Well hello there. I'm Russ.

? Founder/MD of Sharper B2B: “The agency I wish I could have worked with when I was in your shoes”
? Marketing heavy-weight
? Virtual CMO
?‍? B2B Tech aficionado
? Obsessed with understanding what makes people tick
? Former stand-up comic (explains a lot)
? Host of The Marketing Magpie podcast
???? Dad to 2 little herberts
?‍?‍ Runner/jogger/plodder
? Bookworm & writer

And a man on a mission to tackle the 3 major frustrations felt during 12+ years as a client-side marketer for Fujitsu, Microsoft, Dell, Symantec and Atos (along with a fair few others too).

But what's the trilogy of frustrations being tackled?


?? LACK OF CREATIVITY
B2B is awash with blue logos, stock photos and brands talking about "hyper-converged ultra-optimised bleeding-edge solutions". Yawn. There's zero effort made to engage with, or talk to people as PEOPLE.

We're changing that with our “fearlessly creative” approach (not our words, but those of a client we love and now use willy nilly) that grabs (and then keeps) the attention of PEOPLE.


?? MARKETING (AND MARKETERS) NOT BEING VALUED
Ever felt the sting of being referred to as a member of "the colouring-in department" or been asked to "sprinkle some magic on this" for the umpteenth time?

I have, and it hurts. So that needs to change too. That’s why everything Sharper does is underpinned by metrics and measures of success so we can articulate the value marketing adds beyond “magic” with cold, hard, unarguable facts.


? LACK OF COMMERCIAL AWARENESS
This is tied to point number 2, but it’s scary how often marketers don’t understand or appreciate the commercial responsibility they have to a business. It’s why marketers are often first on the chopping block for redundancy – been there!

Whatever marketing is doing it NEEDS to show how it positively impacts the big metric that all businesses care about… REVENUE. The touch may be light, but it needs to be obvious how marketing puts £$€ on the bottom line.


Which is why Sharper’s mission is to make B2B marketing as a whole more creative, valued and commercially successful. If that sounds right up your street too, then let’s talk.

And if you want to get into detail we can go to town on; Marketing/Brand Strategy, Marketing analytics & metrics, Content, Demand & Lead Gen, CX, Value Prop Development, Bid Marketing, Messaging, Copywriting, Marketing Automation & MarTech, Events Management, and Direct mail creation (amongst plenty of other marketing disciplines).