Recently I visited Daylesford to run a mini-mastermind, and while I was there, I thought I’d pop into a business I’ve followed on Instagram for a while, Daylesford Apothecary.
I was really impressed with what they’ve done with their business, so I thought I’d share about what I think they are doing right.
Daylesford Apothecary is absolutely nailing 3 key things that I think are really beneficial for practitioners and will continue to be important moving forward.
1. Collaboration
One of the biggest things I saw with this business is their collaboration. They have a bricks-and-mortar business that is absolutely stunning and completely Instagram-worthy and what they’ve done is connect with all of the local businesses around them. I’m staying at an amazing little holiday house and the Apothecary has teas that are available in a beautiful little gift basket that you get at the holiday house. In addition to the gift baskets, I noticed that their bath soaks are also available at the cafe where I had a cup of coffee this morning!
This is a wonderful level of collaboration that can happen. How can you collaborate with your service or your product with the local community so that you get seen more? I’ve literally seen them everywhere since I’ve been here.
That’s my first big tip – brainstorm about what you could do to collaborate with other local businesses around you. I love how Daylesford Apothecary has done this.
2. Connection
Another place they are doing a great job is the way they have connected with their market via social media. They’ve got a following of nearly 2,000 people on social media, and they are on it! On Instagram, in particular.
The connection bit I love is that everything in here is Instagramable, right from the “Honour Your Being” inscription on the glass door to the traditional apothecary style everything in their shop. It’s all perfectly Instagramable.
Instagram is one of the biggest places for growth on the Internet at the moment to share your business or your service! Instagram clocked over a billion people last month and it’s growing faster than Facebook.
So I encourage you to embrace the movement and create some little vignettes – a vignette is an area of your home or shop that has various pieces that all go together to create a design feature that is photographable – and share them on Instagram!
You have an amazing opportunity to create little spaces like that in your clinic or your bricks and mortar business where even your customers can get excited about taking a picture and sharing your space with their social media followers.
3. Innovation
One of the biggest things we worry about as practitioners is that all of our knowledge is tradition-based, so how can we move it and bring it into the future?
Innovation is all about finding a creative way to solve a problem.
This Apothecary is innovating with the Instagramable aesthetic of their business. For an apothecary – a place that sells services and products – how can you innovatively get that out to other people?
The cool thing that these guys do is there’s a big bar in the middle of the shop and they’re innovating by sharing one-to-many. They’re doing workshops in their space, teaching other people to create the same type of products that they sell, which helps establish them as part of their community.
So for your business, how can you innovate?
Instead of serving one-to-one or instead of just selling a product, how can you creatively solve a problem and bring in more people, more money, and help more people through your business? How can you innovatively and creatively do that?
Inside the Apothecary, everything is just beautiful. The whole place smells yummy – like the dispensary of your dreams. All of the products are packaged and displayed nicely.
When I was first starting out in practice I had no idea that creating a window dressing was a thing. I didn’t understand that you need space in between things and you need everything to match. If you’ve got multiple different products that you make – maybe you have a children’s range and an adult range or something like that – you want them all to match so that it’s nice and collectable.
Do you have branding and messaging that matches all the way throughout your business?
Do you create inspiring and inviting spaces for you or your customers? (this applies to the online side of your business as well!)
Now You
So these are my little tips from an amazing experience I’ve had at Daylesford Apothecary here in New South Wales. The stand-outs being Connection, Collaboration, and Innovation – I just saw them done so well here that I wanted to share how it can be done. These also happen to be the three key drivers for the conference NatX-2019 that I’m hosting in 2019.
No matter what you’re selling, these tips can help your business grow.
So I’d love to inspire you to consider how you can take some of these ideas to connect with your own audience and local community.
Don’t get hung up on how this example is different from your business. What I want you to really focus in on is what is possible for you if you were to think in a blue sky way about what else is possible when it comes to connecting with people.
That may be connecting on social media, connecting through branding, connecting with your local businesses, or collaborating in ways that you wouldn’t traditionally think of.
Consider actually going out there and doing it, about going out and meeting with other businesses to see what you could provide for them. Whether it’s a gift certificate for people who are selling houses, or some of your products (especially if you’ve got teas and things). Your local area is a beautiful space to connect and collaborate.
How can you innovate, especially leveraging social media?
I hope this has been beneficial. I loved being there and sharing this with you. Just like any of my trainings, I would love to hear what you got from this. Please share with me in the comments below.
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If you want to follow Apothecary on Instagram, you’ll see the branding and all their yumminess and how they’ve melded the traditional way of thinking and creating products into innovative ways of selling.
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