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It's time to give a sh*t about toilets

rich@ffaithmarketing.co.uk (Richard Watts) — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 13:46:01 GMT

As my nan used to say - you can tell a lot about a place from its toilets. And it's fair to say, when it comes to experiences, I'm obsessed with them.

You might arrive at a beautiful office, a busy café, or a slick visitor attraction. The welcome is polished, the branding sharp, the service rehearsed. And then you slip away to the loo and suddenly you see the truth.

A broken lock. A soap dispenser that hasn’t been filled in days. A faded Covid sign still taped to the mirror like a ghost of 2020. All the polish of the front-of-house vanishes. Because if they’ve stopped noticing here, what else have they stopped noticing?

Why toilets punch above their weight

Toilets don’t get design awards (often), they don’t appear on campaign mood boards, and they rarely make the budget spreadsheet. Yet they shape experience and demonstrate culture more than almost any other space.

The numbers prove it: over 80% of facility complaints relate to toilets, and more than four in five people say a bad loo puts them off returning. In restaurants and hospitality, dirty toilets cut repeat visits by around 20%.

Psychologists call it the Peak-End Rule: people judge experiences by their extremes and by how they end. Which makes the loo dangerous territory. For many customers, it’s the last stop before they leave. If the final impression is disappointment - no soap, a cracked seat, the faint smell of neglect (or worse), that’s what tips the memory from positive to no thanks.

The workplace test

In offices, toilets are culture in miniature. An employer can talk endlessly about wellbeing, inclusion, and values, but the loos tell the truth.

Free sanitary products? Clean mirrors? Lighting that flatters rather than exposes? These are the signals staff notice every day. They’re not perks; they’re respect. And don’t start me on the signs telling people to clean up after themselves. Really? Are we dealing with adults or running a nursery? More often than not it’s a response to one incident with one person, and the rest of the workforce gets a lifetime of infantilising posters. That says more about the culture than the mess ever did.

Employees don’t measure culture by the slogans on the wall. They measure it by whether the hand dryer works.

The toilet as theatre

Then there are the loos that become icons.

Sketch London didn’t install its futuristic white egg-pods to make cleaning easier. They were designed by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrence, fabricated by yacht makers, and have barely changed since 2002. They’re theatrical, surreal, and unforgettable. They’ve been Instagrammed millions of times. They’re not just toilets - they’re a distinctive brand asset.

That’s the extreme. But even smaller touches matter. A boutique hotel using its signature scent in the loos. An independent café with humour in the signage. A farm shop with fresh flowers on the sink. These details extend the brand story into a space most businesses ignore.

Why this is worth caring about

Because toilets do more than provide a function; they subliminally shape trust, retention, and memory.

Shops: Nearly two-thirds of customers say the cleanliness of the toilets shapes their overall opinion of a business. That’s reputation decided before you’ve even started selling.
Food & Beverage: More than four in five people say a bad loo puts them off returning. In restaurants that means no repeat bookings and no extra spend on desserts or drinks.
Workplace: Around 64% of employees say the state of workplace toilets affects their overall job satisfaction. That makes loos one of the most visible daily signals of culture.
Attractions: Families routinely cut visits short when toilets aren’t child-friendly. Studies show poor facilities reduce repeat visits by around 20% in hospitality and leisure.

Loo moments become memory anchors. They either reinforce trust or destroy it. And because they so often come at the end of the experience, they weigh heavier than almost any other touchpoint.

The takeaway

Toilets aren’t glamorous. They’re not usually front of the deck. But they are front of mind.

So here’s the advice: go and check your toilets. Don’t just tick off the cleaning schedule - look harder. What are they really saying about your business? Do they reinforce the care, creativity, and respect you want people to feel? Or do they undo all your other efforts in a single flush?

Every business has a culture it can’t hide and for my money – you’ll find it in the toilets.

Ready to review your experience?

At Equipt, we run experience reviews, mystery shopping, and customer journey mapping to show you how your business really feels to the people who matter. Talk to us if you’d like to see your business through their eyes and change.

Case Study - Tara & Co/Student Homes

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 16:12:37 GMT

Fractional Growth Leadership: How Equipt delivered direction, clarity and momentum in a shifting property market.

No job title. Just results.

Some briefs are clearly defined. Others evolve by the day. With Tara & Co, our role was never about a single deliverable or title, it was about helping a growing business step up its thinking, sharpen its offer, and make better decisions, faster.

We acted as a fractional growth director. No portfolio. No vanity projects. Just hands-on strategic support across whatever the business needed most, from board-level thinking to customer journey audits. It was a role built on trust, challenge and forward momentum.

The challenge

Tara & Co is an ambitious lettings and student property agency with a reputation for local knowledge and operational strength. But the market had shifted fast. Competition was tougher. Students were savvier. And Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) providers had rewritten expectations on everything from tech to tenant experience.

The team needed sharper tools and clearer priorities. They were ready to grow - but needed help mapping the path, managing change, and keeping their energy focused in the right direction.

What we did

Over 2 years, we played an embedded leadership role across multiple areas of the business - adapting as priorities shifted, always keeping an eye on sustainable growth. We weren’t just advisors. We worked inside the organisation to deliver real progress, including:

Leading a full Perspective Analysis, with regular rescoring to track development across 10 business pillars
Supporting board-level thinking, commercial planning and strategic clarity
Coaching and mentoring directors and managers through big decisions and tough transitions
Mapping and improving the customer experience, especially across the student journey
Leading and interpreting market research to inform new offers, segments and brand opportunities
Helping develop and refine the service proposition to stand out from new competitors
Supporting pitch development, commercial tenders and partnership proposals
Acting as a sounding board and pressure-tester across marketing, brand, team development and innovation

This was flexible, senior support, always focused on what would move the business forward next.

“As an employee and then Director in the same business for over 25 years, I thought I knew it inside and out but the Perspective Analysis process helped me see the business with fresh eyes. We identified strengths and weaknesses that were not expected. The clarity it brought and the confidence that came from seeing tangible progress over time — has been game-changing.

Equipt’s insightful and systematic approach has put us in a much better place to ward off threats and take advantage of opportunities. I’ve learnt a huge amount from working together and have felt supported, challenged and encouraged throughout.”

Dave Quain, Director

How it showed up

We helped Tara & Co shift from reactive to proactive, giving them the space and insight to grow with intent, not just instinct.

Key examples include:

Reframing how student experience is delivered — using NPS data, market insight and operational mapping to rebuild loyalty and retention
Redefining the Tara vs Student Homes brand relationship, helping prepare for future expansion and national visibility
Supporting strategic partnership conversations and helping shape the future of studenthomes.org
Developing practical internal tools and performance dashboards to help teams manage growth with clarity

The support flexed from workshop-style sessions to hands-on content creation to real-time pitch support - whatever was needed to keep momentum high.

The results

Major uplift in Perspective Analysis scoring across multiple pillars — including direction, customer experience and brand
Internal clarity around strategy, service offering and future growth model
Clearer path to profitability through new proposition development and pricing strategy
Board strengthened with new senior leadership and clearer KPIs
Strategic planning, proposals and pitch support delivered across multiple commercial opportunities
Improved NPS and customer journey tracking across landlord and student cohorts
A stronger, more focused business ready for its next phase

Why it worked

Because the support matched the moment. Tara & Co didn’t need another consultant with a playbook — they needed a thinking partner who could flex to meet the messy, real-world challenges of growth. Someone who could help them zoom out, zoom in, and keep moving.

Fractional leadership doesn’t need a fixed remit. It just needs trust, clarity, and the confidence to focus on what matters most. And that’s exactly what we built together.

Case Study - Parenting Mental Health

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 15:51:24 GMT

Fractional Leadership, Full Transformation: How Equipt helped rebuild the foundations of a vital UK charity

Not just advice - actual leadership

When Parenting Mental Health (PMH) needed to reset its strategy, structure and sustainability, they didn’t need a consultant. They needed a partner. One who could lead, rebuild and drive change from the inside - without the cost or delay of full-time hires. That’s where Equipt stepped in.

As fractional CEO, we were responsible for every part of the organisation’s next chapter - from rebuilding team infrastructure and leadership processes to redefining the brand, reshaping services, and transforming the approach to fundraising. This was a full organisation-wide reset, delivered hands-on, in real time.

The challenge

PMH is a small charity with big impact. At the centre is a 46,000-strong digital peer support community, built to support parents navigating their child’s poor mental health. But demand was growing fast. Services were at capacity. Internal systems were fragile. The funding model was inconsistent, and the brand — while trusted — lacked the infrastructure and visibility to grow.

The trustee team needed fresh operational direction, deeper strategic support, and the ability to deliver with confidence and pace. But with limited budget and overstretched roles, they couldn’t afford to hire a full-time team to solve it.

What we did

We embedded fractional leadership across the organisation, acting as CEO, strategist, operator, fundraiser and brand steward (we even packed Christmas Cards and Sweatshirts on occasion). Our role covered the full scope of executive responsibility, with a laser focus on getting the organisation fit for the future.

Defined and refined the vision, mission, and organisational structure
Delivered full strategic planning across operations, service and fundraising
Built a robust people and volunteer infrastructure
Developed and implemented an all-new fundraising strategy — achieving £100k+ in community giving for the first time
Refocused the brand to serve both families and funders
Rebuilt processes, content and structure around the three PMH pillars: Support, Skill and Inform
Launched flagship services including the Be Programme and refreshed Partnering Not Parenting offer
Overhauled reporting, impact data and funder communications
Represented the organisation in media, partnerships and board settings

This was full-scale leadership — strategic and operational — without the overhead of a permanent hire.

How we rolled it out

We acted as both coach and captain. Internally, we built a new team structure and culture, recruiting key roles and reshaping volunteer models to match growing demand. We introduced clear processes for safeguarding, reporting, communications and finance. We transitioned volunteers into paid roles, created new pathways for progression, and championed inclusive practices across community operations.

On the public side, we led all brand and communications work. That included a national PR campaign, the launch of the Lived Experience report, appearances on BBC and LBC, and significant audience growth across all channels — with Facebook followers up 34%, YouTube views up 22%, and a 29% increase in unique website visitors.

Behind the scenes, we built the fundraising engine. We established and delivered on targets across community giving, grants and corporate partners. We created the first ever PMH fundraising strategy and comms pack, brought new funders on board, and generated new recurring income streams.

The results

£100,000 raised through community giving and events — more than double previous years
46,000+ parents supported through a now robust digital community
5,368 new comments, 825,000 community reactions, and 291,000 written responses
200+ scholarship places awarded on Partnering Not Parenting
260 applications for 50 places on the pilot of The Be Programme
Brand presence across BBC News, LBC, and national press
29% growth in website visitors, now reaching over 55,000 unique users
New paid team roles, safeguarding frameworks, and clear succession plan in place

Why it worked

Because this wasn’t an advisory relationship — it was real, practical leadership.

We didn’t just write strategies. We built systems. Delivered programmes. Trained teams. Secured funding. Steered the ship.

Fractional leadership gave PMH the senior thinking and decision-making it needed — without the burden of long recruitment cycles or high fixed costs. It gave them confidence, momentum and clarity, fast.

And most importantly, it gave thousands of parents better, braver support when they needed it most.

What Your Marketing Budget Says About Your Ambition

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 14:27:05 GMT

Every business faces the same question when planning for the year ahead: what should we spend on marketing? There isn’t a clean-cut answer. Nobody has the formula that guarantees growth. What matters is whether your budget matches the growth you’re actually chasing.

From a sales and marketing perspective, most small to mid-sized businesses sit in one of three lanes: Zero, Incremental, or Exceptional. Smaller businesses tend to hover in zero, the more established ones work in incremental, and only a bold few step into exceptional. The trick is not which lane you choose, but whether you’re honest about being in it.

Zero: hoping for the best

Zero is the lane of survival. Most micro-SMEs end up here by default. Marketing isn’t in the budget, it’s something the founder (or another willing team member) crams into evenings and weekends. Social posts, the odd flyer, and a heavy reliance on word of mouth or personal networks.

The problem is that “no budget” never really means no cost. It means you’re paying in hidden ways: slower sales cycles because there’s no air cover for the pipeline, lost opportunities because potential customers don’t know you exist, and founder time that disappears into DIY marketing instead of running the business.

Zero can sustain you. It can keep the lights on. But very few businesses scale out of this lane without committing something more deliberate. Survival simply isn’t the same as growth.

Incremental: the steady road

Incremental growth is where SMEs start to get serious. If you’re getting serious your budget should be within 4–7% of your revenue, which is enough to create rhythm: SEO that doesn’t get forgotten, email that lands every month, campaigns that repeat, and the odd test of a new channel. Sales still lean on retention and referrals, but with more discipline in the pipeline you’ll create more cause and effect.

Gail’s Bakery is a brilliant lesson in what incremental looks like at its best. The first site opened in Hampstead in 2005, but for years it was just a few shops in North London. The real shift came in 2011 when external investment gave Gail’s the capital to expand carefully, bakery by bakery. Each new shop was chosen with precision: affluent commuter towns, established London neighbourhoods, places where the brand could bed in rather than overreach - all critical (and often overlooked) essentials of marketing.

That’s why today, when you walk through Marlow, Clapham, or St Albans, you can’t miss a Gail’s. It feels like they’re everywhere, but it’s been twenty years of patient, disciplined growth. Incremental doesn’t make headlines in year one, but it compounds until suddenly the brand feels unavoidable.

