Enquirer Consulting Group

Reachable Buyer Map

Prepared for Larry Nipon · Zer0Frixion · August 2026
Cost reduction work is signed by the finance seat that owns what a company spends, and it is reached mostly by referral, so the reachable market is only the part that already overlaps a network. This map is the rest of it, across the US: the employer types that carry the expense categories you work in, who signs inside each one, and roughly how many companies sit there. Counts are banded on purpose. It describes the market rather than your business, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Mid-market employers, 250 to 999 people
The band where one finance leader owns every vendor contract personally and there is no procurement function to hide behind. Big enough for the spend to be worth working, small enough that one conversation settles whether it happens.
Who signs: the CFO or controller, the VP of operations, and at owner-run companies the president.
27,000 to 28,000
US employers in this workforce band
Large multi-site employers, 1,000 people and up
Where the same expense categories are large enough to have their own named owner, and where a single agreement covers many sites at once. Slower to sell into, and the work recurs once it lands.
Who signs: CFO, VP of finance, director of procurement, director of facilities.
11,000 to 11,500
US employers at 1,000 people or more
Health care and senior living operators
Multi-site by nature, which is what makes the categories add up: waste, shipping, payment processing and utilities repeat at every location. The sector also runs the tightest margins on this page, so a recovered cost is read as revenue.
Who signs: CFO, VP of finance, director of environmental services, regional operations director.
6,000 to 6,500
health care and social assistance employers at 250 people or more
Manufacturers and distributors
Freight, packaging and waste sit near the top of the cost sheet here rather than near the bottom, so the conversation starts closer to the number that matters. Frequently owner-led, and rarely worked by anyone who arrives through a conference.
Who signs: CFO or controller, VP of operations, plant manager, supply chain director.
5,900 to 6,300
manufacturing employers at 250 people or more
School districts, colleges and institutions
A public directory rather than a company list, which is the point: the buying seat has a job title that barely changes from one district to the next, and the calendar that governs the decision is published a year ahead.
Who signs: the business official or CFO of the district, VP of finance and administration at colleges, director of purchasing.
13,000 to 13,500
US public school districts, before private schools and colleges are counted
Employers at a moment rather than in a category
Not a category, a moment. A renewal date coming up, a new site or a new lease, a merger that doubles the vendor list, a new finance leader in the seat. Work like this is bought at those points rather than on a schedule, and they cut across every band above. No register lists them, which is exactly why the group stays open.
Who signs: the CFO or controller, the VP of operations, the newly appointed finance leader, and the president at owner-run companies.
No public register
visible instead through renewals, openings, appointments and public hiring signals, watched continuously

Where the openings are

1
The signing seat moves with the sector, not with the service. The same expense review is signed by a business official in a school district, a CFO in health care, and a plant manager at a manufacturer. In this market a referral channel reaches whichever sector it was last used in and stays quiet about the others, so most of the addressable list never hears the offer in a given year.
2
Both are bought at a moment, not on a cycle. A contract renewal date, a new site, a new finance hire, a system decision that has just been made and not yet staffed. Those moments are visible from outside if someone is watching several thousand companies for them. They are invisible to anyone waiting for the right person to remember a name.
3
The mid-market band is the largest and the least worked. Between 27,000 and 28,000 employers at 250 to 999 people, with real spend and no procurement department in the way. They are also the companies least likely to be on anyone's referral map, because they do not send people to the events where advisors are met.
Built from public federal registry data covering US employers that file a benefit plan, current to the 2024 filing year, with district counts from public education directories. Counts are banded deliberately. Workforce bands use plan participants as a headcount proxy, so they indicate scale rather than an exact staff count. Owner-only and very small employers are not published in this data, and sector codes are self-reported.
ENQUIRER CONSULTING GROUP
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