Category Archives for Business

How many times have you thought “I wish my business could run on autopilot”? While it is a good idea to automate some areas of your business, running your life on autopilot is a terrible idea. If you have set goals in your life, big or small, you need to design your morning, your day, your week, your month, your year, and your life.

Waking up in the morning and immediately checking your email or scrolling through Facebook and Instagram is not moving the needle forward. If you have goals for yourself, you need to decide specific activities to take each day to reach those goals. Many times knowing those specific activities is not enough and we must find ways to build systems and habits to support those activities. Geoff Woods from The 1 Thing shares this quote all the time.

People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.
― F. M. Alexander

#truth

I like to look at habits and systems as synonymous. Habits are usually looked at from a personal perspective and systems is a term more frequently used in business. At the end of the day systems are the habits of your business. Knowing what systems you build into your business will ultimately decide your success or failure.

You may get to a certain point of success through raw talent and “hustle” but if you really want to scale your business or give yourself more time to enjoy your success, you will have to decide which systems and habits you need to bake into your business and personal life.

I believe in systems so much that my business partner and I have adjusted our business to make Business Optimization our primary service. We have looked at all of our current and past clients and found that digital marketing isn’t necessarily what people need most. What they need most is a stronger collaboration environment married with simple and optimized workflows to grow and scale their business.

Below are 3 of the most basic systems you can start designing for yourself and your business. You don’t need an app or technical knowledge to apply these. Just a little bit of time and clarity. The easy part is designing them. The hard part is implementing these systems to the point they become a habit.

My goal is to be able to help you learn and implement simple systems that can help you achieve your goals and scale your business. I will be writing more blogs that talk about how to build systems into your business and personal life. Please follow me to get notified when I publish new blogs.

If you found this article useful I’d appreciate it if you liked and shared this on your feed.

Do you get annoyed when someone sends you a file that is named “document.pdf” or “resume.doc”?

Whenever I receive a file like this I cringe and a few things comes to mind:

1. They are lazy
2. They are disorganized
3. They are clueless

The biggest benefit of using good naming conventions for your files and folders is saving time.

In todays collaborative environment, nothing is worse than having to open up a bunch of files to see what is inside or not being able to find the file at all. Life will be so much easier for everyone, including the people you send files to, if you start implementing these 10 best practices.

File & Folder Naming 10 Best Practices

1. Do not use cryptic codes that only YOU understand. Make it mean something to everyone else. (bad example: prj12–1spl.doc)
2. Keep names as short as possible by using common abbreviations, such as Jan for January or Corp for Corporation.
3. Use descriptive information and include dates in files names if possible. We should know what’s in the file without having to open it (bad example: document.pdf)
4. Reference company name(s) within file. If you are sending a contract to a company make sure that your company and the other company are in the file name.
5. Avoid special characters all together (like ~ ! @ # $ %, etc). Characters such as / ? < > \ : * | “ ^ are also prohibited in file or folder names. The only exception to this rule is the ampersand ‘&’. This is okay because all systems accept this and many company names contain an ‘&’.
6. Spaces are acceptable. You don’t need to use an underscore ‘_’ or dash ‘-‘ anymore. Gone are the days of unix and linux requirements.
7. Do not exceed 260 characters for total folder & file character count. C:\Users\Panda\My Documents\Dropbox\Creative Nonfiction\My Autobiography\Favorite Things\Favorite Foods\Bamboo\Family Recipes\Fresh Leaves.doc (142 characters)
8. Use sequential numbering (01, 02, etc instead of 1, 2, etc)
9. Use Title Casing (Capital first letter of every word)
10. User version numbers if files will have multiple iterations (V1, V2, V2.1)

Below are some good example of files names

• The Why Builder Contract & SOW — ABC Corp (4–1–2019).pdf
• The Why Builder Business Optimization Proposal — ABC Corp (4–15–2019).pdf
• Rip Bar — Ingredients Costing Model v3.xlsm
• Wonky Electronics — Shopify Sales Report (01–01–2019 to 03–31–2019).csv
• Wonky Electronics — Shopify Sales Report (04–01–2019 to 06–30–2019).csv

By using good naming conventions you spare people the frustration of going on a scavenger hunt. At the time when you create the file you may not care but as soon as anyone needs to access the file down the road you may never find it again.

Make implementing good file and folder naming conventions a part of your business and your life. Help teach these 10 best practices and find some of your own that will make not just your life easier but the people around. You will never regret when you and your team use good file and folder naming conventions. Make this your badge of honor and wear it proudly.

