What does the intake or discovery session look like, and what does Tom ask?
The intake question is why, and what it is costing them
Why are you investing, what does success look like, what is the budget and runway, and who are you outside the business.
Updated 2026-10-25
The biggest question is why. Why are you investing in a personal brand? What does success look like to you? What audience do you want to build?
Then their real passions, and their life outside the business. Founders are different. Sam Stoffel owns a helicopter, talks about wealth and shows his holidays. Other founders are quiet, love the countryside and their family. Establishing who they are, and why they are doing this, matters, because they do not have to be doing it.
What about money?
Their budget, what they can afford to invest, what the runway looks like, and which KPIs we go after. Building a personal brand at scale costs hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, so the why has to hold.
Questions
What is the first question in an intake?
Why. Why are they investing in a personal brand, and what does success look like to them?
Why ask about life outside the business?
Because the register of the content follows from who they really are.
What else is covered?
Budget, runway and the KPIs to go after.
The playbook this belongs to: How I work.
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