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Success Tips for Growing Your Business – Implementation and Action!

Guest post by: Pat Mussieux

Article Overview: One area where many entrepreneurs drop the ball is to implement all that which they have learned! I know there are many women in business who go from one workshop to another to another. The experience is often like drinking from a fire hose!

Success Tips for Growing Your Business – Implementation and Action!

One area where many entrepreneurs drop the ball is to implement all that which they have learned! I know there are many women in business who go from one workshop to another to another. The experience is often like drinking from a fire hose!

The time does come, however, when you need to implement what you’ve learned. It’s critical to the success of your business to stay fresh, current and aware of what’s going on in your industry – and to continuously grow yourself, too. The next step, however, is to identify some key learnings, create an action plan around them and then create the To Do list. Get ‘er done!



“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration!.” – Thomas A. Edison

The purpose of this article is to share with you some of the key things I have learned from some of the ‘masters’ in the industry.’ While some of the key concepts are very basic (and most of them are), it all comes down to implementation and taking action. It works for many of the gurus, and these concepts will work for you too.

1. Learn What You Need to Know To Grow A Great Business!

It’s wonderful to have passion for the work you are doing – but passion won’t pay the mortgage. You must learn best practices and become a great business person. Your business is a reflection of yourself. Your business only gets better when you get better. There are many facets to running a good business – financial, resources, people, time management, products and services and so much more.

I’ve heard many entrepreneurs say that they’ve crossed the million dollar mark – and that’s awesome! However, I’d be curious to know at what expense? When you grow your business to that size, there is considerable expense involved……so what exactly would be the net-net-net when it comes to the bottom line. Do you know your numbers?

My key learning: Know Your Numbers!



2. Know Your Customers. Who do you serve? Why are you serving them? What are they trying to accomplish? Offer something that makes you stand out and deliver consistently on your promises. Have them buy from you – have them buy again – have their friends buy from you.

One challenge I see with women starting out in business is that they want to work with everyone. Well, you can’t work with everyone – effectively! Who really needs you?????? Find them and serve them!

For many women in business, they have only one thing to offer their customers. One thing! That is very short-sighted. You want to get to know your customers really well – learn what it is they need and what you can provide – and then create a series of products and services to help in their transformation.

My key learning: Identify who needs me most!



3. Know Your Competition. I mean, REALLY know your competition. Pay attention to others in your industry – and check out what solutions they are offering. Study their websites. Order their free materials – study the content. What’s working for those who are at the ‘top of their game’ in your field? With all the information on the internet these days, this is an easy task. Get on your competitors’ lists. Make it a priority.

My key learning: Pick one or two gurus in my industry, and study what they do intimately. Focus.



4. Be Clear On Your Positioning. Be clear about these things:

1. Who do you want to help?

2. Why do you want to help them?

3. Why are you qualified?

4. What struggles have you faced and overcome? (That’s one of the real keys to success – people want to know that you are a ‘similar, credible other”).

5. Where are you heading?

These are some of the key points that I cover in my signature keynote presentation – you want people to feel the pain of their current situation, you want to demonstrate proof that you’ve ‘been there’, you want to share the ‘promise’ of what can happen, you want to provide them with hope for the future – and then, you want to show them how they can do it, too!

In your positioning, you want to be sure you have gathered strong, effective testimonials from satisfied clients. People like to hear/read about others who have ‘been there’ and who are now ‘on the other side’.

My key learning: Re-framing/crafting the content of my signature keynote presentation.

5. Implement Systems and Processes.



Holy smokes – this was a big one for me! I had no systems or processes – I was doing everything myself. (Are you? If so, you’ll never grow your business that way – I can tell you that.)

It is essential to implement systems and processes into your business operation. Keep it simple and begin with developing an Operations Manual. Be sure to document each and every step of everything that you do. Then, hire a VA and start to put some systems into place. You want to have systems for everything from standard e-mail communication, to e-zine distribution, to product promotion. One thing I learned, that was HUGE for me, was to re-purpose all that I was doing. For example, the content in my e-zine gets re-purposed for article distribution, for blog content, for compilation into an e-book, and so on.

When it comes to the sales funnel, you want to ensure you have created a system for the ‘buyer trail’ – moving them up through the funnel – providing products and services of great value to the client so they keep buying from you.

My key learning: Document everything – create an Operations Manual. AND, re-purpose and systematize everything.

CONCLUSION

It is essential that we invest in our business and in ourselves in order to grow our business. The next step, though, is to implement and take action on what we’ve learned. For this to actually happen in my own situation, I always focus on 3 key learnings from each and every workshop that I attend – in that way, I make a commitment to turn those 3 items into an Action Plan – then I schedule the implementation of same. It’s all about progress and moving forward; otherwise, it’s easy to get into the habit of taking all that information and turning it into ‘shelf help’ – you know what I mean – the workbooks and notes get put on a shelf for ‘another day’. Don’t let that happen to you – take action – and keep growing!

What is one lesson you can take and apply to your business this week? What one thing can you do different – to take your business to the next level?

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

1. What workshop did you last attend?

2. What is one key thing that you learned?

3. Have you applied it to your life/business? What difference has it made?

4. If not, then when???????

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Article Tags: Confidence and courage, grow your business, Implementation and Action, Know Your Competition, organize your life, Pat Mussieux, Success Tips, Systems and Processes, women in business



Related Forum Posts
Business Tips - How about: Tips for managers to handle employees more effectively? Tips on how to deal with difficult customers? Tips on how to deal more effectively with suppliers? The only three I have in mind right now, but will try to come up with something else. Chris
Re: Success - I study success intently, and would like to share: Here's two excellent and nearly identical success-formulas from a couple of the world's masters. FIRST FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Clear, Definite Purpose 3. Committed Decision 4. Take Action In Faith (Bonus Secret Sauce: 5. Repeat Consistently) I made a video about this, but am not allowed to link it yet. Google "Ryze Success Steps" for it. Oh, and this is Napoleon Hill's (Master Of Success Laws)'s Formula. SECOND FORMULA: 1. Passionate Desire 2. Understand It Is Already Done (Faith) 3. Relax & Allow It To Unfold (Go about your life calmly) This one is courtesy of Abraham-Hicks (inspiration for the movie The Secret). Hope that helps!
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: What's 1 word to describe what your business will be in 2012 - Growing. MichelleJ
Re: Books for the Entrepreneur - Here's one of my most recent books The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success By Brian Tracy


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