9 Core Principles to Maximize Profits (update 2013) mike ferrell (1) by Mike Ferrell

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts Mike Ferrell

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

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9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts 9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Mike Ferrell

! Introduction

Being an entrepreneur is a big chalIenge, and in today’s economy it is even more challenging. However with all the doom and gloom in the media about the economy I have had the opportunity to witness some fantastic success stories in spite of a difficult economy. If you buy into the doom and gloom then you will probably not see much growth in your business but if you ignore the media and focus on your business you can achieve significant results. I began my business life in 1987 with my first client and over almost 25 years working with hundreds of companies in 27 different industries and being involved in 11 start-ups I have had an opportunity to really research what makes a business successful. As I have made this journey I can confidently say that I believe that there are 9 Core Principles that when focused on can significantly impact the results a business will have. Some of these are pretty obvious ones but a few of them are not so obvious and so I would like to take you through the 9 Core Principles as well as the underlying strategies that each of the Core Principles focus on. By implementing these 9 Core Principles and not worrying about

what the media is saying about the economy you can match the success stories I have seen first hand.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Core Principle #1: Vision and Leadership

The first Core Principle is Vision and Leadership; here we review the overall vision of the business itself and then how the leader/ entrepreneur is carrying out that vision for the company. This first core principle is critical to all the rest, a company without direction will never achieve it’s potential. By taking the time to look at the business from the outside versus running it day to day from the inside you can get yourself back on the course you set when you first started the business. These 3 strategies can help you get there:

Strategy #1: Big Picture The big picture is really at the core of Vision and Leadership, does the entrepreneur have a clear picture of what he/she wants out of their company. What do they want to accomplish with it? Why did they start it in the first place? This is really the first step toward understanding what the big picture is and then crafting a statement that embodies that vision. Does your team understand the direction that you’re taking them? Is the vision of your company clearly communicated to your team so they understand the big picture? If your team doesn’t know where you want to go it’s pretty hard to expect them to take you there!

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9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #2: Communication The second strategy under this core we’re primarily referring to internal communication. How are the lines of communication between you and your team? Communication within an organization is critical and I don’t just mean meetings so that people know what’s going on. One of the most important things here is getting a good line of communication between all levels of the organization. Are people comfortable bringing ideas and concerns to you without having to go through multiple layers of management? I have worked with several small companies that act like they are a Fortune 500 company and their lines of communication are so rigid it takes days if not weeks to get communication flowing. As the leader of your organization it is your responsibility to make sure the lines of communication are effective both from the top down and the bottom up.

Strategy #3: Empowerment The third strategy under this Core Principle is empowerment, as a leader are you allowing your people to be their best? Are you focusing on their strengths? Most managers have a tendency to manage to minimize weaknesses, however your team would be much more effective if you managed to maximize strengths. A great tool to get you started doing this is the Gallup StrengthsFinder. This simple, yet powerful tool helps you identify what your team’s strengths are and how to best manage them. And once you have people working to their strengths you can then empower them to do what you hired them to do without baby sitting them. You can expect them to make great decisions for your business and give them the power to make those decisions without worrying about someone looking over their shoulder

constantly. Which by the way frees you up to do what you like to do!

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Core Principle #2: Branding

The second core principle is branding, and here we’re not necessarily talking about creating a brand name as much as creating a clear brand of what your business is and does. Branding is the essence of your business; if you don’t have a clear brand it will be very difficult to differentiate your business from your competitors. There are 3 strategies here that are essential to effective branding.

Strategy #1: Deﬁnition The first strategy under Branding is Definition; here we need to look at a clear definition of who you are and what you do. Many businesses have not gone through the exercise of clearly identifying who they are and what they do and then taking it a step further and defining how they do it. This is called a branding message and it differs from a mission statement in that it is a working message that will be used in all sales and marketing communications and by your team. The branding message should have two parts to it, the first I call the elevator speech, which is a quick one or two sentences that tell who you are and what you do. The key to this statement is that it should be compelling enough for someone to ask, “how do you do that?” The second part of the branding message is then the “how”, here you want to have a few bullet points on how you do what you do and the last part of the branding message is what makes you unique, what’s your unique selling proposition.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #2: Diﬀerentiation Clearly differentiating yourself from you competitors can be one of the most difficult things to do however it can also be one of the most profitable. If you can find a way to differentiate yourself from your competitors you have a clear advantage in your prospective customers mind. The key to differentiation is to clearly understand what our potential customers are looking for. Once you know that then you can determine how to deliver what it is they are looking for. There are many examples of how companies clearly differentiated themselves; two well-known ones were FedEx and Dominoes Pizza. Both understood what their customers wanted and then executed based on those factors.

