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Law 9 made the case for mounting a standing watch on your market the way Pinkerton’s agency kept its eye open while the criminals ran on memory and luck. The law tells you why. This companion tells you how. By the end of this piece you will have a competitor analysis file you can build in an afternoon and update in two hours a month, using nothing but public records that are already sitting in the open with your name on them.
There is no software to buy here and no subscription to sign. There is a spreadsheet, a short list of free sources, and a calendar appointment you actually keep. Five elements. Run them in order.
From the Watch to the File
A watch with nowhere to write things down is just worry. The reason most contractors never run real competitor analysis is not laziness. It is that nobody ever showed them the structure, so every attempt turns into an hour of poking around Google that produces a vague bad feeling and no record. Next month they start from scratch and get the same nothing.
The fix is a file with fixed parts. Same competitors, same signals, same sources, same schedule, every month. When the structure never changes, the comparison gets easy, because all you are doing is reading this month against last month and circling what moved. The circling is the whole job. Let us build the thing that makes circling possible.
Element One: Build the Watch List
You are not watching every shop in the phone book. You are watching the three to five that actually take work from you. Watching everybody is the fastest way to watch nobody. Here is how to find the real ones.
Open Google Maps and search your main service plus your city, the way a customer would. Plumber near me. HVAC repair plus your town. Note the shops that keep showing up in the top of the map pack, because those are the ones eating the calls you want. Then add the names you already know from the field, the outfit whose trucks you see on the same streets, the one your techs leave to go work for, the cheap operator your price shoppers keep mentioning. That short list is your watch list.
Write each competitor at the top of its own column in your sheet, along with the basics that do not change much. Business name, website, primary service area, how long they have been around if you know it. That header block is the spine of the file. You build it once and the monthly work hangs off it.
Element Two: Build the Signal Sheet
Now the rows. These are the signals you track on every competitor, every month, in the same order, so the file stays comparable. Pick the ones below that fit your trade and lock them in. Do not add new signals on a whim, because the moment the rows change, the month to month comparison breaks.
Pricing and promotions
Their published prices where you can find them, their dispatch or trip fee, and any promotion running this month. An eighty nine dollar tune up, a free estimate offer, a senior discount. Promotions are the loudest signal a competitor sends, because they cost him money and he only runs them when he is pushing for share.
Review count and velocity
Two numbers. The total Google review count today, and how many it gained since last month. The second number is the one that matters. Review velocity tells you who is closing and finishing real work right now, even when you cannot see a single one of their jobs. A shop adding twenty reviews a month is winning. A shop stuck flat is not.
Permit activity
Where it applies to your trade, the permits pulled in your county under each competitor’s name. Permit data is the closest thing the trades have to a competitor’s job log, and it is public. It tells you the kind of work they are landing and roughly where the money is moving before the trucks even show up on the street.
Hiring and advertising
Whether they have job postings up, and whether they are running paid ads. Both cost money and both signal a push. A competitor hiring three techs and running ads is gearing up to take ground. A man who knows that in advance can decide whether to meet the push or step around it.
Footprint changes
New location, new service area on their site, a sale or a roll up, or the quiet signs a shop is going dark. The franchise that just bought two independents in the next county is the single most important thing you can catch early, and footprint is where you catch it.
Element Three: Run the Pull
Here is exactly where each signal lives. Every source on this list is free and public. You are not breaking into anything. You are reading what your competitor published himself.
County permit portal. Most county and city building departments put their permit records online, often through a search portal. Search by contractor name or by address in your service area. This is your competitor’s job log, handed to you by the government. If your county is not online, a phone call or a counter visit to the building department gets you the same records.
Google Business Profile. Pull up each competitor’s Google listing for review count, review dates, recent photos, and any posts or offers they have published. The review count and the date of the newest reviews give you velocity in thirty seconds.
Their own website. Pricing pages, service area pages, financing offers, and any promotion banner. Contractors tell on themselves on their own sites. Check the service area page in particular, because that is where you catch a competitor quietly expanding into your ground.
Job boards. Search the competitor’s name on the big hiring sites. Open postings tell you they are growing and what they are paying, which is useful the next time one of your own people asks for a raise.
Ad libraries. The Meta Ad Library shows every active ad a business is running on Facebook and Instagram, free, to anybody. The Google Ads Transparency Center does the same for Google ads. Search a competitor and you can see exactly what offers they are putting money behind right now. Most contractors have no idea this is public. It is.
Element Four: Set the Cadence
Monthly. Two hours. A recurring appointment on the calendar, same day every month, treated like a paying customer you cannot reschedule. That is the entire cadence and the standing nature of it is the point of the whole exercise.
The first month takes longer because you are building the spine. Call it an afternoon. After that you are only updating numbers and circling what changed, and two hours is plenty. The contractor who runs this twelve times a year ends up with a year of market history no competitor reacting blindly can match. The one who runs it once, gets bored, and quits ends up exactly where he started, which is getting ambushed and calling it bad luck.
