Reality Assessment

Volume II: Looking Outward

This assessment maps how you see your commercial reality. There are no right answers, only honest ones.

Answer based on what you actually observe in your work, not how things should be or what the official line might say. Honest answers help more than polished ones.

The core question: Do we see the market as it actually is?

Progress: 0 of 32 questions answered
Customer Reality Capability & Proof Buyer Psychology Decision Dynamics

Does This Feel True?

1Rarely true for us
2Occasionally true
3Sometimes true, sometimes not
4Mostly true
5Yes, reliably true

About You

Lens 1: Customer Reality

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Do we understand who buys and why?

Problem Understanding

Q1 We can describe the customer's problem more clearly than they can.
The test is simple. If you explained the problem to a buyer and they said "that's not quite it," you have already lost. Not the deal necessarily, but the right to be heard as someone who understands.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q2 We know which customer problems are urgent enough to drive action, not just interesting enough to discuss.
Buyers discuss many problems. They act on few. Frustration is the engine of buying. If you cannot name the frustrations that actually move budgets, you are solving interesting problems rather than urgent ones.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q3 We know what "no decision" costs the customer.
Most teams treat inaction as laziness. It is usually rational self-protection. If you cannot articulate the price of inertia in financial, emotional and operational terms, you cannot shift it.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q4 Our problem statement aligns with the customer's Jobs-to-Be-Done.
The customer has a job they are trying to get done. It is usually not the job you think. Have you figured out what progress looks like in their life, or are you still describing progress in yours?
Rarely trueReliably true

Adoption Context

Q5 We know whether we are still selling to early adopters or the early majority.
Most organisations pretend they are further along the adoption curve than they are. Those first customers were unusual. They had risk tolerance and budget flexibility. The early majority lives somewhere else entirely.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q6 We understand what the mainstream buyer fears about our category.
Buyers do not fear your product. They fear what your product will make them responsible for. If they champion the purchase and it disappoints, their judgment is questioned. Do you understand the shape of that fear?
Rarely trueReliably true
Q7 We can see why now is the right moment for the customer to change.
Every purchase requires a "why now." Not "why this is good." Why this quarter. Why before the budget cycle closes. If you cannot answer "why now," you are relying on coincidence.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q8 We understand the real obstacles customers face when implementing change, not just when choosing a solution.
The sale is not the finish line. The customer who bought but cannot implement is a customer who will regret buying. Their implementation obstacles are your problem, whether you acknowledge them or not.
Rarely trueReliably true

Lens 2: Capability & Proof

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Can we prove we solve it?

Value Distillation

Q9 We have reduced our value from 100 features to 3 capabilities.
Reduction is not dumbing down. It is growing up. It is the discipline of saying: these are the three things that actually matter. If your pitch deck has nine bullet points under "Why Us," you have not done this work.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q10 We know which capability matters most to the economic buyer.
There is always one capability that makes the CFO pause and look up. The economic buyer is not wondering whether this will make work easier. They are wondering whether this will make them look smart or foolish in twelve months.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q11 We can show evidence for each capability, not just describe it.
Evidence is something the buyer could repeat to their boss without blushing. A number. A before-and-after. If your evidence requires the buyer to trust you first, it is not evidence. It is an invitation to faith.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q12 We have at least one piece of proof the CFO will take seriously.
Not the scientist. Not the enthusiast who would buy anything new. The CFO. The person whose job is to find reasons to say no. If your proof only works on people who already want to believe, it is not proof.
Rarely trueReliably true

Evidence Quality

Q13 Our narrative claims only what we can reliably deliver.
Most companies lie without meaning to. They tell the story of the future as if it were the present. They describe Version 3.0 while selling Version 1.2. Buyers have learned to discount enthusiasm by about forty percent.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q14 We can show value early, not just at full rollout.
Buyers want early relief, not promises of a golden age. Can you give them something in the first thirty days that makes them feel smart for choosing you? A small win they can point to when their boss asks how it is going?
Rarely trueReliably true
Q15 We can articulate how we lower the customer's risk.
Risk reduction is often the real value story, hidden behind features. Buyers are not primarily buying improvement. They are buying safety. If you can only name the upside, you are asking them to gamble.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q16 Our proof is simple enough for a non-expert to understand.
The person who decides is often not the person who evaluates. The decision-maker will hear your proof secondhand, summarised by someone who half-understood it. If your proof cannot survive that journey, it will not arrive.
Rarely trueReliably true

Lens 3: Buyer Psychology

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Does our story land?

