Our current design work for our website, brochure, stationery, etc was entrusted to a local design and marketing agency called Side-A.  The boss is a chap called Simon Ashley and their offices are in the village of Long Crendon on the Bucks/Oxon border.

I became aware of Side-A as a result of receiving a copy of their “newsletter”.  Not very innovative or exciting you may say!  Bear with me.

I had a meeting in London first thing and had elected to take the 7.30am commuter train on the Chiltern Line from Haddenham and Thame Parkway to Marylebone.  It was actually a nice bright morning as I stood on the platform waiting with all of the other bleary-eyed “suits” setting off for their day in town.

On the north bound platform opposite, on a bench, reading the morning paper, sat someone in a gorilla suit, with a pink tutu, reading the morning newspaper, apparently waiting for a northbound train.

Even the conservative, non-speaking commuters were stirred from their routines to wonder, and even talk to other passengers about the “vision” opposite.  I then became aware of someone moving down my platform handing out a newsletter entitled “Go Gorilla!”

Once we were on the train, I noted the amount of people reading the newsletter – some people even smiling.

The newsletter was unusual, quirky, written in a very overt and friendly style with case studies, testimonials, marketing news, etc.  The newsletter showed examples of quirky marketing campaigns – but also some more high-brow design work with gravitas and quality. One of its main messages was that you don’t have to pay top London Agency rates to get top quality creativity and design.

To cut a long story short, I called Simon Ashley, had a meeting with him and gave them De Leon’s design and creative work for our rebranding. This blog, and this site, is their work and, I hope, you agree that they know what they are doing!

QED – Gorilla Marketing works!

Philip Westerman, De Leon Ltd, Personal Reputation Management

I had a meeting yesterday with a client for whom De Leon did some work a couple of months ago. He runs a small, provincial accounting practice and his major target market for new business is start-ups and local SMEs.

Prior to the personal reputation management work that we have now implemented, the “marketing” of his company, in his own words, comprised the company web site and the occasional advertisement in the local paper. However, he said that most new business comes by referral or recommendation.

We had discussed this process and the client had pointed out that most referred, or recommended, clients also got the names of other potential accountants during the process and that potential clients usually did some research on their options prior to deciding to pick up the telephone and call.

Our work concentrated on working on his digital presence and that of his partner (business partner). We determined the criteria upon which a potential client may decide that our clients were right for the job. We concentrated on getting coverage on articles about starting a new business, press releases about his clients that had grown from start up to successful businesses with him, and created a personal blog site for each partner.

We helped write the first few blogs to indicate the style, content and stories that would be interesting and attractive and helpful to his target market. The blog site also included, in this case, some additional pages covering their business roles, their background and provided some RSS feeds on local business content.

In his words, the results “are astounding”! He has got new business in the last couple of months of course – but, importantly, two of the new accounts indicated that they had “read up on them” before deciding to call.

He generously told me that our fees were more than paid for already!  The even better news is that he is a “total convert” and is now recommending De Leon Personal Reputation Management to others.

To any of you that are out there running businesses, you will understand how satisfying it is to work hard on behalf of a client and then be rewarded with unsolicited praise.

Philip Westerman, De Leon – Personal Reputation Management