If you are looking to take your business to the next level, you must first identify and prioritize your tasks. In other words, you must clearly understand which tasks create revenue and you must focus a huge majority of your time doing these tasks.
In my opinion, there are 3 major tasks that all entrepreneurs should spend a majority of their time working on. They are listed below:
1. New Customer Acquisition - One of your major goals is to find new customers for your business. You can achieve this by spending a large amount of your time and budget on sales and marketing. You must first develop an effective marketing campaign. In other words, how are you going to find new customers?
Once you have an effective marketing campaign, you must close sales. You need to follow up with people who responded to your advertising and expressed interest in your product or service. The best way to do this is by picking up the phone and calling the person. Be sure you "ask for the sale."
2. Taking Care of Current Customers - It never ceases to amaze me how many companies forget about their current customers. Let me give you an example. How many times has the car salesperson or dealership contacted you since you purchased your last vehicle? How many times have they called you, sent you an email or sent you a card asking if there was anything they could do for you?
In my case, never. And when I need to purchase my next vehicle, I will take my business somewhere else. So many companies make this mistake. Please realize that your customer list is your greatest asset. Nurture it. Take care of it. It's a gold-mine, if you know how to follow up.
Remember, it's easier and cheaper to sell a new product or service to an existing customer than it is to find a new customer. That's why you should stay in touch with your current customers on a weekly or monthly basis. You can do this very easily by using an auto-responder.
3. Develop Systems - One of the greatest things you can do to improve the effectiveness of your business is to create systems. Systems are processes. Whether you are a one person show or have employees, systems will improve the efficiency of your organization.
Systems include checklists, standard operating procedures, policies, procedures and so forth. When you find an effective way to do something, you should take some time to record the steps you followed to accomplish that task. That way, anyone you hire can simply follow your steps and achieve the same results.
It's something we do very well in the military. Most units have standard operating procedures for a wide variety of tasks, such as supply, maintenance, personnel and so forth. When a new soldier arrives at the unit, he or she can read these procedures and have a thorough understanding of how things are supposed to work. You must do the same thing for your business.
In summary, your primary goal as an entrepreneur is to make a profit. To do this, you must learn how to be effective. To be effective, you must use wise time management. You must take care of your current customers. You need to obtain new customers. And you need to create systems for everything you do. By doing so, you will eventually become a success.
