For 9/10 Firms This Is The 1st Step To Freedom
Freedom Firm Insider #004
I remember it like it was yesterday…
Sitting in Mr. Hazen’s pre-calc class in high school and staring out the window, wishing I was anywhere else.
And then I heard my name called…
“What was the question, sir?”
I had no idea what I was being asked.
Next thing I know, I’m at the blackboard trying to solve a problem in front of the whole class.
I squirmed for a few minutes, then mercifully I was told to take my seat…
“Order of operations, Mr. Gordon, order of operations! You’ve got it all wrong.”
Nothing like public embarrassment to get you refocused!
That little nugget has served me well in business.
There are always too many problems to solve and too many variables to juggle.
But some problems are “first domino” problems.
====
Public Service Announcement:
Our October “Lead Blitz” Case-Study Group is open. We’ll be taking 5 businesses through our Booked Solid done-for-you system to put 5-15 qualified appointments on your calendar every month…guaranteed. Click here for details >>
====
Solve them first and a lot of others go away or get easier.
Waste time on other problems first and you stay stuck.
The order of operations matters…a lot.
In the workshop I held on Thursday, I took a group of CEOs through an exercise to identify the constraints in their businesses.
(BTW… I’ve committed to running a new workshop every month. Each one designed to help you build your Freedom Firm. Each time you’ll walk away with a piece of the puzzle done. I’m having a blast doing them, and for now they’re free for our community. Don’t miss the next one!)
No surprise, most had constraints in more than one of the 5 key areas:
– Traffic
– Conversion
– Team
– Delivery
– Brand
So which one do you tackle first?
Focus on the wrong thing and you could stall or even move backward.
Just like in Mr. Hazen’s pre-calculus class, there’s an order of operations that works 90% of the time.
Let’s walk through it…
In the workshop, as we all shared our constraints, it was clear that virtually every business felt a constraint around traffic.
In a growing business, there is always pressure to create more leads.
Some felt good about their conversion—it was about 50-50. But I know this is often a trap in professional services.
See, most service businesses are living on referrals. Referrals are great… I wrote a book on it. I’m a fan.
But referrals make you feel like a conversion superstar. Referrals come pre-sold, so you can get by with a “same as everyone else” offer and a non-existent sales process.
The minute you realize you need more than referrals to hit your growth goals, you have a problem. Less warm prospects won’t convert as well.
Team… most confessed that team was a constraint, keeping them from really achieving Team-Driven Growth.
Delivery. For so many of the folks at the workshop, they rated this as their #1 constraint.
I get it. In our kind of businesses, delivery is usually tied to YOUR expertise, and it’s always been hard to scale expertise.
This is where you FEEL a constraint every day when you show up to the office… and well into the night trying to get those client deliverables out the door.
Brand is the sleeper. Most didn’t see brand as a huge constraint. You almost never feel brand as a constraint. It’s a silent limiter on growth.
But when you unlock 1-of-1 Positioning in your market, it’s like rocket fuel for growth.
If you’re playing along at home, you might be nodding, thinking…
“Yep, Delivery, Traffic, Team, Conversion, Brand…I’m feeling at least three right now.”
That’s pretty typical.
So which one do you tackle first?
Through 30 years of trial and error, growing two firms and consulting with hundreds, here’s the simple truth…
9 times out of 10 start with…
TRAFFIC.
Here’s why.
You can’t optimize or improve conversion without lead flow.
If you’re only talking to 1 or 2 prospects a month, you just don’t have enough reps to fix conversion.
No point starting there if traffic is also on your constraint list.
If Team is your constraint, you’ll need cash to fix it. Traffic and Conversion create the cash to fix Team.
If Delivery is on your constraint list, you need the cash from Traffic and Conversion and the bandwidth from Team to build the systems that lead to Founder-Free Fulfillment.
That leaves Brand. Almost every small business is brand constrained… Virtually no one knows you exist.
Solving this comes down to having an opinionated worldview for how your clients should approach the problems you solve…and putting it out into the world.
As you can see, Traffic unlocks the resources and ability to tackle the other constraints.
I’m committed to the mission of creating 10,000 Freedom Firms and we’re building solutions that solve constraints in each of the five areas.
This month, we’re solving Traffic in a new “Lead Blitz” case-study group. It’s designed to put 5 to 15 qualified appointments on your calendar every month… all 100% done-for-you, so you can focus on what you do best.
I’ve got room for 5 firms.
All the details are here so you can check it out.
If you’re a fit, I’d love to fix your traffic constraint.
Steve “Order of Operations” Gordon