What to brief a strategist so the position that comes out is truly yours

You've decided to hire a brand strategist. You've found someone whose work you respect, maybe their references checked out, and the discovery call felt promising. Now comes the part that determines whether what emerges truly reflects your business or just sounds like someone else's template: the handover.

Most poor positioning engagements fail not because the strategist is weak, but because the brief is thin. A strategist working from vague instructions—"we want to be premium" or "we need to stand out"—will fill the gaps with assumptions, industry patterns, or what worked for their last client in a similar space. You end up with positioning that could describe a dozen other businesses doing roughly what you do.

Good strategists ask for a lot before they start writing. That's not bureaucracy or stalling; it's them building the scaffolding your position needs to rest on. Here's what you should prepare, and why it matters.

Your actual numbers and constraints

A strategist needs to know what's real about your business, not what you wish were true. What's your current revenue, team size, and growth rate? Who are your paying customers right now—not your target market, but the people actually buying? What's the cash runway if repositioning takes six months to show results? Are you bootstrapped, venture-backed, or something else?

This isn't nosiness. A positioning that demands a sales team of five or high-touch customer service only works if you can actually build that. A strategist worth their rate will stress-test positioning against your capacity. They'll push back on "let's position as luxury" if you've got three people answering emails. Honest constraints breed stronger, more grounded positioning.

The shape of your market and who's really winning

Bring documentation of your competitors—not their websites, but their actual positioning. Who's growing? Who's losing share? What are they charging, how are they talking about their work, and what language are customers using when they compare you?

Also name your adjacent competitors: businesses solving the same underlying need in a different way. If you're a property management firm, Airbnb hosts using management software are adjacent competition. If you're an e-learning platform, YouTube creators are. This landscape shapes where positioning can credibly live.

Your strategist will ask: who doesn't buy from you, and why? The answer—"we're too expensive" or "they don't know we exist" or "they think we only do X"—is often more useful than ten focus groups.

Your origin and what you've already tried

Explain how the business started, what problem you were solving for yourself or a first customer, and what's changed since. Then walk through any previous positioning or messaging work: did you rebrand? Run ad campaigns with a specific angle? If something didn't land, what made you think so—lost deals, customer feedback, or just a gut sense?

Stratégists often inherit positioning layered on top of previous positioning, each one a guess. Knowing the archaeology prevents recycling failed angles.

Your team's actual beliefs about the business

This is harder to articulate than spreadsheets, but essential. Sit with your founders, leadership, or core team and write down: What do you genuinely believe you're better at than anyone else? What would make you walk away if you couldn't do it? What customer problem keeps you up at night? What's true about your way of working that you'd never compromise on—even if a competitor claimed to do it cheaper or faster?

Don't polish these answers. A strategist needs the rough, honest version.

A brief word of caution

If a strategist starts designing positioning without asking most of these things, or if they assure you they've "got a sense of it" from one call, that's a warning flag. Good positioning requires friction—between what you want to claim and what's actually true, between your ambitions and your constraints, between industry convention and what's distinctive about you.

When you hand over a thorough brief, you're giving the strategist permission to challenge you. They'll come back with positioning that fits your business, not a generic mould. That's when the real work begins—but at least it's your work, not theirs.

Before you bring someone in, get clear on all this. Then find a strategist on Strove who pushes back on loose briefs, and watch what emerges.