Climbing the mountain to your first million is no easy feat for the vast majority of business owners. With every step up you take, it can feel like gravity is dragging you back down. But are you the one actually sabotaging the success of your business?
There are nine contributing factors that commonly hinder small business success. Fix themand you'll grow your business.Don't address them, and you're going to remain wallowing in 'not quite making it' for much longer than you want to.
Here are the nine ways to blow it on your way to $1 million in revenue.
Reason #1 You Expect It To Be Easy And Get Disappointed When It's Not
Many business owners simply aren't willing to do the hard yards. Even when offered a complete business template, based on a business that makes millions of dollars, with the provider willing to hold their hand the entire way, very few people will actually follow through to a notable degree of success.
One of the most crucial factors in reaching the million dollar mark is to do the hard stuff yourself and leave the easy stuff to others. Hard is the stuff you haven't done before, the challenging stuff that takes some brain-power, some hours, and some outside-of-the-box thinking.
Gravitate towards that stuff. Become part of the five percent of people who actually do what it takes and ultimately get what they want. Most people won't. Most people will wait, hoping it will get easier, complain when it doesn't, and eventually give up. That's no way to make a million dollars.
Reason #2 You're Looking For A 'Sure Thing' Rather Than Being The 'Sure Thing' Yourself
There are a lot of small business owners out there who will be getting a job soon because they just don't get what it takes to build a successful business. Those who want it all laid out for them, with everything explained in basic steps, with no margins for errors or change, are those who will really struggle getting to that first million.
Systems are great tools. But the millions come when you back yourself, not when you are incessantly search for a system that will take care of all the hard work for you. If you back yourself and put in the hard work, it counts a hundred times more than the "sure thing" system you're hunting for.
Each time you quit something, put something you need to do off until 'later', procrastinate and engage in delaying tactics, you're not backing yourself. When the going gets tough, you need to be the person who is going to stick through it to completion. You've got to be able to count on yourself. If you can't count on yourself, no one else will. And it takes more than one person alone to crack the million mark.
Great systems can help you make a million dollars, but only if you take massive action as well. If you're waiting for the system you purchased to start making things happen, you're going to be waiting a while. Systems don't make things happen. People make things happen.
Reason #3 You're Spending Too Much Time Behind The Scenes Instead Of Where You Need To Be
If you spend too much time creating and perfecting your "widgets" instead of selling the widgets, you're not going to get to a million dollars in revenue any time soon.
Perfecting behind the scenes is like doing housework. It looks neat and tidy, and you get a sense of satisfaction.No one notices though. No one is lining up to see the brilliant housework you've done. If you want them lining up, you've got to deliver something they want. People don't want your house to be clean. They don't care about that. They want to know where they can get solutions to their own problems and whether or not you can help them.
There's no money in building the system if no one knows or cares about it. The money is in people buying. The losses are in you building up stocks and having no buyers.
Reason #3 You Haven't Implemented Direct Response 'Relationship Based' Marketing Strategies
Implement a direct response relationship based marketing strategy into your business and you will never have to go looking for a client again.
Direct response marketing strategies will draw targeted prospects to your business who are incredibly likely to respond to what you offer them. And once you get savvy with it, you may find yourself with the high quality problem of having more leads than you know what to do with. What a fantastic problem to have in your business!
As long as you are chasing leads, you will struggle to make serious money. To double your income you have to free up your time to actually deliver and run your business. The minutes you spend hustling can't be replicated. But you can replicate direct response marketing and get leads coming in from dozens of sources, all wanting to know more about the solution you can provide to solve their problem.
Reason #5 You're Not Building Systems Into Your Business
In the beginning, you are doing everything for the first time, figuring out exactly what to do and the best way to do it. There's uncertainty and there's trial and error. You do things one way the first time and a different way the next time.And you tend to keep a lot of what works in your head. But eventually an assistant will be doing these tasks for you, and they'll want a system to follow.
