Why you must concentrate in the next 90 days on gaining your independence from reduced cash flow, shrinking margins and evaporating customer base.
Why you must concentrate in the next 90 days on gaining your independence from reduced cash flow, shrinking margins and evaporating customer base.
Tuesday, September 08, 2020 in Books, Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Profit Maximizer Moment | Permalink | Comments (0)
Watch this video to learn why using the 80/20 rule to focus on your most profitable customers, products and employees is one of the main tools I use in my SMART Profit Maximizing System which I created.
C’mon over to the Small Business Profit Maximizer Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BusinessProfitMaximizer/ where I am sharing business profit maximizing moments that you can use to quickly increase you can double, triple or even 10X your bottom line while creating a more hassle free business. Be sure to like the page and follow it so you will be notified when I am live and can ask questions live..
Be sure to check out my blog, “Small Business Profit Maximizer!” Where I share these videos and other ideas you can use to make this your most profitable year ever! Click https://wjb-cpa.typepad.com/ to go to the blog page. .
As a gift to you for watching and following my videos, go to https://profitmasters.mykajabi.com to access the following free courses that will help you increase profits and your bank account balance:
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Finally, if you have a question or wish to talk to me you can email me at Wayne@wjb-cpa.com or call my office at 915-857-8158. .
Thanks so much and let’s make this our most profitable ever!
Friday, February 15, 2019 in Business Success Series, Profit Maximizer Moment | Permalink | Comments (0)
Secrets to Massively Increasing Profits
Every business owner’s goal is to increase profits. So why isn’t every business massively profitable?
My opinion is that most business owners don’t experience massive profits because of three things. First, they concentrate on increasing sales and not on increasing profits. Second, they are comfortable with slow steady growth that is in their comfort zone. And finally they don’t have a plan to increase profits.
Massively successful business owners do things very differently. These are the steps I have watched highly profitable business owners take:
The standard CPA firm has a bookkeeping section. After reviewing and calculating costs I determined that this wasn’t a good use of our resources. I now send the client to bookkeeping firms rather than us doing it for them. This allowed us to cut our payroll in half and increase profits dramatically even with a reduction in sales.
One of my clients owns a medical supply company. In this industry almost all of them sell to individuals who are paying with private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. Currently the industry is being squeezed by increased costs and lower reimbursement rates. My client opened one of the first medical supply retail store. This sales model is mainly cash and eliminates all of the insurance problems and thus reduced payroll. While many of their competitors are currently struggling they are doing well.
Want another example? Consider what Netflix did that eliminated Blockbusters. How about what Amazon has done to Sears and Toys-R-Us?
The biggest mistake I have made in my business career was to try to grow my business alone. I now pay about $2,500 per month to coaches and mastermind groups that help me reach my goals. (Be sure to see my article on why coaches help business owners achieve massive growth.)
Yes I know a ton about running successful businesses and I have helped many business owners to become highly profitable. But it is very hard to do so for your own company. I am too close to it and having a couple of other successful business owner’s help me become highly profitable.
As you can see—achieving massive profits requires work and is not for the faint of heart. But if you are serious about growing a highly profitable business there is no easy button and there are no shortcuts. But you’re working hard now—so why not work hard and be massively profitable.
Friday, February 15, 2019 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Planning For Massive Profits in 2019
Using the Profit Maximizing SMART System
2018 is over and as many of you know, I just finished meeting many of my most successful business owners in order to create a tax plan designed to help them pay the lowest possible taxes legally allowed. This year we will have saved our clients over $1 million in taxes after we do their 2018 tax returns.
During our discussions I noticed that while they all can tell me what worked and what didn’t work for them in 2018, none of them had a systematic plan to grow their business profits in 2019.
And this is not that uncommon for business owners who are running reasonably successful business owners. It often appears that the smartest thing is to continue to do what worked for you in the past.
But this can also be a trap! We now live in a fast-changing world where what worked in the past seldom works in the future.
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” --Satchel Paige
In business I can guarantee you that someone is always gaining on you. You only have two choices in your business—you can either lead or chase! You can either be the leader in your niche or you can be chasing the leader.
The bad news is that in this fast-paced business world, the leader in any field is getting the best customers and making the highest profits in their niche. All the rest are chasing them to get the most profitable customers and highest market share.
