2 puzzle pieces representing building blocks of business

The Two Build­ing Blocks Of Your Business

The core of each busi­ness are two build­ing blocks. Im­prove on these blocks and you’ll grow your business.

Build­ing Block #1: Your Offers

You can’t start a busi­ness un­less you have a ser­vice or prod­uct to of­fer. It sounds ob­vi­ous, and in the of­fline world you’ll have a hard time find­ing some­one start­ing a busi­ness with­out any­thing to sell.

  • You won’t find a restau­rant with­out a well-filled fridge.
  • You won’t find a woman’s ap­par­els shop with­out a nice se­lec­tion of dresses, pants or shirts.
  • You won’t find a lawyer’s of­fice with­out a lawyer in­side who’s ready to charge you for his consultation.

On the in­ter­net it’s different.

The num­ber of peo­ple see­ing them­selves as hav­ing an on­line busi­ness with­out any­thing to sell is legion.

  • The af­fil­i­ate who doesn’t send of­fers to his list.
  • The info prod­uct au­thor (to be) who’s been blog­ging in his niche for 3 years – yet he never cre­ated the info prod­uct to sell.
  • The coach who’s po­si­tion­ing him­self, yet his coach­ing of­fer is nowhere to be found.

To make money, you need some­thing to sell. A prod­uct or a service.

3 start­ing points to im­prove your of­fers to grow your biz.

1. Make sure you have sev­eral prod­ucts or ser­vices that can serve as en­try point for your cus­tomer. Cus­tomers go through dif­fer­ent cy­cles in what they might need from you.

Make it easy for them to con­nect with you by of­fer­ing a va­ri­ety of products/services that might make the first purchase.

2. Make sure you have fol­low-up prod­ucts to sell to those who bought be­fore. The first-time pur­chase is the least prof­itable for your busi­ness. Of­ten it will hardly cover the mar­ket­ing cost to ac­quire the new cus­tomer in the first place.

Turn­ing a first-time cus­tomer into a re­peat cus­tomer will dra­mat­i­cally grow the prof­itabil­ity of your business.

3. Make sure to have prod­ucts or ser­vices with dif­fer­ent price points. If most of your prod­ucts are cheap, think about how you can add some high priced prod­ucts to your of­fers. If most of your prod­ucts are ex­pen­sive, con­sider adding lower priced items.

The eas­ier way to grow your busi­ness, how­ever, are high priced prod­ucts. It’s eas­ier to sell a $ 1000 item to 100 peo­ple than to sell a $ 1 item to 100,000 peo­ple. Yet, both vari­a­tions cre­ate a rev­enue of $ 100,000.

Build­ing Block #2: Your Clients Or Customers

You of­fers are no good if you don’t have peo­ple ready to pay for them. Be­sides of­fers your clients are the only other es­sen­tial part of your business.

Every­thing else is sec­ondary and sub­ject to change. As long as you have of­fers and cus­tomers who buy them, you’re busi­ness is es­sen­tially working.

3 start­ing points to grow your biz by im­prov­ing your cus­tomer base.

1. Go for more prof­itable clients. As­sess your cur­rent cus­tomer base. Have you been go­ing for the low hang­ing fruit? The cus­tomers that are easy to get but less prof­itable than the ‚other‘ customers?

Brain­storm who could be your most prof­itable cus­tomer or most prof­itable group of customers.

2. Be­come the go-to-busi­­ness for a spe­cific niche. Fo­cus­ing on a spe­cific niche gives you ad­van­tages over busi­nesses in the same in­dus­try who serve every­one. You’ll get more spe­cial­ized knowl­edge about the niche and deeper con­nec­tions within the niche.

For ex­am­ple, a web de­signer could fo­cus on real es­tate agents only. By hav­ing that fo­cus within a few months he’d have an ad­van­tage in real es­tate spe­cific knowl­edge plus niche spe­cific web site so­lu­tions that oth­ers don’t have.

3. Con­tact each and every sin­gle one of your ex­ist­ing cus­tomers and find a way to sell some­thing more. Ex­ist­ing cus­tomers are the eas­i­est cus­tomers. They are also the most ne­glected cus­tomers for many busi­nesses. Don’t leave this fully avail­able po­ten­tial un­tapped while pour­ing time and money into find­ing new customers.

Now it’s up to you!

You have 6 ideas to im­prove on your of­fers and clients.

Pick just one, im­ple­ment, and your biz will grow a lit­tle more.