Kiki Bhaur laughing with a participant during a brand workshop

Brand Workshops

Work out why customers should choose you. And what needs to change.

Practical brand workshops that help you examine where the business wants to go, what customers value and what your brand needs to do to support it.

We bring the relevant knowledge, evidence and perspectives together to work through specific decisions, from which customers to focus on to how your offer fits together and why it’s worth the price.

For teams within one business, or communities of business owners applying the thinking to their own brands.

Let’s plan your workshop See what we can work through ↓

One team making decisions. Or business owners working on their own brands.

Kiki Bhaur working through a question with participants at a table

For a team within one business

We work through a shared business question with the people who hold the knowledge, the customer evidence and the authority to decide. The aim is an agreed position, with owners for what happens next.

Business owners working in small groups during a workshop

For a community or programme

Participants learn together, then apply the thinking to their own business. Nobody is asked to agree a shared strategy. Each person leaves with their own conclusions and priorities.

What would you like to work out?

These are possible objectives for a workshop. Most sessions focus on one or two of them rather than trying to cover everything.

  1. Customers and choice

    Agree which customers and opportunities to focus on.

    Examine who you want more business from, what matters when they buy and where your strengths give them a credible reason to choose you.

  2. Positioning and value

    Establish why your business is worth choosing.

    Work through the value customers gain, which differences matter and what evidence supports your position and price.

  3. Offer and brand architecture

    Make your offer easier to understand and buy.

    Examine how services fit together, how they are named and presented, and how customers recognise where to start or what else you could help them with.

  4. Growth and change

    Work out what growth or change requires from the brand.

    Explore what needs to stay, change or become more credible as you enter a market, broaden the offer, combine businesses or pursue different work.

  5. Messaging and experience

    Connect what you promise with what customers experience.

    Identify what people should understand and expect, then examine the messages, interactions and service moments that need to support it.

  6. Strategy into practice

    Give the team a direction they can apply.

    Translate an agreed strategy into priorities and guidance for your website, proposals, marketing and customer experience.

Have a particular challenge in mind?

Tell me what is happening in the business, or what your members are dealing with, and what you’d like people to leave better equipped to do. We can shape the workshop around that rather than asking you to choose from a fixed menu.

Let’s plan your workshop

Workshops in practice.

Client example

Elevey

The question
Sally Brady Business Planning Specialist Ltd was growing, with a new social media and marketing arm led by Georgia Brady. The name no longer fitted the business, and before any rebrand the team needed a clear brand strategy.
How the workshops helped
Three interactive Brand Strategy Takeoff sessions with Sally and Georgia worked through the business and its ambitions, its vision, values, purpose and promise, its personality and voice, and the customers it serves. They discussed each part as it was completed, so the team agreed what the business stood for together.
What it informed
That direction shaped the new Elevey name, the identity and the website, delivered with 9 Designs.

“From start to finish I have been blown away by Kiki’s attention to detail and methods to create a brand that is so aligned to who we are.”

Georgia Brady, Marketing Exec, Elevey
See the Elevey project ↗

“Excellent brand management workshops. Informative and digestible.”

Matt Hollings, Travel Matters

Programme sessions

Talks and workshops include programmes delivered through Enterprise Nation, including Vodafone Business Connected and Tottenham Hotspur Foundation’s Start Something.

A workshop group celebrating together at the end of a session
Participants presenting their thinking at the front of a workshop room
Kiki Bhaur presenting to a seated workshop group

Get people involved in the thinking.

I use exercises to bring assumptions into the open, explore alternatives and help people apply the thinking to their own business. The activity earns its place by helping us examine a decision.

A workshop worksheet and pen on a table

Build your nightmare competitor

What would a competitor need to offer, prove or do differently to win your best customers? Participants build that business, then examine which strengths it exposes, which weaknesses deserve attention and what their own brand could do about them.

Example notes

  • Offers a fixed price for the first project
  • Proves results with case studies from your sector
  • Does differently replies within the hour

What it exposes Our best evidence is buried in proposals, so new customers rarely see it.

