastinate about if you know you've got a meeting, or you know, you're leaving the house, give yourself like the half an hour beforehand to do the thing that you try not to do, and guarantee you'll get it done quicker. But it's kind of that concept of having a time and a space for everything and reviewing it. And also, then you can really see realistically, can you get all this stuff done?
Once you've blocked it all out. If you physically cannot fit everything in in the week, then there's a problem and you can see why stuff isn't getting done. And then you can like make the executive decision. Do I need to start outsourcing things we need to get up earlier? Do I need to actually move this meeting is there something I'm doing which has taken me three hours a week, that's when the automation comes in, can I find a quick way so it's, it's kind of using that time productively and having that bigger picture of what you're actually doing. Because if we're really honest about it, we can waste a lot of time faffing about and he gets over decision fatigue as well. If you're having a bit of a naff day, and you're tired, not sure when you get up in the morning, it's all planned out for you, you know, what you've got to do.
And you can kind of get going rather than spending 20 minutes thinking what am I gonna do? There are all these things, which am I going to do? It's all kind of mapped out for you. So let's say "Normally, I would spend a whole podcast just talking about time management, I think. Did I miss anything? You probably talked about this so many times.
Katherine Ann Byam 33:15
I think you have and look, the thing about this is people are trying to build and scale and that's the time when time becomes really under pressure. So I think it's so essential to either get the automation really slick, get a team but even with the team, even with all of that, you still need to be completely in command of what your available time really is. So that's really essential. And the more I guess the more developed and, and mature your businesses, the more let's say you have routine and set structures around things. So for example, I only do interviews on Tuesdays and Thursdays because the rest of my days are blocked for other things, you know, and you kind of get into a rhythm with those things. So this is really, really, really good. Do let everyone know where they can find you.
Katy Davies 34:10
I'm in Piece of Cake Coaching, and I have a Facebook group, which gives all free advice and tips and things which is called The Missing Piece. You just kind of Google Piece of Cake Coaching on Facebook, you can find me in my group, The Missing Piece.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode and the session on the Eco Business Growth Club Incubator. So this incubator was conceptualised after I started working with Women in Sustainable Business in October 2020. And I started to learn what are the challenges that small businesses and micro businesses are facing, and then thinking really broadly about how I can help solve those challenges with the community that I have, the networks that I built, and the structures that are taking off today in terms of digital and technology and platforms actually.
A lot of the members of my community, women in sustainable business and indeed on my Instagram feed of Where Ideas Launch where I have one over 1000 people who are following and committed to the podcast and the message that we're bringing. One of the main things that they struggle with is really amplifying their own voices. So we do have a bit of a bubble, we work with each other, we collaborate with each other. And we all know that a sustainable consumer and a sustainable business owner are usually one and the same. But we also know that the way we change the world is to move outside of our own little bubbles because what we need to do is really resonate with people who are not yet identifying as being sustainably-minded.
So one of the ways that I decided to help businesses to overcome some of the challenges is to build an incubator. It's interesting because I went to put out a poll in my group to ask what people felt about incubators and they thought it was eggs in a basket. You know, it was basically eggs being warmed until they became grown animals of whatever kind. And yes, that's kind of what we are, we're small until we can actually get the right systems and product together in order to scale.
The business incubator has 12 modules. It is pretty intense and each module will be covered during the course of a month. So I'm trying not to overwhelm anyone. And the idea is to level up on each one of those things as you continue to build your business.
Module 1 is the most fundamental module and I call it micro and small business enterprise business models, ways to deliver value to yourself as a business owner, and to the wider community. As a responsible actor. This module looks first of all at business models and your product suite, and how you design it to best fulfil all the causes that are important to you. We will go through business planning, looking at your full business self-audit. Then we will build 2022 based on your strengths today. As a business owner and the opportunities we've identified together, you will walk away with a complete clear plan and a new direction. We also develop your cycle plan within this module. So we look at how you launch or how you bring new ideas and new products to market. And we help you shape the plan for when you promote and when you rest, most importantly, because we need to make sure that the time you spend in your business is productive and sustainable.
The third part of this module is the operations plan. So we look at what software will impact and what works best for you specifically. And as an add on to the course you can also have us do a full business audit for you. So if you want to upgrade once you have this programme, and have us do the full business audit for you, we can help you with more detailed operational planning to help you slick your systems up as well.
Module Two is about ethical and responsible brand stewardship. So something that maybe not all my listeners know but one of my last jobs was as an internal auditor to a FTSE Top 10 Tobacco Company. And what I learned from that job is how important brand stewardship is and how critical my role as internal auditor was to the reputation management of the company, especially in such a controversial industry. I've taken a lot away from my experience in working in this space. And I want to bring back this brand stewardship conversation. So the first thing we will go through is eco branding and what are the fundamentals of branding in the sustainable space and the benefits of nailing this to the growth that you will have in the future. It's so important to really know what the ethos is and how to articulate those ethe in the wider world. Then we look at personal branding because for micro and small entrepreneurs personal branding is essential to the overall picture of your brand as well. You need to show up for your business as much as possible. And therefore we need to look at how you marry your personal brand with what the business is doing. We can then look at marketing, and then we cover how this complements your brand. So we look at marketing from the perspective of branding, we also look at your brand assets. And we explore how these can support the persona of your brand. And we look at your brand footprint. So we assess options to lower your digital brand footprint, and how to optimise it where possible. So module two is pretty big as well. And it doesn't get smaller.
Module Three is all about copy and content for impact. So we understand the different types of copy and the purpose that they save. So we look at how we inspire, how we motivate, how we connect, how we engage, and how we convert and serve. All of these are critical elements to lifting the profile of sustainable businesses of green businesses with a deeper purpose. And your copy needs to represent all six aspects of what your business does.
Module four is all about ethical selling strategies. And when I talk about ethical selling, it means recognising that you're there to serve, first of all, and you're there to help people not make bad decisions, you have the event to help people make better decisions. So when we talk about ethical selling strategies, it is about educating. It is about making sure that you're showing up where you need to show up. And it is about challenging the status quo. So we will talk all about that.
Module five is about product development. And we cover user experience and what's trending now in the gaming verse, and how we can bring these features to your brand.
Module six is the supply chain. We work on all the things you need to know to know your supplier and all the certifications that will support you. And also how to challenge those certifications when the time comes. We need to be more rigorous with our certification bodies and with our suppliers. So we're going to talk a lot about that.
Module seven is organic public relations. And when I say organic public relations, I mean public relations that you don't necessarily pay for. It still means reaching out to those who can represent you. So it still means reaching out to journalists who want to cover your story, but ensure that your story is covered in a responsible way. Okay, we will show you how to do that, how to reach out and how to connect with the media and provide a body of research and sources that will be great for your brand.
Module eight is about data and how to manage your net zero or net positive impact, the tools to support you and how to support your customers with this as well.
Module nine is finance and legal, how to budget, prepare for scaling, and to attract clean finance. We're also talking about the legal in terms of intellectual property contracts and insurance for your business, I will be getting experts to talk to you about that. So don't worry. It won't be me even if I am an accountant.
Module 10 is about sustainable living talking about farming within your city house. So this is going to be a really interesting session. I'm super excited about it.
Module 11 is advocacy. So this is talking about how you advocate for something, how you represent and become an influencer for a path and a cause that is important to you. So we're going to talk all about advocacy.
Module 12 finally is about partnerships. And we will explore how collaborations and long term partnerships can be built and developed to ensure both parties get the most benefit from the relationship as opposed to being a one-sided thing. In addition, each month we will continue to have two guest speakers. One will always be on health and well-being because if it's one thing I learned as an entrepreneur, your health and wellbeing can go up in smoke in minutes. So I'm really getting a very, very special person to come in and support us on health and wellbeing every month. And I believe that this is probably the most game-changing thing about this incubator. You will have access to all the training that has gone before. So I have a bank and repository of about 80 pieces of training that have already gone by. You will also have new and relevant training coming up as well as relevant resources that are coming online as well. In addition, I have negotiated some deals with two of the newest and biggest platforms that are the major sustainable competitors, Amazon.
