Brand Yourself: A no-nonsense brand toolkit for small businesses

Lucy Werner and Hadrien Chatelet

Practical Inspiration Publishing

Published 7 September 2021

♥♥♥♥/♥

 

I love learning about marketing and branding. And we all know that the best way to learn something is to read a book about it. Brand Yourself is easy to read and approachable and I have finished feeling I have a strong brand outline and clear steps I can take to make my brand stronger.

I always read branding and marketing books through two lenses – my own personal perspective as well as the branding of my school library. Brand Yourself is obviously targeted for business models, but each of the steps it takes readers through to identify a brand, would work perfectly for a library or service.

Brand Yourself is based on the work behind Wern and a quick check of their website and social media feeds shows they practice what they preach. It’s also a good example of what they are trying to show readers.

The book starts with an introduction to brand strategy and why it’s important for your business. Chapter 1 is all about building your brand. These are the thoughts, values, and feelings behind the brand. Along with the book, you receive a downloadable brand workbook to complete as you work through the activities. This wasn’t available with my advanced copy, but the book gives the reader the flexibility of using the workbook or just a notebook, which is what I did. Each subsection within the chapter introduces the topic, outlines the activity to be completed, provides a real example, gives some tips and finishes with some hacks to try. This first chapter is the most important of the book and covers competition research, values, vision, mission, purpose, audience mapping and brand behaviour.

The second chapter covers how to build the visuals behind your brand and includes the use of mood boards, colour choice and the theory behind this, fonts, graphics and designing your logo. It also includes important sections of diversity and inclusion, and legal and ethical aspects to consider. Chapter three introduces including your personal brand in your business brand. Chapter four is about budgeting for branding. Most of this is for physical resources. In chapter five, outsources branding work is explored. The book finishes with a glossary of terms, useful resources and further reading suggestions.

I love that this book is so easy to read. I read most of it in one sitting, cover to cover. The book steps you through every exercise and gives you clear examples to bring the content to life.

I’d recommend it to anyone starting out in their business journey or those looking to evaluate their current brand position.

The publishers provided an advanced readers copy of this book for reviewing purposes. All opinions are my own.

More information

Category: Non fiction 

Subjects: Branding, marketing, business, small business.

Published: 7 September 2021 by Practical Inspiration Publishing

Format: Paperback, ebook. 216 pages.

ISBN: 9781788602730

Find it online: HypeYourself.com