A close-up of a completed workshop worksheet

The £100 auction

Participants allocate a fictional £100 across things customers might value, such as expertise, speed, reassurance or flexibility. We compare the choices, discuss the reasoning and identify which assumptions need checking against customer evidence.

Example allocation

  • Expertise£40
  • Reassurance£30
  • Speed£20
  • Flexibility£10

To check Do recent customers rank reassurance this highly? Ask them before acting on it.

Internal opinions and votes are where the investigation starts, not a substitute for customer research. These are examples of methods I use when they suit the question. Every workshop is planned around its own objective, so the exercises vary.

A full workshop room in London, with participants standing and talking in groups
A wide view of a workshop room from above, with participants working at tables
Kiki Bhaur presenting, seen from behind a participant
Kiki Bhaur leaning in to help participants at a table
Participants filling in a workshop worksheet
A workshop room with participants working at tables

A useful workshop starts before people arrive.

  1. BeforeAgree the purpose

    Agree the objective, participants, relevant evidence and preparation.

  2. DuringWork through the question

    Examine the issue through discussion, exercises and evidence, distinguishing decisions from assumptions.

  3. AfterCapture what moves forward

    Capture what was agreed, what remains open and what happens next.

Something to use after the session.

For a company team

A record of decisions, rationale, open questions and agreed next actions, with specific materials depending on scope.

For individual business owners

Completed exercises, an assessment of their own business and priorities they can investigate or apply afterwards.

A workshop moves specific decisions forward. It isn’t a complete brand strategy or implementation plan in one session.

Illustrative example

From a workshop on making the offer easier to understand and buy

The question examined
Why do so few new customers buy more than the first service?
The decision reached
Present the three services as one route, with a clear place to start and what usually follows.
Reasoning and evidence
Sales and delivery colleagues each described customers asking “do you also do that?” after a first project. Recent proposals list the services separately with no link between them.
Still to investigate
Whether customers see the services as connected. Speak to five recent customers before changing the website.
Next action and owner
The sales lead drafts one offer page and a matching proposal section for review at the next team meeting.
Kiki Bhaur presenting beside a screen to a workshop audience

I plan it with you, and I run the room.

You work directly with me from the first conversation through to the session. I want to understand the people taking part, the decisions ahead of them and what might be making those decisions difficult.

In the room, I help people challenge assumptions, contribute what they know and reach useful conclusions. My background is in brand strategy and what it does for a business commercially, so the discussion stays connected to the decisions that matter. We can take the work seriously and still enjoy being in the room.

The practical side.

Format
In person, online or a combination of the two.
Participation
We agree who needs to take part, and the balance of discussion, exercises and individual thinking.
Preparation
Any evidence, customer input or pre-work is agreed beforehand, so the session starts from what is already known.
Outputs
The materials people receive are agreed as part of the scope.
Follow-up
Further sessions, consultancy or implementation support can follow where useful, scoped separately.
Fees
The fee depends on the preparation, format, participants and outputs. We agree it before booking.
Kiki Bhaur working with participants at a table

For organisers

Tell me about the audience and the outcome you want. You do not need to arrive with a finished agenda.

Frequently asked questions

Who should attend?
The people whose knowledge or decisions are needed. We agree that around the purpose, rather than automatically inviting every department.
Can you work with our existing strategy?
Yes. A workshop can focus on understanding, applying or testing an existing direction.
Is this a complete brand strategy in one session?
No. Some decisions need research, customer input or several sessions. We agree what can responsibly be worked through before booking.
Can this be part of a wider programme?
Yes. A session or series can sit within a programme for business owners or within a wider piece of work for your team.
What if we need help afterwards?
We can agree further consultancy or implementation support where useful. Explore consultancy and delivery

Settle the brand questions holding up your next move.

If you’re about to brief a new website, take a wider offer to market or rethink who you want to sell to, let’s get the right people together and work through the decisions that matter.

If you’re organising a session for a business community, we’ll shape it around a challenge members can work on in their own businesses.

Let’s plan your workshop