Positioning Diagnostic · $9,500 · 3 weeks
One recommendation.
I will defend it.
Three weeks. Competitive alternatives, only-ness, the category read, and a message architecture. You get a named recommendation, not a menu of options. Half of the fee credits back against a Brand Architecture engagement started within sixty days.
—01 What you getFour deliverables, one week each of prep and defense
A diagnostic is not a workshop. Four documents land, in this order, and each one is defensible on its own before the next one starts.
Competitive alternatives
Not a competitor list. The alternatives your buyer is actually choosing between when they choose you, including the do-nothing option and the incumbent nobody names.
Only-ness
The thing you can say that no competitive alternative can say without lying. If nothing survives this test, that is the diagnosis and we redirect the engagement.
Category read
Where the category is going and where the seats are open. Which frame you can plant and which ones are already claimed. The move that dates the least badly.
Message architecture
The one sentence the brand argues, and the three sentences underneath it that a copywriter, a CEO, and a sales deck can all use unmodified. Not taglines. The load-bearing sentences.
Deliverables land in an editable doc · presented live · recorded · owned by you on delivery
—02 What holds itFour rules
A diagnostic that ships as a menu of options is a diagnostic that failed. These four rules are the reason the deliverable ends in a recommendation, not a workshop.
One recommendation, defended
The output is the position I would take if this were my company. Not three options. Not a matrix. If I would not stand behind it, it does not ship.
Written for use, not for the wall
Sentences a copywriter can paste, a CEO can say on stage, and a deck can cite without a rewrite. Deliverables that need a translation layer are not deliverables.
Adversarial before it ships
Every recommendation gets torn apart internally before you see it. Problem, why it is a risk, proven fix. What you get has already survived the review your board will run.
Half credits back
If you commission the follow-on Brand Architecture engagement within sixty days, half of the diagnostic fee credits against it. The diagnostic pays for itself when the work continues.
—03 How it runsThe three weeks
Fixed cadence. Fixed scope. The engagement ends because it is designed to end, not because we run out of things to say.
Discovery
Interviews with you, two members of your team, and up to three customers. Read of your existing positioning, category conventions, and the three-to-five competitive alternatives your buyer weighs.
Drafting
The four deliverables get built. Draft one is a working document, not a rehearsal. You see it in draft, comment inside it, and it goes to final on a working session at the end of the week.
Defense
A ninety-minute presentation to whoever is in the room that needs the recommendation. Recording, marked-up copy, and the rollout spec for the next ninety days. Then the engagement is over.
Optional follow-on
If Brand Architecture is the next engagement, we start inside the sixty-day window and half of what you paid for the diagnostic credits against it. If it is not, we shake hands and the deliverable stands.
Three weeks. One recommendation.
Defended, not delivered.
Delivered through Donarus Creative Studios