Why Businesses STOP Growing?

To understand why growth slows or stagnates in any business, we first need to look at how a typical business evolves and why the frustration starts to mount as this growth slows. We call this the ‘Growth Roller-Coaster’.

Take a look at the illustration below. 

The starting point is the beginning of a business, usually created by a sole proprietor or a small partnership/directorship. Typically, the owners are very hands-on at this stage with few, if any, staff and modest resources. In the early months and years the business grows very well. 

Customers receive a high degree of director attention with high levels of expertise and customer-care as a result. Costs in the modest operation are relatively low and the business can respond quickly to customer and market needs. 

Word is spread by customers and referrers about the great, cost-effective products or services and new business is easily gained. The business quickly expands to a peak at point A, driven by the personalities and skills of its owners.

In an ideal world, two conditions will now be met. Firstly, the directors will recognise that they have reached the pinnacle for a personality-driven business and secondly, the business and financial performance will be at a level that completely satisfies them. In reality, neither is the case.

What happens in the real world is that the owners continue to drive forward. However, with growth problems materialise…

Staff and resource levels have been increased to serve the growing customer base, increasing costs and tying up director time. The owners themselves come under increasing time pressure, being torn between customer, staff and business needs. Falling service levels and rising costs see the growth constricted and dissatisfaction around the business grows in its place.

Have you ever heard yourself or a colleague say, “This was so much easier in the early days!”

Now the owners find themselves at point C. Right now, you are likely to be at some point between A and C.

Reality has dawned and the business is at a crossroads. 

Do you remain a personality-driven business and attempt to claw your way back to point A by downsizing, culling customers and laying off staff and try and raise point A to a higher point?

Or, do you undertake the investment (mostly in time and effort) required to move forward and become a systems-based business at point C. I guess as you’re taking this course, it’s highly likely this is what you want to achieve.              

Interestingly both types of business can be successful with the right planning and management. But, too many businesses find themselves falling into the trough in between simply because they’ve didn’t consider early enough what their fundamental strategies and goals should be.

Instead emphasis is placed on the process functions of the business like, delivering the product or service and support to customers and essential marketing and management of the business is overlooked. Growth, consequently, is limited.

Let’s look then at the high-level view of your business (which can be any business). As I mentioned earlier, it has three key components…

1. Process

The mechanics by which any business ‘produces’ its saleable products or services.  This is how you generate income.

2. Marketing

The generation of new customers, the retention of existing customers and the maximisation of customer value.  This is how you acquire and retain customers and this course focuses on this particular component.

3. Management

The running of the business – its performance management, strategies and goals as well as the financial management of your business (where we come in!). This is where you generate profit and wealth.

 When a business is growing steadily and reaching the owner-managers’ objectives, the 3 functions work together to create a harmonious cycle (see diagram below) 

In reality, the majority of people in business are taught process skills from school days, through skills training and onwards.

We are taught how to read and write. How to follow instructions and answer questions. How to replicate what we learn. You develop expertise in how to do ‘things’.

In other words, your expertise and skills invariably lie in the PROCESS function. Consequently, with the skills and knowledge loaded towards the Process function, businesses can only grow whilst there is capacity within the Process function to do so.

But without the same relative development in the management and in particular marketing functions either side, growth becomes limited…

The cycle now starts to look very different (see diagram below).

 So the solution is simple…

You need to start putting more effort into the marketing and management functions of the business to realign the balance.

This doesn’t mean you neglect the process function.

It just means you work smarter and allocate your time and effort better to include these two crucial areas of your business.

So, there is little doubt as to why most businesses do not achieve the growth objectives the directors or partners have set  and why now is the time to make the transition from a process-led business to a management- and, in particular, a marketing-led business.

Our goal is for you to have a systems-based business that’s set up to achieve your objectives. In each issue of blog series, we’ll do our best to give you everything you need in order to achieve this goal.  

APJ Accountancy - Together We Will Make It Happen

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Why Are You Making It So Hard?

One of the things we like to explore with clients is an area of their business that rarely gets much attention—but IS ALWAYS CLOSELY SCRUTINISED BY CUSTOMERS — and that’s the buying process. In other words… how can you make it EASIER for customers to buy from you?

