Branding for Schools

Ian Paget: You work in a niche. And I've used you as an example throughout the podcast since I've started it, because I think if anyone out there is niching and doing well, you are one of the best examples that tends to come at mind. So your niche is branding for schools. You have School Branding Matters. And I it's this that I would really like to talk about on this podcast and we'll see where this conversation goes. But I'd like to start this by going back a little bit prior to you creating School Branding Matters. So how did you originally get into graphic design for schools?

Craig Burton: I originally worked for a design studio here in Christchurch, and I worked there for about six years. And then my wife and I decided to have children and I resigned from work initially to go home and look after our first child. And then from there, I started doing a little bit of freelance work part-time to fit in with all of that. And in 2007, 2008, there was the global financial crisis. And the little bit of work that I had dried up quite a bit. So I wasn't really doing very much, and by that stage, my children were at school. And one of my daughter's teachers was creating these certificates at school, and they were Microsoft stick figure certificates. And I thought, "Oh, these are pretty average."

Ian Paget: Yeah, I can imagine.

Craig Burton: Yeah. I can help them do a better job of these. So I started creating certificates for her teacher. And the principal at the school at the time saw what I was doing and thought, "Oh, these are pretty cool." So he called me into his office and asked me if I would like to help him work on refreshing and revitalising the image of the school through things like their logo and other bits and pieces around the brand identity, and-

Ian Paget: So, sorry to interrupt. That initial a thing that you did for them, was that just for fun, just for free, just to help them out?

Craig Burton: Yeah. Yeah. It was a parent helping a teacher. Oh, you talking about with the certificates or with the other...

Ian Paget: Yeah.

Craig Burton: Yeah. So I was just being a parent and just offering my skills. And I said, "Yeah, sure." And so I started helping out with the logo at the school and refreshing that. And then that moved into various other bits and pieces. And over the course of about eight to 10 months, I built up this volume of work. And I really enjoyed working with the principal and working on the bits and pieces that I was working on. And I thought, "Well, why don't I see if there are more schools out there that are in need of this type of work?" And so what I did is I put together a booklet and I started door knocking, and I got a lot of pushbacks. And then eventually one day what happened was, I rang out one school and I got the PA, the personal assistant to the principal. And I said, "Look, I'd like to have a meeting with the principal to talk about school branding, and some of the things that I think might be of benefit or use to the school, would it be okay?" And she said, "Yes."

And so we organised a meeting and I went into the meeting. His name's Phil Harding, and a lot of principals in New Zealand know Phil. He's a well loved guy. And he called me into his office, big long table. And we sat down and I went about presenting what I had. And I showed him, he had a look at the booklet, and I had one in front of me, and we were talking through. And he goes, "Look, when my PA organised a meeting with you," and these were his words, he said to her, "Why the F did you do that?" "But having seen what you do, I really think this could benefit schools. So can you please send me an electronic copy of this? And I'll send it out to all the schools in the Canterbury region." Because unknown to me at the time, he was the person in charge of the Canterbury Christchurch principal school association for sending out material that might be useful to principals. And so I sent him an email of this case study and he sent it out to about 250 principals in the region.

Ian Paget: Wow.

Craig Burton: And it was as a result of that, that I started to get a little bit of work. So that's the beginnings of a business. But I didn't know what I was doing at the time, I just wanted to try different things and see what happened. And so then that got me on an email journey, sending out different emails. And I would send out 20, 30, 50 at a time. And in the early days of doing the business, that was really, really important. Because, as you know, with that volume, and also wording the email in a way that will get people's attention, you'll get some perspective leads back as a result. So it was important in the early days when you're starting to get known. And that's how I got started on the journey of branding schools.

Ian Paget: That's amazing. I wonder if you hadn't met that guy and that receptionist hadn't put you in touch with him, and if you didn't reach out and contact all these other people, if you'd be in the position that you are now. Because you were looking for opportunities and that opportunity came along and opened up a whole load of doors for you.

