Six exercises to clarify your brand before you spend a dollar on design. Complete this workbook and you will have a clear brief for any designer or agency you work with.
This workbook is designed to be completed in one sitting (about 60 to 90 minutes), or spread across a few days if you need time to reflect. There are no wrong answers.
Tip: Be honest, not aspirational. Your brand should reflect who you actually are, not who you think you should be. Authenticity converts. Pretending does not.
For teams: Have each founder or key team member complete this independently, then compare answers. The overlap reveals your true brand. The differences reveal alignment gaps worth discussing.
Before picking colours and fonts, you need to understand the foundation your brand sits on.
Not the practical reason. The real one. What gap did you see? What frustration drove you?
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Write it as a direct quote. "You should check out [your business] because..."
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This reveals your unique value. If nothing would be lost, you have a positioning problem.
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You cannot build a brand for everyone. The clearer you are on who you serve, the stronger your brand.
Age range, location, income level, job title, daily frustrations, aspirations. Be specific. "Small business owners" is too broad. "Brisbane trade business owners earning $200K+ who are too busy working in the business to market it" is useful.
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List their top 3 pain points. Use their words, not industry jargon.
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Which social platforms? What do they Google? What newsletters or podcasts do they follow?
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Price? Trust? "I can do it myself"? Understanding these shapes your messaging.
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You do not need to be different from everyone. You need to be noticeably different from the 3 to 5 businesses your customers are comparing you to.
Include their website URL. Look at both direct competitors (same service, same area) and aspirational competitors (businesses you admire).
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Same colours? Same stock photography style? Same layout patterns? Finding the visual cliches in your industry reveals opportunities to stand out.
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Read their Google reviews. What do customers complain about? This is where your brand can fill the gap.
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Do this for each competitor. The common themes become your differentiators.
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Your brand voice is how you sound in every piece of communication. It should be consistent, recognisable, and human.
Examples: warm, bold, technical, playful, premium, approachable, authoritative, minimal. Avoid generic words like "professional" or "quality".
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A wise mentor? A straight-talking friend? A creative visionary? Describe their personality, how they dress, how they speak.
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This is as important as what you would say. "Synergy"? "Cheap"? "Guru"? List at least 10 banned words.
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This tests whether your voice guidelines are actually usable. If you cannot write a single post in your defined voice, the voice is not clear enough.
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You do not need to design your brand yourself. But knowing what you are drawn to makes the process faster and the result better.
Use Pinterest, Instagram, or Google. Save anything that resonates: colour palettes, typography, photography styles, layouts, textures. Do not overthink it. Trust your instinct.
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You do not need hex codes. "Deep ocean blue, warm gold, and clean white" is perfect. A designer will translate this into a palette.
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Look at brands you admire. What fonts do they use? Bold and geometric, or refined and thin?
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Options: (A) Light, airy, and minimal. (B) Bold, saturated, and high-contrast. (C) Warm, natural, and authentic. (D) Dark, moody, and cinematic.
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List 3 to 5 with what specifically you like about each. "Apple: clean and minimal" or "Aesop: earthy and sophisticated" gives a designer clear direction.
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Now distill everything above into a single-page brand brief that any designer, copywriter, or team member could use.
Template: "[Business name] helps [audience] achieve [outcome] through [method], unlike [competitors] who [competitor weakness]." Keep it under 30 words.
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Imagine you have 30 seconds at a networking event. What do you say? Practice saying it out loud.
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The non-negotiable values that drive every business decision. Not aspirational. Actual. What would you defend if a client pushed back?
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If you have completed this workbook, you are already ahead of 90% of businesses that start branding without a clear brief. Now you have two options.
DIY Route
Take your completed workbook to any designer. You will save hours of back-and-forth.
Done for You
Book a free consultation with us. We build brands starting from $800.
Want to go deeper? Our sister brand Create & Grow Academy offers a complete Branding Blueprint course that walks you through the entire brand-building process with guided exercises, templates, and expert feedback.