This is a chat I have often, mainly with entrepreneurs who over-value their brand, occasionally with people who are (potentially) being screwed in a sale. The 1st answer is that your brand is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but understanding why someone should pay helps. Understanding margin and brand worth One […]
Since selling Pooch and Mutt I get a lot of investment opportunities. Most want my money to spend on these things, or need it because they have spent too much on them already. These are my big red flags: 1) BRAND: You do NOT need to spend £££ on a big agency to get started. […]
Getting your product into supermarkets is not about luck and it's not about hard work… its about understanding who you are selling to. (Most FMCG brands get this wrong). The brand I started has sold over £50m through UK supermarkets. With no corporate FMCG training I built Pooch & Mutt from scratch. Within a year […]
AI in Marketing: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming the Industry Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way businesses approach marketing. From automating repetitive tasks to providing valuable insights, AI is helping companies to reach new heights of efficiency and effectiveness in their marketing efforts. One of the biggest advantages of AI in marketing is its […]
The other day I was listening to Mark Zuckerberg on The Tim Ferris podcast talking about values and he made a really good point that really got me thinking. Values have been important to Pooch & Mutt from day 1, they have always been integral to the business, but like many founder-led businesses, they weren’t […]
A few years ago, on a course at The London Stock Exchange, I was introduced to the concept of Employer Brand Strategies. This was something new to me, which I found especially surprising, as I have spent so much of my career developing, implementing, learning about, writing about, and talking about brand strategies. I had […]
One of Pooch & Mutt's first-ever employees, Rob, who started with us over 10 years ago went on to have an amazing career in online marketing and set up his own agency Highrise, who I highly recommend, even if they do work with our competitors!!! A few years ago Rob came in to speak to […]
A few years ago I was recruiting a member of the Pooch & Mutt sales team and had a chat with one of our advisors. I told him that we were being asked by some candidates if they could work remotely and asked if he thought it would be a good idea to let people […]
In the pre-pandemic world, I used to meet up with friends maybe once or twice a year and play a game of poker. For me, this was less about the poker and more about the occasion, seeing people, having a chat… as we all know men find it very difficult to just chat without some […]
According to Entrepreneur.com “80% of Purpose-led brands outperform the market” According to Deloitte Insights “Purpose-driven companies… grow three times faster on average than their competitors” According to Forbes “Consumers are 4-6x more likely to purchase, protect and champion purpose-driven companies” And therein may lie the problem… the cat is out of the bag. If everyone […]
One of the many, many problems caused by the Judeo-Christian religions is how we see our place in the universe. We say that we “come into the world”, whereas other religions say that we “come out of the world”. In the words of Alan Watts “We do not "come into" this world; we come out […]
There’s a new series of Dragon’s Den on TV, but very little has changed. Very little has changed in the 16 years that it’s been on the TV. Dragon’s Den infuriates me. It is probably the most high-profile business show on TV. It should be about encouraging and championing entrepreneurship. It should be about how […]
About 10 to 15 years ago “everyone” was talking about Behavioral Economics. (Obviously by “everyone” I mean a select few people in marketing and business circles, but it was a big thing). Dan Ariely published “Predictably Irrational” in 2008, which was the first book I read on the subject, in the same year as Martin […]
According to Fundera 20% of small businesses fail in their 1st year, 30% in their 2nd, 50% in the 1st 5 years and 70% in the first 10. Those failure rates are probably higher for those trying to build a brand, as ‘small businesses’ often include one-man-bands, consultants etc. There are hundreds of reasons why […]
This is a subject I seem to have been speaking to people a lot about recently, so thought it would be worthwhile to write it down, but before we get into the subject I feel like I need to add in two disclaimers. 1) I am definitely not a management expert, I don’t even think […]
I love reading both read and listen to books a lot. The recomendations below are normally available as paper books, kindle books and audio books. These are my "must-read" books for all entrepreneurs out there. I should empasise that these are my choices based on what works for me. I am sure that other people […]
For this very very simple intro to brand strategy I’m going to use an example that I have used quite a few times in talks and coaching sessions. Every time I use it I am quite surprised how many people get the answer ‘wrong’. Apologies in advance for the very middle-class example, but it’s a […]
This may not be the most exciting topic, but it is something that comes up a lot with the people I work with on a mentoring/ consultancy/ coaching basis. To start with, there are many ways to structure a P&L. I am sure that people will argue for different ones. The one I am going […]
What is marketing? There is no defintive answer to this, despite the billions spent on it every year. The American Marketing Association gives the definition, "Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large". Let's be honest, […]
The Queen’s Gambit is one of Netflix’s biggest successes of 2020. More than 62m households watched it in a month. I was in one of them and I loved it too. I was rooting for Beth all the way and (spoiler alert) wished I could be in the crowd outside the Russian chess hall to […]
Innovation is often praised and discussed as something that we should be aiming for, something that is always valued, but is that really the case? Are real innovations rewarded? Let's start by looking at some real innovators and what happened to them. Alan Turing Alan Turning basically invented the computer and helped the allies win […]
I’m a huge fan of business books and have probably read more than I ever needed to, some I have loved, some… not so much. Some I liked the main idea, some I didn’t, but me liking the arguments and them being right are very very far from the same thing. Seth Godin is one […]
This is part 2 of an article on cashflow. Click here to read part 1. I had this explained to me using the example of a supermarket. Let’s say you open a supermarket and stock it with £1m worth of goods (I have no idea of the value of goods there are in a supermarket!). […]
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 you about profitable businesses that […]
