Are you interested in conducting brand audits as a sales tool for your business? Don’t know where to start? Here you'll learn how to find pain points for your clients so that they can have a more clear path on how to improve their brand.
In this call, Marc Gutman guides an in-depth walkthrough of what a brand audit is, the different levels of commitment you can offer your clients, and pricing. Marc includes personal observations and past experiences with auditing brands to give Cassy context to work with on her own endeavors.
Video Transcript
Marc Gutman 0:00
What is a brand audit? Why would you use it? What's in it? How much would you even charge? And do you know about the mild, medium, and spicy brand audit system?
Well, my friend, Cassy, had all the same questions. And we had a call and we recorded it. And we thought this would be helpful to others. So why don't we go check out that call and see what all this brand audit stuffs all about?
Cassy, you want to talk a little bit about brand audits? Tell me what's on your mind?
Cassy 0:39
Yeah. So I've been thinking about this a little bit more, like how can I offer this as a service to my clients? And then what all does this entail? Like what all should be audited? How is that process? Like? These are big questions, like, what works for you? or what have you noticed? Or, or what have you seen out there?
Marc Gutman 1:00
Yeah, so let me go ahead. And I've actually prepped something for you. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. Let's see how that all works. I'm also in full disclosure, you can see my multi camera setup going here. I'm like trying different things. So we'll see how good I am or not.
All right, are we seeing the the slide, slide? No. There we go. That's here. Why don't we try this? Why don't we try to play a slideshow in the window? There's our key now. Is that is that working on your screen?
Cassy 1:58
Yeah, that works.
Marc Gutman 2:00
Fantastic. Cool. So this is my thoughts around brand audit. now. I'll give you like how I'm thinking of it. But today, you know, I promise we'll talk about what it is. Why use them? What is in a brand audit? I'll give you some examples. And then you told me you want to know how much to charge? Yeah, any questions we can we can wrap about it. Sweet. That's exactly everything I need.
So what is it? You know, what is a brand audit? And I think of it in a couple different ways. The first way is it's just a diagnostic, you know, it's just this way to diagnose where a brand is at any given time. Looking at different attributes, and we'll talk about that. It's a way to have a measurement. So I think that like branding is so hard sometimes because we don't know how to measure it. And sometimes it feels so touchy feely, it feels like, you know, mission this that, like how do we actually measurement and measure and then it gives us a baseline, you know, so, which is really great when working with a client, because you can say, Okay, here's where we started, or here's what we are working with. And now here's, here's where we ended up, or here's what we're gonna try to get to.
And it also gives us this ability to have that diagnostic area of things. It allows us to pinpoint what needs to be worked on. Right. So I mentioned it gives us a baseline. I use brand audits in different ways, like one way that I use a brand audit, I'm gonna show you an example. Is this a lead magnet? So it becomes like this way to understand like, hey, do I do I have a branding problem?
You know, do I
Cassy 3:36
Yes, I started working on something like this. So and that kind of led into the whole, okay, how can I make money off of this also?
Marc Gutman 3:45
Totally, totally. And I'll show you an example of that. I also think of it in different have different kind of levels or intensity of brand audit set to talk about. And it's a sales tool. So as we go up the ladder a little bit, it becomes this way to take the customer on a journey of discovery of like, understand where the problem might show up. So for example, like, I talked about this a lot that, you know, no one's ever saying, Hey, I have a brand strategy problem. And most people don't even say I have a branding problem. They say things like, I don't know what to put on my website, all my materials are inconsistent. We're not being recognized for who we are. people misunderstand us, you know, those types of things. And so using as a tool to say, Well, those things that you're experiencing, are showing up in your brand. For me, it's discovery really helps me to find the problems and to understand where things are potentially broken, and where things are good. Also to confirm client assumptions. So I have so many clients have come to me that are like that self diagnose that tell me what they know what they need. Well, I don't know that you know, and I'm sure you feel the same way. The time like they're not right, no, or they're or they're partially right or
Cassy 5:00
Yeah, yeah. Or they have the wrong solution to what their real problem is like, they don't identify the real pain point.
