Time after time, the complaints that clients make come back to the lack of systems in your business. Systems that ensure that each activity is done with the same excellence time after time, no matter who is doing it.
Imagine what it’s like to be the members of a team when you, the owner are constantly heading off on the road.
It’s their job to help you succeed… but will you listen if they try to mention you’re on the road to Miami when you declared the destination was Chicago?
First, it ties your customers to you so you have the opportunity to offer them more solutions and increase they purchases from you. It’s kind of like a Trojan Horse. And that increases the Lifetime Value of your customers.
Without understanding and using the key information, you’re operating on only 10% of the daily information you need to run a business that’s predictable, in control and has any value in the eyes of bankers, brokers, investors or buyers. You’re running your company like an aerialist on a high wire.
As a business owner your job is to set things up so that your team can do their best for your customers, their fellow members of the team, and the results your company wants to create.
So here are 5 key metrics things you, as a business owner should be setting and tracking for your company:
For me that includes participating in discussions, taking responsibility for themselves, for collaborating and assisting others. They are hungry to learn so they see new opportunities and possibilities. They implement fast. They send referrals. They pay on time. They express their appreciation. These are the criteria that make somebody a great client.
As with most small and mid-sized business owners he started his company by splitting off from an employer, and created a company where he knew the products and services and the customers. He even brought one of his buddies along to run part of the operation.
When a client says “Hey! Could you also solve this OTHER thing?” the natural inclination is to say “I’ll look into it!”
And what happens next? Well for Jane, she and her brother ended up with an import business that had 3 warehouses with 10,000 different inventory items on the shelves. Lots of that inventory was slow selling, sitting on pallets.
Here’s what I uncovered. All that talk about ‘best practices’ that everyone is supposed to match in their industry resulted in nothing but look-alike companies. And that meant customers would price shop for the lowest price, and it was a race among all the competing companies. A race straight to the UN-profitable bottom!
If that business owner had spent the time straightening out those 8 drivers, on the same original 200,000 in profits, the multiple would have increased to say 5… and the street value would have been one million dollars at the same level of sales. And if sales and profits grow that same 20% – NOW the business is valued at $1,200,000. So in just a couple of years, the value has doubled for that business owner.