5 Steps to Serving More (and better quality) Customers

It’s the end of 2015 Q2 today. That means half the year is gone – aarrrhh! Are you on track in your business? Is revenue meeting projections? Are you achieving your profitability targets? If you are a small business owner or solopreneur, are you paying yourself what you are worth?

If you can’t answer a big fat YES to those questions, then you have work to do. Right?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. There are loads of businesses like yours, not quite hitting their business goals at the end of Q2. I have to confess, in one of my businesses, I haven’t hit my Q2 targets either, so I’m practising what I’m about to preach. I also know that with lots of focus, the next 6 months can end on a high. Let’s end 2015 with a HUGE flourish within our businesses.

People do business with people – That’s a fact! And we prefer to do business with people we like. After all, we spend a lot of time in our businesses. So, here’s my 5 step guide to ensure you attract the right people (customers) to your business; people whom you like and trust, and who are right for your business to serve.

Step 1 – Identify Your Most Profitable and Enjoyable Customers
How? It’s easy. I’ve created a simple tool called the L? Customer Profitability Quadrant which does the work for you. It puts your existing customers into 4 quadrants according to how profitable and enjoyable they are.

The 4 quadrants, are:

“Lots More” – highly profitable and enjoyable customers.
“Lift Up” – highly enjoyable but lower profitability customers.
“Look Out” – low enjoyment and highly profitable customers.
“Lose Them” – low enjoyment and low profitability customers.

Here’s what each quadrant looks like after you’ve done the exercise.

From the descriptions, it’s plain which quadrant you want more of in your business – the “Lots More” customers, of course.

Yet, there are issues to be considered with the other quadrants.

The “Look Out” customers pose a threat to your business because if they leave you, your profitability may be affected (if you have plenty of customers in this group, your profitability will be seriously affected).

The “Lift Up” customers need addressing too as you and your team may be over delivering to them as they are enjoyable people to serve, but that is not time well spent at present as they aren’t profitable enough for you.

The “Lose Them” customers are generally a drain on your business and are often price shoppers, so do you really want them?

Click here to download my free E-book that shows you how to create your own L? Customer Profitability Quadrant. I promise it’s really easy to work out.

Step 2 – Define the Common Features of the Customers in Your “Lots More” Quadrant
In all situations I find that when an analysis is done on the types of customers that make up the “Lots More” quadrant, there are common features. There will often be a grouping of industries that they are in, or geographic locations, or you may be selling similar products or services to them.

Do the work to define what the common characteristics are, as you will be able to use this information to target more potential customers like these ones. Don’t try and be everything to everybody. Identify your niche and focus on it.

Step 3 – Evaluate the Key Needs, Wants and Desires of Your “Lots More” Customers
Become really clear on what it is your “Lots More” customers need, want and desire. This is important, as you will only be successful in selling more to them or other customers like them if you truly understand those drivers.

Step 4 – Articulate Your Value Proposition
Do you really know what your value proposition is for your “Lots More” customers? Please spend the time working it out. How are you different? What enables you to serve those customers perfectly so that they return time and again to buy from your business, and hopefully be cheerleaders for your business.

Step 5 – Laser Planning the Next 6 Months
Armed with all the information in steps 1-4, it’s time to create a business/marketing plan for the rest of the year.

In summary, your plan will include the following:

Strategies to reconnect with your existing “Lots More” Customers, checking in on them and their businesses or lives, and reminding them of your value proposition, products and services.
Strategies to identify and market your business to potential customers who are have the same profile as those in your “Lots More“ quadrant. If you are good at serving a particular type of customer, go and find more people just like them.
A ‘sort out’ plan to address the issues with your “Look Out” customers. They are highly profitable to your business, so you don’t really want to lose them. Work out why you aren’t enjoying working with them. Resolve the issues and build bridges. Turn them into “Lots More” Customers too.
A ‘sort out’ plan to address the issues with your “Lift Up” customers. You enjoy working with them, but they are not profitable enough for your business. Do you really know what their needs, wants and desires are? How can you better serve them so they buy more profitably from you and also become “Lots More” customers?
A ‘good-bye’ plan to exit the “Lose Them” customers from your business. They are not suited to the products/service you offer, so you are better to facilitate them being served by another business, and then you can focus on your “Lots More” customers.

That’s it. It’s time to do the work. Follow steps 1-5 and watch your revenue and profitability soar by the end of Q4 2015. I’m excited. I hope you are too.

ACTION: I’d love to hear how business is going for you as at the end of Q2. How about sharing your situation below? If your business is going well, tell us what you’re doing. If you need a renewed focus, then email me. Perhaps a 30 mins free Business Growth Strategy Skype call might be just what you need to get ‘back on the straight and narrow’.

Could some guidance from me be helpful to you? If so, please arrange a free 30 mins Skype strategy meeting with me. Here’s my calendar to book a meeting. I’d love to support you in some way to gain ‘seductive clarity’ in any aspect of your business or life.

