Richelle Shaw

9 Steps to Building A Million Dollar Business

  • May 20, 2016

Here’s the big misconception!

Most believe that building a million dollar business is based on luck – BUT,

Building a million dollar business takes more than luck, and a ton of strategy to build it quickly.  Most entrepreneurs need help because they are too focused on tactics (like Magazine ads, Facebook ads, webinars, videos) instead of understanding WHY.

Without knowing the WHY to Implement the tactic – You end up working for FREE because it does not work.

Tactics without Strategy = Working for FREE

If you are struggling to grow your business quickly, it is probably because one of 3 things!

  • You are not getting enough customers
  • You are not keeping your customers
  • Your implementation is random

All of these are explainable and fixable – at the end of this post you can Take the Million Dollar Equation Assessment and find out exactly what strategies to implement to build your own million dollar business.

Let’s first discuss the 3 ways we mentioned above as to why your business is not growing as quickly as possible

Reason #1

You are not getting enough customers – this is based on either you are not sure where to find them, you are not sure how to effectively communicate with them to get them to buy your product or service or you are unable or scared to invest in advertising/marketing because you are unsure how it all works.

Fixing the “not getting enough customers” problem, can be complicated, if you are unsure about four things.

  • Who are your customers?
  • Where do they hang out?
  • How do they know you exist?
  • Why would they choose you?

Once you answer these questions, then you can move on to the communicating with your prospects phase.  If you know who they are, contact them where they hang out, offer them an irresistible offer to check you out and provide to them, why they should choose you – then, getting new customers can be easy.

For example – my private client Walter Stocker is an accountant.  He was looking for more business customers.  He was struggling to get more clients – he was already at the $125,000 in sales but the business was stagnant.  Here’s how he went through the process.

  • Who – businesses who are sole proprietors who need professional tax returns prepared
  • Where – within business organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and online
  • How – He offered all businesses a FREE Incorporating Service ( a $2000 value)
  • Why – He showed how he could save the sole proprietors thousands of dollars per year by incorporating their businesses.

Reason #2

You are not keeping your customers

It is hard to grow if you have to keep replacing your existing customers.  You must be able to sell your customers more than one product or service to make sure that your business has a steady cash flow as well as a good foundation.  Most million dollar businesses possess a firm number of existing customers that generate revenue multiple times per year, not just once.  If you are trying to find a new customer for each new sale, your acquisition costs will be outrageous and eventually the business will not be able to sustain the acquisition costs.

A great example is Walter Stocker again –

He was only selling tax preparation before- now he sells

  • Incorporating Services – (only does 1 for FREE)
  • Monthly Bookkeeping services
  • Payroll
  • Business Coaching

Reason #3

Your implementation is random

Your implementation is probably random because of 3 things

  • you are unsure what to implement to get new customers or to get your existing customers to buy again
  • you have not set aside part of your revenue for an implementation budget so that you can afford to
  • you spend too much time working in your business instead of working on it

What to implement?  The book – The Million Dollar Equation, breaks down several of the steps of what to implement especially in the chapter entitled – 85Ways to Get A Customer.

Walter bought the book –  The Million Dollar Equation and connected with me online, then started implementing all of his ideas from the book.  He immediately set aside a portion of each sale to make sure that he had a marketing budget and last, he joined the MDE Mastermind for a specific time monthly to work on his business.

The results – Walter Stocker doubled his business within one year and is well on his way to the $500,000.00 mark.

Now, I bet you are wondering what are the specific pieces of the Million Dollar Equation and how you can implement them into your business.

Let’s start with how to work ON your business!  First you must pick a piece of the business that needs the most help.

In the book, The Million Dollar Equation, we break down the equation into 3 distinct sections.

Section 1 – Before the customer knows you
Section 2 – During the process of delivering the product or service
Section 3 – After the customer’s transaction is complete

Utilize these 3 sections as you evaluate your business and decide which one to work on.

Now, let’s get started on the million dollar equation. The MDE (million dollar equation is a series of systems to help your business grow.)

It is represented by the following:

1GS+TM+MC+FU +RET+REA+REF + 85W+3GR and then there are the Accelerators that help you grow faster than you could have ever imagined.

Now, let’s explain each piece of The Million Dollar Equation

1GS = One Great Solution

Every business needs a great solution. This is better written as a question. So let me ask you, when reviewing your business – what is the great solution or what big problem is your business solving? Now after coaching 12,147 people, this is probably the hardest, part of building the million dollar business. Most people start with the product or service and then try to sell lots of them. Instead of building a business, most people create a sales job. To build a business, you must build systems. For example, I had one private client who bought a flower shop and was stuck. She was unsure how to sell more flowers and was tired of waiting for the phone to ring.

I agreed, she should be stuck. What problem was she solving? I suggested that she focus on solving a particular problem instead of waiting around until someone wants to buy flowers.

We changed her Great Solution to the Emergency Flower Shop. Now, she is there in an emergency and could solve a big problem, which was to help folks who were in a bind with same day delivery. Now, with a well defined problem that she solved, she was clear about who to target. Which leads us to the second piece of the Million Dollar Equation – a Target Market.

TM = Target Market

Why do you need a target market for your business. What if everyone could use your product or service? When I ask entrepreneurs who can use your product or service, most tell me everyone. I giggle and tell them that they don’t have enough money to reach everybody. How about we start with who would be your ideal customer?

Often times, another blank stare.  If you are confused, it’s OK, let’s start with some basics.

If you are unsure, about how to create your ideal customer, how about you start with describing someone who can afford your product or service? How can you have a great business if your ideal customer cannot afford your product or service?

For example, one of my private clients wanted to target single moms with her products. The product was not essential to daily living and could not help the single mom manage her busy life. Here’s the challenge, most single moms don’t have extra money for items that do not impact their daily lives. We had to change her target market.

Let’s look at another of my private clients – Sport Court Las Vegas. Sport Court – Las Vegas is a local business who focuses on backyard construction. They build backyard courts such as custom basketball or tennis courts. When we started figuring out his target market, we started with what are the costs of the sport courts? He told me between $15,000 – up to $100,000.  He’s is looking for a special kind of customer. In addition to the affluent price, the ideal customer needs to have enough room in their backyard to accommodate the custom basketball court. So when he describes his ideal customer, it includes several of these accommodations.

Sport Court Las Vegas – Ideal Customer

1. $100,000 available cash for a backyard court
2. ½ acre in the backyard
3. Kids under 12
4. Interest in sports

Finding a target market is often based on the Great Solution. Who has a problem that your product or service can solve? Your target market should be based on your ideal customer. Who would be your ideal customer?

How about listing your top 4

1. How much do they need to have available to purchase your product or service?
2. Do they need space, car, to accommodate your product or service?
3. What does the Ideal customer’s family look like?
4. What is your Ideal customer interested in?

The results for Sport Court Las Vegas?  Once they found their ideal customer they grew from $80,000 per year to $1.2 million in less than 3 years.  Watch the Interview with the owner – Miles Reynolds as he describes his journey and the keys to building his million dollar business.

In the book, The Million Dollar Equation, I list out all of the ways to find your Ideal Customer and the biggest criteria for finding your Target Market but the above should get you started.

MC = Marketing Calendar – Do you plan your success? Creating a million dollar business starts with planning a business that is based on being proactive instead of being reactive. What do I mean by proactive versus reactive?

In a reactive business, all sales are based on waiting for one of the following:

  • The phone to ring
  • The customer to walk in the door
  • The client to request the contract.

What are you doing to make the phone ring, give a reason for the customer to walk in the door, or getting the client to request the contract? Gosh, there is nothing worse than waiting for money.

Doing promotions at the last minute might keep your business open but will never allow you to build a million dollar business. Plan your events, your communication with customers and how you will help the customers come in the door.

Take the Assessment to see how close you are to building a million dollar business.

Create for your business a marketing calendar that will detail, your promotions, how you will communicate with your target market and how you plan to make sure that you never wait for the phone to ring again.

FU = Follow Up : Other than the first 2 parts of the equation, (1GS and TM) the rest of the equation is a combination of systems. In order to build a million dollar business, it is important to create systems that work as you grow. Growth does not happen randomly. Random promotion, generates random money.

The marketing calendar lists the ideas and gives them dates of implementation –

Remember, ideas make you feel good, but implementation makes you money.

How do you make sure that everything is implemented?

The first implementation requirement is the Follow Up. Follow Up for both prospects – people who are thinking about buying your product or service as well as customers after they buy your product or service.

What happens when you first meet a potential customer, client, patient? How do you follow up? Your follow up depends on how the prospect interacts with your business. Did you meet them at a networking event? How about did the prospect go to your website? What about call your office? What happens next? In both my telephone company and every company that I have worked with since, we create a follow up system based on the interaction of the prospect. If we meet in person, the follow up is different than if they go to the website.

Essential Follow Up Systems Every Business Needs

  • When someone goes to the company website
  • After meeting in person – (Belly to Belly)
  • After the customer purchased your product or service
  • When the customer should be due to purchase your product or service again

That leads us into the next piece of the equation – which is Retention.

