Market analysis
The thing you’re best at can’t be checked before they buy
Most firms differentiate on an attribute the buyer has no way of verifying until the work is done: which is why the claim earns nothing at the point of sale.
Rialto Bridge
Market analysis
Articles on market analysis.
Market analysis
Everyone on the shortlist is reliable
Firms often invest hardest in the attribute that only earns them a place on the list, and treat the thing…
Market analysis
You’re known for the work you’re trying to stop doing
Reputation lags strategy by years, and the cheapest leads you get are always for the offer you're trying to leave…
Market analysis
The competitor set was chosen by whoever wrote the shortlist
Win/loss analysis tells you a great deal about the deals you were invited into, and almost nothing about the ones…
Market analysis
The win rate went up. Every segment went down.
A rising win rate is one of the easiest numbers in a business to misread, and one of the most…
Market analysis
The average of two businesses is neither of them
A single headline number can describe a customer you have never served, a job you never quote, and a month…
Market analysis
Reliable, responsive, and required
Most of what a business says about itself is an entry requirement dressed up as a reason to choose it,…
Market analysis
The competitor on your slide isn’t the one you lost to
Most competitor analysis maps the firms you already know. Buyers build their shortlist differently, and the option that beats you…
Market analysis
Your busiest month looks like your weakest lead month
When capacity tightens, recorded demand falls, and most businesses read that as the market going quiet rather than the phone…
Market analysis
The best segment you serve is the one you never advertised for
Most firms describe one customer on their website and are quietly carried by another, and the gap usually shows up…
Take it further
This is the general pattern. Your business is the specific case.
Everything here is free to read with an account, and always will be. What it cannot do is tell you which of these applies to your numbers, your market and your constraints. That is the work we do with clients.