Getting Down to Business

If you want to be in business for yourself — be in business.

Think and Act like this is important to you.

Put your hobbies away and get down to business.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that your business needs to make a profit, or it isn’t a business, but a charity — for your customers.

At the end of the day, Profit needs to be at the end of the Income Statement.

Profit is your goal.

Now, you might think that your goal in business is to improve the lives of your customers.

Well, you might be able to manage to do that. But, without profits, you won’t do it for very long.

Profits are the ultimate goal for any business. Profits are Good. They are essential.

Making the Sale

Profits don’t start with keeping expenses to a minimum. They start with a sale.

Something has to be sold before any profits accrue.

So, your number one goal for any given day is to make sales. It doesn’t matter if you are selling a product, or a service, if someone doesn’t “buy” from you, today, you missed your mark.

Now, you might have other things to do throughout the day.

Activities like production and accounting keep the wheels on.

But, if you ask yourself, “Is this contributing to making a sale?” and say, “No”, then it is time to re-focus.

You make the sale by funneling suspects into qualified prospects, and from there, into paying customers.

If you do business online, this means generating enough targeted traffic to your sales pages so someone will click the “Buy” button.

It also means writing and re-writing your sales pages so your Conversion Rate improves.

If you do business from a store-front, you still have the same operational goal: attract targeted traffic to come in and look at your merchandise or service.

If you do any kind of in-home or in-office sales, then your phone better be burning up with your out-bound prospecting calls in between the inbound inquiries.

Going to Work

As a business owner, you have great freedom and flexibility.

I always loved how flexible my calendar was.

I only had to work half-days, and the Best part was that I got to choose which 12-hours that was.

As the owner, you have to be both the boss AND the employee.

How good are you as a boss? Do you have exciting plans for your business? Do you have plenty of productive work for your employees to do? Are you able to motivate even the most recalcitrant employee? Do you take good care of both customers and employees?

The larger question is:

How good are you as an employee?

Do you show up for work on time and ready to work? Do you get the most important work done first? Do you avoid the productivity sink of online browsing? Do you earn 10-times your salary? Do you take good care of the customers? Do you always seek to be a little bit better than last time? Are you a good role model for the other employees? Do you make the boss look good?

The key is for you to remember that your business success rests solely on YOU.

You have to make it go.

You have to keep it running.

If your business fails, it is probably because you weren’t a good boss, or you weren’t a good employee, or both.

Get Focused

Focus on Bottom Line Profits.

Focus on Making that Sale.

Focus on being the best Boss and best Employee you can be.

Focus…