Here are 7 things you can make part of your business processes which can have a profound affect on your business growth and help you achieve big business success.
Dive in and give them a go – you’ll be amazed at the difference it will make:
1) Be OPEN-Minded about business success ‘possibilities’...
If your business could be anything at all, with no restrictions or limitations, what would your business look like today?
That’s such a liberating question, isn’t it? We can get so stuck in our ways and our viewpoint that we actually close down possibilities, options and opportunities, rather than expanding them.
All great businesses are built by first imagining what they would look like if they were already very successful. You focus on what you want your business to be and then create a strategic plan to get you from where you are – to close the ‘gap’ – and then to build your business taking a “top down” approach.
The majority of business owners build from the bottom up, by focusing on a small business which is struggling to get to the top, but not knowing what the top looks like until they actually get there!
Remember this powerful truth – if you can conceive what you desire, and you can believe it is possible, then you can achieve it!
If you think bottom up, you’ll never get to where you want to be because “where you want to be” doesn’t already exist in your mind.
And this is a proven hard core principle of great achievement:
- Walt Disney first envisioned animated films and a incredible fairytale park – Disneyland – and then set out to achieve them.
- Henry Ford first envisioned the world’s first affordable motor car and then set out to achieve it.
- Elon Musk envisioned affordable space travel and reusable rockets and created Space X.
TAKE ACTION
Think about your business. Think about how it will look to you when it is outstandingly successful. How will you know when it is there?
Write down everything you can about how your business will look… turnover, number of employees, turnover, time off for holidays, the sort of lifestyle you have… go into as much detail as you can? See, feel and describe everything as if they are like that right NOW.
2) Be ACTION orientated to accelerate your growth...
What specific actions do you need to take, or could you take, to get you from where you are right now, towards achieving your goals?
You’ve probably read books, and bought courses, read blog posts and learnt about all sorts of ideas and marketing strategies that can help you, but how many have you ACTUALLY implemented?
What specific marketing strategies have you read about, understood, thought effective for your particular business, but not taken action on yet?
Things like:
- ways to acquire new customers or clients, or methods of selling higher volumes of additional product or services to existing customers;
- retraining your salespeople to increase their inquiry to sale conversion rate, or their cold-calling productivity;
- writing one hundred headlines to find one that will pull two, three, four or five times more response than your current headlines.
- Or any other strategy you feel will impact your business in a big way.
Ask yourself this powerful question – If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do to grow your business?
TAKE ACTION
Write down a list of all of the specific marketing strategies and tactics you are going to do in the next 30 days.
Now put dates against each one of when you are going to do it.
And then for the rest of the year, each month do the same thing.
Even if you only implement one thing each month, that’s 12 new strategies you will have implemented to grow your business over the next 12 months!
3) ALWAYS Be Testing, testing 1.. 2.. 3...
Everything you do to grow your business is a test. It will work, or it won’t work. It may work poorly or it may work outstandingly (or anywhere in between), but you will only ever really know how your marketing is working for you if you test it.
I learnt about Kaisen and Continuous Improvement back in my corporate production days some 30 years ago, and the same principles can (and should) be used in your business to continually tweak and improve to gain a better return on your time and/or money investment.
The principles are really simple:
- make a decision to do something and then do it;
- does it work? If yes, keep doing it – if no, then stop doing it and test something else;
- repeat the process.
You can apply this to ALL aspects of your business.
Important point: Just because something doesn’t work, doesn’t mean you have failed. You have just discovered something else which doesn’t work!
When you break it down, life is a series of tests: relationships, parenting, careers… you keep trying things and (hopefully) learning from them, so you never actually fail at anything – you learn what doesn’t work for you which gets you closer to what you do want!!
TAKE ACTION
What are you going to test in your business tomorrow?
Make a decision. Take action. And then look at the results.
How can you make it better? Can you think of ways to improve engagement or results from what you learned from your last test?
Reimplement.
4) Create your ACHIEVEMENT list every night...
You will achieve considerably more if you plan the next day the night before and make the commitment to complete what is on your achievement list, no matter what!
Some people prefer to plan their day first thing in the morning, and if that works for you, that’s great.
I have found that clients have reported being more relaxed and sleeping better when they write their list the night before because it is out of their head and they know exactly what they need to do the following morning.
I have found this to be true for me too, so you might want to test that for yourself to see which works best for you!
TAKE ACTION
Write a list of everything you want to achieve the following day and then put priorities against each item.
Then work your way down each item in order of priority until the list is complete.
5) Create your own FREEDOM...
A fundamental benefit of owning your own business is that you CAN create your own freedom, whatever that looks like for you.
Realise that within your business you have the vehicle, the inherent potential, and the means to achieve limitless success. You have it! And you own it!
You already have your own Acres Of Diamonds but you haven’t spotted them yet.
Marketing your business effectively will unlock those diamonds you haven’t discovered yet, that will help you build your business so it works for you.
TAKE ACTION
If you need help, I cover this in my course 6 Steps To Strategic Planning for small businesses.
6) TRACK Your Progress...
How do you know what’s working for you if you’re not monitoring and tracking it?
Many of the clients I start working with are unable to show me precisely what marketing elements have produced the biggest and most consistent results.
If you don’t know what your market are responding to, then how can you focus to improve those areas and get growth through better results?
Remember: You cannot master what you do not measure.
Once you have access to your results, you can quickly see what you need to do more of, and those things which are working for you which you need to eliminate.
TAKE ACTION
Create a Results Tracker.
You could do this manually on paper, though I highly recommend using a spreadsheet (or other software), as you can always add to it and modify it as you move forwards with you business. And you have the added feature that it is relatively easy to create all sorts of reports.
The most important thing is to get on and DO it!
7) COMMIT To Making This Your Best Year Ever...
Determination will only get you so far in growing your business. There are too many shortcomings in just being determined. It’s a significant and common stumbling block for business owners.
You might be determined to do 3 promotional things for your business this week, but if something urgent comes up, or you’re feeling too tired after a hard week, or dare I say it there’s a good programme is on TV or you get sucked into Social Media, then it’s all to easy to delay what you are determined to do.
And you’ll very effectively justify the delay, too. You’ll say, “I was determined to get those promotions done but I just feel wiped out. I’m annoyed. But I’ll get them done next week.”
On the other hand, when you absolutely and totally COMMIT to getting those promotions done, then you have no choice.
You will find a way to get them done. You will make the time. You will turn the TV off.
And the best way to commit is to tell someone.
Think back over the last year and all the things you were determined to do or achieve. I am sure you achieved a lot (and I know many of you achieved dramatic growth and personal breakthroughs).
But think how much MORE you would have achieved by now had you COMMITTED to doing those things you never got around to.
TAKE ACTION
Find yourself an accountability buddy.
For best results, choose someone who:
- is not a relative;
- ideally runs their own business;
- someone you respect.
Remember it works both ways, and you can help someone else with their business by sharing experiences and holding them accountable too.
You could also consider joing a mastermind group or a group coaching programme.
If you work on each of the 7 points above and make the rest of this year one full of commitment, then you will achieve big business success as you see your business performance skyrocket.
To your success!
If you would like to share any of your personal experiences, observations or the results you’ve achieved using these or similar tips, please leave your comments and/or thoughts below. I always love to hear from you:
Featured Photo by the blowup on Unsplash.com
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