In their excellent book “WAYMISH: Why Are You Making It So Hard For Me To Give You My Money?” authors Ray Considine and Ted Cohn identify several areas where businesses actually make it more difficult than easy to deal with them. And like virtually everything else we recommend to clients and other business owners, it’s very easy to put this right.

Now, before we look more closely at this, I strongly advise you to walk through your own buying process.

Doing this will immediately identify ‘sticking points’ in your sales process that you’ve so far probably taken for granted.

So here are the four main elements of WAYMISH that you need to focus on to make doing business as easy as possible for your customers…

W.A.Y.M.I.S.H. #1: Making Customers Wait

Having to wait for service is one of the biggest complaints in any business. It sends a message to customers that their time doesn’t count... and neither do they.

Don’t just think in terms of making people wait for meetings and appointments – this covers a multitude of areas…

• Answering the phone
• Answering the office door
• People in waiting areas
• Delivery of product
• Meetings/appointments/estimates/consultations, etc.
• Management of queues
• Parking spaces available
• Engaged tones when ringing into  the office

All these things irritate people, so getting them right will give you a significant edge over your competition. A good example of this is the leading supermarkets, who put on extra cashiers if more than two people are waiting in a queue!

W.A.Y.M.I.S.H. #2: Accessibility

How accessible is the business? That doesn’t necessarily mean your location. Here are the things you need to consider…

· Opening times: It still amazes me that many legal firms close for lunch – stupid. Make it easy for your customers.

Ask them when they would prefer the business to open. Change opening and closing times.

Having opening and closing times to suit customers rather than staff is what you must strive to achieve.

Clearly you don’t want to pander to your customers, but maybe staying open late one evening a week will be a massive hit with existing and new customers?

· Days Of Business: How many days a week is your business open? Even open on Sunday if you have to. Again, the business needs to be open on days your customers are most likely to visit. By the same token, there’s no point in opening on days that customers don’t buy.

· 24/7: Having a website makes the business open 24/7.

· Easy Access To Products/Services: The good retail stores understand this completely. They know that product placement can make huge differences to the sales of certain items.

For example, manufacturers will pay a premium to the top supermarkets for their products to be placed at waist/eye level on certain aisles, because they know product placement can mean the difference between making some sales and making large volumes of sales.

W.A.Y.M.I.S.H. #3: Payment Options

Have as many payment options as possible available to customers.

You really are restricting sales if the business only offers one or two payment options.

Allow customers to pay by cash, cheque, credit cards, bank transfer, online payments, etc.

Then also look closely at structuring payments so customers can spread their payments.  In   the current  economic climate, if you can restructure payment terms so customers pay in instalments, this can have an immediate  effect on your business and, of course, your cash flow.

The point is this—what can you do to make it easier?

Remember, it doesn’t matter what business you’re in—you can use these tactics. It also lends itself to monthly billing. For example, a restaurant can create a ‘Members Club’ whereby customers pay a monthly membership fee that entitles them to dine twice a month. And so on.

I urge you to look carefully at how you can incorporate this into your business. The easier you make it for your customers to buy from you – the more sales you’ll generate!

W.A.Y.M.I.S.H. #4: Making It Difficult To Contact The Business

Since the advent of the internet, this has risen to almost epidemic proportions.

How often do you find a product or service online and, before buying, you want to ask a few questions? Then, to your frustration and later disgust, you can’t find any way to get in contact with the supplier. It’s like they’ve hidden their phone number and they don’t want you to contact them.

This is a prime example of losing huge volumes of sales by not making it easy for people to get in contact with the business. Showcase your phone number and e-mail address on all your marketing pieces.

Don’t make it hard.

Make it unbelievably easy for people to reach the business.

Furthermore, I advise you to scrutinise your signage.

I visit a lot of businesses, especially our clients’ offices, retail outlets and restaurants.

I’ve often noticed, especially when visiting for the first time, how either insufficient signage or none at all makes it frustratingly hard to find them.

