From the desk of Richard Calderwood

10 under-revered, critical drivers that –
when you adopt them – turn any company
(yours included, almost certainly)
from an industry ‘norm’ into a driven,
high profit, innovative leader in your field

Special Report

Dear Business Owner

The content of this letter contains information that – if you spend just 9 or 10 minutes reading it thoroughly and attentively – will reveal the very specialist essence of how you, almost no matter what product or service you sell and as long as you are currently turning over between £500,000 - £5million, can trigger virtually unstoppable new growth, relentless innovation and outstanding delivery that drives your business to the top – the very top – of your field.

Please take this personal letter from me to you that seriously. Only when and if you are willing to take this letter that seriously will it be of value to you.

In over 26 years of specialising in businesses that turn over between £500,000 and £5million - that fascinating and crucial stage during which a company can really establish its strength and market position or stagnate (never reaching anywhere near its true potential), my business partner Stephen Askew and myself Richard Calderwood, have found that hardly one in a hundred businesses know, or have been shown, how to truly recognise and act upon the leverage that creates substantial growth, that is in fact inherent within any such organisation.

This letter is about what we refer to as the ‘super-drivers’ for growth. And it reveals how virtually any £500,000 - £5million turnover business can logically, and simply, identify the main super-drivers that can leverage it’s performance to the pinnacle . . . to become an extraordinarily dynamic, relentlessly efficient, and cash rich leader within its field.

What makes us qualified to advise you on these matters

Let me briefly tell you:

Stephen and I, modesty aside, run what has, for over 21 years now, been one of the most qualified ‘business building’ partnerships in the country. We’ve amassed a cumulative 53 years experience working with over 470 businesses. The size of the majority of the businesses we work with is between £500,000 and £5million.

This is our speciality. This is what drives and motivates us, and now enables us to reveal to you some of the critical factors of business leadership achievement at this level.

What is revealed throughout this letter, are some of the accumulated ‘secrets’ of these 53 years of learning, identifying and helping clients to implement those most critical of drivers which have led to ‘out of the ordinary’ success and wealth for these businesses.

What’s more, it virtually doesn’t make any difference, we’ve found, what product, service or treatment you sell. These vital drivers are applicable to almost every £500,000 to £5million turnover business we’ve come across in our 53 years of experience.

Unless you are a category of business we’ve yet to come across,
these drivers will respond ‘instantly’ to drive your business upward

In fact, if your business is like many others we’ve encountered, it may respond quicker than you expect, possibly almost immediately (at least, that’s what we’ve discovered).

So sit tight, and read avidly.

I’m going to reveal, right here in this letter, ten, and there are many more, of the main business drivers we use to enhance business performance.

Most importantly you must begin to apply each of these ten super-drivers that I’m about to reveal, immediately in your business.

Then witness the rapid, dramatic, and often almost unbelievable, results in increased financial strength, profits, cash flow and market domination that your business will undoubtedly start to achieve.

You (business owners and directors only) are also going to be given an almost priceless opportunity to speak with us direct, completely without of any obligation whatsoever. This is a limited number service that we are providing to the recipients of this letter, to help you identify how to apply each of the critical drivers to your particular business situation.

There is a reason we are making a complementary call available to you at no obligation, I will explain later.

One last thing before I introduce the super-drivers themselves.

Understand that any enterprise has, inherently, the ability to grow, not just by 10%, 20% or 40%, but by much more, by 100%, 200%, 300% or even 500%, and sometimes more still. It is rare, even though you may not understand today how this can be achieved, that your business will not be capable of this degree of sizeable growth. As with the majority of cases, there is a 95% chance that your business can accomplish substantially more market share, more revenues and more profitability than it is doing right now.

Not only that, but you can establish a
significant improvement fairly rapidly

You will discover that from the moment you start introducing these super-drivers, you will see an almost immediate improvement in the performance of your business. And, as you implement each of the super-drivers so your performance upgrade will develop in a geometric progression that you may never have experienced before.

Like driving a car, as you move up through the gears, so you achieve better results at a faster and faster pace and more and more efficiently too.

Let me give you an example (although clearly I’ve changed some of the detail to protect our client’s identity).

CASE STUDY #1:
A very small client by our criteria, turning over less than £150,000, came to us, cap in hand, desperate to find some way of climbing out of the rut they had been in for the previous six years.

They had started off really well, but subsequent turnover had grown on average only about 6% annually, a minuscule growth, hardly sufficient to even sustain any business. And, at this rate it would take them a further 30 plus years to reach their goal of £1 million.

Not only that, profitability level were poor and, considering the hours put in, they were collecting less than 40% of the statutory minimum wage! They had become slaves to their business, and their family lives too were practically in tatters.

SOLUTION:
To turn this limping enterprise around we began immediately to introduce the relevant super-drivers into the business, starting off with implementing just three. The results were almost immediate. Not only did the improvements stun the proprietors - it stunned us too (because it wasn’t the type of business to traditionally grow easily). Within the next three years they had achieved their goal – their ‘magic £1 million’ they called it. And they carried on growing. They subsequently sold the business a few years later for 5 times profits, a satisfying outcome achieved and well beyond their wildest expectation.

