"*" indicates required fields Δ Step 1 of 3 33% IS YOUR BUSINESS POSITIONED FOR STRATEGIC GROWTH? The first step in developing your Business Growth Strategy roadmap is assessing your current maturity in order to understand and uncover opportunities for improvement and future growth. Choose the quiz answer that most closely matches your company. Your score will be explained at the end of the quiz to see how you and your business are positioned for strategic growth. Confirm your information below. We will follow-up with a call to schedule a free consultation with one of Burke CPAs & Advisors’ consultants to help you take a fresh look at your business growth strategy and help set new performance goals.Name* First Last Email Address* Enter Email Confirm Email Phone Number*Business Name*Opt-In Yes, I would like to receive relevant thought leadership, publications, industry newsletters and invitations to Burke & Schindler events. Value Proposition.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. Over the years, I’ve come to recognize what I’m best at and have built my company around it. It is difficult for me to articulate what “it” is, except that customers seem to like it. B. We’ve accurately established our value proposition and brand. Our sales force is effective at using it as a door opener or leave behind. It seems to me that we are doing an OK job. C. My management team and I expend significant effort maintaining what we believe is a very valuable, unique and sustainable competitive advantage. We are building our company around it. Hiring & Training.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. Our employees wear many hats which makes it hard to find good talent that meets all of the requirements. We’ve been hiring the first candidate who fits most our qualifications and train them once on board. B. We are fairly good at matching a candidate’s qualifications to the job description, but our on-boarding process is disorganized, and we have a hard time weeding out dead weight. C. We have spelled out our employment policies, making it easy to understand for all employees Sales Process.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. I do practically all the prospecting, lead generation, and sales calls. I close most of my own deals. B. We have a few salespeople who occasionally close a deal. I don’t see that they have a game plan. C. My sales team successfully prospects and closes deals. Our processes are well documented and easy to follow, making it easy to train new team members. Pricing.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. We price our products to yield the same gross profit margin percentage every year and only increase prices in response to dramatic increases in our costs. B. We occasionally increase prices based on our competitors’ prices but only when we are sure our customers will accept the increase. C. We monitor costs and conduct customer satisfaction and competitive analyses so we know when we have pricing power and can leverage this advantage. Competitive Advantage.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. We don’t have any real competition. Our client base is mostly loyal, and they are aging. As a result, we stay the course and don’t change our products and services very often. B. We alter our offerings when we see a competitor being successful with something new. C. We win new business from our competitors’ customers by knowing the market, seeing a good idea, copying it, improving it and charging more for it. Financial Statements.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. I don’t really use my financial statements for much of anything except to send to my accountant for my annual taxes. B. I spend time analyzing our income statement to see if we are making enough money. I occasionally check our gross profit to make sure we are monitoring costs. C. Our management teams maintain their own metrics and are expected to hit their numbers. Our accounting department’s scrutiny and oversight is a key element of our growth engine. Each year we drop a higher portion of sales to the bottom line. Budgeting.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. My budget is simple. My controller and I take the prior year’s actual results and add or subtract a percentage point, depending on the marketplace and economy. We don’t really use it for planning or goal setting. B. I take our prior year’s results to create this year’s budget and try to use industry information to determine how it will affect sales and profits. I would like to improve in this area. C. Our budget is our primary business-management tool. After receiving a detailed sales forecast based on our pipeline, we carefully build our cost estimates so we can accurately predict cost, set minimum employee productivity goals, and base compensation and bonus levels. Business Growth.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. Our business growth pattern mimics economic cycles. I have the desire to grow but it seems my business is destined to be flat. B. We occasionally gain sales through the introduction of new products and by entering new markets, but I don’t feel we are achieving our full potential. C. We outline our growth plan every year and share it with every employee. Each employee must have a role and investment in our success. Organizational Structure.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. I can’t really tell you what our organizational structure looks like because we don’t have one. I’m in charge of production and sales and a number of other departments. B. Sales, production, and administration each have a department head who reports to me, but I still make 99 percent of the decisions because of my need for control. C. My business operates on processes and has an effective organizational structure that is based on direction, purpose and strategic and effective execution. Capital Expenditures.*Choose the answer that most closely matches your company. A. We make most of our capital expenditures in response to a current need. We often drain cash reserves to buy equipment or lease it on unattractive terms. B. We buy what we believe we’ll need to hit our goal. We occasionally fire-sale items if we need a tax loss or to raise cash fast. C. We prepare our capital expenditures budget along with our operating budget as part of our yearly resourcing plan. Because of our stringent standards, our ROI is consistently high.
