Member Article

Are your eggs in too few baskets?

The Easter weekend gave me cause to consider the “too many eggs in one basket” quote.

The business that relies on one or two customers for the majority of its business is sooner or later
heading for a fall.

The client can basically shout “jump” and the supplier will continue to elevate its service higher and
higher still and all for the same sales price!

Then there is the salesperson who sits on his or her prospect list convinced that target will be
achieved from this list. The author recalls a painful experience as a result of this one, I can tell you.

One of the common causes of business failures or reasons for poor business performance is that
people rest on their proverbial laurels or worse still accept the way things are as, well, the way
things are!

The surprising fact is that with a bit of activity, and I mean Pro activity, not re-active, you can
develop your business far quicker than you might think.

Take Mike for example:

Mike runs his own small business and when we met he had two clients one of which accounted for
over 85% of sales.

At least they had accounted for over 85% as they had served Mike with notice that they were
terminating their working relationship for no other reason than Mike had completed the project.

Mike had hoped that as had happened when they had previously reached this juncture the client
duly found more work for Mike to undertake,

Sadly for Mike, not the case this time around.

Mike turned to me to help him out of this predicament and we set about changing Mike’s habits.

No I don’t mean leaving socks in the front room or toe clippings for his partner to pick up after him.

I mean the serious business of finding new clients.

With no money to “risk” on marketing we worked with what Mike had, focussing on his existing
marketing activities but changing the message ad developing more of an online presence.

The change in activity has already yielded results!

Within a week Mike has a number of prospects he is talking to and following up with as well as a
small business that has already agreed to hire Mike’s services.

All created in one week.

Compound this activity week in week out and Mike will create a more profitable, sustainable
business with several clients giving him far more scope to develop his business further.

It could have been so different for Mike; he may have decided to go back to the world of
employment, a path being heartily recommended by his partner.

Mike is now firmly in charge of his and his families destiny.

A business resurrection if you please!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paul Robson .