Marc Gutman 5:11
Absolutely, it's also a great way for us to, like visually see the problem. So like, if we're able to map it, if we're able to present it, we can we can talk about that. So.
So what do we want to know, in a brand audit? I want to know what's working. So I want to know what's working? Well, for them. This isn't all about tearing down their brand. It's like, okay, like, what attributes which components of the brand are working, what's not working, so then we get to tear it down and say, like, Hey, you know, that that's not working? And then what could work? Like what? Yeah, and this is about identifying opportunities for the brand to get better.
And, and then ultimately, like, is this a brand problem that we can solve? So like, what's really been? You and I were just talking about this before we started about really long engagements, you know? And like, what if we got into this, like, really long engagement, and then realize that, like, it's a problem that I can't really help solve, or you can't really help solve, I've had that unfortunately, happen, because like, early in my career, I'd rush in and, and be super stoked that a client wanted to work with me, I'm like, I gotta help you. And then you get like, into this massive engagement, you're like, Oh, my God.
Like, if I can help you, you know, cuz it's like, maybe I miss diagnose the problem. So for me, this really sets us on a path of Hey, like, yeah, we have a mutually agreeable problem that I can help solve or not, you know, or it's even worth solving. Like, sometimes. I've done brand audits where there's just like little tweaks, and it's more like, take that printed audit and tweak your brand. Like, you don't need to do this, like massive engagement. And as much as I'd like to work with the customer. As much as I'd like to have the business if I can't help them a lot. I just want to see them be successful.
So types of brand audit. So we were also talking about Chris Do, prior to this recording. And I like to think of my audits in these three ways. Mild, medium, spicy, he talks about miles.
Cassy 7:07
Yes. We do Stylescapes.
Marc Gutman 7:10
Yeah, exactly.
Cassy 7:11
Interesting that you're thinking of brand audits this way, I like it.
Marc Gutman 7:14
Yeah, yeah. And so I'll tell you what, like, and to me, it's about level of intensity.
Cassy 7:18
Okay.
And so, to me, a mild brand audit is probably something that's like a self diagnostic, this is your lead magnet, this is like your five to 10 minute worksheet, where you can check off a box Hey, do I, you know, am I showing up? and consistent? Do we have values and beliefs that are shared by all? And you could say yes, no, you could say on a number continuum scale. And it's something that like a client can can do really quick. I've actually done these with a client in the room and say, Hey, fill out our diagnostic, see what you think. And it becomes this way for either for the client to understand like, hey, yeah, I do have a problem. And this is where it ends up. This is an example of one that we have happy to send this to you after, but awesome, but it's a brand new audit. And these questions you'll see is like, we have them score one through five, our ideal customer is clear, we know who they are, what they care about, and what they identify with.
Marc Gutman 8:16
You can see where that's leading, right, we're able to clearly communicate who we are, we are able to clearly communicate why we exist, we're able to clearly communicate what we do, and they can just rank that one through five, and then very quickly is hey, I have a I have an issue. So where are we came up with these numbers? Great way to quickly that's not to me that's like a mile easy audit, super simple. You know, and I think that that's at the front end, I think you're you're thinking of something a little more complex.
Cassy 8:44
Well, you know, actually, this is really validating to see this for me because I started doing something that had about 19, 20 questions too, because I was thinking in terms of what do I provide for a strategy and the value of brand strategy. So I was kind of thinking very similar questions to what you have. So that's really validating to me to see this and know okay, I'm on the right path for that.
Marc Gutman 9:08
Yeah and I would just think about the end like so the way we we came up with this is just thinking about the end output of brand strategy, and what type of questions you would ask to say, either I do or do not. Yeah, those have those taken care of so for example, like the y one we all work on our y so it's like we have a y we know how to articulate that we you know, things like that. So yeah, pretty easy way to reverse engineer it but you know, sometimes we over complicate it because we're so like in at least I do. I'm an overcomplicator.
Cassy 9:41
Me too.