So Lola Fernandez and Austin both have great platforms that I will be getting you access to at a discounted rate as a part of the Eco business group club. So this is the power of connection. This is the power of networking, and I really want you to enjoy these benefits that I am pulling together for you. This is what the incubator is about. If you're interested in the incubator, it may or may not be open at the time that you listen to this episode. But if you're interested in the incubator, do send me a message on LinkedIn. Do reach out or join Women In Sustainable Business. And you'll find out more about the incubator there. The idea is that people join, and they join for life. So we're going to look at those modules, we're going to update them. And if there are changes, as time goes on, we're going to give you those updates so that your business continues to grow and scale. But most importantly, you have that rich community of people who have gone through the same journey as you in the same place pretty much forever and you can start supporting each other. And now I'm just giving you a one-off price for this service. So really looking forward to having you inside. Do let me know if you're interested or not. And I will talk to you again soon.
049 Side Gig Success
About this Episode
My next guest is Nicole Broad, owner and designer at the Fruit Moth, a clothing and accessories brand with a conscience. Having launched in 2020 with a range of statement pussy bows and detachable colours. The fruit market now offers shopper bags, reversible sun hats, dresses and reworked blouses, handmade in her home studio in Manchester. All of the Fruit Moth's collections are created using vintage and remnant fabrics, and pre-loved clothing. With sustainability at the forefront of the Fruit Moth, no fabric will ever go to waste. Any off-cuts are reworked into small accessories or donated to a local primary school. And all packaging and stationery are made from 100% recyclable materials.
It's really wonderful to have you. I'm excited to share all the great news that's happening in your world at the moment. But before we get there, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. And the first one is really why the fruit moth? Why that name?
Nicole Broad 1:28
So weirdly, it's actually the name of my wedding dress. I'm not married yet. I'm not even engaged. But it's the only dress that I've ever been obsessed with fashion since I was little. And it's the only dress that I've ever not been able to stop thinking about. When I saw it. I was like, I'm only ever going to get married if I'm wearing that dress. Well, and it's a Vampire's Wife Dress. He's my favourite designer anyway. But I just knew that I wanted to get married in it. But at the time, I couldn't justify buying it. I regretted it forever. And then it kind of got to a point where I thought we were going to get engaged, we are at some point.
And I actually emailed them last year, and said, What are you ever going to get the Fruit Moth Silk Maxi Dress back in stock? And they said "No". So but they did give me the name, it's a Liberty fabric. So they gave me the fabric name. So I ended up having the fabric shipped from the Netherlands so that I could get my dress made for me. Six months after that, they contact me again and said, "We found one in your size," the wedding dress and the fabric. But yeah, I knew that I wanted to start a brand. I have always known about SEO at the marketing university. And I thought that's what I want people to feel when they think about Fruit Moth dress or accessories. I want them to not stop thinking about it. So the Fruit Moth.
Katherine Ann Byam 3:05
That is just brilliant. My wedding dress is in a box waiting for that ring to be on my finger. I can't actually wait to see it. So now you know you've really piqued my interest, really. What drove you to start your own business? I know that you studied marketing and that you actually have this business as a side gig. And that's actually the whole topic of the conversation today starting successful side gigs. But what drove you to start your own business?
Nicole Broad 3:31
Yeah, as you said, I studied fashion and design in college. Basically, ever since I was little, I've always always wanted to be a fashion designer. Like I knew that that was what I wanted to be when I was probably 12,13 a long, long time. And I went to college, studied Design. And it really put me off fashion designing because everything was using patterns. I didn't feel creative in any way. I just felt like I was making something that someone else had designed. I didn't feel like a designer. And it really, really put me off.
Actually, to the point where I sold my sewing machine and I haven't, I didn't have a sewing machine again until November last year. So that was 12 years ago. (Well) Yeah, so I but then I went and did Marketing at university. So I did International Fashion Marketing at the uni. So I learned how to run a business, which I've been doing. Since I graduated really. I started off in marketing executive roles and added a bit of personal styling for the last three, nearly four years. I've been running a menswear brand for the owner so I do all of the e-commerce and marketing for him. And then yeah, last year it was because marketing is such it's such an intense career option. And there is no time like you have no time.
Other than work, and then you want to go to the pub. So then lockdown happened. And I was like, "oh my god all this free time," I don't have to commute anymore. I can spend my lunch breaks actually doing something for myself. So I have saved a little bit of money. And I thought you know what I'm going to do what I want it to do, initially. And I'm going to fall back in love with it. And I'm not going to use patterns, because that's what made me fall out of love with it. So yeah, I just started making accessories, literally just cut them by eye kind of just for myself. And then I thought, well, just see what happens. Let's just ask, I've set up a business for in my job anyway. So I knew exactly what to do with Shopify
. And what apps I needed, I knew how to do all of the logistics sides of it. Because I've been doing it for the past four years. So I thought, well, not really got that much to lose. I might as well just give it a go. And yeah, then it's just kind of snowballed from thinking that maybe I'll sell a colour here and there. And it's getting to a point where it might not be a side gig.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:11
Well. That's this is massive congratulations for taking that big step. And I think the pandemic opened doors for a lot of people to make these kinds of pivots. So tell us a little bit about how your journey has been in developing the business? And what sort of challenges have you faced.
Nicole Broad 6:32
So starting the website was all really easy. And I think as well because I didn't put pressure on myself because I already had a full-time job. I think that really helped me because I didn't really think that too much about it. And I think that's why it has done well because I've just been really honest and open from the start. Not trying to make myself look like a brand. Just Everyone knows that I do it from my bedroom. And I think my customers actually like that. Challenges.
What challenges have I faced so far? Probably actually working from home is a challenge. Doing this from my bedroom has been a challenge. I've recently, literally last week managed to force the other half into the spare room. So our bedrooms are now in the spare room, and I actually do have a studio. So I think it will get a lot easier from here. But actually just trying to fit in all of them because I only work with deadstock fabrics as well. Where there are piles of fabrics. absolutely everywhere.
Everywhere you look, you could sleep any way you look in because there are just piles of fabric everywhere. So yeah, sleeping around that wasn't great and possibly hasn't tested my relationship. But yeah, that's been the main challenge is working from home and actually doing everything from here as well working my full-time job from here. Having my studio here and living here is definitely challenging at times. My Instagram growth at the start was really challenging as well like infuriatingly challenging, but only for a really short amount of time. But I'm very impatient. So when I didn't see numbers straight away, I think that is a challenge for me, as well, because I'm used to working with big numbers. So working my head around only having 100 followers for the first three months was probably a bit of a challenge as well.
Yeah. And did you go to your existing network to tap your followers at first? Or did you just try to grow based on the strength of the brand organically?
I definitely tried to work organically. Unfortunately, the full-time job that I have is definitely not like my customers. And the people that I work with are I don't think that they can really help me in this sort of way out. So I live in Manchester and the brand that I have been working full time for is technically a "fast fashion" brand. So it's everything that I do not want the Fruit Moth to be. So it's really yeah, the network that I had to the point where I just closed out my LinkedIn and made a new one. Like, I just wanted a clean slate. I don't think that there's much that I could gain from that.
Whereas if I was starting a brand that was wholesaling, I would have had so many connections. Yeah, definitely not direct to consumer. I don't have a network for that, unfortunately. Yeah, I think that's been good as well. To be fair, I think that helps the brand grow organically and not go in the opposite direction. I always knew that I wanted it to be sustainable.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:55
Yes.
Nicole Broad 9:55
So I think growing it organically is the only way that you can do that really.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:00
Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. So in what ways would you describe your brand as sustainable? You know, I'm tapping in here to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. And I'm just wondering if there are other goals in particular that you're addressing with the statements that your brand makes.
Nicole Broad 10:17
Obviously, I'm still very much in my infancy, I've only just hit eight months. So really, really young brand. And there are so many different goals that I would like to complete for the Fruit Moth. But currently, I do think, I think there's a tendency with brands when they first start to try and do everything all at once, and try and hit everything and put so much pressure on themselves that eventually it just implodes anyway. So I really focused on the fact that all of my fabrics are either remnant or vintage.
Like, I'm not bringing any new fabrics into the matrix. So I suppose that my main goal from the 17 Sustainable Development Goals is focusing on sustainable consumption. And my production patterns, it's pretty impossible to not have a good production pattern when I'm creating it all in my own home. But obviously, as it grows, I would want to keep that as well. Yeah.
