How John Got a Seachange for His Business And How You Can Too

Yes, you really can get a lot more cash profits out of your business, working a lot less hours!

Like a lot of people in small business today, John worked long hours. He was “hands on” and very much a vital part of producing the service his business provided. His most pressing problem, he thought, was “time”.

For business owners, the tragedy of this “time” problem is not just that their families and friends bear the brunt of their absence, and also bear the brunt of their stress and anxiety, it’s that these business owners are, quite literally, wasting that precious time.

Now that’s a pretty harsh statement, but I hope you’ll stay with me on this and hear me out.

Business owners are a special breed. Certainly they usually have a high degree of technical skill or talent – that’s usually what gave them the confidence to go into business in the first place.

But the most important qualities they possess are totally wasted if the owner remains caught up in the day-to-day operations of his or her business.

What are these important qualities?

Vision Passion Leadership While ever you are working, hands on, 8 or more hours a day in your business, you are depriving your business of these qualities. In fact, if you are working those hours in your business, and if you don’t believe you have a choice about it, then you really have to face the fact that you don’t yet have a business, you have an expensive job!

How We Gave John the Bad News John in fact wasn’t delighted to hear from us that his problem was not “time” as he thought. His problem was in fact three even more serious problems:

1 He had to face the fact that his business couldn’t survive without him. This meant that if anything happened to John, his business would have liquidation value only.

2 He had to face the fact that although he was in possession of accounting information that related to all factors of the performance of his business, he wasn’t analysing and using that information in order to get better performance from his business.

3 He had to face the fact that his sales strategies were unproven and unscientific and not only was he wasting time and an enormous sum of money, but he could not simply decide upon a sales goal and have any confidence of getting it!

A Snapshot of John’s Business (We Call this “Ground Zero”)

On 7 September, 2004, John had a “one-man band” business in which he basically just reacted to whatever was going on at the time, with most of his effort going into marketing his product, or servicing sales.

He had no written systems whatsoever.

And when John actually got a sale, he stopped marketing altogether in order to service the sale!

His “marketing” looked like this:

Mailouts – Nil result Cold Calling – Nil result Drop-in Visits with Gift – Nil result Random Networking – 0.63 sales per week The only money John was earning came from the activity he spent least time and money on. His earnings barely covered his operating costs without even touching his marketing costs. In 3 years he had accumulated considerable debt!

John’s business “growth” looked pretty much exactly like a waveform. Up and down, up and down, gaining and losing with no overall growth or profit.

In short, John was putting in a lot of time, effort and money, and getting nowhere.

He had:

· No cashflow · No money to grow on · Nil return on his investment · STRUGGLE – long, hard hours · And every time he made a sale he had to stop selling!

We Gave John the Good News Actually we had several bits of good news for John. Firstly financial analysis of his accounts showed that he was underpricing his product and we convinced him to put his prices up by 14%. He thought he’d lose clients but in fact he didn’t lose a single one.

Secondly we pointed out that while mailouts and cold calling could work brilliantly, they clearly weren’t working for him. Yet they were putting him in debt! We stopped those activities to give time to develop better strategies around them.

Thirdly we pointed out that dropping in gifts to potential clients was poor practice because it could be perceived as a bribe, and was not resulting in sales in any case. We restricted his “drop-ins” to actual clients, with the gift seen as a valid “thank you”.

Fourthly we formalised John’s networking strategies, including referral building procedures. This was the one area where John could be absolutely confident it would work for him, not because someone said it was a good idea, but because he had the proof in his own historical data.

Fifthly, because John now had substantially more time, he could now work to develop systematisation of his business, starting by documenting procedures for administration. With increased sales, John could easily afford an admin person, taking his first step toward working on his business instead of in it!

John had completed the implementation of this stage by 30 October 2004, with the result that he was now bringing in $7000 each week, with less effort than ever before, and actually making his first decent profits.

We were all very happy with an improvement of 782%!

John now had:

· Positive cashflow · Money to grow on · Predictable sales strategies · Administrative support · Much more clarity and confidence Said John, “I’m actually getting there!”

John’s Stage 2 Here we are in late 2005 and John is just moving into Stage 2. We could’ve done this sooner, but the fact is that John had 2 big moves of premises in that time, and no amount of arm twisting by us could convince him to keep moving in other ways as well ….

In Stage 2, John is once again doing mailouts, but this time they’re strategic and are resulting in at least one sale each batch.

He is also once again implementing cold calling, but again, this time those calls are not pressured attempts to get appointments, but instead they are aimed at building business friendships with a potential market. Paradoxically, these calls are now leading to appointments!

The drop-in visits have continued to actual clients, and the formal networking has been increased and is being managed very well. John knows exactly how to make networking work for him.

In fact networking works so well for John, that he is about to commence strategic in-house networking functions for his clients.

Not only does John have administrative support, but now he has systematised the entire business, including the sales process, and has just put on his first rep, resulting in 2 sales already.

He is now looking for 2 more reps, because he has confidence that the sales system works. With the systems and strategies John has in place, it is actually impossible for them to miss a sales goal.

John has gone from being a struggling one-man band, to a position of earning more money, more easily than ever before.

Where Will John Go From Here?

John has one more stage to go before he can claim to have total freedom in relation to his business and his staff.

His next step is to totally replace himself as day-to-day manager, so that he can choose to be or not to be involved in the business in a hands-on way. He will actually have the luxury of choice.

When John completes that stage, again with a strategic, systems-based approach, he can run his business from his desk or from a beach just as easily. He has total choice about whether he keeps the business, grows it further, replicates it, or sells it as a highly-valuable going concern.

Even now he is free to provide the most important things a business owner can possibly give his/her business:

Vision Passion Leadership At Stage 3 he can enjoy this contribution.

A Seachange for Your Business Any business, from the smallest to the largest, can do what John has done, and reap massive benefits.

When we work with clients in this way, the minimum outcome we aim for is a doubling of revenue within 60 days.

In many cases, like John, the improvement is far greater, always from a vastly reduced effort on the part of the client, and with far more confidence and pleasure!

If you would like to experience “A Seachange for Your Business”, begin by taking the simple steps outlines below.

Yours in success Christine Sutherland

Your Simple Steps to a Seachange for Your Business 1 Download the free ebook “Speed Business Networking – the Manual” to understand a much more effective (and more fun) approach to utilising networking to get real results. Your business community is your key to success if only you know how to build it, not only for referrals, but for advocacy, strategic alliances, and generous sharing of expertise.

2 As well as attending your business community’s networking events (and of course we recommend you join Australia’s ORIGINAL Speed Business Networking group), and getting help to carry out your own schedule of informal networking for warm referrals, diarise at least one hour a week where you will LEARN and USE far easier, faster ways to take your business to that next level, enjoying more success than you ever dreamed possible, with far less stress than you have experienced up till now.

About the author: Christine Sutherland is CEO of Speed Business Networking, which provides networking and consultancy services to its members. Her latest ebook "Take Your Team to the Top: How to Double Your Sales in 30 Days" is described on www.speedbusinessnetworking.com and a free preview version may be downloaded.



How John Got a Seachange for His Business And How You Can Too - To learn more about this author, visit Christine Sutherland's Website.

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