How to get your new business off the ground during Covid19

1. Talk us through the process a business should go through when they’re starting out with their branding and marketing

Every business is different, every idea is different, and every entrepreneurial management structure is different, but essentially, there are two things you'll do when you start a business.

If it’s brand new to the market product or service, you really need to test that idea with your peers, where you work now, friends, family, anyone who fits your target market, or a focus group. You need to work out honestly– will this work, and is there an appetite for it?

If it’s an existing service, you need to show how you differentiate yourself, whether it’s your pricing, or level of service. You need to look at the existing market and see how you can add value to it with your business.

Secondly, you need to think about how to structure your business, where are the gaps? Essentially, be honest with yourself. Do you have the right skillsets to take it all forwards? There’s no one more passionate then you, and no one who’s more at risk in your own business, so you need to see where the gaps exist and look to bring people in who can bridge those gaps for you while you grow the business.

The target market is the most important thing to your business: Who are they? Where can you find them? How do you reach them? How will you convert them into sales? Know your target market and the brand, logo, website, social media etc should all come together. Whatever you're proposing to your consumers, the message should be consistent.

2. What are some common mistakes businesses make when they're starting out?

I would say learnings rather than mistakes…lets stay positive! I think that the main problem I touched on before, is where the entrepreneur tries to do everything themselves. You do need a huge level of drive and ambition and energy, but some entrepreneurs feel that if they’re not doing everything, that they’re failing. A lot of people who come to me have crossed arms and legs, dreading me telling them what they’re doing wrong, but you need to be open, and you shouldn’t close that feedback loop too quickly, or you might end up harming your business. There’s just too much to do; you can’t be expected to do everything to perfection. It helps to get some outside perspective, so take advice, and be open to suggestion. Hire people who are better than you in their fields, because you can learn from them, after all, if they're doing well, your business will thrive.

3. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into marketing and branding

I started out as a junior copywriter in a large advertising agency, where I was lucky enough to have a piece of work picked up by a client. So, unusually, I had the opportunity to talk through my ideas with the client, and that’s really when my love of pitching and Client Services came about. I’ve spent my career with a foot in both creative and account management camps.

Following that, the agencies I’ve worked with were very much smaller, real challengers pitching against the big players in the market, so we had to be nimble and innovative to win that business.

A year and a half ago, a friend asked me to help him with some advice for his new business, and over the course of that conversation we changed his name, communications, branding, everything – we found new ways to show how his business could differentiate itself from others in the market. It suddenly occurred to me that in my many years in marketing, this is what I was bringing to the table – helping to grow businesses from a small concern to quite a large one. I started to think that I could help a lot of entrepreneurs and early stage businesses or start-ups to develop their offering without the struggles of employing an expensive marketing person or agency.

4. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned on the job?

Be gentle. My job is to get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible, so while I’m not aggressive in my feedback, it can be quite hard for clients to hear sometimes. You can’t tell someone that their logo is wrong, or their brand is weak. You need to handle people’s egos, because, I know, that if it was the other way around, I’d be annoyed too. The simple fact is everyone’s different, but you need to remember that you’ve all got the same goal – to make the business a success.

5. What advice would you give someone thinking of starting up their own business during Covid19?

In the current market, a lot of people are, of course, in jeopardy, and their jobs and careers will change. This is the time when a lot of people will suddenly be pushed into trying something new, to follow their dreams. Think about it for a while, research the market, and see if the market can take your offering. If you have the idea and you know you've got the drive and the ambition to do what you want to do, then just bite the bullet and do it!

6. Tell us about the main services you provide

I help entrepreneurs, start-ups and early stage businesses with their business challenges, brand development and sales and marketing strategies.

I start with a no-fee chemistry session. That session is just to see if there is a desire on their part to move forward with advice, and for me to analyse the business and see where, and if, I can help.

The second stage is usually paid for, but in the current climate, I’m offering this session for free to help new businesses get up and started. I call this stage the immersion stage. Before the meeting we identify areas of the business that the owner or business team want to address, that could be anything from staffing, to finance to investment decks, branding etc.

Once we identify those challenges, the company shares much more information on where they are now and what they’ve done to date before we meet.

The meeting itself is a focused discussion, and I will come to that meeting with ideas, but most importantly to listen to the client and from our discussion and agreed actions I report back with an analysis, providing them with an action plan. The client could take their action plan and do with it what they will, or, at any point, contact me for further advice or to deploy tactics within the plan.

Oliver has over thirty years experience in business, brand building and sales and marketing.

Running two successful marketing agencies he has worked in strategic and implementation roles for all sorts of brands from the world famous to brand new start-ups and across a large range of industries from hospitality to pharmaceutical, sport to media, retail to tech and many more.

He is now exclusively dedicated to helping entrepreneurs, start-ups and early stage business create and build their businesses and brands.

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