Becolourful

Clichés have always sneaked into agency websites. Happened long before ChatGPT was even a twinkle in Sam Altman's eye. But which are the worst offenders? In our #FullySaturated research, we identified 14 of the most overused phrases, and ranked them based on how many results were indexed on Google for each exact match. Yep — over 7 million results for "stand out in a crowded market" 🫠 Thousands upon thousands for "we're not like other agencies". Someone get Alanis Morissette on the phone. Simply avoiding clichés isn't enough, of course. You still need a big idea, and a memorable way to express it. But cut these from your copy and you'll be off to a very solid start. --- #FullySaturated is a brand positioning audit by me and Emily Penny. It lifts the lid on who’s really being brave. Which branding studios are making us look twice. And what’s holding the rest of the pack back. As well as looking at big-picture industry data, we reviewed the positioning of 150 UK design agencies. We identified the overcrowded themes, and spotlighted 25 studios bucking the trend. The full 80-page report has been used by agencies worldwide to unpick what makes them interesting and turn that into unmissable messaging. And it comes with a video masterclass, where we were joined by agency founders including Tash Peskin of the brilliantly-positioned Boring ("Transforming the world's dullest industries"). Why am I telling you all this? Because you only have until 30th June to get access. Then it's gone forever! And now, 'LASTCHANCE' gets you 75% off 🤑 Rather not miss out? Head to: https://lnkd.in/evQsUwEf

I'm over the moon to be on board as a Design Business Association Expert 🥳 The DBA is the design industry’s trade association. It champions the transformative power of design, promoting its strategic and economic value to business and government. 👉 Accredited experts have sustained and relevant experience in supporting the design industry. They are: • DBA approved. • Recommended by peers. • Reference checked. I've been working in the design industry from day one. I've worked at leadership level in agencies, across agency marketing, business development, and strategy work before finding my true calling as a strategy-first writer. Design is in my blood. So it makes sense for me to be advising studios of all disciplines and sizes, all over the world, on their own positioning, marketing and content – something they often need external help with. See my Design Business Association (DBA) profile page, link in comments. ----- Becolourful is the brand voice studio for agencies, consultants, and organisations where expertise is the product. We get teams excited and aligned around a powerful point of view so they’re (finally) on the same page and ready to make waves.

What do you really need when repositioning your business? When you know your story is no longer right? When you know you need coherence across your channels? I know from experience that despite the march of the robots, what leadership teams need is a guide. A person. A grown-up. A mix between a cat-herder and a shrink. (Who can also write.) This is why we don’t just go through the motions or rely on form-filling. We build relationships where we challenge and provoke your thinking. We listen deeply and read the room. You have a day job, and so does your team. To jump-start your repositioning, we lay out a roadmap, and make sure you move forwards. Our priority is to support you not simply with the assets and tools but with the confidence to use them. Put simply, we’re in it together 💪 Need a partner? We'll be your flexible but challenging friend playing where thought leadership meets positioning. 👉 Our 5 week strategy run up leads straight into a one year roll out to make it happen. I'm now booking projects for May and June but move fast. ----- Becolourful works with people-based businesses where expertise is the product. We get teams excited and aligned around their brand manifesto so they’re (finally) on the same page and ready to make waves. 🔔 Ring the bell on my profile so you don't miss a post

WHO AM I? I’ve been in the world of branding for over 25 years. Spent many years working in-house in London agencies. Then moved to West Sussex and set up my brand voice studio, Becolourful – it's me plus a team of very brilliant clever associates. WHO WE WORK WITH We support b2b businesses where *expertise* is the product. That tends to be creative agencies, consultants, and not-for-profits – smart people who're doing new and inventive things, and need help making their case and standing out for their brilliance. THE PROBLEM WE FIX – You're defaulting to generic messages that don’t do you justice – You can’t see the wood for the trees but know you need focus – You want the message to be authentic and commercial – You need to align several partners and rekindle the spark – You need a playbook to run with straight away, not a vague strategy HOW WE SOLVE IT – We listen, properly – We give you space to hear each other – We bring external inspiration and insight to the table – We join up strategy and words, so your message is both reasoned AND rolls off the tongue – We make thought leadership central to brand building; finding your genuine point of view so you can have interesting conversations, and not just sell WHAT YOU THINK YOU NEED – Naming – Positioning – Messaging – Productisation – Thought leadership WHAT YOU REALLY NEED 💥 A simple idea not a generic promise, to get you noticed and remembered 💥 Confidence and excitement, not textbook answers, to get you moving 💥 A verbal toolkit everyone can use Sound good? Full packages are on the website. 👉👉 Book it and get your ducks in a row.

This truth may hurt. 👉 Fill-in-the-blanks canvases don't help you fill in the blanks. 👉 Neater brand strategies don't deliver better outcomes. . Are we losing something by reducing thinking to templates? It seems to me that we're embracing unnecessary faux bureaucratisation in all that we do, emulating tech, and assuming that hard-edged is better than fuzzy. As if that makes it proper. Sure, structure always helps you start. But the work is messy and real change always comes down to PEOPLE, feelings, and motivations. . The real work happens in meandering conversations that surface genuine fears and obstacles and reveal sparks of opportunity that have so far not been put under the spotlight. In my experience, working with founder-led and creative businesses, real strategy-setting is a search for something that has eluded smart people, for good reason. This is a journey. A hunt for HIDDEN treasure, not low-hanging fruit; it's much more like therapy. If brand strategy was as obvious as filling in single sentence already-known answers around your customer problem and your non-negotiable values – why didn't it happen already? Bish. Bash. Bosh. Plug and play. . 👉 The important questions are the ones you don't know the answers to yet. The lever is true understanding, and the right JUDGEMENT call. Taking an informed RISK is what drives a difference. Not box-filling. . 💡 Stop trying to make it easy, you're only making it harder.

