It’s time to grow up!

Kate Chastey, director of The Passionate PA, talks candidly about the highs and lows of rebranding The Passionate PA and why the time was right to embrace change.  

Where to begin?

The Passionate PA launched in 2007 with a pretty distinctive logo and colour palette. Darren Mooney at The Global Group worked with our founder, Sarah Howells, to create a design that was exciting, creative and very reflective of Sarah’s unique character and passion for life in Bournemouth.

That branding stood the test of time, seeing the business though an entire decade and a lot of change. People loved it, recognised it and it made us stand out from our competition.

So, in October 2016, when I started to get an unsettling desire to see The Passionate PA move on in terms of our visual communications, I knew I was in for a bumpy ride. I took over this business from a very formidable lady; Sarah was energetic, decisive and forthright – some might say we’re a little too alike! But, no matter what changes I had made to this business since Sarah passed away in 2010, one thing had remained constant; the brand. Although Sarah was no longer here to be part of our future, for me, she was always with me through the brand, and that has meant a great deal on many occasions. You can read more about how I came to take over the business here.

So why change?

Well, progress is impossible without change?

Definitely! I love the original brand, and always will, but everything about this business is different from its creation in 2007; Sarah, me, our clients, the way we work, technology, our communication style, our marketing and of course, my plans for the next 15 years.

I felt it was time that The Passionate PA developed, got stronger, really made a mark beyond Dorset. I felt it was time that the business stood alone without being synonymous with Sarah or myself – and so I embraced the change.

The Creative Minds

There was no question about me asking The Global Group to create the second generation Passionate PA. That seemed so natural. I gave them free reign to create concepts that would test me and question my vision. They did this impeccably well!! So well in fact, I remember walking out of a meeting I’d had with Darren, where he’d just presented four incredible WOW concepts, but I was in tears. I cried because I didn’t like them for my business. I cried because he said Sarah would have loved them. I cried because they weren’t ‘me’ or any of the other current or future Passionate PAs. Oh boy was this a low point in the change process. I thought I’d gone mad, or not briefed Darren and his team very well. I thought I’d lost all my creative flare – which was a huge knock, I went to Art School for goodness sake! 🙂

But, after weeks of me ‘sleeping on it’ and the patience of a saint from Darren and his team, we went back to the drawing board. I eventually realised my rejection of the four concepts was a massively valuable learning experience because it really made me see how clear my vision for the future was, and then I hit on the phrase “The Passionate PA needs to grow up”. I didn’t want to reinvent the business completely, I wanted to honour our past and give us wings for the future.

And then they had it… the team at Global did a spectacular job of developing our old logo and old skyline to reflect how we have changed over the last few years and where I am taking the business now. We are no longer a one-woman business based by the sea, free as a butterfly to dip in and out of all sorts of client work. We are a strong, robust business with determination and sparkle in equal measure. We work with a range of businesses, across many locations, and enjoy making things happen for our ambitious entrepreneurial clients.

Bringing the brand to life…

Global went on to create all our design concepts and printed stationery. Every time someone sees our Business Cards with the gloss UV finish, they mention the quality and the attention to detail. That never ceases to make me smile and is credit to Global for creating a stationery set with the wow factor.

(Click to enlarge)

Then came the website development phase of the project. I had spent a great deal of time thinking about what I liked and what the business needed. I’d done research with our current clients and current Passionate PAs. I’d met a few different agencies and through my work managing websites and blog content for my clients, I had gathered many ideas about what our website could be. I felt I was in a brilliant position to write a clear brief about the pages we needed, the style of language to use, the imagery, the ways our clients would interact… oh the detail was immense. I was so excited I was even able to scribble my initial thoughts for the Home Page design. (See now why Art College didn’t go so great?!)

Anyway, copywriting was whole other story, isn’t it always! But that just needed a clear head and a good glass of wine in the end. This will be something I continually tweak over the coming months and years too and I’m really looking forward to seeing it change.

The process for actually building the website was not a smooth or easy one. I hear people recall their frustrations of web design projects all the time – from both client and supplier side – but I naively believed my experience would be different because I had a clear brief, know how agencies work, understand a little about the design process and website building and, well, because I so wanted it to be different. I was preparing to spend what was to me a huge amount of money and so this wasn’t just about the end result, it was about the journey.

Despite my best plans, the process of creating the site was a long painful one for lots of reasons. I fell into the trap of feeling like a cog in a very large, inefficient, rigid process. After a sparkly, personalised sales pitch came templated responses to unique questions and very little ‘account management’ in the traditional sense. My detailed brief fell on deaf ears and I did not receive the imaginative design concepts I thought I was paying for. In the end, the web design company did do what they had to in order to get the website to a point where I would sign it off and pay them their money, but the experience on both sides was pretty shocking.

Once the website was ready to soft launch though, I enlisted the help of a company I know thrive on partnerships. Rubix have been our email and web hosting supplier for years, and so when I asked them to host the new website and help me make the design tweaks I felt we needed before telling the world “the site’s live!”, they simply rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in. Samuel, Rubix’s MD, has been an exceptional support and resource in finalising the website. He’s listened to my crazy ideas, happily taught me how to do things myself and made me laugh, a lot. I owe him a big bottle of something!

We have big plans for the website in the coming months with new Case Study pages, an interactive location map, a whizzy tool to help potential clients find the service they are looking for and the development of the ‘Join Us’ page… oh yes, The Passionate PA team is growing! The rebranding and new website have given me a launch pad for promoting our business to both clients and new Passionate PAs – it’s incredibly exciting.

So, was the long bumpy journey worth it?

Hell yes. Myself and all the Passionate PAs love the new brand and are really proud of how the website brings each of us and our unique skills and experience to life. We aren’t virtual, we aren’t robots. When our clients chose us, they are doing so because we really are a new brain in their business. We thrive on dynamic relationships with entrepreneurs, and we hope the new site does us justice in displaying that.

Would I do it all again?

Ha… not for another decade!

Kate x