Business Success Tips : Meet Paul Young

Paul Young
Alternative Financing and Crowd Funding Expert

Has the bank recently turned you down when applying for a loan to grow your business? Sadly, that has been the experience of many viable and growing small businesses since the 2008 global financial crisis.

If you are hoping to scale your business, how are you going to do it if you can’t access bank funding? This is yet another dilemma facing many excellent businesses and entrepreneurs around the world.

Fear not! In light of the global financial crisis, new and innovative financing options have been created.

What started as a novel funding alternative has now become main stream… and the banks are taking note!

How much do you know about the alternative financing and crowd funding markets? There is a lot to learn if you want to access them; they are very exciting and innovative funding options too, so I hope you take the time to get to grips with this topic.

Meet my friend, Paul Young. He is an alternative financing and crowd funding expert. Listen to the interview I recently undertook with Paul, and learn loads about this fascinating global funding market.

We talked about the donation/reward funding mechanisms (as promoted by kickstarter.com and indiegogo.com) and the more serious debt (peer to peer)and equity crowd funding mechanisms.

Learn all about this new and seriously viable funding source as a possibility to scale your own business.

You can listen to the original Interview with Paul Young here:

To connect with Paul Young:
W: www.sme-connect.co.uk

Adèle hosts an interview series entitled:

• Successful Entrepreneurs’ Stories : Adèle McLay Interviews…..
• Business Success Tips : Adèle McLay Interviews …..

…where she interviews successful entrepreneurs from around the world, asking them to share their entrepreneurial stories, and other business ‘subject matter experts’ who share business success tips. If you would like to be art of Adèle’s success community and receive the interviews and much more directly to your inbox, please click here.

Listen to more Subject Matter Experts and be inspired in the Business Success Tips: Adèle McLay Interviews….. YouTube and Podcast series:

Other articles on What Makes Successful Entrepreneurs:

Do You Compete On Price? Bad Business Decision!!

The price a business owner establishes for the sale of their products and services is arguably one of the most important business decisions they will make. And yet, pricing is one of the most feared elements in managing a business.

One of the many conversations I have with business owners is on pricing, and those discussions usually start with me saying, “Your prices are too low.” They look at me in shock and often respond with all the reasons why they cannot raise their prices:

I’ve lost jobs because I was too expensive.
I’m more expensive than some of my competitors.
I’m barely making enough profit as it is, and I can’t afford to lose customers by raising prices.
You have got to be joking— put my prices up in this depressed market?

Responses like that generally indicate those business owners don’t understand the impact pricing has on a customer’s perception of their business and its branding in the market. I have a business mantra: “Never compete on price”.

If your prices are too low, your market will label you a low-end player and you’ll attract bargain hunters who will invariably try to get you to discount your products even further. Lower prices also make it unlikely your business will build long-term relationships with customers, who by their very nature will shop around to get the best prices on a product or service, not staying loyal to any one business.

Higher pricing raises customers’ expectations of a business, which can be a challenge. But if you constantly deliver on those expectations your business will usually enjoy customer loyalty, and you will attract a better quality customer that is willing to pay more for quality customer service.

It comes down to branding. What does your business, your brand stand for? What is the promise you make to your customers? Branding is about building a relationship with your customers, and over time they expect certain things from your brand, as that is what you have promised them.

A brand can turn something that is pedestrian or homogenous into something that is unique and that stands out from the crowd, regardless of the market. If a business is branded it can set you apart from the rest. A strong brand builds respect, loyalty and retention, and allows a business to set its pricing strategy accordingly.
Dr Michael LeBoeuf, international business consultant, focuses a lot of his work on how to win customers and keep them. He created a matrix based on extensive research on why customers leave a business.

Based on that research, of those customers who leave a business, only 9 percent leave due to pricing, whereas 82 percent of customers leave because they are not treated as special or there is an unresolved conflict. In essence, they leave due to a lack of customer service.

Therefore, key to the success of your business is not worrying about the price you charge your customers, but concentrating on the customer value proposition you deliver to your customers to keep them happy and returning for more. It’s about going beyond the call of duty to provide value and service to your customers. It’s about creating customer cheerleaders, customers who will be loyal to your business for a long time and at the same time, will refer their family and friends to your business too.

Pricing is not an arbitrary decision; all businesses should have a pricing strategy. When determining your business’s pricing strategy, the key is to determine your value proposition for your customers, rather than pitching your business against your competition and attempting to undercut them to win more customers.

Get that right and your brand will create an impression in your market, and you can price your products and services according to that positioning.

Never compete on price. That is a business decision that will see you, your business, and your staff and suppliers lose in the end. Why? Because, if you are prepared to discount your price once, you will do it again and again. At the beginning, in order to maintain your profits, you can create increased operational efficiency within your business to compensate for reducing your prices. If you continue to reduce your prices, then eventually you will need to reduce your staff numbers or their pay (or both), and no doubt you will also be asking your suppliers to reduce their prices to you. Do that for long enough, then your staff can’t afford to work for you and your suppliers won’t be able to afford to supply your business, so you won’t have a business. It is a lose/lose business strategy.

