Episode 67: Saturday Challenge — Audit Your Brand Like a Stranger.

This Saturday, you're not the founder, you're the visitor. Today's BrandSpark invites you to run a 10-minute brand audit from the outside in. Pretend you've never met your brand before. Would it land? Would you trust it? Would you buy from it? Start there. Let's go deeper. Good morning. It's Saturday, July 5th, and this is your morning cup of BrandSpark.

I'm Gina Dunn, founder of OG Solutions and brand strategist. Today, we're going to run an experiment together. And here's where we're going to begin. You're too close to your brand to see the blur. So let's take one step back and then another, and then let's look again. So let's spark it up.

The first thing I want to do is let you see it like a stranger. So pull up your own brand. Take a few steps here. Pull up your website, the home page, and then go to your about page, and then go to your service pages, and then go to your articles or blogs.

Then open LinkedIn. Have a look at your headline. And then read your about text. And if you have Instagram for your business, go to your Instagram. Read your bio. And then the last thing I'd like you to do is actually go to your articles or your blogs or your newsletter and read the last three of them. Now, pretend you don't know you. What lands?

What's confusing? What's missing in everything that you just read? You get one scroll, one click, one shot to resonate. And remember, if people are visiting your website, you have statistically eight to 10 seconds to get their attention before they bounce away. And you can't rely on your design to resonate and do that job all by itself.

So the second thing, the audit process. This is quick and brutal. So when you're thinking about this audit process, I want you to use a timer. Grab your phone, use the timer on your computer, Google for a timer, find a website that you can use a timer. You're gonna set 10 minute timer. First thing I want you to do is open your homepage. Set your timer for 10 minutes and then answer these questions. You can either do this out loud,

or you can grab a document, a Word doc, a Google doc, you can grab your notebook, answer these questions in these 10 minutes. Who is this for? What do they get? Why is it important for me to do something with this now? And would I actually buy from this person? If you can't answer those in 60 seconds per page, something is not clear. A beautiful brand doesn't say anything.

is still a closed door. A beautiful brand that doesn't say anything is still a closed door.

So your brand is a first impression. You really do know this deep down, but sometimes you probably forget because you live inside your brand. You designed it or you hired someone to. You curated or wrote the copy yourself. You feel all the intention and emotion behind what you have done to build your business. But your audience, they don't see that. They only see what lands that second they read it or open it.

And what if they're not navigating all 10 pages of your website or more? Today, give yourself the gift of honesty, no judgment at all, just clarity from you. And if the signals don't match the substance, it's not a failure, it's a flag, and it's time to recalibrate your brand. So here's your Spark challenge for today. Number, Spark number one.

Do a 10 minute audit of your homepage, your about page and your latest posts. Spark challenge two. Write down every moment that you actually hesitated, you squinted or you scrolled past it really fast. And the challenge number three. Pick one single thing to fix next week. Don't try to do it all. You'll hear me say this a lot. Pick one thing to fix next week.

If today's audit stung a little, you're not broken, you're brave. And if you want to turn that sting into strategy, you can take the brand glow up. Audit. This will help you see what's missing and what to prioritize first. Or you can book a brand clarity session and we'll fix the blur together in just 60 minutes. Today, be the stranger who sees clearly and then be the founder who fixes that one thing.

And that's your brand spark for today. I'll see you tomorrow.