As a business owner, strategy is critical. This is where you’re going to win or lose in your business. Because without a strategy, you have nothing. So, I’m going to delve into the three business strategies I believe every business owner should know, and or at least be working on.
Watch our video below, or scroll down to read the content if you prefer.
Strategy 1: Pricing strategy
Whether you’ve got a service business or a product business, your pricing strategy will be similar. So are you providing a great product? Are you giving great service? Are you making your company customers feel … wow? Or are you giving them a product where you’re stacking it higher and selling them cheap? Now what you need to make crystal clear is with the delivery of your product, and the way that your customers feel, you need to be consistent in all three of these areas.
So if you’re given a premium product, don’t leave your customers feeling urgh. Make them feel wow’d. And if you’re selling something that’s cheap, that’s useful, make sure that all of your messaging across the board is completely consistent.
When I sit down with business owners, I find sometimes this is disjointed. They may be saying that they’re giving a premium service, and they may be delivering a premium service, but their price is cheap.
What pricing strategy do you have within your business and is it aligned with all of these three areas?
Strategy 2: Your sales and marketing strategy
So in layman’s terms, marketing is getting your message out there and getting people interested in your product or service until they’re potentially looking to buy. So everything from prospects to bringing them in, I have classed this as marketing.
So, is your marketing in line with what we’ve talked about around your pricing strategy? If you’re giving awesome service, does your marketing convey that? Have you got the social proof that backs that up? Or have you got a product that’s really good and valuable? Or, are you stacking it high and selling it cheap? It doesn’t matter which one you’re doing, it just has to be consistent.
Now, when you are looking at your sales strategy, that is for every time that you get a prospect through your door. For example, for our accountancy business as a service, we want to know every single person that has contacted us looking for accountancy services, they’re a prospect. For us, it gets a lot more serious when it gets to a meeting level. If they get into a meeting and they’re committing their time, we know that they’re even more serious about taking us on board for either our business growth or accounting or financial services. How do we then turn them into a customer?
So, for your business have you got a clear indication of where your customers are coming from until they’re a prospect, and how you would chart that line from all the way to paid service?
Here are some points to think about:
- What do you have within your business?
- Have you got your marketing nailed?
- Is your sales pipeline as tight as possible?
- Are you making sure you are maximising every single lead and turning them into a customer?
All of this is essential to ensure you are not losing money in a black hole.
Strategy 3: What’s your exit strategy?
I know it’s something that you just put off, and you say, I’m just in business, but you leave businesses in two ways. You either sell it or leave it in a box. So please watch my video on exit strategies that I did before. Now, when you’re selling your business, someone will go “Oh don’t worry Michael, I can liquidate my business, or I’ll just let it go”.
Well, if you’re doing that, you’re giving it away for free. So you’ve got something that’s potentially quite valuable, something that might pay, but you don’t want to completely sell my business. Well, even if you can’t, I would like to have a go and look into selling the business, rather than not attempting it at all. Because you will be leaving money on the table. So I’m not saying sell it in two years, three years, and it’s got to sell for £100 million. I’m saying have an exit strategy in mind.
So what would that be, that allowed you to build some serious personal wealth, build something that you’re truly proud of, which would allow you to essentially do what you want when you want without fear of money? So even if your exit strategy was for 20 years time, what is it so you’ve got something to aim at the moment you put that in place and you’ve got complete clarity on it, your whole decision making your whole confidence changes, because you know that you’ve got the end in mind to quote Mr. Covey.
I hope you’ve found this information of interest. If you’ve got any questions I’ll be happy to jump on a discovery call with you to explore the ideas further. You can book any time here.
Book now and I promise there’ll be no pushy sales pitch!
As a business owner, strategy is critical. This is where you’re going to win or lose in your business. Because without a strategy, you have nothing. So, I’m going to delve into the three business strategies I believe every business owner should know, and or at least be working on.
Watch our video below, or scroll down to read the content if you prefer.
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Strategy 1: Pricing strategy
Whether you’ve got a service business or a product business, your pricing strategy will be similar. So are you providing a great product? Are you giving great service? Are you making your company customers feel … wow? Or are you giving them a product where you’re stacking it higher and selling them cheap? Now what you need to make crystal clear is with the delivery of your product, and the way that your customers feel, you need to be consistent in all three of these areas.
So if you’re given a premium product, don’t leave your customers feeling urgh. Make them feel wow’d. And if you’re selling something that’s cheap, that’s useful, make sure that all of your messaging across the board is completely consistent.
When I sit down with business owners, I find sometimes this is disjointed. They may be saying that they’re giving a premium service, and they may be delivering a premium service, but their price is cheap.
What pricing strategy do you have within your business and is it aligned with all of these three areas?
Strategy 2: Your sales and marketing strategy
So in layman’s terms, marketing is getting your message out there and getting people interested in your product or service until they’re potentially looking to buy. So everything from prospects to bringing them in, I have classed this as marketing.
So, is your marketing in line with what we’ve talked about around your pricing strategy? If you’re giving awesome service, does your marketing convey that? Have you got the social proof that backs that up? Or have you got a product that’s really good and valuable? Or, are you stacking it high and selling it cheap? It doesn’t matter which one you’re doing, it just has to be consistent.
Now, when you are looking at your sales strategy, that is for every time that you get a prospect through your door. For example, for our accountancy business as a service, we want to know every single person that has contacted us looking for accountancy services, they’re a prospect. For us, it gets a lot more serious when it gets to a meeting level. If they get into a meeting and they’re committing their time, we know that they’re even more serious about taking us on board for either our business growth or accounting or financial services. How do we then turn them into a customer?
So, for your business have you got a clear indication of where your customers are coming from until they’re a prospect, and how you would chart that line from all the way to paid service?
Here are some points to think about:
- What do you have within your business?
- Have you got your marketing nailed?
- Is your sales pipeline as tight as possible?
- Are you making sure you are maximising every single lead and turning them into a customer?
All of this is essential to ensure you are not losing money in a black hole.
Strategy 3: What’s your exit strategy?
I know it’s something that you just put off, and you say, I’m just in business, but you leave businesses in two ways. You either sell it or leave it in a box. So please watch my video on exit strategies that I did before. Now, when you’re selling your business, someone will go “Oh don’t worry Michael, I can liquidate my business, or I’ll just let it go”.
Well, if you’re doing that, you’re giving it away for free. So you’ve got something that’s potentially quite valuable, something that might pay, but you don’t want to completely sell my business. Well, even if you can’t, I would like to have a go and look into selling the business, rather than not attempting it at all. Because you will be leaving money on the table. So I’m not saying sell it in two years, three years, and it’s got to sell for £100 million. I’m saying have an exit strategy in mind.
So what would that be, that allowed you to build some serious personal wealth, build something that you’re truly proud of, which would allow you to essentially do what you want when you want without fear of money? So even if your exit strategy was for 20 years time, what is it so you’ve got something to aim at the moment you put that in place and you’ve got complete clarity on it, your whole decision making your whole confidence changes, because you know that you’ve got the end in mind to quote Mr. Covey.
I hope you’ve found this information of interest. If you’ve got any questions I’ll be happy to jump on a discovery call with you to explore the ideas further. You can book any time here.
Book now and I promise there’ll be no pushy sales pitch!
