Participation Quotient™ · Free Assessment

Your brand has a
participation problem.
Most don't know it yet.

You're not losing people because your product isn't good enough. You're losing them because your system was never designed to make them stay, contribute, and recruit others. This assessment scores you across the five engines that determine whether an audience compounds — or quietly disappears.

?
Your Participation Quotient™ 15 questions to find out where you stand
15 questions
5 minutes
Scored across 5 engines
Instant PQ results
Free
See how it works

Built for CMOs, CDOs, and brand leaders at organizations with real audiences and real retention problems.

The business case

Participation is the mechanism.
Belonging is the outcome.

Organizations with high Participation Quotients consistently outperform their categories on the metrics that actually matter — retention, lifetime value, organic growth, and customer acquisition cost.

That's because high-PQ organizations don't pay for all their growth. Their community does a meaningful share of it for them.

The gap between a PQ of 40 and a PQ of 75 isn't a gap in marketing sophistication. It's a gap in participation architecture — and it's fixable.

Engagement is passive. Participation is active. Most brands optimize the wrong one.

5–25×
More expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. Most brands still budget like this ratio doesn't exist.
80%
Of loyalty rewards go unredeemed. The program is running. The participation isn't.
68%
Of customers who churn say they left because they felt undervalued — not because a competitor was cheaper.
What you'll receive

Not a quiz result.
A diagnostic.

01
Your Participation Quotient™
A single score that tells you how well your organization is built to hold attention, drive return, and create the kind of community that compounds.
02
Five engine scores
Red, amber, and green across each engine — so you know exactly which dimension is working and which is costing you the most.
03
Your primary bottleneck
The one engine that's limiting the performance of all the others — and what it's specifically preventing you from building.
04
Three prioritized actions
Not a list of everything you could do. Three specific moves, ranked by leverage — based on your exact scores and organization type.
The framework

Five engines. Every organization that
compounds has all five firing.

Built from 20 years of designing participation systems across gaming, AR, mobile, and real-world activations for organizations from Marvel to the Olympic Games.

01
Orientation
Does your audience understand why they're here and why coming back is worth it?
→ Activation
02
Continuity
Does your system pull people back — or do you rely on them to return on their own?
→ Retention
03
Participation
Do people do something, or do they just consume? One model compounds. The other doesn't.
→ Engagement
04
Trust
Would your most loyal community members defend you publicly — or would they stay quiet?
→ Advocacy
05
Fandom
Does belonging to your community mean something to how members describe themselves?
→ Growth
The five stages

Where does your organization
sit on the participation spectrum?

Each stage maps to a pattern of participation health. Most leaders who take this already know which one fits. The score tells you exactly why — and what to do next.

PQ 0–25The Broadcast Organization—You produce. They consume. Nobody's building toward anything.
PQ 26–45The Passive Community—People like you. Some a lot. But liking isn't belonging.
PQ 46–65The Awakening Brand—Something is working. The system just isn't amplifying it yet.
PQ 66–80The Participation System—The engine is built. The question is whether it scales.
PQ 81–100The Movement Builder—Belonging is the organizing principle. The community recruits itself.
Built from real work with
Marvel
Apple
Microsoft
NBA
Nike
Pepsi
Roblox
Visa
Google
Red Bull
PlayStation

As seen in Forbes · Wired · Wall Street Journal · TechCrunch · Los Angeles Times

Brian's got a knack for spotting trends, identifying what's next, and making smart tactical decisions. Having him in your corner is basically an unfair advantage over the competition.
Brad F. · Creative Partner
Brian's keen insights and ability to watch, learn, and share were invaluable to our successful outcomes. He sees the system others miss — and then tells you exactly what to do about it.
Mark M. · Executive
Free · 5 Minutes · Instant Results

Find out where your participation
engine is firing — and where it's not.

15 questions. A Participation Quotient™ across five engines. Your stage, your bottleneck, and three prioritized actions — specific to your situation.

Complimentary Participation Systems Review available for selected organizations.

Before we begin

Which best describes
your organization?

This shapes how your results are framed. The framework and scoring stay identical — the language becomes specific to your context.

Question 1 of 15 Orientation
1 / 15

Your PQ results
are ready.

Enter your details below. I'll send your full Participation Quotient™ report — your score, engine breakdown, bottleneck, and three prioritized actions for your specific situation.

No spam. Your information is used to personalize your results and follow-up — nothing else.

Participation Quotient™
Engine Scores
Your Position on the Participation Curve
Primary Bottleneck
The Hidden Tax
Your Diagnosis
Your Three Highest-Leverage Moves
The principles behind this assessment have informed engagement systems for the NBA, Marvel, Visa, Roblox, the Olympic Games, and branded communities reaching tens of millions of participants — across gaming, entertainment, retail, and sports.
Brian Selzer Strategy · System · Story · Soul