ABOUT YOU (PERSONAL PROFILE)

(1) Name of the individual(s) filling out this Questionnaire:

(2) Describe what your position within the business is:

(3) Describe what your background is. What did you do prior to starting, buying, or inheriting this business?

(4) Describe exactly who the owner/owners are:

(5) Tell me about the goals of the owner:

(6) What is the current operating philosophy that the business has been built on? Have you changed this philosophy since you started/acquired this business?

(7) What if any drivers have influenced you as an individual? Have there been any books, people, experiences, or life factors that have impacted who you are or what you do in your business?

(8) What is it that you are trying to accomplish with your business? Are you trying to become very wealthy, looking for freedom in your life, becoming an industry leader, or trying to create a movement? What do you ultimately want to achieve?

(9) Where is your time currently being spent in a normal week?

(10) Where do you think it should be spent?

(11) What drove you to start/acquire your business? What motivated you to make the step into entrepreneurship?

(12) How have the methods, products, or service lines that you offer within your business changed since the inception of your business? What drove these changes?

(13) Describe your training, interests, and hobbies? What do you do when you’re not at the office and why?

(14) Describe your personal life. Are you married, divorced, or have any children, how is your health?

(15) What would you consider to be your greatest achievement? This can be personal or business or both.

(16) What is the one greatest thing you would like to accomplish with your business before you get out?

(17) If you could choose, would you rather attract more clients or generate more money from the clients you currently serve? Why?

(18) What is your end goal, your long-term strategy?  Is your aim to own your business forever, do you want to set it up so that someone else can run it, sell it, generate a bunch of money and then stop or create something to hand down to your family? Why?

(19) If you had access to as much money as you needed. What would you add to your product or services and how would that impact your clients?

(20) What do you see happening in your industry in the next 5 years? What about 10?

(21) What is the vision for your business for the next:

            6 Months?

            1 Year?

            3-5 Years?

            10 Years?

(22) What do you consider to be your biggest current opportunity that you can use to achieve this vision?

(23) What do you consider to be your greatest strength as an individual? Is this consistent with the opportunity in the previous question?

(24) What is the greatest problem/weakness that you currently have preventing you from achieving your vision?  What do you think is a solution for this weakness?

ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS (CORPORATE PROFILE)

(25) List your revenue and approximate pre-tax profits for each of the past 5 years:

(26) Indicate what your current costs of sales are: (cost of sales is anything required to perform the service or sell the product you offer)

(27) List all overhead factors and list what they include (overhead includes anything not related to a direct expense Ex. phones, meals and entertainment, non-revenue generating staff, rent, etc.)

(28) Describe what your business does in depth. List all the products and services that you offer, how you sell them, whom you sell to, what industries you work with, and any specific niches that you might interact with.

(29) What are your current year-to-date sales figures? What is your expected budget for revenue this year and are you on target to achieve that budget?

(30) Where do you generate the majority of your sales in the following areas?

            Product or Service

            Category of Client

            Geography

(31) Who has the highest propensity of buying from you?

(16) What is the philosophy of your business as it relates to your clients?

(17) How often do you introduce new products or services to your market (both current clients and prospects)?  What was the last new product you introduced?  How did it work?

(18) What is your general company structure? Do you have sales staff, how many people do you employ, and what is your supervisor/manager-to-employee ratio?

(19) What is the current decision-making structure of your business? Do you make all the decisions or does a manager? Are you actively involved in the day-to-day operations? What is the political environment in your business? 

(20) Who does your bookkeeping? Is it internal or external?

(21) Explain how much more business you could take on realistically without having to add any personnel, equipment, or space.

(22) Please provide two company organization charts with this document. You should have a chart indicating all the positions as it stands today. Someone may currently be doing multiple roles, those roles should be separate on the organization chart, with the name responsible in both roles. 

The second chart should indicate what the organization chart would be if you were at the perfect size for your business. Place any current employees on that chart and leave the other roles unfilled but list the positions you would theoretically hire for.

(23) How would you describe your business to someone outside of your industry? Keep it as simple as possible.

(24) Describe your business in a single sentence.

(25) How would you describe your business to someone in your industry? This should be the company pitch, not the product pitch. What would you say to someone interested in buying or investing in your business?

CLIENT PROFILE

(26) How many clients do you have that are currently active with you? (dealt with you in the past 12 months)

(27) What kind of information do you have on your clients? Do you have names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, locations, what and when they bought from you, how you acquired them, and the date of the last contact? How extensive is your information? I don’t need the information, simply what you have available to you.

