My Secret Work Weapon: Be true to your core proposition in everything you do

Our strapline is 'Hotels with personality' and that's all about doing things differently and celebrating that our hotels are independent.

What's most important is making our guests' stay with us enjoyable. So everything we do has to refer back to that, from the customers' perspective. At every point you have to ask 'does this deliver the core brand proposition?' and 'is this different from what everyone else is doing?'

If the answer is 'no', you have to look at how you add that in, or you may have to start again and think about it in a different way.

This applies across the whole company.

We started taking this approach two years ago and it's now a full, businesswide strategy; it's about adding colour and life to everything.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk