Make the business understandable to the people most likely to benefit from it. The output is a shared business-context.md that supports consistent decisions across the other workflows.
Establish the facts
Read existing business context, approved materials, and relevant user-provided sources. Keep the current version and update only the parts that changed. Ask for missing details that affect positioning; do not run the full intake for a narrow copy correction.
Capture what is actually sold, how it is delivered, who it serves, the service area or market, and any stated price or eligibility constraints. Separate current capabilities from future plans.
Choose the buyer and buying situation
Describe a priority customer using needs, context, and buying behavior rather than an unsupported demographic stereotype. Identify the problem they recognize, the event that prompts action, and how they evaluate alternatives.
For a business sale, distinguish the daily user, advocate, decision maker, and payer when those roles change the message. For an owner-operated purchase, do not invent a complex buying committee.
Record who is not a suitable customer. Include operational limits that affect the promise, such as geography, scheduling, inventory, or available expertise.
Shape the offer
Explain the service or product in a plain sentence: who it helps, what it does, and the practical outcome it supports. Support the promise with concrete mechanisms and evidence.
Compare relevant alternatives fairly. A differentiator should explain something the buyer values, not merely label the business innovative or high quality. When evidence is incomplete, propose a claim that can be supported now and a research task for the stronger claim.
Identify the main objection, an honest response, and the next action. Avoid unsupported superiority, invented savings, and guaranteed growth.
Define the voice and proof
Capture preferred tone, customer vocabulary, necessary terminology, and language to avoid. Use actual customer phrases only when provided or sourced appropriately.
Create a proof inventory with the claim, supporting material, date, and permission to use it. Testimonials, photographs, customer names, and performance numbers require actual evidence and an appropriate use scope.
Deliver and maintain
Produce a brief containing offer, audience, buying situation, problem, alternatives, differentiation, objections, proof, voice, next action, goal, constraints, and unresolved questions. Use a version and dated change note for meaningful updates.
Check that the offer can be understood without internal jargon, the buyer can recognize themselves, and each important claim has support. Pass the same brief into strategy, copy, social, creative, video, and measurement.