! Strategy #3: Positioning How do you position your business with your current customers and prospects? Positioning is all about what you want your customer to think and feel about you, your business, your product or your service. It’s all about doing things to make a person want to do business with you. Positioning impacts all areas of your business from product and service design to customer service. When thinking about positioning you want to ask the question, “how do we want our customers to see us?” This is the beginning point from the answer to that question everything you do should be in the direction of your answer. Once you have figured out how you want people to see you then you want to go through and analyze everything you’re doing from a product/service perspective, marketing perspective and customer perspective to make sure that’s exactly the message that’s being conveyed.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Core Principle #3: Team Engagement

No matter how effective of an entrepreneur you are you are going to need an effective team to help you execute your business. Team engagement can make or break any organization. Based on numbers from Gallup over 80% of all employees are not engaged in their work so what can you do to make sure your team is engaged? Here are 3 strategies:

Strategy #1: People Development The first strategy is to make sure there is an active, effective opportunity for people to grow within your organization. From the minute a new employee starts to work for you make sure there are opportunities to develop their skills. This can be an ongoing training program, it can be employee-mentoring programs, and it can be outside educational opportunities. Whatever it is make sure employees feel that you think it’s important that they continue to develop. It will not only make them effective employees it will also instill loyalty in them if they believe the organization has their best interests at heart.

! Strategy #2: Input One of the most effective team engagement strategies that I have seen work in organizations is getting people’s input. You should have a process that encourages employees to give input and feedback. This could be surveys, input meetings or implementing it into reviews. However the most important aspect of this is that when you get great ideas make sure you are implementing them. There is nothing worse for team morale than to give their input

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

only to find out that management doesn’t do anything with it. Make it a point to recognize the great ideas and then show everyone how they are being implemented. Once you have people giving great ideas and they see that their input if valued you will be amazed at the great ideas that come from your people. Too many entrepreneurs think they have all the answers and it’s their way or the highway. If you want an active engaged team listen to them! And then implement their ideas and communicate with the entire team on how those ideas are working.

! Strategy #3: Motivation Employees are all motivated by different things. In Daniel Pinks’ book, “Drive” he states there are actually 3 key elements that motivate people: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Autonomy is simply giving people the tasks to do and letting them do then in their own way and from where they want. Obviously there need to be guidelines set but what Pink found is that some of the most engaged teams such as Zappo’s give their team members the autonomy to get their jobs done and get the results needed in their own way. Mastery is simply giving employees the tools, resources and support to master their jobs. We talked about that in the previous strategy as well. Purpose is the idea that the company, the product or service and what the company is doing has purpose. They feel like they are doing their jobs and in some way that job has a higher purpose in what the company does for its customers. Employees are not necessarily motivated by the traditional carrot and stick method anymore they are motivated and engaged based

on how they perceive their company supports them, encourages them and gives them the ability to have a life.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Core Principle #4: Real Time Customer AVraction

In today’s world with technology real time marketing or marketing here and now is critical. With all the tools available such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, You Tube and others real time marketing has never been easier and more effective. You don’t have to spend a huge marketing budget today on advertising and in fact sometimes that’s actually counter productive in many cases. There are 3 strategies here that I believe are critical to making real time marketing work in your business.

Strategy #1: Authority People want to do business with someone they believe is the authority in what they are looking for. Being known as an authority gives you an immediate leg up against your competitors. So how do you become an authority? The best way is to engage in what I call educational marketing. This type of marketing has nothing to do with your product or service but is strictly designed to provide your potential customers with education in regards to what they are looking for from your product or service. By educating them and helping them make better-educated decisions you position yourself as an authority and the “go to” person on the topic. How do you do education marketing? There are many ways to do it, it could be a special report or white paper (you’re reading a form of education marketing), it could be an e-course, it could be a blog, and it could be articles you post on Facebook or Linked In. There are many ways to create education marketing, the most important thing is to sit down and do it. I often have clients tell me “I’m not a

