Maximising Your Success - Part 1

byChrystopherJ

5.1K followers

Updated 4 years ago

Getting to where you want to be

Would you drive your car around, if you knew the fuel filter was dirty, or if you had faulty cylinders? The car would run very badly, you'd get poor mileage and you'd more than likely break down quite often.

Instead, you'd take your car to the local garage to get checked over, so that you can keep the engine running at maximum efficiency.

So why would you allow your business to operate in a similar state of disrepair? What do you do if your business isn't running on all cylinders? What if there are loads of things you can do right now, that would help your business operate more efficiently and at a higher profit margin?

I'm pretty certain, regardless of the type of business that you are running, that there are a number of ways, that you could fine tune it. Allowing you to make even more money, whilst not investing another penny!

I wonder which of your assets are being underused? Any assets that are just lying around? Anything going to waste? Let's take a look to see what we can make the most out of.

Where do you want to be?

Let's go back a few steps first. What is your business goal? What is your mission statement? What are your goals for?

• Where do you want to be in three years from now?
• Where do you want to be in one year from now?
• Where do you want to be by next month?
• What do you want to get done this week?
• What do you need to get done today?

You have got this written down already haven't you?

What? You haven't?

Then there is a problem right there! If a business doesn't know what it is or where it wants to go, other than "sell lots things", then it is a business that is already in trouble.

Business people who set clear, exact and defined goals, have something to aim for. If there are no clear goals set, then there is no way to define what you are going to accomplish, or how you are going to get it done. There is no way to plan!

I hate cliche's, but "If you fail to plan, you have a plan to fail"

Let's say one of your goals is to make £10,000 profit per month. Then how do you get there? What steps do you need to take? How many times do you have to sell X products each day?

If you sell the item for £100 profit each, then you will need to sell 100 items per month.

If the conversion rate for that product is 1 in 10 (10%), then you will need to find 1,000 people per month, so that you can convert 100 of them to purchase your item.

So how much marketing activities do you need to do, in terms of advertising, telephone sales, or direct marketing, to attract those 1,000 people?

When you work with specifics, you can plan, as you will know what you need to achieve to reach your target. When you put it all together and in to motion, you can track the results, test for success and failure, and then apply corrections where needed on the area's that aren't working.

So if you're falling short in two weeks, and you've only achieved a third of your goals, lets say 33. Then to make 1,000 by the end of the month, you will need to implement some new methods, improve the conversion rate or increase your marketing activity.

When you know what is and what isn't working, you have a far better idea about what and where to make any changes. And because you know what has worked, you can allocate more resources to those areas.

Hopefully by now, you can see the advantages of having goals, specific strategies and a way of testing the results, as you are no longer working blind. Any inefficiencies will reveal themselves, meaning that you won't waste any time or money on them.

As you're tracking and testing the results, you will be able to optimise everything that works, along with stopping what doesn't. For example, lets say you have a £500 advert, that only brought in £200 in sales. Then it's time to change it or cancel it completely. If a colleague hasn't made a sale all week, then maybe have a word with them, or get rid of them. Or if another colleague brought in 25% more sales than the others, then you've got a star asset in your team. Maybe increase their pay or provide an incentive, and get even more sales out of them.

You must write down your goals!

It's no good just forming these in your head, it just doesn't work. By writing them down makes them solid achievable goals. Allowing you to check them off as your achieve them, along with getting solid feedback on how you're doing.

Watch out for Part 2 over the next few days, which I will also place a link to here, as soon as it is ready.

You can also go to the start of this mini blog series at anytime, by clicking on the Table of Contents here.