(28) How many of your clients would you consider to be dream clients? (There is a rule in business called the 80/20 rule. 80% of your revenue should come from 20% of your clients. 80% of your time will be spent on 20% of your clients. You would be surprised how often these are not the same clients)

(29) What is the acquisition cost of a new client? For example, if you spent $5000 on advertising last year and it generated 50 new clients, your acquisition cost would be $100 for each client.

(30) During the first year working with a client, what is the average revenue and profits generated from a new client? How is this information useful in your marketing strategy?

(31) What is the lifetime value of your typical client? (for instance, if the average client deals with you on average for 15 years and they spend on average $1000 a year, the lifetime revenue would be $15,000)

(32) Split your revenue into client demographics or service types. How much of your revenue is coming from each demographic and how much time is spent in each demographic?

(33) What is your most significant source of new business?  What are you doing to secure this business and what more could you do to secure more of it?

(34) How much of your business comes from direct referrals as a percentage?

The following is a quick-fire list of things that you can be doing to increase your business. Please describe what if anything you are currently doing in each category. If you aren’t doing anything, why not, if you are, describe in detail what you are doing and how it works.

Client Acquisition

            (35) Do you have any formal referral systems in place?

            (36) Do you use any break-even offers to acquire new clients?

            (37) Do you use risk reversal guarantees?

            (38) Do you have any host-beneficiary relationships?

            (39) What advertising streams do you use?

            (40) Do you use direct mail?

            (41) Do you use telemarketing?

            (42) Do you run any information nights or special events?

            (43) Have you ever purchased a qualified list or client list?

            (44) What is your USP (Unique selling proposition)

            (45) How do you increase the perceived value of your product/service?

            (46) What public relations do you currently employ?

Client retention

            (47) How do you deliver higher than expected levels of service?

            (48) How do you connect with and communicate with your existing client base?

Client Conversion

            (49) What have you done to increase the sales skills of your staff?

            (50) What do you do to qualify leads prior to your sales staff getting access to the lead?

            (51) What irresistible offers does your sales presentation include?

            (52) How do you educate your clients on why they should be purchasing through you?

Increased Transaction Value

            (53) What training have you provided to your team to effectively up-sell or cross-sell?

            (54) Do you use any point-of-sale promotions?

            (55) Do you package products and services that go well together in bundles?

            (56) Do you have a formal plan in place for pricing increases?

(57) Have you made any changes to your product to appear more “exclusive”? Think Coke vs no name cola. They’re both a soda, but one has a branding, reputation, and belief that it is worth more.

            (58) Have you considered offering larger units of purchase?

Transaction Frequency

(59) Have you created back-end products that you can return to existing clients with?

(60) Do you communicate personally with your clients to maintain a positive relationship?

(61) Have you ever endorsed another company’s product to your client base?

(62) Have you ever run a limited special event such as a closed-door sale or limited-time offer?

(63) Have you created any reduction in pricing for repeated purchases? (Think buy 2 get one free)

SALES PROFILE

(64) Describe your sales force:

(65) Do you have inside or outside salespeople?

(66) Who does what?

(67) How are they paid?

(68) What are their average income levels?

(69) Have you tried different compensation programs?  If so, what was the effect on sales?

(70) If you have a team of sales staff, indicate what the difference is between your highest and lowest performer. What do the highest do well, and what are their strengths and weaknesses?

(71) What is the average order amount?  What could you do to increase it?

(72) What are the current gross sales of each salesperson?  How does this compare to your industry’s average?

(73) What are you currently (or will be) doing to improve this number?

(74) What are your standards for hiring a salesperson?

(75) How much professional sales training have you personally had?  What courses have you taken?

(76) What type of training do you offer your inside and outside sales staff?

(78) What other training do you provide your staff in general in a year? (product, account management, time management, mindset)

(79) How often do you provide training?

(80) What is your turnover rate for salespeople?

(81) Describe in detail what a typical cycle of a sale looks like. From gaining the lead to closing the lead.

            How many touchpoints does this normally take?

            How long does it normally take from initial contact to close?

(82) What is the most common objection you get?

(83) What is your closing ratio?

(84) When dealing with clients, how often are you dealing with the individual who will make the decision?

(85) What are the reasons that a client may not choose to purchase from you?

(86) When a client doesn’t purchase with you, what do you do with that client?

(87) How does your closing rate compare to your competitors?  How did you get their numbers?

(88) Have you ever compared the results of an inside vs an outside sales force?

(89) What is your approach to prospecting for new clients?

(90) What data do you have on your prospects?

