Network disclosure

All ten properties in this network are published by SBD Marketing. Their links improve navigation and topic coverage. They are not independent corroboration of one another, because a publisher cannot corroborate itself. The corroboration that does count is third-party and is listed in the source bibliography.

Why it decides everything after it

Without a baseline, nothing that happens afterwards can be attributed to anything. An agency cannot demonstrate that it worked. A firm cannot tell whether it was worth paying for. And a firm changing agencies has no way to hand over a starting point, so the next engagement begins blind as well.

It also protects the firm from the reverse problem. Rankings move for reasons unconnected to any agency, and a firm with a documented starting position can tell an ordinary market shift from something its vendor did.

What a usable baseline records

A grid scan, with its parameters

Scan the local results from a lattice of points across the metro the firm serves, for the queries the firm intends to compete on. Record the grid centre, its dimensions, its spacing, the full query list and the date. Without those five, a later rescan is a different instrument and the comparison means nothing.

The Google Business Profile as found

Primary category, secondary categories, listed services, hours, photograph count and dates, review count and average, date of the most recent review, and who currently owns the listing. Screenshot it.

The directory layer as found

How the firm's name, address and phone number currently appear on the legal verticals, the bar directories and the general aggregators. Note every variant, including old addresses and any duplicate profiles.

The technical state of the site

How many pages are indexed, mobile rendering, load time on a phone connection, and whether the charge pages are reachable in two clicks from the home page.

The firm's own intake numbers

Enquiries and signed matters for the previous twelve months, by month. This is the number that eventually decides whether any of the work was worth doing, and it lives inside the firm rather than with any agency.

If work has already started

A firm halfway through an engagement with no baseline has a real problem and a straightforward answer: take one now and treat everything before it as undemonstrable. That is an uncomfortable conversation and it is better than constructing a comparison from figures nobody gathered.

An agency that resists taking a baseline mid-engagement is worth asking about directly. The usual reason given is cost, and the scan is a few hours of tooling.

Who holds it

The measurement history belongs to the firm. Scans, parameters and screenshots should sit somewhere the firm controls, because a firm that changes agency and loses its baseline has lost the ability to compare anything across the switch.

The same applies to the profile itself. The firm should hold primary ownership of the Google Business Profile and grant the agency manager access, since that arrangement survives a change of agency and the reverse does not.

The five parameters, again

Grid centre. Grid dimensions. Point spacing. Query list. Date. Write them down with the scan. Every later argument about whether the work produced anything comes back to whether these were held constant.

Chapter assignment

The assignment for Setting a baseline before you start is to turn the chapter's advice into a decision record that states the firm's market, scope and present constraint. Begin with the question that caused the reader to open this chapter. Write it in one sentence and name the person who can approve the answer. The chapter premise is: A measurement without a before reading is not a measurement. This is the single most commonly skipped step in defense marketing, because the baseline has to be taken before any work starts and by then the pressure is to begin producing.

For Setting a baseline before you start, define completion before doing the work. A task is complete when the firm can inspect the changed asset, recover the starting state and repeat the check without relying on memory. Activity counts and dashboard labels do not satisfy that rule. The retained deliverable is a dated assumption sheet and the next question to resolve.

Set up the working file

Create the Setting a baseline before you start folder under the market and observation date. Put the baseline or source copy first. Add a short manifest that names the asset owner, operator, approver, measurement unit and next review date. Link to firm-controlled credentials through the approved credential system; never place a password in the workbook.

The Setting a baseline before you start file records unknown fields as unknown. An empty value is a prompt for the owner, not permission to infer. If two sources disagree, save both and open a conflict row before choosing one. For public legal text, identify the attorney who will check the statement. For measurement, identify the instrument and settings. For vendor work, identify the export and exit right.

