Tag Archives: marketing strategy

Bella Williams on the Fierce Girl’s Guide to Finance – MAF188

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This week I talk to Bella Williams, founder of the Fierce Girl’s Guide to Finance.

Bella makes finance simple and we talk about how and why she set up her blog and the success she’s had with it.

Welcome to episode 188 of the Marketing and Finance Podcast.

Bella Williams on the Fierce Girl's Guide to Finance - MAF187

What you’ll hear about in this episode

  • What attracted Bella to financial services
  • Why it’s important to simplify complex terms
  • How Bella set up her website
  • Why you need to plan your communication messages
  • Why she’s passionate about helping women understand finance
  • Bella’s advice for women wanting to work in finance

Who is Bella Williams?

Bella is the founder of the website “The Fierce Girl’s Guide to Finance.”

She studied English, History, French and Latin before falling into corporate and financial PR. She worked for a range of clients, including financial advisers and wealth managers.

Having seen the financial world from all angles and developed a ‘nerdy love’ for it, she gained qualifications in applied finance to increase her knowledge.

She now runs the PR and communications department for a fund manager at home in Sydney.

Summary of our chat

Bella says she likes taking complex information to simplify it and explain it to people, and has done this throughout her career.

She says she came to financial services because money is at the core of so many things and she finds it fascinating how everything fits together. Bella believes there’s a need for people who can simplify financial complexities for everyday consumers. Financial communications people add value by making technical language easier to understand. She thinks it’s harder to write something simple than something complex, because you have to explain a concept within certain constraints.

While working on an initiative for financial literacy, she ran some sessions for PR colleagues to explain finance. These went well and inspired Bella and a friend to create videos on the same theme. She then turned these into blogs in a chatty, simple style, as if she was talking to a friend in a bar.

It’s important to map out what you want to say before you start. Bella recommends identifying your overarching message as the one thing your reader will take away. Then, choose three sub-points that would also be helpful for them, and the supporting points for each. Create a narrative structure and build them into a story.

Many women feel dis-empowered and disconnected from their finances, but Bella wants them to re-frame money from being bad and scary into positive, empowering and enabling. Her challenge is to help women decide to invest in their future, because they aren’t conscious of the choices they’re making when it comes to spending. Bella’s advice for women wanting to get into financial services is to just do it! Her own career shows that you don’t have to run portfolios or use spreadsheets to work in finance.

There are many career options within the industry, and while there’s a shortage of women, choosing the right organisation makes a difference.

Marketing Campaign that grabbed Bella’s attention

Bella says she’s obsessed with Ellevest in the US, which is an investment service aimed at women. They have strong reasoning for why women need different products relevant to them. The founder, Sallie Krawcheck, is also a strong supporter of women in finance and business in general. She’s keen to help women-led companies to get more investment money, so it has a social cause too.

Recommended business book

Bella says she rarely reads business books, but listens to a lot of podcasts. Her favourite is The School of Greatness (search for it on iTunes), where the host, Lewis Howes, interviews successful people on what they think is the key to greatness. The guests encourage her to think differently about business and life.

Links and contact details

If you enjoyed – Bella Williams on the Fierce Girl’s Guide to Finance – please leave a comment or a review on iTunes.

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Competitive Advantage: Is being better good enough? – MAF187

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Do some companies obsess too much about being better than their competitors, when in fact they should be focusing on being different?

In this episode we’re going to be talking about competitive advantage.

Welcome to episode 187 of the Marketing and Finance Podcast.

Competitive Advantage: Is being better good enough? – MAF187

What you’ll hear about in this episode

  • The “Better Trap” of trying to beat competitors by adding ever more features
  • How bench marking competitors can take your attention away from what the customer really wants
  • The three sources of competitive advantage; product, price and service
  • Is the key to standing out to be different rather than better?

If you enjoyed – Competitive Advantage: Is being better good enough? – please leave a comment or a review on iTunes.

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Chris Budd on Employee Ownership Trusts: A new way to build sustainable businesses – MAF186

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This week, I welcome Chris Budd back to the show.

Chris has recently put his business, Ovation Finance, into an Employee Ownership Trust, a fantastic way of creating sustainable businesses owned by the employees.

We talk about the process Chris went through and the book he’s written on the subject, The Eternal Business.

Welcome to episode 186 of the Marketing and Finance Podcast.

Chris Budd on Employee Ownership Trusts: A new way to build sustainable businesses - MAF186

What you’ll hear about in this episode

  • How the Employee Ownership Trust model works
  • The four stages of building a sustainable business
  • Setting up collaborative decision-making
  • How ‘the flag in the ground’ concept helps employees
  • Who the Employee Ownership Trust model is for
  • How the model benefits consumers – the John Lewis effect

Who is Chris Budd?

Chris has worked in the financial planning industry all his life.

Seven years ago, bored and trapped in his business, he started trying new things and being more creative. He wrote novels, played in a covers band and changed the business so he was the least important person in it.

This culminated in selling it to an Employee Ownership Trust.

He works now as a consultant and a writer of business guides. He has followed his first book, The Financial Wellbeing Book, with a second: The Eternal Business, about a different way to build a sustainable business.

Summary of our chat

The shares in the Employee Ownership Trust won’t get sold, so the beneficiaries are the employees, who get the profit. The focus moves from increasing share prices to long-term, sustainable profit. The business owner sells their controlling interest to the trust, who receives the future profit and pays the owner out over time. Chris identified four stages he considers vital for a sustainable business:

  • ‘The flag in the ground’ is the sense of purpose and the why.
  • ‘Collaborative decision-making’ is ensuring every employee has a say in what happens.
  • ‘Engaged employees’ includes a combined career and financial plan to help them develop.
  • An ‘ownership model’ allows you to walk away but the business keeps going.

Collaborative decision-making is a culture shift for a business, but it’s better than death by committee. There are other ways to organise companies and they don’t need stereotypical bosses. Employees need to have a say and a way to be heard. Chris set up working groups to administer budgets in different departments.

Chris says it’s tough to come up with their why, so he asks people to think about what a client might say, and why they’d choose them over a competitor. Defining values may alienate some people, and that’s fine. If everyone agrees with you, it’s not a sense of purpose.

The employee ownership trust model is ideal for owners who genuinely care about their clients and employees. They have a purpose and want to leave a legacy rather than the company disappearing when they leave. Building a business with an endpoint in mind should be fun and why they started in the first place. Consumers will have a different experience with a business run on an employee ownership trust model.

John Lewis adopted it years ago, and Chris says the staff are much more helpful than in other stores. They are more engaged and more invested in supporting customers.

Recommended business book

Chris recommends Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux

and also Drive by Daniel Pink

Here are the books Chris has written.

Links and contact details

For more information about the employee ownership trust model, the Employee Ownership Association has a wealth of information on how to do it: . Chris recommends attending a regional meeting to learn more, and you can find details of the nearest meeting to you on their website. Chris also offers consultancy, although spaces are currently limited. His book will also soon be available as on online programme, with 12 modules to take you through the process to build a lasting business, webinars and blogs. The cohort option brings with business owners at a similar stage for a quarterly, facilitated day session: www.theeternalbusiness.com

If you enjoyed – Chris Budd on Employee Ownership Trusts: A new way to build sustainable businesses – please leave a comment or a review on iTunes.

And if you know anyone who would enjoy the show – please share it with them. You can use the buttons below to share on social media.

Don’t miss an episode of the MAF Podcast – subscribe now.

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