Exceptional: the bold bet

Exceptional growth is when we choose to accelerate. Marketing budgets rise to 10–15% of revenue or more, and that spend is matched with operational readiness and, crucially, risk appetite. This lane buys visibility, reach, and cultural momentum if you’re willing to back it.

Take Gymshark. The myth will have you believe it was entirely organic; a teenager in a Birmingham garage who struck gold through social media alone. It wasn’t. The truth is more complex. Yes, Ben Francis built a community, but Gymshark also spent aggressively on influencer partnerships, international events, and flagship stores to cement its place. That growth wasn’t accidental or free; it was funded, risky, and carefully engineered.

Lucky Saint shows the same dynamic in another category. Founded in 2018, it positioned itself as a credible, grown-up alcohol-free beer in a space dominated by mass brands. From early on, Lucky Saint invested heavily in brand and experience: PR, creative partnerships, and eventually a bricks-and-mortar pub in London. For a small brewer, that’s a bold move, but it paid off. The spend signalled ambition, and the market responded.

Exceptional growth isn’t a casual decision. It means bigger budgets, more risk, and a level of operational readiness that many SMEs underestimate. But when ambition and investment line up, it creates step-change growth that incremental spend rarely delivers.

The mismatch trap

If you’re reading this with huge ambition and a budget line of zero, it’s time for a check-in. The biggest problems happen not when you choose a lane, but when you kid yourself about which lane you’re in.

Champagne ambition, beer budget. Some businesses set accelerated growth targets but fund them with incremental budgets. The marketing team (if there even is one) is told to double awareness or leads on the same spend as last year, or to land national coverage with nothing more than local-level funds. It creates frustration, wasted energy, and the creeping belief that “marketing doesn’t work,” when in truth it was never resourced to match the ambition.
Champagne budget, no hangover cure. Others do the opposite. They throw big money at marketing while the rest of the business is still built for incremental growth. Leads flow in, awareness rises, but operations can’t deliver the experience. Customer service cracks, delivery timelines slip, and the reputation you just paid to build is quickly eroded. Exceptional marketing without exceptional operations doesn’t accelerate growth; it accelerates churn.
Hope springs eternal. Then there’s the subtler trap of sitting in zero while planning for growth. A founder convinces themselves that word of mouth will carry them through another year, while quietly expecting sales to grow 20%. When it doesn’t happen, the blame gets pointed everywhere except the missing budget line. You can’t compound visibility you never paid for in the first place.

Planning for the year ahead

Budgets are signals of intent. They tell your team, and yourself, whether you’re serious about survival, steady growth, or acceleration. They set expectations for sales, operations, and delivery before a single social post goes live.

If you’re one of the 1000s of SMEs working on next year’s plans right now and you’re unsure whether your budget matches your ambition, that’s exactly where Perspective Analysis comes in. We stress-test your business for growth, help bring clarity to which lane you’re really in, and align sales, marketing and ops so your plan has a fighting chance of working.

If you want a defensible budget and a growth plan that holds up past January, start with Perspective Analysis.

Ready to stress-test your 2026 plan?

That’s what Perspective Analysis is for. One reset day, the whole business on the table, and a clear plan forward.

Reset days start at £1,950.

A 2026 Crystal Ball for Business

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 12:29:58 GMT

The surveys say SMEs are resilient - and we are. According to The Times, 68% of SME leaders are feeling confident and believe their businesses can withstand “further shocks”. And let’s face it, over the last few years we’ve weathered some: Covid lockdowns, inflation spikes, energy costs, supply chain crunches, Liz Truss (!), and a tech hype cycle that promised the world and often delivered more disruption than clarity.

Our work with SMEs tells us something more nuanced than the headline suggests: we can survive another storm, but we don’t want to. Constant firefighting is unsustainable.

We’ve run Perspective Analysis with SMEs for the past five years. It’s our diagnostic that reviews businesses across 180 data points, highlighting where we thrive and where we struggle. Layer that with the wider trend data we track, and a picture starts to form of the issues we’ll all be facing in 2026.

And despite all the noise, this isn’t about AI. AI is a tool for the future, not the be-all and end-all. The fundamentals that will make or break us are much more human: planning, leadership, people, money, and the capacity to keep moving without burning out.

When your leadership plate is already full, these are the fundamentals we believe will make the difference in 2026.

1. Planning as a Living Process

Too many of us still spend months producing static, 50-page plans that end up on a shelf. Some set ambitious sales targets but leave out the actions that would make them real. Others simply roll from year end to year start as if nothing has changed. None of it works.

What we’ve seen instead and what will define the most successful SMEs in 2026 is a shift to shorter planning cycles. Quarterly or six-monthly reviews anchored in a long-term vision, not just an annual ritual. This rhythm makes us more resilient to our business specific shocks like sudden cost hikes or a key person leaving; the kind of changes that barely dent corporates but can throw SMEs off balance.

Research shows that companies revisiting strategy quarterly are three and a half times more likely to report above-average growth. That’s the difference between a plan as a document and a plan as a living process.

Question to ask ourselves: How often are we really stepping back to check if our plan still fits the reality we’re in?

2. Execution Gaps

Strategies rarely fail because they’re bad. They fail because they never get delivered. We see this execution gap everywhere: visionary leaders running ahead of their teams, boards that don’t translate decisions down a level, or leaders who underestimate the communication skills needed to bring people with them.

Calling these “soft skills” undersells their importance. In a world where tech can automate processes but can’t inspire or align people, the ability to translate strategy is non-negotiable. McKinsey estimate that 70% of strategies fail in execution, and poor communication is one of the main reasons.

For SMEs, where layers of management are thin or absent, that failure rate could feel even harsher.

Question to ask ourselves: What’s the biggest reason our strategy might die between the boardroom and the front line?

3. Capacity Reality Checks

Most of us are already running at full tilt. 62% of SMEs see staffing and capacity as their biggest barrier to growth and it shows. Ideas for growth sound simple ‘in the room’ when they’re devised but once broken down into working days they pile onto already stretched teams.

AI may ease some of the load, but it also tempts us into over-committing, assuming the tech can carry more than it really does. The real competitive edge in 2026 will be the businesses that honestly measure capacity, set realistic plans, and protect the human energy that makes execution possible.

Question to ask ourselves: Do we actually know our team’s capacity or are we just piling more on and hoping it sticks?

4. Short-Termism Risk

After years of reacting to crisis after crisis, it’s no surprise that short-termism takes hold. Economic uncertainty keeps pulling us into tactical, quarter-by-quarter decision-making. Too often, “vision” is treated as a marketing strapline rather than the driver of the business. The result is fragmented focus: chasing sales without really understanding why customers buy, hustling to survive without pausing to think.

The British Business Bank found in 2025 that almost half of UK SMEs set their planning horizons at 12 months or less. That may feel safe, but in practice it means firefighting instead of steering.

Question to ask ourselves: What’s the anchor that will keep us from reacting our way through 2026?

5. Financial Fluency

The ability to read the P&L isn't absent in SMEs, but it is often a weak spot as it’s not our first love. Finance functions can lean towards control rather than ambition, and many leaders are not fully confident on the basics of margin, cash flow, and pricing.

Pricing too often finger-in-the-air when it should be treated as part of the marketing strategy (honestly – marketing isn’t just about your social media channels).

And cash can be overestimated or underestimated in equal measure - sometimes treated as the only thing that matters, other times ignored until it’s too late.

Finance will continue to be one of the biggest fault lines. CB Insights analysis shows that 82% of small business failures are linked to cash flow mismanagement. In a climate where shocks to costs and sales are still likely, financial fluency will be the dividing line between resilience and fragility.

Question to ask ourselves: Do we, as leaders, really understand the numbers that matter or are we still outsourcing confidence to finance?

6. Key Figure Reliance

It isn’t just founders. Any SME leaning too heavily on one key individual - the founder, the MD, or the star operator will remain brittle. When that person is absent, fatigued, or distracted, everything wobbles: decisions slip, people get unmanaged, balls get dropped.

PwC’s Family Business Survey found that 58% of SMEs have no succession plan in place. That number underlines the risk: relying on one person to hold everything together is not a strategy. After years of survival being carried on individual shoulders, 2026 must be the year where leadership depth becomes a priority.

Question to ask ourselves: If our key person walked away tomorrow, what would actually break?

7. People Strategy as Core Strategy

Hiring, culture, capability-building, mentoring and coaching are moving from “HR admin” to the heart of the business plan.

In SMEs, where every hire counts and culture is set by how we work together, these choices directly shape performance.

AI is already taking a scythe to whole industries, stripping out roles, processes and in some cases entire business models. That makes taking care of people non-negotiable. If technology is redefining what jobs look like, we must keep our people skilled, engaged and clear about where they fit in the future.

The CIPD’s Learning at Work report found SMEs investing in training see productivity rise by nearly a quarter compared to peers who don’t. That’s why in 2026, people strategy won’t be optional. It will be the strategy. Especially after years of attrition, fatigue and pressure, keeping people engaged and capable is the only way through.

Question to ask ourselves: How are we deliberately building capability and resilience in our people, not just relying on goodwill to carry us through?

8. Change Fatigue

Covid, inflation, energy shocks, supply chain crunches, tech hype - the past four years have been relentless. Teams have adapted again and again, but resilience has a limit. We’re already seeing the drag of constant pivots and restructures.

Deloitte’s research found that 73% of employees report moderate to high levels of change fatigue. For SMEs, which often move faster and harder than corporates, that fatigue will be even sharper in 2026. After so many storms, leaders who don’t acknowledge fatigue risk disengagement, that no amount of resilience can patch over.

Question to ask ourselves: Can we tell the difference between a team that’s adapting and a team that’s simply exhausted?

9. Scenario Planning Becomes Normal

Hope is not a strategy. After years of 'shocks', contingency planning is becoming normal in SMEs, not just something large corporates do. “What if” scenarios around losing a client, costs doubling, or a supplier failing are shifting from theoretical to routine.

Barclays’ SME Pulse reported that the proportion of SMEs with formal contingency plans rose from 26% in 2020 to 45% in 2024. That trend reflects lived experience: after four years of turbulence, none of us want to be caught out again - and it's here to stay through to 2026.

Question to ask ourselves: What’s the one “what if” scenario we’re least prepared for and why?

10. Measurement That Moves the Needle

Dashboards aren’t the problem - irrelevant dashboards are. The shift we’re seeing is away from vanity metrics and towards lean, decision-driving indicators. The dashboards that matter in 2026 will be the ones that directly move the needle, not just track activity for the sake of it.

Gartner’s 2023 survey found that 67% of leaders experience “dashboard fatigue” from tracking too many metrics. The lesson for us is clear: measurement only matters if it drives action, especially when the cost of wasted energy is higher than ever.

Question to ask ourselves: Which of our dashboards actually changes decisions and which are just noise?

The Bottom Line

We know SMEs can survive storms - we’ve been doing it for years. But resilience alone is not enough.

After years of firefighting, the leaders we'll see thriving in 2026 will be the ones tackling these fundamentals head-on: keeping planning alive, closing the execution gap, setting realistic capacity, anchoring to vision, building financial fluency, reducing reliance on key figures, making people strategy central, pacing change, planning for scenarios, and measuring what matters.

Because surviving storms is one thing. Choosing not to live in permanent firefighting mode is another.

Feeling stuck, or just a bit off track?

If you want to bake these ten principles into your business but aren’t sure where to start, the answer is focus.

Perspective Analysis Reset Days give you the space to step back, cut through the noise, and work out which priorities will have the biggest impact right now. You’ll leave with a clear, achievable plan you can act on - £1,500 for a full day of clarity and direction.

A love letter to small business and freelancers

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 09:15:39 GMT

You are not failing. Even when it feels like it.

You’re just in the thick of it. And the thick of it is where most of us spend most of our time - but no one tells you that. You’re told to pick a niche, find your purpose, raise your prices, write a personal brand strategy, become a thought leader, optimise your funnel, outsource your admin, scale faster, scale smaller, scale something. There’s a formula, apparently. But no one seems to want to tell you what it is without paying £27.99 a month and let’s face it, you know it’s crap!

Meanwhile, you’re doing strategy one minute and chasing an unpaid invoice the next. You’re fixing the printer. You’re covering reception. You’re trying to forecast VAT payments that land like a piano falling from a window. You feel like you work for HMRC more than you work for yourself.

You look around and everyone else seems sorted. Confident. Clear. Making money.

You’re wondering if they’re faking it. You’re wondering if you are.

And it’s lonely. Deeply, quietly lonely. Even when you have people around you, even when you have a team, even when things are ‘fine’. Because no one else really sees it the way you do. The weight of it. The relentlessness of it. The thousand things a day that pass through your mind that don’t pass through anyone else’s. The pressure to keep it together for everyone else while wondering how long you can do that for.

But also: the moments. When it’s flying. When you win something unexpected. When you say something that makes a client’s eyes light up. When you see someone on your team grow. When you remember why you started. When it feels like maybe, just maybe, you’re on to something.

Feast and famine. Elation and fear. Boredom and adrenaline. The cycles are weird, and unfair, and rarely make sense. But they’re real.

