What does it take to succeed? How many times have you asked that question of yourself and others? You may have heard many different answers. I have found one thing that successful people have in common. They use systems. They may or may not have talent. If they did they learned not to rely on talent alone. Talent is seductive. For example, if you are talented at golf you might be tempted not to practice. You might believe you can wing it. Tiger Woods never wings it. Wayne Gretzky never winged it. Both of them are tremendously talented at their sport. But they know not to rely on that talent alone. They developed systems.
What is a system? A set of practices, procedures and habits melded into a process that you learn, perform, evaluate, improve and do again - repeatedly. Everything that you do can be a process. This applies in your personal life but especially to your business. To run a marathon requires a simple system - training, diet, measurement and repetition. The hard part is taking
70,000 steps to complete race. Your business is more like a marathon than a sprint.
Everything in your business begs for a system. Business is real simple that way; discover system and do it. And systems by their nature are simple. They demand only persistence and consistence.
Let's look at most important aspect to your business - sales. If you don't sell you die. Can't get more important than that. Selling is not luck or talent - it is a process. You find a client who wants your product, they see value in buying from you, they can afford it, and they buy. That is over simplified but that is process. Depending on business you are in you learn details of each step and apply them. A friend of mine told me that he knows how many million dollar clients he will get this month and one after. Why? Because he knows process and where to find them. The difference between $10,000 client and $1million client is where to look. The selling process is same. The only difference is system of where you look. To maximize his sales he keeps reapplying process (system) and strives to find opportunities for improving efficiency in system.
The second most important activity in your business is marketing. Why? Because marketing is everything you do that makes it easier to sell. Here is where following a system is even more important. Marketing is about sending messages. Building your visibility, credibility, value, character and reputation takes time. And results are difficult to measure. You might be tempted to give up too soon.
What marketing systems do you have in place? You might consider implementing some of these.
