Scroll to the end for TL;DR.
To succeed in business, you only need to do two things. Firstly, you must continuously engage with new and previous customers; and secondly you must stay relevant to their needs. This means that you must do marketing and you must continuously innovate your products and services.
There are three simple strategies you can use to achieve these two things:
1. Make Better
2. Make Bigger
3. Repeat 1 & 2 Forevermore
1. Make Better
As a small business owner there's always so much to do. Often we are so busy 'doing', we forget to stop and think about it. Imagine if you stopped for just one moment and took a look around you. What would you find? Would every facet of your business be the absolute best it can be? Would your accounting practices be perfect? Would you have all your systems and process ducks in a row? Would your service delivery be the absolute best in the world? Would you see a perfectly ordered CRM with email marketing set up and working perfectly? Would your marketing be entirely optimised and automated where possible? Would your sales system be bringing in leads and converting them every time? Of course not.
But what if you consciously decided to focus on enhancing and optimising one key pillar of your business that affects your bottom line? What if you improved your marketing efforts by just 2%? Or, improved your sales system? Even just 2%? Would that unlock untapped opportunities and revenue? Yes!
Hint: Marketing and sales efforts should be at the very top of your priority list! Remember, business is marketing and innovation; nothing more.
Look for the things you can put on hold or even ditch, at least for right now. Focus on the things you know you can improve upon and that can make a difference to your bottom line.
2. Make Bigger
Can you honestly say that you've done everything you can to reach as many customers as possible, or to maximise your marketing and content across multiple platforms? What about your revenue? Have you really dug deep with all your existing clients, with lapsed clients and truly maximised the opportunities available to you? No? I didn't think so.
For example if you're going to spend time writing an article, you'll want to make sure enough people are going to see it. This means posting it more than once, re-posting it at a later stage and on different platforms. What about gaining further reach through hashtags and groups? Who else might be interested in your content and want to use it on their own channels, such as in an email newsletter from a referral partner business.
The same goes for revenue, is it the biggest it can be for each client? Where's the organic growth, or the business model scale? Can you add more value and earn more, but for less hours worked? Yes! Yes! Yes!
3. Repeat 1 & 2 Forevermore
By applying the 'make better, make bigger' philosophy to everything you do in your business and building a habit to make this your everyday mindset; you will not only push yourself to be better at your 'job', you will also unlock multiple revenue opportunities.
Additionally, once you 'make better, make bigger' on one facet of the business, leave it for a while, then repeat the approach again. Imagine how each time you do this, you can improve it even more and in doing so make it even more valuable.
Putting It Into Action
So, now you have to put it into action and build a habit to take these two mindsets on for everything you do. But making things better takes time. Time you don't have. So, firstly, force yourself to take a breath and step back. Critically review your business operations and delivery, including your marketing efforts. Now, make a conscious decision to focus one pillar of the business in a given timeframe. For example, I do this in quarters. Anything more specific and I zone out. So, at the end of this calendar year, I will do a critical review and decide on 4 key areas of the business to focus on in 2020. Then, you have to prioritise them and decide which focus will happen in which quarter. Lastly, you have to commit to yourself that you'll stick to it. When you stick to the one focus per quarter, you really feel good about giving yourself permission to focus on it to the exclusion of all other pillars. You'll get to those, later.
We all overestimate what we can get done in a year. So, whilst 4 things might not seem like much, if you're really going to 'make better, make bigger', then it's a whole lot of effort! But with it will come the rewards.
TL;DR
Look for ways to optimise your output across the facets of your business that can make a different to your bottom line
Look for ways to maximise the reach of your marketing and your overall footprint to increase your revenue
Repeat every day for everything you do and make it a habit
Ask, is this the best it can be? How can I push it 2% more? Is this as big as it could be? How can I push it 2% more?
Set an action plan with focus areas for each quarter of the year ahead
Stevie V Brown coaches small business owners’ to increase their marketing know-how, build their confidence and create and implement a growth marketing strategy that attracts and nurtures more of their ideal clients and gets them paid what they're truly worth. Apply for a FREE Marketing Accelerator with Stevie and get crystal clear on the next 3 actions you can take to grow your business today.
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