10 strategies to achieve your business breakthrough: Part three
Posted by Dan Sullivan in Business trends on Mon, 20/02/2012 - 14:04
In the third of four articles, Dan Sullivan, founder and president of entrepreneurial coaching company, Strategic Coach, reveals the key strategies that enable business owners to break free from the complexities which limit the growth of their company. To read part one in the series, click here. Part two is here.
Strategy five: Build a high performance team.
Without question, delegation is one of the fastest ways to multiply your income.
To achieve your highest level of performance you must focus almost entirely on your own strengths, while delegating your weaknesses. But optimum growth means you shouldn't delegate to just anyone. You need clarity on what each member of your team enjoys and does uniquely well, then delegate specific tasks appropriately, making use of their best abilities.
In other words, delegate your weaknesses to someone else's unique abilities and strengths. It's what we at Strategic Coach call developing a 'unique ability team'.
Building a unique ability team will mean a dramatic increase in your organisation's productivity and growth. It also creates a positive work environment where people are excited to show up every day. Best of all, your staff are simply more efficient when they perform tasks that they are good at and enjoy.
Our next strategy is about focusing on only the best business relationships to drive revenue.
Strategy six: Focus on your best revenue generating opportunities and clients
In business the 80/20 rule means that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your clients. In other words, a large portion of your income is generated from a small group of customers. Nurturing those top 20% of relationships can make a massive difference to your cash flow and rate of growth.
For example, a few months ago one of my clients asked my opinion about his spending limits for an advertising campaign. Although I supported the campaign, I made a suggestion that he consider using a small portion of that marketing money to schedule his top 20% of clients for a lunch date over the next quarter. Then keep tabs on what additional revenue, if any, came out of those relationships.
At the end of the quarter he was pleased to report that, not only did his revenue increase with these existing customers, but so did the number of referrals from those customers. Those new referrals fuelled a major jump in his revenue and growth - not bad for the cost of a lunch!
Keep in mind that people do business with people, not companies. Even a small amount of special attention and nurturing of your top clients will have a big impact on revenue and new leads.
This interaction with top clients also helps you recognise and further define exactly why they like you so much -
which helps you improve your targeting to attract more top 20% clients.
Next let's discuss how you can make your product or service stand out from the competition, and escape the trap of competing on price alone.
Strategy seven: Developing a unique product or service.
Over and over again I see entrepreneurs competing on price alone. It's a very tough way to build a thriving business as you're always being squeezed by tighter margins and greater competition.
To generate the best results you should instead strive to build greater value and product differentiation. It is more important than ever to separate yourself and your business from your competitors', which is why I stress these three things to entrepreneurs:
- Develop a unique process that cannot be replicated by your competitors
- Establish credibility and position yourself as an expert in your marketplace
- Gain an intimate understanding of your customers' desires and needs
These three tactics will help you avoid a price war by drawing a distinction between you and your direct competitors, so that factors other than price make youthe clear first choice.
For entrepreneurs this means developing specific unique processes and ways to position themselves as experts in their market that can't be duplicated by competitors. At Strategic Coach we teach our clients to learn how to ask a specific question that gets straight to the heart of their prospect's most important dangers, opportunities and strengths; what we refer to as DOS.
It’s essential to understand what is truly valuable to your clients, and also to determine whether or not a prospect can see a bigger future for themselves and their on-going business relationship with you.
Most business owners make the mistake of focusing their efforts on selling products, and yet prospects aren’t looking to buy a product or service. They are actually interested in how you can help them achieve their long-term vision, overcome obstacles, take advantage of opportunities and leverage their strengths.
They want to know how you can help them with their specific dangers, opportunities, and strengths.
When you demonstrate that you understand their situation in depth, are interested in helping them establish direction and confidence while minimising (or even eliminating) their feelings of isolation, confusion, frustration, and their inability to make progress – you suddenly become very important to that client!
You're providing them tremendous value they can't get anywhere else. This is how you become a hero to your customers and clients.
This brings me to our next strategy which is about taking time away from your business to plan, which we will pick up in the next article.
Visit the Strategic Coach website to see case studies of top performing clients and get instant access to the complimentary digital book and audio 'How To Get To The Top And Stay There', which provides a more in-depth overview of how to multiply the growth of your business and life.
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