I have a friend who works in a bank and she dreads going to work on Mondays. In fact, she cries most days throughout the week because her deliverables are overwhelming and unending. Her bosses don’t give her any breathing space with their constant demand for results.
Her salary and her income target are like David and Goliath but the consistency of being paid monthly keeps her enduring the constant ‘torture’ of meeting targets.
Her situation got me thinking about us Entrepreneurs and how much we drive ourselves to get results. Especially for most entrepreneurs that are having challenges with attracting clients and increasing their revenue; if we subjected ourselves to such strict accountability and demand for results, most of us would be successful.
Oftentimes, I ask Entrepreneurs who are struggling how many people they have on their prospects list or how many people they have engaged in a day, week or month, and the numbers are nothing to write home about.
Considering a 10% rate of conversion from prospects to clients, and Entrepreneur needs 1000 prospects to get 100 clients in any given period. 10% is a very ambitious number though, the standard rate is about 1% which means if one needs 100 clients, they need a prospects list as large as 10,000 that are being consistently engaged.
That is why social media following works because it gives you a large prospects size and the more you engage them, the more they get converted into clients or refer your business.
It goes without saying that if we want to succeed in business and get the kind of revenue we are looking for, we need to consistently be out there marketing and giving value to people. It has to be an aggressive, strategic, and most importantly consistent endeavor.
You cannot start today and stop tomorrow. If you cannot do it yourself, get someone else to handle it for you and ensure that your prospect list is consistently growing, whiles you are serving the clients you have and asking for referrals when they are satisfied with your service.
Being an entrepreneur, you have the ‘freedom’ over your time and sometimes we are not as ‘hard’ on ourselves because we have no bosses to be breathing down our necks. If we want to be successful though, we need to have a system in place that demands accountability from us daily, weekly and monthly.
This is why companies with active corporate governance structures tend to be more successful than companies that do not. When your board has the authority to call you out on your numbers and demand accountability from you as though you are an employee and not the business owner, the tendency that you will succeed will be higher.
In the absence of a board, get accountability partners you respect to hold you accountable for goals and targets you set for your business and make it a habit to consistently report to them, get their feedback and keep driving yourself towards the attainment of your targets regardless of how challenging and tough it may be.
Success is predictable; a culmination of all the time and efforts invested. If you are not currently successful, especially in business, it is most likely 5 things are missing…
1. Income and Sales Targets
2. Consistent Prospecting and Engagement of Prospects
3. Accountability on performance on meeting set targets
4. Humility to take feedback and consistently improve
5. Delivering value to clients and getting referrals
Entrepreneurship is not easy, running a business is very challenging but consistency and accountability go a long way to ensure the success of any venture as long as there is demand for their offerings, value is being delivered always and clients are consistently happy.
Success in business doesn’t just happen, it takes a resolute dedication to consistently look for and serve your target clients as an employee will do under the watchful eyes of superiors who are being held accountable by their superiors as well.
As a Certified Productivity Coach, I am well equipped to be your preferred Accountability Partner to help you set and reach your income targets consistently. Need my help, get in touch hello@ekowmensah.com
I wish you success in your endeavor and in the pursuit of building your business daily not in a day.