How to build a print brand in a digital world with Lucy Cleland, Co-Founder & Editorial Director of Country & Town House

We often hear that print newspaper and magazine sales are declining as people switch to digital versions of their favourite titles. However, print still plays an important role in the publishing world and as ‘brand’ is such an important part of this I wanted to speak to someone who had started their own. 

In this episode, I hear from Lucy Cleland, co-founder and editorial director of the renowned B Corp Certified lifestyle magazine Country & Town House. Lucy co-founded the magazine in 2007, just before the financial crash of 2008, and has since continually advocated for living a ‘life in balance’ through its very popular print and digital editions. 

Keep listening to learn why Lucy thinks brand is important for any business but also why timing on developing it is key.

Lucy's advice:

• Be aware of your market, and your position within it 
• Concentrate on your unique selling point
• When you’re starting out, brand is not necessarily the most urgent or important thing, as there’ll be so much else to get on top of
• Take advice from your shareholders or board if possible
• Invest in design and good writers
• Consider the ethos of B Corp and promote its message where appropriate
• Your branding may grow organically with your business
• Use LinkedIn for help and advice
• Remember you are your own best resource

FF&M enables you to own your own PR. Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2023 MD & Founder of PR & Communications consultancy for startups Fallow, Field & Mason.  Email us at hello@fallowfieldmason.com or DM us on instagram @fallowfieldmason. 

Let us know how your start up journey is going or if you have any questions you would like us to discuss in future episodes. 

FF&M recommends: 

• LastPass the password-keeping site that syncs between devices.
• Google Workspace is brilliant for small businesses
• Buzzsprout podcast 'how to' & hosting directory
• Canva has proved invaluable for creating all the social media assets and audio bites.

MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link &  Licence

Transcript

How to build a print brand in a digital world with Lucy Cleland, Co-Founder & Editorial Director of Country & Town House

[00:00:00] Welcome to season 10 of How To Start Up, the podcast helping you start and scale your business with advice from entrepreneurs on what to do now, next, or never when scaling your company. This season, we're focusing on all things brand. So you'll hear from a series of amazing entrepreneurs on what they've learned in their own journeys.

[00:00:17] hosted by me, Juliet Fallowfield, founder of the B Corp certified PR and communications consultancy, Fallow, Field and Mason. Our mission is to enable you to earn your communications in-House with a long-term view.

[00:00:30] 

[00:00:30] Juliet: Excuse me, the irony that I keep losing my voice is not lost. but thank you Lucy so much for your time today on how to start up. It would be wonderful before we get into the whole brand season if you could introduce a little bit about yourself and the business that you founded.

[00:00:46] Lucy: Yeah, my name is Lucy. I'm the editorial director and co founder of Country in Townhouse, which is an independently owned multimedia brand with print offerings, newsletters, social [00:01:00] events. No publisher is ever just a publisher 

[00:01:05] Juliet: Congratulations. And when did you start Country in Townhouse? My goodness. Because I remember when we first met a few years ago and I'd always heard about Country in Townhouse and when I was at Chanel, we were pitching to get on the editorial pages and it was this beautiful brand title. It was this glossy, gorgeous magazine and of course online.

[00:01:25] Juliet: And then when I met you said, Oh no, I started it. I was like, what? I had no idea that you were the founder. Thank you.

[00:01:31] Lucy: I'm not doing the story well enough, but , 

[00:01:34] Juliet: But I think you just got on with it. You started this amazing brand and then you got on with it and it's gone from strength to strength. And I think what we wanted to chat to you about today was the fact that in the world of publishing print, everyone likes to catastrophize the fact is print is dying and it's all over and it's not.

[00:01:50] Juliet: And I think for. My perspective looking to your business, you've built an amazing brand and it happens to be a publication and it happens to be online, but it's brand [00:02:00] first in my mind because you've got all of these touch points. Would you agree? You, do you think of it as a brand or a business or both?

[00:02:06] Lucy: Oh, such a good question. I think I've grown into the brand and the brand's grown into me, and I think possibly, obviously I have a co-founder who is also my husband,  who I came from, I think quite a green, very editorial. Editorial is king and how do I work commercially and you have all these kind of tussles about,  what is true authenticity and then I, you move more into how to run a business as well as a brand as well as an editorial product, and it's fascinating and I'm really glad I've stepped up into that space more than just being a purely editorial person I think that the world that's opened up since then is amazing. I can say from the beginning, I knew very little about brand. 

[00:02:56] Lucy: It was intuition. 

