The Deep Dive Assessment – the most comprehensive business assessment tool ever created

In 1999, I was in the midst of a tech turnaround.  Our company was hiring consultants, coaches, and anyone we could find who thought they could help.  We quickly found out two things.  The first is that most consultants cost about 100K to get to the bottom of our problems (which is ridiculous).  The second was that no one had a decent assessment tool to diagnose what those problems were.  All those companies had tools, but the tools we vastly different and didn’t give us a good assessment of our situation.  We found that we liked pieces of each tool, but none of them had everything we wanted.  So as an engineer and problem solver at heart, I began to build a tool.

After years of research, case studies, and practical application, I now have what I feel is the most comprehensive business assessment tool ever created.  The Deep Dive Assessment.

Measures 16 Data Points:  We are able to determine the strength, weakness, opportunities, and viability of a company by measuring 16 specific areas of a business.  We study your financials, operations, marketing, sales, team, customer service, client base, innovation, specific industry, inventory, technology, education, personal, social media, website, and P&L’s.  We have found that these 16 data points cover the entire business and allow us all the data we need to make clear recommendations that will take your company to the next level.

Makes Clear Recommendations:  Our recommendations are based on over 200 questions we will ask you about your business.  These questions set off clear recommendations that we CUSTOMIZE for every client and every situation.  Most companies have boilerplate suggestions that don’t necessarily fit with your company, resources, personality, or vision for your company.  We take all of this into consideration before we make any recommendations.

Leverages Your Strengths:  After many years of working with clients, our team has discovered that the biggest wins come from leveraging your strengths.  So we will make recommendations that support this and help you focus on what you love and are great at.  This increases your satisfaction and allows us to tackle weaknesses with a great attitude and a clear head.

Optimizes Your Weaknesses:  There is massive potential in your weaknesses.  We often have a hard time seeing these while we are so deeply entrenched in our day to day business.  It’s critical that you identify all the holes in your business and do so from an objective point of view.  Our job is to be that objective point of view that will tell it like it is and never present a weakness without possible alternatives.

Provides a Road-map for Business Owners and CEO’s:  Most companies started their business with some sort of road-map and may occasionally update their road-map.  But what I’ve found is that most companies don’t work on this key aspect of planning even remotely enough.  Our system lays out your first 90 day plan for you and helps you create and implement an ongoing cycle of planning that will in itself revolutionize the way you do and grow your business.

How to Select a Business Assessment Tool

Before making any serious changes to your business, I always suggest getting a third party assessment of where the business is. A great assessment will guide you during the process of making changes and growing your business. The challenge is that it’s hard to find a great assessment. I’ve invested several years of research on this exact topic and ultimately created my own assessment for my clients. Below are some of the criteria that I used when building our assessment tool. Please consider these criteria anytime you are looking for a business assessment tool for your business.

It should measure the right amount of data: Many tools either don’t measure enough or measure an excessive amount of data. A good number is somewhere between 12 and 18 data points. You want enough data to have an accurate picture of what’s happening in your business without being overwhelmed.

It should make clear recommendations: An assessment should point you in the right direction. If all it does is point out your problems, it’s more of a critique than an assessment. Each area of improvement should come with 3 to 5 recommendations or more if applicable.

It should leverage your strengths: Your biggest opportunity for growth actually comes from mastering and focusing on your strengths. Many people think it comes from your weaknesses, but that’s simply not true in most cases. The reason is that most people don’t like their weaknesses and no matter how much we focus on something you don’t like, you won’t enjoy it and won’t excel at it.

It should optimize your weaknesses: Learn to optimize your weaknesses as much as possible. Even outsource when you can. This allows you to monitor your weaknesses without devoting an excessive amount of time to them. Focus more on what you love doing and what you are strong at.

It should provide a clear road-map: Lastly, a great assessment needs to come with a road-map. Imagine getting back the results of 16 areas of your business with 5 recommendations in each area and NOT being told where to focus. That’s 80 decisions you have to make about the order and timing of those recommendations. It’s quite overwhelming.

What you need is a simple to understand 90 day plan for implementing the first 15 recommendations and a planning model that allows you to rank and schedule the remaining 65 recommendations. So anytime you look at a tool like this, just know that it should come with planning or road-map feature that allows you to implement the recommendations.