Need to Get Control of Your Business?
Do you ever have the feeling that your business is running you instead of you running it? We’ve all been there! Your to-do list keeps getting longer and longer, you’ve got 100 issues to deal with, and no matter what you do it seems like you aren’t making any more money.
That’s when you need to step back, take a deep breath and look at what you’re doing.
If you keep trying to out run your issue and solve your problems by doing the same ol’ things, you shouldn’t expect different results. Doing that will only leave you in the same exact place, or worse, next month…next year.
If you want to make more money, have more freedom and start owning your business instead of having it own you, you need to follow these 5 simple steps to get control of your business.
Clear Up Your Vision
It’s almost like we’ve forgotten what it takes to reach our destination. With GPS and mobile phone mapping technology, you simply punch in the address or destination and it tells you the fastest route or the shortest route.
The very first step in getting control of the chaos in your business and creating a plan for your success is identifying the destination.
We call this your Long Term Vision and it’s the very first step our coaches take with your coaching clients. You have to know where you want to end up so you can create the fastest path to get there.
If you choose to do this on your own, then you’ll have to create the map yourself. But, with coaching you can access a GPS that will help you avoid all the roadblocks, get around any traffic jams and make sure you get back on track if you take a wrong turn.
Your Long Term Vision should be crystal clear.
For most people, looking any further out than 3 years is challenging—there’s simply too many unknowns for you to get a clear picture of what success looks like for your business.
So start with a 2-3 year window and imagine what your business looks like.
You’ll want to know:
- Revenue numbers
- Profit numbers
- Number of clients
- Number of staff members
- Your personal income
- The number of days or hours you work each week
- What your marketing looks like
- What your facility looks like
- How many locations you have
- What the media says about your business
Anything you can think of to give you a clear picture is what you want to document.
Knowing your goals and what success looks like to you will ensure that you know what priorities you need to be focused on and how to accomplish them.
Create Your 1 Year Plan
It’s likely that your Long Term Vision is a little scary. And that’s okay! You don’t have to know exactly how you will accomplish all of those things and how it will happen.
But, you do need to focus on what you need to do right now to get started.
It’s a lot like having a client that wants to lose 50 lbs. They don’t need to know what will happen when they need to lose the last 10lbs—the focus right now should be on what it takes to lose the first 10! That’s your 1 year plan.
For your 1 year plan, you need to create goals for yourself and your business.
Goals should include:
- Revenue
- Profit
- Number of clients
- Number of leads
It’s also important to set some milestone accomplishments for your business. What absolutely needs to be accomplished at the end of this year for you to be on track to accomplish your vision?
- Do you need a marketing plan and strategy in place?
- Would a paid marketing strategy help you grow faster?
- Do you need to hire an admin to take some work off your plate?
- Are you ready to hire a trainer to take on some clients?
- Do you need to start a new program to add revenue streams to your business?
Set 3-5 of these milestone accomplishments for your business for the year.
Once you’ve gotten these milestones in place, you need to zoom in your focus and start planning for the next 90 days.
What are the 1-3 most important things you need to do each day or by the end of the quarter to reach your goals? These should be connected to either your goal metrics (such as revenue) or to your milestones for the year.
We refer to these 1-3 important projects or goals as your Rocks. You can use these Rocks to establish a focused plan of attack to grow your business in the next 90 days.
By knowing your priorities, you can start to take back your time and start owning it instead of letting others manage your schedule for you.
Develop Your Marketing Strategy
You can’t effectively grow your business and hit your revenue goals with a shotgun approach to marketing.
A shotgun approach to marketing is throwing out idea after idea, promotion after promotion without a plan or strategy.
Strategy is defined as a plan of action or policy to achieve a major or overall aim.
Simply copying what’s worked for someone else or running a new challenge and disregarding an overall plan will not be effective. You’ll continue to scramble every month to hit your lead numbers and attract the right types of clients.
There are lots of gurus out there that throw out marketing campaign after marketing campaign but never talk about a strategic approach to marketing.
The fitness industry is getting tougher and tougher. That means that being great at what you do isn’t enough. You need to be great at delivering results and know how to market.
The key components of your marketing strategy should include:
- Your Core Offer
- Your Ideal Client
- Your Market Positioning
- Your Tactical Marketing Plan
Your Core Offer
The Core Offer for your business is the economic driver. It’s the program that you will build your business around. This will also help you determine your target market.
For example, a Core Offer could be small group personal training for fat loss clients. It’s very clear what you are offering and who it is for.
The Core Offer for your business must meet 3 criteria:
- It must be something you’re passionate about and enjoy delivering
- You must be great at getting results
- It must be economically feasible
If it doesn’t check off all those boxes then you need to reconsider your Core Offer.
Can you have more than ONE Core Offer?
Yes, but it’s recommended that you focus on growing and establishing one Core Offer before trying to take on another.
Each of your Core Offers will require it’s own marketing strategy so be cautious of your time, energy and resources when considering starting a new one.
That doesn’t mean you can’t have complementary programs to add revenue streams. It simply means your focus and time will be spent primarily on growing your Core Offer program.
Your Ideal Client
It’s important to have a deep understanding of your ideal client.
When you know everything there is to know about your ideal client, you can start framing your marketing messages since you’ll know what types of offerings attract them and you’ll know where to find them.
All of our coaching clients build out a profile for their ideal client. We even go as far as naming them and giving them an identity with a picture.
It might sound creepy but it will help you hone your marketing!