Marc Gutman 9:43
Medium. A medium brand audit is one that I think is is something I love. I think it's something that is a great sales tool, and I think is a great way to start an engagement and so this is more of an in depth type of audit. This is Something that's one to two hours of work that you would do on the back end, maybe have an intake form for the client to say, hey, send me your brand touch points on me everything you've worked on some of your social channels, some of your website. It's a it's a commitment, but but a smaller commitment. And then we'll reflect back in an hour and a half presentation to the client. What's going on? And is my I think this is blocking.
Oh, why did this not? Oh, there we go. For some reason, oh, for some reason, oh, it's clicking because it wants to. So these are screenshots, and I'll go ahead and change the screen share from our brand audit. And what you get when we go through that is really three things. We want to talk about the pros and cons, like the strengths and weaknesses of your brand as it is look at opportunities for improvement, and recommendations and actions to start tweak or keep doing and so
Why this is great. This is a great first level engagement, we retail this out at 16 $100. Well, sometimes discount if we are, you know that's a retail out will sometimes discount if we want to get the client and to prove our value. If I'm speaking a lot of times, I'll offer a fast action bonus on this of around 499 or something like that. Just to get people to think about it.
Cassy 11:22
Yeah, build that trust.
Marc Gutman 11:24
Build that trust, they can see, you know, some people are just curious. They're like, Do I have a brand problem? They think they might, but they're not ready to fully go through this like, really big process? Yeah. And I'm going to go ahead. And I think what kept coming up. Yeah, I wanted to bring this up. And so I'll go ahead and share this really quick.
Okay, and so this is like our landing page for our brand audit. And you can go there and it's I thought I had written it for you. But it's, here's you can see that here's the URL. It's just the only pages thing but it just kind of speaks to the client, hey, something about your brand. Is it where people that are they have a hunch that like something's going on, but they're not sure they're you know, and the idea of getting into a full branding project. It's like soup, I was just talking to someone today, a friend of mine, and I was like, Well tell me what you think and getting feedback. And he's like, it's super intimidated. It's a big lift, you know, it's like, yeah, even like mentally, like, just think it's huge. This is a nice step. And we get in there and I just talked about the brand. And hey, we get what's going on. It's complicated, why not use a pro, this is what we love to do, this is what you're going to get, which I talked about, you know, here's how it works, we're just gonna get all your touch points, your assets, your guidelines, and you're gonna send it to us. And we're gonna go ahead and give you a report back and walk you through what we're seeing.
So, yeah, again, to give you access to all that no problem.
Cassy 13:05
And really, thank you so much for sharing your price team too, because I, you know, I've been talking to other service providers and like my pricing, I'm like, Oh, I need to double my rates or whatever. I'm way too low.
Marc Gutman 13:18
You are. And the other thing I will say is, I don't even know your I don't even know your rates, but your low, right? Yeah, like and, and I am too and so I always try to anchor high is an idea that I try to go with, yeah, is this idea of anchoring high so that I have the luxury of going down. So someone, you know, if I'm speaking at an event, and I want to get you know, as a lead source, and just a bunch of people, and this is what I love to this is what I was talking about, we really get to see if it's a good fit to Yeah, low on our side, in terms of commitment low on their side. And they you know, and we give a ton of value here and they can go ahead and they can go ahead and take this recommendation and implement themselves and I'm more than happy with that if that's the kind of client they are and they don't you know, and they don't want to go Yeah, here's the here's the URL so you can go ahead. Cool, awesome. Got you fancy with my slide transitions and putting this together.
The other thing is, I get rid of this as a try me crazy. So it usually it's about seven points. There's different ways to do this. We've we've played with seven different areas, highlighting words color story, music, shape, sound in the human aspect. What we'll go through is we'll just look at their tagline their typography, we'll look at their color palettes. We'll look at like, what's going on with the stories they're telling and we'll just do this in like a deck like this. Just like one little headline Hey, this is what we're seeing. Nothing like you know just a case we're seeing is that the fonts are using.
Do they have any music, shapes, sound and like the human Like what kind of influencers are involved in your brand? The other way to do it is like, hey, focus on the logo, maybe palettes typography, this is much more of a design kind of, but it helps people, you know, brand problems, as you know, they manifest themselves in design or marketing problems. And so it's taken me a long time because I love to nerd out about brand strategy. I love to talk about all the intricacies. But But clients don't say it in those words. So yes, talking about typography, tone and style of your video, maybe brand architecture, your your messaging and your in your brand positioning, how are you showing up? Another way you could do it is through competition.
