There’s a particular moment in every brand project when the penny drops.

Two weeks ago I was sitting in a conference room in Dublin. The leadership team had been explaining why they were struggling to win new business – cheaper competitors, price-focused buyers, commoditised market. Classic story.

I asked them to walk me through their last three big wins.

What emerged was fascinating. In each case, the client had initially gone with a cheaper option, hit problems, then come to this company to sort it out. They weren’t winning on price or even on features – they were winning on what happened when things went wrong.

‘So you’re not really just selling a product’, I said. ‘You’re selling insurance against failure’.

A simple reframe changed everything about how they positioned themselves.

The curse of being too close

Here’s what I’ve observed over the years: The closer you are to something, the harder it becomes to see it clearly. You know every detail, every nuance, every internal discussion that led to each decision.

As an old colleague of mine used to say ‘it’s hard to read the label from inside the bottle’.

But your customers? They see none of that context.

I worked with a tech company recently whose leadership team spent twenty minutes explaining to me why their product was very different from their main competitor. Complex technical distinctions, different architectural approaches, added features, superior performance metrics. All true. All vitally important to them.

I interviewed their customers. Guess what they said? ‘The companies seem pretty similar, but these guys were people you’d want to work with. Much easier to run with. And of course the product works and it’s very easy to implement’.

The founders were obsessing over technical differentiation that their market couldn’t see or didn’t care about, whilst missing the human differentiation that was actually driving their success.

This is why objectivity matters. Not because outsiders are smarter, but because they're not trapped in your internal narrative.

The politics of internal brand work

There’s another uncomfortable truth about trying to develop your brand strategy internally: politics.

I don't mean backstabbing or power games (although those may exist). I mean the natural, human dynamics that emerge when you're asking people to step back from their day-to-day work and think strategically about what the company represents.

Whose vision of the company gets prioritised? Marketing’s customer-focused view? Sales’ competitive positioning? The founder’s original mission? Leadership’s growth ambitions?

When I facilitate these conversations as an external party, something interesting happens. People feel safer being honest. They’re more willing to challenge assumptions. They may even listen differently when the ideas aren’t coming from a colleague they have to work with tomorrow.

Plus – and this is crucial – it removes the burden of facilitation from internal team members.Your HR or marketing director can participate fully instead of trying to run the process. Your CEO can contribute ideas instead of trying to manage personalities.

Experience across contexts

Here’s something you can’t replicate internally: pattern recognition across industries and business models.

I’ve worked with everyone from manufacturing companies to consultancies to tech scale-ups. And whilst every business thinks their challenges are unique, the underlying brand strategy principles are remarkably consistent.

More importantly, the best solutions often come from unexpected places. The positioning approach that worked brilliantly for a professional services firm might be exactly what a software company needs. But you’d never make that connection if you've only worked in software.

This cross-pollination of ideas – seeing how other businesses have solved similar problems – is one of the most valuable things an external strategist brings.

The methodology gap

Developing a brand strategy isn’t just about having some good ideas. It’s about having a reliable way to:

• Uncover insights about your customers and market
• Identify genuine differentiation (not just what you think makes you different)
• Translate strategic thinking into practical messages and guidelines
• Test and refine ideas before you commit to them
• Implementation that actually sticks

These are specialist skills. You wouldn’t expect your accountant to design your website or legal to run your sales process. Brand strategy requires its own expertise and methods. (And, please, if you are that kind of company that gets the in-house IT guy to design your website, don’t call me).

I’ve spent years developing a pragmatic and effective approach to strategy, customer research, competitive analysis, messaging, and implementation. Not because I have all the right answers, but because I know the right questions. Not because I’m particularly clever, but because I’ve made all the mistakes and learned from a few, and a few brilliant people. And finally, not because I'm in love with some framework, process or methodology, but because I crave real-world results.

Speed and focus

There’s also a simple practical consideration: time and attention.

Developing a proper brand strategy isn’t something you do in your spare moments between other priorities. It requires sustained, focused work over several weeks or months.

Your team has businesses to run, customers to serve, products to develop. Asking them to also become brand strategists – even temporarily – means either the brand work gets done poorly or their other responsibilities suffer.

An external strategist can dedicate the time and focus this work deserves whilst your team stays focused on what they do best.

What good looks like in practice

When I work with clients, here’s roughly what will typically happen:

Week 1-4: I'm doing the heavy-lifting on research – customer interviews, competitor analysis, internal stakeholder conversations. Your team provides access and context but doesn’t get pulled away from their core work.

Week 5-6: We collaborate on strategy development. This is where your deep business knowledge combines with external perspective and methodology. Everyone’s fully engaged because they're not trying to facilitate.

Week 7-10: I'm refining and articulating our work into an actionable tools – your narrative, core messaging, your brand fundamentals. Again, your team can focus on their expertise whilst I handle the specialist work.

The result? You get a strategy that’s both externally informed and internally owned. Your team has been part of creating it, but they haven't been distracted from running the business or fallen victim to seeing only one vantage point.

The investment question

Yes, hiring external help costs money upfront. But consider the alternative costs:

• Months of internal time that could be spent on revenue-generating activities
• The risk of developing a strategy that misses the mark because it’s too internally focused
• The opportunity cost of launching marketing and sales efforts without clear, differentiated messaging
• The potential need to rebrand again because you didn’t get it right the first time

‘If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur’ Red Adair

I’ve seen businesses spend more on a single trade show than they would on developing a clear and compelling brand strategy. No disrespect to trade shows. But, if your people attending the show are not consistent, on point, focused and on message – Which investment is more likely to have long-lasting impact?

When it makes sense to go external

External help isn’t always the answer. If you’re a very early-stage startup still figuring out your product-market fit, you don’t need comprehensive brand strategy yet.

But if you're in any of these situations, it’s worth considering:

• You're struggling to differentiate from competitors
• Your team has different views on what the company represents
• You're entering new markets or launching new products
• Your marketing efforts feel scattergun rather than strategic
• You're hiring senior people who need to understand ‘what we’re about’
• You're preparing for significant growth or investment

Making the most of external support

If you do decide to work with someone like me, here’s how to get the best results:

Be honest about challenges: Don’t just share the success stories. Where are you struggling? What’s not working? The messy stuff is often where the most important insights hide.

Involve the right people: Brand strategy affects every part of your business. Make sure key voices are part of the process.

Commit to the process: Good brand strategy takes time to develop and implement. Resist the urge to rush or cut corners.

Plan for implementation: The strategy is just the beginning. Think about how you'll roll it out, train your team, and maintain consistency over time.

It’s not about dependency

The goal of working with an external brand strategist isn’t to create ongoing dependency. It’s to build your internal capability whilst leveraging external expertise for this specific, crucial piece of work.

The best brand strategy projects end with your team feeling confident and equipped to live and evolve your brand going forward. You should understand not just what your brand strategy is, but why it makes sense and how to apply it.

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Your brand is too important to be an afterthought. It’s also too specialised to be a side project. Getting it right requires the right combination of internal knowledge and external perspective, business insight and creative thinking, strategic vision and practical implementation.

Whether you work with me or another strategist, the investment in getting your brand right will pay dividends for years to come. Because in the end, your brand isn’t just about how you look or what you say – it’s about how people understand, remember, and choose your business.

And that’s worth getting right.

If you’d like to explore how this might work for your business, let’s have a conversation.

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