Episode 10- Solo Episode 'development of new Clue business, turning an idea into a reality'
Now I'm on the cusp of launching my new business clue. It launched iin January. And I thought I might give you a little bit of a kind of history of Clue up till now because a lot of people have been asking me about it. And I've had loads of questions about why I'm opening up a third business. So let's dig into it.
So my idea for clue came to me in January 2022, depends when you're listening to this, but literally a whole year ago from this, kind of saying I think when it comes to entrepreneurs, that we can come up with loads and loads of ideas, but sometimes you need to kind of take an idea, not act on it straightaway, but write it down, come back to it in different time, and see how it fits in. And I had the idea to clue a really, really long time ago, but I decided that I wasn't going to act on it at that moment. Because I was totally at capacity. I mean, I'll be honest, right now I'm trying to get capacity to but this is the right time to move. I'll get onto that in a moment. But the point being that I've managed to kind of create an upside down business, I started off my businesses went start when I went I mean, I won't give you the whole spiel, but you know 17 When I started my first one, and then I moved into the wedding industry, then I moved into the events, industry and and started consulting people and helping people with their marketing.
And I began this kind of digital marketing section of my entrepreneurial life really doing it for people.
So I started off with a few corporates and experimented with them and then moved on from there. But the landscape of digital marketing has changed so much. And I moved really quickly into consulting into concentrating on group programmes and concentrating on memberships and courses that teach small business owners and micro business owners how to do their social media, and in particular, Instagram. And that was fine until a year ago. Tick tock has been out a little while by now. But reels were really starting to take hold on Instagram. And there was a really big move towards video content that was spurred on and I think accelerated by lockdowns and people doing loads and loads of video content. Now, it could have been something that was kind of saved for lockdown. And then everyone kind of stopped doing it, as they say, going back about their daily lives. But it didn't do that it kind of continued to take hold. And what's happened over the past couple years is this video content has just dominated the marketing industry. And because of this is starting to change and force change the way that people are marketing their business.
I read a great stat that said 62% of consumers have a negative perception of a brand if they have poor quality content and 23% of consumers won't buy from a brand, because their lower quality of content equals perceived low quality of product or service, which isn't correct. But this goes on the whole everybody actually does judge a book by its cover instead of us hoping that people don't. But I've been watching this happen. And I wondered how the kind of change in this real push would affect small business owners. I think I actually quite quickly got into it and kind of decided to start off by teaching people the steps in huddle. Literally make a reel by pressing this button, doing this with a button. Let's try this one very kind of step by step making meals every week, every single week inside of huddled to make sure that people kind of grasped the ideas of doing reels. And I still do that now.
But the point being that in January, I thought it's not going to be enough to just tell people what to do anymore. I need to do it for them. Because I spend a lot of my time in consultation calls with people in the agency telling them that they need to create more content now, a while ago like two years ago, that kind of creating more content would have been putting Picture putting up a caption and letting it go. And someone who said I didn't have time to create content, I guess you probably don't have time to create content. But it's not really a pass when it's as easy as that. But now what it says notice a year ago is the past of I can't I don't have enough time I haven't created my content is really valid when you're expected to make like four pieces of video content a week to keep up, there's a lot that goes into it send me it's not just posting a picture, but it's like cinematography, graphic design, branding, audio, and it requires like a different set of skills.
So about a year ago, I sat and thought, You know what, I'm gonna have to do this for people. Because I'm so passionately driven by the fact that small micro business owners need to be able to market themselves and need to be accessible. That is like, the only way I can do it for people is to do it for people. I don't think that teaching people about making video content at this point is very helpful. I think it's perhaps a little bit overwhelming. Perhaps the problem, though, is that creating video content professionally is very expensive. And small business owners don't just don't have that kind of a budget, they don't have that spare. So this kind of idea can't serve that huddle end of my business where people are, you know, very, very fresh, or they're not making a huge amount of profit. And they're just kind of at a point where maybe they're making an extra 100 pounds to reinvest in their company every month so it couldn't really sit with them, even though I'd absolutely love to be able to find a way that it can. So I really sat on dauterman.
