Faqs.
What I actually do.
What exactly do you do?
I help established businesses improve how they position, present and market themselves so they attract more of the right customers.
That usually starts with understanding the business, its customers and what makes people choose it. From there, I look at the messaging, website and wider digital presence and work out what’s helping, what’s holding things back and what needs to change.
Sometimes that means a new website. Sometimes it’s better messaging, SEO, advertising or improving what’s already there. The solution depends on the problem.
Are you a marketing consultant or a digital marketing consultant?
Probably a bit of both, but Marketing & Positioning Consultant describes what I do best.
Digital is a big part of my work because that’s where most customers will research and judge a business. But I’m not interested in recommending SEO, PPC or a new website simply because they’re services I can provide.
I start with the business and the customer, then work out which tools will make the biggest commercial difference.
Are you a marketing agency?
No. You’ll work directly with me.
I can bring in trusted specialists where a project needs additional expertise, but you’re not passed from salesperson to account manager to junior executive.
That means the person understanding your business and recommending the strategy stays involved in actually delivering it.
Do you build websites and provide SEO?
Yes, but I see them as tools rather than the starting point.
A fantastic website with the wrong message still won’t perform particularly well. And sending more Google traffic to a business that isn’t giving people a compelling reason to choose it rarely solves the underlying problem.
I want to get the proposition, messaging and customer journey right, then use things like web, SEO and advertising to amplify it.
Do you handle both strategy and implementation?
Yes. That’s an important part of what I offer.
I can identify what needs changing, develop the positioning and strategy, and then help actually make it happen.
You don’t have to take a strategy document away and start looking for three different companies to implement it.
Is this right for my business.
What sort of businesses do you work with?
My sweet spot is good, established businesses whose marketing doesn’t do them justice.
Often they’ve grown successfully through reputation, referrals, repeat customers or a strong sales team, while their website and marketing have gradually fallen behind.
The underlying business is good. It just isn’t being presented, found or chosen as effectively as it could be.
What size businesses do you typically work with?
Generally established SMEs rather than startups or very large corporates.
I work best with businesses that already have customers, experience and a proven offer, but know there’s another level of growth available if they can get their marketing right.
The exact turnover or headcount matters less than having a sound business and the appetite to improve it.
Do you only work with B2B businesses?
No.
I work particularly well with established B2B, manufacturing, construction, specialist service and home improvement businesses, but the same principles apply to consumer businesses too.
If customers need to understand you, trust you and choose you over somebody else, positioning and messaging matter.
What if we're already a successful business?
Even better.
I’m not trying to rescue fundamentally broken businesses. Some of the biggest opportunities are businesses that are already successful despite fairly mediocre marketing.
If the business has reached one level through reputation and referrals, better positioning and marketing can help unlock the next one.
How do I know if we're a good fit?
A simple test is this: Is your business significantly better than your marketing makes it look?
If you look at your website or Google presence and think it doesn’t properly represent the quality, experience or capability of the actual business, there’s probably something worth discussing.
Positioning & messaging.
What do you mean by positioning?
Positioning is essentially where you want to sit in your customer’s mind.
Who are you for? What problem do you solve? Why should somebody choose you? What makes you different or better suited to them?
Getting those answers clear makes almost every other piece of marketing easier.
What's the difference between positioning and branding?
Branding is part of the picture, but positioning goes deeper.
Your logo, colours, photography and visual identity affect how people perceive you. Positioning is about what the business actually stands for, who it serves, what it offers and why customers should care.
I’d rather fix what you’re saying before worrying about which shade of blue you’re saying it in.
What do you mean by messaging?
Messaging is how we turn your positioning into words customers actually understand and care about.
A lot of businesses talk about themselves: their history, facilities, processes, products and accreditations.
Those things can matter, but customers are usually thinking about themselves. Good messaging connects what you're good at with what the customer actually wants.
What if we don't really have a USP?
Most established businesses don't have one magical thing nobody else can claim. That's fine.
Differentiation can come from your experience, specialism, approach, service, speed, expertise, customer type, geography or simply how clearly you understand and communicate the customer's problem.
We don't need to invent something clever. We need to uncover genuine reasons to choose you and communicate them properly.
Can changing our messaging really make that much difference?
Absolutely.
Two businesses can offer essentially the same service but create completely different impressions online.
If one immediately understands what the customer wants, answers their concerns, provides evidence and makes the next step easy, it has a huge advantage.
Sometimes the biggest marketing improvement isn't getting more people to your website. It's giving the people already there a better reason to choose you.
Websites & digital presence.
How do you decide whether we actually need a new website?
I look at what you've already got before recommending anything.
That includes the positioning, copy, structure, design, user experience, mobile experience, search visibility, analytics and how effectively the website turns visitors into enquiries.
If the existing website can be improved, I'll tell you. If it's fundamentally holding the business back, I'll explain why.
