I work through the following exercise pretty early on in a new client meeting. It seems to really opens their eyes as to what they are currently doing versus what they WANT to be doing in their business. It also gives us a chance to get a strong dialog going by cutting through the bullshit and getting down to what matters, plotting a course to help the company grow. So, I thought I would write about it here and give you a chance to work through it on your own to get you thinking about your business.
Mind the gap!
Let’s say you are a residential painter and as a secondary business you do pressure washing. Using the table above, you are currently doing a total of 45 jobs a month between painting and pressure washing, and generating roughly $157,500 a month or $1,890,000 a year.
You have the capacity to do another 15 painting jobs and 10 more pressure washing jobs adding $80,000 a month or $960,000 a year to your top line revenue. As you can see, there is a serious gap in your business. So, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
- What products and services do you offer that are going to get you to that number?
- Are there certain jobs that are more profitable/favorable to you?
- What is your capacity?…How many of these jobs are you doing now?…How many can you do?
Then, you need to take a good hard look at:
- What you are doing right now to get after that $____ a month?
- How would it change your business if you were bringing in another $____ a month?
- What would you do differently if you were getting this $_____ each month?
- How much would you be willing to invest in marketing (assuming an average of 10%) to go after this $_____ a month?
- If you were to prioritize these opportunities we talked about, what order would you put them in and why?
And that my friend is how to mind the gap. A simple plan to help you layout your business plan in about 5 easy steps, focusing on the only thing that matters to a young company…closing more business. Because without a steady flow of clients or customers, you don’t exist! If you need help going through this process, give me a call at 215-740-2713 or email me and let’s figure out what you need to do to improve your top line sales in 2011!