Margin Exposure Check 

Why this matters

Most businesses lose margin through behaviour, not market forces.

The behaviours that built your business are now limiting its profitability. The Margin Check makes those patterns visible.

Generosity mistaken for good service
Contracts that expose, not protect 
Extras delivered but never charged
Scope that grows without payment
Poor visibility of client profitability
Value left on the table, uncaptured
How it works

12 questions.

4 disciplines.

One clear view of where your margin is going.

1. Contracting
How clearly you define and protect commercial boundaries

 

2. Over-Servicing How often value is delivered beyond scope or fee
 3. Up-Selling    How consistently additional value is identified and captured
 4. Measuring            How clearly client profitability is tracked and acted on
Margin Performance Pyramid

Every answer scored on a behavioural scale

Your overall result places you on the Margin Performance Pyramid, revealing how commercially mature your business is.

Disciplined
Margin protected by default
 
Determined
Progressing, not yet consistent
 
Drifting
Inconsistent effort, margin exposed
 
Detached
No ownership, margin leaks freely.
 

What you'll get

Behavioural insights that explain why your profit is leaking.

​1. Your Margin Score and categorisation

2. Rankings across the 4 disciplines

3. Visibility of margin loss locations

4. A defined starting point to recover it

 

Built with a decade of evidence:

●     65+ Vistage and CEO Institute forums

●     70+ Client engagements

●     750+ ANZ business leaders

At 95% statistical confidence, this pattern exists in your business.
The only question is where and what it’s costing you.

87%
 
showed contracting weakness

66%

admitted to chronic over-servicing

55%

had no reliable measure of client profitability

  • Median recoverable margin: $600k–$900k per engagement
  • Largest single finding: ~$13M at a national allied health network
  • In every case the same cause - "Invisable" commercial behaviour

This Margin Exposure Check is the result of 10+ years of diagnostic work across 70+ businesses.
Used by CEOs to identify where margin is being quietly given away, and take it back 

 

Paul Allen is the founder of Margin Partners and creator of the Margin Recovery System.

He helps B2B businesses identify where commercial behaviour is eroding profit & where margin can be recovered without increasing delivery pressure or winning more work