I’m Simon Gregory, and I’ve worked with businesses in the professional services sector for over thirty years.

In that time I’ve met hundreds of business owners who find themselves working longer hours for diminishing returns, frequently feeling that the only way to get the job is to cut the price.

They feel totally demoralised and trapped by the situation – even if they’re busy they know they’re not getting paid enough.

Often, these people are real experts in their sector with huge resources of knowledge and experience, but lack the confidence and know-how to reposition themselves and find the kind of clients who recognise their worth and pay them accordingly.  We’re the award-winning Oxford-based team who’ll take your project from concept to completion. We’ll handle all your Branding, Copywriting, Marketing Communications, Graphic Design, Web Design, Brochures and Leaflets. On Time. Within Budget. Guaranteed.

We listen to what you want to achieve, then give a fixed-price quotation so you know exactly what you’ll be paying before we start. We work with you to make sure that our creative ideas represent your product or service in a way that’s congruent with your brand values and irresistible to your customers.

We specialise in branding and brand positioning for professional service businesses who want to grow. We design and build beautiful CMS-based websites, so you can control your web presence without unnecessary ongoing costs. We also design and supply all kinds of print material.

We have vast experience working with SMEs, Charities and Public Service Organisations, and know how to produce creative, effective marketing communications that earn their keep and make you proud (like Plusnet).

Most weeks I meet someone experiencing frustration with their website. Last week I met a woman in Oxford. She was on the verge of tears. She’d been waiting 10 months for her website to be finished, and found it impossible to trade without it. She was initially told it would take six weeks! Recently another lady told me she’d paid over £10,000 for her website and it didn’t generate any interest or enquiries.  I looked into it for her. It wasn’t well designed and it didn’t show up well in search engines. She couldn’t even update it herself, and had to keep paying the web designer to make changes. She had thrown her money away. 

Often web designers are the worst offenders. They’ll say all you need is a good looking website, and people will buy from you. This is simply not true. They’ll tell you a website is the online equivalent of a High Street shop. Rubbish. I really want you to stop spending tens of thousands of pounds on sites that simply don’t work. Of course you need a great-looking website – one that upholds and enhances your brand, but every part of it must earn its keep as part of a clear marketing strategy. Think about what you use the internet for. That’s right – to find information. Your customers are just the same. They research, compare and educate themselves before they make a buying decision.

They are extremely unlikely to go to your website and immediately buy something unless it’s a very low cost item. The risk is simply too high. For most service-based companies, your website is the place to start a relationship, then build on it until people are ready to buy. This is known as permission marketing, and there are many tactics to achieve it. If you mention this to a web designer and they either don’t know what you are talking about, or try to talk you out of it, beware – unless you have money to burn.

We’ve all heard the saying, “If you don’t plan for the future, you get the future that shows up.” Well, if you don’t create a clear market position for your business, the market will create one for you. Too many companies have settled for ‘Accidental Branding’, and find themselves offering ‘me too’ messages to an undefined market.

Big consumer brands can compete on price and still make money for their shareholders. But for smaller, professional service-based businesses, competing on price traps you into a soul-destroying downward spiral – leaving you working harder, longer hours for less profit when you know you’re worth more.

If you’ve been trading for a while you’ll have an abundance of value in your business that’s undiscovered and unarticulated. It’s hidden. It needs to be unearthed and identified before the value can be communicated to your customers.

You need a process that gives you real clarity before you can overcome accidental branding, communicate your true value and stop competing on price.