What happens on the VIP Strategy Day for The reLaunch?

You’re thinking about a website relaunch, and one part already feels like homework: the brief. How many pages do you need? How much brand work? Who should write your copy? To answer that well, you’d need a web designer’s experience, and that’s exactly what you’re hiring one for.

So it’s tempting to let AI write it. The result sounds complete, the designer quotes from it, and nobody has done the thinking your website actually needs. That thinking is the hard part.

With The reLaunch, you don’t have to write a brief. That’s part of my expertise, and it happens on the VIP Strategy Day: one full day of my attention on your website, with two live calls together, before anything gets designed or quoted.

Here’s what the day covers, how it runs, and what you leave with.

What the VIP Strategy Day works out: structure, branding, and messaging

The VIP Strategy Day works out the strategy behind your website. The topics depend on what we discussed in our Clarity Call: where your business and your website stand, what you already have, and what’s still missing. The most common topics are structure, branding, and messaging.

Structure: how visitors move through your website

Most quotes start with one question: how many pages does your website need? Answering it takes three kinds of experience: a UX designer’s lens on how people move through your website, a strategist’s lens on where it sits in your marketing funnel, and a solopreneur’s lens on what you can realistically maintain.

Once I understand your business, I draft your sitemap and high-level wireframes: how many pages you need, which sections go where, and how visitors move between them.

Here’s what that can look like for a website with 3 services:

Branding: a reFresh or a rebrand?

Many people come to me because they want their visual identity to “grow up” and match where their business is now. They worry they need a full rebrand. Most only need a reFresh. On the VIP Strategy Day, we map your brand personality with my Expert Identity Compass and decide together whether you need a reFresh or a rebrand.

For many clients, I already design two options for how their brand could look on the page, with a few sample pieces like a hero section, a quote, or a row of cards. That gives them a feel for where their brand could go.

Messaging: what your website needs to tell people

Some projects also need a messaging strategy. I’m a big fan of April Dunford’s book Obviously Awesome, so I start by figuring out who you’re actually competing against. As a web designer, for example, I also compete against AI, Squarespace templates, and doing nothing.

Then I use the BrandScript, the messaging framework from Donald Miller’s book Building a StoryBrand 2.0, to put together the story your website needs to tell.

Together, these two frameworks decide what goes on your homepage, your About page, and every other page, so visitors are more likely to take the next step.

What the day works on depends on what you bring. How it runs stays the same.

Our schedule for the VIP Strategy Day

The day has two calls, one in the morning and one in the afternoon or early evening. In between, I work on your website. Your prep beforehand is light, and none of it is a brief: I may ask for a few competitor websites, or websites whose branding you like.

If you already have designs or copy, send them along, and I review them from a UX designer’s perspective.

The morning call: where your business is going

We talk for about 1 hour. I share what I’ve seen on your website, and we talk about where your business is going, who you’re really competing against, and where your brand sits on the Compass.

Between the calls: I turn your answers into a plan

I usually start this part with competitor research. It shows me how others in your field look and describe their services, and where you can stand apart.

Then I work on what your project needs: sitemap and wireframes, creative directions for your brand, or messaging drafts.

The afternoon call: we decide together

We go through what I prepared, whichever parts your project needed.

If I drafted your sitemap and wireframes, I explain why they’re built this way, and we change them together wherever they don’t fit what you had in mind.

If I designed element collages, we look at those. You might like one and not the other, or parts of both. That sets the creative direction for the project’s branding phase.

And you don’t have to remember any of it.

What you leave with after the VIP Strategy Day, and what you can do with it

After the VIP Strategy Day, you get all my work in writing. It’s the brief for your project, with an expert’s thinking behind it. It’s not a website yet, but it has value on its own: you’ve seen how I think and work, and you know what to hire for, whoever you end up hiring.

That’s why the VIP Strategy Day is booked on its own, as a first phase, for €1,000. What happens next is up to you.

If you still need your copy sorted, the wireframe doubles as its brief: which pages you need and what each section has to say. These are your copy options and how they shape your timeline.

If we continue working together, I send you a fixed-price proposal based on what your website actually needs. You know the price before any design starts. No surprises afterward. The €1,000 for the VIP Strategy Day counts toward your project if you book within 3 months.

If we don’t work together, that’s also fine. Sometimes there’s just no personal fit, and it’s better to know after one day than halfway through a project that runs for weeks. Take the plan to another web designer, keep your current website a little longer, or build the new one yourself. Either way, you do it with a solid strategy.

Which leaves one question about timing.

How does the VIP Strategy Day work if you’re not in my time zone?

You get the same two calls, the same work in between, and everything in writing afterward. The only difference: the VIP Strategy Day runs over two days, split along the time difference. Here’s an example if you’re in the Americas:

• Monday, my afternoon, your morning: our first call.
• Tuesday, while you sleep: I work on your website.
• Tuesday, my afternoon, your morning: our second call.

Find out what your website needs on the VIP Strategy Day

You started thinking about a relaunch because your website can’t keep up with your business anymore. What’s hard is knowing exactly where it needs to go, because that takes web design experience. That’s what the VIP Strategy Day is for.

On that day, we work out which pages your website needs, where your brand is heading, and what it has to say. Afterward, you know your project’s scope and get a fixed price. And everything we worked out is yours to keep, whether you hire me for the project or not.

Whether you’re sure you need it or still have questions, book a free 30-minute Clarity Call. I’ll answer your questions, and we’ll see if The reLaunch is a good fit for you.

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