Three Cornerstones for a Successful Business Owner

Posted on March 04, 2022 by Phil Doublet, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.

Three Cornerstones for a Successful Business Owner
By Phil Doublet, Business Coach
October 12, 2021

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20% of small businesses fail by the end of their first year. By the end of their fifth year, 50% go under; and by the tenth year, that number rises to 80%. This represents tragedies of broken dreams, lost fortunes and forever-missed opportunities.

My mission is to help business owners be successful improve their odds. The good news is that we absolutely can do so, and it’s simple, just not easy. It requires is paying attention to some fundamentals followed by relentless execution (i.e. don’t take your eye off the ball.)

Let’s start with the first cornerstone: #1 Get professional help. Although many people think entrepreneurs are, in fact, crazy – getting psychiatric help isn’t what I mean here. Can you think of just one professional sports team, professional athlete or Olympic hopeful without a coach? There aren’t any. Successful Business Owners know when to ask for help.

Unless you’ve founded, built and exited several successful businesses before, and maybe not even then, you don’t know everything you need to know in order to be successful. We all have blind spots and getting some help to “see around the corners” is critical if you want to avoid potentially fatal business mistakes. For example, you should be clear, adept at and fully understand the following:
 Managing and prioritizing
 Knowing who your ideal clients are,
 Defining your Market Dominating Position to attract all the new clients you can handle.
 increasing sales and conversions
 Developing loyal, profitable customers who keep coming back
 Being clear between cashflow and profit, & fully understanding your financial statements
 Hiring, developing and retaining the best people
 Create systems that allow the business to grow and run without you

2. Understand marketing fundamentals and how to apply them. There are two main components to any marketing plan: strategic marketing and tactical marketing. Strategic marketing is the content of your message; it’s what you say and how you say it, including the concepts that you choose to focus on, the words and images you use to communicate those concepts, and the tone in which the message is delivered.

Tactical marketing is the execution of the strategic marketing… such as placing Facebook ads, building a website, attending trade shows and things like that. Most business owners only think about the tactical part. But the real key to effective marketing is to master the strategic aspects… What you say in your marketing… and how you say it… are almost always more important than the marketing medium where you say it.

Both are important of course, but the real leverage is in the messaging itself… and that’s the strategic side of marketing. Usually, when a marketing campaign fails, it is the tactics that are blamed, without any regard to how good or bad the strategy behind that marketing piece was.

3. Understand how you make money… Sounds obvious, but the number one reason businesses fail is running out of cash & working capital. In most instances a business owner is intimately aware of how much money is needed to keep operations running on a day-to-day basis, including payroll; paying fixed and variable overhead expenses (e.g. rent, utilities and suppliers).

However, many owners of companies are less in tune with how much revenue is generated by each sale of their product or service. This disconnect leads to funding shortfalls that can quickly put a business in jeopardy. There are many other ways cash can be lost or wasted: excess inventory, lack of planning, poor collection policies, etc.

You need to separate yourself from your business and treat it like a money-making machine.

Check in: Are you making a consistent profit year after year? If you’re not, something needs to change. If you are, how can you increase it? Hint: see point #1 above!

Let’s have a conversation about achieving the level of success you deserve. More revenue, more profit and less stress. Contact me today.