FAQs

The Craft is a business & marketing consultancy. As a business consultancy we answer strategic questions arising from business change. For example, where a business is finding it hard to decide and explain its market position and what it does, so it needs to evolve its positioning and value proposition. But we don't leave it there. We're a strategic marketing consultancy putting the tools and assets in our clients' hands so they can execute the strategy and turn it into progress.

On average, from kick off to solution and assets in hand it can take between 8 to 12 weeks depending on the complexity of the business and solution.

It very much depends on the project scope which we define and detail with you. Purely as a guide, a strategic engagement budget will range between £20,000 up to £50,000 and the enablement workstream will range between £30,000 to £50,000.

There are 3 core component stages or sprints within typical projects. Sprint 1 is Research & Analysis which is where we carry out an in depth review of a business, its market, its capabilities, its competition based on where it is currently and where it's evolving to. Sprint 2 involves structuring the facts and different hypotheses together with the client to define the market positioning of the business. Sprint 3 is focused on detailing the value proposition and enabling the business to execute on it.

You will have a Project Lead responsible for keeping everything on track and looking ahead to ensure everything is well thought through and we're being proactive and responsive. Most importantly you'll have a 'Strategy Lead' who sees things differently, objectively, they will guide and lead you through the process. Behind this team are writers and designers. The key thing is you get a senior team which doesn't chop and change and isn't afraid of getting their hands dirty.

We're here to do the heavy lifting but this has to be right for you and your business so time does vary. On average for internal stakeholders we estimate it can be between 2-3hrs up to 2 days over the period of a project. And for primary stakeholders and points of contact, between 2 days and 4 days over the whole project time frame is usual.

It's our responsibility to thoroughly check we're a fit for you and vice versa. Following a set of initial calls to help you check us out and for us to determine a scope, we'll provide a thorough Statement of Work. This includes outcomes, outputs, timescale and budget. We'd like to share detailed examples of our work so you can be sure of the depth we work at, and for you to speak to a reference. Once you're happy and commercials are agreed, we'll provide everything you need to introduce the upcoming project to your team. We'll also run a call so they can get to know us and know what to expect. And then we're ready to go.

We very rarely work where there aren't already, or haven't recently been, existing programmes of work in place. They're simply not able to crack what we do, though. We leverage what you already have in place, we complement it, and we strengthen and build a solution you wouldn't have otherwise reached.

We're specialists in market positioning and value proposition development, unlike 99% of the market which is made up of marketing and PR agencies and generalist business consultants. We see this as useful for a number of reasons. First off, we're not trying to sell you a website or an event because that's how we need to make money. We're actually focused on your strategy problem and solving it. Secondly, when you engage most agencies they do strategy but not how we do it. They focus on campaign level marketing messaging and content as the outcome. Whereas we focus on technical depth, business strategy and robust sales level detail which is necessarily deeper, more robust and reflective of your business. It also resonates better and deeper with the range of stakeholders you need to communicate to. Thirdly, we're not consultants that provide a strategic answer, everything we do is about activation from day one, changing behaviour through bringing your own people into the journey so you own the outcome.

We're often brought in after using a brand consultant hasn't delivered the outcome you need. Brand consultants are excellent at what they do, but from our view they focus on what things look like, brand values and structure; they're not interested in the commercial, sales and technical depth below this. We are, as these are the areas where businesses really evolve. They hold the rich detail to evolve its right to play in a market space, and they are the key to how it can differentiate its value proposition from others in the market. Once we've cracked that, then it's time to look at how the work is creatively expressed. The important thing is that the ingredients have to be right, and rich with detail. Otherwise, the outcome is window dressing that at best is only relevant in the short term.

The Craft is a best fit when a business needs to understand and make decisions about its market position; what it is, what sectors it operates in, what its capabilities and expertise are to enable the business to operate in a different space and secure higher value. When a business needs a clear value proposition to better enable its leaders to explain what the business is becoming, what it is, what it does and what it enables and why it is differentiated. When key stakeholders across a business need to buy into, align around, and actively use the market position and value proposition to strengthen go-to-market activity.

The Craft is not the right fit if: the business is a consumer brand; if the business isn't experiencing challenges and complexity; if a client only wants a surface level answer like campaign headlines and content for marketing alone versus supporting it with depth and detail that the business, sales and marketing can utilise over 3-5 years in a consistent and highly flexible way; or if a business doesn't need to evolve beyond what it does today.

