1. Have clarity of vision purpose
(Don’t hustle at the WRONG things)
Try writing down what you believe your purpose to be, and the vision you have for your future. Ask yourself why it is so important to you, and what you want your life to look like in 3, 5, 10, 25, 50 years. And finally, the biggest question of them all: how do you want to be remembered? People often get stuck thinking they don’t have one, or that they can’t monetise what they think they love the most I talked about this in my blog way back called: 7 steps to finding your vision & true purpose.
2. Know your KLAs, KRAs & IGTs
KPIs are the metrics of feedback that you and your staff are either growing or decaying, that you’re going in the right direction or the wrong direction. KPIs are the proof behind the numbers as ‘you cannot master what you do not measure.’
Knowing what your main key result areas are. The conversion rate of each point of sale? Where all your prospects come from? Renewal rates? This is an area of focus that is vital to the growth or at least the delivery of the role and you should aim to have between three and seven non-negotiable KRAs for each position.
Income Generating Tasks are the highest value to you [or your company] tasks that align with your KRA’s, to maximise revenue per hour, minute and second. These are the tasks that bring the highest, leveraged results in the optimum amount of time, bringing in the maximum benefit and revenue without wastage.
3. Craft over graft (get over addiction to HARD work)
(Think as much as you do)
You only/mostly see what’s hard & you filter/focus on the challenges, and perceive them as pain, which you immediately want relief from.
But if & when you find your highest value, & do what is most important to you, or link what you are currently doing to what is most important to you (your vision), you have internal inspiration & don’t need external motivation.
You have automatic focus, you filter for results & solutions & the midnight oil burns itself. You find your flow, make strategic long term decisions & ‘challenges’ become opportunities to serve, learn & solve.
People are attracted to your congruence & mission, & will serve you in attaining your vision.
It’s just as ‘easy’ to be wealthy as it is poor. They both take energy & focus. It’s just as ‘easy’ to be inspired as it is to be a victim.
We each and all have a unique mission to serve & genius that no one else possesses.
4. Create systems & processes
(Avoid duplication & create replication)
Systemise your business in 5 simple steps
Step 1. Make a note of what you do as you do it in bullet point form and transfer it to a mindmap
Step 2. Send it each Tuesday to a virtual or personal assistant to type up and order in your manuals with clear page refs & indexes, & send back to you Fri 3pm to check (Search on Google: ‘Virtual Assistant {Your Location}’ or go to a local business networking meeting)
Step 3. Anything you say record on an App or dictaphone (sales, marketing, scripts, processes, right down to how to log in) & send the audio file to PA/VA tues for Friday completion(Use dictation function on phone; you can even do it in email on iPhone using the ‘mic’ icon)
Step 4. Read the manual(s) once a month as if you know nothing about the role; could anyone step in and do this role following this manual? Then feedback tweaks to VA ensuring they keep it organised with clear contents & page no. refs
Step 5. Then as you grow you instruct your various team members to do the same, where managers manage down, and your PA can be responsible for yours
5. Let go to grow
(Elevate others & outsource admin)
The biggest challenge in scaling a small business is the founder’s lack of knowledge and need for control. Unfortunately, founders are often naïve and believe that no one can do the work they do as well as them. Often they fear failure, fear hiring, fear bringing other people into the business and fear management. These fears are deep-rooted and can be due to a number of things such as the founders upbringing of graft and hustle, pride and the need to be in control as opposed to letting go.
Companies can only reach a certain size if all you do is graft yourself as the founder. It’s probably in the low six figures in revenue because at some stage you have to let go of the control, bring in experts and turn graft into craft, mission and vision.
6. Content repurposing
(Turn one piece into multiple pieces in written, audio, video & live formats)
When I talk about this, a lot people worry that, well, if I’m repurposing it across multiple platforms, that will be a duplication. A lot of people will see all the same content, and they might get frustrated or complain about that. Well, there’s a few things I can share with you, which I think will hopefully get you over that.
7. invest in & create assets that produce recurring income
I know you’re all smart. I know you realise that setting up recurring income streams isn’t easy and it can be difficult. But it’s just important to keep on keeping on and never give up. You don’t plant a seed and come back on the next day and wonder where your tree is? No, you keep at it and you cannot lose if you keep at it.
Personally, I have hundreds of thousands of pounds in book and audiobook revenue. I have supporter programme revenue, my rob.team revenue, my training income revenue, my real estate revenue and probably more. In total, I think I have 9 income streams from all the different sources of businesses and asset classes that I have. But the systems and models are much of the same, it’s the same processes and automation from one asset class to another.
8. Get rid of ALL drama
(blaming, worrying, defending, justifying, bitching, arguing, debating, one-upmanship, guilt, overthinking, anxiety, predicting, 2nd guessing, posturing, controlling, judging)
When things aren’t as we’d like, it’s tempting to blame other people, the environment, the economy, the government, circumstances or whatever else for our situation. If you are constantly skint, it’s likely that the main reasons is you and the things you’ve done, the way you’re living and decisions you’ve taken.
Until you take responsibility and own the problem, you simply can’t take control of the situation. Until you take control, you can’t make it change.
Stop blaming external factors and take responsibility for where you are.
9. Hire sales & marketing people to market & sell for you to scale
Balance Autonomy & Management
No one likes to be micromanaged, most people like a bit of autonomy, freedom, leadership, responsibilities and ownership. So to increase productivity in your business you can give your staff ownership and leadership over projects so that they are perceived as leaders even though they are not and you can continue to guide them from a managerial point of view which is vital to the business.
No matter the business model you are operating, sales and marketing plays an essential part in advancing your position and bringing in the money. In virtually every business model, whether you run a business or work as an employee, sales and marketing is the activity that will bring in money if done well, and prevent money from coming your way if done poorly.
What do you think. Please share if you found it useful.
