Is Your Business Due for a Growth Check-Up?

Why Do Thriving Businesses Still Need Regular Check-Ups?

[Robin Pasley]: Welcome back. Thank you so much for joining me and our podcast here at Pasley Commercial Interiors, where we're giving back to our listeners who are also business owners, and interviewing other people in different sectors of business who could bring something to them.

[HB Pasley]: That makes me feel good that I could bring something — that I could be here for the listeners. I am not an interior designer. I do not have your skills, I do not have my son's skills, but it's been fun to serve you as a business owner at your request.

[Robin Pasley]: Yes.

[HB Pasley]: Particularly in my role as a growth advocate.

[Robin Pasley]: Yes, that's what you call yourself, isn't it?

[HB Pasley]: Thanks for asking. Yes. I coined this term back when I was working as a development officer for a financial services firm. They were doing a lot of great things, but I didn't really grow up in sales, and "development" didn't seem like the right word. I realized the thing I naturally want to do is get behind people and bring pressure, encouragement, and the kind of upward energy that will help them succeed. I find it super rewarding when other people's light bulbs go off or when the team's success goes uphill. After as many decades as I had in my professional career — as a creative artist, a performing artist, a writer, a publisher, a coach — I realized over a long period of time that it was at least as much, or more, joyful to help other people succeed than to focus on myself.

What Does a Business Health Assessment Actually Look Like?

[HB Pasley]: I'm 58. I turned 58 this last summer and I'm aging — I can feel it when I work out. I get tired quicker. I've recently decided that the doctor is somebody I want to know better.

[Robin Pasley]: Let's be closer friends. Can I get your cell number?

[HB Pasley]: "Dr. John, I just wanted to reach out today and see how you were doing." We have a great relationship with direct primary care doctors. We love Pinnacle here in town — Dr. Digert, love him. I don't think my car is breaking down, but I do need more routine maintenance. For the first time in my life, getting a blood test is super exciting to me. I want the full panel — the start-to-finish with all the details.

[Robin Pasley]: That's true.

[HB Pasley]: I want to know the details, because it helps me understand the things I'm concerned about. How's my cholesterol? I don't even know what to say. I go to the doc, I get the blood test, and he hands it to me on paper. I used to pretend like I understood what was going on there. Now I just hold it up and say, "No comprende — make sense of this, doc." He always has insightful things to say. I have to be willing, at that point, to make life changes, diet changes, or some adjustment to address the problem. I also have to trust that he's telling me this in my best interest. I'm describing this to let you know what I think mature businesses should be doing more of.

[Robin Pasley]: Right.

[HB Pasley]: Did you see where I was going with this?

[Robin Pasley]: I did, because I find it to be the same in working with you this last year. I have to give a plug and a shout-out together — that's a good combo. You have this amazing assessment that you let us into, and it's now available for other businesses to use.

[HB Pasley]: Yes.

[Robin Pasley]: The survey — 75 points — and it helped me understand where my business was. I'm already looking toward how to exit in the future, and that's helping me plan my growth right now. When you were talking about going to the doctor, I immediately thought about taking that assessment, because I didn't know how to read it at first. This was in your early stages — it wasn't pretty yet. You've made it pretty now. It has colors.

[HB Pasley]: That's right, it's true.

[Robin Pasley]: But you had to help me read it, and then I had to decide I was going to take steps to do the things that would make my business healthier.

How Do You Know If Your Business Is Ready to Change?

[HB Pasley]: That is true, and it is a requirement. I had an almost-client recently. I had a client take the same survey, and after they and their executive team went through it, this person looked it over and decided he did not have the energy to focus on what the assessment showed. It's like learning your cholesterol was high and deciding, "Working on cholesterol is not important right now — we're super busy doing other stuff."

People do that for different reasons. I realized that just because you take a great business interior design health assessment — a survey over 75 points that shows you top-to-bottom health, wellness, weakness, and challenge — it doesn't mean it's actually going to benefit you. The desire to change has to be combined with the desire to assess. As a growth advocate, I'm only going to be great for people who are ready to change, who trust that what I'm showing them needs to be addressed, and who want to go after it. Those are really fun people to work with.

