I’m really excited–tomorrow morning I fly out with my family to Maui for the 2010 Maui Mastermind Wealth Summit event.
In my prep for the event, one of the things that really came clear for me was how important it is to focus in your business on the things that make the REAL difference, and not allow the urgent fires or demands grab all your attention.
Today I’m going to do my best to succinctly “bottom line” the most important focuses for your business at each Stage and Level of its development.
Before I do that I wanted to encourage you to get a complimentary copy of our newest book, Build a Business Not a Job: How to Build Your Business to Sell, Scale, or Own Passively.
This short book (176-pages) is full of hundreds of ideas for you to apply to make your business more successful AND less dependent on you the owner.
The reason we are giving readers a free copy is because we’ve learned over the past 10 years of doing this business that most of our best clients originally decided to work with us because of the demonstrated value of one of our books or weekend workshops.
Here is the link to get your complimentary copy of the book:
www.Mauimastermind.com/custom/freebook
I hope you enjoy it!
Now on to the “bottom lines” in your business…
The Bottom Lines to Focus on In Your Business
Level One: 4 things you MUST do…
1. Clarify your business concept and do your market research.
2. Create your draft business plan.
3. Test market your offer so you get REAL feedback from people in your market.
4. LAUNCH!
Early Stage Level Two: Sell, sell, sell, sell.
All kidding aside, if you’ve got an Early Stage Level Two business, no need doing fancy systems or planning 5 years down the road. You’ve got to make those early sales that ensure you have the cash flow to survive!
Beyond this early selling, you need to start building rudimentary (i.e. rough and incomplete) systems to generate leads, close sales, collect your money, and fulfill on your promises. (See below.)
Middle Stage Level Two: Build out your core system(s) in four areas:
Now that your selling regularly and you know your business has a regular sales stream, it’s time to go back to the 4 core systems and improve them into your “baseline” system for each area.
Here are the four core systems:
1. Lead generation (so you have a baseline system for reliably generating a minimum level of leads).
2. Lead conversion (so you have a baseline system for reliably converting your leads into paying customers.)
3. Fulfillment or production of your core product or service.
4. Your accounts receivable system to collect on the money you’re owed.
Advanced Stage Level Two: Finish fleshing out your systems, controls, and winning management team. This is the time you’re scaling your business and you need these building blocks to do it well.
Ask yourself, “What is the single greatest limiting factor to my business’s growth currently?” and then apply yourself to push back that limiting factor.
In addition, you need to start building out your management team too.
Level Three: Deciding, planning, and executing on your exit strategy… whether that be to sell, to own your business passively, or to scale it much larger.
These are the bottom lines by Level and Stage. Don’t make things overly complicated. Building a business is a known equation. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Focus on what’s most important to your business at your current stage and level of development. Let the other future focuses go for now and laser in on what matters most.
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