[00:02:58] Juliet: And when you start a business, I think a lot of [00:03:00] people forget that they're not going to be experts on all things. Like I came into being self employed from a PR background, so I knew how to PR something. I had no idea how to run a company and this is where the podcast was born because I started asking questions and it's my work therapy, but you can't know the answer to all of those things from the beginning.

[00:03:17] Juliet: And a lot of our listeners are thinking about starting a business or starting and scaling a business. Just to go back to basics, what gave you the idea to start a print magazine?

[00:03:26] Lucy: So it's as basic as this. I worked in a business before this,  which produced. beautiful, glossy mags for London. So you had a glossy for Chelsea, you had a glossy for Notting Hill. and we developed about eight of these,  magazines that, that took those values of those, beautiful Condé Nast titles and try to make them relevant to a very local niche audience.

[00:03:48] Lucy: and so that kind of honed my skills of creating something with high values on low budget. and that back in the day that we were [00:04:00] propositioned by a bigger publishing company saying we're either going to buy you or we're going to make you go bust. there wasn't much of a question.

[00:04:07] Lucy: And subsequently all those magazines that we had created and were doing pretty well have disappeared. sadly for them. but we literally left. I worked with them for a year and it was, Probably the worst year of my life,  going from a publisher that,  really valued editorial to a very commercial advertising driven, that was the king editorials, just the,  

[00:04:30] Lucy: the kind of icing on the cake.

[00:04:32] Lucy: meanwhile, in the background, my now husband was What can we do? Where do we have expertise? And that expertise lay in property. So those local magazines are very,  property driven. So you had some, a little bit of editorial at the beginning, then these lovely kind of country lifestyle pages at the back,  which was a very successful model back in the day.

[00:04:51] Lucy: So our thinking was. Okay, you have the amazing magazine of this country life. It does phenomenally well. It's an institution. It's been [00:05:00] going, decades. does that magazine, speak to the children of country life? the more urban creatures, shall we say, that might not relate to, A dead pheasants or a black lab.

[00:05:11] Lucy: so our idea was to Create we always went and called it the kind of the naughty child of country life and we launched this country house, which has that kind of blur song resonance of being a bit more cheeky a bit more urban. Very much driven by that time pre 2008 this market that You worked hard from Monday to Friday in the city.

[00:05:34] Lucy: it's a bit of a trope and then you spent your relaxing time in the country. So these amazingly,  privileged people were flitting between two, how can we capture the essence of. what it was to live that lovely life, and your choices about, where you spend your time, your food, your interiors,  beauty,  and of course, property.

[00:05:53] Juliet: So you had this idea together, this is a whole other episode, the fact that you founded a business with your partner that [00:06:00] must be, and is still happily married,  so

[00:06:04] Lucy: married 

[00:06:04] Juliet: yeah, so huge congratulations on that, three kids with the business

[00:06:10] Lucy: Yes, yes, and a dog. Yep.

[00:06:11] Juliet: And, oh my goodness, okay, my hat's off to you.

[00:06:13] Lucy: Can't forget the dog.

[00:06:14] Juliet: But to go into the sort of the branding element, I think a lot of people when they start businesses, they do the thing they know how to do and they learn the rest and for you, you were learning how to build a brand. Where did you pick up advice or where did you look for to learn that?  

[00:06:31] Lucy: I think you're aware of your market and your position you're in. and what your unique selling point is. And this is in retrospect, I have to say, you don't read the handbook and go, this is what you do. You feel your way, you intuit your way, you have conversations, you make mistakes,  there is no blueprint.

[00:06:49] Lucy: and obviously when you're starting, cause you're so in it with your, and cash flow and, and everything, it's all,

[00:06:56] Juliet: there's a lot and it's

[00:06:57] Lucy: there's a lot to take on. And if you just [00:07:00] concentrate on brand, then. The doing of all the other stuff that needs doing doesn't happen. So

[00:07:05] Juliet: and you wouldn't have a business at the end to create a brand

[00:07:08] Lucy: There's no point just having a nice shiny document.

[00:07:11] Lucy: This is our brand where there's no accountants or no commercials coming. it's, it doesn't work. advice we have a, we have a board. We have shareholders who have, business,  involved in lots of other businesses who bring a lot to the table. so we don't own the entire business.

[00:07:26] Lucy: we have a good board,  awareness of, yeah,  as I say, the competitive market and what your USP is. So for us, our selling point was we're going to deliver you a top quality title, that is delivered direct to your customer who might live, if you're a business who's on Sloane Street, we're going to deliver our beautifully produced high editorial quality, product to your customer who lives 200 meters from you.

