Community Friendly Hairdresser at Cambridge Market

Local resident and hairdresser Jo Harding started trading at Cambridge Market back in May this year, and with it, brought a new and unique idea with her. The business, ‘Echo Cuts’, sees Jo save all the trimmings of hair she cuts, which is then bagged up and given to people to use, free of charge, as compost. Although the idea is new to the market scene, the actual concept has been around a long time, Jo’s grandparents using it for years when planting his slow growing plants. The uniqueness of an outside hairdressers has not only been a hit with the locals who use the market, but has also caught the attention of a lot of the tourists who visit the city. Having a stall at the market enables Jo to keep her prices down and offer visitors to the market a more convenient and affordable hair cut. Jo told MTN, “A lot of people can find high street salons intimidating, not to mention expensive. When I first got into hairdressing getting your haircut was always seen as a necessity, however nowadays it’s seen more as a luxury. With being able to offer lower prices I hope I can turn this back around to how it use to be so that people can afford it more often, and if your hair is good you feel good. Also my customers see that their cut offs are being put to good use by helping the environment. Having worked at salons previously I’ve seen just how much wastage there can be, but it doesn’t have to be like that.” A lot of people use the compost on their allotments and gardens, then call Jo when they want some more and then pick it up or she can deliver it by bicycle. She if often seen biking to and from appointments and the market, which is another of many ways that Jo helps the environment and is currently having a new bike trailer made with advertising space on it available for small businesses. She is also in the process of looking for a spinner, which means she can knit it together and give people the choice of having it either knitted or as it comes. Alongside keeping her business green and helping the environment Jo also does a fantastic job in supporting and raising the profile of local charities. Every haircut that Jo makes sees £1.00 go to a local charity and she dedicates roughly three months worth of money to an individual charity. Between May to August she helped the charity Childrens A + E at Addenbrookes (started by Junior Sister Byrne) and her donation helped buy new books for the patients. She is currently supporting the Arthur Rank Adult Hospice (September to December) and is looking at which local charity she will be supporting in January. All volunteers who work at the charities also get Community Friendly Hairdresser at Cambridge Market offered a free haircut. In summing up Jo told MTN, “The reason I do it is to try and raise the profile of our local charities, as well as donating to them. It is important that we give back to our local communities. People are quick to moan about the economy, yet they still order the majority of things online. They would genuinely be surprised if they came down and supported the local market at just how great it is, thus giving something back locally. The atmosphere at the market is fantastic, especially between us traders. Considering we are all independent businesses the teamwork is second to none, always helping each other out. Its almost like we are one big family, I love it there.” What does the future hold for Jo and Echo Cuts, Well, “One day I really hope I can expand the business and idea so it can be used at markets across the UK. Too help benefit local charities up and down the UK and of course the environment nationwide would be fantastic.”
www.markettradenews.com
www.facebook.com/markettradenews
www.twitter.com/markettradenews

Adam Corbally Talks Markets - July 2013

As a market trader I was always a bit bemused when people told me they were in ‘Marketing’.

The power of marketing and branding really came home to me when I was asked to address some business leaders at Tower Hall in London recently, on promotional merchandising. Items like pens, caps, books and sticky notes, all these depend on the power of branding and how it has to be out there available to the public. If you get your brand awareness right then it can work for you 24/7, selling your product or service all over the place even when your stall isn’t open and you aren’t trading. Of course, we all know why branding works, but what makes one brand more powerful than another and how can businesses apply this power to their own products and services? So, I started looking at the successful brands that carry this power to the marketplace and reap the rewards of instant recognition.

Take Facebook – it was no different as a business model than MySpace and Bebo, but it got the brand image just right, it was out there and accessible and it kept evolving and changing as any successful business needs to.

Likewise Twitter, with its bird, which is an icon that says the brand with no words whatsoever and that has given the brand its place in the market head-and-shoulders over the competition.

In the UK we have our own spectacular banding success with Innocent smoothies, founded by three Cambridge University graduates, Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright. If they had come to me 10 years ago saying they had a brilliant business idea that is a fruit juice smoothy I would have said, “That’s a rubbish idea and it’s been done many time before - it will never work!” But the reason Innocent did work was because they got the brand and the marketing just right and they got it into the right places. A friend of mine did some promotional work for them recently in Leicester Square, giving away 5,000-litres of smoothies and money off vouchers. While the UK fruit juice market was worth £4.1Bn in 2010, it is the power of the Innocent brand that sets it apart from the others. Compare that to the competitors at the time when Innocent launched who were also doing smoothies, companies like Schweppes and Tropicana. These were chiefly known for other products; sparkling mixers for Schweppes and orange juice for Tropicana. Innocent comes along and brands itself as THE maker of smoothies. Couple that to the ‘innocent’ approach of juice with zero additives and a product that provides not one, but two of your five-a-day fruit or veg requirements and the product looks attractive for the time-hungry modern professional. Even the packaging is simple and cool, with inclusive messages including ‘pop into Fruit Towers and tell us what you think’ – simple, open and cool for people of all ages. Naturally, one strong brand then gets bought out by another big brand – the daddy of them all, Coca-Cola, the most recognisable brand in the world. If you saw that logo anywhere in the world you would know what it stands for and what it sells. You are just as likely to see that brand name on a T-shirt, a cap, or a football as you are to see it on a bottle or a tin can. How can we, as market traders, apply this to our own businesses? I’ve done this myself with my Union Jack logo, which I use on all stationery, wall planners and calendars and of course vans, which are whizzing round the county every day - and I dare say that when people in my town see my logo, they instantly associate it with quality fruit and veg. I invested a lot of my own time in creating this logo to make sure that it was instantly recognisable and it worked. The name and logo has to be short, snappy and fitting to what products or services you can offer, then get your brand out there through social media and promotional merchandising. The reason why Innocent and Coca-Cola use merchandising is because it works and drives home the message and the brand. So, go on, get branded and get out there!

You can catch up with my own brand at www.Adamcorbally.co.uk Twitter @TheAdamCorbally

www.markettradenews.com

www.facebook.com/markettradenews

www.twitter.com/markettradenews