We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brad Todd. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brad below.
Brad, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
We were 2 years into starting our agency—This\That—and were struggling with 2 major issues. The first was an inability to deliver work to our clients in a timely manner. We were taking on too many projects and behind on everything. The second issue was that we were struggling to find our unique position in the market. What can we say that no other creative or branding agency can? Because of this, we were facing major burnout and uncertainty of how sustainable This\That could be.
As timing sometimes works, I stumbled upon a podcast featuring an agency owner whose situation really resonated at just the right moment in time. He discussed plateauing revenue and growth, process issues, and general dissatisfaction with his agency; all things I was personally experiencing. His solution was adopting a Design Sprint approach that drastically changed everything about his agency and process, which ultimately led to rapid growth.
This was compelling enough for me to dig into the Design Sprint process and start learning. After some initial research, I presented some reading material to my partner and said “Read this, let me know your thoughts and let’s see if we can modify this approach to work for branding.”
We spent the next 6-8 months designing and validating the process, realizing it was going to fundamentally change our entire approach with clients from how we sell to how we design. What we got out of this was not only a more efficient and well-defined process in creation of our Brand Sprint but also a unique selling proposition for This\That.
The biggest changes this idea led to include:
1. A better experience for our clients. It’s collaborative, immersive, and done at a consistent pace. The Brand Sprint allows us to clearly communicate expectations of the whole project lifecycle, run a predictable timeline, and remove surprises that typically derail projects.
2. Single project focus. We only work with one client at a time on a single project. This allows us to fully focus on the work and be completely immersed with the founder/leadership team. This builds trust and rapport early in the project.
3. Accelerated delivery. While most brand studios and agencies take 4-6 months to roll out a brand, we are able to deliver in 1-2 months, allowing our clients to keep their momentum and start realizing outcomes from the new brand sooner.
Brad, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Branding and design is my second act career. After a number of years working as an in-house marketer in the finance industry, I taught myself design. After some freelance, a couple of stops at agencies and startups, I found a great partner who I ended up founding This\That with in 2018.
Our core service is something we call Brand Sprints, which are accelerated brand development projects where we are working exclusively on a single project. Brand Sprints typical deliver on these common brand elements:
– Brand Strategy & Positioning
– Naming
– Visual Identity
– Content Strategy & Writing
– Brand Activation & Application
– Web Design & Dev
More impactful for our clients, This\That delivers some unique outcomes, including:
– A predictable project lifecycle
– Leadership clarity and alignment
– Collaborative, facilitated decision-making
– Shorter project timelines
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
My first 3 jobs were all in retail where you are taught that the customer is always right. This is a mentality I have had a long and hard battle with.
What I learned early on as a freelance designer was that in order to command the value I wanted to represent, I needed to be viewed as a consultant and not a pixel pusher. I think this has given me the desire to move away from just being a “graphic designer” and upping my skillset in brand strategy and facilitation. Now I work “with” our clients and not “for them”.
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
We recently had one of our best projects with a client we had written-off and honestly weren’t too excited about sending a proposal too. In fact, they had similar feelings about us as they were inviting us into their RFP as a courtesy because we had known them for a while.
We decided to send them a proposal but stuck to our guns on scope and pricing guidelines—something we’ve been too accommodating on in the past. Once the client saw how we detailed the process, they got really energized which led to a couple of really strong sales calls. Everyone’s attitude on the partnership flipped 180 degrees. We eventual won the work and had a really successful project.
The lesson here is to stick with the process and don’t make too many assumptions right out of the gate.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thisthat.co
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/thisthatagency
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thisthatagency
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/thisthatagency
Image Credits
Headshot credit – Lindsay Todd Design & Artwork credits – This\That