When Ryan Magada of Brave Little Beast hit me up to join in on a session of his Beast School, a 4-hour workshop to help brands find their magical story, I said YES without hesitation.
One because Ryan is awesome and we’ve collaborated on countless projects in the past.
Two because I had never had the honor of sitting through a whole session of Beast School - I had just seen the results.
And I wanted to be in the room where it happened. (you’re welcome for that Hamilton ear worm)
OLIO Development Group is a one-of-a-kind development partner.
It’s not because of their radically transparent reporting, or their breadth of experience, or their beginning-to-end services helping brands build new spaces...it comes down to their team.
For 4 hours I got to observe how their team worked together.
Sure, there was the ‘boss,’ but everyone had an equal say.
Everyone had a chance to disagree, to put forth a silly idea, a serious idea, a problem.
When we got to the “Brand Anthem” (USP) section of Beast School, one member shouted, “BOOMSHAKALAKA, THERE’S YOUR BUILDING!”
I think that statement pretty much sums up the energy in the room.
I’ve worked with a lot of teams in the past, but I had never seen a team work so damn well together.
In fact, I wouldn’t describe the crew over at OLIO as a team—I would describe them as a community.
Seeing OLIO’s community in action made me so excited to write their new website.
And Ryan was pumped to design it.
I followed my process as I do with any website project:
Lay out the site map to ensure we’re capturing the right story, navigation is clean, and there is a clear path to conversion
Create a detailed outline for approval before I start any writing
Write the thing
Conduct a live revision with the Key Decision Maker
But that last part - conduct a live revision?
Normally only the Key Decision Maker is invited to that session, simply because the more cooks you have in the kitchen, the more the dish just tastes like salt.
OLIO asked if they could all be there.
Most copywriters would see that request and think NIGHTMARE HECK NO THAT’LL BE A MESS.
But I had seen them in action at Beast School and realized the whole team had to be there.
They all had to agree on the new messaging for OLIO.
This was a community decision.
There was a reason I had written “Together is the way we work” all over their site.
Two hours and 9 people later, we had walked through the copy for the new site.
Team members caught details that the Key Decision Maker and I might have missed.
I was able to explain the reasoning behind big copy choices and get community buy-in on the new positioning.
This group live revision was the exact opposite of a nightmare.
And the end result was a website that reflected their company perfectly.
For me, it's obvious as to why OLIO has grown exponentially over the past few years.
If I was building a new location for a brick and mortar or wanting to build out an office space, I would choose them without hesitation.
These are the types of clients I love writing for - the clients who are passionate, who absolutely love what they do, who have fun, and who truly care about the people around them.
That type of work environment makes for better copy, a better community, and ultimately a more profitable business.
Check out the final website here: https://oliodevgrp.com/
Key sections of their new site:
P.S. Curious about Beast School? Check it out here. It's awesome.