To understand what James Good Ltd does for a business, is to understand the role of customer perception in sales - and how, whether deliberately or not, you are influencing it, every day. James Good Ltd is Identity Design: the art of communicating a clear, consistent and complete message to your target audience. Frankly, most of us fail to do that even on a personal level – with the same unpredictable results - so it’s unlikely we’ll get it right for our business without some close examination.
This is supposed to be an article about James Good Ltd, but I’m not so sure. There’s an interesting distinction that emerges when observing companies of different sizes: with a large company, the true connection between the boardroom and the customer has usually been lost in layers of hierarchy, politics and procedure; but in a small, growing company, like James Good Ltd, what you get is a direct reflection of the owner’s attitudes to their customers. This, then, is really an article about James Good.
I first met James soon after he arrived in Wales a year ago. It was good to discover something of a kindred spirit, but I was curious to see such self-assurance in someone so young. It is only recently that I discovered he has, in fact, been immersed in the design and print trade for nearly 20 years. His grandfather owned a highly successful - and truly vast - print factory, and from a very early age James was introduced to many aspects of the business, learning a wide variety of pre-digital print-related skills.
When he came of age, though, rather than just fall into the family business he went to work for their leading competitor, whose equipment and attitudes were always state-of-the-art. After some years learning advanced print and design skills there, James moved to the Cayman Islands and soon found himself mixing with the Cayman elite, with freedom to focus fully on design and branding – soon to be the fully-fledged Identity Design. James decided to continue his Cayman success back in the UK and - although he finally moved to Swansea for purely practical reasons - he is very pleased with his choice, seeing it as a city with a great potential slowly but surely being realised.
Since then he has been continuing to help businesses communicate their values to the public, by showing them the difference a full, coherent image can make. “A logo can be great - but logo design is to Identity Design what a brick is to a house – it’s an entirely different level of thinking, with entirely different results. I just can’t say it strongly enough – it’s not a side issue, it’s the whole thing. It’s massive!” says James, emphatically. “All my clients are very determined people. Some may only just be starting, some may not even be sure of their choice of name, but what they do all know is that they must get themselves a powerful image if they’re to be taken seriously.”
This image is created as a result of a great deal of study by James - of the company, the owner’s core ambitions and of the target audience - until the full image emerges, and then he sets about expressing this in the look and style of everything that the target audience will ever see of the business. “Customers pick up on this integrity, probably without noticing, and it changes sales – significantly for the better. One of my clients was a perfect example of how the best company in the world can struggle without good branding. Despite high-quality work, they just looked terribly unprofessional, and got the orders which reflected that. Now they have uniforms, sign-written vans, an all-singing, all-dancing website - and the value of the projects they receive is increasing dramatically year on year.”
Although James Good Ltd is now based in Swansea, his customers continue to be international. They remain loyal to his service, one saying “It isn’t just a pretty design we get from James – it’s a whole moral support and business guidance, because he comes to know us so well through studying us. He believes in what we’re doing, and when we talk to him we can think far more clearly about what we’re trying to achieve!” Some clients have clearly made Identity Design part of their business process - a relationship, even.
Swansea is growing fast, with superb investment - and the danger, James feels, is of the big chain stores with their powerful branding moving in and swallowing the local businesses. On the other hand, there are huge opportunities for positive-minded directors to thrive, accelerate. “It’s so great for me to be part of that, valuable to be part of that - helping independent businesses look as strong as the national ones. This is what I want to bring to Swansea.”
So, this is James Good, and therefore James Good Ltd. When you look at your business with the cold, clear eyes of your audience, you can think about the message they are receiving from your image. If you’re in Swansea, you can think about where you will stand when the big companies move in. And, perhaps most interestingly – what unique opportunities Swansea offers to allow you to have national or international sales. With any of those, you will need a strong brand - one that looks world-confident.
Written by Penelope Else
Published in Swansea Business Life September/October 2007