Tag Archives: small business critical success factors

Alternative Revenue Streams for Your Small Business

Why would you want to develop some alternative revenue streams for your small business? For lots of reasons! Diversification and customer retention, for a start – customers who have a wide range of sevices and products from which to choose are happy customers!

Alternative Revenue Streams: Things to Consider

You can’t provide everything, so choose your alterative revenue streams wisely. You need to consider:

  1. Your core competencies
  2. Adjacencies to those competencies
  3. Your existing customers
  4. New customers
  5. Standard types of alternative revenue streams

Core Competency

How to decide what your core competency is? This is your bread & butter! A core compentecy is your competitive advantage, what you are known for! You should be better at your core competency than everyone else is. It’s probably the reason why you went into business.

Logical Adjacencies

Logical adjancenies are potential alternative revenue streams that are strategically aligned to your core competency. They steer what you offer in a defined direction. Some different ways to pivot when you do adjacencies is if they are a new product or service for your existing customers or if you are doing the same product or service for a new target market. Both are a natural step in growing your alternative revenue streams strategically.

Existing Customers

Strategies to develop alternative revenue streams that focus on the existing customer include:

  1. Increasing the average sale from a customer
  2. Increasing the frequency with which customers use your business
  3. Offering something new that customers also need
  4. Developing more effective retention strategies.

Keeping a customer is worth even more (and is much less expensive) than finding a new one!

New Customers

Strategies to develop alternative revenue streams that focus on new customers include:

  1. Targeting new markets
  2. Testing new offerings

Standard Alternative Revenue Streams

Standard alternative revenue streams include:

  1. New products, services, intellectual property, programs
  2. Events
  3. Memberships
  4. Intermediaries
  5. Residual income
  6. Sharing economy
  7. Government contracts
  8. Crowdfunding

Learn More About Alternative Revenue Streams

When it comes to alternative streams, the limit is really only the resources that you have available to implement them and oversee them. The general rule is that, regardless of how many revenue streams you have, 20% of your revenue streams should be producing 80% of your income, so focus on that 20%…but make them what you want! You can do one or more of them, blend them…have fun!

Watch the video to hear more about all of this.

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Business Clarity Questions for Small Business

The New Year is a great time to plan to ramp up your business.

Getting ready for 2015 involves getting your business ready with a solid foundation to move forward. Your foundation is based on answering these 7 critical questions.

In 20 minutes, walk through the business clarity questions and answer them for your business. Make your 2015 more impactful!

Contact the Expert

Charles McFarland
Email: cmcfarland@focalpointcoaching.com
Website: https://www.charlesmcfarland.ca
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachingbusinessandartsleaders
Twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesmcf

SBS Clarity 14 Jan 2015

Guaranteed Better Than The Rest

Differentiating your small business and continuing to improve your business are two key pieces of being better than the rest.

But how do you get this in motion? Where do you start?

In 15 minutes we walk through two key objectives;
1. Ensuring that you are making time to work on your business rather than in it
2. Outlining 5 key ways to differentiate your business and how to do this

Contact the Expert

Eloise Pasianotto
www.effectiveprofessionalconsulting.com

Who Do You Need In Your Business?

Starting your own business takes a lot of work and activity! It is crazy to think you can do everything yourself.

But who do you need and when do you need them? Be prepared to find these people or if you have them keep them for when you need them.

People are the most important resources out there, so make sure that you are managing them well.

Topics that are covered are;
– Who do you need as a technology company? What is the best practices for this type of structure?
– Who do you need as a service business? What are some of the specific challenges that are faced here?
– Who do you need as a manufacturer? How do you ensure that you will continue to grow and not become overwhelmed?

Contact The Expert

The Small Business Solver Team
info@smallbusinesssolver.com

Action Planning

Get Started. Keep Going! This is the life of the small business owner and entrepreneur in 2014 trying to get their business ramped up or growing.
 
The number one reason why a small business owner is successful in the short term is based on how much they are moving forward.  Every time that you say the words ‘I will’, are you?  Not that you necessarily have to be on time, but you need to do it if you said you would.  Being action oriented and getting things done is critical to success.
 
The Action Planning Process includes the following steps;
1. Goal Setting
2. Action Planning
3. Implementation
4. Measure the Results
5. Assess/Reassess
 

 
Contact Information
 
Gary Brown
gary.brown@fsainc.ca
 
Like the Slides? SBS-action planning webinar

Finding Time For Yourself

 
Finding time for yourself is critical in running your business for a ton of different reasons.
 
1. It helps you perform better when you are working.
2. It increases personal satisfaction.
3. It allows for worklife balance and overall satisfaction.
4. It prevents burnout which is one of the leading causes of business failure.
5. It is better for your personal well being and health.
 
When all is said and done, making time for yourself could be the difference between business success and failure.
 
 

 
Contact The Expert
 
Elise Manolakos
elisemano7@gmail.com
 
About Elise: Her main inspiration comes from providing physiotherapy treatments to long-term care patients and living with her 85 year old Greek grandmother.

A quote that keeps her going: “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” – Johann Wolfgang Goethe

 
Like the Slides?  Making time for yourself
 
 
 

Benchmarking & Performance Management for Small Business

 

What gets measured will get done.

 
Large businesses and small business alike use performance metrics with the intent to motivate their employees. However often these metrics are misguided and resulting in undesirable behaviour. They are not tied to the strategic performance of the organization.
 
In this video learn…
 
1. Why have metrics?
2. How to create your metrics that will actually help your business
3. Understand what a balanced scorecard is and what components make up a small business’ balanced scorecard
4. Learn how to monitor and implement the metrics in the most effective and efficient way possible
 
There are a lot of red flags when it comes to metrics, and if done improperly a metric can actually stunt your business’ growth rather than foster it.
 
Always remember that what gets measured will get done!
 

 

Performance management resources

 
Examples of Critical Success Factors and Metrics
 
Want the slides for this presentation? Performance Management