Why We Publish Ranges and Not Client Names

Every so often someone tells me our case studies would be more persuasive with the actual numbers in them. They are probably right. We are not going to do it, and I want to explain why rather than leave it as a policy nobody understands.

What we publish

A case study on our site gives you the asset class, the state, a banded transaction size, and a percentage. More usable capital than a conventional sale would have produced. Then a line noting that figures are shown in ranges to protect client confidentiality and that every result is specific to one client's transaction, reviewed by that client's own CPA and attorney.

What you will not find is a name, a street, an exact sale price, or a date precise enough to be useful to anyone looking.

Why not

Three reasons, in descending order of how much they matter to me.

The first is that the information is not mine

A client's transaction size, basis, debt, and tax position are among the most private facts about him. He gave them to us because he needed an analysis, not because he was contributing to our marketing. There is a real difference between a client agreeing that his outcome may be described and a client agreeing to be identified, and firms in this industry blur it constantly.

The second is that these transactions are already partly public

Property records are public. Business sales get reported. In a given market and a given year, the number of commercial buildings that sold in a particular price band is not large. Add a state, an asset type, and an exact figure, and a determined reader can often close the gap.

The banding is not decorative. It is the thing that actually protects the client.

The third is that an exact figure implies a promise

If I tell you a seller kept a specific number of additional dollars, the natural inference is that you would too. You would not. His basis is not your basis. His depreciation history, his entity, his state, his other income, and his objectives are all different from yours, and every one of those inputs moves the answer.

A percentage attached to a described situation is a data point. An exact dollar figure attached to a real person reads as a forecast, and I am not willing to publish forecasts.

What this costs us

I will not pretend it is free.

Ranged figures are less vivid than exact ones. Anonymous clients are less credible than named ones. I am aware that a competitor willing to publish a testimonial with a photograph and a number has produced a more compelling page than ours.

I have decided I can live with being less compelling. Anyone who cannot maintain a client's confidence in a marketing document should not be trusted with a client's tax position.

The other side of the same standard

There is a version of this that runs in the opposite direction and I hold to it as well.

Our own materials have carried claims over the years that were more confident than the evidence supported. Percentages that came from a single engagement and got repeated as though they were typical. Superlatives that nobody had substantiated. We have been steadily removing them.

That work is not finished. Some of it involves going back through documents that have been in circulation for a long time, and I have had to correct language I wrote myself.

The rule I have settled on is narrow and I try to apply it consistently. A number goes in front of a client only if I can produce the analysis it came from. If I cannot, the number comes out, however much I liked it.

What you can verify

Since I am asking you to accept banded figures, here is what is available to you and what you should insist on from anyone in this business.

The methodology is described in full. What we ask for, what we calculate, what the deliverable contains, and what it will not tell you.

The comparison always shows the conventional outcome. Every analysis states plainly what happens if you do nothing, before it shows anything else. A firm that will not show you the baseline is not giving you a comparison.

The work is reviewed by your own advisors. Your CPA and your attorney see everything before you commit, and if they find a problem I want to hear about it.

And your own numbers, when we run them, are exact. The banding is a publication standard. It is not how we do the arithmetic.

This information is general and is not tax, legal, or investment advice. Every situation is different. Work with your own CPA and attorney before acting on any strategy.