Of the many growth strategies available, finding new customers for your products and services is an essential core competency. The key ingredient is lead generation—finding suspects who might have a need. There are lots of ways—networking, direct mail, telemarketing, advertising, industry events, speaking opportunities, referral sources, search engine optimization, social networking, door-to-door discovery calls—it’s a [...]
“I’m doing okay, making enough money, having some fun— what’s so important about growing my business?” If you don’t have business growth strategies in play, your business is soon going to be shrinking as competitors and other natural forces cause you to lose customers. What’s the essential strategy for finding new customers? A selling system. [...]
What’s the essential business process you have to own in order to grow your business? A selling system. A documented, explainable process that keeps your pipeline full of suspects, prospects, proposals and closed orders. In my experience, fewer than 25 percent of businesses have one. For the rest, each month’s revenue is a surprise—some ok; most [...]
Last quarter, we visited the essential ingredient in your growth strategy—a selling system that delivers enough new and repeat revenue to meet your growth objectives. As a reminder, an effective selling system includes: Lead generation —A repeatable process for finding those who might need your product or service Opportunity development —When prospects put their hands [...]
Today, all over the world, companies are searching for funding-the-life blood that can mean the difference between worldwide success and complete failure. For many, it simply means getting to that “next step” or becoming the next “big thing.” But the funding arena isn’t always as black-and-white as applying for a bank loan. From venture capitalists [...]
After 15 years in public office, André Bauer is now making some changes. But how do you take a very public career—with all its ups and downs —and reinvent who you are and who you will be? Want to subscribe to Business Black Box? 1 year for only $18. Click below.
If your plan is to grow your business, you’ve probably asked, “How am I going to steadily increase my incoming orders year after year?” Chances are, what you need is a selling system— a repeatable process for producing a steadily increasing flow of orders, quarter after quarter, year after year. Most companies don’t have such [...]
Everyone talks about “growing your company.” Why is that important, if you’re satisfied with it as-is? It’s not exactly obvious. Let’s take a look at the two big underlying reasons that growth is important, if not essential, to your company’s future. First, it’s almost impossible to hold a business at steady state— it’s either growing [...]
