Earned

The PR and Reviews Playbook

What this build is for

PR and reviews put someone else's voice behind your claims, at the moment a buyer stops taking your word for it.

Every other build is Kestrel talking about Kestrel. At some point in every purchase, that stops being enough. The COO wants to talk to a plant like theirs. The investor wants another portfolio company to vouch. The assistant, asked "is Kestrel Advisory any good?", goes looking for what others have written. This build is the Earned category's second build, beside Being named: the outside voices a buyer trusts more than yours, earned rather than bought.

It has three parts, and most firms run only one of them:

• Press and research: the trade titles and reports that frame the category's problems, and name the firms worth knowing.
• References: clients who'll take a call from a buyer like them, on request, quickly.
• Reviews: what clients write on the platforms buyers and assistants check.

The Earned category's three nods live here, each as a short section: analyst relations (rarely relevant to a firm of Kestrel's size, and said so), awards (worth entering only when the judges and the buyers overlap) and word of mouth (which this build can't buy, but can make easy).

The footprint, and what it reads from the chain

PR and reviews lead 4 cells and 7 moments, all at the checking step, where buyers go looking for someone other than Kestrel:

But its reach is far wider than its lead. It supports 15 more cells, the widest support of any build except the website: the triggers for the COO, owner, finance director and investor (where the benchmark's press coverage frames the problem), the owner's and investor's options, comparing for the COO, owner, investor and assistant, the finance director's numbers at the board, the owner's and finance director's checking, and the owner's and investor's follow-on. In almost every one, the job is the same: Believed, from a voice that isn't Kestrel's.

What it reads, and never rewrites:

Its slice of the Score, and its own audit

This build's part of the Selectability Score is Believed: the share of what's said about Kestrel that's accurate, and backed by someone other than Kestrel. It leads seven moments and touches Believed in 15 more cells.

The COO's checking scores well because Kestrel's references, when they're found, are good. Everything else is thin. The assistant moment is the clearest: asked about Kestrel by name, assistants mix it up with a mining-services firm, find no reviews, and cite an old directory listing.

The audit.

That last row is the one to hold on to. Word of mouth is already Kestrel's biggest channel. It works despite the firm, not because of it.

Step 1: the shape, press, references, reviews

The shape is the outside voices the category is judged by: who buyers ask, and who assistants read. It's knowable. Being named's first scan already counted the sources assistants cite for Kestrel's questions; add the people buyers ask in person.

Analyst relations, as a nod. For a 60-person firm selling to mid-sized plants, analysts don't shape the shortlist. Revisit only if large manufacturers' procurement teams start asking for analyst coverage.

Awards, as a nod. Enter only awards whose judges are the people Kestrel sells to, and only with a confirmed result. A business award judged by bankers moves no moment; an operations award judged by plant leaders can move an owner's checking.

Step 2: coverage, one story or review per judgement that lacks outside support

The coverage unit is a judgement a buyer makes that needs someone else's voice: not "get more press", but "the finance director needs someone other than Kestrel to say the savings were real". For each of the 22 cells this build leads or supports, write down the judgement, whose voice would settle it, and where the buyer or the assistant would find it.

That's eight judgements across 52 moments. Each one names a voice, which tells you whether the job is press, a reference or a review.

Step 3: gaps, biases and jobs

Two rules come out of the jobs. Ask only after a confirmed result: a reference or review before the 90-day check is a favour; after it, it's evidence. And never write the outside voice yourself: an edited quote, a drafted review or a paid list place is Kestrel talking in a disguise, and assistants, editors and buyers are all getting better at noticing.

Step 4: reconcile, the outside-voice plan

Seven programmes. Every judgement has one. The references and reviews come first because they're cheap, quick and decided by Kestrel's own clients. The press comes second because it depends on the benchmark, which comes once a year.

Rejected, with reasons:

• A press release for every win. No judgement asks for it, and trade editors stop opening them.
• Paid placements in "best of" lists. That's advertising; if Kestrel runs it, it's labelled as such in the Advertising playbook.
• Incentives for reviews. It breaks the platforms' rules and the claims rule, and a review a buyer suspects is worse than none.
• A referral fee. Owners refer because they were helped. Paying turns a favour into a sales job, and changes how the next owner hears it.

The anatomy library

Four rules hold for every outside voice:

• Their words, never yours. Brief a reference on what the buyer will ask; never on what to say.
• After the result, not before. No reference or review before savings are confirmed.
• Matched to the reader. A finance director's reference for a finance director; a plant manager's for a plant manager.
• Easy to say no to. A client who says yes reluctantly gives a reluctant reference.

Briefs

Two levels: the programme brief (once, for each of the seven programmes) and the asset brief (for each pitch, reference or request).

PROGRAMME References
JUDGEMENTS Plant like mine (by sector); my team; portfolio; owner's trust
MOMENTS COO · checking (4); improvement lead · checking; investor ·
checking;
               owner · checking
THE BENCH Packaging: Brennock (plant manager; improvement lead)
               Food and drink: Calloway (finance director)
               Metal and engineering: a fabricator's managing director
(owner)
               Plastics: none yet; Hartwell after its 90-day check
               Investor: none yet
READY WITHIN One week of a request
ASKED After the 90-day check, by the lead engineer who did the work
LIMIT No client takes more than four calls a year
OWNER Managing partner
MEASURE Days from request to call; deals that move after the call

ASSET Reference brief: Brennock's improvement lead, for Hartwell's
THE CALLER Sam Ito, improvement lead, Hartwell Plastics (260 staff)
THEIR QUESTION "Will they work with us, or replace us?"
LIKELY WORRY That the review will be read by the COO as a verdict on Sam's
team
THE REFERENCE Brennock's improvement lead, who led the changes and ran the
next
               review without Kestrel
AVOID Asking them to say anything about price or the other bidders
TIME 20 minutes

The finished example: the benchmark pitch, a reference card and a review request, written in full

Three assets, one from each of the main programmes. Kestrel, its clients, its people and the editor are invented.