[00:07:53] Lucy: When you have a proposition that has the. The editorial quality of a paid for title. So you invest in your writers, [00:08:00] you invest in your design,  and you go to a brand, one of those Sloane Street, Bond Street brands that we carry. And you say, okay, we can service your customer who lives within 500 meters of you, for a, an Nth of the price of what it might cost to be in one of the big major glossy.

[00:08:18] Lucy: So that was our entry point. once we got one brand signed up,  he'd never done that kind of,  investment in a freemium title, shall we say? Then it opens the doors.

[00:08:29] Juliet: And I think it's important to say when you say carry, you mean advertisers and I think no. In the sense that I speak to a lot of people who are like, we want to be on the back page of Vogue and it's that's an ad and it's you need editorial and advertising. They work together because publications of businesses need to make money to survive.

[00:08:46] Juliet: And a lot of clients it's like, we need to be on the editorial pages. It's A, why does the reader need to read about you on those editorial pages? And are you supporting that business with advertising? it's it's a really interesting one. They go, Oh, I hadn't thought about that. I was

[00:08:58] Lucy: so, I mean it's, [00:09:00] especially in this day and age,  and that's, we'll probably come onto it, but especially with our new,  purpose driven around the kind of B Corp values and how, we talked about who's spending so much on the beauty of their products and the ethics and everything that they almost think they don't have to advertise because.

[00:09:19] Lucy: They're putting so much into this, but unless 

[00:09:22] Juliet: business is business. 

[00:09:23] Lucy: is told and it's an interesting area.

[00:09:27] Juliet: I think, yeah, again, people are learning as they go and they start businesses and they say, Oh, I need PR, I want PR. And they don't know what it is. And then with branding, a lot of people I've seen in our coworking office are like, Oh, we need a really great website. It's what's the point of no one's looking at the website?

[00:09:40] Juliet: You need to raise awareness first, put your head above the parapet before you then spend all the money on internalizing and that sort of owned platforms. And when you start building your brand, it will change. And this is the thing I know my business obviously way better now than I did at the beginning, but I had really no idea what I was trying to do.

[00:09:57] Juliet: I just tried. And. [00:10:00] The website, I did a DIY version because I thought no one's going to be looking. And if they do, it's enough. It's enough for now. But at what point in that launch for Country in Townhouse did you go, okay, now we need to look at our brand. Now we need to put it down on paper.

[00:10:13] Juliet: Or did it just evolve bit by bit?

[00:10:15] Lucy: Obviously we launched in 2007 and then in 2008, the world changed. That could have spelled the end of us. the bottom fell out of the market, especially the kind of country house market. so what do we do?

[00:10:28] Juliet: Did you go into survival mode?

[00:10:30] Lucy: Oh yeah. And we've had 

[00:10:31] Juliet: So

[00:10:31] Juliet: many crises.  

[00:10:32] Lucy: like, every business who's lived through COVID obviously.  

[00:10:35] Lucy: Obviously, it makes you sharper, it makes you more resilient. for us, it made us change our brand name. So we were cheeky country house. And because literally, we had no country advertising at all, it just fell out. the town market, the London market is way more resilient, way more international, way more moneyed.

[00:10:54] Lucy: so the luxury brands are obviously centered in the city. I couldn't call it Town and Country, [00:11:00] that's a big US magazine. don't want to tread on their toes. Country and Townhouse.

[00:11:06] Juliet: No way.

[00:11:06] Juliet: that's where it 

[00:11:07] Lucy: yeah, that's the story. We spent 10 years trying to explain who we are. I think when we're now, hopefully at a point where, we, we do have a bit of recognition, But, I, it, wasn't off the cuff at all.

[00:11:19] Lucy: There was a lot of education.

[00:11:21] Juliet: A lot of people think the magazine is one thing and of course all editorial will go online, but you've done events, you've done podcasts, you've done so many, when you say a media business, has that really helped build that brand awareness for the print title? Is it all going in to support

[00:11:36] Lucy: I think I now see it as when I did the magazine for Notting Hill,  really made me think of Westbourne Grove, which is very different to Portobello. So Westbourne Grove, they had the big brands, I think they had Chanel at the time and we were saying, there's no one in those brands.

[00:11:49] Lucy: They're just  

[00:11:49] Juliet: Shopfront. 

