Covid 19 has been an ally for us.

Not in a business growth way, so an odd thing to lead with.

The first budget to be cut during a crisis is usually marketing, so we’ve had a little forced breathing space. As stressful as it was, in hindsight I see it as an ally, because we’ve been pushed to take our own medicine.

Taking our own medicine

And potent medicine it is! Beginning by returning to the first pillar in our Five Pillars for an Electromagnetic Brand, which is Audience.

There are many audiences for every business (including ours), and separate strategies are required for each. We explore that elsewhere in greater detail. But for now, we start by getting clarity on who you love to serve and how they think, speak and feel about the problems that you solve for them. With this knowledge you are able to serve them better because you can communicate with relevance and resonance. Friction disappears.

After analyzing the last 20 years of clients we’ve worked with, it became clear to us that we love helping second+ generation business owners transform their brands. Research then opened up a new and exciting world of family business. A surprise to us, because we hadn’t looked at the world through that lens before, but clearly not to those well entrenched in the space!

Getting familiar

At first glance we see family businesses account for 70% of all businesses in Australia and employ around half of the country’s workforce. That translates to both a huge and broad audience. Not good for marketing and by no means the shallow depth at which we recommend any of our clients stop digging.

Our experience tells us purpose is more important now than ever before, and we have plenty of other ideas we want to validate. There have been some great reports produced, but none answer these for us.

We need to go deeper for insights. We’re about to launch a small study to measure the collective pulse of multi-generational family businesses. Our focus is on the new generation of family business owners and leaders, and their biggest challenges and priorities today in their businesses.

After conversations with other purpose led professional service organisations, we are expanding our idea to include collaborative partners, and in doing so our reach and collective impact.

A spoon full of sugar helps the data come down

We want to produce a valuable report, full of insights. So we are seeking the opinions of 1000+ of these next generation leaders via a 9 min survey. A grand prize of an Electromagnetic Brand Refresh package valued at $16,500 is on offer, along with a pool of runner up prizes including brand strategy sessions, media workshops and other great prizes supplied by partners.

Our goal is to understand their biggest problems, so we can serve them better. The ultimate goal is to help them transform to more purposeful businesses with all the rewards this brings them personally, for their people, communities, and the world.

Purposeful partnerships

An opportunity exists for more non-competing, purpose aligned professional service organisations to get involved. If you’re in accounting, financial planning, legal, management consulting, coaching, design thinking, associations, governing bodies or media (or any others), with a database of and passion to serve multi-generational family business, we would like to partner with you to promote the study and deliver the report.

Partners can be featured on promotional material, website, have input into the study, provide prizes, and have first access to the report and option to comment for press releases. And as a partner you will be the go-to for respondents needing help.

Collaboration network

There is a view to establish a collaborative network of purpose led professional services after this study and we are excited to speak with those it resonates with.

We are almost ready to go and intend to formally launch the study late August, with a soft launch soon. I would love to hear from you if you have any comments, suggestions or want to be involved.