Who is Linsi Brownson

Linsi Brownson, creative director for SparkCollaborative.com, really impressed me with her knowledge of branding and overall messaging. She has been an entrepreneur for ten years and the last three years has been spent running her current business. She has a clear and concise message as to what she is offering. She is able to convey this to her customers through an interactive initial approach during her intitial strategy session. She invites her clients to play “branding games”. This is a great way to get all the necessary information to establish a core foundation by learning everything she needs to know by motivating her clients to have fun and become an active participant in the branding process. She focuses on the branding process to help develop small business positioning.

One of the first things Linsi likes to do is to do with her clients is to tap into the creative levels. Her very first meeting Linsi has is to play “branding games”. She spends the first five to 15 minutes in various categories to get all the answers she needs. Some of the questions are geared toward the client and their background with regard to the skills they bring to the table and some of the questions are geared toward defining their target audience. This type of fun atmosphere makes it less scary for people and it helps their clients switch over to their right brain that helps promote creativity.

Linsi works with small businesses and solo-preneurs. Most of the branding process early on is more developmental. Linsi focuses on personality branding and she finds that by doing so, she identifies a lot of human elements that helps her clients to connect with their target audience on a personal level. Figuring out the message of the company and where they want to go begins with this enjoyable and energetic process to help create a story that people can identify with.

After the target audience has been defined, a story is established. This is when Linsi translates their story into visual elements. Linsi focuses on graphics first like banners, print media, website graphics, business cards and letter head in order to establish a cohesive message across the board. The third phase is where Linsi turns her focus to the web development and drills down on specific calls-to-action.

We think that hyper-niching is such a great way to go because you only have a finite amount of time to get your message across. – Linsi Brownson

Linsi is really focused on making sure her client’s understand what their brand means to their target audience. She dives deep into the branding process in phase one of her analysis with her clients. She really wants her clients to understand that the various components are still structured around the foundation element which is:

* why are you here?

* what are you doing?

* who are you doing it for?

It can be scary for many people to drill down on your niche because many people just starting their business feel like they are going to be missing business. While most businesses have multiple targets they can and are willing to engage with, the message can get lost in translation. If you are going to interact with this type of person, you really need to know very specific things about them and what they are looking for in order to make that connection.