About Claywheel
I’m Jonny, and I started Claywheel to bring together the parts of marketing I’ve always enjoyed most: understanding how a business works, finding ideas worth pursuing and doing the work to make them happen.
I’ve spent most of my career working inside B2B businesses. I know what it’s like to be responsible for marketing budgets, work alongside the people bringing in business and make decisions that need to deliver something commercially worthwhile.
- 1I’ve been on your side of the table
- 2The Barracudas that never were
- 3Credible, distinctive, specific
- 4One person, from the thinking to the finished work
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1
I’ve been on your side of the table
Before Claywheel, I spent years running marketing for businesses in technical, industrial and equipment-led sectors, where the products often take some explaining and customers can take months to make a decision. In some of them, I was the first dedicated marketer they’d had.
I’ve built and managed budgets, worked closely with sales teams and account managers, and sat with managing directors whose question was always the same: what difference will this actually make to the business?
That’s shaped how I work. A good idea needs to make commercial sense, and someone needs to take responsibility for making it happen.
2
The Barracudas that never were
Sadly, the original artwork was lost to time, but it looked something like this.
When I was a kid, I tried to persuade my swimming club to change its name to the Barracudas.
We weren’t winning many races, and I thought we could at least look a bit more intimidating. I drew up a new logo featuring a particularly angry-looking barracuda, designed swimming caps and took the whole idea to the committee.
They said no. I still think they missed a trick.
I’ve always enjoyed looking at familiar things and wondering whether there’s a more interesting way to approach them. These days the ideas involve rather more than swimming caps, and they have to earn their keep.
3
Look credible enough to belong.
Distinctive enough to be remembered.
Specific enough to be chosen.
A business needs to look and sound credible in its market. Customers need to recognise what it does and feel confident choosing it. But playing things too safe can leave perfectly good businesses looking and sounding much like everyone else.
I enjoy finding what makes a business worth choosing, particularly when it’s something the people inside it take for granted. An everyday strength, an overlooked advantage or a different way of explaining what the business does is often what customers remember.
The interesting part is finding what matters to customers and working out how to make more of it.
4
One person, from the thinking to the finished work
Claywheel is deliberately small. You’ll work directly with me, from the first conversation through to the finished work.
I enjoy understanding the business and the people buying from it, then carrying those decisions through into something real. Positioning affects the words, the identity and the website, so it makes sense to think about them together rather than treat them as separate jobs.
I also like working with the people who know the business best, particularly those dealing with customers every day and the operations and technical people. I’ve always got on well with them, and they often know things that never make it into the marketing.
If I think there’s a better way to approach something, I’ll explain why. Equally, if something’s already working, I’m much more interested in making the most of it than changing it for the sake of change.
When a project calls for specialist expertise, I can bring in the right people. The responsibility for bringing everything together stays with me.
I’m based in Leeds and work with technical and industrial B2B businesses across the UK.
Tell me about your business
If you’re considering a project or want a different view of your marketing, I’d love to hear about it.