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Delving Into Your Business – Asking The Right Questions
If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes
Albert Einstein
So imagine you have to go to the Doctors.
The Doctor tells you to bend over, and he pulls out a needle & jabs you in the backside…
So you say “What was that for?”
His response “That’s what we call, the MSB “Magic Silver Bullet” it cures everything.”…
You Reply “But doctor you don’t even know what’s wrong with me.”…
I don’t think you would be confident you got the right treatment for your problem…
That’s not how a visit to the doctor usually goes.
Unless you’re like my dad, who suffers from a condition & needs to see his Doctor regularly. His doctor has been treating him for years.
He has to get an injection every 6 weeks if he wants to have quality of life…
Even then the doctor checks his pulse, prods & probes him to make sure he’s not getting worse.
So when you go to the doctors, you expect to get asked questions, to find out what’s wrong with you.
They’re going to check your blood pressure…
They’re going to prod you & probe you till they work out what’s causing the pain.
As they say, Diagnose before Prescription…
So now it’s time to look at your business like a doctor.
Ask the questions that need to get asked, no matter how uncomfortable the answers may be.
Lucky for you, you don’t have to go through 7 years of Uni to learn to ask the right questions.
I have done the hard work for you…
I know you may think this is strange, but one of my hobbies is collecting questions…
So last year when my kids were away I decided to catalogue all my questions…
So I searched my journals & computer hard drives & compiled all my questions…
I didn’t realise what a massive job this was. So I opened up a doc, calling it “The Defining Business Questions” it was a whopping 963 pages.
Stuffed full of typed questions & screenshots I have collected over the years…
So then I spent countless hours sorting them.
Comparing each question… Analysing them all so I could find the questions which would have the most impact for business owners…
I placed the well chosen question into business sections…
Don’t panic, and this is not like sitting a school exam.
These question will guide you & show what you’re doing Right in your business & what areas you need to work on…
Sure this may take a little work, but the effort will give you an invaluable insight into your business.
Are you up for the challenge?
All right, I already know I have lost some of you. The idea of diving into your business, proding & probing is scary. It sounds like work.
What are you waiting for?…
Remember there are no Magic Silver Bullets…
I believe the great Doctor said it up best…
Dr Seuss Oh, The Places You’ll Go!…
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…
Dr Seuss
Dr Seuss Oh, The Places You’ll Go!…
So if you’re looking to make changes in your business. Then you need to get a baseline, so you need to know where you are,
You’ll find some of these questions will be confronting & challenging… You must be prepared to ask & answer these brutal questions.
So are you ready to dive in?
Most
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What Are You Stuck On?
- What are your biggest challenges facing you in Running & Growing your Business? …
- What are your biggest challenges facing your business?
- What do you need to do next?
- Are you struggling with a mindset, discipline, self-sabotage Roadblocks? Describe…
- Are you feeling overwhelmed trying to get things done?
- Do you have a marketing Strategy, rather than a bunch of Tactics? Can you describe them?
- Are you suffering from Shiny Silver Bullet Syndrome?
- Do you need Help with your Marketing?
- What’s your Opportunity Cost if you don’t do anything?
Your Business Questionnaire
It’s time to do your Basic Business Analysis. Vagueness or fuzziness in any area can lead to problems, difficulties & even disasters…
- How do your potential customers find you?
- When you started… did you imagine it would look like is today? – Describe What should it look like?
- What’s the best method you have for generating clients?
- How & why did you get involved in your business?
- What were you thinking when you got started?
- What were your goals when you started?
- Why has your business been successful in the past?
- What are some of your biggest successes?
- What has worked the best?
- What have you done well in the past that has been responsible for your success to date?
- What’s working and What’s Not Working?
- What are the 20% of your activities that account for 80% of your results?
- Who is your audience and what is your message?
- If there was one thing you could change about your business, what would it be?
- How long has this been going on?
- What will happen if you don’t change this?
- What specific, measurements actions should you take immediately, after answering these questions
? Whom do you see as your potential customers?- Do you sell direct, via retail, direct mail, catalogue or the Internet?
- Do you charge more, change less than Competition? Have upsells cross-sell or discounts?
- Do you enter certain markets & abandon others?
- What is your strategy?
- It this strategy working for you? Describe
- What are your best products or services you’re offering right now?
- Does your business have a solid growth Strategy in place?
- What is your overall Marketing & Sales Strategy?
- What are your most important skills & competencies your company possesses today?
- What are your core competencies?
- What areas do you excel (or want to shine ) in?
- What does your company do exceptionally well?
- What are the worst possible things that could happen to your business in the next year?
- What are your plans to deal with them, should they occur?
So how did you go with these Questions?