# Brand Yourself - A Quick Guide on Brand Positioning - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/brand-yourself-a-quick-guide-on-brand-positioning/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Graphic Design · Quick win · Rated 6 /10 # Brand Yourself - A Quick Guide on Brand Positioning By Gareth B. Davies · Updated July 2026 Chris Fredricks · Brand Strategy & Content Creation Beginner · 13 min A 13-minute worksheet-driven crash course that gives solo founders and freelancers a usable brand framework, not deep execution skills. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fbrand-yourself-a-quick-guide-on-brand-positioning%2F686141220) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. Chris Fredricks packs brand strategy into three ideas: focus, message and voice, and consistency. The course does not waste time. In six short lessons it moves from defining branding through target markets, differentiation, voice, and visual consistency, ending with instructions for turning a companion worksheet into a personal brand guide. For a topic that consulting firms often stretch into multi-week engagements, compressing it to 13 minutes is either impressive economy or a sign of how shallow the treatment has to be. It is mostly the former, with real caveats. ## What the course actually teaches The strongest stretch is the differentiation lesson. Rather than asking what makes a business different, Fredricks pushes toward why the business exists in the first place, borrowing Simon Sinek's golden circle to separate what, how, and why. He grounds the abstraction in his own positioning as a graphic designer who leads with branding instead of listing services, which gives the concept a concrete anchor instead of leaving it as theory. The voice lesson follows a similar pattern, introducing brand archetypes and personality sliders as tools, then pointing to Mailchimp, Patagonia, and Old Spice as examples of distinct brand personalities in action. Naming real companies with specific details, like Patagonia's used-clothing take-back campaign, gives the lesson texture that a purely conceptual explanation would lack. The target market lesson is thinner. It gestures at Google Ventures' Three-Hour Branding Sprint and recommends ranking a top three audiences, but the actual instruction is closer to a prompt than a method. Viewers are told to rank, not shown how to research or validate who those audiences should be. The consistency lesson closes the loop by introducing the idea of touchpoints, the full set of places a brand shows up, from logos to uniforms to newsletters, and recommends building a mood board in Pinterest or InVision. This is sound, standard practice, but it is also the least original part of the course. ## Where it falls short The course's biggest structural issue is that its actual product, the brand worksheet, sits outside the video. Every lesson references it, and the wrap-up openly frames the class as a companion to that document rather than a self-contained lesson. Anyone evaluating the video alone is only getting half the class. The frameworks referenced, Neumeier's brand gap concept, the Google Ventures sprint, Sinek's golden circle, are all borrowed from existing books and talks rather than original synthesis, which is fine for a beginner primer but means experienced marketers will find nothing new. The pacing also leaves little room for practice or feedback within the video itself. Concepts arrive quickly and move on before they are tested, so viewers are trusted to do the harder work alone with the worksheet after watching. For someone who has never thought about brand positioning, that is a reasonable trade for a 13-minute runtime. For someone who already has a rough sense of their audience and voice, the course will feel more like a checklist than instruction, useful as a refresher but not as a source of new technique. The standout The reframe from 'what makes you different' to 'why you do what you do,' illustrated with Sinek's golden circle and the instructor's own branding-focused positioning as a graphic designer. ## What you will learn - · How to identify and rank your top three target audiences using a worksheet-based system - · How to find your differentiation or value proposition by asking why you do what you do, not just what you do - · How to use Simon Sinek's golden circle (what, how, why) to clarify your core message - · How to develop a brand voice using archetypes and personality sliders - · How to build a visual mood board using Pinterest or InVision to guide consistent design - · How to apply the concept of touchpoints to keep messaging consistent across every customer-facing asset Best for: Solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small business owners who have never articulated their brand and need a fast, worksheet-backed starting framework. Skip it if: Anyone with marketing experience, an existing brand strategy background, or a need for detailed execution guidance on design, copywriting, or brand rollout. Clarity of Instruction Engaging Teacher Actionable Steps Helpful Examples [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fbrand-yourself-a-quick-guide-on-brand-positioning%2F686141220)