I did get my certification as a certified exit planning advisor. That study equipped me to develop this unique survey. I love doing the survey because I didn't find many business valuation tools designed for trust-building businesses. Some businesses sell widgets and the amount of trust required is minimal — you hand the pants over, leave with the pants. But if you're going to hire an interior designer, you're going to need a season to develop trust. Do other people trust them? Are they someone I can work with? Do I like their attitude? Do I think they can guide me through this? If you're a listener, you may have a business just like this where trust is essential for making the sale and keeping the client happy.

For those businesses, I uniquely created this growth mapping survey. The delivery of that survey — just like going to the doctor — means I want to see the results, but then I want an expert to help me interpret the data. I've got some low scores here and some high scores there. What do we do first?

We'll wrap our discussion on this point. You don't have to take mine — there are a lot of business valuation tools out there. Valuebuilders.com is an amazing resource; my friends at Denver Business Coaches do a great job of taking people through that program. Your CPA, your M&A contact, your person in exit planning or investment banking may also have in-depth evaluation tools. The point is: take a survey the same way you'd take a blood test if you care about your health — and it's not just for exiting.

Can a Growth Survey Actually Track Your Progress?

[Robin Pasley]: It's not just for exiting. It's about awareness — self-awareness, knowing where you are as a business, and what you need to improve. We're married and we live together, so having you work in my business could have meant just plotting along through the year with you telling me what to fix. But because we had a tool, it was actually great to have the tool tell me what needed attention.

[HB Pasley]: It's better than me telling you anything, right?

[Robin Pasley]: Yes. You're not the tool. I'm sorry.

[HB Pasley]: Let's just be honest. It reminds me of when we were first married — we were not making a lot of money and you'd be at the store. You'd call and ask, "Do we have money for me to buy these pants?" And I'm the new husband, thinking I don't want to be on the hook for this. I'm just going to be the good guy and say yes every time. We realized we needed a third party.

[Robin Pasley]: Mr. Quicken.

[HB Pasley]: Mr. Quicken. We started budgeting, and I know that makes us sound like total nerds — but when you don't have money, it's actually the best time to budget.

[Robin Pasley]: Surprisingly.

[HB Pasley]: I didn't just want to control expenses — I wanted to make room for the things we thought were important. The budget told us what we could spend, not just what we couldn't. Being able to talk to Mr. Quicken gave you emotional separation from the facts.

[Robin Pasley]: Right.

[HB Pasley]: I like, as a business coach, giving a survey so that my clients don't look at me and think I'm judging them when I say we should improve something. I want them to look at the survey. It's the facts.

[Robin Pasley]: That's what I love too. We started the year with a survey, then got to the end of the first quarter and took the same survey again.

[HB Pasley]: And you tracked progress. The survey is 75 points, broken into three main sections over purpose, process, and people — which correspond to business identity, client experience and process management, and team culture. Do you remember your cumulative score the first time you took the assessment?

[Robin Pasley]: I want to say it was like 27.

[HB Pasley]: It was 29. I just looked at it the other day.

[Robin Pasley]: And then five months later — by the end of quarter two?

[HB Pasley]: We actually took it in January and then waited until May. Do you remember your score the second time?

[Robin Pasley]: I don't, but I know it was better.

[HB Pasley]: It was 58. It was essentially double. And recently, do you remember your latest score?

[Robin Pasley]: I don't, but I know it was even higher.

[HB Pasley]: It was higher. As a team — if you're looking for a way to set goals, know what to work on next, and you're humble enough to let a survey or someone outside the firm help you execute — this is measurable and exciting.

[Robin Pasley]: It's super exciting. It helped us identify where our weak spots are and what to work on next. It helped us build our expectations and plans for the following quarters. It's been fantastic, thank you.

Recorded in our studio at 616 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80903

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