If you’re in a hard patch right now, it doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong. It doesn’t mean you’re not good enough, or smart enough, or ambitious enough. It means you’re doing something difficult and you’re still here.

Maybe you don’t need to pivot. Maybe you don’t need to burn it all down. Maybe you just need to take a breath. Look again. Reassess. Strip it back to what matters. And know that this stretch won’t last forever.

Running a business is the best and hardest thing you can do. It will teach you more about yourself than you ever asked to learn. And it will stretch you in ways no job ever could.

If you’re tired, you’re not weak. If you’re stuck, you’re not broken . If you’re still trying, you’re already doing more than most.

We see you. You’re not alone. And even if no one’s said it in a while - you’re doing brilliantly.

Love Equipt x

Feeling stuck, or just a bit off track?

I f the business isn’t quite behaving, or your own energy’s taken a hit, a reset might be exactly what you need.

We run Perspective Analysis Reset Days for businesses – a chance to step back, cut through the noise, and leave with a forward-focused, achievable plan. £1,500 for a full day of clarity and direction.

Or if it’s you who needs the reset, Perspective Mentoring is the personal career development version. £500 for a focused 1:1 session to get your head straight and build a plan you’ll actually stick to.

Why great client service isn't about saying yes!

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 12:34:57 GMT

Most writing about client service follows the same well-trodden path: say yes more. Smile more. Show up and serve. Think Nordstrom, Ritz-Carlton, or any other brand that made its name on “the customer is always right.” And while that works beautifully in retail or hospitality, in a strategic consultancy or marketing agency, it’s completely the wrong model.

The best client service doesn’t come from being agreeable. It comes from being useful, honest, commercially aware, sometimes awkward and a little bit brave. SME News just named us Most Innovative Brand Growth Consultancy and gave us an Excellence in Client Impact & Service award, and it’s not because we do whatever we’re asked. It’s because we always try to give the best advice, even when it’s uncomfortable.

In honour of our win and for anyone working in or looking for a crack client services team, here’s what we think great client service is really about.

Clarity, Not Pleasing

Clients don’t need us to agree with them. They need us to make things clear.

Clarity is one of the most underrated skills in client service. It means being able to say: here’s what’s in scope, here’s what’s not, here’s what will move the dial, here’s what’s just noise.

But to do that well, you need real marketing knowledge and that’s something not every client services person starts with. If you didn’t come from a marketing background or have formal training, it’s on you to learn. Read. Ask questions. Understand the why behind the work. Because without that strategic depth, you risk becoming a project manager, just delivering what the client asked for, rather than what they really need.

And right now, that’s a dangerous place to sit. If you’re only executing instructions, AI can do that faster and cheaper. Your value comes from seeing what’s not being said. Reading between the lines. Knowing the market context. Spotting the bigger picture. That’s what clients will pay for and what will set you apart.

A brilliant client service lead sets the pace, defines the shape of the work, and keeps everyone pointed in the same direction especially when things get busy or messy!

Challenge with Care

Good client service means being able to say, “That’s not right.” Internally and externally.

Because if we don’t challenge the work, the strategy, or the thinking – who will?

Inside the team, that challenge needs to come from a solid place. Not just “the client won’t like blue,” but grounded commercial thinking. If there’s no strong reason to push back, then creative and strategy teams deserve the freedom to be bold and radical. Externally, it’s about equipping the client to be brave, with proof points, with clarity, with the kind of rationale they can use to fight for great work inside their organisation.

This is where Radical Candour comes in: care personally, challenge directly. You challenge because you’re invested, because you care enough to stop something going out into the world that isn’t good enough. Junior team members often worry that challenging might upset someone, but real client partnership is about honesty, not harmony.

Creative work is a classic example. A client likes two ideas, asks to blend them, and the result is a compromise that feels inoffensive – and completely forgettable. It’s our job to ask the uncomfortable question: “Does this make anyone feel anything?” If it doesn’t, then it’s not doing its job. The role of client service isn’t to protect the relationship at all costs, it’s to protect the impact of the work.

When we avoid challenge, we don’t just risk bland output, we also waste time, money, and momentum. Clear, brave, respectful challenge is part of what builds trust. And without it, the work – and the relationship – suffers.

Commercial Awareness

We’re here to create impact – not just output.

For years, agencies have run on time and materials – a model that’s increasingly hard to defend. Not just because it’s clunky or hard to forecast, but because it’s reductive. If someone with 27 years of experience can crack something in a few hours, is that worth less than someone who takes three days? Of course not. But time-based pricing suggests it is. And that’s dangerous – because it erodes the value of experience, judgement, and the very thing clients come to us for.

Add to that the fact that most people genuinely don’t know how long things take – a known issue in behavioural science, where planning fallacy and optimism bias skew how we scope, quote, and plan work. And now we’re in a world where systems can do things faster, briefs are changing mid-flight, and the “just get it done” mindset puts pressure on people, not quality. If we don’t reframe how we talk about value, we’ll end up getting cheaper – not better.

Commercially aware client service isn’t about becoming salespeople. It’s about getting braver at talking about value. Because yes, clients might say something’s “expensive” – but ask whether it’s worth it, and you’ll often get a different answer. When you can explain why something matters, where it moves the needle, and how it creates return – that’s when trust deepens, budgets unlock, and relationships shift from transactional to strategic.

And in marketing especially, this matters more than ever. Because everyone thinks they’ve got a good eye or can use a Canva template, but brand, positioning, strategy and creative direction are serious commercial tools. And when we don’t treat them that way, we end up underpriced, undervalued, and under pressure.

SME News - UK Enterprise Awards

Equipt has been named Most Innovative Brand Growth Consultancy and recognised for Excellence in Client Impact & Service. Not for being agreeable – but for being useful, honest, commercially sharp and creatively brave.

Great client service isn’t about saying yes to everything. It’s about clear thinking, straight talking and helping clients do their best work.

Read the full article below.

Proactive Thinking

One of the best ways to be more proactive is to stop reinventing the wheel.

Productisation isn’t about becoming rigid. It’s about knowing your offer well enough that you can lead with clarity and confidence. It means knowing the three or four things you sell that always work and showing clients how they create value. This gives social proof, helps with faster decision-making, and crucially, lets you spot opportunities without waiting for a brief.

The agencies that always start from scratch for every project miss this trick and burn out trying to be endlessly bespoke. It’s riskier, more chaotic, and often less valuable.

Proactive thinking is also about curiosity. Reading widely, tracking trends, understanding the market. Not waiting for the brief, but sensing where the client’s pressures are and helping them get ahead of it. The best client service teams aren’t psychic, they’re just really good at pattern recognition.

Trusted, Not Transactional

The strongest client relationships are never just about the work.

When you become part of a client’s inner circle, everything gets easier. You get earlier warning when something’s changing. You get more freedom to think, challenge, and suggest. And you get the chance to build something properly, rather than endlessly servicing the next deadline.

That trust is built through consistency, empathy, and honest conversations. And yes – through good old-fashioned relationship building. Ask questions. Learn what matters to them. Understand their drivers and pressures.

It’s a bit like dating. No one wants a marriage proposal on the first date – it’d be really weird. But equally, if you move straight to the “what’s for dinner?” every night phase, the spark dies. Great client service keeps the curiosity alive. You keep learning, keep noticing, keep adjusting to what the other person needs.

And when that’s in place? It’s easier to tell the truth. It’s easier to manage expectations when things go wrong. It’s easier to be honest without fear – because the relationship can take it.

Award winning client services

So yes, we’re proud to win an award for client service – but we’re even prouder that we have a view on what that really means.

Running an agency/business that needs stronger client service?

We support agencies through tailored mentoring, training and team development - helping you build the kind of client services function that delivers real impact. With decades of hands-on experience and a growth-focused, constructive approach, we work behind the scenes to strengthen your team, your relationships, and your results.

If you’d like to have a confidential conversation about how to grow, get in touch.

Seven blindspots your SME hasn't seen

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 11:15:41 GMT

We’ve spent the last few years analysing SMEs across ten critical areas of growth – from strategy and brand to operations, finance, people and customer experience. It’s part of a tool we built called Perspective Analysis, designed to help businesses grow and build in a more agile, intentional ways.

Now that we’ve used it with dozens of founder-led teams, agencies, charities and commercial ventures, the data’s starting to speak. And the same themes keep showing up - they cut across sector, size and leadership style.

What’s most interesting is that what holds business back isn’t always obvious, even from the inside. Here are seven of the most common blind spots we’ve uncovered – and what they mean for growth-minded organisations today.

Everyone’s working hard, but not always in the same direction

This isn’t about whether a strategy exists. Most leaders have one. The issue is that no one else really knows what it is. When we ask teams to describe the current direction or vision, the answers rarely match. There’s often a slide deck, a vague memory of a planning day, or a “north star” that lives mostly in someone’s head.

One leadership team member told us: “I think we’ve said the strategy… I just don’t know if it landed.” Perspective Analysis data backs that up. Direction & Vision scores often sit between 45–55/100, with leaders rating their clarity much higher than their teams do. That’s misalignment and misalignment means wasted energy. Until the direction is consistently understood, decisions won’t align, and every step forward pulls slightly off course.

Your brand lives in your head, but no-one else's

You’ve built a strong reputation. Clients come back. Word of mouth is healthy. But from the outside, it’s often hard to tell what your business actually stands for or why someone new should choose you.

We hear this a lot: “We know what makes us different – we’re just not great at saying it.” Brand & Positioning scores typically land between 46–58/100. What’s missing isn’t a sense of identity it’s the articulation. The brand hasn’t been written down, codified, or consistently expressed. And that limits distinctiveness, recruitment power, and marketing effectiveness.

Most businesses aren’t boring. They just look that way.

You’re the safety net and the bottleneck

You’re still too involved in the day-to-day. Not because your team can’t handle things, but because you haven’t had the time or headspace to hand things over properly. You’re still the final check, the escalation point, and the one who steps in when it all gets a bit too messy.

One founder put it plainly: “I trust the team – but I’m still the one picking everything back up when it gets messy.” Human Potential scores often sit between 38 and 52/100. The team is capable, but delegation is patchy, structure is loose, and the founder still holds the big picture, the nuance, and the final say.

That’s not leadership, it’s survival mode.

You’re customising everything and it’s quietly costing you

Saying yes feels like a strength. Especially early on. But when every proposal is bespoke, every quote is different, and every delivery plan is tailored, you’re building complexity you can’t sustain.

As one project lead said: “Every job is a one-off – which means every job is a bit of a stress.” Operational Consistency scores often land between 42 and 54/100. Teams are working hard, but there’s no defined offer, no baseline, and no margin for error.

Flexibility might win business at the start. But long-term, it slows everything down.

You know the numbers but not what’s driving them

You know your revenue. You know what’s in the bank. But what’s actually making you money? What’s quietly draining it? What happens if your biggest client leaves?

One client told us: “Our accountant says we’re fine – but I couldn’t tell you where the margin is.” Finance & Commercial Insight scores are often the lowest of all – typically between 35 and 48/100. Not because the finance isn’t being managed, but because the numbers are buried. There’s no visibility on client-level profitability, product-level margin, or time versus return.

Without that clarity, pricing is guesswork and growth feels risky.

You’re focusing on the 5% and missing the 95%

Most businesses are busy with marketing. But it’s rarely working hard enough. It’s often designed to stay visible to people who already know you, not to reach new audiences or build a strong pipeline.

One founder said: “We’re active on all the platforms – but it’s mostly to stay visible, not to reach new people.” Marketing & Comms scores usually land in the 44–56/100 range. The effort is there, but it’s not adding up. Messaging is inward-looking, brand memory is low, and there’s no real strategy or structure.

You can’t grow if no one new is seeing or remembering you.

Your customer experience depends on individuals, not design

You’ve got great people and that’s what holds your customer experience together. It’s human, responsive, and thoughtful. But it’s fragile. When someone’s off or leaves, the cracks show.

A founder told us: “It works because they’re brilliant. But if they ever left, we’d be in trouble.” Customer Experience scores often start strong – sometimes in the 60s – but drop once we look at what’s actually designed. There’s no mapped journey, no onboarding or offboarding flow, and little feedback built in. That’s not a great experience. It’s just a well-intentioned one.

Where's your blind spot?

These blind spots aren’t unique. They show up everywhere, in strong teams, good businesses and experienced leadership. Most of the time, they don’t need a full reinvention. Just clarity. Focus. A proper reset.

That’s exactly what Perspective Analysis was designed to do and if you’re in that foggy, overloaded middle space where growth feels harder than it should, we can help. For as little as £1500 you can experience a Perspective Analysis reset day and scores dashboard and get more help. Find out more on the button below.

Your brand isn't just a logo – it's your business growth engine

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 15:19:37 GMT

For many small and medium-sized businesses, 'brand' often stops at logos, colours, or fonts. While these visual elements are crucial, they're only scratching the surface of what your brand truly is and can achieve.

In Britain, SMEs represent a staggering 99.8% of all businesses, yet close to 45% unfortunately don't make it past their first five years, which is why it’s critical to build a robust foundation from day one. Shifting our perspective of brand as a mere ‘identity’ to being a strategic and commercial asset, that should weave through every part of business, will help to secure long term success and hopefully beat some of those ‘early days’ odds.

Why does this shift in thinking matter so much for long-term growth?

