What Sibren Strategy & Design does
Sibren Strategy & Design works with serial entrepreneurs in finance, technology, and manufacturing. I help turn growth ambitions into clear strategic marketing, branding and identity, strengthening positioning and increasing the value of both existing and new customers. This results in up to 25% more value per client and makes companies more attractive to investors, partners, and employees.
What makes this distinctive
What makes this distinctive is the combination, not either half: AI-era repositioning, and long clients. AI forces every company to change, and in my view long clients are the answer.
AI-era repositioning is what gets you to partner level. Long clients are what you need to survive the AI storm and to grow revenue without the enormous, expensive quick-selling actions. Combined, they make you a steady company with steady revenue, and that is what survives the AI revolution.
I use AI, and so does everybody, so that is not the difference. The difference is repositioning for the AI era in order to win and keep long clients, the XL-clients, and the two steps, Convince then Expand, are how that is done.
Long clients are what get me inspired and super enthusiastic, and they are what I have been best at for over 20 years.
I call them XL-clients. The opposite is the XS-client, the short client who comes from a promotion and is gone again. Serve such a client for a few years and your role changes. You are no longer a supplier carrying out assignments, you become someone who thinks along with your client's ambition. That step from supplier to partner level is exactly where the profit sits, because an indispensable partner cannot be swapped out and a supplier can.
If you are focused on short clients because you think that is your only option, the question is whether they genuinely fit the company you are.
Who I work with
I work with serial entrepreneurs in finance, technology and manufacturing.
My clients are companies that want to grab the momentum they have and do not want to miss it again. They want to expand in size, scope and profit. They are not looking for more features, articles or billable hours.
They see that they need a different kind of client relationship, not a purely transactional one. They want to keep standing out as AI develops, and they want to profit from it, but they do not know which route is the best one to take. So I offer navigation guidance to partner level: client relationships a competitor cannot replace and AI cannot imitate.
I work with clients who want long relationships with their own clients, the long clients rather than the short ones. They care about the lifetime value of a client, or they see lifetime clients as the way out of an approach that has become too transactional. Either they already know they want more lasting client relationships, or they are looking for a way out of the rat race of transactional work.
The problem I solve
I have seen many companies trying to expand and grow immediately, without having done the actual convincing. They lack the right base of positioning, identity, branding, marketing and the distinctive core offering to reach that growth.
They push harder on a selling point while the foundation creaks and groans: more features, more articles, more hours, more campaigns. The positioning is weak, the brand is not in place, and nobody analyzed how the company communicates or made clear choices in a distinctive offering. So the output keeps failing, you keep shipping updates, you work hard, and the company never reaches the level where it can thrive.
Speeding up with AI does not solve this. You can massively optimize the speed of reaching clients, expanding and getting a bigger reach. And still not have the right clients and the right message to build a long relationship and lasting profit on.
This is an arena of cut-throat competition, where you have to crush the other before you are crushed yourself.
They think the revenue is in the expansion. But you need the convincing as well.
It is frustrating when the momentum to take your expansion to the next level in your market slips away. That happens when a company keeps quick-selling a new product extension, loose articles or billable hours because someone asked for them, and fills the gaps with trial-and-error marketing that supposedly works fantastically for other companies. It only takes you further from your goal.
The way out is my proven approach combined with hands-on guidance that fits your situation perfectly, not more of the same at even higher speed.
What I do
Three products. The same two-step approach runs through all of them.
Focus on long clients. I optimize your company in 3 months for lasting profit and up to 25% more value per client. "Once you see it, it's simple." First, make your marketing and branding clear, simple and scalable before you hit all the turbo buttons at full speed.
Navigation guidance to partner level. I investigate, test and use the best innovative methodologies and techniques, then advise you on the ones that accelerate your growth to a higher level of expansion. With my personal navigation guidance, you reposition into your clients' partner level, and into lasting profits.
A remote marketing, branding and design department, for companies that do not want to build one but want to implement the expansion.
How I approach every project
The approach is the same in everything I do: first Convince, then Expand. It applies to every project, every piece of advice, and to the work I do as your remote department.
