September 16, 2024
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September 25, 2024

Build and Implement Your Brand Strategy

Master a proven framework to identify your audience, size up the competition, and find your unique brand positioning and personality. During 4 live sessions, you’ll build your brand foundation, solidify your messaging, and expand your brand’s footprint to reach your ideal clients.
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This sprint is exclusive to Pollen members.

For forward-looking independents

This sprint is perfect for independents looking to build or refresh their brand and reach customers more effectively.
people on the board (leader)
September 16, 2024
-
September 25, 2024

Sprint calendar

This sprint is designed to help you make fast progress through guided project work, interactive live sessions, and support from a vetted peer network.
September 16, 2024
Pre-Work
Conduct a thorough competitive analysis by creating a list of your top competitors. Use this data to identify opportunities to distinguish your brand and business in the first Sprint session.
September 16, 2024
Develop Audience Personas and Conduct Competitive Analyses
Define your ideal client persona (ICP) and identify your audience’s wants, needs, pain points, and misunderstandings to draft meaningful messaging. Find inspiration and opportunity in analyzing your business’ competitive landscape.
September 18, 2024
Define Your Brand Positioning and Personality
Develop unique positioning statements and key differentiators to position yourself and your offer as the clear choice for clients. Assess the twelve brand archetypes and build your unique brand personality to establish consistent messaging, aligning ourselves to our business.
September 23, 2024
Craft Your Brand Messaging
Implement messaging frameworks to craft clear and concise messages about what you do and who you serve. Develop a consistent voice and tone for all your messaging based on your business’ brand archetype.
September 25, 2024
Prepare Your Brand Strategy Implementation Plan
Identify immediate opportunities to implement your new brand framework and select tactics needed to complete these tasks.

What you'll take away

  • Completed brand strategy document with your positioning, personality, key messages and opportunities
  • Audience and competitive analysis worksheet
  • Personality, voice, tone, and messaging foundations to implement across your website and content
  • Identified outreach opportunities and content planning framework

Meet your sprint leader

Jamie Cox
Jamie is on a mission to make brands less boring! She’s a brand strategist and founder with experience spanning 10+ years and multiple industries. After leaving her corporate career as a creative director, she started her own business as a brand strategist. In 2022 she founded Strange Salt, a strategy-first branding agency that uses a collaborative approach to building brands for businesses that challenge the status quo. She serves as Pollen’s Branding Expert-in-Residence offering group coaching, leading pitch practices and guiding members to evolve their branding and positioning.

Apply to join the sprint

This sprint is available as a part of the Pollen membership. If accepted, you can access Austin’s sprint plus full membership benefits.
Apply to join Pollen
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Get accepted via email
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3
Pollen is tax deductible as a professional development expense
$100
/ month
Save 15% with an annual plan
Apply
Pollen is tax deductible as a professional development expense
$100
/ month
You're saving 15% with an annual plan
Apply

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Advance your career, without the 9-5

"Pollen has been invaluable for me. The learnings, the community, the 1:1 introductions, and the skill sets available, are perfect. I’ve been able to create custom teams based on project needs."
Erich - Creative Lead
"I've already gotten a 300% return on my membership through work referrals, and I learn something new every week through the game changing experts and peers."
Evan - Marketing Operations
“Becoming a Pollen member has unlocked more in my business and myself than I could ever imagine.”
Melissa - Marketer, Editor, and Writer
“Pollen has directly resulted in high-quality and well-paying clients. They've made an intentional online space that gives me energy and doesn't bog me down.”
Rachel - Content Strategist

Wudan Yan

Writing and Podcasting

Wudan Yan is an award-winning journalist, podcast producer, and entrepreneur based in Seattle. She is the co-founder and CEO of The Writers' Co-op, a learning academy and online community for freelance creatives.

Mike Vardy

Productivity

Mike Vardy is a productivity strategist, time management expert, and creator of the popular productivity site Productivityist.com. With over a decade of experience in the field, Mike has helped thousands of people worldwide optimize their productivity, creativity, and focus.

Austin Church

Brand and Business

Austin is a a brand consultant, writer, and freelance coach who helps freelancers get the best clients, make more money, and enjoy their freedom. Austin's goal is to help 1,000,000 freelancers make $100,000.

Kaitlyn Arford

Writing and Pitching

Kaitlyn is an award-winning freelance journalist who writes about pets and the people who love them. In between deadlines she shares resources and opportunities with freelancers. Learn more at kaitlynarford.com.

Kevon Cheung

Social Media

Kevon Cheung is an entrepreneur, author, and Build in Public coach. He founded Public Lab to help entrepreneurs cultivate a community around their work. Through actively showing his work-in-progress in public on Twitter, he built a voice and a business with tens of thousands of raving friends and fans.

Jenni Gritters

Mindset and Business

Jenni is a writer and business coach. She was originally trained as a journalist. Now, she coaches small business owners in the creative space, primarily freelancers and soloprenuers. Jenni is obsessed with building sustainable businesses that allow you to be a human first.

Matthew Fenton

Branding

Matthew Fenton has been an independent brand strategy consultant since 1997. He’s served brands like Fidelity Investments, Wrigley and Valvoline, and well as a number of challenger brands and niche leaders. He's also the founder of Winning Solo, where he shares what he’s learned about freelance longevity, balance and success.

Zulie Rane

Content and Blogging

Zulie Rane is a content creator, blogger, vlogger, and cat mom. She helps beginner writers make a living by writing about what they love. Whether it’s nabbing your first client, starting a blog, or finally figuring out SEO, she’s here to help.

Erin Booth

Productivity and Virtual Assistants

Erin is a virtual assistant and VA coach. She has helped over 35,000 students grow their own virtual assistant business through her one-on-one coaching, as well as her online courses. When Erin is not working, you'll find her on the hunt for the world's best cup of coffee.

Jamie Cox

Brand Strategy

Jamie is on a mission to make brands less boring. As a brand strategist and designer, she works with solopreneurs, founders, and entrepreneurs to help them identify their target audiences, size up their competition, and reenergize their businesses.

Dana Miranda

Finance

Dana is a financial educator, writer, author and founder of Healthy Rich, a platform for inclusive, budget-free financial education. She works with financial educators, coaches and advisors who want to question the status quo and have broader conversations about money with clients.

Michelle Jackson

Finance

Michelle is a multi-passionate content creator that creates content across personal finance, the outdoors, online brand building and the romance space. There is a common thread that weaves its way through all of the work that she does; a focus on access, equity and policy.

Natasha Tynes

Journalist

Natasha Tynes is a Jordanian-American author based in Washington, DC. She regularly contributes to several publications and her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Esquire, Aljazeera, among others. She hosts the podcast “Read and Write with Natasha,” where she discusses the art of writing and publishing.

Whitney Popa

Communications

Whitney is a professional communicator with over fifteen years of experience in writing, public relations, influencer marketing, and digital + social media. She has represented Xbox, Nordstrom, and Amazon.

Maya Kosoff

Newsletters

Maya Kosoff is a content strategist, writer and editor based in New York City. In her day job she is the Director of Content for Company Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, and she has freelanced for six years.

Ashley Simpo

Writing and Editing

Ashley is a freelance writer, children's book author and editor. Her work has been published by Essence, Huffington Post, Insider, Shondaland and Parents Magazine, and she has been profiled and featured in Marie Claire, Self, and The New York Times. Ashley has spent the last five years advising and mentoring new writers seeking to establish sustainable careers.

Treyton DeVore

Finance

Treyton is a creative entrepreneur, freelancer, and financial advisor. He was named a Top 100 Financial Advisor by Investopedia and has been featured in Morning Brew, Nerdwallet, and Marketwatch.

Stefan Palios

Entrepreneurship and Marketing

Stefan started freelancing by accident but fell in love with the ability to help multiple clients simultaneously and work independently. Half a decade later, he still maintains a roster of clients and also shares his experiences to help other freelancers build economic autonomy.

Ashley R. Cummings

Content Marketing

Since 2011, Ashley has been on her own as a freelance writer, developing a comprehensive understanding of content marketing, an even stronger command of the language, and a desire to help my clients crush their content marketing goals. Her work has appeared on sites like Insider, LinkedIn, Uber, Shopify, Salesforce, Hashtagpaid, and more.

What's included in the membership?

Pollen is the professional development membership that accelerates your independent career. As a part of your membership, you get access to the curriculum, community, mentors, and tools to help you build a successful and durable independent business.

Curriculum: Expert-led Sprints and Courses on the business side of building an independent career. From Growth Strategy, Brand Strategy, Quarterly Planning, Financial Projections and more. Sprints run on a monthly basis and help you make 6 months worth of progress in 10 days.

Community: Connect with vetted fellow independents through industry groups, community events, forums, and discussions. No spam or self-promotion is allowed.

Mentors: Get guidance and advice from Experts-in-Residence for Pricing, Legal, Brand, Sales, Client Experience and more. Join regular Q&A sessions, learn their frameworks, and get good advice.

Tools: Unlock a pricing database, over $200,000 in discounts to tools, community submitted templates and assets, customizable contracts ($3,000 value), and more.

What’s Pollen’s cancellation and refund policy?

You can cancel anytime, and if you’re not satisfied with your Pollen membership, we’ll honor a full refund within the first 30 days of your purchase.

What are the requirements for membership?

Pollen is a vetted professional development membership for experienced independent operators. Our members have built, scaled, and led companies across many industries and stages. They’ve now gone out on their own to provide consulting, advisory, fractional, and skilled services.

Their expertise focuses on Product, Growth, Marketing, Strategy, Operations, People / HR, Content, Design, or Finance.

Members have previously held senior level roles in their careers, which enables them to go independent. Titles may have included manager, director, senior, VP, department head, or chief level positions.

Now in their independent careers, they’re consultants, advisors, strategists, and business owners. Everyone has had at least a few clients and wants to build something durable — this is not for people who are "just curious" about independence.

The Pollen team reviews every application on an individual basis to determine fit based on experience and the needs of your business.

How much effort does this require?

We know you're busy. We also know that you take your business seriously and are committed to building something durable. Pollen is not a "just add water" solution. We'll go so far to say that all the gimmicks out there promising you instant success are just that — gimmicks. Pollen is here to accelerate your effort, intention, and time spent.

Think of your time in Pollen in 2 ways:

Become more efficient: 1-2 hours spent in Pollen replaces the 5-6 hours you might currently spend searching for the right information, building templates, creating strategies, asking for advice, or correcting mistakes.

Accelerate your progress: When you're in a sprint, expect to spend 2-4 hrs / week working on your business. People say they make 6 months worth of progress in 10 days. Sprints typically last 2 weeks and we recommend participating in 1-2 sprints / quarter.

Pollen is an ecosystem that allows you to get the right information at the right time so you can flex based on your needs. This is more reflective of the reality that your business and time ebbs and flows, and you don't have time for long courses or cohort programs.

Does Pollen offer individualized or group support?

Pollen is a social platform at its core — collective wisdom and multiple perspectives are essential to your success. Sprints, workshops, accountability groups, and the community are built to accelerate your business in a group setting. You can also receive 1:1 attention through regular Q&A sessions with Experts-in-Residence and building relationships within Pollen.

How is this different from other communities?

Pollen is far more than just a community. You get access to a dynamic curriculum, expert mentors, and exclusive tools that are supercharged by the community.

How does Pollen help me make more money?

If you're looking for a "just add water" solution or job marketplace that will hand you leads tomorrow, this isn't for you.

Pollen is for people who are strategically building their businesses to last. We give you the right frameworks, strategies, tools, and support system to help you do so.

Here are a few ways Pollen has unlocked growth for our members:

Building growth plans: Through the Growth Strategy, Brand Strategy, and Strategic Planning sprints, members have set big goals and hit them.

Improved pricing and pitching: Leveraging our pricing database, pricing EIR, pitching templates and sales workshops, some members have increased pricing by 4x and closed bigger clients.

Networking: Your network is your network. People build trusting relationships, work together, and exchange referrals.

New offerings: Members have changed their ICP, provided new offerings, and diversified their revenue streams based on the examples and feedback from Pollen.

Accountability groups: Members participate in support groups that exchange ideas, provide feedback, and make sure you hit your goals.

Are sprints included in the membership?

Yes! Pollen members get access to all the sprints when they're live. We also share recordings of past sprints.

How can I contact the Pollen team?

Get in touch at contact@runpollen.com.