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A self storage company hired me to audit their books.
I found something else entirely.
40 out of 200 clients hadn't paid in 3 to 10 months. One person was handling sales and admin at the same time. The brand was green — and blending into the mountain behind it.
So I didn't just audit. I restructured the team, wrote a collections protocol, repositioned the brand for a new market segment, and rebuilt the visual identity from scratch.
4 months later: 60% fewer delinquent clients.
8 months later: 3 clients asked to buy the franchise.
That's what happens when brand strategy starts with the business, not the logo.
→ Full case study on my profile.
The network for creativity
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Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
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Sunday morning. Coffee. Byron Sharp's How Brands Grow on the table.
It's an uncomfortable read if you sell brand strategy.
Sharp's data argues that distinctiveness (color, type, mascot, sonic mark) does more work than differentiation (a sharp strategic position). For Coca-Cola, Heinz, Mars, the numbers back him up. Big brands grow by being mentally and physically available, not by being meaningfully different.
Then I close the book and open Figma for a Series A client launching into a category most buyers have never heard of.
Sharp's frame doesn't apply yet. Distinctive assets only compound when buyers already know they want the category. When the market is being created, a sharp point of view does most of the work. The asset system can come later.
So the honest position, sitting with this for a few months, is that differentiation is usually a phase, not a permanent moat. It's the weapon you need in years 1 to 3, when buyers don't know the category and the competition is undefined. Sharp's playbook kicks in around year 5, when the category is real and you're fighting for share of mind.
Selling "be distinctive" to a Series A founder is malpractice. Selling "differentiate harder" to Heinz is also malpractice.
Most B2B clients aren't actually buying a 100 year brand position. They're buying a weapon for the next 18 months of attention.
Love this frame 🔥. Most people focus on the visual asset system (the distinctiveness), but as an AEO/SEO specialist, I’m usually the one tasked with making that 'sharp point of view' discoverable.
Sitting with this, though, it feels like differentiation is the high-signal period...
ABEL delivers preventive health coaching that must convince two audiences: institutional buyers evaluating ROI, and employees seeking genuine support.
The identity reflects that strategic duality - professional credibility meets human warmth through controlled color architecture, accessible typography, and systematic brand guidelines built for implementation across extended teams.
→ Check out the case study 👀
So on-point! Great work
Brand work doesn't end when the manual gets delivered. Branding is only effective when it's smoothly applied across mediums - decks, emails, websites, social media, print assets.
For DealDesk, we built an extensive template system: presentation decks, social media posts, one-pagers. The goal was to equip early-stage founders to keep asset production costs low while maintaining perfect brand alignment. Every template follows the same visual logic: confident typography, controlled teal palette, editorial photography standards.
The result: a self-sufficient system that scales without a full-time design team.
Intentional work. Every piece has a purpose.
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