We’ve created a time-effective way to take an intensive deep-dive into your vision, purpose, competitive space, and audience to get you the clarity you need to confidently move your company forward.
This is not your grandfather’s brand development (which can take months).
Our approach uncovers the fundamentals within days so you can articulate a clear brand identity, core values, and personality and connect more meaningfully with customers, right now.
If you’re a service professional, your livelihood depends on attracting better staff, getting more leads, and converting more customers but…
…if you’re like most, your growth has stalled or you’ve run out of time to balance growth initiatives with actual client work.
- You may be lacking clarity and feeling overwhelmed with marketing tactics…
- You could be struggling with attracting the wrong type of customers — unprofitable, demanding and just no fun…
- Or you could already have a handle on generating leads but you just don’t have the time (or you can’t stand writing sales copy)…
Although you’re an expert at what you do — you have difficulty expressing what really makes your organization different from the competition.
And worse, with all the hats you’re wearing and all the services you’re trying to add just to stay profitable, you’ve been confusing your core audience and you’ve ended up being a generalist with no differentiation from the competition.
You’re not alone! We see this every day with service professionals trying to break the feast or famine cycle.
And, here’s the most frustrating part…
You know your solution will develop real, positive change for your customers but your competition keeps picking up the lion’s share of the business.
At its core, there’s one reason this is happening;
Your customers and prospects don’t understand your true value…
And that will continue to happen as long as…
- You aren’t connecting with your potential buyers on an emotional level through an intelligent, impactful brand message that presents your product or service as “The Choice” instead of “A Choice,” and…
- You aren’t attracting the right prospects so your leads are becoming low-value, difficult clients, and who will never become raving brand evangelists, or…
- Your culture isn’t strong enough to attract and retain world-class staff who will live the brand because they’re passionate about it and not just because it pays the bills.
Solve those problems and you’ll have the foundation for real growth.
Here’s How It Works.
An effective sprint depends on participation from at least three key people from your team, and benefits from having up to six key members from different departments.
- You and your branding team work with us one-on-one for three full-days or six half-day sessions.
- We define the values, personality, and perceptions for your brand
- We uncover your purpose and your brand compass
- We determine your differentiation opportunity & create your positioning
- We document your competitors and identify themes and opportunities
- We develop your brand guidelines and launch plan customized to your requirements and capabilities
You need a deep understanding of your differentiation to speak to your prospects in a way that makes them take action and teaches them why they need your solution and not just a solution.
And, once your personality, tone, purpose, vision, and values are defined, all your communications can be built from a solid foundation, ensuring you’re on message every time.
And this foundation won’t just guide your conversations. You’ll be able to gauge all your internal and external messaging, too. Every piece of communication you develop should reflect your brand and personality, whether internal or external.
What do you get?
- Two dedicated Brand Strategists
- A detailed understanding of how you’re currently perceived by your marketplace
- A roadmap of exactly where your future efforts should be placed on controlling your brand message
- Authentic Core Brand Values that your team can live, sleep, eat and breathe by
- Refined Personality Traits and Tone Profile to dictate the way the company acts and communicates
- Ideal client Definition and Characteristics
- A lightweight and flexible brand strategy that will provide a strong foundation but evolve as you grow
- Analysis of your Competitive Landscape and your Key Differentiation
- Unique Brand Purpose and Positioning
What’s The Bottom Line?
The total cost for a Brand Sprint is just…
$24,890.
Yes, that is a great price.
We deliberately keep it very affordable because we know that once you commit to this process, you’ll be a customer for life. (The majority of our business has always come from repeat customers.)
Next Steps.
In order to define (or redefine) your brand, we need to begin with what makes you different and how you add value for your customers. Our Head Start questionnaire is designed to help you get real, uncover your goals and identify the roadmap for moving forward.
It’s a great resource, even to present some questions that may help get you thinking about things from different perspectives. Even if we didn’t end up working together, these questions will really help you define exactly what it is you’re trying to achieve.
FAQs
Q: What do you offer that others don’t?
Actual strategic experience and expertise. Unlike the multitude of designers relabelling themselves “branding firms,” Whiterock | Reid was founded by two strategists. We don’t offer design, or web or anything else, just pure brand strategy. We’re creative thinkers first, and we’re passionate about getting to the truth of your brand.
We believe that instead of focusing so much on promoting products and services, you need to start revealing more about “who” you are as a company and how that relates to your product or service, so your customers can connect with you on an emotional level. The best-known brands with the most loyal fans share their authentic characters and personalities with their customers.
Q: The last time I tried to work on my branding, a graphic designer sent me a questionnaire and then presented me with three different logos to choose from. How are you different?
You’ve just touched upon the very reason we launched Whiterock | Reid. We’ve seen that ridiculous approach from both the outside and the inside, even as bad as the same logo, presented in three different color schemes followed by the question, “which one do you prefer?”