And that’s only one of many favourable case studies I can share with you.

But now it’s time to introduce you to what we have discovered are some of the main ‘super-drivers’ needed by nearly every business wanting to reach the top.

Driver 1.
Cash is king – and ‘death’ awaits those that show no respect!

Lets not beat about the bush on this one. Cash critical. In fact an abundance of cash is critical. Amassing cash in your enterprise is absolutely essential. It’s the very substance and life-blood of your business. And it’s the only way that you will, not only survive, but blossom, with the financial strength and affluence that then enables you to drive your organisation to the top of its field and become virtually untouchable by your competitors

There is a well-established aphorism that has served me and my clients well for as long as I can remember. And when you hear it don’t dare tell me, “I know that.” You would be shocked if I were to tell you the number of times ‘experienced’ business owners have told me that they “know” it. Guess what. The next thing I’m doing is trying to rescue them from pending catastrophe.

Here is the aphorism.

“Turnover is vanity, Profits are sanity, but Cash is king”

Simple.

But write it down, please, on a business-card sized card. Stick it in your breast pocket. And then remember it. Always. It could be the very survival of your business. But more importantly it could be one of the critical keys to achieving ultimate business success and securing the future of your organisation.

Failure to effectively implement cash flow controls can be likened to a lethal virus, that creeps quietly into your business, stealth-like, un-noticed by even those seemingly highly experienced business owners.

And let me tell you something else

There is a well-worn statistic. It’s this: ‘80% of businesses fail within their first 5 years’. You’ve probably heard it stated repeatedly by countless business experts.

But we have a slightly different take on this one, something we have exposed over our 53 years of dealing with such a variety of businesses.

Our perspective is that the figure of business failures is quite a bit higher than 80%

Why?

Because the moment you are aware that the ‘80%’ refers only to those businesses actually registered, and ignores the myriad of smaller businesses that never make it onto any business registers, suddenly it becomes obvious that the overall figure is higher.

But less well publicised, is that, for the majority of these business failures, the ‘final nail in the coffin’ is usually insufficient liquidity – not having the hard ‘cash’ to pay for the resources needed.

Put very simply, your business has to have
good ‘cash’ resources to survive

Even if you’re making extraordinary profits, unless the physical cash flowing into your organisation exceeds the physical cash flowing out, you will quickly find yourself in a position where you are unable to sustain your business, pay your suppliers, your staff or yourself.

The consequence of being cash starved and unable to pay for your resources is then, clearly:

• A reduction in, or failure of, supplies from which to manufacture, process and sell
• A reduction in labour needed for processing and other necessary work in the business
• A declining ability to sell your customers what they want
• Reducing turnover and profits
• Evaporating income and money for you
• An accelerating downward spiral towards potential disaster
• Potentially the demise of the business that you have put years into growing
• Eventually, and horribly, possibly even your own personal financial adversity.

We’ve noticed something else very interesting about cash

When you start out in business, and this is true of almost every business we’ve seen, you are usually very good at bringing in and maintaining a good level of cash. You have to be to keep going initially . . . . to launch. Cast your mind back to when you first started - and you will see that I am right. In fact, by definition, I must be right, otherwise I doubt you would have survived thus far.

But what amazes me, and frightens me too, is what begins to happen after a few years. Sometimes, even after only a year or two. Why I’m amazed is because we've noticed that over three quarters of the 470 clients we’ve worked with are guilty of cash perfidiousness . . . an almost wanton negligence towards this critical need to accumulate cash. What we’ve seen, only too vividly over the last 26 years, is that a few of these 75% of businesses manage to return across the ‘cash crisis’ divide and recover on their own.

But unfortunately it is only a few

For the majority, a real struggle ensues. And it’s often only at the point ‘of no return’ that we receive the ‘mayday’ call to rush in and help. Regrettably, even though we do a good job, we can’t save them all.

Don’t let this be your story

Let me share another case with you (although, again, I’ve changed some of the detail to protect our client’s identity).

CASE STUDY #2:
A managing director, referred to us by an existing client, phoned us in tears late one evening. His bankers had confirmed that afternoon that they would be calling in his company’s loan and overdraft facilities the following week. He had nowhere to turn for additional funds and was facing the liquidation of a business he had spent a lifetime building up.

We met quickly. And guess what. I discovered many of the same common problems associated with poor cash flow – weak management systems, thin margins, high stock, critical dependency on one or two major customers, and more.

But, unlike so many businesses with cash flow problems, debtors were negligible - the business’s sales were mostly ‘cash on delivery’. So the challenge was this - there was no obvious or quick solution for generating the cash now desperately needed.

What’s more, this unfortunate individual had recently used up all his personal equity in a re-mortgage with the bank, the personal funds from which he had already ploughed back into the business to try saving it.

He was, quite literally, between a ‘rock and a hard place’

You MUST never find yourself in that place

And, perhaps most alarming, total liabilities weren’t far short of current rapidly declining turnover.