(91) Do you leverage trade shows? If so, explain what you do and how you generate prospects at them.

(92) What is your selling presentation?

(93) What is your selling proposition? What exactly do you do that is structured into every sales proposition, what is the basic premise that you use?

(94) What kind of ongoing sales management do you use?  Do you have a sales manager, a sales lead coordinator, a CRM, and structured reporting?  Do your sales staff manage themselves?

(95) After the initial sale, do you have a systematic contact process with your clients to communicate and promote other products?  If so, what do you do?

(96) How much of your personal time is devoted to sales or sales management each week?

(97) What sales functions did you perform when you started your business?  Are you still performing these functions?

(98) Do you do anything at the initial point of sale to increase the value of the sale?  Such as add-on or up-sell product offerings?  If so, what?

(99) When you received an order, how long does it take to close the sale of the product or service?  If you could improve on this, would it affect your sales?

(100) Do you ever deal with clients who are upset about the decision to purchase after the fact (buyer’s remorse)?  If so, how do you deal with this?

(101) Do your clients feel that the level of service that you provide is prompt and courteous?  Explain?

(102) What type of training do you offer your service personnel?

MARKETING PROFILE

(103) What is your ideal client and what portion of the market do they make up?  How did you determine this?

(104) What is your market potential?  How much of that market do you currently own as a market share percentage?  How did you determine this?

(105) Does your business market locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally?  What changes would you need to make to achieve your goal for your business?

(106) Describe the company’s marketing philosophy.

(107) Do you have a marketing plan which is written out and do you follow it?

(108) Does your plan work within a fixed budget or is it variable as a percentage of sales?

(109) What mode of marketing is currently the largest percentage of your budget?  How much of your business comes from this?

(110) Do you have a back-end selling system in place which is designed to sell your products to existing clients?  If so, how does it work?

(111) Do you use Direct response marketing?  This is designed to gain an immediate response i.e., an ad for the local grocery store promoting reduced pricing on products designed to encourage immediate purchasing. If not, why?

(112) How much of your personal time do you put towards marketing each month?

(113) Do you have someone specifically in place to handle your marketing?  What are their duties within your organization?

(114) Do you use marketing services from a third-party design, SEO, or online management company?  If so, what do they do and how much do they cost?  How effective have they been?

(115) Have you built an extensive supply of customer testimonials?  Are they written or videotaped?  Do you currently use them in your marketing?  Would your clients be willing to provide video testimonials?

(116) Do you currently have any referral processes in place?  How many defined referral strategies do you use?  Describe.

(117) Have you ever tried to reengage with former clients or lost prospects?  Explain what you did and how it resulted.

(118) Have you ever tried to sell your unsold prospects to your competitors?

(119) Do you have systematic processes in place which are designed to communicate what you are doing with your existing clients?  How formal are these processes?

(120) Have you ever bartered your services in exchange for products or services from other companies?  If not, is this something you see doing in the future?

(121) Have you ever used bonuses in your sales propositions?  If so, how did it affect your sales?

(122) Do you use risk reversal in your marketing?  Explain how well it has worked. 
(Consider this to be an “if you don’t like it return the product within 30 days and we’ll give you all your money back and you can keep the gift” kind of offer. Something which removes the risk of the purchase from the client.)

(123) Do you have any guarantees or warranties which are included with the purchase of your product?  How does this compare to the largest competitors in your market?

(124) How do you capture client information?  How do you use this information?

(125) In Which ways did you obtain your existing clients?  Rank the methods according to the most effective to the least.

(126) Does your business have seasonal aspects?  What months do you move the most product or services?  How does this compare to your worst months? Do they relate to each other in any other way?

(127) How committed are your clients to you?  We will always have a bleed-off rate. Do you know what that rate is?  How does this compare to your competition in your market and how can you improve this?

(128) What is the niche that you fill in the marketplace?  If you were to ask your clients, what would they say about the niche you fill?  Are they the same?

(129) Do you provide any incentive bonuses to your employees about marketing?

(130) How did you attract your clients when you first got started in your business?

(131) Why did your first clients choose to purchase from you? Why do they buy from you now?

(132) Of everything that you have done regarding marketing in the past, what has provided you with the biggest success, and are you still using that today?

(133) Describe in detail the 5-10 most effective advertising campaigns that you have run in the past 3 years. Of these, how many have you continued to this day?

(134) If you had access to as much money as you would need, what would you do to improve your marketing?

(135) Do you have any PR efforts?  What does it consist of and who is responsible for it?

(136) How does the press view your company?

