# Discovery Questions

Full intake battery for BUILD Phase 1. Use `AskUserQuestion` in 2–3 batches; skip any field already supplied by SOUL.md, TONE.md, or prior conversation. Treat as a kickoff session checklist — a 90-minute interview fills the critical fields; subsequent sessions backfill the rest.

Organized by domain. Mandatory fields are marked **[M]**; the rest are nice-to-have and improve the guide but do not block it.

## 1. Brand / entity

- **[M]** Mission in one sentence (founder's words _and_ marketing's words, side by side)
- **[M]** Message architecture: 9–12 prioritized attributes (Bloomstein BrandSort or equivalent)
- **[M]** Brand voice owner operationally (CMO, founder, head of content)
- **[M]** Brand-to-category posture: conformist · adjacent · challenger · outsider
- Brand age, and whether prose still matches current stage

## 2. Audience

- **[M]** Reading age and literacy level (GOV.UK aims at age 9; B2B SaaS commonly at 14–16; expert pubs at 18+)
- **[M]** Domain expertise: Layperson · Practitioner · Expert
- **[M]** Cultural context: US · UK · France · EU · global · other
- **[M]** Language(s) the audience reads in, and fluency
- Professional reading habits (newsletters, publications they trust)
- Patience level: consumer scrolling vs professional researching

## 3. Existing content

- Top 10 highest-performing pieces of the last 12 months, by channel
- Bottom 10 (failure modes are diagnostic)
- Where voice is consistent, where it drifts
- Which pieces were ghostwritten, agency-produced, or AI-assisted
- What the support / sales team says about how customers describe the brand voice

## 4. Competitors and category conventions

- 3–5 competitors whose prose is studied (or copied) internally
- Default category register (e.g., enterprise B2B "thought leadership")
- Conventions to conform to vs break, and the cost of breaking each

## 5. Distribution

- **[M]** Channels in scope (multiSelect: long-form articles · social posts · email & newsletter · marketing copy)
- Cadence per channel (pieces/month)
- Channel-specific constraints (character limits, SEO requirements, deliverability)
- Typical length per channel

## 6. Writers and operations

- Who writes, in what mix (employees, freelancers, agencies, ghostwritten principals)
- How briefing is done (templates, briefs, voice notes)
- Review workflow (number of rounds, who has veto)
- Editorial calendar planning horizon
- Tools (Google Docs, Notion, CMS, AI assistants)

## 7. Content goals

- **[M]** Per channel, primary KPI: awareness · engagement · lead · signup · retention · advocacy
- How prose changes if KPI is awareness vs conversion vs retention
- Relationship between prose distinctiveness and conversion (sometimes inverse for compliance-heavy categories)

## 8. Constraints

- Legal: regulated claims, disclaimer requirements, IP/trademark conventions
- Regulatory: industry-specific (finance, health, defense, pharma)
- Compliance: GDPR consent language, accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA)
- Brand safety: topics that are off-limits
- Confidentiality: what cannot be discussed publicly

## 9. Cultural context

- **[M]** Locale of brand HQ vs locale of audience
- **[M]** Language(s) of operation
- Cultural taboos and sensitivities (regional, religious, political)
- Geopolitical positioning (does the brand take positions on global events?)

## 10. Evolution

- Expected trajectory in 24 months (geographic expansion, product expansion, repositioning)
- Who decides when the guide is updated, and how often
- What would force a major revision (a rebrand, a pivot, a merger)

## 11. Author archetype (if SOUL.md missing)

- Primary archetype: journalist · engineer · founder · NGO advocate · politician · consultant · executive · community lead · artist · researcher
- Secondary archetype if hybrid
- The principal's idiolect markers if personal-branding context (filler words, sentence length, preferred connectors, recurring metaphors, banned topics, recurring stories with allowed retelling cadence)

## 12. Tone of voice (if TONE.md missing)

NN/g four dimensions, position on each spectrum:

- Funny ↔ Serious
- Formal ↔ Casual
- Respectful ↔ Irreverent
- Enthusiastic ↔ Matter-of-fact

A short capture here unblocks Phase 3 codification; recommend producing a full TONE.md via `samber/cc-skills@copywriting-tone-of-voice-creator` afterward for a brand operating at scale.