We are excited to launch our new tool - the Co- Business Health Check. We know that it will make a real difference to how we, as business owners, think about and execute our business development. In this blog we explain the concepts behind the health check, give you access to the tool, and show you how to make best use of your results.

What is a Successful Business?

We know from our work with hundreds of business owners that success in business means different things to different people. Every business and business owner has their own unique goals. That being said, there are three things that all successful businesses have in common.

• They have good systems, processes and practices in place. These are the things that underpin the business and make sure that it can deliver what it promises to its customers and make money not just today but in the future.

• Successful businesses are profitable. Even if making money is not a primary motivator, every business needs the resources to be and continue to be in business.

• It has to deliver the business owners’ goals. Ultimately, everything that they have risked and all of the hard work they have put in needs to be worth it.

So, if we want to build a successful business, we need to work towards making these things true - but how?

How to Build your Business

Businesses are often started in a moment of high excitement! There isn’t normally a grand plan and business owners rarely have everything worked out on day one. Business owners do, however, quickly find themselves busy - often putting all their time and resources into one aspect of the business. There can be fires that need fighting or things that demand a lot of attention. The business owner may know that they need to work on other parts of the business, but find:

• There isn’t time

• It feels too difficult because it’s outside of their comfort zone

• They put it off because they don’t know what is needed

What happens when we focus all our time and attention in one part of the business is that other parts suffer and end up working less well. One of the keys to building your business is dedicating enough time and resources to each of the component parts. What are the component parts?

There are four key functions in every business (shown below) and a healthy business has effective and robust systems and processes in place across them all. You can read more about them in the Co- Five Foundations Guide. The Co- Business Health Check touches on each of them.

The Co- Business Health Check Tool

The Business Health Check enables you to assess the component parts of each of the four business functions (Executive / Marketing / Production / Operations) and understand how well developed each part is in your business today. It will show you:

• Where your business is strong and the parts of your business where the systems and processes you have in place are working well

• Where there are areas for improvement or gaps to be addressed

• What are the next steps you can take on your journey to building a successful business

To access the tool, click here

After taking the tool, you will receive a copy of your results. At that point, you may be feeling overwhelmed by how much there is to do, or you may feel excited and energised by the opportunity ahead! Either way, you will need a plan that sets out how you're going to take your business from where it is today, to one that has all the required components in place for it to survive and thrive in the years ahead. 

moving forward

Alongside your results, you will receive a Business Roadmap for you to populate with the actions and projects that are going to move your business forward. Here are our top tips for getting the most out of your results and roadmap.

• Think about what action you can take straight away to get the ball rolling. If we spend weeks and months thinking about and perfecting our plan, the chances are no business development work will actually be taking place!

• In almost all cases 80% is good enough. We don’t need to build the perfect systems and processes in all aspects of our business - good enough is good enough.

• Be realistic about how much you can take on at one time. A mindset of continuous improvement is helpful here. It’s better to take small steps consistently and move forwards, than set the bar too high and not be able to get over it.

Taking the Health Check and populating your Business Roadmap is the easy part! The real challenge is to keep on track with what you’ve planned. Of course plans can change as things happen in business, and inevitably we never end up with as much time as we would have hoped. But we need to have some way of keeping ourselves accountable. So, the question is who is going to check in with you next week, next month, or next quarter and ask what progress you have made? If no one comes to mind, you are welcome to join the Co- team at our monthly Walk and Talk and keep us updated with your progress!