A brand is a differentiator. A brand is an image. A brand is a promise. A brand is an experience. A brand is a perception. A brand can move a business or a person from the ocean of obscurity to the river of relevance and riches. Focus on building your business brand, and the need to compete on price will be a thing of the past as will the fear of making pricing decisions.

Other articles on Branding, Marketing and Pricing:

Is Customer Service YOUR Key to Business Success?
Creating Superior Customer Value – do you do that in your business?
Which are Your Most Profitable Customers?
Finding Customers via LinkedIn
Using YouTube for Finding Customers
Who Wants High Customer Retention?
Increase Your Prices and Make More Profit
What is a Customer?
What is Business Marketing?
What’s your Personal Brand?

Entrepreneurial Success Without Fulfilment: Who Wants That?

What makes a successful entrepreneur? Owning a big and financially successful business? Selling a business for a tonne of money? Having all the assets/toys that represent success? Having business and life choice?

Perhaps it is all of those. Perhaps it is none of those. In my experience an entrepreneur can have some or all of those achievements and still feel empty inside.

I have met and worked with many business owners whose businesses are worth millions, or they have sold their businesses for millions and as a result they have lots of money and choice, but still, they are not happy.

Why? Because they are not fulfilled! They don’t have a sense of purpose to their life that in some way is fulfilled through their business. Life is too short to live without fulfilment, don’t you think?

What’s another word for fulfilment? PASSION! For me, to live with passion is to live with meaning, purpose and fulfilment. That is what makes a successful entrepreneur. There are many examples of passionate and successful entrepreneurs…. they exude life, purpose and fulfilment within their business and that reflects in the quality of their life: Sir Richard Branson, Jamie Oliver, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg to name a few. How many can you name?

As we edge towards the end of 2014, are you planning 2015 for your business? I hope so. I also hope that you are planning your own life for 2015 and beyond too. It is never too late to plan your life. Start now if you have not done it before; create your life plan. How can you integrate your personal passions into your entrepreneurial life so that you get a real sense of fulfilment through your business?

Think about these important questions:

Who are you?
What matters to you in your life?
What are your personal values?
What do you want to do?
What do you want to share with the world?
Why do you want to share it with the world?
If you didn’t have to work because you had enough money to sustain your lifestyle, what would you be doing?
Where are you in life now versus where do you want to be?
What would make your life fabulous NOW on YOUR terms?

Take this exercise and thinking time seriously, and DREAM big. For me DREAM means: Destiny Represented Evocatively, Actively and Magnetically.

Then ask yourself the really BIG question. How congruent are your personal life goals with what you are doing in business? If they are congruent, then you will be feeling fulfilment in and passion for your business as you will be working with purpose. Plus others with notice it too. You will exude vitality and life.

If there is little congruence, then it is highly likely that you are not being fulfilled through your business and therefore, you are not living with purpose. You will feel underwhelmed with the outcomes of your entrepreneurial success and life, and quite possibly, you will feel overwhelmed by your day to day work.

In summary, you will not feel alive! And sadly, others will notice it too; your staff, your customers, your suppliers. You might have what looks to others as all the business and financial success in the world, but you will not feel successful. Live to be alive!

For me it is called VIVA Leadership™ – Vision Internalised is Vision Actualised™: internal clarity and ownership and achievement of our personal vision, and congruence with our business world creates purpose, fulfilment and a feeling of being totally alive and in command of our lives.

That is what makes a successful entrepreneur. That is the success I support entrepreneurs around the world to achieve. I hope you make 2015 your best year yet for entrepreneurial success and personal and professional fulfilment.

Other articles on What Makes Successful Entrepreneurs:

Seven Secrets of Super Successful Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship vs The Meaning of Life
Mega Entrepreneur Defined!
Supercharge Your Profitable Business!
Leadership Qualities
NZ Entrepreneurship Success
Millionaire Mindset
What Makes Great Entrepreneurial Leaders?
All Work + Little Play = Boring!
7 Secrets of Business Success
Sir Richard Branson Asks…
Ordinary vs Game Changing
Thriving within the Juggling Act
Business Success and Cookie Dough
What Ice Cream Flavour is Your Business?

Which Are Your Most Profitable Customers?

I regularly ask my coaching clients the following three questions:

How many customers do you have?
Which customers are the most profitable for your business?
Which customers do you enjoy working with the most and why?

The last question is the easiest for my clients to answer because they can give me an emotional response rather than a fact-based response. The first two questions require analysis of their business, and most of my clients have usually not done that prior to meeting me.

I find that most businesses I work with have never actively thought about the profile of the customer they would like for their business. In pondering this issue, I devised a four quadrant approach to customer profitability and management. I call it my ‘L⁴ Customer Profitability Quadrant’.