Craig Burton: Yeah. And I also think, after I did that initial work, I had almost this light bulb moment when I realised that I really, really love doing what I'm doing. That I had this understanding of, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my working career," if you like. Was, as far as I know now, at that time.

And so I wasn't able to articulate it very well, but I knew inside me, "I really love this." I had a reasonable idea, or a little bit of an idea of where I wanted to go with it. I didn't know all of the ins and outs of how to get there, but I had this excitement and this energy and enthusiasm about what I was doing.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. And I know you still absolutely love it today. So with the story, you've got to a point where you've decided that you want to focus on designing brands for schools. How did you then go about starting your business, School Branding Matters?

Craig Burton: Yeah. So after I decided that this is what I wanted to do, it was in a case of, I wanted to have a name for the company. I didn't just want it to be me, I wanted it to be easy to understand, clear about what I was doing, and have a little bit of a bit of play on words. And so I came up with the name, School Branding Matters. And it is quite wordy, it's probably not ideal, but like the name because it's got a friendly vibe about it. It's also got with the word matters, it's a bit of a double entendre in that it's important and it's the thing I do. So it's got that double meaning about the name.

The name took a little bit of time to come up with, and then it was a case of articulating using the right language, what I do. So the who, the what, the why, and the how of what I do. And then the website that I have now, it's a little bit old. I do want to get around to refreshing my brand a little bit because it is starting to look a little bit it tired, but that's another story. And it's like the builder in his own house, you always struggle to get around to working on your own house.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry, I understand. And I'm sure if there's any graphic designers out there, they know. You get to a point with everything that you're doing, you want to update it, but it's not a simple task, it's a big task. Takes a long time and you don't get paid for that. You need to prioritise the stuff that makes money a lot of the time and you can't always dedicate time to updating your own stuff. So don't worry, I can totally understand.

Craig Burton: Yeah. Yeah. But what my website does reflect and what my online presence does reflect. And when I'm talking with my clients and prospective clients, it's a reflection of who I am as a self-employed designer, branding person, if you like. And I think that it's really important to understand who you are and how you work, and the types of clients that you'd like to work with. And to reflect that in your own brand. So for me, I wanted my business to be friendly, I wanted it to be professional, obviously, and I wanted it to showcase a lot of the types of things that I feel schools I want or need or desire or what have you.

Ian Paget: So what we've spoken about so far is how you got to this point where you really enjoyed working with schools and how you were able to build at that network and start to get more clients and to create your own brand. But because I'm keen to talk about niching and there's been a lot of conversations around niching down, so I'd like to hear from your perspective, what was the benefit of you going from being a freelancer that did a bit of work that was just coming your way to being someone that was dedicated towards creating graphic design or branding for schools? What were the benefits for you?

Craig Burton: Yeah, so we've already talked about this a certain extent, but it suited my lifestyle. So I think that if you are going to niche down, or if you are going to work as a self-employed designer in general, it needs to suit your lifestyle. So I resigned from working, as I said. I've been there for six years, I've got two young daughters at home, and then at school. And it was something that I could easily fit into what was my priority at the time when they were at home. And then school hours gave me more time to focus on work. And now with both of them having left home, work during the day is my main focus and I can easily scale it.

And so that was one of the benefits, it suited my lifestyle. The other one would be, I can really, really focus on the needs of one industry, if you like. And if you think about it, there's lots of specialist businesses out there that are serving individual markets, and ours is no different. But I see online lots of talk about niching, but the design industry is one of many that can have niches in it. I think that the thing is it's whether you enjoy it or not, and there's a sufficient need, want, or desire in the market to create a thriving business from. So I think that's a benefit of niching. What's another one? When you're working in a niche, I think when you are, it's because you want to be there and it's because you love working in that area. So waking up every morning and heading into the offices isn't a chore. I love what I do.

