brand bible template

Think hard. Why did you start the business in the first place? Don’t say ‘to make money’.

That’s a by-product. The truth is, you had a personal mission, a deep down desire, a need

that was very human, emotional and un-businesslike.

Write down your top five answers here. Sleep on it, and eliminate a few. Sleep on it again,

and come up with one reason that gives you goosebumps.

1. ____________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________

4. ____________________________________________________________________

5. ____________________________________________________________________

Why do you exist?

STEP 1

Now comes the audience participation part.

Write down the three things your business does better than any of its competitors.

1. ____________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________

Now ask your business partner (if you have one) or your most trusted employee to do the

same. Remember to tell them to be honest – if they just parrot what you said because

they’re afraid of disagreement, this exercise is useless.

1. ____________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________

Well done. Now ask your significant other, or your best friend to do the same.

1. ____________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________

What do you do best?

STEP 2

Great. Now ask three of your best customers to tell us what you do best.

Just get one answer from each of them.

Customer 1. __________________________________________________________

Customer 2. __________________________________________________________

Customer 3. __________________________________________________________

Final question. Ask three suppliers, investors, or other folks with vested interest in your

success, to tell us what you do best. Just get one answer from each of them.

Stakeholder 1. __________________________________________________________

Stakeholder 2. __________________________________________________________

Stakeholder3. __________________________________________________________

Sooooooo, is there one thing everyone agreed on? Write it here.

What we do best. _________________________________________________________

What do you do best? cont.

STEP 2

STEP 3

If your company were a person, what values would define it? Is it loving? Is it humble?

Is it ambitious, amiable, comforting, quirky?

Go ahead. Write down your top five. Sleep on it. Cross out a few and add a few.

Sleep on it. Now narrow it down to your top three.

1. ____________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________

4. ____________________________________________________________________

5. ____________________________________________________________________

Your values

STEP 4

Imagine your best customer.

Now describe that customer. What do they look like? Are they married, with kids?

How old are they? What are their priorities in life? What are their greatest pleasures, and

what makes them nuts? What drives them toward your brand, and how does your brand

make them feel? Do you have a picture of your typical customer (feel free to clip one from

Google image – it doesn’t have to be an actual customer).

Write a few paragraphs describing your customer to us. Half a page to a full page would be great.

Who are you selling to?

STEP 5

No business just happens. Somewhere, somebody had an idea, an itch to scratch,

and this business was born. Can you tell us that story?

Maybe this business wasn’t started by you. If you don’t know the story of the founder’s

motivation, maybe tell us why you bought the business.

If it’s a new business, perhaps you can tell what the story will be in the future.

If you were suddenly five years in the future and you looked back, what milestones

would your business have hit?

Does your brand have a story?

STEP 6

Most folks get tongue-tied defining their brand. But they have no trouble saying

‘My restaurant is like the Apple Computer of restaurants’ or ‘My dry cleaning store

is like the Toyota Prius of dry cleaners’.

So what brands is your brand like? Why?

1. ____________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________

4. ____________________________________________________________________

5. ____________________________________________________________________

If your brand could hang out with other brands...

STEP 7

You’ve got 15 minutes to write down as many words as possible

that you’d associate with your brand.

Go!

Word association

STEP 8

Congratulations, this is the final question!

If you had ten seconds to tell me what your brand does best and what makes it unique,

what would you say?

What’s the essence of your brand?

If you told me this in an elevator, would it impress me? Would it make me think

you were onto something big? If not, give it another try.

STEP 9

there are two things that can happen now.

1. You can use this document as it is. It will function very well to define your brand.

That, in turn, will help you (and anybody doing your communications work) keep your

brand focused and consistent.

2. You can talk to us about whipping it into a truly awesome Brand Bible. Tweaking your

language. Adding vibrant visuals and graphic design. Pushing you to make it more

inspiring. If you’d like to see how good this can get, ask us for excerpts from other client

brand bibles.

What now?