Sharon Yourell Lawlor, Managing Director at Think Plan Do Consulting
Sharon Yourell Lawlor is a renowned business strategist based in Dublin, Ireland. As a leading voice in the world of retail and shopper strategy, and with over 25 years of experience working within the Consumer Product Goods (CPG) industry, Sharon set up a consultancy business, Think Plan Do Consulting and supports businesses to better understand trends shaping the global retail landscape and develop strategies that effectively enhance customer experience and guide today’s consumers and shoppers on their purchase journeys.
Described as insightful, tenacious, and deeply perceptive to the needs of shoppers, Sharon has a genuine passion for retail and an insatiable desire to assist businesses in turning shopper needs and insights into retail solutions.
She knows how to inspire and lead businesses in their quest to engage successfully with consumers as they navigate omnichannel purchase journeys in an increasingly digital retail world. Utilising her extensive knowledge of shopper marketing, Sharon has recently written a course on Retail Marketing Strategy for the global training platform LinkedIn Learning.
As a sought-after thought-provoker about the future of retail, Sharon has co-written a guide on sustainability for the Irish retail sector called ‘Sustainable Irish Retail Action’ (SIRA), in partnership with Retail Excellence Ireland and Champion Green to assist businesses in preparation for a more sustainable retail future.
She sits on the Executive Committee of Ireland’s leading grocery charity, the Irish Grocers Benevolent Fund and was the founding chair of the initiative – Today’s Women in Grocery (TWIG).
What do you like about your current role?
I am a business strategist focused on consumer, shopper and retail marketing. Every day is different as my work is dependent on a particular set of projects at any given time, and I work with clients at all stages of their own strategic processes. Some may want to help to construct their long-term business or brand plans. In order to do this, I holistically look at their particular sector and review their vision, values and business objectives over a given period.
Scrutinising their value proposition and its strength given their competitive set, I then work with the teams to construct a business plan that is fit for purpose and considers key trends, consumer and shopper behaviours and future customer needs.
Other clients may have a particular category or brand problem that they would like me to focus on helping them with. For example, a client may have a brand within their portfolio that isn't performing within its sector. They want an independent category view of the market and support to better understand how the brand is positioned vs its competitive set.
For me, it is about helping clients to identify opportunities to impact the consumer and shopper's purchase decisions journey and drive conversion and loyalty. This requires a key understanding of your customer, their problems, needs and desires and how you can uniquely develop solutions to meet these needs.
A lot of the time, this hasn't been as well thorough as you may think, and this is where I come in, working through a process to help clients to better understand their customers and their needs and to strengthen the business's unique value proposition.
Alongside consultancy work, I am often asked to facilitate brainstorming sessions and workshops and to deliver training or keynote speeches for clients around retail and shopper strategy. The best projects tend to involve a mix of deep diving, strategy sessions and staff training to embed the strategy with key stakeholders. It is a hugely rewarding job, and I love the diverse range of clients I work with and the projects I work on. The fact that I can move from categories such as food and drink to beauty and health and work with both retailers and suppliers means that every month is so different and interesting.
What are your favourite books?
Many years ago, I read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen as part of my school curriculum. I remember thinking that it just didn't feel like homework to read a novel like this with the strong yet human female character of Elizabeth Bennet. Jane Austen was way ahead of her day and when you see the strength of her female characters and look at the learnings from this book, they are every bit as relevant today as they were when they were written over two centuries ago. I still go back to reading this particular novel every few years.
I am a huge fan of empowering books such as Atomic Habits by James Clear. I love understanding how the small changes that you can make in your life can have a revolutionary effect on your career, your relationships and your life in general. It is refreshing to know that we all have the power to invoke change ourselves!
It is worth mentioning that while I use books a lot for both entertainment and self development, over the past few years I have started to include other platforms such as LinkedIn Learning for development and learning. These days, I am as likely to watch a National Geographic or Sky documentary or to do a course on a topic on LinkedIn Learning in my spare time as I am to read a book on it - the sign of our digital age.
Who do you most admire and why?
I think that in Ireland, there is currently a very strong tribe of successful, hardworking businesswomen who are genuinely trailblazing in their respective fields. Women such as Aimee Connolly, Sonya Lennon and Oonagh O'Hagan.
I admire people who work hard at bringing attention to the things they are passionate about. In Aimee's case, it was for a business idea such as Sculpted by Aimee, launching an easy-to-use Irish make-up brand onto the market to help others look and feel their best.
Sonya is doing tremendous work through WorkEqual to shine a light on the need for diversity, equality and inclusion within the Irish workplace. Oonagh is providing a leading expert voice to support health and wellness within our society and break the taboos for women on subjects such as menopause.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
On a professional level, I remember being told to figure out what I was really passionate about in life and then take proactive steps to make that passion my career. I remember being advised that when your passion is your career, it never feels like work. I totally agree with that statement, and since setting up my consultancy business, I have never ever had that 'Sunday night' feeling before work on a Monday. I totally love what I do!
On a personal level, I would say always be grateful for what you have but don't give up on your dreams as long as you can develop the right mindset to help you achieve them. I went through ten years of fertility struggles to get to a point where I had my two beautiful children and the whole way through this. My mum kept saying to me to take care of my mindset as much as my physical needs. When people ask how I had the strength to keep going, I would always say that I kept myself in the right mindset throughout the whole process. That advice has stood out to me as I have balanced work and my personal life since having my children.
What motivates or inspires you?
I have always been passionate about understanding different behaviours and why people do what they do. From a really early age, I was fascinated by shopping behaviours. I knew that when we did the weekly shop in a particular store, our basket would always be filled with fresh bakery treats and new interesting items. That store was at the time called Superquinn in Knocklyon, Dublin and its owner, Fergal Quinn, was a retail genius who really understood what customers wanted and needed from a shopping experience and how best to deliver excellence in retail.
He was a visionary man, well ahead of his day. This fascinated me, and so began my passion for business, selling and retail. As we move into 2023, I would say that I am very motivated by my work with clients to embed sustainability practices and measures into their wider business strategies, especially within the retail sector.
I co-wrote a guide in 2022 for the retail sector called the Sustainable Irish Retail Action (SIRA) handbook. What started as a project to see how I could support retailers to help shoppers make more sustainable purchase decisions in their lives has turned into a much deeper understanding of the climate crisis facing our planet and the need for people to change their consumer and shopper behaviours.
I am really motivated to use my skills as a business and marketing strategist to support others to get started on their sustainability journeys. I want my kids to grow up in a world where there is balance and kindness for others, where there is diversity, inclusion and equality within society and where we aren't penalising our planet for our lifestyle choices. I am motivated to become a leading part of the solution, not the cause.
What would you like to highlight and share with our audience?
Don’t ever be afraid to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, whatever your age or life stage. And always be learning.
In the past year, I undertook a postgraduate programme in Digital Marketing, where I returned to being a student alongside writing both a training course for LinkedIn Learning on Retail Marketing Strategy and the Sustainable Irish Retail Action (SIRA) guide.
I was, for many, many months, both the teacher and learner, and I moved out of my comfort zone in all of these projects. The sense of fulfilment from the gift of learning cannot be underestimated, and the sense of confidence you get when you push yourself out of your comfort zone and succeed is phenomenal!