Free framework
THE FREEDOM DIAGNOSTIC
FREEDOM is the seven-domain diagnostic from Steve Kopshaw's book From Traction to Freedom. Score each domain from 1 to 10, total it out of 70, and find the one constraint holding a service or education business back right now. Fix that one for 90 days, then re-score.
Seven domains, each a place a service or education business gets stuck. Together they spell FREEDOM.
THE SEVEN DOMAINS
F · R · E · E · D · O · M
F
Financial Foundations
Is the business profitable enough and disciplined enough with its money to fund its own growth? What happens to the money once it's here: whether it's healthy, honest and disciplined. (Chapter 7)
R
Revenue Systems
Can your sales and acquisition engine bring in the right customers without you pushing every deal? Turning attention into customers at a cost that still leaves room for profit. (Chapter 8)
E
Employee & Team Health
Are your people healthy, retained, and actually in the right seats? Whether you have the right people: healthy, retained and honest with you. (Chapter 9)
E
Execution & Operations
Does the team execute consistently, or do things fall through the cracks the moment you look away? Making winning so explicit that people can't miss it, then delivering it the same way every time, whether or not you're in the room. (Chapter 10)
D
Data & Metrics
Are you making decisions from accurate numbers, or from your gut and your mood? Whether the number is true, and whether your team can read it well enough to question it. (Chapter 11)
O
Organizational Structure
Is your org built for the business you're growing into, or the one you accidentally cobbled together? The design of the chairs, not the people in them. (Chapter 12)
M
Market Position
Does the right person know who you are, and exactly why you're the one to choose? Exactly who you serve and what they get from you that they can't get anywhere else. (Chapter 13)
OUTCOME
Score the seven. Find the one.
Score each domain from 1 to 10. A 10 means it is running so well it isn't limiting anything. A 1 means it is actively holding the business back. 50 to 70: the foundation is solid, and your constraint is probably hiding in one specific domain. 35 to 49: a few areas need work, so start with the lowest score instead of fixing everything. Below 35: the constraint is usually upstream, in the founder-level work of clarity and ownership. To pick the one, take your lowest score; if two tie, choose the one upstream, since Financial Foundations and Execution & Operations tend to sit above the others. Re-run it every 90 days.