4 ‘Must-Dos’ To Take Your Business To The Next Level
Over the last 9 years, I’ve worked with 1,000s of business owners to help them increase their profits, double their time off, and actually enjoy their business again.
And over that time, I’ve noticed patterns in what keeps some business owners stuck… and what helps them explode to the next level.
1. Product-to-market fit
I’ve met plenty of business owners who haven’t been business savvy, or had a well systemised business… yet they’re making a ton of money. Why do they succeed when other far more capable business owners struggle?
It all comes down to having the right product for the right market.
How much time do you spend making sure what you’re selling is actually what your market wants? Of finding the gaps around their problems and the solution?
Most importantly, how much time do you spend identifying what your customers need to hear at their level of market awareness?
Often the services or products we start with are very different to what we’re offering 10 years later. Business is always growing and evolving!
So you need to be regularly asking yourself where the opportunities are in your current market. What needs aren’t being fulfilled? What gaps can you create products for? How can you give your customers a superior experience they can’t get anywhere else?
At The Game Changers, we’ve invested in several other businesses simply because we noticed that our Opulence members needed products or services that we weren’t providing.
Being able to draw from a network of business and refer our clients there means that we can capitalise on what our market wants, and also control the quality and keep our clients happy.
So they receive the support they need to compliment their growth and progress with us, and we create more revenue channels. It’s win-win.
2. Having the right people
A B-grade employee or contractor will cost you more than a C-grade one.
Let me explain why.
If we grade our employees as A-players, the B-team or C-grade staff… it’s pretty easy to identify who the A-players and the C-graders are. So it’s easy to move C-graders on before they do any great damage in the company.
But the B-team is harder to make a decision on. They do just enough to stay out of the spotlight, but not so much that their performance deserves A-grade status.
I meet a lot of business owners that hold on to underperforming staff for way too long. Back when I first started running businesses, I held onto a lot of poorly performing staff because I was worried about hurting their feelings, worried I couldn’t find someone as ‘good’ as them, or I was hoping that they would change.
That held me back from going out there and finding staff that:
- Resonate with my company culture and values
- Have the skillset needed (or can be easily trained up)
- Are going to give my clients a phenomenal experience
A lot of the time we can get swept up by limiting beliefs centered around fear and lack. But I believe that if you trust your heart and your gut, you know deep down who is a good fit for your business, and who is not.
And for those who are not, have a genuine conversation with them and let them know you don’t see their role as a great fit for them, and move them on. The longer you keep them, the longer it’s costing you mentally, emotionally and financially. It’s also costing them from finding their ideal job too.
3. Having the right strategy and systems
The reason this is number three is that I honestly believe that culture eats strategy for breakfast. I think it was Peter Drucker who I first heard this from, and I wholeheartedly agree.
Because even if you had a top notch strategy, if you have a poor culture filled with B or C-grade team members, they’re not going to execute that strategy effectively. Then you might start believing that your strategy is the issue, when actually it’s your people that are unable to do what’s required to roll it out successfully.
For your business to grow and scale effectively, you need to know where you’re going, and have strategies to get there. For me, I know where my business will be in 10-years, 3-years, 1-year, quarterly, monthly and weekly. I have the numbers, I have mapped out the goals that will get me there, and I have planned out the projects and tasks that need to happen.
What’s more, you need systems and processes that tell your staff what to do in every situation. They cover what’s involved in their role, and what’s required of them - what ‘good’ looks like. That way your business is not dependent on any one person to survive. There’s no single point of failure - no team member that’s irreplaceable.
Systems also help your business to continuously improve. You keep running them, reviewing your results, and tweaking them to get even better results, every time.
In an ideal world, you’d have systems and processes created for every aspect of your business that are super clear on what’s required. You’d also have a culture of ‘intrapreneurs’. That is, people within your business who follow those systems and processes but still have the creative freedom and decision-making rights to keep innovating.
4. Having the right mindset
I honestly believe that we never have business problems - we have personal problems that get expressed through our business. Life is a perfect reflection of us. If there’s some area of your life or business right now that’s not how you want it to be, start to see how you can take responsibility for that outcome and create change.
Life shows us where we’re limiting ourselves in our mindset and decision making. Business owners often hold back their own success because there’s something going on in their mindset that won’t let them crack their glass ceiling.
Unconscious limiting beliefs like ‘It’s hard to make lots of money’, or ‘I will never find good staff’, or ‘I don’t deserve my success’ will cripple your ability to drive your business forward.
If you’re butting your head against a limit you just can’t get past, get some coaching to work out the kinks in your mindset. Because once you align your mindset for success, you can achieve fantastic things.
Working on your mindset isn’t a ‘once and it’s done’ kind of thing. You need to be constantly working on your internal beliefs to make sure that you’re making the right decisions and taking the right actions to move your business forward.
Want some help?
If you’re a business owner doing over a quarter of a million per year in your business who’d like some help with the points I’ve raised in this article, reach out. Let’s have a chat and see if we can help you grow your business - and yourself - to the next level.
The Game Changers work with our clients for 12+ months, building into their business systems and processes for increasing profits, reducing stress, and freeing up more time. Typical results are 3x profits and 10 hours back per week within 3-6 months working with us.
If that sounds like something you’d like to explore, I invite you to a 15 minute, complimentary ‘Scale Session’ call. It’s a quick chat where we’ll get to know your business a bit, and explore whether we might be a good fit.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Leave a Reply