The Owner’s Scorecard™ records what you want your business to make possible over five years: how you spend your time, the personal income you receive and the wealth you own. It gives business decisions a specific ownership goal to serve.
Three goals, read together
The first page of the Scorecard packet has five annual target columns. Give each column a year and keep a dated current baseline in the supporting work.
| Dimension | What the printed page records | What the numbers mean |
|---|---|---|
| Time | Operator, owner and personal hours; total hours | A weekly pattern. Each year’s three categories total 168 hours, including sleep and personal life. |
| Cash Flow | W-2 salary, owner distributions, other income and total cash flow | Annual personal income by source. The final page labels salary gross and distributions after tax. Its total is not automatically after-tax spending money. |
| Wealth | Market equity value, savings and investments, real estate and total net worth | Your ownership interest and other net assets at a stated date. Business equity is not cash available at closing. |
The second page, Market Valuation Target, works backward from the business value you want using earnings, a multiple and the equity adjustments. Keep the ownership share, debt, cash, phantom obligations and other assumptions explicit in the supporting valuation work. A target calculation does not establish today’s market value.
Use it to understand a trade-off
Suppose you want to stop running daily operations while maintaining your personal income. The company needs to fund a capable replacement before it can sustain the distributions you expect. The Scorecard states the desired hours and income. The role plan and financial model test the cost, timing and feasibility.
That same choice may improve the business’s ability to operate without you and affect its future value. Read all three dimensions together before deciding. Preserve a gap between the goal and the forecast so you can address it openly.
The supporting work explains the path
Noble Aim explains why the goals matter. Milestone 1 develops the role and time plan; Milestone 2 develops the personal income requirement and sources; Milestone 3 develops the wealth goal and required business contribution.
Keep weeks away, location preferences, current hours, tax calculations and detailed assumptions with those exercises. They support the original Scorecard rather than adding competing fields. Salary pays for work; a distribution label alone does not prove the company can run without you.
The Value Growth Plan explains the choices connecting the goals to the business. The North Star sets annual direction, and the Game Plan defines the next quarter’s priority and outcomes.
Goals, clarity and installed capability are different
The Scorecard states goals. Actual results show progress. The Alignment Score records how clearly you understand the path. The Velocity Score summarizes milestone evidence. None substitutes for the others.
Review relevant changes monthly, the complete goals quarterly and the longer plan annually or when circumstances materially change. A review can confirm the existing plan. Change a target deliberately, preserve the earlier version and explain the reason; do not automatically move it to match a forecast.
Open the same work in your Playbook
Keep your working Scorecard in The Plan section of your Owner’s Playbook, with support grouped under Time, Cash Flow and Wealth. Keep one current version of the goals and link the supporting work to it.
Put the idea to work
Explore Module 1 to connect this idea to the work, evidence and tools. Browse all concepts or see the complete system.