3 Free Business Assessment Tools

In today’s dynamic business landscape, staying ahead requires constant assessment, adaptation, and a strategic approach to growth. But where do you start? How do you effectively assess your business’s current state and identify areas for improvement? This is a challenge that we’ve faced ourselves and have developed out 3 free business assessment tools to help you understand your business better and pinpoint the exact area of need.

Considering that Companies that invest in strong business processes have 19% greater profitability (source) it’s not only a strategic imperative to grow your business but makes great financial sense as well.

A quick disclaimer, while all of these free business assessment tools are ones that we’ve developed so there is an element of bias!

Free Business Assessment Tools #1 – Assess your overall business strategy and product offering

Soar or Stumble (SOS) Small Business Assessment

What is it?

Our SOS assessment was designed to help small businesses understand whether they are on the right track for success or not. Based and adapted from a leading framework to assess the likelihood of a project achieving its desired outcomes, the assessment looks at 12 different pillars of successful businesses split across 4 success categories:

• Business Strategy – To deliver a measurable business outcome, you need to be clear about what you are aiming to achieve
• Customer Research – A successful business requires evidence or proof that it can achieve the intended business outcomes.
• Planning and Implementation – Achieving your intended business outcomes takes dedicated work and careful planning.
• Capacity to Deliver – Achieve your business outcomes requires every person involved in the customer lifecycle needs to have the capabilities. relationships and support to drive results.

The assessment takes about 10 minutes or so to complete and you receive a personalised report of your results with recommendations shortly afterwards.

What’s great about it?

The questions are designed to suit almost every business and are themselves thought provoking about how you run your business. However it’s the personalised report where the real value comes from, with recommendations on key areas to focus on and suggested tools and strategies to help you get there. You can also take it multiple times over the course of a year to see how you are progressing along the way.

What are the limitations of the platform?

The SOS Assessment is a strategic improvement tool so it’s not going to get into the weeds of identifying the exact challenge within your business and clearly how to solve them. There recommendations are also limited to overall guidance on how to improve an area and are based on your responses to the assessment not considering your individual business circumstances. Finally being a self-assessment it is only as useful as the honesty of the responses put into it, so make sure you are being as objective as possible with your answers.

Pricing model:

Genuinely Free To Use – we’ve made this tool freely available to anyone who would benefit from it. You do need to provide an email address for us to send the results but don’t worry we only use it for the report.

Free Business Assessment Tools #2 – Assess Your Operations and Identify Opportunities for Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation Readiness Check

What is it?

Our Digital Transformation Readiness Check is designed to help small businesses look at different aspects of their operations and help identify pain points, bottlenecks and opportunities. This is all done through the lens of where and how would digital transformation add value to your business. Based on your responses you’ll receive instant feedback on the 2 areas that are causing you the most trouble in your business.

What’s great about it?

The assessment covers a range of different process areas that a typical business has including:

• Inventory Management
• Customer Communication
• Order Processing
• Data Processing
• Marketing
• Employee Collaboration
• Financial Tracking
• Decision-Making

It’s a super straightforward assessment to take and you don’t have to wait for the results to come through or provide any contact information to use it.

What are the limitations of the platform?

The biggest limitations of the assessment check are that there may be some business processes within your business that are either not relevant or not included (currently), secondly that the recommendations are limited, it’s more a quick take on where you should look first rather than an detailed deep-dive into exactly what you should do with your business process.

Pricing model:

Genuinely Free To Use – the tool is open for anyone to use as many times as they like, no sign up or contact details are required so your responses stay completely anonymous.

Free Business Assessment Tools #3 – Assess the Quality of Your Cold Sales Emails

Cold Sales Email Checker

What is it?

Our online Cold Sales Email Checker is designed to help you improve your cold sales email conversion rate by analysing 34 different aspects of a quality sales message and providing actionable recommendations to help you improve them.

What’s great about it?

Our tool will guide you to analyse your sales messages across multiple areas, including:

• Subject Line – Are you making sure your subject line is attention-grabbing and encourages your reader to open your email?
• Opening Lines – Are you engaging your reader from the very beginning to keep them reading?
• Sales Pitch – Do you have a compelling sales pitch that motivates your reader to take action?
• Value Proposition – Are you highlighting what makes you unique and why your reader should buy from you?
• Closing – Do you reinforce your call to action and make the most of your digital real estate?
• Targeting – Are you reaching the right people with the right message?

You’ll then get personalised results and recommendations sent to you so you can improve your cold sales email in line with best practice.

What are the limitations of the platform?

The sales email checker is a self-reflection tool so it requires you to review and rate your own email across different aspects, it can be a challenge to be objective in these scenarios so its important to take that into consideration when rating your email.

Pricing model:

Decent Free Plan – the tool is free but a fair use policy is in place whilst we continue to develop it, we are looking to incorporate AI into the process to help provide more objective feedback and automated feedback – watch this space!

BONUS! Resource to help continually improve your business with AI

Generative AI CheatSheet and Business Improvement Prompts

To help you continue on your business improvement journey we’ve included a bonus resource to help you use Generative AI (tools like ChatGPT and Bard) to improve your business over time. The resource includes cheatsheet on Generative AI (what is it, how it works, pitfalls and strategies for crafting effective prompts) as we as 10 carefully crafted prompts that you can use to improve your business.

Armed with Your Free Business Assessment Tools – What Next?

We’re obsessed with helping organisations do more with less, check out our Automated Maturity Assessments, Small Business Automation and Visualise Business Impact services to find out how you can do more with less!

In our next post, we’ll share 3 Free Tools for Effective Brand Monitoring: Strengthening Business Reputation and Impact.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Question: How do these free assessment tools compare to similar paid services in terms of depth and accuracy?

Answer: All of the tools are based on best practices and expert knowledge and experience, however typically, paid services offer more comprehensive assessments, deeper insights, and sometimes personalised consultations. However, the free tools can still provide valuable insights and guidance for businesses looking to improve.

Question: Can these tools be used by businesses of all sizes, or are they more suited for small businesses?

Answer: The tools are designed for small businesses, but they can be used by businesses of any size. However, larger businesses with more complex operations might find that the tools offer a more generalised assessment that may not fully address their specific needs.

Question: Are these tools suitable for businesses in any industry, or are they more tailored to specific sectors?

Answer: These tools are designed to be versatile and applicable to a wide range of industries. While the assessments cover general business areas such as strategy, operations, and sales, they may not address industry-specific challenges or nuances.