And that comes back to having a clear understanding of your business aims and goals as a reflection of working in whatever that market is. And for me, I understand my who, my what, my why, and my how, when it comes to working with schools. And I articulate that as clearly as I can to schools, so they understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. And those things go beyond just the money or the products, that has to do with my purpose for being in that market. And that comes back to my... So I've got a motto, which is essentially my mission statement, if you like, and that's inspiring journeys in school branding. So that's my why, if you like. And that has to do with inspiring school principals to go on a school branding journey with me, so they get excited about their own brands. And also those schools, having been on that journey with me, they become inspiring to other schools. So there's that double thing happening again.

And actually to be honest, whether or not they go on that journey with me doing whatever it is they want me to do is not important. I will get work, and I hope I continue to get work. But the fact that I've created or I'm working in this area which is making or helping schools think about their own school brands a little bit more, that they'll go out and inquire of me, or they'll go and ask another designer or branding specialists to help them with their brands. That's really what's important. And so that's me why, that's my bigger purpose. And I think that we all need to have an overarching purpose in order to understand why we do what we do.

Ian Paget: Yeah. You almost make it sound like you're not selling a product, you're not selling graphic design, you're selling a transformation journey and you are the person that will facilitate that. And you turn a school from being a caterpillar in an ugly and clunky and not quite sure the direction that they want to take, to going through this cocoon phase where you turn them into a butterfly. Yeah, it sounds like you are taking them through a transformational journey. And the way that you are talking about it now, and I've never heard you talk about it in this way before, and I've known you for ages, but it sounds like you have a very genuine desire to go in and help, and it's not really about the money, it's purely about helping them and you love what you do. That's how it comes across in what you're saying.

Craig Burton: Well, yeah. Obviously, I'm running a business, but behind that business is a passion and an excitement about what I do. And that passion and excitement, it's never disappeared in the last 14 years that I've been working with schools. It's just gotten stronger. And that excite comes from a solid foundation based on a clear understanding of what I'm trying to achieve.

Ian Paget: Yeah.

Craig Burton: So I know who I am. So who am I? I'm I'm School Branding Matters. What am I? I'm a school branding specialist consultant. What do I do? Why do I do it? To create inspiring brand journeys in school branding? And how do I do it by creating tailor made branding solutions for schools that they want or need. Those kind of simple things. But then when you start to explain those things to, in my case to principals, and I talk about them and what they're wanting to do, it is exciting because it's all new. It's a new school, they've got their own things that they want to address, and they want solutions for.

And when I start talking about the whole journey, because it is a journey, it's an ongoing journey, it's a marathon, not a sprint, it's exciting. And I do get excited about it. And I think that as designers and branding specialists, if you're excited about what you do and you're able to talk about it clearly with your clients and with prospective clients, especially prospective clients for the first time, you'll get them excited because that energy and enthusiasm rubs off on them, because you seem to know what you're talking about. So I think it's really, really important that you have a clear understanding of who you are in the first place.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I know anytime I've got excited on telephone calls or Zoom calls with the client about how I can help them and about their business, that's always gone down so incredibly well with them. And usually, on calls like that, they tend to go ahead. So yeah, I agree with that advice as well. So anyway, one big question I do have for you, would you recommend that young designers or new designers find a niche like you have?

Craig Burton: Not really. I think that we talk about niches online, a lot of people talk about them finding you, or you finding a niche or what have you. And I think specialisation or niching comes as a result of understanding. Firstly, the fundamentals of design and branding. And so I would probably recommend young designers stay as generalists as possible for as long as possible until they have a good understanding of who they are in the industry and the types of clients they enjoy serving. And that goes right back to when they're training, if they're in an institution. So for example, my daughter is training in design and she's not too sure which direction she wants to go. And I've just said to her, "Look, stay broad as possible for as long as possible. So then that will help you get clarity around what you'd like to do." And the types of clients that you enjoy serving is a key ingredient when it comes to niching. So if you don't enjoy dealing with the types of clients in the industry you decide to specialise in, then what's the point? Kind of thing.

Ian Paget: Yeah.

Craig Burton: So I'd say that niching comes as a result of putting in the hard work and keeping as wide a view of business opportunities as possible. So the doors at the edge of our view are often the doors that lead to those exciting possibilities, if that makes sense. And having a wide peripheral view of life and trying those new doors, and it's a result of going through those doors that you might find something that you really enjoy and want to specialise in.

