Prepare a client-ready market brief

A client is weighing a location, a service line or an expansion, and you have a day rather than a retainer to answer it.

Who this is for

Written for Independent researchers, accountants, business advisors, economic development. You bring the commercial question; the published record behind it comes back with the answer, and you can see where each figure came from.

What to bring

Have these to hand before you paste the prompt. Anything you leave out should be asked for rather than guessed at.

The client's business or service
The geography under consideration
The decision the brief has to support

Try this prompt

Paste this where you connected HARBOR Port and replace the bracketed parts. It asks for sources and periods on purpose: that is what makes the answer checkable.

Prepare a one-page brief for a client considering [business or service] in [geography]. Cover the addressable business base, the population and income context, and the economic and labour trend. Put the source, geography and period beside each figure, tell me what would change the conclusion, and do not estimate the client's revenue.

Then ask a narrower question. These are the ones people ask next.

Rewrite it for a reader who does not know what a NAICS code is.

Add the two strongest reasons this would not work.

What the answer looks like

The shape below is the point of the workflow. If a response arrives without the periods and the source behind each number, ask for them before you use it.

One page, written for the client rather than for you
Every figure carrying its source, geography and period
The base rate, the trend, and the counter-argument
A closing note naming what the public data cannot cover

Limits to keep in view

Employer establishments and nonemployer businesses are different populations. They are never added together, and a page that shows both names each one.

Census, BEA and BLS series are published on different calendars and for different periods. Every figure carries the period and geography that were actually returned, not the one that was asked for.

Wage data is published for labour-market areas, which do not line up with counties or with a service area. When the geography does not match, the number is omitted rather than stretched.

Not answered by this data:

Your revenue, customers, bookings, pipeline or churn
Inventory, capacity, staffing rosters or payroll
Your actual utility bills, fuel spend or supplier quotes
Business credit, insurance premiums, or lending decisions
Permit, licence or certification status
A local forecast, a hazard estimate, or a legal opinion

Where the numbers come from

The answer is built from the published sources below. Each one keeps its own geography, period and definitions, and the answer states which was used.

Census American Community Survey
Census County Business Patterns
BEA regional accounts
BLS employment and wages

The exact names, and where to read the detail

bea

bea_county_gdp
bea_personal_income_series

bls

bls_employment_by_industry
bls_wages_by_occupation_geo

census

census_acs_demographics
census_cbp_market_size_by_naics_county

Scoped to what your plan reaches, and to the sources each workflow names. Reviewing the catalogue first is the cheap way to decide whether this covers your question: source catalogue.