Market research
Walk me through how you’d present a competitive landscape analysis to your executive team.
Build the presentation backward from the decision the executives need to make. Open with that decision and the one finding that bears on it, then show where you win, where you lose, and what happens if nothing changes.
Close with two options, their costs, and your recommendation. Keep competitor profiles and feature grids in an appendix, and send the deck a day early so the meeting is for deciding.
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What executives need from a competitive readout
An executive team doesn’t want a tour of competitors. It wants to know what the evidence means for a decision it has to make. The skill on display is compressing a lot of research into a point of view tied to that decision. Communication counts as much as market expertise here, and the rubric rewards adjusting detail to the audience.
- A decision named in the first minute. If the room doesn’t know what it is deciding, every slide becomes a debate.
- One finding, stated plainly. The sentence you would want repeated in the hallway afterward.
- Your own position at the center. Where you win, where you lose, and why, organized around your company instead of around each rival.
- The cost of doing nothing. What happens over the next year if the plan stays the same.
- Options with prices. Two or three choices, their costs, and which one you recommend.
The same readout, outlined twice
The example is a home services marketplace that connects homeowners with plumbers and electricians. The team is deciding whether to spend next year’s growth budget entering three metros where the leading rival is strong.
“Slide one, market overview and category size. Slides two to six, one profile per competitor with funding, strengths, weaknesses, and pricing. Slide seven, a feature comparison grid. Slide eight, a two-by-two of price against service breadth. Slide nine, opportunities and threats. Slide ten, next steps.”
Each slide is sound on its own. The decision doesn’t appear until slide ten, so the executives spend nine slides guessing why they are looking at this. Competitor profiles also invite questions about the rival’s funding, when the question on the table is about your own budget.
“Slide one, the decision. Should we enter three metros where the leading rival is strong, or deepen in our current five? Slide two, the finding. We win where we have enough licensed pros to answer a request within an hour, and we lose everywhere else, whoever the rival is. Slide three, where we win and why, with response time and repeat bookings by metro. Slide four, where we lose, with the gap in pro supply in the three new metros. Slide five, what happens if we do nothing. Slide six, two options with costs, and our recommendation. Appendix, competitor profiles and the full data.”
The rewrite turns a story about rivals into a story about the one thing that decides wins, which is pro supply. That reframing is the craft. By slide four the recommendation feels close to obvious, which is how a good readout should feel.
The readout, walked through aloud
“I’d build the presentation backward from the decision. In this case the team wants to know whether to enter three metros where the leading rival is strong. So the first slide is that question, and the second is the finding. We win where we can get a licensed pro to a request within an hour, and we lose where we can’t, regardless of which rival is there. Then I’d show three things. Where we win, with response time and repeat bookings by metro. Where we lose, with the gap in pro supply in the new metros. And what happens if we stay put for a year. I’d use one chart, response time against win rate, and skip the feature grid, because executives skim grids. The close is two options with costs. One is to enter the metros with a pro recruiting budget first. The other is to deepen where we already win. I’d recommend the second and say what would change my mind. The competitor profiles go in an appendix, and the deck goes out a day early so the meeting is for deciding.”
An Exceptional answer handles the challenge before it arrives. Here that means having the cost of recruiting pros ready for the executive who asks why the company can’t simply recruit faster in the new metros.
A quick test for your executive readout
- Cover everything except the first two slides. Could an executive make the decision from those alone?
- Read the finding aloud. If it takes more than one breath, it is two findings.
- Count the slides about rivals and the slides about your own position. The second number should be larger.
- Find the cost of doing nothing. If it is missing, the room will assume it is zero.
- Check that the recommendation says what would change your mind.
The presentation round guide covers how to handle the room once the deck is up.
Follow-ups in the executive readout
| If they ask | They want to know | Answer with |
|---|---|---|
| An executive says your data is wrong. What do you do? | Composure and rigor | Ask which number, say where it came from and its limits, and offer to check it after the meeting without abandoning the recommendation |
| What would you cut if you had five minutes? | Prioritizing | Keep the decision, the finding, and the recommendation. Everything else moves to the appendix. |
| How do you present a finding about a product gap? | Handling sensitive material | Preview it with the product leader before the meeting so nobody is surprised in front of peers |
| Why not show all the competitors? | Judgment about relevance | Only rivals that affect the decision earn a slide. The rest wait in the appendix for anyone who asks. |
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Frequently asked questions
- How many competitors should an executive readout include?
- Only the ones that affect the decision, which is often two or three. More than that and the meeting drifts toward rival trivia. The appendix can hold the rest.
- Should I use a two-by-two or a feature grid?
- Use a chart only when it makes the finding faster to see. A feature grid rarely does that for executives, since it invites a row-by-row debate. One chart tied to the finding usually works better.
- How long should the presentation part run?
- Plan for about half the meeting and leave the rest for discussion. Sending the deck a day ahead lets executives arrive with their hardest questions, which shortens the presenting and improves the deciding.
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