Free tool
LINX Radar
Not a test. A mirror. Rough numbers show which function is capping the business, 329 plain statements name the problems in the way, and the three you land on get a dollar figure.
Three sections
- Capacity: which function caps the business
- Pain points: 329 statements across 11 areas
- Impact: what your top three cost you a year
Free, no signup, saved in your browser.
The check-in
Letter from James
The problem an owner describes at the door is almost never the problem we end up fixing.
For about 25 years I have walked into other people’s businesses. More than 2,000 of them by now. If there is one thing that has stood out, it is this: it is genuinely hard to see your own business clearly when you are inside it every day, doing the work and being the person everyone comes to. I know it from the other chair too. I am still the bottleneck in my own company in places, and as much as we teach this for a living, it is still hard for me to see.
So read this next part carefully: this is not a test. There is no score at the bottom and no one is grading you. It is a mirror. The pages ahead name the things that quietly go wrong in a business, in plain language, so you can look at them all at once and mark the ones that are true for you today.
Two things will tempt you. The first is to check only the big, dramatic problems. The second is to go easy on yourself. Do neither. Check the small, recurring things too: the invoice that always goes out late, the job that always runs over, the report nobody reads. The small stuff that happens every week is usually what caps a business.
You are going to check a lot of boxes. Everyone does. I would check plenty in my own business right now. That is not the point. The point is the three you land on at the end: the three that would free up the most cash, capacity, and room to grow if you fixed them.
James LincolnFounder and CEO, LINX Consulting
0 flagged so far.
Part one: find the constraint
Or go straight to part two: the check-in
Current throughput
Start with what the business does today. Use the average gross revenue for the last three months.
Gross revenue is the top line number: how much money the business actually brought in overall.
Add the last three months and divide by three. Rough is fine.
Sales: create the revenue
How much business could your sales system reasonably produce each month? Not in a perfect world: what your current people, processes, and habits actually support right now.
Aim high, but keep it honest. If the team is coasting at $100,000 a month, $150,000 is fair. If they are flat out every day and still land at $100,000, then $100,000 is the number.
Qualified means people who could buy and have reached the point where your sales process has to work them. Not raw leads.
What the sellers could work properly at current staffing. If 30 come in and 5 get skipped every month, you handle 25.
The percentage of qualified opportunities that become customers. Enter a percent, like 30.
Or give us the number directly
Plenty of businesses do not track a qualified-opportunity funnel at all. If yours does not, leave the four questions above blank and answer this one instead.
The same honest ceiling, stated as one figure. If you answered the questions above, we use those and ignore this.
Operations: deliver the revenue
Pick your own unit of delivery, then answer for a normal month. Sustainable means month after month without overtime, delays, quality problems, or adding people. A heroic month is not capacity.
At current staffing, equipment, and processes. Not your best month ever.
Finance: fund the revenue
How much business can your cash carry? Bookkeeping speed is a different problem. Growth eats cash before it pays: you fund the work first and get paid later.
The undrawn part of a line of credit or similar.
The floor you never want to go below.
Enter a percent, like 40. The remainder is what each new dollar of work costs you in cash.
AR is accounts receivable. Paid upfront is 0. Weekly payroll with customers on Net 30 is often 30 to 45. Construction can run 45 to 90.
Your business capacity
A few numbers are still missing
- SalesNot yet
- OperationsNot yet
- FinanceNot yet
Part two: name the problems
Direction & Control
Strategic Direction, Governance & Management
Where the business is headed and who decides.
Planning and Direction
Ownership, Governance, and Succession
Structure, Roles, and Accountability
Systems, Policies, and Communication
Demand & Retention
Sales, Marketing, Customer Experience & Revenue Growth
How demand is created, converted, and kept.
Lead Generation and Follow-Up
Sales Process and Management
Revenue Mix and Transaction Size
Marketing and Market Position
Sales Materials and Digital Presence
Customer Retention and Customer Experience
Customer Concentration and Revenue Quality
Pricing & Margin
Estimating, Pricing, Margin & Portfolio Management
Whether the work is priced to make money.
Cost Knowledge and Pricing
Estimating Process
Margin, Break-Even, and Job Costing
Product, Service, and Portfolio Management
Cash & Controls
Finance, Cash Management, Tax & Capital Structure
Where the money is, and where it leaks.
Cash Flow, Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable
Credit, Contract Terms, and Billing Structure
Financial Reporting and Management Information
Financial Controls and Budgeting
Financing and Administrative Accuracy
Tax Planning and Capital Structure
People & Leadership
People, Leadership, Culture & Human Resources
Who you hire, keep, and how you lead.
Hiring, Onboarding, and Compliance
Training, Supervision, and Role Fit
Motivation, Accountability, and Culture
Leadership Behavior and Organizational Culture
Time, Conduct, and Workforce Discipline
Getting Work Done
Operations & Production
How the work actually gets delivered daily.
Job Planning and Control
Field Controls and Documentation
Productivity, Labor, and Capacity
Processes, Standards, and Quality
Scope of Work and Change Orders
Materials & Partners
Purchasing, Materials, Equipment & External Partners
What you buy and who you rely on.
Purchasing, Materials, and Inventory
Equipment, Tools, and Maintenance
Customer Interface
Safety
Subcontractors and Vendors
Systems & Security
Technology, Cybersecurity & Data Management
Your systems, your access, and your data.
Technology Systems and Adoption
Access, Security, and Cyber Risk
Data Quality, Backup, and Recovery
Protection & Compliance
Legal, Regulatory, Insurance & Enterprise Risk
Contracts, coverage, and the risks you carry.