[00:11:51] Lucy: shop front. So to me, the magazine is our showcase. . This is one route to see all this kind of world behind,  it's [00:12:00] the smartest way in, probably, but there are all these exciting other ways in through, obviously, search engines, events, podcasts, newsletters, social, and how Making all that into kind of one.

[00:12:15] Lucy: So you get the same feeling 

[00:12:17] Lucy: of you're visiting the brand it's hard and it's a work in progress. and I think we're always trying to make that user journey more coherent. and that's the joy of this. You can keep tweaking, and with digital you can keep tweaking because you can read the data. so there's a huge benefit in it. but I'm very much still, on the print. Print is my heart. I'm,  

[00:12:43] Juliet: agree and I something and probably shows my age, but there's something really. It's really delicious about a print magazine and especially from a comms perspective, I can read it start to finish. Online is endless. You never get that sense of satisfaction that you finished it, whereas a magazine, you get it, you savor it, you [00:13:00] spend time with it and you can keep it or you can rip things out and share it another way.

[00:13:04] Juliet: it's more precious somehow, but with the rise of digital and again, my team were laughing. It's I used to just measure coverage with a ruler and fax it to Paris and they're like, what? I was like,

[00:13:13] Lucy: This is worth

[00:13:14] Juliet: Yes. Yes. Yes, exactly.

[00:13:17] Juliet: I was at Ace, advertising cost equivalent, and now obviously with clients, we're like, the more time we're reporting is the less time we're pitching, so let's just leave that and you know that we've got the coverage, but with digital, with social, with audio, newsletters, there's so many ways into a business and. I'd love to talk to you about community as well because I know with B Corp, you became B Corp in August, 2023, huge congratulations, 

[00:13:40] Lucy: Thank  

[00:13:41] Juliet: community is a huge part of it. You think about governance, workers, clients, your. General how you're functioning, but community, both from a branding perspective, but also business ethics perspective is really important.

[00:13:54] Juliet: Have you started to champion that within the heart of your brand, your community?

[00:13:59] Lucy: I [00:14:00] absolutely, and  it's central to my personal vision of what this brand can do. I've done a course on citizenship. engaging with people who are talking about, the world's problems and how businesses can help be part of solutions rather than, part of the old problems.

[00:14:23] Lucy: And,  That is a whole new excitement. It doesn't matter what business you're in. we can all look at around us and see what's happening. We see it on the news every day and ask different questions. And I think as business leaders to keep asking the questions is the evolution of your business.

[00:14:40] Lucy: we don't know the answers, but if you're asking the right questions. Then you're going to open up areas of excitement that would lead you to discover some of the answers. and this work, which, we, part of B Corp is asking all your staff their satisfaction. And would they recommend country intern houses somewhere to [00:15:00] work?

[00:15:00] Lucy: maybe 18 months ago,  we did one and it was okay. It was just benchmark industry. This time it was a hundred percent engagement in the brand and the business. and that's, that was after becoming a B Corp. And so obviously all  the changes we've made, whether, we recognize it not, is obviously having an impact.

[00:15:19] Juliet: It's a huge responsibility as well. I think you're in a position where you're disseminating information to thousands and thousands of people, your readership, your circulation, your engagement online. You have that responsibility, not as just a business owner who have employees, but to your readers in this huge audience.

[00:15:36] Juliet: But what I love seeing is the fact that you as a publication have become B Corp is that you're showing the. Bigger Condé Nast's and Hearst's, global businesses that have many more magazines under their belts that you can do better, they can do better. And B Corp, they're prodding it.  I've learned to prod upwards. I'm poking questions upwards to Google, to Hiscox, to Soho House, to, and asking them the questions. And [00:16:00] if enough people do it, someone said, Oh, you're a service based business. Why would you bother becoming B Corp? It's 78

[00:16:06] Juliet: percent of the UK economy is SME service businesses.

[00:16:08] Juliet: So if we. Or did it? Everyone will be better off. And that sort of prodding and poking, asking the questions, even if you don't know the answer yet. And when you're starting a business, you 90 percent of your day is not knowing the answers to 

[00:16:20] Lucy: Of course, Of course, 

[00:16:22] Juliet: But the mere fact you're asking and your team can see that you're asking it, you're a champion for better.

[00:16:27] Juliet: And 

[00:16:27] Lucy: Yeah. You see that in the, in the younger people coming through into the business.  

[00:16:32] Juliet: And your readers presumably as well.

