Win the engagement on a finding of your own.
A firm of one or of thousands, one market or twenty — every client’s market, Oman included, under your own name.
The client hands over one number.The same five locations, compared with their markets.
Ask the question you have to answer next.
Eight things said inside a firm, and the answer each one gets.
Said inside the firm
One engagement at a time.
Which markets is our category strongest in?
The size ranking hides where the category is best regarded.
Of the ten biggest markets, 5 sit in the bottom half. The biggest sits 29th.
Open on the finding the size ranking hides.
A room that opens on a finding.
Are they holding up, or slipping?
The blended number barely moved. Against its market it fell.
Its own share of positive opinion moved down 2 points. Against the businesses around it, down 6.
Show the committee the direction.
A committee that sees the direction.
Who exactly are we compared against?
The same kind of business, in every market, on one measure and one window.
112 markets, one window. They run 22 points of positive opinion from lowest to highest.
Name it before the argument starts.
A comparison set the board accepts.
Which market do we enter first?
The busiest market and the best-regarded one are not the same market.
Visits per business run 4× end to end. Only 2 of twenty lead on both.
Rank the shortlist on both, and act on the overlap.
An entry order that defends itself.
Is it what we sell, or how we run it?
What is sold barely separates one network from another.
On the same measure, what they sell puts 12 points between them. Getting the order right, 42.
Scope the work to what actually separates.
A brief aimed at the real gap.
Which of these can stay open?
Locations move both ways under one flat number.
About one location in ten rose on its own numbers and fell against its market.
Sort the closure list by how each one does against its market.
A closure list that holds up.
Can we have something by the meeting?
The field is already measured before the engagement is.
Four full quarters of every market of that kind, measured before the request comes in.
Start on the diagnosis.
A research desk behind a firm of one.
Do we hold anything on this sector already?
The same question takes the same shape in every sector.
4,209 categories, the same question, the same window in each.
Keep the comparison set when the client changes.
A practice that answers in every sector.
Check the number the client hands over.
A number handed over holds until somebody checks it. One network of about fifteen hundred locations, drawn twice, as in diligence: by its own numbers, then against the markets its locations sit in.
Each mark is one location, and the line is where a location stayed put. The five tall marks are the same five in both rows.
You’re the doctor. We’re the thermometer.
Name the comparison set before you rank it.
One everyday category, one measure of positive opinion, four quarters: a benchmark. The field — every market the category is in — runs wide end to end, and the size ranking is a different list.
Each mark is one market of the category, and the tall marks are the ten biggest.
Name the comparison set first. The ranking that came in changes with it.
Scope the work to the measure that separates.
Five networks in one category and one market. One measure of the staff barely separates them and another splits them wide.
The spread across the five, in points of positive opinion
The measure they all score alike tells an engagement nothing.
Rank the entry shortlist two ways.
Twenty markets of one kind. Rank them by visits per business. Rank them again by what customers say. Both lists share two markets.
Only two of the twenty markets make both lists
Each cell is one market. The two shaded cells appear on both lists.
The overlap is the shortlist worth defending.
Check when the benchmark was taken.
Over two years, more than half of the markets moved two points of positive opinion or more, and they moved both ways.
112 markets, two years apart
A benchmark is a position on a date.
Settle every question in the firm from one set of numbers.
A firm of one plays all of these roles at once; a practice of thousands has somebody in each. What always divided them was who could get the evidence, and how long it took. This is what each role takes from one set of numbers.
The finding you open the room with
- Where a client’s category stands in every market it trades in.
- What consumers praise in that market, and what stops them.
- Which way each of those markets moved since the last window.
The target, checked from outside its own numbers
- Every one of its locations, against the market around it.
- Which way the target moved, and which way its markets moved.
- The same answer on every business of its kind nearby.
Each location judged against its own market
- Each location against its market, and its neighbours the same way.
- Which ones rose on their own numbers and fell against their market.
- What consumers praise at each one, and what stops them returning.
Markets ordered twice, and the ones that lead on both
- Visits per business, against the businesses already serving it.
- Where the category stands in each of them.
- How much of a market is chains, and how much of its traffic.
Every request answered from one record
- One taxonomy, so a category means the same thing in every market.
- The same measure behind every answer, whichever sector the work lands in.
- Every business in a category and a market, one by one or together.
The same numbers behind every role, and the study goes out under your name.
Take any of these six into the engagement.
The same six questions, at the scale the work needs.
One comparison across every market, and any part in detail.
Weekly refreshed, since 2020
Walk into the next room with the finding already yours.
How can a location rise by its own numbers and fall against its market? Leave your email; the first finding on a client’s market comes back as a deck under your own name.