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Dear Friends,
It's once again time for shop owners to be working on business plans for the coming year, and having done quite a few of them myself, I thought I would give you some things to think about. I've developed this questionnaire to help you evaluate your business, and hopefully to give you some food for thought or different ways of thinking about and evaluating problems.
Personal
1. What do you see as your personal strengths as an owner?
2. What are you not so good at, and where do you need help?
3. What are your personal goals?
Business
4. How would you rate your business currently?
5. Where would you like it to be?
Accounting
6. Are you happy with your accounting systems and practices?
7. Do you have a good accountant/CPA?
8. Do you know your personal salary needs?
9. Are you taking additional draws, which mess up business payments?
10. Do you know the break-even point of your business? (How much does it cost each month to pay ALL bills?)
11. Are your invoices sent out in a timely fashion?
12. Are your clients good at making payments? Might you eliminate those that don't pay?
13. Do you know your overall payment rate?
Your Customers
14. What are your customer segments in percentages (kitchen dealers, builders, remodelers, box stores, retail, etc.)?
15. Which segments do you like working with the most?
16. Which segments bring you the best net profit?
17. Are there any segments you hate dealing with, and can you eliminate them?
18. Have you done a good job of selling yourself, your company, and your products to your clients?
19. Do you understand the potential sales they might be able to make, in order to increase your profit and theirs?
20. Do you help clients achieve higher sales goal?
21. Are problems solved with a minimal client agitation?
22. Have you given your clients binders with information explaining your product offerings and how to price jobs?
23. Do your clients like and understand each of the product categories you sell? Solid surface, e-stone, and stone, including pros and cons, and design options for each?
Your Customers and You
24. Do your clients enjoy dealing with your company? And are they committed to working exclusively with you?
25. Do they feel free to come to you for "help" if necessary?
26. Is your turnaround time OK with them, or do they require something better?
27. Can you think of ways to improve your services?
28. Have you asked your customers what they want from you?
29. Is "partnering" with your customers a serious goal that you work on regularly?
Work Flow
30. Do you have more work than you can handle?
31. Is this causing delays or cash flow problems?
32. Have you considered partnering with other companies when your workload is heavy, rather than getting behind?
33. Do jobs go through your shop without too many glitches, or does your work flow require major rethinking?
Paperwork
34. Is there a system for reconfirming information on the paperwork?
35. Do change orders have a tendency to mess up the works?
36. Do you process paperwork to the shop before all the information is complete? (i.e., cutouts?)
37. Have you taken the paperwork from the jobs that had problems, and reviewed each problem with an eye for improving systems so as to eliminate the problems?
Templating
38. Does your templating system work well, or need upgrading?
39. Are the measurements from the template ever checked against the measurements on the paperwork?
40. Do you up-charge because the actual job is larger than or different from what was originally specified?
Employees
41. Do employees understand your company and its goals?
42. Do they care about the well-being of your company, and understand how a healthy business helps them?
43. Do they work together well, or is there friction?
44. Do they respect you and do you respect them?
45. Is there anybody who needs training or retraining?
46. Is there anybody who really shouldn't be there?
47. Do you provide incentives to help employees do better?
48. Do you provide a relatively good and clean environment?
49. Do you ever ask employees for suggestions on how to improve things?
50. If not, why not?
I hope this tweaked at least a new thought or two.
Sincerely,
Joanna