CASE STUDY:
Empowering An Industry Leader To Expand Their Impact & Accelerate Growth

urBasics’ Situation:

urBasics is an online Canadian manufacturer and retailer that specializes in gender-affirming gear. They are committed to helping trans and gender-diverse individuals live authentically by expressing their true identities. Their customers are often unseen and underserved, which results in limited access to necessary gear, reliance on inadequate products, or no access at all. This situation frequently leads to self-harm, dysphoria, depression, and even suicide. This small but dedicated team prioritizes delivering high-quality products, providing personalized service, and fostering a sense of community and belonging.

urBasics approached us with several challenges and roadblocks that hindered their ability to scale and increase revenue.

Despite having a clear mission, they lacked the essential set of strategic business and brand tools, a well-defined business strategy, and concise, resonant core messaging. As a result, the urBasics team struggled to prioritize initiatives, scale operations, and establish partnerships that would enhance brand and product visibility. Without a defined strategic framework, inefficiencies crept into their processes, causing valuable opportunities to be missed—stretching their already limited resources. To achieve sustainable growth and maximize their impact, they needed a focused, purpose-driven strategy backed by the right tools to streamline decision-making, strengthen their brand, and boost their sales

PROBLEMS & CHALLENGES:

  • Lack of strategic clarity—Without a defined strategy, urBasics struggled to align daily operations with long-term goals, leading to scattered efforts and difficulty prioritizing key initiatives.

  • Inefficient decision-making processes—Unclear priorities and competing demands made it challenging to allocate resources effectively, resulting in missed opportunities and operational inefficiencies.

  • Limited understanding of ideal target audiences—Without a deep grasp of their customer segments, allies, and suppliers, urBasics lacked the insight needed to tailor messaging and build trust.

  • Inability to clearly articulate their unique value—While they knew their differentiators set them apart, they struggled to communicate their competitive advantage in a way that engaged and inspired right-fit customers, partners, and vendors.

  • Challenges in crafting compelling messaging—Their communication lacked a balance of emotional and practical appeal, making it harder to connect with their audience and drive engagement.

  • No structured framework for evaluating and prioritizing opportunities—Without a strategic decision-making process, they found it difficult to determine which opportunities aligned with their growth goals.

DESIRED TRANSFORMATION:

urBasics needed a clear business and brand strategy to align operations with their mission and long-term vision. Our work focused on:

  • Clarifying their purpose and future direction—Defining a purpose statement, vision, and ideal client profiles.

  • Strengthening brand positioning—Refining core messaging to resonate with customers, allies, and suppliers.

  • Enhancing audience understanding and communication—Developing the core tools needed to strengthen strategic partnerships and key messaging tools like unique value propositions, pitches, and brand stories.

  • Enabling confident decision-making—Establishing a strategic framework to prioritize opportunities and guide growth.

  • Improving efficiency and alignment—Developing the missing critical tools needed to streamline operations, reduce wasted effort, and ensure team alignment.

  • Empowering their team—Equipping them with training to apply these tools for sustained success.

With these foundational elements, urBasics would be set up to boost market share and revenue, build a strong reputation, deepen community connections, and drive long-term growth.

“It’s fantastic when you just click with someone like I did with Karley during our first Clarity Session.  I had been struggling with defining our brand’s purpose. I had too many options, and nothing was landing. She asked me a series of “knock-out” questions and helped me land on a powerful version that worked. I knew this was just the beginning; I couldn’t wait to start working on the evolution of our business with Big Bold Brand!”

Eileen B, Owner, urBasics

Approach & Solution:

Using Big Bold Brand’s Surefire Method™, we guided urBasics through a structured, collaborative process to address their challenges and unlock their potential. Our work focused on five key areas:

  1. Defining urBasics’ Core Strategic Foundation – We clarified their purpose, vision, and strategic direction, equipping leadership with a documented framework to align decisions and actions with long-term goals.
  2. Developing a Unified Business & Brand Strategy – We created a single, organization-wide strategy to streamline decision-making, prioritize initiatives, and ensure consistency across all areas of the business.
  3. Deepening Audience Understanding – By conducting a comprehensive target audience analysis, we identified overlooked growth opportunities and refined ideal client profiles, enabling urBasics to tailor messaging and engagement strategies effectively.
  4. Strengthening Brand Positioning & Messaging – We established urBasics as an industry leader by refining its differentiators, unique value propositions, and core messaging. This provided a clear and consistent communication framework for marketing, sales, and community engagement.
  5. Embedding Strategic Decision-Making & Team Empowerment – We trained urBasics’ leadership and team on applying their new strategy and decision-making tools, fostering confidence, efficiency, and alignment in day-to-day operations.

We leveraged feedback loops and iterative refinements throughout the project to ensure authenticity and alignment with urBasics’ mission. Our educational approach empowered the team to seamlessly integrate their new strategic framework, resulting in more focused, high-impact business activities.

Impact & ROI:

  • Increased Sales: By revealing a significant untapped market and increasing product sales during Pride month, sales rose by 22.5% in the first year.

  • New Partnerships & Greater Impact: A new partnership model formed relationships with trans-serving organizations, supporting hundreds more individuals and driving thousands of new website visits, increasing revenue.

  • Increased Customer Retention & Satisfaction: Better understanding their ideal customers, urBasics’ team has improved their customer service and experience.

  • Improved Operational Efficiency: Leveraging the new strategic toolkit enabled the streamlining processes, and a focus on high-priority tasks to seize right-fit opportunities.

  • Stronger Customer Engagement: The ability to quickly produce a customer-centric newsletter generated new additional monthly revenue and increased customer engagement and brand awareness.

  • Confident Decision-Making: The Surefire Strategy™ provided a reliable framework for evaluating existing vendor relationships and new partnerships, enabling a focus on high-impact opportunities.

  • Increased Visibility & Trust: The ability to select brand-aligned influencers boosts brand visibility, strengthens urBasics reputation and decreases marketing costs.

Expected Future Outcomes:

  • Continued Revenue Growth – due to the strategic certainty established and the ability to take focused action.

  • Market Expansion – through identified partnership opportunities with non-profits and retailers.

  • Business Service Line Expansion – through grassroots community partnerships and tailored initiatives.

  • Reduced Risk & Cost Savings – through an increased ability to confidently and strategically evaluate opportunities.

  • Product Offerings Expansion –  through a better ideal client understanding.

  • Maximizing Resources &  Impact – through improved resource allocation on prioritized opportunities.

End Result:

Key new growth opportunities were unveiled, and business certainty was established for urBasic’s leadership team during this project. By creating and implementing their customized Surefire Strategy® & Toolkit, urBasics was positioned to accelerate growth and enhance its impact. The business’s growth and increased impact manifested well before the project’s completion. The established business certainty and enhanced leadership confidence empower them to act decisively and purposefully, ensuring they stay true to their mission, vision, and values while achieving their goals. UrBasics’ journey is a compelling example of how aligning strategy with purpose can create meaningful impact in a critically underserved community.

“I found the target audience deep dive exercise was a real eye-opener! It revealed that our largest growth potential was a target audience we hadn’t been focusing on. As a result, we were investing in the wrong business development activities and missing out on a significant revenue-generating opportunity. We wouldn’t have discovered this without analyzing our ideal customers. Now, I know where to concentrate our efforts to make the greatest business impact. This discovery alone was worth the investment with BIG BOLD BRAND.”

Eileen B, Owner, urBasics