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Service — The Assessment

The assessment vs doing it yourself

You can do a version of the Assessment yourself, and the honest limitation is this: you can run an honest inventory yourself; most owners cannot be objective about their own constraint.

The assessment vs doing it yourself
Steven Lockhart, partner at Growth-Scaling
Written by
Last reviewed August 2026 · Updated August 2026
7 min read · Reviewed by both partners
Yes
you can attempt it
Objectivity
the real limitation
$1,500
the paid version
2 hours
the middle path
Published Growth-Scaling pricing and this topic’s row in Sitemap v9.

This is not a pitch against doing it internally. Plenty of businesses should, especially early.

What the paid version produces: a paid two-hour working session with both partners that ends with one named constraint, at $1,500.

Step by step

  1. What you can genuinely do alone

    Gather the numbers, list the candidates, and write the first draft. That is real work and it is most of the volume.

  2. Where it usually breaks down

    You can run an honest inventory yourself; most owners cannot be objective about their own constraint

  3. The objectivity problem

    Owners cannot be objective about their own business. This is structural, not a criticism, and it does not improve with effort.

  4. The time problem

    It is not that owners cannot do it. It is that the phase competes with running the business and loses.

  5. A reasonable middle path

    Draft it yourself, then buy two hours of adversarial reading. Cheaper than the full engagement, and the draft makes those two hours far sharper than they would be cold.

Common mistakes

Doing it alone and calling it done

A conclusion nobody challenged is a preference with a document around it.

Buying help before trying

Attempting it first makes the paid version sharper, because you arrive knowing where you got stuck.

Frequently Asked Questions

The assessment vs doing it yourself?

This is not a pitch against doing it internally. Plenty of businesses should, especially early.

Is this something Growth-Scaling handles directly, or does it require a referral partner?

It sits under The Assessment in the Growth Scaling Method. The next step for an owner is the $1,500 Assessment, which reads your own numbers against everything described above.

Is pricing published?

Yes, and it does not move: $1,500 per Foundation step, $4,500 for all three, and a $5,000 monthly minimum for recurring programs.

Who delivers the work?

Both founding partners, every time — strategy from David Mitroff, Ph.D., systems and measurement from Steven Lockhart.

References

  1. www.nfib.com — primary source
  2. www.consumerfinance.gov — primary source
  3. www.census.gov — primary source

Try it, then bring us the draft

The best engagements start with an owner who already attempted it.

Book the $1,500 Assessment

Growth-Scaling is a marketing and business-scaling firm. It is not a licensed practitioner in any client vertical and does not provide medical, legal, financial, or contracting services; all industry content on this site is marketing and growth guidance for owners in those fields. Figures describing past engagements refer to specific businesses under specific conditions and are not a prediction of any future result. No outcome is promised.

Written by Steven Lockhart, reviewed by David Mitroff, Ph.D. Figures and regulatory details reflect the cited public sources; requirements vary by state and situation. Growth-Scaling is a marketing and business-scaling firm, not a licensed practitioner in any client vertical.

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