SHOCKING DISCOVERIES
INSIDE A BUSINESS AUDIT
In March, I went to a tennis and training club to conduct a fitness business audit. The gift of outside eyes on your business is a powerful one. We can so often (myself included) stop seeing some of the holes in our own businesses. And we can so often turn a blind eye to things because of how busy we are. It’s not a good practice for any of us.
• Is every new customer who comes into your place of business greeted?
• Are they taken on a tour?
• Is contact information gathered?
The question becomes are you checking to see if everyone who works for you is competent in the places where the money is actually made? What goes on when you’re not there? It is almost without fail that you will make shocking discoveries if you mystery- shop your phones, sales people, staff, and facilities;
• Are sales processes choreographed and scripted?
if you have cameras, videos, and recordings installed; and even if you just openly role-play with the people you have engaging with your clients and customers. With the many hats a small business or growing entrepreneur can wear, it is the policing that most people like least and therefore neglect or simply refuse to do. I’ve coached several businesses that operate in the brick-and-mortar space to go to this level of depth in order to squeeze every drop of profit and efficiency out of their existing business before trying to pour more people in. It often falls on deaf ears or gets filed away in the “good idea” category but not the “done” column. If you think about it, there are so many places in front of our eyes where steps and processes are policed and discretion is not allowed or people die — like pilots, soldiers, and surgeons. They don’t get to operate their practice with an “I don’t feel like it” attitude. Otherwise, people die.
These four simple things can create a dramatic uptick in your sales and the quality of your business without spending a dime on advertising.
A good chunk of my business is now spent helping business owners put money into marketing that delivers them leads, prospects, and customers. Our goal is to not pour it into a mess and throw good money after bad strategies. What’s the point of driving in leads to phones that go unanswered? Or having staff who ignore customers at the front desk and don’t work to convert them to the maximum amount they can? Sloppy systems or, worse, no systems are one of the biggest gaps that drain a small business of viability. Yet those are the type of problems you can fix the cheapest and fastest.
Maybe you don’t feel your business is life or death; I would say it is. We carry the future, health, and economy of this country on our backs, for one. And two, your business is a matter of life and death for the health of your family. So, here’s a simple checklist of things (not in full) to look at in your business:
Question: How serious are you about doing it right? How serious are you about having a business with maximum ROI?
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Fitnesspreneur Life • www.vitolafata.com
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