What are your biggest business challenges? | The Chameleon Guide
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What are your biggest business challenges?

I recently sent out a survey to small business owners asking them what the biggest challenges they faced were and what success looked like for them.

And the results are in!

 

Unsurprisingly, the biggest challenges are around not having enough revenue, clients or leads.

And working too many hours, although I was slightly surprised to see that only half of people surveyed saw this as a problem.

It’s great to see that no-one felt poor service delivery was an issue. Perhaps this only becomes an issue when you have too many clients that makes it difficult to provide a consistently high level of service.

 

 

Conversely, success is about having consistent and recurring revenue.

Interestingly whilst less than 10% of people said that spending enough time with family was a current issue, when it comes to what having a successful business looks like, nearly 60% of people wanted to be able to spend more time with their family.

A couple of quotes about what success looks like include:

‘Being able to leave the running of my business to my employees without concerns’

‘I want to I know I have effective systems in place to continue the growth momentum of my business efficiently’

Where does this leave us?

What struck me is that only just over 20% of people see that not having a plan is an issue.

I would argue that only by having a plan and taking action against it would result in having more consistent sales and revenue.
The statistics are that if you have a plan with accountability i.e. someone holding your feet to the fire, you 95% likely to be successful. Makes you think…

And having efficient systems would make things run more smoothly allowing a consistent approach to all activities from prospecting through to delivery and beyond.

In my e-book – ‘How to increase your profits without increasing your sales’, I talk about the activities you can do to become more profitable, guess what, without increasing your sales!

So how do you go about making the changes to create your successful business?

Things to look at include:

  • Having a plan

    This is right at the top of the list.
    How can you know what you are aiming for and how you’re going to get there if you don’t have a plan?

    If you were building a house, you’d start off by designing your house. Do you want a bungalow, a two bedroom semi-detached place, a four bedroom detached, a country mansion or a castle?
    This then informs everything else you do.

    Once you’ve decided that, you need a plan to build it and the order in which it needs to be built. You can’t put on the roof without having built your foundations and walls.

    And what are you going to do with it once it’s built? Do you plan on living in it, or selling it?
    If you’re going to sell it, you need to know who your target market is. Which will be very different depending on if you’ve built a bungalow or a mansion.

    And how are you going to sell it? Where does your target market hang out? You are unlikely to find the buyer for your two-bed semi advertised in Tatler, or to sell your mansion using Purple Bricks!

    You need to apply these same principles to your business planning.

  • Pricing

    In my experience working with clients, most undercharge for what they do and a hefty price hike can make a huge difference to your bottom line. I’ve doubled my prices in the last couple of years and I still get clients.

  • Productise what you do

    Rather than charging time for money, look at what services you deliver that provide the outcome that your clients need. Having done that create packages around those.
    This makes it much easier to sell as you can demonstrate value through the process that you know works best for your clients.

  • Consistency is key

    Assuming you’ve got your products and services right, you need to have a consistent approach to your activities. The businesses that do well have a consistent approach to their sales and marketing. That’s taking the right actions, at the right time, week in, week out.

  • Systems and process

    Don’t underestimate the importance of getting these in place, just because it feels like they are boring things to have to do. There are people like me who love a good process and system and who can help you!

    This is true in the early stages when you’re having to do to everything yourself. And then again when you’re looking to take on people to support you as you grow. There are so many tools out there that can help you automate processes so you don’t have to do the repeatable (and dare I say boring?) tasks.

    You’ll be much more efficient leaving you free to concentrate on the important stuff. So critical for when you’re looking to scale your business.

    And there are also plenty of tools to help create lead generation activities, such as creating an online test for people to take, which can then feed into your sales funnel.

If you’d like to read my e-book – please click here

Or you can watch the videos here.
Pricing – Please click here

Packaging your services – Please click here

Efficiency/systems – Please click here

If you’d like a review of your current systems and processes to see how things might be improved – email me
karen@thechameleonguide.com

 

About the Author:

About Karen Espley, blogging for The Chameleon GuideKaren Espley of The Chameleon Guide works with ambitious small business owners on her Profit Accelerator Programme. She brings pragmatic and real world advice in a group setting to help her clients make a significant difference to their business through increasing profits and running a highly effective business.

Offering workshops and group profit programmes for companies wanting to reach their full potential.

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