A simple system for improving your business over time

Perhaps you have experienced this feeling. I know I have.

You go to work on your online business, to improve stats, to make money, etc. But, while you have that time to work on it, you’re left with the feeling of “What SHOULD I work on?”

If you’re like me, you have a number of ideas and various projects all aimed at making something better in your business. And it can roll around in your head for awhile. You don’t know which one to do next, etc.

So, here’s a simple way to look at the situation…

There are basically 5 areas you can focus on in order to improve any business. They are:

  1. Traffic and lead generation (i.e. building your list and getting new people to come in)
  2. Sales & conversions. Selling more stuff to those new people. (i.e. first-time sales, front-end offers, etc.)
  3. Back-end sales, or sales to existing buyers.
  4. ROI, higher margins. (i.e. improving efficiency, reducing costs, etc.)
  5. Automation (so the system can run without you)

Now, instead of just focusing on all of those things all the time, you instead prioritize and set a target.

You choose ONE of those 5 areas and you make it a project to get a 10% improvement.

Just one at a time. Plan out some actions aimed at that one area. Work it until you see a 10% improvement in your stats. Then… pick another of the 5 areas and do it again.

There’s one other thing that you keep in mind as you do this…

For anything that you do to get that 10% improvement, you ensure that it is:

  • Repeatable. (not some one time thing that couldn’t be done again)
  • Efficient
  • Systematized (so that it can be done by somebody other than you)
  • Scalable (can you do the same thing, but improve it to get even better result?)

So, this is a simple system by which you can guide where you spend your time.

It is slow and steady. It can be fairly stress-free since you’re not shooting for the stars, but just a 10% growth rate.

You have 5 important areas to choose from, and I recommend you rotate around them. For instance, don’t focus so much on #1 and ignore the rest because you’ll just end up working yourself to death blogging and have not much to show for it.

And, as you work out new strategies in those 5 areas, keep those 4 factors in mind so that you’re not building something that has no staying power.

Slow, gradual improvement.

Less overwhelm.