Are Your Business Goals On Plan?
How are your business goals progressing? Evaluating your business’ situation throughout the year is an important part of scaling successfully. When those check-ins occur, there are actions and questions you should address to ensure you’re progressing towards your goals. However, many CEOs don’t know what to ask or what pivots to make when projections fall short. There’s a reason why only 2% of all businesses scale above $10M in annual revenue (and 98% do not). Companies that scale often approach business performance from a different perspective.
Too often as entrepreneurs, we focus on brainstorming solutions rather than defining the root cause for stagnant growth. Yet it is in defining the core problem, rather than generating more solutions, that is the key to business performance and growth framing.
What Questions Should Be Asked?
The most important questions to ask in order to define the root cause(s) are:
- Are we missing targets because of top-line growth, or profit, or both?
- If it’s top-line growth, is it because we don’t have enough leads, not the right type of leads, or we aren’t turning leads into clients?
- If our shortfall is related to profit (rather than top-line growth), are we missing profit goals because we are over promoting, (i.e. discounting our price), or are we spending too much on advertising? Is it that we are not managing our costs of revenue/cost of goods sold? Do we lack a well-differentiated solution with a competitive price point? (Answering no to this question is problematic in both the short and long-term.)
Experiencing business growth doesn’t have to be challenging. To evaluate where your business stands and discover how to experience consistent and profitable business growth, take our free assessment.
The truth is that there are very few effective small business training models that actually TEACH entrepreneurs how to determine the root cause of stagnant growth, so they can build, grow, and scale an entrepreneurial enterprise. Most of us learn as we go.
With almost 3 decades of experience in growing profitable companies, I’ve learned that there are two critical phases required to scale a company to $5M, and another three phases to go from $5M to $10M in annual revenue.
To scale a business in any industry to $5M in annual revenue, the two phases are:
Differentiation:
Differentiation isn’t about a “value proposition” or “elevator speech” – those are just buzz words that sound great but don’t move the needle. Instead, differentiation is about “being different in a way that MATTERS to your targeted buyer.”
Buyers are looking for a solution to a problem, and they have a set of criteria around which they consider possible alternatives. If you don’t understand their core problem, much less how they consider, then you can’t differentiate or effectively position your business to them.
Differentiation ensures that not only does your top line grow, but your bottom line grows as well so that you’re able to scale more profitably.
Demand
Demand is more than lead generation, although generating leads is one of the ways we measure demand. Demand generation is not done through advertising, but instead by implementing a systematic value creation process that builds relationships with your buyer and adds value in the process.
Demand generation is about the buyer – not about you. It’s offering them solutions and building a value-based relationship with them BEFORE they buy, and it’s easier to implement than most entrepreneurs think.
IGNITE On Purpose Can Help Get Your Business Goals On Track
If your business isn’t where you want it to be, maybe it’s time to try something different.
IGNITE was built FOR entrepreneurs BY successful entrepreneurs and we specialize in specific strategies guaranteed to grow your business. We’re SO confident that we can grow your brand that we offer a unique Pay For Performance solution.
Ready to Grow? Let’s GO!
Contact us to see if we’d make a good partner for you, and ultimately, help you experience profitable, accelerated, and continuous business growth.
