Ask three people what you do, and you’ll get three answers.
Sales tells one story, the website tells another, and the MD tells a third at events.
It happens to every business that grows. Now there are four services, two new markets, and someone rewriting the pitch every time it goes out, because nothing written down quite fits any more.
So you’re never quite sure which version to lead with.
When you’re not sure what to say.
Confused buyers don’t trust you, so they don’t get in touch.
Three ways in.
Which one depends on how far along you are.
If nobody can agree on the message, it’s the workshop. If the message is fine but nothing’s connected behind it, it’s the consultancy. If how you look has stopped matching what you do, it’s the rebrand. Tell us what isn’t landing and we’ll say which, including if it’s none of them.
One day · from £2,800 + VAT
Strategy workshop
One day, your team in a room, a direction at the end of it. Most people start here.
Months, not days
Growth consultancy
For when it’s not just the message. Positioning, systems and proving what’s working, over months rather than a day.
Four stages
Rebranding
For when how you look has stopped matching what you do. Strategy, messaging and identity together.
Why starting with the thinking works
They went to great lengths to ensure we went over every bit of detail… formed an extension of our team.
–Chris Arnold
Senior Marketing Manager, Energy & Utility Skills
Not ready to talk?
Build the case before you spend anything.
Use our free calculators to work out what the project’s worth and what waiting is costing you. Then get your MD to say yes.
Proof
One story, agreed in a day.
Twenty stakeholders, one answer.
Four sites and no agreement on what any of them were for. One strategy day defined every page’s purpose before anything was designed.
Why back the games.
They couldn’t say it in one line. The messaging did the work, not new spend.
What it was like to work with us.
“
They went to great lengths to ensure we went over every bit of detail… formed an extension of our team.
–Chris Arnold
Energy & Utility Skills · via Clutch
Your questions, answered
Brand strategy is the decision about who you’re for, what you’re selling them and why anyone should believe you. It gets written down so everyone in the business uses the same version. It normally covers audiences, positioning, value pillars, messaging and proof. Squibble runs it as a one day workshop in Birmingham, or over several months where the systems need sorting out too.
You should leave with your audiences defined, your positioning, three to five value pillars, the reasons a buyer should believe each one, and messaging written in words your team can actually use. Plus what makes you different from the two or three companies you keep losing to. If it stops at a purpose statement, you’ve been sold a poster.
The strategy workshop is from £2,800 + VAT. That covers the reading we do beforehand, the day itself and the written output afterwards. Rebranding and growth consultancy are quoted per business, because both depend on how much of the work you actually need and most people don’t need all of it. We’ll tell you which of the three you’re looking at, and roughly what it takes, before you commit to anything.
The workshop is one day in a room, with about a week either side. A week before for us to read what you’ve got, a week after to write it up properly. A rebrand runs from a few weeks to a few months, because the identity work follows the thinking rather than alongside it. Growth consultancy runs over months, because positioning and reporting don’t get fixed in a day.
Yes, if more than one person has to agree on the copy. Website projects overrun because the deciding and the designing happen at the same time, and then the design gets blamed. Get the audiences and the messaging agreed first and the build goes faster, not slower. It’s normally the cheapest week of the whole project.
Whoever can overturn the answer afterwards. Usually the CEO or MD, whoever runs sales, whoever runs marketing, and one person who speaks to customers every day. Four to eight people works. If the person with a veto isn’t in the room, you’ll be having the same conversation again in a month.
Ask who’ll actually be in the room, not who’s in the pitch. Ask for three projects like yours and what happened next. Ask what they’d change about your positioning before you’ve paid them anything, and see whether they’ll answer. If the first conversation is mostly about colours and layouts, you’re buying design with a strategy label on it.
Yes, and it’s the fastest part to move. ChatGPT, Google’s AI answers and Perplexity build a summary of you from whatever they can find. If your own site is vague, they use somebody else’s description of you. We changed our own positioning from creative agency to strategic, put it on the site, and within a few weeks the tools were describing us the new way and returning us for strategy searches.
Sometimes. The writing isn’t the hard part. The hard part is getting six people who all have a stake in the answer to commit to one version, out loud, on the same day. That usually needs someone from outside with no career riding on which version wins.
SECTORS
Sector experience, not sector guesswork.
Every sector has its own buyers, its own objections and its own way of deciding. Here’s where we’ve already done the learning.
B2B Services
Growth came from relationships, not marketing. We build the story that gets you into rooms where nobody knows your name yet.
Destination
A place has more audiences than a business does, and they rarely agree. We settle what the place stands for, then build one platform that serves all of them.
Education
Schools buy on trust. We help the companies that supply them earn it before the first call.
Finance
Trusted, expert, secure: the words that differentiate nobody. We find the difference that is actually true and say it.
Manufacturing
Nobody buys a part number, they buy the problem it solves. We turn the catalogue into an answer.
Tech & Cyber
Growth stalls when nobody can say what makes you different any more. We point you at whichever part is actually stuck.
Merger & Acquisition
Merge, keep separate, or something in between. One day, every brand in the deal sorted, with a roadmap for the next one.
InsightS
Worth reading before you brief anyone.
-
Before you book a rebrand, do these five things
By Kim Leary Published Updated 4 min read
Most rebrands go wrong before a designer is even briefed. Settle these five things first and…
-
When the CEO shouldn’t be in the room (and why that’s okay)
Asking a CEO to sit out part of a strategy project feels risky. Sometimes it’s the…
-
How to build your value pillars, and get your team to agree on them
Most B2B value propositions are one sentence that nobody uses. Here’s how to replace it with…
Ready to untangle it?
Tell us what is not landing. We will tell you whether it is a messaging problem, a brand problem or a systems problem, and what it would take to fix.
