Company Deep Dive

What This Builds

A research brief that makes you the most prepared person in the room before a sales pitch, partnership discussion, or business engagement.

Not a summary of their website. Not industry boilerplate. Real intelligence:

• Real company size/revenue/locations -- triangulated from permits, employee count, review velocity
• Tech stack assessment -- what software they are actually running (or not)
• Top pain points with $ estimates -- specific to their scale, market, and review patterns
• Decision-maker profiles -- names, titles, tenure, how they think
• THE HOOK -- their own words about their pain, pulled from job postings, website copy, or review responses
• Reputation data -- review counts, ratings, complaint patterns, response behavior

When you walk in with this brief, you are not selling. You are diagnosing.

When to Use

• Before any enterprise sales call or pitch where close rate matters
• Before a first meeting with a potential client
• Before a partnership discussion
• Before competitive analysis
• Any time "I Googled them" is not enough

Time investment: 15-45 minutes depending on depth and company complexity.

The 4-Agent Parallel Research Model

Run these four research lanes in parallel. Each owns a distinct lane. No duplication, no gaps.

Agent A: General Deep Dive

Mission: Paint the full picture -- who they are, what people say about them, and most importantly, what they have said about their own pain.

Sources to hit:

• Company website (all pages, especially About, Team, Careers, blog posts)
• Google Maps listing (review count, rating, response patterns, Q&A)
• Review platforms (Yelp, G2, Capterra, BBB, industry-specific)
• LinkedIn company page (employee count trend, recent posts, job activity)
• Social media (community engagement, complaint threads)
• Job postings on Indeed/LinkedIn (THIS IS GOLD -- see The Holy Grail section)
• Recent news mentions, press releases
• Podcast appearances or interviews by leadership

What to produce:

• Company narrative (founding story, growth arc, current positioning)
• Review pattern analysis (what customers love, what they complain about)
• Social proof signals (awards, certifications, association memberships)
• THE HOOK (their own words -- mandatory output)

Agent B: Permit and Corporate Research

Mission: Get the hard facts -- legal entity, officers, founding date, license status.

Sources to hit:

• State contractor license lookup (varies by state and industry)
• Secretary of State / corporate registry
• Permit aggregators (e.g., BuildZoom for construction/trades)
• Government contract databases (USASpending.gov, SAM.gov)

What to produce:

• Legal entity name and structure
• Officer names and titles (these are your actual decision-makers)
• Founding date
• License number and status
• Total permit/project volume (if applicable)
• Geographic footprint
• Any disciplinary actions or complaints on record

Agent C: Competitive Landscape

Mission: Understand where this company sits in their market.

Sources to hit:

• Search "best [service] in [city]" -- who shows up alongside them?
• Review comparison across competitors
• LinkedIn search for similar companies
• Industry ranking sites and association membership lists

What to produce:

• Top 3-5 named competitors with basic profiles
• Review comparison table (count, rating, recency)
• Differentiators: where does the target company win? Where do they lose?
• Market position: dominant player, challenger, or niche operator?
• Gaps the competitor set reveals

Agent D: Financial and Scale Signals

Mission: Triangulate revenue and true scale from proxy signals.

Sources to hit:

• LinkedIn employee count (and trend over time)
• Job postings (count of open roles as growth proxy)
• Public financial databases (Dun & Bradstreet, ZoomInfo)
• Government loan databases
• Physical footprint signals (locations, fleet, real estate)

What to produce:

• Revenue triangulation (show your work)
• Employee count estimate
• Growth signal (hiring, new locations = expanding; layoffs, review decline = contracting)

Wave Structure

Wave 1: Corporate Fundamentals (Agent B only, 5-10 min)

Run Agent B first. Corporate and permit data grounds everything else. You need the legal entity name to search correctly on other platforms.

Wave 2: Market Position (Agents A + C in parallel, 15-25 min)

Launch A and C simultaneously. The qualitative picture and competitive picture are independent research lanes.

Wave 3: Financial Triangulation (Agent D, 10-15 min)

Agent D runs last because revenue triangulation requires inputs from the other agents.

The Holy Grail

The single most valuable thing you can find is something the company said about their own pain.

Why it matters: When you walk in and say "I noticed you wrote on your website that you can't keep up with demand" -- you are not selling anymore. You are reflecting their reality back to them.

Where to find it:

1. Job postings -- Every job posting is a company admitting a gap.
   • "Dispatcher needed immediately" = scheduling is breaking
   • "Experienced CSR to handle high call volume" = they are losing calls
   • "Office manager to implement processes" = they have no processes
   • Read the job description body, not just the title.
2. About page / Our Story copy -- Look for phrases like:
   • "Demand for our services has grown faster than expected"
   • "We have expanded to [X] locations"
   • These are pride statements that also reveal operational strain.
3. Owner responses to negative reviews -- Promises to improve reveal what they are currently failing at.
4. Their own marketing copy -- "We answer the phone when others don't" means phone coverage is a known industry problem.

Revenue Triangulation Formula

Method 1: Volume-Based

(Total projects/permits in trailing 12 months) x (average project value)
= Revenue floor estimate

Method 2: Employee Count

(Total employee count) x (industry average revenue per employee)
= Revenue midpoint estimate

Method 3: Review Velocity

(Total reviews) / (years in business) = annual review rate
(Annual review rate) / (industry review rate %) = implied annual job volume
(Annual job volume) x (average ticket) = revenue estimate

Reporting the Range

Always show your work. Never present a single number.

Method 1: $X - $Y
Method 2: $X - $Y
Method 3: $X - $Y
Triangulated range: $X - $Y (confidence level)

Research Brief Output Format

# [Company Name] -- Research Brief
**Prepared**: [Date]
**Confidence level**: [High / Medium / Low]

## Company Overview
- Legal entity, officers, founded, locations, primary services

## Real Scale
- Employee count, geographic reach, project volume

## Revenue Range
- Triangulated estimate with methods shown

## Tech Stack Assessment
- Detected / Not detected / Suspected (with evidence)

## Top 3 Pain Points
1. [Pain] -- Evidence: [source]. Estimated impact: $[X]
2. [Pain] -- Evidence: [source]. Estimated impact: $[X]
3. [Pain] -- Evidence: [source]. Estimated impact: $[X]

## Decision-Maker Profile
- Name, title, tenure, background, communication style

## THE HOOK
> "[Their exact words]"
-- Source: [where this was found]

## Reputation Data
- Google, Yelp, industry reviews, complaint patterns

## Competitive Positioning
- Market position, top competitors, where they win/lose

## Pitch Angle Recommendation
[Based on all of the above, the single strongest angle]

Anti-Patterns

• Never use generic industry stats as findings. Every finding must be company-specific and sourced.
• Do not stop at Wave 1 if the pitch matters. Corporate facts alone are not enough.
• Revenue estimates must show the triangulation method. No single-number guesses.
• Job postings are often the most revealing source -- check them first.
• Do not skip the review response analysis. How leadership responds to negative reviews reveals company culture.
• Do not conflate total employee count with field/productive headcount. Apply the right ratio for the industry.
• Never present findings without THE HOOK. If you cannot find something the company said about their own pain, you have not looked hard enough.

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