How to Make Big Leaps in Revenue – More Profits Episode #11

One of the simplest ways to make big leaps in sales is to step back from the day-to-day operations of your business and develop a plan to take it to the next level.

As I write this, I’m in Martha’s Vineyard a beautiful island off the coast of the North Eastern United States between Boston and New York City.

It’s a popular summer destination for tourists as well as the urban dwellers of New York City and Boston who have second homes on the island.

I flew in from Boston on one of those puddle jumper airplanes (see photos below) that seat 10 passenger. One of the problems with these tiny planes is there’s no air conditioning. The photo below shows the plane on the taxi way in line for takeoff and the pilot opening the window for some fresh air.

The view is amazing as these planes fly pretty low and the windows are much bigger than on the big planes.

What’s totally crazy about these planes is how close you are to all the action. This next photo shows the pilot lining up for approach to land at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport. I was sitting right behind the co-pilot’s seat for a bird’s eye view. I should also the point out the person on the right in the co-pilot’s seat is not actually the co-pilot but rather a passenger. But since there are a duplicate set of controls for the co-pilot, the passenger has to avoid bumping into the controls and inadvertently crashing the plane.

I was visiting the Vineyard to give a speech to some entrepreneurs from Boston who were in town for a workshop. I gave my speech on how to beat the recession and let them know about my small business bailout program where I am giving away 1 million copies of my book The Recession Proof Business.

I also took an extra day to spend some time with my friends who were in town and to take some to step away from the day-to-day aspects of my business to make adjustments to my business plan for the second half of this year.

With the first half over, it was a good time to slow down for just one day, step back, make a thoughtful assessment of my business and decide on a game plan for the rest of the year. As a business coach, this is the kind of work I do with my clients and it’s the kind of process I go through personally a few times during the year. To make big leaps in revenue and profits, important to put together game plan of exactly how and where the revenue growth will come from and to make adjustments in the plan as you discover what’s working and what’s not.

For example, I had one really big revenue growth project that kicked off late in the first half of the year, and it totally bombed. At the same time, I had another project that my team and I barely spent any time or money on and it worked surprisingly well. Who knew?

Well I decided during this quarterly review process to kill the thing that bombed and cut my losses despite the big investment of time, money, and personnel to focus on the other project that did unusually well – and to increase the financial and people resources assigned to that project by 500%.

I like trying new ways to generate revenues on a small scale (so I can fail cheap if need be) and when I find something that works on a small scale, I like to ramp it up significantly. This is how big leaps in revenue are made–by making big investments (preferably in proven projects.  And stepping back from the day-to-day is an important part of the process to make these kids of bigger decisions.

It’s something I encourage all entrepreneurs to do if they are serious about making big leaps in revenue in their businesses.