The thing that made you good at this is probably the thing costing you now
Seven questions. Two minutes. No email.
There are five ways of running a business well, and most owners are one of them with a bit of another underneath. The one you are is why the business exists. It is also, at a certain size, exactly what starts getting in the way, and almost nobody spots the moment that flips.
Below are seven questions about what you actually did rather than what you are like. At the end it tells you which one you are, which parts of the job you are worth the most in, and what it is quietly costing you at the moment.
Which of the five are you
The traits that start a business are not the traits that run one.
Seven questions about what you actually did, rather than what you are like. Two minutes, and no email. I keep a count of which answers come up and nothing else, so that in a year I can tell people what the spread looks like. Nothing that could identify you goes anywhere.
There is no good score and no bad one. Every profile is worth a great deal at one stage and costs money at another, and the useful part is knowing which stage you are in.
What follows from any of them
You took this, which means something has been on your mind for a while.
Every trait on that list is why the business exists, and none of them is going to change. What changes is the stage you are in, and every profile is worth a great deal at one stage and costs money at another. Nobody sends a letter when it changes.
So the useful question is not which one you are. It is which parts of the job your profile is worth the most in, which parts are costing you at the moment, and who around you covers the difference.
That is workable. It is most of what I do.
The first conversation is forty-five minutes on the phone. It will cost you nothing more than your time, and it could be the best investment you make this year. Or read on first, which most people do.