A Simple Method To Upgrade Your Customers
Are all your clients fabulously awesome, perfect, wonderful, amazing, ideal clients? Or are there a few hangers-on and lurkers in there that you would actually much rather see the back of? Do you have some of those awful clients that bleed you dry in terms of your time, your energy, and your cashflow? One of the things that I’ve been doing with a few different clients at the moment is working through their list of existing customers to grade them. Which means they can see at a glance how many of their customers are really good customers that they want to nurture and…
How to Write Great Proposals That Gain You More Clients
Do you ever find yourself feeling bamboozled and at a bit of a loss when a potential client asks you to send them a proposal? There can be so many tricky questions about quotes or proposals can’t there? How do you know what to put in there? How do you make yourself look fabulous and professional? How do you create something compact and simple, and yet cover every possible detail in the universe so that the client is desperate to sign with you? So, I thought I would share some tips with you today about how to create a great proposal that works on your terms; that’s really simple, and that…
How Systems & Processes Can Help You Grow Your Business
If I suggested we talked about systems and processes in your business, what would be your immediate reaction? My guess is that it would NOT be a reaction of excitement! Let’s face it, systems and processes generally make us think about things that are slightly dull, fairly monotonous, perhaps a bit regimented, and maybe even boxing us in. They’re all very computer says no! So, they’re not something that tend to get us excited or enthusiastic. And I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s very easy to put off creating more systems and processes in your business. However, I want to talk…
How To Build A Team To Help You Grow Your Business
How good are you at using other people’s skills to help you grow your business? I think one of the big challenges of growing a business is that it’s very easy for it to become your baby. Which can sometimes turn you into a bit of a control freak! Without intending to, you can find yourself becoming obsessed with every detail, wanting every single thing to be absolutely perfect and always done precisely the way you want it done. But the drawback is that if you’re the person who controls everything in your business, and the person who makes every single decision…
Do you stand out from the crowd?
Do you feel as though your business really stands out from the crowd, or is that something you find quite challenging? Personally, I think for the vast majority of us, we have a lot of competition out there these days. There are very, very few businesses that do not have a stack of competition out there and a lot of people doing very similar things to the way we do business. Which means this whole concept of standing out from the crowd is, if anything, only getting harder and harder over time. Yet, the marketing gurus all tell us that we…
Two Simple Questions To Overcome Your Indecision
I want to talk to you today about ‘What If Syndrome’, This magical mystery What If Syndrome is something that I think is incredibly common amongst people growing a business. And it’s also one of the most likely reasons to stop people making the kind of progress that they really should do in their business. Let me explain a little bit more … Do you ever find yourself in that place where you feel as though you literally have a bazillion ideas for how you want to grow your business? Ideas about things like … how you could expand your marketing, how you could…
How To Get Your Business’ Finances Under Control
How well do you understand all of the financial things about your business? Because let’s be honest, unless you’re an accountant or a bookkeeper, the vast majority of us didn’t go into business because we love accounts and numbers and spreadsheets and finances and things. And actually for a lot of us, they leave us completely cold. But the truth of the matter is that for you to grow a business, it’s absolutely crucial that you understand the numbers; you understand your financial obligations; and you understand how to use all of that to help you grow a business, rather than…
3 Reasons Over-Servicing Could Be Damaging Your Business
Do you pride yourself on delivering exactly what your customers pay for? Or are you one of those people that really likes to go the extra mile? Do you pride yourself instead on delivering something more than the customer is paying for? Do you believe that over-delivering, or over-servicing as we might call it, is a good business strategy? Because I know that lots of people growing a business believe that if you constantly deliver something that little bit more than the customer expects, then that will really satisfy them. They might shout about you, they might buy more from you, they…
3 Reasons Your Sales Are Slipping Through The Net
Do you ever go through those spells in your business when you’re having lots of great conversations with potential new customers who feel like your ideal customer? The conversations go amazingly well, the relationships click perfectly, and everything seems aligned for these to become your new favourite customers. And yet somehow, they all slip through the net. None of them turn into customers but you just can’t quite put your finger on why. This is something I see happening a lot and I think it’s a big challenge for a many people growing a business. So I want to share with you…
Ever feel overwhelmed?
Do you ever get the frustrated feeling that you’ve been working absolutely nonstop for the last few days or even the last few weeks but somehow you’re just not making the inroads that you want to? Do you feel as though everything you have to do for your business is just overwhelming? Like you’re struggling to see the wood for the trees and struggling to see any real progress? Because I’m working with a few new clients at the moment it feels like I’m talking to quite a lot of people about this right now. And to be honest, I think…
How can your business cope without you?
Do you think that you take enough breaks or holidays from your business? I was talking to a client over the last few days, who has taken single digits, at the most, of days away from his business in the last 12 months. He is feeling incredibly drained. He’s exhausted by it, but still thinking that the ability to actually get away for a few days is really challenging, and questioning whether the business can cope without him. Sound familiar? The ironic thing though is that the more we talked about it, the more he acknowledged the merits of a taking a break…
3 Tips To Get More Done In Your Business Every Day
Do you possess the special skill that so many people building a small business possess? Yes, I’m talking about the amazing skill of faffing. Now, I know from all my conversations over the last 10 years that faffing can become quite an art form when you’re growing your business. You know those days when you have a huge list of things to do, you work at it all day; you barely stop for a cup of tea or a sliver of lunch, and yet you still get to the end of the day and haven’t crossed a single significant thing off that…