Grow the Practice

Is your advisory firm’s referral engine systematic or running on luck? A deterministic diagnostic — the grade-it companion to the build-it Advocacy Engine. Mark six dimensions 0/1/2 on evidence — ask cadence & triggers (18, growth), centers-of-influence pipeline (20, growth), advocacy identification (16), tracking & attribution (14), compliance & disclosure (20, gate), reciprocity & nurture loop (12) — for a 0-100 score banded SYSTEMATIC / LEAKY / AD HOC. Two worsen-only overrides catch what a score hides: a compliance-zero gate (an indefensible compensated arrangement forces AD HOC) and a no-engine floor (no ask AND no COI pipeline forces AD HOC). Portfolio rolls up to the worst firm (ALL SYSTEMATIC / GAPS TO CLOSE / RUNNING ON LUCK) with the fix-first dimension. Runnable Python engine + workbook + assessment & build-up playbooks + a 5-firm sample. Grades a referral system, never people, and rules on no specific arrangement. Marketing-Rule-aware, not legal advice.

Your prospects don’t vanish — they leak at one stage. A deterministic diagnostic for the sales / consultation funnel: enter the real head count at each stage (inquiry → discovery booked → held → qualified → presented → client) and it computes the actual conversion at every step, marks each ON TARGET / LEAKING / SEVERE against your own editable target, and names the constraint — the EARLIEST severe leak, because an upstream leak starves every stage downstream (so the show-up step, not the numerically-worse close, is the fix). A dead-stage gate forces HEMORRHAGING when a step passes nobody. Funnel verdict FLOWING / LEAKING / HEMORRHAGING plus a dollar estimate of closing the constraint to target from your own client value — no invented lift. Runnable Python engine + workbook + measurement & leak-fix playbooks + a worked sample. Grades a funnel, never people. Not financial advice.

Compute the max cost-per-lead before a source loses money — from your own client value and close rate — then read every paid source PROFITABLE / THIN / UNDERWATER against your line. Zero-close gate + 10-lead data floor. Example: a $14/lead source reads UNDERWATER at zero closes; $6,000/mo to reallocate.

A one-afternoon role-based AI micro-brief for advisors: five quizzed lessons scored CLEARED / REVISIT / REPEAT, with an advance gate where the weakest module gates the whole brief. Recommends nothing and scores no clients; every draft routes through firm review. One .xlsx, deterministic.