Market Research Worksheet

A consultant who has worked in a specific industry for twelve years and is launching a new service offering for that sector. She believes she knows her market well because of her tenure. When pressed, her market understanding is based on pattern recognition from her own projects, not on data about the broader market - size, growth, competition, unmet need. She hasn't had to research what she already believes she knows.

Frame the worksheet as a knowledge audit, not a research assignment. 'You have twelve years of industry knowledge. This exercise asks where that knowledge comes from - direct experience, data, or assumption. The five questions aren't asking you to learn what you already know. They're asking you to grade how well you know it and what the evidence is.' The resistance is expertise identity: she believes research is for people who don't have her background. Name the difference between pattern recognition and data: 'Experience tells you what you've seen. Research tells you what the market is.'

Watch the evidence column specifically. Clients with deep experience often populate the answer fields confidently but leave the evidence column thin - 'I've seen this' or 'this is common knowledge' rather than data sources, studies, or structured observations. Also watch Question 3 (competition): professionals with strong client relationships often underestimate competitive alternatives because they don't see clients shopping. If she grades herself high on competition understanding without being able to name five competitors, probe.

Start with the evidence grades. 'Where did you grade your evidence as high - A or B - and what's the actual source?' Then focus on the lowest-graded items: 'This is where you're operating on assumption rather than data. If you were wrong here, what would that mean for the offering?' The question that creates movement: 'Which of these five questions would most change your positioning if the answer turned out to be different from what you believe right now?'

A corporate executive leaving a Fortune 500 role to launch a consulting business in a sector adjacent to her experience. She has functional expertise (finance, operations) but no existing knowledge of the consulting market she's entering - its buyers, typical deal sizes, competitive landscape, or growth dynamics. All five worksheet questions are genuine research assignments, not knowledge audits.

Frame this as building from zero. 'Unlike cases where you have experience to audit, here all five questions are open. We're going to work through each one and decide what research would actually answer it - not what would be interesting to know, but what you need before you can make a credible offer.' The resistance here is usually urgency: she wants to launch and research feels like delay. Name the risk of skipping it: 'Every assumption you don't test becomes a surprise later, usually at the wrong moment.'

Watch which questions she answers immediately versus where she draws a blank. The blank questions are the gaps her launch plan doesn't account for. Also watch whether her answers are about the market or about herself - clients pivoting often conflate 'what I can do' with 'what the market needs,' and the worksheet will surface that if she fills it honestly. Question 4 (what do customers pay?) is frequently left blank by career switchers who haven't done price research.

Start with the questions she left blank. 'These are your research assignments before you launch. Which one, if you got the answer wrong, would cost you the most?' That narrows to the highest-stakes unknowns. Then: 'What's the fastest way to answer Question 4 - not from a survey, but from the market itself?' The question that creates movement: 'What do you know well enough to launch on, and what do you need to verify before you can price or position with confidence?'

A small business owner, seven years in, growing steadily by referral. He has never done formal market research and interprets the worksheet as something for startups. His actual challenge: growth has plateaued and he doesn't know why. His intuitions about his market are drawn entirely from the clients who have found him - which is a biased sample. He doesn't know what the market he's missing looks like.

Reframe the worksheet for an existing business context. 'This isn't a startup exercise - it's a market health check. After seven years, your understanding of your market comes entirely from the clients who chose you. This worksheet asks about the clients who didn't - who else is out there, what they're paying, and where your competitors are finding them.' That reframe usually gets engagement because it connects to the plateau. 'The reason growth has flattened is almost always somewhere in these five questions.'

Watch Question 2 (market size) and Question 3 (competition). Business owners with referral-built practices often dramatically underestimate both - they know the clients in their network and not the market outside it. Also watch Question 5 (unmet need): clients who have been in business for years sometimes can't name what their market is missing because they've been delivering the same thing for so long they've stopped listening for the gaps.

Start with the evidence grade on Question 3. 'How many competitors can you name, and how many of those have you looked at in the past six months?' Then: 'Who are your clients' alternatives if they don't hire you - not competitors you compete with, but alternatives they actually use?' That question often surfaces that clients don't know what they're competing against. The question that creates movement: 'If you answered Question 5 with a need your current offering doesn't serve, what would that tell you about the next thing you build?'