When I first contacted Joanne, I felt overwhelmed with prioritising all the different ‘business hats’ I wear throughout the day.

So I chose the retail mentoring service as I felt I needed advice specific to my business and ideas.

I feel the additional stress on my shoulders has released knowing that I have support whenever needed, and since working with Joanne, my business has grown significantly.

If anyone is unsure whether to take the step into retail mentoring, I would definitely recommend booking the initial call, you won’t be disappointed!

Working with Jo has truly been a game changer for my business. Her guidance and motivation have been invaluable, especially when I felt completely lost. She’s helped me get back on track and provided support in areas I had no prior knowledge of. I highly recommend hiring a coach when starting a business, and Jo is the perfect person to help you navigate the challenges. Her expertise has made a huge difference, and I couldn’t be more grateful for her support.

With the massive decrease in trade orders and the massive increase in online orders my customer focus needed to shift and because of that I was unsure as to how to progress with my ranges and designs.

I had tons of ideas that needed distilling and Joanne’s impressive experience in retail and ability to look objectively at a company and understand its strengths is what made me choose to work with her. I have since gained a better understanding of what my customers want and more confidence in myself at trusting my instincts.

My favourite part was seeing her analysis of my sales and hearing her tell me what products and designs I should focus on! While I love being my own boss and being the sole decision maker I do need an instruction once in a while to help keep me on track. She was really enthusiastic from the beginning through right through to the end. She is passionate about helping you to push forward your brand and is able to help give you a clear focus, direction and strategy. My only regret is that I didn’t contact Joanne sooner.

I’ve read so many books and watched so many videos, but having a mentor on a 1:1 basis, completely tailored to my business, was an absolute game-changer.

I was at a low point in my business where income had dropped and something really needed to change. Investing in my business during that time was daunting, but it was the best thing I could have done. I

Working with Joanne was like having a mentor, cheerleader and friend all in one. Thanks again Joanne, I’m so glad I took the leap and invested!

I needed support and guidance as well as expert knowledge and opinion on retail and new products. Joanne has such a wide scope of knowledge and experience within the retail and creative small business sector.

Through Joanne’s support, I have developed my candle making kits to reflect not only my brand but also to understand how they would fit into the retail market. I loved seeing her knowledge and experience could be applied to the kits.

Before I worked with Joanne I felt overwhelmed, not confident and too close to the detail. I was unable to see the bigger picture and how everything ties together. It was nice to get specific details on what to improve, including wording suggestions for the product descriptions. I now have a whole list of things to update and improve on for the website and SEO and give the customer a more cohesive image of the brand.

Joanne has a good all round understanding of retail business and is able to relate that to small businesses. She is very easy going, listened and understood my feelings on where I needed to improve and was extremely efficient.

Working with Joanne was exactly everything I needed. I was at a point in my business where other things outside of it had to become a priority and with Christmas looming at the time, I wanted to regain control and make the most of the Christmas selling season. Joanne not only helped me create a plan of action, but she was also so considerate of my energy levels and how I was feeling about regaining my focus and pushing for Christmas in an already busy time of year.

We looked at the timeline and plotted everything that needed to be done to launch for Christmas from product design, photography and even website product descriptions. This immediately squashed the overwhelm that I was feeling and left me with a manageable and clear road map to launching my new designs for Christmas.

Joanne and I had a couple of calls to chat through things and plot the tasks within the timeline together – we discussed things that could be dropped and things that we knew were important and to make a priority. In-between calls, Joanne provided me with resources from the content calendar tracker to social media ideas & plans to a margin calculator for my product prices. We also stayed in touch via Voxer which was such lovely additional support.

I can’t recommend working with Joanne enough, I know exactly what I need to do to plan a launch going forward now!

Before I worked with Jo I was trying to do far too much and not achieving what I wanted to achieve. Jo worked alongside me to help me stay focused. Jo pulled together a marketing strategy via email and blog posts and helped with product development. She was always full of ideas and offered advice on the direction we could take my business. Jo is easy to work with and has a fast array of knowledge, she totally understood my business and its requirements.

As soon as I saw that Joanne was offering sessions, I signed up immediately, without hesitation. I knew that a service which combined Joanne’s experience and enthusiasm with a focus on product development was what I needed to help my business develop and flourish! It is also rare to find a service that is so tailored to what I do!

Joanne completely understood my business and it was refreshing to see a clear and concise outcome which encapsulated some of the things I had been thinking about as well as some really innovative ways of developing products which were still in line with my brand.

Since then I have refined my product range – taking some products out can be as important as leaving things in! I have also developed existing ranges as well as adding entirely new products. This, in turn, has led to a significant increase in sales as well as an increase in repeat orders.

I have also become more confident with my designs and feel like I have really found my ‘style’. Sometimes it would take me months to upload a product as I was worried about how it would be received but in the main, if I have an idea or concept now, it only takes a couple of days to put it live on my site.

Before I worked with Joanne I was feeling a bit lost and was unsure where I should be heading, despite having a notebook full of ideas! However, after speaking to Joanne I realised that I was on the right track and it’s really exciting to finally have some direction again!

Working with Joanne was the right pick for me because she’s very friendly, yet professional, knowledgeable, and easy to work with.

As an artist with a business selling my work on gifts and stationery I have always picked themes to base my artwork around inspired by my own interests. Of course it’s important to do what you love but I’ve never known how to target the right audience.

I could never be objective enough about my own work to understand what trends I could tap into. That is why Joanne’s work has been invaluable. With her insightful suggestions of current trends that fit my brand and new product ideas, I suddenly feel like someone has given my windows a good clean and I can see out more clearly! I have been shown my brand from an outside perspective and given new directions to explore that don’t compromise my style or interests and, most importantly, allow me to stay true to myself.

I’m so excited to get started on a new range of illustrated products armed with new inspiration and new tools for understanding my brand and audience better.