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Well, what a year 2020 was, eh?

This time last year I wrote about what I’d learned in business in 2019. Four years in, the business was starting to take off and we’d ended the year winning our first award. Last year’s blog is here but in summary, lessons learned were:

• To get – and stay – out of your comfort zone
• To give as much free knowledge and value as you can
• That influence follows assets
• That you can’t do it alone and
• That you’ve gotta be in it to win it

Those were lessons we decided to build on for 2020…then 2020 happened. And…well let’s just say things didn’t *quite* go to plan for any of us. But out of that we learned new lessons too!

As 2020 drew to a close, we learned that the fast-fashion and high-street behemoth, Arcadia Group, was yet another casualty of the year that no one wants to remember (but will).

Whilst I felt no pang of regret for Arcadia Group (owners of TopShop, Miss Selfridge, Burton, etc) as a whole, I’ll admit to feeling a momentary pang of sadness at the end of TopShop, in the way I feel when a pop-star passes away – another slice of my youth disappearing.

Feb 1 2021: News in that fashion giant ASOS has now bought the brands TopShop, TopMan, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands has thrown an interesting curveball into the mix. Whilst the high-street shops will still be closing, the brands live on.

Who knows what that will mean for sustainability – I hope they will look at that as part of the takeover. But what it does attest to is the power of brand.

International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. But here are the facts: 

Globally, over 2.7 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men.

Only 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.

In 40% of economies, women’s early-stage entrepreneurial activity is half or less than half of that of men’s. (Source: unwomen.org)

You’re looking for a certain product or service. You go online. The design is dated, the photography is blurry, the website takes ages to load – and aaargh! Typos!

In just seconds, you’ve clicked away and that company has no idea that they’ve just lost a sale. 

Now consider your own brand and the first impression it’s giving your potential customers. Is it helping you win business – or lose it?

Last year I wrote a couple of blog posts about #smallchanges we can all make to live a little greener. They went down quite well and some people even made life changes as a result – hurray!

For 2019, I’ve combined and categorised the two posts for your convenience and added new content in bold…These tips are geared for busy people like us – but are easy, affordable and sustainable ideas which all add up.

Time and time again we see entrepreneurs making mistakes around building their brand. We identified the top seven mistakes we see business owners and entrepreneurs making all the time when they think about their brand and branding. So I thought I’d share them with you…

In our time creating great brands for our clients, we have come across countless design fails and branding disasters.

You have to wonder what on earth was going through the client’s or designer’s minds when you look at these examples of the seven branding pitfalls to avoid…

WARNING: Content is #NSFK and not for the easily-offended!

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we thought we’d ask some of our fellow sisters in business to share their experiences with us. These women are all carving out their own definition of success and running their companies, their way.

We hope you find their responses fascinating and inspirational in equal measures…

It’s a bit of a longer article than normal, but it was all such good stuff – once we all started talking business there was no stopping us!