The Laban Johnson Group, LLC

Improve the way you do business and improve your income! It costs nothing to do a little introspection and pays huge dividends to keep making minor improvements to increase customer satisfaction.

Hopefully you already periodically check your car’s engine oil and other fluids, check the air filter, wiper blades, brakes, etc, before those things become a major inconvenience in your life, or worse. Why wouldn’t you do the same for your business, your vehicle to your success and wealth?

I wrote this “25 Point Business Inspection” which began as a checklist I compiled and have been using to evaluate new business opportunities, gauging their preparation, pinpoint their flaws where I can add the most value, also make sure that they are aligned with my personal standards, goals and commitment to growth and excellence.

So take advantage of this useful free tool, my gift to you, to place your business under the microscope and come up with ways to continually improve upon the way you do what you do while improving your bottom line.

Using this tool you will cover a lot of area and perhaps come to answer some tough questions about your product or service, to fix some problems before they arise, even change how you find new business, how you engage new prospects, how you manage risks and face your fears, improving your business as a result, so there’s more pleasure than pain in the process

So how well does your business compare? It all starts with asking a question and being completely honest with yourself. Enjoy!

25 Point Inspection
1. BRAND: What is the name of my business?
2. PRODUCT: What is the product or service I am offering?
3. PRIORITY: Where does this business fit into my overall financial security strategy?
4. RESIDUALS: Will I earn a residual income?
5. DIRECTION: What is my strategic direction?
6. TARGET: How is my target market segment defined?
7. CHANNELS: By what channels will I reach my target market?
8. SORTING: What can I say to briefly pre-qualify my prospects and identify new sales opportunities?
9. MARKETING: Do I have a consistent, regular marketing program?
10. LEADS: How do I capture a lead?
11. N.E.A.D.S.: How do I qualify a lead and learn their buying motivations?
12. PRESENTATION: Once I know my lead’s buying motivation, how do I tailor the presentation of my product / service to them?
13. CLOSING: How is the deal finalized?
14. FULFILLMENT: How are the orders filled?
15. SUPPLY: How many orders can be filled at a time?
16. SATISFACTION: How and when do I follow up to check on the quality of services delivered?
17. TOUCH Management: How does my business encourage repeat business?
18. REFERRALS: How does my business generate referrals?
19. KAIZEN: Is my business routinely analyzed and making continual improvements?
20. S.M.A.R.T.: Do I set reachable, measurable goals and make it fun for myself and others involved?
21. REWARDS: How is my staff rewarded for achieving goals?
22. RISKS: What risks – legal or otherwise – does my business face, and how are these risks mitigated?
23. NEW MARKETS: How do I find fresh new markets?
24. FEARS: Do I acknowledge, address and overcome my fears and those of my partners, clients and staff?
25. OTHER: What other questions should I be asking?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
- William Shakespeare

2. PRODUCT: What is the product or service I am offering?

“Have the goods!” – Donald Trump

What are you selling? What value does your product or service add to your clients’ lives? Even if you are just building a list – Always add value. Supply the demand.

3. PRIORITY: Where does this business fit into my overall financial security strategy?Where are you right now, financially? Are you building for security, investing for growth, or taking a risk for the rich rewards of wealth? How important will implementing this process be to improve your overall results? Prioritization helps shift focus and efforts to the most important things first. Some processes are realistically more critical than others depending on your financial strategy, and focusing on the more important things matters more than ever now.

4. RESIDUALS: Will I earn a residual income? How does this process contribute to continually benefiting you or your organization or improving your bottom line? Will each sale or contract bring you long term income if properly maintained, or only one time?

5. DIRECTION: What is my strategic direction? Why go into this business or build this process? Are you building a prospect list? Are you improving your business reputation? Working to gain greater market share? Having an answer to the question “WHY?” is important, without purpose the best plans fail and the most highly motivated people become worn out.

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6. TARGET: How is my target market segment defined? What type of person is most likely to buy or use your product or service?

7. CHANNELS: By what channels will I reach my target market? By which means can your salespeople come into consistent, frequent contact with the members of your target demographic? Do you maintain a running list of target Markets / Channels? MAKE ALLIES – Include as many methods possible, such as affiliate(s) and referral channels, social networking, press releases, email marketing, print media and direct mail, blogs, radio, social bookmarking, search engines, Google keywords for top advertisers – join affiliate programs, exchange links, setup a discount/affiliate relationship, get content. Where do you start marketing your product or service?

8. SORTING: What can I say to briefly pre-qualify my prospects and identify new sales opportunities? Successful marketing begins with sorting the prospects from the non-prospects, because its really all about how you spend your time. Master prospectors are simply sorting. Sorting can be done with a single sentence, keep it simple (also known as the elevator pitch). You just have to know your market. The purpose of sorting is not to prejudge, but to merely determine who is

9. MARKETING: Do I have a consistent, regular marketing program? Consistent activity produces results. Is your marketing sporadic or regular? How can you automate some activities to reduce duplication of efforts? Include all the tech tools available such as e-mail marketing, rss feeds, and don’t forget Twitter.

10. LEADS: How do I capture a lead? You have good marketing, now how do you capture the lead and track it through your sales pipeline? Do you have a web form? Will sales rep fills out a form when they receive inbound calls? Will prospects fax in order forms or a questionnaire to request more information? When you or a member of your organization is handed a business card, what do you do with it to make sure you or someone in your organization gives that lead the proper attention?

