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Business! Unboring!
The working backwards principle!
Boring, complicated and overwhelming, is far too often the descriptive terms used around business and in particular, business ownership. There are plenty of ways that people often look at a business, but boring, should never be one of them, and if it is, then change something (or everything)!
The key to most businesses is that they are actually run the wrong way, and that's the way that most people run them, but in fact should be the reverse, or "backwards"! Let me explain.
Most people think that it's all about the product, the service, or the thing you do, it's not. It certainly helps if you like it, have a passion or genuine interest in the thing you do, make or sell, but it's not the most important thing.
Far too many businesses are built on the single sales model, that's based around that thing they do. They open the doors, hope that someone walks in, buys and then it's, goodbye! The fact is it shouldn't be like that, but with most it is, and it probably won't change anytime soon!
UnBoring your Business, is part of the "working backwards principle", where you look at the objective first (nothing new about that) and then work backwards to get to that result. So, in simple steps:
- Viability: can it, and how does it need to do what it needs to do?
- Numbers: what do you need, in customers, pricing, repeat sales, to get to that result?
- Marketing: if people can't see you, they don't buy!
- Idea: the thing you do. The why, the unique part, what's makes you different. Why you do what you do, is more important than what you do. And as many are now saying, the "value proposition, comes before profit"!
- Plans: nothing completed, it doesn't need war and peace, but a simple, even one page business, financial and marketing plan are key. Because without, you can't manage a thing, and that leads too:
- Management: know what's going on, what the numbers are and mean, what works, and what doesn't.
- Innovation: people get bored, you must keep it fresh, to keep them interested.
It has less to do with what you do than you think, but a lot to do with why and how you do it!
Think different about your business.
There's a not too old saying, if you keep doing the same thing, you keep getting the same result! It's true.
Uncomplicate the process: Workout what you want, and then work backwards to get there. Thats simple common sense reverse engineering. There's just not that much of it around.
Unboring part 1
The first step to "UnBoring your business.
One of the early steps in "unboring a business" is understanding not just its potential to be viable, but to be incredibly profitable!
So, how much proof do you need that a business is viable? It's a great question, and one that many people that go into business for the first time, (and also many that have been in for a while) don't really know the answer too, because they haven't started to ask the right questions, (but also might get scared at the answers they get anyway)!
Anything can sell once, and I mean anything. The real secret to business success is selling enough at a high enough profit, that creates real and ongoing business growth. The ability to not just sell something once but scale it!
Knowing the numbers is a big part of that. Knowing how many customers you have now, what they spend, and how often they buy from you. Multiply that out, and you get a total weekly, monthly or yearly gross income. (And we aren't at profit yet)!
But before that comes the lead generation process, and that results from marketing, promotion, sales skills, and your business profile, and that's simply about the ability to be found, seen and remembered. Understand what those numbers are, and how they convert is the real secret to business growth. Knowing how many leads you get from a post, or a newspaper ad, and how that drives traffic to your website, or enquiries through an email or call, and then how many convert to paying clients, is the "not so secret" to business. Knowing what works and what doesn't in marketing. Most marketers will tell you 50% of all marketing works, we just aren't sure which 50%! The way to fix that, is test and measure, look at the results of everything you do, so you know what works.
So, the solution is easy. Know what's going on, get clear about all of the numbers, and focus on improving and scaling what works (and stop what doesn't)!
So, let's play a game: look at this example, and then try it yourself. (If you'd like one of our viability proof guides, just ask).
The challenge that most businesses have is they don't know their numbers, they have no proof of what works, and what could make their business viable, or more viable.
Here's an example: If you knew that you had 10 leads a day, that went to your website, and 2 spent $50, the answer to growth is easy. 1: Improve posts or frequency to drive more traffic, then convert better at the website so you get more sales, and even increase the average sales price. So that could look like this:
Original model: 1 post that drives 10 leads to the website, that result in 2 sales (20%) at $50 per day. That works out to $100 per day, or $3,000/mth. Now if we make a few changes:
The new model: You post twice a day, with different, and better quality posts through test and measure, that result in 25 leads to the website, we improve the conversion and remarketing process that improve sales conversion to 30%, so that's 7.5 sales a day, and increase price through up selling to $60/sale on average. That results in $450/day or $13,500/mth. A massive change by simply tweaking a few simple things. But that only happens when you get clear on the numbers in your business.
A lot of people in business don't like the concept of numbers and do everything they possibly can to avoid them, believing it's all about me, they buy from me and yes that's possible, but the secret to real business growth is understanding where the leads come from, what works and what doesn't, scaling what works and do it better, and then build stronger relationships with those customers so they keep coming back and referring others to do exactly the same. Thats how you build proof on business viability. Simply understanding that if you can sell one thing, how do you scale to sell a lot more, and build a seriously profitable business.
