The Roadmap
Every business is somewhere on this road.
Seventeen steps, from being findable to having someone working your biggest constraint with you. Each one says why it is worth your time. Tap the ones you already have — the road fills in, it tells you what is next, and you can save the whole thing as a picture. Nothing is emailed anywhere; it stays on your phone.
Reach
Can they find you?Google Business Profile
Claimed, complete and posting. It is free, and it works this week.
Why it mattersWhen someone searches your trade and your town, this is what decides whether you come up at all. Everything below it is wasted effort if you are not there.
Website
Your front door, and the only place online that is entirely yours.
Why it mattersMost people will meet it long before they meet you, your shop or your truck — and they decide what kind of company you run from it in seconds. A listing proves you exist. This is what says who you are.
See an example →Apple Business Connect
The other map. Almost nobody around here has it.
Why it mattersEvery iPhone map, every Siri answer, every dashboard search. Most of your competitors have never claimed theirs, which makes it the cheapest ground on this road to take.
Reviews
What decides whether they call you or the next listing down.
Why it mattersTwo shops, same price, one has nine reviews and one has ninety. The second one gets the call, and it is not close.
Social / PR
Showing up between purchases, and getting written about.
Why it mattersMost of your market is not buying today. Being visible in between is what makes you the name they already know on the day they are.
Advertising
Paying for reach once the free reach is already working.
Why it mattersAdvertising multiplies whatever is already there. Point it at a thin profile or a weak site and you are paying to send people somewhere that loses them.
Measurement
Which of the six above is actually generating calls.
Why it mattersWithout it you will keep funding whichever channel feels busiest instead of the one ringing the phone. They are rarely the same channel.
See an example →
Insight
Do you know what's working?Pricing & margin
What you are leaving on the table.
Why it mattersPrice is the fastest lever you own — it moves profit without new customers, new staff or new equipment. Most businesses have never actually tested theirs.
See an example →Market position
Who you are actually competing with.
Why it mattersGuessing here means cutting your price against someone who was never taking that work from you in the first place.
See an example →Operational efficiency
Where the time and the material actually go.
Why it mattersCapacity you already own is far cheaper than capacity you buy. Find the real bottleneck and you often get back the machine, the truck or the hire you were about to pay for.
See an example →Supply chain indicators
The input costs coming at you, before they land.
Why it mattersYour inputs signal before they hit your invoices. Seeing it early is the difference between raising a price deliberately and absorbing a bad quarter.
See an example →Measurement
Did the decision move the number it was supposed to move.
Why it mattersA decision nobody measured is just an opinion that got expensive. This is what tells you a change worked before you spend more scaling it.
See an example →
Advanced
Where the money really movesFinancial & capital management
Cash, margin, and what the next dollar buys.
Why it mattersProfit and cash are not the same thing, and it is the second one that closes businesses. This is what the next dollar should buy, and when.
Research & development
What you sell next, and whether it is worth building.
Why it mattersEverything you sell has a shelf life. Knowing what follows it is what keeps you from defending a shrinking product with a bigger budget.
See an example →Measurement
Return on the capital and the effort, tracked.
Why it mattersCapital and development are the expensive bets. Tracking the return is what earns you the right to make the next one bigger — or to stop early.
See an example →
Partnership
What's holding you back?Your largest constraint, worked continuously
Not a checklist any more. The one thing in the way, taken apart.
Why it mattersEvery business has one thing setting its ceiling. Working that continuously beats five improvements elsewhere, because the constraint absorbs all five.
Everything above, maintained
So it does not quietly rot the way most of this does.
Why it mattersAll of it decays. Profiles go stale, prices drift, dashboards stop being opened. Maintained is the difference between having done this once and actually having it.
That is the whole road.
Save it and you have a picture of exactly where your business sits and what is next — useful even if you never call me. If you want to talk about any step on it, including the ones you should keep doing yourself, the number is below.
Not sure where you are?
Twenty minutes on the phone and I will tell you — including which steps you should keep doing yourself. Some of this you do not need me for at all.