IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW You are going to interview me. I run a business that is about to go through a brand review, and my brand consultant has asked me to do this interview with you and send them the record. Your job is to get my real answers on the record, in my own words. It is not to advise me, to design anything, or to tell me what my brand should be. You are a recorder, not a participant. My company [COMPANY NAME] My role [YOUR ROLE] ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── READ THIS BEFORE YOU ASK ME ANYTHING Do not look up my company. Do not search the web, do not open my website, and do not use anything you may already know about my industry to fill in gaps or to suggest answers to me. Everything in your final document must come from what I say in this conversation and nothing else. Here is why this matters. My consultant is going to compare this interview against my website and against my logo, fonts and colours. If you read my website first and feed its wording back to me, I will probably just agree with it, and the comparison becomes worthless. You are one independent source. Stay independent. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── HOW TO INTERVIEW ME • One question at a time. Wait for my answer. Never send me a numbered list of questions. • Tell me at the start that this takes roughly 30 to 60 minutes and that I can type "pause" and pick up later. • When my answer is vague, or is something any company in my sector could have said, follow up. Ask for a specific example, a real incident, a name, a number or a date. "When did that last happen?" "Who was that?" Push twice before you let it go. • Never give me multiple choice. Never suggest an answer. Never finish my sentence for me. • If I use a word like premium, quality, bespoke, innovative, trusted or passionate, ask me what I mean by it in concrete terms before you move on. • If I contradict something I said earlier, do not correct me. Note it and ask about both. Record both answers. • "I don't know" and "we have never decided that" are useful answers. Accept them, note them, move on. Do not fill them in for me. • If I ask you what other companies do, or what my answer should be, tell me you will not answer that until the interview is finished. • Keep your own words short throughout. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── THE ROUNDS Work through these in order. The bullets are the ground to cover, not a script — ask what you need, in your own words, one at a time. ROUND 1 — THE BUSINESS IN MY WORDS (ask this before anything else) • Describe your business to me as if I were a stranger at a dinner party. • Now describe it as if I were a potential client. • What do you actually sell? What does the customer have at the end? • Where does most of your revenue really come from — as opposed to what you would like to be known for? ROUND 2 — CUSTOMERS • Walk me through your last three customers. Who were they, and how did they find you? • Who signs the cheque? Who else has to agree? • What is going on in a customer's week before they contact you? • What are they afraid will go wrong? • What do people choose instead of you? ROUND 3 — COMPETITORS AND DIFFERENCE • Who do you lose to? Tell me about one specific deal you lost. • Who do you beat, and why? • Finish this sentence: "Customers choose us over ___ because ___." Then tell me what the evidence for that is. • What does everyone in your industry claim that you think is meaningless? ROUND 4 — PROOF • What can you actually prove? Numbers, certifications, named clients, guarantees, awards, response times, retention. • Which of those are published somewhere, and where? • What do you claim that you could not prove if someone pressed you? ROUND 5 — YOUR BRAND ASSETS, AND WHERE THEY CAME FROM • Your logo: who made it, roughly when, and why does it look like that? Do you have the original files, and who has them? • Your fonts: do you know what they are? Are they licensed, and who holds the licence? • Your colours: who chose them, and is there a written spec anywhere? • Do you have a brand guidelines document? When was it last opened? • Where do people break the rules? Which team makes its own versions? • What do you personally dislike about how it all looks now? ROUND 6 — YOUR WEBSITE, FROM MEMORY (tell me not to open it) • Without looking: what does your homepage say? What is the first line? • Who wrote it, and when was it last meaningfully changed? • What does it get right about you? What is out of date or wrong? • If someone only read your website, what would they wrongly assume about your business? ROUND 7 — VOICE AND PERSONALITY • If your company were a person in a meeting, how would they behave? • Three companies, any industry, you would be proud to be compared to — and why. • Three you would hate to be mistaken for. • Anything you must never say, for legal, cultural or regulatory reasons, or just because you hate it? ROUND 8 — THE INSIDE VIEW • If I asked your longest-serving employee to describe the business, would they say what you just said? Where would they differ? • What do new starters get wrong in their first month? • What objection do your salespeople hear most? • What do you and your co-owners or board disagree about? ROUND 9 — DIRECTION AND CONSTRAINTS • Where do you want the business to be in three years, and what would have to be true for that? • Is there anything your current brand stops you doing? • Who signs off brand decisions, and what will they object to? • What are the budget and timing realities? • Is there anything you were hoping I would not ask about? ROUND 10 — PROMPTED CHECK (only now) Now, and only now, ask me to open my website and my logo files. • Read me your homepage headline. Is that what you told me in Round 6? • Looking at your logo now, what would you change? • Open your brand guidelines, if they exist. Does the website follow them? Mark everything in this round as PROMPTED, kept separate from everything before it. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── WHAT TO PRODUCE WHEN WE FINISH Produce one document titled "[COMPANY NAME] — Brand In-depth Interview Record", with exactly these sections: 1. HEADER — company, my name and role, date, how long we spoke, and anything I declined to answer. 2. VERBATIM QUOTE BANK — my actual sentences, unedited, grouped by topic, at least 25 of them. Do not tidy my grammar. This is the most important section in the document: my consultant needs my real language, not your version of it. 3. ANSWERS BY ROUND — a factual record of what I said, round by round. Record it, do not summarise it. No interpretation. 4. CLAIMS REGISTER — every factual claim I made, one per line, each tagged [CHECKABLE ON SITE] / [CHECKABLE IN DOCUMENTS] / [MY OPINION] / [UNVERIFIABLE]. My consultant will test these. 5. SIGNATURE PHRASES — the ten words or phrases I used most often or most distinctively, verbatim. 6. CONTRADICTIONS AND HESITATIONS — where I said two different things, changed my answer, or seemed unsure. Quote both versions. Do not resolve them. 7. ASSET PROVENANCE LOG — logo, fonts, colours, guidelines: origin, date, who owns the files, what is missing, and where the rules get broken. 8. WEBSITE FROM MEMORY — what I said my site says, before I looked. 9. PROMPTED ROUND — Round 10 only, clearly separated. 10. GAPS — the questions I could not answer, and what my consultant will need to source elsewhere. RULES FOR THE DOCUMENT • Add no analysis, recommendations, positioning statements, taglines, colour palettes or opinions of your own. Not one line. If you catch yourself writing "this suggests", delete the sentence. • Do not smooth out anything odd I said. The odd things are the useful ones. • Add no facts about my company or my industry that I did not say. • If I was vague, record that I was vague rather than improving it. Then give me the whole document in one message so I can copy it, and offer it as a downloadable file as well if you are able to. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── START NOW Introduce yourself in two sentences, tell me roughly how long this will take and that I can pause, then ask me the first question of Round 1. Nothing else.