What is a G.E.A.R.?

G.E.A.R.^SM is our proprietary, comprehensive strategic planning methodology. It stands for:

GATHER all the market information and statistics available.

EXPLORE all the possibilities and determine what's relevant.

ANALYZE how we can turn what we've learned to your advantage.

RETOOL. Design the marketing communications program that creatively leverages your brand's greatest strengths.

The process involves crucial members of your team in a detailed analysis of the marketplace dynamics that will be essential to your near-term growth and success. It is a disciplined approach to reaching consensus on a fundamental strategy, one that offers the best chance of achieving a meaningful return on your marketing investment.

The G.E.A.R. process has two fundamental objectives:

1. Establish the brand strategy (the "story" foundation for your marketing communications).
2. Define the parameters for a marketing plan that will enable you to sell more to more customers more often at optimum margins.

Clearly, the right "story" told well is essential to attracting those audiences critical to your future growth and success. In addition, it's essential for employees to buy in to any branding strategy in order to support the branding effort and fulfill the brand's promises. All of these areas are explored during the G.E.A.R. session and will impact the recommendations contained in the final report of the session.

G.E.A.R. Agenda

The G.E.A.R. process examines the following areas of your business:

• Your prospects (and what it is that they are looking for that will transform them from prospects to advocates).
• Your competition (it doesn't have to be exclusive to individual companies in your category).
• Your point of differentiation (you can build tremendous incremental volume on only one point of differentiation if it's the right one).
• Your brand (archetypal) personality (which determines the tone for your marketplace messages and is arrived at through a proprietary process).
• Your brand positioning statement (if you were to look in the "brand dictionary," this is what it would say under the listing for your brand).
• An overriding strategy for leveraging your brand in the marketplace.

G.E.A.R. Deliverables

The workshop will generate the following key deliverables:

1. We establish consensus on the objectives, obstacles to success and competitive position for your brand.
2. We define a plan of actionable, measurable steps to improve your competitive position among prospective buyers.
3. We will gain clear, relevant input for developing a branding strategy, as well as for marketing and communications plans.