“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” –Yogi Berra
The most highly profitable businesses didn’t get there by accident—they had a plan and they executed it. If you want to be highly profitable in 2019, now is the time to create your profit plan!
Why most business owners don’t prepare an annual profit plan
One problem I hear from business owners is that they don’t know how to make a profit plan. A quick Google search illustrates how little business owners focus on developing a profit plan. Compare these Google results:
Now Google "Profit Plan" and you only get 774 million results. That’s right; you will receive over 3 times more results for creating a sales plan then for developing a profit plan.
The vast majority of business owners only concentrate on increasing sales. Don’t believe me? Just ask the next 10 business owners you run into how business was in 2018. I bet nine of them will tell you how much their sales numbers increased or decreased. You might get one who knows how much their profits increased or decreased. Trust me, these are the exceptions. This focus on increasing sales is why most business owners don’t have a profit maximizing plan.
The leading business owners understand that, while sales are important, the only thing that matters in business is your bottom line profits!
I have worked with many business owners who increased sales and still lost money. One of my early clients had revenues of $500k in year one. In year two they had sales of over $3 million and lost $250K. What happened? I argue they failed because they had a sales plan but not a plan to massively increase profits. (They went out of business a year or two later.)
Use the SMART Profit Maximizing System!
One of the biggest reasons business owners don’t create a profit plan is that they don’t know how. Increasing sales is something the average business owner understands. Thus they work to increase sales and hope that at least some small amount will end up increasing their bottom line.
I created the SMART Profit Maximizing System after studying the thousands of business owners I have worked with in the last 40+ years and seeing what the most profitable business owners do to massively increase profits. The SMART Profit Maximizing System incorporates the strategies that I discovered consistently increased business profits the quickest.
Here are two examples of using the SMART Profit Maximizing System in 2018 that are pretty typical of what can occur when you focus on maximizing profits rather than simply on increasing sales:
So what is the SMART Profit Maximizing System?
Here is a basic outline of what is included in the SMART Profit Maximizing System:
In future articles we will get into each of these areas in more detail.
So when and how do I start?
Right now, in January, is the best time to create your 2019 SMART Profit Maximizing plan! Doing so now will allow you to implement your customized profit strategies in order to have your most profitable year ever.
This will put you miles ahead of your competition. Less than 1% of your competitors will even have a profit plan, and even if they do, they seldom have real world tested strategies and tactics. Getting started now will give you a huge head start!
Call me if you need help creating your profit plan. Keep your eyes open for future emails where I will be launching my SMART Profit Maximizing System coaching program that will help business owners create and implement their own profit maximizing plan.
Friday, February 08, 2019 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Every business owner must have a plan for selling to your customers who, hopefully, already know, like and trust you. This is the fastest and most economical way to increase sales and profits.
Thursday, January 24, 2019 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Profit Maximizer Moment | Permalink | Comments (0)
If you go by the SBA (Small Business Association) definition of a small business being under 500 employees there are 28 million businesses in this category. However, if you look at businesses that just employ one person, a sole owner/employee combination, then you have a total of 22 million, leaving just 6 million businesses having more than one and less than five hundred employees.
With all these self-employed businesses it isn’t surprising that accounting mistakes are a big problem. The following are the most common errors that small businesses make with their accounting that can result in serious risk of not earning the profits you need to stay open past that critical first year.
To avoid any of these issues start working with an accountant. You can meet with him or her a few times and year and ensure you are on track for meeting your financial business goals and taking full advantage of tax incentives.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018 in Accounting & Bookkeeping, Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Income Taxes, Small Business Owners | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: accountant, accounting, business mistakes, retirement, self employed business, small business expenses, taxes
If you want to expand, you will need to multiply yourself. This will require you to have employees and then delegate work to them. This is one area that very few business owners do effectively. They try, but they soon give up because their employees make mistakes and take much longer then they do to finish the work.
I often hear from business owners that they would like to expand, but they just can’t find good employees. My answer is always the same: “That’s funny – your competitors have found a way to get good employees!”
The truth is that their competitors have learned how to hire effectively, train effectively, and delegate effectively. Since you have employees now, learning how to delegate effectively is one of the quicker ways to free up your time so that you can work on improving your business and increasing profits.
