A bad cough starts, you wait it out a day or two and when symptoms persist, you consult a doctor. The pharmacist hands over your medication and off you go, trusting that the healthcare professionals have given you the best possible solution to your ailment. All things being equal, you should be back to full health.
Let’s pretend for a second we can equate the physical being to a company or an SME and that I am allowed to draw parallels between an ailing body and a struggling business, organs and functional departments, medication and business advisory & consultancy services.
Now that I have convinced you, let’s talk about the need to go through business health checks and why it is essential to consult a “business doctor” when your business isn’t well.
In the past three years, working for a consulting firm as a business development manager, I have been fortunate to interact with and provide services for over 200 SMEs, most of whom I have conducted a Business Health Check (BHC) on. The BHC is a process likened to a sick person being physically examined by a doctor, taking lab tests and other medical tests. The outcome of these BHCs highlights issues pertaining to financial management, marketing, operations, customer service, human resource, and business succession (the last two are my favorite topics for discussion on another day).
IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH CHECKS
BHC are conducted with the aim of comprehensively evaluating the key areas of one’s business, identifying the constraints, what or who causes these constraints, and the impact these constraints have had on the business over a period of time.
An external set of eyes from an expert helps identify constraints and challenges that have been taken for granted.
The ‘business doctor’ offers a different approach to solving challenges based on his varying experience dealing with businesses that operate in your industry.
The BHC report and action plan serve as a step-by-step guide in resolving issues identified and furthermore, the ‘business doctor’ can help guide you in implementing strategies that align with your business goals and measure your progress.
During the health checks areas of your business that are performing well are also highlighted. This provides an assurance that you are on the right track and pinpoints those who are responsible for the growth of your business.
Prescription: Acknowledge them openly, get them some good lunch and/or bonus (no matter how small)
During your interactions with your ‘business doctor’, your openness will determine the quality of help you get. Don’t be like a 30-year-old footballer with a knee injury, who declares himself a young 17-year-old. (Welp!). During your open discussions, opportunities can be identified to help you make realistic decisions about your future.
To share all my experiences thus far, would be to write a 400-page book but some of the memorable ones that struck me the most are what I would like to share for now
TRANSPARENCY
NB: The Business Health Check was FREE. Freeeee!!!
Most of the SMEs were skeptical about opening up and discussing their business even those who had paid for a specialized service to help address major problems in their company. Getting them to also go through their books was a bit of a challenge except if there was some sort of assurance that they were going to get funding. Was it the typical Ghanaian shyness in play or a lack of trust? Here’s what worked for me.
An acknowledgment of all their efforts & successes
Empathizing with their struggles
Opening up about my experiences relevant to their business /industry
Sharing success stories of clients who have been taken through BHCs and followed up on action plans
Unlike the Korle Bu doctors who would typically not need to coax patients into revealing their problems/symptoms, the ‘business doctors’ I have interacted with, have had to find ways to gently pry businesses open, to reveal their true vitals so they can offer the right solutions.
ACTION PLAN IMPLEMENTATION
Hands up if you have ever stopped taking your meds, before it ran out, just because you were feeling better after day two or three. Well, I am guilty here, and the same ‘sentence’ applies to a section of my clients, who after signing off on an action plan, stopped acting on it. The reasons cited for non-conformity to the plans were usually “I got tired of keeping records” and “I keep forgetting”. Surprisingly, adaption to the simple technology recommended to clients for management of their inventory, sales, schedules, and finances was a major challenge, mostly for companies that were two years or older. It’s intriguing how people spend so much time on their phones switching from app to app but can’t seem to make it a habit to use technology that benefits their business.
Our team remedied this situation by handholding willing clients through the switching-over process and constantly monitoring them. Change doesn’t come easy for everyone whether or not you appreciate the benefits of that change. Helping businesses go through change is great but they have to be keen on implementing the changes themselves, to benefit
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
Cash is king. Kings need queens, bishops, etc to rule well. Case in point, money alone won’t cut it, and in my conversation with my clients, most people intimated, even though they needed the cash, they had other challenges that needed addressing.
During the BHCs, one of the key questions I asked my client’s, “Exactly how much do you need”. Less than 10 people gave an exact figure and the refrain was “Oh if you give me *about* x Cedis I can do something with it”. Having gone through their exact needs and prepared a budget, we both realized their estimation was not accurate and not everything they claimed they needed was crucial to their survival or growth.
It’s imperative as a business to put together a plan that validates your financial requirements. Ignore this and you run the risk of misappropriating any financial assistance that is given to you.
I do hope this has been an interesting read and insights will spur you on to get your business’ health checked at the earliest opportunity.
About the writer
Charles is a friend of mine with a strong passion to help businesses grow. He is a growth-oriented and innovative business development specialist with over ten (10) years of combined experience in relationship management, customer acquisition, sales, marketing, business management, product development, growth strategy formulation, and implementation. I am passionate about entrepreneurship and being part of the success story of businesses. Follow him on LinkedIn via this link.
