10

Dec

Wrapping Up The 30 Days

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I finally completed the series “How To Grow Your Business In 30 Days”.  It ended up being a lot more work than I expected, but it was really enjoyable overall.  I learned a lot.  I’ll share some of the lessons I learned during the 30 days in future posts.  Here I’ve summarized the Grow Your Business In 30 Days using the original outline I created so that you have one easy place to review them and find each post.

  1. Find someone to hold you accountable: Day One
    1. Business coach
    2. Spouse
    3. Friend/mentor
  2. Get control of your finances – expenses: Day Two
    1. Do you know what you cost each minute, hour, day, week, month, year?
    2. Cut out the fat
    3. Do more with less
  3. Get control of your finances – Accounts Receivable
    1. It’s OK to lose 20% to get 80%
    2. Build a system that improves speed of payments
    3. Automate monthly fees
  4. Get back on track – pickup the phone and call vendors
    1. Thank your vendors
    2. Tell them what you are up to
    3. Ask them what they need from you
  5. Get back on track – pickup the phone and call old customers
    1. Keep your name fresh in their mind
    2. Ask them how you can help
    3. Be willing to face old problems
  6. Find a new lead source
    1. Start somewhere fresh
    2. Measure the quality and cost of the leads
  7. Adjust the lead source to meet YOUR needs
    1. Is it your exact market?
    2. Does it apply to the product or service you sell?
    3. How can you swing the bat more often?
  8. Fine tune your prospecting approach
    1. Write a thesis statement that explains your approach
    2. Draw out each step sequentially and study it
    3. Ask your peers and mentors how the think you should do it
  9. Review your successes – magnify them
    1. What worked?
    2. Why did it work?
    3. How can you replicate that?
  10. Review your failures – minimize them
    1. Where did it fall apart?
    2. How can you prevent this from happening again?
    3. What did you learn from your mistake?
  11. Improve your sales process – what works?
    1. Do you understand your open, middle, and closing steps?
    2. Study good sales behaviors
    3. Persistence is the key factor
  12. Improve your sales process – automate it and refine it.
    1. Write it once, and re-use it
    2. Get a direct line
    3. Get in the solutions business
  13. Practice honesty
    1. With yourself
    2. With your customers
    3. With your team
  14. Build a strong team
    1. Outsource effectively
    2. Hire in temp to full time
    3. Learn to give consistent effective feedback
  15. Build strong partners
    1. Groom your vendors
    2. Set expectations
    3. Prepare plan B and C and D
  16. Put killer marketing in place
    1. Email marketing
    2. Person to person marketing
    3. The I need you, Do you need me? Approach
  17. Be available
    1. Open your schedule for your customers
    2. Expect an appointment
    3. Explain the use of your communication channels
  18. Write an FAQ
    1. Save yourself time and read through the FAQ’s you receive
    2. Write an FAQ and provide it automatically
    3. Ask your customers to provide input
  19. Provide a support portal
    1. Queue and handle requests
    2. Automate responses and include your FAQ and tools to download
    3. Remember that every time you reach a customer it’s an opportunity to build value
  20. Don’t focus on today’s dollars – look long term
    1. Monthly services are relationship builders
    2. Learn to provide solutions to problems
    3. Help others succeed and the money will follow
  21. Schedule your way to success
    1. Build your to do into your calendar
    2. Make sure you are meeting someone to accomplish the to do list
    3. Never leave a meeting without scheduling the next
  22. Put A Project Management System in Place
    1. Tag and prioritize products
    2. Mark the date the project entered your system
    3. Daily choose to update and manage the system
  23. Take time to relax and think
    1. Lay on your back and wonder
    2. Don’t be afraid to consider change
    3. Stop doing things you don’t enjoy
  24. Ask for feedback
    1. From your Team
    2. From your Customers
    3. From your Vendors
  25. Have Fun
    1. Enjoy the challenges
    2. Express your excitement
    3. Don’t take it too seriously
  26. Examine your model
    1. What is your model?
    2. Does it work well?
    3. How soon will you have to adjust your model?
  27. Invest in good technology
    1. What really improves work-flow?
    2. What can save you time?
    3. What can save you money?
  28. Learn faster than everyone else
    1. Read constantly
    2. Listen to pod-casts
    3. Ask the right questions
  29. Serve those around you
    1. Do what is right for your team
    2. Lead from your heart
    3. Communicate that you care
  30. Consider vertical and horizontal growth
    1. How can you grow your business larger? (vertical)
    2. How can you expand into new sectors (horizontal)
    3. How fast should you grow?

