Specialists tend to look at the part of a firm they know. The web agency sees the website. The recruiter sees the team. A coach sees the owner. Each view is useful, and each is incomplete. Rarely does anyone join them up, and that is where owners are left unsure where to start.
A simple remedy is to review the firm across six areas, one question each, and to be honest about which area is weakest. The principle is straightforward: a firm is only as strong as its weakest area.
The six areas
Strategy and positioning
Where is the firm going, and why will clients choose it over the alternatives? If you cannot say so in two sentences, your team and your clients probably cannot either.
Services and pricing
Are services packaged and priced so the firm earns what its work is worth? Overruns, unbilled time and the same fee for very different clients are signs that the answer is no.
Clients and marketing
Do the right clients find the firm and buy? Activity is easy to produce. The test is whether it brings in the clients you actually want.
Operations
Does the work flow without waste or constant firefighting? Repeated rework and last-minute scrambles are signs that a process needs attention, not that the team needs to try harder.
People and capacity
Do the owner and team have the roles, skills and time they need? In many firms the owner is the bottleneck, and the first people question is how to change that.
Technology and AI
Do systems and technology, including AI, help or hinder? New tools are worth adopting where they remove real friction. They are a distraction where they do not.
How to use it
Score each area from one to five, as honestly as you can. Then look at the lowest score, not the highest. The weakest area is where the firm is most exposed, and very often it is where the priority issue sits.
A self-assessment has limits, because owners tend to be generous about the areas they care least about and harsh about the ones they know best. Testing your scores with someone outside the firm is a useful second step. The Hexarch framework sets out what is looked at in each area. If you would like to test your own scores, get in touch.