Human Centered Brand Strategy Consulting for Your Service Based Businesses

A brand is a collection of impressions the audience has about an organization, a product or a person. A brand is intangible: it exists in the minds of other people. Every business has a brand, whether they’re consciously doing something about it or not.

A brand strategy in a greater sense is a conscious approach to creating and maintaining your brand. In a more narrow sense, it’s a document outlining the key aspects of your brand, so that you, and any anyone who works for your business, can refer to it and make decisions that are aligned with your brand.

Nela Dunato teaching a group workshop in Krakow

Do you feel stuck on where to take your brand next?

It may be because you haven’t figured out yet what’s unique about you and your work, and how to use this insight in your branding and marketing.

Brands evolve over time. Maybe you’ve found that your current brand is no longer serving you—your offers have changed, or your audience has changed, or you’ve finally realized what your true purpose is. Either way, now you’re in a “chrysalis” stage where things have been shifting for a while, but there’s still no clear end in sight.

It’s time to take a deep dive into what makes your business different, and to come up with clear next steps on how to navigate the next season of your evolution.

A strong brand can help you:

  • Stay memorable.
  • Differentiate from other businesses.
  • Appear more trustworthy.
  • Attract your dream clients.
  • Encourage word-of-mouth referrals.
  • Raise your prices.

A strong brand is cohesive, harmonious and aligned with your core values. No matter what touch point your clients see first, they always get a great experience that prepares them for working with you. There is no confusion about who you work with, and what kind of value you deliver. Your clients know they’re your right clients from the start—and those that aren’t are aware of that too.

A strong brand is able to answer these essential questions:

  • Who are we?
  • What do we stand for?
  • What value do we provide?
  • What message do we want to communicate to the world?
  • How do we express ourselves?
  • Who do we work with?
  • How are we communicating these answers visually?

If you’re not able to answer these questions at the moment, that means the foundations of your brand are a bit shaky, but don’t worry—after our work together, you’ll be able to answer them with clarity and ease.

The Human Centered Brand Strategy consulting is designed to get you clear, confident, and ready to show what a remarkable business you have.

“The 1:1 workshop was useful for me because it helped me verbalize the values and aspirations that were only in my head. Nela expertly guides you through the process in which, together with her, you arrive at the answer to the question “Who am I? (as a brand)”, and then how best to present it to others, and thus attract what we really want. The end result exceeded my expectations, which weren’t small.”

Sanja Veletanlic, founder of go2human

How is my approach different from that of other brand strategists?

My specialty is helping service-based business owners and independent creatives to uncover their authentic brands that are rooted in their essence.

Human Centered Branding is different from both corporate branding and personal branding, and fills the void that these two leave behind. Human Centered Branding is relationship-focused. Its main imperative is to help you have successful and harmonious interactions with your clients.

The Human Centered Brand approach relies on the natural human magnetism that each of us possesses. This natural magnetism is already working in your favor in your personal relationships, but the Human Centered Brand framework can help you bring that into your professional relationships. Instead of hiding and shying away from the things that make us unique and potentially “quirky” to the general public, we embrace this uniqueness and quirkiness and use it as a leverage. This enables us to attract the attention of the people who love what we do.

Your unique combination of skills, interests and personality traits becomes a point of resonance with people who appreciate those aspects.

In particular, my approach to brand strategy focuses on 5 essential elements which I’ve discovered make the biggest difference for small, service-based businesses:

The Human Centered Brand Discovery Pyramid

By working together, we can define these elements for your business, and build a brand strategy that is easy to maintain, attracts the best clients and team members, and helps you do business with integrity.

This is not about adapting, pretending, or hiding behind a mask—it’s about being clear, unapologetic, and natural.

Who is this work for?

This is ideal for any type of small service-based business with:

  1. A working business model (one or more services that people have paid for in the past).
  2. A general idea of who your current clients are (we can pinpoint the details together).
  3. A modest budget you plan to use for upgrading your website, branding, etc.

If you don’t have the budget, I recommend getting my book The Human Centered Brand, which offers a self-guided method to discovering your own brand strategy.

It’s best to create a brand strategy before working on your website or other marketing campaigns, so that:

  • Your content is written in your authentic voice and speaks to your ideal clients.
  • Your design and photography are portraying the right atmosphere and aligned with your aesthetic qualities.
  • The user experience of your website is tailored to your ideal clients.
  • Everyone you work with is on the same page, collaborating efficiently, and there’s no misunderstandings.

Masks are meant for Halloween, not for your business.

With the Human Centered Brand approach, you’ll never have to pretend you’re someone else.

What sort of topics can we cover?

This type of consultation is best for figuring out the big picture of your brand, but I can also answer specific questions regarding an upcoming marketing campaign.

Here are some examples of questions I can help you with:

  • What are my core values, and how can I communicate them to my audience?
  • What makes my business different from all my competitors?
  • What are my brand voice qualities? How can I use it to my advantage?
  • Who are my ideal clients and where do I find them?
  • What should I include in my brand mood board and how do I make sense of it?
  • What colors and fonts are the most appropriate for my brand?
  • What improvements can I make on my current website so it’s better aligned with my brand?
  • How can I make my marketing or teaching materials more unique and engaging?

My aim is to provide you with the knowledge you need to create the impact you want. While my articles and book are more generalized and high-level, in our consulting session we’ll work specifically on your business, which has its own distinct needs.

I don’t believe in rehashing and recycling the same advice for everyone. You and your business are unique, and what we create together in this call will be as well.

I honor your time and I won’t pitch you my services. However, if you’re open for collaboration, I can make a recommendation of how I could further help you.

How does it work?

The consulting engagement includes:

  • Assignment: filling out the The Human Centered Brand Workbook
  • One-on-one video call (up to 2 hours)
  • Your custom Human Centered Brand Strategy document

Here’s what our process of working together will look like:

  1. Prior to our consulting meeting, you’re expected to fill out The Human Centered Brand Workbook to the best of your ability, so we have a starting point. Anything that you’re not clear about we’ll go over in detail during our meeting.

  2. We’ll use Google Meet to have our 2-hour video meeting. You don’t need to install a special app because Meet works in most modern web browsers.

    At the time of our appointment, please join the call using the link you’ll receive via email.

  3. I’ll be taking notes during our call, and after we wrap up, I’ll create a Human Centered Brand Strategy document for your business, plus follow up with an e-mail containing key insights from our conversation, and action steps you can take to put it into practice.

    You’ll also get an audio recording of our conversation so you can listen to it again.

Pricing & Terms

The price of the entire consulting engagement is 400,00 USD/EUR and is due when you make your booking. Payment types accepted: direct bank transfer, PayPal, or credit card via PayPal.

Cancellations with more than 48 hours prior notice will be refunded entirely. Cancellations within 48 hours will be refunded partially, minus the 50 USD/EUR non-refundable booking fee. No-shows will be charged fully as if the consultation has taken place, so please show up on time. If an emergency prevents you from attending, please let me know as soon as you possibly can.

In the event that I need to reschedule because of illness or other emergency, you’ll be offered a choice between a full refund or booking the first available consulting session slot.

How to book

Please use the inquiry form to get in touch, and I will send you my availability calendar, as well as the resources you’ll need to prepare.

    Have you read my book "The Human Centered Brand"?