Our founder, Bruce White is actually semi-famous for saying, “I don’t care if you like it, does it work?”
That doesn’t mean we’re not interested in your feedback. Just that designers tend to get enamoured with their own work and forget that the audience is not them, or even their client.
The audience is their client’s client. And the logo MUST stand as a visual representation of the company’s unique values, personality, and positioning. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
Without defining your brand foundation, don’t even think about a logo or color scheme. There’s no room for just drawing pretty pictures in branding.
Q: How often do I need to revisit my brand?
Many large firms take the opportunity to refresh their visual identity every 7–10 years, but, rarely, if ever, will you see a major change to their values.
You should think about the visuals, fonts, and colors if your identity is looking dated or stale.
You should consider the more strategic elements — personality, values, positioning — if your company has undergone a transformation like a merger, a new product line, a name change, or a new audience.
Q: Who is this best suited for?
We do most of our work with 3-15 person service businesses producing revenue of between $500k and $15mm.
Typically, your company is already running, has defined services, developed markets and, in many cases, existing visual identities. Whiterock | Reid don’t play pretty-makers. Anyone can make a logo, you can even buy one for $99 online.
A Brand Sprint is for serious, strategic businesses who want to:
- gain clarity and help you establish what you stand for so you can shape key business decisions.
- help articulate a clear brand identity, core values, personality, and tone so your brand can connect more meaningfully with customers,
- develop ownership and buy-in from your team so you can attract and retain world-class staff in a culture that allows them to flourish,
- and uncover a shared purpose so you can consistently live and communicate your brand.
So, if you fit that definition, then a Brand Sprint is likely right for you.
Q: What can I expect if I work with you?
Over the last decade, we have developed a highly structured process, designed to create your brand as efficiently as possible. We know how to approach your project as unique so we identify your company’s strengths, weaknesses, target audience, and goals.
The collaborative part of our work together is delivered over either three full-days or six half-day sessions depending on our time zone overlap and your branding team’s availability.
We take a highly collaborative approach because we aren’t here to ‘create’ your brand, we’re here to uncover the authentic existing truths of what’s there, and then show you how to use it to attract the right, highly-qualified, valuable audience.
Guarantee
And, if you need a guarantee, we have one for you. Obviously, this is business, and there are no guarantees in business… We can’t guarantee that you’re going to make a million dollars, be successful and that everyone’s going to want to buy your solution.
But here’s what we will do, we’ll work with you to uncover the existing truths of your brand through our Brand Sprint process and then, we’ll write you a short survey to validate those findings with a selection of your customers. If our findings come back off base, we’ll take that insight and, we’ll get back online with you and we’ll re-do the Brand Sprint process so we’re sure we got it right. Your brand is the biggest asset your business will have, so it’s vital we get it perfect.
So, what makes us qualified to help with your branding?
We began developing corporate brands at Whiterock | Reid in the late noughties (2008). In 2016, we switched to a Sprint-based model to dramatically reduce the time-to-market for your brand.
We have the experience and expertise to develop brands for any size organization.
In fact, in 2015, Whiterock | Reid was chosen to create the campaign brad for a five-year, $65 million hospital funding campaign. We developed the brand and, within six months of launching the five-year campaign, they had already reached over 50% of the campaign total and were forced to reduce the campaign length. Not a bad problem to have, right?
The only thing we don’t do is build brands for product businesses.
We could. But, we’re service professionals. We understand service business because we’ve been offering branding as a professional service for almost fifteen years.
That’s who we work with because that’s who we can help the most.
Why do I need a Brand Sprint?
Your brand is your reputation. It’s the intangible that makes your solution unique. Some argue that a powerful brand is even more important than a really good product. You may have some great ideas about what you stand for, and the audience you want to speak to, but to be effective, all of these great ideas have to take shape.
Ready to Get Started?
What would it mean for you if more people started engaging with your lead generation efforts?
What if you had so many great clients, you could pick and choose who you worked with, eliminating the price-shoppers from the conversation altogether?
What if your staff were passionate about more than just their paycheck?
Or, what if you have a filter you could run all important decisions through?
Wouldn’t that make life easier?
I want you to think about the financial goals you have for yourself.
How much do you personally need to enjoy life? $3000 a month? $4000? $10000?
What do you need to pay for today, tomorrow and in the future to give yourself the life you want and deserve? Your kids need school supplies, your family needs vacations, you need to pay the mortgage or rent, and bills.
How much does your business need to stay afloat? Staff, tax, bills, expansion, tools, resources. What do you need to bring in for the business to grow?
Combine that with your personal financial goals. Are you there yet? Do you have regular, recurring monthly payments going out?
Even if improving your brand did nothing more than help you increase your prices by 10%, wouldn’t that make the investment worth it?
You have an opportunity to uncover your authentic brand, define your core values, personality, voice, vision, and purpose, attract more prospects, convert more leads, sell more products, increase your monthly revenue and drive more profit.
Are you ready?