Understanding the L⁴ Customer Profitability Quadrant’s power in relation to your business will require spending a bit of time working out the numbers. The gross margin for each customer needs to be calculated as follows:

Customer Gross Margin = Total Customer Sales – COGS for Customer/ Total Customer Sales x 100

So for instance, if Customer 24 buys $2000 of services in one year, and the cost of goods sold is $900, then the equation is:

Customer 24 Gross Margin = 2000-900/2000 x 100 = 55 percent

Using my example above, the customer gross margin calculation means that with the combination of products and services sold to Customer 24, the gross margin is 55 percent.

Another way of stating this is that for every $1000 of sales made to Customer 24, $550 contributes to the business’s gross profit.

We then rank all customers for enjoyment with 1 being low enjoyment and difficult to work with, and 10 being very enjoyable and easy to work with.

Once this information has been determined it is plotted to create the L⁴ Customer Profitability Quadrant as depicted in Table A.

Table A

Customers fall into four quadrants.

In the bottom left quadrant are the customers that are low in profitability and enjoyment, so I call this the ‘Lose Them’ quadrant.

In the top left quadrant we have highly profitable customers, but the enjoyment factor is low. I call this the ‘Look Out’ quadrant.

In the bottom right quadrant, are the customers that are really enjoyable to work with but they are not very profitable to the business. I call this the ‘Lift Up’ quadrant.

In the top right quadrant are the customers that are highly profitable and are highly enjoyable to work with. I call this the ‘Lots More’ quadrant.

‘Lose Them’ Quadrant
I wonder how many businesses have customers that are really hard going and not very profitable to the business? This type of customer sucks the life out of the business. Because this type of customer is difficult to work with, they will also often be time consuming to service. Having to work with customers that fall in this category is a waste of time and energy. That time and energy would be better spent working with enjoyable and profitable customers and finding more profitable customers for the business.

‘Look Out’ Quadrant
Customers that sit in the ‘Look Out’ quadrant are a challenge and risk to a business. They are highly profitable, but they are not enjoyable to work with. As this is a high risk quadrant, personally I don’t think any business should have too many customers sitting in it. Rather, they need to be moved to the ‘Lots More’ quadrant or out of your business.

The challenge with these customers is the profit they contribute to your business, notwithstanding the low enjoyment factor. If these customers were to leave your business, it potentially results in a major impact on profitability. Yet, because the enjoyment factor is low, there is a real chance they may not be loyal to your business, so there is a flight risk; they could find another supplier at any time and therefore impact the turnover and profitability of your business anyway.

‘Lift Up’ Quadrant
Customers in this ‘Lift Up’ quadrant pose a quandary for your business. They are good customers to deal with and service, and are probably highly loyal to your business, yet they are not very profitable. Often, because these customers are good to deal with, your staff will ‘over service’ them in order to maintain the interaction, because it is enjoyable.

This is actually an easy dilemma to resolve. These ‘Lift Up’ customers are already wedded to your business, so given the opportunity the chances are very high that they will want to buy more from you. Often customers are not aware of the full range of products offered by a business, or the business has not considered the full requirements of the customer in making offers. Depending on your business, the easiest way to address this situation is to find out more about what your customers do and what they might need from your business, and make offers.

‘Lots More’ Quadrant
These customers are your goldmines, and should be treated like kings and queens. They are highly profitable to your business, and they are enjoyable to work with.

The key here is to analyse what makes them enjoyable to work with: is it the company; the industry; the type of products and services they buy?

Once you have analysed this for your business, you can start working on targeting more of the same types of customers to your business.

Finally…
If you would like to read more about my L⁴ Customer Profitability Quadrant and how it could be applied to your business, then please go to www.adelemclay.com/free-resources and download the FREE E-book entitled: Who Are you Most Profitable Customers? This resource will help you to fully understand the nature of your customers and find ‘Lots More’ highly profitable and enjoyable customers for your business.

Other articles on Branding, Marketing and Pricing:

Increase Your Prices and Make More Profit
Do You Compete on Price? Bad Business Decision!!
Is Customer Service YOUR Key to Business Success?
Creating Superior Customer Value – do you do that in your business?
Finding Customers via LinkedIn
Using YouTube for Finding Customers
Who Wants High Customer Retention?
What is a Customer?
What is Business Marketing?
What’s your Personal Brand?

Small Business Cash Flow – The Ultimate Guide

Small Business Cash Flow – what is it?

Cash flow is the sum of all the cash received into your business, less all the cash payments being made from your business. Positive cash flow is when there is more cash coming into the business than is being paid out of it. Negative cash flow is when there is more cash being paid out of the business than is being received by the business.

Small Business Cash flow issues arise in a small business for two major reasons:

The small business doesn’t have enough revenue (gross income) coming into the business compared to its expenses, and/or
The small business doesn’t have good internal financial management and administration procedures in place to support the business. This could mean the business has difficulty collecting its accounts receivables; it has too much cash tied up in stock; and/or it is spending too much money on business overheads/expenses/assets.

