← All workbenches

The Operator’s Library · Workbench

CEP Finder

People don’t remember brands, they remember them in moments. Category entry points are the situations that make a buyer think of your category in the first place. The more relevant buying situations your brand is strongly linked to, the more chances you have to come to mind when someone enters the category. This helps you list yours, rate them, and pick the few worth owning.

How this works

A category entry point (CEP) is a cue that brings the category to mind at the moment a need arises: a time, a place, a task, a feeling, a problem. Buyers rarely start from brands. They start from a situation (“the client’s books are behind and taxes are due”) and reach for whatever that situation makes them think of. Get strongly linked to more of those situations and you’re in more consideration sets, more often.

Walk the prompts below and write the buying moment for each one that fits your category. You don’t need all of them, fill at least three. The tool assembles your entry points, then lets you rate each on how often it happens and how credibly you can own it, so you leave with a shortlist of the two or three worth building on, not just a list.

Read the Category Entry Points concept in the Canon →

Example values shown. Edit any field to make it yours
Category entry point prompts

What kind of thing you are. It heads the list so the entry points read as “when they need <this>…”

Required

The moment in time or the event that kicks off the need. Deadlines, seasons, milestones, a thing breaking.

The physical or digital place they’re in when the need shows up.

The task or activity they’re in the middle of when they realize they need your category.

Who they’re with, buying for, or answering to when the need arises.

The emotional state or motivation in the moment. Overwhelmed, behind, anxious, ambitious.

The specific thing breaking or failing that sends them looking.

← All workbenches

An MMS Vegas Imprint · Las Vegas, NV

The Operator’s Library

Field manuals, guides, and tools for the people who have to make the system actually work — written from production, not theory.

Verified Current

Every manual and guide is checked against the current release and carries the month it was last verified.

Corrected Openly

When a tool changes or we get something wrong, the fix is dated and noted on the affected guide.

Built by an Operator

Written by one person running the same automations, checkouts, and campaigns these books document. By Brian Kasday →