Assessment Proper – Business Structure Test

Welcome.

You are taking the version of this assessment updated on July 27, 2024.

Please note, you are only able to take this assessment only two times for free, when you have ran out of this option, it would cost you $10 for each quiz attempt.

The test should take you about 10 minutes.

Let's get moving!

Would you say you are clear on the problem your business is providing solutions for?

Well, we believe our business will make the world a better place so we solve all possible problems our customers have

Our product and service helps provide certain services for a broad range of customers

We honestly didn't set up our business with solving a problem in mind, we just saw a moving market and just built a business around it.

We have decided to focus on a set of people and we help them overcome some set of things we have expertise in

If you had all the money to market and acquire customers, do you have an idea of the amount of money your business can make?

We believe there's a large demand for what we offer, we don't know for sure, but we have an idea what it could be, we are doing our best to grow

Everyone could potentially benefit from our product/service so the amount of money we can make is unlimited, so far we put in the work

We did some research and estimated our target market to consist of a certain number of potential customers and we have that figure

We honestly haven't done some research yet, for now, we are just focused on getting clients

Would you say you know your primary competitors?

We compete with any company that takes customers' attention and money

We have a list of companies we compete with. We have crafted out several things that make us better

Our solution is so innovative that we don't really have direct competitors

We compete with some smaller companies in our space, we are way ahead of them

So what makes your business offering better than the alternatives?

Our solution has a nicer design than our competitors

Our solution/product is easier or cheaper to use than what's currently available

Our solution/product offers a clearly defined benefit and those benefits achieve some key results for our customer

We are passionate about our product and honestly believe it's the best.

How do you currently charge customers?

We want to keep our product/service affordable to everyone so we ensure to have the lowest price in the market

Well, we offer an initial price for the service/product then we allow the customer to negotiate the price

Our pricing is competitive within the industry

We carefully calculate our running cost, cost of production/service delivery, our profit margin and then use that to decide on our price per time

Would you say you know the biggest risks to how your business currently makes money?

We are confident in our solution and don't see significant risks

Our industry can change quickly, so we need to be adaptable

We are still identifying potential risks to our business

We've identified potential risks and have strategies in place to address them

How does your customer acquisition strategy align with your overall business goals?

We see customer acquisition as a separate function from our larger business strategy

We consider customer acquisition important but haven't outlined specific goals, we just run campaigns when we need some money in

Our customer acquisition strategy has clearly defined goals that directly support our business objectives, it's going well so far.

We have clearly defined goals, but in the past, we never hit these goals or got close to them, so we have sort of stopped, we just run things as needed

Our focus is on acquiring as many customers as possible, regardless of their fit with our business

How do you currently set budget for marketing?

We are willing to spend as much as it takes to acquire new customers

We have a realistic budget for marketing we have calculated with relevant data as aligned with our business goals

We set a general budget for marketing, which includes customer acquisition and other things

We haven't allocated a specific budget for marketing, we just run marketing based on how much we can afford at the time

How do you decide which channels to use to reach potential customers?

We currently choose channels based on research about where our ideal customers spend their time and how they prefer to engage

We try to be present on as many social media platforms as possible to maximize reach

We use the same channels our competitors use since they are already getting results there

We experiment with different channels to see what works best

When you run a marketing or customer acquisition drive, how do you analyze and check what worked?

We assess the success of our efforts based solely on revenue generated, after all, we set this up to make sales

We track key metrics throughout our customer acquisition funnel to identify areas for improvement

We monitor customer and leads feedback to understand their experiences

To be honest, we don't regularly evaluate the results of our customer acquisition strategies

How do you handle the contact of those that declared interest in your business (whether in the core offer you are selling or in any other thing you are offering for free first)?

We don’t necessarily handle them, we focus mainly on those who pay for our product and service and just make sure we deliver the product or service to them

Yes, we focus on delivering to those who pay for our service, but we try to check on those who have not paid when we have some free time, we could really get busy sometimes

We don’t have any structure around this, we just handle client inquiries as they come, we sometimes follow up on old leads when we are low on sales, but nothing structured

We have a smooth process around how we handle inquiries and leads, we take the lead through deal stages and we have a clear plan around when and how we follow up

What tool do you use to manage the contacts, leads and customers?

