Are You Getting in the Way of Your Own Business and Its Growth?

by Andrew Carter

More Business Skills Articles

Published on this site: July 9th, 2009 - See more articles from this month

The Author of the most practical business book - Secrets To Retail Riches – provides the following article on how best to generate far more income for your business whilst working less than you are actually doing now. You can learn more at www.specialtyshopsuccess.com.

Are you getting in the way of your own business and its growth?

Many owners do, most without ever realizing it.

You see most business owners have 2 preconceived ideas, both of which are usually wrong.

One is that everything they do in their business is necessary for it continuation and growth and the other is that they know better than their customers. These two misconceptions are severely holding your business back.

Regardless of whether you are a single owner / operator or employ staff, you probably find yourself doing a lot of work in the business. You do this because you feel it is necessary. You feel if you don't do all these things your business will suffer.

But here's the simple fact – I'm sure you've heard it before -

80% of the profits from your business come from 20% of the activity you do in your business.

This is a revelation to most people – and usually an unpleasant one. Many owners are annoyed to think that. They are so involved of every aspect of their business and work such long hours, that they are convinced that most of the profits come from all of their efforts.

It simply isn't true.

Only 20% of the activities you do directly generate income and growth for your business.

That does not mean that you will neglect the other 80% of your business. It is still important and still needs to be attended to.

Think about it – doing the accounts, keeping your store clean, paying the bills and filling out orders do NOT make you any money They are important and have to be done, but how much time are you spending on these tasks which aren't directly driving your business forward?

What other tasks are you doing that are taking up more time than they should, or are not directly generating income for your business?

Once you determine this, you are then able to outsource those tasks to people who can complete them for you, whilst you concentrate your efforts on the important 20% of tasks.

These tasks will predominantly be marketing (which is the subject of another article). The point is this will allow you to get out of the way of the day to day running of your business and allow you to grow it more.

• Giving your customer what they want – not what you think they should have
  
  You've heard the saying the customer is always right – and of course that is not to be taken literally, it simply states the mindset you should have when dealing with your customer. This will allow you to best satisfy that customer no matter how wrong they were.
  
  What it is most important for you to realise right now is that your customer is most likely not the best educated on the product you are selling, how it will meet their need or even if its what they really want. Customers can be incredibly ignorant and illogical. Which leads me to my next point –
  
  
• You can only succeed in business by selling what people want
  
  Too many business owners know that the product the customers want is not the best product to fill their needs. I find many owners in this instance won't obtain this product for that reason and try to steer the customer away from that and onto another product.
  
  In many cases this is a very professional and responsible thing to do – In many other cases however, it will loose you the immediate sale AND future repeat business from that customer. If the customer really wants it – don't get in the way of the sale. Get the product for the customer.
  
  So many times in businesses I have seen a store owner who for his own personal bias decides not to carry a particular product or range of products from a supplier. He assumes that as he has other similar items, he can direct the customer to one of those.
  
  Perhaps that worked many years ago, but it does NOT work now.
  
  Customers are far more savvy – they have usually done some research on the internet about the product that caught their attention. When they go into your store, they are looking for that product and ONLY that product.
  
  If you don't have it, you will loose the sale – You may also be surprised to find how far the average customer will drive to go to a store where they know that particular product is for sale. You may think you just lost one sale and it wasn't worth getting that product in for one sale, but that is not the case.
  
  Many times customers won't even ask you about the product. They come in, look around, can't see what they are after and move onto the next store.
  
  So you see, through your own bias as to what the customers should be buying, you are not only loosing sales, but possibly life time customers. Don't let this happen in your business.
  

I can help you with that and every aspect of your business through my step by step, hand holding mentoring program. If you would like more information about this, go to www.SpecialtyShopSuccess.com.

At this site you can access over $2,000 of bonuses for FREE to help you and your business.

© Andrew Carter 2008

Andrew Carter, the Author of the business book Secrets To Retail Riches, is a Business building and marketing specialist who shows retail businesses how to
recession proof their Business, with proven techniques that are easy to implement and highly effective and generate more income for less effort. For more information go to http://www.SpecialtyShopSuccess.com.