And using the vintage and remnant fabrics, not adding to the abundance of like, there are so many fabrics that go to landfill, there are so many garments that go to the landfill, there is no need for me to create new fabrics. And obviously, I need to make sure because I'm working on my own, I need to make sure that I'm paying myself a living wage. Otherwise, I'm not a sustainable brand. And I can't call myself on. I was actually listening to a podcast the other day and someone said, it was Catch Rhys, which is a jewellery brand. And she said that she doesn't call herself sustainable.
She calls herself responsible, right? Which I thought was amazing. I've not heard that word. One of my biggest worries, in fact, was the biggest challenge that I should have said about the last question, pricing. Yeah, it's a minefield life. And for me to work out how much my time is worth, as well as the costs, the delivery, the packaging, the electricity that I'm using in my house, like all of these things normally would just be all consumed within a factory for a fashion brand. But obviously, I have to consider all of them in my costs. And when you're first establishing a brand, it's really difficult to sell yourself like that. I think the imposter syndrome kicks in a little bit. And you say, is that right? Yes.
Should I be charging that much? But yeah, so I think I think that is a really difficult part of, especially having a sustainable business because there are so many businesses that use vintage fabrics, but I just feel like they undersell their own time. Like, it takes a long time to make a dress, like a long time to make a dress from scratch, make your own patterns. And all of that needs to be considered before pricing your items. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's definitely it. And I'll do quite a lot of things for charity as well, donating 10% of my sales to diabetes UK for the next three months, because I'm doing this challenge. And I'm a member of Ecology. And they like to plant trees every month in your business's name. So you pay like a subscription fee and it sort of offsets your carbon. So yeah, anything like that. And I'm always looking for new ideas.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:52
Yeah, that's, it's really interesting what you brought up about pricing. I share your challenge. It definitely is a challenge for us, as sustainable businesses to come up with the right pricing. I, I like to think about this is as really going back to basics. So what do I really need to live, like to sustain the quality of life that I feel I want to sustain? as well as to sustain the quality of service I want to maintain? What does that cost me together? And then how many units you know and this is the company to pride how many units do you need to sell to make that you know how much you need to invest to sell those many units so I think it's it's really for me breaking it down into numbers. I like to think about it as sustainable businesses are kind of lifestyle choices, and therefore your lifestyle is part of it.
So being able to preserve that freedom that you have to, wake up when you want and do the work that you want to do, add the value you want to do give where you want to give it, you need to just cost that out, you know that your whole life. And then and then put that into, you know where you need the business to be and then choose your pricing according to that. But it's still tricky because quantity and quantity and price have a relationship as well. And I guess this is where your time comes in.
So how many pieces can I realistically produce? Considering the time I need to spend on marketing the time I need to spend on other things, etc? And then work it out based on that. But it's not simple? Yeah, it's just something that I think as lifestyle businesses, we just need to trim up our lifestyle to what we do when we price. But yeah, it's a fascinating conversation. I think there are probably many ways to look at it. So, Nicole, I know that you have had some challenges along the way to becoming a business owner. several challenges, actually, you shared a few with me. I'm wondering if you can share with the listeners, some of what you've gone through and how you've overcome it and turned it into values in your business.
Nicole Broad 16:08
Yeah, so I've had a bit of a dramatic life for the past six years. And so six years ago, I was 23, my partner's 28. And unfortunately, he passed away very, very suddenly. And that kind of sent me into a bit of a spiral, really. I got into a bit of debt. And eventually, the stress gave brought on type one diabetes, which I got diagnosed with within 2019. At the start of the year. That's been a bit crazy. But also, I think, I think there are two ways that people can go when they have severe trauma. And you can either just give up, and you're done. Like, that's it. You've had enough. Or you can just like, girls, dying definitely made me think life is social, and I just need to grab it. I need to do whatever I can do to make my life worth it. He died at such a young age, he died.
He was a year younger than I am now when he passed away. And he was only just getting started in his career. And it was just so cruel. But I yeah, so now, definitely focusing on this. If I died tomorrow, at least people could say, "but she did that Fruit Moth thing. That was pretty impressive." But eight months was pretty impressive. So I think there's always been a lot of hurdles. I think I'm a million times stronger than I would have been if that hadn't have happened. I kind of believe in fate anyway. I always have. And although that is the worst kind of failure you can ever have. I do think it's taught me everything that I needed to know, to have the confidence and the determination to make life what I wanted it today.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:07
I totally get that. And like, you know, really, I congratulate you for all that you've accomplished. tell everyone what's just happened in your business, because I know this is really exciting.
Nicole Broad 18:18
It's so exciting. And it doesn't feel real talking about it. And so back in March, just on a whim, I was shopping on the high street. And on a whim, I applied to be a partner. And this was like, obviously, the business was only like six months old. And I heard back and they were like, "yeah, we'd love to have you onboard," which I was really happy about anyway. But then they said, Oh, it said 250 pounds joining fee. So at the time, I was like, "Oh, well, that's nice that they accepted me. But I can't pay that right now.
I've got a lot of expenses going out this month. And I'm not making any money yet." So I just ignored it. And then last week, about 10 days ago, I got an email saying "we've been watching your growth, we really really want you to be our next partner. If we waive the joining fee, will you partner with us?" And I thought it was a standard email. But, but it turns out it wasn't. And I went live on Not On The High Street on Friday.
That is so awesome. I love this brand. I remember going well before when I was more of a consumer. I remember going to this website to look for stuff because there would always be something original, something you hadn't thought about and really exciting stuff. So it's wonderful. I think your brand perfectly matches them which is what makes sense about them reaching out to you so lovely.
So exciting. And I celebrated a bit too much over the week.
Katherine Ann Byam 19:58
It's pretty good news. So I feel as if your side gig is really starting to blow up. Alright, so what advice would you give to people just starting out now? Or maybe people who've been in business for a while, but it's still probably struggling with their growth? What sort of advice would you give them?
Nicole Broad 20:19
Okay, I'm going to firstly go with Instagram because specifically for a product-based business, I think you have to be on Instagram. Now, I think it's so, so important. And I know that there are, there are other social media platforms that I really need to pay more attention to like Tik Tok and Pinterest. I need to up my game. But I could not have grown as a business without Instagram. So I'm like all for it. My account started growing and I started seeing sales as soon as I joined in with a virtual vintage market. An influencer wore one of my pussy bows. And after that one of the founders of a virtual vintage market got in touch with me and said, "Please, please, please, can you apply for our February market."
And at that point, I was literally I was doing like 200 pounds a month sales. And I thought that was amazing. And now like six months later, I'm doing like 2000 2500 pounds a month sales. And I do genuinely put it down to a virtual vintage market and Instagram and the community that they've built is just incredible. And I'm shown up on Instagram as well. Like, I remember us having a conversation in January. Guineas, put your face behind the brand, geez, put your face behind the brand.
And I was like, "Oh, I just don't know, I don't like having my photo taken." And now I'm like, half of my feed is my face. And people buy into that. Like, I think it's so important, especially for a small brand, especially for a sustainable brand. People want to see who is making these things, people want to see who's coming up with the ideas. And I get customers now who are genuinely my friends last week, I had a customer send me a bunch of flowers. When she found out about Not On The High Street. She sent me a bunch of flowers. There are many like these people who are amazing. And they do want to buy into people. (Yeah) And I think I genuinely think it's 80% the person and 20% the product.
Yes, obviously your product has to be amazing. But if you're not there and there's no face to the product, you're just any other brand really, life people are buying into you. And my other main thing, I always say this, "just be kind." The difference it makes, especially in a business setting. But you should just be kind and nice to people. And that's what people want. Like, I comment on all of my customers, I comment on their photos all the time. Like I'm their friend. Like I chat to them in my DMs like I've got some of them as Facebook friends now. And it is all just about showing an interest in people and not just showing interest in sales. And then the sales just come naturally once you've built that connection with your community.
And unless people say that Instagram isn't a community, because people are following you. It's a community, like my little community that I've got. I've just hit 2000 followers last week. And I would say 70% of those followers, I actually tracked them. It is a community in my opinion. But yeah, so Instagram, show your face and be kind. Yeah, my that my three-pointers.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:47
I love that. I really love that. What feedback Would you like to share with the listeners on our tool communities? So Women In Sustainable Business and the Eco business Growth Club on Facebook? So how have they helped you to sort of position yourself and get yourself ready for the group that has come?
