# Inside the workbooks

Pilot · Case note

> What you actually get when your pilot place opens, page by page: one workbook, three steps and a one-page Brand Brief.

When your pilot place opens, you get one workbook, matched to where your business is: Startup, Builder, Scale or Enterprise. That's the main thing. It walks you through everything, and you don't need anything else to finish it.

You also get The Method, the thinking behind the workbook. Read it if you want to know why each step is there. You can skip it and still do the work.

Here's what's inside, page by page.

## It starts with what you believe, not with data

Most brand work hands you a finished answer. The workbook does the opposite: it asks you to write down what you believe first, before anyone looks at the evidence. The order matters. Once you've seen the data, it's very easy to convince yourself you knew it all along.

Every workbook also follows a fictional company through the same steps: Mesa Foods in Startup, Trail Coffee Co. in Builder, Meridian Field Services in Scale, Vertex Systems in Enterprise. Their answers sit next to every question, so you can see what a good answer looks like.

## Step 1: Write down what you believe

![A Step 1 page from the Startup workbook: the question "Who would miss us most if we disappeared, and what job do they hire us to do?", a worked example from Mesa Foods, and a large writing space](https://themarketverdict.com/images/blog/inside-02-step1.png)

Six questions, answered alone, in writing, before your team sees anything. Who would miss you most if you disappeared. What would customers have to do for your strategy to be wrong. The one thing you can never compromise.

For each answer you tick **Known** (you have customer evidence from the last 12 months) or **Assumed** (you don't). If you end up with more Assumed answers than you expected, that isn't a failure. It shows how much of the strategy rests on belief, and every Assumed answer goes into Step 3 to be tested.

It takes about an hour.

## Step 2: See if the team agrees

![The team answer sheet and the comparison table from Step 2, where each person's answer is marked S, D or U](https://themarketverdict.com/images/blog/inside-03-step2.png)

Your team answers the same first five questions, each person alone. Nobody sees anyone else's answers until they're all in. Then you compare them, marking each one **S** (same as the leader), **D** (different) or **U** (unclear), on meaning rather than wording.

The rule is simple. With five people, any question where three or more answers differ is a gap. Gaps aren't settled by a vote. They go to Step 3, where customer behavior settles them.

Solo founders skip this step. Your customers are your second opinion.

When Steps 1 and 2 are done, the workbook tells you how to request your outside read.

## Step 3: Check it against customers

![Two Step 3 pages: an evidence log of what people actually did, and the four-check signal test with Yes, No and Not yet for each check](https://themarketverdict.com/images/blog/inside-04-step3-signal.png)

This is where belief meets behavior. Step 3 has six parts:

1. **Collect the evidence** with your edition's own tool (more on that below).
2. **Log what doesn't fit the plan:** customers using you in ways you never designed for, a pain that keeps coming back, customers going to a competitor.
3. **Run the four checks.** Is the behavior repeated across independent customers or sources? Is it consistent? Did it cost them something? Has it lasted? Each check gets Yes, No or Not yet.
4. **Prove yourself wrong first.** Write up to three genuinely different answers to "What is our Real Brand?", and what customers would do if each were wrong. Then look.
5. **The ten-customer check.** Describe the answer that held to ten real customers, ask three set questions, and write down exactly what they say.
6. **The Brand Brief.**

## Each edition has its own tool

![The first page of Step 3 in each edition: Startup's evidence log, Builder's churn-call log, Scale's original-versus-growth comparison and Enterprise's retention by segment](https://themarketverdict.com/images/blog/inside-06-edition-tools.png)

The four workbooks share the same three steps, but each one gathers evidence differently, because the evidence you have depends on your stage:

- **Startup:** an evidence log of what people actually did when you offered them something. It works before you have customers.
- **Builder:** what customers say unprompted, plus calls with customers who left.
- **Scale:** the customers who built you, side by side with the ones you're adding now.
- **Enterprise:** retention by customer segment and buyer, because a company average hides the segment that still supports your role.

## You finish with one page

![The Brand Brief page: eight fields from The Real Brand to What changes now, with a Mesa Foods example at the top](https://themarketverdict.com/images/blog/inside-05-brand-brief.png)

The Brand Brief has eight fields: the Real Brand, the job customers hire you for (in their words), the Real Customer, the evidence, the Planned Brand, the one thing you can never compromise, what you are not, and what changes now.

You fill it in from the evidence in Step 3, not from belief. It stays a working brief. After the Crosscheck, each field is marked Holds, Wrong, Not tested yet or Holds for one group.

The last pages show how to keep it current: a monthly look at what customers did, a quarterly re-ask of Question 1, and a re-read every six months.

## Then the outside read

While you work, we research your market independently, from public evidence only. We never see your workbook. When your own findings are finished and saved, you get our outside read, and you compare the two yourself with the Crosscheck worksheet.

## How long it takes

Aim to complete Steps 1 and 2 within four weeks of receiving your materials. Your four weeks start when your materials arrive, not while you're in the queue. Step 3 moves at the pace of your customer evidence, and that's fine.

## Join the pilot

The pilot is free for a small group of companies, and we release places in batches. [Join the free pilot](https://themarketverdict.com/waitlist).