“Q: I want to take my managing family businesses and privately held firms quiz for me to find out where I stand.” My answer was a resounding yes. In the past year I have conducted many executive level interviews with clients, including CFO’s from around the country. I often asked them the same questions; “What do you see as a key performance indicator for your company?” And “Do you believe that the measures we use to measure our company are effective or are they primarily measurement based?”

All three questions were fascinating to both the executives and the CFOs. But one question bugged me. Why would one group of people ask another what they think about their company? How could an executive know how well his or her firm was doing until someone else said so? I began to research management consultants in the area of performance management and started reading articles about the value of a sounding board, or a family member taking on the role of sounding board, as some consultants call it.

Then I did an online search for “Managing Family Businesses – A Management Consultant’s Take on Measures of Competitiveness and Measurement”. What I discovered really made sense. In this article, I share some of the ways that we at Global Associates have used the services of a management consultant to help our clients. Since we believe that “family businesses” are so important, we have developed these suggestions to help you take my managing family businesses and privately held firms quiz for me to better understand the concepts and areas that we believe are important.

The first question I asked myself when I took my managing family businesses and privately held firms quiz for me to think about was whether there were any aspects of our company that required outside help. This is a valid question. Many times, depending on our size, we may need to hire a consultant or a professional to look at our overall performance. There may also be areas of our business that are not as well understood as others.

The second question I asked myself was whether my company faced any threats or competition from other companies. There are many types of threats – new entrants, new technology, new markets, new ideas. How do you identify which ones apply to your company? Some companies view threats in different ways than others. This can be a difficult question to answer because there are so many factors to consider.

The third question I asked myself when I took my managing family businesses and privately held firms quiz for me to think about was whether there were any new developments in any aspect of my company that required consideration. One of the reasons I asked this question is because some of the changes I have implemented have been fairly radical. For example, we have two new stores and I believe one of them will become our biggest ever. In this case I think I would consider whether there had been any developments in the specific areas of our business that required my input.

The fourth area I looked at when I took my managing family businesses and privately held firms quiz for me to think about was whether there had been any news concerning new ventures or expansions. This was actually a tough question to answer. Because I don’t own the majority share in any of these businesses I can’t be knowledgeable about them. But I know others who do own a majority stake in various ventures. And in some cases expansion has been occurring as a result of the market conditions in certain locations.

The final question I asked myself when I took my managing family businesses and privately held firms quiz for me to think about was whether I felt satisfied with the way things were going at that particular moment. This again is not an easy question to answer because for the most part I feel that I have done pretty well. At times I have been unhappy with some of the decisions we have made and taken, but overall this is pretty rare. Sometimes I may have made a mistake or I may have under-estimated the need for a service at a particular time. So if I get the opportunity to take one of these quizzes for me to think about this for a moment I will certainly ask this question.