{"id":1847,"slug":"rule-match-capability-to-business-type","title":"R7 — Match the working-surface capability to the business type: booking + live availability for trades, calculator / assessment for consulting, queryable products + account for retail","kind":"rule","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["agency-methodology","customer-facing-tools","working-surface-capabilities"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** When recommending a working-surface capability for a client, match it to the business type and intent profile, not to a checklist.\n\n**The default matches:**\n- **Trades** (HVAC, contractors, plumbers, electricians) — [[capability-interactive-functionality]] (booking) + [[capability-live-frequently-updated-data]] (availability / status). Customers are largely transactional / local; AI Overviews appear rarely on local-intent queries.\n- **Consultancies / professional services** — [[capability-interactive-functionality]] (calculator / assessment) + [[capability-structured-queryable-data]] (case-study library). Customers are research-heavy; AI citation matters.\n- **Retailers** — [[capability-structured-queryable-data]] (queryable product data) + [[capability-account-state]] (cart, order history). Catalogue depth + repeat-customer state.\n- **B2B with long sales cycles** — all four often apply; sequence: structured catalogue first, calculator / configurator second, account third, live data fourth.\n\n**Why:** [[where-citability-case-strongest-vs-weakest-by-intent]] — the *findability / citability* case is strongest for informational / B2B research queries and weakest for purely transactional / local. The four capabilities cover the spectrum; the *specific* lever differs by business type.\n\n**How to apply:**\n- Pair with [[rule-most-businesses-need-at-least-one-of-four-not-all-four]] — these are defaults, not requirements.\n- The first proposal slide for any working-surface project: \"your customers do X; we recommend capability Y because it serves X.\"","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"capability-structured-queryable-data","title":"Capability 1 — structured, queryable data: content stored as records with fields, types and relationships so it can be filtered, sorted, searched, and assembled on demand","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"capability-interactive-functionality","title":"Capability 2 — interactive functionality: the visitor supplies input and the site returns a computed or looked-up result (calculator, quote, search, booking, configurator)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"capability-live-frequently-updated-data","title":"Capability 3 — live or frequently-updated data: content whose value depends on currency (availability, pricing, status, hours, inventory) refreshed on a cadence rather than written once","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"capability-account-state","title":"Capability 4 — account / state: the site remembers who the visitor is and what they have done (login, saved items, order history, progress) so returning visitors resume rather than restart","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"where-citability-case-strongest-vs-weakest-by-intent","title":"Where the findability / citability case is strongest vs weakest — informational / B2B research queries vs purely transactional / local intent","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-website-as-working-surface-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the website as a working surface of the business — four capabilities, AI-citation decoupling, freshness as a real signal (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:17.798Z","updated_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:17.798Z"}