Will you tell us if we don't need a new website?
Yes.
I'm not interested in selling somebody a £10,000 website when changing the messaging and improving five existing pages would solve the problem.
Equally, I won't recommend endlessly patching something that really needs replacing.
The recommendation should be based on what's commercially sensible for the business.
What makes a website actually generate enquiries?
There isn't one magic ingredient.
People need to find you, quickly understand what you offer, feel that you've understood their problem, trust that you can deliver and know what to do next.
Good design matters, but so do positioning, copy, credibility, user experience, search visibility and conversion.
A good website brings all of those things together.
Why are people visiting our website but not contacting us?
There can be dozens of reasons.
You might be attracting the wrong traffic. Your proposition might be unclear. The website might not create enough trust. The message might be too focused on you rather than the customer. Or the next step might simply feel like too much effort.
That's why I look at the whole journey rather than assuming the answer is “more traffic”.
Can you improve our existing website rather than replace it?
Yes, and sometimes that's exactly what I recommend.
We can change the structure, messaging, calls to action, landing pages, SEO, imagery or user journey without necessarily rebuilding everything.
I'm interested in improving the commercial result, not winning an award for replacing websites that didn't need replacing.
SEO, Google & getting found.
Do we actually need SEO?
Possibly. It depends on how your customers find businesses like yours.
If there are hundreds or thousands of potential customers actively searching Google for what you provide, being visible at that moment can be extremely valuable.
But SEO isn't automatically the answer for every business. I'll look at the opportunity before recommending the investment.
What's more important: more traffic or better conversion?
Neither works particularly well without the other.
There isn't much value in doubling website traffic if none of those extra visitors enquire. Equally, a fantastic website can't generate much business if nobody sees it.
The objective isn't traffic. It's more of the right customers finding you and choosing you.
Should we invest in SEO, Google Ads or both?
That depends on your market, competition, search demand, margins and how quickly you want results.
Google Ads can provide visibility quickly. SEO generally takes longer but can build a valuable long-term source of traffic.
Often they work extremely well together. Sometimes one makes considerably more sense than the other.
Can you guarantee Google rankings?
No, and I'd be wary of anyone who does.
Google decides its search results, not your marketing consultant.
What I can do is identify realistic opportunities, build a sensible strategy, improve the things we can control and measure whether that's translating into commercially useful traffic and enquiries.
Will you tell us where not to spend our marketing budget?
Definitely.
One of the benefits of starting with the business rather than a particular marketing channel is that I'm not trying to force every problem into the same solution.
If I don't think you should spend money on PPC, I'll say so. If you don't need a new website, I'll say so.
Knowing where not to spend can be just as valuable as knowing where to invest.
How I work.
What happens when we first speak?
We'll have a straightforward conversation about the business.
I'll want to understand where you are today, where you're trying to get to, how customers currently find you, what's working and where you think the problems are.
I may spot things immediately. Others need a bit more digging.
From there, I'll explain where I think I can help and what I'd recommend doing next.
How do you get to understand our business?
I ask a lot of questions.
I want to understand what you sell, who buys it, why they buy it, why customers choose you, who you compete against, where the profitable opportunities are and what happens from first enquiry through to sale.
I'll also look at the data, competitors and search market where appropriate.
The objective is to understand the business before trying to market it.
Do you research our competitors?
Yes.
Not because I want to copy them, but because positioning only makes sense in context.
I want to understand what customers see when they compare you, what everybody else is saying, where competitors are strong and where there may be opportunities to present your business differently.
Will we work directly with you?
Yes.
You'll deal directly with me throughout the work.
Where specialist support is required I can bring the right people in, but I'm not disappearing after the initial meeting and handing the thinking over to somebody who's never met you.
Can you work alongside our existing team or agency?
Absolutely.
You may already have a good designer, developer, marketing manager, PPC agency or internal team.
I'm perfectly happy identifying the strategy and priorities and then working with the people you've already got to implement them.
This doesn't have to mean ripping everything up and starting again.
Results & measurement.
What sort of results should we expect?
That depends entirely on where you're starting and what we're trying to fix.
For one business success might mean significantly more enquiries. For another it might be better-quality leads, increased organic visibility, improved conversion or securing larger projects.
We'll establish what we're actually trying to achieve rather than hiding behind generic marketing metrics.
How quickly should we expect to see results?
Some changes can make a difference surprisingly quickly. Others take time.
Improving a poor proposition or conversion journey can have an immediate effect on existing traffic. SEO usually requires patience. Paid advertising can generate visibility almost immediately but still needs optimisation.
I'll give you a realistic view based on the work we're actually doing.
Do you focus on traffic or actual enquiries and sales?
Commercial outcomes wherever we can.
Traffic, rankings, impressions and clicks are useful diagnostic measures, but they don't pay the wages.
Ultimately I want to understand whether marketing is generating more of the right opportunities for the business.