Clearly any remedial action had to come about through a radical change in the business strategy – but it had to be swift too.

SOLUTION:
What we did was to formulate new short and mid term strategies, involving sweeping changes to the marketing drivers, and presented these to the bank. On examination the bank realised the commercial sense made by the revised strategic plan, and agreed to defer their action for 3 months.

Again, the results of this reformulated strategy and emergency action were rapid and staggering

This time only four super-drivers were initially introduced and implemented. And within the three months sales had increased markedly, profitability ratios had improved significantly, and cash had started flowing strongly. And, of prime concern to the bank, their facilities were again being properly serviced. Fifteen months on, and the bank's facilities were almost fully repaid – much earlier than ever expected.

The bank could hardly believe that
such a turnaround was possible

But this type and speed of turnaround is virtually predictable when one or more of these critical business drivers are implemented specifically and applied relentlessly.

Four years on, in addition to the substantially improved financial strength of the company, turnover had increased 4 fold and profits more than 7 fold.

Imagine this level of revenue and profits growth
in your business.

It’s wonderful watching an enterprise such as this, not only pull through, but go on to such improved financial vitality and vigour.

THE LESSON:
Make sure that you have strategies and techniques in place, which are being implemented and managed every day, to fill your enterprise with not only significantly higher revenues and profits, but CASH.

Driver 2.
Getting your hands ‘dirty’ – pays you the ‘wage of a worker’

You probably worked at the ‘sharp end’, the coalface of your business, when you first started out. Undoubtedly, as the principal person just like hundreds of other business owners, you were that key individual who physically produced and delivered the goods and services that your customers wanted. You literally had to get your hands ‘dirty’, every day, doing the work that the business does, to satisfy customer demand. . . . . . whether a garage mechanic or a lawyer - or anything in between.

But, let me ask you a question: after all these years into your business, are you still working at the sharp end every day, physically involved in supplying your customers? Are you still, every day, getting your hands ‘dirty’?

If so, I've got bad news for you.

Doing that sort of work makes you
nothing more than ‘a wage slave’.

You are being limited by pure physics - by time and stamina. You are restricted from producing more than the hours in the day or your own natural resource constraints will allow. You have set a ceiling on your income, and thereby a limit on the degree by which your business can grow.

Time working IN your business therefore produces your income today, and consequently it sets a maximum ceiling on your earnings. Time spent working ON your business, in the right way, however, will produce your income for tomorrow, income on which the ceiling is virtually limitless.

Agreed, you need to know, when starting your business, what you are doing and how it should be done. Because of that, often you do have to be the initial pair of ‘dirty’ hands. But to grow a business, you need to move on. You need to graduate from being a ‘worker’ in the business to being another completely different type of person.

You need to become the entrepreneur in your field, the true visionary, the conductor, the director. Captain of your destiny.

You leave yourself blind

Continually working at the coalface not only restricts your income, it narrows your vision too, causing you to become blinkered as to what is going on all around you. You leave yourself blind to exploring the many profitable business opportunities that present themselves each and every day because you are too busy concentrating on the wrong issues. Not only that, it is impossible for you to steer your ‘visionless’ business in the direction you want to go without you being continually present at the helm.

Are you a cost to your business?

Peter Drücker (business guru) confirms that there are only two things that make money in business - that's marketing/selling plus innovation. Every other activity is a cost. This means that any time you spend away from marketing or innovation, you are a cost to your business – and all you are earning is the wage of a worker who should be doing that task for you.

Imagine Richard Branson flying his own planes, one at a time. That’s no way to run his business. And it’s no way for you to run your business either.

What all successful entrepreneurs have in common is not a certain kind of personality but a commitment to the systematic practice of innovation. And you can’t do that if you are continually busy working IN your business, at the coalface, getting your hands ‘dirty’. You need to set proper time aside to work ON your business. And it needs to be the majority of your time – at least the very moment you can make it the majority of your time.

But, time, time, time. I know. You, and every other business owner, all tell me it’s difficult finding time for your daily workload, let alone finding time to work ON strategically planning your future.

Nevertheless, it is absolutely critical that you do.

In fact it’s the very reason you’re finding it difficult to find time – because you’re too busy working IN the business instead of organising your time more effectively which only working ON your business will achieve.

If you want your business to be successful, and of course you do, then it is essential that you to take time away from the ‘sharp end’ of the business to work ON the strategy. (ie. on marketing, selling, innovation).

The most common excuse I hear is, “no one else can do it as well” as you. Continuing to believe that is a self-limiting and massive mistake. It's as ridiculous as Richard Branson thinking no one can fly his aeroplanes as well as he can. Nonsense.

You get the point.

How can you possibly know that nobody can do it as well as you if you don’t give anyone else the opportunity.

The only way to free up time for yourself is by empowering
your people to handle certain aspects of the business for you

Let me give you another example - Ray Croc, of McDonalds fame. Did he ever make the burgers to sell? Almost certainly ‘No’ - he concentrated, not on cooking the burgers for his customers, but on the business model. He focussed on how the business should operate, it’s strategy. He concentrated on how it would operate to high standards and maximum efficiency - as a business first, and as a retailer of burgers as the means of fulfilling that business purpose. He engaged on how the business would fulfil the consumers’ requirements and generate him wealth.

