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Independent review
An independent review of how effectively the business attracts opportunities, converts enquiries and develops long-term customer relationships. It considers commercial effectiveness as a whole rather than individual marketing tactics.
Scope and fee are agreed following an initial discussion.
Purpose
Most owner-managed businesses have more revenue available to them than they realise. Not through working harder, and rarely through spending more, but because opportunities that already exist are being lost somewhere between a prospect becoming aware of the business and becoming a customer.
That loss is usually invisible from inside. Enquiries that went quiet are not recorded. Proposals that were never followed up leave no trace. Pricing that has drifted below its value looks entirely normal, because it has been that way for years.
The review asks one question: how effectively does this business generate commercial results? Everything else follows from that.
When it helps
Usually when growth has become harder to predict, or when it is clear that something in the commercial process is not working as well as it should.
Scope
These are sensible areas of enquiry rather than a fixed checklist. The emphasis shifts with the business, and we agree what matters most during the initial discussion.
How the business explains what it does and why it is worth choosing, and whether that would be clear to a prospective customer within the first minute.
What genuinely distinguishes the business from the alternatives a customer is weighing, and whether that difference is being communicated at all.
Where work currently comes from, how dependable each source is, and how much of the pipeline rests on a single route to market.
How much revenue arrives through referral, and whether that strength is quietly masking a weakness in how the business generates demand itself.
What happens between an enquiry arriving and work being won, how consistently it happens, and how much of it exists only in one person’s head.
How quickly and how well enquiries are answered, and what happens to the ones that do not convert immediately.
How work is proposed and priced, how proposals present value rather than cost, and how reliably they are followed up.
Whether the business can see what is coming, and whether that view is accurate enough to plan against.
Whether pricing reflects the value delivered, how it has changed over time, and where margin is being conceded without anyone deciding to concede it.
Where opportunities are lost, at which stage, and what the commercial cost of that pattern is over a year.
How customer relationships are maintained after the first sale, and whether retention is measured or simply assumed.
What is recorded, what is actually used, and whether the information available supports commercial decisions or merely documents them.
Within the Aston Finch Value Framework, this review draws most heavily on strategic readiness and commercial performance, while considering the business as a whole.
Deliverables
The report is written to be shared and worked from. If you have a sales manager or a marketing adviser, it is designed to be useful to them too.
Boundaries
Please note
Prioritisation
Most reviews of any depth identify more than a business can sensibly act on at once. Listing everything we notice would be easy, and would not be much use to anyone.
So findings are ordered rather than simply recorded. Each one sets out what the issue is, why it matters commercially, how difficult it would be to address and what priority we think it deserves: immediate, within six months, within twelve, or a longer-term matter to keep in view.
The intention is not to give you fewer findings. It is to make it obvious which three or four would make the greatest difference, and in what order.
The fee
The fee
Scope and fee are agreed following an initial discussion.
Every review of this kind differs, so the scope is agreed before any work begins and the fee is confirmed with it. There are no packages, no tiers and no hourly rates.
Arrange an initial discussionAfterwards
After the follow-up discussion, the report is yours and there is nothing further to commit to. Many owners work through the priorities themselves, often starting with one or two changes that cost nothing but attention.
Some ask us to help with particular pieces of work — refining a sales process, restructuring how proposals are put together, setting up commercial reporting that actually gets used. That is agreed separately if and when you want it, and never assumed.
Questions
No. A sales consultant is generally engaged to improve or run part of your commercial function. Our role is to assess it independently and tell you where the opportunities are. What you then do about them, and who you ask to help, is your decision.
Only if that is genuinely the right answer, and it frequently is not. It is common to find that the business is generating enough enquiries already and losing them later in the process. Spending more at the top of a leaking process usually just costs more.
No. Many of the businesses we work with have no sales team at all, and the owner does most of the selling. That is a perfectly normal position, and it is often exactly what the review is most useful for.
A proportionate amount: a sense of where work comes from, what your sales process looks like in practice, examples of recent proposals, pricing information, and whatever you record about enquiries and customers. We agree the list with you first and do not ask for material we do not need.
That depends on the scope, which we agree with you before starting. We confirm the expected timing at the same time as the scope and the fee, rather than leaving it open.
Every commercial review differs, so the scope is agreed following an initial discussion and the fee is confirmed with it. There are no packages, no tiers and no hourly rates.
No. The reviews are independent of one another and there is no required order. If commercial performance is what concerns you, this is the right place to start.
Yes. Discussions and any information you share are treated as confidential and used only for the purpose of the review. We are happy to sign a confidentiality agreement before you share anything.
A short, confidential discussion is enough to establish whether this review would be useful to you. If it would not be, we will say so.