[00:16:35] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. , it's hard with a magazine. Magazines should be about escapism, entertainment. how do you get quite serious messaging without becoming, a turn off, quite frankly, we

[00:16:48] Lucy: use Magazines to, to escape.

[00:16:51] Lucy: So my philosophy on that is to present some quite serious stuff. But in this beautiful environment, you don't have to read it, you [00:17:00] can read it. but also to tweak the regular stuff, so we always have Something that you might not know there might be a surprise that definitely,  on the brands that are doing better that we platform them higher than maybe the other ones.

[00:17:12] Lucy: And we tell new stories to crowd out the old stories. So it's not a confrontational thing to read us. It should be a joy, but hopefully there are some,  implicit messaging within that, that, if people looking. out for it, they'll definitely find it. But even if they're not looking out for it, it will seep into their knowledge base,  without us having to Hit people in the head, which no one wants, but we wrestle with this.

[00:17:38] Lucy: And as a B Corp, you wrestle with what's going on in the world and how much we consume and how much we buy and where we're buying from and supply chains and your carbon footprint. And it's big stuff. but I think you need to drill down as a business and ask where can we do better than obviously our biggest impact is in our readership.

[00:17:59] Lucy: [00:18:00] How can we, 

[00:18:01] Juliet: Yeah. And it's so interesting you say that in the last 18 months because I've certainly seen You've become a lot more vocal about what you're doing and you're big champion on LinkedIn and on social, and you're sharing as a business owner, what you're up to and why. I think a lot of people talk about when you're in the thick of it and you're exhausted, you've got to remember the why behind why you started this business.

[00:18:22] Juliet: But for you, presumably you're really enjoying now this privilege that you have, not privilege, you've worked really hard to get here, but you've built something and now it's a force for good and now you can use it to affect change.

[00:18:34] Lucy: yeah, you're so right. It's weird, I don't, I think my writing's got much better. I think I'd be really shy. I'd be I can't speak, I can't, I, it's taken me a long time but that's because I'm so certain about the direction we've gone in. that It's easy for me to talk about it now,

[00:18:50] Juliet: It overcomes the fear and the shyness.

[00:18:52]  

[00:18:52] Lucy: I, maybe it's, it's that kind of cognitive dissonance of presenting one thing and not feeling it.

[00:18:58] Lucy: Whereas,  I now [00:19:00] feel what we do and a hell of a lot more to do, trust me. but we're in the right direction and the people I'm meeting through opening this door is just, is making me a happier person about the situation the planet is in. And if if we all sit at home terrified, there's inertia and inaction and only through feeling connected and inspired, can you act.

[00:19:22] Lucy: So it's it feeds you to keep going in what is a hard space when you look at the bare, raw facts of what actually is going on.

[00:19:31] Juliet: Yeah. And you've gone into a landscape that's competitive on a good day. You've gone through crisis, after crisis. But you have this, and I hate to use the word brand in the context of doing good because brands typically you think lots of money, lots of wastage, lots of luxury and frivolous, you've built this platform, that can start to educate people to shift that Titanic and nudge it in the right direction. Now, cause you're so [00:20:00] passionate about it. I think for me, when I was working for other companies and it was. PR, God, PR has such a bad reputation.

[00:20:06] Juliet: I hate it. Whereas now my mission is to enable founders to own their own PR. And it's I can fix this. And because I'm so determined and adamant, it's the right thing to do. It keeps me going. It's my fuel and to have the B Corp, and that's why we scored well with B Corp in, and it is a point system, let's be honest, but it gives you a framework to work within and learn from.

[00:20:27] Juliet: It was that validation of. You are a tiny business, you are making this up as you go along, but we're this third party that can validate that and make you feel like you are in the right direction. And it's like  

[00:20:36] Juliet: a big sister. It's quite a nice

[00:20:39] Lucy: it's, yeah. Yeah. and. Do it down at your peril. Obviously people can make mistakes and things can slip through, but, nothing is perfect it's the most kind of holistic in depth framework that I've come across, and it has to be based on something or how do you even begin to score so I, I'm such a big fan.

[00:20:58] Lucy: And they're very encouraging [00:21:00] and helpful. It's not  

[00:21:00] Lucy: It's not 

[00:21:01] Lucy: like the Oxbridge exam where you have to cram everything and present on the day. It's an environment that will want you to do better, of course, because our planet's at stake.

[00:21:12] Juliet: Yes. And I think what I've witnessed them do with their brand and building their brand and the fact that it is quite a tall poppy and lots of people like to shout it down, but it's show me the alternative, show me a better way. Nothing's perfect. And as long as I know I'm, as a business owner, trying to nudge things in the right direction, and it means now we're educated on this and know the framework, we can help our clients and our audiences.

