As far as I’m concerned ©

My name is Kelly Bentley and I naturally prefer to focus my energy on others so this feels rather awkies, but I’ll give it a go and summarise the pieces you should know about me.

My philosophy: Through God, show up, have fun, and be better than you were yesterday.

I’m a nerd, a sunrise junkie, an African bush enthusiast, 95% introvert (so my psychologist says), a gin fundi (so I say), unapologetically competitive, I cuss like a pirate (it is what it is), I’m proudly Zimbabwean, am a schnauzer fan, I dig laughing at myself, loyal until you’ve pushed me one too many times then I quietly walk away from the drama, my faith is my home, my husband is my best friend, my family and friends are the foundation I build on, my passion is my work and blah blah blah. If you need to know more get in touch and let’s go for a coffee… or a Negroni.

What do I do? Well, I bring people together, I’m a broker of sorts – I build communities around their unique needs leveraging skill, experience, and influence to drive value and help people make better business decisions. I sell, but mostly I help you sell. I’m a marketeer as per dictionary.com but in reality, I’m a relationship artist. I create engagement opportunities to help you buy or sell digital solutions by understanding and building effective customer experiences.

I’m glad you’re here and whilst I don’t like writing about myself, I do love writing about things that help you build a better business through exceptional stakeholder engagement especially those of your prospects, customers, and employees.

Sign up to my blog or follow me using my social links below and let’s begin a engagement.

Mucho Amor,

Start with ‘Why’

Random insight – I’m a Simon Sinek groupie – but who isn’t?!

My reason for getting out of bed every morning, apart from coffee, another beautiful sunrise, another day with my hubby, and so on, is my work. In fact, I am so passionate about the possibilities of my area of expertise that I started a new business (and this blog) during the first (because let’s face it there may be more) outbreak of COVID in 2020.  Now some may say that’s brave and some may say it’s stupid, I agree with both, but you see that’s the funny thing about passion, it often demands a sequence of equally brave and stupid actions that ultimately result in you living your purpose.

And what is this work that I am so passionate about and allows me to live my purpose, well, in a nutshell, it’s the design, creation, and implementation of a ‘customer-first’ strategy for digitally transforming organisations. I fill my love-tank by helping put customers at the heart of the business. There are numerous studies, books, Ted Talks, and leaders who have proven the long-term growth and success of those businesses that put people before profit. I work with marketing, sales, and service teams to build an understanding of their customers – internally and externally – so as to convey relevant content through effective marketing channels, customised sales engagements, and carefully crafted and connected delivery processes.

If you’re as excited as me about the impact that the human effect can have on your organisation and really getting to know love and understand your customer or even if you’re not but I’ve piqued your interest and you want to understand what all the fuss is about, get in touch and let’s make some magic together!

P.s. These are some of the fantastic books I’ve read, loved, and will read again and again!

My Rebellious Musings

Well first off, they’re 99% rebellious but even rebels have an opinion on the mundane, so some of these articles err on the side of vanilla… forgive me. If on the other hand, I offend you when I get a tad rebellious, well forgive me then too and hang on for the ride – no doubt there is a return to vanilla in some future post. Most of all, remember these are just my opinions – I actively encourage everyone to have one or two of their own and look forward to hearing them.

My writing mostly covers my experience and learnings on business growth hacking with a focus on using exceptional stakeholder engagement as the proverbial lighthouse.

Every now and then a personal post is bound to filter in and of course, I could refrain from adding any personality to this blog but I don’t think that’s authentic so you’ll just have to go with it, besides I have a feeling you may appreciate knowing I’m not a robot or a hired gun.

Whoever you are, rebel, vanilla pod, or anyone in between – I’m grateful you’re here and appreciate you taking the time to explore my musings. I’d love your feedback; I can take praise or criticism and would love any ideas or thoughts you may have on any of the topics I discuss.  Perhaps you want to contribute as a guest blogger?

Latest Blogs

This hyper-competitive business world we live in leaves little excuse for bad stakeholder experience – with a rise in automation, a relentless race to produce the next must-have product and disruptive innovators coming from the most unlikely of places, businesses inevitably are going head to head more than ever before for resources, leadership,  customers, investors, suppliers and community.

So, with all these products and services flooding the market, have you thought enough (because of course, you have thought of – we hope!) the stakeholders invested in your business and their specific needs, perceptions and changing environments?

Of course, we’ve all done the market research to check whether or not a solution will ‘fly’ but do you consider giving your stakeholders the continuous and consistent focus their loyalty commands – for no other reason but to make your business successful… long-term? In fact, we are sure you will say yes or at least that it’s top of mind but more often than not the business doesn’t have the time or resource to give it the focus it requires.

The Rebel Element is a stakeholder engagement consultancy – specialising in an independent understanding of your stakeholder needs, in order to develop and strengthen value in your business offering. In partnership with your team, our mission is to help you define what stakeholder-centricity means to your business and how, by uniquely tailoring your marketing, sales and delivery functions through leadership, culture and process you can drive increased satisfaction and therefore long-term loyalty and sustainable revenue growth.

Our philosophy: start as you mean to go on and be disruptively better than the rest