We're based in the South West, close to both Government and technology communities, and we feel lucky as we've delivered projects remote and in person throughout the UK, Europe, APAC and US.

We always work under NDA from initial contact forward. Confidence and trust has to be earned, and we treat all information in a client relationship as sensitive from day one due to the depth at which we work. All information is stored securely and only used by the core team as you would expect. The Project Lead is responsible for managing information but we apply common sense, we don't work on trains or planes, and we don't discuss client work publicly. The work we do with clients helps them get ahead of competitors and we treat that as completely confidential all the time.

We believe AI has its place, as a brilliant supporting and production capability. AI answers might be quick and, in all honesty, get you 70% to the right answer, but that remaining 30%+ in high-stakes situations concerning a business’s future value is too risky to not verify and be certain about.

What AI can’t replicate is running a set of in-depth qualitative interviews with stakeholders to explore and synthesize the political cultural dynamics within a leadership team. AI can’t get the CEO and business leaders into a facilitation environment to explore the facts and reach decisions together. AI can’t be a credible external validator showing a trail of facts and logic when leaders have to present to investors or acquirers. And AI can’t replicate the 30+ clients we’ve worked with where we have developed market positioning for clients but in addition supported the culture change within the leadership, business teams and sales & marketing functions.

The Craft Consulting Limited operated from 2015 to 2020 and was established by Mark Wiseman-Smith and Nat Sones as a specialist positioning consultancy in B2B Tech. In 2020 the business was acquired by Agent3 [now known as Pretzel], part of Next15 Group, following two joint clients recommending there was common ground to work together. The Craft Consulting grew over this period from a specialist with 10 people and an annual turnover of £1.3million to an Account Based Marketing division with offices in UK, US and APAC with 90+ staff and a turnover in excess of £9.5million. In 2025, after a highly successful mutual relationship, Next15 very kindly agreed Mark Wiseman-Smith could take back 'The Craft' brand as a specialist consultancy business and operate as he wished with their support and blessing. Mark set up The Craft Strategic Marketing Services Ltd. Welcome to The Craft.

The Craft has worked historically with a range of business types and sizes across the B2B technology and technology enabled businesses in UK, EMEA, US and APAC. Out of the 30+ clients over the past 10 years, 20% have been enterprise-sized where the work focuses on portfolio evolution and strategic account growth.

Over 50% of our clients have been founder-led privately owned or investor backed businesses in growth-stage or mid-market with annual turnovers ranging from £5M to £100M.

Our clients typically have entered the market with a capability and that’s expanded over time and enabled them to enter different areas of the market, and they need support to position for further growth. Equally we’ve worked with clients who have a traditional capability and are turning it into a digital offering to extend their growth.

We love this question. And there are a set of specifically engineered reasons why we think we’re unique.

• We focus on B2B technology and technology enabled clients and have done from day 1, which means we have a good level of understanding of the technology market.

• For over 15+ years we’ve helped our clients take their horizontal capabilities and make them vertical specific and account specific to fuel new growth. This means we have an interest and understanding of how technology is applied by organisations in Financial Services, Telco, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Public Sector and most key sectors.

• As a business we focus on being solely a market positioning specialist that enables leaders, sales and marketing to be aligned and go-to-market with precision and depth. With a strategic narrative from top to bottom that is true, compelling and differentiated. Developing the narrative that will attract investors and the tools to equip the business to drive new revenue. Rather than a brand exercise that is right but surface-level or a marketing campaign which is a headline and short-term.

We’ve found this specific combination of expertise enables us to move faster and work at a deeper depth with business leaders to solve their challenges in a way others can’t match.

We provided a list of clients that engaged The Craft between 2015 and 2025 to an independent financial provider, each scope of work was reviewed and ones where the central aim was to support a next phase of growth [via market extension, capability extension, customer type/size extension] were identified. Using the list of clients, acquisitions were then verified via web searches and listed amounts were collated for each acquisition.
This enables The Craft to stand by verified analysis that shows between 2015 to 2025 it worked with over 30+ clients across UK, EMEA, US & APAC regions. During this period over 60% of projects were designed to support successful next phase growth periods and 20% of clients were acquired within a following three-year period with valuations ranging from $20M to $2B. While clearly

The Craft doesn’t claim its work was the sole catalyst, the projects were commissioned by CEOs and senior leaders as part of the strategy to achieve growth and higher valuations.