“The essence of strategy lies in deciding what we will not do.”

The value of these exercises is in what you will learn through your research and deep thinking. You can answer all the questions based on your first instinct, but you won’t gain anything.

A brand is the impression people have of you, and brand strategy aims to unify those impressions to secure your place in the audience’s mind.

The goal of brand strategy is to define the general direction on which you will base all your plans for product development, marketing, pricing, and media presence. Another key outcome of brand strategy is that you will no longer have to compete on price.

Values

Write down your top 20 words related to work.

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True values are your decisions on how you perform your work. We are looking for what sets you apart and what will guide you later in how you carry out tasks and develop the product or service. Writing down honesty and integrity is an incorrect example of values because these are natural traits, and their opposites (lying and deceit) would be unacceptable.

A more accurate example of values would be luxury in dealing with people, as its opposite might be efficiency. Luxury here means paying personal attention to each individual, making them feel valued, which requires time, effort, and expenses. On the other hand, efficiency means prioritizing speed and cost-saving. Both directions are valid. You can think of values as a guiding approach.

Eliminate words whose opposite is incorrect.

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Opposing values

You cannot drive your car in opposite directions and reach your destination. Some values are inherently opposing, and here are some examples: