How many of you are struggling in your business? When the Small Business Administration says that over 80% of all small businesses fail within 2 years, and over 90% within 5, there are a lot of struggling businesses out there, most of them in fact. What Id like to do is change how you look at running your business. Most have been doing the same things over and over, and probably just doing them harder and harder. You just cant keep doing the same things and expecting different results!! For one, most dont have a clue what is working and what is not. Most dont have a measurable goal, nor do they measure their progress towards anything. And I hear the roar from the peanut gallery..I AM measuring! Im aware that Im not making the progress I had hoped for. Most assume they are measuring when they see the bottom line and they fail to pay the bills. That isnt measuring, thats simply feeling the pain. Start measuring the smaller steps in your business. If you send out 1,000 sales letters what is your response rate? How many leads, sales, and customers do you get for every 1,000 sales letters (or whatever else you do in marketing)? Are you getting 5% or better? If you talk to 10 people this week how many of them will buy? Are you getting 4 or 5 out of 10? Do, you have your market divided into segments? Which segments give you the best marketing response, sales response? And why? Do you have a revenue target for the year? How many customers does it take to get to that figure? How many do you have to produce, sell, market to THIS WEEK to hit those numbers? If you cannot answer even one of these questions then you are not managing your business, you are letting whatever happens just happen to you. The key to successful business is being able to manage these numbers and results every week. Edison made an interesting statement when his light bulb finally burned for 45 straight hours he said, If it will burn that number of hours now, I know I can make it burn a hundred. So, if you can sell ONE item in a week, or one in a month, you CAN turn that into selling as many as you want in the next week. It comes down to measuring the results, learning from the results, and then multiplying the successful results as many times as you want. The problem is that most dont even have a clue what is working and what small changes will result in HUGE increases in results. I once worked with a company that had sold only $60K in their first year and were struggling. They had expenses of over $290K for that year, a $230K loss. All we did was look at the different types of customers they had worked with in that year, found a group that had been successful, and then went after them. The same marketing material sent out just one week later generated 10 times more revenue than the week before. Now we know that for almost every dollar spent they can generate over $50. Now, we can determine how much marketing must go out to generate the number of dollars they want to generate. That company went from $60K in a year, to $200K over the next two months. So, can you answer any of the questions I asked above? I dont want to hear answers like I dont know, or I dont have that information. Im going to ask you RIGHT NOW to write down your best guess for those questions. When you are done, IF youve honestly attempted to come up with those answers, you will see ways that you can more than double your business. |
