The Importance of Assessment In Growing Your Business

Posted by Chuck Kocher
On December 11, 2016

the-importance-of-assessment-in-growing-your-businessHow important a role does assessment play in the growth of your business? It’s enormous.

We all know the clever malapropism: “Ready, fire, aim!” We joke about it, but if we’re honest, we do it as business leaders. We make plans, create budgets, invest time, and don’t realize until too late that we’ve missed the mark. Then comes the gut-wrenching cry of, “How did this happen.”

That’s why it’s so critical to assess your business goals before you make plans to dramatically grow your company. It’s not enough to simply have a goal—you need to have the right goal.

Let’s take our illustration of the business archer above a little farther to emphasize that point. You can set up your target (or your goal) anywhere you want. Nobody can tell you exactly where to set your target. You can paint it bright colors. You can light it up at night to make it easier to see. But that still doesn’t guarantee that you’ve chosen the right target. How do you even determine what will measure your success?

You can also go out and hire the best “archers” in the world. You can provide a great environment for them. You can further their training and make sure they have all the best information. You can continually check the weather conditions to give your archers the best chance of hitting their target.

You can also spend top dollar to purchase the best equipment available: the most advanced bows and the latest iteration of arrows to ensure that those elements don’t keep you from hitting your goal.

None of those things (as important as they are) will guarantee that you’re shooting at the right target. Here’s the real kicker: There isn’t a universal template or questionnaire that you can fill out to determine if you’ve chosen the right goal. That’s something you have to assess for your specific situation.

That, however, is the beauty of a transformational business. The “business-as-usual” approach would have you taking the same basic approach to everything. A transformational business, however, will assess and evaluate all of the internal and external factors to help you decide if what you’re pursuing fits you in the first place.

That’s one of the things that excites me most about what I do. Yes, I have tons of great tools, connections, and other resources that can help a business succeed, but that first step of helping a business assess and evaluate their goals is the essential first step that can make the difference between scaling for success and spinning your wheels.

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