Target Market – Ideas Action Success

Category: Target Market

8 reasons your business is not growing, and it has nothing to do with sales, revenue, or profit

Posted on December 22, 2021 by Doogie Levine

There are 30.2 million small businesses in the US, accounting for 99.9% of all businesses in the country. Even though they account for 99% of all business;

They employee less than half of the American workforce
The average annual business revenue is $46,978
86.3% of small business owners make less than $100,000 a year in income

It begs the question; what is holding back your small businesses from reaching its full potential and becoming multi-million dollar businesses. This series will discuss 8 reasons why your business may not be growing and the action you can take to fix it. Today we will discuss numbers one and two.

Cash Flow
Dependent Model
Supporting Relationships (Trust)
Waste/inefficiency
Leverage
Lack of curiosity
Vision with a plan
A mirror

Cash Flow

Cash flow is considered by many to number one business killer. There is a saying cash is king when it comes to your business; there is no more accurate statement. For those that don’t know this term:

The term cash flow refers to the net amount of cash and cash equivalents being transferred in and out of a company. Cash received represents inflows, while money spent represents outflows. A company’s ability to create value for shareholders is fundamentally determined by its ability to generate positive cash flows or, more specifically, to maximize long-term free cash flow (FCF). FCF is the cash generated by a company from its normal business operations after subtracting any money spent on capital expenditures (CapEx). (definition provided by Investopedia)

So how do companies get into cash flow trouble?

Accounts receivable; you have provided service but have yet to receive the cash. Again, this usually comes down to your payment terms and your ability to collect whenever possible try to get full payment before or at least at the time of completion.
Paying Bill First; we all hate owing people, but many businesses do not take advantage of the same payment terms. For example, if someone offers you net 30, 60 payment terms, take advantage of them and wait until the last opportunity to complete payment without accruing penalty. Also, consider renegotiating for a more favorable term.

There are many other ways to develop cash flow problems, but these are two of the biggest. Please take the time to review your cash flow statement & balance sheet see how your cash flow looks. Then, consider setting goals to improve your cash flow as a tool to increase the value of your company.

Dependent Model

Now that you have begun to conquer cash flow, the next step will be to make an independent business model. But, of course, you’re probably asking yourself what the hell does that means?

It means creating a business model that does not rely on you as the owner to push the buttons, pull the levers, provide the basic service. It is the philosophy of shifting from working in the business to working on the business.

There are several reasons why owners struggle to make this transition; we will discuss a few today but remember there are many more, and it is up to create time to do the work and discover your cause and correct it. Today we will discuss the sphere of control.

This is a big one for most owners. At some point, you will get to the place where you can’t be everywhere at once and can’t interface with every client. This can be very tough because this usually means you need to hire middle management. It requires a different set of skills than the ones you have hired before but usually comes with a dip in profit. So what can you do about it?

The first step is to get organized and answer these two questions:

What do I need them to do?

Where is the information they need to get the job done stored?

Simply put, to create a stable sphere of control, you need to have a documented process with clear expectations, responsibilities, and most importantly, the information to be successful. The standard term for this is SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures).

Creating your companies SOP’s or engaging these new hires in creating the first version can significantly reduce the mistakes, miscommunication, and headaches that occur.

I hope you have begun to see your opportunities to improve your business. As always, our fractional COO’s are here to help with these and all of your other operational challenges. Thanks for reading, and remember the best time change was yesterday, so you better change today.

Is growing your business your goal? Then a COO should be your next hire.

Posted on December 14, 2021 by Doogie Levine

The right time to hire a chief operating officer (COO) is just before trouble appears in your company. But, unfortunately, the reality is that most businesses realize they need a COO too late.

Signs that you need a COO:

You spend too much time working in your business and not on your business.
You find yourself stopping business growth activities to maintain your everyday.
You are feeling constantly overwhelmed and struggling daily in your company.
You know you need to strengthen and solidify your leadership team.
Your company needs to grow significantly in scale operations.

