Situation: Can pull data and brief clients. They pay once and disappear. The retainer never lands.
Start getting research retainers instead of one-off reports
Recurring research retainers — competitive intel, market scans, lead lists, category monitoring — for a named buyer niche. First paid retainer month is the close. The system is in the file. This page is the gates. No income guarantee.
Gates — not lectures
Inside
Diagnosis
Starting point
Can pull data and brief clients. Buyers pay once, then disappear. One-off reports, not recurring revenue. Not a productised SaaS. Not a community.
Full system is in the file behind buy.
Arithmetic
Margin from retainers. Tool costs. Data costs. Your hours.Identity, not a market rate.
Margin from your numbers. No invented retainer rates or client conversion claims.
Full tables stay in the file.
Roadmap
Gates · ordered
Niche lock. Research type lock. Deliverable lock. Pricing. First paid or STOP.
Full tables stay in the file.
Pitfalls
Kill conditions
Passive income thinking. Free samples to prove value. One-off reports as trial retainers. Underestimating research time. margin ≤ 0 ignored. Promising results from the research.
Full tables stay in the file.
Stack
In the file
Paste-and-run block, stop rules, margin calculator, client log. Research may involve personal data — UK GDPR applies. Data source compliance notes (web scraping, LinkedIn, paid databases). Tables stay in the file.
