DUBOIS CONSULTING — BUSINESS GROWTH FRAMEWORK
Where is your business right now — and where do you want it to be?
A comprehensive boardroom-style assessment covering your current position, your ideal business, and the three hidden revenue levers every business has access to right now: Promotion, Profits, and People.
📋 THE STOCK TAKE
🎯 IDEAL BUSINESS
💡 HIDDEN REVENUE
SECTION 1 — WHERE ARE YOU RIGHT NOW?
The Stock Take
When we run a Boardroom it's important to know what we're working with. To give us some background, please answer the following questions prior to catching up. This establishes your current position so we can identify exactly how satisfied you are with it — and what to do about it.
The Hourly Reality Check:
Take your annual income ÷ weeks worked per year ÷ hours per week = your actual hourly rate.
Is this enough for the life you want? How does it compare to what you pay your team — remembering you're also managing customers, team, admin, and the entire business?
Your Stock Take summary
Your Stock Take is complete.
These nine answers tell us more about your business than most owners share in a first meeting. The next step is a 20-minute conversation to map what they mean — and what to do about it.
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SECTION 2 — WHERE DO YOU WANT TO BE?
Your Ideal Business
To qualify as ideal, a business needs to deliver Scale, Freedom, and Income. Most businesses deliver one or two — rarely all three. Map what each looks like for you before we begin.
Your ideal business — mapped so far
the path to get there.
Your Ideal Business is mapped. The next step is a Boardroom session to identify exactly what is standing between where you are now and what you've described here.
THE FRAMEWORK
The Ideal Business Model
Nine levers — three rows, three columns. Every business can be assessed across Promote, Margins, and People. Click any cell to rate where you are right now and capture what needs to change.
Now let's build
the path forward.
Your scores show exactly where the leverage is. A Boardroom session will turn your weakest cells into the first 90 days of your growth plan.
SECTION 3 — SPOTLIGHTING HIDDEN REVENUE
The Hidden Revenue in Your Business — Right Now
If you're serious about increasing revenue — to build your team, fund marketing, invest in opportunities, or improve your own take-home — there are three key areas every business must examine. These are where money is made or lost.
Each of these areas holds hidden value that isn't currently being utilised. We measure this based on the time you have available right now to increase your returns — or set aside for a forward plan to maximise returns and achieve your ideal business goal.
Targeting the right audience, flooding leads, and mastering conversion. The front door to revenue growth.
Aligning prices, tuning costs, and taming cashflow. The engine room where margin is made or destroyed.
Installing systems, keeping score, and building culture. The foundation that lets the business run without the owner doing everything.
there. Let's find it.
You've identified where the opportunity is and what's in the way. A Boardroom session will map the exact path from where you are now to where the hidden revenue is sitting.
SECTION 4 — BREAKING DOWN THE FINANCIAL SIDE
Financial Deep-Dive
Now we've touched on where the business is and where you want it to be, let's break down the financial mechanisms. The tools below cover chargeable hours, cash flow, inventory, and the client grade system that unlocks margin improvement.
Chargeable Hours
Optimising the "direct labour" hours worked relative to the hours that end up on an invoice — your recovery rate. Divide your measure in Column 2 into Column 1. Higher is better. Every unrecovered hour has a direct dollar cost.
already in your business.
A DuBois Boardroom session will show you exactly how to recover it — without adding a single new client.
Inventory Analysis / Cash Flow Trifecta
Three measures that can be handled together as they all affect cash flow. They use the 80/20 rule to guide where to start or focus your efforts.
- 1 Do a stocktake of what you have on hand
- 2 Usually 80% of the value of your total stock will be in 20% of your stock items on your stock list
- 3 These items are the ones to target for reducing or conversion into cash
- 1 Run a report on who owes what
- 2 Usually 80% of your overdue accounts will come from 20% of the names on the list (the usual suspects)
- 3 These are the ones to target first
- 1 Have a look at who you extend credit to
- 2 Many accounts could be cash or 7-day terms due to size or frequency of purchase
- 3 Who are the customers that will be 80% ok with your change in credit policy?
Your cash flow action plan
structure problem.
Your Trifecta actions are a strong start. A DuBois Boardroom session will show you exactly how to implement them — and what to do next.