A COO — especially your first one — should come from outside your company. Insiders are typically part of the problems you are facing. However, they lack the perspective, required knowledge, skills, or experience to view your company objectively and with checked emotions.

The COO Position

A COO is quite different than any other employee in your company.

Typically, the leader of a company is a visionary. As the visionary, you operate best when thinking long-term, generating big ideas, fanning a fabulous culture, and cultivating strategic relationships. Without a COO, you become mired in the day-to-day operations, which can cause your business to stagnate, wither and eventually die.

A COO is your team’s number 2, your MVP! As your integrator and executor, the COO brings your entire company together to deliver products and services effectively and efficiently.

The COO is the quintessential “change champion.” They define needed changes, lead the change effort, manage the change and even celebrate the success of the change.

Your COO is your closest partner, coach, and mentor. The COO is trusted to run your company when you are not there. They have the ability to take your vision and execute it to an extent unimagined. As a coach and mentor, your COO not only supports your personal and professional business development but that of the entire company.

Your First COO

When you need a COO, you are looking for someone typically with years of experience and education — much more than most companies can afford for their first COO.

A COO is much more than a highly paid operations manager. However, companies typically make one or all of these four mistakes when they need a COO:

Mistake #1. Possibly the most egregious mistake is they hire the COO last. Instead, the companies prioritize the CMO, CTO, VP of Sales before hiring their COO, causing an effect that leads to dysfunctional and siloed organizations without a clear vision and priority.

Mistake #2. Instead of hiring the C-suite executive they need, they seek a director or vice president of operations. This choice saves them an executive salary, benefits, bonuses, and perks. People hired in this role are expected to operate at the position of a COO without the title but usually cannot.

Mistake #3. They lowball the salary of their new COO position. This forces them to hire someone capable of being a director or vice president of operations but who will fail to meet the expectations of a COO.

Mistake #4. The company treats the COO position as if it were any other position within the company. Thus, the hiring process, benefits, bonuses, and perks all mirror those of most other employees.

The reason companies make these mistakes are because of two things. One, they cannot afford the true talent they need. They do not understand the inherent differences between this position and every other position in their company.

The first COO is one of the most critical positions to get right. Hiring the wrong COO can cause your company to struggle significantly.

Consider A Fractional COO

If you cannot afford what your company needs, how do you move forward? You cannot keep struggling in your visionary role while being the full-time integrator.

A fractional COO is a business professional with many years of experience willing to work in a temporary capacity, part-time. That would typically amount to the same as hiring someone full-time. However, you can bring on talent with experience as a business owner, business coach/consultant, or former full-time COO without all the costs. Fractional COOs might get paid the same as a full-time COO, but they bring to your company much more. Plus, there are many other benefits to contracting with a fractional COO.

Benefits:

A fractional COO will take a company through a process that produces the tools to answer the essential questions of how can we grow?
A fractional COO works in a hybrid model, saving you from creating a separate executive office.
Fractional COOs do not require an elaborate executive hiring process — thus, you do not have to build separate HR processes for just one position.
Being a contract employee, the fractional COO does not require executive benefits, bonuses, or perks.
A fractional COO creates a try-it-before-you-buy-it experience, allowing you to kick the tires and determine what you need from a full-time COO.
The fractional COO is there to work themselves out of a job — they focus on building your company so you can truly afford a full-time COO in the future, and they can even help you find and hire their replacement.
If the fractional COO does not work out, let them go — firing an executive can be a grueling situation fraught with cost and legal dangers, but allowing a contract employee to go is relatively easy.

If you take anything from this blog, invest in a COO if you want to grow your business, produce franchises, make a sellable business, or achieve whatever goal you have. They’re your partner who specializes in making your dream come true.

If you want to discuss if your business is ready for a COO, click the link and sign up for a one-hour strategy consultation. Remember, the best time to change was yesterday, so you better make the change today.