We don’t use any special tool, they reach us on our contact platforms (WhatsApp, DM etc) and we reply to them back based on the inquiries

We use features like Whatsapp Business labels, and other features like that to categorise those who are customers, leads or ordinary contacts

We use physical paper/register or online documents (like Google Docs or Google Sheets) to put in the details of our leads and customers

We use proper CRM tools like Hubspot CRM / Zoho CRM and things like that to manage our leads, customers and contacts.

How do you balance customer acquisition efforts with customer retention?

I don't even know what each of these means

Customer acquisition is our primary focus; we'll address retention later

We understand that customer acquisition and retention are interconnected and have working strategies for both

We believe if our product or service is great, customers will naturally stay

We know the importance of both, but we have not been able to really find what works effectively for both

We shift focus to customer retention once we've acquired new customers, for us, it's one before another

How do you adapt your customer acquisition approach in response to changes in the market or customer behaviour?

We prefer to stick with strategies that have worked in the past

We make occasional changes to our strategies based on our observations

We actively monitor market trends and customer feedback to make data-driven adjustments to our approach

We believe our customer acquisition approach should remain consistent over time

Where exactly do things stand with how you acquire new customers for your business?

Here are some things you can talk about:

Are you getting enough customers
Do you feel something is wrong, if yes, what do you think it is
Is something exciting currently happening

You can share the good and the bad.

Let’s talk about your staff management structures, which of these do you have in place (please tick all that apply)

We have a staff contract (that contains a clear job description) for everyone working at your company, we also have an employee manual that states clearly how to access necessary things needed for their work, what is right and what is considered an offence

We have an onboarding guideline, a clear step-by-step system to help new employees understand their role, how our company works and how to use the tools we use for our work

We have a system to actually implement the penalties for defaulting staff when key laid-down guidelines are broken

We have a plan around attracting and building new talent in the business, we are never

Let’s talk about your plans around staff improvement, benefit and career growth. (please tick all that apply)

We have a clear system built to offer employee benefits, performance bonuses, promotions, salary upgrades etc

We have a clearly established times for weekly performance meetings, monthly meetings, quarterly meetings etc

We have clear plans and approach in place for staff training and capacity development

We have a system to review the performance of each staff to appraise them accordingly

How do you ensure that there are no down times in your business as a result of the temporary or permanent sudden absence of key staff? (please tick all that apply)

We have a strategy/system to evaluate the business performance per time and forecast roles we might need to recuit for, then we make those recruitment way before the vacancy for such role is crucial

We have a pipeline system where we recruit for roles ahead to keep candidate in pipeline

We have working methods and channels to get talents into our business (this could be running our own academy, partnering with other academies, head hunting on LinkedIn, using a recruitment agency)

We have a tested interview process that helps us to recruit the best candidate for each role, our process has been refined to expose the hidden gimmicks of potential employees who might want to make a great impression during the interview but might not be able to get tangible work done when recruited

Do you have a mapped-out organization chart showing the key roles your business needs to run its operations efficiently, the key deliverables of each role and who reports to who? (Is that chart created already even if you are the only one that works in the business for now)?

See above what the organisation chart for a radio station looks like.

No, we don’t have such a chart. We have not gotten to the point where we need to be that structured

We don’t have such chart, everyone reports to me as the business owner directly and does what I assign them to do

We don’t have something clearly mapped out, but to a large extent, everyone sort of knows what they do need to do and who they should report to

We have a clear organization chat, with roles, industry-approved names of roles, deliverables for each role and laid out reporting line

Say your marketing activity picked up all of a sudden and you just got x30 of the usual order for your product or service right now. If some new talent needs to join you right away to fulfil the orders, which of the below applies to you currently

This will be total chaos, I’m not sure we can handle such order volume right now, we will just turn some customers away

This will be chaos, but I will find how to somehow quickly train the new hands, even though some orders might be badly done, but it’s better than sending customers away

Currently, some part of how we implement our services is clearly laid out and documented, we will work with that and then see how to quickly document other parts of our operations so that can be used

We have prepared for this. Each of our processes is documented section by section. It only takes a new staff a couple of days to integrate into our system of work and to blend in.

