26Point Checklist

The framework · Customers & Growth

07 Product-Market Fit & Demand

9 sub-categories. The three numbers on each are the typical opportunity in that area across businesses — not your result.

Time4.6/10Financial9.6/10Automation7.6/10

These three numbers are researched cross-business benchmarks for the area — the typical opportunity available in it. They are not your score, not a forecast, and not a promise. What is actually critical depends on your business, which is what the audit is for.

7.1

Demonstrated demand

Time3/10Financial10/10Automation6/10
What this is
Evidence that people actually want this, shown by behaviour rather than by opinion.
Why it matters
Ten out of ten for financial potential, because nothing else matters if this is absent. Businesses spend years optimising marketing for an offer the market never wanted.
You have a problem here if
Interest is high and purchase is low, and you have been explaining that away for a while.
What to automate
Measure behaviour automatically: enquiry-to-purchase rate, repeat rate, and how much demand arrives without you paying for it. These three numbers, tracked over time, are a far better fit signal than any survey.
7.2

Conversion

Time6/10Financial10/10Automation8/10
What this is
The proportion of interested people who become customers, at each stage.
Why it matters
Conversion is the cheapest growth lever available — improving it costs nothing in additional traffic and compounds across every future marketing dollar.
You have a problem here if
You know how many enquiries you get but not what proportion buy.
What to automate
High automation value and usually straightforward. Stage-by-stage conversion reporting from the CRM, segmented by source, refreshed automatically. The drop-off point is almost always somewhere the business did not expect.
7.3

Willingness to pay

Time4/10Financial10/10Automation7/10
What this is
Whether customers will pay a price that makes the business work, without persuasion.
Why it matters
Willingness to pay is a demand signal, not a pricing detail. Persistent price resistance across an entire segment means the fit is wrong, not that the salespeople are.
You have a problem here if
Closing consistently requires a discount.
What to automate
Track discount rate and price realisation by segment automatically. Where volume allows, run structured price tests. The data collection is automatable; the decision to hold price is a nerve problem.
7.4

Repeat purchasing

Time5/10Financial10/10Automation8/10
What this is
Whether customers come back without being chased.
Why it matters
The most honest fit signal there is. Repeat purchase is also the cheapest revenue in the business — no acquisition cost, shorter sales cycle, higher margin.
You have a problem here if
Revenue is stable but the customer list turns over completely each year.
What to automate
Automated cohort reporting: of customers who first bought in a given month, what proportion bought again within 3, 6 and 12 months. This is a scheduled query, and very few small businesses have ever run it.
7.5

Customer retention

Time6/10Financial10/10Automation9/10
What this is
The proportion of customers still with you over time, and the rate at which they leave.
Why it matters
Retention compounds. A ten-point retention improvement is usually worth more than a ten-point conversion improvement and costs less to achieve.
You have a problem here if
You measure new customers monthly but not lost ones.
What to automate
Very high automation potential. Define what "lost" means for your model, then report retention and churn automatically by segment, with at-risk accounts flagged on inactivity thresholds.
7.6

Usage/engagement where relevant

Time6/10Financial8/10Automation9/10
What this is
How much customers actually use what they bought, where usage is meaningful.
Why it matters
Usage predicts renewal and referral before either happens. It is the earliest warning available that a customer is drifting.
You have a problem here if
Customers cancel and it comes as a surprise.
What to automate
If your product or service generates usage data, pipe it into the customer record with automated low-usage alerts. This is one of the clearest wins in the framework where it applies at all.
7.7

Referrals

Time4/10Financial9/10Automation7/10
What this is
Customers who actively bring you other customers, and whether that happens by design or by luck.
Why it matters
Referred customers convert faster, cost nothing to acquire, and retain better. Most businesses receive referrals passively and never ask.
You have a problem here if
You get referrals but cannot say how many or from whom.
What to automate
Automate the ask — triggered at the point of demonstrated satisfaction, not at random — and track referral source on every new customer so you know who your advocates are.
7.8

Organic demand

Time3/10Financial9/10Automation7/10
What this is
Demand that arrives without paid acquisition — search, word of mouth, direct approach.
Why it matters
Organic demand is the strongest evidence of real fit and the foundation of durable margin. A business that stops the moment ad spend stops has a channel, not a market.
You have a problem here if
Turning off advertising for a fortnight would stop enquiries almost entirely.
What to automate
Attribute every enquiry to a source automatically and report the paid/organic split monthly. The trend matters more than the level.
7.9

Market validation

Time4/10Financial10/10Automation7/10
What this is
Deliberate testing that the market wants what you plan to offer, before you build it.
Why it matters
Validation is the cheapest thing you will ever do relative to the cost of being wrong at full scale.
You have a problem here if
New offerings launch fully built, and some of them never sell.
What to automate
Automate the mechanics of testing — landing pages, ad tests, waitlists, pre-orders — so a validation test is a two-day exercise rather than a project. The willingness to kill a validated-as-unwanted idea is human.

Category totals

Time 41/90 · Financial 86/90 · Automation 68/90. The sum is the official roll-up; the averages above exist so categories of different sizes can be compared.