DIAGNOSIS

Process-Oriented Objectives For Westernston in 2018

Results are the by-product of implementing processes. Which is why, here at Westernston, we have process-oriented objectives.

For instance, we don't say "we'll get 10 new clients this month." That is a target, and a by-product of implementing the right processes, which is what we actually have any control over. We'll say "We will call all of the five to ten new prospective clients every day who fill out our contact form." This is a process-oriented objective, and as such we have total control over it.

Our business at Westernston is two-fold.

First, we help small and medium business owners and leaders double their marketshare in certain given period of time.

That period might vary from two to five years depending upon various factors. We do this through a multi-dimensional growth strategy. For instance, one of our go-to methods for business growth will be bolt-on acquisitions and outright buying out of competitors instead of fighting with them tooth and nail for every last dollar.

A second example is our method of cashflow infusion. While other business strategists might suggest selling equity or bowing money to raise capital, we believe in utilizing the under-utilized assets that might already be present. A simple example of this is new product launches. In fact, in 2017, we generated over two and a half million dollars in revenue for our top client in just product launches alone.

So that’s our first objective here at Westernston. Helping small and medium business owners double their marketshare through strategic maneuvers that seem implausible for SME’s.

And second, we help our clients systemize their operations.

Redundancy, inefficiency and waste is unfortunately the norm for almost every single business out there. Very few businesses use a systems-based, business-dashboard oriented methodology to run their operations. As a consequence, business owners tend to be forced to work IN their businesses, much like managers or employees… instead of strategic growth designers, which is what their job actually is.

Redundancy, inefficiency and waste is unfortunately the norm for almost every single business out there.

However, growing marketshare and systemizing operations are outcomes. They are the end-results that come from implementation, and not the actual implementation themselves. While the outcomes are predictable to a large extent with the right processes followed consistently… it’s the actual implementation of processes that helps achieve those objectives.

Today we are counting down the top three processes that we are going to engage in 2018 for growing Westernston. While these processes have some overlap with what we’ll be doing for our clients, today’s particular video is about what we’ll do to grow our own business in 2018. The processes we’ll follow.

Let’s get started…

#3 of our Process-Oriented Objectives – A rigorous and consistent content production and amplification schedule and budget.

Westernston has been around since Q2 of 2015. We started Westernston when we got our first client, and since then, we’ve never really bothered with promoting Westernston, our offers, or even elaborating on what we do.

We wanted to stay small until we had consistent and repeatable processes that could be duplicated across industries and produce similar results across the board. And as such, the new clients we got through word-of-mouth and referrals kept our very small team busy.

Expansion wasn’t our objective until very recently.

The trigger for the new objective of slow but steady expansion came when we realized how… much of what we do for our clients is basically implementation of one of the seven process-based iterative methods, when broken down.

In other words, we have about seven things that we do really well. One of them is product launches. Another one is business dashboards. One more is lead generation and media testing. By the way, if you haven’t yet watched our video series on the triangle of marketing media, go ahead and watch it right after you have watched this video. Links can be found in the description below.

And since most of what we are doing is repeatable and systematic… we found that we can consistently generate results for clients in several industries, and be accurate with our predictions more or less.

One of the surest, most consistent method of promoting a business, establishing a brand, attracting new clients and strengthening relationships with existing clients is regular content production and amplification.

And by amplification, I do mean paid amplification… which is no problem for most of our clients, since they are already paying for lead generation and client attraction anyway.

One of Westernston's Process-Oriented Objectives is to have a rigorous content production and amplification schedule.

And since this rigorous content marketing strategy is something that we already work for a couple of our clients very successfully… we have decided to use it as our own go-to system for establishing the Westernston brand, and reaching out to new prospective clients.

Our budget is flexible, and...

We’ll be breaking it down according to a 70/15/10/5 methodology

wherein we spend 70% of our budget putting our content in front of new prospective clients, then spend 15% of the budget warming up and establishing a relationship with new prospective clients, then 10% on converting new leads into new clients, and finally the remaining 5% on strengthening our relation with our existing clients.

