successful-business-models

How to Drive Business Growth Using Someone Else’s Time and Money

One of the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur can make is investing all his or her own time and money into their business. Sounds strange, right? Isn’t that a good thing? Surely investing your own time and funds into the business you are building will pay off in the end? Won’t you end up with a successful business model that rewards you financially?

Well, yes.

And, no.

Before you get to this point, there are a few steps that a business owner must have taken in order to leverage these massive and high speed growth strategies.

Firstly a business owner must master where their business is going moving forward, setting clear goals helps to establish this. Then they must be across what is happening with their cash flow at all times. They need to deliver quality products and services and make it easy for their clients to buy from them.  And they need to master their time management. Sounds pretty easy right? It is, however never underestimate the effort and hard work that most business owners go through to establish these components of their business. Working with a business coach at this stage can really help with providing clarity and will significantly speed the process up for you.

Before we get to the point of really driving exponential business growth using successful business models like franchising and licencing, there are a few more steps we need to take.

You need to know what your point of difference is in your business. What is it that you have or do that makes it possible for you to avoid competing on price? Targeting the right markets, having the right USP and putting the sales and marketing plan into action basically eliminates the need to always compete on price.

Really strengthening and having strong processes in place so the business can run without you is paramount to business success. Having a business that runs smoothly and reliably sets up the foundation for you to start leveraging off successful business models like franchising and licencing.

Implementing the right team is also critical to your success. Building a strong team culture and hiring the right talent can really set your business up for massive growth.

Once you reach this point in your business, it should be producing reliable income for you and it shouldn’t depend on you being there all the time.  You now have the opportunity to shift up through the gears and go from steady growth to real exponential growth!

Unfortunately, many business owners don’t know where those gears are….they know they have a solid business but they don’t know how to accelerate growth from there.  Among the reasons for this is their two fundamental constraints – time and money.  Everyone is limited to 24 hours and everyone has only a certain amount of capital.  Even for a big business with $5billion in the bank, they still only have $5billion….they don’t have $6billion!

The great news is there are ways to drive exponential growth in your business by leveraging others peoples’ time and money.

Once the above steps have been implemented successfully it may be time to start looking at options like using a franchising or licensing business model. These are business strategies that enable you to escape the limits of time and money.

So, let’s look at two of the most popular business models.

  1. Franchising

Look at franchising as not a business in itself, but a way of doing business. Franchising is a business relationship in which the owner of a business providing a product or service (franchisor) assigns the right to market and distribute the franchisor’s goods or service using the business name to an individual (franchisee) for a set period of time. For a fee, where the franchisee pays the franchisor, this relationship includes the product, service and trademark as well as the entire business concept.

The franchisor shares some combination of marketing strategies, plans, operational standards, systems and formats, training content, quality control and ongoing mentoring, assistance, guidance and supervision. It’s a way of providing a small business (franchisee) with the tools of big business (franchisor).

As the franchisor, someone else is investing their time and money into growing your business; allowing you to grow faster than relying on your own time and money would allow.  Your role is that of guide and mentor.

Recent Australian success stories using this model include Anytime Fitness Australia and Narellan Pools.

 

  1. Licensing

Licensing is a similar business model but, in most cases, the licensee does not acquire rights to use the company’s trademark or receive territorial rights. There is also less marketing, operational guidance and support from the business owner / licensor. And less financial investment from the licensee.

For example, a company that manufactures and distributes window treatments such as plantation shutters may enter a licensing agreement with a project home building company. The project home building company has the licence to sell, distribute and install the plantation shutters for all their new builds. They pay the licensor a licensing fee for this.

The benefit for the licensor is that another company is investing the time and money into the licensor’s product and service, once again freeing up his time to focus on the growth and development of his own company and allowing him to look long term instead of just getting through the day.

The thing to remember is that everyone who owns a business is limited by time. The amount of money that can be made is limited by the hours the owner can spend on the business.

That’s why leveraging other people’s time and money is such a smart move. It elevates you to a more strategic position within your own business and gives you more reach, capability and cash flow.

Being a successful entrepreneur is about breaking free of the limits owning a business can impose on you. These types of business models are simply a way to take those shackles off.

If you’re ready to break free of limits in your business, click here for further information regarding our 6 Steps to Building a Better Business Workshop. It’s FREE and you will walk away with many new ideas and plans.

merger-and-acquisition-strategies

Leap-Frog Growth: Which is the Strategy for You?

We’ve spoken about organic growth before and why it’s a great fit for SME’s.

Organic growth strategies focus on using the company’s own assets, energy and resources to expand the business as opposed to growing the company through a merger or acquisition strategy.

The thing to remember is organic growth is just one aspect of growing a business and tends to be linear and measured in percentages. For example, a sales and marketing strategy may be measured by a 20% increase in sales revenue.

But if you’re keen to grow your business at a faster rate, there are strategies available that will deliver leap-frog growth.

Leap-frog growth is stepped growth measured in multiples. If you’d like to grow your business 20 times faster, rather than by 20%, this approach could be the answer.

So what strategies do entrepreneurs who are looking for leap-frog growth implement?

