Asseement Tool - Questions Every Family Business Owner Should Answer - General Closely Held Business Questions

- FBI Inc

1. List your top 5 frustrations in the family business.
2. Thinking objectively, what are the marketing strengths of your family business?
3. Thinking objectively, what are the sales strengths of your family business?
4. Thinking objectively, what are the operational strengths of your family business?
5. Thinking objectively, what are the administrative strengths of your family business?
6. Thinking objectively, what are the marketing weaknesses in your family business?
7. Thinking objectively, what are the sales weaknesses in your family business?
8. Thinking objectively, what are the operational weaknesses in your family business?
9. Thinking objectively, what are the administrative weaknesses in your family business?
10. What do you consider to be the main threats facing your business in the next three years?
11. If your family business were to fail in the next three years, what would you predict would be the most likely cause(s)?
12. Being brutally honest, can you recite your company’s mission statement by memory? If not, why not?
13. Are there regularly scheduled meetings for the purpose of working ON the business?
14. Is there a proven methodology that you employ for resolving conflict in your business?
15. What skills or training do you need to be more successful in the family enterprise?
16. What skills or training do other people need to be more successful in the family enterprise?
17. How profitable are you versus your peers in your industry? Into what percentile do you fall? What are the reasons for your position?
18. What are your corporate goals for this year? If you were to assess other managers in your company, would their goals be the same? Are you all on the same page?
19. Is the future management of your family company clearly defined? If not, why not?
20. Do you use a formal or informal Board of Advisors or Board of Directors? If not,why not?
21. Do you have regular senior management meetings to discuss your strategic plan,business plan, capital plan, human resources, etc? If not, why not?
22. Do you have a written organization chart for your enterprise and do you manage to the organization chart, or is it just a nice piece of wallpaper?
23. Do you have the right people (especially family members) in the right positions in the company for now (and for the future)?
24. Do you have written job descriptions for family and non-family employees? If not,why not?
25. Is the authority embodied in the job descriptions defined and supported? If not,why not?
26. Do you regularly conduct employee performance reviews and schedule sessions for appropriate feedback? If not, why not?
27. Being as objective as you can, if you were to evaluate your top 10 family business employees and the jobs they are doing, if you were to start your business from scratch tomorrow, would you hire them again? If not, why not?
28. Do you have a customer satisfaction program in place that gives you formal feedback about how your customers view your company? If not, why not?
29. Do you know what your “critical success factors” are for your business? If not,why not?
30. From a sales standpoint, what are your competitive advantages? Disadvantages?
31. Who is the next leader of the family enterprise? Is this clear to everyone, or a big secret and potentially a bone of contention?
32. Are there rules for distributions of funds from your family enterprise (above and beyond employment compensation)?
33. Are there policies in place for appropriate handling of corporate profits in order to balance the needs of the corporation, employee shareholders, and non-employee shareholders? 
34. If you didn’t come to work for the next 6 months for whatever reason, in what condition would your business be upon your return? What would likely have happened to your most valuable asset during your absence? Why?
35. At this stage in the evolution of the family company, what is your return on investment (both financial and non-financial)? Are you getting a sufficient rate of return to fairly compensate for your blood, toil, sweat, and tears?
36. What new capabilities must you, your employees, or your company acquire to stay competitive over the next 5 years?
37. If you don’t have children who are capable of taking over the business at your retirement, what is the best course of action? Should you close the doors, sell it to insiders, or sell it to outsiders?
38. You’ve made a decision to hire some new talent; how do you objectively quantify the candidates’ qualifications for the job and abilities to do the job effectively?
39. What are your recruiting processes when it’s time to hire new talent? Do you have formal procedures that can produce predictable results, or is it an informal process that more closely resembles a crapshoot?.
40. What are the three most important things you should focus on in your job that would be the most productive for your company in the next 90 days? Once you’ve identified those three items, determine approximately how much time, as a percentage, you’re currently spending on those critical success items. If you spent more time on those key items, what kind of results could you produce for yourself and the company?