15 Minute

Structural Blind Spot Audit

A 12-Question Self-Assessment for Business Owners, Founders & Senior Leadership

Successful businesses often accumulate structural dependencies as they grow.  Some are obvious.  Others remain invisible until a crisis exposes them. 
This 15-minute self-assessment is designed to help you identify potential blind spots involving people, operations, governance, succession, continuity and protection structures.  It is not a test of how well your business is run.  It is a way to discover where you may need to look more closely.

HOW TO TAKE THE AUDIT
For each question, select the answer that best describes your company today:

  • YES — We have this in place and I am confident it is current.
  • NOT SURE — I believe we may have this, but I would need to verify it.
  • NO — We do not currently have this in place.

Important: A "Not Sure" answer is itself a blind spot.  If you do not know whether an important protection or contingency exists, that uncertainty deserves attention.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

KEY-PERSON & OPERATIONAL DEPENDENCIES

1. The 30-Day Absence Test(Required)
If your most critical owner, executive, rainmaker, technical expert or other key person became unexpectedly unavailable, could your company continue serving clients and generating revenue for 30 consecutive days without significant disruption?
2. The Dependency Test(Required)
Have you identified the people, technology systems and outside vendors whose unexpected absence or failure could stop billing, interrupt service delivery, or materially disrupt your business?
3. The Key-Person Liquidity Test(Required)
If a key person died or became disabled tomorrow, do you have a funded plan to address the financial cost of replacing that person, stabilizing operations and meeting continuing obligations?

GOVERNANCE & EXECUTIVE LIABILITY

4. The Personal Exposure Test(Required)
If your company became involved in serious litigation, regulatory action, restructuring or bankruptcy, do you know whether your executive liability program provides appropriate protection for individual directors and officers?
5. The Two-Person Test(Required)
Are major financial commitments, capital deployments and significant counterparty exposures subject to independent oversight or clearly defined dual-authorization controls?
6. The Growth Test(Required)
As your company’s revenue, assets, operations and responsibilities have changed, have your D&O and commercial liability protections been reviewed and adjusted to reflect the business you operate today?

SUCCESSION, OWNERSHIP & VALUATION

7. The Buy-Sell Test(Required)
If one owner died tomorrow, would your existing buy-sell arrangement provide a clear, funded and workable path for the surviving owners and the deceased owner’s family?
8. The Connelly Review(Required)
Has your existing buy-sell arrangement been reviewed by qualified tax counsel in light of the Supreme Court’s Connelly v. United States decision and its implications for corporate-owned life insurance and business valuation?
9. The Valuation Test(Required)
Does your ownership agreement use a current and defensible valuation process, rather than relying solely on a fixed dollar amount, outdated formula or book value?

CONTINGENCY & INTERRUPTION

10. The Outside-System Test(Required)
If a critical technology provider, software platform or other outside system suddenly failed, even without a cyberattack, do you know how your company would continue operating and whether your insurance would respond?
11. The Cash-Flow Test(Required)
If a critical supplier, customer or business partner experienced a catastrophic interruption, do you have sufficient contingency planning and liquidity to protect your own operations while the disruption is resolved?
12. The Strategic-Change Test(Required)
If your company suddenly needed to relocate production, change a major supplier, restructure operations or absorb a significant margin decline, do you have capital reserves and/or appropriate protection structures to manage the transition without placing the enterprise under unnecessary financial strain?

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