Welcome to my website.

I’m a creative, a writer and a creative director. I’m unlike lot a lot of creatives with 30+ years of experience, though, because I spent a lot of my career working directly for Specsavers, in house. This changed the conversations I had completely. I talked directly to the business, but more importantly I was able to talk directly to actual customers. Specsavers had a very broad audience, so I met a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds. People often ask me how we managed to do great work. Well, that’s how.

Research with an idea in it

What I do sounds simple. I talk to your customers, and tell you what they say. That takes a little bit of time, and I do it in a structured way, agreeing with you what questions to ask, who to talk to, and what work to talk about. Then I organise sessions with several groups of around ten people. I don’t use interviewers. I ask the questions, listen, and report back to you with a full account and my thoughts on what it means for you. And some ideas. Because your customers will be full of them.

You might do this sort of thing a lot, but it won’t be quite the same. Few research group moderators are looking for creative ideas. Many businesses depend entirely on data, and that is looking for something else entirely. Can it work for you? Should’ve gone to Specsavers came out of exactly this process, a long time ago. I believe that listening well can work for anyone.

Finally, I charge £10000 for a four week project. I guarantee you’ll learn something useful. It’s a bit of a no brainer, in my opinion.