Business Coach
How to Build Your Business in 2014
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e have been seeing the economic indicators steadily going the right way in recent months but how are you using this change in environment to ensure you build your business? At ActionCOACH we use a six step process to coach clients through to ensure that they systematically and methodically keep moving in the right direction. Here is an outline of these six steps:
Step One – Mastery Before any business can grow it has to ensure it is stable and in control. There are four areas that need to be addressed in this step. They are :Destination – have you got a business plan that will support your personal goals and ensure your business supports your life? Financial – do you know your business numbers and do they show that if you grow your business revenues you will also grow your profits? Delivery – Do you offer products or services that your customers value and that keep them loyal to you?
to know your numbers. Break your recent business performance down into these numbers and see what you learn from them. Then set an improvement target for each area and see what profit result that would deliver. NB if you grow each area by 10% you will see an increase in profits of 61%. Then decide what strategies you need to implement to achieve this target and take appropriate action. There are a list of strategies available for each of these five ways that I coach my clients on to assist in the achievement – 353 in all. It is the implementation of multiple small improvements that deliver big results reliably rather than looking for “the big idea”!
Step Three – Leverage Once profits and cash are reliably being generated within your business it is time to think about how you can implement business systems that grow your business efficiency and start to give you more time to spend ON the business rather than IN it. The focus here should be on systems, people and their use of time. A simple way to look at it is – systemise the routine and personalise the exceptions.
Step Four – Team
These four areas need to be in a state that you can answer YES to each of these questions before you can move to Step Two. Spending time on this step provides the foundation for sustainable and profitable business growth.
This is when an owner can really believe they are building a structure for further growth. Most of the time is being spent on developing the team, so the team looks after the customers, the customers provide profit and cash for the business and the business truly supports the owner. Areas where I suggest you focus on here are recruitment and retention of staff, implementation of a business culture and “rules of the game” – the way the team members behave as part of your team, creating a business vision and mission.
Step Two – Niche
Step Five – Synergy
This is the step where you set a plan to systematically grow profit and cash in the business. ActionCOACH use a five way method where attention is turned to five areas where results can be improved that direct affect business profits. These are best explained in these word equations
Implement a general manager to run the day to day aspects of the business.
Time – Is there enough time in your business to enable you and your team to do all that needs to be done to take your business forward?
Lead Generation X Conversion Rate = Number of Customers Number of Customers X Number of transactions per customer X Average transaction value = Turnover Turnover X Margin = Profit. To grow your profits you need to select strategies to implement to improve your numbers in the five areas of focus – lead generation, conversion rate, number of transactions per customer, average transaction value and profit margins. How do you do this I hear you cry!! Well first you need
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Step Six – Results Decide what your exit strategy is and implement it. This may be buying another business, selling the business for maximum value or other outcomes such as making nonbusiness investments to grow your personal wealth as a result of the business results you have built. So there you have it, a six step method to grow your business and to achieve your personal goals. Thanks for reading. I hope you can take some lessons from this and apply them in your business and use this as a structure for future business plans. If I can help you on your journey please contact me and ask for a complimentary coaching session so I can show you how you can achieve this in your business.