And say, like, hey, like, like, what does the competition look like? But I, I'm really hesitant to get into that because it gets to become this, like ugly onion. And we typically do that more in a in an actual strategic engagement. Yeah. And then here, these are literally the questions that I answered during any brand strategy engagement. We go in them a lot, but it's why do we exist? How do we how do we do what we do? And how do we do it? Who do we serve? And so like, obviously, this is like, this is one little bullet point. But this is like customer personas, customer journey mapping all that? How are we different? What's our unique, you know, uniqueness? What's our personality? What our beliefs and values and ambition is literally kind of like, what's our vision for the future? So if I were doing a bigger audit, if I like, I might map it all back to this, this kind of stuff.
And the deliverable is always like a PDF, it's like, you know, a little bit of brand education, a little bit of a little bit of this stuff like with like, Hey, here's your literally just take your fee, it's on the nose, it's not on the nose, all your competitors are doing the same. Like what do you want this to say about you? excetera?
Cassy 16:50
So it's the the seven point audit done mostly with your team, like you're doing it? Or are you kind of collaborating with them? Like, what's that look like?
Marc Gutman 17:03
So this medium version, typically, it's an intake form asking for all their touch points. And then we'll just go and primarily when I say we, a lot of times, it's me, we'll go and we'll take it and we'll just start like, this is a good one, right? This is, this is like the core of what we'll do. And so we'll say, hey, like, we'll just put their logo up. And we'll say, hey, and maybe this is where we'll go look at really quick, other competitors and be like, you look exactly like all your competitors. Yeah. Or, hey, this logo, you say you want to be luxury, this logo looks a little down market.
And maybe give like, you know, but like, we're not going crazy on this, you know, we're trying to give them value, but not do a ton of work. So maybe half the slide is other luxury logos, saying like, Look, this is kind of like, Hey, you say you want to be happy, but you're, you're using this dark gray, and you know, puke yellow or something that doesn't really feel happier. Whatever, you know, typography, same thing. Most clients always take this for granted. Like they, they just don't realize like type has like, it's communicating so much, and things like that. So you're going through that you're messaging, you say you're friendly, but you come off like a robot, like there's something in congruent here. And we'll talk about incongruencies and, and things like that. And your positioning, you say you're you're known as being the safe brand, but you scare the hell out of me, or whatever, right? Or, like, we might say, like, hey, you've said you're the safe brand, you are the safe brand, you are associating with that word safe, you feel safe. So that's good. Like, let's lean into that. So it might not all be like
Cassy 18:25
So you've gathered that from having a conversation from with them, and maybe asking them specific questions. And then really, observations, this is really an observational.
Marc Gutman 18:38
all high level observation. And we're not like solving any problems. It really is more like this diagnostic of this is what we see.
Cassy 18:46
Yes. Okay.
Marc Gutman 18:48
And not spending a ton of time and yeah, all that everything we're getting is from the intake form on this one, as well, as, you know, spending about an hour or two of work, both doing research and cobbling it together for presentation.
Cassy 19:03
All right. Okay, cool.
Marc Gutman 19:08
okay, this is like a little more in depth. And then like, I don't really ever do a whole lot of this, but I was thinking about this for our call, like, this idea of like a spicy, would just be like this idea of like doing massive, deep research on the front end of an actual engagement. So it's a bigger commitment. It's like, so it's, it's, it's an audit, but it's not this like, standalone thing. It's literally the front end of what we're going to do. And so thinking of big clients I've worked with where, you know, we've flown all over the nation, and we've interviewed key stakeholders. And we've really set up this idea of a gap like, Hey, you told me your brand is this, but this is what I'm hearing back from all our customers. You said you compete this way. Well, you might not be seeing it that like so again, going back to all those things in the beginning of why we do a brand audit for measurement and baseline and In agreement on a common starting point, but this becomes more of the foundation of, hey, we're going to tell you where to do a diagnostic tell you where we're starting from, so that we all have a agreed upon starting point. And now we can move forward with the larger engagement.
