The Complete Guide to the 24 Assets: A Notion Template for Entrepreneurs
Why assets
The value of a business and its impact on the segments it caters to depends on the assets the business has developed and nurtured over time. This is the core concept behind Daniel Priestley’s 24 Assets philosophy and book, which is the foundation of this essay and the template I developed based on the 24 Assets. Income follows assets because assets are the “machine” that generates income and leverage for your business. Assets create powerful barriers around your business, protecting it from being shuttered down by competition and other external forces beyond your control. They allow you to effectively design your business to succeed, rather than wish for it to succeed. An asset is anything that exists in your business and generates value for your customers even if you—as the owner—are out of the grid for 90 days or more. This assets scorecard by Daniel Priestley allows you to diagnose the current state of your business’ 24 assets.
At the beginning of your journey into the world of 24 assets, it is important to focus on 2-3 core assets to become world-class in those areas. This will help strengthen your unique positioning in the market before moving on to develop other assets. The more assets you develop strongly, the higher the value of your business. Investors and potential buyers look for these assets when evaluating a business. The strength of the assets listed below is what attracts investors and buyers, provided that your business is already established and has gained some momentum and customers over time.
The 24 assets
According to Daniel Priestley in his book, these are the 24 assets every business must be aware of in order to thrive in the market. There are seven groups of assets, each of which contains three or more assets, for a total of 24 assets.
Intellectual property
Intellectual property assets are valuable ideas or methods protected legally. This group includes the following assets:
Content: text, images, and multimedia content that forces you to focus on quality to make it evergreen and a true asset that separates your business from the crowd. These can be your logos and branding assets. Today content is widely accessible and low cost through social media platforms. It has become an increasingly popular asset among businesses, and the best ones who succeed at it are those who play the long-term game by consistently generating content that has a clear identity and provides true value for the target audience.
Methodology: a specific way of getting to an outcome. This can be one or multiple operational methods you created over time to make your business run smoothly or a specific production process or coaching method that distinguishes you from the crowd. By legally protecting your unique methodology, you create a strong barrier around it. For example, this is what EOS Worldwide does, only allowing franchisees to use their unique method.
Registered intellectual property: these are registered patents, trademarks, and other unique branding/method assets you protect legally.
Brand
A brand is the process of making your business known, liked, and trusted by individuals in the market. To strengthen your business’ brand, you can focus on these assets:
Philosophy: the beliefs that help shape every decision you make - values, mission, vision, as well as origin story. The more distinctive and highly documented, the higher the value of the philosophy asset for your brand. A great example of a clear origin story and brand philosophy is Brunello Cucinelli, where the purpose of the brand and the original family history are embedded in every area of the website and across the brand’s communication and marketing campaigns.
Identity: How the brand looks, feels, tastes, perceives, and is perceived. Consistency and repetition create the brand identity. Consistency is key and reassuring to your customers, who know what to expect when relating to your brand. As Roger Martin points out, think twice before updating your brand, because humans find comfort in consistency and predictable patterns, as long as they do not become boring and detached from reality over time.
Ambassadors: They are individuals who can lift the profile of your brand via association. They embody the philosophy of your brand and become vocal supporters of it. By associating with a few, high-fit ambassadors, your brand can form even stronger foundational barriers around itself, reinforcing its uniqueness.
Market
A market is an abstract concept that means nothing in itself. There is no market - there are individuals with wants and needs. Each individual cares about their own situation, not the whole market. Individuals want to buy from someone whom they know, like, and trust (see “brand” above). Successful businesses are those that recognize and cater to the nuances of each individual, instead of thinking about the whole market. By focusing on the individuals, you do not need to cater to millions of faceless people. Instead, you can focus on offering your products to specific personas within the market for a limited supply so that there is supply-demand tension, a concept which, according to Priestley, makes the difference between profitable and “just-surviving” businesses. For example, Rolex is a massively profitable business due to the supply-demand tension they manage to create through their limited supply of goods and long waiting times to get one of their products.
