The questions people ask before they email.

Answered plainly, including the ones where the honest answer is not in my commercial interest.

What does a brand strategist actually do?

A brand strategist decides what a business should stand for, to whom, and why that is worth paying for — then makes every visible part of the business say the same thing. It is a commercial discipline before it is a creative one. The logo is the last decision, not the first.

In practice that means positioning, a messaging framework, brand architecture, and then the work of holding everything else to it: the identity, the website, the marketing, the way the phone is answered.

What is the difference between a brand strategist and a graphic designer?

A designer answers how something should look. A strategist answers what it should mean and to whom, which is the question the design is then solving. Hiring a designer without a strategy produces something attractive that does not move the business. Both are needed; the order matters.

How much does brand strategy cost in South Africa?

Fees vary widely by the size of the business and the number of brands under it, and any published price list is a guess. Expect a defined foundation project to be quoted as a fixed fee, and ongoing brand management as a fixed monthly retainer. Senior-led work is not the cheapest option available, and should not be bought as though it were.

What you should insist on, wherever you go: a fixed fee for defined work, a fixed monthly fee for retainers, and no hourly billing. Scope creep invoices are a sign the scope was never properly written.

How long does a rebrand take?

A brand foundation — the strategy itself — typically takes six to eight weeks. Identity and a website built on it typically take a further eight to twelve. A rebrand promised in two weeks is a logo change, which is a different and much smaller thing.

Do I need a rebrand or just a new website?

If you can state in one sentence what the business is for, who it is for and why it is worth more than the alternative — and your team would give the same sentence — you need a website. If not, a new website will only present the confusion more attractively.

The cheap test: ask three people in your business to write that sentence separately. Compare them.

What is brand architecture, and do I need it?

Brand architecture is how the brands inside a business relate to each other — parent, sub-brands, products, ventures. You need it the moment you have more than one thing to name. Without it, each new venture is named on instinct and the group slowly stops looking like a group.

This is the most common problem in property and investment portfolios, where a new fund, building or venture arrives every year and each one gets its own logo before anyone asks how it relates to the last.

How big does a brand partner need to be?

Big enough to cover the disciplines, small enough that the senior person is still doing the work. For an owner-led business with no internal marketing function, that usually means a small practice with specialists brought in as needed — photographers, videographers, printers, interior designers, project managers — so you get continuity of thinking without paying for an account layer.

An agency earns its keep when you need volume: many campaigns, many markets, many languages at once. Below that threshold, a good deal of what you are buying is coordination.

What happens if the work outgrows a small practice, or you are unavailable?

Everything produced for a client is documented and owned by that client — position, guidelines, assets and accounts — so nothing is stranded in one person’s head. Specialists are brought in where a job needs them. And where a brief genuinely calls for an agency’s scale, you will be told, and helped to brief one properly.

It is a fair question to ask any small supplier, and the answer should be specific rather than reassuring. Ask it of everyone you shortlist.

What is a brand retainer and is it worth it?

A retainer is monthly custody of the brand: campaigns, content, the social feed, the next page, all held to one voice. It is worth it when consistency is the thing creating value. A brand nobody is holding drifts within a year, and re-establishing it costs more than maintaining it.

How do I know if my brand is the problem?

Usually you do not, and often it is not. Weak enquiry volume can be a pricing question, an operations question, or a business selling to the wrong people. A good strategist will tell you when the problem is not a brand problem, even though saying so costs them the project.

How do I choose a brand strategist?

Ask who will actually do the work, and whether that is the person in the room. Ask to see named clients and how long they have stayed — retention is the only credible proof in this field. Then ask what they would decline, because a strategist with no boundaries has no position of their own.

Do you work with clients outside the Western Cape?

Yes. The practice is based in Stellenbosch and most clients are in the Western Cape, but the work is done remotely as often as in person. What matters is access to the decision-maker, not proximity to them.