You must NEVER take this for granted.  Having clear signage not only makes it easy for people to find you, but also showcases and promotes your business. It’s the cheapest form of advertising and you should make maximum use of it.

I like to term all these elements as your ‘slippery slope’. Once someone is interested in your business and, figuratively speaking, they step onto your slope, you make it so slippery, so easy for them to travel down it, that they can’t get off – until they buy, that is! That’s what W.A.Y.M.I.S.H. is all about.

Now it’s your turn. Look at your own business and apply W.A.Y.M.I.S.H. to it. Do that and you’ll increase your sales significantly (without spending a penny)!  

To learn more about building your business better, Arrange Your FREE No-Obligation Meeting Phone us on 020 89310165

Implementation Is Key To Building Any Business!

How close are you to reaching your targets for this year?

We work with dozens and dozens of business owners, each with varying degrees of success, but I can tell you for certain, the most successful businesses and business owners we work with have clearly defined goals, objectives and targets. They also monitor progress EVERY month—at our insistence.

This is something we’ve learned along the way.  Most business owners that do set goals and targets are often poor in following through. It’s my belief the key reason for this and a lack of achievement, is very little monitoring and measuring.

There’s little use in setting goals if you only review them once a year or even two or three times a year. Each and every month, you need to…

• Review your goals, objectives and targets
• Monitor if you’re ‘on target’ or ‘off target’. In fact, there’s a very good reason to monitor twice a month—once mid-month and then again at the end. If you leave your monitoring until the end of the month, you have no way of meeting the monthly target, but midway through you can do many things to get on target by the end of the month
• After monitoring progress, you can then alter, amend or scale up your tasks and activities to make sure you  get back on target or  take advantage   of   the   over achievement, to blow your targets out of the water

With this level of monitoring, coupled with the frequency of doing it, you’re much more likely to achieve the targets you set your business—on one condition...

...and that leads on nicely to the heading of this article — IMPLEMENTATION.

To achieve any of your goals, objectives and targets, implementation and follow-through is key.

Sure, sometimes you can get lucky and, when a business has momentum, this can continue for some time, but it’s never worth the (foolish) risk of inactivity.

As a general rule, you’ve either got to do more or change what you’re doing, if you want to improve performance. Doing the same thing won’t change anything. It really is that simple. But, ultimately, one question I often ask clients is ‘How badly do you want it?’ Time will tell!

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Moments Of Truth

In 1987 Jan Carlzon, the CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, wrote the book, ‘Moments OfTruth’. It explained how he took the airline from deficit to profit by ‘moving’ the airline to a customer-focused organisation.

Now, as you know, there have been many books written on customer service, but where this book and Carlzon’s strategies really differ is his focus on each interaction the customer has with the business.

He calls these ‘Moments of Truth’ and, of course, each interaction can be a positive or a negative experience.

ScandinavianAirlines prospered because they worked very hard to make sure each Moment Of Truth with their customers was a very positive experience, and the results they achieved were a testament to this.

Little did Carlzon know that with Moments Of Truth he created, in my opinion, arguably the best, easiest and most amazing customer service system ever devised!

Take a look at the diagram below. It shows how at each contact (Moment Of Truth) you need to ensure each interaction is a favourable one for the customer.

So a Moment Of Truth is an interaction between the business and the prospective customer, client or patient.

It’s called a Moment Of Truth because, irrespective of the type of interaction that occurs (meeting, letter, phone call, e-mail, etc.), the outcome can either be a positive or a negative experience for the prospect or the client.

What continues to surprise me is how few businesses use Moments Of Truth or similar strategies to ‘WOW’ their customers or prospective customers.

Think about your own experiences with other businesses—from a business perspective or simply as a normal consumer. Think back over the last ten years or so and try to pinpoint an interaction that occurred between you and a business where you said to yourself, ‘WOW, that was amazing’.

So where and when should you be looking to implement Moments Of Truth in your business? That’s easy. Look at all your interactions with your customers, clients or patients and for each single interaction write down what you could do to make them think ‘WOW’ or at least make them think ‘that was impressive’.

