How to Audit a GCT: Goals, Content, Targeting You Can QA

Your agents will do exactly what you tell them. If you tell them "grow my brand, post great content, reach my audience," they'll write 200 posts by Friday that sound like everyone and land in front of no one. AI doesn't fix a vague plan. It just produces more of it, faster.

A GCT (Goals, Content, Targeting) is the one sentence that stops that: We will [Goal] by showing [Content] to [Target]. Founders, think of it as the brief you'd hand a new hire. If you're building with agents, it's the spec they run on. Paul Ryazanov's isn't "grow my brand." It's "get the UK Global Talent Visa by showing his talks, podcasts and press to the visa assessor." One of those you can check. The other one you can't.

Here's the test. A stranger has to be able to grade your GCT pass or fail without asking you a single question, whether that's a new teammate, an agent running at 3am, or your future self. Watch the video, then use the 15-check audit below.

Vague vs. specific: the same person, two GCTs

The triangle in one picture

We will [Goal] by showing [Content] to [Target].

If that sentence sounds absurd when you read it aloud, one corner is weak. Fix that corner before anyone spends a dollar or writes another article.

Why this matters

The Friday MAA (Metrics, Analysis, Action) is only as good as the GCT it's measured against. Without a written Goal, people report whatever looks good that week: article counts, DR, impressions. That happened with Paul. The report scored articles while the actual Goal was a visa. An auditable GCT keeps everyone pointed at the same scoreboard.

The audit rubric: 15 checks

Each check is pass or fail, with no partial credit. Every pass needs a piece of evidence you can link to: a URL, a Basecamp recording or an email ID.

★ = must-pass. If any must-pass check fails, the GCT can't be labeled written, whatever the total score is.

Status labels

Scoring sheet

Worked examples from our own clients

Paul Ryazanov: 12/15, written

We will get Paul the UK Global Talent Visa (with the Knowledge Panel claimed as the short-term goal) by showing his speaking, his podcast appearances and the videos we made together, turned into articles, to the visa assessor, who must find Pavlo and Paul as one verified person.

It passes G1, G4 (Paul confirmed: "Global Talent visa is the ultimate goal… for the UK") and all of Targeting. It's missing G3 (no date for the refiling) and C1 (the list doesn't yet name the specific episodes and talks), and C2 is only partial. The lesson is that the MAA should lead with the Knowledge Panel and the speaking pages, not with how many articles went up.

Dylan Haugen: 7/15, drifted

Dylan signed "Use my dunking journey to help other athletes and local businesses grow in public" (Gmail, Aug 20). The live homepage says "help professional dunking grow into a recognized sport." That fails S2, so the label is drifted. It also fails G1 (no number) and T1, because it names two different audiences.

Leith Uwaydah: 6/15 on current evidence

The real assets are there: the site, the primary-source pages and the research page, so C1 and C3 pass. But "Give the truth a structure" is positioning, not a Goal, and "people and AI" isn't a segment. Leith needs one measurable outcome in his own words, plus one named audience.

Common failures

• Mission as Goal. "Help leaders find alignment" is a mission. Ask: what number tells us it's working?
• Borrowed Goal. Copying my 1 Million Jobs line onto a client's GCT. That's an automatic G6 fail.
• Two Goals in one. For example, "grow landscaping and help entrepreneurs." Pick one, and make the other a later phase.
• Content as a category. "Videos" fails. "The Tonight Show ball-spin clip" passes.
• Everyone as Target. If the Target would fit any business, it fails T1.
• Inferred, never confirmed. Drafts are fine, but label them needs-confirm. Don't call them written.
• Drift. The site gets rewritten and nobody updates the GCT, or the other way around.
• Vanity scoreboard. The MAA reports DR or article counts when the Goal is a visa, bookings or signups.

{
  "project": "Paul Ryazanov",
  "basecamp_bucket": "…", "source_url": "…",
  "audited_at": "2026-10-21",
  "canonical": {"goal": "…", "content": "…", "target": "…", "sentence": "We will … by showing … to …"},
  "checks": {"G1": {"pass": true, "evidence": "url|recording|gmail id"}, "G2": {...}, … "S3": {...}},
  "score": 12, "must_pass_ok": true,
  "label": "written|needs-confirm|drifted|missing",
  "missing": ["G3: refiling date", "C1: name the 5 talks/episodes"],
  "next_question_for_owner": "…"
}

— Dennis Yu