You have two or three proposals on your desk, or you are about to write an RFP and you are not sure what to ask for. Here are six questions to put to any firm selling marketing to aerospace or defense companies, with what a good answer contains and what a weak one sounds like.
There is no score to add up at the end.
Who wrote it. We are a publisher for aerospace and defense. We sell companies a channel on our titles for their own announcements and their people's pieces, labelled as theirs. The six questions apply to us too, and our own answers are at the foot of this page, each on a dated page.
Take this page into any meeting, including one with us.
The six questions, in short
- Show me one client outcome with a number attached, and tell me who counted it.
- Before we start, what will you count as a qualified opportunity, and who writes that definition?
- What does it cost, and what is priced separately?
- When the contract ends, what do we still have, and who here can run it?
- What happens in your workflow when a message might contain controlled technical data, and who decides?
- How many clients do you have right now, and what is your maximum?
1. Show me one client outcome with a number attached, and tell me who counted it
Ask it in that order, and treat the second half as the real question. Almost anything can be made to produce a number. What matters is who counted it and against what definition.
What a good answer contains. A count of something that could become revenue: a lead, a meeting, an opportunity, a cost per opportunity, the value of the deals a programme fed. A denominator and a period, so the count means something: how many, out of what, over which months. The system the count came out of, which should be the client's own CRM, and confirmation that the client saw and agreed the number before it was shared. A firm that has no number like that can still give a good answer: say so plainly, say why, and say what it has instead. That answer is easy to tell apart from evasion, because it arrives immediately.
What a weak answer sounds like. A number with no denominator. A percentage lift with no base under it, or a base that changes when you ask about it. Activity standing in for outcomes: impressions, reach, clicks, engaged users, followers. Growth described as significant, strong or exceptional, with nothing attached that you could put in a board pack. A number counted entirely inside the agency's own tools, never reconciled with the client's records. And the one that costs you the most time: a case study you cannot ask a question about, offered in place of the number and the name you asked for.
2. Before we start, what will you count as a qualified opportunity, and who writes that definition?
This question gets the least airtime and decides the most. A qualified opportunity is the industry's name for a sales conversation or deal that meets conditions written down in advance, and every firm defines it differently, which is why you ask. Every number you will be shown for the next year rests on that definition, and whoever controls the definition controls the reporting.
What a good answer contains. A definition that exists in writing before any work starts, and that you own. Specific conditions, not adjectives: a named role that can specify or buy, a stated problem, a timeframe, a budget line, a programme milestone, whatever your business requires. What is excluded as well as what is included. A rule for changing it, so every amendment is dated and the numbers stay comparable a year later. And a firm that reports the definition back to you in your own words.
What a weak answer sounds like. A definition that arrives with the first report. A definition written by the vendor, called their standard methodology, and never put in front of you before work starts. Qualified explained with another undefined word: engaged, interested, sales-ready, in-market. A promise to work it out together once things are running. A definition that can move without anyone writing down that it moved. That is how a target gets hit by loosening the definition. Ask what happens in a month when the honest count comes in short, and listen for whether you get a process or a reassurance.
3. What does it cost, and what is priced separately?
The second half of the question is the whole question. A price is easy to compare and a scope is not, and two prices that look comparable are often buying different things.
What a good answer contains. A price for each distinct thing you might buy, in writing, with a statement of what it includes. A list of what it does not include, with anything estimated separately named as such. A statement of what exists when the money is spent: a document, a working system on your own domain, an ongoing operation, or some mix, and what each part costs on its own. If a price truly cannot be given before scoping, the good answer is what the scoping costs, how long it takes, what you keep from it, and what work of that shape has cost before.
What a weak answer sounds like. A price that is a floor with the largest line item missing: a strategy fee where delivering the strategy is priced separately and never quantified. A price that only appears after a discovery call, in a bespoke proposal, where the same call is also the pitch. A scope described in hours or team allocations, with no statement of what will exist at the end. One number covering strategy, production, media and management, with no way to buy only the part you need. Comparing prices between firms only means something once you know what each price buys, and a firm that leaves that reconstruction to you has told you something.
4. When the contract ends, what do we still have, and who here can run it?
Ask both halves and do not let the answer stop after the first. The first half separates a deliverable from a system. The second half decides whether the system does you any good.
What a good answer contains. A specific list of what stays yours: the written procedures your own people can follow, the source lists, the account data, the definitions, the scoring rules, the reporting, all of it inside accounts and systems you own. A named person at your company who will run it, agreed before anything is signed, with the hours it will cost them stated honestly. An answer to what happens if that person leaves. And where the truthful answer is that the system stops when the contract stops, a good firm says exactly that and prices it as an ongoing service. That is a legitimate thing to sell, as long as you know it is what you bought.
