Some businesses spend huge amounts of time anguishing over their brand. They write out mission statements and compile prose about ethos.

But it’s all for nothing if it’s just marketing speak. The best branding can’t be forced. It has to be a fundamental part of the fabric of the company. A spirit that is lived and breathed by all its personnel.

One of the questions we get asked most often is:

Why Lollipop?

So here’s the answer from the horse’s mouth…

Well, the truth is that for 8 years I really was a lollipop lady outside my local primary school.

It was my part time job whilst my kids were at senior school.

So, by day, I would direct the traffic so children and business owners could get across the road safely.

But by night, I was learning how to direct traffic to websites.

I was regularly up at 2am watching webinars from the top US gurus as they showed me how to promote local businesses on Facebook or to set up Google Ads.

The business owners that I saw across the road would stop and have a chat. They all complained about their website designer charging them a fortune to move a comma.

Or the local directory salesman who would regularly demand more money when they weren’t really sure what they were getting for it.

There was a clear lack of trust. And I realised that the skills I was learning every night could be applied to all these common local problems.

I grabbed the chance and a business was born.

But what would I call it?

And then it occured to me. All of these lovely tag lines – High visibility social media, High visibility online marketing and We Direct Traffic!

And so Lollipop Local was born.

The lollipop lady has inspired our whole culture towards both customers and employees.

And yet, for several years, she was not a part of our brand. We had been told by a couple of people that it was too ‘cartoony’. Not professional enough. So we ‘refreshed our brand’ and went with the lollipop rather than the lady.

One day, I was hosting a LinkedIn training event and I put up a slide of our original brand. It showed the lollipop lady directing social media and internet traffic. Everyone in the room got very excited:

“So that’s where your name comes from!”

By losing the lollipop lady, we had lost something far more important. Clarity. For both our brand and what we do so successfully.

And Why Fire & Security?

From 2001 to 2009, I spent 3 evenings every week and many weekends learning and later teaching KARATE!

In 2010 I started my own marketing business. And my first customers were the guys that I had rolled around on the mat with during that epic journey. They already knew, liked and trusted me.

One of them was Dave, who was the sales director at Spy Alarms in Kent. He introduced me to Martin, the owner. They both wanted their website to produce more leads.

Martin’s PASSION for Fire & Security was INFECTIOUS! He told me how it had all started when his home was burgled. He was DEVASTATED and started researching the best alarm system. When a sales person came to do a site survey, he realised that his own knowledge far exceeded that of the “expert”.

He started his own security company and later moved into fire alarms as well. He wanted to keep everyone safe. Spy grew into the largest independent supplier in Kent and Martin eventually sold it.

To promote the Spy Alarms website, the Lollipops had to understand the products that they sold. But, more importantly, we had to understand the people that Spy were selling TO.

That’s where we got the real successes.

From a website that had generated NO leads, their first sale was worth £20k. Soon they were getting at least one enquiry a day.

The success showed we needed to specialise in Fire & Security marketing.

I love my job. And I love seeing our clients getting more and bigger enquiries.

I want your experience of working with Lollipop to be a great one. We work hard to build trust in our methods and the results these achieve for your business.

And I want you to feel as safe on the internet as the children and business owners felt on my crossing.

That’s why it made my heart swell with pride when one of our customers said:

“Do what you think is best – I feel safe in your hands”

Just like Martin, Ian is a Fire & Security MD who wants to keep all his customers safe. His dedication to accreditation makes his company a one-stop-shop for both domestic and commercial customers.

Click the image below to see his success story