Why Don't You Have More Money?

Why aren’t you making more money? Much of your struggle in business is because you haven’t taken the time to properly answer this question. When you do, you’re income, I’ll bet will almost immediately increase.

Here’s why…

Most business people operate in a haze of to do lists, ideas, meetings and disjointed and vague thoughts. They move about from day-to-day without any real plan or clarity on what they’re doing and why – or if it’s the best use of their time or money. Is that you? This is one of the reasons writing a business plan can be so beneficial.

I recon, if you were clearer on your daily agenda, priorities, your game plan, your business, you’d be making a lot more money, with a lot less stress. Sounds good doesn’t it?

Anyway

One of the best possible questions every business person needs to answer is “why aren’t i making more money”. There are a thousand possible answers, but knowing the right one can make a huge almost unbelievable difference to your income and sense of clarity.

Here are some examples on what the problem could be. Go through them and see if any of these could be the root (or at least a clue) of your problem.

No one knows about you. You’ve not prioritized marketing enough and now you’re virtually unknown. Your office is someone out-of-town or on the 9th floor of some building and no one passes by, and they don’t get to hear about you any other way.

Perhaps you’ve invested too much of your time in the technical aspects of your business, expecting that if your product was the best, then the word or mouth would naturally get out – but it’s not happening. Is that your problem?

No one knows why to choose you over a competitor
You look too much like your more established, better known competitors. As a result, even when people see your ads or talk to you, they have no real reason to choose you – or even remember you.

If you had a Unique Selling Position USP, and you shouted it from the roof tops, that could change everything. Unfortunately, you’ve been too afraid, busy, uncreative or dumb to make your business stand out from your competitors. You thought doing it just like the rest was the safe way – but it’s not working. Is that your problem?

Your pricing is wrong (you’re too cheap or expensive)
Pricing is one of the most important things to consider in your marketing mix, but you got it wrong. You’re trying to appeal to quality minded people with a lot of money, but you’re too cheap to be perceived as having the best solution. Or you’re reaching out to a price sensitive target group with more expensive pricing. Is that your problem?

Your marketing is too selfish.
Instead of educating and establishing relationships with your market, you’re clearly all about the money. Most businesses do this and suffer for it. All your ads and filled with ‘we do this’, ‘we have this’, ‘we are amazing’ instead of ‘you deserve this’ or ‘you can have benefit x’ or ‘you are missing out on this’.

Perhaps if you focused more on solving problems for your market, you’d be seen as more valuable, more generous, more pleasant to deal with, more understanding of the needs they’re trying to get met’. Perhaps if you used less ‘we’ and ‘me’ and more ‘you’ and ‘your’, you’d be attracting more business right now.

We go on all day and night with possible reasons, but you know your situation better than i do.

One of the very basic consulting services i offer Zimbabwean entrepreneurs is a short 20 minute marketing analysis consultation. It costs just $35 and takes no more than  20 – 30 minutes – but it virtually always uncovers several ways that you can do better with your marketing almost immediately. Some of the insights are worth thousands of dollars, and for such a tiny investment you might consider it.

On the other hand, if you already have a good handle on how strategy and especially marketing works, you should be asking yourself key questions regularly.

Isn’t it time your income went up? Isn’t time you figured out why it hasn’t in so long?

I’m just saying.