Charity is Good Business

Posted on November 30, 2021 by Doogie Levine

Is charitable giving a part of your organizational practice? If so, kudos to you; you are well on your way to building a culture and financially optimized business.

Yes, you read that right, financially optimized.

If giving purely for altruistic reasons is not your thing, don’t worry; in today’s blog, I will share four reasons why you should make giving a part of your business plan.

Need a little more convincing how about $2.45 trillion reasons

“Omnicom Group’s Cone Communications study shows, 70 percent of millennials will spend more on brands that support causes—and with millennials representing $2.45 trillion in spending power, the subject of corporate social responsibility carries an unexpected level of clout.”

Reason Number 1: Employee Morale

Gen Z and Millennials share an appreciation for “Why”; their desire for purpose-driven work can help you retain these employees. In today’s climate retaining talent can be as important as generating new business.

According to a Deloitte study on volunteering, millennials were “twice as likely to rate their corporate culture as very positive” if their company participated in workplace volunteer activities. This is because employees respect companies that care for their community–it simply makes employees feel good and increases the emotional attachment to their employer.

Reason Number 2: Two for One Marketing Dollars

Charitable giving can be like doubling your marketing dollars. The goal of your marketing budget is to get your message in front of your target audience. One of the best ways to do this is by creating strategic partnerships with non-profit organizations that have similarly aligned missions to the product or service you provide.

For example, if your company makes sporting equipment, consider sponsoring local sports teams or tournaments. That will show your current and future clients that you care about your business and your community.

Reason Number 3: Uncle Sam is going to take it anyway’s

This is one of the most immediate benefits of corporate donations. You may not instantly see how your contribution benefits your community, but you will quickly notice the tax savings. Of course, businesses shouldn’t donate with the sole expectation of financial gain, but there are financial rewards for helping a charity in need. In addition, companies can usually receive tax deductions from sponsoring charities or events. Still, you should make sure to follow the rules and go about the process in the right way to comply with all tax requirements. Talk to your accountant about creating a charitable giving strategy as part of your revenue model.

Reason Number 4: Giving is Good

The final reason is arguably the most important. It feels good to know that you have found a way to help build your community. Plus, according to the Cleveland clinic, it can have the following health benefits;

Lower Blood Pressure
Increased Self-esteem
Less Depression
Lower stress levels
Longer Life
Greater happiness and self-satisfaction

Create an Action Plan

As today is Giving Tuesday, there is no better time to build a charity culture into your business practice. So here are a few different ways you to give back.

Volunteer Day’s
Event Sponsorship
Sponsor Youth Sports or Programs
Donate to research
Charitable match program
A competition where each team member represents a charity, whoever sells the most or exceeds monthly expectations the company will donate to their charity.

The options are endless and entirely up to you. If you need help creating a charitable process that will benefit the community and your bottom line click here and one of our coaches can help you design the best program for your organization.

Now get out there and give.

Wouldn’t it be Nice to Mind Your Own Business?

Posted on November 23, 2021 by Doogie Levine

The concept of minding your own business means that while you are grinding away at your day job, you need to be investing in your future and minding your own business. Pretty soon, you’ll be able to walk away from that day job and mind your own business full time.

The best way to do this is through the acquisition of real estate.

Let’s take a quick look at where you are losing all your money in taxes. Taxes have been around since the dawn of organized civilization. While the original intention was to only tax the wealthiest of the population, obviously, that’s trickled down to the masses, including those in poverty.

Now, keep in mind the more money you make, the more taxes you pay. The wealthy know a way of getting around this by forming a corporation. Corporations offer tax benefits and protect you from lawsuits. To learn more about this, talk with one of our business coaches or your attorney.

We’ve all heard the golden rule of Pay Yourself First.

But many of us don’t do it. Until you learn and put this rule into effect, you won’t have any chance of getting out of the rat race. What this rule does is force you to come up with more income to pay your expenses.