RET = RETENTION
Follow up needs to happen after each sale in order to keep each customer for life. What systems do you have in place to keep every customer you get for life. The biggest expense of every business is in acquiring new customers. Million dollar businesses are built on extending the life of new customers and increasing their customer value. If you are not getting new customers, your business is dying. And because of the large expense of acquisition, we want to make sure that you get as much life out of your customers as possible.

In the book, The Million Dollar Equation, the Retention System :

  • Thank you note  for each purchase
  • Welcome letter from the business to the new customer to explain how things work and when to expect deliveries or monthly communications
  • Monthly communication from the business to keep top of mind for the customer, but most importantly, the monthly communications help move the customer into the next sale.
  • Celebrate important dates for the customer – birthday, anniversary…

Without additional sales, the business will become stagnant.

 (This is laid out in the program – MDE Virtual Implementation Team which shows examples, templates and complete video instructions)

 

If you have not created or more importantly implemented the RETENTION system, you will probably have to implement the next system in The Million Dollar Equation. REACTIVATION.

REA = Reactivation – in case your customers have not purchased from you within the last year, it’s time to implement a Reactivation campaign. Most customers stop purchasing because of indifference. They think that you the business do not care about them. They feel like their money does not matter to you. BUT more important than the 1 year mark, do you have some sort of alarm to alert you when a customer will be back?

This is one of the questions in the Million Dollar Equation Assessment –

Complete the MDE Assessment Now to Get EXACTLY what you need to do to build your own million dollar business

How can you win customers back? The best thing to remember is that most other companies are not using the retention strategies discussed earlier, so by you starting today to win back your old customers, it will change your business. Winning back customers should be included in your marketing calendar and done at least every 90 days.

In case you have not figured it out, a REACTIVATION campaign can generate a nice cash flow surge.

REACTIVATION SYSTEM:

  • Track customer sales
  • Get a list of those have not purchased in the last 6 months
  • Send something to ask them to return to your business.

REF = Referral System, is our next piece of The Million Dollar Equation. The second easiest customer to sell is a referred one. How do you make sure that you receive great referrals from your existing customers? The number one way is to make sure that you are delivering better than great customer service. My favorite question to ask business owners is how to do you get new customers? For some reason, they love to tell me, all of my new business comes from referrals. Great, I say, how do you get customers to talk about you? AND, now tell me what sets your business apart from your competitors? The next response… oh, it’s my customer service…

So, by the way, customer service does not count. If the news is not reporting stories about your business’ customer service like Zappos and Nordstrom then, your customer service needs work.

In the book, The Million Dollar Equation, we detail out a 7 Step Referral System, but this is already a long post so let me just give you the basics.

  • Create an easy way for people to refer to you.
  • Earn the referral
  • Track the referrals
  • Properly thank each referral
  • Ask for more referrals

For one of my private clients, we created specialized business cards, with information about who a perfect referral would be. Customers could hand them out to the ideal customers and become a sales machine.

The fourth R – in the system, is to REPLACE all of the lost customers for the year.

85W = 85 ways to get a new customer. It is full of ideas of how to attract new customers, from adding an offer to the bottom of a sales receipt, to using an online webinar.

The biggest idea, key tip about 85W is to focus on a lesson I learned years ago, which is, I don’t know one way to get 85 customers but I know 85 ways to get one. Each month in my telephone company, I implemented all 85 ways.

How many ways are you implementing in your business each month to grow? Make a list of at least 10. Start implementing 3 new ones each month to build consistency as well as it helps you be proactive instead of reactive as we discussed earlier.  (stuck for ideas, grab the book to get all of my 85 ways)

Once all of the ideas are exploding by now, hopefully, I can inspire you to continue on to the next part of the equation 3GR.  The final piece – and it is simply a reminder that, there are only 3 ways to grow ANY business.

3GR= 3 Ways to Grow.

When completing your implementation “To Do List”, remember to include each of the 3 ways to grow in your implementation plan.

1. Get a New Customer
2. Get your existing customers to return more often
3. Get your existing customers to spend more during each visit

Now that you have the 9 essential pieces of The Million Dollar Equation, it’s, time to put them to work in your business.

Want to know the best place to start? Take this quick Million Dollar Equation Assessment to get the exact steps to build your own million dollar business. Let me know how things go!

 

If this post gave you any life 🙂  on ways to grow your business or made you feel like  DAMN, this is a ton of information but this was awesome, then do me one favor.  Leave a message below and tell me it was worth the 3 days it took me to write it.

Oh yeah, one more favor??  Share it on some of your social media networks!

Talk soon!

Richelle

(remember to take the Million Dollar Equation Assessment)