Why manufacturers' best brand assets are already on the shop floor

A lot of business owners think about their brand the same way: get a better website, post more on social media, maybe bring in an agency to sort out the marketing. Lucy Rennie, who joined us for the second episode in our manufacturing mini-series, thinks that's backwards.

Before moving into brand and communications, Lucy spent years leading safety culture change on the shop floors of steel factories. Getting people to believe in safety practices, not just comply with them, led to fewer accidents and safer sites. Lucy has carried that principle into the work she does now: belief beats compliance every time. Here’s what came out of the conversation:

Brand starts inside the business, not with a logo

It’s tempting to jump straight to the marketing when thinking about your brand: a new website, some social posts, a campaign. Lucy's approach goes two steps back first. Vision, purpose, mission, values. She compares it to putting up a shower curtain before you've built the bathroom walls. It looks fine for a moment, but it’s pretty pointless. 

Where to start: before you touch any marketing, write down why the business exists and what you want to be known for. Everything else builds on that.

The owner has to live it before anyone else will

Lucy calls this felt leadership, a term from her time in steel, where safety culture only changed once leadership visibly modelled the behaviour they wanted, rather than just telling staff to follow it. The same applies to brand. If the owner isn't walking the talk, no amount of internal messaging will make staff believe it either.

Where to start: pick one value you say your business stands for. Ask yourself honestly whether your own daily actions back it up.

Get the culture right, and you barely need marketing

The line that anchors the whole episode. When people in a company understand the role they play and its impact, they stop being employees doing a job and become brand ambassadors. That drives production, retention and referrals in a way marketing spend alone never quite manages.

Where to start: Ask some people in your team to explain, in their own words, why customers choose you. If they can’t, that's the gap to close first.

Three short question sets tell you more than a thirty-question survey

Lucy's advice for gauging where a business stands: keep it simple. For staff, ask whether they're proud to work there, whether they feel fulfilled and enjoy their work, whether they'd recommend the job to a friend. For customers, ask about satisfaction, whether they'd recommend you, and whether they see themselves switching suppliers in the next year.

Where to start: send these three questions to your team this month. Don’t be tempted to add in more; just stick to these three. Maybe allow them to answer anonymously if you feel they’d be more truthful.

Work out your brand with a simple exercise, not abstract theory

Lucy's fly-on-the-wall exercise cuts through the vague, hard-to-pin-down feeling that brand conversations usually get stuck in. Imagine overhearing your ideal client describe your business to someone else. What do you want them to say? Just as importantly, what do you not want them to say?

Where to start: write down both lists. The second one often tells you more than the first.

Trust compounds, and referrals prove it

Customers who come through a referral are four times more likely to buy, and their lifetime value runs 16% higher. But Lucy's advice runs against instinct: don't chase referrals directly. Build the trust first, and they follow naturally. Ask too often, too early, and it starts to feel like a favour being called in rather than a genuine recommendation.

Where to start: resist the urge to ask for a referral straight after a sale. Let the relationship earn it.

This takes years, not weeks, but it's worth it

Lucy's client, Ortak, a third-generation family business that makes cables, wanted quick wins and big-name clients when they first came to her. She held firm on building the foundations first, which wasn't the fast, exciting option the owner initially wanted. Seven years later, the business has grown from £1.6 million to £8 million in turnover and now works with major clients across the industry. Proof that this works, on a realistic timeline rather than a promised quick fix.

Where to start: if you're expecting brand work to show results in a month, reset that expectation now. This is a long game, but it pays off.

Real stories beat polished content, especially now

With AI making it easier than ever to churn out generic content, Lucy believes authenticity is worth more, not less. A genuine story from someone who's worked on the factory floor for thirty years carries far more weight than another set of posts that could have come from any business in the sector.

Where to start: find one person on your team with a good story about why they do what they do. Let them tell it, in their own words.

Tons of brilliant advice and insights in this one. Where will you start? Don’t try to do it all; just take one thing from this that either resonates or intrigues you most, and start there. 

Listen to the full episode, available wherever you get your pods.

Brought to you by Corbar Accounting and Affirm IT Services Ltd.