There are some critical areas of finance you should learn about; taking classes is one of the best ways to do this. Here are the basics you should understand:

Accounting

It pays to know how to read financial statements. When acquiring businesses or assets, you need to quickly see the financial standing of the company you are acquiring.

Many grown adults do not know how to balance a balance sheet. In the long term, this knowledge will pay off for you and your business.

Investment Strategy

This skill will sharpen with experience. Talk to investors and observe how they play the game.

Market Behavior

Know the laws of Supply and Demand. No business owner can do without understanding these basic principles of the market. Bill Gates saw what people needed. Open your eyes to opportunities. Look at what sells and who buys.

Law

Do everything you can to grow your business within legal boundaries. Know your corporate, state, and accounting laws.

Once you know these areas of finances, you can make them work for you. The rich practically invent money. You have to know where to find a great deal. Let’s continue with real estate. Look for houses in trouble or find the court in your area that handles foreclosed, police impound, or other real estate situations. You can either renovate and sell or rent for residual income.

So, essentially there are two main types of investors:

Those who buy pre-packaged investments
Those who create their own investments

You know which are the most successful. To be one of those people, you need to know what to look for and how to respond.

You must:

Find a good deal other people have missed.
Raise the capital needed for the transaction.
Put together a high-performing team to execute the plan.

There is risk involved in every acquisition. The goal is not to avoid the risk but to respond to the threat with confidence and a steady hand.

If you need help identifying potential money-makers, where to get the capital you need, and how to put together an intelligent team, try our academy to access our resources and tools.

Claim your free 6-months trial of our E-learning Academy by emailing Doogie at doogie@ideasactionsuccess.com. Offer is available to the first 12 respondents.

Win The Rat Race

Posted on November 16, 2021 by Doogie Levine

We’ve all worked jobs we hated. We were underpaid, underappreciated, and bored out of our minds. We either quit these jobs or were fired for poor performance because we just gave up. Instead of taking that approach, you need to consider every job an opportunity to learn something new that you can apply down the line to find success.

When you give people the tools they need to come up with unordinary solutions, you are enhancing their lives for the long run. What if one of your terrible jobs had been one with no pay at all, and you needed to come up with some ingenious ways of making money and finding value?

You’re an entrepreneur, I bet if you were forced into this situation you would find a way to make ends meet and position yourself to reach your long-term goals. This same urgency can be applied to your company now.

I don’t recommend going into the next meeting declaring that no one will receive pay anymore. Instead, you can tell your employees that their potential raises, bonuses, and other perks are now dependent on their creativity in ways to enhance business. Present them with the opportunity and put success in their hands. This is the abundance mindset approach, it simply says there are infinite possibilities, resources, and opportunities it is up to us to see them and take advantage.

Adapting an abundance mindset is integral to your success, the company’s success, and your employees. One way to start becoming abundance-minded is through a concept called financial literacy. A concept that sadly is not taught in school but is still essential to know.

So, what is financial literacy?

Our culture teaches people to be good employees and not employers. This mindset will never make you wealthy. Instead, you need to focus on becoming a good employer. You also need to learn how to not only attain wealth but sustain wealth for generations. This is what financial literacy is all about.

So, how do you get out of the rat race and start working toward a wealthier future? You need to understand the difference between an asset and a liability. Take a look at your own life, and you’ll probably find the following:

Assets

Real Estate
Stocks
Bonds
Intellectual Property

Liabilities

Mortgage
Consumer Loans
Credit Cards

You’ve probably been fooled into thinking things like your house, car, and entertainment system are assets. They aren’t! Assets should be continuing to make you money. When you continue to struggle, you are not building wealth. If your primary income is from wages and each time you make more money, you pay taxes, you’re not creating wealth either, are you?

