If you’ve ever read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by the great Steven Covey, you’ll know that Covey believes wholeheartedly in the importance of sharpening your saw.

He points out that if you’re cutting wood, and you never stop to sharpen the saw, your cutting will become less and less effective.

The metaphor for those of us in business is clear: if you never get out of the day-to-day and out of the four walls of your business, over time, you’ll also become less effective.

The battle to thrive as an independent kitchen retailer is only becoming more intense. 

One of the key contributing factors?  The big boys.

The Nationals continue to play the discounting game and fling money around on marketing, infiltrating your prospects’ minds and filling them with all sorts of preconceived ideas - some of which are pretty darn difficult to shake.

A couple of weeks back, I spoke about the importance of a strong online presence, and it’s something that we work on consistently for our business.

And the Google review posted on Sunday will certainly help with that.

It was from a very lovely lady called Joanne Hunt, Owner of Appleton Kitchens - a Pronorm dealership in South Manchester. I’ll leave it to her to tell you the story…

I’ve talked regularly about the fact that over the last two decades, Google has changed the game. So, I won’t rake over old ground – if you’re not getting found online, you’re missing out on countless opportunities.

I hope that you already recognise the value of Google (or ‘Search’) for your kitchen business, and you’re wondering how you can make even more of it.

If so, I’ve some valuable insight, so read on.

In this winter’s edition of Inspired, your kitchen marketing newsletter brought to you by Inspire KBB:

David Barker gives his insight into the foundation of Inspire KBB’s success, and it’s personal!

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I don’t know about you, but ever since the EU Referendum in June 2016, politics seems to have been unavoidable.

Turn on the TV, or open a newspaper, magazine or news app, and the coverage of Brexit, Parliament and the EU has been constant and consuming.

And not just in our personal lives: Brexit is a conversation that has come up time and time again in a business context.

No doubt you’re super busy right now, ensuring that the last of your 2019 clients’ kitchens are ready to go for the onslaught that’ll take place during the festive period.

But, have you given a thought to what happens AFTER Christmas?

In my experience, the few weeks following Christmas and into January are some of the most vital in determining how busy you’ll be in the early part of the next year. So, if you’ve got nothing planned, keep reading.

You might know that one of my most trusted lieutenants is Charlotte Turnbull – she’s our Project Management whizz, and she makes sure all the Inspire KBB cogs continue to turn.

When it comes to work, Charly doesn’t leave an ‘i’ undotted or a ‘t’ uncrossed, but the other day she confessed to me that this isn’t always the case at home.

I finally changed my windscreen wipers the other day.

In truth, they’d been deteriorating for some time now - doing less and less of the job they were designed to do.

But over the summer, during that generally good weather, it was a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ - I didn’t need them, so I didn’t consciously notice just how bad they were.

David Barker draws some vital observations from the experience of three successful senior ‘home specialists’ that’ll help steer through any rough passage.

Times are somewhat interesting for British businesses right now. Political uncertainty seems to be having an impact on businesses.

But let’s be realistic - this isn’t the first time our country’s experienced choppy waters like these over the past few decades. And you know what? There are plenty of experienced people around who’ve been in your shoes before.

The latest issue of our newsletter tackles Brexit in the kitchen industry, giving you some practical pointers on how you can navigate troubled times.

In life, deadlines drive decisions.

Whether it’s moving house in time to get the children into the right school catchment area, hot-footing it to the shops before they shut, or ordering a pint at the pub when the bell goes, the reality is that most of us are familiar with the way that deadlines can force us to take action we would have otherwise taken much slower, or not taken at all.

In the word of kitchen sales, it’s no different.

As the weather starts to cool off, things are hotting up at Inspire KBB HQ. Everyone is into 5th gear, ensuring we deliver on our clients’ marketing strategies.

Thankfully for me, our Senior Project Manager, Charly Turnbull - the Queen of Implementation - is on hand.  Charly is a vital part of everything we do at Inspire KBB, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to introduce her.

Something important happened to us last month. 

We became KBSA Corporate Members.

As you probably know, the KBSA is a ‘home specialists’ association dedicated to upholding high standards of design, supply, installation and customer service throughout the KBB industry.

And we see that as important.

At Inspire KBB we’ve been working so hard these past few weeks, I briefly stopped to look up and was shocked to see it’s August tomorrow!

That means we’re smack bang in the middle of — summer holiday time.

We’ve been fortunate with some good weather over the last few weeks (yesterday excluded!), but now the children are off, the flip-flops purchased and the time by the pool or beach starts in earnest. 

And I don’t doubt that you’ve earned it too!

You may have heard the phrase, ‘Content is King’?

It’s often used in the context of business growth and marketing, and the idea behind it is simple: To get enough attention to convince a prospect that you’re the right choice for them, you need to be creating content that they can engage with.

Content that educates and informs.

Content that cajoles and compels. 

Content that nurtures and content that sells. 

In the kitchen industry, there’s little that’s more important than the content you put out, for the simple reason that the transaction you’re bidding for is a considered one.

Brexit.  The word you’re sick of reading, the subject you’re sick of talking about.

But if you think this email is just going to be 300 words of bleating on about Britain’s exit from the European Union, think again.

Like most industries, lots of kitchen and bathroom retailers have concerns and worries about what will happen when the UK leaves the EU, and some of those concerns may be valid. 

However, it’s certainly shouldn’t be all doom and gloom, and today, I just wanted to shine a light on a positive news story I read recently on precisely this topic.

I was having dinner with a friend of mine last week, chewing the fat about all manner of topics.

My friend’s name is John, he’s a lovely man, and – among other things – he’s a mortgage advisor.

And inevitably, we ended up talking about business, and about the various different marketing strategies we’re both deploying to get more customers and grow our businesses.

One of the things that became really obvious during the conversation was the truth of what’s known as “Pareto’s Law”, otherwise known as the 80:20 rule.

In this month’s edition of Inspired, your kitchen marketing newsletter brought to you by Inspire KBB:

David Barker explains why kitchen retailers shouldn’t compromise on pursuing their target market, and how to home in on the right kind of customer.

It goes without saying that if you’re serious about success in 2019 and beyond, you need to be thinking seriously about your digital footprint.  

Before the internet revolution, what mattered was your reputation – who knew about your business, what people said about your business, and how easy it was to find information about your business.

And none of that has changed. It’s just evolved.

Now. rather than just asking around among their friends, or ringing you up to find out more about what you do, your prospects are busy searching online for the information they need.

When it comes to marketing a kitchen business, the current perceived wisdom is that digital media is where you should put the majority of your spend.

And not just digital media; targeted digital media.

The best example is Facebook.

Kitchen retailers have flocked to Facebook in their droves, thanks to the promise of super-specific targeting.

Now, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with targeting.