Once your team grasp the concept of Moments Of Truth, they too will come up with even better ways to create WOWs for your customers. But like everything, you have to implement—otherwise you’ll never get the results you deserve.

Now I’d like to finish this article by giving you one of the best examples I’ve ever seen regarding Moments Of Truth.

I’ve taken it from a book I recommend titled ‘How To Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive’ by Harvey MacKay.

When I read this, I thought it was the perfect remedy for any of our clients who didn’t feel Moments Of Truth would work for them, or felt they were too difficult to implement. It’s a short story of how a cab/taxi driver has implemented Moments Of Truth in his business and the effect they have had on it. Read this very carefully.

It’s full of nuggets you can use right now in your business...

Harvey was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine.  

Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie and freshly pressed black trousers, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey.  

He handed Harvey a laminated card and said: “I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.” Taken aback, Harvey read the card.    It     said:  ‘Wally's  Mission Statement:

To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.’  

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!  

As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, “Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.”   Harvey said jokingly, “No, I'd prefer a soft drink.”  

Wally smiled and said, “No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.”  

Almost stuttering, Harvey said, “I'll take a Diet Coke.” Handing him his drink, Wally said, “If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.”   As they were pulling away, Wally handed Harvey another laminated card.

“These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.”  

And, as if that wasn't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him.   Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day.   He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.  

Then Harvey said, “Tell me, Wally, have you always served customers like this?” Wally smiled into the rear-view mirror.

“No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do.

“Then I decided to do things differently. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.”

“I take it that has paid off for you?” Harvey said.   “It sure has,” Wally replied. "In my first year I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it, and I take a piece of the action.”  

Wally was implementing Moments Of Truth, even though he didn’t realise it! With just a few changes to the way he worked—and, more importantly, the way every other taxi cab driver/firm worked —Wally transformed his business.  

This true story demonstrates that if Moments Of Truth can be so successful for a taxi driver, it can work for any type of business – ESPECIALLY YOUR BUSINESS! 

Pushkar Joshi

Keeping The Entrepreneurial Spirit Alive

Summer is in full swing. The sun’s shining and as most people look forward to their holidays (or you may have had yours already?) it gives us all a time to reflect on our businesses and the progress we’re making!

As you know, we work with dozens of business owners. Many of them are what I would call ‘Entrepreneurs’ (with a capital ‘E’). Some are ‘Serial’ entrepreneurs, but they all have one thing in common—they are building something. Hopefully, something special. Something that defines their knowledge, expertise, hard work (blood, sweat and tears!) and commitment.

But from time to time, we all take a battering. I have never seen a business go from start-up, to growth and through to successful sale or exit where everything was perfect. And it’s at these ‘challenging’ times when the entrepreneur really shows himself or herself. It’s what sets us apart from the ‘pale imitations’ of the real thing.

Most of the successful entrepreneurs we work with have at some point taken a real battering, but they pick themselves up, dust themselves down and drive forward relentlessly (hopefully, learning from the mistakes they made).

Nevertheless, it’s at these points where our entrepreneurial spirit takes its biggest battering.

At times, because of the pressures of running your own business, your entrepreneurial spirit gets lost, hidden  and  often subdued. You must fight against this. It’s your entrepreneurial spirit that gets you up in the morning. That says, ‘Here’s another day full of opportunities’ (the ‘NON’-entrepreneurial spirit says, ‘I wonder what problems we’ll have today!’ - there’s a big difference).

One of the best ways to keep your entrepreneurial spirit alive and kicking is to keep working ‘on’ your business, rather than ‘in’ it.

That’s what makes you entrepreneurial. Reading success books (autobiographies written by sports stars, film actors, and business millionaires) and, of course, reading our Business Builder newsletter will keep the juices flowing and keep you thinking differently—as we do as entrepreneurs.

But you must keep the fire burning. Don’t take it for granted. And don’t let others squash your thinking. It’s what keeps us pushing our businesses forward.

Feel free to contact us if you need any help. 
At APJ, we can provide effective solutions for your business proposition by working proactively with you, taking your ideas and helping you to develop them into a thriving business.