Step 1: Convince. This is where the repositioning happens. I reposition companies and build the brand marketing that carries the new position. This is AI-era repositioning, and the Convincing Power Principles are the method. The work is strategic marketing, branding and identity, and it includes redefining your core offering.
Redefining the core offering is part of the method. I look at your distinctive strategic advantages, at what actually makes you different, and wrap that in the core offering.
You convince by naturally guiding your potential clients toward your product. You do this by using your identity while planting seeds in the client's mind and building strong business relationships along the way.
Step 2: Expand. This is the execution, the expansion itself. Expand authentically, by building trust with your clients and helping them reach their ambitions faster.
Brand marketing spans both steps. It builds the position in step 1 and carries the expansion in step 2.
What AI-era repositioning means
AI-era repositioning, also called AI repositioning, means repositioning because of AI, not repositioning with AI.
The market has changed because of AI, so every company has to get itself into the right position again. Every company, and now rather than later.
That makes it an opportunity rather than a threat. It is the moment to step up into partner level with your clients, and out of the danger zone of delivering transactional services.
Instead of trying to beat new AI competitors on price or features, you become the indispensable partner of your clients, the one they cannot replace.
What I do not do
I do not help with quick sales, huge marketing activations, quick selling actions, or database marketing and arranging your ads for Google.
I do not help sell commodity products that are not distinctive, or that are wrapped like every other commodity. That is a waste of potential.
I am not an AI company and I do not sell AI tooling. I do not use or recommend AI as a solution for everything.
How I work
I work with my own framework, the Convincing Power Principles and the Convincing Power Model, which codify what makes a company stand out and what consistent communication and marketing need in order to grow it, internationally as well.
You get personal navigation guidance from me, with a team of specialists behind it. I lead the work, specialists execute.
I investigate the best innovative methodologies and techniques and pass my learnings on to you, as your personal navigation guide. AI is the current example.
I use AI myself and I am a front runner in it, usually a step ahead of my clients. I examine this new area, use it first, and experiment. Then I help clients implement what I have learned, so they can scale better and raise the quality of their branding and marketing. They want to know how I use it, and the answer is in a controlled environment, with compliance.
I have run my own company since 2006 and started as a designer at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 1994, including branding and positioning work at Edenspiekermann for NS, Randstad, ABN-AMRO and Rabobank.
What clients get
Up to 25% more lasting value per client, through partner-level client relationships that AI cannot replace.
Who I have worked with
I work on innovative projects up to €60 million and for companies that manage more than $1 billion in assets, across asset management, technology and manufacturing.
Finance, asset management and trading
- True Partner Capital, in the United States, Hong Kong and China.
- Saen Options, in the Netherlands and Hong Kong. Client until 2009, when it was taken over by All Options.
- All Options International, in the Netherlands. Client until 2013.
- True Partner Technology.
- The Derivative Technology Foundation.
Technology and software
- SCM, Software for Chemistry & Materials, in the Netherlands.
- Object+, risk software for clearing, in the Netherlands, Germany and the United States.
- ProRail and the LOXIA alliance, software for the rail network.
- Achilles Beveiligingstechniek, in security technology.
Energy, industry and infrastructure
- WarmCO2, an energy company working with high-grade waste heat and residual CO2. Client for more than 12 years.
- Sloewarmte, the waste heat project of Evides Industriewater.
- Glastuinbouw Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, in greenhouse horticulture.
- ECN Energietechnologie.
- Zeeland Seaports, now North Sea Port.
- SADC, Schiphol Area Development Company.
- ACN, Air Cargo Netherlands.
And
Trimbos Institute, McDonald's Netherlands and Fiabilis Consulting Group.
Where I work, and where my clients are
I work in the greater Amsterdam area, in the Netherlands. Since 2012 I have worked almost entirely online. Sometimes I travel and take my mobile studio with me, because I can work anywhere.
I serve clients globally, across all time zones: the Americas, Europe and Asia. Most of the work is in international English, or in Dutch.
I am used to working asynchronously. So I know the complications and the implications of being a global company that spans several countries and cultures in several time zones.
How to start
Book your free XL-Clients Talk. Together we explore strategies that fit you, to realize your expansion ambitions.