Marketing Masterclass for Mystified Home Workers

The latest ‘How to Work from Home – The Inside Guide event’ at Central was a great success last night. James Layfield, co-founder of both Central and international marketing agency, The Lounge Group, gave the group some valuable insights into marketing a small business. Here are a few of the many points I jotted down:

Be authentic in every area of your business. You started it in response to an event or a feeling, and that conviction must pervade everything you do, whether it’s choosing suppliers or dealing with staff.

Get connected – Central spoke to 500 people before opening to ask for their opinions and changed tack where necessary. Those people will become your advocates and tell your story.

Keep it simple, stupid! Have just one singleminded message like Central’s ‘the best place to work on the high street’. What you do must be told in your business name, logo and URL.

Be consistent – keep saying your simple message a million times, especially if you don’t have a big marketing budget.

And be relentless, don’t give up – a wave will eventually erode a rock by washing over it repeatedly, and your message will get through!

The meet-up closed with a lively discussion about URLs and business names, and Jo Gilbert, commercial artist and Central member, came up with a strong new name for her business. Not being one to hang around, Jo has already bought her new URL and changed her Twitter name – meet @YourBrandedArt. It was obviously Jo’s lucky night – she also won the competition for best tweet promoting the event and went home with a copy of my book!

As usual we ran out of time long before things to discuss and conversation continued out on the street as the Central staff locked up! The ‘How to Work from Home – The Inside Guide’ groups are always great fun, very informative and produce real change for the participants (coming soon – a photo showing Eva‘s pristine working area after the procrastination event in August!)

Next month we have the charming and self-confessed computer nerd San Sharma of Bitsy and WorkSnug talking to us about the Top 10 Tech Tips to Save Time in language a non-techie can understand. Come and join us!