This past week I connected with Lucy on LinkedIn and today morning I met with her on Zoom.

Lucy first came to Dubai some 18 years back and turned into an entrepreneur in 2007. She set up her marketing and design agency, PLUG – for assisting SMEs to think beyond the box and grow their organisation exponentially.

She is an entrepreneur who helps her clients grow by helping them define their target audience and build their ‘dream clients’ list. Simple as this may sound, there is a detailed 5 step process that Lucy takes you through in her program.

Based on her years of experience, Lucy has developed her coaching program that embodies 5 levers to scale a business. She assists her clients in lead generation through various brand activation campaigns. She then helps develop the business model based on realistic goal setting, profit margins, and attainable sales volumes. Once the numbers are in place, the ways to achieve them are clearly defined.

I asked Lucy, what made her agency stand out in this crowded marketplace. She quipped, “I believe great companies have great clients. I help ordinary companies become great companies.”

I was quite fascinated by the military hat that lucy adorns on her Social Media profile. Could not resist asking her the connection. Lucy actually wanted to be a historian and she believes that there are a lot of lessons that businesses can learn from the battlefield. Every day is a battle to win the hearts and minds of the consumers. And brands need to work hard to attain and then retain them. It requires military-style planning, communication, and execution.  Lucy’s agency provides the armory of branding expertise that enables her customers to prevail.

Here is my favorite quote from ‘The Art Of War’ by Sun Tzu. “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” Sun Tzu famously emphasized the importance of planning ahead to ensure victory, arguing that the battle is usually won long before the actual fighting begins. Companies must balance being agile with thoughtful planning to find success.

Lucy is on a mission to reach out to 10,000 business people and help them in changing their lives. I think she is well on her way and I wish her the best.

Penned by Sharad Agarwal