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As you'll know if you've signed up to our free monthly newsletter, thanks to Norfolk County Council's Go Digital programme we've been able to go "on tour", running fully funded workshops across Norfolk. That's great news for those of you who've told us you'd love to come to our free small business workshops but can't always make it to Cromer. This week we were in Great Yarmouth talking to a room full of brilliant local businesses about how Google is changing and why that's ac

This weekend, while writing another blog, I found myself describing something as "the messy middle". It wasn't a phrase I'd sat down and deliberately created. In fact, I don't think I'd even used it before. But the more I thought about it afterwards, the more I realised it's probably the thing Matt and I spend most of our time helping people with. The messy middle is where most business owners live. It's the space between having an idea and having a plan. The space between kn

People often tell us they couldn't work with their husband, wife or partner. To be honest, most of the time I agree with them. Running a business together means spending a lot of time together. You have the work conversations, the business conversations, the ideas conversations and then somehow you're supposed to remember to have the normal life conversations too. There are definitely couples who would find that their idea of absolute hell. The funny thing is that when Matt a

If you missed our free June workshop and meet-up, you'll never know what The So Solid Crew, Carl Jung, Yoda, and ignoring ChatGPT have to do with small business marketing in Norfolk. But don't despair. This blog is a whistle-stop tour of some of the highlights. If you've never joined one of our small business meet-ups before, they take place once a month from 9:30am–12:00pm at the Cliftonville Hotel in Cromer. They're friendly, welcoming and completely free to attend. They f

The One-Day Marketing Bootcamp wasn't something we initially sat down and planned. It actually came from years of seeing the same thing happen over and over again. We'd meet brilliant business owners who were working incredibly hard on their marketing. They'd listened to all the advice, signed up for courses, watched the webinars and were doing their absolute best to keep up with everything they were being told they should be doing. They were posting on social media, trying t

I'm writing this sat in the cafe space at The Space in Burston and honestly, I don't think I could have designed a better Monday if I'd tried. This morning was our Wellness Morning for small business owners. Izzy led a beautiful restorative yoga class that included gentle movement, breathwork, a couple of yin poses and yoga nidra, and afterwards we all sat around drinking coffee and chatting about business, life and all the things that seem to come up when you put a group of

One thing Matt and I have always believed is that if we're going to tell other businesses to do something, we should be doing it ourselves first.

If you'd told me this time last year that I’d be sitting at home, three weeks before the end of the year, full of beans, smiling as I write a blog about how we’ve achieved what we have this year (without the burnout), I never would’ve believed you. I’ve been burnt out every December since I don’t know when. To be honest, I've been burnt out every three months since I don’t know when. Running a small business is tough. It’s spinning a trillion different plates and working ever

Running a small business often feels like juggling everything at once. Your work becomes part of your identity, your phone never stops...

Earlier this month we shared a blog about SEO (you can catch up here if you missed it). We started with SEO because it’s the question we get most often from small Norfolk businesses. The second? Social media. So, today let’s talk about Instagram. Some of what follows applies to other platforms too, but Instagram is the one we’re asked about the most. It’s easy to see why. Around half of the UK has an account (although not everyone is active), it’s simple to use, and it’s a vi

Over the past couple of years, we’ve had hundreds of enquiries from small Norfolk businesses looking for marketing support. The most common question by far is about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The second most common is about social media algorithms (which we’ll explore in a future blog). It’s easy to understand why SEO is appealing. For sole traders and microbusinesses, marketing is just one of many hats you’re already wearing alongside running the day-to-day business.

This is the first in a series of blogs all about marketing, created especially for small Norfolk businesses. Over the coming months, the...