Meet Sue, the rural business marketing coach
Rural Business Matters is designed for female founders who hate marketing and empowers them to make it work for their business.
Who said marketing your countryside business had to be so difficult?
The marketing advice on the internet is LOUD, and frankly, not designed for women with countryside customers.
So, I’m here to tell you, there’s a different way to approach your marketing. Where you can be yourself.
… And dare I say, enjoy it.
Is it safe to say that marketing doesn’t come naturally to you?
Guess what, that’s ok. No one has ever taught you, and you’re being bombarded by surface-level social media advice. Every time you open Instagram, you hear…
→ ‘Be consistent’, but consistently what?
→ ‘Sign up for another free resource’, that you open once and never again
→ ‘Trends that make you dangerously good at’, but they don’t feel right
→ ‘Sell, sell, sell’, but this makes you feel pushy
→ ‘Shout about your POV’, you work with countryside folk, loud doesn’t work for them
The truth is, you don’t have to sound like everyone else, and this is why marketing yourself feels unnatural.
Your business isn’t like anyone else’s and your marketing needs to reflect that.
You don’t have to shout to stand out
I’m Sue, and I’ll help you stop worrying about what Janet at the Post Office thinks about your marketing.
My parents also built multiple rural businesses in the hospitality industry. I can’t help it; rural entrepreneurship is in my blood.
I’ve built multiple rural businesses from scratch and alone. An award-winning veterinary physiotherapy business, a beautiful Airbnb near the NC500, and now, Rural Business Matters.
Over twelve years working within large rural organisations, including Scottish Land & Estates, the University of the Highlands and Islands, and The Country Food Trust, in a mix of project management and marketing roles.
I’ve seen too many women with great businesses feel so out of their depth when it comes to marketing that they do nothing. So, their businesses stay stagnant while their stress levels go through the roof…
I’ve worked with so many countryside-loving clients, including an agricultural buyers group, a wildlife artist, dog trainers, flower farmers, other coaches, a venison business, a specialist sheep breeder, and a farm vet practice.
The best part of my job is to see women grow in confidence and market themselves in a way that is so closely aligned with their values that it feels easy and attracts more customers.
Want to talk through how I can guide your marketing that feels right for YOU and your customers?
You don’t want to be loud, and you definitely don’t want to be AI-generated
My method is explicitly for women who are running their businesses solo or with a small team, and have countryside customers.
These women don’t want to become someone online that they aren’t in real life.
I’ve been this woman multiple times, and I have distilled that 12 years of experience figuring out how to market efficiently and effectively into my own method, The Rural Reputation method. And now, I want to share my knowledge with you
The Rural Reputation Method
Intention
A focused presence created around what makes sense for you and your business. Showing up in the right places, for the right people, with the right message is what transforms a hidden business into a recognised one.
Connection
Having a conversation online should be no different from the ones you have at home. Together we develop a natural approach to starting conversations that won’t make you feel like an automated sales message.
Visibility
To grow your business, you need to be seen by those who don’t know you, as well as those who do. Moving them closer to buying with you is an art that, once you know the craft behind it, soon becomes second nature.
Ready to make your business more visible, show up as yourself, and get comfortable with getting it done over perfection?
Let’s chat about making that happen.
A little about how I work
I’m not here to give you a copy-and-paste answer to your marketing strife, because you and your business are unique.
If you want to treat the internet like a business friend, not a foe, keep your to-do lists on paper, not apps, and embrace marketing your business in a genuine way, I’m the marketing coach for you.
Your remote community
You can’t be friends with everyone. But the connections you make within Rural Business Matters will help build your business (and keep you sane!)
This isn’t a ‘side hustle’
You’re doing what others only dream of. You don’t have to be a boss-babe, but you are running a successful business. You're a business owner. Own it
Writing over Typing
Romanticise the handwritten thank-you card, lists in pretty notebooks, and drafting ideas on paper. Getting back to the roots of where we see creativity flow.
Focus on your people
You are not for everyone. That’s the whole point of good marketing: to attract the people who remind you why you started your business in the first place.
Be yourself (with boundaries)
You don’t want to share every detail, but once you are clear on what you are happy to share, content, connection, and writing become so much simpler.
Done is better than perfect
The internet is fast. Don’t let the fear of what someone thinks hold you back. You need to put yourself out there to learn. Some things will work, others won’t, and that’s ok.
You get out what you put in
A little more about me…
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, and 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 my life. I scaled back to part-time after 5 years and had some great part-time roles alongside my business, amongst others, a rural business membership organisation.
I completed the Scottish Rural Leadership Programme in 2023/24 and set up this business. At first, I worked mostly in-person, but I pivoted in 2024 when I had my son to work solely online.
When I’m not working on the ins and outs of Rural Business Matters.
You’ll find me spending time with our little boy, out in the fields with the dogs, or elsewhere with our menagerie of animals, or taking a beat to catch up on the latest episode of Emmerdale (that’s the most drama that my life sees).
I love that I get to live and breathe my work.
Feel like we could be a good team? Let’s have virtual coffee.
(I’d offer to meet in person if I didn’t live in the mountains of the Cairngorms)