Case Study Business Clarity - Sarah Shuttle Creative

Aug 9

business clarity, BRAND STRATEGY

Sarah Shuttle Creative by Sarah Shuttle

Sarah Shuttle Creative is a creative studio for luxury brands . Sarah’s mission is to help luxury brands to attract high-end clients through brand identity, website design, stationary & marketing materials and photography direction.

After working with Sarah her clients have worked with more ideal clients, had high-profile collaborations, topped recommended supplier lists, were published in national features, saw an increase in demand and ultimately – income.

Website: https://sarahshuttle.com/

Instagram: @sarahshuttlecreative

Pinterest: sarahshuttle

The goals

When Sarah and I got to talk she had been in business for almost 5 years but was frustrated and lacking in direction and consistency in her strategy to grow her business. To kickstart the process, understand what Sarah Shuttle Creative was about and where Sarah wanted to take her business we had 2 sessions. One session focussed on business discovery and the second on business development.

The main goal for Sarah was to create a business:

That brings in enough money to reduce the number of hours that are worked per week
That is not solely based on trading time for money
Where a base income in generated from passive or semi-passive products/programs
Where there is time for creative/passion projects again in such a way that it brings back motivation and joy
Where style, creativity and luxury become the red thread through everything

The Sessions

In the first session we covered:

Setting goals
Vision and Mission for the business
Simon Sineks - The Golden Circle (why, how, what and the addition of who)
Current competitors and positioning

In the second session we covered:

Brand positioning
Brand differentiation based on the competitor research
Discuss market research that was done into attracting higher paying clients
Customer journey
Brand Archetype
3-month action plan

The first session
The focus of the first session was to uncover where Sarah was now in her business journey and what her vision and goals were for the future. Then we used the Golden Circle from Simon Sinek to define why Sarah started her business, how she is helping her clients, what she is offering and who she loves to work with.

One of the struggles Sarah had was that potential clients were comparing Sarah Shuttle Creative with other designers in the market that are not specialised in luxury design while offering services at a much lower price point.

Therefore, in between the 2 sessions, I performed competitor research based on the competitors Sarah had mentioned in the first session, to uncover where the opportunities were in the market.

The second session
We started the second session with a quick recap of session 1 to make sure we were still going in the right direction. From there we talked about how Sarah could make her business stand out in the market to attract luxury brands with the right budgets.

What we uncovered from the research was that there was an opportunity in the market to differentiate. While services for brand and website designer will generally be similar, the messaging in the market also seems to be quite similar. As most designers use a variation of authentic, thoughtful or intentional design to sell their services and sell the results as gaining credibility, confidence, reflecting personality and expertise, there is an opportunity to be more distinctive, more compelling and more emotionally engaging.

There was another opportunity that came from Sarah being a self-taught designer. She doesn't 'abide' by all the design rules because she designs from the heart. Therefore her designs are unique but always created with a purpose.

We then dove into who the ideal client is for Sarah Shuttle Creative:

Clients that have an established business
That are in the business of working with people
That have a need for style
That is aware of the value of luxury design
Who are aware of their own role within the process
And who are able to trust the expertise of the designer

After this, we looked at her brand personality that we based on her brand archetype and how she could use this in practice. And developed her brand messaging from her tone of voice to how she can live her brand.

The last thing we looked at before creating an action plan, was the customer journey of Sarah’s clients. And how she could take them from initial brand awareness to being an advocate for her business by looking at how her ideal clients could find her, how she could build trust and ultimately work with her and refer other clients to her. For each stage we identified her main focus and if this was something that was already in place or if it needed to be created.

In the final past of the second session, we combined all that we had learned from both sessions and drafted a 3-month action plan so that Sarah could move closer to reaching her goals.

The roadmap & action plan
After the last session, I took everything we had uncovered and created a roadmap for Sarah that clearly stated the strategy for her business & brand. And complimented it with an extensive action plan on how she could reach her goals.

Case Study Sarah Shuttle Creative by Flourish Online Management

The results

Sarah said she really liked diving into her unique selling point and seeing how she could stand out in a sea of other designers, as well as the brand archetype work! She feels more aligned and she knows where her unique angles can be found and used in her marketing to improve her business. And was looking forward to portraying herself in a more authentic and aligned way and getting more consistency in her business as a result. Her next goal now is to expand the business to also offer educational services.

Testimonials-carousel

“I was frustrated and lacking in direction and consistency in my strategy to grow my business.”

We dived into my unique selling point and how I could stand out in a sea of other designers. It is a deep and intensive process but I truly got a plan you can implement. It is not a general, superficial plan - it is a thorough strategy to set you on your way!

I now feel more aligned and I know where my unique angles can be found and used in my marketing to improve my business. And I'm looking forward to getting more consistency in my business as a result.

Sarah Shuttle - Sarah Shuttle Creative