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Let's talk a bit about building your brand
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or building a micro brand.
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So clearly, when you look at Greg and his business,
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Greg Williams Photography,
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as I've already said,
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it's a brand.
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It would be fair to call it a brand
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and it has this mad basically
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because of Instagram
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and all of Greg's connections.
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Greg's brand has this incredible reach.
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And from the minute you start out as a photographer,
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you do need to consciously acknowledge
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that you're building a brand.
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Let's assume that you feel
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that you've established your sort of singular voice
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or unique view as a photographer
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and you're starting to build that out as a portfolio.
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What I mean by building a brand
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is now that everything that you put around it,
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everything that you put around the work
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is consistent with it, right?
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So if you look at Greg Williams Photography,
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his unique selling point
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is his candid, authentic photographs
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of movie stars essentially.
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Now, it's important to say
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that that's not all he does
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but that's the USP, it's the brand,
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it's the first thing,
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it's we hope the first thing
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that people think of when they think of Greg.
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So then when you look at what Greg's put around that
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over the years.
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So there's a company, Greg Williams Photography.
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That company has an identity, a logo, a website,
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a headquarters, it has employees.
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We put on events, we put on exhibitions, we publish.
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And the ambition is a brand with integrity
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where all of those things that we do come
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from the same voice.
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And it's not massively difficult
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and it's really important not to over complicate it.
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But as and when you start adding more layers
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to the business,
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so a corporate identity or a website or an employee,
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it's really important that you feel
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that all of those things look, feel
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and can be consistent with your unique voice
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as a photographer, whatever it is you're selling.
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Another important aspect of building your fledging brand
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is to not run before you can walk.
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If you look at what Greg does, for instance,
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it includes a very ambitious website,
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a massively prolific career as a photographer,
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lots and lots of videos.
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We're doing podcasts,
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we do books, we do magazines.
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We do events, we've got a gallery.
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We do product collaborations.
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So it's a sort of ever-growing list
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of new opportunities and ventures, right?
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And I would urge you quite strongly when you start
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to not start racing ahead
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to all of these different things, right?
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At the beginning, you need a unique perspective
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as a photographer.
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And you need to put around it the simple elements
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that allow you to deliver that.
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And I'm really talking now about the nuts and bolts.
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You need an email address.
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It probably doesn't matter what that email address,
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what it actually is.
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What matters is that the emails get answered
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and they get answered properly,
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professionally, quickly, right?
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So either you need to do that yourself
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or you need to find somebody
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who's prepared to do it with or for you.
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Similarly, that fledging brand needs a phone number.
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And when people ring that phone number,
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who are hopefully prospective clients,
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the phone gets answered
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and it gets answered properly
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and the voice that comes through,
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whether it's yours or your partner's
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or somebody you've managed to employ,
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that everything they say
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is consistent with what you do.
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So let's say you're getting started
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in the automotive world.
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Everybody needs to know a bit about cars, right?
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Everybody needs to be able to speak about that.
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It's a highly sophisticated
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and competitive industry, right?
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So they are going to expect a good level
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of basic professionalism.
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So these are the things that you need to put in place
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to begin to build a brand.
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What do we mean by brand?
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Now, I'm not gonna pretend to be some sort of expert.
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It's a really complicated area
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and there are lots of incredibly bright people
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who think and speak to this point.
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But a good way to think about your brand
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is to think about the conversations
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about your business that you're not party to.
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So if you worked with a client last month
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and they were at an industry event
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and somebody said, "Oh, I heard you had some pictures done.
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How did that go? What was that like?"
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The answer that that person gives to that question
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is essentially your brand
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or the answer that five people would give
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to that question pretty much describes your brand.
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So if they say, "The photographer was amazing,
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incredibly creative but you couldn't get ahold of them
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and delivery didn't go very smoothly."
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Immediately your brand is undermined.
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So you've established the photography credentials
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of that brand
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but everything else that requires it
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to hang together has failed
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and your chance of success is massively undermined.
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Whereas I'd like to think where we...
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And I'm gonna give our example
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'cause it's the only one that I work on.
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I'd like to think that people
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who interact with Greg,
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oh, I hear you shot with Greg Williams.