[00:21:32] Juliet: And just that dissemination of information further, it can only be in the right direction. You're never going to get the answer tomorrow and finish it and be complete and perfect.

[00:21:39] Lucy: no, no, it's ever moving and ever will it move. Nothing is ever complete.

[00:21:45] Juliet: going back to the country and townhouse brand, is there anything that you would offer a new founder who's sitting on the fence petrified?

[00:21:53] Juliet: What would you suggest to somebody who's starting to think about their branding rather than their company?

[00:21:59] Lucy: [00:22:00] Yeah. you got the thing, whatever it is your product or your service that, that you really believe in because you are your brand when you start, aren't you? so you're your biggest champion and putting on your smart shoes where you feel confident because I've met a lot of brand founders and it.

[00:22:20] Lucy: Only really comes out. through them that you go, ah, I get that. so you are your own best resource. so have confidence in yourself and what you're, if you really believe in what you're doing, the rest will follow just it's so big. I think you just. You just start the conversations, you'll meet someone here, you'll get an idea you'll need this, and you'll, and as I said, LinkedIn is an amazing, to me, environment to ask for help and to ask for advice.

[00:22:50] Lucy: I think, never be shy to ask the most obvious question. I think that's a huge mistake people make and that you have to present as perfect and with this. Obviously you [00:23:00] need a solid financials and how you're, costings and how you're going to actually make this work. but yeah, believe in you as your best brand advocate to start with.

[00:23:10] Lucy: so live up to, to, to what your product or your offering is.

[00:23:15] Juliet: It's so true and a lot of people say that it's I just want to go make jewelry in the corner and I don't want to say anything or speak to anyone. I just want to do the product bit. It's you can't. Michael Tobin, who's an amazing entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur.

[00:23:27] Juliet: He was like,  anyone starting business, you have to accept that 80 percent of it is sales, whether you like it or not. And I was like, Oh, good point. At least at the beginning and without that, you won't have a business. And I think people can busy themselves and get caught up in building the website and doing all those bits that are diverting them from, 

[00:23:47] Lucy: the essence.

[00:23:48] Juliet: do the bit that you really don't want to do first.

[00:23:51] Lucy: But I absolutely agree. But it was also like, you might think you have an idea of your audience, but until you have the data,  how do you know it's that [00:24:00] audience? you might be creating for that audience, but actually you're hitting a very different audience that you might be completely surprised about.

[00:24:06] Lucy: So you've got to be open to Ah, okay. This is where I'm hitting it, and I thought it was over here.  

[00:24:11] Juliet: So how have you ensured that your brand has kept itself differentiated from the competition? Have you proactively constantly looked at the market and made sure that you stand aside and stand alone?

[00:24:25] Lucy: I think being independent,  I used to again be quite like, we're the tiny guys in the corner, don't look at us, nothing to see here. But I think as,

[00:24:35] Juliet: It never came across like that, just for the record. It came across like you had your shit together and you know exactly what you're 

[00:24:40] Lucy: no, no, not at all. I think being independent stands us in wow, they've survived. A, we don't have massive coffers behind us. We don't have a head office, supporting us. So whatever we do has a massive impact on, paying salaries every month or, We can't afford to make huge mistakes but then we have to keep, we [00:25:00] have to keep developing and we have to keep learning.

[00:25:02] Juliet: Has it meant you've made quicker decisions as well? You've been able to be 

[00:25:05] Lucy: yeah, we're allowed to, we're allowed to play a bit more. we don't have a protocol. We don't have a head office saying, this is the way this works.

[00:25:12] Juliet: you are the head office, you know that, right?

[00:25:14] Lucy: That's that, why, not? not why, not?  And that's exciting, and that keeps us ever moving.

[00:25:22] Lucy: And then this whole, B Corp thing, and giving, underpinned by a sense of purpose for everyone, especially the young guys coming up through, when they're really motivated by purpose not just a string to our bow, it's now becoming the fabric of what we do.

[00:25:40] Juliet: I see that underpins all of your activities. Anytime I see a touch point of Country in Townhouse, it is rooted in that and it's very clear. and there's other publications out there I won't name, but they all blur into one a little bit. They don't really stand out. It's which one would I pick off the shelf?

