Four services. One Purpose: Why You?

Discover what makes you great, bring it to life and give it a voice — that is the simple formula I follow, no matter where I begin.

Positioning

Claim your position: Company, product or service, I like to start with the positioning basics: what do you do, why is it better, who is going to care? Nothing like three brisk questions to focus the mind. A good, rigorous positioning exercise will help you get beyond the list of things you are good at (which is probably the same list your competitors use) and narrow down to the one, true idea that can help you create a new category, turn a commodity business into a pioneering one or redefine your value to the world. This part is always exciting.

Brand Strategy

Define your brand: I don't create brands. If anyone ever tells you they create brands, tell them they're missing the point. Every organization has a brand. It might not be a very good one; it might be dormant or it might be quietly generating huge value without the need for logos, taglines or boot camps. What I do is deepen the dialogue with customers to help stretch the boundaries of what the brand can do, and then I crystallize that value proposition in clear words that people will understand.

Brand Alignment

Live the brand: Aligning organizational behaviour to the brand promise is the most important step to follow any brand strategy. Too often the move is made into creative development, new identities, taglines and campaigns, without the absolute assurance that the brand promise can be delivered. With over a decade of experience consulting in organizational design and change management, I help make the brand real inside the organization so that it's part of every planning session, every recruiting decision, every new product or service and every training program.

Marketing Communications

Get the message out: The movement of the message through the channels of communication requires careful thought about who's listening and what you need them to hear. I take a pin-point approach: create an audience segmentation based on decision-making factors and limit the message to what they need to know to choose you. This is as true for the choice of an $89 cell phone as it is for the selection of a manager for a $2 billion pension fund. I then work with your design, advertising and PR partners to make sure the message gets out in marketing communication and relationship management tools that are on-strategy.