Now with everything in one place here in this post you can simply review the general thought process I had behind the 30 days or you can read each post at your convenience.  I’m sure that this doesn’t cover everything that you’ll encounter over the years in business, but I have tried to give you some tools that will make a difference in the short term.

How can I help you?  Please feel free to ask me any questions in the comments or by contacting me.  Here’s to your increased growth and success in 2011!

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States. ~ Ronald Reagan

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05

Nov

Grow Your Business In 30 Days: Day Five

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Grow Your Business In 30 Days

Today is day five in my series of 30 tips on how to grow your small business.  My goal here today is for you to be able to apply this step in roughly 30 minutes or less. I know that even if you just apply one step out of the 30 steps I’m sharing you’ll see positive results!  Today’s step has made me over $250,000 in my career so far and in one day alone I made over $20,000 when I applied this step.  If you haven’t called old customers yet in your business, today is the day!

Day Five: Pickup The Phone And Call Old Customers

Just like all the steps so far, today’s small business growth step requires that you take action.  All of us get into the mindset where we think that things will move onward without our involvement.  Stop thinking something so foolish.  That is an incredibly lazy mindset that creeps up on us when we are discouraged or even possibly satisfied with our current surroundings.  Today you need to pickup the phone and call the customer that you haven’t spoken to for the longest amount of time.  Here’s why:

1. The Goal Is To Keep Your Name Fresh In Their Minds

Your goal is to always be the first person that comes to mind when they consider a need that relates to your product or service.  The only way that is going to be possible is if you constantly reach out and brand yourself in their mind.  You may not have the marketing budget of Coke or Pizza Hut but your small business does have a phone right?  One of my old bosses a few years ago always used to walk into my office and ask me “Are you dialing for dollars?”.  He was completely right about that question.  The more time that you can spend interacting with your customer the more money you can make for your small business.  Don’t ever underestimate the power of that phone call.  Once you get them on the phone there are a few things you can address.

2. Ask Them How You Can Help Them Succeed

First and foremost ask them how they are doing.  Once they begin to share with you what’s going on you will quickly be able to ascertain the current state of their company.  When you have a basic understanding of how they are feeling about their current projects, revenue, and other conditions of their business, ask them how you can help them succeed.  You’ll be surprised at how much this question really does for your conversation.

When you are willing and able to communicate to your customers that your goal is to help them succeed then you have most likely expressed something that they haven’t heard from the majority of their other vendor partners.  In my experience people often forget to simply tell their customers this basic truth.  When a vendor partner of mine expresses their interest in helping me succeed as their client it makes me value them as a partner even more.  If you can do that for your customers you’ll gain their respect and trust and you’ll be able to effectively help them reach their goals.  Tell them how much you care.

3. Be Willing To Face Old Problems

Once you’ve expressed your interest in helping them succeed, facing the old problems that may still be lingering from your last interaction becomes much easier.   Now that they understand your goal is to help them succeed they understand that it is a joint effort when you consider the problems or lingering issues that may stil be left from an original product or service.  Be willing to face these problems and work together to resolve them.  Remember, if you focus on helping them succeed, you’ll never go wrong.

That is today’s step.  Simple and easy to execute if you are willing to just pickup the phone and talk to the customers who you haven’t spoken to for awhile.  Go ahead and do it now.  This action will pay you over and over everytime you do it.

Action is the foundational key to all success. ~ Pablo Picasso

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561 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

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02

Nov

Grow Your Business In 30 Days: Day Two

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Grow Your Business In 30 DaysToday is day two in my series on 30 tips on how to grow your small business. Like I said on day one, my goal is for you to be able to apply each step in roughly 30 minutes or less. I know that even if you just apply one step out of the 30 you’ll see positive results!

Day Two: Get Control Of Your Finances – Expenses

Everyone says “It takes money to make money” but what does that mean?  Sometimes I hear that phrase used to justify poor spending choices or lack of financial control.  Instead of just thinking you must have certain costs and expenses to run a business, today let’s take the time to review what your expenses really are.  If you can get control of your finances in your small business you can achieve a more relaxing and profitable business model.  So let’s get started.