Message Resonance

Q17 Our messaging uses words and phrases our buyers actually use when describing their challenges.
The buyer who hears their own words reflected back feels understood. The buyer who hears your words wonders if you understand. Their language is the door. Your language is a wall.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q18 Our value story resonates with different types of buyers.
User buyers want relief. Technical buyers want safety. Economic buyers want improvement they can measure. If your value story pleases only one of these, it persuades none. They are nodding to different music.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q19 We know the emotional obstacles the buyer faces.
Every deal contains unspoken fears. Political fear, reputational fear, integration fear. If you treat buyers like rational machines weighing costs and benefits, they will stall for reasons they cannot articulate.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q20 We make it easy for customers to compare life with us to life without us.
The buyer is running a mental simulation of both futures and seeing which one feels safer. If you do not help them run that simulation, they will run it themselves. Badly. With a bias toward doing nothing.
Rarely trueReliably true

Story Portability

Q21 Our value story can be retold inside the customer organisation without help from us.
Your champion has to walk into a room you will never see and explain why this makes sense. They have seven minutes and no slides. If they cannot retell your story upstairs, your pitch was a performance, not persuasion.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q22 A customer champion could explain why we matter to their CFO without our help in the room.
Your champion is your sales force when you are not there. If they cannot make your case without you, you are depending on meetings you will never be invited to.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q23 We can describe the cost of inaction in customer terms.
Not "you will save time." Try: "Every month you delay, your backlog grows by four hundred cases." Adults speak in tradeoffs. In specifics. In consequences that sound like Tuesday, not like a brochure.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q24 Customers tell us our story is clearer than our competitors'.
When a buyer says your story is clearer, they are saying "I can actually see myself buying from you. I can explain it to others." That is not decoration. That is the whole game.
Rarely trueReliably true

Lens 4: Decision Dynamics

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Do we know how they decide?

Stakeholder Mapping

Q25 We know who can kill the deal and why.
Most deals do not explode. They simply go quiet. Somewhere in that organisation is a person whose silence is a veto. They may not even know your name. You probably have not met them yet.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q26 We understand the political dynamics inside the customer organisation.
You might know the org chart. But do you know who owes whom a favour, who is protecting their budget, who championed the last failed project? The deal moves through a political landscape you cannot see.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q27 We know how our champion will justify the purchase internally.
Picture the meeting you will never attend. Your champion is explaining why this purchase makes sense. What words are they using? What objections are they anticipating? Have you equipped them to win?
Rarely trueReliably true
Q28 We have a strategy for empowering the internal coach.
The coach is the oxygen line. They want you to win and are willing to help navigate. Most sellers find a coach and then neglect them. If you do not give them ammunition, they run out.
Rarely trueReliably true

Process Navigation

Q29 We understand what "safety" looks like for the buyer.
Buyers do not choose the best option. They choose the least dangerous option. Safety is not a feature. It is the feeling that this decision will not come back to haunt them.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q30 We know exactly what progress looks like in this customer's decision process.
Deals move through emotional checkpoints. The moment the champion sticks their neck out. The moment the CFO stops being sceptical. If you cannot name these checkpoints, you are tracking activity, not progress.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q31 We know what will trigger a stall in advance.
Stalls are predictable. Budget freezes, reorganisations, competing priorities. You can name these stalls. You have seen them before. The question is whether you are watching for them or continually surprised.
Rarely trueReliably true
Q32 We can make "yes" feel safer than "not yet."
Your job is not to make "yes" exciting. Your job is to make "yes" feel like the lower-risk path. When "not yet" starts to feel like the dangerous choice, the deal moves. Not before.
Rarely trueReliably true

Your Reality Profile

How You See It

These are your perceptions of your commercial reality today.

Customer Reality
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Capability & Proof
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Buyer Psychology
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Decision Dynamics
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Your Pattern

Pattern is a heuristic suggestion based on lens balance, not a diagnosis.

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Diagnostic
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First Move
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Also worth exploring
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About This Assessment

This diagnostic surfaces patterns in how you see your commercial reality. It draws on research into buyer behaviour, sales effectiveness, and market positioning. The value lies in the conversation the results generate, not in the precision of the numbers themselves.