# The Brand Strategy System > A free brand strategy course for founders by Aaron C. Leaman, published by Brighter Future. Seventeen lessons and seventeen decisions that end in a working brand strategy. The lessons are open to read, and the working tools need an email. ## Lessons - [Welcome: how this course works](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/1/): How the free brand strategy course works. Seventeen decisions, made in the order a strategy needs them, and a working strategy you can hand to a designer, writer or investor. - [The brand strategy operating system](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/2/): Brand strategy as an operating system. Five stages in order, from structure and essence to positioning, expression and action, and when to go back. - [Structure and offers: what you sell and how it fits](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/3/): Brand strategy starts with what you sell. Map your offers, choose the one people meet first, decide how many names you need and who owns brand decisions. - [Purpose: the reason beneath the work](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/4/): How to write a brand purpose statement that is specific and useful. Why the organisation is worth existing to the people it serves, with worked examples. - [Mission: turning purpose into motion](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/5/): How to write a mission statement. Turn purpose into motion with a strong verb, then write an internal mission and a public one from the same truth. - [Vision: making the future visible](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/6/): How to write a vision statement that stretches and stays credible. Describe the changed world clearly enough to change a decision this quarter. - [Values: the standards you refuse to abandon](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/7/): How to write brand values people can use. Three to five values, each sharpened past the generic version and paired with a behaviour and a refusal. - [Audience: choosing who the brand is really for](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/8/): How to choose a target audience for your brand. Segment honestly, pick one primary audience with reasons, and account for buyers in complex sales. - [Persona and offer: build the person and the offer together](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/9/): How to build a customer persona and an offer together. Four forces for the person, seven lines for the offer, and a value proposition from the pairing. - [Competitive landscape and positioning](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/10/): How to map competitors and write a positioning statement. Find your real advantage, write a defensible USP and position where need, gap and advantage meet. - [Brand personality: attributes, character and the rules it produces](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/11/): How to define brand personality. Attributes drawn from what customers need to feel, a never-list, and a character turned into three rules a team can apply. - [Tone of voice: making clarity recognisable](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/12/): How to write tone of voice guidelines. Voice rules written as this over that, a never-list, and before-and-after examples a new writer can follow. - [Look and feel: visual direction from strategy](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/13/): How to set brand visual direction from strategy. A one-page brief of feelings, principles, refusals and references a designer can work from. - [Goals and gap analysis](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/14/): How to set brand goals and run a gap analysis. Up to three goals with baselines and measures, the honest gap for each, the action and its owner. - [Roadmap, touchpoints and channels](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/15/): How to build a brand roadmap and channel plan. Priority touchpoints, a thirty, sixty and ninety day plan, one job per channel and content pillars. - [Complete your final brand strategy template](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/16/): How to assemble a brand strategy document. Choose the organising idea, review every decision for clarity and alignment, and produce the final template. - [Bonus lesson: where to go after this course](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/lessons/17/): What to do after building your brand strategy. Put it in front of your team, test it against the market, and turn it into story. ## Diagnostic - [Why strategy comes before design](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/foundations/1/): Why design, messaging and content fail when the strategy beneath them is unclear, the four warning signs, and how to find the strategic cause. - [The five stages of brand strategy](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/foundations/2/): Learn the five foundations of brand strategy: structure, essence, positioning, personality and action, and identify where your strategy currently breaks. - [FieldArc quick diagnostic](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/foundations/3/): See the five-foundation diagnostic applied to FieldArc, then use the same method to find the weakest links in your own brand strategy. - [What a complete strategy should produce](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/foundations/4/): What a finished brand strategy produces, and the decisions a designer, copywriter, investor or team needs from it to do good work. ## Reference - [FieldArc, the complete worked example](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/fieldarc/): Every decision in the brand strategy system answered for FieldArc, a fictional nature restoration platform, with notes on why each answer holds. - [Tessel, the second worked example](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/tessel/): Every decision in the system answered for Tessel, a fictional consumer app for shared household money. - [Brand Strategy Scorecard, diagnose before you build](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/scorecard/): Score twelve areas of your brand strategy from one to five, before and after, and find where to start. - [Templates and formulas for brand strategy statements](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/templates/): Sentence shapes for purpose, mission, vision, values, persona, value proposition, positioning and voice, with worked examples. - [Brand strategy glossary](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/glossary/): Every term the course uses, defined the way the course uses it. - [Downloads: the workbook and FieldArc, as PDF or Word](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/downloads/): The blank Brand Strategy Workbook and the completed FieldArc example, as print-ready pages you can save as PDF, and as Word documents. - [How the course handles your data](https://www.brighterfuture.studio/brand-strategy/privacy/): What stays in your browser, what the two forms send and how long it is kept, and the anonymous usage counts the site collects.