good writer” then write your thoughts and have someone else proof read it so that the form is good. You will find that the sooner you position yourself and your business as an authority the sooner people will be seeking you out to do business.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #2: Speed to Market Speed to market means just that, how quickly can you get something out to your customers and prospective customers. How quickly you get information out to customers and a prospective customer is critical as well as how quickly you respond to people talking about your business, product or service. Twitter is a great tool for having conversations with people talking about your business and building a community that supports your business. The key to Twitter working is that you monitor it so you know when people are talking about you and you put out things on Twitter that get people talking about you. Social media is an essential tool to the strategy of speed to market because you can quickly get information out and if you have done a good job of building your community you can start conversations with potential customers. Plus if your content is good it could go viral and get you even better positioned for people to find you and engage in your business. The other important thing to remember about speed to market is that whenever someone starts talking about you and your business you want to engage in the conversation immediately in order to capitalize on the conversation. There are many tools available to monitor what people are saying about your business, products and services that you can use to monitor without it taking hours of your time.

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9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #3: Direct Response One of the biggest mistakes that many businesses make is to create marketing or advertising for their product or service and spend a lot of money doing it and then after the fact realizing there was no call to action in the ad or marketing piece so there was nothing that would get people to do something to engage with you. Direct response marketing is the most effective form of marketing you can do, period! Every single marketing tactic should have some form of direct response in it. It gives customers and potential customers the immediate opportunity to engage with you and respond to what you’re showing them. It also allows you to measure every aspect of your marketing which is extremely important. You will know the effectiveness of each of your campaigns simply by measuring the response. It also allows you to test multiple messages to find out which are the most effective. The key to direct response marketing is that you want to make an offer of some sort that the potential customer or customer can respond to. It may be bringing in a coupon, going online to do a survey, downloading an article, e-book or white paper. It may be something as simple as signing up for a newsletter. But by getting the person you are targeting you are bringing them into your marketing funnel.

! Core Principle #5: Selling Systems

The sales process is the lifeblood of any business. No matter how good your product or service is, the phrase “build it and they will come” simply does not apply when it comes to a business. No matter what business you are in there is always some form of selling going on and the more effectively you and your team do it

the more successful your business will be. Here are 3 strategies that can help you increase your sales effectiveness.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #1: Multiple Channels When I talk about multiple channels what I’m talking about is finding different ways and places to sell your product or service. If you are a retail business is there a way you can sell online? If you are working with a specific industry is there another industry that could benefit from your product or service? Could your product or service be tweaked a little to open up another market? Selling in multiple channels allows you to think about new ways to offer your product or service, it allows you to think outside the box and come up with new ways to generate revenue. I saw a story recently about a construction company that had heavy equipment and because of the slow construction industry they had equipment sitting idle. They thought completely outside the box and decided to create an amusement theme for adults by letting them drive and work the heavy equipment. Similar to an amusement park you could come in and purchase time driving and operating the equipment. It was a huge success and has become a major stream of revenue and it was totally thinking about multiple channels that got them to make that move. Have a brainstorming session with your team and think about ways and places that you are not currently selling and marketing to that would be an additional revenue stream, you never know you may find a channel that is even more profitable than your primary business.

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Strategy #2: Unique Selling Proposition

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

I’m sure you have heard the term unique selling proposition or USP but have you really examined it for your business. A unique selling proposition is how you clearly differentiate your product or service from others. What is it about your product or service or your company that would be compelling enough to convince someone to do business with you versus your competitor? Uniqueness can be sought in a number of ways: • By offering the highest quality. This is the Rolls-Royce approach to selling. • By being exclusive. In the information age, this is an increasingly common type of USP. More and more firms offer a unique packaging of information or knowledge. • By offering the best customer service. Domino’s Pizza became the bestselling brand in the United States on the basis of its USP: “Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed.” It did not promise high quality or low price, just fast delivery • By offering the widest choice. This is particularly appropriate to niche markets. A specialist cheese shop, say, can claim to offer a wider selection of cheeses than anyone else. • By giving the best guarantee. This is particularly important in industries where customers pay for something upfront and then have to hope that what they think they have bought is eventually delivered.

