As we move into the second month of lockdown, many companies are considering their strategies for recovery. We’ve seen some amazing business innovations recently, including gin distilleries developing hand sanitiser products, restaurants offering online and takeaway orders and fashion brands making PPE and face masks. For businesses to continue in the long term, now more than ever it is important that you continue to engage with your customers and foster a sense of community. We’ve helped clients do this through engaging content, thinking of new and creative ways to involve your customers online or holding virtual social gatherings. Through effective marketing and communication, brands can increase their role in consumers’ lives and maintain a positive relationship beyond the short-term. Social media platforms, once cluttered with advertisements for products, are now giving way to online conversations, games, challenges, cooking tutorials and fitness classes. When we can’t see each other in person, feeling that sense of community through online channels is essential. [...]

This month, we made the difficult decision to furlough some of our team. This was a necessary step to ensure the continued success of our business. We’d like to take the opportunity to thank all of our gingerheads who continue to be incredibly supportive. We still have a core team of people working from home. It may take us a little longer to be in touch than you are used to, but we are here, and we are happy to help you. Without the support of our amazing clients, businesses like ours would not survive and so we’d like to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has worked with us over the last four years. You don’t know how much it means to us! If you have an existing project with us, it will continue as normal. We are also taking bookings for work in June, July and August. Just let us know what you need and we [...]

From today, we will be working from home and will make alternative arrangements for any face to face meetings. Any gingerhead who has mild symptoms will self-isolate for 14 days. We are closely monitoring the situation and, like a lot of you, we are feeling anxious about what comes next. We’re a female-led, independent business with over 50% of our work in hospitality and tourism. We are as concerned for our clients as we are for the impact this could have on our own business. We are hugely grateful for the incredible support we have received so far, it means the world to us. If you are able, please continue to support small businesses. We are here, we are ready to work, we will keep going. Stay safe everyone,  Helen CalderHead Ginger 

With International Women’s Day just around the corner, we’d like to tip our hats to working mothers everywhere. Lots of mums who have returned to the work after maternity have found the transition quite bumpy. Some research shows that over 40% of women with children leave their jobs. As a female-led business, we’re hugely keen to help any working mother return back to work. That’s one of the reasons we offer flexible working and working from home. This month, we’re delighted to welcome back our Account Manager, Christina. To help support Christina get back into the swing of things with a new baby, we’ve taken the same approach that our Head Ginger took a few months ago and are adopting a phased return. Full pay while not needing to be full time just yet. We see this as just one of the ways we can help get a brilliant gingerhead back to her best while also juggling life at home as a [...]

When you work in client account management in a small business, it can be challenging sometimes to handle client expectations. We’ve had moments of not understanding why one job can take 3 months to get sign off (following many iterations of changes, our record is 286 for a 5-page website), while others are a complete dream (following a very clear brief and realistic deadline, we once had a campaign pass with no changes). Over the years, we’ve learned tactics for managing expectations and handling client work that have helped keep most of our clients happy. Any time they are not, is a new opportunity for learning. Difficult clients are just a part of the cost of doing business. Most often, they’re difficult because they’re unhappy with the service that you have provided. Sometimes, they could simply have a personality that clashes with your company values, or they have expectations that are way out of touch with reality. When you’re faced [...]

For me, the Liver Building has always been particularly special. I love its architecture, I have worked near it, dated outside it and nearly married my husband in it. My wonderful grandad used to say I’d set up my own business one day, and work in it. My last ever conversation with him, several years ago now, was about the Liver Building, where he had once worked too.  I had a lump in my throat when his hopes for me became reality last week, as I went into the Liver Building for a first discussion with a new client there. Sometimes working with a team as close as Gingerhead can feel more like fun than a job, but coming to a meeting in the Liver Building felt like joining more than a century of Liverpool’s business elite. We are delighted, excited and ready to work.  The Liver Building is currently being extensively refurbished, and at last will be open to [...]

Independent Liverpool Restaurant and Bar Dash joined our growing portfolio as a new client this month.  As an independent business, we've always loved working with other independents. Over the last few years we've worked a lot in food and drink and Dash is a game-changer for Liverpool's independent food and drink scene. We're delighted to be starting work with them.  From the moment you enter through Dash’s grand stone doorway you know that you are in for a special experience. Their stunning interiors, professional and friendly staff and delicious food is seriously impressive for a business founded just under a year ago by four local lads from Liverpool.  We’re often asked about what kinds of services we provide. Our answer is simple. We’re here to help you make your business successful. For an independent restaurant, that means understanding the daily challenge of getting people through the door.  The team behind Dash is fantastic and they deserve a visit whenever you’re [...]

The first thing I want to say is thank you! To our investors, clients, supporters, family and friends, to everyone who has helped us in our first three years, and to my wonderful gingerheads.  Anyone who has set up their own business will tell you that getting through the first few years is tough. But boy is it tough. It is a level of pressure unlike anything else, I would never do it again. But I would never change it.  60% of new businesses fail within the first three years. Having just celebrated our third birthday, I can honestly say I’m surprised the failure stats aren’t higher. I have seen some very good businesses go under this year. I am incredibly grateful that we’re still here.  We faced some expected and unexpected challenges. In a female-led business, two of the key team members falling pregnant within two months of each other can hit a business hard. I know some businesses [...]

Companies often offer flexible working, but if it is ever taken you are left feeling guilty or mistrusted. When you are working from home people seem to imagine pyjamas, biscuits and Netflix.  When in fact, the opposite is true. Trapping your creatives in a rowdy open-plan office with bored, clock-watching co-workers is like taking the wings off your aeroplane. In my old jobs I would often end up taking my work home with me in order to do it in the evening. This would eat into family time, and leave me tired and less effective next day. Now I am a Gingerhead I can work from home. I can fit my work and my family life together in a way that really works for both. I am much more productive, and much happier. I often end up doing more hours, but they are all my best work. Being part of a small company can sometimes be nerve-racking, but it’s fast-moving, exciting [...]

A little over 100 years ago, working in law was not an option for women, who did not even qualify as ‘people’. Fast forward to now and it seems that while women account for more than 60% of the legal workforce, and are welcomed as pupils and trainees, they can only progress so far. Less than one-fifth of partners in the top 10 UK law firms are female, and at barrister and judge level the stats show an even more favourable position for men. Before my son was born, my own experience of working in the legal sector was of a heavily male-led environment. Whilst I always met my targets, it was not a career path that I found particularly rewarding: the hours were long, the work required ever-increasing levels of repetitive drudgery, and the pay was terrible! To add further insult, my earned commission was once given to a male colleague.  I never felt I was given the opportunity [...]