Nicole Broad 24:05
Women In Sustainable Business is absolutely amazing. There are so many inspiring women and I know there are a few men now as well. But there are so many inspiring women there, reading their stories, and listening to their wins. Like I love it when you do the "Can we have your wins for the week?" That's my favourite. I love reading people's wins. And when you also you just so often go onto Facebook and see someone popping up a question on women in state or business or on Eco-Business Growth hub. You see, you see someone putting on a question you think I was wondering that the other day?
Yeah. So you don't even have to ask the question. Just scroll down. Just scroll down and read it and you'll probably find your answer. And I saw I think I joined at Christmas time because I took part in the January challenge right. Then I joined the Eco business Growth Club straight away. And that is Like that group just magnified. I feel like everyone knows each other in the club. But all of the members were just jumped at the chance of helping anyone. And that is the best thing. Like, again, it's the community thing that was talking about with Instagram. Like, it's just being kind and giving that free advice. That might be something that you know that you think is normal knowledge but there's someone that doesn't know it. Yeah, and vice versa. Yeah. And yeah, it's just a beautiful little community to be a part of.
Katherine Ann Byam 25:33
Nicole, it's been such a pleasure to hear your story to see your growth. So I feel like I've been there from when basically almost the beginning and see, see you flourish and see The Fruit Moth grow into the brand that it has become. And I wish you continued success.
Growth is scaling your business in line with your goals and sustainability parameters. It can include more substantive financing and capital injection, as well as market and customer base growth.
In this section we review:
Marketing a Physical Product
Marketing a Service
Strategic Partnerships
Business Development & Sales
Marketing a Product – A Case Study
Nicola – Hand Crafting Coach.
Nicola is the founder of a handcrafted business and is an online business mentor and coach helping makers, artists, and crafters in business with her unique approach. Nicola founded her handcrafted business in 2013, after running successful and award-winning handcrafted stationery businesses for eight years.
Nicola started off as a photographer in the days of darkroom development before her sight changed and she made her first pivot into marketing obtaining certification at the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Her decision to start a family then prompted another pivot into her handmade stationery business.
In the beginning, she tried to serve everyone, until they realised it was unsustainable, and that they would have to niche so she can do bulk orders. they then niched into weddings and funerals as they could coordinate bulk orders through both! She worked with Funeral Directors and Bridal shops to consolidate her efforts into a few key strategic partners.
Nicola rewarded her partners too, with a 10% referral fee. The approach was phenomenally successful due to personal word of mouth recommendations, and they were able to display her work as well.
Nicola then pivoted into building a digital service business and a platform for photos, and then built her coaching business for handmade businesses.
Nicola’s strengths were identifying viable niches, building a strategic incentivised network, and of course having a high-quality offer that people are willing to refer to.
Marketing a Product – A Case Study:
Bridgete – Product Entrepreneur Coach
Bridgete is a product entrepreneur enthusiast with over 12 years’ experience she started her first online retail business in 2008, working from her spare bedroom with 2 toddlers at the time.
She scaled her business to seven figures in a 6000 square foot warehouse with numerous staff and spent many weekends packing orders. She is now building an online retail business as well.
She started her business after the birth of her first child. She wanted more time at home so opted for voluntary redundancy from Dell computers.
She wanted to find the ultimate product to sell and started exploring eBay. The journey started with educational books and fictional books for children. She developed relationships with publishers in London, and her proposition was creating bespoke book collections. This went well for 8 years, until some publishers started competing and eroding the margins for the business.
Bridgete pivoted again to project management, but her heart wanted to remain in entrepreneurship, so she produced a new idea.
Bridgete loves a good laugh and decided to get into designing a line of fancy dresses, fashioning items based on retro looks and fabrics as well as new creations. She built this business with her daughter and imported work from China.
For Bridgete, she approached her businesses by finding a problem to solve within the context of something she loved. Her fun-loving nature took her to develop products with “rude sentiments” too!
Bridgete has built up experiences having traded on eBay, Amazon, Alibaba, and her own website.
Her advice about working with Amazon, eBay and the other players is to be aware that they will push their own products over yours, and the better you craft a niche, the better it is for you. She recommends Etsy, as you can carve your own niche there, stipulating the design of the products and the source of your supply etc.
Bridgete’s latest pursuit is building an account with her dogs as the stars on Instagram. Be ready to explore your interests on any front!
Marketing a Service-Based Business
Katherine – my journey
When I started my service-based business, I knew my personal connections would be key. So far, 100% of my paying customers have come from relationships I have built either from a lifetime, or from months of consistency and effort, showing up with content on social media or through my engagement with their content.
I did not anticipate that every customer relationship would take so long to build, but I also did not anticipate a global pandemic. Given the time it takes to invest in relationships, it makes sense to me to invest in strategic relationships as much as possible.
Relationship Building for services
As with everything, it starts with understanding the profile of the clients you want to work with, and mapping what you know about them. You can easily use demographic information like age, gender, location, but I have found a more granular way to profile my ideal client, and its stage of life or career, suppressed ideals and views, expat lifestyles. I have found these 3 to be the factors that most draw my ideal clients to me because these features are me.
The next is in the value you give. In a world where knowledge is increasingly free, you need to design a business model where you are not just selling knowledge. This means you are trading in experiences, your own time and work output, or in an emotional reset and support you can provide.
Lead magnets or freebies need to include experiences or a complete end-to-end transformation for one of their problems so that they know what you can deliver for them.
Group services need to build natural communities and allyship.
One-to-one service needs to include a done-for-your element.
The price must feel like it is worth more – i.e. The transformation you provide.
The starting point for strong relationship building is reading, then listening. It works best if before you engage with someone who fits your ideal client, research them. Learn all about them. Then when you engage, listen with every fibre of your being. Ask questions. Explore their points and side comments. And when you offer a service, make sure it’s targeted to fit their needs and means.
Growth – Strategic Partnerships
Strategic alliances and strategic partnerships are fancy terms for business friendships. From politics to private businesses these have been around for an exceedingly long time. Key modern-day drivers for strategic partnerships are sharing resources, assets, technology, costs, and capability or to scale more rapidly.
They are much sought after, but also do not always work. They can take legal forms, such as minority equity investment, JVs, or contracts, or sometimes the formation of a new entity for the purpose. They work best when they are mutually beneficial, and the risks, and governance are also equitably shared.
COVID-19 has changed the playing field massively, but many of us have not pivoted and adjusted to compensate. The trends that have accelerated are:
Increased automation of higher-skilled work
Increased gig work
Massive growth and capital moving toward technology enablement.
It suggests that if you are not into technology, you are at a disadvantage when we look to the future.
The types of strategic alliances that can be useful to sustainable businesses are:
Team dress/ uniform designs for fashion entrepreneurs with sport or corporate bodies.
Supply contracts with major corporate B corps for office goods.
Supply contracts with ethical grocery chains for other items.
Sponsorship of events that are addressing sustainable causes.
Collaborating and sharing audiences among sustainable suppliers.
Working with Influencers, including social media influencers, bloggers, and vloggers.
Seek funding based on potential up or downstream partner opportunities.
Exploring within your local communities.
To explore these points, it is advisable to:
Prepare to negotiate. Know what the alternatives are to a negotiated agreement.
Understand what might interest the parties and whether you make a good match.
Know your ideal client and who shares them.
Know who your business is disrupting, as they may also have some interest.
Consider the business models that can make the arrangements work.
Growth – Business Development & Sales
Business development is the art of looking forward, and anticipating opportunities for your business, as well as capabilities that will be needed to leverage the future.
It is also at a foundation level about making connections and developing a consistent flow of leads and potential customers for your business.
Business Development is the Opportunity, and sales is the conversion.
When you have low-priced items, you want to design a system that automates sales as much as possible. This may include listing your product or service on sites that do the marketing for you.
For higher-priced or higher volume items, you want to engage with your buyers in a more substantial way.
Steps to consider in selling:
Make it entirely about the customer.
Understand deeply the need, the problem, and the struggle.
Understand the opportunities that could be presented to them if the problem/struggle did not exist.
Hello, everyone and welcome to the show. This is Women in Sustainable Business, as well as Where Ideas Launch - The Podcast. We're doing a double show in this episode. So thank you so much for joining us live on the show tonight. We have with us Michelle Miller, who is a brand strategist on the West Coast of the US. Michelle, why don't you say hello to everyone. Hi, everyone.