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9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #3: Adding Value Do you add value and make your prospective customers' lives better when they're in your sales process? How do they view you? As a salesperson, or as a consultant whose bringing them solutions, right now, even if they're not a client. These questions are critical to adding value to your customers and prospective customers. This goes beyond the sale, it also means adding value before and after they're a customer. It means that you are giving them information, ideas, solutions that can help them, whether or not they are a customer. Many times this is the clear differentiator between someone buying from you and from a competitor. When looking at adding value put yourself in the customer’s shoes and ask the question, “What’s in it for me?” What can you give them that shows them you truly want to make their lives, businesses, situations better?

! Core Principle #6: Leverage Customer Assets

One of the most critical core principles for any entrepreneur is to understand their customers as an asset and how to leverage that asset. In my book Ultimate Breakthrough Planning I state that there are only three ways to grow a business. More customers, more sales from existing customers and larger sales from existing customers. And it’s far easier to get more sales from existing customers than it is to get new customers. But to do that you need to first understand that your customer base is your greatest asset and tapping into that asset can lead to dramatic increases in profitability.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #1: Customer Analysis The first strategy is to analyze your current customers, what are they buying, how often are they buying, what are their buying patterns? How often are you connecting with them or touching them. Most businesses can’t answer those questions, they simply react to customers buying and they don’t clearly understand the relationship they have with that customer. The only way to get customers to buy more or create larger sales is to understand that customer as thoroughly as possible. Create a list of your best customers and determine what they bought from you and how often they bought from you. Make sure you’re collecting information from them so that you can actively touch them through different marketing efforts. The more often you reach out to them to more of an opportunity you have to increase sales. Having a strong customer database is the first step in leveraging customer assets and building additional profits from your existing customers.

Strategy #2: Customer Opportunities The next step after you have built your database is identifying buying opportunities from your existing customers. Some questions to ask here would be how do we enhance the buying experience to get them to buy more? What other products can we sell them based on their buying habits? How can we increase the frequency of them buying from us? The best thing to do is to start creating a hit list of customers that you want to reach out to with ideas that can get them to do more business with you. Then start implementing marketing that focuses on that specific buying opportunity. Also look at how you currently

upsell and cross-sell your customers, are you doing a good job in getting additional sales based on the processes you’re using to do that? Have a very specific plan on how to identify customer opportunities and then how to implement a sales and marketing plan to add additional sales to those customers.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #3: Referrals Most businesses talk about getting referrals from existing customers but many do very little about it. And yet one of the best ways to bring in new customers is from existing referrals. However there is a negative reaction many times when people are asked for referrals and so one thing to do is rather than asking for referrals ask for introductions, people are generally more open to the idea of introducing someone to your business versus referring them to your business. Have a specific referral process in place so that your team knows how to ask and you are consistently asking existing customers for introductions. Create marketing that occasionally asks customers for introductions and give them an incentive for doing so. Referrals can be a huge increase in profitability if they are done consistently and correctly. And most important when you get an introduction make sure it is following up on immediately and then tracked to measure the results.

! Core Principle #7: Exceptional Service

It goes without saying that without good customer service you probably won’t be in business very long. However very few businesses that I’ve encountered really look at customer service

as a way to grow profitability. By delivering what I call exceptional service or as Tom Peters calls it a “wow experience” you can create profits and not just good will. Here are 3 strategies that focus on delivering exceptional service.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #1: Customer Experience What customer experiences do you deliver to your customers, and especially your best customers? What experience makes a customer say, “wow”? When I ask this question in my seminars I more often that not get back customer experiences rather than good ones but when the good ones come out they are typically great. The most important thing to remember about great customer service is that is doesn’t cost a thing, it is the one thing that can significantly impact the bottom line and yet most businesses do very little to focus on it. The first step in delivering great customer experience is to define what that means to your business. What is it that you want your customers to say or do when they do business with you? Once you have determined that then determine how you deliver that and what you will need to do with you team to train them on delivering that level of service. The other thing that I recommend to my clients is to also determine who your top customers are and is there something else you can do at an even higher level for your best customers. Again this doesn’t have to cost a lot but the value of having your best customers spread the word is invaluable. With this strategy you want to create raving fans and if you and your team haven’t read Ken Blanchard’s book “Raving Fans” I highly recommend it.

