The One Question We Ask Every New Advisory Client

Before we open a spreadsheet, look at a P&L, or talk about growth targets, every new advisory engagement at Kyma Advisors starts with one question: what do you want the business to give you?

It sounds soft. It’s the most practical question in the entire engagement.

Most business planning starts with a goal — a revenue number, a headcount, a market. The problem is that goals borrowed from other businesses (or from what sounds impressive) produce strategies that technically succeed while making the owner’s life worse. We’ve seen owners hit their growth number and discover they’ve built themselves a job they can’t leave.

The question works because different answers genuinely change the work. Here are three we hear often, and what each one does to the strategy:

·       “I want to sell it in five to seven years.” Now the priorities are margin quality, clean financials that survive due diligence, and systems that run without the owner. Revenue growth matters, but transferable revenue matters more — a buyer pays for what keeps working after you leave.

·       “I want a steady income without working 60 hours a week.” Now it’s a cash flow and delegation problem. Pricing discipline, recurring revenue, and deciding which work only the owner should touch — growth for its own sake may actually be the wrong move.

·       “I want my kids to be able to run it one day.” Now we’re building for succession: documented processes, leadership development, and a financial structure that can survive a gradual handoff rather than a sale.

Same question, three completely different playbooks. And notice what didn’t drive the differences: industry, size, or revenue. The owner’s answer did.

If you want to try this on your own business, three suggestions. First, answer honestly — the impressive answer and the true answer are often different, and only the true one is useful. Second, put a time horizon on it; “someday” isn’t a plan input, but “within ten years” is. Third, write it down and revisit it once a year — the answer is allowed to change, and when it does, the strategy should too.

The numbers still matter — that’s most of what we do. But the numbers are the how. This question is the why, and in our experience, strategy built without it doesn’t hold.

If you’ve never been asked what you want your business to give you, that’s a conversation we’d be glad to have.