The audit isn’t about how many categories you sell. It asks whether you know how much of your customers’ spending you already have, whether you chose your last expansion by distance or excitement, and whether your multi-category numbers are true.

Open your order data, your customer survey results if you have any, your email and SMS flows, and the plan for your next launch. Score each check 0 to 2: 0 if it failed or nobody can answer it, 1 if partly true, 2 if clean. A slide that says “multi-category customers are worth 3x” doesn’t count as an answer to any of these.

A category you can’t measure is a category you can’t defend in the next budget meeting.

The twelve checks

1. You know the hero’s share of wallet · 5 minLook at: Any estimate of what your customers spend in your category in total, with you and with everyone else.
   Good: A number from a survey of at least a few hundred customers in the last year, split by customer segment.
   Cost if wrong: You launch a new category while most of the money in the old one goes to competitors.
   Read next: Headroom Before Horizon
2. You know your rank · 3 minLook at: The same survey.
   Good: It asks which brands customers buy in the category and how they’d rank them, and you know what share of customers rank you first.
   Cost if wrong: You measure satisfaction, which predicts share of spend poorly, and miss the number that does.
   Read next: Headroom Before Horizon
3. The core is still growing inside the base · 4 minLook at: Revenue per active customer from the hero product, this year against last.
   Good: Flat or rising, and you can explain any fall.
   Cost if wrong: The new category hides a core that’s quietly shrinking, the pattern the adjacency research warns about most.
   Read next: The Adjacency Record
4. Candidates are scored, not pitched · 4 minLook at: How the last launch was chosen.
   Good: Every candidate was scored on shared customer, occasion, supply chain and proof, and the scores are written down.
   Cost if wrong: The loudest idea wins, and it’s usually the most exciting one, which is usually the furthest away.
   Read next: How Far Is One Step?
5. Fit was tested with customers · 3 minLook at: Research done before the last launch.
   Good: Customers were asked whether the product fit the brand and whether you’d be good at making it, before anything was built.
   Cost if wrong: You learn about fit from the sell-through, after the inventory is paid for.
   Read next: Will They Believe You Make It?
6. Multi-category value is reported with a before · 4 minLook at: Any report comparing multi-category and single-category customers.
   Good: It shows what both groups spent before the second category, not only after.
   Cost if wrong: You fund cross-selling on a gap that was there before anyone cross-sold anything.
   Read next: The 3x Customer
7. Cross-buyers are judged on contribution · 5 minLook at: Whether you can see contribution per customer, after discounts, returns, shipping and service.
   Good: Yes, and you know which cross-buyers lose money.
   Cost if wrong: Your cross-sell flow works hardest on the customers who cost the most.
   Read next: Cross-Buyers Who Cost You
8. Nobody is paid on categories per customer · 2 minLook at: Team goals and bonus plans, including agencies.
   Good: Category count per customer is reported, never targeted. Targets are on contribution.
   Cost if wrong: People find ways to hit the number that don’t help the customer or you.
   Read next: Products per Customer Is Not a Goal
9. Cross-category flows have a holdout · 3 minLook at: Your cross-sell emails, texts and on-site recommendations.
   Good: A random slice of eligible customers never gets them, and you compare the two groups.
   Cost if wrong: The flow takes credit for purchases most customers would have made anyway.
   Read next: Test the Nudge
10. New categories launch to the base first · 3 minLook at: The last launch plan.
    Good: Existing customers got a waitlist or early access before any paid acquisition, and the plan named a repeat-rate target.
    Cost if wrong: You pay to acquire strangers into a product your own customers could have told you was wrong.
    Read next: Launch to the Base First
11. Complementors are on a list · 3 minLook at: Whether anyone has listed the brands whose products make yours more valuable.
    Good: There’s a list, and for each candidate category someone has asked “build, buy or partner?”
    Cost if wrong: You build a product a partner makes better, and carry its inventory.
    Read next: Partner Before You Build
12. A kill rule was written before launch · 3 minLook at: The last launch brief.
    Good: It says what repeat rate and contribution by what date would end the line, and someone owns the call.
    Cost if wrong: Categories stay on the site because nobody decided to remove them, tying up cash and attention.
    Read next: The Next-Category Scorecard

Score as you go; your band appears when all twelve are in.

Read your score

If you sell one category today, checks 6, 7 and 9 score 0 and that’s fine: they’re about categories you haven’t added yet. Look at the other nine instead. A clean 18 on those nine means you’re ready to choose.

Do this

• Score all twelve checks this week with whoever owns the data, and read the chapter linked from your lowest check first.