Michelle Miller 0:51
It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Katherine. My name is Michelle Miller, and I own Minty Made, which is a sustainable branding and web design studio.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:01
Yeah, it's really wonderful to have you. And Michelle has been in the Women in Sustainable Business community for about six, seven months now. And she's been with us in the membership as well for just about the same time. And she's an incredible stylist and designer and all of these things. And she's now running a full-service studio and Minty Made. So I'm really excited to talk to her a bit about her journey to building this business and where it all came from and where she is now.
Michelle Miller 1:29
I'll start off with just a bit of my background. I have been in corporate and small business marketing for the past 10 years. And I most recently worked for a nonprofit that was based around getting women into construction careers. And I really did enjoy that job. What I found throughout most of my corporate career is just noticing more frequently the amount of waste, the amount of energy that's consumed by all these major corporations. And I actually sat on a couple of different small focus groups within those organisations to talk more about sustainability within the office space within the trade show industry which I was in for a very long time as well. And during COVID and the pandemic, I was able to take on more projects that were based around wellness and sustainable businesses. And that allowed me to go full time with Minty Made as of January of this year. So it's been an exciting year, businesses stayed steady. And even though more people are out and about travelling now, there's still a large push for getting content out in the world, making sure that you're differentiated amongst your competitors, and really showing the impact that each small business large business everyone has, as we're really in this all together for minting our global missions.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:55
Exactly. Thank you so much for sharing that. And that's I think that's really important. There are a number of sustainable brands out there now that are willing to make a change. So people who are prepared to not just say they want to change but to make change happen. And I really applaud it. It's something that's, that's so encouraging as we around. But we also struggle with scaling these businesses and making them leverage the impact that they really want to leverage. And I think branding has an important role to play in that I wanted to ask you, what are you? What are your reflections on the things people get wrong when they try to brand themselves?
Michelle Miller 3:30
Sure, I really talk about sustainable brain most of the time. And that's kind of has a double meaning in itself where people tend to just do a quick fix on their branding. They'll pick a colour that they like, they'll pick a font that they like, throw something up there, make a logo quickly. And they don't really design with their target audience in mind, they design with what they like what they think looks good. And that's not always what's best for your brand and messaging. So that's the number one, I would say common mistake that I see people making as they're starting out on their businesses. I also see people jumping on a lot of these trend trains. And for us in the eco-community, we're familiar with fast fashion versus slow fashion. And it really is the same when it comes to branding. There's a lot of trendy script fonts out there. There's a lot of trendy flashy websites that we see when we're scrolling through Facebook or Instagram. And I really tell people not to fall for jumping on that bandwagon and really sticking to what the roots are of your brand. All of my brand work is deeply rooted in strategy which is so important, especially for a business just starting out because it's an investment not only if you're DIY your own brands, that's a lot of your time that you could be building your business elsewhere, but also if you invest in a brand and or web designer, that's a large investment too because there's a lot of work that goes into that to make sure that your messaging is clear, and that you're reaching the customers or the clients that you're trying to serve. I would say one other mistake that I see is people creating a logo or a brand around one product or one service in particular. And because our businesses, all of us in this club are set up to scale, you don't want to box yourself into a logo that just has a photo of, let's see compostable utensils or something like that. Because if you offer more products down the road, then all of your brandings have to change. And you have to go back and revisit that.
Katherine Ann Byam 5:48
That's really, really good advice, actually. And pivoting a bit to what are the sort of key things that we need to think about in succeeding so just right now. At the moment, we're running a Copy Bootcamp in the club, but it's interesting to see how many people are making discoveries about their ideal client as they go through this journey of copywriting. What are the key things to make sure match up when you're coming to a brand strategist? And you want to go through what you want? What sort of things should you prepare? What is important to that process?
Michelle Miller 6:23
Definitely. Through my own strategy, when I work with clients, it's a couple of core pieces here, there's getting clear on your values. And what I learned through a course that I took called the Ego Citizen Course a couple of months ago, is trying to separate your own personal values from the values of your business because there are two different value bases there. And though you are the face of your business, like in my case, I am, with many small business owners, there's only the solopreneur in the mix, really hone in on what your brand voices as well. So values, brand voice... If your brand were a person, I always ask people to describe what their brand looks like, what their brand smells like, what their brand tastes like. And it really evokes all the senses around what your brand is aiming to accomplish and what your business goals are. Speaking of business goals, that's another question that I asked before I even work with any business owners is what are you trying to achieve? I really steer people away from "all I want more followers" or "Oh, I want more people to join my lives." It's all about reaching that end customer converting them into a buyer or a subscriber. And really having clear business goals, I think is the number one thing I'd say to have. Prepared when you talk to a brand strategist, a copywriter, a photographer, any service provider in general.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:57
Absolutely. These are important ingredients. And I was also trying to explain yesterday, the difference between an ideal client and a client. And I think it's really important for all of us to understand that having an ideal client does is not an exclusive thing. It's not like you don't serve everyone but it is about that brand focus, right?
Michelle Miller 8:17
Sure. One of the exercises I have my clients do is telling me about an ideal client. And then I actually create an ideal client profile for them where I write a little story about, let's say, Maria. Maria goes shopping at the farmers market every day with her reusable bags, she stumbles upon a bulletin board at the end of the farmers market sees a business card that that is intriguing and well designed. And that's how that purchase path works toward your business. And that's really helpful for people because they can start to see, "Oh, my, this ideal client avatar, even though they're not real or fictitious, is a person" that they can see that whole streamline of them finding out about their business and moving into inquiring. So I love going through that exercise with people, they really appreciate that when I asked at the end of our projects, what was your favourite part? They always say the fact that we were able to work together and come up with two to three of my ideal clients, and they really start to see how that can come to life.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:29
Yeah, wonderful. So I want to pivot again about full-service studios. So I know that this is something that has been sort of trending of late. So people start off maybe with branding only, but then they start bringing in other services as they know you've done as well this year. And why is it important to bring those things together in terms of impact for your customer?
Michelle Miller 9:53
Earlier this year, I made a decision. When I speak to clients and they're interested in moving, I actually package copywriting, my web design, branding and photography all together because it allows me to coordinate and collaborate with both the copywriter and the photographer, both on a visual and a verbal and for copywritten standpoint. It really helps us all go in the same direction at once with what the brand voice is saying, what the messaging should be, how the brand should portray itself with imagery and such. And it's very hard to work disjointedly with either copy coming either from the client themselves or another copywriter, and kind of fitting that square peg in the round hole. When you're trying to fit it all together. It's really a team effort. And I'm of the belief that it should be approached that way. And it's made a huge difference in just conversion rates that I've seen for people's websites, people signing on or buying products or services. And I will never go back to the way it was before. And I think a lot of others are moving in this direction for the same reasons. It's these business groups like this that you started, Katherine are an incredible help to fostering that collaboration with others.
Katherine Ann Byam 11:20
Absolutely. So I think I think these are all wonderful tips. I want to now pivot to something that's more even more important for all of us as we're all based online pretty much every day. And this is about the sustainability of your website itself. And we like to do pretty branding shoots and have heavy images that look beautiful, but we know that this isn't good, either for the environment. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how to make your websites more eco friendly, or tips in that direction.
