10 CRITICAL AREAS THAT LARGELY DETERMINE THE SUCCESS OR FAILURE OF YOUR BUSINESS

Did you know that there are ten critical areas that largely determine the success or failure of your business? The greater clarity you have in each of these areas, the better decisions you will make and better results you will achieve. Let's take a quick look at each of them.

1. Key Purpose - Create Customers

What is the purpose of a business? Many people think that the purpose of a business is to earn a profit, but they are wrong. The true purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer. And 50 percent of your time, efforts, and expenses should be focused on creating and keeping customers in some way.

2. Key Measure - Customer Satisfaction

The key measure of business success is customer satisfaction. Your ability to satisfy your customers to such a degree that they: buy from you rather than from someone else, buy from you again and again, and bring their friends to buy, are the key factors of growth and profitability.

3. Key Requirement - Adding Value

The key requirement for wealth building and business success is for you to add value in some way. All wealth comes from adding value. All business growth and profitability come from adding value.
Every day, you must be looking for ways to add more value to the customer experience.

4. Key Focus - The Customer (always)

The most important person in the business is the customer. You must focus on the customer at all times. Customers are fickle, disloyal, changeable, impatient, and demanding -- just like you. Nonetheless, the customer must be the central focus of everything you do in business.

5. Key Word - Contribution

In life, work, and business, you will always be rewarded in direct proportion to the value of your contribution to others, as they see it. The focus on outward contribution, to your company, your customers, and your community, is the central requirement for you to become an even more valuable person, in every area.

6. Key Question - How?

The most important question you ask, to solve any problem, overcome any obstacle, or achieve any business goal is, "How?" Top people always ask the question, "How?" and then act on the answers that come to them.

7. Key Strategy - Continuous Improvement

In a world of rapid change and continuing aggressive competition, you must practice continuous improvement in every area of your business and personal life.
As Pat Riley, the basketball coach, said, "If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse."

8. Key Activity - Selling

The heartbeat of your business is sales. Dun & Bradstreet analyzed thousands of companies that had gone broke over the years and concluded that the number-one reason for business failure was "low sales". When they researched further, they found that the number-one reason for business success was "high sales." And all else was commentary.

9. Key Number - Cash Flow

The most important number in business is cash flow. Cash flow is to the business as blood and oxygen are to the brain. You can have every activity working efficiently in your business, but if your cash flow is cut off for any reason, the business can die, sometimes overnight.

10. Key Goal - Growth

Every business must have a growth plan. Growth must be the goal of all your business activities. You should have a goal to grow 10 percent, 20 percent, or even 30 percent each year. Some companies grow 50 percent and 100 percent per year, and not by accident. The only real growth is profit growth. Profit growth is always measurable in what is called "free cash flow." This is the actual amount of money that the business throws off each month, each quarter, and each year, above and beyond the total cost and expense of running a business.

Action Exercise

You should have a growth plan for the number of new leads you attract and for the number of new customers you acquire from those leads. You should have a growth plan for sales, revenues, and profitability. If you do not deliberately plan for continuous growth, you will automatically stagnate and begin to fall behind. Growth is not an accident; so you must plan and map out your growth plan if you want your business to see a bright future.