Rural business marketing coach

My name is Sue Emery, Rural Entrepreneur, Mum and Marketing Coach. I am the person behind Rural Business Matters. I live in the Cairngorms with my partner, our little boy and a menagerie of animals.

Running a rural business can be lonely - navigating the patchy WiFi, juggling of family life, and often a lack of peer-to-peer support. Countryside customers make their purchasing decisions based on reputation above all else, but there comes a point where word-of-mouth is not enough. This is where rural business owners often get stuck, having to show up online regularly, when they’d quite frankly rather have a weekly root canal.

I have distilled my 12 years of experience in rural entrepreneurship into The Rural Reputation Method, which requires exactly no dancing on Instagram. I'm on a mission to help as many rural-focused, service-based business owners as possible get comfortable marketing their businesses in a genuine, authentic way.

But where did this all start? I grew up on the Isle of Skye, about as rural as you can get (yes, I remember when there was only a ferry to the mainland, not a bridge). My parents owned several different businesses within the hospitality sector, so I grew up surrounded by an entrepreneurial mindset.

When I was a teenager and very horse-mad, a man who back then we would have referred to as ‘the back man’ came to treat horses on the island, my own Highland Pony included. I knew this was what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Fast forward about ten years, several sales jobs, a stint as a Recruitment Consultant and even a short spell in newspaper advertising, I followed my dream and trained as an Equine Physiotherapist, setting up my own business in May 2014.

I LOVED it and put my heart and soul into it, especially following my Dad’s death that same year. I built up a thriving, award-winning business mainly through social media. But I also got a little burnt out. A lot of traveling was involved, and it took over life. I scaled back to part-time after 5 years and had some great part-time roles alongside my business, with, amongst others, a rural business membership organisation.

This lead me to completing the Scottish Rural Leadership Programme in 2023/24 and setting up this business. At first, I worked mostly in-person, but I pivoted in 2024 when I had my son to work solely online.

I believe that people should love what they do for a living, and if you have a business idea, you MUST go for it. I’m here to help you make it a successful reality.