Effective delegation requires you to:
Friday, December 29, 2017 in Accounting & Bookkeeping, Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Other, Sales & Marketing, Small Business Owners | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: accountant, CPA, delegate, employees, expand, hire, train
Awhile back I wrote a blog article about the importance of making a good first impression on your prospects (http://bit.ly/sblW7W). But how do you know if your employees are losing possible customers by making a bad first impression? One of the best ways is to “mystery shop” your own business or practice.
You should do this with your employees’ full knowledge. Being open with them about it will:
You can hire someone yourself or can check out www.mysteryshop.org and www.shopreports.com to hire from businesses that specialize in mystery shopping (Disclaimer: I have not researched the quality or level of service they offer. You should still do your normal due diligence.)
Making sure your customers are receiving the best service possible is always your responsibility. Testing your staff isn’t dishonest; it’s good business practice.
Thank you for your continued support and let's make this year our most profitable year ever!
Friday, November 24, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: business, customers, employees, first impressions, hire, mystery shop, prospects, service
Referrals are an important way to grow your business. Yet many business owners either don’t ask for referrals, or ask in a way that makes them look desperate.
If you ask me for names of people who might use your services or goods, I’m probably not going to make a referral. You are putting all the responsibility on me, and I may not want to take the time to think about it. So don’t ask, “Do you know someone that can use my services?”
I personally like using a method that comes from a position of strength while making it easy for customer to refer. This means doing my homework and phrasing the request in a confident way.
One way is to set up a referral prospects file and keep notes on your top customers’ contacts. You can do this by doing Google searches or social media to determine who their friends are, who they do business with, and what community groups they belong to. Then go up to them and say, “I didn’t know you knew this person, I’d love to meet them.”
Make sure that your customers don’t feel that you need their help growing your business. You must have confidence in the value of your product or service.
Frame the discussion as if there is very limited room for new customers, and the only people you are accepting are friends and colleagues of your current customers.
The portrait studio owner that I discussed in the article “Increase Sales With a Customer Call-Back Department” didn’t just ask for referrals when he called his customers after the sale. He instead asked a series of questions that helped his customers think of people who could use his services. “Do you know anyone who I can call that is getting married? Do you know anyone who is graduating from high school or college? Do you know anyone who having a special wedding anniversary?” He would ask about 10 of these questions to help the customer think about special occasions where people might want portraits.
Finally, don’t forget to thank your customer for every referral. Even better—reward them with a small gift or a discount on their next purchase.
Friday, November 03, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Cash Flow | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: good business practices, referrals, small business
Are your sales and profits for this year lower than you expected? There is still time for you to close strong.
Here are five ways to finish this year on a high note.
Monday, October 30, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Cash Flow, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: profits, sales, small business
The myth most business owners believe: Being a manager and small business owner means solving problems as they happen.
The truth successful business owners learn the hard way! Most problems occur repeatedly due to a deficiency in your operating system or in the training of your employees. And, most problems result in a customer service problem that often leads to a lost customer. So developing a system of tracking problems and solving problems is a key component of improving customer service.
When you are small this is a simple as keeping a log of all mistakes. Weekly or monthly it is important to review this log and look for repeat errors. Now, analyze the root causes of these errors and solve the root problem.
We prepare over 600 returns and at least 99% are completed correctly the first time. But, tax law is a complicated area with frequent changes and keeping errors from happening is a continuous battle. A few years back I noticed that when a client failed to give us a 1099 for retirement income we failed to notice this three times. I put in a procedure so that the reviewer looks specifically for this and worked with all preparers so that they understood the importance of looking at last year’s returns in order to look for items that the client fails to give us. The result: These errors, and many like it, have disappeared during the last two tax seasons.
As a company grows and adds more employees it is no longer possible for the owner to keep track of all the problems and customer service errors that occur in a business. But, solving these problems becomes more vital to keeping customers happy and returning. At this point it is important for the business owner to develop a “customer service ticket” to track these errors.
You should review these employee prepared “customer service tickets” weekly to determine 1) that all customer service problems are resolved promptly and 2) to look for problems that are re-occurring.
Lesson learned: Problems have root causes and will happen repeatedly if you fail to address these root causes. You need a system to identify customer service problems in order highlight the problems that the manager needs to solve.
Friday, October 20, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: customers, employees, growth, hiring, small business
El Pasoans are always complaining there is never anything to do, so take that as an opportunity to get people through your doors. Depending on your business, you can invite speakers, live bands, motivational speakers, dances, art exhibits and any other event that can draw a crowd.
