Hey {{first_name | there}},

It’s really unfortunate (for me) that brand strategy has gotten a bad rap over the years.

People think it’s busy work, fluffy stuff, and a “nice to have” but not a necessity.

That’s because most brand strategy sucks. And the process behind it sucks even more. And I have a hunch it’s because a lot of people in 2020 were told they could “charge more” if they tacked on brand strategy to their design/writing/social media services.

Gather ‘round and let me tell you a story about a webinar I joined in 2020.

In 2020, I had just quit my job as a Creative Director at a B2B agency. I wasn’t sure what the next chapter of my career held, but I figured it was time I revisited all my former job titles to see what still fit.

And while I knew I wanted to continue the strategy work I was doing in my CD role, I wasn’t sure what my “angle” was or really how to break into the space. My only freelance experience was as a brand and web designer.

Someone in a local community recommended I join a webinar their friend was hosting about building your design business, and I thought, “Heck, why not?” Because remember, this was 2020, and the only thing to do was look at my computer screen for 12 hours, then switch to looking at my television for 8 hours.

During the webinar, the presenters asked people about their deliverables. A lot of people said things like a logo, a full brand suite, a webpage. Then a slide came up on screen that said: STRATEGY in big bold webinars. I’m picturing it surrounded by this emoji: 🤑, though I’m 99% sure it wasn’t.

The presenters said some version of this: If you start charging for your discovery call and call it “strategy,” you can charge thousands more dollars.

“But how do I make my work strategic? I’ve never done strategy,” someone in the chat asked.

“By sending a survey to your clients to get more information,” said the presenter, very matter-of-factly.

My heart started racing. Was this the world I was trying to enter?! Where strategy was a theoretical idea, not something people could use (or, in this case, actually understand and implement)? I was tempted to hit “EXIT!” and leave the middle finger emoji in the chat on the way out, but I decided to know thine enemy.

“What questions do you put on the survey?” another attendee chimed in.

“I’m so glad you asked,” started the presenter. “You can buy my survey template and get my actual survey for $29 for the next 24 hours. OR. You can join my course on how to build strategy into your design business. And by being here today, you get a discount code.”

I shit you not.

The justice part of me was making my heart race. I needed people to know THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS! And if I had known Amyl and the Sniffers in 2020, I would have dropped a wagging finger emoji (does that exist?) and, “U Should Not Be Doing That!” in the chat.¹

Instead, I asked, “Do you think anyone can send a survey and turn it into a strategy?”

The presenter responded, “This isn’t actually turning it into a full-blown strategy; it’s sending a survey and using that survey to create the visual design.”

MA’AM, THAT IS THE BARE MINIMUM OF BEING A SERVICE PROVIDER.

I left the webinar promptly after, and I hope those folks are doing well.

I hate most people’s approach to brand strategy. Mostly because it’s not brand strategy.

Let’s be real. It’s a money grab.

And how do you know it’s a money grab?

The expectations and demands are put on YOU, the CLIENT, to tell THEM, the EXPERT, what your brand should be. You know this is the case because they’re sending you endless surveys, asking you questions you don’t know the answer to (like “What is your brand’s unique value?” and “How are you different?”). And if you knew the answers to those questions, would you have hired someone to “do strategy” in the first place?

A lot of “brand” folks tell business owners what to do:

But they never tell them how to think about brand in the first place. Let alone how it applies to their unique business.

If you want to get to the how, hit reply and let’s talk about it.

Thanks for reading,