Very few business people know how to accelerate their way to exceptional results.
Many are called, or should I say many choose to throw their hat into the business ring. Few however understand and embrace the following key drivers to exponential exceptionality.
So, here they are. The more you add, the more powerful the zoom. Strap in!
Accelerator 1: Refined Discernment
A few of the right voices at the right time begin to unlock otherwise dormant assets. A few voices, not many. Maximum three. Choose carefully where you lend your attention. Why? This decision alone will largely determine how high you will rise in your life especially in business.
If you are operating a $5 million revenue enterprise find someone who has run, is running or advising $20, $50, $100 million revenue enterprises.
Awareness like water soon finds its own level, so keep raising your standards relative to who you choose to spend time with and take advice from.
Accelerator 2: Momentum Through Speed
In the field of physics, any increase in speed directly increases that unstoppable entity we call momentum. Once momentum is enhanced, events have both a higher impact and lower resistance.
Set dates for the completion of major projects and stick to them unashamedly. Complete what you say you will complete within a given time frame, avoiding perfection. If it’s good enough begin it and improve from there. Time is a far more critical factor and a more important asset.
By focusing on a handful of key outcomes every quarter (five is a good number) your organisation will move the posts 20 times across a yearly time frame and in the process create a culture of getting things done…..fast!
The compression of time expressed through a compulsiveness to complete has set many organisations apart from rivals across all industries.
Accelerator 3: Nullify The Competition
Do you have a profound reason for being in business, one that lies beyond the primary motive of leaving a profit?
Why should prospects abandon their current choice of supplier and turn to your business? What is so different that they should spend their scarce resources with you?
The answers for your enterprise should be more intricate and far more attractive than the highest quality, best service, or friendliest atmosphere (I hear these a lot). Really now. Your value to the market place needs to be well crafted, organised, and easily accessible to your client base.
In time, your positioning should make it extremely difficult for current clients to leave you, and extremely attractive to a constant stream of ideal prospects.
Accelerator 4: Leverage Opportunity
One of the few critical roles at the executive level is that of allocating precious resources namely those of money, time, and people.
Many entrepreneurs look outside their businesses for clues to the next level, remaining oblivious to what remains possible within.
Restructuring operational activities, sales funnels, and untapped knowledge, for example, can profoundly impact performance.
Look at your strengths, experiences, points of difference and find ways to extrapolate these continuously.
Accelerator 5: Design Your Fingerprint
The true value in any organisation is found in its ability to operate almost autonomously. To create systems that result in higher degrees of critical focus and personal freedom.
This can only be done through a smooth, well-tuned organisational orchestra that coordinates all activities in such a unique way, that it becomes impossible to emulate by any competitor. In turn, the organisation carves its own path with almost zero friction.
So make the time with your team in continuously designing your unique signature. Recall that complexity that is easy to manage is a requirement to greatness. Don’t be afraid to break new ground in your relentless pursuit of uniqueness.
Accelerator 6: Stretch The Price
Almost every business leaves money on the table by selling products and services that are seriously under priced.
The fastest and easiest way to enhance the bottom line is to test the limits of your current pricing. We all know it. Increasing prices by ten percent instantaneously increases profits by this exact same amount. Yet few of us back ourselves through this simple instrument.
Remember you are always free to test your market’s reactiveness to your price list and as a consequence readily able to extract more value from it.
Another strange phenomenon occurs once you decide to raise prices. You see, increasing price tends to increase sales simply because people have a bias to equating better pricing with better value.
In addition, through the process of price augmentation, you will discover a bigger segment of the market willing to do business with you. Think about it. A large, untapped ‘oil field’ of people happy to pay you more.
Case to point. A decade or so ago I was working with a change management consultant who collaborated with the top end of town. Blue-chip clientele. His daily rate at the time was at AUD$1,500 per day. Low in my view. I recall how tough it was in those first few months just to get Peter to increase his daily rate by 40% to $2500 per day. Hard work. But we got him there. Today? Upwards from $5000 per day. I still think it is low. How do I know? The best in his field charge a daily fee north of $30,000. What does this mean? Are they six times better at what they do? I don’t think so.
The same amount of work. Same time. Double. Triple. Quadruple the profits.
Accelerator 7: Focal Point Marketing
You are not in the business of printing, building duplexes, or delivering pizza (for example). You are in the business of marketing printing services, marketing the building of duplexes, marketing deliverable pizza.
You see almost all businesses fall in love and remain dogmatically loyal to the technical aspect of what they do, yet those that move through warp speed learn to competitively leverage through a host of marketing tactics that once measured and refined deliver immeasurable streams of revenue across time.
Done correctly you will soon find that the greatest return on your precious dollars is the investment you make in this critical driver. Sadly ignored by the masses. Not by you.
Start Where You Are
Irrespective of where you find yourself, take the time. Slow down and take the time to speed up. Sounds somewhat contradictory, doesn’t it? Slow down to speed up. However, it’s true. Intentionally slowing down at specific points along the journey allows you to integrate additional accelerators which in turn get you to the next level.
