Independent Brand Audit
Sharper positioning. Stronger pricing. A clearer path to your next phase of growth.
Investment-grade analysis. Delivered in ten business days. Built for businesses ready to grow.
We are an independent brand analysis firm for established practitioners and small businesses.
We examine your business, score every finding, and deliver a clear plan you can act on.
It is the same analytical method a large consultancy would bring to a Fortune 500 company, but sized and priced for the businesses that actually need it.
Investment-grade brand analysis
Eight areas, forty dimensions, every finding ranked
Eight to ten competitors profiled per audit
No retainers, no implementation, no upsell
Pain Points
Five business problems we keep seeing
These are the patterns that bring most of our clients to us. If one or two of them describe your business, the audit is built for you.
The diary is full. The revenue stopped moving.
Eighteen to thirty months at the same number. Nothing obvious is broken. The lever that would move it is invisible from inside the business.
The channel that built the practice has stopped working.
LinkedIn delivers less. The newsletter is steady but flat. The obvious responses (post more, post differently, try a new platform) have not rebuilt what the channel used to do.
The referrals have slowed.
Word of mouth carried the business for years. The network is finite, and you are looking at what has to come next.
Your rates feel wrong, but raising them feels like guessing.
The work has improved. The pricing has not. Without competitor evidence, every rate increase feels arbitrary.
Your credentials no longer separate you from the field.
The market has grown. AI has reshaped how buyers compare. The differentiation has to be visible at the comparison stage now, not after the call.
Why the audit comes first
Most positioning work happens in the wrong order.
Businesses hire a copywriter before the message is clear. They redesign the website before they know what it needs to say. They run ads before defining who they are trying to reach.
This is not a criticism. It is a sequence problem.
Execution before diagnosis means the execution cannot do what it is supposed to do. The audit is the missing first step. It tells you what is working, what is not, what your competitors are doing, and what the evidence supports changing. Everything else gets easier afterwards.
1% price = 8% profit
A 1% increase in average price, with volumes held constant, increases operating profits by 8% for a typical company. Pricing is the highest-leverage decision most businesses make and the one most rarely revisited.
Source: McKinsey & Company, ‘The Power of Pricing.’
How the audit works
Eight areas. Forty dimensions. One ranked plan.
Every audit examines the same eight areas of your business. Each area is scored against a defined framework, not against opinion. Every finding is ranked by likely commercial impact. The report tells you what to change, why, and in what order.
The eight areas, in brief
Your full online presence. How clearly your business says who it is for. How your business looks across channels. What search results show about you. Who you are actually competing against. The words you use to describe your work. Whether your pricing fits your market position. How a new client finds and hires you.
Each area is broken down in detail on our Process page, including the typical findings we surface.
Who we serve
Three kinds of business. One methodology.
We work with independents and small to medium-sized practices where the founder is closely tied to the business. Larger firms tend to do this work by committee or hire one of the global consultancies. We are built for the businesses in between: too senior to be served by generic marketing programs, too independent to need a forty-person agency.
Coaches & Consultants
Established solo coaches, consultants and advisors whose practice has outgrown its positioning. The most developed vertical we serve, with five recognized buyer profiles.
Read more →Real Estate Professionals
Independent realtors and small boutique brokerages whose business is built on the agent, not the brand of a national franchise.
Read more →Professional Services
Financial advisors, lawyers, architects, accountants, and other specialized professionals running independent or small-firm practices.
Read more →The Process
Five stages. Here is exactly what happens.
Apply to discuss fit, or start directly. Either way, you follow the same five-stage process once confirmed. Here is what happens at each stage.
01
Apply
You complete a short application telling us about your business. We review within two business days. If we're a fit, we book a 30-minute discovery call.
02
Intake
You complete a structured questionnaire covering your business, your clients, the competitors you are aware of, your current rates, and your goals. It takes around 45 minutes. You also grant us read-only access to your website analytics. This is the only stage that requires your active input.
03
Research
We examine your business across all eight areas independently, without your involvement. We review your digital presence, read your search results, profile your direct competitors, and assess how your business appears to someone who does not already know it.
04
Report
Every finding is scored against a structured framework covering 40 dimensions across the eight areas, ranked by commercial impact. Your written report is then produced and delivered on the agreed date. Day 10 for The Foundation, Day 14 for The Accelerator.
05
Handover
We present the findings in a live session. 60 minutes for The Foundation, 90 minutes for The Accelerator. Within 48 hours you receive a written action summary: four to six pages containing only the prioritized next steps and the reasoning behind each one.
What we offer
The Audits hand you the findings.
Brand Runway hands you the work.
Diagnose or Build?
The Audit
A complete audit of all eight areas, with everything you need to act on the findings yourself.
The Foundation is for founders and practitioners who need a clear, evidence-based picture of their business and a specific plan for improving it. Every deliverable is produced to be used without any further input from us.
What you receive:
A written report: 25 to 30 pages covering all eight areas with findings, evidence, and recommendations.
A one-page messaging document: your refined description of who you serve and why you, ready to use directly.
A competitor map: where you sit relative to the eight to ten competitors we have profiled, and where the gaps are.
A 90-day improvement plan: our top recommendations in sequence, starting with the highest-impact change first.
A 60-minute live handover session: findings presented, questions answered.
A written action summary: four to six pages of prioritized next steps, within 48 hours of handover.
Delivery: 10 business days from completed intake.
Brand Runway
A defined position, the content to carry it, and a six-month plan.
Brand Runway uses the same eight-area framework as our audits, applied to a different question. The audits tell you what to change. Brand Runway changes it.
What you receive:
Phase A: six focused reports culminating in a defined position
Phase B: five long-form articles, five carousels, five short-form posts, fifteen supporting pieces
A Growth Report and a six-month roadmap
Day-ten refund gate: if the position isn't right, your payment is refunded in full
Delivery: 30 business days, end to end.
What Changes
What you leave with.
These are the specific documents and findings every engagement produces. What changes in your business depends on what you do with them. But every client leaves with these.
A precise description of who your business is for
Not a tagline. A specific, tested description of who you serve, what you help them do, and why you are the right choice, written in the language your ideal clients use, and checked against what your direct competitors are and are not saying.
A pricing rationale based on market evidence
Your rate compared against the competitors we have profiled, with a clear explanation of where it sits and whether the evidence supports a change. Clients who raise their rates after our audit do so with a specific rationale derived from real competitive data, not from a feeling that they are probably worth more.
A clear picture of who you are actually competing against
Eight to ten profiles of the coaches or consultants a potential client is likely to compare you against: how each describes their work, what they charge, and where they leave gaps your business could occupy. This is consistently one of the most useful findings our audit produces.
A channel-by-channel view of your marketing
A structured review of what each channel is currently producing and what to do differently on each one. Not a general recommendation to focus on one platform. A specific analysis of what your activity is returning and where the time is going to waste.
A one-page messaging document
Your refined description of what you do, who for, and why, on a single page, ready to hand to a copywriter, a designer, or to use yourself. This document typically saves significant revision time on any website or content work that follows our audit.
A 90-day plan starting with the highest-impact change
Every recommendation ranked by its likely commercial impact. Our plan starts with the finding most likely to make a difference to your business, not the easiest one to implement. The sequence is based on the evidence we have gathered, not on convention.
Speak to us.
Tell us about your business. We respond within two business days with an honest read on whether the audit is the right next step for you.
Free, no obligation. If we are not the right fit, we will tell you, and where we can we will point you to someone who is.
Questions before you commit? hello@ironwoodbrands.com. We respond within one business day.