Jamie Mitchell, formerly Innocent's UK Managing Director, and now CEO of Daylesford Organic, shares with us his thoughts on why small brands can always win against big ones. Many thanks to you, Jamie.
In his words:
"Having worked with, met with and generally hung out with lots of small, independent brands, one thing comes through over and over again when I think about which ones are most likely to succeed in their chosen (viciously competitive) market: “I think, therefore I am”. OK, so maybe linking Descartes' existential theories to strategies for small brands may be a bit of a stretch, but let me try and convince you.
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All my clients are feeling squeezed at the moment. Sales are harder to make. Costs are rising and margins declining. Marketing spend is under pressure. Staff are the biggest cost of all, so clients are making staff redundant.
How can you market without increasing marketing spend?
How do you use fewer staff to deliver an even better service?
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It's a new year, so why not do things differently, cheaper but better?
I've worked with Lucy Thomas, NPD Manager at innocent drinks, on several new product development projects. She's agreed to do a bit of sharing on the topic here so you can benefit from innocent's cost-effective ways of developing new products.
Here are her thoughts:
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Just before Christmas, one of the Leon founders asked me to look at transaction times in their peak lunchtime trading hour in one of the branches.
How could transactions with customers be made faster? Aim: to get more sales through in the crucial lunchtime peak hour.
I did four things simultaneously:
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Nick and Camilla Barnard of Rude Health asked if I could help with some questions they had.
I took their new product and, with Tesco's Head office and store permission, put it in the aisle to see if folk noticed it.
I asked customers whether this new product stood out and what it was saying about itself.
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