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9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #2: Negative to Positive The next strategy under this core principle is what I call negative to positive. The best way to explain this is two recent experiences I had in restaurants. In the first situation I was in a restaurant and ordered a meal and when they brought it out they had messed up the order, when I pointed out that they messed it up an agitated waiter took the plate and stormed back into the kitchen. Ten minutes later the waiter brought out the new food without so much as an apology. The second situation was similar in that they brought out the food only this time it didn’t really taste like what I had expected and when the pleasant server asked how my food was I told her it wasn’t what I was expecting, she immediately offered to get me something else and even made a couple of suggestions. As they were preparing the new order a manager came over and apologized and said they would not be charging me for my food and would get me dessert as well. In the second example the restaurant turned what I call a negative to a positive and I can guarantee I’ll go back to that restaurant and recommend it to others. The first restaurant doesn’t have a chance of seeing me again. There will always be mistakes made in any business because people are human; it’s how you deal with those mistakes and how you turn negatives to positives that are critical to you business and your profitability. You should be training your team on how to deal with mistakes and customer issues, and also give them the ability to make customer decisions on the spot to make a customer happy without running the customer through a bunch of hoops. This will position you and your team to turn negatives to positives. And I guarantee that this will add to your profitability!

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #3: Word of Mouth Word of mouth can be the most important form of marketing you can do and word of mouth is only accomplished through great customer service and great products and services. And today with technology word of mouth takes on a whole new meaning. From Twitter to Facebook to apps like Yelp you can create word of mouth almost instantly. By encouraging your customers to engage in those tools you can immediately build word of mouth through great customer service. Asking your customers to spread the word when they get great service and to tell you when they don’t is essential. One of the most important aspects of this is that it’s a strategy, not just something that happens. Clearly write out what you want to happen and then share that with your team and determine how you can best spread word of mouth. Make sure your team understands the technology tools that you are using and encourage them to participate in the conversations. By developing this strategy you not only encourage exceptional service you ramp up your marketing efforts.

! Core Principle #8: Strategic Alliances

When I work with clients on strategic alliances they often initially think that this principle will cost them something in order to achieve it. However, what I tell them is that strategic alliances can work in many different ways and they can help a business owner achieve a number of different objectives. Here are 3 strategies that can help you implement strategic alliances in your business.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #1: Oﬀ Boarding One of the most important things that all business owners need to do is to let go of the things they don’t do well and have someone else do them. Off Boarding is passing on things you don’t do well to someone else outside of your organization. Whether that’s accounting functions, legal functions, admin functions, marketing functions, whatever it is if you don’t do it well hand it off to someone else to do. Most entrepreneurs that I’ve dealt with over the years have a tendency to be control freaks and they want their hands in everything. What they don’t understand is that control is holding back their business. There are others inside and outside the business that can do some of those functions much better and more efficiently than they can and it allows the entrepreneur to focus on what they do best. This is one of the most difficult things that entrepreneurs do but when they do it they exponentially grow their businesses because it allows them to clearly focus on what they do best and what the business needs them to do.

Strategy #2: Leverage Relationships In this strategy we look at how you can leverage existing relationships that you may have with other businesses. A good example of this would be utilizing a particular group of prospective customers where you are currently working with one of the group. A great example here is a financial services company I work with has a relationship with an advisor from a specific company and they have leverage that relationship into working with several advisors from that same company based on what they did for the initial customer. This isn’t so much a referral as it is doing business by association. If you can tell the story that your working with one

member of a group it can lead to multiple relationships within that same group.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

The best thing to do to implement this is to do an inventory of your customers to see who is involved in a group, it could be the same company, and industry group or a trade group and then determine how you let them know you already have one of them as a customer. Getting a great testimonial from that one customer will also be a great way to get into that group.

! Strategy #3: Parallel Markets Parallel markets simply means finding other similar businesses that are looking to expand their businesses and then working together with each other’s customer lists. I currently work with a chiropractor and with this strategy we are working with a fitness store, a massage therapy business and a salon/spa and we have put together a marketing campaign where they promote each other’s businesses with events, online marketing and email marketing. This strategy has been very beneficial to each other’s growth. One important note about this strategy, it is vital for this to work that you find partners that are willing to execute the marketing and participate equally. If you can find those parallel markets and businesses this can be a very profitable strategy. You want to create a letter of agreement on what each one will do and what the expectations are on the front end. And then you want to review that occasionally so that everyone feels they are benefitting from the efforts.