And, “the rest” as they say “is history . . .”

You can learn from Ray Croc, Richard Branson, and many other successful entrepreneurs. Set time aside, each week, to work on the strategies of your business, one of the most important of which is that you work ON the business as it’s director, and not IN the business as one of its workers.

I assure you, you will then be surprised and delighted at the difference you will make to your sales and your income. Simply by refusing now to get your hands ‘dirty’ and insisting, for evermore, on directing your business; captaining your entire ship to a precise and prosperous destination.

Driver 3.
Delegation – is not abdication

One of the biggest mistakes that you can possibly make in your growing business is to not fully understand the principles and practice of systematic, unrelenting and effective delegation. And that holds true throughout all levels of your organisation.

If you are to free up your time, and it’s absolutely essential that you do, it does mean having someone else, of the right calibre, do it for you. Delegating work is a skill that anyone in business, from the CEO’s or directors through to the team manager's, are supposed to be masters of. But unfortunately very few understand or are able to effectively achieve it. Regrettably too, most rely on the ‘trial and error’ of experience in delegation, rather than purposefully learning the hard and fast principles thereof.

Delegation must NEVER be abdication

In a nutshell, here is the key.

Delegation retains a high degree of control and responsibility on your part. Not understanding this is why so much delegation fails to achieve the results it should.

Abdication, with its total relinquishment of interest and attention, results in the rapid loss of control over your business. Why? As you no longer want responsibility, you no longer receive regular or current information about what is going on, nor do you receive any requests for guidance or control in the decision making processes at any level in the business.

Also, and I’ve seen this happen, the added responsibility on the shoulders of your subordinates may result in more stress than they can handle, with the potential for a serious deterioration of their performance too.

And that always has grave repercussions on your business.

Quality bosses are hard to come by

Being able to delegate, yet retain control and responsibility, is more than just a leadership quality. Done effectively it is a genuine skill – an art even. It has a twofold benefit to you. Passing over your workload not only frees up your time immediately for the essential work of innovation and marketing. It is also a terrific opportunity to develop and ‘grow’ your people.

Your team has to learn new skills, and improve their knowledge. This gives them the chance to take responsibility and demonstrate their competence. And, only when they have adopted the highest of skills and the greatest of knowledge are they able to become the most valuable of resources to you and your organisation.

The key to delegation is to provide automation, but within specific parameters and responsibilities of empowerment in the decision-making processes at every level.

Done properly, with clear guidance and certain boundaries in place, delegation is something your employees will cherish. And they will reward you with considerably better attitude and significantly improved efficiency.

Ultimately, and most importantly, it is only when your employees are operating at this height of efficiency that your customers are able to receive the greatest value and result from your organisation.

ACTION POINT:
Urgently learn the skills of delegation; free your people to operate in an automated manner with good parameters of decision making ability. Then watch them flourish. And watch the greater freedom you obtain and the greater growth the business achieves, with you having delegated most of your routine activities and leaving you now spending the majority of your time on the key activities of innovation and marketing.

Driver 4.
Hire ‘superstars’ – if you expect ‘superstar’ performance

If you are anything like the majority of business owners, employing new staff ranges from apprehension to nightmare. Virtually every business owner we have dealt with over the years, finds staff matters probably the single most difficult issue within their business organisation. And it's not just because of employment legislation, which for most businesses up to £5 million is bureaucratically expensive and tough. It's also about personalities, cost, and simply knowing how to select those special individuals who will understand, buy into, and be excited by the vision and purpose of your company.

So, how do you choose the right people?

The secret is this: consider the longer term objectives of your business and the passion, skills and characteristics of the person needed to help you achieve those objectives. How will the person you are going to take on, not only fulfil your current needs, but also the needs of the business as it develops, and thereby forever be of maximum value to you as an organisation.

Even more important, how passionate is the individual about your vision, your product or service, and you goals in business. Each individual in each specific role must be, first and foremost, passionate about what they are doing and what they are dealing with – if they are not, reject them. Otherwise you will only be doing you, yourself, and them, a serious disservice.

No first class business is populated with ordinary people

Even if today, your current employees are not ideal or are not filled with the vision and drive of the organisation, you can start changing that situation right away. And indeed, you need to.

And here’s another trap

If you delegate interviewing solely to your manager or team leader, frankly, do you believe they will select someone better than they are. I think not. I have seen it happen, time and time again. Managers and staff will always choose somebody less accomplished than themselves. And that’s absolutely the opposite of what you want!

Simply, the skill of being able to attract, interview, recruit, train and motivate extraordinary staff is a major key in seeing your business rise to the top of its field. And once you've got the right team, spend time and money keeping them trained, focused and motivated.

Again, this is methodology you need to learn. And it is absolutely critical methodology if you - and I know you do - wish to take your company to the top.

