Connect & Co · Revenue on Purpose
Self-Assessment

The Referral
Ceiling Audit

12 symptoms your firm has outgrown the way it gets clients — and a 10-minute self-assessment to tell you which stage of your BD function is breaking first.

There are four stages every consulting firm's BD function has to perform: Aware, Learn, Engage, Convert. When you hit the referral ceiling, the cause is almost never that all four are broken — it's that one or two are missing entirely.

This audit gives you a score for each stage so you can see exactly where to focus first. The higher your total, the healthier your BD function.

12 questions  ·  1–4 scale  ·  ~10 minutes

How to Score

Rate each statement as it really is.

Each of the twelve questions is a statement about your firm. Rate how strongly you agree or disagree based on what's actually happening today — not what you wish were happening.

1Strongly
agree
2Agree
3Disagree
4Strongly
disagree
Score Range 12 to 48

The higher your number, the healthier your BD function.

Stage 01 · Aware

How prospects find your firm in the first place.

The Aware stage is everything that puts your firm in front of the right buyers — speaking, outreach, social media, and your referral system.

A1
We rely on word of mouth, networking, and referrals to fill our pipeline.
A2
At any given time, we can't easily identify three to five qualified prospects we're actively pursuing.
A3
Our social media content rarely generates qualified leads.
Total Aware Score — / 12

Please answer all three questions to continue.

Stage 02 · Learn

How prospects understand what you do.

The Learn stage is everything that helps a prospect arrive at the right answer about you — your positioning, messaging, ideal client readiness, and the outcomes you produce.

L1
The leads we get are poor fits — the wrong size firm, the wrong problem, or have insufficient budget.
L2
Prospects seem like a good fit, but don't fully connect with the problem we solve during discovery calls.
L3
Discovery calls often feel like prospects are trying to extract information about our process rather than engaging in a conversation about how we'd solve their problem together.
Total Learn Score — / 12

Please answer all three questions to continue.

Stage 03 · Engage

How you stay in front of prospects.

The Engage stage is the nurture function — newsletter, content, a daily rhythm of pipeline follow-up, and the asset that does work for you when you're not in the room. This is the stage most boutique consulting firms are missing most.

E1
Warm opportunities have gone cold because we didn't have time to follow up.
E2
We don't have a consistent newsletter or content strategy that keeps us visible to prospects between conversations.
E3
We don't have a case study, guide, webinar, or other resource we can easily send to prospects.
Total Engage Score — / 12

Please answer all three questions to continue.

Stage 04 · Convert

How you turn interest into signed work.

The Convert stage is the sales process itself — what happens before a discovery call, during the call, and after the proposal lands.

C1
We get no-shows on scheduled discovery calls, or prospects ask to reschedule.
C2
We struggle to navigate discovery calls toward a clear next step.
C3
After sending a proposal, we don't have a repeatable follow-up process and lack control over next steps.
Total Convert Score — / 12

Please answer all three questions to continue.

You're all set

Your results are on the way.

Check your inbox — your full audit breakdown is headed there now. If you don't see it within a few minutes, check your spam folder.

Your next step is a Revenue Strategy Session where we look at your scores together and map out exactly what to build first. The link is in the delivery email.

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