At the core of every great story lies a deep understanding of the audience. What do they care about? What do they already know? What pressures and perspectives shape how they’ll hear what you’re saying? The same principles hold true in sales, especially in municipal water treatment. When we engage with utility engineers, managers, and city officials, we’re not just selling a product—we’re building a narrative that connects their needs with the benefits of our solutions.
Understanding that the audience is crucial, and timing matters just as much. By the time a request for proposal (RFP) hits the street, many decisions have already been made. That’s why Mazzei Injector Company prioritises early engagement. And while our experience, relationships, and technical know-how go a long way, what really gives us an edge is a tool that feels almost like peering into the future: Citylitics.
The value of seeing ahead
Citylitics analyses millions of public documents—council minutes, capital improvement plans, feasibility studies, and more—to identify infrastructure projects well before they go to bid. That foresight is powerful. According to Citylitics founder and CEO Ahmed Badruddin, the tool provides a one-to-five-year head start—an invaluable advantage when selling complex systems with long sales cycles.
At Mazzei, we’ve always taken a data-driven approach to identifying trends and opportunities. Our longstanding involvement with the International Ozone Association, for instance, has helped us document the growth in sidestream ozone injection and anticipate evolving industry needs. Citylitics complements that strategy perfectly, helping us pinpoint where those trends are materialising into real projects and, more importantly, who’s leading the charge.
Citylitics analyses millions of public documents, council minutes, to identify infrastructure projects well before they go to bid
This early visibility enables our sales team—and our manufacturer’s reps—to build relationships long before specs are written or technologies are selected. It opens the door to meaningful conversations that can shape how projects are designed, saving utilities money, energy, space, and maintenance down the road.
Case study #1: Midwestern momentum
In one case, a large Midwestern city began educating its citizens about its plans to install a new ozonation system for drinking water. Through Citylitics, we identified the project before any RFP was issued and saw an opportunity to support—not just pitch.
Rather than waiting for the project to hit the bid phase, we reached out early. We offered technical resources, including peer-reviewed articles, cost-benefit data, and even sample public presentation slides to help the utility explain the benefits of ozone to residents. We also volunteered expert speakers for town hall meetings to demystify the science behind ozonation.
That early partnership positioned us not as vendors chasing a contract, but as trusted collaborators who understand the public pressures and communication challenges that come with major infrastructure investments.
Case study #2: California complexity
On the West Coast, a California utility outlined an advanced treatment train that would include ozone, biologically active filtration, microfiltration, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet light, and advanced oxidation processes (AOP). With that many components, integration and performance are everything.
Citylitics gave us an early heads-up. That allowed us to schedule conversations with the utility’s design team and begin offering CFD (computational fluid dynamics) modeling to demonstrate how our sidestream injection systems could be optimized within the proposed treatment flow. We ran predictive performance scenarios based on system configurations they were considering—work that would be nearly impossible to start after an RFP was finalized.
When the utility enters procurement, we’ll already have a proven understanding of their goals, validated performance models, and customized data to back our proposal.
Case study #3: Small plant, big challenges
In another example, a smaller municipality was dealing with persistent taste and odour complaints in its drinking water. Citylitics surfaced early discussions in city council documents—not in a formal plan, but as an item in an internal committee meeting.
Because we saw it early, we were able to engage before any consultants were hired. A site visit confirmed the challenge: limited space, limited budget, and a strong desire to avoid major structural changes. Our team proposed a retrofit using Mazzei’s sidestream ozone injection system in place of a large basin contactor—offering a lower-footprint solution with high transfer efficiency.
We were able to help them understand the trade-offs, review performance data from similar-sized plants, and even connect them with peers who had implemented similar solutions. That not only made for a stronger proposal—it built confidence that the solution would work.
In a world where timing is everything and decisions carry long-term consequences, Citylitics has become an essential part of our strategy
Insight for the whole team
What’s especially valuable about Citylitics is how it serves the entire Mazzei sales ecosystem. We use it not just at corporate headquarters, but across our field sales team and manufacturers’ representatives. Everyone has access to early leads, detailed project intelligence, and named contacts—all organised so we can act with precision, not guesswork.
This intelligence helps us bring our “storytelling” into sharper focus. We’re not relying on assumptions. We’re using real information to engage real decision-makers on the terms that matter most to them—whether it’s regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, budget planning, or public perception.
Badruddin says it best: “Our goal is to provide the earliest possible signal of demand in the market, giving clients like Mazzei the time they need to engage early and help shape infrastructure projects before decisions are locked in.”
From data to decisions
Of course, data alone isn’t enough. The power of Citylitics lies in what we do with the information. It gives us the space to think strategically, to be proactive rather than reactive. Instead of racing to meet someone else’s specs, we can help shape the specs themselves. Instead of proposing off-the-shelf systems, we can tailor solutions to real-world constraints.
This lead time allows for better budgeting, more accurate performance estimates, and more collaborative partnerships. It gives utilities the chance to explore options, ask questions, and choose technologies based on merit, not just familiarity.
Our vision, their success
At Mazzei, we believe in the power of innovation, insight, and collaboration. Citylitics gives us all three. It helps us align with our customers sooner, understand their challenges more deeply, and deliver the kind of personalised, effective solutions that improve water quality, reduce costs, and build trust.
In a world where timing is everything and decisions carry long-term consequences, Citylitics has become an essential part of our strategy, a high-tech compass that keeps our sales team pointed in the right direction. It may not be a crystal ball in the traditional sense, but for us, it comes pretty close.