To grow faster than others,
you must embrace your mistakes sooner.
Vision is a precious thing. Nothing great was ever created without it. But turning your vision into a thriving business? That’s where the real work begins. Soul-searching, ground-truthing, and pressure-testing. Ruthless self-analysis and a trail of shattered assumptions. It’s scary and thrilling in the best possible ways.
The Process
The Outsider Advantage is designed to harmonize your company’s DNA with the market in which you operate. Through it’s process, you will define your business’s essential attributes, your product, your customers’ needs, and the trends that shape your market. You are about to uncover the value within your business that only you can act on, a path where even the biggest competitor cannot chase you down. We call it your “Outsider Advantage.” The workflows take you through step by step — and every step matters.
The Mindset
You’re here because you aren’t satisfied with the status quo. You want to overcome the mediocrity you see in the market and recalibrate what customers expect. That makes you an Outsider. Be bold. Your lane awaits.
As we begin…
We craft a complete set of storytelling assets that help you earn the understanding and trust of customers, employees, and business partners.
The Cultural Architecture
Worthy ventures are built on foundations of meaning deeper than a business plan. Like any human endeavor, companies need stories, core beliefs, and cultural relevance to be remembered or shared. Will you frame yours with care, or leave it to others to fill in the blanks?
The Cultural Architecture defines the foundation on which your company’s culture is built. A brand’s actions are an outgrowth of this foundation. The elements bring the business and brand together into a united, human-centered presence that you can execute in market. Think of it as your company’s OS, a basis for understanding, decision-making, and action.
Then we break the model…
Get every detail down on paper to create a vivid picture of your customer value.
The Product
Journey
Visualize value. Customers don’t fall in love with a company at first sight. The seduction happens slowly, moving from oblivious to intrigued to delighted to (fingers crossed) passionately committed. Each step is an opportunity to earn more attention and affection. That’s when things get serious.
In this phase, you’ll map out that journey: where your best customers enter and what they find there, the diverse needs in the market, how your product meets them, and gaps where it doesn’t.
Business Gets Personal
The product journey is a linear understanding of the things people spend time on in your business and those concrete actions that create value for customers. We align your daily operations with your customer’s path, from being unaware of your product to connecting on a personal level.
The Rapid Rebuild.
No business like yours.
The Product- Market-Fit
True originals aren’t born. They’re reared in defiance of a messy, crowded status quo. None of us are immune to prevailing trends and sensibilities in the culture around us. In fact, the market’s herding patterns are so hard to resist that most companies don’t bother, choosing the ease and perceived safety of following the leader.
Your business has no place in a sea of sameness. In this phase, we’ll guide to your own special clearing in the crowd of copycats. To stand out in your field, first you need to learn its contours, folkways, and pitfalls. Only then can you identify that singular part of yourself with the power to be seen, heard, and heeded.
Now we can build tools to control the narrative.
The Communication Platform
Like a good novel, people’s relationship with your company has a story arc, including an opening chapter, pivotal moments, and (one hopes) a satisfying conclusion. Crafted with skill, your story can entice people to keep reading to the end. When the plotline has gaps, it’s hard to get invested and readers feel let down.
In other words, thorough and thoughtful communication matters. In this phase, you put that story down in black and white. This isn’t about perfect prose, it’s about capturing why customers should care at each step and answering their needs in context.
The Eyes Have It.
Build your Outsider Advantage into the visual DNA of your business.
The Visual Language
Humans are drawn to beauty and uniqueness even in small decisions. When the choices really matter, the right visual impression is more consequential — helping people sort out leaders from insurgents from also-rans at a glance. Get it right, you inspire people to take another look. Send the wrong signal, you may not get a second chance.
To make the most of these encounters, your company’s visual language must tell a story that only you can: strongly, simply, indelibly. Leave this step to a pro. The insights gained in this process are used to guide an agency or designer in crafting a toolkit of color, type, graphics and imagery to embody your unique advantage in the market.
More thoughts on design
While not everyone is a designer, a great visual language has never been more accessible. This is both a blessing and a curse for emerging businesses. It’s remarkably empowering for small companies to achieve a similar quality of design as a Fortune 500 brand. At the same time, when beauty is so common, customers are at a loss sorting out the good from the great. When everyone appears to be the best, no one is.
However lovingly crafted, a visual language that doesn’t starkly distinguish you from the competition isn’t doing its job. To become influential in your market, you not only need a high-quality visual brand, you need a unique one — and the willingness to commit to that representation even as the market changes around you. Brands that look, act, and deliver consistently gain followers and trust and grow organically.
The process is designed to guide you.
The process will help you clear the lane for your necessary venture. A business that can defy the odds, challenge people’s expectations, and go on to change them. When you put the work in, you’ll be amazed by what comes out. Creating a foundation for attraction, growth, and customer love.