I just had a recent client who started coaching with me. He was eager to grow his business, and I was able to get him to focus like a laser beam on revenue and client growth. Month after month he applied all of our marketing and business development tools, and generated significant growth and profit. He was swimming in cash and loving every second of it.
Then one day he called in a panic. “Kevin, I’m starting to lose clients, I don’t know what’s going on.” Quickly I had him survey his customers, only to discover that many of them were dissatisfied with his services, and bailing out of their agreements. There were major quality issues that he had never discovered, and his team was so focused on keeping up with the new business that they were ignoring any sort of product quality. What he had built with a flourish came crashing down in a heap of cancelations.
As you grow your business, it is easy for you as a business owner to get seduced by the lure of easy money as you bring new customers into your business. However, real success and long-term profits are all about ensuring that your customers are not just satisfied, but delighted with your product or service, and continue doing business with you for a life time. Take a look at where your focus is in your business. If you spend all of your time marketing and selling, and no time ensuring excellent delivery of your services, it’s time to dial back and zero in on creating raving fans out of your current customers. By doing this, you will ensure a base of steady revenue that will allow you to reinvest back into sales and marketing in order to then grow your business in a safe and secure fashion.
Remember, real success is not about explosive growth, but rather steady growth that happens for a lifetime.