Portfolio Inspection:
is your brand portfolio sound?
In one line
an expert examination of how your brands and products are organised, the work usually sold as a brand portfolio audit, for self-funded technology companies, delivered inside two weeks.
The facts
Price
£2,500, one payment in full.
Length
Two weeks.
Your time
Two to three hours: one conversation at the start and the findings briefing at the end.
Done by
Luis Defaz, Brandian's founder.
Credit
Brand Portfolio Strategy or Range, in full, inside six months.
When to buy this
A prospect needs several meetings to understand what you sell, and the deal that should have closed in the first one has gone quiet.
A new product is ready to ship, and whether it needs a name of its own has landed on your desk again, because nothing else can settle it.
You bought a company, kept its name alongside yours, and customers ask which of the two they're dealing with.
Each is about your brand portfolio: the brands and products a technology company sells, the names they go under, and the job each name does. In a portfolio that works, the brands are a team. One carries the reputation, the others say what is being bought, and every one of them has a reason to exist. A competitor on investors' money has its brands and products tidied at every funding round, because the deck has to explain them on one slide. Yours grew one product at a time, as customers asked and the revenue allowed, each one named and placed as it shipped. That's how they came to be organised, and it may not be the best way.
How your brands and products are organised is what lets a buyer find the thing they need among everything you sell, and understand what it is, without help. A brand or product that does no job costs twice: it takes budget from the ones that do, and it takes the buyer's attention with it. The Portfolio Inspection draws it as a map, examines it part by part and puts the evidence in writing.
Where your credit goes
Where the findings show faults in your portfolio, the corrections are ranked, and who makes them is your decision. Brand Portfolio Strategy is the service that makes them. Buy it inside six months and the Portfolio Inspection's full price comes off the first instalment. The same credit applies to Range, the solution that contains it with Brand Platform and Brand Identity.
The Inspection's work is that service's opening step already done, so you pay for it once. Where the findings show your portfolio holding, that verdict is in writing. The Inspection has narrowed where to look, and the other parts of your brand have Inspections of their own.
What it examines
Four parts, examined on your sales material and public presence.
4
One portfolio at every touchpoint. Whether each product keeps its name and place wherever a buyer meets it. Where they differ, a prospect gets lost.
3
What each name covers. Each name against the products, add-ons and pricing tiers it's put on. It shows which mean one thing and which are stretched.
2
How each name is treated. Which names are dressed as brands, with their own logo, and which are plain descriptions. It shows which you meant to build.
1
The map. Everything you sell, every name it goes under and how the names relate, drawn as a buyer meets them. It shows how many names a buyer learns.
The Inspection doesn't decide which of your brands to fund, what each is for or whether a name should go. Those decisions belong to Brand Portfolio Strategy.
How the two weeks run
Day 1
The opening conversation, in which you hand over the list of everything you sell and the names it goes under, in whatever state it exists, and say what each one is for. The rest comes from your sales material and public presence.
Days 2 to 13
The map is drawn, the four parts are examined and the report is written. A clarification or two may reach you by call or email; nothing else is asked of you until day 14.
Day 14
The findings briefing with Luis, where your questions are answered. Each finding opens on what it's costing you, with its evidence graded and the corrections ranked, and your further questions go to Luis by call or email, as many as you have.
A test you can run this week
Ask your newest salesperson, who learned what your technology company sells from your own material, the way a prospect does, to explain it as they would in a first meeting. If it comes out in a sentence or two, your portfolio is doing its job. If it runs on, or stalls on the product names, a prospect is meeting the same thing in the first meeting. Where that's the result, the Portfolio Inspection shows where your portfolio breaks down and what mending it would take.
Questions buyers ask
We have one brand and a handful of products. Is there a portfolio to examine?
Yes. A portfolio is every name a customer meets on the way to buying from you, and one brand with several products under it qualifies as a portfolio. The questions are the same at any size: how many names a buyer has to learn, and whether every touchpoint tells them the same way.
How is this different from the Brand Record?
The Brand Record measures how your buyer sees your brand; the Portfolio Inspection examines how your brands and products are organised. Buy the Inspection if you already suspect that's the problem. Buy the Brand Record if you can't yet say which part of your brand is at fault.
Does a second brand from an acquisition count?
Yes. Two brands after an acquisition are a portfolio question. The Portfolio Inspection puts both on one map and shows where they overlap, where they contradict each other, and where a buyer is left unsure which one they're dealing with. Which brand should come first, and how to move between them, is Brand Portfolio Strategy's decision, made on that evidence.
Does a bad finding mean renaming everything?
No. Renaming is the last resort, and the findings say whether your portfolio needs it. The corrections are ranked, the evidence sits beside each one, and the decision is yours.
What if the findings say the portfolio is fine?
Then your brand portfolio is sound, and the problem lies elsewhere. The findings say where to look next.
Does this commit me to buying anything else?
No. You leave with the faults listed and the corrections ranked; what you do about them, with Brandian or with anyone else, is your decision. If you go on to Brand Portfolio Strategy or Range inside six months, the Inspection's full price comes off the first instalment.
Who does the work?
Luis Defaz, personally, from the opening conversation to the briefing.
Does it carry the Performance Guarantee?
No. The Portfolio Inspection is a fixed-price examination delivered inside two weeks; the Guarantee belongs to Brandian's services and solutions.
Can I cancel or postpone?
A Portfolio Inspection can't be cancelled or refunded, because the work is scheduled as soon as you buy; you can postpone it once, for three months at most. Inside six months, its full price comes off the first instalment of Brand Portfolio Strategy or Range.
Inspections