You can have the same goal as every other business but the problem your specific business is experiencing and thus the specific solution that is required is going to differ. In order to make an impact on your bottom line, a proper assessment and investigation of your business is required.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
Why one size fits all solutions don’t work
What you can assess in your business to discover areas for improvement
For the same reason you wouldn’t let a surgeon just start operating on you, the same goes for those who are there to help you grow your business - assessments are needed
You can have the same goal as every other business but the problem your specific business is experiencing and thus the specific solution that is required is going to differ. In order to make an impact on your bottom line, a proper assessment and investigation of your business is required.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
Why one size fits all solutions don’t work
What you can assess in your business to discover areas for improvement
For the same reason you wouldn’t let a surgeon just start operating on you, the same goes for those who are there to help you grow your business - assessments are needed
If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.
Shannon Stone:
H ey, welcome to the podcast. Super excited to jump into this episode today. Today I will be sharing why I assess businesses before giving advice. This one is going to be helpful for all businesses. It's also going to be helpful even for if you sell any kind of marketing services.
Shannon Stone:
Because I came from a marketing background, I ran a marketing agency. They were some of the big reasons why I started doing consulting. Because I came from a marketing background, I ran a marketing agency. They were some of the big reasons why I started doing consulting. Because I found, if I was able to ask the right questions, if I was able to just investigate what was going on in that business, I was able to properly see what solution they actually needed. And when I say solution, I don't mean the services that I sell, I mean what's the real problem that is happening in this business. That is, they can still have that same goal they want to grow their business, they want to make more sales. But what is the problem, or series of problems that are actually happening, what that are actually going on that are stopping or slowing them down from achieving those goals they have? And I always knew marketing was not the only way to solve that problem. It's definitely one of the ways, but I always found, by assessing a business, it gave me that complete overview of what was really going on and then I could go to that business or have that discussion with them with honest advice of these are the reasons why your business is not growing. Or, yes, we can do marketing, but you know your sales skills or your sales process or your offer is just not right. Like we could be honest and open about what the actual problem was and then, in that case, how to fix the um, come up with a proper solution for them.
Shannon Stone:
So one of the quotes that I absolutely love, that I use a lot in business is an Abraham Lincoln quote and it says give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax. So give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. So what this means is you want to spend more time in preparing, or more time in having a look at what is going on, or preparing your tools. Once you do that, it's almost a cinch. It's so much easier and quicker to do the rest of it, to actually roll out the solution, and I find a lot of people go wrong with growing their businesses, trying to make more sales because they've got the right goal. But the problem solving which? Lack of sales or a marketing problem? There's actually multiple problems within that. It's not just about getting more leads and more customers through the door. If it was everyone would be fine. But different problems present themselves and they can all lead to that same goal. So if you can identify what are the real, true causes of the problems that are happening, you're going to find it much easier and much longer lasting for a certain solution to stick. So I want to preface that, because in this episode I want to talk about some different areas that you can assess in your own business to help you to grow your business, make more sales, and maybe even some of the reasons why it hasn't grown up until now or the way that you would like, because maybe you're kind of throwing the wrong solution at it. So we'll chat about it today. If you have any questions, definitely let me know.
Shannon Stone:
What I want to just quickly scan through is just some different client. Examples of that have happened in my business where they all had the same goal. They all wanted to make more sales, but they had a different problem and we also provided different solutions to those problems. So, just very quickly, one client wanted to make more sales. Her problem was happening on her sales calls.
Shannon Stone:
Now it's not like we only ever have one problem, but often there is a big catalyst. You're all capable, established amazing businesses and business owners, so you figure out a lot of things. But in this case for her it was happening on her sales call. So once we were able to pinpoint where the actual problem was happening, we were able to then fix it and then almost like if you think of, like a hose pipe, you know, like water in the garden, the hose pipe, when it gets kinked, the water kind of builds up right and so when you remove that kink, water can flow through. It's kind of like that when you can find that kink happening in that business or that roadblock or that bottleneck, whatever word we want to throw at it once we release that, a lot of things can start to flow through. It's not to say that you're never going to have other bottlenecks or kinks happening in your hosepipe, if we're going to stick with those analogies. But often there are, you know, a couple of catalysts really slowing people down. So that's what I always love to look for. That's why I love to assess what is actually going on rather than go about it the opposite way of just, you know, trying to throw new marketing at things. I rather kind of get to the root problem first, because I think you get far greater results that way.
Shannon Stone:
So that was one example a client with her sales calls. That was her specific problem the solution. It's almost like the solution doesn't even matter. It does matter, but it's almost like when you can identify the problem first and foremost, it's so much easier to create a solution. So her solution was looking at her offer, looking at her sales skills, the way she was presenting it, that type of thing. So another client she wanted to make more sales but but in her case she needed to free up more time in the business. She was very busy with project type work and so she needed to hire someone. She needed to make her first hire, hire a team member. Once she was able to do that, she was then able to focus more on sales and marketing activity and then after that she was able to keep on growing her business, keep on growing her team. So she went from a team of one to a team of four, which is amazing. So just a couple of.
Shannon Stone:
I can go on and on with examples, but I just want to show you that people can have the same goal, but they quite often will have a different problem. So if you think about your business, it's like not everyone has the same problem going on. You might think you do it's like I don't have enough customers because I can't afford to do X, y and Z. It's like maybe that is actually not it. So when we can diagnose what is truly going on, then we can come up with the right solutions for it. Now I will say if someone, if you kind of engage even in a conversation with someone to help you to grow your business, to help you to make more sales, if they're not asking, I guess investigative and I'll kind of give you some areas where everyone should really be doing this but if they're not asking questions to like investigate and figure out what is going on, versus they're just coming at you with ideas or they're just saying, yeah, I can definitely help you make sales, it's like I absolutely believe I can help every business make sales.
Shannon Stone:
But that's a very generic statement. When I talk to a specific business and they're sitting there right in front of me or they're on the phone or on a Zoom call, I think we wouldn't be a person of integrity if we just generically, very confidently, said I can help you make sales without asking any questions, and I think it's almost like a poor position to have if you just approach it that way. I'd rather, sitting across from that business, ask some questions, and not because I'm trying to come across as a person of integrity, but because I really want to know tell me what is going on in your business. So some of the areas that I look at that. I would encourage you to assess or any marketing professional to assess is what is it that you sell?
Shannon Stone:
So you want your offer to be up to scratch, because try putting marketing behind a poor offer. It's like not going to get you very far. You're either going to spend way too much on marketing or your marketing is just not going to work at all. So you need to know that the offer is working, it's validated, people are buying it. You also want to look at the pricing. So almost like such easy fixes which is why I kind of assess and I'll go through these but if someone is underselling their services, their pricing is not where it needs to be. When you put marketing behind service that is underpriced, what's going to happen? Behind service that is underpriced, what's going to happen? You're going to be leaving far too much money on the table because you're selling services at a rate that is much lower than it should be. So If the goal is to make sales, not sell a number of units or number of services, then you want to price it accordingly. So pricing is another one your target market.
Shannon Stone:
Who is it that you're actually targeting? I'm sure you don't want to work with anyone and everyone. Who are your best clients? What do they look like? Have you worked with them before? Tell me about them. Where do we find them? How have you found them in the past? You want to know all these kinds of things. The marketing Tell me about your marketing.
Shannon Stone:
Tell me about what's on your database. What platforms are you using? How active you are, how consistent you are, like all these kinds of things. Your sales process Want to know about the sales process. How do people actually buy from you? And this is an amazing one, I think, for if you're working with a marketing agency or you are a marketing professional, in whatever capacity, you have to understand or you have to communicate, what is the sales process, so you can't just promote someone's service without understanding how do people end up working with them? Are you actually trying to lead people to booking a call with you? Are you trying to lead people to entering in their details on a form? Are they trying to come to a webinar, because that's the vehicle that helps people to convert? You want to know all these kinds of things.
Shannon Stone:
Otherwise, we're really going in blind and I think, like that quote at the beginning, it's like if I can spend six hours to chop down a tree, I'll spend the first four sharpening the ax. It might sound like a lot to actually go through all these areas, ask all these questions, just investigate what is actually going on, but you only need to ask them once. You only really need to sit down once and get all this information upfront, because once you do, then you've got a complete lay of the land of everything that is going on for that business and for me, the position that I just I guess where my solutions then come in. I can then see, okay, well, here's the low hanging fruit. I can then see, okay, well, here's the low-hanging fruit, here's the holes that we can start to plug in their business, which might be on their sales calls or it could be that they're underpriced, so we need to align their pricing. So I get to start to see where it is we're actually going to start, and then I also can start to develop what are the key projects we'll start to undertake. It's like we can solve some quick little things to begin with straight off the bat, little things that you know just kind of going wrong, but they're not going to be the main focus. But from all of that I get to then see okay, well, here's the more chunky things that are really going to grow your business and move it forward.
Shannon Stone:
But I would never have been able to just assume that straight off the gate if I went into that conversation and said I can help any business make sales, which we would all love to do and would love to stand by that. But I think to do any business that I work with justice, I would have to always assess it first so that they get the plan that is specific to them rather than specific to anything that I'm trying to sell, whether it be a cookie cutter solution or you know, almost like coming at it with like here's my intention of what I want to sell you. I never want to come at something that way. So I share this with you because I think it's imperative to assess a business before giving advice. Just like you would go to any other kind of practitioner, your doctor, your mechanic, your computer tech wizard, whoever it is, I would hope they would ask you questions before just jumping in there and pulling things apart and making suggestions of what you need to do. You want the people that you work with, your service providers in particular, to assess and to ask what is actually going on, because when they're equipped with the information that you have and sometimes it's information you don't even know that you have until someone asks us the right questions once you get all of that on the table, it's so much easier to create a plan moving forward. So that is what I wanted to share with you today as far as action steps for you.
Shannon Stone:
From this podcast, I guess the main one that I want to share with you is that it's important to identify the right problem and once you really identify the right problem, you'll honestly, most of the work would have been done. Obviously, there is the rollout of the work and actually doing the work, but the heavy lifting really is in identifying the right problem. So I guess, presenting this as an action step, it's almost like if there's a problem that you've got to solve right now or the next time you want to solve particular problems in your business, really take some of the stuff that we spoke about, like your offer, your pricing, your target market, your marketing, your sales process, all these types of things. If it has to do with you growing your business and wanting to make more sales, sit down and just see if you can really identify what is the right problem here, like, where's the breakdowns happening? If it is on your sales call, for example, and it's like breaking it down step by step, is it that you know not enough people are booking the call? Is it not enough people are attending the call? Is it on the call itself? It's like you don't really know what to say. You don't really have a process to take them through. Or is it towards the call itself? It's like you don't really know what to say, you don't really have a process to take them through. Or is it towards the end of the call, where you're not really sure how to present your offer? Are you not saying you're pricing on the call? Maybe it's happening afterwards in that follow-up process. You're waiting to hear back from them, but maybe you should have booked a follow-up call with them initially. So a bit of a glimpse, but I want you to make sure that you're identifying the right problem. When you've done that, you've done most of the work. It's so much easier to then come up with the right solution.
Shannon Stone:
Ending on a quote here, I found this really great one by Albert Einstein, and it said if I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it. That is just a perfect quote to sum up this whole episode. So I hope you found this useful. If you have any questions at all, definitely let me know. I hope you have fun with this one and feel free to share it with a friend. I'll talk to you soon. I hope you have fun with this one and feel free to share it with a friend. I'll talk to you soon. Hey, thanks for listening. If you found this episode useful, I'd love for you to send it to a friend. The best podcasts I have found have all been recommended to me. If you can spread the word by sharing this episode, I can spend more time helping you by creating episodes just like this one. Send it, text it, tell somebody about it. Whatever you need to do, the more you spread the word, the more I can focus on creating needle-moving episodes to help you and your friends.
