What the work looks like when it is finished.

Each one names which of the three problems it is and how the other two get ruled out. That reasoning is the part worth reading. These are investigations, not testimonials.


Six situations we meet again and again.

Different companies, different markets, the same six shapes underneath. Each one is set out at the length a diagnosis actually runs to: what the company believes is wrong, which of the three it turns out to be, how the other two get ruled out, and what the evidence for that is.

Read one and you will know within a page or so whether you recognise your own company in it. That is the point of them.

Positioning problem

The message describes the product

Healthy traffic, poor conversion, and a homepage that is accurate about the software and silent about the buyer.

Rewrite the claim around the buyer and the change, then carry it across every surface.

Read it

Downstream leak

Acquisition works, the bucket does not hold

New business arrives on schedule and the revenue line stays flat, because the bucket refills at close to the rate it empties.

Separate the accounts that stay from the ones that leave, and look at day one rather than day thirty.

Read it

Lack of urgency

Agreement is not urgency

Prospects agree the problem is real, say all the right things, and do not sign this quarter or the one after it.

Move the offer onto a clock the buyer is already running, and narrow the first commitment.

Read it

Positioning problem

One segment pays, everyone is marketed to

Several customer types, wildly different economics between them, and one message written to keep all of them comfortable.

Define an ICP narrow enough to disqualify, then stop writing for the segments it excludes.

Read it

Positioning problem

Blaming the channel

A channel is declared dead, replaced, and the replacement produces the same result four months later.

Hold the message constant across two channels to find out which variable is actually failing.

Read it

Downstream leak

The product is the constraint

Acquisition is healthy, the positioning is right, customers get real value once, and there is no reason to come back.

Say so plainly, in writing, and point the work at the adjacent job the same person does every week.

Read it


Not sure which of the three you have?

That is what the intake is for. It takes about ten minutes, and the answers go straight into the first read of your business.

Start with the intake