1. The story pitch, to the editor of a manufacturing title assistants cite.

• Subject: Mid-sized plants are losing 4% to 9% of margin to capacity they already own
• Hi Rachel,
• Our 2025 benchmark of 38 plant reviews in mid-sized manufacturers found the same thing again and again: output was flat not because lines were too small, but because changeovers, small stops and scheduling were eating the capacity. In the median plant, that cost between 4% and 9% of annual contribution margin. Six of the 38 had already approved a new line when the review started.
• Your readers are deciding capital budgets for next year now, and this is the finding most likely to change one.
• The method: every figure comes from measurements taken on the floor during a review, and the method note says which savings each client's finance team has confirmed since. The full report and the data by sector are attached.
• Our head of delivery, Mark Ellison, ran 14 of the reviews and spent 20 years running plants before that. He's happy to talk this week.
• Jo Brady, Kestrel Advisory

2. The reference card, sent to Hartwell's improvement lead.

• Your reference: the improvement lead at Brennock Packaging (240 staff, packaging)
• What changed: warm-up and changeover losses cut on the carton line; output from 41 to 47 cartons a minute; confirmed by Brennock's finance director. Brennock's improvement team led the changes, and ran the next review, on a third line, without Kestrel. What they can speak to: what it was like to have outside engineers on the floor; how the findings were credited; what their team kept. Booking: a 20-minute call this week. Reply with two times and we'll confirm.

3. The review request, to Calloway Foods' finance director, after the 90-day check confirmed the savings.

• Subject: Thank you, and one small favour
• Michael, thank you for confirming the savings on the filling line. Scrap from 4.1% to 2.6% is a result your team made stick, and it's good to have it in your own figures.
• If you'd be willing, a short review on [platform] would help other finance directors in your position. What helps most is what you were worried about before the review, and what you found afterwards. The link is below; it takes a few minutes.
• And if you'd rather not, that's completely fine: the result speaks for itself.
• Priya Raman

What to notice. The pitch leads with a number and a reason to run it now, and offers the method before the editor asks. The reference card tells the buyer exactly what the reference can speak to, so the call is about their question, not a general endorsement. The review request asks after the result, suggests what's useful without suggesting what to say, and makes saying no easy. Three assets; Kestrel needs about 40 of them a year.

Templates

The reference bench (one row per client willing to take calls)

The review tracker (one row per confirmed result)

The press log (one row per pitch)

The reference brief

CALLER [name, role, plant, size]
THEIR QUESTION [in their words]
LIKELY WORRY [what they'll really want to know]
THE REFERENCE [who, and what they can speak to]
AVOID [what the reference shouldn't be asked to cover]
TIME [minutes]

In the campaign plan

Most campaigns make a claim; this build supplies the outside voice that makes it believable. The rule: no campaign makes a claim without naming the outside voice that backs it.

The last row matters. A campaign can wait for its outside voice. It can't make one up.

Running it

Who owns what. At Kestrel, the managing partner owns the reference bench, because references are relationships, not marketing. The marketing lead owns the press log and the review tracker. Every request to a client comes from the person who did the work.

Word of mouth, as a nod. It can't be run, but it can be made easy and noticed. After every confirmed result, send the client the forwardable paragraph. When a new enquiry names who referred them, the managing partner thanks that person in writing the same week. Kestrel's 22 referrals last year went unthanked.

Common mistakes

The bias to watch in the team: reticence about asking. Most professional firms feel that asking a client for a reference or a review imposes on them. A client whose savings are confirmed usually wants to help; not asking leaves the next buyer to take Kestrel's word for it.

The business check and the measures

• Revenue: references and reviews sit closest to signed work; the press supports the earliest moments. Start with the bench.
• One truth: every result a reference or review mentions is a signed claim. If a client says something Kestrel can't sign, it isn't quoted.
• The proof is real: no outside voice before a confirmed result. Two of last year's nine reviews have one; the 90-day check is what changes that.
• Capacity: a reference call costs a client 20 minutes. Four calls a year each means the bench must grow with the deals.

The Loop for this build

Each quarter the Loop (step 11) reads the bench, the reviews and the press log beside the Score's Believed, and asks: for each judgement a buyer makes, is there now a voice other than Kestrel's to settle it?

What Kestrel's first year would look for. References within a week by the end of the first quarter, with a plastics reference once Hartwell's savings are confirmed. Reviews from finance directors on both cited platforms by mid-year, and the assistant's answer to "is Kestrel any good?" naming the right firm, with a review. Then the benchmark's coverage, which moves the slowest and the furthest: the moment a trade title quotes Kestrel's 4% to 9%, every assistant answer that cites it carries Kestrel's name into a trigger moment Kestrel has never reached.

Shapes by business type

Feeling a bit overwhelmed?

You should be, a little. One firm: eight judgements across 52 moments, seven programmes, a reference bench by sector and role that can answer within a week, reviews asked for only after confirmed results, a benchmark placed in the titles assistants read, and wrong facts chased down wherever they've spread. Most firms send a press release when they hire someone and call it PR.

RocMode does part of the heavy lifting:

• Where the outside voices count. Its scan records which sources the assistants cite when your buyers ask, so you know which titles, lists and platforms matter in your category.
• What's being said about you. Across five AI assistants, it records whether you're named and who's named instead, moment by moment.

Join the RocMode beta