Executive Summary
Compass pivoted on July 7, 2026: the critical path is now free scanner landing pages, not service-owner assessments. The Website Effectiveness Grid (18 categories) defines the public scan surface — 17 public landing pages, one per category, each running a free scan, capturing an email via magic link, and routing prospects into the Compass portal where they see results and get upsold toward paid tiers and eventually retainers. Wave 1 is the six digital-marketing categories (Visibility, Conversions, Analytics, Content, AI Readiness, Paid Media) plus the first-touch portal view that receives converts. Scanner technology is a parallel track led by Eric (CMP nearly complete, accessibility in place); landing pages ship with mocked scans until each real scanner lands. Assessments, pricing, skill sheets, and the BDM motion move downstream — they gate the upsell, not lead capture — and the paid-baseline offer to existing clients continues as a parallel secondary sales track.
Critical Path
- Build the category landing-page template — 0–100 R/Y/G scoring, magic-link email capture, F/S/M/L tier ladder, checks driven by the effectiveness grid.
- Build the six Wave-1 digital-marketing landing pages: Visibility, Conversions, Analytics, Content, AI Readiness, Paid Media (mocked scans until real scanners land).
- Build the first-touch portal view (EP1) — one saved-scan card plus locked teasers — so every landing page has a real destination and the funnel works end-to-end.
- In parallel: Eric's scanner track (CMP nearly complete, accessibility next) and the team's free-vs-paid grid feedback round, which together unlock real scans and category pricing.
- Waves 2–3 fill in the remaining 11 category pages (compliance first: Privacy retrofit of the CMP page, Accessibility, Security, Trust).
- Downstream: assessments, pricing, skill sheets, and BDM enablement convert scan leads to paid tiers and retainers — with the paid-baseline offer to existing clients running as a parallel motion throughout.
In short: landing pages + free scans → email capture → portal → upsell → retainers. The old path (1:1 meetings → pricing → skill sheets → BDM sales) still happens — but downstream, in service of the upsell, not as the gate to getting started.
Action Plan
Blockers & Risks
Blockers Requiring Patrick’s Decision
- – Compliance wave slot — when do Privacy (CMP retrofit), Accessibility, Security, and Trust pages ship? Their scanners are the most mature; decide whether any pull forward into Wave 1’s slipstream.
- – Free-vs-paid scan depth per category — the freeTier flags in the grid are a working draft; team feedback finalizes what each free scan actually shows. Shapes every landing page’s teaser.
- – Wave-1 target date — Aug 15 is a proposal, not a commitment. Confirm or adjust in the data editor.
Risks
- – Mock-to-real gap: landing pages ship with mocked scans; if the scanner track lags far behind page launch, public pages could over-promise. Keep mocked pages internal until each scanner is at least demo-viable.
- – Portal receiving state: every landing page routes converts to the portal; until the first-touch view exists, converts land on the retainer-client demo (wrong state). Action 16 closes this.
- – Upsell readiness lag: if the funnel produces leads before paid-tier pricing/deliverables exist, hot leads stall. The grid feedback round and downstream assessments need to stay only one wave behind the pages.
- – Parallel-track drift: the BDM/paid-baseline motion and the scan funnel must tell the same story (same tiers, categories, scores). The sales playbook was updated July 7 — keep it in sync as pages ship.
Wave 1 Gate Checklist
From data/milestones.js Phase 2 — what must be true for Wave 1 to be done. Target: Aug 15, 2026 (proposal).
- ✗Category landing-page template built (0–100 R/Y/G, magic-link capture, F/S/M/L ladder)
- ✗Visibility landing page built
- ✗Conversions landing page built
- ✗Analytics landing page built
- ✗Content landing page built
- ✗AI Readiness landing page built
- ✗Paid Media landing page built
- ✗First-touch portal view built (EP1: one saved-scan card + locked teasers)
Open Questions Still Pending
Wave 1 Blockers (must resolve to ship)
| Question | Owner | Impact |
|---|
| free-paid-scan-depth — What does each category's free scan actually show vs. gate behind paid? | Patrick + team (grid discussions) | Shapes every landing page's teaser and the upsell line |
| compliance-wave-slot — When do Privacy/Accessibility/Security/Trust pages ship? | Patrick | Wave-2 sequencing; timing of the CMP page retrofit |
Downstream (gate the upsell, not lead capture)
pricing-baseline (category pricing — deferred by design until scanners complete + team feedback) •
per-person-service-assessment (upsell deliverables) •
retainer-hours-fixed (retainer scoping) •
roi-kpi-selection / roi-baseline-data-access / roi-reporting-format / roi-target-setting (retainer ROI reporting) •
landing-page-production-hosting (Eric's track — production hosting + CRM wiring, documented here at a future date) •
x402-gateway (payment, deferred) •
greg-uptime-notification, spider-crawler-tool, ai-recommendations, ad-portal-deliverable-list, bench-display-names (later phases)
