Specialist brand strategy applied to your business circumstances.
A methodology for examining the strategic issues behind a business question, challenge or opportunity.
It helps you understand how your business brand, intended customers, market position and value relate to the situation you need to address.
Unsure, start by discovering where your business stands.
★★★★★
Strategic methodology that solves the ‘blank page‘ problem, developed and refined through 30+ years of commercial practice.
Professional Architecture. ✔
Tactile Precision. ✔
Founder Driven Results. ✔
The Strategy. Brand. Asset. methodology.
You may have already discussed your business challenge with a consultant, coach or adviser.
You may have explored marketing options, considered a new website or engaged suppliers to address part of the problem.
There may still be an important question to resolve: what does the business need its brand to contribute?
That requires understanding the relationship between the business, its intended customers, its market position and the value it offers.
The Strategy. Brand. Asset. methodology provides the structure for investigating those relationships and developing the brand strategy relevant to your particular circumstances.
It is not a fixed rebranding formula or a requirement to complete every area. The work is guided by your Strategic Insight discovery of the issues that need attention which informs the strategic understanding required to make decisions.
You retain ownership of the decisions. My role is to bring the specialist knowledge, questioning, analysis and guidance needed to help you work through them.
Five areas of the methodology
A consistent framework for applying specialist knowledge while allowing each engagement to address the particular questions.
Foundation: Understand the business, its objectives, intended customers and commercial circumstances.
Market Position and Proposition: Examine the value the business offers, the customers it is best placed to serve and why they should choose it over alternatives.
Visual Identity: Consider how the business’s identity expresses its value and position. This does not automatically involve creating a new identity.
Customer Experience: Examine how the business’s intended position and value are reflected in the experience customers have when they encounter and interact with it.
Measurement, Refinement and Governance: Consider how the strategy is reviewed, maintained and adjusted as the business and its circumstances change.
This methodology provides a way for understanding how strategically developing your brand applies to your business decision making, the intended customers, its market position, and its future development.
At natural decision points within the work, assumptions are tested against what has already been established. This ensures each direction is robust before further investment of time or resources.
How I apply the methodology
The consulting engagement is guided and responsive to your needs.
The owner brings the question and contributes their knowledge of the business. I bring commercial experience, specialist knowledge, analysis, strategic questioning and professional judgement.
Together, we examine the relevant issues and develop an understanding of what they mean for the business.
Existing strategy and work are considered where appropriate. The methodology does not assume that everything needs to be changed or that every area requires attention.
The work is complete when the gap highlighted in the strategic insight has been addressed, the relevant principles have been explained and the strategic understanding required to make the next decisions are not based on assumptions, but are based on robust strategic thought.
Regards, Dayne Smith.
The methodology is not the consulting offer
The methodology is the framework that supports the work.
The consulting engagement is the application of that framework to a specific business question, challenge or opportunity.
The scope is determined by the work required. It may involve one area or several connected areas of the methodology.
You do not have to complete every area or commission a complete brand strategy to work with me.
Owners and Business had this to say about working with me
Practical evidence of the value of my strategic consulting.
★★★★★
Defined market difference
“I found this process helpful for identifying my points of difference. I now have a usable plan to move forward with. Dayne offers a niche service and I recommend it.”
Dee Labes, Real Estate Agent, Central Otago, NZ.
★★★★★
Valuable strategic advice
“For over 18 months, Dayne has been a reliable and valuable advisor in shaping our marketing strategy. His contribution to our success has been remarkable.”
Kurt Bowen, Paterson Pitts Partners Ltd, Partner, NZ.
★★★★★
Significant visibility lift
“The Visit Oamaru branding strategy delivered a significant lift in visibility for the district and had an immediate impact on the growth of the Blue Penguin Colony. This re-branding was one of the Board’s major achievements.”
Mark Juricich, Chief Executive, Waitaki Development Board, Waitaki, NZ.
Prefer to work through the methodology yourself?
The Strategy. Brand. Asset. methodology is also available as a published workbook.
If you want to develop your own strategic thinking. It provides structured prompts and tests to help you examine your business, challenge assumptions and develop well-considered strategic decisions.
Need specialist guidance?
If you find parts of the process difficult to work through, you can engage Flying Lizard for direct consulting support. I will apply my commercial experience, specialist knowledge and professional judgement to help you work through the issues involved.
Your workbook purchase can be treated as an initial investment towards a consulting engagement.
Get the workbook
Available through Amazon or directly from Flying Lizard.
A note to the masters
The Strategy. Brand. Asset. Methodology is built on the work of specific thinkers whose ideas I have studied, applied, and extended over years of commercial practice.
This work acknowledges the methodological influence of principles articulated by Marty Neumeier, David Aaker, Jean-Noël Kapferer, Kevin Way Keller, Mark & Pearson and Al Ries and Jack Trout.
I do not present their work unchanged. The methodology is my synthesis of their principles, shaped by the questions business owners actually bring me and the decisions they need to make. The Masters provide the intellectual foundation. My commercial practice provides the application.