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| Be A Competitor! |
If you have been in business for awhile you do not need someone to remind you about taking risks. Your life has been surrounded by risk taking adventures, some of them are higher than others. Nobody needs to write a few words down to remind you about risk. Risk has become your life.
One thing I know about the consistency of human beings, however, we can always count on the fact that they will get comfortable doing things they are used to doing. Whatever the business leader decides to do with the motions they apply to their business model, for the most part, that is what they will become the most comfortable in doing. The steps of actions they perform become their own personal MO, method of operation.
Each business leader has their own MO. I have mine. You have yours. They are what they are. It is within this set of particular MO's that we each develop how our business development unfolds. Regardless of the turning of a new year, our standard MO's will continue to govern how our business model performs. We will today produce exactly tomorrow what we have been producing yesterday. A physical change in the calendar pages we flip has nothing to do with how we operate our wares and motions. We will produce a series of results that will likely perform exactly the same way we have been performing in the past. Changing into a new year has absolutely nothing to do with helping us change the pattern of results our current business produces. The new calendar on my kitchen wall does not make any decisions for my business models. Those decisions are made by me.
With these truths purely understood, how did 2012 work out for you? Did your business develop some great results? Did you have some volume growth? Did you produce a healthy profit? Were you able to develop a better staff? Were you able to secure some great financing? Did you capture a larger market share? Did you invest wisely and improve your customer attraction policies? Did you develop some new innovations? Did you test market some new ideas? Did you revitalize your hopes and dreams? Did you reduce some of the lingering debt? Were you able to refine your business plan? Were you able to train others more effectively? Were you able to delegate some stronger tasks to some credible associates? Did you establish improvements next to the long-term relationships you own with those business leaders outside your business model who can help you grow? Did you introduce any new ideas, new theories, new methods or any new products in 2012? Did you add any new customer service benefits in 2012? Somewhere along this line of questioning you better be answering some of these inquiries with a yes here and there. If they are all coming up no, what did you do in 2012? Did you get used to doing what you have become comfortable in doing? Did you eliminate taking risks? All of this inquiry leads to one simple question.
What kind of business will you have in 2013?
Page two.
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| It Is Perfectly Fine To Become The Only One Who Gets It! |
Low and behold, it works. They moved the stuff, learned how to package and ship the sold items to the buyers and got paid to get rid of these items they no longer desired to keep. It worked.
As time went on, they became pretty good at casually posting a few extra unwanted items and discarding them for a small profit. This worked, too.
In 2012, this small business decided to take that game of selling disposed items more seriously. Here comes the list of introductions initiated during the year of 2012 for that little business model.
Established a routine working schedule. Learned how to discover the online payment software for making collections and payments a cinch to perform. Learned how to package efficiently. Learned how to pre-print mailing labels to conserve postage costs and time spent at a post office. Developed a small business plan for improving customer service. Got very serious about improving customer relationships. Initiated an improved customer service set of wonderful "no questions asked" set of policies. Began a shopping program to find discarded but desired products to be able to re-sale. Used a simple budget to create an open-to-buy process. Found a particular niche of products to present for re-sale that characterizes this store online. Improved packaging for safe product delivery. Become obsessed with searching for better cost materials and supplies to improve profitability. Began a personalized approach to customer communications. Improved the efforts to build client relationships. Added new product lines. Discovered better suppliers. Improved some marketing techniques and added some timely sales. Solicited help when business growth exceeded the ability to service it well. Introduced improved online photos of the products sold. Invested in studio ready props and backdrops to help improve product photo presentations. Developed the best area for studio photo shoots that produce better lighting and end results. Took advantage of new online discounts offered for posting products with the improved volume growth of the business. Became very serious about serving sold products with immediate, no-delay, shipping procedures. Formulated a much improved customer respect set of business policies. Began tracking sales, costs, expenses and revenues. Improved booking procedures. These were just some of the small changes made in this little business during 2012.
The results?
Sales exceeding a 400% growth. Profits exceeding 450% growth. Deposits up over 2011 by hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Self-worth up 1000%. Business acumen experiences up 1000%. Financial potential up. Net worth up. Debt reduction, improved. Life solvency, improved. Marketing research desire, increased. Business accounting desire, increased. Online posting ability, drastically improved. Time management skills, very much improved. Leadership qualities, improved. Extra spending cash, improved.
These results all being produced during the tail end of one of this countries nastiest recessions. How was your 2012 year of business? What added risks did you take? What added improvements were you willing to perform? Which areas of slack did you have to remove? Which concepts of misunderstandings required the most change? What do your end numbers reflect? These are worthy questions to ask yourself if you plan on winning in business during 2013. Victory does not happen all by itself. You must accept the fact that your risk factors need to be tested at a much higher level if you are going to produce any wins in 2013. Winning in business is not automatic. It requires some serious risk taking efforts.
This might be a simple example of a simple business model, however, the process is exactly the same for a multi-million dollar model. The mechanics are not different. The approach is not different. The MO for winning in one small business versus a monster large one is as identical as it comes. When it comes to flipping the new year calendar over to the next page, what kind of business will you have in 2013?
If 2012 was flat for your business production, by all means, do what this little operator did. Get serious about building it. Step out of the normal stuff you have become used to accepting and start developing a brand new approach and respect for taking deeper risks. Your business needs you to step up your MO.
Maybe this year, 2013, you might need to stretch a little bit more. Do not allow the small timers to out run your potential. I watch one do it just fine. What recession?
Until next time...
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