At Cardone Ventures, we have generated $24MM in 18 months, and we did it in a way that is totally duplicable. If you’re an entrepreneur and you want to grow and scale your business and you’re not doing these things? Well, do you really want to grow? Let’s see if you’re ready!
You Have To Define the Big Picture
You’d be surprised how many businesses don’t do this. It’s absolutely essential that you create a long-term vision for your organization. Sure, you’re just a startup today, but what specifically does success look like?
You can’t act on something that’s undefined. You can’t act on an idea. You need to define, to actualize it so you can ultimately surround yourself with like-minded clientele and, eventually, strong team members who will identify with and support your business’s vision of success.
Sell Shit
This is the next step in actualizing your business and building toward $24MM. It’s easy to get hung up on things like fonts, having the perfect website, etc. Don’t. That’s marketing and branding. And it matters. But you need to start promoting yourself. You need to understand if the market cares about what you’re selling, they’ll buy it. So start building an audience. Don’t wait for the “perfect thing.” Get started and focus on selling some shit! Not planning, prepping, or trying to launch the perfect business, product, or service.
Hire Because You Sell Shit
You shouldn’t be hiring before you sell shit, you should be hiring because you sell shit. You’ve proven that the market desires what you sell. Take everything that you’ve learned and documented and perfected through selling your own shit and start hiring people that can help you take the business to the next level of success.
Give these people a clear plan. Train them on your mission, your vision, and values. Support them in being successful by setting clear expectations about every aspect of your business, especially what they’re selling and how each sale gets you incrementally closer to goal achievement.
Fire Fast
Just about every organization has suffered because they get bogged down by people who are more drainers than contributors. Cut them loose. Demonstrate your commitment to the team by removing people from the organization who are not contributing to your goals. If you don’t, everyone will assume that you’re fine with a mediocre culture.
But you need to make sure you’re doing this the right way. Everyone in your organization should have regular one on ones with their managers, and those one on ones should be appropriately documented so that if the time comes you need to part ways, that you have performance issues documented, and that the organization is protected.
You Need A Clear Value Proposition
You have a business! You sell shit. You even have people in place who are trained to sell your products and services for you. So…why should anyone care? What is it about your business that would make future employees, clients, or even investors care?
Your value proposition should be clear, succinct, and immediately recognizable as something that adds real value to people’s lives, so much so that people might say to themselves, “I need to be a part of this right now!” in support of you generating the revenue goals that you have targeted.
Differentiate Yourself
If your business is like most, then you likely have competition. How are you differentiating yourself from them? My advice is to always be aware of the competition, but to never imitate them. Imitation in business is usually born out of fear, and if you look deep into yourself, you’ll be able to recognize that intrinsically unique thing that makes your business unlike any other.
If you’re not able to articulate that, then people will just think you’re like everybody else. And isn’t that the definition of average? Don’t fear being different. Embrace it. Cultivate it. You’ll win because of it.
Revenue Is Vanity; Profit Is Sanity
Revenue is great, but how much cash are you burning to generate it? And how much profit are you really left with at the end of the day?
Businesses love to report revenue, but if there’s a chasm between revenue and profitability, then your business isn’t as successful as it could be.
Take the time and care to understand your business’s profit centers, where your customer leads are coming from, and what marketing activities are generating interest in the business. Invest in those arenas. See if you can duplicate their success across other aspects of your business, or invest less in those poorer performing areas.
Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing
The subtext here is don’t get bored with the thing that’s generating profit. Innovation is essential to long-term, diversified growth. But it’s too easy (especially early on) to get distracted just when you’re on the precipice of explosive growth. You need to let the thing that is working for the business season. Build it. Focus on increasing your profitability through the main thing while also experimenting with potential new revenue streams, but let that be, say, ten to fifteen percent of your energy. Don’t let that shiny new object take your eye off of the ball.
Regenerate Cash Flow
Create great experiences for your customers so that they want to do more business with you. Are there opportunities in the business for subscription services? Referral programs? How can you create loyalty and advocacy and increase profitability with your existing customers by also expanding your customer base?
You want to make it hard for them to leave your business not because of contractual obligations, but because they can’t imagine operating without your services. Your best customers will always be your paying customers so focus on serving them by solving their problems.
Create Business Partnerships In Your Community
Do you know how many opportunities your local marketplace already has in it? Have you explored trade or partnership opportunities with other businesses that provide services you need and vice versa?
You can support each other to be even more successful while at the same time increasing your business’s visibility and opportunity to create even more local partnerships. These relationships are nothing if not the gateway to unforeseen possibilities. Don’t squander these opportunities by assuming they’re not there.
We take explosive growth seriously. Do you? Join us for 10XOwners Live every Tuesday at 5 Pacific by going to CardoneVentures.com/live RIGHT NOW to register!