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The power of collaboration to build a BrandStrong

Announcement posted by The Audacious Agency 12 Dec 2016

Carl Quested and Carl Crowther could have been business rivals.  They both worked in the same industry and have the same target market. Yet despite what could have been a competition for market share, they have joined forces.

They teamed up early this year, combining their skills and talents to start an online graphic design option called BrandStrong, a subscription based portal making it graphic design more affordable for small businesses.

“So many people warned us that going into partnership would be dangerous,” Carl Quested said. “But for us, it just made sense to work together. We saw a gap in the market and created something to fill it.”

With the growth of so many solo-operated small businesses, many are burning out trying to be all to everyone.  Carl and Carl’s collaboration gives them a valuable competitive advantage because they have combined skills and competencies.

Carl Crowther said there are so many benefits to collaborating. “When we worked alone, there was no one who had our back. We were in it alone. When you work for yourself, you try to juggle so many things and often do not do them all well,” he said.

“Collaborating means we share the load – good and bad.

“Collaboration is a hugely powerful tool and can drive a business from the linear model to a circular one.”

Carl Quested said “There are so many moving parts to a business and two heads are better than one. While there are legal aspects to collaborating and partnering in business, once you have got all that in place, it opens up so many more opportunities,” he said.

“For me, the main benefits of working in partnership is having someone to be accountable to. Working for myself, it as easy to procrastinate and put things off. But Carl and I are accountable to each other – we each have a role to play.

“Carl has a different way of looking at the world to me. His perspective gives greater depth to our business plans; it is not just me trying to work out if an idea is feasible or if something will work.

“Then there is the ability to scale up faster than if I was working alone.  In the space of a year, we have taken BrandStrong from being an idea, a concept, to what it is today.  We are now working on the next stage of the business.”

What makes this partnership even smarter, is they do not have to be in the same office. Business collaborations are no longer restricted by a geographical location. The growth in cloud based resources means more can be accomplished.

Carl Crowther said so much of our work and the work done by our team is using online tools such as Basecamp, ConceptBoard and Slack to communicate.

“The idea is to work smarter and automate as much as possible. There is no point to going into business together if it just means more work and more stress,” he said.

BrandStrong was created because Carl and Carl wanted to automate the design process for small businesses.  It is a simple solution – creating design work that does not cost the earth for a fixed monthly fee providing unlimited graphic design from leaflets and flyers, to logos and brochures.

www.brandstrong.co

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