2022 Reflection and goal creation for 2023

Secrets of increasing and closing sales:

1. Ask questions and listen
2. Showcase your full potential
3. Assume the sale
4. Stand out
5. Tell your story visually
6. Overcoming objections in sales
7. Don't fear giving away too much upfront
8. Understand what motivates your customers to buy
9. Push for a decision
10. Always over-deliver

As a small business owner, you know that closing a sale is crucial to your growth and success, and many other small business owners wonder if there is something specific they can do to raise their close rate.

1. Seek advice

You should work with an experienced outside advisor who can help you prepare your business for sale, including having an expert valuation conducted.
Selling your business is one of the most important moments in your life as an entrepreneur. Professional advice will help ensure you get it right.

2. Work to boost your profits

Don't expect high offers if you're only breaking even.
You also don't want to take too much money out of the business. Good retained earnings on your balance sheet—the portion of the net income that hasn't been distributed to the shareholders—indicates to buyers that the business has been profitable and is healthy.

3. Increase sales and lower expenses

Analyse your processes and look for ways to increase operational efficiency, cut costs and control inventory without affecting your operations. Brush up your marketing plan and find ways of boosting sales including tapping new markets or offering new products and services.
Focus on creating a diversified customer base that, ideally, generates recurring revenues.

4. Continue to invest and improve

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is to take their foot off the accelerator after deciding to exit.
The moment you stop investing in new equipment, maintenance and process improvements is the moment you start reducing the future value of your company.

5. Create a strategic plan

A formal plan that presents measurable goals and milestones for the coming years will give your business credibility as a growing concern with long-term potential.

6. Develop repeatable processes and empower your people

The processes in your business need to be repeatable and teachable, advises John Warrilow in his book Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You. "If your business can't function without you, you will have a hard time finding a buyer," Warrillow says.
Also, train, motivate and empower your people. Pay particular attention to the management team. Work to solve any internal conflicts and strive to keep employee turnover rate low. A strong, professional team adds value to the business—especially in companies with few tangible assets.

7. Stand out from the crowd

In many ways, selling your company is a marketing challenge of its own. That's why it's important to showcase to potential buyers whatever differentiates your product or service from the competition. Ask some of your long-time clients for testimonials explaining why they are doing business with you and what keeps them coming back.

But running a business with no systems is unsustainable. You can't maintain that approach forever or you'll end up a slave to your business and go from dreaming of freedom and fun to working far more hours than you ever did at a traditional job for less money. Without business systems in place, you'll eventually find yourself burned out, overwhelmed, and exhausted.
Over time you'll gain experience, and with experience comes a narrowing of focus in what you do and who you serve. This allows you to begin saying to no more often so you can focus on becoming an expert in a niche and creating systems to support you and your clients.
Those that refuse to narrow their focus will remain on the feast or famine rollercoaster and struggle to continue spinning plates, putting out fires, and serving their clients well. Why? Because without narrowing your focus, you can't create effective, efficient systems. Why You Need Business Systems
Systems build sustainable businesses by solving consistent issues through the breakdown of tasks into documented, repeatable, step-by-step processes.
Setting up systems in your business allows you to improve productivity, reduce stress, overcome hurdles, gain leverage, free up time, and focus on what you to do best — grow your business. With smart systems in place, you can step away from the minutia of day-to-day operations to focus on revenue-generating, forward-moving work.
Business systems can be created for any repetitive task or action in your business. The key is getting the systems out of your head and onto paper. Without proper documentation, you rely on memory to get things done, which is how things begin to fall through the cracks — especially when you are busy and your business is growing rapidly.
When systems are documented:

• Benchmarks for quality control are created
• Clients have consistent experiences and greater confidence in you
• The process can be taught and delegated
• Tasks, actions, and communication can be automated