And I consulted a few people this past year who are videographers and said to them, Look, why aren't you doing quantities of social media content for your clients, because it's what's needed. People just need it done for them, they need to be sat down in front of a camera, and told what to do, and get it done and get it filmed. Some of it can't be like, really professionally driven, it has to look like it's come from your phone. So some of it Yeah, sit down with your phone, let's make this staff. But I thought about that in January, I've talked to a couple videographers I've talked to over the years, they were a good idea and never acted on it. So why aren't they acting like it because there's loads and loads and loads of business to be made here. And also it's kind of serving a bigger purpose and taking down a barrier to entry to marketing. Now what's happened in between sort of month one sick let's consider right now month 12 Like month one came with the idea decided to park it told a few people about it. month six, halfway through the year, when I have my I tend to have a summer break. So I really sat on it again. And this idea just kept coming up.
I don't know if you've had that where the idea just keeps coming at you keeps coming up, it keeps coming at you. And eventually you can't ignore it as much as you try and park it on the shelf. You just can't ignore it. So I said to myself, Okay, let's flesh this out. Let's see what this idea would become, and work on it when I had time off because then my brains kind of not on all the other things that I'm doing and has the ability to look at it properly. But I just kept coming back to the fact that it has to be accessible. Like it really has to be accessible. But what happened in between those months month one to month kind of August is that the quality of videos increased exponentially it was not just you can shoot these things on your phone, but kind of grainy trending audios and pointy reels really aren't cutting it they became quite kind of old you know the kind of over filtered old Instagram photos that used to happen all the time, they became quite new took a while for them to become tired but these kinds of videos that were creating a year ago became really really tired very quickly and kind of cringy and now what's happened is looking into 2023 Is the video quality that you you know also what happened as well as iPhone 14 came out and god damn that cameras good. And that I think was the Samsung or someone who has a really really good camera. I can't remember which one it is. And so these videos are just really kind of slick and really professionally done and they are really captivating the digital marketing landscape. So I thought like I'm going to have to find a way to make sure that people can keep up with their quantity and keep up with their quality now and make it accessible and decided that I would play with the idea of it being a group concept.
Now in clue company that launched in January there is a one on one offering, there is a new pay me between two and a two and a half grand a month and I will do you one on one offering. This is reserved more for the kind of medium corporates who want professional He created campaigns and are really interested in heavily investing, I don't maybe have like one or two of those people in my network. But it's not something that I wanted to concentrate on at the moment. But it's definitely something that I could do really, really easily. So why not put it out there as an offer. But that wasn't the focus of click, the focus as a clue was to experiment with this idea of a group format.
Because what happens in a group format is that you can bring the cost down, because you're not just paying for one person to have exclusive access to something the group's kind of chipping in, right? It's like when you go on a Hindu or stag do or something is cheaper than going on a solo holiday during one of those experiences, because everyone's chipping in. So I looked at this group concept. Now also, what happened in August is I, a couple things, I met this phenomenal videographer at a festival who was working in events like serving drinks, and she is an amazing videographer. And I just knew I would find some way of being able to work with her. Secondly, I sat down and had a conversation with a business friend of mine called Dean, who said to me, You know what, if you just made me sit down, and make me do all of my videos, and my reels, I'd do it because I have all this stuff. They're just not doing it. And I don't know what to do on what days and stuff.
So as an accumulation of those two, and the idea that was already rattling around in my brain, that led me to this idea of a group format, where I would help people do their high quality and high quantity content. But again, it needed to come back to the fact that I needed to do it for them. Because it's a skill that I don't want to just sit and teach people anymore until I'm blue in the face, if it's not something that they're realistically going to be able to do. Like if I was to scare you all and say like, I love seeing what's coming up next. Like I've always been quite like an adult early adopter in that sense. And I can see it's 3d animation, augmented reality, virtual reality, literally around the corner with Metaverse, and we're in this, you know, there's like the industrial revolutions, and whatever we are in this web three revolution, where the capabilities of the internet and AI and the creative industries are just absolutely soaring, because we're partnering that up with advances in technology that are happening quite quickly. So I don't want my clients to be sat around still thinking about how to make a reel when suddenly, within three years, they'll be expected to create 3d animation. Like we've got to do our own businesses.
