Frequently Asked Questions
Working with ascendBIZ2
- Typical engagement
- We work with clients on a monthly retainer. No contracts.
- We meet with clients in person or via Zoom.
- Most clients choose to meet in two 4-hour meetings per month. But we also offer 2-hour and full-day sessions, based on the client’s desire to accelerate their company’s growth.
- ascend2VALUE group coaching program
- We occasionally offer a group business coaching program.
- This typically involves eight to ten business owners, meeting once per month for a 3-hour session, plus a 1-hour 1-2-1 coaching session.
- This is a 12-month program, geared to owners who want a budget-conscious service focused on accelerating business value.
- On average, client engagements last 18 to 24 months, dependent upon client objectives and needs.
- We believe as long as you are receiving value, we continue our engagement. We maintain flexibility to adapt to your circumstances throughout our engagement.
Growing Business Value
Focusing your efforts on the 18 drivers of business value will provide your business more profits, enable the business to run better, and free you up to work on what you want to when you want to. Most importantly, it will set your business up for multiple options when you are ready to transition out of your business.
Growing business value through the 18 value drivers will increase your margins and productivity thereby improving your bottom-line profits.
The most impactful value drivers are:
- Develop next-level management talent, thereby reducing business owner dependency.
- Implement recurring revenue streams, guaranteeing predictable income.
- Document systems and processes, ensuring consistent service delivery and productivity.
- Growth plan and last 3 years increasing performance
- Financials complying with GAAP principles
Planning for a Transition or Exit
The humorous answer is 5 years ago. But ideally, you should be looking to start the exit planning process at least 2 to 3 years before your desired transition target date.
- How much will I need from the sale of my business?
- To whom would I like to sell my business?
- When would I like to be out of my business?
- What are my plans for my life after I sell my business?
- An exit plan is creating a Roadmap to ensure your key objectives are met when you eventually leave your business or significantly change your role and involvement in the day-to-day running of your business. Creating an exit plan usually involves a team consisting of an exit planner to coordinate the work of your key advisors, such as your CPA, financial wealth manager, banker, business attorney, etc.
- Selling a business is the actual sales process led by a business broker or investment banker. They market the business, negotiate the sales price and terms. Think of the Exit Plan as the preparation to maximize the sale and the Sale as the transaction.
We have a process that can create an exit plan for you within 90 to 120 days, at a cost of about a quarter of other planning services.
We can create an ExitMap Plan for you for $5000.
Why Use Assessments?
- Increases the odds that you hire people that are the right fit for your company.
- Improves employee performance, productivity, and communication.
- A bad hire is estimated to cost between 30% and two times the annual compensation, depending on the position.
- Getting the right people in the right seats, doing the right roles can dramatically improve overall business performance and profitability.
Assessments are invaluable for the selection, coaching, and development of your team members.
- For selection, we highly recommend the PXT Select assessment.
- For coaching and development, we utilize PXT Select, and the suite of My Everything DiSC assessment profiles: Workplace, Sales, Management, and Work of Leaders.
- For the development of your management/leadership team, we recommend My Everything DiSC Management, or Work of Leaders assessment, PXT Select, and Strengthsfinder.
- For choosing and developing key individuals in succession planning, we utilize the My Everything DiSC Work of Leaders assessment, PXT Select, Strengthsfinder, and an entrepreneurial assessment.