Ian Paget: I wouldn't mind talking a little bit about how you go about getting clients, because I'm really surprised, we've already been speaking for about 25 minutes or so. And this is one area that I would like to go into, because I know it's something that you're really good at, and that's marketing and networking and all of that stuff. So you decided that schools was going to be your focus. And you kind of answered this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. How do you approach getting clients running a business that's specifically targeting a specific niche?

Craig Burton: So when you're first starting out in business, it's really important that the number one priority is to get known, to get your name out there. And as I said, when I first started doing this, I had no idea how to get my name out there. So I had that case study, that one single case study in a booklet and I went door knocking. And I lucked in, I managed to get a meeting with a person that would help me get more clients. And I appreciate everything he's done for me to this day. But then as you start to get known, then word of mouth obviously takes over. So if you do a good job for one client, then they'll recommend you to another one. So obviously word of mouth. And many of you, the people that you've interviewed, the designers you've interviewed, talk about that.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. Just focusing on word of mouth. So being a generalist graphic designer, when I say generalist I mean working with anyone, and I fall into that category. When it comes down to schools, I feel like word of mouth within a niche, it feels like word of mouth has more power because people in school know other people in schools. So do you feel that's a benefit of niching down right away, is that word of mouth referrals has more substance because people in schools speak with other people in schools?

Craig Burton: Possibly. It depends what... So I work in the public school market in New Zealand, as opposed to a private school market.

Ian Paget: Right.

Craig Burton: So the difference being, it's not so competition focused, because you have zones to schools, et cetera. One private school not trying to compete with another private school. So principals will talk to each other a lot more because they support each other a lot more in the public school arena. I think. Although let me rephrase that. In the private school market, what I'm talking about is more the area of competition and the type of school branding that you're doing in the public versus the private school market. So yes, they do talk to each other and there's a lot of word of mouth in that way, whether that's person to person or it's online, they talk to each other. So yeah, so there's that. But as time went on and I needed to sort out my website, and I had a website before the website I have now, which a friend of mine, we both know Deb, she and her husband helped me develop my first website, which was really good.

And that was initially really awesome. But then I wanted to have the ability to be able to control it a little bit more and add more work to more easily and that sort of thing. So then I had a friend help me build my current website. And so the website has certainly helped as a result of Google search and that sort of thing. That's certainly helped me get more clients. And then obviously social media marketing. And I don't do a lot, but when I do work, I put it out there to show potential clients, principals, my style, the current work that I've been working on. And I'm regularly updating them with new things that I'm looking at, because I try not to stay in one position. I'm always looking at ways that I can help schools. And so there are new products that I'm putting out there to see if those are of benefit.

Ian Paget: So how are you promoting those via social media? Is there a particular platform that you are using to reach the right people?

Craig Burton: So I've slowly but surely built up a LinkedIn network of people that are in the school industry. Although I have connected with a number of friends that are designers or branding specialists on LinkedIn and other places, when it comes to business, I generally connect with my audience as opposed to just everybody.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think, again, that's one of the benefits of niching down, you know that you need to be connecting with and networking with and communicating with people within schools and within education.

Craig Burton: Yeah. So that's what I've done on social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. But I don't do a lot in those places, but I do keep them up to date. And just once again, it's that putting work out there to show that I'm here, I'm here for my school clients, and other potential principal clients, if they'd like to use me. And these are the types of things that I do. And I think that I don't focus on the likes on my posts, I just put it out there. Because I know that people will see it, and that's all that really matters to me.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. Something that's that you are making me think about is, anyone that's interested in social media, and I know most graphic designers generally are, if you learn how to use the platforms properly, there's these whole methods and techniques for hacking your audience and growing it and being aggressive with numbers. I've gone down that route in the past. With Twitter, I followed all of these models for hacking the growth of your audience and getting tens of thousands of followers. But the reality of that is it takes a lot of work, and actually how much does it genuinely really benefit you? I spent years building up an audience, but does it actually make money? I can debate it, it has to some degree, but actually what you've been able to demonstrate is that by choosing a niche, you can gradually network with people and you don't need to worry about aggressively growing that because you can do that gradually.