Many small businesses mostly focus on gross income and profit – before or after tax. While both are important in business, cash flow is the life blood of all businesses, and without it they eventually die.

Yet, very few small business entrepreneurs spend much time thinking about cash flow or understand how critical a business driver it is. The key transactions in business that affect cash flow are:

Sales (cash and credit).
Purchases (inventory and business expenses).
Business loans (new and repayments).
Business assets (buying and selling them).
Investments

The key principles of good cash flow management are simple. Firstly, the small business needs to ensure it has more income coming into the business than expenses; and the business needs to have its accounts receivable paid on time so it can pay its own creditors.

I have developed the SPEARHead System™ – 50 Strategies for Supercharged Small Business Cash Flow to support entrepreneurs to manage their cash flow. For the FREE E-book, please click here www.adelemclay.com/free-resources

What does SPEARHead System™ mean?

The SPEARHead System™ covers all aspects of small business cash flow as follows:

S – Sales Receivables
P – Payables and Purchases
E – Expense Management
A – Asset Acquisition
R – Residual Cash

Head – how do you ‘Head off’ or ‘SPEARHead’ your competitors to ensure your business never loses a customer and attracts all the customers to it that you are seeking?

For my FREE E-book entitled: SPEARHead System™ – 50 Strategies for Supercharged Small Business Cash Flow please click here http://www.adelemclay.com/free-resources/#spearheadsystem

Let small business cash flow issues be a thing of the past for you and your business.

Other articles on Small Business Cash Flow :

Cash Flow Problems in YOUR Small Business
Small Business Problems – Why are YOU in Business
Small Business Cash Flow Problems
Cash Flow in Business
Cash Flow Projections – Important in Business?
Projected Cash Flow – Relevant in Business?
How to Solve Cash Flow Problems: Inventory Turn

Seven Secrets of Super Successful Entrepreneurs

Do we all need to be like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates to be successful entrepreneurs? They were recognised as being ‘forces of nature’; icons of modern day entrepreneurship. Steve Jobs was known as a creative genius whereas Bill Gates is said to have an iron will. Are those the key traits that entrepreneurs need to success in business?

I have reviewed many international studies on what traits make an entrepreneur successful, and have summarised everything I learned into the Seven Secrets of Super Successful Entrepreneurs.

You might be saying, “Well Bill and Steve did not run small businesses! I don’t need those traits!” I disagree. They started with very small enterprises, working out of their respective garages or bedrooms with their business partners. At one time, they were fledgling businesses but they had a strong vision of what they could achieve… and they went for it. Similarly, all other entrepreneurs could do the same.

Bill Gates believes there are three keys to success in any new venture: Timing, Vision, Action! Steve Jobs believed that passion was key. Anything could be achieved with total belief and passion.

What is your driving force towards being a successful entrepreneur? If you are not sure, perhaps the Seven Secrets of Super Successful Entrepreneurs will assist you.

Secret 1: Self Belief

Successful entrepreneurs always believe in themselves, and they think BIG! They have great vision. They have passion. Successful entrepreneurs have an unrelenting belief that they will achieve everything they set out to do! They have a single-minded commitment to their dream and vision, and an unshakeable passion for what they are doing.

Successful entrepreneurs take massive action. They are not afraid of failure. They can tolerate ambiguity and risk. You see, for every mistake they make, they learn the lessons and move on. Many entrepreneurs have been successful, lost it all, and then built up their wealth again in another business. Successful entrepreneurs are hard wired that way.

As marketing guru Seth Godin says: “The only people who excel are those who have decided to do so”.

Secret 2: Set a Goal and GO!

Successful entrepreneurs set a goal; they make a decision. Then they act on it. They go for it! As well, they will quickly evaluate the outcomes. If the goal and action were wrong, they alter the course of action, and move on. Movement and momentum are keys to success as an entrepreneur.

Successful entrepreneurs are in a hurry. They have a ‘go-for-it’ or ‘get-out-of-it’ attitude!

Successful entrepreneurs will always be accountable, which means they are always responsible for everything that happens in their business.

Secret 3: Stand Out

Successful entrepreneurs don’t look at what others are doing and copy them. Instead they step outside of the box, and head the other way. They break the rules! They forge new and exciting frontiers, or they find new and interesting ways of doing things.

Successful entrepreneurs also network widely as they know by networking they will be increasing their netWORTH – not just in monetary terms, but as an expert in the market. They build a rock solid reputation as more people get to know them.

They are strong relationship builders. Watch a successful entrepreneur at a networking event. They will ‘work the room’, getting to know as many people as possible. They are beginning the process of building relationships that are for two way benefit. Successful entrepreneurs are genuinely interested in the success of others, and will support others towards their success.