Your business should be an obvious choice to buy from. Avoid making the customer think too much—it should be a no-brainer to buy from you because of your unique positioning and the clear value provided. You can foster a unique positioning and clear value proposition by nurturing your 24 assets and especially focusing on your brand. Growing a brand that is recognizable, liked, and trusted by individuals may require a key person of influence, as Priestley outlines in his book Key Person of Influence. This is the visionary in your business who attracts attention and is the public face of the brand, to whom people can relate and become accustomed to knowing, liking, and trusting. This formula for success has proven grounded in reality and practiced by many modern entrepreneurs such as Daniel Priestley himself, Nick Bare from BPN, Christian Guzman from Alphalete, Maxx Chewning from Sour Strips, and many more. The three assets to position yourself favorably in the market are:
Positioning: the efforts to influence people’s perception and awareness of your brand or product relative to competing products. The purpose of positioning is to occupy a clear advantageous position in an individual’s mind so that you will become known, liked, and trusted by them. There are 4 key components that help position yourself and your brand, according to Priestley. Be sure to document those when they happen, as they are valuable assets you can use in perpetuity:
Awards: you can reference them in sales and marketing materials
Accreditations: they prove the quality and reliability of your brand, which helps in building trust
Associations: being part of trusted associations can be a promoter of fostering trust and likeability among individuals in your target market
Acknowledgment: being acknowledged by other influential people in the industry, media publications, or any authoritative figure who associates with you and your brand
Channel: This asset refers to distribution (how your product gets to customers). There are two main types of channels, as described by Priestley in the book:
Owned channels: These are the distribution channels you own. It could be a retail store, the YouTube channel you use to establish yourself as a key person of influence, or any other applicable distribution channel to your business.
Earned channels: These are the distribution channels developed by others and leveraged by you - e.g., selling on Walmart/similar retailers, being featured on someone’s show, etc.
Data: Collecting data about the individuals in your target market allows you to create personalization for your customers, which makes a difference in customer satisfaction and building trust. Accurate data enables you to customize the customer experience, which can positively impact the value you create for customers, hence fostering satisfaction and trust. Scorecards can be an effective tool to collect data about prospects and customers while providing them with thought-provoking, valuable questions and a report showing them their current situation with regard to the specific domain the scorecard aims to help with. For example, Dent, a company by Daniel Priestley, uses scorecards very effectively throughout their landing pages. Priestley has also built a scorecard software called ScoreApp.
Product
Your product is a replicable and consistent way of delivering value to your customers. It could be sold anywhere at a comparable price point. A product is more than just its physical component. The brand and positioning (assets already discussed above) make a difference on the product, because individuals (us) do not solely make purchases based on logic, but are also highly influenced by the emotions and urgency elements of a product and the brand behind it. By becoming good at packaging your products with logic (data), emotions, and urgency, you can successfully become an “oversubscribed” business that is profitable and leads the market.
According to Priestley, giving a name to your products is crucial. Products are distinctive and can be reproduced across the world, and names ensure that individuals can remember and recognize your products even if they don’t see them. Products also have collaterals such as a brochure explaining their benefits and features to prospects and customers. To develop a solid business, it is best to build a product ecosystem composed of multiple products with different natures and purposes. The Product asset group is composed of these four assets (which correspond to the types of products you can offer as part of your product ecosystem):
Gifts: They are scalable and affordable products. Usually digital and easy to distribute. No expectations are attached to gifts, as they are free products aimed at providing value to prospects or anyone interested in order to build the brand and expect nothing in return.
Product for prospect: These are often “gated” (e.g., get the product in exchange for your email) products aimed at collecting data from your prospects, which you may leverage to turn them into customers at some point in the future.
Core product: This is the main product your business is known for. The core product is your 20% which brings 80% of the revenues in your business. Its development and maintenance require your full commitment and attention, in order to make the customer experience delightful and become a trusted long-term partner.
Product for client: These are recurring revenue products that provide value to your customers over time. They are profitable if there is a solid ecosystem, and they are complimentary to your core product (but they are not your core product, so do not confuse them).
Systems
As Priestley emphasizes in his book, predictability follows assets. Predictability can be established through systems, which include checklists, documents, software, and anything that makes your internal processes more predictable and increases their chance of success by following proven best practices that work effectively. The three systems assets are:
Marketing and sales systems: These are the systems that put your message in front of the right people at the right time and place. Merely exposing potential customers to your brand and products is not enough to turn them into customers. A sales system is necessary for that purpose, and following the LAPS framework, as proposed by Priestley: Lead, Appointment, Presentation, Sale. These are the four key stages of your sales system, and the daily focus of your sales team members. Collecting leads, scheduling appointments, providing presentations of your products/brand, and closing sales. Repeating this process consistently and with attention over time leads to success.
Management and admin systems: These systems reduce the time to complete administrative tasks. This can include emails, onboarding flows of your new customers, task management for new projects, and more. You can think about what processes in your business you can automate, consider the benefits that automation could bring, and decide on whether to proceed with automating those systems. At a management level, creating a dashboard with key metrics that updates regularly and works reliably can be a great tool in your management arsenal, so that everyone is on the same page regarding the high-level direction of the business and its KPIs.
Operations systems: These include any systems that ensure you deliver great value to your customers consistently and with high quality, all the time. They can be related to the customer service experience you provide, as well as the level of quality of your production process, whether it be software or physical products.
