About five hours a month, plus a concentrated first month. The three sentences and the brand brain come from you because they have to be true. The one thing nobody can do for you is the claim submission at the end, and no consultant should ever hold your identity documents.
Five hours a month, and the fifteen minutes that cannot be delegated
The honest accounting of your time across a twelve-month build.
| When | What you do | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Month 1, once | The three sentences, and filling the brand brain | Two to three hours |
| Month 1, once | The photograph session, or supplying an existing set | Half a day, or nothing if you have it |
| Every month | Two podcast or interview slots, including preparation | Three hours |
| Every month | Reviewing drafts written in your name and correcting facts | One hour |
| Quarterly | Reading the diagnostics and deciding what to change | Thirty minutes |
| Once, at the end | Submitting the claim yourself | Fifteen minutes |
Everything else is ours. The last row is the one nobody can do for you, and you should refuse anyone who offers.
The three sentences
The first thing asked for, and the thing that stops about a third of engagements before they start.
- Who you are. Name is the Role at Organisation, based in City. No adjectives. Not “a passionate builder of brands”. If your job title needs a paragraph, the record will need one too, and machines do not read paragraphs as identity.
- What you stand for. One sentence a stranger could repeat accurately after hearing it once.
- What result you drive, for whom. The specific outcome, for the specific kind of person. “I help ambitious founders unlock their potential” describes nobody. “I get B2B software companies ranking for the terms their buyers actually search” describes somebody.
If these cannot be answered in plain language, we stop, because no system can broadcast an identity nobody has decided on. It is not a copywriting exercise you can outsource, either. The sentences have to be true or the whole structure sits on something that will contradict itself later.
The brand brain
One private file holding every fact anyone will ever state about you. This is the highest-leverage hour in the whole project, because every published surface reads from it, and missing facts here are exactly where wrong facts come from later.
Identity
The identity line. A 75-word bio and a 150-word bio. Your name in every spelling it appears in publicly, with one marked canonical. Pronunciation, if it is regularly got wrong.
Verifiable record
Founding dates. Registration and licence numbers. Service area. Team size. Every number you will stand behind in public, with its source. Qualifications with the awarding body and the year. Published work with ISBNs. Patents, listed roles, board seats.
Proof
Case studies with names, dates and results, and permission recorded. Real reviews with their sources. Transcripts of your best talks. Every piece of press with a link and a date.
The image stack
One master headshot used everywhere as the same file. Then roughly twelve more: you working, you speaking, you with clients, the team, the workspace, the tools, the output, a portrait against a plain background, a wide shot with room for text. Systems confirm identity partly through image consistency, and one file used everywhere is worth more than twelve excellent inconsistent ones.
The map of what exists
Every profile, listing and directory carrying your name, including the abandoned ones. Old profiles with a wrong job title are an active source of contradiction, and half of alignment work is finding them.
The brand brain is a working file, not a publication. It holds things that are true and not for publishing, and it is the reference every draft gets checked against. You keep the file at the end of the engagement.
Access, and the account you must not lose
Short list, and one item on it causes more trouble than everything else combined.
- One Google account you will still control in five years. This account verifies Search Console, and the same account is required for the claim later and for every future edit. Most people have accumulated three or four accounts across a decade; pick one, write it down, and do not let it be an agency's.
- Your domain registrar. For DNS, for verification records, and for buying a name-matched domain if you do not have one.
- Website admin, or a developer who will action changes within a week. Schema that sits in a queue for two months is schema that does nothing.
- Your profiles, or a willingness to make the edits yourself from a list.
- Introductions. Warm intros to podcasts and publications in your world are worth more than any outreach we can do cold, and this is the single biggest accelerator a client controls.
Your passport, your driving licence, your verification selfie, your national identity number, or a logged-in screenshot of your account. Nobody in this business should hold those, and an offer to handle your verification is a reason to end the conversation.
What you get back
Nine diagnostic searches with what each returned, the four-source scan, the namesake count, and a baseline of what three assistants currently say about you. Including, if it applies, the recommendation not to proceed.
Twelve months, dated, with an owner on every line, and your own tasks separated from ours so you can see exactly what the five hours a month is spent on.
Entity home, schema, alignment, instrumentation, and twelve months of corroboration outreach with the follow-up actually done rather than started.
One sheet: the nine diagnostics trending, the match strength moving, new independent sources added, and share of voice across three assistants. Numbers you cannot generate yourself.
What we will not do
- Invent facts. No model knows whether you actually did that project or served that market for twenty years. Every claim gets checked with a human before it ships, and if it cannot be checked it does not ship.
- Write your Wikipedia article. Notability is decided by editors reading independent coverage. A page created without it gets deleted, and the deletion discussion is public and indexed, which leaves you worse off than never trying.
- Buy links or manufacture engagement. Both are detectable, both are liabilities that outlive the campaign, and neither produces the thing being measured.
- Create a Wikidata item you do not qualify for. Same failure mode, same lasting record.
- Touch your identity documents. Ever.
- Promise a date. Google takes no applications and publishes no threshold. Six to twelve months is the honest range and a guarantee about a date would be a guarantee nobody can keep.
Questions people ask next
What if I do not have professional photographs?
Then that is month one. A single consistent master headshot matters more than a large stylish set, because identity confirmation partly runs on using the same file everywhere. A competent local photographer and two hours is enough.
Can my assistant fill in the brand brain?
Partly. They can gather links, dates and profile lists. The three sentences and anything you will stand behind in public need to come from you, because you are the one whose name is on the claim.
What if I do not want to do podcasts?
Say so early, because it changes what is realistic. Independent corroboration is the part that takes months and guest appearances are the most reliable way to generate it. Written interviews and association pages are substitutes, and they are slower.
Do you need access to my website?
Either access, or a developer who will action changes within about a week. Schema and page structure changes are small and they have to actually ship.
What happens to the brand brain when the engagement ends?
You keep it. It is your file, it is the most durable thing produced, and it is what makes the next person you work with useful in a day rather than a month.
Run your name through the signal scan, then build your Person schema. Both are free and neither asks for an email. If the reading says you are ready, the work page has the price and the terms.