Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Richard Feyneman said “if you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don’t”. The same is probably true for most of us with cashflow. We think we understand it… ‘make sure more money comes in than goes out’… but most people, and most entrepreneurs, don’t. When someone tells Continue Reading
Guy Blaskey
The biggest mistake in writing company slogans
The biggest companies in the world all have slogans, so you should have one for your company too… right? Maybe… maybe not. We all know the slogans or tag lines of the big, successful companies: McDonalds – I’m lovin’ it Nike – Just Do It KFC – Finger Lickin’ Good Continue Reading
(My) Key points of Stoicism
A few years ago I went to see a Derren Brown stage show, in which he quoted Seneca, “You stop caring what people think about you when you realise how seldom they do”. This really struck a nerve with me, as it seemed so simple. A couple of weeks later Continue Reading
Raconteur: Putting sales at the heart of strategy
Pet food brand Pooch & Mutt puts sales centre stage to accelerate growth. Founder Guy Blaskey says: “Instead of spending hours debating between two products or marketing approaches, you can stick both on Facebook or Google and with a £50 ad budget find out what customers think.” Mr Blaskey believes Continue Reading
The Telegraph: How to navigate the bumpy road of scaling-up
Guy Blaskey is the founder and managing director of Pooch and Mutt, a dog food brand that he set up in 2008 and is now registering an annual turnover of £4.5m. He admits that he made many mistakes before unlocking the keys to growth. “When I started, I thought that Continue Reading
9 Tips to grow your business
5 ways to name a brand
There is no right or wrong way to name a company or a brand. There are plenty of successful brands with terrible names (Google!!!) and plenty of brands with great names and no success. The 5 points below describe 5 different approaches. In very basic terms, the higher up the Continue Reading
How to create a basic marketing strategy
There are no people out there desperate for your product or service, despite what you may think. However groundbreaking/ incredible/ amazing your product or service may be, people who don’t know about it are probably getting on OK without it, in blissful ignorance. Before the car people were happy to Continue Reading
The Grocer: How Robots will affect the future of food manufacturing
An edited version of the comment below featured in The Grocer and is available to subscribers here. In terms of jobs, if you believe Yuval Noah Harari, then all jobs are at risk in the future. AI would be a far better doctor or lawyer, and definitely a better buyer or marketer. Humans have Continue Reading
Business Reporter: Boost your productivity and profits with mindfulness and meditation
Guy Blaskey, CEO of luxury dog food brand Pooch and Mutt, has found the process “amazingly useful” with “the ability to concentrate on one thing, and not get distracted. There’s no point in getting stressed about things you can’t control, they key is learning to understand that.” In terms of Continue Reading
The Times: National Business Awards
The Guardian: Pet Care goes upmarket
Worries about poor quality pet food led Pooch and Mutt founder Guy Blaskey to create recipes that “take the junk out, and put beneficial ingredients in.” Describing his products as “health food for dogs” Blaskey acknowledges that some may see that spending £14 on his pet food rather than £3 on a Continue Reading
The Telegraph: Online advertising tips
Borrow ideas from other sectors Pooch and Mutt, a healthy dog food company that wants to challenge the leading pet brands, has used a range of online advertising campaigns to grow brand awareness. “We run ads on Facebook and Google AdWords, with our current campaign returning £25 for every £5 Continue Reading
The Telegraph: How to successfully outsmart big competitors as a small firm
Guy Blaskey, founder of independent pet food business, Pooch & Mutt, is challenging the goliaths of the market, Mars and Nestle. He launched the business in 2008 with two health supplements for dogs – the brand’s only products for the first few years. “This gave us a good understanding of the Continue Reading
Microsoft: Working smarter, making time.
The Times: Ready Business Britain
Guy Blaskey featured in The Times, Your Ready Business and in a promotional video as part of Ready Business Britain. Article Video Online article Your Ready Business caught up with Guy Blaskey, one of the five winners of the Ready Business Mentor Scheme who won a mentorship with www.notonthehighstreet.com’sfounder Sophie Cornish. Continue Reading
The Telegraph: Posh dog nosh spurs sales at Pooch & Mutt
Pet owners are said to resemble their animals and now they are eating the similar foods too. Health-conscious Brits are now putting their pets on all-natural, nutrient-rich diets to mirror the healthy foods they feed their families. High end dog food and treats retailer Pooch & Mutt has doubled sales Continue Reading
Smarta.com: Business advice from Ancient Rome
This article by Guy Blaskey was originally published on smarta.com Stoicism is a school of philosophy that is looked over by many philosophy professors and students. Unlike other schools of philosophy the stoics were less bothered with searching for the meaning of life, and more bothered with how they should live Continue Reading
Sage: Going for Growth
This article was written by Guy Blaskey for the e-book “Going for Growth” published by Sage. Before we start to look at marketing for growth it makes sense to look at marketing in general, what is, why it exists and where it has come from. In ‘the good old days’ Continue Reading
Evening Standard: How you can find out is your product will be successful before spending (a lot) of money on it.
This article by Guy Blaskey was originally published by the London Evening Standard If we knew what products were going to be huge successes and which were going to be total flops before we spent money on them it would make business life a whole easier. It’s difficult to predict the Continue Reading
Virgin: How to make your ideas work
“I work on the basis that if you ask friends and family they will tell you what you want to hear, and if you ask anyone else they will tell you what their ‘predictable’ and ‘rational’ self would do, but anyone who has read Dan Ariely’s ‘predictable irrational’ knows this Continue Reading
The Guardian: Entrepreneurs who fight for success
Pooch and Mutt: becoming top dog Guy Blaskey founded supplements business Pooch and Mutt in 2008 after his own dog became ill and discovered there was little on the market to treat his pet. The business was doing well online, but Blaskey was unsatisfied with his “low volume, high margin” businesses. However Continue Reading
