What Kind of Results are you Getting?

Recently one of my clients starting really inspecting his
sales figures and he didn't like what he saw. He has been
in business for 35 years and his sales were flat, very flat.

When we started coaching together he started the first
session by telling me all of the problems in his business
and why it would never change, even though he was going to
be investing in training and coaching.

He had a long list: The economy, his town, a lot more
competition, employees who refused to do anything
different, employees that were over 70 years old (with one
turning 80 this year, I kid you not), and employees who
were family members who were unmotivated and
underperforming. UGH! Even I was starting to feel
depressed after our first call.

On the next call he came with a more optimistic attitude
and we took a look at the low hanging fruit in his
business. What we started with was some upsells and a goal
to increase each invoice by 10% which would result in an
additional $450K in revenue this year.

His first step was to look at which products he sold the
most frequently and then create a system for what his
employees should ask when a customer purchased one of the
items on this list.

Then he explained this to his employees: The difference in
his success with this project was that he was not willing
to take no for an answer and that he would be tracking the
sales each day. His results? His business was up 45% for
December compared to December last year. He was ecstatic,
especially considering the state of retail sales in
December.

So here are the steps he took:

1. List all of the challenges in your business
2. Identify the areas that you could improve quickly and
relatively easily
3. Pick one
4. Create an action plan with a clear goal
5. Train staff on the new system
6. Track daily (he broke his $2M goal down into daily and
hourly goals)
7. Do follow-up coaching with staff to keep them following
the new system
8. Reward employees for a job well done.

The difference for this client is that he did something
different after 30 years and business and wasn't willing to
listen to his own excuses any more. What are you going to
do differently this month and what structure and support
have you put in place to make sure the change sticks?