I’m not a fan of business plans, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about the future and what it could mean for my business. At the end of every day I ask myself two questions:
- What did I do to make money today?
- What did I do to bring in business today?
Obviously if the answer to one or both of those questions is “Nothing”, then Houston, we’ve got a problem. That’s a daily, on-the-surface, examination of keeping myself motivated to grow the business.
On a slightly longer time frame, there are questions that every business owner should ask themselves every month. Think of it as a way to ground yourself back to reality so that you’re not caught up in the euphoria and wacky-mahem that is the typical business day.
- In one sentence, what does your product do and who buys it?
- If you had zero revenue from now on, on what date would you run out of money?
- If someone handed you $100,000 today, how would you spend it to maximize future profits?
- What’s one thing you could do to get more feedback from customers, potential customers, or sales you’ve lost?
- What one thing is most responsible for preventing sales?
The questions may be easy to answer, but if you find that the answers don’t come quick enough then the exercise will have served it’s purpose for the month at hand.