And those people that get to know you that are in schools, they will probably recommend you and pass stuff on. So even though you don't post much, when you do, it probably has a lot more weight than someone just posting daily. Because when you post, it's a reminder, it's like, "Oh yeah, Craig does school branding." And like I said, any time I think of someone that works in a niche, I always think of you, and you don't really aggressively market and promote on social media. And that's always something that I think graphic designers struggle with, because it takes a lot of time. But yeah, you demonstrated that you can gradually build a network and you can just post stuff as and when you feel it's appropriate to do so. And you get clients in that way. And you're not chasing numbers, you're not chasing some crazy figure on social media, you are just continually networking and continually trying to help and support the people that you've already got to know. And I think that's a really good way of doing it.

Craig Burton: Well, I think it's really important to remember that I've been doing this for 14 years. And so for a number of the listeners that listen to your podcasts, many of them are just new to working for themselves or perhaps starting niching in an area or what have you. It takes a long time. And I talk about in the Logo Geek community, sometimes when these questions come up, I talk about how it takes around three to five years to really start to get going in your business. And so it's important to be in it for the long game. So knowing that, okay, you've got to work really, really hard. And I've worked really hard to build up recognition among schools, particularly around New Zealand, and that's over a long period of time. And so in the beginning, it's never easy. But as time goes on and as you continue to evolve and understand the nature of the industry that you're working in, keeping up to date with the types of things that they might be interested in, because those things change too. Then you will see growth.

And just keep doing a good job. Just keeping your head down, keeping working hard, being really professional, offering a really professional service, doing all of the little things right. And then over time, your business changes from you going out and pushing to just getting inquiries, as opposed to hefting to, if you like, send out emails all the time or or posting online or whatever. That's how I look at it anyway. I know that a lot of other people might look at it differently, but I've never been overly aggressive on social media when it comes to marketing. I think also it reflects my personality because I'm pretty laid back. I think if you're going to connect with people, understand the types of people that you want to connect with, because not every client is going to suit you and your personality and how you work. So I think it's important to understand you first and your nature, and then develop a brand that reflects that, that then attracts hopefully the right kinds of clients to your business.

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think something that I want to mention is you've spoken here about how you use social media. And to some degree, both of us collectively are saying that the whole aggressive approach is not the best way, but what I feel is worth making clear, there's not really a right or wrong way of doing this.

Craig Burton: Yeah, I agree.

Ian Paget: There're people out there like James Martin who is really aggressive on Instagram, but he's able to make a real success of that. And he enjoys making that content and he enjoys building up that community. And that works really well for him.

Craig Burton: Yeah.

Ian Paget: You have created an entirely different business model where you're not using social media in that way, but you're incredibly successful in what you're doing. And that's one of the reasons why I want to do this podcast and everything that I'm currently building, because there're books out there that would teach you how to do logo design. And it almost feels like there's a step by step model that you are supposed to take. But actually there's no one set way of doing any of this. There are different ways of doing it. Obviously there're shared similarities between everyone's story that I've been interviewing, but hopefully to listeners, in particular people that are just starting out, they can listen and think, "Oh, it's okay to do it that way," or, "I don't have to be posting on social media all the time," or you can approach it in your own way. And I think that's why it's good to speak to different people and get different perspectives because whatever your personality, you can make a success of this in your own unique way.

Craig Burton: Yeah, absolutely. And that comes back to what I was saying about working out who you are and how you want to do things. Because if you don't, then you're not going to enjoy doing what you do and everybody's different, and that's what makes life so colourful.

Ian Paget: Okay. So you mentioned earlier on about your website, about SEO, and I know this is something that you are really clued up on and we've had conversations about this. So I think for the last 15 minutes, or we'll see how long it takes, we might be able to get through it quicker. It'd be good to share some of those tips as to what you did on your website to optimise it so that people found you. Can you share some of those SEO tips that you applied?

