One Marketing has just completed a business development workshop for an organisation specialising in using music and allied creative disciplines to change peoples lives. The deliverers work in such diverse areas as the justice service, social care, education and the private sector.

One Marketing MD commented, “This is yet another area where a UK organization has developed a unique, world beating expertise that is flexible and exportable across the globe”. A key component of the workshop was the identification of opportunities and directions to build upon significant interest shown by potential clients in Europe and North America.

One topic that always crops up in our brand development coaching workshops with small and medium businesses is the need to think strategically about their brands – and this may often mean doing less.

First let’s consider the name – the corporate signature to give it its fancy name. When setting up a business there are a thousand things to think about, and the name is low on that list. So we tend to just say it like it is – ‘Anytown Plumbing Services’,  for instance. That has a lot going for it – it says what the business does and where it is: but things change. Let’s imagine that the heating side of the business takes off: we move into selling gas fires and that leads us into fireplaces and we open a showroom in big city down the road. All of a sudden the name seems less suitable. We are then faced with the quandary – do we change the name and write off all the investment and goodwill the brand carries, or perhaps create a second brand for fireplaces with all the hard work and investment needed to support a new brand?

The message is that we can’t foresee the future, so keep the options open. Of course it’s important in the early days to let potential customers know what we do, but far better to do that with a strapline or brand purpose statement such as ‘ABC Ltd – local, reliable plumbing and heating services’. The strapline can change easily while leaving the brand name untouched.

Don’t worry too much about the name. Remember it is just an icon for what you do and what your brand stands for – it is the values that are the important things. McDonalds, Apple, Ford, Kraft and Gucci don’t mean anything in themselves – their value lies in the association of the organizations behind them. Sure, if you can come up with a catchy, memorable name it may aid recall – and that is great, but don’t batter your head against the wall trying to dream one up – better spend the time focusing on your offer.

When thinking strategically it may be a good time to consider what your long term aim is – do you want to build a business to sell it?  If so, ask yourself the question whether it is a good idea to have your name over the door.

Spend a little time thinking golbally too. The world presents massive opportunities to do business outside your own country – the web has made it easier than ever to exploit these possibilities. So look at whether your brand will be appropriate to other markets. Does reference to your home market help (The US baseball Co, English Teas Ltd) or will it be a hindrance? Does your name translate into other languages without meaning something inappropriate? Do your corporate colours have positive or negative connotations in export markets?

We all have a lot on our minds when running small and medium businesses and often it is as much as we can do  to deal with the day-to-day issues right in front of us.  However, spending a little time to think strategically about your brand can save a lot of confusion and reactive stress in the future. One simple thing you can do is just to consider some point in the future – say three to five years away – and imagine where you would like your business to be. Don’t hold back, be as ambitious as you want – think big!  Then look at your brand – will it suit where you want to be?

If your brand does not match your ambitions for your business at that point in the future, start planning for change now. That way, change can be evolutionary not revolutionary. A gradual development will let you change without damaging all the effort and investment you have put behind your brand to date.

There is a sound reason why we provide specific mentoring and coaching for owners and managers of creative businesses – that is because they are different.

The majority of creative based businesses are owned or controlled by the people who founded them, and these are creative people. Far from being ‘head in the clouds’,  these people are extremely well qualified to run and grow businesses.

1. Starting and building a business is a creative process in itself.
2. One of the skills that many non-creative based companies invest in is innovation and creativity – skills which are the stock in trade for these businesses.
3. These same levels of thought and approaches are applicable to all the business disciplines.

It is not that creative people need to learn new business disciplines to handle what some see as the essential, down-to-earth skills: what they need to do is to learn how to apply their own skills and innovative thought processes to the wider business disciplines. For these people training is not the right solution. If it can be argued there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach for business growth and development, this is doubly true for creative businesses.

Problems tend to occur with growth, when businesses replace entrepreneurial flair with accountancy expertise – while such skills are vitally important in business there is no reason why the hand on the tiller should not be a creative one

We advocate coaching and mentoring as the most efficient development route for creative businesses, where those valuable talents and energies can be directed in their own distinctive direction.

In creative based businesses there is tremendous intellectual and emotional energy – properly directed it can achieve miracles: wrongly focused it can be unwittingly destructive.

Please get in touch if you would like to learn more about creative business mentoring and coaching – we understand both business and creativity – it is what we do.

How to attract more visitors from outside your own country.

We have created a new training programme for tourism venues and attractions specially focused on attracting foreign visitors. With many years experience helping companies to market themselves overseas, we recognised that the tourist industry has some special requirements that are not often catered for in ‘export’ programmes. Our new, high impact one day course covers market selection, creating the right proposition, routes to market, communications and where to find additiona help, assistance and funding.