Growing Golden Apples

By Laura Stees

Businesses are like living entities- in order to succeed and thrive, they must adapt and pivot to ever-changing market conditions. This book is the fruit of my 20 plus years of experience as a CPA and business advisor, helping small to medium sized businesses thrive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Stees
• Release date: Jun 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310684722

Laura Stees

Businesses are like living entities- in order to succeed and thrive, they must adapt and pivot to ever-changing market conditions. In order to do this, they need to have a plan. This plan does not have to be extensive, but there still needs to be a plan. Otherwise business just happens, good or bad. My experience is that most business owners want to see a lot more of the good than the bad. That does not happen by accident.Growing Golden Apples is the fruit of my 20+ years’ experiences as a CPA and business advisor helping small to medium sized businesses. It is my desire to share with you those elements that I have found to be instrumental in the success of many businesses.Each business needs a solid foundation (roots), an information highway to tell you how it is doing (trunk) and four main concepts to feed and grow your business (branches), and throughout the cycle, the fruits of your labor will begin to ripen and flourish season after season.

Book preview

Growing Golden Apples

Laura Stees

Growing Golden Apples

Laura Stees

Published by Smashwords

ISBN: 9781310684722

Copyright © 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author at:

[e-mail]

DISCLAIMER

The contents of this publication are intended for educational and informative use only. They are not to be considered directive nor as a guide to self-diagnosis or self-treatment. Before embarking on any therapeutic regimen, it is absolutely essential that you consult with and obtain the approval of your personal physician or health care provider.

Cover Design by April Jack

To my readers:

As you will notice when you are going through this book I have purposefully not included electronic media methodologies for growing your business such as Search Engine Optimization, Social Media campaigns, etc.

It is my experience that many businesses are missing the fundamentals of business growth techniques and without these fundamentals you do not have a root system for your tree that is solid enough to support the growth of your business.

My goal is to help you build a solid foundation that will support incremental and even explosive growth.

Sincerely,

Laura Stees

Table of Contents

Part I: Planting Your Business

Evaluating the Strength of Your Business Plan

The Trunk

Can Your Business Survive Without You?

Do You Have a Team?

Where Do You Want to Go?

The Roots

Good Attitude vs. Bad Attitude

Abundance vs. Scarcity

Positive Energy vs. Negative Energy

The Crown of the Tree

Part II: Four Limbs of Growth

The First Limb: Increasing the Number of Customers You Serve

Develop Your Unique Core Differentiator/Define What Is Unique about Your Business

Research Your Market

Develop a Sales System

Tap the Power of the Phone

Develop a Promotions Plan

The Second Limb: Getting Your Customers to Come Back

Classify Your Customers

Provide Awesome Service

Nurture Your Customers

Ask Them to Return to You!

Use Customer Comment or Satisfaction Surveys

The Third Limb: Increasing the Average Sale

Employ Selling Strategies

Cross Selling

Up-Selling

Bundling

Be Smart about Merchandising

Work Your Margins and Pricing

The Fourth Limb: Creating Effective Processes

Develop a Mission and Goals

Determine your S.W.O.T.

Work ON Not IN

Systemize Your Business

Build a Team

Part III: Putting It All Together

Call to Action

Part I: Planting Your Business

The American Dream. When we’re young, we make big plans about what we’re going to be when we grow up. A ballerina, an astronaut, a doctor, a fireman. Unfortunately, when we grow up, we find that our dreams and reality are sometimes miles apart.

Many people continue to dream of escaping the nine-to-five grind. But as they report to work each day and sit at their desk, they feel overwhelmed by responsibility. Is it really feasible to start your own business when you have a house, a mortgage, a family, car payments? There are bills that need to be paid. How can you give up a steady paycheck to chase a dream?

Meanwhile, it gets harder and harder to balance home and work. Gone are the days where you work for one company for fifty years and retire with a gold watch and a pension. Your job stinks, your boss doesn’t appreciate you, and you’ve been dreaming for years now about owning your own business, being your own boss, and building something for your family and your future.

Steve works in IT. He has an idea to open a home-care business that caters to older men and women who need help with daily tasks, such as cleaning and yardwork, rides to appointments and the store, and someone to check on them so they can remain in their own homes longer.

Karen has two young children. She is working to provide health insurance for her family, but most of her paycheck goes to pay for daycare. She would love to find a more flexible job that allows her to set her own hours or work from home, but she isn’t interested in any of the direct sales companies that many of her friends work for. She doesn’t like pressuring people to buy from her.

Mike has had a string of low-paying, entry-level jobs after being laid off from his engineering position of ten years. He’s afraid he won’t be able to find a good job without moving his family cross-country. He could work as a consultant and start his own engineering firm, but he’s afraid of the instability of contract work.

Steve, Karen, and Mike are like many people. You may want to open a frozen