It Builds Tangible Value: When you start treating your brand as a commercial asset, something wonderful happens: it’s worth grows! Simply having a consistent presentation across all your platforms can lift your revenue by up to 23%. Strong brands naturally command more market value and can become a real magnet for potential investors. Ultimately, it's about building equity that extends far beyond just your physical assets.

It cultivates deep customer loyalty: At its heart, branding is all about building trust and forging a genuine connection. When customers truly trust your brand (roughly 81% need to trust a brand before even considering a purchase), they're far more likely to come back to you repeatedly. Not only do loyal customers spend more, but they're also your biggest cheerleaders, keen to try new offerings and acting as powerful advocates for your business. Just a 5% increase in customer retention can significantly boost profits (normally anywhere between 25-95%!).

It Drives Strategic Decisions: When you embrace a commercial view of your brand, it naturally encourages a smarter, data-driven approach. You'll begin tracking how your brand performs, understanding customer sentiment, and pinpointing your market position. This valuable insight unlocks much smarter decisions about your marketing efforts, where you allocate resources, and your overarching business strategy.

It Fosters Internal Alignment & Motivation: A strong, clearly defined brand isn't just for your customers; it inspires your team from within. When your employees genuinely understand and believe in your brand's mission and values, they feel a deeper sense of pride and become much more engaged. This, in turn, translates into better performance and an even richer customer experience.

It Creates Resilience: Think of a well-established brand as a powerful shield, protecting your business against unexpected market fluctuations and tough competition. It provides the agility to adapt more effectively to changing trends and evolving customer needs, ultimately ensuring long-term sustainability and peace of mind.

For any SME aiming for sustained success, embracing this commercial lens for your brand isn't just a nice-to-have – it's fundamental. It's the key that unlocks real growth, builds unwavering loyalty, helps you attract top talent and investment, and ultimately creates a business that's both more resilient and valuable. Your brand is so much more than just how you look; it's how you operate, how you connect, and how you grow.

Finally, if you're reading this thinking "it all makes sense but I have no idea where to begin", then get in touch! Our business reset days are designed to help businesses build growth plans, one step at a time.

Send us an email

Why does this shift in thinking matter so much for long-term growth?

The 4 billion dollar market that doesn't get its audience

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 09:23:21 GMT

Back in the 90s, Sex and the City was a breakthrough. Whatever you think of it now, at the time no one was writing young women as they really were. Flawed, complicated, ambitious, messy, funny, obsessed with friendship as much as relationships, a bit self-absorbed, a lot hopeful. Under the gloss, it felt real. And crucially, it didn’t just reflect culture. It shaped it.

Before Carrie Bradshaw, hardly anyone had heard of Manolo Blahnik. After SATC? Sales jumped 300%. No one went to Magnolia Bakery for overpriced cupcakes. One episode later? Queues down the road and the global boutique cupcake trend was born. Cosmopolitans weren’t the signature drink of the era until SATC made them so (they’re still bloody good by the way). Bar sales soared, and suddenly everyone was sipping pink cocktails.

SATC didn’t just tell stories. It made culture. It sold shoes, cocktails, cupcakes and more, but more importantly, it sold possibility. It put women’s lives, conversations, friendships and experiences centre stage and brands followed the cultural mood it was setting – we all wanted a piece and we felt seen like never before.

Which makes it more depressing that And Just Like That, the SATC follow-up, a programme basically about middle-aged women, has landed with such a dull, stereotyped thud. Rabid mums gaming college admissions. Sad single women with cats. Women who’ve ‘given it all up’ to work in charities and don’t start us on the ham-fisted portrayal of anyone and everyone who might be labelled LGBTQIA+.

Where’s our moment? Who is writing our lives now? I'm getting to the point, honest.

If anything defines the experience of middle-aged women in culture right now, it’s invisibility. We’re here. We’re living. We’re feeling. And yet we’re either patronised or erased. And this matters. For culture. For business. For all of us. You can see the same pattern playing out in advertising.

The $4 billion-plus menopause market is a case in point. Yes, awareness is up. Yes, products can help. But let’s be honest, the market has grown this fast because until recently, there was nothing. And women, desperate for recognition, for tools, for stories, are grabbing at crumbs. Something, anything, is better than nothing.

But much of the marketing is paper-thin. The Boots “Menopause Monologues” campaign was meant to be bold but ended up reinforcing the idea that menopause can be ‘solved’ with products – and little else. Everywhere you look, the stories are simplified to the visual cliché. The subtext: buy the cream, smile through it, move along.

And this is the real cost of lazy storytelling.

Because the middle-aged women I know are not simple. They are starting businesses, leaving old careers, grieving, loving, raging, creating, dreaming. They are burning it down and starting again. They are living.

And when we only see them flattened into tropes - the Cat Lady, the Frazzled Mum, the Woman Who’s Let Herself Go, the bitch - the culture loses. The stories lose. The audience loses.

And the brands? They lose too. Because lazy storytelling doesn’t connect. It doesn’t create cultural impact. It doesn’t sell to the potential it actually could.

And let’s face it - part of the problem is this: older people and particularly women are wildly underrepresented in the advertising industry. In UK, only 15% of the team are over 45 (errrr what?) and representation of women over 45 at board level is negligible. No wonder the lived experience of this audience isn’t making it into the work.

So, what if we flipped it?
What if we created the next cultural moment - for our generation? What if we stopped waiting to be written into the story and started writing ourselves in? Because invisibility is not some natural phase of life. It is something the world imposes on us and something we can refuse to accept. And to the organisations, brands, networks, writers: start seeing us. Start writing with us, not about us - and for god sake retire Davina from the ads, she's done enough.

AndAmd
And for those of us living this life now: Let’s say it clearly. We do not owe the world our silence, our smoothing down, our polite disappearance. We are here. We are feeling more, doing more, burning brighter. If you're a brand wanting to know middle aged women, give some of us a shout, we’re here to set things alight, be represented and do it differently (and probably say fuck off quite a lot along the way).

Case Study - Mini Mudders

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Fri, 09 May 2025 17:00:55 GMT

Digging Deeper: How Perspective Analysis helped this rural play centre uncover new opportunities for growth

Getting messy is the easy bit - growing sustainably is harder.

Mini Mudders is a rural children’s play centre built around one simple idea: let kids get dirty, play freely, and explore outdoors without boundaries. It’s a business full of joy, chaos and community. But after its first few years in operation, the team knew they needed a sharper view on what was working, what was holding them back, and where the next phase of growth should come from. That’s where we came in.

Using a combination of Perspective Analysis and Customer Journey Review, we helped Mini Mudders step back, assess the whole business, and make confident strategic decisions, based on insight, not instinct.

The challenge

The founders had built something brilliant but like many growing businesses, they were too close to it. They knew customer demand was strong. The café was busy. The brand had heart. But they also knew there were gaps. Capacity felt stretched. Marketing was limited to social media. Repeat visits were good, but not predictable. And new ideas for growth were swirling, but hard to prioritise.

They needed fresh eyes, a neutral view, and a structured process to help spot the opportunities.

What we did

We ran a full Perspective Analysis across the business looking at 10 core areas including direction, brand, operations, customer experience and commercial performance. Alongside that, we reviewed the full customer journey, from first impression to return visit.

We gathered customer feedback, mystery shopped the experience, audited the messaging and channels, and built a practical set of recommendations designed to focus time, effort and investment in the right places.

Key actions included:

Clarifying the role of each business area (play, café, parties, events) and how they connect
Recommending a new CRM and communication flow to increase repeat bookings
Developing clearer messaging and segmentation for different customer types
Identifying experience pinch points across the journey — including weather-dependent signage, pre-visit information, and on-site flow
Suggesting better use of website, SEO, and local visibility tactics
Prioritising income-generating initiatives with long-term repeat potential

The results

A full business health check using the Perspective Analysis framework
A clear, jargon-free strategic action plan the team could implement immediately
Renewed confidence in what was working and what to press pause on
Customer journey insight that translated directly into practical changes
Recommendations tied to both growth and operational sustainability
A more structured view of how to scale - without overextending

What the client said

“As a small business owner managing two sites while working another job three days a week and raising two young children, I was feeling overwhelmed and unsure where to focus my limited time to grow the business. I attended a Business Reset Day with the ladies from Equipt, and it was truly transformational.

They challenged my perspective on what I wanted my business to be, asking thought-provoking questions that helped me align with my true vision for the future. We reviewed both my operational challenges and successes, and it was invaluable to take a step back and fully immerse myself in my company. When you’re constantly working in the business, it’s hard to find time to work on it — but this workshop gave me that space.

By the end of the day, I had a clear, actionable 12-month plan — no overwhelming strategy documents, just tangible steps to drive real results. Since implementing about half of the plan, I’ve already seen a 62% increase in web traffic, and I’m excited to see even more progress unfold.

The experience was worth its weight in gold, and I highly recommend Equipt to any business owner needing clarity, focus, and a solid plan for growth.”

Mini Mudders

Why it worked

Because the work started with insight — not assumptions. At Equipt, we use Perspective Analysis to give founders a clear picture of where their business really stands, and what actions will make the biggest difference next.

Mini Mudders already had the magic. We helped them map the path to sustainable, scalable growth — without losing the heart that made them special in the first place.

Case Study - ME Collective

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Fri, 09 May 2025 16:44:08 GMT

From Zero to Booked-Out: How Equipt helped launch a stand-out salon brand from scratch

No premises. No staff. No clients. Just a clear vision — and the right partner.

When Barry and Jo came to Equipt in early 2023, ME Collective didn’t exist yet. No salon, no team, no clients; just a clear ambition to build something special. They wanted to create a salon that people aspired to visit, and that talented stylists wanted to join. A place with both warmth and edge. Calm and confidence.

They had the spark. We helped shape everything else.

Using our Perspective Analysis: Start-Up framework, we supported every element of the launch from writing the original business plan to defining the name, brand, vision and long-term ambition. We even sent (quite literally) a husband down to help get the doors open.

The challenge

Like many founders, Barry and Jo were full of passion and experience but starting from a blank page. The vision was clear, but they needed a commercial plan that would guide decisions, build investor confidence and help them measure success.

With no salon yet secured and no client base in place, they also needed to do something that crucial: secure full partner funding upfront, before opening.

What we did

We helped turn instinct into action - fast. Starting with Perspective Analysis: Start-Up , we worked through every part of the business together to create a strategic foundation and full commercial playbook.

Sized the market opportunity - identifying a £4.87m market potential
Mapped local competitors by location, price and positioning
Identified clear areas for competitive stand-out and brand voice
Built a full financial model including service pricing, projected income and investment requirements
Outlined a 12-month roadmap tied to the founders’ longer-term brand vision
Named the business, developed the brand proposition, and supported early creative direction
Provided hands-on mentoring, decision support and operational guidance — right through to opening day

The results

The business plan helped ME Collective secure funding from its primary salon partner before opening, based entirely on the strength and clarity of the plan.

Twelve months on:

300+ client visits per month
Rebooking rate above 62% — higher than industry average
Average bill value of £91.76 (vs £51.74 industry average)
No-show rates at half the industry standard
70+ five-star Google reviews and a growing loyal client base
2 business award wins, with 3 additional finalist spots

All of this from a business that didn’t exist a year before.

Why it worked

Because it wasn’t just a brand job. It was a full-scale business build.

By starting with strategy and digging into every part of the market, we helped ME Collective make decisions with confidence, not guesswork. We partnered with the founders, walked with them through every challenge, and helped bring something exceptional to life. From naming to pricing to fitting out the space, it was built with care, clarity and ambition.

That’s the power of Perspective Analysis — and the impact of having the right partner in your corner from day one.

Case Study - Haringtons

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Fri, 09 May 2025 14:56:17 GMT

From Brand Reset to £726k in New Revenue: Building a Salon Business with Serious Momentum

A legacy brand with no modern strategy

When Haringtons came to us, they had nine salons, a loyal client base, and a story rooted in their founding years. But that story hadn’t been updated in decades and the brand hadn’t kept pace with the business they’d become. There was no clear proposition, no marketing strategy, and no consistent creative. Just great people, good instincts, and a lot of potential being left on the table.

That’s where we came in. We redefined the brand from the ground up - proposition, positioning, personality and built the marketing strategy and creative rollout to match.

The challenge

Haringtons needed more than a refresh. They needed to reconnect with lapsed clients, attract new ones, and create a more structured path to long-term growth. Booking behaviour had changed, loyalty was weaker, and brand awareness was patchy outside of their local communities. The opportunity wasn’t just to improve what was there, it was to create a scalable brand system that could stretch across regions, unify teams, and strengthen the customer experience at every point.

What we did

We built a brand with meaning, momentum and money behind it. That meant creating a fresh proposition rooted in what hair really means to people, defining tone of voice, visual style and five clear brand pillars, and designing and delivering a full customer acquisition strategy. Crucially, we worked closely with customers to map the full brand and retail experience from first impression through to in-salon service and beyond. Then we partnered with salon teams to ensure that experience was delivered with consistency and care, from how the brand showed up on the wall to how it felt at the backwash.

We developed campaign content across email, video, web, social, influencer and in-salon channels, and equipped the internal team with toolkits, training and resources to bring it to life at every level. This wasn’t a surface campaign. It was a complete rethinking of how the brand worked, communicated, and delivered value.