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What was that like?
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Yeah, he's got a highly experienced manager
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who responds really quickly
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and they worked very hard
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to make sure that things went smoothly.
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They delivered quickly.
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What were the pictures like?
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Yeah, I mean, they were everything you'd expect.
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Felt really authentic, exclusive.
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Greg's very charismatic.
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He's great fun.
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It was brilliant.
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I'm not saying it always goes like that
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but I'd like to think that a lot
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of the conversations that people have
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about Greg Williams Photography
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that we're not party to
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goes to some extent along those lines
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and whilst that doesn't define the brand on its own,
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it's indicative of the fact
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that we're hopefully doing a lot
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of the right things with our business and our brand.
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So the likelihood is that you may be incorporating a company
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or you're starting to trade on the back of your name.
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And in that very moment,
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you be clear that you're building a brand
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and it's essential that just as Greg says,
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50% professional, 50% photographer.
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Please make sure that from the get go,
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you meet basic professional thresholds,
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where phones get answered,
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emails get responded to,
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you have the right level of insurance.
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Basic things like that
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that avoid things going really badly wrong.
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Another thing that's central to our brand,
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a business, and I think it will be true
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of pretty much any business I think
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is that you've got to be personable
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and you've got to be pleasant to be around
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and you've got to work hard.
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And that sounds really obvious
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but quite apart from giving people great pictures,
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you must always be aiming
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to give people a really, really good experience.
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And quite often,
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they can get the pictures from somebody else
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and the thing that encourages them
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to keep coming back
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is that they enjoy working with you
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and they wanna keep working with you.
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So some of us are more social animals than others.
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Some of us are happier banging out emails
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and taking pride in the simple aspects
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of being professional than others.
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But if you do wanna make this work,
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you've no choice but to be highly professional
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and really, really great to work with.
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You don't need a website straightaway,
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you don't need a logo and an identity,
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you don't need an office,
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you don't need a separate phone.
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You don't need a number of different email addresses
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that people can use to obtain different information.
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You literally just need to be relatively easy
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to get ahold of in whatever form you decide that takes
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and you need a solid portfolio somewhere,
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probably Instagram.
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And I would definitely recommend less is more.
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Do the simple things really, really well
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and then as your business grows,
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add layers and complexity and ambition,
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rather than saying oh right,
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we're starting a business,
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we're starting a brand.
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We need a website, we need all these other things
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that I've mentioned.
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And here's a sort a bit of housekeeping
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relating possibly to building a brand
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and possibly to the fact
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that you're now starting a small business
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is you do need to make sure
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that you've got basic professional skills.
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Either you can write a decent email yourself
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or there's somebody working with you who can do that.
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Try and give the best telephone manner
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that you possibly can.
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Learn the fundamentals of spreadsheets.
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I mean, I work on hundreds of spreadsheets
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and I absolutely would have to admit
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that I'm no expert whatsoever
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but I can do enough
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to budget big jobs.
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And even if the jobs you're budgeting
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are really quite modest,
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you do need to know the basics of a spreadsheet.
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And then trying to make that spreadsheet presentable.
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And that's not that difficult.
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It's an hour or two of mucking about
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in whatever spreadsheet program you've decided to use
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to turn something that looks a bit of a mess
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into something that looks really professional.
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And lastly, decks.
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So we produce a lot of decks
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and I think pretty much every contemporary creative business
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probably produces a lot of decks.
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What we mean by decks
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are either a Google Sheet
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or a PowerPoint full of examples
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from your portfolio, references,
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test shots that you might have shot,
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basically like a creative,
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it can be a mood board or a presentation,
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a visual presentation.
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Learn how to put together good visual presentations quickly
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because again, you might find yourself pitching on a job,
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there are two or three other people
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that could do that work
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and the fact that you turn around
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and you've got the right portfolio,
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you turn around a professional looking budget
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that's easy to read and looks smart
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and you've put together this deck
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of visual assets
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that resonates, that people respond to.
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It's very likely that that's what gets you the job
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and that it wasn't just the portfolio.
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So to reiterate,
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spend the time, and it's only a few days,
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developing a set of I would say basic professional skills,
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which you can't afford to not have in this day and age.
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