How we are supposed to the point is, though, that social media is such an incredible tool for marketing your business is phenomenal that absolutely nothing like it. But if you're going to commit to it, you kind of got to commit to it. So I need to keep my other offerings. Because the point being that doing stuff, like creating video content for someone obviously, comes at a cost. With the group format, I can bring the cost down, which I've kind of explained already. But I need to be able to get people to a point where I, you know, if they only have 100 pounds, spare capital, to reinvest in the business every month, then that's not something that I can serve that kind of huddle end of my market is something that I could probably upsell to that mid. So kind of the agency level of my market. It's also known that people were spending money on social media managers. But I also know that social media managers cannot make people's reels because it needs to be coming from the business owner.
So social media manager also kind of stuck in this kind of, well, I can make graphics and I can make pictures and stuff. I could probably make some animated videos with pictures and graphics, but I can't make a real for someone because that has to be them. We have to point a camera in their face and do it. So okay, well, what how much are social media managers these days, because I used to do it, but it was like six years ago, and social media managers, you know, the average salary in the UK now is 37 grand.
So, okay, cool. Let's look at how much a solo small micro business owner is spending on social media managers. And it ranges between the kind of 400 a month mark to the kind of 1500 pound a month mark, and I know that I could hit something in that range. So I thought, let's play at this point. I was like all the ideas are here, I can most likely think of ways to be able to make it as accessible as possible. Next problem is time people don't have the time to sit and create all of this video content or for me to shoot all this video content, so I need to make sure that it is slick handily, I have developed a way of creating strategic marketing plans very quickly that are very effective over the years in my business. I mean, if I could Pat I would but you can't patent an idea in the UK, you can in America, but in the UK, so I can do that I can come up with a plan. And basically, the strategic marketing plan where we come up with an idea for every single poster every single day is a shortlist, I can I hand that to a videographer and say, This is what we need to capture, they'll capture it for photography, I'm like, This is what we need to capture, they'll capture it or give it to a graphic designer and say, These are the graphics we need. They'll create them.
So I thought, screw it, let's have a go, let's have practice. And I asked my alumni group, my alumni group is a kind of exclusive group of people who have worked with me before, and want to continue to foster a working relationship, but also a community. And so it's a monthly what's rolling three months commitment. And we go out, and I experiment on them. And I help them but they also really, really help each other. So instead of my alumni, we practice this thing, we only got one day, but I'm going to bring videographer and photographer to talk to a graphic designer, we didn't do the graphic design in the end, but come up with some shoot ideas, we're going to shoot them, see what we can get. They were like, Yeah, sounds amazing. They get free video content, free photo content, updated brand photos, all that kind of good stuff. And I get to play with my ideas. And I kid you not, it was amazing. Like practically, I learned loads of things. But being able to see how I could do this for my clients was absolutely mind blowing. And after that point, I have been completely heads down in making sure that clue gets off the ground, because it means that I can help my clients post every single damn day on social media, in video, format, graphic format and photo format, with really high quality, and making sure that every single thing they post out there has an actual purpose because it's based upon a strategic marketing plan. Pool, sat down and worked out the cost, it all comes back because it has to be accessible. There's a whole kind of drive behind this. And I managed to work out a cost that really really sits right but the only thing was like the editing, editing takes a long time really does the most laborious section of, if it's like a three cycle, we plan we shoot we edit, we deliver to the client, we plan we shoot we edit we deliver to client editing is take some time. So as much as I've got an editor and Passover, the work to the editor to do the editing, I came up with all the cost, the total cost was kind of on the tail end of what people are paying for social media managers, you know that kind of closer to the 1500 round bracket rather than the 400 pounds a month bracket.
How can I make sure again, this is even more accessible?
So I decided to separate out the editing into an upsell option, whereby we'll do all the planning and do all the shooting. And you can either choose to have all your assets given to you there'll be graded, there'll be edited so that they look good to just run with you don't do any of the kind of filtering or anything like that, you just have to cut up the videos basically, and make them to the plan. But here's all the stuff for you to be able to do that. And that's one option for those who need it to be as accessible as possible, and possibly have a little bit of time or possibly have a person in their business that they could pass over kind of the cutting up videos to an hour charge for the editing separately. And then the editing has to be a bit more of a premium service to be able to charge for it separately.
