6 mins

Digital

6 lessons learned from rebranding our agency

Date 02.12.2019

“Hi, this is Matt from Connectin…errrr…sorry, Brew.” Cue awkward chuckle and apologies.

This was a standard telephone intro for many of us over the last six months, but after nearly ten years as Connecting Element (CE), it was inevitable.

Fortunately, we have lovely clients, partners, friends, ex-colleagues, and industry connections, all of whom forgave this frequent slip-up. Then often came the question on everyone’s minds after we rebranded: “How is Brew?”

Well, for those I haven’t chatted to over the last six months, here’s a quick-fire summary through SIX lessons learned:

Celebrate your wins… like REALLY celebrate them

Enjoy the moment. We all work so hard that it can be easy to breeze right past achievements and onto the next thing on the to-do list, but no more. We’ve started working with some lovely new clients (more on that below) and some incredibly exciting projects with the likes of CX software leaders, InMoment, The Vegan Society, Mitchells & Butlers, Innkeeper’s and Miller & Carter. We’ve also built two websites using a brand new, progressive website stack (Gatsby) – both our own Brew website and film production company, Storyman.

We’ve also seen our email builder, brew.mail, roll out across the University of Birmingham. These are wins and we know to savour every single one.

Get out. Meet new people. Learn. Be a force for good.

OK, that’s four things, but they’re all connected. We’ve been getting out and about more and meeting new contacts. Where else to start but with Social Circle… for any of you who haven’t attended, it’s a great social media event that hinges on learning, connecting and sharing. Glug is another favourite of ours which is design led and is now run from the team behind Birmingham Design Festival.

We’ve also guest lectured for digital marketing students at Birmingham City University on GDPR and MA Communication students at Warwick University on social media. We’re not just trying to meet new people, but hopefully help to train up the next generation of digital marketing experts.

A change is as good as rest

And nothing symbolised a bigger change for us than prizing ourselves out of the Jewellery Quarter into trendy (I am 40 years old so allowed to use the word) new offices in the Custard Factory, Digbeth. We love our new home and I think the change in environment has given us all a new lease of life. Big thanks to The Woodyard who built our office furniture.

More about the move

Appreciate your leavers as well as recruits

People are everything. We had some incredibly talented individuals leave over the last six months – developer, Lee, designer, Vicki and account handlers, Kate and Katie. We loved them, but they have each gone on to exciting new things.

On the flip side, we have a few new team members incoming!

Welcome to the team, account handlers, Alison and Beatrice, as well as designer, James. Can I also mention lead designer Scott’s baby girl Evelyn who arrived on 26 September? I think that’s allowed as it won’t be long until Scott has her resizing assets and working up design proposals.

Financial management is key

With the launch of Brew came the introduction of a whole new workflow and snazzy dashboard to stitch together all the tools we use. Built by technical director, Adam, it helps us manage work and contacts coming into the agency, the work through the agency, reporting, and invoicing. It’s been a game changer.

Add to this the new accountancy firm looking after our finances, Spark Accountants, and we’re in a happy place financially, too!

No matter how big or small, give it your all

I honestly didn’t intend that header to have a cheesy rhyme to it, but I can’t say I’m not happy about it… We started working with 8 new clients in the last six months. That’s a lot of brews.

With a new CRM to help us understand our sales funnel better than ever, I think this quote from Adam sums up our attitude to new business, and just might explain why our clients love sending people our way if they need a digital marketing agency:

“No matter how big or small the project you are working on for a client, no matter how valuable you perceive the work to be for you and/or the person who has briefed it and no matter who the client is, give it your all and over-deliver.

You never know what importance might be placed on that piece of work, who might see it and where that piece of work might take you.” Adam Cox, technical director, Brew.

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