You’ve got big plans, an urgent timeline, and aggressive goals for your organization.
Refocusing your brand and message to evolve with these goals is key...but a 6-month branding process might just halt your company’s momentum…and put you in catchup mode with your competitors when you’re finally done.
You don’t want that.
Yet if you don’t refocus your brand first and clarify your message, you’ll get mediocre results when it comes to filling pipelines and increasing customer attraction, even if it happens fast. You’ll always know you’re getting a fraction of what’s possible because you took a shortcut.
You don’t want that, either. And I don’t want that for you.
Which is why I have a solution for fast-growth businesses like yours—one that accomplishes your branding goals in 6 weeks or less.
Keep reading to find out why my methodology is different, and three engagement options to help you reach your goals faster:
- Company Brand Strategy Workshops
- Department Brand & Story Workshops
- Full Done-For-You Brand Strategy & Messaging Engagement (both Company and Departments)
Would you rather talk it out? Click here to schedule a free consult call now.
Why This Branding Process is Different (and Faster)
My name is Maria Ross. I’m a brand strategist, author, and frequent keynote speaker and media expert for outlets such as Entrepreneur.com.
After a long successful career as a marketing executive for comanies large and small, I went off on my own. Since founding Red Slice in 2008, I’ve helped Fortune 500 companies, innovative funded startups, small niche players and non-profits articulate, align, and accelerate their brands to fuel growth in ways that speak to the bottom line.
Maybe it’s because I live in competitive Silicon Valley and have been responsible for not just pretty marketing but sales pipeline growth. Maybe it’s because I’m a business owner myself. Either way, I know brand should be more than just a logo: it starts with a compelling story and should lead to measurable impacts on the business—and the sooner the better.
There are 2 key differences in my approach to a brand refocus.
The first is that I decouple strategy from execution.
In plain English, this means we won’t be working on strategy and execution in tandem as one big project like most big branding agencies do.
We’ll ferret out the right brand strategy, story and messaging as it relates to your specific business goals of filling your pipeline and increasing customer acquisition.
It’s highly targeted branding work meant to demonstrate a rapid ROI and keep your momentum high.
Compare it to the ease of steering a small pleasure craft versus changing course on a tanker. Swift. Decisive. Clean.
You can go more places, faster, and with less fuel with my methodology.
And it’s a whole lot more enjoyable.
The second is that I’m unbiased when it comes to the expression of your brand.
With most agencies, your brand expression is governed by their particular area of expertise, such as video or social media. They’ll wow you with pretty pictures of what your logo or website should look like…without first determining the market position you can viably own, the right target audience to go after, or which story (and language) will be most compelling to engage those people.
But what if their specialty isn’t ideal for your business or market?
I know these firms, because they used to target ME when I was a marketing executive.
When you work with me, you don’t have to fit into any boxes. We decide together what brand strategy and message works best for your organization and then determine the right resources to execute.
Because your business success shouldn’t be dependent on the way someone else prefers to communicate. It should depend on how effectively the work generates revenue and makes your offerings stand out in the market.
3 Ways I Help Fast-Growth Companies Accelerate Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition Through Branding
When you work with me on a brand refocus, there are 3 ways to get swift, clean, and efficient branding results so you can focus on growing your business.
Option 1:
Brand Strategy Workshops help executive teams, marketing teams or cross-functional teams get on the same page to strengthen and refocus company brand so everyone works together to achieve the same goals.
Your team is keeping the train on the tracks and generating revenue. But what would an exponential boost to that look like for your business? When everyone is on the same page, following the same playbook, you can maximize impact to make market-shifting leaps that create more awareness and customer engagement.
This one-time experience is ideally suited for executive or marketing teams wanting a fresh perspective and a process to jump-start their DIY efforts. Perfect for a strategic planning offsite.
(Prefer to just talk through your needs and goals? Schedule time with me right here.)
Maria facilitated a 3-hour beginner branding session for our yearly strategic planning meeting. We had over 30 diverse people with various perspectives and Maria was able to educate, captivate and delight them all. Her clear explanations, strong presentation style and interactive exercises had even our top executives rolling up their sleeves and gaining new insights into our customers’ needs. We are now well-armed to craft a strong brand strategy and reach our business goals. Our CEO will not sit through any meeting he doesn’t find value in – and he was engaged and attentive until the very end!
— Carole Roquemore, Director of Marketing, Rockview Farms
Option 2:
Department Brand Workshops stimulate fresh thinking, reignite morale, regain alignment, and articulate a brand story to boost a team’s visibility within the company and increase effectiveness within the organization.
Your department may be doing groundbreaking, innovative work within your existing culture, but no one seems to know it. Underutilized teams often get that way because other teams don’t understand what they do and why. Once the entire company understands your team’s value and role, you’ll gain greater cooperation across teams and increase productivity and efficiencies overall.
Leaders with a “CEO of my department” mentality are excellent candidates to introduce this kind of work to their teams..
(Prefer to just talk through your needs and goals? Schedule time with me right here)
As an IT team, we realized we needed to create a clear internal brand story and value proposition for the strategic work our team delivers. Maria confidently brought our diverse team together to ask the right questions and align our thinking. We really enjoyed how efficiently and effectively she facilitated the process and helped us shape our story. We’ve already seen the positive impact this more strongly defined voice has had on our recruiting efforts and organizational visibility.
— Sylvie Veilleux, CIO, Dropbox
Option 3:
My signature SLICE Engagement is a 6-week tip-to-toe branding + value-defining immersion, designed to help you and your cross-functional leaders answer two crucial questions: what do you offer that no one else can? And who needs what you’ve got to offer — like none other?
Your company doesn’t have time for a 6-month branding process, yet you need everything from a brand audit to high-level market research to ideal customer personas to compelling copy to strategic direction. You want a combo branding and marketing workshop + some team coaching and story shaping with a bonus helping of compelling pitch language to hit the ground running.
In this engagement, we slice straight to the salient points of your brand strategy to define, articulate and share a story that attracts and engages your ideal audience and helps you stand out in the market.
This option is best for companies who want a guided branding experience on a fast timeline. It’s also perfect whether you are trying to build/revamp a company brand – or a product/offering-level brand story.
(Prefer to just talk through your needs and goals? Schedule time with me right here)
Maria managed our global brand project brilliantly against a tight timeline by tailoring her workshop process for our team/situation. She listened well and shaped the project to obtain a maximum amount of quality input from across our team of international exec stakeholders and customers, synthesize the findings, and moderate the key topics up for Debate during a 1-day in person workshop. The brandscape output has served as the base of our refreshed brand strategy and a full brand guidelines book.
— Aimee Stone Munsell, Chief Marketing Officer, ContentSquare
We had a critical need to build a strong message around a new cloud service targeting Neo4j’s global developer community. Maria’s process allowed us to get input from a wide range of stakeholders in a really efficient way, and Maria was able to synthesize it into key messages and content elements which we leaned on heavily in our launch. Her personality and expertise make her a great facilitator and she was able to get the best inputs from our team, spotlight and work through areas of misalignment, etc.
— Lance Walter, Chief Marketing Office, Neo4j
Have questions about which option is best for your business? Or want to discuss a custom option? Then let’s talk.
I’ll give you all the info you need to discuss with the other stakeholders in your company and make an informed decision.
Maria was passionate and curious about the work we do, and became truly an ally through working with us. Maria was patient and paid close attention to details as we explored complex branding and marketing challenges. After the workshop, Maria integrated all the feedback and took the time to produce a final report with long term strategic recommendations and also materials which are ready to use immediately. At the end of the project overall, our team felt accomplished and clear with where we are headed next, thanks to Maria’s expert help. We are very grateful to have worked with Maria and also know that we can turn to her for help in the future.
— Jane Finette, President and Founder, The Coaching Fellowship
Well, hello there, Rockstar!