So, if buying a house isn’t an asset (and it’s not because you spend about 30 years of your life paying it off), then what is? Here are some of the best assets to attain and when you can start to see wealth being created because of it:

Average time of holding on to an asset before selling it for a higher value:

One year

Stocks (Startups and small companies are good investments)
Bonds
Mutual funds

Seven years

Real estate
Notes (IOUs)
Royalties on intellectual property
Valuables that produce income or appreciate

So, here are the steps to getting out of the rat race and onto your journey of creating wealth:

Understand the difference between an asset and a liability.
Concentrate your efforts on buying income-earning assets.
Focus on keeping liabilities and expenses at a minimum.
Mind your own business.

If you need help getting out of the poor mindset and into the wealthy one, start by reading “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. Then schedule a call with one of our coaches to integrate wealth concepts into your company’s daily operations.

We went through the first three, and next time we’ll talk about how to mind your own business to keep your eye on the prize.

Search & Implement

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Doogie Levine

People only remember the extraordinary, strange, wild, surprising, and unusual. You need to make sure your ideas and marketing reflect these reactions. This doesn’t mean you have to have a product or service that is completely out of the norm; in fact, this could easily drive customers away. You need to have a product or service that is high quality and marketable, then you need to market it as extraordinary and new.

As you research word of mouth, there are some questions you need to ask along the way:

What are the users willing to tell the non-users?

Exactly how do your customers describe your product?
What are the non-users willing to ask the users?
What are the things they need to know but are unwilling to ask?
What happens when these issues are raised?
Precisely what do your prospects have to know to trigger purchase?
Exactly how do your customers answer the objections, concerns, and qualms of your prospects?
How do your customers persuade their friends to use your product?
How do your customers suggest they initially get to know or try your product?
What warnings, safeguards, tips, and suggestions do your customers tell to your prospects?
Are your sales messages, positioning, and important facts about your product getting through and surviving word of mouth?
What messages do you need to inject into the marketplace to turn the tide in your favor, and how will you deliver them?

There are two main reasons why word of mouth research is so important:

To get the real impression and feedback from customers
To define word of mouth itself and the concept it creates

There is a simple formula that can help you conduct your word-of-mouth research. It’s called the “2-2-2” model.

2-2-2- Model

What this breaks down to is:

Two groups of customers
Two focus groups of prospects
Two mixed groups (enthusiasts & skeptics)

In these groups, you need to ask the following questions:

What would you tell a friend?
How would you persuade a skeptic?
What questions would you anticipate from a skeptic?
How would you answer their objections?

The best way to conduct these groups is by teleconference. This ensures you’ll get a good variety of demographics for your customers and potential customers. It also allows people to feel safe and more able to express their true feelings. To avoid adding pressure to the situation, these teleconferences should not be conducted by you but by an independent party.

We’re going to transition a bit and talk about how to construct a word-of-mouth campaign. First, we’ll talk a look at the essential ingredients you need to put together a campaign. These ingredients are:

A superior product
A way of reaching key influencers in your marketplace
A cadre of experts willing to bat for you
A large number of enthusiastic consumers
A way of reaching the right prospects
One or more compelling stories that people will want to tell to illustrate your product’s superiority
A way to substantiate, prove, or back up your claims and how the product will work in the real world
A way for people to have direct, low-risk experience, a demo, sample, or free trial
A way of reducing overall risk, an ironclad guarantee

Once you have those ingredients ready to use, you should consider the situations in which your company can benefit from a strong word-of-mouth program. Some of these situations are:

When there are credibility problems
When there are breakthroughs
When there are marginal improvements
Where the product has to be tried in large numbers or over time
Where there is a high risk in trying the product
With older or mature products that have a news story that people tend to ignore
With unfair competitive practices such as spreading rumors or telling lies about your product
When there are governmental or other restrictions on what you may say or claim directly

While most of the word-of-mouth tactics are favorable for your word-of-mouth program, there are a few products to avoid using in this program. They are:

Products where a seminar would not provide meaningful added value
Products that can’t be tried and where there is no consensus among experts
Products that are inferior, without having a compensating superiority for similar products
Products that are so personal or emotional that rational discussion is irrelevant to the decision
The medium will not be cost-effective for products where the decision value is so small (low price/low volume).

