Before you speak to the person who is going to buy from you, someone else already has. For hotels it is the platform; for estate agencies, the portal; for boarding schools, the agent; for clinics, the insurer.

Picture this: the same Monday, in four offices. At a hotel in Gstaad, the most expensive booking of the week arrives with payment already taken by the platform. At an estate agency in Zurich, the caller saw the flat on a portal, and the portal also showed them the competition’s listings. At a boarding school in Vaud, the family asking about a place arrives with an agent. And at a clinic in Geneva, the person on the phone has just spoken to their insurer, who suggested another clinic.

Four different sectors, one pattern. Before you speak to the person who is going to buy from you, someone else already has. And that first contact is almost never free: it is paid for in commission, in data or in the next sale.

Hotels: ten points in twelve years.

The European hotel distribution study HOTREC published in September 2026, with 2025 data from 2,713 hotels, shows the long trend. In 2013, 57.6% of bookings came through direct channels and 19.7% through online travel agencies. In 2025, direct sales were 51.3% and online travel agencies 29.9%. Within those, Booking Holdings accounts for 68.8%.

What interests me most in the study is not the commission. 65% of hotels say they use Booking.com’s payment service: the platform does not just introduce the guest, it also takes their money. And the cancellation rate hotels report is 9.1% on their own website and 19% on Booking.com. According to these figures, a booking made on the hotel’s website is cancelled half as often.

Estate agencies: the portal charges for every listing.

In Switzerland, the group that owns Homegate and ImmoScout24 is listed on the stock exchange and publishes its accounts. In 2025, its average revenue per agency grew by 14.7%. Following the Price Supervisor’s intervention, since 1 April 2026 it has offered a package of at most CHF 44 a month plus CHF 505 per sale listing, under an agreement that expires on 31 March 2029. The portal brings reach. But the enquiry arrives through its system, and the buyer remembers the portal.

Boarding schools: the agent.

For boarding schools, first contact with many international families belongs to an education agent. Le Rosey is one of the few to put it in writing in its contract: it never pays agents or intermediaries, families who use them pay them directly, and they cannot influence an admission decision. How many schools pay agents a commission, and how much, I have not found published. What I do know is that if a family only knows a school through an agent, the school does not know that family is making a decision.

Clinics: the insurer.

In Switzerland, when a clinic and a supplementary insurer are left without a contract, the insurer is the one who talks to the patient first. Helsana explains on its website that it actively informs its customers, advises them and suggests other hospitals nearby. In 2024, CSS and the Hirslanden group spent weeks without an agreement at five clinics in Zurich, Geneva and Lausanne, until the agreement in May. Executives handle the negotiation. In those days, the conversation with your patients is handled by someone else.

What these figures do not say.

They do not say intermediaries are a bad deal. They bring a reach that a business alone rarely achieves, and many of your clients you would never have met without them. Nor do they say what a client who comes back without an intermediary is worth in each sector, because that figure appears on no invoice. Which is why almost nobody measures it.

There is also a fifth intermediary reaching every sector at once: the search engine that answers. In a Pew Research Center study in the United States, when Google showed an AI summary, users clicked on a traditional result in 8% of visits, compared with 15% without a summary. More and more, first contact with your content belongs to someone else too.

The blind spot: the second contact.

Almost every business I know spends its energy fighting for first contact: more advertising and a better position on the portal or the platform. And almost none prepares the second, which is the only one it can always win. The guest who, after seeing you on the platform, visits your website to take a look. The family who, after talking to the agent, searches for the school’s name. The client who bought once and has not heard from you since.

That second contact depends on no intermediary. It depends on what people find on your website and on what happens, automatically, after the first purchase.

You do not need to win the first contact. You need not to lose the second.

Where I stand.

I would not tell any client to abandon platforms, portals, agents or insurer agreements. I would tell them that every client who arrives through an intermediary should leave the first purchase as their own: with contact details, consent and a reason to come back directly. That is what a website that converts and automation that handles the aftermath are for. It is, at heart, what I sell. The intermediary charges for introducing you to your client. What it should not charge for is every time they come back.

What I would check.

• Each intermediary’s share. What part of last year’s sales came through each one, and at what total cost.
• What happens on your website afterwards. Whether someone arriving from a platform or a portal finds a reason to stay with you.
• The data left outside. What the intermediary knows about your client that you do not: email, language, preferences, payment method.
• The second contact. What happens, without anyone having to remember, after the first stay, purchase, visit or consultation.
• The bad day. What your website says and what your team answers if an intermediary changes its terms overnight.

Where to start.

1. This week

   Count

   The share of last year’s clients who came through an intermediary, channel by channel.

2. This month

   Follow the trail

   Walk the path from the platform or the portal to your website as a client would, and note where people drop off.

3. This quarter

   Build the second contact

   One message after the first purchase, in the client’s language, with consent and without reading like advertising.

4. Every year

   Measure dependence

   Compare each intermediary’s share with the year before. If it rises, ask why.

Think of your latest new client and trace their path backwards. Who spoke to them before you did: a platform, a portal, an agent, an insurer? And what did that intermediary know about them that you still do not?

I am not suggesting you do without anyone. I am suggesting a different, more useful question: when that client comes back, will they write to you directly or go through the same door again? The answer depends less on the intermediary than on what happened after the first contact.

If you would like me to review how much of your first contact depends on others and how much of the second your website can win back, start with the Strategic Diagnostic. Which intermediaries to work with is for your management to decide, not a designer.