All fifteen are required, and so are the two right after them. Everything past that is optional, and it is what makes the report specific to you rather than generic.
Quoting & Pricing
1 Who prices the work: quotes, bids, estimates?
Only me
Me, with help
Someone else, I review
Runs without me
What carries it?
An automated system
A spreadsheet
By hand
Quoting & Pricing
2 Is the reasoning behind your pricing written down anywhere?
It is in my head
A spreadsheet or notes only I can follow
Written, but I still do the pricing
Written, and someone else prices from it
Sales & Customers
3 Who keeps new business coming in, from finding prospects to closing the sale?
Only me
Me, with help
Someone else, I review
Runs without me
Sales & Customers
4 If your top five customers had a problem today, who would they call?
Only me
Me, with help
Someone else, I review
Runs without me
Production & Technical
5 Who makes the call when a job goes wrong?
Only me
Me, with help
Someone else, I review
Runs without me
Production & Technical
6 How many problems end up on your desk?
All of them
Most of them
Only the serious ones
Almost none, and I hear later
Purchasing & Vendors
7 Who negotiates with vendors and subcontractors and sets terms?
Only me
Me, with help
Someone else, I review
Runs without me
Purchasing & Vendors
8 Who researches new vendors and subcontractors and compares pricing?
Only me
Me, with help
Someone else, I review
Runs without me
What carries it?
An automated system
A spreadsheet
By hand
Purchasing & Vendors
9 Once a vendor is set up, who issues the purchase orders?
Only me
Me, with help
Someone else, I review
Runs without me
What carries it?
An automated system
A spreadsheet
By hand
People
10 Who hires, reviews and lets people go?
Only me
Me, with help
Someone else, I review
Runs without me
Money
11 Who chases the money and approves credit?
Only me
Me, with help
Someone else, I review
Runs without me
What carries it?
An automated system
A spreadsheet
By hand
Money
12 Before money goes out or a commitment is made, how much is already decided?
Nothing, it all starts with me
Someone gathers it, I decide all of it
Someone tees it up with a recommendation
It reaches me decided, and I sign by exception
What carries it?
An automated system
A spreadsheet
By hand
Knowledge & Systems
13 Whose name are the licenses, permits and accounts in – phone, domain, bank, software?
All in my own name
Mostly mine, a few in the company's
Mostly the company's, a few still mine
All in the company's name, and others have access
Knowledge & Systems
14 Is any of the above written down in a form someone else could follow?
Nothing written
Notes only I can follow
Written, but nobody uses it
Written, and used without me in the last 90 days
Knowledge & Systems
15 What is the longest you have been completely away in the last two years?
A long weekend at most
Under a week
One to two weeks
Two weeks or more, phone off
Two more. Not scored, and both required.
Handing work to people takes it off your desk. It does not make it worth doing. These two decide half your result, which is why they are not optional.
Most owners undercount the next one until they count it.
Which part of running this business is necessary paperwork that no customer would ever pay you for?
Speak instead
If that work were done automatically tomorrow, what would you have those people do instead?
Speak instead
Last two, and they are the easy ones.
Optional, like the three above them. They tell us what the result should be read against, and skipping them costs you the part of the report written for your situation.
Where should we send your report?
Your answers put you in one of eight owner profiles. You get the profile on the next screen. The report comes by email within one business day, after I have read your answers myself: the four readings behind your profile, your score out of 45, the three answers holding it down, and where the work starts. Nothing else, and no list.
If you tell us the business name, we go one step further: we look at your industry, and where public information allows, your business itself, and fold what we find into what we send.
One person reads every submission and writes every result: a CFO twice over, with twenty years of being brought in to run companies that had outgrown how they were being run.
Name
Business
Email
Website
0 of 15 answered
Show me my profile
Your profile lands on the next screen. The report comes back within one business day, read by a person first. No calls unless you ask for one.