An event like this can create positive brand equity and promote awareness for your business. Think about it, people are going to your business to enjoy themselves and hopefully learn more about your business. Plus, if they are already at your door, they are more likely to buy from you.
Of course promoting this even may cost you a bit, but it’s usually worth it in the end. This can give you an opportunity to write that press release to generate free press! Most bands and artists will volunteer to preform just to get their name out to the public, saving you even more money!
Communities tend to favor companies that give back and a free event is always a way to win their hearts. So if you are having problem getting customers through the door, keep this in mind.
P.S. Don’t forget, while they are there get their contact information to promote to them in the future.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Music, Sales & Marketing, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: branding, events, marketing, sales, selling
Sometimes marketing is an expense and sometimes it is an investment – depending on if it is working or not. But abandoning your marketing plan when cash is tight should never be an option!
First, let’s understand what marketing is. Marketing is everything you do that creates value in the customers mind so that they are enticed to meet with you. Marketing gives you the chance to sell.
Selling is when you convince the prospect that you can be trusted to deliver what your marketing efforts promised.
Based on these definitions, marketing must happen even if you are totally broke. How else will prospects learn about you, be willing to meet with you, and, most importantly, be excited to meet with you? The following are four things that can be done even if you are cash poor:
Thank you for your continued support and let's make this year our most profitable year ever!
Friday, October 13, 2017 in Business Success Series, Sales & Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: customers, marketing, sales
Advertising can have a life of its own if there are not proper systems in place to control it. By neglecting your advertising you can get undesired results. Your goal when managing your advertising is to assure that you are in control of what you are sending out as a message and to make sure you are getting what you paid for.
When it comes to promoting a brand it’s imperative that any advertising is done consistently. So when purchasing advertising consider:
Tuesday, October 10, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Sales & Marketing, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: advertising, budget, marketing, sales
Over the last 35+ years I have had the pleasure of working with thousands of business owners. Less than 1% of these I would classify as highly successful businesses dominating their niches. Yet all of these business owners had one thing in common: Every extremely successful business owner has a laser-like focus on taking action.
They understand that successful businesses occur when the owner makes consistent improvements.
They start by making a list of their long-term business goals. Then they figure out what they have to do this year in order to reach them. What do they have to do this quarter, this month, this week, and today to reach those annual goals?
Successful business owners know that the secret to massive profits is the combination of good ideas with a laser focus on monthly action. This is the mantra you must follow. I believe it is so important that I have made the slogan “Good Ideas + Action = Massive Profits” the motto for our magazine and our coaching programs.
Think of how much better your company would be if you committed to working four hours per week on improving your business. Do that for 50 weeks this year, and you will have worked 200 hours on improving your business. How many of your competitors are making this kind of investment? Worse yet—what if one of your competitors does and you don’t? How far behind will you be?
But they not only have a focus on taking action, they also schedule time monthly to plan and implement the good ideas that move them toward their goals. We recommend three steps to our coaching clients:
Finally, every successful business owner hires a coach to keep them accountable. I have a personal coach who is helping us with our online marketing funnel.
An accountability coach helps you:
The end result is usually a massive increase in sales and profits. Why? Because the coach pushes you past the places you have sabotaged yourself in the past.
Wednesday, October 04, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: action, business, focus, goals
One of the main differences between a business owner who has created for themselves a “job” and an entrepreneur who has created a “business” often can be traced to one thing – the entrepreneur never stops learning!
Most start-up business owners don't know what they don't know. Confusing I know so let me explain. Most new business owners don’t understand taxes, bookkeeping and the law so they hire CPA’s (like myself), lawyer and other professionals to handle these issues for them. But, they don’t even have a clue that they need to learn how to market, manage employees, handle growth, the importance of knowing and understanding the metrics of their business, the importance of systems, etc, etc, etc, ……….
So when a new business owner comes in to see me I try to help by recommending the following three books that I feel that every business owner should own, read and re-read.
First would be The EMyth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber. All wealth is a result of the creation of a system by the business owner. This book goes into the importance of systems in order for the business owner to succeed and grow while still keeping their sanity. I have used the chapter on the importance of an Organization Chart for every business to save a couple of marriages between husband/wife ownership teams.
