Kevin Gardner, Negosentro | Running a business is a high-stress occupation and one that comes with a mountain of responsibilities. Fortunately, you don’t have to have an Ivy League education or the resources of a billion-dollar conglomerate to succeed in business. With the right habits in place, you can build a profitable commercial venture. Habits are what keeps successful business people focused and productive. The wrong ones, however, can lead to the opposite, zapping the invaluable hours of your day and deterring you from producing any high-quality output. Here are six habits that you should adopt to boost revenues:
Be Frugal
Frugality is a real habit, and one that entrepreneurs should integrate into their approach. Having fuel to burn won’t cut it; you need to make sure you have the reserves to burn for months without needing a cash infusion or funding rounds. If you find a way to lower costs, be all over it. THe more you can cut expenses, the more cash you can save. Before signing off on a purchase, especially a big-ticket item, like new chairs for the office or a game room, ask yourself if you really need it. And if so, do you need it immediately? Sometimes, holding off on a purchase can result in more discounts and savings.
Keep Track of Key Metrics
Core business metrics, such as web traffic, sales growth, social following, and customer retention rate, aren’t just buzzwords thrown around to make entrepreneurship seem cool and sophisticated. These metrics carry actual weight. If you’re inconsistently checking everything and trying to catch every bit of data, it becomes more difficult to navigate through your busy day and you end up getting subpar results. Limit the information you pay attention to by tracking just a few keye metrics, or at least just one of them.
Expand Your Comfort Zone
The human brain has several mechanisms to try and protect the body from too much stress and pressure. It tries to put you in a position of safety and comfort. Unfortunately, you can’t hope to make any changes in your business’ growth while in the comfort zone. That is why you have to deliberately expand your comfort zone. It doesn’t have to be one big and abrupt change. For instance, you can attend one meetup or cold call one potential client each day. Taking it one step at a time is a more effective approach to manufacturing your own success rather than forcing yourself to endure highly stressful situations.
Expand to New Product Offerings
Although you certainly won’t be able to create and release a new product every day, it’s a good habit to try and work towards a new product offering that you can bring to market. If your main product line is clothing, for instance, new designs for girls skirts or men’s suits can help rake in more sales and revenue. Small habits directed towards creating new products, such as researching latest technological trends and doing some customer surveys.
Practice the Pareto Principle
The Pareto Principle, a strategy that dictates that 80 percent of output comes from the 20 percent of work, is an effective tool for growing your business. When applied to sales, this means that 80 percent of the revenue should be generated from 20 percent of the customers. Once you’ve figured out the specifics, work towards scaling it up a few percentage points per day.
Connect With More People
Get your brand out there to as many people as you can. The more people who know about you, the better your chances of attracting new leads and customers. Regardless of what marketing strategy you use, it’s a numbers game at the end of the day. Even if you aren’t able to convert people into paying customers, it may still impart a lesson or story worthwhile telling.
When people talk about businesses, they usually forget to cover the things they do off record. Nonetheless, a glimpse into even the simplest habits of highly focused and successful entrepreneurs can be an invaluable resource for aspiring and existing startup founders who are looking to boost their numbers.