Culture
Your company culture determines your ability to attract, develop, and retain employees at a reasonable price (i.e., not overpaying for talent compared to market rates). Only great assets will allow that to happen, according to Priestley. Your culture starts from the people in your team, and the quality of the team members will also influence the quality of your assets, in a self-reinforcing feedback loop. Culture starts from the business’ origin story and brand aspirations (mission, vision, values). It then permeates throughout you and your team’s behaviors and ways of showing up daily at work and beyond. Documents that display your culture include documented role descriptions, accountability charts, onboarding processes, team handbook, training videos, structured performance reviews, ongoing training and development programs, remuneration and rewards structures, disciplinary and complaints policy, flexibility policy, communication tools and decision-making guides, KPIs, and more. Culture is composed of four assets:
Key people of influence: They are those individuals within your team who inspire, innovate, and grow the brand. Well-developed assets attract key people of influence, which can skyrocket the profitability of your business. Often, the main key person of influence in a business is the founder / CEO, who publicly represents the company and shapes its vision and values through storytelling and experience.
Sales and marketing: These are the people in your team who manage your daily sales processes and bring money to your business. Assets attract these people, and you also need assets to develop these people for success, by making their onboarding experience delightful and setting them up for success since the very beginning of their journey. Within your sales team, it is a good idea to mix what Priestley calls “hunters” and “farmers”: the former excel at closing sales; the latter are great at building relationships and attracting the right people and turning them into leads.
Management and administration: These team members enable high performance of the business and everyone else in your team. According to Priestley, it is very important to show gratitude and appreciation for the work that management and admin people carry out because it can often go unnoticed and seem mundane, despite it being very important for the health and progression of the whole business.
Technicians: The people with technical skills who build the products in your business. They are vital for long-term success. Technicians stay with your business based on the quality of the product. Honor their entrepreneurial spirit and foster their initiatives, because lots of innovation and creative thinking can come from these people when fully empowered with responsibility.
Funding
The Funding asset involves the ability to raise capital at better terms compared to other companies in your market/ecosystem. Accessing money at a favorable rate due to the health of your business can be a great advantage because it allows you to develop your business further without excessive effort. The decision to expand your business will depend on the objective of your business: whether to grow it as much as possible (i.e., performance business), or keep it small and agile (i.e., lifestyle business). There comes a time when you will get to definitively decide on the direction to take. The turning point, according to Priestley, is when you reach 10-12 full-time employees. This number is still small enough to not need middle management, while also starting to become large enough to create fragmentation within your team. The funding assets are:
Business plan: This is the document outlining where the business is heading, the risks, and the returns expected. Hiring an external, independent professional to craft your business plan is the best choice, according to Priestley, because it shows an unbiased view of your business and makes it more trustworthy to investors.
Valuation: Your company is worth what people decide it is worth. Consumers will always drive the value of your business. Having an independently produced official valuation makes it much more trustworthy to investors and the broader public.
Structure: As Priestley points out, investors primarily look for control over investment, reduced risk, and liquidity. Businesses that excel at those elements are more palatable to investors because they show high-quality health and a promising future ahead.
Risk mitigation: Investors want to see assets that protect the business from vanishing or failing. This is also what developing the 24 assets is about. By building a solid foundation beneath and around your business, like in a Medieval castle, you indirectly mitigate risk and make your business more valuable in the eyes of investors and the world.
The asset creation cycle
To conclude, Priestley provides a framework for establishing and growing the 24 assets within your business. This is an iterative approach to asset creation, similar in concept to design thinking.
Concept and ideas phase: At this first stage in the assets creation cycle, brainstorm ideas freely and aim for volume over quality. What are some creative ways you could grow your business’ assets? Which strategies could you implement to fortify your business like a 19th-century European castle? Let the mind freely come up with possible solutions, which you will refine in later stages.
Construct a briefing document: This is a document that describes your business and the product(s) you offer to the world. In this briefing document, you can include as much information as possible to lay out the business and its ecosystem of products.
Select suppliers: Present the briefing documents to suppliers and let them take the lead to help you build the products that compose your ecosystem. By doing so, you can only focus on your core assets, which is the most important thing for your business.
Beta version: This is the first version of your product in a prototype or simplistic form compared to the final product vision. Offering an underwhelming product version is okay at this stage. The aim is to test the product and collect some early feedback. Stick with it. Capture feedback, go back to the briefing doc, and write down improvements, so you can iterate on the product with your suppliers.
Commercial version: After iterations, this is the fully functioning version that provides rewards. This is a final version of the product, but not its remarkable version yet, which only comes through further iteration cycles and refinements.
The remarkable version: This is the truly final version of the product that takes months and years of iterations and experimentation. The remarkable version enables you to find out the real perceived value of your product and its success among the audience. A remarkable product stands out within its market and captures the attention of everyone who finds out about it — akin to every product Apple launches, thanks to its brand status and perceived quality of products.
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