Starting a business is no easy task. It takes hard work, dedication, and most importantly, a clear vision. If you want to be successful, you need to have a plan and stay focused on your goals. You might think, "How can you launch a brand if you have no customers or outreach?" Well, we have to design it.

Branding is more important today than it has ever been. It isn't just logos or big evil corporations. People interact and care about your brand as if they care about other people. Brand strategy consulting may be one of the first steps you look into when creating a brand for your company.

A brand is a foundation for everything else you do. If you build a weak foundation for a house, it is going to fall apart. Build a great one and you can be at peace knowing it will stand for a long time. That is what your brand will do for you if you give it the attention it needs.

Here is a brand strategy framework guide to quickly build your brand foundation with a brand sprint framework. This is meant to help you hit the ground running.

If you want to see a video version of this, check it out here!

Goals

Scaling a brand is all about goal setting. Without specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals, it's impossible to gauge whether or not your brand is on the right track. And without being able to track your progress, you'll never be able to achieve true success.

I like to make goals in a few increments of 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years. Remember, these aren't set in stone so don't worry. We can't predict the future. These can change, but it is important to have something to shoot for early.

They can be about anything. Maybe in year 1, you want to have $100,000 in revenue and two part-time employees.

In year 5, maybe you want to have your brick-and-mortar storefront built and help the community in other ways beyond your service.

Once you have a goal in mind, it's important to make sure that it's specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. These five criteria will help you ensure that your goal is realistic and will help move your brand forward. So don't forget them when you're setting goals for your brand!

Who, what, how, and why?

Maybe you have seen this golden circle, maybe you haven't. Simon Sinek created this amazing framework for drawing out what makes our organizations special. We are going to use that here.

Who is your ideal customer?

Your brand will never appeal to everyone. But it can appeal to a specific market and still have great success. Starting out, resources are limited. Putting those resources towards your ideal customer will create a better chance to convert. You'll be speaking directly to them, building more trust between you and your customer.

It is important to be genuine in your messaging and to truly understand your target market in order to connect with them.

Here are some questions we can answer:

Who is your prospective client?

This question is asking who is that person? What do they do? What does their day look like? What industry are they in? Start to form that person as much as possible.

What problem are they trying to solve?

The business who explains the customer's problem the best, wins. With this in mind, we need to know what problem we are really solving for that customer.

For example, an industrial company might need to make better sense of their data to make better decision on production and supply chain needs.

Or, a small accounting business might need a way to generate more leads.

Whatever it is, make it as clear as possible. You'll start to use this later for building your offers and generating marketing content.

What worldview do they have as it relates to your solution?

This question is starting to get to the beliefs of your customer. Do they believe someone should always be growing and changing? Do they believe in learning and knowledge? Do value physical health or do they not?

These can help understand your customer even more.

Answering these should give you a great base to get started on your customer. Knowing them is going to be important for everything else you do.

What do you do?

This should be easy. What do you do? For example, we make specialty coffee. The goal is just to keep it simple for now.

How do you do it?

Here, we can shed some light on how our solution is unique.

Back to our coffee example: The way we make coffee is by building a process with manual tools to create a system for joy.

You can see here, that we are not focusing on the coffee itself, but the process and outcome. Everyone can claim they have great-tasting coffee. This may be different for you, but look at how you do what you do is different.

Why do you do what you do?

This is asking why you do what you do. This has to be beyond money. If you are just doing this money, you won’t be in it for the long run and your brand will fall flat. I've worked with people too many times their first answer is money and even after workshopping with them, they called it quits when things got tough with their brand.

Example: We challenge the busy lifestyle to be more present and intentional with what is really important to you.

The why is one of the most important parts of your brand. This is what will separate you from someone else.

Other people can also make great-tasting coffee, but their reasons for doing so are different. If you agree with this why, you might shop here. If you don't, you'll probably go elsewhere, or just not care and be a mediocre customer.

Values

When it comes to scaling a brand, creating brand values is essential. After all, these values are what will guide everything from your marketing to your product development. Without a clear set of values, it'll be difficult to maintain a consistent brand identity design as you grow.

So how do you go about creating brand values?

First, start by thinking about what you want your brand to stand for. What kind of experience do you want your customers to have? What kind of impression do you want to leave?

Once you have a good sense of your goals, craft a set of values that align with those goals. Be sure to keep your values concise and actionable; they should be something that you and your team can easily reference when making decisions.

And finally, don't be afraid to revisit your values from time to time; as your brand evolves, so too should your values. By staying true to your values, you'll ensure that your brand remains focused and authentic - two essential ingredients for any successful business.

Personality Sliders

This is a fun exercise! This is starting to define the personality of your brand.

Think of your brand as a person. You've now set values and here we will work on its personality. This will define how your brand looks, talks, and more of its actions.

(Insert a picture)

Simply put, we are going to place where we are on the sliders. Place a dot where you want your brand to be.

Neither is a wrong place to be and it helps to be highly towards one direction for some of them if possible.

Competition

Every brand has competition, direct or indirect. It is good to quickly know where your competition sits. This will give you a visual representation of your competition. From here, you decide where you want to be, or where an opening is.

Spend some time and research some possible competition. You'll start to see how you're carving your own path even though there might be similar companies out there.

Starting a brand can be difficult, but it's definitely not impossible. By focusing on your why, crafting clear values, and defining your brand personality, you'll be well on your way to creating a successful business. And don't forget to keep your competition in mind; understanding who they are and where they sit will help you determine the direction you want to take your branding.

Now, you might be wondering what the heck do I do next? What you created will give you a foundation to look back on to guide your next decisions. Without this, there would be nothing objective and concrete to guide your decisions for your marketing, your identity and logo design, and company decisions later on.

Here are some of the next steps we can get into at a later time!

1. Choose a name for your brand
2. Create a logo and branding that represents your company
3. Develop a marketing strategy
4. Set up social media accounts
5. Create a website or blog
6. Start selling products or services
7. Track results and make changes as needed

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