[click_to_tweet tweet=”Are you making these 4 growth mistakes?” quote=”Are you making these 4 growth mistakes?”]
Why most businesses fail…
What I’m about to share with you can only be learned from experience.
Most businesses fail to get traction for 3 simple reasons.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Are you making these 4 growth mistakes?” quote=”Are you making these 4 growth mistakes?”]
1. Market Domination
Failing to narrow down the market enough. Make your market too broad and you have a watered down message that falls on deaf ears.
Think about this example.
You have been rear-ended by a driverless car.
Who do you call?
A lawyer who takes any case on the planet
Ghostbusters
A lawyer who only works with car accidents
A lawyer who only works with driverless car accidents
When you have the entire world at your fingertips, you get to work with people who hyper-specialize.
Your message needs to let the world know who you work with and who you don’t.
Draw a line in the sand and claim your specialty.
[clickToTweet tweet=”When you have the entire world at your fingertips, you get to work with people who hyper-specialize.” quote=”When you have the entire world at your fingertips, you get to work with people who hyper-specialize.”]
2. Pricing
Failing to charge enough.
This goes back to the 1st problem.cWhen you’re a generalist expect people to price shop like they would for a gallon of 2% milk.
If you’re on a call with a lead and they tell you that other people do what you do and can do it cheaper, you’re a commodity.
When you’re a commodity, you really can’t charge that much because you’re not offering anything special.
If I want to hire a PPC, SEO or SEM agency, they are all a dime a dozen.
But what about the digital marketing agency that only works with lawyers in cities with over 100K people where they guarantee you will be the #1 attorney in 6 months?
Now that’s an agency that I’ll hire in a heartbeat, and you can bet they don’t come cheap. That engagement starts at $10K per month plus.
[clickToTweet tweet=”When you’re a generalist expect people to price shop like they would for a gallon of 2% milk.” quote=”When you’re a generalist expect people to price shop like they would for a gallon of 2% milk.”]
3. Systems
Failing to have systems in place. I work with businesses with 7 figure monthly marketing budgets, others who are burning VC cash like it’s their job, and startups who are trying to find product-market fit.
I hate to say this, but without repeatable systems, in place you’ll end up with zero gains regardless of the money you throw into advertisements.
Trying to scale up a business without the right processes will often accelerate your failure.
Yes, you will have growing pains, and that’s to be expected. Having all the knowledge in your head is not how you grow. You have to create a sales, marketing, and fulfillment process that is 100% repeatable.
In 2015 I worked with a startup company that created mobile apps for restaurants.
They had a massive success on a local level. Things worked great when the founder was on the ground making connections.
But without systems in place, each rep tried to do sales their own way. The founder was spending all his time trying to put out fires his out-of-town sales reps created.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Trying to scale up a business without the right processes will often accelerate your failure.” quote=”Trying to scale up a business without the right processes will often accelerate your failure.”]
Here is a bonus.
Cash flow is king. I can’t count the times I’ve seen businesses grow too fast and become victims of their own success.
Being able to forecast and hire for the right job at the right time is critical.
Recently I was talking to a founder who over-hired in the sales department.
He was expecting that the sales reps would bring in their own Rolodex of past clients.
Because of this, he neglected to hire for marketing. With 4 sales reps drawing a base salary and minimal sales, his cash flow quickly dried up. He ended up letting them go after some long nights beating himself up over the situation.
Always budget that every project will cost at least 3X what was initially projected.
When you live by these business rules you quickly discover you can create a backlog of clients, charge 10X your current rate and deal with less stress every day.
[clickToTweet tweet=”When you live by these business rules you quickly discover you can create a backlog of clients, charge 10X your current rate and deal with less stress every day.” quote=”When you live by these business rules you quickly discover you can create a backlog of clients, charge 10X your current rate and deal with less stress every day.”]
Talk soon,
Charles Kirkland
P.S. Is your B2B sales team not meeting their marketing goals?
Then book a call with Charles and see how marketing is done with AI, Big Data, and human experience.
