5 things we learned at last night’s Business Club event in Galway

As the IMAGE Business Club has grown, we’ve noticed our members coming from further afield. We like to make life easier for you wherever possible, so we were thrilled to be able to bring our latest live event to the gorgeous city of Galway.

On Thursday, September 21, the IMAGE Business Club headed west for the first live event outside of Dublin at The g Hotel & Spa! It was an evening of networking, insights and new ideas from outstanding speakers, with a special focus on personal brand.

The event was led by IMAGE contributing editor Melanie Morris, who was joined by Gráinne Mullins, CEO and founder, Grá Chocolates, and Sonia Deasy, CEO and founder, Pestle and Mortar; two of Ireland’s most evolutionary businesswomen, both of whom have built world-class brands which continue to gather momentum. Gráinne and Sonia shared their views and learnings in entrepreneurship and brand-building, while communications expert Natasha Fennell, leadership and communication advisor, Stillwater Communications, helped us identify the key elements to developing and nurturing our own personal brand.

With so many wonderful insights shared throughout the evening, it was difficult to just pick five. Here are the most valuable learnings we received from last night’s Business Club event.

Tiny Noticeable Touches

When asked about her brand story and how she elevated Grá Chocolates, Gráinne Mullins introduced the room to ‘Tiny Noticeable Touches’, a concept later identified as ‘impression management’ or ‘unconscious added value’ by Natasha Fennell. In essence, it’s the almost imperceptible ways you can communicate that you’re going the extra mile.

“You want your customer to have that precious moment, that appreciation, when they open the box. You want them to feel the love that’s gone into it, because you can’t do it without your customer — you have to make it for them,” Gráinne says. It’s for this reason that she believes that she has retained such a highly engaged audience that translates into sales.

Work to your strengths, and delegate your weaknesses

Arriving in Galway straight from the first birthday party of Pestle and Mortar’s Kildare Village store, Sonia Deasy launched the skincare company with her husband Padraic 10 years ago, and it’s grown in size, scope and success year on year. This, she credits to their ability to know their bandwidth and work to their skills.

“My strengths are in ideas, and bringing them to market,” Sonia tells us. “But I need a team to follow through with me. Having a team to go in behind you will make you and your business go far.” Where Sonia deals in innovation, her husband rules the creative, and thanks to her innate ability to weed out the good from the bad, they’ve surrounded themselves with a great team who understand their vision. Being a good judge of character, Sonia stresses, is paramount when it comes to business.

Leveraging your skills, experience, and self

“The root of where you come from is absolutely everything,” Natasha Fennell begins her rousing presentation. “Everything that I have done in my life has informed me — your back story, and where you are, is everything.” Giving us something of a Personal Brand 101, this communications expert tells us that our personal brand exists at the intersection of how we see ourselves, and how others perceive us, and involves careful curation and construction.

Telling our guests to ask themselves ‘If I don’t know myself, how will you know me?,’ this resonates with Gráinne, who originally wanted no personal association with her chocolate company. “I wasn’t sure about the name ‘Grá’, because what if I failed? I was afraid of trying something and it not working out, but I realised that it’s me that makes it what it is. My experience is the reason why the chocolates taste the way they do.”

Steady growth while remaining realistic

Both Grá Chocolates and Pestle and Mortar began as literal kitchen table businesses before they started to scale up and expand their ranks, but it didn’t happen overnight, and bumps and bends in the road seem to be par for the course.

Gráinne tells us of a time when a supplier was emphatic about just how keen they were to support small Irish businesses, right before mentioning that they would be expecting a 60% margin. “If you want to showcase an Irish business,” Gráinne told them, “You can’t expect them to operate at a loss for the pleasure.” Something which took courage and self-belief, she emphasised to all in attendance that pushing back and continuing to push is so, so important when operating a business.

Work-life balance

Once our speakers concluded, Melanie Morris opened up the conversation to the room, and the topic of work-life balance came to the fore, and how women famous for underselling themselves and putting others first can achieve it. For Sonia, it’s all about leaning into what she’s passionate about, and not restricting herself from talking about it. For Gráinne, it’s all about making sure that the time you spend away from work is never wasted: “Make the time off something you really want to do. Don’t spread yourself too thin, and spend time doing what will make you happy.”

Stillwater Communications now operates on a four-day working week, and can do so from anywhere in the world: “There’s more to life than work, and it’s in the downtime that I get time to think and culminate,” she says. “Work-life balance is walking on the beach and clearing my head. We worked hard to get to that place, but it has been so worth it. Don’t just think about it, do something about it.”