It's easy to see where to troubleshoot a garden hose when the water isn't flowing. In your business it will require measuring!
An earlier newsletter talked about where to start improving your business by looking for the 'constraint'.
If you’re lacking sales, the same technique can be used specifically for your sales and marketing.
Your customers will move through a process from awareness to buying, called a 'funnel', many versions of which exist - here’s one I like [link], here’s one specifically for internet startups [link].
The funnel concept works well as it's a numbers game - only a percentage of people who see your product will buy.
The principle is the same;
- identify the phases
- measure how many people are moving through each phase
A sudden drop will highlight that phase as NOT working for customers....
For the blue process above there is a large drop in 'persuasion' - overcoming objections and comparison to competitors.
The sudden drop is where to dig in and find out what the problem is and fix it
Not knowing where to start is OK, but not measuring to find out where to start is not. Take action to identify where the bottle neck is, so you fix the right problem.
[NOTE: Spending time and money on a part of your business that is not the constraint will NOT produce growth!]
I don’t know where to start = I don’t measure
When the problem is fixed, the bottleneck will move to another place in the flow but you won't necessarily know where. This is why it is initially OK to not know where the constraint is.
Growth comes from continually finding and fixing the bottle neck.
In a nutshell;
- Identify the constraint
- Fix it
- Repeat step 1 and 2
- Grow!