Community Insights & Communication Strategy for a Growing Consultancy
YellowLine | Remote | October 2026
ABOUT THE PROJECT
YellowLine had built their business serving corporate clients. When they decided to expand into the small and mid-sized business market locally, they had a problem: they didn't know who they were actually talking to, what those owners cared about, or whether their existing corporate language would land with a completely different audience. Before building out positioning, pricing, or products for the new department, they needed to understand the people first.
DELIVERABLES
⭐ Community Insights Guide: Who these leaders are and what they need, in their own words.
⭐ Empathy Map and Pain/Gain Analysis: What leaders say, think, do, and feel.
⭐ Plain Language Guide: Consultant jargon translated into the words leaders actually use.
⭐ Content and Tone Framework: A tool YellowLine can use on its own going forward.
Note on sample size: the research was conducted under budget and time constraints that limited the total number of participants. Findings were directional and the guide explicitly flags that key insights should be validated and iterated on with a larger sample.
WHAT I FOUND
Small business owners didn’t say “operational inefficiency.” They said “exhausted, always on call, never able to step away”
Terms like SOPs, stakeholder alignment, and ROI created distance. Plain talk about time back and fewer fires built connection
Past consulting experiences left some leaders feeling like they were running things badly, so tone mattered as much as the service
Many assumed they needed to hire or buy software, when the real issue was that procedures lived in people’s heads
A checklist the team would use beat a 200-page handbook
WHO I WORKED WITH
Worked directly with the YellowLine founder to connect what we heard to her decisions on positioning, pricing, and product design.
THE PROCESS
I focused on listening to the audience first and then built the strategy from what people said.
📝 Community Survey: Early direction on priorities, pain points, and decision-making.
🎙️ In-Depth Interviews: Phone conversations on motivations, frustrations, and natural language.
🧩 Thematic Coding: Patterns identified in Excel before any conclusions.
🔒 Composite Profiles: Participant confidentiality protected without losing the truth of what they shared.
Using the insights from the audience analysis, I put together a brand kit for YellowLine Local and built out their communication strategy to be implemented by their team. Recommendations included leading with relief and time back, use plain language, build around quick wins, and never imply the leader is doing something wrong.
THE RESULTS
After delivering the guide and framework, YellowLine had:
🧭 Clear Foundation: Research-grounded direction for the new department.
💬 Language That Fits: Specific words to use and avoid, and a documented reason the corporate playbook needed rebuilding.
📊 Early Pricing Insight: A starting view that can be adjusted as more data comes in.
"Emily asked questions I’d never thought to ask, helping me clarify my goals and the direction I truly wanted my business to take.” - Amy C. , CEO, YellowLine
WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY
The sample size was the primary limitation of this study. With more time and budget I would have recruited a larger and more systematically diverse participant pool to move from directional findings to statistically defensible patterns. I would also have conducted a second round of interviews after initial synthesis to test whether the empathy map resonated with participants before finalizing it as a deliverable - member checking is a step I'd build into every future engagement of this type.