A Happiness Audit of Your Business?

Written by Stephanie West Allen


FROM SUICIDAL TO HAPPY WITH SMART CHAINSAW MOVES

Paddi Lund, an Australian dentist, working 60 hours a week, was close to suicide. He made a decision that profoundly changed his life and his success. He decided to focus his practice on happiness.

Paddi took a chainsaw to his reception desk and replaced it with a coffee bar. His patients are now served their choice from a large selection of coffees and teas. He installed a large kitchen and clients are met withrepparttar smell of baking bread instead of those dental smells we all know so well.

He took a chainsaw mentality to his client list, too. He fired many of them, keeping only those that met his ideal customer profile.

Paddi also instituted a Courtesy System so that everyone in his office -- both clients and employees -- is treated well. Seerepparttar 106272 Courtesy System here: http://www.uksmiles.co.uk/courtesy.htm The System includes simple but effective guidelines, such as: “When you talk about a person who is not present, speak as if they are listening to your conversation.”

He made many other changes to bring happiness to his business. Read about them in his book Buildrepparttar 106273 Happiness Centered Business. The book’s subtitle is: How you can find happiness in your business and reap allrepparttar 106274 rewards it brings, including increased profits, by following inrepparttar 106275 footsteps of a crazy dentist.

CRAZY?

What wererepparttar 106276 results of changing his to a happiness centered business? The door to his office is locked, with no sign on it. One can only become a client if referred by another client; his new clients are by invitation only. He does no advertising. His phone number is unlisted. Paddi now works 22 hours a week and makes three timesrepparttar 106277 average dentist’s income. Not crazy at all.

It's A Numbers Game

Written by Kimberly Stevens


Three years ago, Paul left his corporate job to launch his freelance writing career, and he’s done relatively well. He has a group of regular clients that keep him going, and they are happy with his work.

When he first called me, he expressed concern overrepparttar sustainability of his business. “Even though I’ve got great relationships with my clients, and they send me enough assignments to keep my business going, I have this nagging fear of losing them.

If I lost one or two atrepparttar 106271 same time, I would really be in trouble. I really don’t like feeling this vulnerable. I don’t feel like I’m in control of my own business.”

“Okay, let’s say that happened,” I prompted him. “How long would it take you to get each new client to take their place?” “I’m not sure,” he stammered. “I don’t really keep track of those things. I’m scared to even think about it.”

“But that’s why we’re working together. So you can look at these aspects of your business. So you’ll be prepared forrepparttar 106272 unexpected. I know it can be scary, so let’s look at it together.”

Paul and I continued to discuss this topic during our next four coaching calls. During that time, he plotted out his prospecting process, developed a system for tracking leads and prospects as they traveled throughrepparttar 106273 system, and created a spreadsheet that showed himrepparttar 106274 status of each prospect at any given time.

With these figures, he was able to calculate how many leads he needed to generate in order to meet his sales goals. As a result, he now feels much more in control of his business and knows exactly what he must do in order to ensure his business’ survival.

None of us can predict when a client will move, lose money they budgeted for our services, take our function in-house or choose another vendor, but we can prepare ourselves to respond to these types of things so they haverepparttar 106275 least amount of impact onrepparttar 106276 viability of our business.

Do you know how many leads you have to generate in order to get a new client? 5? 10? 25? 50? Although industry guidelines may be available, what you really need to know is how many prospects YOU have to approach in order to get one new client.

Knowing this number tells you what results you need to be getting from your marketing efforts and knowing that tells you whether or not your marketing efforts are sufficient to reach your annual sales goals.

Let’s say you want to increase your sales by $18,000 overrepparttar 106277 next 12 months, and you know that, on average, each client spends $1200/year with you. That means you have to bring on 15 new clients inrepparttar 106278 next 12 months ($18,000 divided by $1,200).

Note that you’ll need to go into more detail in order to calculate your own numbers since in this scenariorepparttar 106279 average client spends $1,200/year with you, but if you don’t bring him/her on until 6 months from now, you’ll only be making $600 inrepparttar 106280 12 month period we’re looking at. But let’s run with what we’ve got forrepparttar 106281 purposes of this example.

So you have to bring on 15 additional clients. If you also know that you have to generate 10 qualified prospects for every person that becomes a client, then you’ll have to generate 150 additional prospects this year (15 clients * 10 qualified prospects).

Therefore, in order to generate $18,000 more in sales you need to come up with some marketing methods that will generate 150 additional prospects above and beyond those you are currently generating.

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