Keir_Whitaker.

What Exactly Do You Do?

It’s a fair question, and one I’ve sometimes struggled to answer.

I usually describe my work as marketing and business support for Shopify Partners. That’s accurate, but it covers a lot of ground. Positioning affects content. Pricing affects how an offer lands. A business decision can change what needs marketing in the first place.

The short answer is I help Shopify Partners work out what’s holding their marketing back, decide what to do next, and get the work done. Sometimes that goes beyond marketing, and that’s part of the job too.

It Rarely Stays a Marketing Problem

Clients rarely arrive with a tidy, easy-to-solve marketing problem.

Someone wants more opportunities, and it turns out their positioning isn’t clear enough to act on. Someone wants to publish more consistently, and what’s missing is a simpler plan, not more ideas. An offer isn’t selling, and the fix is better promotion, or the offer itself needs reworking.

Pull on one thread and it usually leads somewhere else.

The Questions That Keep Coming Up

The details vary, but Shopify Partners tend to bring me different versions of the same questions.

• Why aren’t we generating enough opportunities beyond referrals?
• Do customers understand what we do, who it’s for, and why they should choose us?
• Are our offers easy to understand, buy, and price properly?
• How do we stay visible without marketing taking over the week?
• Are we focusing on what will move the business forward or just reacting?
• Which opportunities, events, and partnerships are genuinely worth our time?

Those questions usually fall into six connected areas.

Positioning & Messaging

Positioning is deciding what you want to be known for, who you’re best placed to help, and why someone should choose you. Messaging is how you express that so people understand and remember it.

That might mean tightening how you describe the business, finding the ideas worth building around, or making sure your website, proposals, and sales conversations tell the same story. The goal isn’t a clever strapline. It’s making the value of what you do easier to recognise.

Offers & Pricing

Good businesses can still be difficult to buy from. Services get overly complicated, packages overlap, and pricing ends up reflecting how the work evolved rather than how clients actually want to buy it.

I help refine services, packages, and pricing so they make sense for both sides. Sometimes that means simplifying an existing offer, sometimes repackaging expertise differently, and sometimes deciding an idea shouldn’t become an offer at all.

Marketing Direction

Most Shopify Partners don’t need another list of channels they ought to be using. They need to decide where their attention matters most and build a rhythm they can actually maintain.

That means choosing the right audiences, subjects, and places to show up, and accepting that consistency usually beats complexity. A modest plan that survives a busy month is worth more than an ambitious one that disappears after two weeks.

Content & Communication

Once the direction is set, someone still has to do the work. Newsletters, articles, LinkedIn posts, launch campaigns, sales material, follow-up from an event or partner conversation.

The aim isn’t filling a calendar. It’s turning the experience, opinions, and ideas already inside the business into marketing that gives people a reason to pay attention and stay in touch.

Priorities & Focus

Setting a direction is one thing. Deciding what matters now, what can wait, and what should be dropped entirely is the harder part.

I help clients make those calls and keep the important work moving without getting pulled off course by every new idea. Sometimes that means building momentum behind one initiative. Sometimes it means giving yourself permission to stop doing something that no longer earns its place.

Business Decisions

Some questions extend beyond marketing. A new offer, a pricing change, a partnership, a hire, a shift in direction. These are hard to judge when you’re the person closest to them and the consequences land with you.

In those situations, my role is to understand the context, test assumptions, ask the difficult questions, and help you weigh the options before you commit to one.

How the Work Takes Shape

These six areas are connected, but not every client needs the same support. The right starting point depends on the problem in front of you.

• The Plan is a focused engagement for working out what’s holding your marketing back and turning it into a practical course of action.
• The Engine Room provides ongoing direction and hands-on delivery for the marketing work that needs to keep moving.
• The Sounding Board is an ongoing advisory relationship for the decisions and challenges that benefit from an experienced outside view.

Is It Just You?

Yes. Despite the countless domains I’ve bought while wondering whether I should operate under a “proper” business name, it’s still just me. Keir Whitaker is both the person you hire and, for practical purposes, the name above the door.

When you work with me, you work directly with me. No account manager, no junior team, no handoff between strategy and delivery.

I don’t cover every part of marketing. If the work needs paid media, SEO, design, development, or another specialist skill, I’ll say so. My job is to stay close to the business, hold the context together, and help make sure the right work moves forward.

So what do I actually do? I help Shopify Partners understand what’s holding their marketing back, decide what to do next, and carry out the work, along with the wider business questions that come with it.

If you’re unsure what’s holding your marketing back, or what to do about it, book a free consultation and we can talk it through.