Marketing and strategy advice, ideas, encouragement and reassurance
HEY. HOW’S BUSINESS?
If you are looking for some outside expertise to make sure you aren’t missing anything or getting ripped off, and/or some direction and drive for your business, you might be in the right place.
“A Small Business Is Not a Little Big Business” – Welsh, White & Dowell, 1981
ABOUT YOU
Sometimes it is hard to know that you aren’t missing something
We like to start by talking about you, not about ourselves. As a rule, we think it’s always best to start with the customer, so if you just want to tell us how things are going, you can do that! Even before we talk though, we know it’s likely you will be a certain type of person and business.
You love your business
People who are interested and passionate about their business are the sort of people we want to work with. It’s fine if you know there are things you can do better – but you need to love what you do.
You know nobody is perfect
If you think you are, outside expertise probably isn’t right for you! Consultancy works well for businesses who want to look outside what they know – for the ‘unknown unknowns’ that can help improve the way they work.
You’re ambitious
We work with people from entrepreneurs starting their first company to companies with a turnover of £20m or more. Regardless of their current size, they all want to grow.
You like to think and learn
If you’re waiting for the ‘right answer’ to become apparent you might be disappointed. But there are good questions, and good answers, and you can learn from smart, serious people who have tried things before.
ABOUT US
I’m Phil Davies, and I set up HeyStrategy in 2011 as a marketing services company. Over time we expanded into a full-service marketing agency with a small team of really great marketers, working with dozens of companies and entrepreneurs across the northwest. Since 2020 I’ve been back to purely consultancy (the rest of the team are off doing amazing things on their own, and I still use them when they can make time for me!) so the ‘About Us’ now really just needs to be ‘About Me’ again.
Strategy & Marketing Consultancy
I’ve been working with companies and charities since 2007, offering marketing and strategy advice, ideas, encouragement and reassurance. I still don’t know all the answers, but I’ve seen most of the problems that small businesses in all sectors face and I can usually offer a few thoughts on how to deal with whatever the pressing issues are.
Business Growth & Support Programmes
A big part of my work is always through funded support programmes, for a lot of the business support organisations in Merseyside including Wirral Chamber, St Helens Chamber, Liverpool Vision, Wirral Council, Liverpool Council and Liverpool Growth Hub. I love how many new, interesting businesses this lets me work with, and the challenges it throws up.
Virtual Marketing Director
I don’t get involved much now in day-to-day, hands-on marketing, but I do still act as an outsourced marketing manager or non-exec director for some companies who need some outside expertise to complement their senior team.
HeyStrategy
in Numbers
18
Years
900+
Consultancy Projects
12k+
Cups of Coffee
GIVE YOUR BUSINESS A BOOST
Get some outside perspective
I challenge you to do better
I’m sure what you are doing is great. I want you to do even better.
Questions
I work with lots of people in lots of sectors, but I will never know your business as well as you do. My job is to ask questions that help you understand and articulate your business better – people talk about it as ‘holding up the mirror’.
Ideas
It’s often easier from the outside to throw in ideas that are new, different, riskier. We can look at things that have worked elsewhere, and things which haven’t worked, and try to change things up. Finding ways to improve needs honest discussion and challenge.
Motivation
Everyone, and every business, can get stuck in a rut, and sometimes you’ll just need a kick up the arse. If you do, I’ll try to make it a gentle kick! If you need your ego stroked then I’m probably not the right guy, but if you want some enthusiasm and spark I might well be.
“THE AUDIENCE IS NOT BROUGHT TO YOU OR GIVEN TO YOU, IT’S SOMETHING THAT YOU FIGHT FOR. You CAN FORGET THAT, ESPECIALLY IF YOU’VE HAD SOME SUCCESS” – BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, 2003
Don’t be scared
Marketing is often undervalued because people don’t understand it and are therefore scared of it – we want to take that fear away. It doesn’t help that marketers don’t always have the best reputation, which is completely understandable. There’s a lot of truth in the phrase that ‘marketers ruin everything’. We want to change that, and we try not to fall into those traps.
We are here to help our customers improve and grow through our knowledge, time, opinions and support. Let’s see if we can make marketing good again.
Testimonials
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“I really value the thoroughness, experience and honesty Phil presented towards our work. The constructive feedback has been excellent and exactly what I knew we needed. I genuinely think this is one of the best processes I have come through, ever. Thank you.”
Emma Smith
Artistic Director and CEO, Liverpool Irish Festival
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“Phil was brilliant, really enthusiastic about what we did and set us on the right direction. We both came out feeling 10 feet tall after that first meeting. We would highly recommend his services and will definitely be consulting with him in the future.”
Hughie Brennan & Steven Kay
Owners, Retro Chimps
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“Our sessions were beyond helpful, I learned so much and found it so beneficial. It was great to discuss all of the marketing factors in more depth and also figure out realistic ways to put this into practice
Frances Barton
Founder, Eunoia
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“I have found Phil to be switched on, enthusiastic about our business and very easy to get along with which has meant we can get to fixing the big issues without wasting time on the small stuff.”
Carl Meredith
Managing Director, MyJobQuote
“The EXPERT WHO ADVISES THE ADVERTISER: HIS PLANS MAY INCLUDE SUGGESTED CAMPAIGNS, COPY AND ART IDEAS, MARKETING PLANS, SALES POLICIES, AND THE LIKE, AND HE CAN PRODUCE RECOMMENDATIONS WHICH IT WOULD COST HIS CLIENT MUCH TIME, WORRY, AND MONEY TO DISCOVER BY OTHER MEANS” – CHAPMAN, MODERN BUSINESS PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE, 1935
OKAY, STOP READING NOW.
Let’s talk about it.
Thoughts & Opinions
“The best antidote to fear is competence” – Chris Hadfield, MASTERCLASS.COM, 2020
Any chance we could hear from people who actually have something to say?
This post is aimed at: Anyone with social media accounts, particularly people who use them a lot and people who don’t use them at all TLDR: Let’s all encourage people with valuable things to say to share them more by a) reducing our own noise and b) taking the oxygen away from the noisy minority…
A New Direction
I’m really excited to be starting 2022 with a new direction and a new business model. Or to be more accurate, an old business model that I’m going back to! It’s taken a couple of years of slow changes to get here, but I’m back to doing purely consultancy work, with no outsourced marketing work…
Writing Business Proposals
I’ve had to write up a couple of proposals for new work in the last few weeks. Here’s my quick tips for writing winning proposals. 1. Understand the Brief Let’s start simple! Make sure you’ve read the RFP (or RFQ, or brief, or whatever they have called it), because you’re going to need to make…
How can we help?
Send us a message or connect on LinkedIn, and let us know what you’re looking for.