Are You a Slave to your Business?

One of the perceived, toughest tasks for any business owner, is to find enough hours in the day to achieve even half of what needs to be done every day, to ensure that their business survives and grows to a point where they see a good return on the time, effort, and money invested.

I disagree with this common perception as I find that, as a general rule, if a business it is going to achieve success in the long run, it is more likely to do so if  the owner does not personally put in any more than 50 to 55 hours per week on a continual basis, once the initial business startup phase is over.

In my considered opinion, consistently working more hours than this per week, especially with the pressures that most business owners work under, will not only lead to reduced personal effectiveness, but will more than likely also have adverse effects on the health, general wellbeing, and most importantly, the personal relationships of the business owner.

Often, much of the time a business owner spends working in or on their business, becomes unproductive time for a whole host of reasons, but a key one being the old adage that the more time available, the longer required tasks will take to complete.

The key to striking the right balance between the time allocated to the business and time allocated to ensuring that physically, intellectually, and emotionally you are as fit as possible to be super productive when working, is to first set a limit on the average number of hours per week, you will devote to your business, over any given period in the future.

Once you have determined the maximum number of hours per week you will allocate to working in and on the business, you need work out how you will then complete all the tasks you usually need to complete each week, in the reduced time frame.

There is a real art in determining the amount of time you should allocate to each specific task, but if you start by looking at how long it currently takes you, and halving that due to the fact that you will be more focussed, more energetic and more determined to complete it in a specific time, you will have a good starting point.

The next step is a simple one, but requires a good self knowledge as to your own capabilities at various times of the day, and on different days of the week. What you need to do is break the week up into the number of timeslots necessary, which may be of different durations, to complete all of the tasks you need to complete for the week.

A couple of good tips are firstly, to set aside either one or two timeslots each day to deal with incoming e-mails and other correspondence and leave them alone at all other times, and secondly, when dealing with the key tasks requiring the most concentration have a “do not disturb under pain of death policy” to stop phone calls, staff, visitors and anything other than dire emergencies, from stopping the flow of your concentration.

The final thing you should do as part of this process, is identify whether or not some of the tasks you are allocating to yourself, are really the best use of your time, and/or could be better performed by someone else, with a lower skill set than your own.

If you are serious about assisting your business to become a long term success, take action now to reduce your hours, and you and your business will reap the long term benefits. The simple process above, if implemented effectively, should shave a minimum of 15 hours per week off the time you currently put into your business, without any negative effect whatsoever.

Do you want to continue to be a time slave to your business?

Would you achieve more in less time if you were more focused, more energetic and more determined?

How will you celebrate seeing the light and limiting your time input to no more than 50 to 55 hours per week?

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Slash New Business Acquisition Costs

Most business owners understand that the cost of acquisition of customers/clients is one of the major drains on the overall profitability of their particular business enterprise. Unfortunately, a far fewer number, approach the task of ensuring that a high proportion of their new business comes from prospects referred to them via their customers/clients and business associates.

The downside of not treating the obtaining of consistent referral business as a real business strategy, and thereby devoting time and necessary resources to affect the required outcomes, is firstly, a higher cost of acquisition of new business and secondly, detrimental fluctuations in the monthly revenue generated from new business.

Realistically, as a business owner you cannot afford not to be doing everything you can to ensure that your business receives a consistent flow of referrals from satisfied customers/clients, and that the other businesses that you do business with, reciprocate by referring business to you.

The only way I know to consistent get referrals of potential new business from your own customers/clients is to set up a formal referral system, as part of the overall customer acquisition strategy of your business.

The key component of any referral system should be as follows;

a) a process for asking for referrals from customers/clients,
b) a process for acknowledging all referrals received,
c) a process for recording and monitoring progress of all referrals,
d) a process for rewarding referrals which result in new business,
e) a program of targeted training to ensure all staff understand both the importance of all referrals and the workings of the system you put in place to obtain same, and
f) a mechanism for rewarding staff for supporting the referral system.

The other major source of referrals of new business is through your own business associates, and this avenue should also be carefully considered, when establishing your referral system.

The key elements here are similar to those outlined for obtaining referral from customers/clients, but with business associates, you need to add the additional task of informing them fully of the types of new business you are specifically seeking, what your ideal new customer/client looks like, and what you intend doing for them as a reciprocal approach.

Without an overall customer acquisition strategy, which includes a formal referral process that is supported throughout the business, referrals of new business to you as a business owner, will always be inconsistent, and the level thereof always well below what it should be for a well run business.

What percentage of your new business comes from direct referral from existing customers/clients?

Do you have a formal customer acquisition strategy and does this include a referral strategy?

Do you currently devote sufficient time and other resources to ensuring that your business maximises its opportunities to become more profitable through generating the bulk of its new business via direct referrals?

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Sell like a Pre-Schooler

Pre-schoolers never stop asking until they get what they need but unfortunately, most people tend to lose that ability to ask for what they need as they grow up and subsequently conform to external pressures from parents, teachers, early employers, social peers, and the general community in which they live.

As a business owner, the loss of this skill, to ask for what you need from those who control what you require, can have a highly detrimental effect on your businesses’ ability to increase its sales revenue.

Your business will therefore reap the benefits if you relearn the ability to ask for what you need in order to grow your business. So how do you start relearning what you once did intuitively as a pre-schooler?

Until you ask someone specifically to take an action, exchange something for something else, or subscribe to a different point of view, you might be selling hard, but you are not gaining any real ground. Therefore, if you have lost the ability to ask for specific outcomes that help you to advance your own agenda, you need to reprogram your brain back to that of a pre-schooler.

In a nutshell, you need to practice, and practice again, the art of asking for the outrageous, until you can do it without cracking up, flinching, sweating, or shaking uncontrollably, and can do it with utter conviction.

Try practicing to ask a prospect to pay $50,000.00 for the privilege of buying a clapped out second hand car, until you can do it in the expectation that you might just be able to pull it off one day.

When you can do this, you are ready to effectively ask for the small things you need your prospects to do in order for you to help them, and at the same time significantly increase the number of sales you make for your business, in any given time frame.

It may surprise you, but most people are happy to give you what you need if you ask in the right way at the right moment. Unfortunately, business owners struggling with making sufficient sales tend to telegraph that they are squeamish about asking for what they need, and as a consequence, their prospects feel the same way about giving and the sales never get booked.

Once you have determined exactly what it is that you and your business need your prospects to do for you, and you have a compelling reason (the future of your business) to ask for what you need, you should then be able to successfully apply what you have relearned, and you should then be rewarded by seeing a significant increase in your sales revenue.

When was the last time you really asked for exactly what you needed from your sales prospects?

A better question perhaps is, when was the last time you asked yourself what you want?

What will you now do differently?

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