The market moved. Your positioning didn’t. Now growth is stalling and nobody can explain why.
The Relevancy Audit measures how fast your positioning is decaying, surfaces the market signals your team is rationalizing away, and builds a concrete roadmap to close the gap before competitors fill it.
Relevancy decays silently
Your positioning was right once. It matched the market, resonated with buyers, and drove growth. But markets don’t stand still. Buyer priorities shift. New competitors reframe the category. The problem you solve gets redefined — and your messaging is still anchored to a version of the market that no longer exists.
The dangerous part: relevancy decay is invisible from the inside. Revenue doesn’t drop overnight. Win rates erode gradually. The team blames execution, pricing, or sales enablement — anything except the actual cause. By the time someone says the word “positioning,” competitors have already occupied the space you vacated.
The Relevancy Decay Model
Relevancy doesn’t vanish — it decays through three distinct stages. Each stage has measurable signals, a different intervention cost, and a shrinking window to act. The Relevancy Audit identifies which stage you’re in, how fast you’re moving toward the next, and what it takes to reverse the trajectory.
Drift
Your positioning slowly diverges from market reality. Win rates soften. Messaging still works but requires more effort. The team attributes the friction to execution problems, not a positioning gap. This stage is recoverable — if you catch it.
Disconnect
Customers notice the gap before you do. They describe your value differently than you do. Competitors start winning with language that used to be yours. Sales cycles lengthen. The market is telling you something your internal narrative is filtering out.
Displacement
Competitors have occupied the space you vacated. The category has been redefined around you. Incremental repositioning won’t work — you need a structural reset. The cost of recovery at this stage is 5–10x what it would have been in Stage 1.
How we measure it
Relevancy Timeline maps when your positioning was last validated against market reality. Market Signal Inventory catalogs every signal your team is receiving but not acting on. Decay Rate Calculation produces a number — not a narrative — for how fast the gap is widening.
What you leave with
What makes this different
Pre-Workshop Signal Capture
1:1 interviews with each participant before the session. We surface the market signals your team is receiving but rationalizing away. The signal inventory is built from your team’s real blind spots — not generic positioning frameworks.
Decay Rate Calculation
Most positioning reviews produce opinions. This one produces a number. The Decay Rate Calculation measures how fast your positioning is diverging from market reality — and projects the timeline before you hit Stage 3 displacement.
Competitive Relevancy Mapping
Shows you exactly which competitors are moving into the space your positioning is vacating. Not based on their marketing materials — based on how buyers describe the category and who they now associate with the positioning that used to be yours.
When to run this workshop
CEO/Founder · VP Marketing · VP Sales · VP Product
Maximum 6 decision-makers. No observers.
Frequently asked questions
What is a relevancy audit?
A structured diagnostic that measures how fast your market positioning is decaying, identifies the market signals your team is ignoring, maps the gap between your current positioning and where the market has moved, and produces a concrete roadmap to restore relevancy with owners and timelines.
What is the Relevancy Decay Model?
The Relevancy Decay Model maps three stages of positioning decay: Drift (positioning slowly diverges from market reality), Disconnect (customers notice the gap before you do), and Displacement (competitors occupy the space you vacated). Each stage has measurable signals and different intervention strategies.
How much does the Relevancy Audit workshop cost?
$12,000 for a 2.5-hour facilitated session including pre-workshop diagnostic interviews, all workshop materials, and 5 post-workshop deliverables within 48 hours.
Who should attend the Relevancy Audit?
CEO/Founder, VP Marketing, VP Sales, and VP Product. Maximum 6 decision-makers. No observers — everyone participates in signal mapping and decay scoring.
What deliverables do we receive?
Relevancy Decay Assessment, Market-Positioning Gap Analysis, Signal Refresh Roadmap with owners and timelines, Competitive Relevancy Map, and a shareable Relevancy Scorecard.
How do we know if our positioning is decaying?
Common signals: growth stalls despite strong execution, win rates decline without product changes, customers describe you differently than you describe yourself, competitors win with messaging that used to be yours, or your category is shifting and your positioning hasn’t moved with it.
What happens after the workshop?
Within 48 hours you receive all 5 deliverables including the Signal Refresh Roadmap. Petrichor follows up at 30 days to measure whether decay rate has slowed and whether signal monitoring is active.
What makes this different from a standard positioning review?
Standard positioning reviews look at where you are. The Relevancy Audit measures how fast you’re moving away from where the market needs you to be. Pre-workshop diagnostic interviews surface decay signals your team is rationalizing. The Decay Rate Calculation gives you a number, not a narrative.
Run this workshop yourself.
Complete facilitator guide, slide deck, interactive worksheets, scorecard template, and pre-work document. Everything you need to run a structured session with your leadership team.
Or book a facilitated session for the full experience.
Bring the work forward
Start with the free instrument. Bring the artifact.
Complete the matching instrument and download its Workshop Pre-Read. The session starts from your result, open questions, and requested outcome; Petrichor will not ask you to repeat the exercise.
Relevancy Audit free instrument · The Outspend Trap free instrument
Schedule a briefing call.
We’ll assess whether your positioning is drifting, disconnecting, or already being displaced — and which intervention fits your timeline.
Book a Workshop