1. What does your small business cost each minute, hour, day, week, month, and year?

If you can’t answer that question off the top of your head then you need to figure it out quickly!  I’ve created a simple spreadsheet that helps you do just that.  You’ll see that after you enter your own costs and revenue into it you can see your a clear break down of expenses.  Click here to receive the spreadsheet from me right away.  You can watch a brief explanation of how I use the spreadsheet here as well.

The basics steps to learning what your expenses are involves taking 3 months of bank statements (you can usually download these from your bank in Excel format) and categorizing each expense into something like rent, utilities, vendors, hardware, and so on.  Then total up each category and divide the total by 3.  This will give you a rough average for the monthly cost in that category.  When you add the costs into the spreadsheet I’ve included here you’ll then be able to make decisions based on real costs.  If you haven’t done this yet for your business, or if you haven’t done it recently, take action now!  Get control of your small businesses’ expenses by learning what they really are.  Once you know what they are you can take step two.

2. Cut Out The Fat

Every small business no matter how new or old has accumulated services or fees that no longer apply to their needs.  That training program you started beginning of the year my no longer be applicable.  The extra cell phone minutes on your plan might not be necessary now that you have a more reliable office phone.  Maybe flying first class doesn’t really make sense anymore.  Whatever it is, take a look at your total expenses and find 10%.  If you can find and save 10% it’s like making at least 10%.  Sometimes I find that saving 10% in expenses actually feels like making 20% on the bottom line!  When you find the expenses that can be cut out, remove them immediately!  You can’t afford to wait another minute.

3. Do More With Less

It’s fun to buy the toys that we think will make doing our job more interesting or easier.  The truth is that only some of the things we pay for actually have any relation to making us money in our small business.  Today after you’ve gotten a clear picture on what your expenses really are and you’ve cut out the obvious extras take a final look and see how you can do more with less.  Plan strategically to use less of an expensive resource or get even more value out of each trip when you leave the office and go to see clients.  Think hard about how to maximize each dollar you spend.  I’m sure that you if really challenge yourself you can find a few areas that have room for improvement.

Anything that we can do to raise personal savings is very much in the interest of this country. ~ Alan Greenspan

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14

Oct

I Need A Small Business Loan

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Yesterday I read about someone looking for $600,000 for a business that hadn’t even opened the doors yet.  I’m sure the bank gets requests like this every day, but it was interesting to see the questions that this new business owner had.  There are some things that come to mind when I hear someone asking for that kind of loan and if you are considering getting a small business loan, or applying for any kind of small business financing then here are just a few brief thoughts on the subject.

I Need A Small Business Loan

First off, that’s a huge junk of cash. Asking for over half a million dollars for a business that hasn’t opened it’s doors yet may not be the right approach.  I’ve only seen that much handed out quickly once and it was to my grandfather who knew every banker in 3 counties.

Here are some tips and ideas for when you go after small business financing of any size:

1. If you aren’t best friends with 10 bankers in 4 different banks then you probably don’t have a shot. Remember, people lend to people. In my short 12 year career I’ve always managed to move my business and my team forward using the most important currency I have. Relationships.

2. Try a hybrid approach. Get together seed money from private investors, family, and friends, and put up $250,000 (if you were looking for $600,000). Go back to the bank and you’ll see their eyes light up when you are willing to put down that much. They’ll see how vested you are and then they’ll have to take you more seriously.  Get a really good accountant, maybe a separate one from your main business accountant.  Have the new accountant write up an agreement and notes to each private investor. You’ll probably want to get an attorney involved for this part too.

3. Open the doors and start somewhere. When the bank sees that you can make it happen without the their cash, again, they’ll be interested in talking to you. I have personally started every venture I’ve done with my own capital. Sweat and cash.  After that I’ve gone to the bank for more money if I need it.  The bank wants to know that they are going to get their money back.  Banks are scared.  You need to give them every tool they need to get the loan through.

4. Last, remember that financing is just one piece of the puzzle. It’s NEVER a stopping point for someone who chooses to be successful.

Go for your dreams and don’t let anyone stop you.  The obvious things needed for a loan are usually cash, good credit, and established business history, but I’ve also seen many people with those pieces fail.  I’ve also seen small business owners get the cash from banks and other sources and reach the success they dream of.  Don’t ever let the first, second, or 100th “No” answer stop you.  Keep trying.  Prove to yourself and to others that you can succeed.

Image: Boaz Yiftach – Free Digital Photos

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