Sell the strategy, not just the execution.
The client who has no brand strategy is the client whose logo goes through nine rounds. Turn up with the strategy, and the design work stops being a matter of opinion.
You have lost this argument before.
Not because the work was wrong, but because there was nothing to judge it against. Without a written strategy, every review is somebody's taste. The scope drifts. The invoice stays the same size while the hours do not.
A brand deck ends that. The client answers forty minutes of questions, the strategy comes back in their own words, and every decision after it has something to be right or wrong about. You bill for it, and the work that follows goes faster because it has a brief.
You do not need to become a strategist.
This is the part agencies pay a senior person to do. You send a questionnaire and read the deck. It downloads as a PowerPoint: the pages we render carry our mark in the header and the footer, so take it off, put the slides in your template, and what you present carries your name. There is nothing for the client to sign, and no reason for them to meet us.
Your client could buy this for $500. Let them look.
The price is on our home page and we are not moving it. Direct, they get a document and nobody to read it with them. From you they get judgement after the deck lands, and design work that finally has a brief to be right or wrong about. Your cost is $450 a brand, or $425 if you buy three. That is a cost of goods. It is not your price.
What it changes
A bigger project, and a shorter one.
Charge for the thinking
Strategy is a line item you could not offer before. It costs you $450 a client, $425 if you buy three. It is worth several times that to them.
Fewer rounds
“Does this match the strategy?” is a question with an answer. “Do you like it?” is not.
Content after the launch
35 content sessions come with each brand, five post ideas each, so there is something to sell in month two as well.
Pricing
Start with two. Add more when the work arrives.
- Every brand gets its own complete strategy deck, yours to keep.
- 35 social content sessions with each brand. A session is five post ideas, written in that brand's voice.
- A brand's year of sessions starts when you create that brand, not when you pay, so brands you have not started yet are not burning a clock.
- Brand credits never expire. Buy five now, use the fifth next year.
- It is the content sessions inside a brand that run on a year, not the credit.
Buying a single brand on its own? That purchase creates the brand on the spot, so its 35 sessions run for a year from the day you buy.
- Brand credits never expire, so buying ahead costs you nothing if a project slips
- Only need one right now? A single brand is $500
- No seats, no subscription, nothing to cancel