Back in 1984, my business was doing poorly. One Sunday morning I heard a televangelist on TV make a statement that got my attention. He said, "No one is out of money; they are just out of ideas." It came to me right then, a revelation, that my business was about as stagnant as a little farm pond with moss growing over the top.
We were doing the same old tired stuff, the same old tired way. Our customers and staff were no longer excited. More importantly, I was bored and no longer having fun in business. A business is just like nature. When something stops growing, it starts dying. We were slowing dying, and I hadn't seen it coming.
I was in an idea drought…
Trust me, with the onset of the information age, a lack of ideas can COST you. The biggest cost is lost opportunity. In my business, a customer is worth an average of $20,000 a year. Most stay with us for 5 years. That means that anytime I do not get a new customer, I am losing $100,000. That is called the lifetime value of a customer. You need to run these numbers in your own business, to put perspective on what you are doing today. With no new ideas, no new reasons to buy, no new ways to bring in prospects, I am losing $100,000 over and over again.
Opportunity cost is a hard concept to grasp. It is losing what you do not have, what you cannot see, and on what you cannot borrow. Now THAT is tough to get worried about, but you need to rethink this.
Let me give you an example to make the concept clear. If I have a cow that I do not breed with a bull at the right time of the year, I cannot get her SET. (Ranch talk for "being in the motherly way.") If I do not get her SET, I am not going to have a calf next spring, a calf that I can sell or raise to breed in the future. If that cow does not calve, I do not lose anything, right? I still have the cow. What I lose is the opportunity to sell a calf.
The cost of lost opportunity is always on the minds of successful business owners. You need to consistently factor this into the equation, in order to take your business to new heights. It is a new "secret weapon" to add to your arsenal of sound business practices, as you evaluate each move you make in your company.
Fear of loss is strong. The fear of lost opportunities is a strength.
Over the past 20 years, I have talked with thousands of business owners. I have applied my own business experience and the shared experience of those thousands of business owners to my own business. I have discovered several methods of increasing the number of potential customers and turning them into long term customers. I would like to share some of those methods with you, so check back, as I will be posting ideas on a regular basis.
KC Truby,
wwww.cashcowaccounting.com
Occupation: Accountant
Since 1987, KC Truby has taught 16,000 accountants how to find and sell more new business clients. 2,000,000 small business owners have his tapes on sales and cash flow. KC has brought 250,000 businesses into a local accountant's office with his QuickBooks Made Easy seminars and tax marketing techniques. He was also named one of the "100 Most Influential People in the Accounting Industry", by Accounting Today magazine. KC knows what business clients want, and he knows how to sell them. Truby and his wife also own 5 Minutes Books, an outsourced bookkeeping business located in Encinitas, CA.
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