“How on earth did we run out of blue widgets???”, screamed Freddy, the agitated fictional boss of Widgets-R-Us. Ah, I hear you say. Freddy’s firm needs a dashboard tracking all of the critical numbers to keep his business healthy. This blog post is just in the nick of time, then… To be in control of…
One fear above all others makes business owners lose sleep. It’s the same fear your cash flow forecast can fix… The fear of running out of money. The cash flow forecast helps you to sleep in peace by giving you confidence in how much money your business will have in the bank within the next…
There are two broad types of marketing and in this article you’ll learn what they are, and why you should always focus on the second type – direct-response marketing – if you run your own business. Don’t Copy Big-Brand Advertising… Small businesses often copy tactics they see being used in ads by big businesses. That’s…
Something most businesses aren’t aware of is the difference between lead vs lag metrics and the benefit of using both for different reasons when measuring the performance of your business. Most businesses think that measuring performance is all about looking at the history – things like number of leads received, conversion rate, sales figures and…
In this video I explain the difference between plain ol’ Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) – numbers that measure various things in your business – and building a Dashboard – just the figures that give you the immediate information you need to know that your business is working properly in every way. Hi Lee Duncan here…
A frustrated client explained that he was getting tied up doing low-level work instead of his marketing. He was frustrated, because if things didn’t change, his business would stop growing. The problem? He was working at the wrong level – doing too much hands-on work for his stage of business. A very common problem in…
The question about how to work on your business was probably first raised in Michael Gerber’s book, The E-Myth Revisited. There are only so many hours in the day, and once you’ve filled them with being busy, you reach your capacity and turning up and doing the work every day is not enough to make…
Getting the right help to improve your business can be a real minefield. This list of insightful questions to ask a business coach will guide you to make a smarter decision. You may also want to read Working With A Business Coach: The Ultimate Guide. The important thing to remember is that because there is…
If you want to know how to create a brand for your business, this story offers some useful insights. A deliberate branding exercise on my own business led to an invitation to write my book, Double Your Business, for Financial Times Publishing. There are ideas here that any business could use to increase sales and…
One of my clients is facing two very unscrupulous competitors operating in his local area. They have copied the broad layout and approach to their websites, they’ve copied much of his marketing and business idea. But they are selling at lower prices. He’s been incredibly frustrated by these thieves and has asked me for my…