BUSINESS-CRITICAL BRAND STRATEGY
FOR STARTUPS
What value does your brand add to your offer? How does it turn investors, talent and customers into believers? Is your brand identity accelerating your progress or holding you back? For startups in particular, questions like these can determine whether you sink or swim.
Start
It’s simpler than you think
You have a great idea, the best technology and the smartest people. Yet deep down you know this may not be enough. And right now you don’t have the time or budget needed to invest in your brand. Or do you? In truth, all you need to develop a brand strategy is a shared understanding of some key principles and somebody with enough experience to guide you through the process. This is where I can help.
Get the right things right
Of course, you could spend a lot of time and money on branding and still not get it right. On the other hand, there are some aspects of branding that could ruin your business if you don’t get them right. This is the essence of business-critical brand strategy. It’s a lean approach to branding that concentrates on what every startup needs to know.
Don’t let them fool you
Brand issues are sneaky. They can disguise themselves as isolated business problems. You think there is something wrong with your pricing strategy, your distribution model or your sales approach. But in actual fact, you need to work on your brand story, to change your positioning or rethink your definition of purpose. And this is what I do. I use brand know-how to solve business problems.
Simon Coe
THIS IS MY STORY
I’m English, but I speak Swedish. And enough Italian to get me into trouble. As a young entrepreneur I sent myself to business school at the same time as I became a consultant. My clients were all international and mostly B2B. I used to get hired a lot for agency pitches, because I could always come up with a strategy that worked. As a freelance copywriter I spent 3 years working on a series of campaigns for Volvo Trucks that turned out to be the most awarded advertising of the decade.
After that I got bored and cynical. Working for too many big brands driven by the fear of losing what they had. Then I held some seminars for some startups, and understood that these were the people who were going to fix the world. This really lit my fire. I suddenly realised there was a reason I’d spent 20 years learning how to make businesses grow.
I’m here to help those who are driven by hope not fear. Those who are brimming with potential to do something good. The worthy startups who may one day become truly great brands, if they’re given the right help when they need it.
Services
WHAT I CAN DO FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Seminars
MY TALKS AND SEMINARS
If you don’t need my strategic help at the moment, book me for a seminar. You’ll pick up a few things that some of the greatest brand leaders in the world had to learn the hard way. I guarantee you’ll come away feeling inspired and ready to take action. And, we’ll get to meet. So you can decide if you’d trust me to help you with your most valuable asset.
Branding is Believing
The branding seminar that should be compulsory for every serious startup
Do you and your team have a shared definition of what branding really means? Do you know which aspects of your brand will help you to survive and scale-up in the early stages? And which ones can trip you up as you start to gain traction? This is the seminar I’ve developed to share them with you.
Branding by Doing
A seminar that explores the power of action guided by purpose
Great brands are never built by great advertising alone. Most are built by founders and leaders who take bold decisions when driven by real purpose. Branding by Doing is a concept that starts with corporate decision making and feeds into marketing, not the other way around. It draws on everything I’ve learned while helping brands to grow.
Speak to me