Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Kaizen for Fun and Profit (Mostly Profit)

One of the most-powerful shortcuts to a better business (and life) is kaizen.

Kaizen many definitions, but I like this one: small, daily improvements.

It's a simple concept that produced a small fortune for me a few years back. In a nutshell, I spent 60 minutes a day trying to add $10 net profit to my business. Day in, day out, like clockwork.

At first, the gains were ... small. A buck a day here, $20 there.

After about 3 months, however, I found a sweet spot of lead-generation promotions and Google AdWords ads that produced $2.1 million in revenue.

And I am still profiting from those ads today.

Had I spent my time looking for one $2.1-million jackpot instead of many tiny revenue streams, I would probably still be looking ... and no closer to success.

But by searching for small, daily profit gains, I discovered a huge breakthrough.

I'm convinced that kaizen worked for me then for the same reason it can work for you now -- buy-in from your brain puts your butt in gear.

Because my brain bought into the idea of adding just $10 a day in income ("That's easy. I can do this!") it put my butt in gear ... and I did it. Again and again, until the results really added up.

So: What small improvements can you make to your business today -- and every day?

Ideas for you:
  • add $10 in revenue, or find $10 in savings -- or both
  • add one email to your autoresponder series
  • write one short blog post (which add up to articles, which add up to books)
  • call one client to ask how they're doing and how you can help
  • write and mail one thank-you note to a client, prospect, vendor, or referral partner
  • send one article to one prospect, with a note that says: "Saw this and thought of you"
Those aren't big ideas, are they? That's the point. They're small ideas. But done every day, they can produce big gains for your business.

Caution. There's no getting around the two essential parts of kaizen:
  1. small improvements
  2. every day
If you can't commit to that simple process for never-ending improvement, your butt may never get in gear and you'll just keep doing what you've been doing. Are you okay with that?

Resource: If you want to put an end to "feast-or-famine" syndrome in your business, grab your free Client Cloning Kit here

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