Mergers, acquisitions or partnership strategies are the most common. Bear in mind that, while these can deliver huge growth, they all come with risks as well.  The majority of mergers destroy value…so be sure to research, get expert advice on how best to go about and manage these strategies and make sure a strategy such as this works with your business model before taking any action. As a general principle, do not simply start with a “plan to grow through acquisition”…be sure to have a clear strategy for your business first and then, if appropriate, use acquisitions as one tool to help deliver on the strategic plan.

 

  1. Mergers & Acquisitions 

A merger usually involves combining two companies into a single larger company and can deliver benefits including better economies.

Far more common are acquisitions, which take place when a stronger company purchases or takes over a smaller, sometimes weaker organisation. For example, Proctor & Gamble’s acquisition of Gillette. This can be hugely beneficial and is one of the strongest leap-frog growth strategies.

Why? Because of the sweeping benefits an acquisition can bring. Acquiring specialised skillsets, business intelligence and industry knowledge and IP helps improve your organisation’s own skill base.  Being able to access funds, valuable assets, new development, better production or distribution facilities are often less expensive to buy than build.

Smart acquisitions can also save an entrepreneur a lot of time and money. For example, if you are wanting to expand your business in a certain geographical area, perhaps acquiring a company that already operates in that region is a smarter use of capital.

Accessing a wider customer base, diversification of products and services can also improve the long term prospects of your business. Reducing costs and overheads through shared administrative, financial and marketing budgets help lower costs. You can also increase purchasing power through an acquisition strategy and reduce competition by buying up new intellectual property, products or services.

 

  1. Partnerships 

There is less risk involved in a business partnership strategy but can still provide leap-frog growth. There are a number of different types of business partnerships. Financial, marketing and expert partnerships are a great way to get a business moving forward in steps.

Examples of business partnerships include companies working together on a marketing strategy. For example, an airline and a hotel chain working with a cruise ship company to market fly/stay/cruise packages to customers. This is a smart use of marketing budgets and channelling all the customers from all three companies into one marketing funnel.

There is also a cash injection partnership that can help move a business from static to stratospheric quickly. Think about the television shows such as Shark Tank  or The Dragon’s Den where companies offer up a percentage of ownership of their business in return for the expertise and networks of the ‘Sharks’ or ‘Dragons’. This sort of exposure to high levels of business acumen can catapult business growth.

One of the success stories from The Dragon’s Den was the Generating Company. Two of the Dragon’s took 40% of the business for an investment of 160,000 pounds. A big investment, but since then The Generating Company has secured some big time clients such as BBC and Audi.

It comes down to research, planning and effective execution. Is a merger, acquisition or partnership the right move for your business right now? And if it is, how can you maximise the return on investment so your company experiences leap-frog growth increasing by 20 times the size instead of 20%?

Leap-frog growth strategies make you considerably more money at a considerably faster pace than organic growth, as long as they are well conceived in the first place and well managed in their execution.

It’s exciting.

And it’s smart.

If you’re ready to leap forward, Quantum Leap Your Business here.  Click here to find out more about the 6 Steps to Building a Better Business Workshop.

building-effective-teams

Why Building Effective Teams Builds Effective Businesses

Creating a high functioning proactive team that lives and breathes your brand is a dream for many business owners. And it will remain a pipedream for many more businesspeople who are so focused on working ‘in’ their business that they miss the opportunity to build a dream team around them.

A dream team drives business growth and gives you and your customers something that can’t be measured financially – confidence and trust.

Many business owners see the impact employees make on the bottom line – wage and salary costs, for example – but they don’t have the foresight to make the link between great employees and top line revenue.

Your team is a reflection of your business. Look at organisations such as Virgin. Their frontline staff are effectively a fantastic marketing tool for the company. They are the direct conduit to customers and indicative of what is right and what is wrong in any business.

So, how do you build an effective team around you?

 

  1. Hire on attitude and build on skills

We’ve all heard that it’s better to “hire for attitude and train for skills” but most of the recruitment processes we come across do the exact opposite – check CV’s and 1:1 interviews (i.e. check skills and do a very poor job of assessing attitude and cultural fit)  Accepting only phone applications helps to check attitude and communication skills.  Group interviews are a smart way to identify how people interact with others.  The entire process should only require a total of 5 hours of your time.

 

  1. Create and define a clear culture for your business and brand

Employees can feel lost and unsure about their roles and the business if a company’s culture is ill-defined. Ask yourself these questions – How does your business define who it is? How would your employees describe your business? Do your employees know your vision? Sharing and creating your vision with your team is the fastest way to breathe life and energy into a brand. It gives employees’ purpose, customers’ confidence and you assurance that everyone is on the same page.

 

  1. Do your best and delegate the rest

The fastest way an entrepreneur can burnout and self-combust is through micro-management and martyrdom. You can’t do everything. Focus on doing what you do best very well instead of lots of things badly. Hire the right people to plug your skills gaps, empower and engage them with the company culture and vision for the future. Then you can work ON the business, not IN it. And that will lead to more time for strategy and big picture thinking which will have a knock on effect on the bottom line.