(137) Do you have a media brochure/kit and if so, how do you use it?

ADVERTISING

(138) What is your advertising philosophy?  How do you embody this in your ads?

(139) Do you understand the difference between direct response advertising and brand awareness advertising?  Describe the difference as you perceive it.

(140) Are your current ads working?  How do you know?

(141) Do you have a two-step advertising process in place? Step 1 generates qualified leads and step 2 converts them into clients.

(142) What is your current conversion ratio?  If you get 100 responses to your advertising, how many of them will convert to a sale?  Have you used any techniques to improve this?

(143) Do you use any materials as part of your sales process to convert prospects to clients?  If so, what do you use, if not, what steps do you take to convert a prospect?

(144) Does your conversion kit contain material from you to explain what the process is and what problems you can solve for the client?

(145) What have you tested in your advertising?  Have you tested copy, media, offers, headlines, prices, sizes, graphics, and position?

DIRECT MAIL/EMAILING

(146) How much direct mail/emailing do you send out each month? To whom and why?

(147) Are there non-competing companies that sell complimentary products whom you could share mailing/emailing lists with?

(148) What is your return on investment for your mail/emailing campaigns?  Do you consider this to be good?

(149) How often do you mail/email to your existing client base?  Is the mailing information, or soliciting additional sales?

(150) Have you ever rented or sold your client list?  Explain?

(151) Have you ever used telemarketing to follow up on a direct mail/emailing piece? Has that been effective?

WEBSITE & SOCIAL MEDIA

(152) Do you have a company website/Social Media profile? Which Social Media platforms are you using? How much traffic/engagement does each one get on a monthly basis?

(154) How often do you post something on your company’s Social Media platforms? What post had the most engagement and what post generated the most sales leads?

(153) What is your spend on each of these Social Media platforms to boost your posts?

(154) What do you do to drive traffic to your company website? Is it paid, organic, or both? Do you know what the difference is between these two types of traffic and how to drive each one?

(155) Are you utilizing Google Ad Words to promote your website via keyword-driven ad campaigns? What are some of the best-performing keywords from your most successful ad campaigns? Who is running your Ad Campaigns on Google? How much are you spending monthly on this advertising?

(156) Does your website feature an informative blog that is not directly tied to advertising? If so, how much traffic has this driven? If not, what is stopping you from creating a blog on your website?

(157) When you enter a search term associated with the products/services your industry offers, what page of Google does your company appear on? For example, your search term would combine your city and service, i.e., “Oil Change in New Jersey” or “Auto Shop Near Me”.

(158) What are the top ten keywords in your industry according to search volume? How do you analyze this data internally?

(159) Are you signed up for Google Local Services? Are you Google Guaranteed?

(160) How many reviews do you have on Google? What is your rating? What has been the best and most descriptive review you have received?

(161) Do actively engage with clients to get more reviews? What formal process do you have in place to generate more Google reviews?

(162) What is your company’s placement on Google Maps when searching for related services/products your company offers?

(163) How many leads are generated from your digital advertising and what is the price point for each lead? What is the conversation ratio for each channel?

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

(164) Have you ever had any strategic partnerships with another business?  If so, what did it involve and how did it work out?

(165) Who do you currently partner with that if you were to buy the, would result in growth for your company?  This could be wholesalers, businesses with concurrent products to offer, or services bought after you closed a sale.

(166) Who are your suppliers which would benefit the most if you are successful?

(167) What products or services do people typically buy before, after, or at the same time that they purchase products or services from you?

USP (UNIQUE SELLING POSITION)

Describe in detail every unique aspect of the product or service that you provide.  This must be something unique to your business that is rare or not seen in your industry. Be very specific and measurable in this.  The more detail the better.

(168) What do you believe to be your single most competitive advantage?

(169) What about your business are you most proud of?  Is it a product or a service?

(170) What problem does your product or service solve for the client?  What does the client need, and what are the positive results your product or service provides?

(171) List all the factors that your product or service gives to a client in a transactional way.  For instance, if your doodad will save a client $300 a year in water, detail that.  If you’re a real estate person, your product could put someone into a better lifestyle and will give them a measure of pride or appreciation.  List all these advantages to the best of your ability in detail.

(172) What is your current USP?  Why do your clients buy from you?  What about your product or service sets you apart from your competition?

(173) Why must your clients buy from you? What value do you add to leave the client with no choice but to proceed with you?

(174) What do your clients really want?  Avoid generic wording like “quality product.”  What is it about your product that a client really wants?

(175) What products or services do your clients want that you don’t offer?