ACTION POINT:
Hire people who are straining at the leash to work for you, passionate beyond normalcy for your particular products and your goals for the business, so that they become enthusiastic, inspirational, and critical cogs in the mechanics of your enterprise.

Driver 5.
Growing your customers – mathematics that defy belief

The greatest yet most little known secret of growing your customer base geometrically is the strategy of ‘front-end’ sales versus ‘back-end’ sales. When you grasp the almost ‘magical’ dynamic of attracting new customers in with specific front-end strategy and ethical lure, and then optimising the value each of those customers receives from your organisation with specific and different back-end strategy, you discover your business grows geometrically.

In a nutshell, here are the dynamics

The ‘front-end’ of any business (ie. the acquiring of a new customer or client) is the most arduous, expensive, and time-consuming effort any business or practice ever puts into growing itself.

The ‘back-end’ (ie. the nurturing and optimising of value and result for existing customers or clients) is, by contrast, the easiest, least arduous, least expensive, least time-consuming and most joyous effort a business ever puts in. AND, most importantly, the ‘back-end’ is, for the majority of businesses, where all the money is made.

I won’t endeavour to explain fully in this short number of pages the breadth of methodology required to put this dynamic process into practice.

But let me give you a valuable primer

Front end strategy is specific to the acquisition of new customers or clients. It’s sole purpose is to ethically lure the greatest number of targeted prospective customers or clients to recognise that your business and particular products or service is the only logical choice they should make in the buying of your category of products or service.

Front end strategy recognises that there is an inherent barrier in the customer’s mind towards easily accepting the offering of a business they have never dealt with before. Much of the front end strategy you must adopt recognises this, and provides an ease of acceptance which the prospective customer finds virtually irresistible to respond to.

When you master the skill of specific front end strategy in the recognition of what’s going on in the prospective customers’ minds, you can almost have a continual stream of new customers coming into your business with no limit.

Back end strategy is a different animal. It recognises a different set of conditions.

After a customer has first experienced your organisation they consequently then know the quality of your products or service. And they also know that your team are committed, in an unusually high manner, to the delivery and result of that product or service. Then, inherent in the customer’s mind, is trust rather than mistrust, enjoyment of association with your business rather than hesitation.

You now discover that the specific strategies of back end sales requires a focus on, and a continual nurturing and optimisation of, value and result to keep your customers coming back and buying from you, for months and months, or years and years. Such strategies become the major way in which your business will profit, grow and dominate the market.

ACTION POINT:
In a nutshell, you must, let me repeat must, understand, adopt and systematically maintain two very different strategies throughout your business:
One — the ‘front-end’, and
Two — the ‘back-end’.

If you fail in either of these two distinctly different disciplines of business growth, your business can never reach the height of its optimised inherent potential. Never. It's as critical as that.

Driver 6.
Price v Quality and Service - the real battleground for customers

You probably spend big money, like so many businesses, on acquiring new customers, but have you ever wondered why your customers then leave and move on?

You are a customer to other businesses too. So if you analyse your buying habits you will discover the secret of optimising customer purchasing preferences and patterns.

Customers are, in the main, intensely loyal. But suddenly, they can change their allegiance for no apparent reason. There has now been a lot of research into why.

And it may surprise you to learn that one of the least important factors in the customer’s decision to leave you move on is ‘price’

In fact, according to research (done by TARPA):

Price alone affects the customer’s decision
in less than 9% of the instances

Various other minor reasons like moving locality, changing friendships, and others account in total for another 23%.

BUT, by far, the single major reason customers leave you, in 68% of instances, is because of ‘perceived indifference’ by the providing business. It’s when the customer perceives that he or she is uncared for, ignored, perhaps even ‘unloved’, that they will abandon you for a competitor.

So you have the solution. It’s that simple.

It’s not enough to just ‘service’ your customers.

You need to take care of them, cherish them, dazzle them with a service that is second to none. More than just fulfilling their ‘wants’, you have to exceed their expectations by a huge margin. Make them feel important. Because they are.

Now you see why it’s so critical to hire and have working for you, in every department of your business, exceptional and extraordinary staff. Only extraordinary staff, and most importantly only those staff who really are passionate about what they do, can possibly exceed the expectations of your customers by the necessary margins.

Give them every reason to stay, and they will remain loyal to you for as long as you want them to.

ACTION POINT:
Establish a renowned level of pre-sales, sales, delivery, and after-sales astonishing service; service that is beyond what is expected, beyond what your competitors do, beyond even what you think is necessary. In this way you will keep customers loyal and coming back to purchase from your organisation for years and years and years.

Driver 7.
Clinching the deal – your ‘secret’ weapon

Imagine this . . . you’re a fisherman. The large fish you’ve been after all day is hooked. You’ve ‘played’ it all the way, right to the edge of the boat. And now, now is the moment . . . you lean over, gently net your catch, and bring it on board. One slip, and it’s gone – there’s no second chance.

If you are a fisherman, you will know exactly what I mean.

In the same way, you’ve got your prospective customer interested . . . hooked. They want a quotation. And now, now is the moment . . . you know you’ve got to get it right. One slip, and they’re gone – there’s no second chance.

