It’s Time to Blossom

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
— Anaïs Nin

Good morning my beautiful friend; how are you?  Let me take your hat, coat, scarf, a chilly Hoosier morning.  How was your sleep?  I snuggled with my wife, our dog was on my side last night, sprawled out whilst wearing her TTG Hoodie.  It’s chilly here again, but it seems to warm throughout the day; I’ll take PVHT for a walk this morning and when I return this afternoon.  The word “walk” now resonates with her; she loves to walk.

We took one car for service, and I started the process of donating my old beast to a company that helps people in need.   The car is ready to be picked up; it will be a few days before we roll my car north for processing.  It will be an exciting process; if you have a vehicle you would like to donate, send me a message, and I can hook you up with the connection.  If you are not in the Indianapolis area, you can always donate to NPR.

We met Cat yesterday, a 23-year-old Notre Dame graduate that has found her home in Indianapolis. She’s in the IT field, a ball of energy; she’s part of the local cult of Synergize, a vein of like-minded leaders in the area.  We walked home from The Dug Out and saw some friends that came over with their dog murphy.  Murph and PVHT ran for 30 minutes together while we caught up.  Cousin Mike arrived last night as well; he will stay with us for a few days.

I’m heading up to Muncie to see a friend and pop in on some other friends.  I’ll run to Beautiful Parker City and check on my parents and my hair care professional who recently became a grandmother.   I guess she has a whopper of a story for me.  I’ll head back home and spend the night with my wife and cousin.

Occasionally I’ll get something from friends that serve as a ROX for my morning soup.  If you see something that aligns with my writings, red rover, red rover, send it on over, I’ll see if I can build something around the thought or idea.   I’ve long shared our company practice of saying no more than yes when engaging new clients; not everyone is a fit for us. Selectivity is one of the keys to our success.   I’ll pull some ideas from a recent INC Magazine article that matches our theory.

Why the Secret to Fast Growth Is to Sell Fewer Things to Fewer People

By Bruce Eckfeldt

Growing your business requires you to focus your strategy. Here are five steps that’ll get you there.

The irony is, the faster you want to scale a business, the more you need to focus your strategy. This process includes choosing a specific product or service that you are uniquely good at and identifying a particular customer who you serve exceptionally well.

That said, here are five key steps you can follow to identify a strategy that will allow you to scale more quickly and with less drama.

1. Identify your core customer.

The first thing to do is figure out exactly who your best customer is. Identifying the segment where you are most successful will allow you to focus your sales and marketing efforts and optimize your spending.

The fact is, most companies try to sell to too many types of customers and water down their efforts. Find the one that works best and double down.

The best way to identify your core customer is to look at your current customer base and ask three key questions: Who are your most profitable customers? Who are customers which are easy to serve? Which customers will promote you in the industry or have a reputation that allows you to sell more effectively?

By asking these three questions and seeing which customers rise to the top, you’ll begin to identify what types of customers you should go out and find more of.

2. Shed all bad fits.

The next step is complex for most companies but critical for scaling a business. Once you identify your customer, you need to stop doing business with everyone else. This concept doesn’t mean you need to fire all your non-ideal clients tomorrow, but you do need to potentially raise rates, stop offering discounts, not provide extra services, and limit the time and energy you spend on them.

It also means you need to set up filters and qualifications in your sales and marketing funnel to remove prospects who do not fit your core customer profile. While it can be hard to say no, it will free up space for you to search for, find, and close better leads.

3. Hone your products and services.

Once you’ve identified your core customer, you begin to see which of your current products and services create the most value for their business. By slimming down your portfolio and focusing on just those offerings which are the highest value, you can simplify your operations.

While there are many products and services you could provide, the fact is that you have limited time, energy, and resources. It would help if you only focused on those that create the most benefit and that allows you to charge the highest prices to make the highest profit. Doing otherwise is just leaving money on the table.

4. Standardize your processes and procedures

The other benefit of limiting the products and services you offer is simplifying your business. With a limited set of offerings, you reduce the complexity of your processes and procedures and the breadth of skills and experiences you need on your teams. Focusing allows you to simplify and streamline many aspects of your operations.

5. Create a brand promise and guarantee

Now that you’ve identified who specifically you sell to, what product or service you offer them, and what value you create, you can hone your marketing message. Creating a brand promise that clearly communicates to your target customer what it is you do and what benefit they will gain will make it much easier to generate leads and close deals.

A brand promise guarantee shows your prospect that you’re willing to put skin in the game and back your product or service with a meaningful and significant commitment. For example, Domino’s knew that delivering on time was so important that they would give you your pizza for free if it weren’t there in 30 minutes. The rest is history.

Like many aspects of a business, identifying your core customer and core offering is not complicated, but it’s not easy. It takes focus and willingness to make tough decisions and not get distracted by shiny objects.

I think the above is a framework we have been following for the last 15 years.  Maybe you, too, are using one or more of these ideas to help scale your company.  I’ll share this with my team and ask them to read it to confirm they follow these fundamental five principles.  I feel like I cheat when I use others’ work, but this was too good not to share.  So thank you, Bruce Eckfeldt, for penning something I didn’t need to compose myself.  Enjoy your day, pet the Camels you see and be kind to the humans you experience.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
— Anaïs Nin