The creative idea

The campaign focused on transformation - not in a makeover sense, but in the emotional, everyday way that great hair can make people feel more like themselves. We told honest stories: the client rebuilding confidence after illness, the postnatal mum carving out time for herself again, the colour change that brings someone back to life after a hard winter. The creative was grounded, inclusive, and emotionally sharp; everything the brand wanted to stand for.

How we rolled it out

We handled the full creative development and campaign production, partnering with Muddy Stilettos for targeted regional reach and developing video and digital content in multiple formats. We introduced new in-salon materials, customer offers, window vinyls and branded touchpoints. And we created and nurtured a prospect database of 8,000+ contacts through tailored content and smart email flows. This wasn’t a flash campaign — it was a long-game marketing strategy designed to convert and retain.

The results

5,368 new clients acquired
£726,000 in first-visit revenue
Lifetime value projection: £1.51m
Campaign ROI (year one): +1,016%
New client growth: +35% vs 2019
Individual salon growth range: +11% to +151%
2 Marketing Campaign of the Year awards at British Hairdressing

Why it worked

Because it was built on what really matters. We didn’t just create a campaign — we built a brand from the inside out. We started with real customer experience, involved the people on the ground, and built a system that worked in the real world. We gave the business a modern identity, a commercial strategy, and a confident voice. Then we helped them show up in the right places, in the right way, for the right people. And we never lost sight of the emotional truth at the heart of the brand: how hair makes people feel — and the power of getting that right.

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Case Study - Dupli

Fri, 09 May 2025 12:35:21 GMT

From Legacy to Leadership: How a full brand transformation helped Tetenal become Dupli and reframe the future of print

A business with decades of experience, but no modern identity

When Tetenal came to us, it was one of the most established names in the print and photographic supply world. But it wasn’t a brand anyone talked about or remembered. Customers knew the people, not the proposition. The strategy was solid, but the vision wasn’t clear. Internally, things worked. Externally, the brand felt invisible.

So we didn’t just rename it. We reimagined it.

With the leadership team newly in place following an MBO, we took the business through a full Perspective Analysis , a structured review of every area that drives growth. From that, we built the case for reinvention. Dupli was born not from marketing, but from strategy.

The challenge

The sector was consolidating. Margins were tightening. And the brand was getting lost between the big supplier names and the specialist challenger businesses. There was no clarity about what made Tetenal different. Even internally, there were mixed views on future direction, one eye on operations, the other on possibility.

We needed to create a brand and business identity that could stretch, modernise and grow, without losing the trust and loyalty already built.

What we did

We started with the strategy. Using insights from the Perspective Analysis, we identified gaps in positioning, voice, customer segmentation, internal clarity and long-term brand equity. Then we rebuilt it.

Defined a new brand name and proposition to reflect both confidence and partnership
Created a modern identity system to support new positioning across all channels
Articulated three business benefits and three human benefits to clarify value
Mapped the full customer journey across managed and self-service segments
Worked with internal teams to ensure the brand was lived, not just launched
Built the internal communications, launch toolkits and tone of voice from scratch
Developed a full multi-phase roll-out campaign across digital, in-person and social channels

This wasn’t a rebrand for the sake of it. It was a total business reset, delivered through brand.

The creative idea

The new name - Dupli - gave us a blank canvas, but with the weight of experience behind it. We positioned the business as Partners in Print: a brand that doesn’t just supply product, but supports creativity, technical innovation and long-term relationships.

From the voice to the visuals, everything was designed to feel modern, warm and quietly confident avoiding corporate jargon and tired tropes, and replacing them with plain-speaking authority.

How we rolled it out

The launch took place across three structured phases, each with specific business and brand objectives. We created a motion-graphic brand film, internal launch packs, supplier briefings, sales toolkits and a full content suite. Social stings, emails, docu-style films and event invitations were tailored to customer segments.

Dupli’s story wasn’t just told, it was lived across every touchpoint. Internally, we delivered workshops and playbooks to support teams in embedding the brand in day-to-day culture. Externally, we ran supplier and customer activation campaigns, editorial outreach and thought leadership content to stake a new position in the market.

The results

A complete shift in external perception
Clear internal alignment on brand, strategy and customer experience
Multi-channel brand presence for the first time in company history
Reinvigorated team culture with clarity around purpose and positioning
New customer acquisition pathways opened through more confident marketing
Supplier confidence and partnership strengthened through brand clarity
Winner: Campaign of the Year, British Photographic Industry News

What the client said

“The strategy and thinking Equipt brought to this project was next level. I’ve never had such a positive experience working with a consultancy. It was exciting, energetic, and so collaborative. I’m really proud of what we’ve all achieved, the business feels transformed.”

Louise Wilce, Marketing Director

Why it worked

Because we didn’t start with a logo. We started with the business.

By diagnosing what was holding the brand back and what the team truly wanted to build, we created something fit for the future. Every channel, every message, every asset now says the same thing: Dupli is not a quiet distributor. It’s a confident partner. One that knows its value, and delivers it daily.

Consumer Trends 2025: What Smart Businesses Are Quietly Asking Themselves

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Fri, 09 May 2025 10:58:52 GMT

I went to a great trends briefing from Mintel yesterday. And while it was packed with data, one thing stood out: there’s not a lot of new out there. Consumers are still cautious, still buying with care, and still leaning on familiar behaviours. This isn’t a market racing ahead. It’s steady as she goes. And that’s exactly why it’s worth paying attention.

So we’ve taken the six key signals from Mintel’s update and turned them into something a bit more interactive - think Choose Your Own Adventure, but for your business. Whether you run a consumer brand, a B2B company or an agency, these are the questions worth asking now across your brand, your team, your operations and your commercial foundations.

Most people are surviving, not thriving.

Around 80% of consumers expect to get by this year. Not flourish. Not upgrade. Just hold steady. That doesn’t mean they’ve stopped spending - it means they’re more selective, more rational and more protective of their time, money and energy. Businesses that feel like a risk, a faff, or a luxury will quietly be avoided.

Spending is emotionally motivated.

Growth is happening in categories that offer emotional payoff - not indulgence, but control, calm, or connection. Even B2B decisions are shaped by how secure people feel. It’s not about manipulating emotion. It’s about respecting it.

Priorities are shifting unevenly.

People are still prioritising health, financial security and mental wellbeing. Other areas - career progress, social life, hobbies - have slipped down. This isn’t a total overhaul of values, but it is a rebalancing. If your internal priorities are misaligned with your audience or your own team’s reality, performance will start to drift.

Younger audiences are more open.

Younger people are more willing to try new categories, formats and experiences. Older groups are sticking with the tried and tested. This is less about age and more about appetite for risk and how clearly the reward is positioned. Internally, it’s also about who you’re listening to, and who’s shaping your thinking.

The night in is still winning.

People are choosing comfort, simplicity and connection at home over going out. It’s not about frugality. It’s about managing energy and emotional capacity. That doesn’t just affect how people spend it changes how teams show up, how leaders lead, and how work fits into life.

Belonging still builds connection.

People want to feel aligned with the businesses they support, work with and work for. This isn’t about plastering values on a wall. It’s about consistency, clarity and behaviour. Belonging is built inside first then reflected outwards.

In summary.

This isn’t a time for reinvention. But it is a time for sharper reflection. These consumer trends don’t shout. They signal. And in many cases, they’re reminding us of things we already knew, but perhaps haven’t acted on.

The best-performing organisations this year won’t be the ones chasing the next big shift. They’ll be the ones getting braver and more honest about what’s already true.

If you want to explore these questions in more depth, or use them as a starting point for a deeper Perspective Analysis of your business, we’re always up for a chat.

What Tomatoes Can Teach Us About Growing a Business

nikki@equipt.co.uk (Nikki Neale) — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 12:37:20 GMT

I grow tomatoes. Among other things (courgettes, beans, the occasional reckless attempt at a loofah), but tomatoes are the ones that get me every year. There’s something about being in the greenhouse, musing about life while eyeing up the first tiny shoots, that feels strangely close to running a business.

You start with a simple idea: you want something to grow. More customers. More revenue. More impact. But real growth doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not about hoping, or liking the idea, or having the best intentions. How you grow, why you grow, and where you’re heading, that’s where the real work begins.

It’s exactly like deciding you want tomatoes. The idea’s easy. The outcome sounds delicious. But wanting tomatoes isn’t the same as growing them. And wanting a successful business isn’t the same as building one with real vision.

The Dream Without the Doing

Some people say they want tomatoes, but they don’t do anything about it. They like the idea. They read articles. They watch inspirational reels. But they never plant anything. They haven’t prepared the soil or even visited the garden centre. The idea just sits there, quietly doing nothing.

In business, it’s no different. Teams say they need a vision but carry on exactly as before, too busy, too distracted, always pushing it to 'later' when the mythical perfect moment appears. No tomatoes. No vision. Just another missed opportunity by next season.

The Token Effort

Others go one step further. They throw a seed into the soil, feel quietly pleased with themselves, and then walk away, expecting nature to do the rest. Sometimes a fragile shoot appears. Most times, nothing much happens.

It’s the same when a leadership team sets a vision once, shares it in a PowerPoint deck, and expects the culture to shift by itself. A month later, they’re wondering why nobody seems particularly energised. Because seeds (and people) need more than a one-off announcement to grow.

Losing Focus Along the Way

Even when you start strong, the danger isn’t over. You water the seed, you watch it sprout, you admire your own commitment, and then life gets busy. You forget. The plant struggles without you.

Businesses do the same. They launch a bold vision, full of energy, and then get distracted by the noise of everyday operations. Decisions drift away from the big goal. Growth slows. The energy leaks away. And everyone who was promised an abundant tomato season starts to feel quietly cheated.

The Hard Part No One Tells You About

Sometimes you stick with it longer. The plant grows tall. It looks healthy. Then the weather turns. Pests arrive. Maybe a bit of blossom end rot sets in (yes, it’s a thing) or your bush is massive but there’s no fruit (insert own juvenile joke here). It all feels harder than it should. And giving up starts to look like the simpler, more sensible option.

In business, this is the moment when external pressure, internal politics, or simple fatigue start testing your leadership. This is where a real vision either holds or folds.

The Reality of Real Growth

Proper growing isn’t glamorous. You don’t get quick wins or shortcuts. You show up consistently. You water carefully (not too much and not too little). You adapt when the weather shifts. You prune back the parts that don’t serve the bigger goal. You don’t just act when it’s exciting. You act when it’s tedious, inconvenient, or frankly, the last thing you want to deal with.

And that’s exactly how real business vision works too. Not as a slogan. Not as a launch event. As quiet, steady leadership, lived out when it matters most.

What Smothers Growth

Even with the best care, things can still go wrong. Not through neglect, but through overdoing it. Too much water. Too much chicken poo (in both tomatoes and business). Too much fuss.

A vision doesn’t always fail because people forget it. Sometimes it collapses under the sheer weight of too many slogans, too many checklists, too many well-meaning initiatives. It’s easy to mistake noise for nurturing.

Real growth needs breathing space. It needs to settle naturally into the way people work and think, not be squeezed into every conversation until nobody listens anymore.

Culture Is the Soil

Even when you find the right balance, the environment itself can undo you. You can pick the best seeds, prepare the best soil, do everything right, and still find that growth stalls because the conditions aren’t supportive.

Poor culture, weak leadership, constant turbulence — they’re like bad weather no amount of careful planting can fully overcome.

Culture isn’t a side project to vision. It’s the soil the whole thing grows in. Ignore it, and even the strongest ideas can wither.

Harvesting at the Right Time

When growth finally arrives, it’s not the end of the work. If you stand back too long admiring what you’ve built, the fruit over-ripens, splits, and goes to waste.

Good growers - and good leaders - know when it’s time to act. You pick at the right moment. You build momentum while it’s real. You make sure what you’ve grown actually feeds the next phase.

Looking Beyond This Season

A real harvest isn’t just about what you gather today. It’s about what you learn. What you preserve. What you’re ready to plant again next season.

The best growers think two seasons ahead. The best businesses do too.

Because the ones who keep growing aren’t the ones who had the flashiest plans or the loudest announcements. They’re the ones who showed up. Who paid attention. Who adapted when they needed to. And who trusted that the work would be worth it.

And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get a few brilliant tomatoes along the way as well.

If you’d like to talk business growth (or tomatoes) get in touch .

You’re not in control when socials manage sales

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 16:40:07 GMT

Is social your main channel for sales? It’s big trouble for small businesses.

Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. They’re visually appealing, where everyone seems to be, and they feel like the perfect place to showcase your amazing products. It’s no wonder that in recent years, small businesses have faithfully jumped headfirst into social as their primary (or even only) sales platform. While each platform can be a powerful tool, relying solely on social for sales is like putting all your eggs into one filter-heavy basket, where your business is the only element at risk of getting scrambled. Here’s why:

1. You're not (and NEVER will be) in control of the algorithm

The social algorithms are fickle beasts. They change constantly, so what worked last week might be invisible to your followers today. In the most recent Instagram change, our feed was flooded by posts from small business owners, apologising for not ‘being present’ as they grappled to find extra hours for re-sizing grid images from square to rectangle (P.S. If you haven’t resized your grid images yet, don’t bother because no-one cares anyway.) One change to the algorithm can mean that overnight, your beautifully crafted content isn’t reaching your target audience anymore, and the impact on sales is noticeable. You're at the mercy of a system you don't control, making consistent revenue generation a real challenge. When unpredictability rules over cash flow, financial forecasting and future business planning become the stuff of nightmares.