But, time and time again, at the slightest hint of a sale, if you are like so many other businesspeople we meet, the ‘technical’ animal inside of you seizes control. Suddenly this becomes your moment, to make an impression and demonstrate your expertise at what you know best. It doesn't matter what type of business you have, or what category of product or service you sell, the technical skill and information behind it is almost certainly what you know best and maybe what you enjoy most. So you put all your technical knowledge into the quote.

You start calculating, and quite rightly too, the cost of supplying your prospect or customer with what they want. And you go on to fine-tune the quote to the point at which you believe your potential customer will bite.

The moment comes; you present your quote . . . . . seeming enthusiasm to start – but then nothing happens - no sale materialises.

The reason this scenario is so common in business is because you have forgotten something very critical.

What the customer is focusing on is the end product
and the result that product will provide for him.

Your customer usually doesn’t want to know how you arrived at your answers - he simply wants to know what the product or service will do for him, the price, and why he would be ‘foolish’ not to choose you to be the one who supplies it.

Sure, you've provided the information but, invariably, what the customer is looking for is lost amongst all the technical detail you’ve included, or on the back pages somewhere. Instead of figuratively holding his hand and leading him through the decision making process which is arrived at by the knowledge of result, you’ve deserted him at a critical moment, and left him to hunt for and understand the information himself.

The result, sadly, is all too common; the customer doesn't buy from you and gives his order to a competitor.

Like fishing, when you’ve got a good prospect in front of you, there is only one chance to acquire that customer’s business.

The solution is at your fingertips

Let me give you an illustrative example of how this can be done well.

CASE STUDY #3:
An electrical business, that designed and manufactured intricate components to a very high standard, came to me with falling turnover and consequent cash flow problems.

They were successful at generating what was an unusually high volume of enquiries. But converting these into orders had proved much less successful over several years. And, under the misapprehension that a ‘higher price’ was the decisive issue in losing so many quotes, they had lowered their prices quite dramatically. This had all but destroyed profitability levels, and consequent cash flow.

We discovered that price was not the issue. Instead, creating ‘compelling’ quotes was the issue.

SOLUTION:
The very first thing we did was to change the way the quotations were constructed and presented. The impact on customer conversions was almost instant. From less that two in every ten they began to convert over five in every ten, almost from the day the new quotes were being put out.

The business owners were stunned. Within weeks orders had trebled and, suddenly, from struggling to find work, they now were getting almost more than they could cope with – and indeed had to recruit more staff.

Wouldn't you like to be in that position – of having more work than you can cope with!

The secret is to make it easy for your customer to understand why you are the only logical buying choice and the way to achieve that is to focus his attention more on the result of what your products or service will do for the him rather than over elaborating the technical aspects.

LESSON:
Make all quotations results orientated, rather that technically orientated, and set them out so that your customer can easily find the information he or she really wants.

Driver 8.
Follow up – or fall on your own sword

“Not interested”, “Not interested”, “Not interested”. How long do you keep on following up the same “not interested” sales leads and opportunities. Do you give up easily, after the first few negatives?

If you do, you are not alone. The average is 1½ tries.

Independent research has shown that in some sectors 73% of customers say "No" at least five to seven times to any salesperson before eventually even considering a "Yes".

The same research found also that a staggering 92% of salespeople give up, and move on to new targets, long before they even get to the third, fourth or fifth "No".

Extrapolate these findings and you immediately discover that there are 73 out of every 100 customers out there almost ready to say “Yes” to the remaining 8% of persistent salespeople.

Do the mathematics to discover something amazing.

That’s an opportunity increase of 3,109%

Endurance, patience and following up is what it takes. Continually nurture, serve, and provide information and education to your customer without ever giving up and you will optimise the likelihood of your prospective customer eventually purchasing from your organisation.

To paraphrase Peter Drücker's words, again, “our ‘customers’ are the only profit centre we have.” The purpose of your business is to concentrate on that profit centre - to increase sales by the continual and systematic nurturing of your prospects and your customer network.

The methodology is that simple — to optimise profits you need first to optimise revenues. And the secret, quite literally, rests in how your organisation converts your prospects into valuable, revenue generating, customers. And how you do this is all about understanding the behaviour and needs of your potential and existing customers.

Fail in this process, and you might as well shut your doors of your business and fall on your sword.

But succeed, and you’ve found
the ‘licence to print money’

ACTION POINT:
Never give up on a worthwhile customer – understand that he or she simply need time, from the point of enquiry to the point of purchase. That time can be anything from a few hours, to days, week, or even months. Never give up, no matter how long it takes, and you will eventually get that ‘licence to print money’.

Driver 9.
Get the measure – or lose the lot

Every day, you go to work. Maybe it's by car, maybe by train. But most days you will probably compare your travel performance to the previous day, or your previous best or worst record. What you are doing, even in this mundane and everyday activity, is benchmarking current performance with a previous performance and measuring the change.

And benchmarking is what you need to do in business. Even more importantly than observing the mundane activity of travel, is that you measure and monitor the changes in the performance your business – and every little aspect thereof.