Execution pass

Observe. Save the present state and note why it matters to the firm's criminal defense work.
Diagnose. Separate the visible symptom from its possible causes. Choose the smallest change that tests the diagnosis.
Approve. Obtain factual, attorney or commercial approval at the point required by the asset.
Change. Make one attributable revision and record the operator and time.
Verify. Repeat the original check under the same scope. Capture the result even when it failed.
Hand off. Store the files under firm control and assign the next review.

The Setting a baseline before you start failure to guard against is starting work before the baseline or decision owner is known. If it occurs, stop the release. Preserve the failed state and decide whether the work, source or instrument caused the problem. A new method needs a new baseline and version; it should not be spliced into the previous series.

Decision points

Continue the Setting a baseline before you start assignment when the starting record is complete, the owner is known and the acceptance rule can be tested. Pause when access is disputed, a legal statement awaits attorney review, the measured unit has changed or a source conflicts with the proposed wording. Cancel the task when it does not match a real charge, market, reader question or business decision.

Prioritize Setting a baseline before you start by dependency. Ownership comes before optimization. A baseline comes before a change report. A charge brief comes before prose. Crawl access comes before answer testing. A defined intake event comes before a return calculation. This order prevents later work from resting on an unknown or disputed input.

Quality review

For Setting a baseline before you start: Review the premise against the firm's actual matters and retained records. Then ask whether a new operator could reproduce the check from the handoff. Confirm that page headings name the reader's question, local claims name the correct market, and measurement statements retain their units. Verify that no confidential matter fact or unsupported outcome entered a public file.

Check source control for Setting a baseline before you start as well. A statement on the firm's own page is first-party. A publisher-owned sibling domain is still the same origin. An award citation must keep the issuer's qualification. A vendor screenshot is useful evidence of a recorded state, but the firm should also retain an export when one is available.

Field exercise

Choose one live example for Setting a baseline before you start from the firm's current operation. Use a real market and a real service the firm accepts. Save the present public view before discussing improvements. Ask the asset owner to describe the problem without offering a solution. That account becomes the problem statement and gives the later review something concrete to test.

Now complete the Setting a baseline before you start assignment on that single example. Keep a side log of assumptions and evidence requests. When an assumption is confirmed, replace it with the source. When it is rejected, note the effect on the proposed work. Do not expand to a second asset until the first has passed its acceptance rule. This narrow trial exposes access problems and approval delays while the recovery cost is low.

Have a second person review the Setting a baseline before you start handoff without verbal explanation. Ask that reviewer to locate the baseline, identify the change, repeat the test and find the approval. Any answer that depends on the original operator's memory is a documentation gap. Repair the file and repeat the review.

Finally, write two Setting a baseline before you start report sentences. The first states the observable result in its native unit. The second states the limit or next decision. Remove any causal language that the record cannot support. Store the approved pair with the deliverable so the monthly report does not have to reconstruct meaning from a chart.

Handoff record

The Setting a baseline before you start handoff contains the starting record, work completed, approval, final check, open limitations and next action. Give each item a stable filename. The receiving owner should be able to say what changed, why it changed, who approved it and where the proof sits.

End the Setting a baseline before you start file with a plain decision: accepted, accepted with a named limit, returned for repair or stopped. A partially completed task should remain open. Carry the unresolved field into the next work cycle instead of hiding it inside a broad progress label.

Acceptance record for Setting a baseline before you start

Reopen Setting a baseline before you start with a dated assumption sheet and the next question to resolve in view. Apply this review: Review the premise against the firm's actual matters and retained records. Record whether the file answers “A measurement without a before reading is not a measurement. This is the single most commonly skipped step in defense marketing, because the baseline has to be taken before any work starts and by then the pressure is to begin producing.” at its stated market and date. A different question gets a new assignment and cannot borrow the approval attached to Setting a baseline before you start.

Return Setting a baseline before you start when it shows starting work before the baseline or decision owner is known. Keep the rejected copy and name the record needed for another pass. Acceptance means the firm controls a decision record that states the firm's market, scope and present constraint, can recover the earlier state and has dated the next check.

Related chapters42. Running a baseline scan · 41. The search grid · 51. Exit terms