Cassy 20:17
Yeah, definitely.
Marc Gutman 20:20
you know, you might do a SWOT here. You know, SWOT assessment, you might do, you know, really diving into the history of the brand, could be something the backstory, if they're a legacy brand, or something like that, and all the baggage, you know, that like, sometimes we know, brands have, if there's been like, leadership change, or like, just, you know, big family business that maybe went private or something. I mean, I'm sorry,
Cassy 20:40
So really, it's a lot of like market research. So it's a little bit of Okay, so I see the medium audit to be more like you're observing, and you're, you know, recognizing the the similarities or differences in who they say they are, in the spicy audit is more of other people's observations and you gathering and synthesizing that information?
Marc Gutman 21:03
Yeah. Yeah, totally get your hands dirty, getting like, kind of, like, rubbing elbows with the brand, so to speak. Yeah, you know, the, the the medium is this more this, like, Hey, this is what we're seeing. And this is where you have an opportunity. And, and I think a lot of these are also commiserate with both commitment level from the customer and or size of business, you know, so smaller, you know, one person business or small business might want to do that diagnostic, someone who's a little bit bigger, and has, you know, 1000 bucks to just kind of test the waters, they might want to do that. And then and then and then, you know, the spicy is someone who's like, Look, we know we have an issue, and we're used to this, we want to spend some money on it. Also, like there's a lot of stakeholders, right?
So when I think about it, and I'm just thinking about this, as we're talking this through, like the one I've done the spicy audit, it's like when there's a lot of a lot of stakeholders, more traditional business CEOs and things like that. And they want to build a bit of a story prior to going in. And they're really worried too about like, how, what's the word I'm looking for? When you when you bring everyone together? I want to say I'm like, consensus, they want to build a consensus amongst their leadership team. And so they want, you know, the kind of playing nice to play in politics or playing or maybe politics is the wrong word, maybe diplomacy being having diplomacy. And so they're saying, Hey, we want to like, have a finding prior and understand where we're starting from. Yeah, so this would be done before, like a big rebrand or refresh or campaign or whatever the diagnostic result is.
Cassy 22:42
So if this was kind of like, before, you would do like a full strategy session for like, where do we want to go?
Marc Gutman 22:48
Yeah, and again, if it's a much bigger company, if there's a lot more at risk, a lot of times they have, they have history, they've been in business. And so we need to talk about some of that stuff. something's changed, whether it's leadership or perception or the market. And they they have they have an inkling, and a lot of times this is to validate what they already know. Because, you know, people on those leadership teams are often times really smart. And they have a hunch as to what's happening, but they want like, they want a little more info on that. And they want to give that back to the team. And so we're sitting in a room or on zoom, that they're like, hey, like, Look, this is these are our findings. And now we can build from here and know that we have a gap that we have to to get across that like, Hey, we're being perceived completely different than we want to be.
Cassy 23:37
How much do you think that like, what I'm sure there's variety of range of price, especially based on the size of the company, but like for like a really big audit like that? Where do you see those starting?
Marc Gutman 23:49
$20,000 up to like, you know, 50 or 60. A lot of that variable cost, though, like, the one I'm thinking of that I did, it was really big is I flew all over the country. I interviewed like that was tight, and I was just tired of like, buying me for days, like, at a time like travel, like traveling it like it was just a lot of labor, you know, and so it can add up really, really quick if people want to run any sort of focus groups if people want.
Cassy 24:20
Oh, man focus groups can be $40,000 just alone. I've looked into that before.
Marc Gutman 24:25
Yeah, just alone, or like, the same client they wanted.
They were really big on consensus all the time and involving the team. Well, that that only wasn't my time. That was their time. And that was like, you know, and so if you start looking at budget from that perspective, which clients don't always do, but it gets expensive. So yeah, I think that like for this stuff, and this becomes again, part of a much bigger, a much bigger and yeah, it really is like, Hey, we are going on maybe like a multi year engagement and we're gonna start and you know, and for me, these have always been like at the corporate level. Yeah, bigger brands like 50 million and higher in revenue. And in like big, big brands, right? So yes, one. Yep.
