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The last couple of years changed everyone’s lives in a dramatic way on so many levels. Both small and big businesses alike were radically impacted, from events, restaurants and retail being shut down to professional services firms sending everyone home to work remote.
It was clear to see how people were distracted during that time. However if you want to have success you need to clarify your focus and make plans towards achieving them. Here are five things you can do to ensure you stay competitive, profitable and maybe even thrive this year and for many, many more years to come.
- Start charging what you’re worth.
Warren Buffet is famous for his two rules of investing and making money: Rule #1: Don’t lose the money. Rule #2: Never forget Rule #1.
There is a good chance if you’ve been in practice for some time you may not have raised your rates for a number of years, possibly longer. Mentors of mine are constantly advising me to review this at least on annual basis if not more frequently.
When was the last time you did an assessment of the value you and your firm provide your clients? How much have you and your team improved over that time? Have you spent money to invest into better people, systems and processes? What about training?
Now I know many of you still like to charge by the hour. Have a think about how you could implement some form of fixed price service or provide an ongoing monthly service to your clients.
- Work on the areas where you lost most of your time this past year, what should you be not doing?
This is an area I’m constantly having to review and I’m still finding things that I shouldn’t be doing.
One of my mentors has a saying look for the small hinges that swing big doors or in other words where can you get leverage of your time and energy. This means you get exponentially better results from the same amount of time an energy.
Another way one of my mentors has me look at this is as follows. What is your proposed income goal for the year? Then work out by dividing by 2,000 hours as this is roughly how much time each of us gets of working time each year. This then gives you your hourly income rate.
Now evaluate every opportunity and every bit of time you use against this and ask is this bringing me closer to my goal?
- Learn educational direct response marketing principals, then set your strategy.
I know many of you believe that marketing is a “dirty” word and you shouldn’t have to do it. You’d rather rely on word-of-mouth referrals. Unfortunately, word of mouth is very unpredictable as to when it’s going to lead to business. It can also lead to the people being referred not being who you want as a client. If referrals are the only way you get business, it leaves you very vulnerable to the dangers of one.
The danger of one refers to one source of clients, one vendor or supplier, one client generating most of your revenue, one key employee. Another tip, always work to eliminate the danger of one.
I’m not saying referrals shouldn’t be part of your strategy, they absolutely should, just don’t be reliant on them as your only source. With great educational direct response marketing implemented you can systematise your referral process to help this become more predictable.
Why do you want to implement direct response marketing?
Back to the topic at hand. Direct response marketing makes sure that every dollar you invest into marketing is measurable and trackable back to the income, revenue, and ultimately, profit you generate.
At an event in my industry, Dr Nido Qubein, President of High Point University, who is the mentor of one of my mentors shared this quote in a recent presentation “If I was in the market to buy what you sell, would I think of you first, would I think of you second, would I even think of you at all”?
The other answer you need to have is why should they choose you over every other option available on the market? Naturally, there are a lot of law firms, accounting firms and financial services firms, so what makes you uniquely qualified to solve their problem? This is known as a unique selling proposition or USP. So what makes you truly unique?
The unfortunate reality is that most potential clients are not ready for your services right now. You have a finite number of resources you can invest so you need to pick a list of potential clients you can best serve and then create educational content that will attract their interest with a shy yes. This then allows you to develop the relationship by providing valuable, educational resources that help them so when they are in the market to buy what you sell, they think of you and only you.
This is a far cry from brand-based marketing which you cannot track and have no idea whether or not it helped or didn’t help. With brand marketing you also waste a lot of money showing ads to people who are not ever going to buy from you or who you don’t want as a client.
- Provide a great culture and back it with stronger employee incentives to increase employee retention.
The leader’s main job to set the standards for the organisation and a lot of it is from how you do things. The unfortunate reality is that even if your paying people well, if they don’t like the culture they will leave.
Also be very selective about who you hire and let on to your team as a bad apple will spoil the whole bunch. I’m not sure who was the first person who came up with this quote however it is one I’ve heard often from many sources and that is hire slow, fire fast.
That is slow down your recruitment process to ensure you don’t make mistakes and only hire the right people that fit your culture. Naturally, no one is perfect, and we all make mistakes, so if you find out they are not a right fit for your culture, then get them off your team ASAP.
Now I’ve made this mistake and it has cost me dearly so please don’t delay, once you identify they aren’t right, get them off the team.
- Find a new outsourced IT services provider that you can rely on and trust to keep you safe in the new world of threats.
Unfortunately, even if you get the first four of these strategies right, making the wrong choice in IT service provider can wipe out all the success you generate.
This can happen in many areas.
- If you’ve been recommended the wrong technology solutions to match your growth objectives, you’ll never hit those goals you’ve set.
- Has your IT provider met with you recently, at least within the last 3 months to discuss what your goals and/or growth objectives are?
- Have they been proactive in recommending solutions to problems you know you’re facing?
- Have they been proactive in recommending risk mitigation or prevention strategies to ensure your biggest income producing asset is protected?
- Do they know what they are doing when it comes to risk mitigation or prevention, and do they eat their own cooking?
The last thing you want to do is take advice from someone who tells you to do one thing however does the complete opposite or plain doesn’t do it themselves. From my experience in the industry when I was working for others, I found this was far too common for my liking.
As always, you can schedule a quick 10-15 minute call with us to discuss your unique ideas, situation, needs and concerns. To schedule your call, once you’re on that page, just fill in and submit the form.
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