Online course for business owners

Creating a strong brand for your independent business

You can do this. Adam can help

Turn your business from a successful company to a powerhouse brand, using the same techniques as the biggest companies in the world.

Successful brand strategist, Adam Pierno has developed 8 course modules to take you step by step through the process of building your brand. 

You can take this course one lesson at a time, or sign up for the entire course now.

online course, independent business brand, branding

Why your business needs a brand

Defining how your brand is different and better than your competitors is the best way to make it easy for customers to choose you.

Who should take this course?

This course has been created and optimized for business owners who have physical locations or some face-to-face interaction with their customers.

Service providers (electricians, plumbers, cleaners), service centers (gyms, restaurants, retailers) and mobile businesses can benefit from the information in this course.

If you own or run a business like this, and have been thinking that you need to define the brand in order to grow, this is the course for you. Everything needed to do the work, with none of the distractions and jargon.

Ready to get to work?

 

Four examples of appropriate busineesses

Here's what you'll get when you purchase Specific branding for small business.

If you've always wanted to:

Create your own path to growth for your business Understand why your best customers choose you Build a framework to simplify future decisions about business and brand... then this course is for you!

This course has everything to:

Get to know your best customers Identify your top competitors Nail down what makes you stand out from your competitors Create the details of your brand to help you bring it to life everywhere

Just what you need

All of the brand expertise, none of the hassles

If you’ve worked with advertising and brand agencies, you know how much work falls on you and how much it all costs. Brand positioning can cost thousands or more. This course gives you the same tools for a fraction of that investment. With no sacrifice to your results.

This course is based on Adam’s book, Specific. It’s a straight-forward method to build your brand by putting your customers first.

Your instructor and coach.

This course was developed and is taught by Adam Pierno, award-winning brand marketer and author. He's worked with brands you know, like Bona, Domino's, Dunkin', Mercedes-Benz, Pocky, State Farm and Verizon, for more than 20 years. His books on brand and marketing strategy are taught at ad agencies, universities and Fortune 500 companies to make marketing simpler to understand and execute.

Introduction

Start with a video lesson introducing you to branding and the key concepts we’ll be tackling together. Also, take advantage of Adam’s e-book on brand building for independent businesses like yours.

> Video (7 minutes)
> Book (20+ pages)

What is brand?

You thought it was easy to explain, but now you realize you don’t have a great definition for what–exactly–a brand is or what it does for your business. No worries, in this lesson, brand strategist and author Adam Pierno, will clarify what a brand is and how it will put your business on the trajectory for growth with the customers you want the most.

> Video (30+ minutes)
> Worksheet: Brand description
> Worksheet: Admiration

Audience

Your best customer. Do you know who it is? Do you know everything you need to know about them to serve them so well that your competitors can’t win them away from you? You’re in luck. Pulling insight from his books on brand marketing, Adam introduces concepts to research and understand your audience, so that you can shape your brand to them, specifically.

> Video (23 minutes)
> Worksheet: Best customer
> Video (18 minutes)
> Worksheet: Persona starter
> Sample brand survey
> Sample demographics survey
> Research tool: Tapestry
> Research tool: Census
> Research tool: SparkToro
> Worksheet: Persona 2

Know your competitors

Now that you’ve researched your best customers, you have to dig in to understand what other businesses are trying to win their business or what other companies they may choose in your place. In this lesson, you’ll gain tools on competitor research to assess the full view of your market and prioritize the companies most likely to compete for the customer you’ve selected for your brand.

> Video (24 minutes)
> Resource list: Competitor tools
> Worksheet: Competitors
> Worksheet: Key competitors
> Worksheet: Obstacles

Positioning your brand

What do your best customers think about your brand? What do you want them to think? An amazing thing about the journey you’ve started to build your brand is that you get to choose what you want your best customers think about your business and brand. Positioning is all about assessing what your best customers think about their other options, and finding a space that only you can fill, in their minds. 

> Video (23 minutes)
> Worksheet: Perceptual maps
> Video (20 minutes)

Documenting your brand

Now that you’ve researched your audience, competitors and the market you’re in, you have to free all of the information you have gathered so that you can share it with other members of your company. Employees, partners, key vendors will all need to understand what your brand is about, so they can execute and make sure they deliver on the promise you’re making.

> Video (30+ minutes)
> Worksheet: Brand wheel
> Video (14 minutes)
> Worksheet: Brand pillars
> Worksheet: Stand against

Proposition

It’s time to write the promise we’re making to your best customers. This is the brand proposition. What promise can you make and keep, that none of our competitors can claim? We build on the research and documentation you’ve completed to nail down the proposition that will propel your brand forward. 

> Video (26 minutes)
> Worksheet: Proposition

Brand experience

Now that you’ve done the first pass at crafting your brand, we look at how people take in and experience brands. What impacts their perception and how can you maximize key encounters to reinforce your brand proposition? This is the beginning for you of moving your brand from “the page” to the real world.

> Video (24 minutes)
> Worksheet: Brand experience

What is included in this course?

This course combines tools and techniques used by Adam and professional brand consultants and agencies around the world. Videos to set the lesson for each module along with rigorous worksheets formatted for the way you work best.

Adam’s also provided links to research tools you can use at little to no cost to make sure your brand is based on sound logic.

Here's a gift to help you decide.

Adam’s put together this 40+ page e-book to help illustrate how independent businesses like yours have used powerful branding to stand out, attract more customers and grow.

free e-book

Can I try the first module before the whole course?

Absolutely. The course has been structured and priced to help independent businesses, but you can also take each course one at a time, and pay as you go; starting with the first module, "What is brand?"

Sign up for "What is brand?" here

Start slow and pay as you go.