Making It Fit Together

Marketing isn't a separate thing to tack on when everything else is finished. It's as much a part of the machinery as, well, the machinery. Used properly it's the tool that brings your proposition and your customers' wants together. And once those two fit together, everything else follows.

When we talk to each other, it's impossible to predict where we'll end up. If you're willing to go for it we could find ourselves heading in directions you hadn't expected. We might come to some conclusions that'll make you gulp, but it won't be me doing it. It'll be you realising things about your business you might well have never considered. All I do is ask the questions.

An example springs to mind that might show you what I mean.

A client came to me to help them market their retail barcode ticketing business. They were a large SME in a marketplace populated by billion dollar giants, but they had industry-leading print ordering and management software. As we explored their situation it became obvious that the main thing holding them back was... retail barcode ticketing. Instead of fighting price wars with the big boys - who could always starve them out if necessary - their big opportunity was to become a software services company, and supply their competitors. They were brave enough to make the change and, three years later, achieved their exit ambitions with a multi-million pound sale of the business to one of those industry giants.

I'd love to tell you that change of direction was my idea. To be honest, I couldn't tell you whose idea it was. It's what seems to happen when the connection between the client and me is right.

So what do you get when you decide to work with me? As this site hopefully shows, you get a pretty decent copywriter, website builder, advert creator and all that good stuff. Fine, it's useful to have all that in one place, but the really big results come from the brainstorming sessions we'll do together.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do have some bloody good questions.