How to Identify Your Goals for Success!
Colin Thompson
Managing Partner Cavendish/Author/International Speaker/Mentor/Partner
*?Would you like to be more successful?
*?Would you like to improve the net profit for your company?
* ?Would you like to increase the opportunities for/with your company?
* ?Do you need help to achieve more success, raise the `Bottom-line` and increase ?the opportunities with/for your company?
Right then, you are at the right place for us to share with you how to -
Prepare for Your Journey to Success with my tips?on - `Raise the Bottom-line for Your Success`
* Remember: Success is a Journey - Not a Destination...
Now let us go on that journey `together`.
Maximise Profits the Ultimate Aim
Sales are only `one` barometer for success. Your ultimate goal is to increase profits in order to achieve the greatest possible return on your investment of money, time, and energy. Every customer, activity, product, or service yields a specific profit of a specific amount. In some cases, you may actually be losing money in one or more of these three areas. One of the most important things you can do for your growing business is to determine where to focus the investment of your time and money based on the return thrown off by this investment. Every job/every customer should be measured by `net profit return` and `positive cash flow` payments.
Personal Profitability
To truly analyse the profitability of your business, you must first examine your personal rate of return. From this personal perspective, what is your major expense? It's your time. By now, you should have developed the habit of continually asking yourself this basic question: Would I pay someone else my hourly rate to perform this task? If not, you are failing to maximise the return on your time. In other words, you are investing your time in an area that yields less than the optimum rate of return. You are incurring a "loss of opportunity" cost. This, in turn, affects the overall profitability of your business. This method also is how to measure personal profitability for every employee.
People Profitability
Payroll represents one of the largest expense items for most businesses. As a business grows, it typically hires additional staff according to the most pressing need at the moment. Once a person has been hired, often she or he can become a `permanent fixture`, even when the company's needs change. Many entrepreneurs are too busy creating products, designing services, and generating revenues to pay close attention to employee performance. Over time, the result can be an inefficient and ineffective staff and a bloated payroll. Every employee should be measured by the `net return of profit` to the business he/she contributes in their job performance.
Customer Profitability
Some customers are more profitable than others; some may actually be costing you money. Can you identify your most profitable customers? Do you know any who are unprofitable? There is not necessarily any connection between the size of the customer or the volume of business he produces and his profitability. There are several questions you should ask as you examine your customers profitability: How often does each customer purchase from you? What is the average size of each purchase? What is the net profit margin of the product(s) purchased/service(s) provided? How much time is spent providing customer service after the sale? What is the "product returns" record of each customer? What is the overall `net profit return` from each customer each month/year?
Concentrate on Profitable Customers
Many companies regularly “fire” the top 10 percent of their customers. They stop doing business with those who generate the least revenues or yield the lowest on their return purchases, choosing to concentrate on their more profitable customers and attracting more like them. At the very least, be diligent in rooting out those customers who actually cost you money—regardless of the revenues they generate. You cannot afford to carry this unprofitable load. Every customer should be measured by `net profit return` by job/by month/by year!
Building Long Term Relationships Brings Success
Did you know that building and maintaining long-term selling relationships is the key behaviour and skill of the top ten percent of the money earners in sales.?If you could take everything we know about communications, put it all in a large pot, boil it and distill it down into its critical essence, it is about the importance of `relationships` in successful selling. Building and maintaining long-term selling relationships is the key behaviour and skill of the top ten percent of the money earners in sales, in every field, selling every product and service. Concentrate on building these customer relationships and they will bring more `net profit return` to the company.
The Reason for Success
Most of your success in life will depend on your ability to get along well with other people (customers/employees/suppliers), and on the quality of your relationships. Psychologist Sidney Jourard, found that 85 percent of a person's happiness in life comes from happy interactions with other people. The reverse holds true as well: 85 percent of a person's unhappiness or problems/issues in life comes from difficulties in getting along with others. So measure your success at all times to be happy and raise the `net profit return` for your company.
Sell to Lots of People
Anyone can sell to a few people, some of the time. But only the very best human relations experts can sell to a wide variety of people, and sell to them repeatedly. The only way that you can make the kind of big money that you are capable of is by selling more easily, and more often, to the prospects you talk to, and by having those prospects open doors to others through testimonials and referrals. All top salespeople build and maintain high quality business relationships with their customers and sell to them repeatedly year after year. Measure all activity by `net profit return` at all times and implement the `right` business models in your business to measure all activities.