Contracts and Legal Protection
Regulatory, Employment, and Tax Compliance
Insurance, Bonding, and Claims
Enterprise Risk Management
When Things Break
Business Continuity, Key-Person & Dependency Risk
What happens if a key piece disappears.
Key-Person and Knowledge Dependency
Business Continuity and Crisis Readiness
Capacity & Growth
Strategic Capacity, Growth & Change Readiness
Whether you can handle the growth you want.
Growth Capacity and Infrastructure
Strategic Focus and Investment Decisions
Your answers stay in this browser. Nothing is sent to LINX unless you choose to share it.
The three
Which three would change the most?
Click one from the list to drop it into the next open slot. Click it again in the slot to take it out.
Nothing here yet. Pick one from what you flagged.
How it costs you
How many employees or resources touch each occurrence?
Average time each person spends because of this.
Wage plus payroll burden if known; otherwise a reasonable loaded estimate.
Materials, consumables, scrap.
Travel, fuel, outside service, refunds, fees.
Any separate recurring cost not already included.
Sales, renewals, or jobs reasonably lost because of this.
Typical sale, job, or renewal value.
Use your normal gross margin if contribution margin is not readily known.
Direct dollars not billed, unnecessarily discounted, or otherwise leaked.
How many people or equipment units lose productive capacity?
Average productive or management hours lost.
Could you sell and deliver more if this capacity were freed?
Yes: the lost hours count at what they could have earned. No: they count at what they cost.
Approximate revenue produced or billed per productive hour.
Use your normal gross margin if contribution margin is not readily known.
Used when there is no profitable demand to fill recovered capacity.
Overtime, temp labor, rentals, expediting - only if separate.
The incremental cash trapped by this. Leave blank to derive it below.
Only needed when cash tied up is not directly known.
Invoicing, collection, or inventory delay above a reasonable target.
Your line-of-credit rate or another defensible cost of capital.
Separate finance charges, late fees.
Vendor discounts missed, or avoidable penalties.
Current claims, controls, downtime, insurance, or legal cost this already causes.
A working estimate, not false precision. Rare 5, unlikely 10, possible 25, likely 50, very likely 75.
Best estimate of the financial consequence if it happens.
A separate likely cost not included above.
Answer a few of these and the yearly figure appears here.
Nothing here yet. Pick one from what you flagged.
How it costs you
How many employees or resources touch each occurrence?
Average time each person spends because of this.
Wage plus payroll burden if known; otherwise a reasonable loaded estimate.
Materials, consumables, scrap.
Travel, fuel, outside service, refunds, fees.
Any separate recurring cost not already included.
Sales, renewals, or jobs reasonably lost because of this.
Typical sale, job, or renewal value.
Use your normal gross margin if contribution margin is not readily known.
Direct dollars not billed, unnecessarily discounted, or otherwise leaked.
How many people or equipment units lose productive capacity?
Average productive or management hours lost.
Could you sell and deliver more if this capacity were freed?
Yes: the lost hours count at what they could have earned. No: they count at what they cost.
Approximate revenue produced or billed per productive hour.
Use your normal gross margin if contribution margin is not readily known.
Used when there is no profitable demand to fill recovered capacity.
Overtime, temp labor, rentals, expediting - only if separate.
The incremental cash trapped by this. Leave blank to derive it below.
Only needed when cash tied up is not directly known.
Invoicing, collection, or inventory delay above a reasonable target.
Your line-of-credit rate or another defensible cost of capital.
Separate finance charges, late fees.
Vendor discounts missed, or avoidable penalties.
Current claims, controls, downtime, insurance, or legal cost this already causes.
A working estimate, not false precision. Rare 5, unlikely 10, possible 25, likely 50, very likely 75.
Best estimate of the financial consequence if it happens.
A separate likely cost not included above.
Answer a few of these and the yearly figure appears here.
Nothing here yet. Pick one from what you flagged.
How it costs you
How many employees or resources touch each occurrence?
Average time each person spends because of this.
Wage plus payroll burden if known; otherwise a reasonable loaded estimate.
Materials, consumables, scrap.
Travel, fuel, outside service, refunds, fees.
Any separate recurring cost not already included.
Sales, renewals, or jobs reasonably lost because of this.
Typical sale, job, or renewal value.
Use your normal gross margin if contribution margin is not readily known.
Direct dollars not billed, unnecessarily discounted, or otherwise leaked.
How many people or equipment units lose productive capacity?
Average productive or management hours lost.
Could you sell and deliver more if this capacity were freed?
Yes: the lost hours count at what they could have earned. No: they count at what they cost.
Approximate revenue produced or billed per productive hour.
Use your normal gross margin if contribution margin is not readily known.
Used when there is no profitable demand to fill recovered capacity.
Overtime, temp labor, rentals, expediting - only if separate.
The incremental cash trapped by this. Leave blank to derive it below.
Only needed when cash tied up is not directly known.
Invoicing, collection, or inventory delay above a reasonable target.
Your line-of-credit rate or another defensible cost of capital.
Separate finance charges, late fees.
Vendor discounts missed, or avoidable penalties.
Current claims, controls, downtime, insurance, or legal cost this already causes.
A working estimate, not false precision. Rare 5, unlikely 10, possible 25, likely 50, very likely 75.
Best estimate of the financial consequence if it happens.
A separate likely cost not included above.
Answer a few of these and the yearly figure appears here.
The short list
Start here. Everything else can wait its turn.
Cost of inaction
Everything you flagged
What happens next
Bring this to a conversation.
Thirty minutes, no charge. linxconsulting.com/connect
Start the conversation
Bring your three to a call.
Thirty minutes with someone who has walked into two thousand businesses. We will tell you what we would do about your three, and whether you need us to do it.