Craig Burton: Well, I'm not an expert, it's sort of optimised. But as I said, I've had people create the basis of my websites for me and do a little bit of the initial SEO stuff.

Ian Paget: Yeah. So am I right? You basically hired someone to do that for you?

Craig Burton: Yeah. Yeah. And then I knew enough stuff in the background to cause trouble. So I forget all the terms, but understanding about meta-tags and slugs and alt text for images and a lot of that backend stuff, that is really important in helping Google scrape your site.

Ian Paget: Yeah.

Craig Burton: And then just creating a presence and search by writing about the type of things I do, I work on for schools.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. I just want to quickly pause you because you spoke about some terms then, so you said meta-data, slugs. People are probably thinking, "What the hell is that?" So I want to just quickly pause. So a slug, what that refers to is, you know when you see a website domain, so like logogeek.com/, and then you get a logo/blog or something like that? That little extra bit after the slash, that's the slug. And in terms of metadata, there are title tags, a meta description, and meta tags, but meta tags isn't so relevant now. A meta title is what you see within the tab of your browser, but also that's the header on Google. And then the meta description, that's the piece of text that you will see on Google alongside that. And when you go on someone's website, you don't see that, that's just hidden in the code, but Google can see that and it helps to optimise. So sorry, Craig, I'll let you carry on. I just wanted to make sure that people know.

Craig Burton: Oh yeah.

Ian Paget: It wasn't just random words.

Craig Burton: And then titling your images correctly. So then they can be found. And that's to do with, you call them by a title as if it was a blind person. Is that right?

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. And again, sorry to pause, when we talk about alt text, it's short for alternative text, is that right? Is it alternative text? I think it's alternative text, alt text. And basically, you know when you hover over an image and it gives you a piece of text? That's what alt text is. And that's there, it gives a description for Google so Google can understand the context of the image. But also it's good for people that are blind. Not blind, have difficulties seeing. It can help them to understand what the image is of.

Craig Burton: Yeah. And then I think it's just about writing... I think with many designer, because it's all about the image, we tend to put up a lot of images and very little in the way of writing. But I think that it's really important to have a nice balance of written content and images. And so then Google gets a clear picture of the type of business that you are and what you're really into and can then, when somebody's putting a search term in there, then Google can recommend that. And of course you've got local search. So of course, somebody searching in New Zealand is going to find different companies here than say, if they put in the same search terms in London.

Ian Paget: Yeah.

Craig Burton: Or wherever. So it's important to recognise where you are too and who you want to be found by. So yeah, I optimised, but I'm not an expert by any means.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. I learned a lot in a previous job because I was with that company for a long time and there was a period of time where I was literally in the seat next to the SEO online people. And also, you make friends with these people, you end up going to lunch with them and you end up having nerdy conversations about optimising the website. So I can add some stuff to that. One of the big things is links within your website. So if you are writing a blog post and you mention a piece of content, link to it. So if you can link to another blog post, that's beneficial. If you can link to another piece of content, that's all beneficial. But then with links, something that's really important. So if you get a research paper, in real life or a book, it's usually got references. So if somebody's made a quote or they've mentioned a fact, how do you know that fact has substance?

There's usually a little number, you go to the back and it's got some references to the book that quote came from or article or whatever. That same thing is online. So online, if you write something and you provide some information or you reference something, if there's no link to any other resource, Google might have doubt that that has any credibility. So something that they like to see is links to external sources. So if you are writing about a specific topic, don't feel that you need to never link to any competitors or any other information. Google likes that. They like links going out of your website as well as inside. But then they also like links coming back to you as well. So something I've always liked to do is what's called back-link built or link building. Google prefers it when it's natural, but you can manually do it in some way by doing guest blog posts for other websites.

