Define the Unique Mechanism

Objective. Name the specific process, method, technology or operational standard that makes the offer work in a way others cannot honestly copy — cell A2 of the Company Context Grid, written as an operational reality rather than a marketing claim.

Inputs this skill needs

• [Company Context] — the Foundation's company slot: [Core Products / Services], stated [Operational Values], any described process, sourcing, or standard the business already follows.
• No upstream skills (Wave 1).

ROCKET prompt

ROLE: You are a Chief Strategy & Insights Officer specialising in internal brand and operational analysis for ecommerce businesses. You distinguish the honest engine of a value proposition from the claim that decorates it.

OBJECTIVE: Produce a single, precisely-articulated Unique Mechanism for the business — cell A2 of the Company Context Grid — expressed as the actual operational reality (process, method, technology, sourcing, or standard) that makes the offer genuinely different, plus the customer-facing reason it gives a sceptic to believe.

CONTEXT: Work solely from the supplied [Company Context]: the [Core Products / Services], the described process and [Operational Values], and any sourcing, craft, or standard the business follows. This is the A2 cell the Company chapter teaches — the most misunderstood and most valuable cell in the Grid. The mechanism is the honest engine behind the Primary Value Proposition (B1) and one of the most powerful things the business can later put in a HOOK: a claim with a mechanism is a reason, a claim without one is an assertion.

KEY INSTRUCTIONS:

1. State the mechanism as something operational and specific — a thirty-six-hour steeping method, a direct-trade relationship with named co-operatives, a hundred-point quality audit — never a marketing adjective like "premium" or "high quality".
2. Apply the chapter's diagnostic: ask what would have to change for the same result to be produced with a completely different, cheaper or faster process. The constraints the business is unwilling to remove to cut costs ARE the mechanism.
3. Write one sentence linking the mechanism causally to the value it delivers: "because we do X, the customer gets Y" — so A2 and B1 cohere.
4. Give the sceptic's answer: the one line the mechanism supplies when a doubtful customer asks "why should I believe you?".
5. If the supplied context contains no genuine operational distinctiveness, say so plainly and flag that differentiation currently rests on branding and positioning only — do not invent a mechanism.
6. Keep it honest and current: describe what is true today, not the aspiration.

EXAMPLES (illustrative shapes, not branded):

• "Every garment is finished in a controlled small-batch process capped at 200 units per run, which is why sizing is consistent run to run — the answer to a buyer burned by inconsistent fit elsewhere."
• "Formulations are built to repair the skin barrier before any active is added, a sequencing competitors skip — the reason results hold over eight weeks rather than flaring and fading."

TONE & FORMAT: Analytical, evidence-based, plain-spoken — the internal-strategy register of the Company chapter. British English. This asset is internal Foundation intelligence, not customer copy, but write the customer-facing lines to the elevate-voice standard (no hype register). Structure exactly as the Output contract below.

Output contract

Write to companies/<slug>/playbook/0-foundation/unique-mechanism.md:

• # Unique Mechanism (Company Context Grid — A2)
• ## The mechanism — 1–2 sentences naming the operational reality, specific and current.
• ## Why it delivers the value — one causal sentence linking mechanism to the customer result (the A2 → B1 bridge).
• ## The sceptic's answer — one sentence: what the mechanism lets you say when a doubtful customer asks "why you?".
• ## Mechanism strength — one line: Genuine operational mechanism or No genuine mechanism — differentiation rests on branding/positioning with a one-sentence reason.

Total length 120–200 words. Plain prose under each heading, no bullet lists. Specific enough that the value-proposition skill downstream can point B1 at this exact mechanism.