How Well Do You Understand Your Business?

Assess where your business is today. This includes reviewing core business, marketing, advertising, sales, and key financial information regularly. It also includes writing or re-writing your vision, mission statement, and core values. Do they still resonate with your current or new vision?

Changes in circumstances, leadership, or the marketplace may require you to rethink your marketing, advertising, or sales strategies as well as the core of your business from time to time to make sure you stay on course. Take time for serious reflection to come up something truly meaningful. You may also seek input from your staff as well as a consulting advisor in different specialties.

When writing these core business documents, stay away from the industry jargon, write in plain everyday English so that others can easily understand any documents or plans. What are your ideas, processes, tasks, procedures, vision, mission, marketing, advertising, sales, office policies, management roles, tracking, analysis and analytics to track performance and KPI’s in every department and companywide?

Analyze Your Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats, and Opportunities

A SWOT Analysis is a tool for critically evaluating your company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Treats, and Opportunities. It can provide insights into where your business should focus its strategic marketing efforts without assumption and guesswork, it give you a better understand of your industry, customers, and competitors it clues you into your competitive advantages and gives you a head up on potential threats and overlooked, undervalued, or missed opportunities that can create unfair advantages in the market place.

Examples of the types of questions you might ask yourself during the SWOT process include:

• What do you do well
• What do you do better that the competition
• What emerging trends do you need to take part in
• Who are your competitors underserving
• What outdated processes and/or technology do we currently use
• What external roadblocks are in the way of our progress
• What are our competitors doing that’s different or better that you can do also of do better

Even if you’ve done a SWOT Analysis in the past, its use full to do another as part of the strategic planning process.

Define Objectives and Set Goals

We drill down into specific objectives that will help you achieve your vision. These include things like launching a new product, trying/testing different marketing strategies, re-allocating financial resources, adding passive recurring revenue, high-fee revenue, or improving employee culture. Also, determining the specific initiatives required to meet the big picture goals.

Setting goals is only effective if you actually meet them, so you must establish how you’ll measure success. Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are the specific metrics you’ll track to determine progress on goals. KPI’s can include things like:

For instance, at DODM we could use Google Analytics to track website visitors and we could track Instagram followers as some of our KPIs, but those are not in the top 20 numbers that I need to know. That’s not the 80/20 of our business. They’re easy to track numbers and would be controllable, but they’re vanity metrics.They don’t tell me what I really need to know. So, keep things simple and track what matters most to start. Then you can add other metrics over time.

* MARKETSHARE

Percentage of market share (keep this in mind, you are not just in business, you are in a competitive race with 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd, place winners, etc. treat your business as if you want the first place slot no matter who’s currently in that spot or at least, if that’s too big a goal for you, make sure that you are very clear on what spot you want to be in or it will be determined for you by your customers, clients, or patients!).

Potential KPIs:

 Sales Revenue ($)-(%) - examine your sales revenue and dividing it by the total sales revenue of

competitor’s in the same market to determine percentage

 Unit Market Share ($)-(%) - examine your units sold and dividing it by the total units of

competitor’s in the same market to determine percentage

 Relative Market Share – compare your company’s market share by that of the largest

competitor, remember this actually the goal of dominate business owners, it’s to lead the field.

 Data Sources for Market Share Analysis – when measuring market share data, it’s essential to

have access to accurate data. As marketers, we are a market research firm first and foremost

who can properly research government agencies, industry associations and even competitor’s

reports. Knowing Competitor and Market information is something that we research with our

DEEP-DIVE Diagnostic FACT-Finding Checklist.

However, since we only work with businesses that have been in business three (3) years or

more, we would expect you to already have researched this information in detail as part of

your original business planning process. Knowing or having access to industry specific

information, including market trends, regulations, best practices, and competitor reports

provide businesses with insights into their performance, which also includes market share,

sales, and revenue. We recommend measuring market share every quarter, instead of yearly.

* P R O F IT

I hate to start with a super obvious one, but this is a must. Everyone gets held up on Revenue, but I don’t care nearly as much about that as I do in how much you’re taking home each and every month!

Q u e s t i ons:

 Do you know your profits? (You’d be surprised how many don’t.) If not,

let’s start there. You need to understand this even if it’s negative at the

moment.

 How frequently are you tracking/reviewing your profits?

 Are you strategically driving actions each week/month to drive more

profit?

Potential KPIs:

 Profit ($)

 Profit Margin (%)

 Free Cash Flow Produced

* Cash.

Without it, you don’t have a business. It’s the “oxygen that fuels growth” as

Verne Harnish calls it, and it should be at the center of your business.

I get daily text of my business bank account balances just to keep it front

and center, and recommend that you do the same. There can be one hundred stories about what’s happening in our business, but I care about what’s actually happening, NOT Assumptions. And cash is the best picture of reality!

Potential KPI’s:

 Cash Balance

 Core Capital vs. Target

*C U S TOME R S AT I S FACT I O N

Potential KPI’s:

 NPS

 Client Results

 Case Studies / Testimonials

*EMP LOY E E  E N G AG EME NT AND S AT I S FACT I O N

Very much related to tracking your customers’ feelings about your company and offerings, it’s vital to understand how your employees feel about their role and the company in general.

