Ep. 40 How Brand Strategy Supports Every Contractor You Hire
You've probably heard me say it a million times: everything ties back to brand strategy. But today, you don't have to just take my word for it.
I reached out to six amazing online service providers from totally different industries and asked them one simple question: How does brand strategy help you do your job better?
Because here's the truth: strategy doesn't just help your designer. It helps every single person you hire in your business. Your copywriter, your VA, your social media manager, your photographer, your ads manager, your SEO strategist, and on and on.
When your brand strategy is clear, everyone on your team can work from the same playbook. That's when things really start to click. Your content gets more consistent, your marketing feels cohesive, and the results start compounding.
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What Is Brand Strategy, Anyway?
Before we dive into what these six experts had to say, let's establish a baseline. When I talk about brand strategy, I'm referring to:
Your purpose, mission, vision, and values
Your ideal client
Your competitors
Your differentiator
Brand messaging and voice
Your client experience
Think of brand strategy as the manual for all the decisions you make in your business. It sets the tone for everything and helps you run your business, get clients, and retain them.
Now, let's hear from the experts.
1. Studio Management: Building Systems That Actually Work
Liz from Lux and Vita is a studio manager for creatives with extensive experience as an online business manager. She's seen how all types of businesses work (and don't work), so she knows firsthand what makes the difference.
When Brand Strategy Is in Place
When a client has done their brand strategy work, including their messaging, voice, values, ideal client, and all those crucial details, Liz's job becomes infinitely easier. She guesses less because brand strategy acts like a manual for all business decisions.
"If you know who you're talking to, you know your values, you know all of those details that are so key for running a business, then I can build systems that match that," Liz explains. "It's not just gonna be generic best practices. It's actually gonna be tailored to you."
This tailored approach means a better client experience. Your clients get consistency across the board, not only visually but in how you speak and the cadence of how you work.
The Real-World Impact
When Liz builds workflows, she often ends up writing emails. Having a clear brand voice makes this so much easier because she can match that voice. Even reminder emails benefit from knowing your ideal client. Do they need a firm nudge or can you keep it chill? Are they super busy, meaning too many reminders will stress them out?
"Because you know your ideal client, I can help build workflows accordingly," Liz says. "And then you're actually giving them a better experience because you understand them."
The Bottom Line
When a client comes in with brand strategy already in place, it's not only easier for the OBM, it's more profitable for the business owner. You skip the 10,000 questions about your ideal client, how you speak to them, and your overall goals. You hand over your brand strategy and you're ready to go.
My take: This is exactly why having a solid brand strategy reduces decision fatigue. You're not making the same decisions over and over because you have a roadmap. And if you're considering hiring OBM or VA support, get your brand strategy nailed down first. Why pay someone to work in your business when you don't even know who your ideal client is or how you want them to feel?
2. Copywriting: More Than Just Words on a Page
Sam Burmeister of Nomad Copy Agency helps online service providers write words that sound like them but convert better. She's all about website copy, sales pages, and emails that actually sell, not just sound pretty.
Copy Without Strategy Is Just Words
"Copy without strategy is just words on a page," Sam says bluntly. When someone comes to her with their strategy already done, she knows what they're working with and where they want to go.
Strategy is really just a fancy word for a plan. Without knowing who you want to reach in the future, Sam is going straight off vibes when writing your copy, even with a strategic conversation.
The Ideal Flow
The best process? Strategy first, then copy, then design when you're making a website or sales page.
When Sam knows your purpose, mission, vision, values, who you want to work with, and any key messaging statements, she can write to those people and write from a place of values. This helps people really understand who you are, because your brand isn't just a logo. It's the whole vibe you're giving off.
Issues Without Strategy
Clients who haven't invested in strategy often feel scattered and perhaps a little desperate. They think copy will be the magic solution, that if they can just write better, people will want to buy. But without that core idea of who you're talking to and how you want to talk to them, the pieces don't work together.
"If your entire team doesn't have a singular strategy to come back to, then the website, it's new and it's fun, but it still might feel scattered," Sam explains. "That's going to mess with your client experience and it's going to mess with your sales long-term."
Sam's Best Advice
Nail down your strategy and work with a strategist before you move through the rest of your project. This means understanding your core messages and how your brand colors, copy, and photography will all exude that message in alignment with your core business strategy.
My take: We're seeing common themes here. Strategy is like a plan or roadmap. All of these contractors can and will work with you to figure some of this out, but it's not their job and it's not their genius work. Do you really want your copywriter defining your brand strategy? Having your whole team on the same page means your copy won't feel disjointed from your photos, visuals, or marketing. These things alone might be great, but if they're not working together, they won't get you anywhere.
