You know that feeling in your business that no matter how much harder you work, you aren’t making the progress you should. You are doing all the right things, the things that worked in the past. The things that others are doing and getting great results. The things all the books, gurus and courses are telling us to do.
Conventional wisdom tells you to focus on marketing to build your business. In fact, the term business development has been usurped by the sales/marketing division to mean getting more customers. It used to mean the work you did on your business to grow your business. It used to mean doing the work to make your customers happier, the work to help your team do what they had to do, and the work to make it all easier for everyone.
You know that there are things you could be doing in your business to make it easier and you fully plan to get to them. Soon. Your thinking goes like this,”I will put systems in place once I get more customers.”
But what you are doing isn’t getting you enough customers to ever get you to the spot where you have the time and energy to devote to making your business easier. I get it! I was there!
I struggled in that way, too, until I decided to carve a small amount of time out of every day to devote to making one piece of my business easier at a time. It didn’t take long before I had a business that allowed me to take the summer off at a cabin by a lake in Mont Tremblant this summer.
What do the best of small businesses do? You know, the businesses where the owner is always cheerful and not rushed. Where they deliver exactly what you expect and maybe a tiny bit more. Where you feel your stress lower as you work with them. Where you are happy to pay them the premium they ask because it was worth it to you.
Wouldn’t you want to be that business?
You get there by working on your business to be able to deliver that great experience for you, your team and therefore your customers. You can’t do your best work if you are always struggling to find the best way to do the work you have to do.
This isn’t a chicken or egg thing.
In order to get more customers, you must make your business easier first. If you have plateaued, you are getting the number of customers you can manage at the level of business you have. The only way to get more customers is to make your business function better. Even if it feels like you have plenty of capacity to serve more customers.
There is a logical way to go about it. I’ve identified the 11 essential areas in your business to put algorithms in place to make your business work in the best way for you. An algorithm is a set of instructions that gives a predictable result. This isn’t about shoe-horning in someone else’s systems, but about testing, measuring and refining yours so they work great.
These 11 essential algorithms fit into 4 quarters:
Set your foundations by clarifying where you are in your business, crafting your strategic plan and getting your financial house in order.
Make your customer’s journey the best it can be. The fastest, cheapest and easier way to get more customers is by making your existing customers very, very happy. Then tell their stories and have a way to invite, entice and welcome new customers.
Make your team’s journey the best it can be. Your team may or may not be paid by you, but they are part of your ability to give the best to your customers.
Cap it off with project management and feedback mechanisms. Look for synergies and fix any conflicts in the way your business runs. Design ways to test, measure and get feedback and incorporate it in your business.
Do you want to grow your business? Get the guide here.