What a weak answer sounds like. Documentation offered as though it were the same thing as capability. A handover file presented as continuity, with nobody on your side named and no hours allocated. Assets that turn out to live in the agency's own accounts, tools, domains or sending infrastructure, discovered at the end. A plan described as the thing you keep, when a plan is only worth the capacity of whoever is left holding it. Be honest with yourself here too: if nobody at your company will have the hours to run it, buy an operated service on purpose. Do not buy a build and hope somebody absorbs it.
5. What happens in your workflow when a message might contain controlled technical data, and who decides?
This question does more work than it looks like it does. It is about export control, and it is also the fastest way to find out whether a firm has procedures or has confidence.
What a good answer contains. The correct answer includes the words "not us". Export classification and licensing decisions belong with your own empowered official or export compliance officer. A firm that says it makes those calls has told you something important on the first call. Past that, listen for a described procedure: a screen that runs on every message, restricted-party checks against the published lists, a rule about what may go in outreach copy, a block that actually stops a send, a written route to your own compliance function for anything ambiguous, and a log that would survive an audit by your quality team. A firm that has thought about it will also tell you its screen over-blocks on purpose. A message held for review costs somebody two minutes. A message that should have been held costs you a disclosure.
What a weak answer sounds like. Familiarity where a procedure should be: they work with defense clients, they know ITAR, their team is trained. An assurance that they will handle it, or that their people will know what to escalate. A process where the person writing the copy is also the person deciding whether something is controlled. A flag with no block behind it, or an escalation path that ends inside the agency. And the one that should end the conversation: an offer to make the determination for you.
6. How many clients do you have right now, and what is your maximum?
The simplest question on the list and the one most likely to produce a pause. You are not asking it to catch anybody out. You want to know what happens to your account when the next contract is signed.
What a good answer contains. Two numbers and the date they were last checked. Who will actually do your work, by name, and how much of their week you get. What the firm does when it is full: turn work away or hire. Either is a real answer, as long as it is the one they give you. What changes for you when the next client arrives. A firm with room can say so. A firm that is full can say that too and give you a date, which is usually the stronger position.
What a weak answer sounds like. A philosophy where a number should be: selectivity, a boutique approach, a limited roster, a handful of clients at a time, none of it counted. Capacity given as headcount, which answers a question you did not ask, because a team of thirty tells you nothing about how many of them are on your account. Bandwidth described as a matter of prioritisation. Senior people in the pitch who are absent from the answer to who does the work. If the numbers come with a date, ask what happens when the date passes.
One more, if you want it
Not part of the six, and worth asking last.
Ask them to tell you when you should not buy from them.
Judge the answer on whether it has any content. A real answer names conditions you can check against your own business: a revenue level below which the economics do not work, a function you would need to have in place first, a different purchase that would do more for you this year, a kind of problem they are the wrong firm for. A weak answer is a compliment pretending to be a disqualification: if you are not ready to invest, if you want a quick win, if you do not want a true partner.
What to do with the answers
Do not score them. The useful information is in which questions produced a procedure and which produced reassurance. Then compare what a firm told you on the call with what it has published where anyone can find it. The published version was written before the firm knew who was asking.
Our own answers, already published
Each of the six is answered on this site, on a page with a publication date.
- One customer outcome with a number, and who counted it.
The record of the person who edits the titles and conducts the interviews is at
/authors/reuben-mann: 505 catalogued pieces across eight aerospace brands between 2019 and 2026, 31 of them earned coverage. The standard every entry in the record is held to is at/record/standards, and the counting rules every number is reported under are at/measurement-standard. Put the same question to the next firm, and notice which part of their answer arrives first. - What counts as a qualified opportunity, and who writes it.
You do, in writing, before any work starts.
The definitions, how credit for a deal is calculated across a long buying process, and the limits of the method:
/measurement-standard. - What it costs, and what is priced separately.
Every price, what each band buys, how work beyond the bands is quoted in writing, and why there are no discounts:
/publish/pricing. - What you keep, and who runs it.
Every produced piece is delivered to you as a file you own, and nothing runs until you have approved it in writing.
Nothing is installed at your company as part of a channel; an installation is custom work, quoted in writing.
What a channel is and how a piece is made:
/publish. - Controlled technical data, and who decides.
We make no export determinations.
The screen, the hard blocks, the source rule and the route to your own empowered official are on
/export-control-screening. - Customer count and maximum.
The two caps, what is open today and the date it was last checked are on
/publish/pricing.
If an answer you get from us on a call differs from those pages, hold us to the pages. They carry the dates.
If you take one thing from this page
Every question above can be answered in advance, in public, before anyone asks. A firm that has already published its answers cannot give you a different one on the call.
Send us a link to something your company has published → /record/submit
What a channel is, and what it costs → /publish
Two other pages.
What this market publishes about its own results, checked with dates and sources: /aerospace-marketing-evidence-gap.
When buying this is the wrong decision, including where hiring someone beats buying a channel, which is also our answer to the seventh question: /publish/when-not-to-buy-this.