If you want to increase your sales, revenues AND profits, you will love this post. It shows 2 areas of your business you need to focus on and provides a link to dozens of practical ideas you can use. Read the rest of this entry »
There are many reasons why businesses don’t make it, but undoubtedly, the primary culprit is a lack of profitable clients.
I know that should seem obvious, but if more people truly appreciated this fact, they would go about their business in an entirely different manner.
Most businesses are started by people who think they know how to do something or think they want to sell something. In other words, most businesses are started with the business in mind.
But, if we actually understood that the only thing that mattered was an abundant volume of profitable customers, we would surely start with the customer in mind, right?
Customer focus vs. business focus
Another way of saying this is that instead of starting a business and then going out and finding customers that want to buy what you sell, you should go out and find customers and then build a business around what they want to buy.
In this model you really only have two jobs to master. First, you must come to understand precisely what your market will pay for and then you must build a repeatable sales system that allows you to profitably get it to them.
Get customer discovery and sales right and you can’t fail.
No matter if you’re an accountant, consultant, plumber or jeweler, your main job is to get out there into some segment of the market you hope to serve and ask them what they want, what they don’t have and what they are willing to pay for, even if what they want isn’t what you want to sell – or maybe especially if that’s the case.
Until you fully appreciate this idea your business is a crapshoot at best.
Now, I’m not saying that you’re going to base every decision, every feature, every twist and turn on customer feedback, but I am saying that you need to stay very close to customers and prospects as you think about your offerings and test everything with them until you land on a value proposition that gains traction.
Test and evolve
Before you launch a business or product test your assumptions – test your packaging, pricing, bundling, message, products, services, branding, revenue streams and business model with some segment of your market and pay attention. So often, what seems crystal clear to us makes no sense when unleashed into the wild.
This is not the same as research really – this is more like constant, real-time feedback and it involves constant testing, including what the customer experience is like after they buy, why they might buy more and what it would take to get them to refer you.
Build a sales action process
This is a process and the aim of this process is to figure out how to create profitable customers before you commit to what your business actually does and offers.
Once you do this, you can move to building and scaling a marketing action plan that turns this process into consistent and predictable results.
Then and only then, will you build a business that cannot fail.
The development of your business and its overall commercial success will be greatly influenced, by what you believe is possible for you. This means it’s important to check that you have a clear handle on what you truly can and can not do.
Read the rest of this entry »
Through the Internet, we all know it is possible to reach a large crowd. Many of these people have something to offer, for example, answers to questions that could help other individuals or businesses. With reaching out to the right people, you get problems solved. Presenting your problem to a crowd of people, to find a solution or to get the crowd to work together to advance your needs, is called “crowdsourcing” (crowd+outsourcing).
Read the rest of this entry »
There are 3 powerful reasons, why you should take action on your next business idea. Read the rest of this entry »
NOTE: If you are based in Ireland and are looking for expert guidance and support in development of systems to enhance your productivity, you will find a special offer at the bottom of this article to access a 15% discountor a coming workshop on productivity.
As we approach the end of the first month of the year how are you progressing with your objectives and goals? The chances are you started off the year with great expectations of all the things you wanted to achieve in the first quarter of the year, but one or two things have not gone to plan.
Many of us find ourselves in the situation where we want and need to be more productive – in fact I don’t think I have met anyone in the last 3 years who has not remarked that they have to achieve more with fewer resources.
Today I’m speaking with a group of small business owner that want to know about how to develop a marketing strategy that truly allows them to differentiate what they do from others.
Read the rest of this entry »
Make 2012 your best year ever, with these 9 powerful business ideas and professional development tips!
Many outstanding small businesses struggle needlessly. Right now, they are looking to 2012 with apprehension, rather than justified optimism. I don’t want your business to be one of them, so I would like you to consider the message in today’s post and avoid making this common, sometimes fatal marketing mistake! Read the rest of this entry »
|
|
