Guest Starring…
One of the things I get asked a lot is ‘how do I grow my audience?’ Posting on social media is great but it takes so much time. Time to create the posts, and time for those posts to be seen by people and for them to understand what you do and like you, and […]
In a marketing muddle? Here’s some help
You know how, when you start a business, they don’t give you a handbook? So you’re kinda making it up as you go along, using YouTube videos and various free things you’ve downloaded (and now delete all of the follow-up emails), and workshops and webinars where you know you’re not going to be buying the […]
There’s no such thing as a magic wand
I wrote a piece last week about standing for something, and one of the things that I very strongly stand for is ‘no too good to be true promises’. If marketing isn’t a thing that comes naturally to you (and why should it be, if you’re a therapist or an artist or whatever), then it […]
Stand up, stand out
I saw a post on LinkedIn last week that prompted me to write this. Yes, I do venture onto LinkedIn a handful of times a week to brave the bro marketing idiots trying (and failing) to be subtle in showing off their Rolexes. The opposite of the bros is the boring. The posts you barely […]
Basics are the new black
I got an email the other day from Jeff Walker, the online marketing guy behind Product Launch Formula and author of Launch. It wasn’t a personal email to me, I’m just another subscriber on his list. Jeff teased at revealing the secrets to the real work you need to do in your business. The man […]
Less is more, and free isn’t always best
I went to Lush the other day to stock up on skincare products – there’s more to them than bath bombs. At the till, the sales assistant pointed to one of the products and said “when you’re finished with this bring the pot back and we’ll give you 50p off your next purchase”. Interesting. The […]
Best Bits from Book Club – Limitless, by Jim Kwik
I run a book club where we read things that directly relate to improving ourselves and our businesses. We take 2 months for each title – one to read it, and one to implement what we’ve learned from it (we’re busy running our businesses, goddammit!). There’s 2 book club discussion meetings about each title. The […]
‘Commas are not your friend’
It was discussion day today in The 2-Month Book Club. We’re working through ‘Building A StoryBrand’ by Donald Miller. If you haven’t read that, I really recommend it. It’s about creating brilliant marketing messages using a framework like they use for the narrative in books and films. It’s great, a real lightbulb moment. We have […]
Zoning out, and how to avoid it
I wrote this article some while ago about overwhelm. It talked about Amy Porterfield. I absolutely flipping love Amy, but I found her early podcast episodes to be mind-blowingly overwhelming with the amount of information she squeezed into them. But I knew it was worth concentrating to pick out the key bits of brilliance, because […]
Getting great brand photography – and more!
With my passion for branding, I’ve recently been collaborating with a local brand photographer to help her clients get the best out of their photoshoots. You know, those photos of business owners perched on the edge of the kitchen island holding a cup of coffee, or sat at their desk with a new MacBook (one […]
Do you write a blog? I recommend it!
In the olden days, back when we could use meeting rooms, I used to present business development and marketing workshops. One of my favourite topics was blogging, so I thought I’d recreate that presentation here for you. I’ve set this out literally as my notes for giving the presentation. Bit of a different vibe this […]
Just how helpful is all that free training people offer?!
Free help always sounds great, but how helpful it it? We get bombarded with Facebook ads for webinars and cheat sheets and ‘the secrets to’ – and they sound great so we signup. Of course they sound great, they’re adverts! I’m not saying the content is bad, but you do need to be aware of […]