Can you guarantee more enquiries or revenue?
No.
There are too many factors outside any marketer's control to responsibly guarantee a particular commercial result.
What I can do is identify what's holding you back, make evidence-based improvements, measure what happens and continually improve the areas we can influence.
How do you measure whether the work is successful?
We'll agree the important measures at the beginning.
That could include qualified enquiries, calls, form submissions, search visibility, conversion rates, cost per lead, pipeline value or actual sales.
The measurement should fit the business rather than forcing every client into the same dashboard.
Costs & commercial questions.
How much does it cost to work with you?
It depends on what needs doing.
A focused piece of consultancy is obviously very different from repositioning a business, rebuilding its website and supporting its ongoing marketing.
Once I understand the problem, I'll explain what I recommend, what it will cost and why. You'll know the costs before committing to anything.
Do you charge by the hour, project or monthly retainer?
Potentially all three, depending on the work.
Defined pieces of work are normally priced as projects. Ongoing consultancy and marketing support are generally handled through a monthly retainer.
The important thing is agreeing what we're trying to achieve and choosing a commercial arrangement that makes sense for both sides.
Do we have to sign a long-term contract?
Not for the sake of tying you in.
Some projects are one-off pieces of work. Ongoing consultancy naturally requires more continuity, and any initial commitment will be clearly explained before we start.
I want clients to continue working with me because it's valuable, not because they're trapped in an agreement they can't escape.
What happens if our budget isn't big enough?
I'll tell you.
There may be a smaller first step that makes sense, or we may be able to prioritise the handful of changes likely to have the greatest impact.
But if I genuinely don't think your available budget can achieve what you're asking for, I'd rather have that conversation upfront.
How do we know whether the investment will be worthwhile?
That's exactly the question we should be asking.
Marketing shouldn't exist in a vacuum. We need to consider the value of a customer, margins, conversion rates, available demand and the scale of the opportunity.
Sometimes spending more makes commercial sense. Sometimes the numbers tell us not to.
A few questions about me.
Why work with you rather than a marketing agency?
Because you may not actually need an agency.
If you need ten people producing social posts, running huge media campaigns and managing dozens of channels, there are agencies better suited to that.
My strength is getting close to an established business, understanding what's really going on, identifying what's holding the marketing back and then helping fix it.
Are you a marketer or a business person?
Both, and I think that's useful.
My approach to marketing is heavily influenced by commercial reality. I'm interested in customers, margins, sales, enquiries, capacity, positioning and growth rather than marketing activity for its own sake.
Marketing has to make sense in the context of the actual business.
Why does your commercial experience matter?
Because marketing decisions are business decisions.
Generating another 100 leads isn't necessarily useful if they're the wrong leads, your margins are poor or the business can't service them.
I try to look beyond the marketing dashboard and understand what an improvement actually means commercially.
Are you tied to any particular marketing channel?
No.
I work across positioning, messaging, websites, SEO, paid search, UX and conversion, but I don't believe every client needs all of them.
That independence matters. The question isn't “How can I sell you SEO?” It's “What's actually stopping more customers from choosing you?”
What happens if another supplier is better suited to something?
I'll say so.
There are specialists who will be better than me at particular disciplines, and there are projects where another supplier will simply be a better fit.
I'm much more interested in helping you make the right decision than pretending I should do absolutely everything.
Getting started.
What's the best first step?
Have a conversation with me.
You don't need a detailed brief and you don't need to know whether you need a new website, SEO, new messaging or something completely different.
Tell me about the business, where you want to get to and what's frustrating you. We can start from there.
Can you take a look at our business before we speak?
Yes.
In fact, I prefer to have at least a quick look at your website and wider digital presence before we speak.
It means we can spend less time covering the obvious stuff and more time discussing where the opportunities might actually be.
What information do you need from us?
Initially, very little.
Your website and a basic understanding of what the business does are usually enough for a first conversation.
If we decide to work together, I'll want to understand much more about your customers, sales process, competitors, performance and existing marketing.
Is there any obligation after the first call?
No.
The first conversation is simply to understand the business and see whether there's a sensible fit.
If I think I can help, I'll explain how. If I don't think I'm the right person, I'll tell you that too.
How do we get started?
Book a call and tell me what's going on.
You don't need to diagnose the marketing problem yourself. That's part of my job. Maybe you need a better website. Maybe your positioning is wrong. Maybe you're not being found. Maybe you're getting plenty of attention but not converting it.
Let's work out what's actually holding the business back first. Then we can decide what, if anything, needs fixing. And if something does I’ll say so.
There are specialists who will be better than me at particular disciplines, and there are projects where another supplier will simply be a better fit.
I'm much more interested in helping you make the right decision than pretending I should do absolutely everything.
Start the conversation
If you're an established business and think your marketing could be working harder get in touch with me today.