Element Five: Run the Read
A file full of numbers that never produces a decision is a scrapbook, and we warned you about scrapbooks in the law. The read is what turns the file into intelligence. It takes ten minutes at the end of each monthly watch and it has two questions.
First. What changed since last month. Go signal by signal and circle every number that moved. A new promotion. Review velocity jumping at one shop. A string of permits in a zip code you thought was yours. A new service area page. Most months a few things move. Some months nothing does, and a quiet month is itself a finding worth writing down.
Second. What does the biggest change mean, and what is the one move it points to. If a competitor went to an eighty nine dollar tune up, the read is not to panic and match him. The read might be to lean harder on the trust and proof that lets you hold your price while he buys cheap one time calls he cannot keep. If a franchise just pulled fifteen permits in your best zip code, the read might be to get a geo targeted page up for that zip this week, the way we built in Tactical 5. One change, one read, one move, written down. That is the file earning its keep.
Five Moves You Run This Week
Move one. Build the spine. Open a fresh spreadsheet. Search Google Maps for your service in your city, pick your three to five real competitors, and put each one at the top of a column with name, website, and service area. The spine is built. Everything else hangs off it.
Move two. Lock the rows. Add your signal rows and do not touch them again. Pricing and promotions, review count, review velocity, permit activity, hiring and ads, footprint changes. Same rows forever so the months stay comparable.
Move three. Run the first pull. Fill the sheet once, all the way across. County permit portal, Google profiles, their websites, the job boards, the Meta Ad Library and Google Ads Transparency Center. This is the afternoon that costs you the most. It is also the one that shows you things about your market you have never seen.
Move four. Set the appointment. Put a two hour recurring block on your calendar, same day every month, titled so you respect it. The file is worthless without the appointment. The appointment is what turns a one time curiosity into a standing watch.
Move five. Write the first read. Even on month one, force the read. Look across the finished sheet and write the single most important thing it told you and the one move it points to. Then do that move. A file that ends in an action is intelligence. A file that just sits there is a hobby.
Key Takeaways
- Competitor analysis fails for most contractors because there is no fixed structure. A file with fixed parts makes the work repeatable in two hours a month.
- Watch three to five real competitors, not the whole phone book. Find them where customers do, in the Google Maps pack.
- Track the same signals every month: pricing and promotions, review count and velocity, permits, hiring and ads, and footprint changes.
- Almost every signal lives in a free public source: county permit portals, Google profiles, competitor websites, job boards, and the Meta and Google ad libraries.
- Review velocity is the quiet truth teller. It shows who is winning work even when you cannot see their jobs.
- The read is the whole point. Each month, circle what changed and write the one move it points to, then do it.
Next in the Series
This tactical builds the file behind Law 9: Mount a Standing Watch and completes the second turn through the Intelligence domain.
Thursday we return to Positioning with Law 10: Build a Name Worth Paying For, the law of refusing to compete on price, anchored in the man who invented premium positioning two centuries before anyone called it that.
Three Ways to Apply the Laws
Echelon Intel Report on your own company and market: $197
Competitor Intelligence Report on a rival you need to beat: $297
Managed Websites built on the intelligence: $149 to $698 per month, build $997 to $4,994
The map was always there. This is just the first man drawing it for you.
Disclosure: Kore Komfort Solutions is an educational publisher for the trades. Some articles in this series reference third party tools and services through affiliate links, which may earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We only reference tools we would put on our own trucks. This article contains no affiliate links.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is competitor analysis for contractors, in plain terms?
It is a simple, repeatable file that tracks what your main competitors are doing, so you learn about their price changes, growth, and market moves on a schedule instead of by accident. You name a short list of real rivals, track the same signals on each one every month, and read the file for the one move it points to.
How many competitors should I track?
Three to five. The ones that actually take work from you, which you find at the top of the Google Maps pack for your service and city, plus the names you already know from the field. Tracking every shop in town spreads you so thin that you watch none of them well.
Where do I get the data, and is any of it private?
None of it is private. County permit portals, Google Business Profiles, competitor websites, job boards, and the Meta Ad Library and Google Ads Transparency Center are all free and public. You are reading what your competitors published themselves and what the government posts on their behalf.
What is review velocity and why does it matter so much?
Review velocity is how many new reviews a competitor gains in a month, not the total. It matters because it shows who is closing and finishing real work right now, even when you cannot see a single one of their jobs. A shop adding reviews fast is winning. A shop stuck flat is not, no matter how big its old total looks.
How long does this take each month?
The first build is an afternoon because you are setting up the spine and rows. After that you are only updating numbers and circling what changed, so two hours a month covers it. The standing monthly appointment is what turns it from a one time curiosity into real intelligence.
What do I do with the file once it is built?
Run the read. Each month, circle every signal that moved, then write the single most important change and the one move it points to. If a competitor cut his price, the move might be to lean on your proof instead of following him down. If a rival is pulling permits in your best area, the move might be to get a targeted page up for that area. One change, one read, one move, written down and done.