14 BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS

1. Incorporate and act like one.
2. Get help.  Elect a Board of Directors.  Make yourself accountable to them and brainstorm with them.
3. Have an annual meeting.  Elect a Board.  Elect officers.  Review-preview the operation: what was good and bad, and what adjustments/improvements should be made to make the coming year    better.  Evolve!
4. Take time to work ON your business.  Most days we arrive and work til exhaustion in getting work done.  Every now and again, at least at the annual meeting, examine the ways and means by which you do work.  Make it better, faster and easier.
5. Audit yourself...financially and operationally.  Financially - “it is not how much you make that counts but rather how much you get to keep.”  Operationally - “if Mike Wallace & 60 Minutes were to walk in to your shop, would he be bored with your compliance and fairness or would he have an Emmy award winning expose’?”
6. All industries have rules and regulations.  Have copies on your premises of each and every one.  Review them.  Make sure each and every employee knows them.
7. Use a customer service fee agreement.  Spell out the work you will do and the fee you will charge.  Even if this is not part of the customer transaction.  Use it for internal messaging.
8. Belong to a trade association.  Keep in touch with your peers.  You compete with them - yes, but over 80% of what you do, your competitors do, too!  And when it comes to regulatory issues, we are all on the same side.
9. AUTOMATE. This is not an “if” it is a “when”.  Huge strides are already being made. If you plan to be in this business for very much longer - stay in touch with the technology.  He who is automated, will be able to operate more efficiently, and more efficient means doing more at lesser cost.  Can you compete?
10. Do what you do best...most all of the time.  Be careful of doing new things.  New things require learning, which is expensive.  Don’t waste time.
11. Flaunt your pedigree.  Show off your licenses, diplomas, certificates and whatevers!  What kind of impression do you leave?  When new clients come in are they duly impressed or turned off? Use your resume...if it of course is usable.  New clients do not know you from Peter Drucker! Introduce yourself....use your resume.
12. Build your business.  Increase sales and also increase your net worth.  Reinvest some of your earnings.  Add some asset value.  At some point you may want to sell out...you may want to retire.  Most all businesses are there for the eventual payoff...that is selling out to the highest bidder and the stockholders then retiring to recreational climes.
13. Marketing is a total system of interacting business activities designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want-satisfying products and services to present and potential customers.  It is not advertising and advertising is not marketing.  Marketing is
    • Research.  The continual gathering of market data.  What do customers want?  What is the competition doing?  What other market conditions are at play today and tomorrow?
    • Scripts & systems.  The most important and largest ingredient of marketing is the way in which a business does business.  The way in which a business interacts with their customers is more important than the product or service itself.
    • Mission statement.  Behind every great company is a simple set of basic beliefs.  Here lies the most dear and most fundamental reasons as to why a business does business.
    • Image.  What do you want to look like?  What do your customers want you to look like?  What is your first impression?  What is your lasting impression?  Continually ask,,,and listen to what is wanted.
    • Courtesy.  Today’s consumer makes judgments on sound bites and photos.  Buying decisions are made on appearances and manners?  Check your etiquette.
    • Teamwork.  Hire talented people who fit into your group and most importantly - teach them exactly what they are to do.  Do not leave anything to chance.  Develop and use step by step procedure manuals - scripts & systems.
    • Repetition.  Do the same things regularly.  The more you do them the better you will become...this is why doctors and attorneys call their work “practices”.  Good habits yield good results!  Be selective, take on only those cases that you can deliver well.
    • Evolution.  Change is unavoidable.  Technology alone will change your operation 100% every 3 years?  Operate according to the living plan:

    a. SET GOALS

    b. DEVELOP A PLAN, with which to accomplish the goals.

    c. WORK THE PLAN.  Don’t ad lib.  stick to it.

    d. EVALUATE THE RESULTS.  Return to step 1 & start again.

14. To build a business, you must continually create and improve upon a system of planning, pricing and operating that delivers to the market a superior (however minutely so) product or service.