For years, Within International has specialised in building brands for the hardest thing to define: the intangible. This is why we advise and deliver for professional service firms, defining and communicating value that cannot be packaged, sold, or placed on a shelf.

Selling trainers is straightforward. The product is visible, material and immediately understood. Brand in consumer goods follows a clear pathway: design, packaging, placement, storytelling. The customer can test and experience the product directly, often attached to a world-class athlete or influencer.

Professional services are nothing like this. These firms shape the very structure of our economic world: real estate, law, finance, consulting, technology. Their influence reaches communities, social systems and daily lives. But the service itself? It is invisible. You cannot hold ‘legal advice’ in your hands. You cannot touch ‘strategic consulting’. The value is recognised only in perception, trust and outcomes. This makes building brands in professional services a harder discipline because it requires turning the abstract into structures and patterns that can be defined, tested and measured.

The answer lies in studying and understanding the intangibles that drive every decision: people, perception, trust, authority, clarity, reputation and the character that gives a business its shape. These cannot be packaged or displayed. They must be conveyed through narrative, consistency and evidence in every interaction. In professional services, brand goes beyond marketing. It is psychology and strategy. It is the deliberate framing of how a firm is understood by clients, peers, competitors and society.

Successfully delivering here proves something important. If value can be defined and made visible in professional services, advisory, M&A, or financial instruments, then working with the tangible becomes not just possible, but inevitable. Consumer goods, technology, or physical spaces rely on different mechanisms, yet the principles remain the same. The discipline that allows precision to materialise from the invisible is the same discipline that can sharpen what is already in front of us. That is why we are not only prepared for this shift, but well placed to do it better.

Every company that wants to grow must look back and forward at once. Experience clarifies positioning. Future ambition drives expansion. That is where we are now: evolving our client base, stepping into new sectors, and applying expertise across both tangible and intangible challenges. Whether value is held in the hand or only in the mind, excellent brands exist to make meaning clearer, more persuasive and longer lasting.