CASE STUDY - PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Evoke Consulting

Turning Personal Credibility into a Scalable Consulting Brand

Helping Evoke Consulting translate deep leadership expertise and personal credibility into a focused, scalable brand and business development system.

The Situation

Evoke Consulting was founded by Brenda Landry, a seasoned strategy and leadership consultant with more than 15 years of experience working with complex organizations and senior leaders.

Brenda was confident in her ability to deliver value.
What was less clear was how to translate that credibility into a standalone consulting business; one that could scale beyond referrals, geography, and individual effort.

Launching her own firm meant answering difficult questions:

How do you build a consulting brand without hiding behind a large firm’s name?
How do you position expertise so it resonates across industries and time zones?
How do you move from “trusted advisor” to a clear, differentiated market presence?

The opportunity was about: focus, positioning, and structure..

The Challenge

Evoke wasn’t starting from zero.

The challenge was alignment between:

  • Brenda’s lived experience and reputation

  • The value Evoke could uniquely deliver

  • How the business showed up in the market

Evoke needed to:

  • Clearly define who they were, and who they were not

  • Articulate a focused brand position rooted in real expertise

  • Build a business development approach that traded on value and relationships, not volume or noise

  • Create clarity that would support confident growth, not hesitation

In short, Evoke needed a brand and growth system that reflected the truth of the work, not a generic consulting narrative.

The Strategic Approach

Led by Curtis Scaplen, we partnered with Evoke to bring clarity, structure, and confidence to the business.

Rather than starting with tactics, the work began with alignment.

1. Grounding the Brand in Real Expertise

Through deep working sessions, we helped clarify:

  • The problems Evoke was uniquely positioned to solve

  • How leadership, diversity, and development expectations were shifting

  • Why Evoke’s practical, human-centered approach resonated across sectors

This surfaced a core truth:
Evoke’s value wasn’t theory, it was immediate, usable insight that leaders could act on.

2. Defining a Focused Brand Position

Together, we worked through a strategic brand planning process to:

  • Establish a clear brand foundation rooted in client needs

  • Define Evoke’s positioning based on relevance, credibility, and actionability

  • Clarify where Evoke should focus, and where not to spend time or energy

This gave Evoke a confident brand identity that reflected Brenda’s leadership style: empathetic, practical, and decisive.

3. Building a Scalable Business Development Approach

With clarity in place, we supported Evoke in aligning brand and execution:

  • Prioritizing channels where trust and relationships mattered most

  • Shifting business development away from chasing opportunity toward attracting aligned clients

  • Supporting leadership coaching, brand execution, and internal capability building

The result was a business designed to grow without relying solely on hustle or overextension.

The Outcomes

While specific commercial details remain confidential, the impact was clear:

  • Evoke Consulting more than doubled the business during a period of market uncertainty

  • The firm expanded its client base across industries, sectors, and regions

  • Financial targets were exceeded in the first year of independent operation

  • Evoke launched an extended marketing and community initiative to support broader impact

  • Most importantly, the business moved forward with clarity and confidence; grounded in a brand that matched how Evoke actually works.

The Takeaway

Evoke reinforced a core Leadership In Focus belief:

Strong consulting businesses aren’t built on positioning alone.
They’re built on clarity, credibility, and alignment.

By translating lived expertise into a focused brand and growth system, they built a foundation capable of scaling with intention.

For leaders stepping out on their own, this case shows what’s possible when experience is structured, focused, and aligned with how the business shows up in the world.

Customer Testimonial

“Evoke Consulting has gained great value from working with Curtis and his team. As our strategy advisors, they’ve used a consultative approach in helping us define our strategic direction and establish priorities. As a woman-owned small business, we appreciate the values with which ther team operates. Inclusion, openness, and courage are seen in all they do, and that matters to us.” 

- Brenda Landry, President - Evoke Consulting, Author