The admittedly grim statistics of business failure can be an amazing resource. The trouble is that many people ignore the facts and don’t use that information to change how they operate their business. Frankly, the stats should motivate you to start thinking about your business in an entirely new way.
In this article, I’m going to give you some proven tips for taking action on your business. These tips will almost ensure that you are not only a surviving, but a thriving business owner category. They’re easy and won’t cost you anything to implement.
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For a number of years I’ve quoted some chilling statistics about business success. For instance, 80% of new business fail within 2 years. And of those left, only 3% make it past 10 years.
If that’s not bad enough, only 1500 out of 10,000 businesses reach a $1 million in revenue. Only 75 of those get past $5 million and only 1 or 2 of those gets to $10 million.
So clearly, building a thriving business is a rare thing. In fact, with those statistics… building a business would seem to be one of the hardest tasks there is. What’s the secret?
Aside: This is exactly what we do at Kaizen Consulting – take thriving businesses and grow them into $5 – $10 – $100 million dollar companies.
Full disclosure, Safety Tip: You’ve probably heard these before… If you’ve ignored taking action on them, allow yourself to take the opportunity to do it different this time – ok?
Tip One: Take time
Take time each week to work "on" your business, rather than in it. Schedule it now. Make it a regular and re-occurring commitment to take a programmed hour a week (to start) and just think about your business and where it’s going.
Tip Two: What to think about
To take maximum advantage of the time that you are thinking about your business, start to target the areas that will make the most difference to your business. Where’s the pain? Start there!
Some suggestions… how do you do more of what you are best at and less of what you could hire someone else for; specific pieces of your sales process; what are your specific goals for the business, what marketing tactics will deliver ROI, how to hire great staff, using the internet to develop business, etc.
Here’s the system that makes this work.
If you start with a large subject, break it down into the specifics. Address an area each week and think through the ways to improve and refine that specific area.
For instance, look at your sales process. What are all the steps in the process? Prospecting, getting appointments, building rapport, presentation (what to say and how to say it), education based–sales support material, building a relationship, closing, follow up… etc.
Week 1 you start with prospecting: How can you improve and leverage your prospecting time? Well, let’s dig deeper… Who are your best customers?
Who are (and where would you find) your "ideal" customers? Make a list of the top 50 or 100…
What’s the best way to contact these people? It takes 7- 9 touches before your customers might respond so how can you automate some of that – beyond dialing for dollars? Direct mail, email, newsletters, radio advertising, internet advertising (adwords) … etc?
End your session with writing down 3 realizations and 3 specific actions that you are going to implement in your business. Then do the actions!
The next week you think through the next specific piece and break it down into it’s components, so you can keep making progress. After a few months of this, can you picture how you will be systematically improving every aspect of your business?
This is the unbeatable way to grow your business so that you meet all your expectations and dreams.
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Some other good thoughts from the web…
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