The way in which we look at the world as business owners directs the future of our business success. Philosophical? Perhaps, but this is really true. Our point of views and placement of value or priority on everything from politics to family life influence how we interact with our clients who ultimately pay the bills and create the dreams we had when we started.

I would like to propose that we all take a moment to answer some questions about ourselves. The answers might provide the next action step automatically. However, if still lost at the end of this brief introspective process, I will provide some pretty solid tips. Please copy these questions, create a comment, paste the questions and post your answers after this post.
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1. What is your passion?

2. Is your passion related to your business? If so, what part of it and how often is that part of your business engaged?

3. From where did you initially obtain your clients? Why did they do business with you then?

4. Who are you clients now and why do they continue to use your products and services. Is there anything obviously different about how you acquire clients now and how you did when you started?

5. Do you test different marketing, advertising, sales, or customer service methods to determine which are best for business? If so how? If not, could you?

6. Do you network with your clients, are you involved with them in community organizations or other functions?

7. Do your clients like you as a person?

8. What is the demographic make up of your client. If it varies I would like you to describe the ideal client.

9. What sounds better to you? Acquire new clients or service existing clients with additional products and services?

10. Are you interested in the success of your clients. How can you directly or indirectly affect their success. Who else depends on you to be successful?

11. Who would be interested in helping you grow your business? (first names are fine here)

12. When you acquire a new client, who else could you refer that client to?

13. What exactly to you do in your business?

14. In one or two sentences, describe what your clients mean to you.

15. Have your business procedures changed since you started your business? Do you think that reviewing the ways you operate would be a good idea?

16. Do you use metrics? Metrics are ways to measure productivity for your business, employees, etc. You could measure sales per employee, sales per hour, number of products sold per sale, etc.

17. What is a client worth to you in monetary terms over the total lifetime of their use of your services. This is called the lifetime client value.

18. What is the most common complaint about your business? What can you do to solve the problem? Will you do it? Why or why not?


19. Why would someone choose your business over another? The answer is called your Unique Selling Proposition or (USP). This will be important for you to communicate to your clients and prospects.


20. Do you integrate your Unique Selling Proposition (from above) into all of your marketing materials?


21. Which marketing activities do you use now? Do you use direct mail,email marketing, on line, face book/my space (advertising solutions),face book/my space (free profile solutions), google adwords, news paper, phone calls, cold calls, etc?

22. What marketing methods would you like to learn more about before you try them?

23. Who are your biggest competitors and how can you differentiate yourself?

24. Are you differentiating your self from your competitors in your marketing efforts?

25. Are your clients 100% loyal to you or do they use your competitors as well?

26. What is your maximum earning potential per month? Could it be more? If yes, how. If no, why not. Are you just limiting your self?

27. How much does it cost you to acquire one new client?

28. How much does it cost you to sell an additional product or service to an existing client?

29. How many products or services does a client purchase on their first visit or use of your product/service.

30. Within 90 days of their first purchase, how many total products or services has your client used?

31. How many products or services do you offer and recommend to your client on their first visit?

32. Do you take orders for your clients purchase or do you provide advice and recommendations to steer their purchase decisions into a package of products and/or services that will solve their problems?

33. How do you communicate with your clients after the first sale? Do you have a system or pattern for contact? If so, what is it. If not, could you implement this?

34. Have you ever tried to re-gain clients that you have lost?

35. Have you ever tried selling a list of your prospects that never became clients to your competition? This could be a good source of cash flow.

36. How do you protect your clients from risk? Do you provide a service or product guarantee or other type of warranty?

37. At what rate do your clients leave? This is called your attrition rate. Attritionary clients normally leave un noticed. Are you monitoring this?

38. What problem do you solve for your clients. If they want a new hair due, why do they want it? If they want to travel, why? If they want a new house, why?

39. What has been your biggest marketing, advertising or customer service program success to date? Can you repeat it? If so how?

40. Do you feature your clients? If you have business to consumer clients you could have a drawing, if you have business to business clients you could include a featured business in one of your marketing communications.
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Answering these questions will help you to determine what you could be doing to generate additional business, retain clients, and re-activate clients that may have moved on.

I look forward to reading your responses.

Michael Weitzman directs business development and North American IT services at World Source Technologies.