An attitude of love and sensitivity sounds pretty, but in the concrete it takes a good deal of work and a willingness to risk.

Yet willingness to risk is the most essential attitude that those of us wishing to experience a spiritually vibrant life must assume.

Without a willingness to risk involvement in real relationships, loneliness, apathy, and an unhealthy preoccupation with self are all that remain.

From Snow Falling on Snow, Robert J. Wicks

We believe if you begin with “the end in mind” you will get the results you want.

If growing your business is your “end in mind”, then what questions do you need to ask to get the answers you want - and the results you desire? How frustrated are you in trying to figure out what to do, and how to measure it?

Let’s exploring some of those questions:

• What is stopping you from getting the results you want?
• What did you have in mind for success when you got involved with your business?
• How do you think about the value of what you do and what you want out of it?
• What is your bottom line – your return on investment on all the time and money you have sunk into your business?
• How do you know if what you are doing is really worth it?

 We have created a framework for how people should think about their business and what they are doing each and every day in that business. We call it our RESULTS™ Model. It is not scientific – but it does get to the gut of what is important and why.

R:        Real. When you do something, plan something, invest time and money in something to grow your business, is it real or is it just something you feel you must do, just to be doing something?  Is it coherent with your overall business strategy? Does it fit with your product and service mix? Will your customers see its value? Will they buy it? Do your people really believe it is important?

E:         Essential. The first and best test is – can you do without it? Will it cause your business to suffer if you don’t do it? Will it increase customer share for your business? Is it necessary to ‘fill out’ your product or service offering? Will your customers see it as a ‘must have’ thing? Does it represent an opportunity to find new markets and a new customer base? Will your people sell it with enthusiasm?

S:         Sustainable. So you have decided you just have to do something or launch a new product or service. Have you thought about how long you want it in your mix? Have you thought about what it will take to keep it viable with your customer base? Have you made a strong marketing case to promote it? Will it really make a difference in your bottom line if you offer it? Will your people embrace it and sell it enthusiastically? Do you have a strategy for R&D to either evolve it to a newer version, or replace it when the time comes? Have you devised a process for how you will know when the ‘time comes’ to move on?

U:        Undeniable. Something is undeniable if everyone that sees it immediately concludes it is the real deal, that it is an essential part of the business, and that it will sustain itself for a significant period of time. These are good questions to ask to decide if something cannot be denied as having intrinsic value. The best way to determine undeniability is to test it. When your people see it, do they say “yes, we must have it"? Do your customers endorse it (interpret ‘buy’ here) enthusiastically? Does it actually enhance the value of your product and service mix? If you don’t have it, will there be a hole in what you bring to the market? Does it materially increase your bottom line?

L:         Leveragable. We alluded to this a little bit above. If you can use something to enhance something else, it is leveragable.  For example, if a new product, added to your current product mix, actually enhances the overall value of your full product offering, you have leveraged it for the benefit of your business bottom line. When you create a new service, can you ‘productize it’ so you can actually bring it to market in more than one form? How can you use positive results to develop other products or services? If you offer a new service and it results in more sales of your other services, it leverages total service mix for the benefit of your ROI. When you create a new product or service to bring to the marketplace, whether it has the ability to leverage current offerings is a very good test of its value.

T:         Tracked, measurable. Nothing has value unless it can be measured. In order to measure something over time, you must track its progress and its impact on your bottom line. You should do this carefully and thoroughly. Create a spreadsheet. Assign time value. Measure quantity sold. Measure who buys. Measure ease or difficulty of selling. Measure time from, initating a marketing strategy, to coming to market. Track the increases and decreases in volume of sales. Measure impact of sale of one product or service on sales of other products or services. While you don’t want to go crazy doing this, it is important to think about all the various matrices possible and which ones it makes sense to track and measure.

S:         Solution-oriented. This might be the ‘mother’ of all measures. What problem does your product or service solve for your customer? If it solves nothing, should you be offering it? When a product or service provides real solutions to real problems, what marketing opportunities does this produce for you? Does selling solutions help you broaden your customer base? How would you use testimonials on solutions to do this? Have you talked with your customers to find out what they have to say about how you solved their problems? Is it likely they will come back for more help in the future?

We invite you to visit our website, http://www.d2partners.com to find out more about the results we give you. An excellent place to start is by doing the on-line survey. Once completed and sent to us, we will call you with a complimentary analysis of your RESULTS!

Or, just give us a call at 410-451-2198 and we can talk!

Denise Trifiletti