A Tactical Competitive Intelligence Guide for Small Firms Competing in High-Stakes Markets
( Advanced Watermarked Copies Available By Request )
In today’s volatile economy, small SEC-registered firms—those managing under $10 billion AUM and operating with lean teams—aren’t just competing. They’re engaged in daily economic warfare against better-funded, faster-moving, and occasionally unethical adversaries.
MicroEconomic Warfare is your field manual for turning intelligence into your most effective weapon—helping you grow, defend, and lead.
This exclusive BrainTrust whitepaper delivers a practical, compliance-minded framework for using competitive and economic intelligence to:
- Understand market dynamics and rival strategies
- Detect and defend against illegal tactics used by competitors
- Identify hidden opportunities before larger firms move
- Protect your firm’s sensitive data and strategic plans
- Capture new clients using smarter, more targeted positioning
- Integrate intelligence into sales, due diligence, marketing, and vendor vetting
We don’t shy away from the uncomfortable truth: some firms are crossing the line—scraping proprietary data, using deception, and operating in legal gray zones. We show you how to recognize these tactics, describe how they are performing these actions, and prepare your team to respond professionally and defensively, without exposing your firm to legal or reputational risk.
Whether you’re building your first intelligence capability or refining what you already have, this guide gives you the strategic clarity and operational tools to compete from a position of strength.
Need help integrating these methods into your firm or defending against illegal activity?
Schedule a Zoom Meeting with us to get started.
What the Manual Covers
MicroEconomic Warfare is a practical, high-impact guide built exclusively for small SEC-registered firms navigating the harsh realities of modern markets. Tailored for RIAs, family offices, and boutique managers with under 200 employees and less than $10 billion AUM, the manual walks you through:
- How to build a legal, effective intelligence program—even with a small team
- What illegal tactics your competitors are using (and how to defend against them)
- Tools and tradecraft for collecting intelligence from public sources (OSINT), digital footprints, and ethical human intelligence
- How to spot and neutralize threats through counterintelligence, red-teaming, and internal vulnerability reviews
- Ways to use intelligence to grow AUM—from competitive analysis and M&A research to smarter client targeting and sales enablement
- Compliance and documentation practices that keep your efforts defensible under SEC scrutiny
It’s part playbook, part protective shield—giving small firms the confidence to compete with intelligence, not just instinct.