This wraps up this post on word-of-mouth research and how that research can be used when putting together your word-of-mouth campaign. However, if you need help with the research and a plan to use the results of that research, try our FREE test drive to get all the help you need with our top-notch resources and tools.

9 Levels of Word of Mouth

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Doogie Levine

Last time we talked about the second part of word-of-mouth tactics which help you put together a system to help shorten your customers’ purchasing decision time, which can increase your profits immensely.

Today is not so much of a blog but a tool to evaluate where your word of mouth stands and how it affects your business. We’re going to talk about the nine levels of word-of-mouth which gives you a scale to measure the word-of-mouth circulating around your company, products, and services. You can then see where you are getting negative or weak word of mouth and find ways to correct it.

So, launching into the nine levels of word-of-mouth, it should seem relatively obvious that the negative levels are, well, negative, and the positive levels are positive.

Word of Mouth Scale

Minus 4-Death Blow

This is the worst of the worst and means your product or service is creating a scandal. Remember when the popular over-the-counter pain relievers, like Tylenol, were deemed unsafe? Yea, you won’t want that kind of word of mouth.

If this is where you are, it is most likely a death blow for your business and you have most likely done something very wrong.

Minus 3-Karen is Out for Blood

Disgruntled customers are going out of their way to convince other consumers from purchasing your products and services. They are boycotting you.

They are actively making a seen, leaving bad reviews, making their tik toks. In some respect, this can be the worst place to be. Karen does not allow you to have a minute to respond and fix the problem.

Minus 2-Unacceptable and Unhappy

While not outwardly boycotting, when customers are asked about you, they will give a negative response. They will take the time to leave a Yelp or Google review and most likely leave it at that.

Minus 1-Solvable

At this level, people are mildly dissatisfied, and while not outwardly talking about it, they will have an opinion if asked. Now they may purchase from you despite their negative feelings; this can be a little confusing.

These people may stick with you because it is easy or the pain is not enough to change. It is important to spend time giving them a better experience.

Level 0-Neutral

This is sort of a neutral place to be. Customers are using your products, but don’t really talk about it. People rarely ask them about it, so they aren’t sharing their opinion with others. This can be a slippery slope because you don’t want to turn that neutral experience into a negative one. You should work to make it a positive one.

Plus 1-Satisfied

At this level, we are finally starting to work our way into the positive word-of-mouth about your company, products, and services. Plus 1 signifies that people are generally pleased with your products, but unless asked, don’t really say anything about them.

Plus 2-Tip of the Tong Solution

When asked, your customers will talk about how much they love your products or service. They will be a person who says something like, “o I use …” or “consider trying …”. These people need to be prompted but once they have been you’re their go-to.

They may give a review but most likely need to be prompted before they will do it.

Plus 3-Have You Heard About

Customers will go out of their way to talk about your products, services, company, and shopping experience with you. This is most evident when you see how people recommend movies to their friends and family.

These people will leave an unprompted review and 5-star score. These tend to be your 7-9 net promoter scores.

Plus 4- Champion

Your product is the toast of the town. There is an obvious buzz going around, and your business is the place to be. People are not only talking about your great products and services, but they are talking about their shopping experience, your customer service, and how they perceive the company to help them in the future.

These are the people who do not only leave a review but also go out of their way to make a social media post. These are your 9-10 net promoter scores.

Some great examples of Plus 4 companies are:

Lexus
Harley Davidson
Lululemon
Tesla
Apple
Costco

We’re going to leave this lesson for you to mull over and take a look at what kind of word of mouth you are generating. If you need help with this process, try our FREE test drive to get help from our experienced business coaches.

Next ti, we will talk about the 30 ways to harness the power of word of mouth.