Secret 4: Seize Your Market

Successful entrepreneurs have a laser focus on the market that they are in and want to conquer. Consider the differences between a machine gun that scatters bullets versus a sniper gun that aims and hits the target. Successful entrepreneurs want to be snipers! They own their market/industry.

They also trust the process of their market. Successful entrepreneurs recognise that trust takes time and is a process. They give value. For every $1 spent they want to ensure they give at least $5 in value back to their customers. They come from a position of service. It’s all about the customer experience.

Customer profitability is also key; they get to know their customers and in doing so, will understand how they as entrepreneurs can add further value to the customer, which of course leads to increased profitability, and at times, new product/service ideas.

Follow-up and feedback is key! Successful entrepreneurs are fuelled by customer feedback, as it helps them improve their products and services.

Secret 5: Strong Leadership

Successful entrepreneurs are strong leaders, and through others are strong managers.

As leaders, successful entrepreneurs impart their vision to staff, customers and other stakeholders. They are positive and they can tolerate ambiguity while heading towards the achievement of the vision. As a result, they are very flexible, able to change direction when necessary in order to achieve their vision.

As leaders, successful entrepreneurs surround themselves with excellent managers; they build top notch business teams. They are not afraid to have more able people than them working for them. Successful entrepreneurs are excellent delegators to their management team.

Successful entrepreneurs recognise the importance of strong business management, including: financial management, marketing/sales management, operations management and customer service. With the advance of technology, successful entrepreneurs also drive their businesses hard in terms of systemisation, automation and where possible, outsourcing non core functions. They create processes that are replicable through systemisation. Think about what Ray Kroc achieved with McDonald’s.

Secret 6: Sacrosanct: Time!

Time is money, and successful entrepreneurs understand the value of time. We all have 86,400 seconds or 1440 minutes in a 24 hour day. The way in which those minutes and seconds are spent leads to greater or lesser success. Successful entrepreneurs also know how to focus on what is important and how to delegate what they don’t need to focus on. They recognise where they should spend their time and energy.

Successful entrepreneurs recognise that they need to be accessible, but for the right reasons; productive reasons.

Successful entrepreneurs leverage other people’s time; they ensure their employees are working towards the achievement of their vision.

Secret 7: Self Improvement

Successful entrepreneurs spend time on improving themselves. They are attracted to ongoing learning and knowledge, be it books, learning programmes, conferences, watching videos, they soak up new knowledge.

They also allow time to re-energise. They take time out with family and friends for recreation, as that in itself is a form of self improvement.

Often successful entrepreneurs are excellent at other pursuits. For instance, it is widely known that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are phenomenal Bridge (card game) players

Many successful entrepreneurs also take their health seriously, and include exercise as part of their daily routine.

Seven Secrets Unearthed

It is always interesting to hear about what causes others to be successful. But as entrepreneurs ourselves, what are we committing to in our businesses in order to achieve the entrepreneurial success we are seeking?

If you have learned something from the Seven Secrets of Super Successful Small Business Entrepreneurs, what might you change in your business to emulate the behaviours of super successful entrepreneurs?

“The future belongs to those who believe
in the beauty of their dreams.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Stand Out Entrepreneurs (In my opinion)

There are many entrepreneurs across the world that modern day entrepreneurs can take inspiration from. Here are some stand out entrepreneurs who have made a significant impression on me over time. Google them if you have not heard of any of these names.

Who are your inspirational entrepreneurs?

Industry

John D Rockefeller – Oil industry and philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie – Steel industry and philanthropist
Henry Ford – Car industry
Graham Hart – Packaging
Sir Richard Branson – various including air travel
James Dyson – Inventor and industrial designer

Technology

Bill Gates – Microsoft
Steve Jobs – Apple
Mo Ibrahim – technology and now philanthropy
Rob Drury – Xero accounting system

Food

Howard Schultz – Starbucks
Ray Croc –McDonald’s

Internet

Jeff Bezos – Amazon
Mark Zuckerberg – FaceBook
Larry Page and Sergi Brin – Google

Retail

Philip Greene – Fashion industry
Laurence Graff – Diamond industry
Anita Roddick – Body Shop
Estée Lauder – Cosmetics

Entertainment

Walt Disney – I think we all know who he is!
Simon Cowell – Music industry
J. K Rowling – Harry Potter books
Oprah Winfrey – TV and publishing
Martha Stewart – TV, publishing and retail

If you would like to learn more about business, please download any/all of the FREE resources that may be helpful to you at www.adelemclay.com/free-resources

Other articles on What Makes Successful Entrepreneurs:

Entrepreneurship vs The Meaning of Life
What Makes Great Entrepreneurial Leaders?
All Work + Little Play = Boring!
Entrepreneurial Success without Fulfilment: Who Wants That?
Millionaire Mindset
NZ Entrepreneurship Success
Leadership Qualities
Supercharge Your Profitable Business!
Mega Entrepreneur Defined!
7 Secrets of Business Success
Sir Richard Branson Asks…
Ordinary vs Game Changing
Thriving within the Juggling Act
Business Success and Cookie Dough
What Ice Cream Flavour is Your Business?