Most positioning advice on here teaches you how to be a good sensible vendor. To know your place, prioritise your customer, and defer to the latest trends. There are lots of good 101 tips, things you’d be foolish not to take notice of. But you can't stop there. The problem is, you’re learning how to blend in. You’re learning how to be one of many mediocre agencies, part of the masses. And the reality is that a very large proportion of those masses are already falling by the wayside. You’re learning how to slowly fail. Your job isn’t to stop at sensible. Your job is to be so outlandishly different that you skip the queue. You don’t wait in line for your turn, you walk straight through the red rope. Everybody can see it, the wave of bland robotic ways of showing up in business. Hiding behind automation and hacks until you no longer even know who you are. You're a generic supplier doing all the so-called "right" things. Everybody is bored. Clients are bored. Let’s say 20% of agencies are still here in 3 years. Are you one going to be of them? Because it's time to lay the groundwork. Time to realise that resilience comes from genuine new thinking, imagination, and the capacity to know you’re not for everyone. It’s time to misbehave. Let's talk. #GottaBeCruelToBeKind ----- Becolourful works with people-based businesses where expertise is the product. We get teams aligned around a powerful point of view so they’re (finally) on the same page and ready to make waves.

Design agencies, you know you need to show up on LinkedIn. And, I’m going to be blunt: you’re hopeless at it. You know it too, you tell me all the time. You seem to think: → That if you say too much your competitors will know your secrets → Only award wins make for worthy content → It’s just for recruitment → You don’t have time → It’s all a bit cringe But you’ve got it all wrong. 👉 This is where you get to have a voice and a conversation. 👉 This is where you get to put out content that makes people look twice. 👉 This is where you get to share an interesting point of view and build relationships around it. So, what's going on? 🤔 Is the REAL problem that you don’t have a point of view? (Nah, really? Don't believe you.) Or (more likely) that it’s a very nebulous feeling that emerges only in sporadic rants and you need it putting into WORDS that get attention? When I say I help with 'agency positioning', I don’t mean: ❌ I give you a brand onion or a technical-looking framework filled with adjectives. ❌ I craft an elevator pitch saying you're "more strategic", "more curious", and "care more" than all the others. (Spoiler: all agencies think this is what makes them different.) ❌ I write a home page with a vague commitment to "results" or "growth", because clients are only interested in outcomes. (Yawn, they've heard it all before.) I work with you to find your genuine POINT OF VIEW – one that you can be famous for. I know you're smart and you've bags of experience and knowhow. I want to help you turn that into a STORY you're proud to shout about. Your positioning is shaped by the rooms you are in, how you behave, and it shows up on your website and in your creds deck. It needs to show up on LinkedIn too. You're walking past a huge opportunity, because you don't get it. Stop being “delighted to share”. Start having conversations that matter and that your clients care about. Start being relevant. Talk to me to find out how to shift your mindset and show up with something to SAY. This is where the positioning happens. Let me know, which design agencies do you think are nailing LinkedIn right now? ----- Becolourful works with people-based businesses where expertise is the product. We get teams aligned around a powerful point of view so they’re (finally) on the same page and ready to make waves.

Is brand thinking out of fashion? Is the idea of 'brand'.... dead? It sometimes feels that way. We’re in a different era now, where the focus is entirely on the PRODUCT and exactly how it solves customer needs. Where the emphasis is on MARKETING tactics not brand definition. But I’m here to challenge that. Solving needs is something every provider in your category does. It's the baseline. Yes, you need to do that to trade. But to build a BRAND means to CHOOSE to play a different game. To earn a premium, to find an advantage. It means building a halo of added value. It means creating connections with people that go beyond the functional. This can be so powerful in B2B and not-for-profit. It’s a wide open opportunity – largely because most AREN’T doing it. They’re being super sensible – and super sensible is super boring. And everyone is yearning for some substance. A brand has legs, it's a relationship and a contract of trust that can reach beyond one single product offering. It gives you a solid platform from which you can flex. When I help business find their brand idea, I balance three types of input: 👉 the audience and their needs 👉 the wider environment of the market 👉 and what YOU bring to the table I’m looking for the SUBSTANCE that makes your business stand out and be interesting. That’s likely to be an informed point of view or insight that’s new and different. Innovative. Smart. A new way of framing a problem. A new angle on the sector and how it could be different. If we're lucky, a controversial point of view. It's something that drives your content and PR as much as your sales copy. Without an intelligent, thoughtful take on your sector and your customer, you’re just like everyone else. Helpful, useful, forgettable, replaceable. Brands have a point of view that they're famous for. One that’s talkable and exciting. It makes them stand out. 💡 Most people stop at audience needs. The rest of the inputs have been forgotten. And this is your wake-up call. 🔥 Brand is not dead. It’s still as powerful as ever. Maybe even more so as businesses take their eye off the ball. What do you stand for beyond the basic utility of your category, and does anyone know? Are you ready to turn your business into a brand? Think what that might unleash for you 🤔 ----- Becolourful works with people-based businesses where expertise is the product. We get teams aligned around a powerful point of view so they’re (finally) on the same page and ready to make waves.