The Small Business Health Check

Ask most business owners how things are going and the answer is usually "very busy" or "a bit quiet."

But busy and healthy are not the same thing. A business can have plenty of customers and poor cash flow. Rising sales and falling profit. Good staff and no systems. When you're flat out, there's rarely time to notice.

The Small Business Health Check is a self-assessment you complete in two to three hours, away from the day-to-day. You score 100 statements across ten areas of your business, tick off the warning signs you recognise, and see where the real risks sit.

It's a diagnostic tool, not a motivational book. There are no theories to work through and nothing to sign up for. You finish with a clearer picture of what is actually happening inside your business, and what to work on next.

What's inside (bullets)

• A 1-to-5 scorecard for each of ten areas: financial health, sales, marketing, customers, products and pricing, operations, people, owner dependency, technology and AI, and strategy

• Warning-sign checklists for every area, so you can see problems you may have stopped noticing

• A section on telling symptoms apart from root causes, so you fix the cause rather than the same problem twice

• Your overall Business Health Score out of 50, with what each range means

• A risk check covering the ten exposures that quietly threaten small businesses

• A reality check for the owner: hours, delegation, the decisions you've been putting off

• A one-page dashboard that brings your whole result together

• The 3-Priority Rule, and a 30-day improvement plan to act on it

• 15 quick wins you can complete this month

• A one-page monthly business review you can reuse every month

Who it's for

Owners of established small businesses and SMEs with roughly 1 to 50 staff: service businesses, retail, trades, professional practices, agencies and family businesses. The examples come from businesses in Nepal and Australia, and the framework works in any market.