Coach’s Guide on Business Models

Business Model Inquiry (Pre-Strategy)

Purpose of this guide

This guide supports Grow coaches in facilitating a Business Model inquiry before formal strategy work begins.
It addresses a recurring challenge in growth engagements: strategy conversations often move too quickly to choices and plans before the enterprise’s value logic is sufficiently clear. The purpose of this inquiry is not to design a business model, optimise profit, or produce a financial forecast.
Its purpose is to help leaders articulate a coherent hypothesis about how the enterprise creates, recognises, and sustains value over time — so that subsequent strategy work is grounded, disciplined, and realistic.
This inquiry is particularly useful when:

When and why to use this inquiry

When it is most valuable

  • Growth ambitions are high but strategic options feel diffuse
  • Performance has plateaued despite activity
  • The business has accumulated surplus (financial or reputational)
  • Leadership debates cycle without resolution
  • Strategy feels like “choice overload”
In practice, these are signals that value creation is under-examined, not that strategy is absent.

Where it fits in Grow’s sequence

The Business Model inquiry sits: After Core Ideology Before Strategy Cascade It prepares the ground for strategy by clarifying what kinds of strategies make sense — and which do not.

Coach stance (this matters)

This inquiry requires a slightly different coaching stance.
The coach’s role is to:
  • slow the conversation down
  • hold uncertainty without rushing to solutions
  • treat outputs as hypotheses, not answers
  • resist translating insights prematurely into goals or actions
This is not a diagnostic. It is a disciplined inquiry into how value actually works here.

What we mean by “Business Model” (plain language)

In this context, a business model is understood as:
A coherent explanation of how an enterprise creates value that is valued — by customers, by the organisation itself, and by the context in which it operates — in a way that can endure. It is not:
  • a revenue formula
  • a pricing mechanism
  • a financial plan
Profit and financial sustainability matter, but they are treated as confirmations of value creation, not as its definition.

The inquiry structure

The inquiry is best conducted as a facilitated leadership conversation, ideally over one or two sessions.

Value Proposition (broadly defined)

Key questions:
  • What problem does this enterprise reliably relieve for customers?
  • What value do customers actually experience (not what we claim)?
  • Why do customers return — or leave?
  • If this enterprise disappeared, what would be missed?
Coaching note: Avoid marketing language. Push for lived reality.

Value Recognition

Key questions:
  • How does the organisation know value has been created?
  • What signals matter most internally?
  • Which indicators are lagging confirmations vs early warnings?
This step often reveals:
  • over-reliance on narrow metrics
  • misalignment between effort and recognition

Value Capture (economic, but not narrow)

Key questions:
  • How does value translate into sustainability?
  • Where does financial performance confirm value creation?
  • What assumptions are embedded in pricing, margins, or volume?

Value Enablers

Key questions:
  • What capabilities must be present for this model to work?
  • What judgement, trust, or culture is required?
  • What cannot be outsourced or substituted?
This is where leadership quality and organisational health become visible.

Value Risks and Fragilities

Key questions:
  • What would break this model?
  • Where does incoherence already show up?
  • What dependencies are under-acknowledged?
This step often creates clarity about what growth must not compromise.

Outputs (keep them provisional)

The tangible outputs should be light and disciplined:
  • A one-page Business Model hypothesis
  • A small set of critical assumptions
  • A short list of strategic options opened and closed
The language “hypothesis” is intentional. This keeps the organisation open to learning and adaptation.

Transitioning into Strategy

Once the Business Model hypothesis is articulated, strategy work becomes easier and more grounded.
The Strategy Cascade can now be informed by:
  • clearer constraints
  • fewer false choices
  • a more realistic growth ambition
  • better alignment between aspiration and capability
In practice, this often shortens strategy processes rather than extending them.

Relationship to Financial Management

This inquiry does not replace financial analysis.
Instead, it creates a clearer context for:
  • Stewardship Financial Review
  • assessing fitness to grow
  • setting realistic growth rates
  • distinguishing ambition from capacity
Used together, Business Model inquiry and financial review provide a powerful early assessment of enterprise viability and readiness.

What this inquiry is not

For clarity, this inquiry is not:
  • a template
  • a methodology to be rolled out
  • a substitute for strategy
  • a theoretical exercise
It is a practical, human conversation that improves judgement before commitment.

Closing note for coaches

Experienced coaches will recognise that many strategy problems are misdiagnosed value problems.
This inquiry gives you a way to surface those issues early — calmly, respectfully, and without derailing momentum.