Good Business Matters

Little Bertha’s team holding delivery boxes beside the bakery van during the COVID-19 crisis

When COVID-19 hit Melbourne, Little Bertha Bakery lost its market almost overnight. Production Manager Adi Kerr called Cliff in for an emergency breakfast, and over poached eggs and a whiteboard, the work began.

The work

Cliff helped the leadership team of Little Bertha step back from the panic in order to diagnose the problem beneath it: who still needed what Little Bertha could make, how to reach them, and what needed to change first to make the shift.

The work mapped the crisis, identified the customers who were still reachable, clarified the new audience created by people staying home, and shaped a response the team could act on immediately. It was diagnosis under pressure, separating noise from signal, fast.

The work

Cliff helped the leadership team of Little Bertha step back from the panic in order to diagnose the problem beneath it: who still needed what Little Bertha could make, how to reach them, and what needed to change first to make the shift.

The work mapped the crisis, identified the customers who were still reachable, clarified the new audience created by people staying home, and shaped a response the team could act on immediately. It was diagnosis under pressure, separating noise from signal, fast.

The direction

Instead of waiting for normal trade to return, the team had a clear strategy for reaching their existing audience as well as engaging a new one that was 'stuck' at home. Fear and urgency turned into a set of decisive and valuable moves the team could actually make.

The direction

Instead of waiting for normal trade to return, the team had a clear strategy for reaching their existing audience as well as engaging a new one that was 'stuck' at home. Fear and urgency turned into a set of decisive and valuable moves the team could actually make.

The shift

Little Bertha moved from crisis response to commercial adaptation. The business kept baking, protected jobs and built an audience better than it had ever had. The pressure of COVID-19 didn't go away. But the business had a map through it, at a moment when speed mattered, but clear judgement mattered more.

The shift

Little Bertha moved from crisis response to commercial adaptation. The business kept baking, protected jobs and built an audience better than it had ever had. The pressure of COVID-19 didn't go away. But the business had a map through it, at a moment when speed mattered, but clear judgement mattered more.

A crisis can quickly make an existing strategy redundant and the right diagnosis, urgent.

Little Bertha

The work

The work

The direction

The direction

The shift

The shift

Marketing so often masquerades as the problem.

Marketing so often masquerades as the problem.

Hired for the upstream. Engaged in the downstream.

Hired for the upstream. Engaged in the downstream.

Helping senior leaders navigate important commercial decisions.

Helping senior leaders navigate important commercial decisions.

Helping senior leaders navigate important commercial decisions.