How I work
Brand strategy starting from your customers
I build brand strategy from the people who buy, not from the values a company paints on a wall. Below: what I do, why I start with customers, the steps, what you get, and when I am not the right person.
6
steps, from framing the problem to messages
1
verifiable insight, tied to real customers
0
slogans invented in a room, without the customer’s voice
BM
commercial offer lives on Brand Mentors
What I do
I help you find why customers choose you — or why they do not — and turn that reason into positioning and messages for ads, the site and sales.
Commercial work with companies goes through Brand Mentors. This site is about how I think; offers and prices live there.
Why I start with your customers
Mission statements sound fine in a workshop. On the shelf and in the cart, people choose for another reason: a tension, a progress they seek, a comparison they make. Skip their voice and you get pretty positioning on paper and messages nobody repeats.
So I start with conversations and observation. I look for the sentence a customer uses when they explain why they chose — or left. Then I tie positioning to that line, not to a slogan invented in a room.
The steps
01
Frame the problem
We clarify what you want to change: share, perception, accepted price, difference versus rivals. Without a frame, research produces anecdotes, not decisions.
02
Listen to customers
Interviews and, where useful, observation where they buy. I do not hunt brand scores. I hunt contradictions: what they say versus what they do, what they compare, what fails in their life when the product is missing.
03
Insight
From facts we get observations; from observations, a checkable insight. If you cannot show where it came from, it is not insight — it is agency opinion.
04
Positioning
We write who you are for, against which alternative, on which territory, and why you are believable. Every line must trace back to something a real customer said or did.
05
Messages and proof
From positioning come messages for the site, ads and sales, plus the proof that holds them (product, price, distribution, service — not copy alone).
06
What stays
Before any rebrand or pack change, we check what customers already recognise. Sometimes the advantage sits exactly in what you are tempted to “modernise”.