Ironwood Brands | Independent Brand Audit and Growth Consulting

The Positioning Audit

Where is your brand actually working?

An evidence-based examination of your business, scored, ranked, and built to act on.

We examine eight areas of your business, score every finding against evidence, and deliver a written report ranked by commercial impact. Ten or fourteen business days, depending on the depth you choose. Same framework, two tiers.

Commission The Foundation$2,350, 10 business daysCommission The Accelerator$3,475, 14 business days

Not sure which? Read the comparison below.

Why it exists

The work is good. Something else is in the way.

The diary fills, the clients arrive, the work delivers. Then the revenue settles at a number that doesn't match the effort. Or the rates feel low and raising them feels like guessing. Or the channel that built the practice has thinned, and the next channel isn't obvious. The lever that would move the business sits somewhere you can't see from inside it.

The Positioning Audit is the work of finding that lever. We examine the business from the outside, score what we find against evidence, and tell you what to change first. Not what we'd implement if you paid us more. What you should do, in order, ranked by what's most likely to produce a result.

Pricing is one of the levers we look at. It's also one of the most expensive places a business leaves money behind.

+8% profit

A 1% increase in average price, with volumes held constant, lifts 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.

What we examine

Eight areas of focus. Every finding scored.

The audit examines the eight areas where established practices most often leak value. Each is scored against evidence, ranked by commercial impact, and tied to a specific recommendation.

Your full online presence.

Every place a prospect encounters your business, mapped for contradictions.

Who your business says it's for.

Whether a stranger can tell who you serve, and why you.

How your business looks across channels.

Visual consistency across every touchpoint.

What search results show about you.

What a prospect finds before they reach you.

Who you're actually competing against.

The eight to ten competitors your prospect is comparing you to.

The language you use to describe your work.

Your words, set against your competitors and your clients.

Whether your pricing fits your market position.

Your rates benchmarked against the competitors we profile.

How a new client finds and hires you.

Where in the journey prospects drop out, and why.

How the audit works

Five stages. Ten or fourteen business days.

From your completed intake to a delivered report, every audit moves through the same five stages. The duration depends on the tier you choose.

01

Intake

You complete a 45-minute structured questionnaire and share access to your analytics. We use these to shape the audit to your specific business before we begin.

02

Examination

We work through the eight areas, scoring each against evidence drawn from your business, your competitors, and your category. Findings are documented as they emerge.

03

Review

Every finding is reviewed by a second senior practitioner. No audit leaves the firm checked by fewer than two people. Recommendations are challenged before they reach you.

04

Report

You receive the written report: 25 to 30 pages, every finding scored, every recommendation ranked by commercial impact, with a 90-day improvement plan.

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 of prioritized next steps.

Two tiers

Foundation or Accelerator. Same framework, different depth.

The Foundation is the full audit, delivered in ten business days. The Accelerator adds business model analysis, three modeled revenue scenarios, and a twelve-month strategic roadmap, delivered in fourteen. Pick the tier that matches the decision you need to make.

The Foundation

$2,350  ·  10 business days

A complete audit of all eight areas, with everything you need to act on the findings yourself.

  • 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, ready to use or hand to a copywriter.
  • A competitor map. Where you sit relative to the eight to ten competitors we profile, and where the gaps are.
  • A 90-day improvement plan. Top recommendations in sequence, starting with the change most likely to produce a result first.
  • A 60-minute live handover. Findings presented. Questions answered.
  • A written action summary. Four to six pages of prioritized next steps, delivered within 48 hours of handover.

Refundable in full before intake is submitted. Partial refunds available before delivery. See refund and cancellation below.

What you leave with

Six things in your hands at the end.

Whichever tier you choose, the audit produces a specific set of documents and findings. What you do with them is yours. What you leave with is consistent.

A precise description of who you serve.

Not a tagline. A specific, tested description of who you work with, what you help them do, and why you're the right choice. Written in the language your buyers use. 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 profile. Where it sits. Whether the evidence supports a change. Buyers who raise their rates after the audit do so with a specific reason drawn from real data, not from a feeling that they're probably worth more.

A map of who you're actually competing against.

Eight to ten profiles of the businesses a prospect is likely to compare you with: how each describes their work, what they charge, where they leave gaps your business could occupy. Consistently one of the most useful findings the 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 generic 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. The document typically saves significant revision time on any website or content work that follows.

A 90-day plan, ranked by impact.

Every recommendation ranked by likely commercial impact. The plan starts with the finding most likely to make a difference, not the easiest one to implement. The sequence is based on the evidence we gathered, not on convention.

Refund and cancellation

Refundable before intake. Not after.

Before you submit your intake, the engagement is fully refundable. Email us, and we return your payment in full, no questions asked.

Once intake is submitted and the research begins, the engagement is non-refundable. By that point we've allocated time and started the work. The same rule applies to installment plans: the first payment is refundable until intake is submitted; subsequent payments continue as scheduled once research has begun.

That said, we want you to be satisfied with your engagement. If something isn't right at any point in the work, get in touch with your associate. We'd rather hear about it than leave it unresolved.

For the full refund policy, see the Terms of Service.

Ready to commission?

Both tiers run on the same framework. Pick the one that matches the decision you need to make.

The Foundation

$2,350, 10 business days

The audit, the report, the 90-day plan.

Commission The Foundation

The Accelerator

$3,475, 14 business days

Everything in The Foundation, plus the twelve-month roadmap and revenue modeling.

Commission The Accelerator