Have you ever made pasta sauce? I’m not talking about white sauce or pesto here — I mean the good stuff, the red marinara we all grew up eating on spaghetti. If you have, then you can probably name the ingredients that are the backbone of that recipe: tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, oregano, salt, and pepper. Those ingredients are fundamental. You can get fancy and add Parmesan cheese or red pepper flakes, but as long as you have those seven things, you’ll serve a killer dinner. As crazy as it sounds, running a successful business is like making a great pasta sauce. You need a foundation of key ingredients. Without them, the whole thing will come crashing down. I’ve run Newsletter Pro for over 10 years now, and I’ve come up with six key ingredients for busi- ness success. If you focus on these areas, you’ll easily grow, scale, and make it to the top. 1. Retaining and Maintaining No business can grow and succeed if it can’t retain customers. You know this. But if I were sitting in your office right now, could you tell me exactly the percentage of customers and number of dollars you lose each month in customer churn? If you could, you’re among just 10% of all business owners. That’s a big issue and a major reason why businesses don’t scale. When you reduce customer churn, you increase your revenue, boost your referrals, have more opportunities to upsell, and achieve a higher lifetime value for each customer, which is an all-around great thing. If you have a customer churn problem, now is the time to address it. Here are just a few ways to get started: Improve your pre- and post-sale education, amp up your support team’s response rate, focus on relationship marketing, start offering helpful upsells, and be proactive about customer problems. 2. Marketing You need to have marketing that generates quality leads and a sales process that converts those leads to customers. This is much easier said than done, and I get that. The fundamental items all businesses need are lead generation of quality prospects (not all leads or lead sources are created equal); a customer relationship management system that allows you to keep track of, nurture, and follow up with leads; and a sales pro- cess that includes long-term nurture and follow-up as well as the abil- ity to close a deal. These are only the minimum requirements, and you should make sure you have them all. 3. System and Processes Many businesses don’t scale because they don’t have systems and processes in place for things like meetings, onboarding, and addressing The 6 Ingredients of Business Success Are You Missing an Opportunity for Growth? By Shaun Buck, CEO of Newsletter Pro
6 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs