PRIVATE PODCAST FOR MILLION DOLLAR BRANDS
PRIVATE PODCAST FOR MILLION DOLLAR BRANDS
BRAND STRATEGY FOR CONSULTANTS & SERVICE-BASED FOUNDERS
Your business grew,
but your brand didn't.
Your clients get premier results. Your brand still makes you look smaller
than you are. I build the strategy underneath your brand, so the right clients
show up already convinced. We start with the facts, not your logo.
About Heather Schaefer
I Didn't Want to
Rebuild Either.
Thirty years, more than 100 brands, and one house that had to come down before I understood what a foundation is actually worth.
Book a Strategy Call Not ready to talk? Take the Brand Diagnostic Quiz →I'm Heather
Schaefer
Brand Strategist | Speaker | Founder, Branding You Big
I’m a brand strategist for consultants and service-based founders, based in South Haven, Michigan. My method is the Million Dollar Brand Strategy, built on MVP Brand Essentials™: Mission, Vision, Values, Voice, Purpose. In thirty years, I’ve built more than 100 brands.
The Brand I Kept Losing Was Never Mine.
I grew up hearing what I couldn’t do. You can’t do that. You’re not good enough to play that position. You’re just a B-student, it’s okay. My faith is what I lean on now when those voices get loud. The strength isn’t mine. It comes from God, and it’s carried me through building something anyway.
I spent eleven years in high-level direct sales, building large teams and breaking sales records. By 42 I’d earned the kind of recognition most people spend a career chasing. Then the company closed. I rebuilt with another, and it closed when I was 46. I partnered with a third, and it closed when I was 53.
Three times I built something that worked. Three times, the brand I built belonged to someone else.
In 2019 I stopped dipping my toe in. I formed Branding You Big, put my advertising and design degree and everything corporate and direct sales had taught me to work, and built something nobody could take away.
Then it all came down
A few years later, our 100-year-old house caught fire while we were at church. Driving home over the bridge, we saw black smoke. When we pulled up, the road was blocked off and four fire departments were there.
The fire was on the second floor. The flames didn’t take the house. The water they used to put them out did. It came through the ceiling and sat on the first floor, and the house leaned, then tilted, then gave out. It had been standing on two-foot pillars with sand underneath them the whole time.
When it came down, it came down in one piece. Tongue and groove, locked together that solid.
I loved that house. I never wanted to rebuild it.
Here’s the part people get wrong. The fire took the house. The rebuild took everything else. Friends. My network. My neighbors. My church. The legacy home. Not one of those went in the fire. They went during the rebuild.
We rebuilt anyway, on a better foundation. What came back: my tribe through eWomenNetwork, the home I’d wanted for decades, my daughters’ husbands, and my daughters as actual friends. Church and neighbors, I’m still working on. That’s allowed too.
Nobody wants to rebuild. You rebuild anyway. The only choice you get is whether you do it on purpose.
Your Brand Is the House
Your logo, your colors, your website — those are the walls. Your strategy is what’s underneath. A brand that’s pretty and isn’t working isn’t a design problem. It’s a foundation problem.
When someone tells me they don’t want to rebrand because they like their logo, I get it. Nobody’s afraid of the fire. They’re afraid of the rebuild.
So we don’t start with the logo. We start with the facts: what your clients actually say, and what your competition actually looks and sounds like. The facts decide what stays and what goes. What always stays is the heart of what you want to be known for.
Thirty Years of This.
One Method.
I've built more than 100 brands: founders, CEOs, consultants, manufacturers, coaches, and brick-and-mortar businesses. Behind that is an advertising and graphic design degree and three decades in advertising, design, and sales leadership.
My method is Million Dollar Brand Strategy, built on MVP Brand Essentials™: Mission, Vision, Values, Voice, Purpose. It starts with research — interviews with your clients and a hard look at your competition — because the words that build your brand already exist. They're in your clients' mouths, not in your head.
That's the part AI can't do, and it's the part most brand work skips.
I don't make brands look better. I build the strategy underneath them, so my clients stand out instead of blending into the Sea of Sameness.
Book a Strategy CallWhat That Looks Like in Numbers
77%
Rhonda N. Financial Strategist
Nearly ten years in, growth was flat. New name. New logo. Same heart. Revenue rose 77% within 60 days of launch, with a better return on her marketing. Her book hit the New York Times bestseller list within days of release.
34%
RTC Products
Refreshing the name and messaging of this tile tool manufacturer gave the sales team clear, unique positioning against the competition. They've seen a consistent 34% revenue increase and now lead industry expert workshops, giving their patents the visibility they deserve.
17%
Molly M.
Creating a brand that matched the catering business and left room for growth made all the difference. Now expanding into a local cafe and meal planning offerings, they've seen a 17% increase in consistent clients and doubled their digital footprint reach.
“My brand is the foundational piece that allows me and my marketing team to know the direction that we’re going.”
— Rhonda N.
Looking for a Speaker?
I speak on rebuilding on purpose: why nobody wants to rebrand, what AI actually did to your brand, and why the blueprint comes before the walls. In person or virtual.
Audiences leave with a brand that’s easy to find and hard to forget — and knowing exactly which part of theirs is costing them money.
Ready to Rebuild on Purpose?
Let’s talk about where your brand is now, where it’s costing you, and what it takes to close the gap.