[00:25:55] Juliet: I know what I'm going to get from Country in Townhouse, whereas others I'm a bit lost with. [00:26:00] So I think it has really helped your reader. Know what they're going to expect and what they're going to get and not be disappointed either. Have you seen that come through with sales and engagement with your audience?

[00:26:11] Lucy: We've had our best year ever, we're not quite at the end of the year.  Print advertising is strong for us still. And we're obviously growing the digital as we go on and 

[00:26:22] Juliet: That's got to be linked to the fact that you have built this incredibly well respected brand and advertisers slash brands want to be part of that. And they want to be associated with that. It makes them look good too.

[00:26:34] Lucy: I think we offer a relationship with brands hopefully. we want it to work for them. It's our head on the lines when it doesn't.  So get a relationship with Country Town. It's not just like a, an ad on a page and the sales team too are very invested in the brand.

[00:26:48] Lucy: I think we've also learned to value our brand, we have a very strong law audience. we have to respect what we do.. But it can't be for nothing.  

[00:26:56] Juliet: well, on that, given that advertising revenue for publications is [00:27:00] so key, it's why publications can keep publishing. And presumably now you've made a huge rod for your own back with B Corp because you'll be declining the wrong advertisers. You'll be saying no to the wrong revenue because you've got this standard that you want to keep.

[00:27:14] Juliet: That must be, is that quite liberating in a way? Because it keeps you really focused on the brands you do want to bring in.

[00:27:20] Lucy: So luckily we're not in the position of being advertised by, fossil fuel, but all companies essentially use fossil fuels. But,. we have now a protocol, we're champions of people doing better. So unless it's a very obvious, no, we're going to not turn away the chance to work with someone if they're on a journey.

[00:27:42] Lucy: I think that would be very stupid because we're all on a journey and people could turn around to us.

[00:27:48] Lucy: You print, you cut down trees to create, none of this is perfect. But

[00:27:53] Lucy: I think we come from an encouragement point of view and what are you doing? Because literally, come on, everyone is [00:28:00] we hope doing something, 

[00:28:01] Lucy: um, rather than a shutting door. Unless it's very patently obvious there is a little tension there.

[00:28:08] Juliet: Yeah. And I think there's something to say, we've met some clients where we're like, they're not where we'd like them to be, but we can help them get there. And by working together, they will keep them closer to help them further and 

[00:28:19] Lucy: Yeah. That's 

[00:28:20] Juliet: a lot of,  

[00:28:21] Juliet: the greenwashing is quite interesting and then green hushing is also quite interesting that people are so worried about saying the wrong thing.

[00:28:27] Juliet: They won't say anything at all. And people can't learn from these endeavors. But. B Corp particularly gets a lot of backlash because someone said to me, does that mean you're not going to travel so much? I was

[00:28:36] Juliet: like, it's not absolute,  it's putting people and planet above profit. You still need to be a profitable company to be a B Corp.

[00:28:44] Juliet: You can't be a charity to be a B Corp. You have to make profit because with profit, you then have agency to change things. And a lot of people forget this and you can't travel, like you, you turn on 

[00:28:54] Juliet: a light switch.  

[00:28:56] Lucy: sit in a hut

[00:28:57] Juliet: Yeah. You're never going to get anything 

[00:28:58] Lucy: of, yeah, [00:29:00] no, that, no, the commercial is a dirty word to be corpus, is not the right way to look at it. it's a framework to do. Not just better to put to do really well. And obviously there's a sliding scale. You can score just about what you can score very well.

[00:29:14] Lucy: And obviously the scoring very well is once you become one, you work harder and you have to score higher every time. So there is a kind of impetus to keep doing better. You don't, you can't just rest on your laurels. 

[00:29:25] Lucy: And but they're also brands who have ethics and sustain at their very heart, but they don't have a kind of some fancy accreditation.

[00:29:33] Lucy: They should still be, championed and welcomed into this amazing new world of. Of, cliche, business as a force for good is grotesque, but, why not? we have to be part of this. We are 

[00:29:45] Juliet: Yeah. 

[00:29:46] Juliet: given that we all need jobs and we all will be in a business working for, or founding or starting, you may as well try and make it a force for good. It's  

[00:29:54] Lucy: A hundred percent agree. And it's, it's intrinsically satisfying as, you can see you're beaming and [00:30:00] I'm, 

[00:30:01] Juliet: Oh, I'm really tired. It's I might be

[00:30:04] Juliet: slightly deluded, 

[00:30:05] Lucy: . but, there is, there's a reason to get up every day, apart from just keeping the show on the road, 

[00:30:11] Juliet: .  