I am constantly amazed by how many business people automatically benchmark personal activities, but then fail to benchmark their business activities. If you don't benchmark your business activities, how do you then monitor whether each specific area of activity in your business is improving or worsening revenues or profits.

There is a great adage in business, which is this;

"Only what you measure, can you manage"

And I would add this – only what you can measure and manage leads to what you can grow and optimise in your business. Only when you have the knowledge about what is going on within your business, and how it is performing, you can leverage up what is working, and reduce or eliminate what is not working.

The process is simple. It can be done "on the back of a fag packet".

Or it can be done more accurately by reference to collected data. You have no excuse in this current day and age when inexpensive computerised systems can report, on the spot, at the press of a button, the statistics that you need.

However collected, this information must focus on areas critical to the success of your business and we call these numbers the ‘magic numbers’ – they reveal concise statistics, relevant to each aspect of the business, that gives you immediate insight into exactly how your business is performing - or not.

ACTION POINT:
Make sure that you benchmark and govern every important activity, and make necessary changes to the systems and activities every day, week or month as necessary. Never again allow any business activity to continue if it isn’t making an improving and significant contribution towards the bottom line growth of your organisation.

Driver 10.
‘FTI’ – human failing or business ailment

As a businessperson, you learn something new everyday, and make decisions everyday. And, if you are like the majority of the population around you, you seldom actually introduce or implement many of those ideas and decisions into your business.

The phrase "failure to implement" has been coined in the business world to embrace this weakness in our managerial skills. FTI is nothing short of . . .

an extreme dose of procrastination

Here’s an example. Imagine, in your garden, you have a wheelbarrow. It sits there, in the middle of the lawn. You know it needs moving. But that wheelbarrow will never move UNLESS you do something about it – unless you physically pick it up and push it. And the same goes for your business also. You need to ‘pick it up and push it’.

What’s the answer?

There are two major reasons I’ve seen for the tendency towards procrastination – these are the lack of:
1 Personal Passion
2 Organised Passionate Activity (OPA)

REASON 1:

Nine out of ten, maybe more, business owners are doing what they do because they have a high degree of personal passion for their product, service or treatment. But what usually happens is this. The day you launch your business you are driven by 110% passion; your effort is 110% - or maybe 210% or 310%; your energy is 110% - or 210% or 310%. And your organisation and attention to detail also is 110% - or 210% or 310%.

But what happens then – after 6 months, a year, 3 years or 5 years, it all begins to slide away and business become a bit of a drudge. Why? Because instead of sticking to the core passion and activity that was the very reason you started the business in the first place, the “grind” element of the business begins to overwhelm you – the accounting, the administration, staff problems, rules and regulations, investor demands, to mention but a few.

This I believe is one of the single greatest reasons for procrastination. You are not a procrastinator naturally. If you were, you would also procrastinate at the golf club, on your holidays, and the other fun activities in your life.

And you don’t

But when the drudgy detail of the business begins to overwhelm you and draw you away from the passionate core, which was the very reason you started your business in the first place, you invariably tend towards procrastination. So does everyone.

The answer – revisit the core of your original passion. Re-discover those things which are your still passion – do only those things that are your personal passion - and ruthlessly delegate the rest!

You, as the business owner need to stay with the core passion that drove you in the first place to start the business and which will continue to drive you onward today by degrees that will surprise you and all your staff. But only when you stay attached to that core passionate reason that you started your business in the first place.

REASON 2:

Again, let me ask you to quickly draw your mind back to those first few months of your business. Almost certainly, you were extremely organised – desk tidy, retail areas clean and well displayed, production highly efficient, factory areas well organised, staff training prioritised, customer relationship systems in place, and more – your attention to every tiny detail of your business was undoubtedly impressive.

If that is not the case today, the only reason again falls back to this issue of passion and you being attached to that very individual passion that drove you to start, and run in a highly organised manner, your business in the first place.

Re-attach yourself, and you will find that along with that passion comes that original Organised Passionate Activity (OPA) because the only way that your passion can be fulfilled to a high degree is through organising it and thereby making it happen.

‘OPA’ is key

Think about when you’re off to play golf, or on your way to the squash court, or going sailing, or preparing to go mountaineering.

For any particular sport or hobby you love and enjoy – how prepared and practised are you? How neat and well organised is your golf bag? How long before the game are you thinking about it, and making sure you’ve got all your clubs, got enough golf balls, got your kit, got clean shoes, clothes and anything you need, and made the necessary phone calls to your fellow players? Before you climb a mountain, if that’s what you do, how well organised do you find yourself being before you start?

My guess – very organised.

Why? Because clearly it is Organised Passionate Activity – and that’s the key in your business also.

ACTION POINT:
Adopt ‘OPA’ as your method, everyday, always, ensuring that you yourself are spending the great majority of your time doing only those things you are passionate about, and delegating, passionately, the rest. But always ensuring too that the delegated individual is delivering an extremely high level of fulfilment for you, your business and your customers. And only then will you find yourself, virtually automatically, organised and driven, innovating and marketing with a freshness that appeals. And with procrastination nowhere to be seen.

