When did you last ask your customers what they want?

Is your business growth starting to plateau or stagnate?

It’s easy to sit back, take the foot off the accelerator and watch the sales  roll in, especially if you’ve been satisfied with your recent performance. But  keep in mind that if you slack off too much, your competitors will soon catch up  and eventually put you out of business.

Take a look around – businesses (and your competitors) are closing their  doors due to the drop in consumer spending – which means MORE potential  customers for businesses like YOU, that do survive. Today is the best time to  take steps to revamp your marketing efforts and respond to the needs and the  pain of your target market.

In these tough times, it’s going to take more than “thinking outside the box”  and goodwill with existing customers to secure the survival of your  business.

I want you to STOP right now and make a list of everything that you (and your  competitors) do NOT do to make it easy for your prospects to buy from you. If  you want to succeed over the long term, you will take a good hard look at both  of these lists and find a way to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes,  to win your customers and keep them.

Granted, this is not an easy task. Most businesses will continue to do what  they have always done – guess or assume what they think their customers need.  However, no matter how challenging it is to ask the hard questions and  re-engineer your strategy, I guarantee it will be a whole lot less painful and  stressful than going under.

I had a married couple come to me once for advice and coaching – both the  business they were in and their relationship were at the breaking point. The  husband turned and said to me “I don’t understand it. I do everything humanly  possible for my wife and she doesn’t appreciate me and I don’t think I can  possibly do anything more to satisfy my customers – they are never happy and  always want more. What can I possibly do?”

My answer to this age old dilemma applies to him, his marriage, and to you in  your business right now. “Sounds like you are doing a lot. Too bad it’s  everything BUT the very thing that your partner and customers need most.”

While this may sound harsh, I think you will agree that it is absolutely  true. It does you no good to work harder doing everything…instead of focusing  on the 1 thing that you customers actually need. Wouldn’t it be easier for you  to work smarter, not harder, if you knew with absolute certainty what that 1  thing is?

How can you take the lesson from my client and apply it to your own business  right now?

How could you go about figuring out what that 1 thing is?

I want you to do something really radical today and start asking both your  prospects and existing customers what they need. You need to find out:

• What is the biggest challenge your prospects are facing in their business?
• When your customer thinks of the product or service you provide, what is  THE most painful or difficult issue associated with acquiring it?
• What is  the most important criteria to your purchaser when evaluating a company like  you?
• What are some things that he/she thinks about or considers from a  financial perspective when selecting that product/service or a vendor?
• What  is the key strategic driver for you customer’s decision?

It doesn’t really matter what you have done up to this point or how hard you  are working. There is no prize for volume or quantity. What counts is quality  and relevance.

Are you giving your customers what they want and are you willing to do  whatever it takes to help them cure the pain that they are in?

More of the “same old same old” is not going to differentiate you from the  pack, build trust, win customers and grow your business. Take some time today to  really think about what you offer and how it could be improved to meet the  primary need of your customers. If all of your customers were to leave today,  what would you need to change in order to win them back and survive?

At the end of the day, price is never the determining factor. Once you  uncover the true cost of the problem they are facing, price becomes irrelevant.  Your customers will always be willing to pay a fair price for a product/service  that cures their pain – not to mention the peace of mind that comes with  excellent service. Take stock of what the competition is NOT willing to do and what your customers wnat most from you.

Do something unique – listen and be willing to do whatever it takes to  deliver what they want (and need). Anything less, is simply a waste of your time and money  on everything that doesn’t really matter.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6586203

Could a good spring cleaning boost your business?

It doesn’t matter whether it is springtime or autumn where you live – the best thing that you can do to improve your business right now is a bit of spring cleaning.

By this of course, I mean reinvigorate some of the housekeeping issues that you may have  overlooked in recent times. Over the last few years you may have found it  possible to get away with a few loose ends and haphazard processes, but not any  more.  The tough economic times have changed all of that.  It’s time to get serious about tightening up your systems and securing your future.  Here are my Top 10 Tips to improve your results:

1. Have a plan
Position your business for the year ahead. Decide on your  strategy, set your goals and work on your tactics. Put these together in a one  or two page business plan. Uncertain times call for certain actions.

2. Forecast your cash flows
Maintain a cash flow forecast so you can use  it as an early warning system. The sooner you get an indication that your cash  is tightening the more time you will have up your sleeve to take action.

3. Collect your debtors more quickly
On average how long do your debtors  take to pay you? Aim to reduce this by at least 10 days – if your annual revenue  is $1 million you could save yourself $3,000

4. Reintroduce credit checks
Have you got a bit lazy about running credit  checks? Reintroduce them.

5. Monitor your customers debtor history
Are any of your customers  starting to take more credit than usual? Keep a close eye on them. They could be  feeling the squeeze so be careful about extending too much credit.

6. Evaluate your customers
Do you know who your best and worse customers  are? How much profit are you making from each customer? If you don’t know, now  is the right time to set up systems to track this and….

7. Cull your bottom customers
Harsh as it may sound, concentrate on your  best customers. Lavish them with attention. If you have unprofitable customers,  cull them. You have no room for passengers.

8. Trim your product range
If you are carrying a wide range of stock trim  it. Do this by calculating which of you stock lines are your worst performers;  sell those lines quickly to release some cash. Reduce your overall investment in  stock.

9. Look at your processes
Mistakes are costly so take a look at your  processes. What can you tighten up or do differently to lower the chance of  errors?

10. Have a budget
Having a budget isn’t about cutting costs, it is about  managing costs. So budget your expenditure for the year and track your actual  costs closely. If you see costs starting to climb take steps to reduce your non  essential expenditure.

So in the face of rising interest rates and a global economic downturn the  best thing that you can do to improve your business is to tighten up your belt and the system in your operation.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5442279

That’s The Good News, Now Do You Want To Hear The Bad News?

If you do a quick search on the internet, you will uncover hundreds of experts, coaches, accountants, journalists and government organizations that quote the statistic “8 out of 10 business fail in the first year”. However, the fact that the statistic is widely touted doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true or backed up by empirical evidence.

So what is the truth? I searched the internet and couldn’t find confirmation of any study that was done to back-up this statistic (that 8 out of 10 businesses fail) by a reputable or well-known bureau. What I did in fact find was some evidence to the contrary. According to credit reference checking agency Veda Advantage, only a small percentage of new businesses close in their first 12-months of business.

What is the exact amount, you ask? Would you believe, less than two percent?

However, they assert another 32 percent close their doors between their second and fifth year of operations, while 21 percent wind up between the sixth and ninth.

So, that is the good news. However, as you can probably guess, it’s not ALL good news.
Just because a start-up doesn’t go under in the first 12 months, doesn’t mean that the owner is running a successful enterprise. I wonder if anyone has bothered to measure how many of the businesses who survived:

• Paid the owner a wage that was at least equivalent to what he/she could have earned elsewhere as an employee?
• Generated a profit and positive cash flow? and
• Had enough working capital to service their debt, pay taxes and suppliers etc. as they came due?

The first few years of business are incredibly risky. In working with hundreds of business owners, we have found that the large majority opt to forgo their salary or inject more equity to prevent them from going under prematurely. What this means is that, while they may not have “technically” gone under, these fledgling enterprises are far from commercially viable and successful.

Statistics can be both helpful and misleading at the same time. It is easy to assert figures but more difficult to substantiate their veracity or explain the implications thereof.

The author of an article or press release will often use statistics to capture your attention and motivate action. That’s why people use statistics – numbers are persuasive and have an aura of authority.  A statistic like – 8 out of 10 businesses fail – gets attention, doesn’t it?  Whether this data is accurate or not, is only half the story. As a business owner or manager, we must look deeper to find the insights that we can take away and use to improve our results.

Personally, I don’t care what percentage goes under. No matter how long you’ve been operating, if you’re not getting paid a salary, producing profit and generating positive cash flow, you’re not running a successful company. Closing your doors is only half the story. The doors may very well be wide open, but technically, no one is there.

Rhondalynn Korolak, Author of Financial Foreplay and On The Shoulders of Giants

Discipline and attention to details is more important than ever if you want to succeed in challenging economic times. Take a look around… competitors are closing their doors – which means more potential customers for the businesses that DO survive. And in times like these, it’s going to take more than “thinking outside the box” and goodwill with existing customers to secure the survival of your business.

You may have been lucky over the past few years – you may have found it possible to operate without a detailed, written plan and systems/processes. But the global economic crisis has changed all of that. If you want to thrive, there is only one thing that is for sure – uncertain times call for deliberate decisions and proven practices.

So here are & top tactics to recession-proof your business.

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