Linzi Boyd calls herself a “serial entrepreneur,” and her most recent endeavor is something called “BoB,” a clever shorthand for the “Business of Branding.” It’s something she learned early, after starting a shoe company that produced high-fashion tennis shoes that wound up on the feet of stars like the Beastie Boys.
She sold that company – at the age of 24 – and then spent “17 years building, renovating, or refreshing, probably some of the most famous brands on the High Street.” (The High Street, for our U.S. readers, is synonymous with “well known and well made” in this case.)
Boyd – who will be presenting two keynote addresses at the upcoming Virtual CEDIA Expo Experience, started BoB because she saw a hole in most business models that needed to be addressed.
“I felt like businesses are primarily built off commercial business models,” Boyd explains. “And they’ve forgotten to put a cultural business model in with it. I always had a system that drove sales and awareness and the valuation of a business up. But I also began to include three key areas, culturally, which was legacy, people, and purpose. And what I recognized was you needed to have a commercial system and a cultural system working together.”
The Right Partner
If that sounds a bit lofty and poetic, Boyd explains that every company still needs someone watching the numbers – that’s why she connected with her current business partner (and co-presenter at one of the aforementioned keynotes) Darren Shirlaw. “Darren comes from the fund management world. He’s a mathematician,” says Boyd. With Shirlaw handling the economic aspects of Boyd’s current business, Boyd can focus on the cultural. It’s a model that can work for any number of small firms.
As to creating that business culture, Boyd explains what’s at the root of her advice. “Everybody wants to make money and increase the valuation of their business and drive their awareness up. But what are we going to do for the world -- how are we going to create a legacy? What's going to get you out of bed in the morning, what's going to create that purpose?
“And so how do you combine two systems and integrate them into one to be able to drive the sales awareness and value, but also impact change in the world?”
Interested in hearing more? Check out the CEDIA Podcast with Linzi Boyd.
From B2B and B2C to B2P
“For the past few years I've been talking about a trend that's coming called B2P: business to people,” says Boyd. “Now people think that that is peer to peer, and it's not, it's actually about the channel access that you have to markets.”
Here’s how that’s happening: “So a B2C business would sell for a retail shop, a B2B business with sell through a business to another business, obviously. But when the digital revolution came along, you could, for the first time in history, access your own channels like you could never do before. And when I started teaching the next generation of up-and-coming entrepreneurs, I actually realized that B2B and B2C no longer exists for the younger generation.”
Because of the connected world, Boyd believes that you can sell anything to anyone, anywhere. It’s a mental shift that shatters the old notion of how to build a product or service. “I believe that B2B and B2C will be extinct in the next five to 10 years,” Boyd predicts. “And the reason for that is because the next generation is building business to people. I can build a business that is B2B and B2C. I no longer need to make that choice anymore.”
There’s more to this, of course – and the keynotes, taken together, flesh the whole thing out:
Building Brands to Shift Industries: Today, Tomorrow, The Future
September 15 2020, 8 a.m. EDT
What does your business look like today, tomorrow, and is it ready for the future?
We talk about growth in so many ways - what is growth truly about. Is it financial? Is it our people? Is it our purpose? How do we drive more sales through the door today? Or should we think about growth for tomorrow now more than ever before? Is real growth today about increasing margins tomorrow?
Do I have a bigger plan for what my future looks like?
Join Linzi Boyd, world renowned speaker on building your brand, to hear her thoughts and ideas for:
How to navigate the three phases of the recession; Shock, Recovery, and Build, and,
How to optimize the trends for today, tomorrow, and the future.
Economic, Societal, and Consumer Trends for a 21st Century Mindset: In Conversation with Linzi Boyd and Darren Shirlaw
September 15 2020, 11:50 a.m. EDT
Looking specifically at societal, economic, and consumer trends, how can we parlay current knowledge of all three into success for you and for your business?
Join Linzi and Darren to hear key thoughts and takeaways regarding:
The move away from B2B and B2C to B2P,
How to move the business from sales-led to brand-led, and
The connectivity of people brands and business brands, combined.
Register for the Virtual CEDIA Expo Experience here.