To conclude

The forgoing paragraphs have numerous tested and proven ideas on which you can work to improve your business. But UNLESS YOU IMPLEMENT the ideas, ‘pick them up and push them’ with drive and passion, then your business will tend to be sluggish, a continual uphill effort, or worse – it will stand still and do nothing, just like your garden wheelbarrow.

. . . . . and I could go on.

There are dozens more business growth drivers. But rather than explain them in what would have to become a 100 page letter (and even that would allow only a very brief explanation of each) what I want you to do is the following:

I have arranged for a limited number of business owners who have received this communication to have a ‘one-to-one’ private fact-finding consultation with either myself or Stephen. The reason is this - we are publishing a book about business drivers specific to organisations ranging in size from £500,000 to £5 million. It is a fascinating exposure of little known yet dynamically powerful approaches for achievement in this particular sector of business. It’s a critical stage for any business – where they can either go on to rise above the ‘norm’ and become leaders in their field, or simply fade away and die in the ditch. The book is set to change the performance and life of your business at this stage.

But what we want are ‘live’ examples that we can actually use in the book. Hence we have arranged to send this letter to a limited number of carefully chosen businesses, and provide for each of those businesses to receive an initial exploratory consultation which in it’s own right will reveal much about how to take your own business and imbue it with those drivers that make it thrive.

Following that we will make available to a limited number of those who receive the initial consultation, a privilege price, one year, consultation process directly with Stephen and I ourselves. There is no obligation of course, but we will only be taking on those selected few who, through the consultation, we will realise have the greatest potential for rapid growth and leadership in their respective fields of business. And a very generous guarantee will be made to you if you are offered one of these consultative places. On this basis (and remember there is no obligation whatsoever) what we want you to do is to accept the offer for this initial exploratory consultation today. We will be conducting these consultations over the next three to four weeks, but you must book your place quickly.

Finally, let me share a couple of surveys with you that show why you should do this:

Survey 1 - done by Barclays Bank a couple of years ago revealed that businesses accepting advice and assistance from qualified sources are three times more likely to be successful than those businesses who don't.

Survey 2 - done recently by Stoy Hayward, one of the big accounting firms, highlighted the parlous state of many businesses in the current economic climate. Their forecast was that as many as one in six businesses could fail should the economy take a downward turn which virtually every economics expert is suggesting will happen.

The evidence is overwhelming

You need to take action now.

Book your 45 minute complementary consultation immediately, worth thousands to you as long as you implement what we reveal to you during your consultation. Simply complete the attached reservation certificate and either post it or fax it to us right now to claim one of the limited number of places available (only if you are one of the named recipients of this letter). If you want to be sure of a place and need a quick confirmatory response, email my secretary, Sarah, or phone her on 01227 451400, and ask her to call you back with the details.

Best regards

Richard Calderwood FCA

P.S. This is the part of the letter where I'm supposed to hammer home some sort of hard-hitting, meaningful pitch, restating all the biggest and best benefits of what I can offer you, in the hope that you will come on board.

But I'm NOT . . . Absolutely NOT . . . Going To Do That !

Look, this is such a no-brainer. You're either “in”, or you’re not. Simple as that!

You've got three choices —
• Do nothing, leave things as they are and hope for the best. But please remember one thing - "hope". . . is NEVER . . . NEVER . . . a good business strategy.

• Or, you can waste months and years of your life ‘reinventing the wheel’, learning new business skills the hard way. And then, as you don’t have time for both, you neglect your business which will inevitably find any opportunity to struggle or collapse on you.
• Or, you can simply ask us for the ‘secrets of certain vibrant growth’ – and we will happily show you how. We’ve already spent the years (so that you don’t have to), collecting the knowledge and skills needed to help propel your business to ever increasing heights.

P.P.S. Remember, the reason we are making this complementary consultation available to you is our book “How to Outperform Your Competitors, Generate Increased Revenues, Accumulate More Cash, and Stay at the Top of Your Field” to be published later this year. It will reveal, for the first time in specific detail, how the £500,000 and £5million turnover businesses are able to develop and grow to be amongst the very top of their very particular field without a competitor anywhere being able to touch them or push them off course. The consultations, frankly, are as much a preliminary fact finding mission about what you and the owner of a £500,000 and £5million business need most to achieve the very height of your business dreams. That’s the reason, but having said that, it’s our very great pleasure to provide this wealth of information absolutely complementary to you.

P.P.P.S. If you are happy to be, we are interested in including your case study, and optimisation of growth as you work with us for the year on a consultative week by week basis, in our second book of book “How Eleven £500,000 to £5 Million Turnover Businesses Skyrocketed Their Turnover, Profits, Cash and Market Domination all within 18 to 36 Months – And How You Can Too”. Please let me know whether or not you would like to be included in this second book, anonymously or otherwise.

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Please return to: Results Management Systems Ltd, Roper Yard, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7EX ▪ 01227 451400 ▪ Fax 01227 766667