SECTION 5 — OPTIMISING YOUR MARGINS
Margin Optimisation
Pricing, cost control, discount policy, and understanding your best (and worst) clients. These are the levers that determine whether the same volume of work makes you rich or keeps you stuck
Pricing, costs & margin levers
Pricing, cost control, discount policy, and understanding your best (and worst) clients. These are the levers that determine whether the same volume of work makes you rich — or keeps you stuck.
A price is simply what a customer is willing to pay for what you sell. If you don't receive price complaints, you're probably too cheap. Select the strategies below that will allow you to improve your margins — and note how each one applies to your business.
| # | Pricing strategy | Your application / notes |
|---|
Your pricing actions — strategies applied
Your prices are probably
the easiest lever to pull.
A 5% price increase on $500K revenue is $25,000 — with no extra work, no extra clients, no extra hours. A Boardroom session will show you which strategy to implement first.
Pricing Systems —
which ones apply to you?
Select every pricing system that currently applies to your business. Most businesses use more than one — and most have at least one that is limiting their margins. Identifying which you use is the first step to using them better.
lever in your business.
Most businesses are leaving margin on the table with every invoice they send. A Boardroom session will show you exactly which pricing shift will have the most impact.
| # | Cost control strategy | Your application / notes |
|---|
Your cost controls — strategies applied
Same work.
Better margin.
Every cost you control has the same effect as raising your prices — but with none of the client conversations. A Boardroom session will identify exactly where your biggest cost opportunities are sitting right now.
Discount Policy
Discounting is the single biggest killer of margin — it can happen in seconds at the point of sale: "how about I do it for…" or "I'll match it". Working on sales strategies to use in front of customers will assist with this bad habit. Discounts can also be part of old agreements that have long since lost relevance — such as discounts for on-time payments that are never on time, or when a customer used to buy volume and now buys a lot less, or a customer qualified for a discount simply because they were a certain type of customer e.g. wholesaler.
Your discount policy — strategies applied
Stop giving away
margin you've already earned.
A Boardroom session will show you exactly how much discounting is costing your business — and how to stop it without losing a single client.
GP Sweet Spot
Understanding the type of customer or "Job Types" in your business that make you the most margin and dealing MORE with them will cause your margins to increase. Also, understanding those that make you the least margin and dealing LESS with them will cause your margins to grow. What this means is finding your "A's", "B's", "C's" and "D" grade customers (or "Job Types"). A = Awesome, B = Basic, C = Can deal with, D = Don't go there! This may require some homework to work out but knowledge of this is essential and worth the effort to find out.
-
1 Think about those customers you deal with who:
- Don't challenge you on price
- Accept your recommendations
- Appreciate your work
- Pay on time
- Refer other customers to you
Give this person a NAME:This is your "A" (for Awesome!) AvatarYour A-grade avatar name -
2 Think about those customers you deal with who:
- Always or often challenge you on price
- Almost never or seldom accept your recommendations
- Don't really appreciate your work
- Almost never pay on time
- Refer other customers to you — who are just like them
Give this person a NAME:This is your "D" (for Don't go there!) AvatarYour D-grade avatar name -
3 What are 3 things you can do to get more A's
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4 What are 3 things you can do to turn your D's into at least a C
-
5 What homework do you need to do here to calculate ABCD's
Your GP Sweet Spot — plan captured
More A-grade clients.
Fewer D-grade headaches.
The ABCD audit is the first step. A Boardroom session will map the exact actions to shift your mix — and what that shift means for your margin over 12 months.
OPERATIONAL TOOL
Reducing Work In Progress / Scheduling
Getting more work done in the same time — great for reducing WIP and improving cashflow. Effective scheduling works for both hourly-rate businesses (professions, trades, manufacturers) and transaction-based businesses (brokers, retailers, wholesalers).
Daily Target &
Schedule Planner
What does your team need to hit each day to reach your monthly revenue target? Work out the number — then build the schedule that makes it visible, measurable, and accountable.
a schedule is just a wish.
You now have the number. A Boardroom session will show you exactly how to build the system that makes it real — visible, tracked, and team-owned every day.
Ready to access your hidden revenue?
DuBois Consulting works with business owners to identify, quantify, and unlock the revenue already sitting in their business — without needing more hours, more staff, or more stress. Let's build your roadmap