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Where to start

# Is it the selling – or the numbers?

If the business feels stuck, the question is where. Six statements, a gut answer to each – 30 seconds, and it points to whether the block sits in how the work is won, in the numbers underneath, both, or somewhere these six don't reach. No email asked for, and nothing you answer here is saved or sent anywhere.

Six statements

## Tap how true each one feels right now.

1 We send the proposal, and then it goes quiet.

Not a no – a silence. The proposal goes out, the follow-ups go unanswered, and the deal sits in the pipeline for months looking alive. Half the time that silence was decided long before the proposal was written.

doesn't sound like us that's us, exactly

2 Cash is tighter than the numbers say it should be.

The P&L says profitable and the bank balance disagrees. Usually that gap is timing – what has been billed, what has actually been collected, and what has already been spent delivering work nobody has paid for yet.

doesn't sound like us that's us, exactly

3 Winning work depends on the owner being in the middle of every deal.

A test: if you took three weeks off, how many live deals would still move? If the honest answer is none of them, this is you – and it caps the business at the number of conversations you can personally hold.

doesn't sound like us that's us, exactly

4 Margins are thinner than they were, and we can't say exactly why.

Revenue by client is easy to see. Margin by client – after the delivery time that never makes it onto an invoice – is the number that changes decisions, and many businesses this size cannot produce it.

doesn't sound like us that's us, exactly

5 Growth has flattened, and it isn't for lack of work.

Everyone is busy, the hours are long, and the line on the chart has gone sideways anyway. That combination usually means effort has stopped converting, rather than that there is too little of it.

doesn't sound like us that's us, exactly

6 A decision is coming – a hire, a lease, a loan – and no forecast we'd trust to make it on.

You already know the decision. What is missing is the number underneath it – whether the business can carry the cost, starting when, and what happens to cash in the months after you commit.

doesn't sound like us that's us, exactly

Place all six to see the result.

Not sure which it is? That's exactly what a first conversation sorts out – [talk to us](https://stoneforgegroup.com/contact/).

What this produces is information, not advice – general by design, built from nothing but your own answers, and no substitute for guidance from someone qualified who knows your situation. Using it creates no client relationship or contract with Stoneforge LLC; results are provided as-is, errors and omissions excepted – see [our full terms](https://stoneforgegroup.com/terms/).