Second would be Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson. The theory of guerrilla marketing is that your primary investment is not money (a scarce commodity in most small businesses) but, rather time, energy and imagination.
Finally, any book by Dan Kennedy. I guess I would start with his No B.S. Direct Marketing. He has so many key concepts it is very hard to pick just one. But, if forced to, I choose his statement that every business owner is in the business of getting and keeping customers!
These are my favorite three. Drop me a line and let me know if there is a business book that you think I should have put on the list.
Thank you for your continued support and let's make this year our most profitable year ever!
Tuesday, September 12, 2017 in Books, Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Sales & Marketing, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: education, entrepreneur, startup, training
A recent Department of Labor statistic showed that the average American employee now changes jobs every 1.5 years. That constant turnover costs business owners valuable time and money. It takes time and money to interview, hire, and train new employees. Then it can take a year or two for them to reach full efficiency in their job. That is why it is so disruptive to a business to have constant turnover. This is especially true for small business owners, most of which have fewer than 10 employees. Losing even one can put a big dent in their ability to market and deliver their product profitably.
Here are some of the key reasons employees quit:
Notice that nothing on this list really costs you money. They just require clearer communication and more planning by the business owner.
Wednesday, September 06, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: business, employees, quit
Many of my clients don’t have the money to do a large marketing campaign. So they simply do nothing and hope, or they rob Peter to pay Paul in order to do a radio, TV, or newspaper ad. They often forego paying their payroll taxes or vendors, hoping that their advertising will bring in enough money to catch up on the bills later. This is definitely a recipe for disaster!
The Three-Step Direct Mail Marketing Campaign
I always recommend that they implement a three-step direct mail marketing campaign. The three-step plan is designed to get prospects to raise their hands and identify themselves as being interested in learning more about your company. This allows us to send them additional sales material or make personal sales calls. It is a much better use of your time to meet with people who have already expressed an interest in meeting with you rather than making cold calls.
A normal three-step plan could look like this:
At this point I am usually asked, “But why direct mail?” Direct mail:
With all of these advantages, there is really no reason not to include direct mail in every marketing plan. In fact if one is good, three direct mail campaigns may be better! Some quick recommendations:
Tuesday, September 05, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Sales & Marketing, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: budget, marketing, target
I was asked recently, “What would you do differently if you were starting your business today?”
It is a much harder question than you would think, because there is so much that I have learned about owning and operating a business that I did not know when I first started out back in 1991. At that time, I foolishly thought that running a CPA firm would be easy because I was already a good CPA. But to answer that question, let’s review the two biggest mistakes I made that restricted my growth.
Big mistake number one!
This is the biggest mistake that first-time business owners make when they are starting out. They have the same misconception I had—that being a good CPA would automatically translate into being good at running a CPA firm. Nothing could be further from the truth! The skills required to be good at doing the work are completely different from the skills required to be good at running the business of doing the work!
Even bigger mistake number two!
When I started out, I just hated the idea of selling and marketing. I didn’t want to become a pushy used car salesman. I thought all I had to do was be good at my job and people would find me. I call this the “Field of Dreams” sales method. If you have watched the movie, you know that it is about a farmer who cuts a baseball diamond into his cornfield after hearing a ghostly voice telling him, “Build it, and they will come!”
Just one problem with the “Build it, and they will come” sales model—what if they don’t come? Well, that’s what happened to me. You see, I picked up my first six clients in the first week and thought, “Wow this is easy!” Then I didn’t get my next client until month seven.
What I learned (the hard way) is best described by Bill Glazer, author of Outrageous Advertising That’s Outrageously Successful: “I have a two thing business—Getting new customers and keeping them as long as possible.” I was good at keeping a client, but I really had no clue how to get them.
For me, the key to success was understanding what Dan Kennedy stresses in his No B.S. Marketing books: Every business is really a marketing business!
This realization that I had to become a sales and marketing expert for my business changed how I approached my business. I no longer thought that I was in the business of preparing tax returns, preparing financial statements, and providing profit consulting. I now understood that I was in the business of marketing and selling those things! That meant that no matter how much I hated selling, if I wanted my business to survive, I had to learn how to do it.
So back to the original question: What would I do differently if I started over?
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I now know that before I opened my business (or within the first year of operations), I should have:
I am going to assume that you have trade manuals and training materials about how to run a business in your industry. Plus, most business owners already know how to do the work of their business, so it is just a matter of learning how to do it more efficiently and learning how to manage the business.
