Last month, I highlighted the following top five challenges we faced in our business:
We discussed item # 1, the challenges we had with cash flow last month. If you missed it, you can read it here. Today, I will focus on how a lack of investment in a proven pipeline for new business impacted our growth.
Most people will agree that without an effective marketing system, your business will stall and eventually die. Often times, we jump into a new business without asking two critical questions:
These are two critical questions that in my opinion should inform your marketing plan and how much you should invest in building a blueprint for generating and tracking new customer leads for your business. I recall we considered the second question when we started our firm but did not really consider the first question. Although we considered question # 2, we did not invest in a system for generating new leads and for tracking conversion of leads to customers. As a result, we did not see the growth we anticipated early on in the business. Below, I have summarized some of the key learning points that you can apply to your business today:
Next time we will look into another critical area of running your business that most of us ignore – the importance of really staying in touch with your customers through deep dialogue. Stay tuned!