How does your business ensure that the quality of products and services is maintained?

Well, we don’t have any quality control system in place, but if customer complains about any of our products or services, we make sure to attend to that

As the founder of the company, I vet everything that goes out myself, sometimes things get a little bit delayed when there are a lot, but I make sure nothing goes out without my approval

We currently have someone in charge of quality assurance, this person’s full-time job is to ensure the quality of output always

Our quality control system is a very deep one, it’s a mix of ensuing the operations processes are followed, random sampling of output, collecting data to analyse and some other in-depth quality control process.

Which of the feedbacks below do you collect

We collect feedback from customers to know how they feel about our product / service and to know the areas they need us to improve on

We collect feedback from in house staff to know what their experience working in the company is and areas of improvement that might make their work more meaningful

We collect a general market feedback (even to people who are not necessary our customers) just to know what the general market is demanding for per time, so we can align our offerings to meet market demands

We do some form of mystery shopping periodically, to get constant feedback about our customer experience

How do you or anyone in your company approach a task they have never had to do before?

How often do you take a step back to review the data, your approach and service delivery so as to decide and work on new ways to keep the business relevant

Honestly, there is no much time to do that, running the business day to day is a lot already

This is done everyday. Every day, I make sure I make changes to the businesses to make it run better

I ensure we do this weekly, see what worked last week and then make necessary adjustment

We have a comprehensive plan around this, the plan include how we approach things that need urgent changes, and then a plan around how key players in the company join in making key parts of our operations and service delivery better

Let’s talk about your financial management approach. Which of this do you currently have set up

You have a dedicated bank account for your business (and you do not receive payment for the business in your personal account)

Each sale and cash inflow is recorded in a proper system (a finance sheet, accounting software etc)

There is a process in place to handle expenses, spendings, reimbursement etc

You have a formal budgeting process new projects must go through before the funds are approved and released

A bit more on this finance part, let’s talk about your financial compliance approach, which of these systems do you have in place?

We have a system to calculate the company income tax and to file them in a timely manner

We have a system of collecting and remitting the correct tax on customer sales

We have a system of collecting personal income tax from employee`s salaries / wages and remitting them accordingly

We have a system to mitigate issues and situations around fraud, money laundering etc.

Since we are already talking about compliance, let’s stay a bit more on that. Which of this applies to you?

Our business is registered with the government with the right registration structure that aligns with the type of business we run

We have a comprehensive list of the licences our business needs to run, and we have all those licences

We conduct regular financial audits for the business

We have a board of director that give top level overview of our business operations, management and growth

One of the FIRST global growth milestones of a business is its ability to grow to hitting one million dollars in total revenue, do you think your business can ever hit one million dollars in revenue? (Please convert the one million dollars to your local currency)

That’s too far fetched, I don’t even see any way my business could grow to generating that much revenue, I’m NOT DREAMING THAT BIG

Yes, we have dreamt that big, we know how many unit we need to sell to hit such revenue goal, but right now, if we go by how we run our business, we will need more than 20 years to hit such revenue goal

Yes, we are working towards that big of a revenue and we are MAKING CHANGES to how our business runs to hit such a revenue growth in 10 years from now

Yes, we are working towards that big of a revenue and our business is set up in a way that if we get all we need (funding, talents etc) our business is ALREADY set up to scale that fast.

Is your business currently profitable?

Well, I don’t know if by business is really profitable yet, we don’t have an efficient accounting system to know, our goal is just to keep the business running anymore

We are not profitable yet and quite frankly, business is bad right now

We are not profitable yet, but we are well in line, our numbers are looking good and we have a projected time we will be profitable

Yes, we are profitable, we are really just looking to scale things up

You did amazing, you made it to the last question. To help us give context to some of our answers, can you let us know what OTHER challenges you think your business is facing that might be limiting the growth of the business

Please confirm your Full Name

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Remember to answer as honestly as you can, your analysis will be based on your submission.

Also, brace up, it’s a long assessment! 😊