Get People to Talk About You The Way You Want

Posted on September 15, 2021 by Doogie Levine

In the last post, we started our series on word of mouth and talked about making your customers purchasing experience a short, easy one. We are going to continue with that theme a bit today. We will talk about the power of word of mouth and how to mold it to your advantage.

The reality is everyone needs an advisor to guide them to make a decision. We rely on the expertise of others to make the right decisions as they are explained to us. When you take the time to understand exactly what and how word of mouth works, you’ll see all the great advantages it has to offer you. Remember this path when working to understand word of mouth:

Accelerate the decision-making process for increased profits.
You can accelerate product-making decisions by making the process easier. For example, try delivering on your word-of-mouth promises instead of low-ball advertising and the used car salesman approach.

Traditional advertising draws about one response for every thousand ads, and most of those are to ask for more information before the customer even considers purchasing. When you get information from a friend, you are more likely to take their word for it and act. On average, customers purchase two out of every five recommendations their friends make. That’s a HUGE difference.

So, what exactly is word of mouth? We know how powerful it can be, but to define it: Word of mouth is a communication between a customer and a potential customer. There is usually a relationship of some kind between these two people with an established level of trust.

Now, compare this to advertising where you are providing a message to a potential customer who has not established a relationship with you or level of trust. Who are they more likely to take advice from? The answer is clear!
We talked above about the benefits of word of mouth now; let’s take a look at some reasons why it works. Some of these are:

The information is custom-tailored to the potential customer because of the friendly relationship of the referrer.
It’s more personal, relevant, and believable.
It’s customer-driven.
It’s self-generating and can take on a life of its own, especially with the information age of the Internet.
It becomes part of the product’s description.
The source of word of mouth can be meaningful and more effective when coming from an expert.
Word of mouth saves you time and money.

To fully utilize word of mouth, you need to understand:

Where is your word of mouth coming from?
What products or services are being affected by word of mouth?
How is your word of mouth traveling?

Once you know these things, you can work out a plan to trigger more word of mouth. This wraps up this lesson on word of mouth. If you need help understanding word of mouth and how it can impact your business, try our FREE test drive to access our wealth of resources and tools.

Next time we’re going to dive into the nine levels of word of mouth. These levels help you understand which word of mouth is positive and which is not.

10x Your Resource to Maximize Your Results

Posted on August 10, 2021August 10, 2021 by Doogie Levine

In the previous series, we discussed techniques and strategies to maximize your resources. This next series of posts will cover how to take maximizing resources and multiply them for even bigger results.

In this first of the four-part series, we’ll cover:

Call in the Troops
Bring ‘Em Out of the Woodwork
Black Sheep Clients

Call in the Troops

Finding and securing new clients can be exhausting and expensive. So instead, work with other companies to help you find new clients. Find solid companies with secure, positive relationships with their customers/clients. Also, ensure that their products/services are not directly competitive with yours.

Contact prospective partner companies and talk with them about helping promote your products/services to their clients. Always offer them a commission on the sales that come from their client lists.

Make sure to include these key points in your proposal:

First, ensure that your products/services don’t compete with theirs.
The partnership will not take away from their current or future sales.
The partnership will increase their profits.
They won’t have to do nor spend anything on the partnership.
You will produce all needed marketing materials.
You will offer an unconditional guarantee on all products/services.

Bring ‘Em Out of the Woodwork

If you take the time to put together a solid referral system, you’ll draw new customers/clients out of the woodwork through everyone you already know. You can start doing this by first showing all your current clients how much you care about them.

Then show them how your products/services can significantly improve their lives or businesses. If you can do this consistently, they will naturally and comfortably bring new clients right to you.

Black Sheep Clients

One of the best ways to rejuvenate business is to find your stray clients and offer them something unique. But, first, you need to understand why they strayed and are no longer purchasing from you. There are generally three reasons why customers/clients leave. They are:

Unrelated causes that have nothing to do with you
A problem with their last purchase
No longer benefit from your products/services

The best way to bring these clients back is to contact them. If you don’t make the first move, they’ll never come back. You make an appointment to visit them or call them if it’s not possible to meet in person.