Michelle Miller 11:54
I would love to, in fact, I just read another book. I have it right here. It's called belief. I believe he's based in the UK, his name is Tom Greenwood. For anyone interested in this book. It's called Sustainable Web Design. It's a short read. But it has a lot of great tips and findings that I've added to my knowledge base. When you look at a website, as you just mentioned, again, back to the trendy things that are going on in the web design world, we see a lot of flashy graphics, a lot of animation, a lot of things that move and these are all large contributors to page weight. Page weight is a complicated formula to try and figure out what the energy or how much energy is being emitted from your website but it's a good baseline. You can measure that in data. There's a couple of other tools that I'll share in the group actually after we get finished up here that show how much or how green really enjoyed plugging my own website into there and seeing where it ranked. Some other ways to limit your energy consumption on your website is to opt-in or purchase your domain hosting from a green host. And there's a list of them. If you just type in green web hosting online, they'll come up. A lot of these hosting companies are committed to hosting their platforms, fueled by 100% renewable energy. And it's great that that's becoming more popular as I've seen over the years. I just switched mine over from GoDaddy which is a large hosting company here to Green Web Platform hosting. And a lot of people worry, "Oh, well their networks go down or is it as reliable and it is. It doesn't make a difference. A lot of the large platform hosting companies have downtime too. And I just sleep better at night knowing that I'm investing my money in a company that's committed to sustainability. Also, being mindful of the colours that you choose. This was a really interesting find that I had a couple of months ago. White space, you would think that on a website more white space is better because it's keeping things simplified, but it's actually the opposite dark colours use a lot less energy on your screen than white, light blues, bright colours. So that was very interesting for me to find out. Be mindful of your movement. So a lot of JavaScript code. I won't go to I won't go into too much of a nerd mode on the development side. But a lot of code that's on the website is unused. So think of it as you would garbage in the trash can. It's not there to be used anymore. There's no purpose to it. And so that's if you're working with a developer asking those questions about what's needed. You can accomplish a lot with compressed images with some streamlined code and really still deliver a valuable and memorable customer experience without having all of these different elements that don't really add to the experience at all. And then hiring a sustainable web designer that has these practices in mind that we'll walk through not only what materials you're going to print your marketing materials on, recycled paper, seed, paper, all of that. But someone that really knows the ins and outs of what it is to create a sustainable website. One more thing to add is the whole accessibility piece. It's very valuable if you can create a website that can load quickly and actually be accessed offline. As we're moving into more advertising into countries that don't have as fast internet speeds as maybe we do, it's very important for these websites to be accessible by those who have limited bandwidth.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:58
Really great tips. Thank you so much for sharing so much with the group and community. What's the direction of your business for the next few years? Where do you see it going?
Michelle Miller 16:09
Sure, I actually plan to host some workshops myself on sustainable web design so that either there can be tips helpful for people that are DIY in their own website, and maybe don't have the time or money to invest in a full rebrand or website design right now. And I would also be going to be focusing on creating specific web pages or landing pages for eco businesses to show what their impact actually is. Those would be more interactive, but not in a way that would create a lot of excess energy like I just talked about but really showing what difference that company or that small business is making. Because we see a lot of sustainability pages out there. It just has a short paragraph on why they're committed to sustainability. But Patagonia - that's one of the companies I admire greatly. They have a very detailed page about each of their business practices, how it contributes or limits global warming. And I want more businesses to have the opportunity to show that and really put numbers down to show their commitment and not just write about it in a sentence and hope that's enough.
Katherine Ann Byam 17:27
All right. Thank you. Thank you so much, Michelle. This is really insightful, and we'd love to have you back sometime in the future when you have new news to share about where you've gotten to with a sustainable web design. Thanks so much for coming to the show.
Preparing to go to market is separate from going to market; there are a host of other decisions that need to be made at this stage, principally around audience building and or client attraction. For product marketers, it includes critical supply chain decisions, as well as the choice of commercial strategy.
For service businesses, as well as product businesses it is about audience building, generating a buzz and excitement for your product, being visible and discoverable online, and the different paid and organic means to realise these objectives.
In this episode we will be covering:
Operations Teams
Launching
Social Media and Organic Traffic as well as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Paid Traffic – Advertising
Digital Technology you need in your business.
Launching
Launching is quite different from making your product or service available. It is about building anticipation with an audience you are actively building. Creating a sense of momentum toward a goal is the main thing here, as you don’t want people to purchase your product and not use it, this is waste, whether it be digital waste, or physical waste. You want to heighten awareness of the problems your product or service solves, or the lasting joy it will bring to the consumer, either through celebrating their ability to make responsible choices, or having something that lasts much longer.
Entire industries and a lot of wealth in the world has accrued to businesses that launch things that go from shop to landfill in mere seconds after entering the hands of the consumer. All the supply chain costs, poor wage rates, endless pollution, that create problems for city councils to take care of.
Launching a green business has to excite people about being responsible. It has to help them raise the lid on green practices that feel good, as opposed to unethical marketing, sales, and product strategies that leave us with a moment of pleasure and eternal regret.
I hope I painted that picture pretty clearly!
It’s case study time. I use some of my case studies not as examples of model businesses, but to explain the principles of what we can learn from the example. My first case study is Apple.
When Apple launches a product, people queue up physically or virtually to buy it.
There’s a big reveal, a demonstration of contemporary design concepts and all their marketing effort is directed at this single focussed product of the launch – They do not talk about any of their other products, although they still sell other products, by bringing audiences to their store or web page.
This is what launching can feel like for a green business if you study the art of making it happen for ethical businesses.
Maybe you don’t have the means to do a launch on the scale of Apple, but you can do a well staged launch using the audiences that you have. Wherever they are. This is what Season 3 of this podcast is for me, it's exciting my listeners to start amazing green businesses that excite people.
The fundamental principles of launching are to have a sustained effort at one period to launch your product or service to the world.
These are the broad steps you should consider.
Establish a launch timetable based on the size of the audience you need to build, and the strategies you will be using to build it.
Get your launch assets ready, with content plans, content pieces, behind the scenes, how I made this, gift promotions, incentives, pre-launch vouchers, info sheets and checklists, quizzes all prepared in advance.
Design the launch experience, and the tangible or intangible outcome or experience you want your customers to have.
Determine all your in-person engagements to grow interest before the launch – Which forums you will be speaking in, and how you will show up in those forums. Curate these well to ensure you meet the audiences who would be interested in what you do.
Start talking about the key points of interest for the consumer through questions, sharing of stories, market research type teaser questions in places where your ideal audiences spend time. This can be digital or physical spaces.
Invite the audience to join some form of launch event. This can be in the form of:
o Make it with me /or do it with me challenge for 3 to 5 days
o A bundled offer – potentially with collaborators
o A party of some kind that uses your product or service
o A limited time promotion
o A summit or series of speakers.
o A marketing campaign through ads or other
o A Masterclass
o A waitlist
Share real experiences and or testimonials about your product or service.
Continue to build credibility by showing them what your product or service can do.
Be consistent, share stories, but pursue fair marketing.
Check your metrics throughout, to understand if any boosts are needed to get visibility right.
This is an intense process, but this is what it takes to launch well.
You do not have to launch in a big, controlled rhythm like this, but you are likely to generate more long-term traffic and sustainable income this way, than having to promote your product or service every week.
A sustainable business must not only be sustainable for the planet. It must also be sustainable for you as the world or your community needs to benefit from the existence of your service or product.
Your values are key to helping you drive the outcomes you want for both the business and the planet. Building an audience is the most underestimated but critical element that we underestimate because we believe that people share our purpose and our passion.
The challenge with audience building is trust. If you start something new, even people who know you have reservations about trusting you.
In this internet age, it has really become self-fulfilling at times, as the bigger your brand gets, the more people trust you, but if you are not yet on the growth ladder, you need to find ways to get on it.
For all our planet friendly intentions, we still need to compete, sometimes with each other, but more significantly with brands who do things in less ethical ways.
If we plan to live and eat from our business, we need to make it viable, which includes competing with others, or finding the underserved niche, and sharing with them how your product or service will transform their outcomes.
The better you get at organic growth, the lower you can get your prices, but advertising as a strategy may be needed to build the initial audience, so consider those strategies well.
Throughout the experience of your launch, you need to have considered and prioritised customer service; this should be pre-designed but adapted as needed.
To run a sustainable purpose driven business you need strategy to achieve the objectives you have yourself in a metrics-oriented way.
And therefore, you need to document as much as possible, the whole sequence of events, with all your finances, and everything considered.
Launching summary
Launching is the most growth and revenue generating, cost concentrated way to bring a product to market.
It supports coordination of all marketing activity and messaging.
Grows supporters and fans.
Facilitates a boost in your income and recovery of development expenses.
Is it a barometer of future success?
Develops a pipeline of leads for future launches.
Concentrate your efforts.
Lobby supporters advocates and volunteers.
Leverage as many platforms as you can.
045 Sustainable Success and Style
About this Episode
I'm joined today by Yvonne Phillip, a.k.a. Yves. She's a brand strategist, stylist and self-care advocate. She believes that you have to stand out to fit in. And not only do you have to stand out to fit in; if women sustain themselves, they can sustain the world. She helps service-based professionals who feel that they are not being noticed or seen as the expert, not creating a connection with their ideal clients to get clarity, confidence and credibility with their personal and business brands through coaching courses and one-to-one services and events. She takes entrepreneurs and executives on a transformational journey that include their strategy, their style, and their self-care. The result is that they step up, show up, stand out and attract their dream clients with ease, authenticity, and without apology or overwhelm.
