3 Keys Every Entrepreneur must master to grow a Million Dollar Business

Maximum Results for Your Business

3 keys every entrepreneur must master to grow a million dollar business

By Douglas Vermeeren

As I began my research of the world top achievers I was a broke college student barely living on the small allowance my parents were helping me with. Within my research it wasn’t too long before I discovered three keys that helped me launch a business that now brings me several million dollars a year. I want to clarify that while I am excited about my business these keys are not exclusive to one specific kind of business. In fact, if you can learn to improve these key areas in any business you will immediately make a significant difference to bottom line.

Being and staying in business is a privilege granted to only those who know how to become profitable and manage that profit for growth.

Here are the three key areas that every business needs and cannot neglect. To the degree you master these three keys will determine the size of your business and your bottom line. I divide these three keys into the categories of TELL, SELL and SERVICE.

Let’s talk about each one of these:

TELL

This categories is by far where most of your efforts and budget should be spent. This is how people find out about your business. If they don’t know you are in business they can’t do business with you.  How are they supposed to find you. Think of the marketplace as a big library or bookstore. Unless your customers know your name or come specifically looking for you – they’ll never find you! How are you letting people know who you are, what you do, how you can help them and why they should choose you over your competition? If you aren’t answering those questions well it will diminish your bottom line entirely. Here are some examples of some things you need to consider in building the TELL components of your business:

Your mission statement *Branding *Networking

Public Relations* Company Image *Social Media

Packaging *Referral programs *Advertising *Attracting customers Store front Website

Your presentation* word of mouth* Categorizing

Essentially anything that has to do with how people perceive you and what they understand you to be fits into the TELL category. I have seen a lot of great business ideas who just didn’t know how to find their customers or tell their story correctly and as you can guess – they are now gone.

It isn’t enough for you to understand what you do – your customers must get it too. If they don’t get it, you’ve missed the purpose of your business. 

SELL 

This area of your business is probably the most important. If you don’t make sales your business will not survive. There are many great brands that many people have heard of and that have done a great job of TELLing people who and what they are, but that is not enough. In order to thrive a business must make money and that means sales! This key area essentially includes everything and anything related to the sales process of getting your product or service into the hands of the customers. Some of the activities here include:

Pricing *Agreements* Sales presentations

Contracts *Negotiating *Collections

Billing *Asking for the money *Sales calls

Sales teams *Persuasion skills *Communicating value

Credit policies* Up selling *Problem solving

Some people I have run into in our coaching programs are frightened by this area. They sometimes feel that asking for money or charging too much will offend customers. Without mastering the area of sales your company is in a very risky place and will most likely not survive.

Sales is not only necessary for you to stay in business it allows you to continue to provide value to your customers. If they are not excited to pay you then you haven’t given them enough value. 

SERVICE

This area related directly to how your customers receive your service or product. The way this is done is what keeps your customers coming back and it is also connected very closely to the first section TELL. Naturally when people have a good experience they TELL others. The same is true when they have a bad experience too.

All business comes down to an exchange of value for value. They value your business enough to give you their money. And you value their money enough to provide a product or service. You can provide that service in a way to be profitable and the benefit the customer receives is also profitable or beneficial to them. It is a good relationship.

Some of the areas that you need to consider when it comes to service include:

Systems *Processing orders *Shipping

Distribution & delivery *Creating repeat customers *Guarantees

Inventory *Shrinkage *Return policies

Manufacturing *Customer retention *Customer Support

Naturally even companies with great products lose customers because their delivery strategies are terrible. To me this makes no sense considering that most of your money is generally spent in TELL and most of your efforts are used in SELL, once a person is a customer it is least expensive and time consuming to maintain them, but most companies have a problem with this.

If you can master these three keys of business you can create increased business success. for more information on additional essentials that you need to consider in each of these categories participate in my MAXIMUM RESULTS Business coaching program where I share more of the tools that I learned in my research of more than 400 of the world’s top achievers. These are tools that I have used to create several million dollar enterprises for myself and others.  You can find more information at www.DouglasVermeeren.com or www.MaximumResultscoaching.com or you can call 1-877-393-9496.

I might warn you upfront however, we do not take everyone who applies into the program. We are looking for businesses that we can believe in and support and people who are serious about growing their bottom line. If you feel you are ready to really make things happen please contact us!

As a side note think about this: When a brand new product from Apple comes out how many people line up to give them money (and even before the store opens.) All products and brands are on a spectrum with companies like Apple being on one end and slow moving products on the other end. The ones on the end where people are excited to pay generally solve big problems, are innovative, exciting and are worth talking about. They have mastered TELL, SELL and SERVICE and because of that their jobs become easier. Customers line up to do business with them. How is it that people currently feel about you? What can be changed to improve your product or service?

Douglas Vermeeren,

If you want results you’ve come to the right place! Douglas Vermeeren has conducted extensive research into the lives of more than 400 of the world’s top achievers. He knows what it takes to become among the top 10% in your field and he can show you how. He is considered by ABC and FOX to be ‘the modern day Napoleon Hill.’ He was the first North American invited to address the Chinese Political leaders on human performance and motivation. He is the creator of the films The Opus and The Gratitude Experiment, co-author of Guerrilla Achiever, Guerrilla Masterminds and Guerrilla Millionaire with Jay Conrad Levinson. His coaching program MAXIMUM RESULTS is currently rated as the top coaching program by celebrities and business leaders for getting results. www.DouglasVermeeren.com