You are good at developing relationships right?  Friends, spouse, kids, neighbours etc.  You do this every day and never have an issue. How about developing a relationship with your prospective client?  Have a conversation?  Get to know them?  Do not sell.

Get them to know, like and trust you without you having to sell.  Easy right? Yes, if you just be you and stop worrying about having to ‘sell’. When they are ready, they will buy.

So, think about those tasks that you shouldn’t be doing.  It doesn’t matter if you like doing them or are even good at them (I do iron a mean shirt, I just don’t like doing it), you have to find somebody to outsource or delegate those tasks to one by one to allow you to spend more time customer facing, earning money and doing something that ignites your fire.

There are plenty of strategies to ensure you deliver exceptional results that drive referrals, far too many to list in one post.

Referrals and word of mouth (WOM) marketing should be a key part of your strategy. And if you’re not receiving them regularly, something needs to change.

When most small business owners start out, they dream of landing a few clients, the money starts rolling in and they work a handful of hours.

Simple right? Wrong!

The reality is often far from the dream.

If you are a small business making a 10-15% net profit (at best for many) and offer a 10% discount to “win the business” there is a strong likelihood that you will finish up de-valuing your brand and working for next to nothing.

I want to educate as many small business owners as possible what the difference is, so they can ask for the correct help when they need it and get the results they desire.  If they choose the wrong option, they often don't get the results and not only does that impact their future, it further damages the reputation of my sector because they blame the trusted advisor.

Ultimately, sustainable growth begins with the courage to assess your team honestly and the discipline to build the one your business truly needs.

A key part of the work we do when business planning with clients is to dig deep to understand in some detail their target markets and key messaging.  If you can do this, you can really niche down and build your business.

Make sure you and your team are clear on the ‘touchpoints’ that will keep showing your customers that you love them and that your systems and automation help you deliver them consistently.  And so long as your product and service quality remains at the required standard, you have a customer for life.

Guest blog: Business Digest Magazine, March 2021. There’s so much noise around workplace wellbeing, employee wellbeing and how to look after your team. And it’s great that people are talking about it because you should be looking after your most valuable asset — your employees. But what about looking after yourself?

Make a plan - have strategies for your sales, marketing, finance, processes and team. Then you can decide how to use technology and automation to support your strategies. Embrace technology and all that is offers you but tread carefully so that the opportunity doesn’t become a threat. And if you do that, you’ll be less likely to be in the 50% plus of new businesses that are going to fail in the next few years.

Even if you think you boast a healthy pipeline, dig deeper – are they really genuine prospects with a high potential of becoming a paying customer or are they actually suspects wasting your time? Do you know the difference?