And if it's relevant and authoritative, so in your case, if that's school websites, that would probably be really authoritative for you because it's relevant and authoritative to what you do. So if you can get links from graphic design sites and school websites, in your case, that's going to be really good. Or in my case, if I can get links from other websites that are about logo design and graphic design and branding benefits me as well. So being a guest on someone else's podcast that's about graphic design, they generally put a link. That's a link that helps to boost my presence online. Also, you can do guest blog posts. So in your case, it be beneficial to find some information based websites that are about schools, and you becoming some kind of ambassador for them, and they inviting you in to write articles.

And then you can get links on each of those articles and that will all add to your authority online. So the more authoritative those links and the bigger you build things, your bubble online just continually grows. And that's how you start to get these higher ranking positions on Google. And then there's schema data, there's loads of stuff. It's a bit of a rabbit hole, and you can go really far into it. But just doing the basics that you've spoken about, just getting the metadata right, just writing actual content, rather than just posting images. Just basics like that, I found that just makes a such a difference.

Craig Burton: Yep, definitely.

Ian Paget: So something else I wanted to ask you, I read an interview that you did with someone else, I think it was with our mutual friend, Chris Green. You mentioned that you say to clients, "Let me earn your trust." And you also talk about every client, to treat them as your only client. So when you ask them to earn your trust, how are you doing that? How are you making them earn your trust in order for them to work with you?

Craig Burton: So quite often when I get inquiries from prospective clients, they've already looked at my website, they've taught to another principal who's worked with me, they're quite excited about working with me. And they want lots and lots of different bits and pieces. So what I try to do is I say, "Well, okay, let me earn your trust by doing a really good job on the first bit." So in a way I'm saying, "I've got lots of confidence in my ability to produce a logo," for example, or some values based branding that I do a lot of work on with schools and what have you. And I say, "Look, let me do a really good job on this first part, because I want to earn your trust so that we can then together work on the next bits." Because there are so many components. "Let's start at the beginning. Do this bit first. I want you to be really, really happy about that, and then we'll move on to the next part."

Ian Paget: Yeah. That's a really nice way of doing it, because basically what you are saying is that you are there for them for the long run, but what you want to do is prove you're good enough, and that the chemistry between you is great. And then if they're then happy after that first thing, that's when they can commit and go all into other stuff.

Craig Burton: Yeah.

Ian Paget: It's a nice way of doing it.

Craig Burton: I really, really, really, really want to nurture relationships that I have with school principals. And by doing that, I want to start off on the right foot, so to speak, and do a really good job for them for the first bit. And that starts the relationship off really, really well, and then we move on to the next components. And I think that if you look after those aspects of your business, IE treating every client as if they were your only client, I think to myself when I look at each client individually and uniquely, that keeps me a little bit humble. I keep my head down, I don't get ahead of myself. I look at what they need, I focus on them specifically for this period of time. I do a really good job of that for them.

But unknown to them, I'm also working on half a dozen... Well, they probably realise that I'm working on half a dozen other projects at the time and I'm juggling things throughout the month and year and what have you. But I think that you earn their trust by doing a really good job. And that starts, that trust starts with that very first project. Because if you don't get past that first project, then that's that. So just focus on the first and then we'll look at all those other things down the line. And you're just nurturing that relationship and that trust. And there's that mutual respect and that professionalism and the service that goes with that.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I can really hear it with everything that you said throughout this whole interview that you obviously really know what you're doing with schools, you've been doing this for a long time. You take each client relationship seriously, you aim to build that trust. And I think if anyone gets anything from this interview, it's that continuous building of relationships. And that's something that you're really good at. And I think that's why here today, you are successful. Because I know we've known each other a long time now, we have a lot of conversations. You offer really incredible advice to so many people out there. So yeah, you clearly know what you're doing. And yeah, I think this conversation's been great, we just got to the hour mark. And yeah, I think this has been an absolutely fantastic interview. So Craig, thank you so much for sharing so much with us. I know we could keep going, I've got another 10,000 questions I could ask, but we'll save that for another day. But yeah, thank you so much, Craig, for coming on. It's been really good to finally sit down and do an interview with you.

Craig Burton: No worries, Ian. Thanks for having me. And yeah, I've really enjoyed it too.