Thank you, Katherine, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to join and be speaking with you and your audience today.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:26
Wonderful to have you. Many people say that you need to start with branding when you're building a business. Is this true or false and why or why not?
Yvonne Phillip 1:35
I believe that it is false. Despite working in the personal branding space, I think people need to understand who they are, and who their business is serving before they start developing a brand. So you can build a website, you can go on Fiverr and get a logo. But that's not the brand, your brand comes from a deep part within. So at the start of your business, you should be thinking about the development of your product or service and making sure that's high quality. You should be thinking about who your target audience is that's going to buy this product and service, and doing that form of research. And as you're doing that form of research, you will collate those ideas of the way to communicate with your audience because that is your branding. Branding is a communication or communication tool, whether it be in writing verbally, the visual images, and representations such as the fonts, colours, logos, etc. But if you start with your brand and your branding, you might be building a brand that isn't conducive to you, or that your audience is going to be attracted to and repel, what could be ideal clients rather than bring them into your world and build that connection with them for them to want to buy your product or service.
Katherine Ann Byam 3:00
Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think this leads me nicely into the next one, which is as entrepreneurs, especially product-based ones we tend to hide behind our product, we tend to shy away from personal visibility, especially when we're micro businesses. And I want to ask you if this is a recommended approach because I think a lot of people think about their branding in terms of the product and not in terms of themselves.
Yvonne Phillip 3:25
Absolutely, they totally do. And a lot of product-based businesses do hide behind their brand. I know in my intro, it says that I support service-based businesses but I do also say support product-based businesses. If you're a large organisation, a large business you have lots of money to throw at advertising and promotions, in-store promotions, etc. When you're fully-fledged, now open for business, but as a solo entrepreneur, as someone where you are your product or your brand you have to step up and show up because people buy from people. People don't buy just a bottle of perfume or just a Gizi wizard, whatever it was. They buy because they like the person in the advert. They like the way that the advert actually embraces a family if you think about John Lewis or Sainsbury's, etc. So if you have a product, you need to show up in photography, in videos with your products, you can't just put products out there, because people don't know anything about it. They have no emotional connection to a box or a bottle. So if you're showing up, people then decide, "Yes, I want to invest my hard-earned money and purchase that product from that person."
Katherine Ann Byam 4:51
Absolutely. I guess a lot of fashion is linked to body image and confidence as well. And I think this fits nicely into why some of us hide behind our brands. How can someone use style to raise their self-perception?
Yvonne Phillip 5:05
So style is a tricky one, because a lot of people that don't have body confidence, wear lots of big, baggy clothes because. They're trying to hide. And I think that the first thing that you need to start doing is with your body image is stopped following and looking at everybody else. Take them for inspiration. But your goal should never be to emulate that person because no two people are the same, not even identical twins are the same. There are differences between them. So with your body confidence, as long as you're healthy, need to start loving yourself. There are always going to be parts of your body that you don't like. I don't like my skinny arms, Katherine, I'm sure there are parts of your body that you don't like. But unless we're going to do something about it, we need to learn to start living with that. So when your star comes into it, it is about first of all identifying your body shape, and what clothes suit your body shape the best. Because I have a very slender body shape and am very flat-chested. So there are certain types of garments that I can't wear, but it's going to make me look even more flat-chested. For ladies that may be a little bit full around the middle, they need to wear clothes that bring you to know their waist underneath their bust. So there are ways that when you wear clothes that suit your body shape, you automatically feel a lot more confident. In addition to that, it's about wearing the colours that suit you. Because you can look in a shop in our high street brand and you can see something online that you really, really like. And then when you get home, I'm sure it's happened to you, it's happened to me a million times, you look at yourself in the mirror, and you think, "oh my days, what happens, it didn't quite look like that on the model." And that's because you don't have the same body shape as that model. So what you need to think about to improve your body image is to be comfortable with who you are, find the parts of your body that do like and show them off. Find out the colours that suit you and your body shapes. You can start wearing clothes that suit you. And it's a hell of a lot easier to shop and do that as well.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:29
I absolutely agree. I'm moving into the sustainability space. And I know this is one of the pillars of your brand. The fashion industry is increasingly under criticism from poor employment and contractual practices from environmental harm caused by the production of the clothing and the waste that's generated to landfills, either through the sort of true fashion or even just bolts and bolts of cloth that are never used. So what are your reflections on where the industry needs to go?
Yvonne Phillip 7:59
Now, I think that obviously, COVID has hit the fashion industry extremely hard. And I do have some empathy for employees that have been affected by the pandemic. But what I think that the large brands need to start doing is be more transparent about the way that these clothes are made and stop making so many clothes. We always have more than enough or more surplus clothing, which goes into landfills which are damaging to the environment or ends up hot on sale. First of all, they need to be transparent about the way that these clothes are being made because a lot of the fast fashion brands are making clothes in countries where they're not actually paying the worth of the time and effort that it takes to make those clothes. They've been made in poor quality factories. Some of them have had major disasters. And then they're transporting those garments across the world which is having the carbon footprint of that transportation is huge. The fashion industry is the second most polluting in the world. So we need to start thinking about how can we make clothes that are sustaining only people so that they're being paid right but also the world that we live in - in this beautiful world. In addition to that, too many clothes are being made, and they're not being purchased. So yes, they may end up on the sales rack, but then if they don't end up on sales, they end up in landfills. So the fashion industry, if that's the case, give those clothes to charity. What we can do as individuals is not be such fast fashion consumers, because a T-shirt cannot be made for five pounds? So we're seeing that as a bargain. But really, is it a bargain because somebody had to pick that cotton, it's had to be processed, it then had to be made cuts, sewn into that T-shirt and then shipped to the UK. It can't that can't happen for five pounds. Corners are being cut somewhere. And I think that we as consumers needs to reflect on that. And really think about, are we making informed choices about the way we are buying fast fashion, throwing it away, and then buying more fast fashion because nobody's benefiting from this, apart from the owners of these companies?
Katherine Ann Byam 10:50
Well said. What recommendations can you make to those who want to redesign their wardrobe for sustainability? So for example, I have been guilty of my own share of purchasing things, purchasing too many things, purchasing fast things. I used to travel to Miami a lot and pick up things out of outlet malls. Many of these things I still have, I refuse to let go of them. But I want to do something with my wardrobe, I want to be more minimalistic. I want to also adapt my clothing to suit my new body, my new body size, etc. What can I do?
Yvonne Phillip 11:31
So I think that you're doing the right thing by not throwing away your outlet clothes. I love an outlet. If I'm going to buy something new, I will go to an outlet store or I will buy second-hand, or I will buy it sustainably from a sustainable or ethical producer or designer. I think that's what you could do. When I was first starting on this sustainable style journey, there was so much information out there that also contradicted each other because if you want to wear vegetarian on non-animal products, that affects the industry in one way. Then if you want to wear fair trade that affects something another way down the line. So first of all, you need to think about what is the cause that you want to stand for through your stuff. So for example, mine is ethical practices, fair trade and reducing waste. So let's go back to our previous question what I said about finding out your body shape, what colour suit you once you know that you can give your wardrobe in audit, and really think about what are the clothes that suit me now, and are they the colours that are going to show me off in the right light. Clothes that are no longer working for you, you can give away to charity, you may want to keep them, and then you can start building a wardrobe that reflects you. I would advise you to build a capsule wardrobe, which is a group of like 30 to 50 pieces, which you can interchange and intermingle with the rest of your wardrobe. And if you choose a couple of colours that you really like the colours that when people see you, they're like, "Oh my gosh, you look fabulous in that." Yeah, those colours. You can build a wardrobe that reflects you. And this is really great, especially if you're a business owner because you can also link it to your brand colours. Because with your personal brand, you need to be showing up consistently all the time, consistency is key. So if you're showing up in your brand colours or your brand pattern, or in a way that suits your brand and your style all the time, that's also going to build recognition in your brand. But the first thing you need to start doing is often know your colours and your body shape. Go through your wardrobe and see what is still working for you. Yeah, do not throw those clothes away. Give them to charity. Somebody else could benefit from them. Then think about a capsule wardrobe.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:13
Brilliant, great advice. So I know that your work has been on billboards lately. Why don't you tell us about that?
