Overview
Growing a business is difficult. Today, thousands of trends and ideas distract us from what matters most. What actually moves the needle?
The Core Review encourages business owners to examine the 3 core elements required for a successful, growing business. These core elements are the foundation upon which your business is built. The stronger the foundation, the better the business.
The Core Review will evaluate the following 3 Foundational Blocks:
- Leadership
- Market
- Strategy
Leadership
What: Leaders cast vision. Vision consists of core values, purpose statement, and mission.
Why: Without a guiding star, your business and strategic decisions will wander and drift.
Market
What: The Market foundational block creates your market snapshot: the market size in dollars, your business share of the market, and competitors’ share of the market.
Why: This block provides a no-BS view of exactly where your business stands in the marketplace so you can make informed strategic decisions.
Strategy
What: Strategy is choosing what not to do. What decisions must be made to position your business in the customer’s mind? Choose your positioning, objectives and BIG IDEA.
Why: Perception is reality. How your customer perceives your product/service is reality.
To ensure the proper allocation of resources, the Assessment consists of 3 simple stages:
- The Off-site
- The On-site
- The Action Plan
- The Follow Up
Off-Site
WHAT TO EXPECT?
The offsite typically follows a structured four-hour schedule. The offsite will be located nearby.
We will discuss your company’s vision, mission, values, and beliefs.
Next, we will discuss everything related to your people: your people plan, roles, responsibilities, the ideal organization chart, meeting cadence, and benchmarks.
After the people section, we will touch on the current market trends, segments, competition and landscape.
Finally, we will review current strategic efforts, what has worked, what hasn’t, objectives, budget, timelines and current customer segments.
You should expect lots of questions about all business components.
HOW SHOULD YOU PREPARE?
We encourage you to do 3 things:
1) Be in an optimal state of mind.
Sleep, water, and eat. Part of the day is contingent on you being in your optimal state. You will be asked a lot of questions that require focus and thinking.
2) Communicate with your team
We recommend communicating to your team you will not be available for most of the day. To get the most out of the conversation, we need your full attention.
3) Review questions
We have a list of questions that we ask all clients. Sometimes we require important information and a question framed in a different way or at a different time can reveal hidden gems.
TYPES OF QUESTIONS
Please review some of the questions we will be asking to get your thoughts going:
- What do people typically look at when choosing your brand?
- Out of your competitors, who do you think advertises the best? Why?
- What wonderful story is yours that hasn’t been told?
- What are the things that you can say about your company that none of your competitors can say about their businesses?
- When you deal with your customers, what are the things that you say you “always” do? Why?
- When you deal with your customers, what are the things that you say you “never” do? Why? Why not?
- What are the most significant challenges you are facing right now? What do you think needs to happen in order to solve it? What is holding you back from solving it?
On-Site
WHAT TO EXPECT?
The on-site evaluation is conducted in person at your office or place of business. Typically, we involve your team members who add relevant information to the assessment and research. We often want to converse with client-focused team members.
The on-site is usually scheduled just after the Off-site day for 1.5-2 hours.
The Action Plan
You will receive an action plan to reach your objective(s) for your business. The action plan will have the next steps corresponding to each business component: leadership, market, and strategy.
The Action Plan merges a traditional business plan with a step-by-step guide to ensure the work and objectives of the business owner is achieved.
There are templates, guides, tutorials, and how-to’s along with customized research, strategy, and project planning.
The action plan is designed so you can go to your team or another consultant/agency and present the plan to execute.
The Action Plan typically includes the following guides and templates:
- Vision 1-Pager
- Guide to conducting a Vision meeting
- Role and Responsibilities worksheet
- Four Key Meetings with Guides
- Company Scorecard
- Market Snapshot
- Marketing Strategy
- Advertising budget breakdown
- Purchase Funnel
The Review Meeting
WHAT TO EXPECT?
The Review Meeting is designed to ensure all the relevant information has been mined and Powell Business Development Inc. can indeed put together an action plan that will be right for your business.
After the Assessment, you will receive an action plan to reach your objective(s) for your business.
Within the action plan, there will be corresponding next steps within each business component.
The action plan is designed so you could go to your team, or another consultant/agency and hand them exactly what you want to be done.
After the action plan has been carefully reviewed collectively, Powell Business Development Inc. will offer a 1-page contract with 3 options for you to choose from.
HOW SHOULD YOU PREPARE?
Please set aside 2 hours for The Review meeting. There will be lots of discussions but also some time to process. We will also conduct a follow up remote call to answer any questions you may have.