Supercharge Your Profitable Business!

Many small business entrepreneurs enter the world of self employment with a technical skill that they learnt, while generally working for someone else. When they decide to take the leap and become an entrepreneur, they are in the sea of unknown. Will they sink or swim?

I believe that it is now the time of the small business entrepreneur. Worldwide, small business success is the key to all economies improving. Across the world, if we had highly profitable and successful small businesses employing people, how different would the economic world be right now?

To have a profitable business, I believe there are 10 key strategies, that if implemented, will transform a small business. So what are they?

Mindset – if the small business entrepreneur has a dream for their business, believes they can achieve it, they will move mountains to achieve the success they dream of. A positive mindset is critical to success.

Lifelong Learning – I believe we can never know enough. If an entrepreneur is constantly learning new business skills, and importantly, implementing the new knowledge, they will achieve the business success and business profits they are seeking.

Cash Flow Management – My favourite saying is: Turnover = Vanity; Profit = Reality; Cash Flow = Reality!! By having effective cash flow management systems in place to ensure the business remains in positive cash flow, the small business entrepreneur will have a viable business. While cash is not profit, if it is not collected, it will never become profit, as it will be written off as a bad debt.

Monthly Financial Management – do you know the difference between annual financial accounts and monthly financial management? Get effective management financial management systems in place, and your business will never be the same as you will ‘tweak’ your business performance and profitability throughout the year.

Product and Service Profitability – Do you know which are your most profitable products and services? Understand this, and your promotional campaigns will be driven around your most profitable products and services. All that leads to more profitability.

Customer Profitability – Do you receive any and all customers that come your way? Many businesses do. Understand your existing customer profitability, and strategically seek out more of the same types of customers, and you will watch your business profits soar.

Cross, Up, Down, Frequently Selling – Many businesses do not make further offers to their customers that support the original sale, and nor do they have strategies in place to sell to their existing customers more frequently. Get this right, and you will be selling more and more frequently to your customers, resulting in more profit in your business.

Pricing – My favourite subject in business. Your customers will pay for what they value, yet pricing is one of the scariest subjects for small business. Get your value proposition for your customers right, and you can charge more.

Finding ‘Lots More’ Customers – Most small business entrepreneurs do not have marketing strategies in place to identify, market and communicate with potential customers. Did you know that it takes approximately seven interactions with a potential customer before they will buy from you? Many businesses (big and small) do not invest enough time and resources to continue marketing to their potential customers.

Systems, Automation and Outsourcing – Another of my favourite subjects. Does your business have a systemised and automated approach to business or is it a ‘random’ experience that your customers have when they buy from you? Get this right and a business is scalable upwards. Similarly with outsourcing, as it provides many opportunities for the small business to ‘look’ bigger than it actually is simply due to outsourcing some of the activities that the small business entrepreneur cannot or should not be doing.

If you would like to learn more about finding more profitable customers for your business, please download any of the FREE resources that may be helpful to you at www.adelemclay.com/free-resources

Other articles on What Makes Successful Entrepreneurs:

Seven Secrets of Super Successful Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship vs The Meaning of Life
Mega Entrepreneur Defined!
What Makes Great Entrepreneurial Leaders?
All Work + Little Play = Boring!
Entrepreneurial Success without Fulfilment: Who Wants That?
Millionaire Mindset
NZ Entrepreneurship Success
Leadership Qualities
7 Secrets of Business Success
Sir Richard Branson Asks…
Ordinary vs Game Changing
Thriving within the Juggling Act
Business Success and Cookie Dough
What Ice Cream Flavour is Your Business?

Millionaire Mindset

Guest blog by Dr Jane Cox

Today, we live in a world today that is extremely fast paced and ever changing. We live in danger of getting bogged down in the rat race. The time equals money trap.

Wealthy and/or fulfilled people have a different mindset – a millionaire mindset: they operate on the same clock, they too have 24 hours in their day, but have an abundance of free time to use as they please.

How do they do it? Because they have the right mindset – a millionaire mindset. T he right mindset is key

The body achieves what the mind believes!

For most people the challenge is for them to change their beliefs about money and their own worth.

The struggle for most people is that our beliefs tend to be generalisations about our past, based on our interpretations of painful and pleasurable experiences. Most of us do not consciously decide what we are going to believe. Instead; our beliefs are often misinterpretations of past events.

But the mind is like a garden; if you want to change what grows you have to first change the seeds you plant.

A great way, in fact the only way, to start a change in ingrained beliefs, i.e. our current mindset, is create real clarity of purpose.

Knowing exactly what you want will change the way you think, feel and act at any moment. From the moment you gain a strong sense of clarity for a task, you will create focus. Focus means that you are in control and putting your life in the direction that you want go.

