Graham Pugh – Brand Voice Consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gpugh/
What does your business do?
We create and build brands from a verbal perspective.
Who are your ideal customers and what is their pain point?
Our clients are in many different sectors from career coaching, to tax accounting, to fashion. But we’re particularly good at tackling knotty B2B, technical or financial services brands.
Overall we service three main types of clients:
- Start-ups yet to raise funding who need a coherent brand to present to VCs. Pain points are telling a simple and compelling story, differentiating themselves clearly to investors, and distilling their offer simply enough. (Oh, and money.)
- Start-ups who have funding and need to refine their brand before they launch. Pain points are finding a distinctive voice, personality, and identity that will clearly distinguish them in the market.
- Organisations at an inflexion point. Usually they are 3-5 years into their journey and realise it’s time to professionalise their brand (or in many cases, start to think of themselves as one). Pain points are understanding how to avoid being generic and finding a hook that differentiates them from competitors. Understanding what to keep and what to jettison, and ensuring all stakeholders understand the change, and are engaged and inspired.
What differentiates your business?
Our people. Our work. No one else is us. We also offer core services at a flat fee.
What is an insight that your customers should know?
How a brand speaks is as important as how it looks.
Who are your ideal partners? Who do you want to share your journey with?
Designers, copywriters, website builders, videographers, photographers, strategists, PR people, email specialists.
What is the next goal/milestone/priority for your business?
Short term: to stabilise after the post-Truss slump.
Medium term: enough new business to allow me to delegate, clients on retainers, bigger, longer projects.
Can you share a book, podcast or similar that has helped you and your business?
Listening to podcasts is how I prepare myself for the day. I walk 4-5 miles every morning between 8ish-9ish, but I rarely listen to anything relevant to my job. My favourite podcasts are The Rest Is Politics, Full Disclosure, Page 94, Word in your Ear, The Today Podcast, The Daily Grind, and We have Ways of Making You Talk.
On holiday last week I read “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin. It’s a fascinating story about the gaming industry but the story and principles of how to devise and market a game are very relevant to what we do.
