The first phase has an annual revenue form zero to $1 million. The second phase has a revenue of $1 million to $10 million. The third phase generates a revenue of $10 million to $50 million phase. The final phase is when you take your business form $50 million to $100 million $200 million and more.
Each phase is characterized by a set of challenges. Understanding these challenges and knowing how to deal with them is vital to your business success.
If your business is in the first phase (like yours truly), the priorities and sequence of activities are:
- Get the product ready enough to sell it, but it does not have to be perfect.
- Sell it.
- If it sells, make it better.
The main activity is generating sales. Too many new entrepreneurs make the mistake of concentrating on secondary and tertiary activities and too little time on selling. Activities such as finding a good location for an office, buying office furniture, tinkering with the product to make it better, selecting the accounting software etc. None of these activities lead to generating sales. You can work from home at this stage to reduce your overhead cost. At the end of the day, if you don't have any sales, what good is the accounting software?
At this stage, the mission is to discover the optimum selling strategy (OSS) - one that pulls in customers and sells your product like crazy.
Right now I'm on Chapter 9 of the book. It's full of useful advice and tips. My head is spinning from trying to figure out how to implement them in my business.
So if you haven't read this book, get a copy NOW (not tomorrow)!