3. SEO Strategy: Getting Found by the Right People
Brittany Herzberg of Copy by Bee is an SEO strategist for online business owners. Her job is to help your website and content actually get found by your ideal client.
The Difference Is Crystal Clear
Brittany starts by asking every client who they help, how they help them, and what they want to be known for. The people who've done brand strategy have it nailed. They deeply understand their ideal client, their differentiator, and client experience. Their message is clear and their brand voice is obvious. They're able to get to work super fast.
The ones who haven't spent time on brand strategy? They don't know. Their projects get off to a slower start because they need time to get clear on those answers. And Brittany will not move forward on keyword research without those answers, full stop.
Why Strategy Matters for SEO
If you want to focus on SEO in the near future, take the time (either solo or with someone like me) to get crystal clear on your purpose, mission, ideal client, and the experience you deliver to clients.
"If you can come to an SEO strategist with that kind of insight, it's much easier for us to dive into your project and give you solid keywords and really strategic SEO strategies," Brittany says.
The Biggest Issue
When clients haven't invested in brand strategy, Brittany can't just jump into researching keywords. It takes longer to get the project going and to identify what they're all about. They have to take extra time to get clear on who they help, how they help them, and what they want to get found for.
Sure, they'll take the time to find those answers, but it's so much easier to have someone come in and rattle off or copy and paste those answers from a document. That keeps momentum high, which is really important because SEO can be heavy, dense, and confusing.
When clients have their brand strategy ready, light bulbs go off. And there are far fewer modifications to SEO strategies because they're so locked in on their person, how they're different, and what they're all about.
My take: This straight-to-the-point answer is important. You're going to waste a ton of time working with any service provider if you haven't invested in brand strategy first. Everyone mentions that asking questions about brand strategy is part of their intake process. If you can't answer those questions thoughtfully and accurately, you're going to slow things down, which is a bummer when you're paying someone thousands of dollars. Strategy saves time.
4. Brand Photography: The Bridge Between Beautiful and Effective
Kira Goff is a brand photographer based in Colorado Springs who helps business owners elevate their visual presence so they can show up more consistently and confidently online.
As a brand designer and website designer myself, I cannot overstate the importance of having really solid, authentic brand photos that convey your brand strategy, messaging, and values.
When Strategy Clicks Into Place
Kira loves when clients come to her with clear brand strategy. When someone knows their purpose, mission, values, and who their audience is, everything clicks into place faster. It helps her craft images that don't just look good but actually work for their business.
"When a client understands their differentiator or their messaging tone, I can help translate that visually through color, posing, locations, wardrobe, and even facial expressions," Kira explains.
If their brand voice is bold and energetic, they might shoot in a vibrant downtown space with lots of movement. If it's calm, high-end, and refined, they'll lean toward neutral backgrounds, intentional posing, and a more editorial feel.
Essentially, their brand gives Kira the creative direction she needs to make every image intentional. It allows her to focus on storytelling, not guesswork. That's where the magic happens.
Building a House Without Blueprints
When clients haven't done brand strategy work, it's like building a house without blueprints. They often come in saying things like "I just need some nice headshots," but they haven't defined what they want those photos to communicate. There's nothing to help them stand out from every other static headshot online.
Sometimes after a session like that, the images don't actually fit their website or align with their messaging. Not because the photos aren't beautiful, but because the brand story wasn't defined in the first place.
The Bridge
"Brand strategy is the bridge between beautiful photos and effective photos," Kira says. "It gives your creative team (your designer, copywriter, marketer, or photographer) the clarity to bring your vision to life in a way that's cohesive and powerful."
My take: Kira really nailed it with that quote. I can attest that every photo Kira takes is gorgeous, but you can tell the difference between people who understand what message they're trying to convey versus those who haven't thought about it. Brand photography is a huge monetary investment, plus a lot of time and energy. Most of us don't really want to get all dolled up for a full day photo shoot. Do the strategy work ahead of time to make that investment as effective as possible.
5. Social Media Management: You Can't Delegate What You Don't Know
Megan from Candid Social is an Instagram manager and excellent social media marketer. Her answer reinforces a lot of the themes we've already covered.
Making the Job Easier
Megan loves when clients come to her with brand strategy and visuals already done. When you know as a business owner who you're targeting, what you offer, your core values, and your identity as a whole, it makes the messaging for marketing so much clearer because the foundation is solid.
The Honest Truth
Here's where Megan gets unapologetic: "Honestly, if you come to me to work together and you haven't done any brand strategy work, you're probably not a good candidate for social media management because your business isn't ready to hand over to someone else."
You can't delegate marketing your business if you don't know the foundation of your message. Without that foundation, she can't hit the ground running quickly. She has to do a lot of research and figure out foundational brand strategy pieces instead of moving straight to social media strategy.
