So, you’re ready to offer brand strategy services to your clients and one of the very first concepts you’ll want to learn is how to sell brand strategy right?

It makes sense.

There are plenty of businesses looking for branding services, though most are only expecting to fork out for a logo and maybe a website.

So how can you charge up to 5 times more and still get your clients to happily pay for what you’re offering.

In this article, we’ll uncover exactly that.

Learning How To Sell Brand Strategy

When I first entered the realm of brand strategy, I had no idea how to sell it.

I was offering something that was more expensive than what I believed my clients could afford and I was already struggling with clients low-balling me on price.

Those early days as a brand strategist threw up more questions than answers including:

How do I know if my client is interested in brand strategy?

How do I know if they have a budget for it?

How do I introduce brand strategy into the conversation?

How do I show the value of brand strategy?

How do I convince them I’m a branding specialist?

Why would they listen to my advice?

How to I convince them without being salesy?

How do I convert them into a paying client?

Over time, I learned the answer to all of these questions though not without plenty of head-scratching and mistakes.

In the end, I had many paradigm shifts, I learned to look at things in a different way and more importantly, I found the key to selling brand strategy, without actually selling.

This 6-Step Framework is how I do it.

Brand Design vs Brand Strategy

Ask any small business owner if they know where to find graphic design work and you’ll have plenty of suggested directions.

Ask them where to find a brand strategist and the suggestions probably won’t go beyond a Google search.

At the same time, you can ask any designer what branding means to them and you’ll likely get variations of “a brand is not a logo”.

So what does this mean?

There is a disconnect between branding professionals and entrepreneurs about what branding is, what it’s not and the role it plays in the success of their business.

It’s not your client’s fault.

They’re not the expert.

You are.

And as the expert, it’s your job to clarify their understanding of branding so they can make an informed decision about what they need to build a successful brand.

Step #1
Position Yourself As A Branding Specialist

Your prospect is not a branding expert.

We’ve covered that already but it’s a very important point.

You are the expert and it’s important that you assume that specialist role.

In order to do that, you must understand how to develop a brand strategy and have a solid brand strategy development framework in place.

You must also work on developing your own brand and positioning strategy to ensure that you’re not seen as an everyday generalist designer.

All your brand collateral and your marketing efforts should speak to this position and distance your brand from the other options your prospects have.

If you do this effectively and speak to your prospect through your specialist knowledge, they will make that connection quite quickly and will be grateful for your expertise.

Step #3
Evoke Aspirations & Ambition

Once you open up the conversation about your prospects’ business, you’re on the path to advancing the conversation towards strategy.

But before you dive in head first, you need to continue to build rapport and guide your prospect into a position where they’re open to your offer.

Emotional intelligence is a valuable tool to have in the arsenal of any communication specialist.

A great way to build rapport is to evoke their aspirations and ambition for their brand.

This opens up the internal and emotional investment they have in the success of their business and the vision of what their professional and personal lives look like on the back of that success.

If you meet their input with interest and encouragement, your empathy will go a long way to building an emotional connection and ultimately trust.

Step #5
Use The Epiphany Question

When you tell someone what they need, they may or may not agree.

If on the other hand, you can lead them to have an epiphany and decide for themselves what they need, then you don’t need to sell anything and they’ll ultimately pat themselves on the back for coming to that conclusion.

At this point you’ll have spoken in detail about their business and their vision for the future. They’ll have also made a connection with you personally though the empathy and encouragement you’ve shown them.

This is where you now shift the conversation from helping them with design services to helping their business succeed through strategy.

After mirroring and rephrasing what they’ve said, you’ve demonstrated clear understanding, so when you say you can help them, you’re telling them you can help them to achieve what they hope to achieve.

At this point, they’ve bought into the conversation. This is where you have most leverage and where you introduce the epiphany question.

One of the most effective epiphany questions I use is:

Do you have a clear profile on who your target audience is and the position you want to take in the market?

More than likely, they won’t have a clear answer to this question, which opens the door for you to further demonstrate your expertise.