2. Platform Dependence - what if it disappeared?

What nonsense, we hear you mutter… well, the truth is that social media platforms come and go. While social platforms seem dominant now, there's NO guarantee it will be the same for your target audience in five years (Facebook falls behind TikTok, Instagram and SnapChat across the 16-24 age bracket compared to 5 years ago, for instance). Building your business on a platform you don't own is incredibly risky. If that platform were to disappear or drastically change its functionality, your business could be severely impacted.

3. You don't own your audience, or your account, or anything else, really.

While each platform will provide analytics, you don't own your audience data. You can't export email addresses or develop detailed customer profiles, so it’s virtually impossible to build a customer base, or engage in targeted marketing campaigns outside the platform. Furthermore, most platforms can suspend, disable or shut down your account at any given moment, and we’ve heard several examples of this happening to clients in recent weeks. When you’ve spent years building a following for your brand, to have your account eradicated overnight with ZERO input usually means your business goes with it.

4. Glitchy transactions will impact your brand

While Instagram and TikTok shopping has improved, the experience for customers is far from seamless. Checkouts which look the same across every seller, a lack of trust in platform security, the potential for scams and a fragmented customer journey can lead to abandoned carts and frustrated customers. If lost sales aren’t bad enough, unfortunately, it will also be your brand that gets associated with a second-rate experience in the customer’s mind, not the social platform.

5. Standing out is tougher than ever

Social media is a crowded marketplace. When you're a small business competing with millions of other brands, you could quickly find your precious time and energy simply gets swallowed chasing a diminishing return when it comes to building brand recognition and attracting loyal customers.

So, what can you do? Diversify to multiply!

Social media is undoubtedly, a valuable tool for reaching potential customers, but it shouldn't be your only sales channel. Take back control by diversifying your approach and building a multi-faceted strategy with the best interests of your business at its heart, because what you can be sure of, is that none of the social media platforms do.

Not sure where to start? Get in touch!

Why the hustle needs to stop

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:52:45 GMT

This week, we have spent time with small business owners and startups - people brimming with ambition and a vision to create brilliant, bespoke experiences through their businesses. These are not cookie-cutter enterprises; they’re driven by passion, artistry, and a deep desire to deliver something meaningful. Yet, we’re increasingly noticing the business owners we’re working with are trapped in the relentless grip of ‘hustle’. They’re constantly challenged by the pressure to do more, to expand faster, to keep pushing without pause. It’s exhausting.

In these conversations, we’ve asked a powerful and deceptively simple question: ‘What feeds your soul?’

It’s a question that demands reflection beyond profit margins and growth strategies. Ambition is important - but whose terms are you building on? Are you chasing someone else’s version of success, or are you shaping a vision of richness and ambition that aligns with your values and your life?

The Problem with More

Psychologists have long studied the phenomenon of how quickly we adapt to material gains. You’ve probably experienced it yourself: after a big purchase, you feel a rush of excitement. But within days or weeks, that excitement fades. The new car, the luxury watch, or even a business milestone, all begin to feel ordinary. This phenomenon is known as hedonic adaptation, and it can be one of the most insidious traps in business and life. For instance, we probably feel elated after securing a major client but soon find that excitement replaced by new stressors as the business puts pressure on for yet another win. The constant push for ‘more’ never truly satisfies because the goalposts keep moving.

Hedonic adaptation happens because our minds normalise both positive and negative circumstances. Once something becomes part of our daily life, our expectations shift, and the novelty wears off. This explains why career achievements, like promotions or hitting revenue targets, may bring fleeting joy but quickly give way to new pressures and desires. The cycle continues unless we take steps to break free.

It’s not just expectation shifts that contribute to this treadmill effect. Our tendency to compare ourselves to others erodes appreciation for what we already have. It’s easy to feel dissatisfied when success is measured against someone else’s highlight reel. You know the ones: ‘I make six figures a month and you can too.’ These messages creep into our mindset, subtly planting the idea that if we’re not there yet, we’re somehow falling short.

Thankfully there is there are ways to slow the treadmill and shift focus back to what really matters. Gratitude, practised regularly, is a powerful tool. It reorients our minds to appreciate what we have instead of what we’re missing. Similarly, focusing on experiences rather than possessions can create more lasting joy. Unlike material things, experiences become more meaningful over time as they shape our memories and identity. Pursuing goals that are intrinsic, tied to personal growth or connection rather than external validation, also helps break the cycle. Mindfulness, too, plays a role by bringing awareness to the present moment, grounding us in appreciation and reducing the relentless chase for ‘more’.

Reconsidering Richness and the Journey

So, what does richness mean if not in terms of wealth or accolades? For some of us, it’s time - time to be present with family, time to create without deadlines looming, time to savour life. For others, it’s the quality of experiences: supporting brands that reflect their values, building a business that nurtures rather than drains, spending energy on meaningful connections instead of grow at any cost.

This isn’t just a personal issue. We’re seeing this pattern magnified on the world stage. Billionaires like Elon Musk seem trapped in an endless loop of ambition, unable to rest despite having achieved more than most people can even imagine. Space, social media platforms, AI - it’s as if ruling the world isn’t enough anymore. The same mindset infects business culture everywhere: the idea that success means never stopping, is fundamentally flawed.

So, when will it stop? When will we finally breathe and say, “Enough is enough”? When will we allow ourselves to dream a vision that is not about domination or endless expansion, but about creating something that’s fulfilling and sustainable?

It’s crucial to recognise that the journey itself is just as important as the goal. Often, we become so focused on achieving milestones that we forget to enjoy and learn from the process. Reflecting on the journey allows us to appreciate growth, resilience, and the relationships we build along the way. Celebrating milestones, such as completing a significant project or receiving positive client feedback, can provide renewed motivation and a sense of accomplishment. There’s richness in these moments that hustle culture tends to overlook.

Building Ambition on Your Terms

At Equipt, we understand how easy it is to get caught in the momentum of career and business growth. We’ve been there too. Without pausing to reflect, you can lose sight of why you started in the first place.

That’s why we’re introducing Business Reset Days - dedicated sessions to help realign your focus, rebuild confidence, and sustain motivation. These moments of pause allow you to reconnect with what truly matters, ensuring your ambitions remain grounded in your core values.

It’s worth asking yourself:

What does a successful life and business look like for you?
How do you truly want to spend your time?
Which experiences and relationships add richness to your life?
Are you enjoying the journey as much as you value the destination?

Answering these questions allows you to build a business that aligns with your true aspirations. This isn’t about rejecting ambition or growth; it’s about focusing on what brings purpose and fulfilment. It’s about finding joy in the process and freeing yourself from the endless chase for external validation.

There’s a growing movement of entrepreneurs and brands who are embracing this mindset - businesses that prioritise craftsmanship, sustainability, and community over unchecked expansion. Consumers are increasingly seeking out these values too. True luxury isn’t just about price tags or exclusivity; it’s about depth, connection, and purpose. Recent trends show that people are gravitating towards brands that lead with sustainability, transparency, and social responsibility, forging deeper connections with the products and services they support.

Pause, Reflect, and Redefine

As we move forward in our business journey, we’re going to give ourselves permission to pause and we encourage others to. Don’t let hustle culture dictate your life. Let’s learn from the mistakes of those chasing infinite growth and find ambition rooted in what truly matters - for ourselves, our businesses, and our communities.

Because sometimes, enough really is more.

The silent growth killer in 65% of small businesses

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 11:53:44 GMT

It’s a staggering paradox: research shows that 70% of businesses that survive beyond five years attribute their success to having a strategic plan, yet 65% of SMEs admit they don’t have one.

This glaring disconnect raises an important question: why do so many businesses avoid writing business plans, even when the evidence overwhelmingly supports their value? For many, running a business without a plan is like diving into the unknown without a map or compass. While the initial leap may feel exciting, the lack of direction quickly turns into uncertainty, wasted effort, and missed opportunities.

THE MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT PLANNING

For many, the reluctance stems from common myths about the planning process:

“It’s Too Time-Consuming”
Entrepreneurs often see business planning as an overwhelming task that will consume precious time. With so many pressing priorities, creating a formal plan is perceived as a luxury rather than a necessity.
“It’s All in My Head”
SME owners frequently claim their goals and strategies are clear in their minds. However, without formalising these ideas, they risk overlooking blind spots and missing opportunities. A written plan provides clarity and structure, turning abstract ambitions into actionable strategies.
“Planning Is Only for Startups Seeking Investment”
While business plans are commonly associated with funding pitches, they serve a far broader purpose. A strategic plan acts as a roadmap, helping businesses align teams, prioritise goals, and maintain focus during periods of growth, change, or challenge.
“Planning Can’t Predict the Future”
While it’s true that no plan can anticipate every scenario, planning is about preparation, not prediction. By identifying risks and opportunities in advance, businesses can navigate uncertainty with confidence.

THE COST OF NOT PLANNING

Businesses with a written plan are 30% more likely to achieve growth than those without one. So why take the risk of operating without a clear strategy? The lack of a strategic plan can lead to a myriad of challenges including:

Leadership burnout
Wasted time and resources
Missed opportunities as teams operate without clear direction
Difficulty adapting to changes or measuring progress
Misalignment across teams, causing inefficiency and frustration
Poorer profitability
Erosion of the founding company culture

PERSPECTIVE ANALYSIS - BREAKS DOWN BARRIERS

For those overwhelmed or underwhelmed by traditional planning methods, Perspective Analysis from Equipt offers a fresh approach. Tailored specifically for SMEs, it’s designed to overcome the obstacles that prevent many businesses from planning effectively.

Tailored Simplicity
Rather than burdening you with complex frameworks, Perspective Analysis focuses on what matters most: your goals, resources, and vision for the future. By breaking the process into manageable steps, it makes planning approachable, actionable and agile.
Engaging and Actionable
This isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Perspective Analysis delivers strategies uniquely tailored to your business. Through workshops and collaborative sessions, the process ensures every step is focused on achieving clarity and driving action.
Empowering Insights
By encouraging deep reflection, Perspective Analysis uncovers hidden opportunities and risks. This allows businesses to move beyond surface-level plans and develop strategies that deliver meaningful results.
A Collaborative Roadmap
The process fosters team alignment and shared ownership. By involving key stakeholders, Perspective Analysis ensures everyone is working toward the same objectives, strengthening buy-in and accountability.
The Competitive Advantage
In a world where only half of businesses survive beyond five years, having a strategic plan can be the difference between thriving and failing. With Perspective Analysis, you can bridge the planning gap, creating a dynamic roadmap that evolves with your business.

More than just a plan, Perspective Analysis embeds strategic thinking into your organisation, equipping you to tackle challenges, seize opportunities, and outpace competitors.

GET STARTED TODAY

If you'd like to join us for a one day Business Plan Bootcamp designed for businesses ready to accelerate their growth - get in touch. The real question isn’t whether you can afford to plan - it’s whether you can afford not to.

That same old Christmas story (and story arc for business)

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 11:49:30 GMT

I’ve been watching a lot of Christmas films lately. Not unusual for this time of year. There’s something about them that just works, no matter how many times you’ve seen them. You know the endings, you know the characters, yet somehow they still hit the mark.

The thing is, they all follow similar story arcs. Whether it’s the Grinch up in his cave, Kevin defending his home, or someone trying to save Christmas, the pattern is there. And for some reason, we love it.

It’s got me thinking about why these stories work so well and what happens to us when we hear them. We already know the ending (it’s a Christmas film, after all), but we’re hooked by the journey. Part of that is down to narrative bias. Our brains naturally prefer stories with a clear start, middle, and satisfying end. Even if life is rarely that tidy, stories give us that structure and we can’t help but feel good about it.

Take Scrooge, for example. The ultimate transformation. He starts off miserable and ends up handing out turkeys and dancing in the street. It’s a simple story of redemption and one that works every time. Why? Because we like seeing people, businesses or ideas change for the better. Psychologically, it taps into our belief in growth and possibility. We root for the change we want to see in ourselves.

Then there’s Elf. Buddy arrives in New York, full of joy, and helps everyone rediscover what Christmas is about. That’s a lost spirit arc, where people find the spark they thought was gone. It works because it reminds us that wonder and joy are often just hidden, not lost forever.

Or the chaos arc: Home Alone, The Santa Clause, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Everything goes wrong, but somehow it all comes good in the end. Those are the moments we recognise, especially when work gets frantic. Our brains love this because it reinforces another bias, the optimism bias. No matter how chaotic things get, we want to believe it will all work out. In the movies, it always does.

The point is, there’s a reason these stories keep us coming back. On some level, they make us feel something. A bit of hope, maybe. A sense of familiarity. They are comforting because we know how they’ll end, but we still want to see it play out.

And when you think about it, the same thing happens in business. The stories we tell about what we do, how we do it, and why it matters are not that different. Sometimes we’re the helper, like Arthur Christmas. Sometimes we’re fixing chaos, like Home Alone. Sometimes we’re the Grinch with a change of heart.

So, if you find yourself watching The Holiday for the fifth time this week, or mouthing along to lines from The Muppet Christmas Carol, ask yourself: what’s your favourite arc? And maybe even, what’s the story you’re telling?