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11. N.E.A.D.S.: How do I qualify a lead and learn their buying motivations? This is where the sales magic happens! I borrow the N.E.A.D.S. acronym from John Hopkins, renowned sales trainer. Each letter of the N.E.A.D.S. acronym represents one of the five most important questions which must be asked of the potential customer to gauge their individual hot and cold buttons and buying motivations in a non-pushy way so that your presentation can be tailored to their needs, not someone else’s. People buy you first. Overcome objections from the get-go, by understanding their N.E.A.D.S.

Tom Hopkins explains N.E.A.D.S. in this video: http://www.candogo.com/search/insight?i=1647

12. PRESENTATION: Once I know my lead’s buying motivation, how do I tailor the presentation of my product / service to them? Is your value presentation tailored to the needs of the individual, or to someone else’s needs? Do your sales people know how to adapt their presentations to the specific demands of the prospect?

13. CLOSING: How is the deal finalized? What must happen to complete the closing process each time? If you are working your leads properly closing will merely be a formality to finalize an understanding which already exists between you and the customer.

14. FULFILLMENT: How are the orders filled? Do I have access to enough product to make marketing worthwhile? Is the fulfillment process completed? If you aren’t fulfilling orders you aren’t making any money.

15. SUPPLY: How many orders can be filled at a time? Is my inventory supply chain secured, will I be able to fulfill all orders? Can current production keep up with sales goals and projections?

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16. SATISFACTION: How and when do I follow up to check on the quality of services delivered? Customer satisfaction quality control checks – a step forgotten or left out far too often, but just picking up the phone and asking a customer about their experience after you collected their money can go so far towards improving the quality of your products and services and the overall experience, and this will make it so much easier to ask for a referral or encourage repeat business because you will have strengthened the relationship and built tremendous rapport. What are your past clients saying about you today?

17. TOUCH Management: How does my business encourage repeat business? The best business is a repeat customer. How do you keep in touch with past customers, identify new sales opportunities and encourage repeat business, reminding your previous clients that you are still their problem solver? Do you publish an e-newsletter? Periodic mailings? Do you take the time to pick up the phone?

18. REFERRALS: How does my business generate referrals? It never hurts to ask for a referral, if this is done the right way. and if it can’t hurt and might help, it should be done! Ask for the referral when the client is happiest. This is usually after they take delivery of your product, but not necessarily. Will you give them a referral tool such as few of your business cards or a flyer to pass along? Will you give them a referral sheet to write a few names and numbers for your customer-oriented sales force to follow up with introductions? Do you offer an incentive, or can you rely on reputation alone?

19. KAIZEN: Is my business routinely analyzed and making continual improvements? Kaizen is the Japanese phrase for continual improvement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen If you’re not growing you’re dying. Continue to push the limit.

20. S.M.A.R.T.: Do I set reachable, measurable goals and make it fun for myself and others involved? Set goals you can reach for yourself and your staff, make it a game (S.M.A.R.T.)

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21. REWARDS: How is my staff rewarded for achieving goals? Is it fun to work for you? If not, why not? There are plenty of places a person can go to work to make money, and your people can go anywhere. Why should they stay with you? How do you motivate them? Do you lead with passion and courage? What sets working for you apart from the rest of the world? In how many ways can you show them your heartfelt appreciation?

22. RISKS: What risks – legal or otherwise – does my business face, and how are these risks mitigated? Risks Managed – legal M.O.D.D.’s covered – “M.O.D.D. is a military acronym for things that “Make Our Day Difficult”, a metaphor for workday stress. Legal MODDs are things which can cost you money and pain if not taken care of in advance. Costly lawsuits can and should be avoided! What could you be sued for, and how can you prevent that from happening in a way which best serves your customers? Is your intellectual property (copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets) protected? Are relative disclaimers in place to prevent someone from getting the impression that you made a promise or guarantee you could not keep?

23. NEW MARKETS: How do I find fresh new markets? How do you find (or create!) new markets – fresh groups of people to which to bring your product or service? As you find new markets, add them to the list of marketing channels and work them on a regular, consistent basis.

24. FEARS: Do I acknowledge, address and overcome my fears and those of my partners , clients and staff? You don’t have to be the best at anything to succeed in business, but fear is the one factor that can hinder anyone from success. Everyone has fears, that’s just human nature! If these are not acknowledged and turned into power, they can and will hinder action in a crucial “go or no go” moment, leading to failure. So don’t be so afraid of failure that you never make a move, even if its the wrong move! Does the fear of rejection keep you from prospecting or asking the closing question? Are you afraid of success? What kinds of fears could prevent you from being successful in your business venture? What fears might prevent prospective partners, investors, vendors or clients from buying into your products or services – whether they are real fears or imagined? How will you confront or address those fears RIGHT NOW?

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

25. OTHER: What other questions should I be asking? How can you add to this list for yourself? I’d love to hear what you come up with for your business. Remember that a true entrepreneur works ON their businesses, not in them. Never stop building your business.

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More To Come:
Case studies – interviews with small business owners of all kinds, analysis of how to strengthen small businesses of all kinds.
Recommended Business Opportunities