For the owner who never takes a holiday

You can usually tell how much of a business still runs through its owner by what follows them on holiday: the calls, the approvals, the numbers nobody else can produce.

If you're close to one, you know the rest. The phone stays face up at dinner, and the proper break is always booked for after the next busy patch.

Their full report is built from their own answers to 31 questions about how the business runs, read the way somebody standing in for them would. It's about the business, not about them: what would hold for a month without them, what would stop first, and the order to fix it in.

How far they could step out today, as a score out of 100, and behind it:

• Where the business would hold without them, and where it would stop
• The three answers to deal with first
• A six-month plan, each action in order, and what done looks like
• Read by a person before it reaches them, within 72 hours of finishing

It's not a valuation, and it's not financial, accounting, or legal advice.

1. 1

   You buy it here and choose how it reaches them: to you, to hand over yourself, or straight to them by email, saying it's from you.

2. 2

   They take the assessment whenever they're ready. Allow 45 minutes to an hour, most of it looking things up. Their answers save as they go.

3. 3

   Their full report comes to them by email within 72 hours of finishing.

The voucher works once, for three years from the day you buy it. You can buy one for yourself, too: have it sent to you and use it when you're ready. It covers the full report whatever the price is by then.

To give it on the day, have it sent to you. It arrives by email as soon as you've paid, with the code and a short link to write in a card.

If you're stuck for what to write:“Here's a gift. Figure out what it would take to take a holiday.”

What if they take it as a hint?

It is one: that you'd like them to have the time. Everything in the report comes from their own answers, and it ends with a plan.

Will I see their answers or their report?

No. Their report goes to them, and nothing about their answers or their score comes to you.

What if they're thinking about selling, or raising money?

They choose the way in when they start: selling, raising money, or stepping out. Their report then reads the business the way a buyer, an investor, or someone standing in for them would.

What if they don't get round to it?

If it went straight to them, they get one reminder after 30 days, and only one. The voucher works for three years.