Every year business seems to get more complex by an introduction of some new technology. Regardless of what tools you use and what cloud systems you integrate with each other, what matters most is that you have the 6 foundational systems in place. Software can and will make these foundations easier to build and manage but it’s the most basic systems and processes that still allow businesses to win. These foundations have nothing to do with technology.

The purpose of this blog is to share with you that technology is not the reason businesses succeed, it is basic human behaviors that build solid foundations and great systems.

  If you just want to get to the meat and potatoes of this blog scroll to the bottom

1. Messaging

You can have the best looking and functioning website but if no one understands how your product or service is going to change their life they don’t care. All they want to know are the features, benefits, and how much does this cost. Don’t clutter your homepage with your 1000 word company history.

ACTION: To get your messaging down we highly recommend using the StoryBrand SB7 Framework. We have used this in our own business and with many of our clients. You will get crystal clear on your messaging and eliminate any confusion about your brand. You will have a clear roadmap on how to update your website, marketing material, and any sales tools.

You can start by reading the StoryBrand book, then create a free account at www.mystorybrand.com

2. Marketing & Sales Automation

Marketing & sales automation has been around since the beginning of the internet. The great thing about marketing & sales automation is that we can monitor every single conversion point so we can make adjustments to optimize campaigns. The not so great thing about marketing & sales automation is that it still relies on the most basic marketing & sales tactics that play off of human desire. You can have the most amazing sales funnel but if it’s not converting your sales funnel simply becomes a money pit.

You need an exciting customer journey that includes good sales copy, convincing landing pages, valuable lead magnets, and a simple user experience. If you cannot write convincing copy your sales funnel is going to flop. This goes back to getting your messaging dialed. Bad messaging guarantees bad sales. Good messaging increases sales.

ACTION: Focus on creating good sales copy for your ads, landing pages, sales emails, and a highly valuable lead magnet. Get your messaging down!

3. Collaboration

There are a ton of collaboration tools on the market today but none of them are effective unless the people using them understand the goals and priorities of the business. If you cannot write down your goals and priorities on a blank piece of paper so your team can understand them, then it doesn’t matter what system or platform you try to implement. The secret sauce is a healthy relationship between all the team members which include the leadership team. If the leaders do not clearly communicate the goals and priorities of the business, the buy in from the rest of the team will be a hard sell.

It is the leaders job to make sure there is time each week to let the team members understand the mission. But it is also each team members job to raise any questions when unsure or in doubt of what the mission is and the role they play in it. Basic human interaction is required to create a positive collaborative environment. If you can solve the puzzle of getting your entire team rallied around a singular mission, this will be foundation needed to start implementing new systems and processes for collaboration.

ACTION: Create an environment where goals and priorities are regularly communicated with the team. Once a year won’t cut it. Do it once a week at the very least.

4. Workflow & Automation Solutions

“We’ve always done it this way!” is something we have all said or heard. Unfortunately this mindset drains resources from a business. For the sake of this blog let’s remove automation from the conversation and focus on “Workflow Solutions”. When implementing new processes and procedures you should try to figure out how to optimize the process by asking yourself the hard questions if every step is necessary. At some point this new process will be “optimized”. This doesn’t mean it ends there. You should revisit the process again each year or if there are any changes that can affect its efficiencies. Don’t get comfortable just because this is how you have been doing it. Think and act optimized!

ACTION: Look at the top 3 workflows in your business and revisit them. See if you can simplify them by removing any busy work or unnecessary steps, digitally file documents instead of printing them out and filing them, or eliminate them completely.

5. Analytics

You need to become a data-driven business to have a competitive advantage. This doesn’t mean having flashy dashboards and complex reporting functions. None of that matters if you don’t know which KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to look for. Don’t get lost in the sea of data. Know the difference between actionable and vanity metrics. Actionable metrics drive strategy and allow you to steer the company towards higher profits and greater efficiency. Vanity metrics are simply for bragging rights and have little to no impact to revenue.

A vanity metric for instance is the amount of website visitors. People get so caught up on this number because they think it’s actually making them money but in reality this number has little to do with generating revenue. The actionable metric is your conversion rate. This is the only metric that matters when trying to make a sale through a website. If you have 1,000,000 visitors to your website and only 1 person buys something you have an amazing conversion rate of 0.000001%. If you have 10 visitors to your website and 3 people buy you have a conversion rate of 30%. Once you have the conversion rate dialed in then you can start looking at increasing your website traffic.

