Share company data safely: six questions to ask any advisor

Many owners hesitate before sending company data to an outside advisor, and the hesitation is reasonable. Your numbers describe how your business really runs. Before you share them with anyone, a few good questions can tell you a lot about how they will be treated.

Here are six to ask, with the answers we give for our own work so you can see what a clear answer sounds like.

1. Is there a written agreement, and who is named?

Ask for a non-disclosure agreement before any data moves. It should name the people who will see your information, not just the company. If the list of names is vague, ask for it to be specific.

At Next Sage Group, Launch Cohort applicants sign a short NDA right in the application form. Only the people named in the NDA can see your data.

2. Exactly what do you need?

A good advisor can hand you a short, specific list. If the request is open-ended ("send us whatever you have"), that is a signal to slow down.

Our Data Request lists nine items, such as daily revenue, daily expenses, clients gained and lost, and employees and total cost by month. You do not need to clean the data up first. Send it as it is, and we do the connecting.

3. Where will it live?

Find out where your data will be stored and whether it sits alongside other clients' information. Separate is better.

Each company sends its data to its own private Google Drive folder, shared only with the people named in the NDA. After that, your data goes into its own separate Quickbase app.

4. Who can see it?

Ask for the answer in plain terms: which people, and in what roles. Fewer is better. You should be able to say the number out loud.

5. What happens if we do not move forward?

This question matters more than most owners expect. You should know in advance whether your data is deleted, how long that takes, and who confirms it.

If a Launch Cohort company decides not to move forward, we delete its data within 30 days.

6. What is the privacy policy?

A written policy tells you which tools handle your information. Ours is at nextsagegroup.com/privacy-policy, and it lists the providers we use.

What a clear answer sounds like

You do not need a perfect answer to each question. You need an answer that is specific and comes without hesitation. "Only these two people, in this folder, deleted within 30 days" is a clear answer. "We take security very seriously" is not. If an advisor cannot say who, where and how long, it is fair to wait until they can.

A few habits that help on your side

• Send totals and trends rather than customer names or personal details whenever you can.
• Do not send passwords or account logins. A good advisor will not ask for them.
• Use a shared folder you control, so you can see what you sent and remove access when the work ends.
• Have your own counsel review any agreement you sign.

Why the questions are worth asking

The numbers that show where growth is hiding are the ones you would least like to see in the wrong hands. Knowing how they will be handled makes it easier to share the right ones. If you want to see what that looks like in practice, read what we ask of Launch Cohort companies in our Launch Cohort article.

If you want to know which records a Growth Plan needs, What data you need to build a Growth Plan dashboard has the list.

One question for your next meeting

If an outside advisor asked for your numbers tomorrow, would you know what to ask them first?

To see how your company compares, take the Growth Benchmark. It takes about two minutes.