Why this piece
Know the field you play on.
Who you are, Your ideal customer and Your offer wrote down you: who you are, who you're for, what you charge. This one looks the other way. When your quote lands on the kitchen table, it's sitting next to two others. Who wrote them, and why did the customer pick one?
The count
Your last ten quotes: won, lost on price, lost on timing, never heard back. Your numbers, in one sitting.
The real competitors
The three or four businesses that actually take your work, taken from your losses, then looked up properly online.
Their questions
What customers ask before they say yes, in their words, with your answers. The page any assistant should read before it writes your website.
Sun Tzu · The Art of War
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
The last three pieces were about knowing yourself. This one is the other half. (Lionel Giles translation, 1910.)
Piece 5
Your losses first. Then the research.
Ask AI “who are my competitors?” and it'll search and hand you whoever ranks in your area. It has no idea which of them actually beats you.
Your last ten quotes do. So you start there: won, lost, or never heard back, and for each loss, who got it and whether the customer told you why or it's your read.
Then the AI goes online, pointed at exactly those names: their websites, their reviews, and what your customer sees when they search for what you do in your town. It checks what your customers told you against what it finds, and flags who's showing up in search but hasn't beaten you yet.
The three documents you leave with
Last ten quotes
Won, lost or no answer, one line of reason each, and every reason marked as what the customer said or what you think. The count on the first line.
Competitors
The three or four who actually take your work. What customers said when they chose them, what they promise, what their reviews say, with a link and a date on every line. Your opinion is in there, labelled as yours.
What they ask
The questions before the yes, in their words, with your answers. The ones you're tired of, on top. This is the one any assistant should read before it writes your website.
The four prompts
The last ten quotes
What happened on each, and why. Then the count.
Who took them
The businesses that got your jobs, from the losses.
Look them up
The AI researches those names, and what your customer sees online.
What they ask
Their questions, their words, your answers.
Prompt 1
Then it counts.
Of the last ten: how many you won. Of the rest, how many went on price, how many on timing, how many on something else, and how many you never heard back on. It goes on the first line of the document.
Then a second line: how many of your reasons for losing came from the customer, and how many are your read. The assistant doesn't comment on either. It doesn't know what your count should be, and it's told not to pretend it does.
Three things the assistant won't do.
It can't see past your ten quotes
The research widens the view, but the customers who never called you still aren't in the document.
It can't tell you if you're priced wrong
Four losses on price means four. The other quote may have left half the job out. What it means is your call.
It can't tell you if your market is shrinking
A run of quotes that went quiet could be a slow season, a new competitor, or nothing at all. Ten quotes can't tell those apart.
Those three were never its job.
Before you name anyone
Business names are fine. People aren't.
Use a business account where your conversations aren't used to train the model: a business plan, or training switched off in the settings, checked before you start.
- A customer's or competitor's business name, website and public reviews are public. Naming one is like pointing at its truck.
- A homeowner's full name, anyone who works at a competitor, and the names of people who write reviews are people. Leave them out.
- Your opinion of a competitor is fine, labelled as yours. An accusation doesn't go in any document.
- A competitor's quote a customer forwarded you stays out. What the customer told you the other price was goes in, as they said it.
Pro tip · NDAs
Signed an NDA with a customer? Have the AI read it before you name them, ask what it says you can't share, then stick to it.
That's a first read, not a legal opinion, and the NDA still wins. Not sure where the line is? Talk to someone who understands both the legal side and how these tools handle your data. That's what we do: call us at 1 877 654‑1877.
Where should we send it?
All four prompts and the three document outlines, in one PDF, in the language you choose. Nothing to pay, nothing to install.
- The link lands in your inbox right away, and the download button appears here too.
- No sales call because of this. If you want to talk to us, you'll write to us.
- We don't sell, rent or trade your address. Ever.
On its way.
The link is on its way to the address you gave. If it hasn't arrived in a few minutes, check your junk folder: that's almost always where it is.
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