Your Ideal Client Profile should include the following:
- Gender
- Age
- Income
- Employment
- Family
- Hobbies
- Interests
- Frustrations
- Goals
- Challenges
- Neighborhood
That’s just a start. You can be as detailed as you want with your profile.
It’s important to note that this isn’t the only person you attract or work with in your business. We also work with our clients to create personas for their customers that represent different types of clients in your target market.
So if your target market is busy professionals that want to lose weight, you may have 3-4 different personas that you can use to help with your marketing.
However, there will always be one ideal client that you should know inside and out.
Your Market Positioning
Standing out from the crowd is critical if you want to have a successful marketing strategy.
That’s what positioning is all about. Helping you create a message that explains who you are, who you’re for and why you’re different.
Different may not be the word…”the best fit” for them is a better phrase.
Your message needs to meet 3 objectives:
- Differentiate your service from the competition
- Address important customer buying criteria
- Articulate key service (or company) characteristics
You want to attract your target market and repel everyone else.
A great marketing message will help to qualify your leads, educate them on your business and establish your business as the go-to solution for their needs.
To accomplish all of that you need to:
- Identify the features and benefits of your Core Offer
- Research your top 5 competitors
- Understand why and how a prospect makes the decision to use your business
- Create a list of all your awards, stats and recognition you’ve received
- Create a list of 5-10 differentiators for your business (what makes you stand out)
- Create a positioning statement that you can use to explain your business quickly to prospects or leads
The list of differentiators and your positioning statement can be placed on your website and used in your marketing materials.
Your Tactical Marketing Plan
Now that you’ve built the foundation for your marketing strategy, you can start to pick and choose what methods and tactics you’ll use to grow your business and get new clients.
You can use the information you’ve gathered thus far to figure out what will be most effective and where to find your clients.
It’s time to create a marketing calendar for your business and focus on your highest return activities. This is where you decide if using Facebook marketing or networking will be better for your business.
Map out a plan that will help you reach your goals and start setting goals for each of your marketing activities.
There are 100’s of ways to market your business, but you don’t need to use them all. Focus on your strengths and zero in on where your ideal client spends their time and money. That will help you decide what’s best for you and your business.
Create Your Key Systems
If you ever hope to have a business that doesn’t require you to be there every day, then you need systems.
That’s a scary word for a lot of business owners. They think of 300 page operations manuals, checklists and rules. But, it can be much more simple than that!
When you start to define your systems, it’s important to remember the 20/80 principle. 20% of your activities will produce 80% of your results.
Find out what that 20% is and you won’t have to stress about the rest.
Here are your key systems:
- Marketing systems
- Sales systems
- Training systems
- Client care systems
- Financial systems
- HR systems
If you can create your systems in those 6 areas, you’ll be off to a great start and have the structure in place to start delegating tasks to other people.
Each of these systems can be broken down into 5-10 of the most critical steps and documented to provide you and your team with a plan for running your business.
WARNING: You’ll try to over-complicate the creation of these systems if you aren’t careful. Don’t worry about all the little details and tasks. Simply document the most important milestones for each of the 6 areas and then fill in the rest later or have your team fill it in when they complete their tasks.
Once you have these systems in place, you can start to scale your business, hiring will become easier and you will have to deal with fewer issues that suck up all your time.
Create a Daily Plan
One of the biggest changes that I’ve personally made to help me be more productive, even when helping run several businesses all at once, is creating a daily planning cycle for myself.
Admittedly this is one of the toughest things for me to do. You’ll have to work on finding a routine and ritual that will work for you.
The most effective lesson I’ve learned is planning starts the day before!
At the end of each work day, I do 3 things:
- Create a priority list of 3-5 items for the following day and block off time to get them done
- Brain dump all the ideas I have floating around in my head or things that I’m worried about into my notebook
- Complete my gratitude journal
These things leave me with a plan of attack so I can hit the ground running the next morning and help me end the day with a sense of accomplishment.
I’ve battled anxiety and insomnia due to that anxiety for years. It’s the curse of an entrepreneur, but it can be controlled by ending your day with those 3 activities.
I’ve tried sleep apps, therapy, supplements, etc and this 15 minute activity is better than all of them.
But I still use the others to help me get a good night’s rest 🙂
When you start your day, if possible make sure to tackle your most important activity. If your day starts with early morning training sessions, make sure you block off your first free 1-2 hours for tackling your priority items. This takes discipline and practice but it’s well worth it!
Don’t try to set more than 3-5 priority items for the day. In fact, start with just 1-2 and then find 2-3 other small tasks or repetitive activities you need to do to reach your goals. This way you can look at your list and feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.
Each time something new pops up that you feel is a ‘priority’, assess it quickly and add it to a list if it isn’t absolutely critical that you do it right away.
Use this question to filter anything that comes up…
“Will doing this help me get closer to my goals or further away?”
This routine will help you control the chaos in your routine and help you get more done. That means faster progress toward your goals!
Summary
If you’re ready to own your business instead of it owning you, then follow these 5 simple steps:
- Clear up your vision
- Create your 1 year plan
- Develop your marketing strategy
- Create your key systems
- Create a daily plan
Missing any one of these key steps will leave you buried in to-dos, putting out fires and frustrated with your business growth.
Want to Fast Track Your Success?
Every successful business owner has coaches and mentors that help them out along the way.
Avoid mistakes and see results faster by letting our coaches help you rapidly grow your business, create systems and manage your time so that you can make more money and have more freedom.
Schedule a Discovery Call to learn how we can help you today!