Decide Emotionally, Justify Logically
We are all sensitive to the quality of our relationships with other people. We are primarily emotional and we make most of our decisions on the basis of how we feel inside. We may carefully consider all of the logical and practical reasons why or why not with regard to buying a product or service, but in the final analysis we tend to go with our gut feeling. We listen to our inner voices. We obey the dictates of our hearts. We buy on the basis of how we feel about the relationship that we have with the other person. Where there is no relationship, there is no sale. Also, we measure all sales by `net profit return` as this is how all excellent business relationships work long term.
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Focus on the Key Variable
Everything that you ever learned of value in the profession of selling, regarding your product or service, or personality, is only helpful to the degree to which it contributes to the building of high quality relationships with customers. Remember, we are only in business because our customers allow us to be! Measurement of your business is all about `net profit return`, therefore you must have the `right` ingredients to be successful in business at all times as follows;
Have an open learning mind at all times to be successful
Employ the `right` people with the `right` attitude and they will return you the `right` net profit return
Everyone within the business builds long term relationships with the customers/suppliers/and fellow employees
Implement the `right` business models to measure the business at all times
Everybody within the business is an expert in their job area and continues that learning curve to improve at all times
Excellent Guidelines for an Entrepreneurial Strategy Plan for Success
Deciding to be an entrepreneur is a lifestyle move, and should be part of a long-term strategic plan. You shouldn’t be making this decision just because you are mad at your boss, you would like to be rich, or someone else thinks it’s a good idea. In these changing times, if you already have a start-up, with no plan, maybe it’s time to think ahead for a change.
Formally, that’s called developing and maintaining a strategic plan. Usually that means writing something down, since it’s hard to maintain something, or track yourself against it, if it’s not written down. From my experience, and the experience of other entrepreneurs, here are the key elements you should think about as part of the process:
1.???Personal interests and aspirations.?Do you love managing your own schedule, overcoming obstacles, starting a new adventure, facing financial risk, and relish the opportunity to change the world? Money should not be the big driver here.
2.???Right idea at the right time.?Do you believe that you have an idea for a company that you can implement better than anyone, and maintain a competitive advantage? If you are thinking non-profit (social entrepreneur), can you rally the world around your cause?
3.???Take inventory of what you have.?Look critically at yourself and your existing organization for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). What resources do you have, skills and functions, and what do you do best?
4.???Assess customer demand.?Do customers really need what you want to do, or might they see it as “nice to have?” In the relevant market large enough, and growing fast enough, to make it a profitable opportunity?
5.???Providing minimal resources.?One of the biggest stumbling blocks for all entrepreneurs is time and money for the ramp-up period. Do you have money saved, or available from friends, or current employment to support the transition?
6.???Visualize the future.?What do you envision your business looking like in five to ten years? Is your mind full of ideas for repeating the experience, or are you looking to build a family business that you make your legacy?
7.???Manage existing relationships.?How important to you is the balance between family, outside relationships, and work? Do you have dependents that must be factored into every career and lifestyle equation? What personal support resources are available?
8.???Education and training roadblocks.?Does your dream require additional time and money for training or academic credentials? If so, can these be done concurrently with an entrepreneurial rollout plan? What other roadblocks exist?
9.???Location, location, location.?Most entrepreneurial efforts can best be done, or can only be done, in a specific geography or country. Are you willing to relocate as part of your strategic plan? Can you start where you are and relocate later?
10. Willing and able to measure.?Can you define measurable milestones to help you track progress and provide feedback? Strategic plans that cannot be measured will never be accomplished. Are you committed to achieving milestones and measuring progress?
I am not suggesting here that a strategic plan is a one-time set-in-stone effort. In fact, quite the opposite, every plan must be improved and adapted as you learn more and the world changes around you.
On the other hand, if your way of doing business might be described as fire first and aim later, to seize today’s opportunity, you are charging into the future on only a wish and a prayer. The crash landings can be tough, and definitely will not feel good as a long-term strategy.
Now go and be successful.
Preparing for Your Journey to Success with my tips is only the start, as business is for life and therefore I share with you -?"Learn Faster. Read Faster. Remember More."
`Positivity in Business and Life`
Sharing successful information from many sources for your success.