How Do We Start Brand Work, What’s the First Step?
The most common answer to how to start brand work is wrong: “by briefing a designer”. The right answer is dull but saving — by listening to five customers. 🎤
Short answer: four stages — listening, position and promise, voice and message set, application and repetition. Design is the tool of stage four; work that doesn’t start at stage one changes the appearance, not the outcome.
Below: the four stages, week one’s work, the decision document and a typical timeline. 🗓️
Stage one: listening
The real answer to how to start brand work lives here.
Five conversations, two questions
Call your last five customers and ask two things: why did you choose us, how would you describe us to someone else. Say up front there’s no sales intent. Write the answers down word for word — don’t summarise, because the value is in the customer’s own words. 📝
Stage two: position and promise
Where the decision gets made.
Position in three questions
Who do you sell to, in which need are you sought, instead of whom does the customer choose you. The third is the most-skipped question and the only one that defines competition properly — it’s also where you decide who you won’t sell to. 🎯
Stage three: voice and message set
Where the decision turns into words.
Stage four: application and repetition
Where the brand actually gets built.
What’s a typical timeline?
Writing the expectation down saves the project.
First week, first month, first quarter
Weeks 1-2: conversations and team interviews. Weeks 3-4: position and promise — the one-page decision document. Month 2: message set and the first three contact points. Month 3: spreading and measurement. By the end of month three the sales conversation has changed; recognition takes longer — timing sits in the results article, all questions on the brand consulting page. 🗓️
📝 Field Notes
The most useful thing in these conversations is not summarising the answers. One customer said “it feels like talking to someone who actually knows the job”; had we written that down as “consulting quality”, the sentence would have died. The promise came from the customer’s own word. You usually don’t write the best brand sentence — your customer says it. 🎤
📖 Quick Glossary
Decision document: the one page holding position, promise and voice. Message set: words, patterns, prohibitions and example texts. Lost customer: someone who took a quote and chose another. Contact point: everywhere a customer meets the brand.
⚡ Quick Summary
Four stages: listening, position and promise, voice, application. 🎤 Design is the tool of stage four. Conversation answers get written word for word. The promise test: could your competitor say the same? The first three contact points can be fixed this week.
🎯 Next Step
Let’s do stage one together: five conversations and team interviews — the first review is free: the digital audit. Scope on the consulting page. 🗓️
Frequently Asked Questions
Sık Sorulan Sorular
Two more groups: lost customers (why they didn’t choose you) and your team (how they describe the company in one sentence). Laid side by side, the three groups make the gap visible. 👥
One sentence + proof. The test: could your competitor say the same thing? If they could, it isn’t a promise but a cliché. A sentence written without proof is only a claim — writing it sits in the brand voice article. ✍️
The words to use, patterns to repeat, forbidden words and three example texts: a quote opening, a first reply, a site sentence. A message set delivered without example texts doesn’t get applied. 🗣️
Because the words that refute a promise usually get used out of habit. A business claiming expertise writing “affordable prices” in every quote breaks its own sentence. 🚫
First reply, quote text, site opening line. Those three can be fixed this week and touch sales most — the priority order sits in the where-it’s-built article. 📍
The decision document stays on the desk and gets consulted whenever new text is written. One question gets asked monthly in the team meeting: did we do anything this month that contradicts our promise? A brand accumulates through that small discipline. 🔁
You can, and it helps; the only risk is customers being overly polite with you. Reduce it by saying plainly that you’re looking for criticism. If possible, have a third person handle the conversations with lost customers.
Five shows the pattern in most small businesses; you can stop when answers start repeating. What matters isn’t the count but having at least one person from each customer type. Mix new and long-standing customers.
Then the promise is too broad; narrow it. An unkept promise is worse than no promise because it loses trust at first contact. A good promise isn’t bold, it’s provable.
Source: Stanford GSB — insights