When Should You Take the Authority Image Audit?
Most people look hard at their professional photo at the worst possible moment. Someone asks for a headshot by end of day, and suddenly you are scrolling through your camera roll wondering whether the picture from three jobs ago still counts.
I would rather you look before you are on a deadline. The Authority Image Audit™ is most useful when a decision is coming, because it gives you something clear to bring to that decision: what your current image is already doing well, and what to think about before you change anything.
Here are the moments when I suggest it most.
Why does timing matter?
The Audit starts with your intention: where your image needs to work hardest and what you want people to see when they find you there. That answer changes as your work changes. A photograph that was right for one season can quietly fall behind the next one.
Taking the Audit at a turning point means you are measuring your image against where you are going, not only where you have been.
Should I take the Audit before a headshot session?
Yes, and this is the moment I care about most.
When someone arrives at a session saying "I hate my headshot," we have a feeling to work with. When they arrive saying "I want people to see me as experienced and approachable, and right now the warmth isn't coming through on my website," we have a brief.
The Audit helps you get to that second sentence. You leave with language for what is working, which tells us what to keep, and something to consider, which tells us where to put our attention. I wrote about why that conversation matters in Before the Shutter Starts Clicking.
Should I take it before a speaking season?
If you are pitching conferences, joining panels, or building a speaker page, this is a good time.
Event planners often meet you first through a photo on an agenda, a speaker page, or a promotional graphic. One of the places you can choose in the Audit is a speaker page, so you can tell it that is where your image needs to work. Then the observations come back in that context, not in a general sense of "is this a nice photo."
If your notes say something like "I'm moving toward keynote speaking," include that. The Audit has a space for notes, and that kind of detail helps.
What about after a promotion or a pivot?
This one is easy to miss. Your title changes, your LinkedIn headline changes, your About section gets rewritten, and the photograph stays exactly the same.
Sometimes that is fine. Sometimes the photo still belongs to the role you just left. When you share your LinkedIn headline and About section along with your image, the Audit can consider whether the words and the photograph are making the same introduction.
After a promotion, you might want people to see you as more authoritative. After a pivot from corporate work into consulting, you might want approachable to come through more clearly. Either way, the Audit begins with what you choose, not with what someone else assumes your role should look like.
Should I take it before a website refresh?
Yes, ideally before the designer asks for images.
A website asks a lot of a photograph. A hero banner, an About page, a services page, and a contact page each have different jobs. In my experience, people often discover they have one good headshot and are trying to stretch it across all of them. I wrote about that in Why One Headshot Is Not Enough.
Running the Audit first helps you decide which existing image leads, and whether you need new ones before the site goes live.
A quick checklist
The Audit is worth taking when any of these are true:
You are booking or planning a headshot or personal brand session.
You are pitching talks, panels, podcasts, or press.
Your title, role, or business focus has changed.
Your website or LinkedIn profile is about to be updated.
If someone asked whether your current image communicates what you want, your honest answer would be "I'm not sure."
Can I take it again after I change my photo?
Yes. At the end of your results, the Audit asks a simple question: "New image. New first impression?" If you update your photo, you can run it again with the new image and see what has shifted. On the same device, you can also go back and view your last audit.
That is one of my favorite ways to use it. Audit what you have, make a change with intention, and look again.
The best time to look at your image is before someone else decides what it says.
