I'm a great believer in having a plan, although after more than forty years in business I've learned that some of the most interesting things happen when the original plan takes an unexpected turn. Sometimes you set out to do one thing and, before you know it, you're doing something quite different. Our weekly planners are a rather good example.
A couple of years ago we produced a simple weekly planner as a thank-you gift for clients and business contacts. Nothing particularly revolutionary, just a square, ring-bound notebook with space to plan the week, make notes, jot down ideas and keep track of the inevitable list of things that need doing. We thought it would be a useful little gift that might sit on somebody's desk rather than disappear into a drawer with all the other promotional merchandise.
It turned out to be rather more popular than we'd anticipated. Several people got in touch asking whether we could produce their own branded versions, which of course we could. We wrote about that this time last year, making the point that if you're going to give somebody something to remember your business by, it might as well be something they actually want to use.
One of the people who received a planner was Emma at Kin Connect, a business that works with salon owners to help them develop and grow their businesses. Emma loved it and the following year asked us to produce an undated version for Kin Connect to give to its customers.
And that's where things started to get interesting.
A planner with a plan of its own
Initially we followed much the same format as our original WDA planner, but as Emma and the team used them over the year, they started thinking about how the content could be developed to make them even more useful to the salon owners they work with.
Rather than simply providing somewhere to write down appointments and things to do, the planners now incorporate sections for setting goals, identifying priorities and working out the daily, weekly and monthly actions needed to achieve them. All very much in keeping with the advice Kin Connect gives its customers.
It was still recognisably the same sort of planner, but it was becoming something much more specific to their business. And that's one of the things I enjoy about working with clients over a period of time. You get to understand what they're trying to achieve, they get to know what you're capable of, and ideas tend to develop quite naturally from there.
Then Emma came up with another idea, this time for something completely separate.
Kin Connect wanted a planner specifically for the one-to-one meetings that salon owners hold with their team members. These are important conversations covering everything from individual performance and financial targets to training, development and personal ambitions. Emma and her team knew what information they wanted to capture and how they wanted the meetings to work, so our job was to take all that information and work out how to present it in a practical, easy-to-use format.
The result was a dedicated team one-to-one planner, which Kin Connect began giving to its customers.
And then someone else had an idea...
One of those customers, CoCo's Style, liked the one-to-one planner but wanted a version specifically for its own salon, complete with its branding and a few changes to the content to reflect the way the business operates.
No problem. We adapted the artwork, made the necessary changes and produced a CoCo's version. We've recently updated that planner for 2027, along with the Kin Connect edition, and now Emma tells me they're receiving enquiries from other salons wanting their own branded versions.
Which is rather pleasing when you consider where the whole thing started.
What began as a simple thank-you gift from WDA has led to branded planners for several businesses, a continuing relationship with Kin Connect and a series of projects that have developed as new ideas have come along. None of it was mapped out at the beginning, and I certainly wasn't sitting there with some grand scheme to develop a collection of planners for the hairdressing industry!
But that's often how the best working relationships develop. You do a good job, people come back with another idea, you talk it through and see what's possible. Sometimes the answer is straightforward and sometimes it takes a bit of head-scratching, but that's part of the fun.
And there's a marketing lesson in there too, although I promise I didn't set out to write one. Our original planner was simply intended to be a useful gift that kept WDA in front of people. It did that, but it also showed them something we could produce for their own businesses, which opened doors we hadn't even thought about.
So yes, everyone needs a plan. But don't get so attached to it that you miss the opportunities that come along when somebody says, "I've had an idea..."