Cassy 25:12
So most, most, most businesses will probably fall in that medium range.
Marc Gutman 25:16
Yep. Most businesses are going to fall in the mild. Because if they want to lead if it's a lead magnet, and you want to get people coming through their small, this, I've also seen this done really well though, if you're actually on a sales call. And you can say great, like, like, I've seen it done traditionally, where you're like, like, someone sold me a free strategy session. And part of it was like, hey, just sit here for 10 minutes and answer these questions. And then it wasn't, it wasn't a brand, it was a different kind of audit. And I answered them, and and then then we had a conversation, and they basically exposed and sat there and held it in my face that I had this problem, right. It was genius. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like, this is so brilliant. So that's one way you could use that as a sales tool. But yeah, I mean, I think this, like when I got your note about brand audits, this is really what I was thinking, I was thinking this medium one, I was thinking, yeah, it becomes the sales tool, a way to sell something. It's also a way to justify your thinking. So we talk about this all the time, and all our strategic work. And, and I think sometimes for people to take that leap, especially if they haven't paid for it before, if they haven't done a lot of strategy before that leap and pay for the thinking. This is just another way to show them what you can do and how you're thinking and to build that rapport. And it's like a micro commitment compared to going down that rabbit hole of complete rebrand or refresh.
Cassy 26:40
Yeah. So this is the one that you typically like to charge like 1600 for.
Marc Gutman 26:45
Yeah, again, okay, retail, if you're watching this on YouTube, that's yes, no, charge that all the time. But yeah, and more important and more important is to get the right client and to show that we can help them out and get them there. But like an audit, like I never want, like, you really for me, need to toe that line between showing them and helping them and giving them value, but like not trying to solve everything a because you don't want to solve everything for them. Because you typically can't in an automatic huge scope of work. Yeah, and then be, you know, you don't want to you just want to make sure that you leave room to you can cook that solve that problem.
Lastly, I do always want to give them enough information that they can go do things on their own, they can implement if we're not a good fit. It's very important to me that this audit has value to it. But it's hard like because and yeah, I don't know if you ever run into this, but this is a huge issue. For me. It's like I kind of know all the tools we have at our disposal. And I feel sometimes like bad that I'm not like taking someone down that Full Exposure. But not everybody needs that either. You know,
Cassy 27:53
Yeah, not everyone's ready for it. And I think another thing, a couple of friends have sent me a video of a psychologist talking about value based pricing from a customer standpoint, which I will send it to you it's like four minutes, it's great. But she talks about the pain point. And like, yes, we talk about pain point all the time, but is the pain big enough that they're ready to buy, and they're ready to spend that much money. You know, like, a lot of times I think especially as creatives or or designers, we see the immediate problem. But for them, it's not a pain point. So it's not their priority. So I think we just need to find the right clients who have too much pain that they can't handle it.
Marc Gutman 28:44
Well, a lot of times this like medium, sort of diagnostic can also become this great conversation piece to show them that pain and to connect to that they're feeling that they make brand problems. So you come back and you say, hey, look, we're looking at your website, and I'm seeing this you're kind of all over the place, you're showing up kind of schizophrenic. Do you feel schizophrenic? Well, that's a brand problem if you don't, you know, have these foundational attributes figured out and articulated. And so it does become this great way to have a less threatening conversation and really agree upon what the problem is and that there is a problem too much to your point. Like if they don't have a problem that it's not and I start every This isn't about sales, but I start every sales call, like why are we talking? Right? Like why like you're busy, I'm busy. Like why did you book this call? Like why did you find like why was this important to you to take time out of your day cuz obviously was important to you and I'm gonna start talking to you now and and hopefully they're able to articulate it. If not, we go through that process and help them out. Yeah. Let me see if I have.
Cassy 29:45
That's great. I've also thought a lot about because I actually come from the traditional communication journalism world and self taught in this design and like learning brand strategy and everything. So I think a lot about how is the written communication brand audit different from like a design one. And I think that your seven point audit is really interesting because you have like different versions of it. And I think that looks at some of the messaging more in depth versus like the design. So I think that's cool. A couple different variations of it as much as you tinker around.
