Sorry Ma’am, Not Today! Why We Won’t Be Running The Queen’s Social Media.

Sorry Ma’am, Not Today! Why We Won’t Be Running The Queen’s Social Media.

You may have seen that Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II has been asking for social media help.

The contract to ‘manage social networking and digital platforms, including our newly launched website, as well as researching and writing feature articles’ is exactly what we do, and it pays £30k a year.

… but we’re not interested!

Yup… we’re snubbing Liz. It’s not her, it’s us!

You might think that this is a rather strange thing to announce. After all, we haven’t applied or been shortlisted.

But even if we were, we wouldn’t do it. Here are the reasons why, and what it means to your business…

One’s not our ideal client

The Queen might have a lot of dosh and will most likely be a good payer. I mean, her face IS ON ACTUAL money. She seems pretty efficient too, so I doubt our Xero accounting software would have to send her many chasing emails.

But she’s not in our target market. We prefer to work with creative, innovative, and smaller organisations than the very traditional Buckingham Palace.

The Queen, as nice as she is, just isn’t our type.

We’ve learned to stick to that.

When we started out in business in 2013, we decided that we’d trust our instincts and aim to work with companies that we really loved and those that we ‘got’.

We like Madge and all that… but we’re just not the right fit.

Too consuming

Can you imagine how much time an account like that would take?

We’d cover all that content easily for a client who ran a start-up or even a million-pound SME, but for the Queen, it would be all-involving and sign-off would be a nightmare.

Getting buy-in on the content to promote her trips and sign-off for articles and social media posts around the Palace would be so slow and time-consuming, that we’d get swamped with the account. We’d lose clients and we’d also have to make cuts and compromises elsewhere.

A big client can do that if you’re not careful. 

We love a challenge… but not one that our gut tells us is one that might be the death of a large chunk of the company.

Not only that, but we wouldn’t be able to push the boundaries and create content that divided opinion and caught attention.

We’ll leave the controversy to Prince Phillip.

It has the potential to do more harm than good

As cool as £30k a year is, it is a full- time job that’s being posted, and that’s not what we’re after.

In 2013 we left our full-time jobs, and the team we work with also work for themselves.

It’s just not on our radar to take a ‘safe job’ and hang up our agency cowboy boots.

That’s what this account would need. That’s not what we want.

“Unemployable” is a term thrown around our circles in business. It sounds negative, but it’s pretty much worn like a badge of honour with small business owners! We prefer to work for ourselves, even if that means working harder.

The Queen has a similarly devoted work ethic, so we know we’d get on.

But we see it as more, “Not employed again”.

We took the red pill… and we ain’t going back!

via GIPHY

It’s OK to say, “No thanks!”

In business, it’s OK to say no to working with certain people or organisations. It’s fine to look at an enquiry, lead, or order by Royal appointment and say, “That’s not for me, thanks!”

If Madge did inbox us, we’d be super-excited… but we’d decline. (After a meeting at the Palace with a cucumber sandwich or two, naturally. I bet they’re cut into fingers.)

We’ve learnt this in our time in business. What we find is that saying, “No” now, leads to us towards having the ideal, “Would you be interested in…?” later. Often quite quickly.

It’s a brave move (or so it feels at the time) but it seems to send out the right message and help us work with the right people. We don’t want 20% of the right people and 80% of the ones we wouldn’t miss if they left.

Sorry Ma’am, not today…

So it’s not going to be us in charge of the Royal marketing. I’m certain we’d do a great job and it would be cool to take selfies with Harry and live stream the next royal birth…

… but we don’t think they’re ready for the cowboy way!

In business, you’ll get lots of great opportunities. What we’ve learnt is that you need to have the guts to trust your gut.

Say no to those seemingly amazing leads that just don’t suit you and wait for the ideal ones that will. Or go out and get them.

One just prefers to work that way…

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