The Profit Trap Scorecard

Eight questions. Six minutes. Find where your profit is trapped, and what it is costing you.

Answer it the way the business actually is, not the way you intend it to be.

Every owner is tempted to score the version they are working toward. That version does not need this audit. The one you have today does.

  1. Direction01 of 08If I were unreachable for two weeks, my team would keep moving toward the same outcome, because they know what it is without asking me.
    1
    Work stalls within days. Most of it waits for me.
    3
    The urgent keeps moving. Anything needing a decision waits.
    5
    Two weeks pass and the right things still happen, in the right order.
  2. Relevance02 of 08New business arrives through something other than me. Our demand has a source that is not my relationships and my calendar.
    1
    Every new client comes from me personally. If I stop, it stops.
    3
    There are other sources, but mine is the one that actually produces.
    5
    Demand comes through a process someone else runs and measures.
  3. Simplicity03 of 08We can decline work that does not fit, and the decision does not need me in the room to make it stick.
    1
    We take almost everything, and I am the one who says yes.
    3
    We know what a bad fit looks like. We still take it when the month is slow.
    5
    There is a standard for what we take, and someone else applies it without me.
  4. Consistency04 of 08Two clients buying the same thing get the same result whether or not I touch the work.
    1
    The ones I touch go well. The others are a gamble.
    3
    The steps are the same. The quality still depends on who is doing it.
    5
    Same result either way, and I hear about problems from our process, not from the client.
  5. Ownership05 of 08Decisions get made where the work happens, instead of routing through me and waiting.
    1
    Everything comes to me, including things that should not.
    3
    People decide small things. Anything with money or a client attached waits for me.
    5
    Each seat owns a result and decides within it. I hear outcomes, not requests.
  6. Confidence06 of 08Our prices hold when I am not the one having the conversation.
    1
    Price gets discounted unless I am in the room.
    3
    Others can quote the price. They cannot defend it.
    5
    Anyone on the team can explain why the price is the price, and it holds.
  7. Visibility07 of 08I am not the only person in this business who knows how it is actually doing.
    1
    The real numbers live with me, and partly in my head.
    3
    Someone else sees the numbers. Nobody else reads them.
    5
    The numbers are seen, understood and acted on by more than one person.
  8. Durability08 of 08If something happened to me tomorrow, someone other than me knows who to call and what to do with this company.
    1
    Nobody. It would fall to my family to work out from scratch.
    3
    Someone knows a few things. There is no written plan.
    5
    There is a named person, a written plan, and the documents to back it up.
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