Today I want to do something different. Over the next few posts, I’m going to be diving deeper into the 7-Figure Freedom methodology. In this particular post, I’m going to talk about the assessment piece. It’s my goal to really break it down so that you better understand how I think through each process and why it matters so much in business coaching.

So much of business coaching comes down to telling people what to do, but that is strange to me because everyone has their own wisdom. And, just like me with my own business – you know your own business better than anyone else.

If you can learn how to think differently and to look at your business in a unique way, there’s so much progress to be made. I want to approach it from that perspective in this post.

I believe that for us visionaries, scaling is different from the cookie-cutter approach that exists. That’s because it’s all about alignment and feeling fulfilled to make an impact. Oftentimes, though, we waste a lot of time, money, and resources that result in us moving in the wrong direction of our vision.

The Importance of the Assessment 

The assessment – or audit – is the first step of the seven figure methodology. The reason for this is because I believe there’s a missing link in the world of business where we don’t actually assess what’s going on with our clients before we start giving advice.

If we don’t do that, it means we’re not being strategic. It results in throwing spaghetti at the wall – which we all know doesn’t really work. An underlying strategy is needed to really make a difference.

You need to really understand your business at a deeper level and determine what you really want to create. That’s where the assessment comes in. It helps you zero in on your vision and go all in on it. 

But as you start getting into the day to day of your business, it’s common for the vision to get lost. This can cause discouragement and the tendency to give up on your goals or the feeling of burn out. These challenges make it feel exhausting to go after your goal, and it may cause you to water down your original goal or vision.

That results in you settling for less. Obviously, that’s not what you want. That’s why I partner with my clients to uncover your big, audacious vision and goals. From there, we can determine a clear path forward.

The Assessment Questionnaire 

The assessment is very intimate. I send out a long questionnaire and it causes a moment to pause and take stock of your situation and your business. It asks things like:

• Where am I in my business?
• Where have I come from and where do I want to go?
• What are the things in my business that work really well?
• What do I already have in place to help me scale successfully?
• What do I need to add in to do better?
• What are the things I’m brushing over in the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day?
• How can we streamline things to be efficient and prevent problems?

This questionnaire is a big eye-opener. From there, I review the questionnaire and we begin focusing on five areas. They are as follows:

• Wealth – all about how you create revenue in your business
• Integration – all about your workflow, systems, automations, processes, standard operating procedures, and actual business assets
• Support – your team, strategic and tactical support
• Expansion – how can we expand your vision in a streamlined and direct way?
• Freedom – how much of this do you really have in your business?

Let’s look a little deeper into the freedom piece. There are three different areas for you, as a CEO and the visionary of the business, that you want to understand.

First, we’re looking to create financial freedom. We want you to have enough money in the bank so that you can invest in your business the way that you want to and to bring it to its maximum potential.

Next, time freedom is important. How can you step away from your business without losing momentum and freedom? It’s so vital to be able to step away for your own health, but you want to do so in a way without sacrificing income.

Finally, creative freedom allows you to take action on some of your brilliant ideas and insights. It allows you to follow your intuition and gut feelings. These things are so important for visionaries to pay attention to, and without doing that, you may have a tendency to get lost.

I love this quote from a true visionary:

“You cannot solve a problem from the same perspective it was created in.” – Albert Einstein

I help business owners see their business from a different perspective when we dive into this assessment and you complete your questionnaire. When you really align yourself and connect yourself with your vision, that’s when things click and you can resolve issues and move forward.

My Assessment Scorecard

I use an assessment scorecard that I’ve developed to understand your business better. I identify five different things in different areas and I color-code them. Red means that you don’t quite have this in place at all yet and you need to put it in place in order to successfully scale. Orange means that you have partly installed this in your business, but it needs to be tweaked and aligned in a more impactful way. Green means that you do have this already in place for your business.

As the CEO spends time on the questionnaire, my team and I do a full team assessment. We look at human design and use a strength finder with anyone involved in your business. 

This allows us to see your team side by side and identify gaps. We can then see where you’re missing strengths, why things aren’t gelling well, and what strengths you need to hire for. It’s also a good way to examine whether team members are being used to their maximum potential to play on their strengths.

From there, you can really zero in on your role as CEO. You are the engine of your business, and it runs on how you show up and by using your energy as the gas for all that it does. Feeling resourceful allows you to tap into your natural genius and your natural strengths every day allows for more growth. Furthermore, once you stay in your zone of genius, your energy is going to be freed up for expansion and to allow you to support the vision of your business.

Flip the Freedom Process 

Next, there is a process that we all Flip the Freedom, Switch on Your Scheduled. I’ve developed this over the years. You have probably had an accountant tell you to track your budget. We do something somewhat similar with time.

First, we have you track your time in fifteen-minute intervals so we can understand how you’re spending your time all day every day. This will happen for at least three full days. Then, there are a few things I’ll look for when I review that with you. 

We’ll examine how many transition times you have throughout the day. These times result in you losing up to fifteen minutes every time you transition between tasks. That’s a lot – it can be up to ten hours lost throughout the week. 

Making the most of your time allows you more time for yourself to give yourself more energy, which is so important because that’s how your business runs and succeeds.

The other thing we’re looking at is how much you mix and match left and right brain activities. It’s really hard when we’re constantly switching from one side to the next. I recommend developing a program that maximizes your time around these to increase efficiency.

The third thing I like to look at here is what tasks you’re doing that others can do. Every CEO has things they can offload to someone else. Doing this allows you to stop being a bottleneck and better scale your business.

There are lots of things that could be better off delegated. Maybe they’re things you don’t like doing or things you’re not good at. 

This part of the process will happen quite rapidly. We can usually free up 10 to 20 hours a week – that’s a lot, right? 

Inbound Marketing Assessment

The fourth thing my team will do is an inbound marketing assessment. We will get access to your Google ads accounts and Google Analytics. We will look at things like website and email traffic. We will even interview some of your clients as market research and do competitive research on your competitors. 

Another thing we look at is your paid advertising to gain insight into what’s working and what’s not. One of my biggest pet peeves with marketing is that very few people slow down enough to look at what works and what doesn’t in this regard. 

As a marketing client, it costs you a good amount to run your ads. That’s great if you get a solid return on investment, but I’ve found that many companies don’t spend enough time getting to know your company and what you need from them. That results in you trying a lot of different things to find what actually works, which results in a lot of wasted money.

Understanding What’s Happening Beneath the Surface: The Bottom Line 

I’ve interacted with a lot of amazing business leaders and visionaries who are discouraged and almost ready to throw in the towel. But I want to encourage you to slow down enough to take stock of the situation and do a deep dive audit of your business. This step makes a world of difference in understanding what’s going on beneath the surface. 

The deep-dive assessment helps you get to the root cause of the issues you’re experiencing. That’s why this is the first step in looking at your business, getting curious, and looking at the data that exists. That allows you to look at things realistically and logically to structure your path forward.

I’ll talk to you next week!

I would love to get connected on Instagram or The 7-Figure Freedom Club Facebook Group so we can chat about your takeaways from this episode. If you’re interested in learning more schedule a call with me today or visit my website!

And if you want to take the next step, take the business assessment quiz to get started.