Less than 50% of businesses survive more than five years. Check government statistics if you don’t believe me
The authorities “broad brush” reason for failure is the failures eventually ran out of funds. This description is not helpful and so I decided to look for individuals directly and indirectly connected with failed businesses to see if I could determine the details, establish any recurring reasons for failure and post them on the web in the hope that my discoveries would help others avoid a similar fate. I discovered eight common reasons for business death. Here are three of them:
No vision, mission or strategy
“If you have not decided where you are going then how are you going to get there?” You have to have a clear picture of what you want to achieve and how the future will be for your business if you achieve it. To achieve anything you must have a strategy. Strategy can be likened to a route map it tells you how to get there. It’s a structured list of activities. Strategy is only effective if it is translated into a business plan which can be used as a benchmark for business performance. A key instrument for monitoring business perfomance is the sales forecast.
Lack of a system for marketing or sales
Marketing is about identifying markets and trying out strategies to position your offering in the minds of prospects and moving them into your sales channel. Sales is about engaging the prospect and getting them to buy your product or service. Marketing is a process of measuring and refinement of the ways you use to reach prospects. selling is the process of creating leads, forecasting sales and closing business. In well run companies a decent marketing and sales system is often underpinned by a effective sales forecasting software system. The tools in these systems help you to track and measure what is happening in the sales and marketing processes. These insights arederived from reports generated by the system which can then be used to compare planned vs actual results. The bottom line is what gets measured gets improved or discontinued. This is the key formula for success.
Lack a system to get sales from their current customer list
There is a common saying that 80 percent of your sales should come from 20% of your customers. Your focus is to achieve or exceed this number. Customers who have previously bought from you are simpler and cheaper to sell to than prospects that have not. A combination of decent web based crm software and sales forecasting software should give you the insight of recent activity and allow you to find opportunities in your current customer lists.
Try taking the coachability assessment to see if coaching is right for you.
Mariano M. Jauco has been empowering business professionals and individuals by sharing his knowledge to produce positive change in the world. His personal development techniques and methods will allow you to reach your goals and achieve the success and prosperity you deserve.
To subscribe to his newsletter go to: http://jaucoandassociates.com/subscribe.html