Talk openly with your stray clients. Let them know you noticed they were no longer working with you and that you’d like to talk with them about their experiences with you and how you can improve things to work together again. Take the time to make them feel special and work hard to make sure their experiences with you going forward are the best ever.

This wraps up the first three areas on how to multiply your maximized resources. If you need help working on any of these ideas or processes, try our FREE test drive to work with an experienced business coach.

Next time we’ll talk about the following three areas of multiplying your resources. They include Olympic-size Sales Staff, Open Sea Fishing, and Call for Back-Up.

Maximize Your Resources – Part 1

Posted on July 20, 2021 by Doogie Levine

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Over the next few posts, we’re going to talk about how to take a hard look at your current resources and get the most out of them. Your resources can help your capital go further and increase your profit margin.

Today we’ll cover three different ways to maximize what you already have. These include:

Recognize the obvious
Unconventional breakthroughs
Face the facts

Recognize the Obvious

Sometimes when you are too close to something, you can’t make out the big picture. You need to step back and take a hard look at the resources you currently have in front of you. You are surrounded by opportunities that can boost your career and help your business become more successful.

To identify your resources, I suggest starting with setting aside 1 hr a week to look at an aspect of your business. Make sure you select a location that is not your place of work or your home. Go to an area, that it will be challenging for someone to interrupt you. Then ask yourself any of the following questions:

What is the one thing you need to change or do differently that would make you more successful?

What is the one thing I could teach my employees to make them better at the tasks I’ve asked them to do?

What is one thing about my business that I need to know more about?

What is one thing I could do to bring additional value to my customers/clients?

This process is scalable; as you become comfortable with 1 hr a week, you can add, setting aside an entire day a month. Then, when you get to the Bill Gates level, you can take a whole week-long retreat to just focus on yourself and your business.

If the lesson of “seeing the obvious” is not clear, it is as simple as setting aside time to identify the problem, plan a new course of action, and go back with energy to make a change.

Unconventional Breakthroughs

Don’t sit around waiting for breakthroughs; you need to create them yourself. A breakthrough is merely a new way of doing things or finding a new process or system for the same or better results. You should be having regular brainstorming sessions and encouraging your team to come forward with breakthroughs or ideas any time they have them.

Some great examples of breakthroughs are:

A health and beauty company discovers a side effect of a product that can be re-marketed and sold.
A company creates a roll-on deodorant inspired by the shape and size of a ballpoint pen.
The founder of Nike poured rubber onto waffle iron and created the most innovative and successful running shoe ever.

When attracting or strategizing for a breakthrough, there are some key objectives you need to keep in mind. They are:

Looking for the hidden opportunity in every situation.
Looking for at least one cash windfall for your business every three months.
The more value for your client, the better your breakthrough.
Creating multiple streams of ideas to find the best breakthroughs.
Effective breakthroughs remove all risk or resistance.

Face the Facts

Before you can put your breakthroughs to work, you need to face the facts of the processes and systems that are not working for you and work to correct or get rid of them. System analysis is an excellent way to do this. Once you have a listing of your strengths and weaknesses, you need to compare those to the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

You can present some great questions to you and your team to get a handle on where your business is right now. They are:

Why did I first start this business? Why am I in this industry?
What products/services did I offer then? Which were the most popular?
Why are my customers/clients buying from me right now?
How did I generate new customers/clients then?
Which of my marketing efforts were bringing in the best results?

Once you’ve got some answers to these questions, you’ll know better how to approach your weaknesses.

These three areas we’ve gone over give you a jumping-off point for how to utilize your current resources to their fullest potential. If you need any help with your strategic or systems analysis, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I look forward to offering what advice I can.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this article. If you have enjoyed it, please share it with someone you feel could benefit from it and leave a like.