Yvonne Phillip 14:20
Oh, I'm so excited about that. Yes. I'm all about authenticity, I'm all about integrity, I'm all about sustainability. Now those that may have seen a picture of me you'll see me with my big Afro and I embrace my natural hair and in as a woman of colour or a black woman. And I work with a campaign called Project Embrace which is all about black women embracing their natural hair in the workplace because I don't know how you know whether you've been through this as well, Katherine. I spent years relaxing my hair because I was trying to fit in with meet your norms of what is acceptable with western society norms of what was acceptable, but I was damaging my self-esteem and not really showing up as who I am. So this campaign is all about shining a light on how beautiful how versatile and how professional afro hair is and can be. So I'm really, really honoured and pleased to be the stylist on that campaign, which is on a billboard near you. We're gonna be able to meet you soon. But I'm also going to be all over my social media.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:38
it sounds awesome. It sounds wonderful. And I definitely a share that journey that you've had. Even today, I live in Southampton, and I can't find a black hairdresser. I remember once going to a hairdressing salon that was predominantly white and asking if anyone could do my hair, and they told me that only the owner can, and I would have to pay double the price. This is the kind of thing that really makes you do your own hair!
Yvonne Phillip 16:09
I live in London and I do have afro hair salons around. I choose to do my own hair. I do need to go and have a little bit of trim soon. But you know, that's the problem. You know, if you don't live in a conurbation, where there are large amounts of no black people in the community. It's either very, very expensive, or you get people doing a hair that doesn't we don't really, really understand it. And that's a shame, we shouldn't have to have to go through that. So hopefully this campaign will allow black women to embrace their own hair more, but also European hair salons to get a better understanding of our hair, and how to cope with that.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:53
Absolutely. So where can everyone find you? This has been such a lovely session, I wouldn't want them to miss out on your goodies.
Yvonne Phillip 17:00
Oh, yes. So you can find me on my website, www.yvonnephillip.com. There's a little quiz there that will help you to find your brand personalities and personality season. If you're interested in exploring your personal brand a little bit more, but some others quizzes are going to be launching soon as well. I'm on social media, Instagram and Facebook @yvonnephillipthesuccessstylist
and on LinkedIn and Clubhouse just Yvonne Phillip. So come and find me and say hi. Let me know that you found me through Katherine.
Katherine Ann Byam 17:38
Wonderful. Thanks so much for joining me today Yvonne.
Yvonne Phillip 17:42
Thank you so much for having me, Katherine.
044 Go-To Market Strategy
About this Episode
Katherine Ann Byam (MBA, FCCA) is the wing-woman to your genius, and a business resilience / organic growth consultant. As a strategic partner to leaders, she helps businesses design and embed effective strategies for responsible brand stewardship, to deliver outcomes that favour a wider stakeholder view.
In consulting she supports sustainable business development, resilience and business transformation projects. She is also a specialist in using Linkedin to generate organic growth and impact.
As a leadership coach, she works one to one with you as you go through any critical leadership changes; career transitions, starting businesses or scaling.
Her aim is to address solutions that consider society and environmental resiliency at their core so that her clients preserve their longevity and a fair return for innovation and ingenuity.
Her brands include Dieple Virtual Services Hub, Where Ideas Launch, Women in Sustainable Business, The Eco-Business Growth Club, Diep Linked Agency Services, the Courageous Career Club and the WW Executive business club.
What’s the biggest mistake people make when they go to market?
They skip all the steps I spoke about before. They think that they would buy their product, therefore, others would. But there’s much more involved in taking a product to market.
If you run an existing business and you are struggling with growth one or more of the things below may be playing against you.
The main mistakes:
1) Vague idea of an ideal client in mind.
2) Designing a product that fits everyone so therefore it suits no one. That my friend is not even a onesie, and even if it was, no one would go out in public in it. Well, few people at least.
3) Taking on any client, who isn’t a good fit for your services or you as a person. (don’t get me wrong, when needs must, but you can end up developing in a direction you don’t want to go as a business owner, and that will just make you hate your business!
4) Pricing strategies that are not adjusted to the market or your place in it.
5) A business model that is not fit for your stage of growth.
6) A product or service that does not deliver on customer expectations.
7) No niche in the way you approach the market.
8) Using all social media and none of them well.
9) No planning for your launch, including logistics coordination and supply chain, or audience building and awareness.
10) No understanding of the key metrics that drive your conversions.
11) No identification of key resources is required to support the launch.
12) Failure to test product-market fit.
13) Lack of integrity or ethics in your data points
14) Tech fails.
15) Burnout and exhaustion because of inadequate self-care (probably we have all been guilty of this at one stage or another - but even if your business is your baby, you still need to put on your mask first.) good airplane logic never fails.
16) No clear brand aesthetic
We’ve covered many of the points above in past episodes, but by the end of season 3, we would have covered everything. This section is strategy, not yet executed. Before you launch, you will have more to do, but all the points will be available to you.
Let’s talk Business Models
Business models are how you place your value proposition in front of your customer. Your value proposition is a combination of the USP of you, and the general value the consumer receives from the consumption or enjoyment of your product.
The best business models will do the following things:
provide an ample return on your investment
Maintain a diversified income stream.
Stay relevant to market trends.
Be responsive to changes in the market.
The key things that you need for a strong business model:
Offers at different price points, that address audiences at different stages.
DIY option
DFY option
A Passive or semi-passive dimension
Passive products or services require little to no input from you, except to set it up.
Examples can be:
Affiliate links for other’s products or services on your website.
A course on a platform that does all the marketing for you with good SEO
A product on a platform that does the marketing for you with good SEO
Investment income
Rental income
Service subscriptions/ Subscription boxes
Make your own boxes
Courses delivered in person across many people.
Some of the most popular business models
The way you execute the ideas above can vary. There are many mechanisms for business models that you can choose from. Some of the popular ones this year:
Freemium basic level free or low priced, you pay for the extras
Double-sided platforms (users are free, businesses pay to promote)
Membership subscriptions (products or services)
Consulting one to one
Razor blade method
Software “As a service” models
Franchise
Pay peruse/ Pay per experience.
Pay by tiers.
Rentals
Sharing Economy
Choose your contribution/ Donation.
Pay a % of the value received.
To build a decent go to market strategy, go through your numbers.
Financials
Start with the full business year in front of you. Consider the following:
Set a financial goal, and break that goal into months, quarters, half-year – depending on the way that you plan.
Set up your year into Quarters or half years and create a planning cycle around that.
Plan your holidays in. This may be your most crucial step.
Map your key sales events to key events in the wider world that bears some relevance to the product or service you want to sell.
This gives you an idea of the number of offers you need to have over the period of a year.
The alternative to this approach is burnout. So, plan.
Market Data
What response rates did you get at the research stage? How many people engaged with your surveys, and how many converted into filling a survey? It’s already an indication of what your conversion rate could be.
Competitors, what are they doing? Can you do something different that is perceived as unique by your ideal audience?
Audience engagement – understand how they are engaging now and why.
Product Suite
You then want to build a product suite that compliments your value proposition finances and chosen business models.
Your product suite will be your main offer.
Inside each main offer, you will have smaller offers, that are specific to the proposed customer stage or need.
This is how the product suite can work.
An offer within an offer is something you give either free or for a small additional fee, that closes the deal for the customer, and deals with their objections to the course, or their other desires that are linked to the service you provide.
For example. If you offer a travel service, your customers are into travel. You may want to create neat package deals for them but sweeten this with a loyalty card that offers a discount for their next purchase with you, or for items they will want to consume when they arrive at their destination.
Summary - Go to Market Strategy
Plan your year, and your quarters.
Create a portfolio model for your business, then choose relevant business models to support a diverse portfolio.
Have clear objectives and goals. Financial Targets. Sales Targets. Reach/ Lead targets. Budgets. Metrics.
Choose your business model based on what is useful for the stage of your business and the size of your audience.
You also need to consider Supply Chain and Finance. I have covered the supply chain in episode 34 – Sustainable Supply and Sourcing and I also have a special guest coming up to talk about Financing, so stay tuned, we are full of value.
Recommended resources
The Lean Start-up – by Eric Ries
Business Model Generation by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. (actually, Anything by Alex and his team absolutely rocks).