But becoming an expert in marketing and selling is much harder. Most entrepreneurs who start a business are good technicians, but many have little sales or marketing experience. Compounding the problem is the fact that outsourcing marketing and sales seldom works. This is a very critical task that the owner must do themselves. The owner is the one responsible for delivering what marketing and sales messages have promised. The owner is the only one who truly understands how their product helps solve their client’s problem. And the owner is the only one who knows what the goals for the business are.
So how do you become an expert at marketing and selling? I outlined 10 steps to becoming a sales and marketing expert in an article titled “Every Business Is a Marketing Business.” You can find it in our January issue of Innovative Small Business Strategies (still available for purchase on your iPad or iPhone).
These are some great steps towards becoming a sales and marketing expert:
1) Change your mindset about sales and marketing. Understand that if you really believe your product or service will transform your customer’s life, then you have a moral obligation to provide it to as many people as possible. This can only be done by selling.
2) Read at least one marketing book per month.
3) Take a variety of marketing courses.
4) Hire a personal sales coach.
5) Subscribe to sales and marketing magazines and blogs.
6) Create a marketing plan.
7) Create a 12-month implementation plan.
8) Choose sales tools to reach your prospects that fall within your budget.
9) Make a monthly appointment with yourself to review your marketing.
10) Set aside some time each week to sell.
With everything I have learned about managing and marketing an accounting firm, I could easily start over and grow my firm to its current level in five years instead of the 22 years it has taken.
Of course, I still hate selling. But I close about 70 percent of the prospects I meet, and our business has consistently had annual growth between 10 and 20 percent each year.
Monday, September 04, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: business, learning, mistakes
So what is it that the very best business owners do that makes them successful?
The answer can be found in a paper released by Moya K. Mason earlier this year titled, What Causes Small Businesses to Prosper? In it, she writes,
“What does matter, it turns out, is having a strong grasp of business basics. Without exception, companies that outperformed their industry peers excelled at what we call the four primary management practices – strategy, execution, culture and structure.”
My own observation of small business owners who prosper agrees with her findings. But communicating to them that they need to increase their strategy, execution, culture and structure usually is met with blank stares or comments like, “No kidding, but how do I start?”
Because of that, I have developed detailed action steps for improving in these four areas. The following are the key areas that every business owner must work on in order to obtain massive profits:
At this point most business owners start to get overwhelmed. They see so many things that they need to work on that they just freeze up and do nothing. What they don’t understand is that successful business owners didn’t get that way in one big flash of inspiration.
They actually made small, consistent improvements to their business every week. This requires them to set aside some time every week to work on improving their business. They refuse to let the day-to-day fires of running their business stop them from working to improve their business in some small way every single week. They understand:
GOOD IDEAS + ACTION = MASSIVE PROFITS
So where should you start?
Simply decide to work on the one thing that, if improved, would have the most impact on your business. My experience is that most business owners know exactly what that “one thing” is. If you are not sure, ask your banker, your employees, your spouse, your CPA, or your coach.
Imagine how different your business would be if you invested four hours every week in improving your business! This would be over 200 hours by the end of the year. How many of your competitors do you think actually will make this kind of commitment to excellence?
What to do once you decide what to improve?
Educate yourself! You can do this by researching online, reading business books and magazines, following business blogs, reading articles, purchasing coaching programs, and hiring a personal business coach. Consider calling a business owner in your industry just to trade ideas. If you are worried about sharing with the competition, reach out to a business owner in a different city or region.
Take some action every month! Too many business owners get stuck in the research phase and never get anything done. The trick isn’t to become an expert on the subject. As the Nike commercial famously says—JUST DO IT! Get started! Take some action! Even if it is only a very small improvement in the first month, it is better than no improvement at all. Remember: Excellence is achieved one small improvement at a time.
Thursday, August 24, 2017 in Business Profit & Cash Flow Tips, Business Success Series, Sales & Marketing, Small Business Owners, Small Business Success Series | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: business, customers, product, services, strategy
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information regarding the subject matter covered. It is distributed with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or financial services. If you require such advice, please seek the services of an attorney, CPA or a financial professional. We are only responsible for advice in written form that is a result of a fact finding meeting in regards to your particular situation.