Now, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to teach you what I consider to be the most important question to ask in your business, and then I’m going to explain what I mean and what it means to you in your business. And it really is simple, in my opinion, and all the years that I’ve been in business this has been borne out to be true over and over again.
As yourself the most important question to ask in your business EVERY DAY!
My view is that the most important question to ask in your business is this:
“What can I do today that will build my business?”
And it’s a question to you, especially if you’re the owner of the business, because your business depends on sustainability.
Back in 2008, my training business died a death simply because it was not sustainable when economic times got tough. My clients, some very large businesses were national businesses, a couple of international businesses, pulled the plug on training and almost overnight I was out of business.
Now, I could blame the economy. I could blame the Government or Chancellor of the Exchequer and all the economists. I could easily blame the bankers. But, ultimately, what I had was a business that was just not sustainable. And the key factor was that I didn’t spend time every day working on building my business. I didn’t work every day on the sustainability of my business. I really didn’t ask myself the question: What can I do today to build my business?
But, it isn’t just today. It needs to be every single day. You need to ask this question every single morning as soon as you hit your desk or as soon as you get up if you’re that keen.
Now, I don’t mean necessarily that it’s all about just growing your business or making it into a huge international affair (you can if you want to though). It could well be that you narrow it down to something as simple as doing marketing every day.
In our business now, we do marketing every working day and we realize that our business, because of this, is sustainable. Even this blog post contributes to our business sustainability.
So, we’re constantly developing ways to develop more contacts, turn some of those contacts into leads, turn some of those leads into customers, and then turn those customers into raving fans who will come back to us and spend some more money on a periodic basis given the right prompting. And that takes a little bit of planning. It takes a little bit of thinking.
So, it means that we have to be that little bit more strategic. But, every working day, we’re doing something to build our business. Now, okay, that’s great for the day-to-day survival of your business. You get a customer. You make a sale. You put them into your sales funnel. You then keep in touch with that customer, try selling more to them. You try hanging onto them. So, that’s day-to-day.
But, what about going forward because the question was about ‘building’ your business, not sustaining your business, not managing your business, but building your business?
Here’s where the core question evolves and then comes back to what are you doing today to build the long-term growth of your business. Start with what you’re doing today to build your business. If that’s daily marketing, that’s great. If that’s strategic planning in your marketing, that’s great. But, the key question should always be what are you doing today?
I can’t emphasize enough the need for you to do something every day that will mean the long-term sustainability of your business. Trust me, in 2008 when my business went down the tunnel into oblivion, I wished I’d been asking this question a whole lot more. I knew the question. I knew it ahead of time. But, I just didn’t do it.
However, in our current business with what I’m doing now with building websites and helping businesses get more customers, we’re asking this question every single day. What are we doing today to help build our business? Or, as an extension to that, what are we doing today to guarantee the sustainability of our business?
So, look yourself in the mirror. Ask yourself that question. And, if you genuinely can’t answer it, I would say you’ better start looking for opportunities to go out there and build TODAY.
If it means developing a better marketing plan, go and do it. If it means managing your finances more effectively, go and learn it. You’ve no excuse. Anything can be learned. Managing money can be learned. Nobody is born an accountant. Nobody is born a good financial controller. If it means improving your cash flow by managing your accounts receivable and your credit control, go and learn how to do it or contract it out. Nobody should owe you money for very long.
If it means developing other products, things that you can sell to existing customers, go and do it. If you have to buy some learning, I promise you it will be worth the investment. If it means you need to develop a marketing strategy to begin with because you’re flying by the seat of your pants, go and do it.
There’s even loads and loads of stuff you can do for free on the internet. Go and look. But, it should always come back to the core question, what are you doing today?
Start right now with what is, in my view, the most important question to ask in your business: What am I doing today to build my business?
I hope that helps. If you have any thoughts or questions, put them in the comments below. I’ll be more than happy to answer them.
Or if you’d like some help developing your ‘business growth plan’ then give us a call on 0116 3552194 and we’ll have a no-obligation chat about where you’re going.