Your assistant also needs to consistently document what's done and how it's done.Why? Because eventually they will leave, and if you don't have up-to-date systems in place, it will be up to you to figure everything out again or remember enough to teach your next assistant.
It will be like starting from scratch, except now your clients expect things to happen a certain way, and they don't expect to be kept waiting, or for the quality of service you deliver to change.
One million dollars in revenue can happen quickly, as long as you have regularly updated systems in place. Systems enable you to efficiently delegate and outsource, freeing you up to concentrate on more important aspects of growing your business.
Reason #6 You're Not Educating Yourself On What Counts For Maximum Business Success
Doctors train for six years or more. Accountants, four years or more.Many business owners simply go into business thinking they'll figure it all out as they go. The reality is that succeeding in business requires getting educated on how to succeed.
Too many people think business success all comes down to having a good idea. Customers will come, they think. Not these days whenthere is more competition out there and more choices than ever before. So why would customers choose you? It has to be more than the notion that you'll be great if they give you a chance.
Spending money on your business education equates to investing in the future success of your business. Greater success comes when you know how to operate your business well, rather than just having a go and hoping it all works out.
Invest wisely in your business education, in particular on marketing, and you can expect to earn a tenfold return on that investment. The more educated you get, the better your judgment, the better your decisions, and the better your business will be.
Get educated by super successful business owners who have done whatever it is you want to achieve and fold that expert knowledge directly into your business.
Reason #7 You Don't Model Excellence
Reinventing the wheel to grow your business is an unnecessary undertaking when instead you can draw on the expertise of others who came before you.Why invent a new system, waste time figuring something out, or spend hours brainstorming with other people who don't have the answers, when you can simply model the excellence of those who have been there and done that - spectacularly.
Read a book, listen to a CD or a podcast on the subject by a business owner who is an expert in that area, and within an hour or so you will be educated enough to make an informed decision and take appropriate action.
Decision making is a roadblock for many business owners simply because they haven't got the education and haven't modeled experts to make it easier for themselves. So they do nothing. Or worst still, they make decisions based on their 'gut feelings' or based on bad advice from people who are equally as ignorant on the matter.
Do yourself a huge favor and study the experts in your field who have already faced what you're experiencing or heading for,and do what they did until you know better and can achieve even better results.
Reason #8 You're Not Staying True To Your Core Business
Too many businesses go under because the business owner gets distracted by the next exciting idea they've come up with, instead of just sticking to the core of their business. The golden rule is: don't launch into anything else until your core business is doing over one million dollars in turnover and is thoroughly systemized to roll along smoothly without you.
Even if what you're doing seems to be getting more difficult and you're unsure of how to increase revenues, don't switch your focus. The solution is rarely to develop new products.
The reality is that if you can make $50,000 in your business, you can make double that. You just need to learn how. The hard yards invested in learning how to double your business will be repaid countless times over if you stick to your core business. The only exception to this is if the niche you're in is a dud. In that case, cut your losses and bail.
Boredom, a yearning for variety, and issues with following things through to completion are not decent reasons to change niches. Switch your focus only when you have replaced yourself in all aspects of your core business, not while there are still systems that can be improved to significantly increase the profitability of your existing business.
Reason #9 You're Lacking A Strong Vision To Carry You Forward
Business isn't always easy. Some of the challenges you face in your business can seem impossible to push through. Sometimes you will feel deflated and defeated by the problems that inevitably come with running your own business. The key is to make sure the vision you have for your business is so big it can carry you through the tough times.
If the scope of your dream is to 'get through' or to 'break-even', that's not enough. It's got to be a grand dream of what is possible. It's got to excite you enough to pull you through the days, weeks or even months that it all just seems like it's too damned hard.
Welcome challenges, because your business won't grow without them.Solving problems is how you get great at business. Solve enough problems for enough people and you will naturally hit your own goals over time. Conversely, if your primary focus is on hitting your own goals, and wishing your own problems were solved, you'll probably never crack the million dollar mark.