Core Business Growth Strategies

How's your business doing? Is it growing, or plateauing?

Chances are, it is likely not growing as fast as you'd want it to.

But hold on one second, you've got your website set up. You've got your posters created. Your auto-responder emails are all written. You've got your newsletter all figured out and it looks a hell of a lot better than your competition. You've got MySpace and Twitter accounts created, and you are updating your status every day.

So why is your business not increasing?

Well, now that you have all this stuff launched... what are you doing?

Are you altering the colors on your website? Are you watching the leads trickle into your auto-responder? Are you re-formatting your newsletter?

In other words, what are you DOING that will really grow your business?

Tweaking blog colors won't do it. Adding great content will.

Periodically updating your Twitter and MySpace status won't do it. Finding great articles to share on Twitter and MySpace, and participating with other users will do it.

Watching the leads that have dripped into your auto-responder and forever tweaking the auto-responser emails for spelling and grammar won't do it. Picking up the telephone and making a personal connection with those who have left you their phone number will do it.

Researching and compiling a list of 3,000 keywords won't do it. Making use of those keywords inside of great content that you post to your website and syndicate through article marketing will do it.

Posting a video that took your 4 days to produce to perfection won't do it. Posting a new video with valuable content each week and distributing that video to multiple video sharing site, then telling all your online networking friends about it will do it.

In other words, consider your actual ACTIVITIES on a daily basis. Many entrpreneurs focus on actions that do NOT lead to business growth. For example, while it is important to get your website up, it's critically important to upload good content... even if the site is not done yet. Relatively speaking, the colors of your site are far less important than the content!

Here is the basis of your business growth strategy. These are actions you can take to make sure you move your business in the right direction every day:

1. For every piece of your business, figure out WHY you need it. What's the PURPOSE of it? For example, exactly why do you need a blog? Answer: to give people an opportunity to learn about you so that they will trust you and hopefully spend money with you.

2. Ascertain which activities get you to that PURPOSE the QUICKEST. Those are your GROWTH ACTIVITIES. Do website colors help encourage people to buy what you sell, or does good articles do a better job of that? Does just changing your Twitter status help people to like you, or does posting valuable content and interacting with people do that?

3. Every evening, make a list of the 3-5 growth activities from step two that you will put effort into. This list can also be made in the morning before you start your work day, but I personally like to have it done the day before, so that in the morning I can get going immediately. Focusing on these activities will ensure that you are growing your business consistently.

4. Optimize your growth actions. You will doubtless observe that there are some tasks that you repeat daily or weekly. Look at these actions and optimize them. Certainly, you can outsource some of them. Some you might be able to utilize technology to automate. The goal should be to minimize the number of hours you have to spend on that task.

5. Now that you've optimized your growth activities, look for MORE tasks that will DIRECTLY affect the growth of your business. Work those activities, streamline them, then repeat.

Here is one last tip: do NOT try to do everything at one time! Focus only on a few tasks until you feel comfortable adding more. You don't want the work to overwhelm you. That just leads to burn out, and and that will not be beneficial to your business or your health!

In closing, what is the most IMPORTANT growth activity you should be working on? Begin with STEP 1, above. That IS your first growth activity!


Jason Kerchner has been following this business growth strategy for quite some time now, and it has worked wonders for his business. To learn more about Jason, visit his blog at http://JasonKerchner.com