1. Have I written down the criteria that matter?
A strong answer: I have five or so, with agreed weights.
A warning sign: I go by feel.
Growth & Leadership Brief
How to Decide Which Market Your Business Should Enter Next
Choosing a next market is a comparison, not a hunch. A simple, weighted scorecard forces the criteria into the open and shows where the evidence is thin.
1. The business problem
We could go several ways. How do we choose?
Growth opportunities arrive from many directions: a customer asks for something new, a competitor leaves, a neighboring region looks attractive. Without a structure, the choice goes to the most vivid story or the most persuasive person.
A scorecard does not make the decision, but it makes the reasoning visible and makes disagreements specific.
2. What the evidence can reveal
A market comparison uses a few criteria, each weighted by importance:
- Information gap Fit: how well your offer, skills and brand suit the market.
- Information gap Size and growth: how many customers and how fast the market is changing.
- Information gap Competition: how crowded it is and how strong the incumbents are.
- Information gap Cost and complexity of entry: capital, regulation, hiring and time.
- Information gap Access: whether you have relationships, channels or partners there.
The weights are a judgment, so the exercise should be done by more than one person and the weights agreed before scoring.
3. Investigate the problem
Illustrative An invented example with three candidate markets, scored from 1 to 5. The weights are fit 30%, size 25%, competition 20% (a higher score meaning less competition), cost 15% (a higher score meaning lower cost) and access 10%.
| Market | Fit (30%) | Size (25%) | Competition (20%) | Cost (15%) | Access (10%) | Weighted score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market A | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3.65 |
| Market B | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3.50 |
| Market C | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3.20 |
Illustrative Market A leads at 3.65 (0.30 × 4 + 0.25 × 3 + 0.20 × 3 + 0.15 × 4 + 0.10 × 5), with Market B close behind at 3.50. The gap of 0.15 is small enough that one changed score could reverse it. The scorecard’s most useful output is not the winner but the argument: if the team disagrees about B’s competition score, that is the thing to investigate before deciding.
Information gap The scores in a real exercise come from evidence: customer conversations, competitor reviews, cost quotes. Hypothesis A small pilot in the top two markets, with a defined test and a stopping rule, usually teaches more than further analysis.
4. Work through it yourself
Market choice self-assessment
An interactive APIS tool for this topic is planned. Until it is built, this worksheet applies the same method: answer each question honestly about your own business and note what you cannot yet answer.
Answer about the markets you are considering.
Strong answers mean the choice rests on evidence and a clear method. Warning signs mean the choice is still a hunch. If two markets score within a few tenths, test both cheaply before committing to either.
5. Evaluate possible solutions
A disciplined comparison is simple to run.
6. What leadership should do next
Questions to answer
- What criteria matter and how much?
- What evidence supports each score?
- Which scores are most uncertain?
- What would change the ranking?
Data to gather
- Customer and market evidence
- Competitor review
- Entry cost quotes
- Partner and channel options
Steps to take
- Set criteria and weights.
- Score with evidence.
- Challenge the closest scores.
- Pilot the top two.
7. Engage Two Pillars
Plan Your Next Stage of Growth
Two Pillars can help owners and leadership teams assess expansion readiness, identify and structure strategic partnerships, manage partner relationships and decide when fractional executive support fits. A good first step is a market selection scorecard built with your team and backed by evidence for each score.
Sources and data notes
- Every example, company and number in this article is an invented illustration. None of it is real data, a benchmark, or a forecast.
- Reviewed October 2026. This article describes an approach to investigation. It does not replace review by qualified professionals.