Hi there,

It's that time of year when big projects for 2026 are getting locked in. If a "website refresh" is on your list, I want to share a quick story about two rebrands I've lived through.

One was a scramble. The other was a success. The difference between them is a lesson for any team planning for the year ahead.

The scramble

My worst rebrand project started with a single comment to our CEO. Suddenly, a new website was on the roadmap with a tight deadline. Our stand-ups were spent debating things that shouldn't have been up for debate: messaging, visual identity, the homepage hook.

Why? Because when you don't have real customer insight, you have no reference point.

Every decision defaults to the loudest voice or the HiPPO—the Highest Paid Person's Opinion. The project becomes a negotiation of internal tastes. The launch wasn't a celebration; it was a relief. We started fixing things almost immediately.

The success

My best rebrand started long before anyone drew a wireframe. We focused on building our core positioning first, through conversations with sales, success, and actual customers.

The result was a strong platform everyone agreed on. When it came time to execute, the process was completely different. We settled on visuals quickly. The copy was easier to write. The sales team was easier to train.

That messaging framework became the foundation for everything we did next.

A practical, 3-layer research approach

The success of that second project came down to a layered approach to research. This isn't an all-or-nothing process; it’s about giving yourself the strongest foundation in the time you have.

• Layer 1: Start on the inside. Talk to your internal teams and dig into your existing data (analytics, CRM, etc.).

• Layer 2: Look at the landscape. Analyse your competitors and relevant industry trends.

• Layer 3: Talk to your customers. Use interviews to dig into their challenges, goals, and the "why" behind their decisions.

This work gives you practical tools—like a messaging framework and customer personas—that make every decision faster and more effective.

The point is this: Customer research isn’t a single, massive task. Starting with one layer is infinitely better than starting with none. It’s how you trade panicked DMs and endless revision cycles for genuine clarity and confidence.

All the best,

Grace

P.S. If you're leading a project like this for 2026 and want to build it on a solid foundation, this is exactly what I help teams do. Just reply to this email if you're not sure where to start.