The Five Questions You Must Answer to Put Your Business on Autopilot
Dear Friend,
Today I want to talk with you about taking your existing business to Level Three. I want to do this by sharing with you what I consider to me the five "must answer" questions you need to look deeply at in order to make this jump successfully.
But first I want to remind you of my invitation to join me for a FREE webinar I am personally teaching this coming Saturday February 9th called, The Four Biggest Foreclosure Opportunities in the Current Market Meltdown!
The class is about the challenges and significant opportunities in the foreclosure market at this time. If you're even thinking about investing in foreclosures over the next 24 months then I urge you to join me for the class.
On it you'll learn:
• The three biggest forces driving the current foreclosure market (and why a fourth driver is about to emerge!)
• A Simple Six-Step formula to complete a short sale (and how this profitable niche is changing due to current market forces)!
• 9 case studies of foreclosure deals and investors and how you can profit from their experiences!
• The single greatest danger you face investing in foreclosures in our current market conditions!
This 70 minute webinar starts at:
10am Pacific 11am Mountain Noon Central 1pm Eastern
I understand that for many of you won't be able to invest the energy to join me in Atlanta for the full-blown three day Ultimate Foreclosure Bootcamp. But I wanted to share some of the most important pieces with you just in case you can't make the bootcamp (or for those of you who want to get a taste of what you'll be learning in Atlanta at the bootcamp can join in the webinar too.)
To register and join me for this special 70 minute webinar this Saturday February 9th just click here. It's free, but the information you'll learn about how to capitalize on current market conditions is priceless!
Now that I've shared the webinar details I want to talk about taking your business to Level Three...
Putting your business on autopilot means that it can thrive without you the owner needing to show up to work in the business every day. I call this building a "Level Three business", a business that thrives with less than 10 hours per month of the owners time working in the business.
Here are five questions to start you on your way to taking your business to Level Three.
Question One: What is the single most important "driver" in your business? A driver is the thing your business does that "drives" new business in the door. It could be a direct mail letter you mail to rented lists. It could be a website that has huge traffic. It could be your key word ad campaign. It could be your syndicated articles that you write for industry newsletters. It could be your referral base from past clients. It could be walk in traffic from a mall your store is situated in. It could be a display ad you run in your local paper.
What is the single most important driver in your business? When you get very clear on exactly what it is, then you can look for ways to systematize and automate it. Even better, you can look for ways you can expand or leverage it.
Question Two: What is the biggest bottleneck in your business? A bottleneck is a limiting factor. In your business, what (or who) is the biggest limiting factor in your business's growth and success?
One way to spot a bottleneck is to ask yourself, if I could have more of any one thing, what one thing would I want more of to expand my business?
It could be more prospective customers walking into your store, in which case your lead generation activities are your biggest bottleneck.
It could be more sales people to process and close all the leads you already have, in which case your lack of trained sales staff is your biggest bottleneck.
It could be more production capacity to handle more business in a quality manner, in which case your current production capacity is your biggest bottleneck.
Whenever you determine your biggest bottleneck, you can then focus your energies on how to push back that limiting factor so that it no longer limits your business. One way to look at growing your business is as a game of continually finding and pushing back bottlenecks.
Now in the context of creating a true Level Three business, you need to build the systems, team, technology, and outsourced solutions to help you push back your bottlenecks long term.
By the way, what do you think is the single most overlooked bottleneck in most entrepreneurial companies? YOU! That's right, you the business owner are most often the real bottleneck. Look at your business, are you a the root of your company's bottlenecks?
Question Three: Imagine you found out that you had one year left to work before you would be forced to stop working for the rest of your life (you could only check in for a MAXIMUM of ten hours per month.) You have 12 months to establish and grow your business to the place that at the end of those 12 months you couldn't work in your business ever again (just check in for up to 10 hours per month), but you would be dependent on the business to provide you with steady cash flow to support yourself. What are the first three areas that immediately call out to you that you must focus on first?
In essence what this question is saying is how can you take your business to Level Three in the next 12 months. This is a very ambitious target for most business owners, but it's a question that engages you. If it's too much for you to imagine, change the time frame to 24 months, or 36 months.
Question Four: What three steps could you take in the next 30 days that would have the greatest impact on you hitting your goal of having a Level Three business by years end?
Final question…
Question Five: Who can you mastermind with to give you feedback and hold you accountable on your goal of building a Level Three business?
Too many entrepreneurs think they are all alone. Building a business in isolation is hard, grueling work. Building a business in association with a highly functioning mastermind team of other business owners in non-competitive businesses is fun, engaging, and infinitely more powerful.
I am not suggesting that you partner with these other business owners, just that you mastermind together and help each other reach your goal of Level Three. Truly there is power when you create a focused mastermind team to mutually support each other in your business aspirations.
That's it for this week (unless you join me on Saturday for the Foreclosure webinar).
My very best to you,
David