So with the editing, you basically have your plan, and every single day you have a link to that piece of content, it's completely edited and completely ready to post, all you have to do is add a caption. To be honest, these pieces of content are so high quality, your caption doesn't need to be very long for them. So it's gonna be really, really, really slick. So I landed 750 pounds a month for the group service. And 1350 pounds a month for the group service plus editing. It's so good, I'm so happy with the price. I'm not normally happy with prices. But I'm really happy with the price of this. Because it's a really premium service.
If you look at the quality of the content included just go to clue.content on Instagram. It's really up there and it's very challenging for the industry. It's competitive, it will exponentially make these businesses stand out. And because of that it's going to really really increase these businesses' brand reputation. Their lead people are going to sit up and pay attention to them because they're so hot and for 750 pounds amounts like entry fee, I was like, this is really comfortable. Like I'm really, really happy and pleased with this. And that's kind of brought me up to where I am now. But the point being where I am now, on the edge of launch, sitting and thinking, oh my god, it's not gonna work.
And it's so funny how your brains do that, I've been sitting on this idea for a year working on it really tirelessly, making sure that every single piece of thing has been created with real care and thought for what my customers need. But what I know is that they're going to become a non negotiable in the near future. And then I've got no evidence to say that it won't work. I've got people who are already interested. I've got a couple people who have already signed contracts, and we hit the go pedal in January, a bit still, that doubt nickels in your mind, you just have to put that to the side. Because sometimes you have to realise I think in business, that failure isn't an option. If you're day in and day out, working towards something. It's like learning how to be an Olympian swimmer. There has to be a little bit of talent there. But it doesn't have to be actually, arguably, this would be a good book. Because if you practice and practice, and practice, and practice, and practice, and practice, and do things and do things and do things and do things and do things, eventually, you land on something that equals success.
So at the point of you reading this, that's where I am, I had organized a big launch party in January. Firstly, to kind of feels this whole concept, this whole idea feels really big, bigger than anything I've ever done before. And I want to kind of put a stake in the sand with that and say, Okay, this is me now, you know, this is me, I own three digital marketing companies, three different levels of entry, I am really focused on making sure my customers are the pinnacle of what they can be. So there's that there's the wanting to thank people, because when you really, really push and scale, and when I decided to say yes to this idea, I obviously had to pull back on some kind of family commitment. Like I've stopped doing laundry, for example, my husband now does the laundry. He’s so helpful, obviously, things fall by the wayside. So it's a big thank you to the people that support me and have supported me over the years, even when they thought I was crazy for coming up with all these ideas.
And also like a nice marketing activity to get people in a room to loads of people what I'm trying to do here and trying to achieve and get them to share on social media. So I had that coming up, fifth of January, I've got these clients lined up contracts lined up. And the only thing I'm not sure yet, I've just gone into pitch for a grant to secure a little bit of funding to just get us off the ground by here in a couple of days. So by the time this comes out, I'll have probably heard whether I won or not, you'll have been able to have seen my stories. Or if you're following just drop me a DM to be honest and ask did you get that grant Inge, even if in loads of years to come.
But it's such a transitory month, last December. And the irony is I'm only working two weeks of it. Because we've closed the business for the second half of December. Christmas is also my birthday on the 30th of December. So I'm definitely not working on that. So we'll see. This feels like the beginning of something big. But I guess I have to end this with watch this space. But I hope it's been really helpful to read into the Mullings of how this idea have kind of come to light and the different sections at which I said yes or no or how's that going to work? You have to ask yourself all these questions as you go as you're developing an idea. And if you've got something that you're working on, then definitely go back and read this and pick out some of the key questions I asked myself and ask yourself the same thing. I'm quite confident I can say that after owning businesses since I was 17. I'm very astute in being able to develop and launch ideas. So I know the kind of key questions I need to be asking myself and I hope that they are helpful for you.
And I hope you're also sitting there and thinking with the idea that I can't stop thinking about, should I say yes to it, or should I say no to it.
I hope you've enjoyed reading. If you want, drop me a DM let me know over on my instagram, IngeHunter, and tell your friends and I'd love your support over on Instagram, Clue.Content and head to clue.content website to see what I'm all about and what I'm doing over there. Until next time.
Inge x