The method

How we do it, laid out so you can check it.

What gets measured for your business is decided by the shape you are in, before we have met you. Every table below is read straight out of the engine.

RISE, mechanically

What goes into each step, and what comes out of it.

Reality

Your filings, your documents, the figures you enter

Out

A fact base with a source and a date against every line

Intelligence

The register, national statistics, the directory, rivals' own sites

Out

Your ground, the operators on it, and what they file

Strategy

Reality joined to Intelligence through the playbook

Out

Routes that stand, sized, with the arithmetic shown

Execution

The move you pick, and Synergy Hours if you want them

Out

What happened, recorded against what was expected

The playbook

Six shapes of business. Pick yours.

A shape is how a business earns and reaches its customers. A bakery and a florist share one; a plumber and a commercial cleaner share another. The shape decides which figures are worth finding, what is worth reading about a rival, and which routes to growth can stand. The trade sharpens it on top.

RestaurantCaféTakeawayPubConvenience storeBakeryClothing shopFlorist

What we go and find

12 figures, each with the decision it bears on

How many people are around in the day, against how many sleep here

from national statistics

How many people live within reach

from national statistics

What households here earn

from national statistics

How many places sell the same thing within reach

from the directory

How you show up against them

from the directory

Shops in your line opening and closing on your ground

from the register

What a customer spends per visit

from you

What what you sell costs you, against what it sells for

from you

How much of the day's takings come in the busiest three hours

from you

Rent against takings

from you

How much of the trade comes through delivery apps, and what they keep

from you

How much goes out of the back door to trade customers

from you

What we read about a rival

6 facts

How far away they are, from where they trade

from the directory

How they are rated, and by how many

from the directory

The price band the directory puts them in

from the directory

What they stock that you don't

from their site

When they open

from the directory

Whether they are part of a chain

from the register

How a business like this grows

9 of ten routes

Charge properly for the work you already win

for margin

Buy the capacity the demand is already asking for

for capacity

Sell the next thing your customers already ask for

for volume

Trade from a second place

for footprint

Open a route to customers you do not currently have

for volume

Stop losing the customers you already won

for retention

Make the revenue you have worth more per pound

for quality

Sell the same thing to a different kind of customer

for market

Defend what you would not want to lose

for defence

How it changes hands

Sale to another operator

A fitted-out site, the lease, and the footfall that walks past it whoever owns it.

Sale to someone who works in it

A counter they already run.

Sale to a group buying sites on streets like yours

A site on a street they want, and a name that could go on more of them.

Nothing in the playbook tells you what to do. Each figure says which decision it bears on; the move is sized in a simulation and accepted or rejected by you.

The simulation contract

Four models. Arithmetic you can check, with what it leaves out written down.

No distributions, no sampling. Every model is closed-form arithmetic on named inputs. Every input says whether it was filed, read from a document, told to us, or is a starting point yours to set. A result is a worst, expected and best case, each saying what it assumes.

How much work could you lose before a price change costs you money?

Contribution now is (price now − cost to deliver) × how many a month. At the new price, the number needed to keep that contribution is contribution now ÷ (new price − cost to deliver). Work you could lose is how many a month less that number.

Not factored in

How price-sensitive your customers are: the threshold is the answer to that question, not an input to it.

Season, and the month the change lands in.

A rival opening, closing or moving price.

The VAT registration threshold, where turnover is near it.

The wider economy.

Worst and best case

The new price settles a little low, in a quiet month.

The new price holds, in a busy month.

What would an extra unit of capacity have to do to pay for itself?

Contribution a month is work it adds at full use × contribution per unit × how much of it you would use, less the monthly cost of holding it. Months to recover the cost is the cost to add it ÷ that monthly contribution.

Not factored in

Whether the demand exists to fill it: utilisation is yours to set, and the model has no basis for it.

The time it takes to fill from the day it opens.

Financing cost, where the outlay is borrowed.

Season.

A rival adding capacity on the same street.

Worst and best case

The chair fills slowly, costs more to hold, and earns a little less per appointment.

The chair fills fast, costs less to hold, and earns a little more per appointment.

What would a subscription have to charge, and how many would have to take it?

A customer contributes times a year × (transaction value − cost to serve). A subscriber contributes the subscription price − times a subscriber would call × cost to serve. Subscribers needed to stand still is the current base's contribution ÷ contribution per subscriber.

Not factored in

Whether subscribers use more than they say they will.

Cancellations after the first year.

The cash brought forward by paying in advance.

Season.

Worst and best case

Subscribers use it half again as often and the price has to be trimmed to sell.

Subscribers use it a fifth less than feared and the price holds a little above.

How much extra trade does an offer have to bring in before it pays for itself?

Contribution per sale today is price − cost. The giveaway costs its item cost × items per qualifying sale × the share of sales that claim it, spread over every sale. The uplift required is contribution today ÷ contribution while the offer runs, less one.

Not factored in

Whether the extra sales come at all: the uplift being tested is a position, not a prediction.

Whether customers who come for the offer return without it.

The cost of telling people about it.

Rivals matching the offer.

Season.

Worst and best case

More people claim it and it brings in half the extra trade tested.

Fewer claim it and it brings in twice the extra trade tested.

A second reader

Four gates before anything reaches you.

A separate reader checks each stage of the engine's work and its verdict is kept on the record. A decline sends the stage back; nothing is quietly overridden.

Discovery

Was everyone on the ground found, and everyone found accounted for?

Qualification

Does each named rival sell what you sell, to the people you sell to?

Reasoning

Does every finding rest on evidence the record holds, and say nothing generic?

Simulation

Are the starting points plausible, and does the headline follow from the arithmetic?

Your Hub is built from your filed record on day one.

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