Revenue is up.
So why does everything still feel hard?
A half-day diagnostic session for $500K–$5M service businesses ready to stop guessing and start fixing the right things — in the right order.
Requires 48-hour pre-work submission before the session.
What you get
You leave with a complete picture of your business — and a clear sequence for what to fix first.
- Financial Foundation Scorecard with benchmarks
- Scalability and dependency assessment
- Market positioning and pricing analysis
- Constraint Summary — your #1 limiting factor
- 90-Day Priority Plan with sequenced actions
- Full session recording
These are symptoms of a business without a clear baseline.
They feel like separate problems. They usually share a single root cause.
Cash is always tighter than it should be
Revenue looks healthy on paper, but cash never accumulates the way it should. You're busy and still broke.
Everything still runs through you
Decisions stall when you're not available. Your team is capable, but the business doesn't move without your input.
You're competing on price too often
Prospects push back on your rates. You've started discounting to win work that used to come easier.
Growth has plateaued — or feels unsustainable
You've hit a ceiling and don't know exactly why. Or you're growing, but each new level just adds more pressure.
There's no time to think — only react
Strategic work keeps getting pushed. You're running the business day-to-day with no time to work on it.
You don't know what to fix first
You can name five things that need attention. You just don't know which one is actually creating the others.
Most owners are solving the wrong problem.
The Business Baseline finds the real one — and tells you exactly where to start.
A structured diagnostic — not a consulting pitch, not a strategy overview.
The Business Baseline is a half-day working session where we go deep on three areas of your business: your financial foundation, your scalability, and your market position.
You submit your data 48 hours in advance. We analyze it before we sit down together. That means the session itself is focused on insight and decisions — not discovery.
By the end, you will know what is actually limiting your growth, what it is costing you, and which single constraint to address first. That clarity alone is worth the investment.
-
01
Financial Foundation Profitability, cash flow, pricing structure, and financial health benchmarks
-
02
Scalability & Owner Dependency Where the business runs on systems vs. where it still runs through you
-
03
Market Position & Pricing Power How you are perceived, how you are priced, and where margin is being left behind
What this session is not
- Not a generic business review
- Not a pitch for a long-term retainer
- Not a list of things you already know
- Not theoretical — everything is grounded in your actual numbers and situation
- Not dependent on hiring more people or spending more money to fix things
Six concrete outputs. Not a slide deck — a working set of tools.
Every deliverable is built from your actual data, benchmarked against your industry, and ready to act on the day of the session.
Financial Foundation Scorecard
A clear read on your gross margin, net margin, cash conversion, and pricing — benchmarked against industry comparables.
Industry Benchmarks Report
Where you stand relative to peers at your revenue level. Profitability, labor efficiency, and growth rate comparisons.
90-Day Priority Plan
A sequenced list of the highest-leverage actions to take in the next 90 days — prioritized by impact, not by urgency.
Constraint Summary
A written summary of your single biggest limiting factor — the one constraint that, once removed, unlocks the rest.
Full Session Recording
The complete recording of our session together. Reference it, share it with your leadership team, or revisit it in 90 days.
Supporting Direction Optional
If warranted, a recommended engagement path — whether that's a specific Intensive, an advisory relationship, or simply a next step you can execute on your own.
Four steps. Half a day. A business you understand completely.
The session is structured for maximum clarity and minimum time wasted. You come prepared. We come prepared. You leave with answers.
Pre-Work (You)
Submit your financial data, org chart, and a short intake form 48 hours before the session. No data, no session — this is how we make the time count.
Analysis (Us)
We analyze your financials against industry benchmarks, identify structural gaps, and map your constraint landscape before we ever sit down together.
Half-Day Session
A focused four-hour working session — walking through your Financial Foundation, Scalability assessment, and Market Position. Live. Direct. Specific to you.
Deliverable + Follow-Up
You receive all deliverables within 48 hours. A 30-day follow-up call is included to review progress and answer any questions that surfaced after implementation begins.
Pre-work is required — not optional. Financial statements, a brief intake form, and your org chart must be submitted 48 hours before your session date. This is what allows the session itself to go deep instead of wide. If pre-work is not submitted on time, the session will be rescheduled.
Every session covers the same three modules — in the same order.
Not because every business is the same, but because the sequence matters. Financial clarity first. Then structure. Then market position.
Financial Foundation
Where is the money actually going — and is your pricing built to support growth or just cover costs?