[00:30:11] Juliet: It's that extra level and I think what's interesting, we talked about it on the previous episode, how Bain and company would always talk about mission and vision and management consultants would come in and work with your mission and vision. And we do a lot of work with our clients on it, but now purpose is there too.

[00:30:24] Juliet: So you've got mission, vision, and then purpose. And I think it's, I would. I hope it isn't, but I'm assuming it is very consumer led that brands are seeing clients ask. I work a lot in the jewelry sector and a lot of clients are like, where's the gold from? Where are the diamonds from? They're questioning and that, that going back to that prodding and poking, if people are asking questions.

[00:30:45] Juliet: Business owners will listen and go, if that's what they're asking, we need the answers and that purpose, but also if you're going to get up and work really goddamn hard every day, you may as well do it with purpose and enjoy it and get something more than just that 

[00:30:58] Lucy: yeah, [00:31:00] yeah, what are you leaving behind, essentially,

[00:31:02] Juliet: Yes.

[00:31:02] Juliet: that is a very interesting note to end on because what we do is the previous. Guest has a question for our next guest and his question for you is how do you innovate for the future within your business? It's a big one.

[00:31:16] Lucy: So big one. we held one of our great British brands Breakfast and,  the guest was the chief exec of IBM. And the,  title of the talk was, AI as a force for good. so essentially I rushed back to the office, I spoke to the, my husband and our amazing COO go.

[00:31:38] Lucy: Okay. The first thing we do is engage with how AI is going to provide opportunities,  for us as a media brand, what does that mean, how do we learn to ask the right questions, and having been prompted by that IBM talk,  I was like, yeah, we've got to ramp up our knowledge about this because It is [00:32:00] here.

[00:32:00] Lucy: it is coming. All brands are looking at it. Some with horror, some with skepticism, some with, getting complete commercial advantage. and it doesn't have to be the big scary stuff. It can just be little things that you can start with. but I say, look, we have X amount of people visiting our website every day.

[00:32:18] Lucy: How do we serve them something that they really want? Along with some surprises along the way, that's, that, that personalization of content,  is one area that we could be looking at and then, putting the right brands with that content. So there's a whole kind of package. So I think AI and personalization is huge.

[00:32:38] Lucy: So that's possibly where we could be innovative.

[00:32:42] Juliet: So it's really amazing because you'll be looking at the data all the time and you're learning from it. But I love, and I was always the geek in the Chanel PR department. I'd be the IT help desk and love fixing things. And I was completely fine with this. And some said, Oh, very corporate. You like a spreadsheet.

[00:32:56] Juliet: And I'm like, that's a compliment, but now. When you're a [00:33:00] business owner and you open your laptop and you're like, okay, I've got to learn Xero accounting software. I've learned Descript podcast editing software. I've learned Canva. I've learned so many. And one of my team members said, we've learned so much this year.

[00:33:11] Juliet: Like Toggle for tracking our time. WhatsApp for business, LinkedIn. there's so many platforms that we can embrace as non specialists in those areas, payroll, all of that stuff. But AI is what I love the most is we're in it with them. So I can see Canva tweaking on a daily basis and we do a lot of decks and stuff.

[00:33:31] Juliet: I say, it's so annoying Canva don't have page numbers. They don't have that function. Sam, can you email them? We emailed the customer service, said, guys, we're not going to be the only ones that want you to integrate your page numbers to your decks. Now, yeah, you're right. Look into it.

[00:33:43] Juliet: You're in this development of other people's businesses with them and the fact that. Us tiny little UK based communications consultancy emailed Canva, which is a Tricon, I think now, went, can you help us help you help us? And it's this lovely, amazing evolution. And with [00:34:00] AI, we're at the coalface with 

[00:34:01] Juliet: them. yeah. 

[00:34:02] Lucy: yeah. yeah. 

[00:34:03] Juliet: And what would your question be for the next guest?

[00:34:05] Lucy: For your next guest, I'm gonna ask how are you gonna differentiate yourself from the rest of the market? What is your stamp on, on this new landscape that you're going into? 

[00:34:17] Lucy: What's your essence? 

[00:34:18] Juliet: Thank you. Thank you, Lucy, so much for your time today. It's been fascinating talking to you. All things country and townhouse branding.

[00:34:26] Lucy: Thank you for having me.

[00:34:27] I really hope you've enjoyed this conversation, you can find a recap of all the advice so kindly shared by guests in the show notes, along with our contact details.

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