The simple formula: conversion rate = (conversions / total visitors) * 100%

Conversions is the number of actions you want the users to take such as purchasing a product, opting in, or scheduling a phone call.

ACTION: Find the most important conversation point in your sales process. It might be a landing page, a phone call, your yelp page, or emails you send out. Calculate the current conversion rate, then create and execute a strategy to start increasing it. This simple approach needs to be repeated in all areas of your marketing and sales process.

6. Customer Success

Great customer service is another strong competitive advantage for many companies. It always has been and it always will be. If you don’t have the most basic custom service policies and systems in place don’t expect customers to hang around too long. People are looking for fast response times. 24hrs use to be the standard but 6–12hrs is becoming the norm. The old saying “The customer is always right” still holds true for many cases. Especially with review sites like Yelp and Amazon, negative reviews can kill your business in a matter of a handful reviews.

ACTION: Get your response times down. Create a system so you can measure and monitor response times. Be consistent with your response times and always work on reducing the time it takes to respond to your customers.

Technology is not the reason businesses succeed, it is basic human behaviors that build solid foundations and great systems.

Key Action Items:

The Why Builder has created programs to build these foundations into your business or organization. To learn more about these programs and services please visit our website. https://thewhybuilder.com

I originally started The Why Builder as a digital marketing agency. I had a wide set of skills and a very small team. 1 designer fresh out of school, 1 web developer that I worked with on a few projects, and me. The only thing I knew for sure at the time was that I was ready to build my own company. At least I thought I was ready.

If you can’t make your sales program work with a simple design then no elaborate complex sales funnel will work and you just wasted a ton of time, money, and energy.

The first 2–3 years I was just “working”. I thought I was building a business. Revenue was coming in, new clients were signing up, and our team was growing. All the signs that your business is becoming “successful”. And then we hit our ceiling of growth. Till then all of our new clients and projects were strictly from referrals. I’m grateful that The Why Builder was born this way and especially for the people who believed in us enough to send us new clients, but it created a fall sense of success because once the referrals stop coming through my inbox so did our revenue. This made me take a step back and look at what was going on or what was NOT going on. We simply did not have any kind of sales program or system in place. Zero, Nada, Zilch. There was nothing in place to create new leads and close more deals. I was running purely off of what life brought to me. It’s safe to say that if you wait for great things to happen, chances are you’ll be waiting a very long time if not forever.

My first response was to create some elaborate sales funnel that can run on auto pilot and take 500hrs to build.

Now you might wonder how this is possible since we were a digital “marketing” agency. We build tons of automated sales programs and campaigns for clients but the people building it were so focused on doing it for other people that we neglected to build one for ourselves! So what’s the plan here? My first response was to create some elaborate sales funnel that can run on auto pilot and take 500hrs to build. But rational kicked in and all the years of reading personal development and business books reminded me to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid). So we did.

We created a Hubspot account and set up 3 very simple automated email sequences.

The 3 email sequences were the following:

1. 5 Part Introduction Sequence. This is used when people are referred to us or interested in our services. Goal is to get them to a discovery call.
2. 1 Part Networking/Event Sequence. This is used when we meet people through networking or from an event. Goal is to make a meaningful connection.
3. 5 Part Post Discovery Call Sequence. This is used after we first have a live call or conversation. Goal is to go to the next phase in the sales funnel.

Then we updated our website with our new services by adding the least amount of words and minimal design effort. The goal was to only feature the benefits of each service. The total time to setup the hub spot account, build the sequences, and update the website was less than 10 man hours.

Next we created a simple plan to start attending local meetup events and to start reaching out to our existing and previous clients about our new services by sending 1 newsletter followed up by a personal phone call or email. This was all we needed to build the foundation of our sales program. It won’t end here as we will be regularly publishing new content but the point I’m trying to make is that it was this easy to build and implement a simple sales program. If you can’t make your sales program work with a simple design then no elaborate complex sales funnel will work and you just wasted a ton of time, money, and energy.

This simple and foundational sales program we created for ourselves is one of the new products we are offering as part of our Business Optimization program. We have 6 foundations that we believe all businesses should have and Marketing & Sales Automation is just 1 of them.

Key Takeaways:

1. Always… Keep It Simple Stupid
2. You don’t need a complex sales program to start making money
3. If you don’t have predictable income (sales program) you don’t have a business

To see all of the 6 foundations that every business should have in place, please visit our services pages.

https://thewhybuilder.com/services/