Pre-Work · Block off 60–75 minutes
The Brand Discovery
Field Guide.
Everything you need to build a defensible brand is already in your head. These questions just organize it. Work through the prompts at your own pace — you'll bring your answers to a live AI strategy session where we turn them into a complete brand strategy.
01 · Time
Block off 60–75 minutes of focused time. Coffee, no phone.
02 · Method
Type your answers, or speak them out loud and have Claude transcribe.
03 · Mindset
Push past the first polished answer. Specifics beat abstractions.
How to use this guide.– Collapse+ Expand
The best brand material is almost always something the founder says casually that has never made it onto the website. Your job in this exercise is to catch those moments yourself.
Listen for proprietary frameworks you use without realizing they are proprietary. Listen for the words you repeat with clients. Listen for what makes you defensive versus what makes you proud.
This is not a survey — it's an extraction. Push past polished first responses. When you write "we're more proactive," stop and ask yourself for the specific story. Stories are reusable; adjectives are not.
Everything you need to build a defensible brand is already in your head. These questions just organize it.
Part One · The 27 Questions
Seven categories. Twenty-seven questions.
Work through them in order. Each one builds on the last.
01
Category One
Origin & Motivation — the "why" layer
Surface the emotional driver behind your firm. This becomes the soul of your brand voice.
1
Tell me the story behind your firm and your approach.
What were you reacting against when you built this? What did the industry get wrong that you wanted to fix?
2
What part of the work feels most meaningful to you personally?
Not what makes you the most money — what gets you out of bed.
3
If you had to describe what you do to a smart 12-year-old, what would you say?
This usually surfaces simpler, more honest language than your elevator pitch.
4
Where did the firm name come from? What does it mean to you?
02
Category Two
The Business Today — the snapshot
Establish baseline reality. Without this, you'll write strategy for a fantasy version of your firm.
5
In one sentence, how would you describe your firm today? Then: how would your best client describe you?
The gap between those two answers is where positioning lives.
6
Walk through your revenue mix. What percentage comes from each line of business?
Don't accept "about a third each" — push for specificity. Reality is usually different from perception.
7
What's the next chapter for the firm — five years out, ten years out?
What does the org look like? What do you not want to be doing anymore?
8
What do people misunderstand about what you do?
What do they expect that you don't deliver, and what do you deliver that they don't expect?
03
Category Three
The Client & ICP — finding the wedge
Find the wedge — not the broadest possible audience, but the most ownable one.
9
Who is your single best client today — by name in your head, not on a list?
Walk through them. What about their situation made you the perfect fit?
10
What were they doing before they found you, and why did they leave?
The most underused question in financial services discovery. The answer IS the differentiator, said in client language.
11
What do your best clients have in common — demographically, psychographically, situationally?
What's the shape of their life?
12
Do you want more of those people, or do you want a different kind of client to scale?
An answer of "both" is interesting and revealing. It surfaces the tension between the current model and the future model.
13
What fears, frustrations, or 2 a.m. anxieties bring people to your door?
Get specific. "Wanting to retire" is not specific. "Worrying I'll outlive my money or burden my kids" is.
14
What's the aha moment in a first meeting? What do you say or show that makes the prospect lean forward?
Listen for proprietary diagnostics, frameworks, or examples. This is where the most ownable IP often surfaces.
04
Category Four
The Process — how the work happens
Map the actual delivery sequence so you can productize and name it.
15
Walk through what happens from the first phone call to a year into working with you.
Don't summarize — describe it meeting by meeting.
16
What language do you use internally for each stage that you'd never use with a client?
Internal jargon almost always needs to die before it hits a website. "Data gathering meeting" becomes "Discovery Session." Mine for these.
17
What are the different ways someone can work with you? What are the packages, tiers, or capacities?
What does the cheapest engagement look like? What does the most comprehensive look like?
18
What's the one promise — process, not outcome — you make to every client, regardless of capacity?
Compliance-friendly framing. Surfaces accountability promises that can be put in marketing.
05
Category Five
Competition & Differentiation — the moat
Find the position competitors can't or won't claim.
19
Who do you actually compete with?
Not theoretically — who shows up on the other side of the table when you lose or win a deal?
20
Why do clients leave them for you? What do they say in that first meeting that tells you they were dissatisfied?
Push for direct quotes if possible.
21
What can you do that those competitors structurally cannot?
Not "we do it better" — what is forbidden, missing, or impossible for them? Independence, specialization, fee model, credentials, technology — what structural fact gives you the wedge?
22
What do you NOT do that people sometimes assume you do?
Positioning by negation. Critical to clarifying the brand promise.
06
Category Six
The Vocabulary — what you already say
Capture your actual language so the brand voice sounds like you, not like a brochure.
23
Are there phrases, frameworks, or analogies you find yourself using over and over in client meetings? Walk through one or two.
This is where proprietary frameworks live. Mine for them aggressively.
24
When a client really gets it — when something clicks — what's the metaphor or example that did the work?
07
Category Seven
Aspiration & Self-Critique — the gap
Find your own diagnosis of what's broken. You almost always know.
25
What is your current website or marketing not doing that you wish it did?
Where does it fall short of who you actually are?
26
If you could wave a wand and have prospects know one thing about you before walking in the door, what would it be?
27
What would success look like one year from now if this brand work goes well?
Quantify it if possible — leads, conversions, time freed up, type of client landing.
Part Two · Visual Brand
This, Not That.
Six forced-choice analogies that bypass the analytical brain and capture aesthetic intuition. You may not be able to articulate "modern minimalist" versus "classic premium" — but you can instantly point to a shoe and say "that one." Together these paint a complete visual profile.
01
If my brand was a drink…
Captures taste level — refinement, occasion, and price signal at the bar.
It would be this
But not this
Why
What does the chosen drink say about the brand that the other one doesn't?
02
If my brand was a shoe…
Captures price signal and the kind of person who chose it.
It would be this
But not this
Why
What does the chosen shoe signal about taste, status, and seriousness that the other one fails to?
03
If my brand was a purse or handbag…
Captures status code and the audience that recognizes it.
It would be this
But not this
Why
Who carries the chosen bag — and who carries the rejected one? The gap is the brand boundary.
04
If my brand was a clothing line…
Captures lifestyle alignment — daily uniform and life context.
It would be this
But not this
Why
What life does the chosen line dress for? Where would the rejected line feel out of place?
05
If my brand was a car…
Captures aspirational identity — what the owner wants to project.
It would be this
But not this
Why
What does the chosen car say about discernment and self-image that the rejected one doesn't?
06
If my brand was a location…
Captures atmosphere, audience, and the room the brand belongs in.
It would be this
But not this
Why
Who walks in? What's the temperature, dress code, pace? How is the rejected location different?
You're Done
Bring this with you.
Your completed workbook is the raw material. We'll turn it into a complete brand strategy together — live, in real time.