Southern Home Services
Role
Directed the engagement from customer research through final delivery
Year
2025
Agency: Team
Scorpion: Christine Faust, Erica Steveson, Kristy Kelly
Services
Competitor & Industry Research, Customer Personas & Journey Maps, Brand Foundations, Communications Frameworks
Description
Brand voice and decision frameworks for a multi-brand home services network at scale.
The Problem
SHS is a fast-growing multi-brand home services network — multiple brands operating across different markets, with leadership building a coherent enterprise without crushing the local equity each brand had built. The classic Private Equity & Franchise tension: how do you scale a brand without making every location feel like a corporate template?
The Approach
Most multi-brand systems try to solve this tension with rules — what local teams must do, what they can't change, what's locked. Rules feel safe and die in execution. The approach here was different: replace rules with decision frameworks. Teach local teams how to make brand decisions, not what brand decisions to make. Customer research established the shared truth across markets. Voice principles gave the language. Decision frameworks gave the autonomy.
What Changed
Internal brand debates went down. Messaging clarity went up. Local teams gained confidence in their own brand judgment instead of waiting for headquarters to approve every line of copy. The system scales because it puts decisions in the hands of the people closest to the work.