Marc Gutman 30:23
Yeah, and this, like, this is a good example, this time, this isn't like, my brand map, I'm borrowing it from a friend, but the idea is the same and the things that we do and, and so thinking about, like, this would be another way just to like, think of an audit, like, you know, at a really high level, like who your competitors, what do you do you have brand attributes? Who's your target market? Are you clear on that?
Do you have a positioning statement? You know, what is it? And is it you know, so these would be other ways that you could also just use this as these are your headings, maybe one slide per just to say, Hey, this is what I'm seeing. And then these are the things you know, and as you know, looks all simple here in a brand map. But these all these all funnel into much bigger scopes of work and, and things like that. And so that's another way that I would think of it just like what is like, what's your output? Right? Yeah.
Cassy 31:18
Yeah. So that's awesome.
Marc Gutman 31:20
That being said, Any other questions around audits and how I might be able to help you?
Cassy 31:26
I don't know. I mean, I feel like you hit everything that I'm really looking for, because I'm just in the kind of the beginning stages, you know, I had developed like a lead magnet type thing, but then just never finished it or fully designed it to make it look pretty. And but yeah, that's really helpful. And sharing your praise team is like motivating for me.
Marc Gutman 31:51
Um, yeah, I think you could charge more, you know, I mean, I just put it there. Because I look at it, as always the first step, I'm not really in the business of selling brand audits as a standalone. I mean, we'll do it and I'm happy to happy to help. But, you know, the idea is that it'll lead to additional engagement and right.
Cassy 32:13
Do a full strategy. And
Marc Gutman 32:16
that's, that's the business. Right? And we believe in it. Yeah. But as I mentioned, it's not always that's not every. So someone asked me the other day, I firmly believe every brand needs branding, but not every brand needs to go through brand strategy. In any given time, if I'm saying that correctly, meaning that sometimes for a small business, you just got to stay in business. You just got to like, yeah, they sell something, improve it, and yes, having really good, but, you know, too,
Cassy 32:45
It's too in depth for a lot of small businesses. And like, that's actually something that we've talked about through the system with Jose Caballer. Who created CT, like, he said, you know, it's, it works for an individual, like the framework and everything is very transferable in many different ways. But for the the needs, and the pragmatism of small business owners, it's probably not they don't they won't see them value as much as a larger or medium sized brand would. I thought that was interesting. He said that.
Marc Gutman 33:21
Cool.
Cassy 33:23
Yeah, that was really helpful. Thank you so much.
Marc Gutman 33:26
My pleasure. You know, if you have any other questions, just let me know. But yeah, I mean, like, part of it, like I think we're apt to do is you're probably overthinking it a little bit, you know, and yeah, and remember, you know, most people don't, don't aren't really looking at everything like this. And they're, and I guess, lastly, like clients sometimes just want validation that they are thinking about this in the right way. And you say, hey, yeah, I mean, you have some problems, and we can help you fix that. And I think that it's something I've always struggled with, because I'm a word person, I'm a writer, like, I am a thinker. I'm not a designer. And I know designers have their own challenges to just being thought of as designers, but is connecting this like cool output to the thinking. And this helps do that a little bit. It shows like, Hey, here's, here's the outputs that are in your your world and affecting your business, through the strategic thinking. And that helps to kind of close that gap to you. So I'm not getting all like a serial killer, or Yeah, hypothetical, or dreamy or Wui or anything like that. Yeah.
Cassy 34:38
Yeah. That's it's very, like foundational, realistic, understandable. Just like, you know, I was talking about developing leads with some people and using some of these type of strategy framework to, you know, gather the interest or build trust with someone who's a little hesitant or maybe doesn't see the value of a full brand strategy session. And one of the advice that my mentor gave me was, you know, doing some sort of goal setting related around revenue because everyone understand money, they have to make money or working on like one customer profile, like just giving them a little bit of a taste of it. So you can see the value of it and getting that right frame of thinking.
Marc Gutman 35:29
Totally.
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