Page 18 - Australasian Paint & Panel Magazine Jan-Feb 21

A
BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
18
20 NEW CARS • 24 OFFICE EFFICIENCY • 26 HAIL DAMAGE REPAIR
PAINT&PANEL JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2021 WWW.PAINTANDPANEL.COM.AU
READY... SET... GO!
HAVE YOU PROGRAMMED YOUR NEXT DESTINATION ASKS BUSINESS COACH BEN FEWTRELL?
S 2020 BECOMES A
smaller dot in your ‘rear-view’ mirror it is time
to set your vision on a new direction and focus on the road that lies ahead. 2020 was a wild ride that taught us a lot of lessons, and no doubt some lessons you are grateful for, and well, some lessons you would
rather just forget. Hopefully, you spent
the last few weeks of 2020
preparing yourself and
your business for the next
leg of the journey. There is
a reason the rear-view
mirror is smaller than the
windscreen, if we want to
safely navigate to our des-
tination, looking out the
windscreen is going to get
us there. We should only
make small glimpses back
at 2020 in the rear-view,
and let’s face, probably to
make sure we are leaving it behind.
If you are keen to grow your business in 2021 you may be asking where do you put your focus?
Spend some time evaluating these four key areas of your business and coming up with strategies you can im- plement throughout 2021 to help you achieve your goals.
MARKETING – LEAD GENERATION
Do you have a marketing plan? If not, now is the best time to create one. Once you have worked out your 2021 destina- tion (ie. Profitability, Team, Products and Services to sell etc.) you will need to work out how you are going to attract enough potential clients to buy from you. Often I see business owners spend-
ing money on marketing, and they have not even taken the time to work out what they are selling, who the ideal cli- ent is and how to make sure a profit will be made.
Your marketing plan should include all of this information and more. You should set a marketing budget and have targets set for how many leads you will generate.
SALES – CONVERSION RATE
The next area to consider is conversions. One you have generated a lead do you have a systemised, predictable sales pro- cess for you and your team to follow?
A documented process will make it easier for you to monitor each team mem- ber’s performance and track the effect of
any changes you make to the way you quote, follow up and ask for the sale. Systems make it dead easy to train
new and existing team members too.
OPERATIONS –
CLIENT FULFILMENT
How would you rate your customer sat- isfaction out of 10? How do you make it a 10? This is a question you can con- stantly ask yourself.
I like to refer to this as ‘Client Fulfil- ment’. One of the easiest ways to grow any business, is to make sure customers are happy. Happy customers tell others about you and they also come back to buy from you time and time again.
A quick way to gauge your perfor- mance in this area is to check out your Google or Facebook Reviews. If someone is not happy they may just leave a nega- tive review. Take this as an opportunity to learn and grow.
THE BUSINESS – PROFITABILITY
Have you budgeted to make profit in 2021? The easiest way to make a profit is to plan it. Sounds simple, however very few business owners spend time plan- ning profitability. Look at areas of ‘low hanging fruit’. Maybe upgrading some of your shop equipment will increase the throughput, or it could be as simple of upskilling your technicians to reduce re- works. Find a few areas of improvement you can focus on in 2021 that will have a positive impact on your bottom line.
Ben Fewtrell is the author of the Business Exceleration Blueprint, is a sought-after advisor, speaker, podcast host and traininer. He has mentored and coached hundreds of business owners in dozens of industries, including collision repair. Visit Maxmyprofit.com.au