6 Key Questions To Ask Yourself To Help You Get Focused, Take The Right Action, and Make More Money With Your Business This Year

by Scott Bradley on May 11, 2011

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If there were a set of questions you could ask yourself right now, that would help you get focused and implement the right stuff, in the right order to help you achieve your desired business result, would that interest you? If so, keep reading.

As I was responding to a friend in facebook who mentioned to me they were feeling a bit scattered with their current direction and focus, I quickly came up with some key questions that helped me in the past get focused on the right things, to create the right actions in my business, which ultimately are creating the desired results for me right now.

These core questions I feel are essential for every business owner to know, and revisit often, as they continually make progress in pushing their business process out into the world, and generating feedback to them based on number of customers and revenue generated into their business.

If you are not achieving your desired end result, be sure to sit with these questions and do the best you can to come up with answers you are happy with.

Once you get the answers to these key questions, it is then time to figure out the necessary “whats” (AKA tools + systems) that you need to create, and then get the necessary knowledge (the “how to”) to impart on the “whats” (AKA technical know how and set of skills) to help you create your desired end result.

In simple terms – by asking yourself these questions, you will create a plan that will be bulletproof, so don’t just breeze over these without really thinking about them.

Question #1 – What Need Am I Filling in The Marketplace?

For you to have a successful business, you must be filling a need. If there is not a market for what you are selling, you aren’t going to be in business for very long. Take the time to really think about the market you are serving, and ask yourself, “Is my business really serving a need?” It is incredibly difficult to be honest with yourself, so if you need any help ask someone about your business and see what they say.

Most entrepreneurs go into creating businesses without focusing on filling a need, and then after thousands of dollars are invested, they are left with nothing because there weren’t any customers to buy what they were selling to begin with. Don’t make this mistake!

If you need help communicating your value to other people in a simple easy way, I recommend that you read my elevator pitch post that will help you craft your statement that you respond with when people ask you “what do you do?”

Question #2 – How Am I Packaging and Selling The Value I Am Creating For My Intended Market?

Once you get clear about the need you are filling, the next step is to then think about how you are going to package the value, and give it to the market when they give you money to deliver your product.

Are you selling an information product, a service, a physical product that they get in the mail, or a phone call with you on an hourly basis? How are you packaging the value, and leveraging it to generate revenue and ultimately a profit?

This part is really key because you want to make sure that it scales to be able to serve thousands, if not millions of customers. If you need help creating something like this, and/or need some more guidance, I recommend that you check out MJ Demarco’s book The Millionaire Fastlane which can be found on amazon.

Question #3 – How Can I Effectively Reach The Market, and Get Them Into My Funnel To Start Building A Relationship With Them?

Knowing where your market is, and how to reach them is extremely important. Knowing this information will drive the majority of your marketing decisions when thinking about where to spend your money, and how to communicate with the individuals on the other end of your advertisements and direct mailings.

If you mess up in how you target your identified audience when communicating with them, the chances that your marketing campaigns generate a positive result is not possible. Know where your market is, and how to reach them before you ever initiate campaigns. If you don’t, a ton of money and time will be completely wasted.

Question #4 – What is The Process I Am Taking Those Leads Through That I Am Generating in Question #3, To Get Them Interested in Buying The Value I Have Created?

If you don’t have an effective process and system in generating highly targeted leads when buying media or taking action with your marketing, stop everything you are doing and really think about the process you currently have in place to get more prospects through your funnel to becoming a customer.

Without an effective system to leverage your advertising that you are spending money on, your chances of running a successful business are slim to none.

Once a lead sees an advertisement and positively responds, they will enter your marketing system. After entering your system, you must have specific things in place so that they are treated in a certain way leading them closer to purchasing the value you have created.

Creating this process takes time, but it is absolutely essential if you want to build a business that doesn’t require your time 24/7 to always be generating sales.

I specialize in building specific systems like this for clients, and would be more than happy to help you build one for yourself. If you are interested in learning more please visit the page for my Marketing Company.

Question #5 – Where am I Spending The Majority of My Time (in activity and automation) to Generate Leads?

Generating traffic to your marketing system, and leads into your funnel is the lifeblood of your business. If you are not placing the majority of your focus on this activity alone you will not build a successful business. Wasting time in areas in your business that don’t generate positive results (in leads, sales and serving customers) will be a total time suck for you and your bottom line.

Here is what I recommend…

Really step back right now and analyze where you are spending the majority of your time. Is it effortlessly generating leads that are turning into paying customers? If no, I would recommend that you reevaluate where you are spending your time, and instead focus on being in the right places, to generate the ideal results for your businesses bottom line.

For this to effectively work for you, it is essential that you have a marketing system in place that helps you generate leads, get people interested in what you have to offer, and ideally close enough sales to generate the ideal amount of profit for you every month. If this is not happening for you, you may have to go back to the drawing board.

Question #6 – What Metrics am I Tracking, and What Activity Am I Taking To Hold Myself Accountable To The Metrics I Have Set?

As many successful business people always say, “Whatever gets measured gets managed.”

Having and monitoring key metrics in your business is essential, because it is direct feedback about the current activities that you are taking each day. If the metrics you decide to track for your business are going in a negative direction, you may want to consider changing specific actions that you are doing throughout the week.

For Example…

A metric that you may be tracking are opt-ins to your e-mail list which is the entry point into your marketing system. If you start seeing that your opt-ins start decreasing, it is time to start to step back and analyze what activities you need to change or tweak to get back to the normal daily lead flow that you generate per day. This again is why you must have an effective marketing system in place so you can track this over the long haul of your business.

I hope these questions have brought you more clarity in your business, and hopefully have set you on a better path to achieving your dreams and goals in your business. If you need any help whatsoever with any of this I am available to help via a strategy session. If you are interested please send me an e-mail. I look forward to serving you.