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Brand Audit Worksheet
A guided exercise for professional services firms at the $500K–$5M stage. Walk through it with your leadership team to surface where your brand is holding — and where it's starting to crack.
Before you begin
This is not a design review. It is a strategic audit of how clearly your brand communicates, how consistently your team executes it, and how much of it depends on you personally.
- Set aside 45–60 minutes with your leadership team
- Answer based on what is true today — not what you intend it to be
- If your team gives different answers than you, that difference is the finding
- No scores — this is a diagnostic, not a report card
Audience Clarity
Who do you serve?
Be specific. Not "small businesses" or "professional services firms" — name the type of firm, the role you sell to, and the situation they're in when they find you.
What problem do they have when they arrive?
Not the service you sell — the symptom they're experiencing. What makes them start looking?
Would your team give the same answers you just did?
Ask someone on your team right now — before you compare notes. Note the gaps.
Who are you not for?
If you struggle to answer this, your audience definition is probably too broad.
Positioning & Differentiation
What makes you different from competitors in your space?
Write it as you would say it to a prospect — not as a tagline.
Could a competitor say the same thing?
Read what you just wrote. If the answer is yes — or probably — your differentiator is a category claim, not a position.
Can you say what you do in one sentence — clearly, without jargon?
Write it here. Then test it: would a prospective client immediately understand who it's for and why it matters?
Why does your difference matter to the specific client you described in Section 1?
This is the link between positioning and relevance. If you can't connect the two, you have a positioning gap.
Messaging Consistency
Read your website homepage headline aloud. Does it match what you wrote in Sections 1 and 2?
Write the headline here, then note the gap — if any.
How do you describe the firm in a sales conversation?
Not what you should say — what you actually say, unprepared, when someone asks "so what do you do?"
How does your team describe the firm to prospects?
If you don't know, that's worth noting. If the answer varies by person, that's a governance gap.
Is there a single document your team can reference for how to communicate the brand?
Not a style guide for design. A messaging document: who we serve, how we talk, what we say and don't say.
Brand Governance
Who makes brand decisions when you're not in the room?
If the answer is "no one" or "it depends," the brand is founder-dependent.
What's the most recent example of brand drift you've noticed?
A proposal that didn't sound like you. An email that felt off. A hire who described the firm differently. Write what you noticed.
If you stepped back for 90 days, what would break?
Be honest. The answer tells you exactly what depends on you personally rather than on a system.
Is there a process for reviewing new content against your brand before it goes out?
Proposals, social posts, decks, emails sent by your team. Yes / No — and if yes, describe it briefly.
What to look for in your answers
You don't need a score. You need to notice the pattern. Here are the signals that matter most:
- Your team gave different answers than you — audience, positioning, or how they describe the firm
- You couldn't write a one-sentence description that a client would immediately understand
- Your website headline doesn't match what you wrote in Section 2
- There's no document your team can reference for messaging
- Brand decisions — or the absence of them — route back to you
- You identified drift but haven't addressed the system that caused it
If three or more of these resonate: the constraint is strategic, not executional. A new website, better content, or a different agency will not fix it. The positioning needs to be resolved first.