And given that this strategy can be worked for as little as ten to fifty dollars a day, there really is no reason why you shouldn’t be using it too for your small business.

Our process-based objective with this method is producing one piece of content in multiple formats each day, and then spending 70% of that day’s marketing budget on amplifying this piece of content. That’s all we have got to do on a daily basis, and the results will most likely take care of themselves.

#2 of our Process-oriented objectives: Clear offers

If you browse our website today (January 2018), apart from our sold out Strategistar program, there really isn’t much information about any of our offers.

That is going to change in 2018, since we’ll be spending one hour each day building out clear and detailed pages on our website about our various offerings.

So far, our methodology for explaining our offers has been, “Schedule an appointment and we’ll talk to you to figure out your needs and our possible offers.”

And while customized business growth and systemization strategy has always been, and will always be at the heart of the Westernston experience, we will offer at least four standardized products by the end of 2018. These will be based on our experience with our existing and past clients… and based on the commonalities in what almost all of them needed at some point of time in our journey together.

If you do not have crystal clear offers for your clients, now’s the time to templatize and standardize at least a few offers for your prospective clients. We have found that new clients are especially likelier to choose a standard solution, instead of a custom-tailored one right off the bat, which can and often does cost a whole lot more even if it’s worth it.

#1 of our Process-oriented objectives: Growth through Acquisitions

In our video on the top five marketing trends of 2018, we discussed how and why small business acquisitions will be our go-to strategy for business growth.

To quickly summarize, there are several reasons.

Growth through business-acquisitions will be #1 of the process-based objectives for Westernston in 2018 and beyond.

First, it’s a buyers’ market on account of demographic shift. There are far too many small business owners getting closer to and looking for retirement now, with no one to pass down their equity of business assets to. And that number if only going to get larger over the next decade. At the same time institutional buyers, private equity funds and large corporations are not interested in buying small businesses. So it’s a buyers’ market.

Second, the price to earnings ratio is very low. You can purchase a business producing a million dollars in annual cashflow for less than two and a half million dollars. Compare this to the P/E ratios of the stock you can buy on the New York Stock Exchange, and the contrast couldn’t be starker. For the publicly traded companies, the P/E ratios can be as high as 20 to 28.

Third, whether you’re looking to expand across geographies and solidify your brand… or you’re looking to diversify and grow vertically… small business acquisition route is the easiest way to grow fast with a relatively low amount of risk. Since the businesses you’re purchasing have been around for a while and have a track record in addition to tangible and intangible assets… it’s much safer to simply acquire a business than trying to build one from scratch.

Fourth, access to capital is cheap, and money is readily available for deals like these.

Fifth, an established business comes not only with existing clients and sometimes long-term contracts, but also with established relationships with vendors and suppliers. Of course, a ready-made team of professionals that someone’s spent a decade or longer putting together is one of the most valuable assets that comes with a buying a business.

One of our top process-oriented objectives is to work towards one, or several acquisition deals on a daily basis.

Considering all those factors, our rapid expansion plan for Westernston is based on acquiring several small, but successful enterprises in related, or even unrelated industries. Thanks to our experiences with a big number of businesses in a diverse range of industries… we are confident in our ability to be able to handle new industries.

Our process for these acquisitions is multi-step. However, the very first step is prospecting… getting out in front of business owners and checking to see if they have any interest in selling their companies. And we will be devoting our business assets like time, money and energy to it on a daily basis.

So those are our top three process-based priorities for the upcoming year. Soon, we’ll be doing a similar piece of content, but from our clients’ perspective. We’ll be talking about the seven big process-based systems we’ll be implementing for our clients, or helping them implement internally.

Yours truly,

P.S. Check out our six point strategy formulation checklist, which you can download right now for free.

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Article written by Lakshay Behl
Lakshay Behl is the world's leading business systems architect. He engineers and deploys business systems that automatically operate, manage and grow companies. While he typically works with established companies in certain sectors, his strategies are universally applicable.

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