- Gross and net margin vs. industry benchmark
- Cash conversion cycle and working capital health
- Pricing structure and average revenue per client
- Revenue concentration and dependency risk
- Whether you are building margin or just volume
Scalability & Owner Dependency
How much of your growth is limited by how much still runs through you?
- Where decisions require the owner to be present
- Role clarity and accountability gaps on the team
- Where systems exist vs. where tribal knowledge runs the show
- Leadership capacity — can your team hold more without you?
- Whether your business is sellable, scalable, or stuck
Market Position & Pricing Power
Are you attracting the right clients at the right margin — or competing for work you shouldn't be chasing?
- How your positioning compares to the market
- Where you are underselling relative to the value delivered
- Client mix — who is driving profit vs. just driving revenue
- Pipeline quality and lead source effectiveness
- Whether your brand is an asset or a liability in your market
The problem you think you have is rarely the one worth fixing.
A $1.8M service business came in convinced they needed more leads. Their pipeline felt thin, their close rate had dropped, and the owner was spending more time prospecting than delivering.
The Baseline told a different story. Gross margin was 12 points below the industry benchmark. Three clients represented 74% of revenue. And the owner was the primary delivery resource — meaning any new client they closed would make the capacity problem worse, not better.
The real constraint wasn't leads. It was financial readiness, a concentration risk, and owner dependency — in that order.
They didn't need a marketing campaign. They needed a pricing restructure, a client mix decision, and one role hired before the next growth push. The Baseline gave them the sequence.
What they thought the problem was
Not enough leads coming in
→ Repriced core service. Margin jumped 9 points.
What the data revealed
Revenue looked fine on the surface
→ 74% of revenue from 3 clients — unsustainable concentration
What the real constraint was
Owner was the bottleneck
→ One hire changed everything. Growth unlocked.
The Baseline is the starting point. Not the finish line.
Some owners leave with exactly what they need to move forward on their own. Others choose to go further. Either way, you'll know what the right next step is.
Financial Foundation Intensive
For businesses where the Baseline reveals a financial clarity gap — pricing, margin, cash flow, or reporting. A 90-day engagement to install the financial infrastructure your growth requires.
Learn more →Capacity Intensive
For businesses where the Baseline reveals a scalability or owner-dependency problem. A 90-day engagement to install the structure that lets your business grow without growing your hours.
Learn more →Growth & Positioning Intensive
For businesses where the Baseline reveals a market position or pipeline problem. A 90-day engagement to sharpen your positioning, strengthen your offer, and build a more predictable growth engine.
Learn more →Answers before you book.
If you have a question that isn't addressed here, call us. We'd rather answer it upfront than have you wonder.
"I already know what my problems are."
You probably know the symptoms. The Baseline finds the root cause — and more often than not, it's one layer deeper than what's visible. Knowing the constraint is different from knowing the symptom.
"Is a four-hour session really worth $2,500?"
One right decision — repricing a service, cutting the wrong client, making one hire before the wrong one — tends to return multiples of that within a quarter. The question isn't whether it's worth it. It's whether you can afford to keep guessing.
"Why do you need my financials in advance?"
Because the session isn't about discovery — it's about insight. We analyze your data before we sit down so the four hours are spent on what it means and what to do about it, not on collecting information.
"My numbers are a mess. Is that a problem?"
No. We've worked with businesses running on bank statements and spreadsheets. We'll work with what you have. Messy numbers often reveal more than clean ones anyway.
"Is this just a pitch for hiring you?"
No. Some owners leave the Baseline and do everything themselves. If the right next step is a deeper engagement, we'll say so — and explain why. But the session stands on its own.
"Is this right if I'm planning to exit in the next few years?"
Especially then. The same things that limit your growth are the same things that reduce your valuation. The Baseline tells you what to fix to make the business more valuable — whether you're scaling it or selling it.
Business problems are repeatable patterns. The Baseline finds yours.
Corbin Cook has worked with owner-led service businesses across industries and revenue ranges. The problems look different on the surface — but the constraints that create them are almost always the same three or four things in a different order.
The Business Baseline is built on that pattern recognition. It is not a generic framework applied to your business. It is your business, analyzed against real benchmarks, with a clear prescription for what to address first.
"Most owners are working hard on the wrong thing. The Baseline stops that. You leave knowing exactly where to put your energy — and why that sequence matters."
Stop guessing.
Get your baseline.
A half-day session, a full set of deliverables, and a clear sequence for what to fix first. For $500K–$5M service businesses that are serious about growth.
Includes a 30-day follow-up call. Pre-work required 48 hours in advance.
Limited availability — typically 2–3 sessions per month