The board
Someone here does the math. So every claim carries its basis in the sentence, and the one study the brief rests on is named along with its limits.
The Decision Brief
The people you want to hire check you before they apply.
82 percent of candidates look at a chief executive's online presence when they are considering an application (Brunswick, Connected Leadership, 2022). Whether the business answers that is not settled by a marketing plan. It is settled by a decision among the people who own it. This brief is the paper for that decision: one benchmark read honestly, three objections taken seriously, the real costs, and a recommendation with three options, one of which is: not now.
The room
A paper that survives the owners' meeting.
There are a hundred brochures about visibility. This brief is not one of them: it is written for the room where budgets get decided.
A founder who wants to raise their own visibility has a wording problem before anything else. To the board the topic can sound like vanity, to the owners like marketing, at the family table like self-promotion. None of those suspicions survives the evidence. But each of them ends the conversation before it starts.
So this brief puts the topic on the one footing where that room will hear it: talent and trust. The check by candidates happens, with or without a decision. Make that case with sources, and you are not talking about advertising. You are talking about the company's next generation of leadership.
The owners
Someone here asks about the motive. So the brief argues from candidates, clients, and partners, not from reach.
The family
Someone here asks whether any of this is necessary. So one of the three options argues against starting, with the conditions under which it is the right call.
The situation
One number, read honestly.
The brief rests on one hard external number and says plainly how far it reaches, where it stops, and what fills the gap.
82 percent of candidates look at a chief executive's online presence when they are weighing an application (Brunswick, Connected Leadership, 2022).
Everything else in the brief rests on our own first-hand practice, marked as practice observation rather than research wherever it appears.
That is the honest shape of the evidence, and the brief says so on its own pages. The benchmark is a single global study, not a repeated measurement. We are not a neutral party either: this is the work we do. Which is exactly why the brief is built to be checked, including against us. Read that way, the finding is narrow and firm: the check happens, it falls on the person at the top, and the surface where it finds an answer is thin.
What the brief covers
Five sections, written to be forwarded.
Read the brief once yourself, then pass it on unchanged. It is built to hold up in the room without you standing next to it.
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01
The situation, in one number
The benchmark from the section above, read honestly, including where it is thin and where our own practice fills the gap.
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02
What this means for a founder-led business
The market's referral system now has a digital first stage. Why the company page alone does not carry the check, with a documented case from our own work.
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03
The objections, taken seriously
Time, self-promotion, outsourcing. None of the three is unfounded, and the third one is simply right.
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04
What it realistically costs
The founder's time, documented market rates for outside help, and the cost of not deciding. No invented hours per week.
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05
The recommendation
Three options, each right under nameable conditions: not now, build internally, bring in outside help. With the criteria for each.
The costs
The numbers are in the brief before anyone asks.
The market for outside help rarely puts its prices in the open. The brief frames the decision with two documented figures.
Documented engagements for professional support run around €2,500 to €3,000 a month, with experienced solo operators above that (our own market scan, July 2026).
The requests that reach us often name budgets below €1,000 a month. Plan there, and you plan under market.
The third line is not deciding. What absence costs cannot be put in a defensible number, and the brief does not try. Only the mechanism is certain: candidates and business partners form their view whether or not the company takes part.
A documented case
“When I attend conferences or board meetings, people bring up my LinkedIn posts. That never happened before.”
70 weekly profile visitors became 900. Section 2 of the brief walks through this case, and the full account is in the Dieter Leikermoser case study.
The brief
The brief goes to your inbox.
Eight pages including the cover, as a PDF. Confirm the quick email, and the PDF is waiting, written to forward unchanged to owners, the board, and the leadership team.
Your brief
One confirmation, and the brief is in your inbox.
An email from Builderz is on its way to you right now. Confirm it, and the PDF follows straight into your inbox. No email in sight: check your spam folder.
Read the brief once yourself afterwards, then forward it unchanged to owners and the board. Set a date for the decision, or the question just sits. And if you would like to walk the three options through for your own business first: Bernhard will make the time.