 

Surrounding yourself with the right people can be one of the smartest strategies an entrepreneur can implement. The initial investment in time and money required will pay off ten-fold as your dream team helps you to drive growth.

Building the right team will build the right business.

“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” Richard Branson

Want to know how to quantum leap your team growth in your business? Check out our 6 Steps to Building a Better Business here. 

5 Sales and Marketing Tools for Organic Growth

 

Imagine using these words to describe your business. Respected and valued. Highly profitable. Experiencing explosive organic growth.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Imagine if OTHER people described it back to you that way. That would sound even sweeter!

So what is organic growth and how can you harness it?

An organic growth strategy focuses on using the company’s own assets, energy and resources to expand the business as opposed to growing the company through major capital outlays, significant strategic shifts or a merger or acquisition strategy.  When you choose which elements will help your business grow, plan them out properly, execute the plan diligently and multiply the effect the results can be enormous. And the great news is, there is no silver bullet or rocket science involved! Small simple steps can provide massive growth.

What sales and marketing tools could you use to grow your business?

Did you know that there are approx. 350 ways you can grow your business? Excited yet? When we work with clients there is an overarching model we use that includes 5 ways to grow the business, each of which has about 70 strategies you can use to do that.

So, let’s look at these sales and marketing strategies that will lead to organic growth.  What are the 5 key ways you can start growing your business today:

 

  1. Generate more Leads 

One of the simplest ways to achieve organic growth is to build on the customer base you already have. Happy customers are walking advertisements for your business whatever it may be. How can you leverage your existing customer base to bring in more leads?

Here’s an example:

A hairdressing business increased turnover from $2,300 a week to over $4,000 a week within two months by adding a referral promotion to a customer survey they conducted. They obtained an average of just under one referral per existing client. The referral was contacted and booked in for a half price haircut which brought a number of new clients to the business quickly almost doubling their turnover. By using a proactive referral strategy you can really grow your existing database exponentially.

What about the people that don’t know about you yet? How are people finding you? How can you get them more interested in what you have to offer? How can you capture that interest so that you can start building a relationship with these potential clients?

 

  1. Generate more sales for the business

Many clients we work with are fantastic landscapers, interior designers, plumbers, graphic designers – whatever their specialty is, they’re very very good at it.

What they struggle with is running a business and certainly taking it to the next level, growing it and developing it.

One of the first areas we review is the lead conversion process for the business.  How many businesses actually have a documented sales process that can help them convert those leads into actual customers? Not a lot. A lot of business owners “wing” the sales process and hope that the client actually likes them enough or needs their product or service so they will purchase.  Yet having a dedicated sales strategy can take all the pressure off and arm you and your sales teams with the right tools to help more clients understand why they need your products and services.

 

  1. Repeat Business and recurring sales

You’ve heard the stat…”it’s 6 times easier and cheaper to get a past customer to buy again than to find a new one”.

Working with a dedicated coach who focuses you on the opportunity if creating products and services that encourage clients to buy off you more often is a great way to build your business a lot quicker. After all these people already like what you do!

What other elements of your business can you offer existing clients that complements the first product or service they purchased and how can you encourage them to buy off you more frequently? Upselling and repeat business are a quick and great way to increase your revenue. Often take less time and money from a conversion perspective and add value to your bottom line.

 

  1. Increasing the Average Dollar Value per Sale

We often see business owners not billing for work that has actually been completed, high levels of discounting so as not to ‘upset’ the client who isn’t prepared to pay full price and undervaluing their own skills and knowledge.

What’s the side effect of this? You’ll end up bankrupt!

What would happen if you increased the value of each sale by just 10%? It’s not a big jump right? That could come from well-implemented price increases.  Or from a better range of “packages”.  Or from some simple “up-selling scripts”.  Or from any of about 70 other ways of increasing your average transaction value.   In what areas of your business could you apply this to? One simple step can make a big difference to the bottom line.

There’s more good news. If you increased your efforts by as little as 15% on all of the five steps we are outlining here, you would double your profit.  Yes, they all multiply together.  Are you starting to see the real value now of how each of these steps can help you grow exponentially? But wait there’s one more.

 

  1. Increasing your Net Profit Margin

By working diligently to plan and execute the strategies above, assuming your fixed costs don’t grow at the same rate, your net profit margin will increase by default. By using strategies that your Business Coach can work with you on, you can increase this even further.

Remember when we said at the beginning that there are over 70 strategies that you could use for each of these steps? We weren’t kidding. What other strategies could you apply to your Net Profit Margin to keep the arrow pointing up on your growth chart? This is where a Business Coach can really help.

Traditionally, organic growth is viewed as a slower path to progress and growth but it can actually be a smart, savvy and simple way to increase profits swiftly and progressively.

The first key? Using sales and marketing tools that build value on to your current model without adding debt to the bottom line.

The second key? Having a business coach that specialises in organic growth strategies and a tailored approach to get you there.

Because….

“If your business isn’t growing, it’s dying.” Brad Sugars

If you are excited by the above haven’t registered yet for the 6 Steps to Building a Better Business Workshop then you can do so here.  We look forward to seeing you there.