Branding for SME - help thinking through the project stages

I have been a leading Executive Coach in the UK for the last ten years. I intend to now take my company through a re-naming and branding process over the next few months. My intuition and feeling about this elevation are strong, but I have neither the prior experience nor systematic clarity of mind as to how to bring the whole branding process (and the various parts of it) about.

The visible functional effect will be a new Content Management System web site, logo, stationery, marketing material and invoicing system. The emotional effect will be how I become more energised and focussed because what is emerging in my work will have been given a superior leading-edge encapsulisation within the executive coaching market.

This INITIAL project request is to help me think through and determine the overall structure and stages of the whole branding venture. Below is a list of Discrete Projects 1-12, and these are my initial thoughts as to the overall structure and stages. So I first need help seeing what the Discrete Projects actually are, so I can then put each one out to tender appropriately. You may well be able to help me on some of them as well.

I currently see the following Discrete Projects in logical order:

1. Create the brand and define the corporate concept

2. Design the logo

3. Select the domain name and create the email address (from a variety of domain names that I have already purchased and are hosted)

4. Design the web site (i.e. web concept, structure, what pages, what I want to communicate to my clients via the site etc.)

5. Decide which CMS to use (I have been recommended to use Website Baker)

6. Development of the CMS web site

7. Write the web site pages content

8. Design the stationery (business card, letterhead, compliment slip)

9. Upgrade PowerPoint presentations

10. Creatively design and write the Professional Profile for marketing

11. Design an invoicing system

12. Redecorating and refurbishing company premises.

My own mind works in a creative, %u2018bursts of energy%u2019 fashion. So for each discrete project I will then be looking for someone who can (a) work structurally and linearly, in order to bring sequence and order, but also (b) engage interactively, in order to allow creativity and accommodate changes of direction, as well as (c) confidently bring their own idea-generation to the party, without trying to force any particular view or direction. It is important to me that this branding venture takes the time and gets to the depth that is authentic to myself and the work that my company does.

Please let me know if:

1. You consider you can help me INITIALLY think through the overall structure and stages of this project (this particular project request is for this thinking through)

2. You think you can then help with any of the discrete projects 1-12 above (each of which will obviously be some way down the road but early discussions now might help).

The branding will be for a £200k p.a. one-person high-quality leading-edge small business, so experience in working with this kind of venture may be of value. The many web-based Case Studies e.g. on Coca Cola, Harley Davidson and Hertz, don%u2019t seem to reflect my market or dilemmas! I will need you to position and justify what you think I need to be doing (not lead me through a learning experience about branding generally!). More important to me than focus and economy during this process, is that the full and authentic brand that I feel within for my company and my work manifests through this. This new company needs to reach selective high-value clientele, and is my life%u2019s work rather than a money-making venture requiring mass appeal.

Feel free to be open and honest in how you approach bidding for this, as this will give me comfort in terms of who I might be working with and in understanding where you are coming from. Thank you very much for reading.

<<end>>