Happiness and wealth come from clarity; when you know what you want and you are moving towards your target. These dynamic movements create happiness and wealth. People who fail to gain or maintain clarity, lose track of time, suffer from confusion and feel like they are constantly playing catch up.

People with a millionaire mindset ANTICIPATE, they don’t REACT.

The best first step to developing your millionaire mindset is to ask yourself these questions:

What is my vision?
What do I really want?
What is my mission?
What is my purpose?
What specific actions do I need to take?
What will happen if I don’t do this?

Without (honest) answers to these questions you can’t begin to develop clarity and without clarity you can’t even begin to develop a millionaire mindset.

My 10 top “shortcut” tips to a millionaire mindset.

Change your thoughts and you change your world. Realise that you have as much ability to make money as anyone else.
Keep your mind open for opportunity. Read, listen, observe, and take note of where business gaps exist, or opportunities for investment may be found.
Step outside of your comfort zone.
Be prepared to put in the work to make the money.
Recognise that money is a tool, and tools are there to be used.
When you lose your fear of money, money loses its fear of you.
You might not feel able to make a million, but you could well make £100 one thousand times. It’s the same thing.
Get into the habit of spending less money than you make.
Know your strengths and abilities. They are worth a lot of money to you.
Keep learning. The more you educate your mind, the more knowledge you have to share and utilise.

Dr Jane Cox is a business psychologist, who works with large corporates and entrepreneurs, supporting them on a range of business issues, including leadership, communication, performance improvement, and much more. Dr Cox and Adèle McLay are business partners, having created the Millionaire Entrepreneur Business School that is launching in 2015.

Other articles on What Makes Successful Entrepreneurs:

Seven Secrets of Super Successful Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship vs The Meaning of Life
Mega Entrepreneur Defined!
Supercharge Your Profitable Business!
Leadership Qualities
NZ Entrepreneurship Success
What Makes Great Entrepreneurial Leaders?
All Work + Little Play = Boring!
Entrepreneurial Success without Fulfilment: Who Wants That?
7 Secrets of Business Success
Sir Richard Branson Asks…
Ordinary vs Game Changing
Thriving within the Juggling Act
Business Success and Cookie Dough
What Ice Cream Flavour is Your Business?

How to Solve Cash Flow Problems: Inventory Turn

Effectively managing inventory is critical when asking “How do I solve my small business cash flow problems?” In many respects inventory is like cash. Sell the inventory and you have cash (once the accounts receivable is paid). Having too much inventory in the warehouse or having inventory that is not selling, is going to have a major impact on cash flow, as you have spent money buying the inventory, but it is sitting there doing nothing. If it is not selling, it is as good as wasted cash!

So, how to solve cash flow problems? Focus on actively managing your inventory turns.

In accounting terms, we have a little formula called the ‘Inventory Turn’ which helps businesses to effectively manage their cash flow. The Inventory Turn formula is calculated as:

Inventory Turn = Cost of Goods Sold / Average Inventory

Average Inventory = Beginning Inventory + Ending Inventory / 2

Inventory Turns can be worked out for any period – a year, six months, quarter etc. Whatever suits the business. Often it is helpful to calculate multi-period Inventory Turns to ensure the result is consistent across a longer period.

Let’s look at an example. If the cost of goods sold for a year is $200,000 and the average inventory is £50,000 then the Inventory Turn is 4, which means the inventory is ‘turning over’ or being sold, on average 4 times per year over every 91.25 days (worked out by dividing 4 by 365 days in the year).

Inventory Turns differ in industries, so it is important to look at what the industry norms are for your industry. Perhaps you accountant might be able to assist you in providing that information. Equally, industry associations often hold that type of information.

So how does Inventory Turn help to answer the question, ““How do I solve my small business cash flow problems?”

As I mentioned earlier, if you have a lot of inventory sitting and not being sold, that is effectively wasted cash or dead cash, as you have paid for the inventory. It is important to be turning your inventory as often as is suitable for your industry. Whereas a high inventory turn might be suitable in the grocery trade, it will be low in the luxury car market, for example.

Also, it pays to look at the composition of what stock is selling and what is not, as the ‘devil is in the detail’. Some inventory may be turning over quickly, whereas other stock may not. It is important to look beyond the numbers to actually see what stock is selling.

Slow moving stock may be obsolete or damaged, and therefore chewing up cash. In that instance, it is best to ‘fire sell’ it if possible to release the cash, rather than throwing the inventory away at some future time.

If you would like to learn more on how to address the cash flow issues in your business, then please go to www.adelemclay.com/free-resources and download my SPEARHead System™ – 50 Strategies For Supercharged Small Business Cash Flow.

Other articles on Small Business Cash Flow:

Small Business Cash Flow – The Ultimate Guide
Cash Flow Problems in YOUR Small Business
Small Business Cash Flow Problems
Cash Flow in Business
Cash Flow Projections – Important in Business?
Projected Cash Flow – Relevant in Business?
Small Business Problems: Why are YOU in Business?