It’s not a challenge or a lesson. Just something to think about as the year winds down and we all try to get some breathing space.

I’ll be back to whatever green and red covered hallmark film is top of the list and a box of Quality Street if anyone needs me.

Under-25 brains need different support in adland

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 15:46:39 GMT

If there’s one thing I wish I’d known earlier, both when I was starting out in advertising and later, managing others, it’s that the human brain isn’t fully developed until around age 25.

Now that I’m running a mental health charity alongside consulting and training, this knowledge has completely reframed how I think about supporting young talent. Knowing that young professionals are still developing crucial skills, like decision-making, emotional regulation, and impulse control, has helped me make sense of the challenges I faced myself and the struggles I’ve seen others go through.

Marketing and advertising are famously tough on young people. We throw them into high-stakes situations and expect them to handle it like seasoned pros, often with minimal support. But by understanding where they’re at developmentally, we can rethink how we work with them. Here’s how we can create a better experience for young talent in our industry.

Guided Mentorship and Structure They Can Actually Use

Advertising is messy and fast-paced, and I used to assume people would just “figure it out” because that’s what I had to do. But young professionals need structured guidance, clear project outlines, regular check-ins, and support for managing pressure. They’re still building up their decision-making abilities, and the right kind of mentorship makes a huge difference in how they adapt and grow in this environment.

Letting Them Dip a Toe In First

Marketing roles often give young people big responsibilities from day one, but we’d get so much more out of them if we let them try different things first. Letting them rotate through various tasks, social media, analytics, brainstorming, gives them a chance to see where they really thrive and build a bit of confidence before taking on heavier responsibilities. This approach not only helps them develop more rounded skills but also gives them a better sense of what they actually enjoy.

Creating a Culture Where Mistakes Aren’t the End of the World

I’ve seen young people take mistakes really hard, thinking a slip-up means they’ve failed spectacularly – snot, ugly crying, the works. Understanding that they’re still learning has made me realise how important it is to create a culture where mistakes are part of the process, not career-ending disasters. When a setback becomes a learning opportunity rather than a crisis, it lowers anxiety, builds resilience, and encourages smart risk-taking, all of which are essential in a creative industry.

Prioritising Their Mental Health (And Helping Them Prioritise It Too)

The “work hard, play hard” mentality in advertising? It’s tough, and for young people still building their emotional resilience, it’s a fast track to burnout. Since shifting some of my focus to mental health, I’ve seen how crucial it is to provide young professionals with support. Access to mental health resources, encouragement for a balanced approach to work, and a supportive environment aren’t just nice-to-haves; they’re essential for sustaining their wellbeing and engagement. Healthy, supported people are far more likely to stay with the agency and bring fresh ideas, rather than burning out or moving on – yet still so few agencies are investing in wellbeing (and we don’t mean a pizza because you’re working late).

Helping Them Find Their Own Path

A lot of young people in advertising feel pressured to climb the ladder without really knowing where they’re headed or if it’s what they even want - I see this time and again with people I mentor. We can help them by encouraging self-reflection and goal-setting, making space for them to assess their own growth and career direction. Regular check-ins give them the chance to discuss what’s working, what’s not, and where they want to go. It’s about creating a culture where they feel supported in finding a path that genuinely suits them, rather than pushing forward for the sake of it.

The Bottom Line

Advertising and marketing thrive on fresh ideas and energy, and young people bring exactly that. But if we want to keep them, we need to support them in ways that recognise their unique developmental stage. It’s the difference between helping them to grow or pushing them towards burnout fuelled by our false beliefs 'it was much tougher in my day' and you only learn from 'the school of hard knocks.

I for one, know which one I’d rather see.

pizza preference, cosmo quizzes & business growth

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 14:02:50 GMT

Humans have always been captivated by the desire to understand themselves better. This quest for self-knowledge has driven countless philosophical inquiries, religious teachings, and, in our modern era, the widespread appeal of personality tests, zodiac signs, and even those quizzes that tell you if you’re more of a Meat Feast Pizza than a Hawaiian. Whether we admit it or not, most of us have indulged in these seemingly trivial assessments at some point. But what is it about these exercises in self-discovery that draws us in so powerfully? The answer lies in our deep-seated psychological needs for self-discovery, identity, and social belonging, needs that have been integral to the human experience for as long as we’ve existed.

The Search for Identity

From a young age, we embark on a lifelong journey of forming our identity, our internal compass guiding us through life’s complexities. This identity is built through our experiences, social interactions, and internal reflections. It’s a dynamic entity that evolves as we grow, face new challenges, and gain new insights. As children, we learn about ourselves in relation to others, how we are similar, how we are different, and how we fit into the social fabric around us. These early experiences lay the groundwork for the more complex self-concepts we develop in adulthood. Our experience in the workplace is no different; the broader our experience and the more we connect with new ideas, the richer our pool of information becomes.

Despite this ongoing process of identity formation, many of us continue to seek clarity throughout our lives. This is partly because our identities are multifaceted and influenced by various factors, including cultural background, personal values, and life experiences. We may understand ourselves in certain contexts—perhaps as a parent, a professional, or a friend but struggle to integrate these different aspects into a cohesive sense of self. This struggle often leads us to seek out labels, categories, and definitions that help us make sense of who we are and where we fit in the world.

Personality quizzes, with their promise of quick insights into our deepest selves, offer an appealing shortcut to this clarity. They provide a way to distil the complexities of our personalities into digestible, relatable terms. Whether it’s understanding our ‘love language’, identifying with a particular Myers-Briggs type, or discovering which Hogwarts house we belong to, these quizzes offer validation and self-affirmation that can be both comforting and empowering. They give us a language to describe ourselves, which in turn helps us communicate who we are to others.

The Psychological Appeal of Categorisation

The appeal of personality assessments isn’t just about the results they provide, but also about the process of categorisation itself. Psychologically, the need to label ourselves and others, stems from the human brain’s natural ability for categorisation, a cognitive function essential for making sense of the world. Research in cognitive psychology, particularly the work of Eleanor Rosch in the 1970s, has shown that our brains are wired to organise information into groups and patterns. This categorisation helps us navigate the complexity of our environment by simplifying it into manageable parts.

When applied to self-knowledge, this need for categorisation becomes a tool for making sense of our inner world. It’s not just about knowing whether we’re introverted or extroverted, but understanding how these traits influence our behaviours, decisions, and relationships. By categorising aspects of our personality, we create a framework that helps us navigate personal and social challenges more effectively. For example, understanding that you’re a ‘Type A’ personality might help explain your competitive nature and drive, while identifying as a ‘Type B’ might shed light on your preference for a more relaxed approach to life.

These categories provide us with a sense of identity that is both personal and social. They allow us to see ourselves as part of a larger group whether that’s people who share our Zodiac sign, our Enneagram type, or even our pizza preference. This sense of belonging is crucial for our psychological wellbeing, as it connects us to others who understand and validate our experiences. It’s a way of finding our place in the world, not just as individuals, but as members of a broader community.

The Perspective Analysis Tool: Applying These Principles to Business

At Equipt, we believe that the principles of understanding and categorisation, which are so crucial for personal growth, can be equally powerful in business. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when businesses were forced to reassess their strategies as traditional plans became obsolete, we saw an opportunity to apply these principles on a broader scale. This led to the development of the Perspective Analysis Tool, designed to help businesses re-evaluate their purpose, outputs, and strategies in an environment dominated by uncertainty.

The pandemic created an unprecedented level of unpredictability, rendering many conventional business practices ineffective. Leaders faced the challenge of navigating a future where agility and adaptability were essential. It became clear that businesses needed more than just a new strategy. They needed a way to understand their core strengths, prioritise effectively, and pivot quickly when necessary.

With years of experience working with large brands, we noticed a consistent pattern: certain foundational elements are critical to business growth, regardless of the industry. However, for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the challenge wasn’t just knowing what to do, but determining where to focus amidst a sea of competing priorities.

The Perspective Analysis Tool was created to address this challenge. Our goal was to develop a solution that allows businesses to categorise their efforts, focusing on what truly drives growth. We understood that SMEs needed a tool that was not only comprehensive but also agile, something that could be revisited regularly, offering businesses the ability to review progress, identify new threats, and adjust strategies accordingly.

By categorising different aspects of the business such as market positioning, operational efficiency, and customer engagement, the Perspective Analysis Tool helps leaders maintain a broad view without getting lost in the details. It ensures that every decision aligns with the company’s long-term vision, while also providing the flexibility needed to respond to immediate challenges. In essence, the tool empowers businesses to take control of their future, even in uncertain times.

If you’re interested in learning more about how the Perspective Analysis Tool can help your business, or if you’d like to see it in action, get in touch with us. We’d love to help you take the next step in understanding and growing your business – and maybe we’ll even tell you what pizza you are!

Belong anywhere - what's next Airbnb?

Thu, 08 Aug 2024 12:50:33 GMT

When I found myself in Amsterdam, at least twice a month, back in the days of pre-pandemic frequent travel, a saviour of my sanity was without a doubt Airbnb. More space, less formality, the chance to really know a city and cook your own food; made being away from home that little bit better. Their brand differentiator ‘belong anywhere’ was writ large in the end-to-end experience.

With shares dipping significantly this week and a disappointing outlook predicted thanks to a soft consumer market in the US, it really got me thinking about Airbnb’s stellar achievements, its ability to survive a global pandemic and what their truly epic brand differentiation might allow them to do next.

A little history

Airbnb, founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, has grown from a small start-up into a global powerhouse and that’s a fact. Its inception was a masterclass in branding and differentiation, positioning itself uniquely in a saturated market. Airbnb's concept was revolutionary: an online marketplace for short-term lodging in private homes. The idea stemmed from the founders' personal experience of renting out an air mattress in their living room to make extra money. This simple, yet innovative idea tapped into the existing but underutilised inventory of spare rooms and entire homes, offering travellers a unique, local experience that hotels could not provide.

Branding strategy

From the outset, Airbnb’s brand emphasised community, belonging, and unique experiences. The positioning ‘belong anywhere’ encapsulated its mission to create a sense of home for travellers wherever they went.

Practically that meant:

Building a focus on user generated content, capitalising on and moving beyond the successful model created by TripAdvisor - guest reviews and host profiles built trust and authenticity throughout the experience (when an estimated 91% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, it was a strategy grounded in success)
Creating localised and personal experiences, which was driven by consumer demand in the emerging Instagram era – want to go to a little-known bar? A beach that’s undiscovered? Your host, knows better than the best-of-the-best concierges
Community building – the creation of forums and digital events allowed consumers to begin the experience before they left home and continue way past the end of the holiday – extending good vibes and elongating loyalty

Dark clouds on the horizon

It’s rarely all plain sailing, even with the best strategy and positioning businesses need to occasionally pivot and let’s face it, COVID was the pivot to end all pivots (PIVVVVOOOOOTTTT – admit it, that Friends reference was in your head too!)

COVID dealt a severe blow to travel and hospitality and Airbnb was no exception. Global lockdowns, travel restrictions, and health concerns led to a drastic decline in bookings. In response, Airbnb had to lay off 25% of its workforce and halt non-core projects to conserve cash - brutal.

Despite these challenges they adapted quickly, they pivoted to local stays (with global travel restrictions), they rented to remote workers and encouraged long term lets in a better lockdown environment than your own – brilliant! This was supported by enhanced cleaning protocols and a continued commitment to digital innovation and online experiences – everything changed, but nothing changed, when the brand differentiator ‘belong anywhere’ remained steadfast.

A new world

Now, in a post-pandemic world, market influences continue to be factored, they have to be. Our habits, our desires, our needs, have all been somewhat altered.

Work from home (or work from anywhere) policies are a dream for the brand – honestly, why are you looking at your spare bedroom wall, when you could be sitting on a riverbank or in a buzzing city? The consumer push towards greener more sustainable travel, is also a win, supporting eco-friendly hosts and shunning the approval of planning permission for a ‘mega-complex’.

Though green is good, there’s undeniably a backlash in ‘real’ communities, where tourism is becoming less popular with the locals.

Local homes, for local people

In the UK and other regions, there is growing backlash against Airbnb. Communities are concerned about the proliferation of short-term rentals transforming neighbourhoods into transient areas, leading to serious long-term issues:

Housing Shortages - The conversion of long-term rental properties into short-term lets reduces the availability of housing for local residents, driving up rent and property prices highlighted by a study by the Economic Policy Institute
Community Disruption - High turnover of guests can disrupt the social fabric of communities, with increased noise, litter, and security concerns – The Guardian even reporting on full social movements in local communities attempting to oust the renters
Economic Displacement - Despite many towns and cities benefitting from the tourist pound, the truth is local businesses often suffer as tourists frequenting short-term rentals do not contribute as much to the local economy as long-term residents.

In response to these issues, many government organisations are imposing stricter regulations on short-term rentals, including caps on rental days in cities like Amsterdam and Barcelona, alongside increased licencing requirements and the imposition of a tax burden on the short term let.

Current Earnings Crisis in the USA

And clearly this kick back isn’t the only issue. The broader economic context, particularly the earnings crisis in the USA, is having an impact on the organisation. With many Americans facing stagnant wages and rising living costs, discretionary spending on travel may well continue to decline. This could very easily lead to decrease in bookings and a shift in travel patterns.

