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Your 5 Minute Business Profile

If you asked me what I hear most during my consulting meetings, I would have to say “I don’t know.”

How many more jobs can you do a month?

“I don’t know”

How much do you have set aside for advertising?

“I don’t know”

How many jobs did you get last year from your current advertising program?

“I don’t know”

Starting to see a pattern here? This lack of knowledge can often times be linked back to having to spend so much time working in their businesses and not on them. So today I am going to give you a quick project to help you get out of the “I don’t know” dog house. Print the page, answer the questions, and hang it up somewhere you can look at it every day. Make any changes needed as you, your business or your market changes.

Ready?

Who is my target audience:

_______________________________________________________________

What is my call to action for my target audience:
_______________________________________________________________

What are my convenience factors: Examples are personal service, 7-day turnaround, etc..
_______________________________________________________________

What are my most profitable products or services:
_______________________________________________________________

What are my confidence factors to my customers:
_______________________________________________________________

What is my business function: (Hint, making money isn’t the answer)
_______________________________________________________________

What makes me different from my competition:

_______________________________________________________________

Who do I compete with:

_______________________________________________________________

What additional lines of business could I add to improve profitability:
_______________________________________________________________

Why do I advertise:
_______________________________________________________________

Current media activities:
_______________________________________________________________

Do I have co-op available:
_______________________________________________________________

Customer type: (male, female, corporate buyers, high income, all ages)
_______________________________________________________________

Ad headline: (what tagline appears on all of my advertising and marketing, and “nothing” is another bad answer!)
_______________________________________________________________

Again, this should give you some insight into your own company and how you think about it, and how your prospects perceive it. Maybe you haven’t had a chance to do some deep thinking in a while? Hopefully this will give you a chance to check your current business plan to decide if any changes are needed to improve your top line revenue for the rest of the year. Let me know how you make out!

3 responses to “Your 5 Minute Business Profile”

  1. Chris Spoerl Avatar
    Chris Spoerl

    Solid article Darren. Knowledge is the key.

  2. Joe Levitch Avatar
    Joe Levitch

    Great questions, Time for some soul searching. There is an assumption that marketing is the solution to all problems. I am working on sharpening my profitability machine at the moment, being cautious to sell only projects that are worthwhile. My marketing machine is staged to kick in to high gear when I am confidant that my systems can handle increased volume. Keeping the horse well ahead of the cart in my case. Thanks for the stimulating posts.

    1. Darren Avatar
      Darren

      Hey Joe,

      You just gave me a great post idea! Thanks! Marketing dollars, scaling and getting busy! Have a great weekend!