You want engaged, driven employees who are aligned and clear on the vision and mission at hand. So, we suggest you regularly get a pulse of where they’re at and have that feedback loop.

We measure what we call eNPS which is the same as NPS but for our employees. This tells us objectively how they feel about their role, the company, our culture, their pay, and the desire to help promote the company, etc.

Happy and hungry employees are one of the four key forms of business leverage that we talk about at DODM, so get this feedback and optimize their experience to drive results.

Potential KPI’s:

 eNPS

 Employee Retention

 Employees Sales Promotion Score

*C U S TOME R L I F E T IME VA LU E ( LT V )

Very simply, what you’re trying to understand is how you can have a customer that is worth a lot more than what it costs you to acquire that customer. These are two of the most important metrics to drive growth.

Once you get to that point where a customer is worth more than it takes to acquire that customer in your marketing/sales, then it’s a matter of scaling up as many customers as you can get. So, another top number to track and optimize is the lifetime value of a customer. How much does someone pay you, and what is that profit?

Potential KPI’s:

 LTV ($)

 Average Transaction Value ($)

 % of Repeat Customers (%)

 Churn Rate (%)

 Get more customers

 Increase the average transaction value

 Increase repurchase

 Upsells/Tiers/Subscriptions/Memberships

*C U S TOME R AC Q U I S IT I O N C O S T (C AC)

One of the most important marketing KPIs is CAC - cost to acquire customer, or customer acquisition cost. Again, compare this to the LTV and work furiously to increase LTV while reducing CAC if you are in a not so extremely competitive business.

Then, anything that happens after is pure profit. Many of our clients are able to drive marketing strategies that have them breakeven in 30 days or less. That means if they spend $10k on advertising, they’ll get back more than $10k within 30 days or less.

And their main sales happen after that period, which is then pure profits, so technically we don’t look at break even for this reason, however, if you are in and extremely competitive industry or simply want to DOMINATE the market area, we always recommend that you invest your advertising dollars in a way that trumps the competitor by spending 25%-50% more.

Potential KPI’s:

 CAC ($)

 Break Even Time Period (Days). Where we are different, in most cases we try to go straight to

profit and bypass breaking even.

 ROI (% or $)

“A great goal to get to is to be able to acquire customers and break even as quickly as possible, but the better option is to try to profit right out the gate by testing the ads first then going all in with your investment.”

*L E A D I N G MA R K E T I N G I N D I C ATO R

As discussed earlier, the leading metrics are what will drive the end results… So if your end result of marketing efforts is to drive more sales calls, what are the handful of actions that you can track and monitor that will lead to that result? For every business, there will be some leading marketing indicators depending on your marketing/growth strategies that can help drive your sales. These may be things such as: sales leads contacted, website visitors, sales calls scheduled, outbound messages, cost per lead, JV partner meetings, referrals asked for, etc.

Potential KPI’s :

 New Email Optins (#)

 Cost Per Lead ($)

 Outbound Messages (#)

*S A L E S

Clearly, your business only exists if there are sales so we need to identify the top few metrics for this department and track them ruthlessly. It’s easy to get caught up in the blur of things and take your eye off the ball when it comes to the key sales metrics, but you can’t let that happen as a small to medium-size business can quickly be in a bad spot if sales hit a slump.

One of our favorite departments to optimize quickly is sales, so start tracking

your numbers so we can help you turn your sales into a repeatable atm machine.

Potential KPI’s:

 Sales Conversion (%)

 Avg. Time to Close (Days)

 Avg. Order Value ($)

*L A B O R E FF I C I E N C Y

I mentioned that employees are one of the key forms of Leverage. But most business owners

aren’t working to optimize them. As you look to scale, making your team and operations much more efficient is one of the best things you can do. This is key as you look to scale to however big you want.

Done right, this will change your life and business. So, a key metric that we track is called Labor Efficiency. What you want to see over time is that you’re getting more and more value (Profits) per employee dollar spent. This is the sign of improving operations and team. Track and optimize this over time, and you’re going to be a happy business owner as labor productivity and operational efficiency is such a crucial driver of success.

Potential KPI’s:

 Track some form (or multiple) of Labor Efficiency Ratio (LER)

*F U L F I L LME NT

We can’t forget about fulfillment! This is where most businesses either succeed or fail (not at marketing), this is where growth begins. Most think growth begins with marketing, but at DODM we’ve proven over and over again this isn’t the case for 6 and 7-figure businesses. Growth Begins and ends with relentless tracking, analytics and analysis on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis.

So it’s essential to evaluate what key numbers can help you measure the success of your delivery or fulfillment of your offering and optimize this to make raving fans and CFLs (customers for life!).

Potential KPI’s:

 Time to Deliver Projects (Days)

 % Renewal or Repurchase (%)

 Profitability Per Product (%)

 % of Expenses In Fulfillment (%)

 LTV ($)

*CALL TRACKING

You may feel like the is a lot of work that you never had to do before, or feel like your in-house team and/or outsourced agency never mentioned all these types of analytics before; as the owner of YOUR business, it is your job to know and understand your data and numbers and have qualified people report them to you every month and to make monthly and quarterly adjustments.

