Conducting a Brand Workshop
Imagine looking for car insurance.
You go to one website. And then another. But when push comes to shove, all you get is an online questionnaire to fill out only to get a quote that isn’t really tailored to you at all – beyond knowing your age, gender, and occupation.
Now imagine another car insurance where the sales representative takes the time to talk about your specific car usage. And in the process, discovers that you are a student. And then not only providing the right cover for you based on that info, removing all the unnecessary ‘default’ options but also throwing in a discount for being a student.
Now apply that analogy to brand building, and you will realise the importance of going beyond a questionnaire when learning about the goals of a business, likes/dislikes, the big vision, and more.
The comfort of the known
If you want to improve the success rate of your design work and to build better relationships with clients, consider adding a brand workshop to your design process. And also to start thinking about those client projects more holistically. Not just from a layout and colours point of view but also how your recommendations may impact their business and the overall goals of their brand.
The discomfort of uncertainty
Before I dive into some of the practical things you can implement to run a workshop, let me dispel some of the myths and some of your fears that may be preventing you from taking the first step.
You can’t communicate the value of a workshop to your clients
Even just going through a workshop alone can already add tremendous value to the client in the form of insights, things they haven’t thought about, additional perspectives about their business from an outsider, more clarity and focus of what they’d like to achieve.
You don’t feel qualified to run a brand workshop
You don’t need a degree, and you don’t need to offer full-blown strategy service from the get-go. You can work your way up to more full-scope workshops as you learn from experience and your confidence grows. And remember brand strategy ≠ business strategy. You’re not there to overhaul their business from the ground up, you’re there to help their digital presence.
You don’t have a framework of exercises or questions to ask
Many of the agency owners I’ve worked with or talked with have created their own workshops the same way you can – by sourcing tools from others who share theirs online, and then adjusting it through client feedback and to suit their own style.
The basic brand workshop
Based on a initial conversation you’ve had with the client, you should have a general idea of what is required and what the key goals are, and you can start thinking about which of the exercises will be most beneficial and which you may need to adjust.
Here are some questions that can help you set the conversation going – here’s a tip, rather than memorising them and robotically going through them, try to keep the conversation organic – moving to different questions when appropriate and relevant during that initial call.
- Tell me about the big vision for your business
- How are you different from your key competitor
- How would you like customers to describe you
- What makes repeat customers come back
- What common reasons for them not returning
- Name 3 or 4 things that describe your culture
If your client hesitates to answer any of the above or gives you generic or vague answers, that can signal that you need to help them bridge that gap in the workshop.
Your core aim of the workshop should be about helping your clients to uncover golden nuggets and insights about their business.
The insights we seek to gather can be grouped into these three main areas:
What
Currently, what does the business have and do, how does it do it, and what is it trying to achieve or overcome?
So what
What’s the challenges’ impact, what should change, why should customers care?
Now what
What market gaps opportunities can be explored, what will the action steps, priorities, and the brand’s positioning be?
Final thoughts on running a brand workshop
At the end, it’s a good idea to provide a short overview of the exercises you’ve completed and ask for any feedback. You can uncover additional golden nuggets when the participants start to share their realisations, shifts of mindset, and other interesting insights.
From there, the typical next phase is the delivery of a PDF where I collate all of the findings, additional research, validation of assumptions made earlier, undergo further competitor analysis into their positioning if any, and basically fill any missing gaps.