If your business is not growing, it is dying. Here is an easy example. 22% of your database typically decays over a year.
This means, if you have 1000 people on your database today, next year this time, there will be 780 people.
220 people would have either unsubscribed, stopped using the mail, etc.
If your growth plan entails getting 50% more buyers on your list, it means 1500 people. But your list at the end of the year will only be on 780 people. This means, you need to add 720 people, not 500.
If your business is not growing, it is dying, and that is a good example.
Big question #1: What is your strategy for growing sales over the next 3, 6 or 12 months?
Keeping with the database example, to grow the business you decide to add 1000 new customers. This means, growing your buyers database to 1780 people. Per month, that is 84 new buyers. To do this, you will run paid campaigns on Facebook and Google, with an irresistible offer and one upsell. From there, an offer to a monthly service.
Big question #2: What is your leading indicator to know your business growth strategy is actually working?
You get lagging and leading indicators. A lagging indicator is like sales. It is a after the fact, the sale is done, it lags the activity.
A leading indicator could be the number of people visiting your sales page. It leads the desired action.
For instance, if you know your page converts at 15%, then to hit your sales goal of adding 83 people, your leading indicator of traffic would be 560 page visits. That is 20 visits per day, and 3 sales from it. If you are not getting the visits and sales then you will not hit your goal.
Big question #3: What will be the customer behavior that drives your leading indicator?
In lead generation, the customer behavior would be people asking for a quote. In this case of a sale, the behavior would be people adding their card details to buy. It the growth plan is not driving the right behavior, you will not hit your business growth goal.
Big question #4: Are you willing to invest the time and effort to make it work?
It’s hard. This takes work. There is thinking and a lot of doing involved. And even more head scratching. Yes, testing ideas and getting feedback is what makes it possible to grow your business.
Sometimes a small tweak unlocks the sales, sometimes something was blocking sales, and by doing the work, checking the data, you find the block, and a sales start flowing.
Do the work.