RIGHT FROM THE START

Ready for new revenue? Redirect your focus & get a handle on these 5 fundamentals. By Ed Krug

You can’t count on your current customers being there tomorrow. Just because they have been doesn’t mean they will be – economic pressures, new competitors and even completely new ways of delivering what you’ve been delivering (video rental anyone?) mean your eye has got to be constantly on where that ball is bouncing.

Even if you make it a priority to try and grow your business, stay competitive, refresh your offer and bring in new clients – how do you do that, really, while keeping the customers you already have happy? It’s the classic small-business dilemma.
Not having a plan, or going with the flow, is an option. Sooner or later somebody else is going to figure out a better, cheaper, faster, more convenient way to do what you do, and your relationships may just prove a little less durable than you thought.

So how do you start working ON your business, not just IN it? And how do you make sure the limited time and money you do have to spend on getting new revenue actually produces results? Start by doing the very thing your just-get-it-done entrepreneurial spirit resists: take a deep breath and hit the PAUSE button. Get out of the weeds and build yourself a simple blueprint.

It’s easy to feel like you’re moving ahead when you’re busy running to networking conferences, getting on Facebook, tweaking your website, coming up with a catchier tagline or starting a massive email blast to a list you just bought. But you risk squandering your time, damaging your team’s morale and throwing good money after bad telling the wrong story to the wrong audience at the wrong time if you haven’t connected the dots first for you and for the company.

If you want your business to be truly sustainable, take time away from just moving and give time to planning. Go back to back to the basics – and we really mean basics. Refrain from peddling away all your energy. Redirect focus and get a decent handle on these five fundamental questions:

What is your financial target for new business? Have your goals changed?
Start with a number. “As much we can get” is not an answer. Set a specific revenue objective for the next year (or two, or three) and figure out how to achieve it. Hard to reach a goal when you haven’t put one out there that you and your team can rally around. Pretty tough to figure out how many new customers you need to acquire unless you’ve got a number to shoot for.

If you already have a business plan with revenue projections, dust that off and consider where you’ve come since you wrote it. How do your personal circumstances and business conditions in your market now effect how big you need to, want to - or can -become?

Even if you haven’t got the time to do a thorough business plan revisit, set a specific dollar target for yourself that has a rational basis and feels achievable. You need something to measure success against!

What is it that you can actually sell?
Sounds obvious, but isn’t. Are you a graphic design firm, or do you design and implement websites and online communications for not-for-profits? Do you sell software or turnkey solutions? Is your list of services too broad to be credible? Does it reflect what you think you do and not what potential customers want to buy? What are you doing now for your clients successfully and why is what you’re doing important or useful to them?

Where’s the money?
Follow the money that has been your bread-and-butter revenue. Who are your best clients and what are they buying from you, exactly? How did those relationships start, how did they grow and how long did that take? What is the economic value of each those key customers?

Why you?
What sets you apart and makes you the right - the only - choice for your clients? Are you the cheapest, or the most efficient or do you have an advantage that makes you truly unique? Are you an IT staffing company, or do you place hard-to find and niche technology positions in the financial sector? What kinds of options do your prospects have for getting what they need? Where can you best leverage your strengths and exploit your competitors’ weaknesses?
How do you give what you do a fresh slant, find some magic and put yourself a league of your own?

Where’s my opportunity?
OK, now you have a financial goal to work toward, you understand what you are selling, why that’s important to your prospects, what it’s going to mean for you financially, and how you are unique. So a picture should be emerging of who you need to be talking to NOW about your “one-of-a-kind” services - and what they will want to hear about it.

Now what?
Get some help. If you’re clear enough on these questions and your objectives, get an outreach plan together and find someone to help get you started on implementing. If not, find someone you trust to coach you through and build a thoughtful plan with them before you start just getting’-‘er-done. But know that you will always need to make the time to focus on business-building. This will be a collaboration for the long haul no matter who you hire.
But with clarity about who you are, why the market should care, and, yes, a simple plan – you will get the results you need with the time and money you have to spend! •