But, what’s the next step after knowing your data and numbers?

Well, you’ve gotta start testing to see how you can pump those numbers up and optimize EVERYTHING to get all you can out of all you got!

Now, I know testing might not sound like the most exciting thing in the world to do, but trust me, it's where the magic happens.

When you combine A/B testing, or split testing, with your data it’s like having a crystal ball that tells you exactly what your audience loves (and what they don't).

In a nutshell, A/B testing involves comparing two versions of your ad (online and/or offline) to see which one performs better. When you produce winning advertising time and time again, you then produce Maximum Money In Minimum Time over and over again.

If you don’t know the top 10 numbers that drive your business yet, block off sometime this week reach out for help.

It may be painful to go through at first. You’ll likely see numbers that are more depressing than you thought, this is why I say, you cannot go by your feeling, thought, likes or dislike, opinions, or ASSumptions. You wouldn’t be alone here since most business owners put this stuff in the hands of their in-house novices or outsource to companies that don’t consider these KPI’s important simply because they don’t want you to find out how bad they are screwing up your marketing, advertising and sales potential.

Sorry, but not sorry, without having the FACTs, you do not have a successfully ran business.

Imagine being a super successful business owners one year, then the next losing 50%, 70%, even 80% of your business all because you failed to become responsible for knowing your numbers or getting the appropriate professional help. Or imagine on paper you’re bragging we’ve grown consistently over the last three years to come to find out that you actually lost more than you originally thought; how disappointing, or maybe even devastating.

And yes, our services are designed for small and mid-size businesses from 100k to 30m

The bad thing is, prior to DODM, MOST businesses that we deal with don’t know their numbers at all. When we do our DEEP-DIVE “FACT” Finding Research, what we usually find is that most businesses are losing money and or leaving money on the table; in other words, they haven’t been truly profitable for a long time! MOST are under pricing their products and or services.

Many are in debt and still have student loans that are not paid off after 10 or 20 years in business and on this seemingly never-ending hamster wheel. Without knowing the numbers and understanding your financial picture well, causes many business owners to be stuck working and chasing money forever rather than having money chase you all because you don’t have a Marketing Action Plan To show you exactly what to do (and what to stop doing!).

*Financial verification is required- To Be Discussed.

Fees:

Wholesale (Member of ROI Machines $199/mo-6 or 12-Month Subscription Plans)

Setup Fee $897/ does not include software fees-TBD.

Monthly $647/mo

6 month bonus:

12 month bonus:

Retail (without ROI Machines subscription membership)

Setup Fee $1499-$1999/does not include software fees-TBD.

Monthly $999- $1299/mo

We can work to stop your current in-house, digital, or marketing agency from sabotaging your results and ROI.

Get the FACTS and Truth about your current business profits, growth, and financial picture today. Then you can honestly hold them accountable or hire our team to manage your marketing, advertising, and sales initiatives with our brand of advanced business building and marketing dominance.

HOW A CONTINGENCY WORKS:

We Do “NOT” Get One Red Cent For Contingency Until We Put Money In Your Bank Account, How’s That For Confidence In Our Ability To Deliver!!! Once We 3x, 5x, or 10 x Your Business After All Fees Considered Then We Share In the Rapid Increase In Profit and Growth From The Executed Plans We Create For You.

Why we offer a contingency on our work is simple to understand, a retainer with a top advisor is $3000-$5000 per half hour with a royalty, and hiring a general corporate marketing professional is $150,000-$240,000 per year. As your Fractional CMO you are getting the same level of service for only a fraction of that cost upfront, with a back-end pay-for-performance contingency agreement which means your ad dollars can stretch further, you'll have more to work with and therefore produce better results and a far greater ROI.

This means we manage specific assets, and advise as agreed upon, and meet quarterly to make assessments and ongoing adjustments throughout the year. We are invested in your success as we advise your marketing department or implement specific tasks with them or for you. Of course, this means you must have an advertising budget already or create one.

Finding Value with Marketing, Advertising, and Sales Business Loans

Business marketing loans provide companies with the ability to capitalize on new opportunities through paid promotions. This could be done through print or digital advertisements. As any business owner can attest, marketing and advertising your business can be expensive and time-consuming. It becomes even more challenging for businesses that lack working capital financing and must reallocate precious cash reserves to afford it.

Small business owners can use business marketing loans to market and advertise their products and services effectively, or hire DODM who can manage it all for you. Use the funds to create a great marketing campaign that engages your target audience and gets the word out about your business. This can lead to a greater number of sales, a higher customer following, and increased profits.

Plus you never have to worry about results or ROI with DODM, as our methodologies are based on PROVEN and sound business and marketing practices. We are not predatory in our lending practices with our in-house or outsourced lending partnerships as we first advise our clients to secure funding to improve sales, marketing, and then any other needs that may arise to make sure that repayments and additional funding as needed always remain available.

Keep in mind that you really are on a slow growth cycle without access to capital, and slow growth on no growth will hamper and hurt your ability to obtain wealth, legacy, and future retirement goals.

Let's discuss your financing needs.