There’s also a question about the Airbnb model, could they begin to damage themselves with their own positioning? Could the economic strain in the US lead to more homeowners listing properties on Airbnb to generate additional income, increasing supply, and potentially driving down prices? Who knows…

Future Outlook

When your brand positioning is so unbelievably, spectacularly right and connected so deeply with human need, the answer is to forge on and keep the core.

To navigate the challenges, perhaps Airbnb should double down on ‘belong anywhere’ – diversifying the offering even further, expanding beyond short term rentals, into co-living spaces, working spaces or travel experiences? But this can only be achieved by working on and in local communities to address concerns and support the experience for permanent residents as well as those of us who are more nomadic.

One thing’s for sure, no matter the future for Airbnb, the next pivot, the next tax bill, or the next undiscovered beach or restaurant – their journey from a novel idea to a global brand is a testament to the power of brand differentiation.

The discount trap

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 12:41:24 GMT

Whoop! You made it past Black Friday – here’s how to never need this dark discount day ever again…

In our last post, we gave you 5 reasons to say no to the darkness that is Black Friday discounting, especially if you are a small business. But what if this all feels a bit terrifying, especially when you check your emails, and it feels like the entire world IS doing Black Friday? Well, here is our guide to a few things you can start working on NOW, to make sure you never get FOMO about Black Friday ever again!

Know your value

By this, we mean that you need to understand why customers choose you over your competitors – coffee is a great example here – there are literally hundreds of places you can buy coffee these days, but if you asked most shoppers, they won’t cite the coffee as being the reason they go to Costa, Starbucks, Greggs or the independent cafe, anywhere near as often as you think. It will be the atmosphere, the must-have seasonal mug design, the free Wi-Fi or the price. So, understanding what you offer customers that is different to your competitors, will set you on a path that makes it hard for competitors to replicate what you offer, and easy for you never to have to compete with them on price again.

Quality beats quantity. Always.

When it comes to being able to hold your price, it’s quality you need to focus on, to avoid the Black Friday blues. Where can you make the experience you offer great quality, or are there things you can do to enhance your product quality, so people understand that when they pay for your service, they’re getting a quality that they won’t get elsewhere?

Be true to your values

You don’t have to join in with Black Friday, just because the rest of the world is doing it, and it’s okay to let your customers know why that is – if being sustainable is part of what you are all about, then let customers know! Providing that what you’re saying matches up with the perceptions your customers have about you, then it’s a good thing to be honest about stuff like this – it helps customers understand that you’re authentic, and this, in turn, will help to make your brand strong in the long run. And what’s the result of a strong brand? No need to discount – ever (if you don’t believe us here, just have a think about the last time you saw Apple advertise any discounts…)!

Prioritise adding value

If you can’t bear the thought of just doing nothing for black Friday, then consider doing it a different way – don’t offer a discount but give customers something extra – perhaps a cross-sell, or something which would then be a regular upsell opportunity. Amazon is a great example of a company that did this back in 2005 by offering next-day delivery as standard with its Prime membership. Then came some Kindle titles, music streaming, photo storage etc. all as part of the fee. Not only did each additional service attract different types of customers, but when Amazon raised the price of Prime to £95, most subscribers would have been so entrenched in all the services offered, that they would have just swallowed the increase. A great example of customers paying full price upfront, understanding the value they receive and then accepting an even higher price later down the line.

Hold your nerve

Our final tip when you are trying to ditch the darkness of black Friday is this – hold your nerve! Yes, it can feel scary, but the second you get caught up in discounting and cutting your prices, you are starting to erode the value of your brand and from there, it’s basically a race to the bottom. So don’t worry about the one-day of discounting, focussing instead on building a great brand and rapport with customers for the other 364 days of the year.

Black Friday or Bust

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 14:16:33 GMT

5 reasons to say no if you’re a small to mid-sized business
Black Friday, the day following Thanksgiving, for some reason, has become synonymous in the UK, as well as the States, with bargain hunting and shopping sprees. Beneath the surface of seemingly attractive deals and bustling storefronts, there is more to Black Friday than meets the eye. And if you’re a smaller business here’s 5 very good reasons you shouldn’t get suckered into competing with the big boys!

1. Margin Erosion

Surprisingly few businesses really understand the margin they make on individual products or services. By introducing the level of discount shoppers look for on Black Friday can land you in a precarious position, without even realising it.

Realistically, the kind of deep discounts shoppers are dazzled by are only successful if you can sell in high volume. If you don’t have the size and scale of a bigger business, then you won’t achieve the sales you need to compensate for slashed prices. This lack of volume can lead your business to experience real financial strain not just now, but in the next calendar year.

2. Operational Challenges

Ok, you’ve ignored the advice on slashing prices, and you think you can go for it…what could possibly go wrong? Well, don’t forget how you’ll really deliver.

The surge in traffic on Black Friday can overwhelm businesses (punch up in Asda anyone?). Long queues, inventory management issues, disruption to regular sales and businesses operations can create negative impact that really affect the customer experience. A shopper will be quick to forget the discount when the experience has been like hell!

3. Team burnout

So you think you can slash the price; your operations can totally deal with it – what else? Well, don’t forget your people. The demand of Black Friday often requires extended hours and high stress interactions with customers.

It's likely that you’re already going to ask a lot of your team with the Christmas holidays around the corner, so it’s worth asking now – ‘should I do this to them?’

This is where the immediacy of sales can have impact on the long term - burnout, reduced morale, and increased turnover rates are very real challenges, which can all be triggered by that Black Friday rush – eek!

4. Brand dilution

OK…discount done, operations a cinch, the team are totally up for it – I should go for it right? Wrong!

There’s also your brand to think of. Participating in Black Friday can lead to dilution of the perceived value of your brand. If a company is constantly associated with deeply discounted products, customers may begin to question the quality and authenticity of its offerings, potentially damaging the brand's long-term reputation. This is why many large brands (un-environmentally and unethically) destroy their own stock rather than discount – take heed!

5. Consumer expectations

So, you’ve read points 1 – 4 and are thinking, ‘this totally does not apply to my business, I can smash Black Friday and make no mistake’ – we hear you chums, it is so damn tempting, but here’s our final reason to be like Zammo and ‘Just Say No’ (Google that one if you’re under 40!)

Black Friday can begin to morph and change your consumer into something you really don’t like very much – a bargain hunting horror show!

This discount day of delights sets a precedent for consumers to expect massive amounts of money off, conditioning them to wait for such sales events before making significant purchases. This can disrupt regular sales patterns, making it challenging for businesses to maintain steady revenue throughout the year. An epic cautionary tale if you’d like one here is mum’s favourite Boden, check out their very checkered past with discounting strategies!

So, you may now be thinking what do w e do instead? If you’re a business owner or are being challenged by one to come up for something our advice is simple. Do nothing – as your nana rightly told you, it’s the quiet ones you have to watch!

Working with salons

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 13:44:36 GMT

We're excited to be back at Salon International this weekend for the second year in a row. Last year we were talking all things digital and this year we'll be discussing all things brand. We'll be on the Business Live stage on Saturday 14th October at 3.30pm and we're excited to be joined by Nuala Morey, Jo Martin and Robert Eaton - we look forward to seeing you there.

If you'd like to check out some of our past work with salons, give this little show reel a try, showcasing our work with Haringtons Group for which we won the BHBA in Marketing, 2 years in a flipping row don't you know!

Brand tone and language

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 11:20:28 GMT

In the noisy landscape of modern marketing, standing out requires more than just a unique product or service. It demands a distinctive personality that resonates with and simplifies things for your audience. This is where brand voice and tone come into play.

WHY YOUR BRAND VOICE IS IMPORTANT

Your brand voice is the consistent expression of your brand’s personality through written and spoken communication. It encompasses the style, language, and values that characterise how a brand interacts with its audience. A strong brand voice sets the stage for a recognisable and memorable brand. Thinking about the words you and your teams use is the key – for example, does your brand say Hi, Hello, Alright, Good Morning or something else to greet a customer, each word conveys the same message but the feeling it creates around your brand is different.

It’s not just all about the feeling, your brand voice also delivers some useful brand and business benefits:

It establishes consistency - A consistent brand voice and tone build familiarity and trust. When your audience knows what to expect, they are more likely to engage and connect with your brand. Think of the language used by Apple, it’s always quite simple, but elegant and paired back with hints of innovation.
It differentiates you - In a crowded marketplace, a distinctive voice and tone set you apart from competitors. It's what makes your brand memorable and recognisable.
It builds connection - Emotions drive consumer behaviour, fact! A well-defined brand voice and tone help evoke the right emotions, fostering a deeper connection with your audience.

WHERE TO APPLY YOUR BRAND VOICE

It’s not just the words you say, it’s the way you say them. Tone is the second important element of your voice, it’s the emotional inflection applied to your brand in specific situations or communications. It adjusts your brand's demeanour to suit the context, ensuring that the message is appropriate and relatable. If you think of your brand as a person, it’s useful to think about how a single person behaves in different environments and with different people – your tone with your boss might be completely different to with your Mother-in-law and different again with your friends – but it’s still you!

CHECKING YOUR TONE OF VOICE

Checking your brand is consistent and authentic is important, here’s the top four areas to look:
Website copy – here your tone should be clear, concise, and engaging using words that are the ‘tools’ of your industry to get better impact
Social media – should be tailored to the platform, who you are on Linkedin isn’t who you are on Instagram
Customer service – should be tailored to be empathetic but not shy away from being consistent with your brand and highly personalised
Marketing campaigns – every step of the way should embody your language and your personality to help consumers make choices

A well-defined brand voice and tone serve as the cornerstone of authentic communication and brand. They provide a roadmap for consistent and meaningful interactions with your audience. By understanding your audience, aligning with brand values, and maintaining consistency, you can forge a genuine connection that sets your brand apart in the hearts and minds of consumers.

If nothing else remember authenticity is the key to building lasting brands and relationships in the digital age.

When Psychology met Marketing

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 15:01:25 GMT

Peak-End Theory: How psychology can change your brand!

Psychology and marketing

Marketing is all about creating memorable experiences that leave a lasting impression on consumers. One psychological principle that plays a crucial role in shaping these experiences is the Peak-End Theory. In this article, we'll demystify this theory and explain its significance for your business.

What is Peak-End Theory?

The Peak-End Theory, proposed by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, suggests that people tend to judge experiences based on two key moments:

The peak - the most intense or pleasurable (or terrible) point in an experience
The end - how the experience is concluded.

This means that the most intense and the final moments of an experience are disproportionately influential in how we remember and evaluate it and therefore disproportionately affect our customer experience and our opinions on brands. By understanding the Peak-End Theory, businesses can focus on creating positive, memorable moments at key touchpoints. This might involve exceptional customer service, seamless online experiences, or delightful surprises that leave a strong, positive impression

How does this play out in business?

Peak end theory applies to all businesses whether you’re working with other businesses or consumers, whether you’re in physical or digital spaces.

Physical businesses - If you’re lucky enough to see your customers in person, watch their behaviour, watch the order in which they do things and pay very close attention to the last moments in particular as these are a chance to turn a great experience bad – ever had to wait too long for the bill? Ever nipped to the loo before leaving a place, and really wished you hadn’t? That’s peak end theory!
Digital businesses - For online businesses, ensuring a smooth and pleasant user experience is critical. The "peak" in this context could refer to the moment of discovering a product or service, while the "end" is the checkout process. A user-friendly interface and a hassle-free checkout experience can significantly impact customer perception – too many clicks, not having the right payment options, or simply having to repeat information over and over can all damage to the end of the customer experience.

How can I try and influence the peak and end in my business?

If you want to try and implement strategies to influence Peak-End Theory in your business – here’s some things to try:

Crafting Memorable First Impressions - The initial encounter with a customer is a pivotal moment. Applying the Peak-End Theory, place special emphasis on make the first interaction stand out. Whether it's a warm welcome, a personalised greeting, or an engaging introduction to products or services, strive to create a peak moment that leaves a positive and lasting impression – and get the whole team focused on it!
Designing Intuitive User Experiences - For online businesses, the user interface serves as a critical touchpoint. When applying the Peak-End Theory, focus on ensuring a seamless and enjoyable user experience. By prioritising user-friendly navigation and intuitive design and reducing the amount of aggravation given to the customer (even if it causes you a little more) is the key to a positive peak!
Prioritising Exceptional Customer Service - The resolution of customer inquiries or concerns is a key opportunity to apply the Peak-End Theory. Providing a timely, effective, and empathetic response will ensure everything ends on a positive note, leaving a strong and favourable impression
Creating Memorable Unboxing Experiences - For businesses that involve physical products, the unboxing experience represents a unique opportunity to apply the Peak-End Theory. Take special care in designing packaging that not only protects the product but also elicits excitement and anticipation. This attention to detail creates a peak moment that enhances the overall customer experience.
Seeking Feedback and Continuous Improvement - Applying the Peak-End Theory also means valuing customer feedback. Actively ask for input to understand where you can further enhance their experience.

While Peak-End Theory might seem like a complex concept, its application in marketing is straightforward and highly effective. By recognising the significance of the peak and end moments in customer experiences, businesses can strategically design interactions that leave a lasting, positive impression. Ultimately, understanding and applying this theory empowers businesses to create memorable experiences that lead to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and success in the market.