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Core Principle #9: Execution

Execution is the key to all the above principles. No matter how good the strategies are above, unless you execute them in your business they will mean nothing. But execution is not a shotgun approach where you just start doing them all. In the 3 strategies below we will give you ideas on how to effectively execute the previous 8 core principles. 9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Strategy #1: Strategic Action Plan There is a big difference between a business plan that sits in a file folder and is never used and creating a strategic action plan that is designed to be used everyday to grow your business. In the previous principles we have identified 24 strategies that can help you significantly grow your profits however, in order to execute those strategies you need to create a game plan. In my book Ultimate Breakthrough Planning I take you through a very specific planning process I call the Business Planning Funnel. In that process the first step is to identify the priorities that are most important to your business today. What needs to be focused on first? I would suggest going through the other eight core principles and determine what areas are most important to your business today, what can bring the maximum impact to your business immediately. Once you have identified the priorities then you can begin to break them down into how you’re going to attack them, or the tools you’re going to use to attack them. And then once you have the how you’re going to do it down then you need to create a set of to do’s that need to be done in order for you to make that tool happen. By being as detailed as possible with this to do list you create an easily achievable list that you and your team can execute.

One more thing about a strategic action plan, there should be a defined period of time that you will focus on. In my work with clients I typically create 6-month plans where we focus on 3 or 4 priorities, work those priorities, measure them and then create the next 6-month plan. If you use this approach it will get you laser focused on a specific set of strategies that will help you grow your profits.

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

! Strategy #2: Accountability Measuring your progress is essential to any plan being successful. However most business owners are measuring the wrong thing, they are so focused on measuring the results, such as sales, revenue, profits etc.… that they miss the fact that if they were measuring the actions and activities to get the results the results will take care of themselves. In measuring progress it’s important to create a set of measurements that first off are easily measured such as marketing actions, sales calls, service standards etc.. Once you have determined what you will measure then set a monthly goal and share that goal with your entire team. Then each month share the results of your progress and celebrate when you hit your monthly goals. If you can get your team focused on actions and not results you will find that the results will not only be favorable but also you will see significant growth.

! Strategy #3: Decisive Action I often have business owners tell me that their business is down and sometimes in trouble and then they ask how can we fix it?

9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

Well when all else fails there is one thing that any business owner can do and that is what I call massive, decisive action. I recently had a potential client come to me and said he was having trouble finding financing for his business and so I asked him what he had been doing. He told me he had a conversation with the bank and that they had turned him down. When I asked what else he had done he looked at me and said, “well what else can I do the bank turned me down?” Well the first thing I suggested is putting together a detailed strategic action plan and what the plan was designed to achieve and then take that plan out to 10 banks, research alternative funding options, contact possible angel investors, and about 5 other things he could be doing. That is what I mean by massive, decisive action, don’t just do one or two things do 10, If you’re looking at improving your marketing look to do multiple things not just the same old things you have been doing that aren’t working. In today’s economic environment business owners worry over how they are going to keep their business going, but if they would spend that same energy taking massive, decisive action they would have a much brighter future. Marketing guru Dan Kennedy has a formula for this: Decision+Action=Results Especially in economic downturns you should be doubling and tripling your actions and activities and what you will find that it will help you weather the storm and when the economy starts to turn around your business will be positioned for rapid growth.

Conclusion

In this special report I have outlined 9 Core Principles that can help you maximize your profits. Doing a few of these can have a tremendous impact on your business, however working through all of them can take your business to new heights. Many of the clients I’ve worked with over the years have turned these principles and

their underlying strategies into increases of 50, 100 and 200% in their businesses and I am confident you can too! And if you are interested in getting the same help they got to get there check out www.businessgrowthsystems.com and the new programs I have developed to help you implement these 9 Core Principles in your business! You can also email me at mike@businessgrowthsystems.com 9 Core Principles To Maximize Proﬁts

To Your Success!

! Mike Ferrell

! Mike Ferrell is President and CEO of Business Growth Systems, Plymouth, MN, he is also the author of the award winning book, Ultimate Breakthrough Planning: The Business Funnel Approach. Mike has spent the last 25 years working with businesses and sales organizations helping them achieve outstanding results. Mike has worked with small companies as well as large multi-‐‑national corporations and has spoke to numerous business and trade associations. Mike is based in Minneapolis, MN. Mike can be reached at mike@businessgrowthsystems.com