My take: Social media management is a big investment, and it takes a long time to see results. You should already expect three to six months to see real tangible results. If you hire someone without brand strategy first, you're adding more time to that. You'll be paying a couple thousand dollars every month for six, seven, eight, or nine months before you see results. If you had just taken the time to work on brand strategy first, you could speed up that process and allow your manager to do their job efficiently and effectively.
6. Paid Ads: Amplifying Your Message (for Better or Worse)
Heather Aaron is a meta ads strategist. This one is so important because paid advertising is just that: you're paying for every single ad placement and every single click to your website. You want that to work as efficiently as possible.
Clear Messaging Is Everything
As a meta ads strategist, Heather's job is so much easier when clients have worked on brand strategy. This helps mostly with messaging.
"We wanna make sure that we have very, very clear messaging before we run ads because ads are just going to amplify what you're putting out there," Heather explains. "And if you're putting something out there that's confusing and messy, you're just going to get back confusing and messy results."
You want clear messaging and voice. How you show up needs to be crystal clear to people. You want to put things out there that stop the scroll, and then you want copy that's really clear and resonates with the people who stopped.
Targeting Depends on Strategy
Brand strategy also helps with targeting. If you don't know who you're speaking to, Heather doesn't know who to show your ads to. Your messaging dictates the targeting, making it easier to get ads in front of the right people.
Consistency matters too. Your ads need to match your sales page. When people reach your sales page after clicking through on an ad, they shouldn't be confused or think it looks different than expected. Otherwise, they leave and you don't get that conversion.
Top Issues Without Strategy
The biggest issue Heather sees when clients haven't invested in brand strategy: you get no traction. There's constant shifting. You're never sure who you're talking to, never sure about your offer, pricing, or messaging. Things keep changing.
Heather worked with someone like this once, and it was nearly impossible to gain traction because she couldn't build out an ad strategy. Every time she got everything ready, it was "well, now we're doing this instead." She was wasting her time because the client was wasting their time, and it led to very weak performance in the ads.
"I can get you strong results if you have a strong brand strategy," Heather says. "If you have a very messy foundation, your ads can get clicks and people can land on your page, but they're not actually going to follow through."
It All Starts With Strategy
You have to have clear brand strategy for clear messaging. People need to know exactly what you're talking about so it resonates with them. Then they land on your page and take the action you want them to take.
My take: I loved Heather's point about ads amplifying whatever you put out. If you're putting out something great and well thought out, your ads amplify that. If you're putting out something not so great and not well thought out, unfortunately your ads amplify that too.
Targeting is all about your ideal client, just like SEO, photography, copy, social media, and OBM strategy. Including ads, everything centers heavily around your ideal client. That's the bulk of the work we do in brand strategy.
When you invest in ads before nailing down brand strategy, you're the person who says "ads don't work for me." Well yeah, because you're constantly changing everything, you don't know who you're talking to, and you're basically throwing money at Meta with no plan. Of course they're not going to work.
If you're curious about using ads to market your business, absolutely do it. But make sure your brand strategy is nailed first.
The Common Thread
As you can see, the really common thread between all six of these highly skilled service providers is clear:
1. Not having brand strategy wastes a ton of time. None of them can hit the ground running and dig into your project until you have your brand strategy nailed.
2. It makes their job so much harder. Either you're missing pieces or they're having to figure out strategy for you, which is not their job. You wouldn't come to me and ask me to figure out what words to put on your website. That's not what I do. So why would you expect a copywriter, ad strategist, social media manager, or anyone else to just figure out your brand strategy?
3. Strategy impacts every contractor and team member. When I say brand strategy heavily impacts every other person you bring into your business, this is exactly what I mean.
Your Brand Strategy Is Your Anchor
Brand strategy doesn't just make your brand look good. It makes your entire business work better.
When everyone you hire (from your copywriter to your ads manager) is aligned around the same brand foundation, everything you create together becomes more consistent, more cohesive, and more effective.
Strategy is your anchor. It's the thread that keeps your brand clear and consistent no matter how many moving parts you add.
So if you've been putting off investing in brand strategy, I hope this gives you a whole new appreciation for how powerful it really is. And if you've already done the work, keep leaning on it. Share it with every contractor you hire. Make it the playbook your whole team works from.
That's when the magic really happens.
Ready to finally nail down your brand strategy? Let's chat about how we can create a solid foundation that makes every other investment in your business work harder for you.
🔗 Links & Resources Mentioned In The Episode:
➡️ Liz's Website & Instagram
➡️ Sam's Website & Instagram
➡️ Brittany's Website & Instagram
➡️ Kira's Website & Instagram
➡️ Megan's Website & Instagram
➡️ Heather's Website & Instagram
➡️ Morgan's Website & Instagram
🎧 Listen to episode 40 of The Six Figure Brand Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube
