The Relentless Perspective Audit
WHAT HAS YOUR BUSINESS BECOME?
The Relentless Perspective Audit compares how you see your business with how your team and customers experience it.
The audit
You started with a clear idea of the business you wanted to build. A few years on, it’s doing well enough, and it has grown in ways you never quite planned.
The trouble is you’re too close to it to see it clearly. You know what you meant it to be. Your team and your customers know what it’s actually like, and that’s a version you rarely hear in full.
The Relentless Perspective Audit puts their view next to yours, so you can see where the gaps are and decide what to deal with first.
Three perspectives
Three views of one business.
You
We start with you: what you think the business stands for and the decision you’re facing right now.
Your team
Then we talk to your team. They see how the business works from the inside, including the workarounds everyone has stopped noticing.
Your customers
Then we talk to your customers about why they chose you and whether they’d do it again.
The useful part is where those views don’t match.
A gap might be a problem to fix. It might just as easily be a strength that nobody inside the business thinks to mention.
Who it’s for
Who it’s for.
The audit is for owners and senior leaders of businesses that have been trading for a few years. You might have a team of three or a team of fifteen. Things are going reasonably well and you’ve built something that works. What’s less clear is what it has turned into, and where it should go next.
From the owner’s chair, a lot is out of sight. You can’t ask about something you don’t know is there, and that’s where the audit helps.
It works best when you can involve a few members of your team and a handful of customers, and when you’re prepared to act on what comes back.
The method
How it works.
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Start with a conversation.
We talk about what’s prompted you to look at this now and the decision you’d like to make. Then we agree who to speak to.
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Separate interviews.
I speak to you, a few members of your team and a selection of customers, one at a time, so people can talk freely. Before anyone is interviewed, we agree how their comments will be handled and who sees the findings.
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A written report.
You get a side-by-side comparison of the three views, with the evidence behind each finding. It ends with three priorities and the reason for each.
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Decide what to do.
We work through the report together and turn the priorities into actions, each with a named owner. About 30 days later, we check what has moved.
What the audit can show you.
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE. NOT A REAL CLIENT.
The owner
The owner of a consultancy believes clients choose the firm for its expertise.
The team
The team agrees, and adds that handing new clients from sales to delivery is messy.
The customers
Most of the customers interviewed praise the quality of the work. Half say they weren’t sure what would happen after they signed.
The priority that comes out of it is to fix the first few weeks of onboarding with a named contact and a clear timetable, while keeping the expertise at the front of the marketing.
About Darren
About Darren.
I’m Darren Neill, founder of Relentless. I’ve spent more than 30 years in global sales and business, as a founder, investor and leader in the medical and technology sectors.
In that time I’ve watched plenty of hard-working owners lose sight of what their business had become, simply because they were too close to it.
My job is to listen properly to the people who work for you and buy from you, and tell you plainly what I hear. What you do with it is up to you.
Questions
Questions.
Is this a customer survey?
It’s a set of conversations rather than a survey. A survey gives you scores. Conversations give you the reasons behind them, and the audit puts those reasons next to what you and your team think.
Are you assessing my staff?
The audit looks at how the business works. Nobody’s individual performance is rated, and that’s made clear to everyone who takes part.
Will people be anonymous?
We agree how comments are handled before anyone is interviewed, and explain it to everyone involved. In a small team, leaving a name off doesn’t always hide who said something, so the report is written with that in mind.
Who takes part?
We decide that together. It’s usually a few members of your team and a mix of customers, including some whose experience wasn’t perfect.
How much does it cost?
The fee depends on the size and complexity of your business and how many people we need to speak to. We’ll agree it with you after the first conversation.
What happens afterwards?
That’s your call. The audit stands on its own and you can act on it with your own team. If you’d like help putting the priorities into practice, we can talk about that separately.
Discuss an audit
What would you like to know about your business?
Tell me a little about your business and what’s on your mind. I’ll get back to you to talk it through and see whether an audit would help.