One topic, that forms part of both our Business Improvement Programme and our Business Mentoring Programme, and always generates much conversation plus idea generation is the ‘Seven Systemised Steps to Grow Your Business’.
The seven steps we cover are those identified by many leading advisers as being the key success drivers for your business.
As advocates of systemisation, this is another area of your business that we encourage you to systemise with a series of processes and procedures, so that the various steps simply work like clockwork and become a habit of your everyday business without reliance on you.
So here is an overview of the 7 steps:
1. Number of leads
How effective is your marketing? Firstly, what is your strategy and then what tactics can you use to help promote your business? Are you focusing on your ideal customer and therefore promoting your business in the right places with the right words that encourage the prospect to lean towards you with interest? Do you have a number of lead generation activities that create many lead opportunities for you? Are you proactive or reactive with your lead generation marketing?
2. Conversion rate
How can you improve the number of leads that convert to actual sales? Do you know and monitor your conversation rate? What is your Unique Selling Point that gives you an unfair advantage in your market? What makes you stand out from the crowd? Is your proposition focused on the pain, problem or fear of your prospective customers rather than what you think they need, so that it is truly important to them? Do you identify the right decision makers and the influencers of such a decision? Do you test different approaches and tweak your process or words from what you learn? Do you know your market and demonstrate such knowledge? Do you listen enough and then simply match the benefits of your proposition to what you are told? How can you remove the risk from your buyer?
3. Number of sales
How do you develop all the cross sale opportunities at the initial point of sale? How do you maximise the opportunities when your prospect is in buying mode by uncovering all their needs and not just focusing on the obvious sale? Are your prospects aware of all your offering? How do you demonstrate your credibility to support your offering? Can you package your products or services or link them to another offering either internal or external?
4. Value of sales
What is your pricing strategy? The obvious question is whether you can increase your prices, but how much could you increase those prices by and perhaps afford to lose some customers, but still increase your turnover? Could a change in your pricing strategy reposition the value of your business in the eyes of your customers? How do you potentially up-sell your customers? Identify and focus on your ideal customers, who are more likely to pay the prices you desire and deserve.
5. Margin
To increase your margin, as well as increasing turnover, can you better manage your costs? Can you cut any related costs in your business? Do you regularly review how you resource your work in progress and deliver your operational excellence?
6. Buy more often
How do you encourage your customers to buy more often from you during their lifetime as a customer? What is your sales and service activity that encourages additional purchases? Do you have any easy additional purchases that are offered to your customers at certain stages of their life cycle with you? How do you monitor and remind yourself of the potential opportunities available to you? Do you regularly remind your established customers about what you have to offer? Do you ask for more sales? Who else can help you sell more to your customers (eg part of your network, other customers)? Do you train and develop your team to be as focused as you are on developing additional income opportunities?
7. Increase customer lifetime
What pro-active activities do you undertake to keep your customers? What is your retention policy? Are you communicating, listening and encouraging feedback from your customers? Are you up to date with your customers latest expectations and not those of when they first became a customer? Do your existing customers feel as important or as valued as a new prospect to your business? How do you keep it personal without you having to be the point of contact? How do you simply deliver operational excellent that delights your customers time and time again?
To work on your business and implement these 7 steps in your business, then why not either join our next Business Improvement Programme or ask us how we can link the completion of your accounts and returns with our business development advice, as part of our Business Mentoring Programme.
