What we measure in the 48-hour audit, and why.
A full walkthrough of the methodology behind the free Brand Trust Audit, every measured surface, every scored item, and the reasoning that puts it on the checklist instead of someone else's.
The four surfaces
Every Brand Trust Audit reviews four surfaces. The website, because that is where buyers start. The pitch deck, because that is where you finish. The LinkedIn presence of the founders and the company, because buyers cross-check before they reply. And one proposal we ask you to nominate, because that is the artifact that converts.
Why 48 hours
48 hours is short enough to be a commitment device for us, and long enough that the work is not a glance. The audit is not exhaustive. It is exact. It tells you where trust is leaking and what to fix first.
Website checklist
Above the fold
Does the hero line state what you do for whom? Is the proof-of-fit visible without scrolling? Is the primary CTA earned, or premature? We score these on a binary, present or absent, not on a scale, because partial credit confuses fixes.
Below the fold
Social proof structure. Case study format. Service-line clarity. Audience-fit language. Footer compliance. The structure is more important than the words at this stage.
Mechanics
Page weight, Core Web Vitals, missing alt text, broken anchor links, mobile rendering. These are not brand items. They are trust items. A slow website signals operational sloppiness regardless of how good the design is.
Pitch deck checklist
Cover page (separate Studio Note on this). Problem framing. Insight slide. Solution articulation. Case study weight. Pricing model. Closing slide. We grade decks on internal narrative coherence, not pure aesthetics, a beautiful deck with a weak insight slide loses to a plain deck with a strong one.
LinkedIn checklist
The company page
Cover image, about section, employee count, post cadence. We do not recommend changes to volume here. We recommend changes to consistency.
Founder and senior team profiles
Headline language, About paragraph, recent activity tone, recommendations from named clients, response time on inbound DMs. Founder profiles do more pre-sales than the company page in most B2B verticals.
Proposal checklist
Cover and identity layer. Engagement framing. Scope clarity. Pricing model articulation. Risk and dependencies section. Closing page. We grade proposals on what they signal about the rest of the engagement.
The output
A signed PDF, dated, with a one-line headline finding, a trust score, a page-by-page review, and a punch list of fixes ordered by impact. The methodology appendix is included so you can re-run any of it in-house.
How we score
Each item is binary or three-point: present and clear, present but unclear, or absent. We do not grade on a curve, because the curve is what got most B2B websites and decks to their current state. The score is honest.
Key takeaways
5 lines you can copy into a slide. Built to survive a four-second read.
- 01The Brand Trust Audit reviews four surfaces, website, deck, LinkedIn, one proposal, in 48 hours.
- 02Scoring is binary or three-point; nothing graded on a curve.
- 03Founder LinkedIn profiles do more pre-sales work than the company page for most B2B verticals.
- 04Mechanics (Core Web Vitals, mobile rendering, broken links) are trust items, not design items.
- 05The deliverable is a signed PDF with a punch list ordered by impact.
Questions readers ask.
The 5 we get most often, with the same answers we give in the audit kick-off meeting.
- 48 hours from acceptance to delivery, zero cost. There is no obligation to engage further; the audit is built to be useful even if you don't.
- Your website URL, your most-used pitch deck, the LinkedIn handles of the company and 1-2 senior leaders, and one nominated proposal you've used in the last six months.
- Less than 48 hours is glance work. The audit needs time to cross-reference your website, deck, LinkedIn, and proposal against each other. That cross-reference is where most of the value is.
- Yes. The audit is on paper specifically so it can survive the room. We do not soften severity to keep the meeting comfortable.
- Yes. The methodology appendix is in every PDF. Most clients re-run the website portion themselves quarterly once the punch list is closed.
Vivek Chandanshiv
Founder · Fundamenta
Twenty years auditing brands for B2B manufacturers and capital-equipment firms in India. Writes one note when there is something worth saying. Otherwise quiet.
