Rocket Fuel - Look back to look forward
In order to look at how to grow your business, you have to look back before you look forward. To really successfully grow, we have to plan. But in order to plan, we need to know what works and what doesn't.
Last week, I was invited to deliver a presentation at the University of Northampton to some business owners that had passed the one year mark and were looking to grow their businesses.
Now, one of the things I said to them was that in order to look at how to grow your business, you have to look back before you look forward.
To really successfully grow, we have to plan. But in order to plan, we need to know what works and what doesn't.
To find this out, take a look at the following:
Review your goals - did you meet them, and if not, why not?
Where did your business/clients come from?
Look back through your invoices and see where you found those clients. Was it from networking, word of mouth referrals, your website, an ad on social media...?
Once you've done this, attribute a revenue factor to those business sources. This way you can see where the most money is coming in from.
The other things that we looked were pipelines (what's coming in), pricing (is it right? Could it be better? Could you increase your margins?), and we looked at target markets (are you targeting the right people?).
Once we'd looked at all of that, we were able to put in place a sales plan that focused on building the monthly activity and getting more in the pipeline.
Next week on the sales tip, I'm going to talk more about sales planning, so tune in for the next installment!
