Excerpt taken from CPR For your Business

Have you ever wondered why so many digital marketing coaches claim to be able to help people make good money online and yet the majority of their students who tried, don’t make it? I’m not trying to imply that what they teach doesn’t work, rather I think that they only focus on digital marketing techniques. But for a business to work, it takes a lot more than that.

Marketing itself is not enough for you to build a good business, you need a strong foundation, system, and a great product. Before you even think about starting or growing your business, having a strong structure and foundation is extremely important. Only focusing on marketing is just like teaching someone how to lose weight by only giving them work-out techniques. Without the right diet, we all know that most people will fail.

The 6P business formula is a proven strategic framework that puts you in control of your business outcome. This step by step approach addresses the key components to a successful business.

#1 Purpose

Every business needs a purpose and the purpose of your business goes 2 ways – 1) how it contributes to someone’s needs and 2) the long-term outcomes and goals of your company. The purpose should be a long-term principle that your company adheres to. As a business owner, you need to know what you want to get out of your business. Your entire company must be aligned towards this common purpose and that includes all your plans, strategies, and everything else that you do. The purpose is the whole basis of building a business and if this common purpose is ingrained deep enough in your team members, it can be an extremely powerful tool to drive your business.

#2 People

In the 21st century, it’s no longer a one-man show when it comes to business, it’s a team effort. A lot of small businesses rely mainly on the business owner and this is understandable especially at the beginning when there is no choice due to the lack of resources. However, you should always start building a team whenever you can. If you rely on yourself too much, you are not a business owner, but an employee. Use this scenario as a gauge: if 1 day you get into an accident and have to be out of the picture for 6 months, will your company still run as per normal? If your answer is no, you do not have a business yet.

#3 Product

Your product needs to have a Unique Selling Point (USP). What is considered a USP? A USP is defined by how you differentiate your product/service from your competitors by meeting more of your target audience’s needs. Always remember – a USP must be unique, so it’s very important to study your competitors, know what your competitors’ edge is, who the market leader is, and why they are the market leader. Generally, when talking about USPs, you want to have something that is preferably not easily replicable by your competitors. In this ever-changing world, your competitors will always be competing with you for the attention of consumers, so improving your USP must be a constant process.

#4 Plan

A business plan should have a clear process and system that leads to actionable steps and predictable outcomes. Your plan should be logical, achievable, and planned with predictable results. You need to include who your team members are, the USP of your product or service, how you are standing out from your competitors, and most importantly your sales and marketing plan. Your action steps need to be broken down into details so that whenever things are not going your way, you will know exactly what went wrong and can easily make the changes needed accordingly. Doing thorough research is also very important when coming up with your business plans. It takes someone with enough experience and market instincts to develop a good plan so if you do not have enough experience, make sure to put in more time in your research to make up for it.

#5 Potential

Never start a business if your business only has the potential of just an employee’s salary. It doesn’t make sense to start a business knowing that your maximum potential can be achieved by working hard somewhere else. The reason being – no matter how hard and how thoroughly you plan, starting a business has got risks due to many unforeseen circumstances that could topple your business, such as financial crisis, politics, or supply chain disruptions. At the end of the day, there is a risk-reward ratio. If the potential of your business is high, then it may be worth taking the risk. If the potential is not high, then there will be no point in starting the business and taking the risk.

#6 Process

The business process is one of the most underestimated but most important aspects of a business. When we talk about the business process, it refers to your plans and executions of your business and it is important to break down each important step of your business to work towards a predictable outcome. A good business process relies more on the process itself rather than the person executing the process. For obvious reasons, if your business does not have the right processes, your business will rely more on people, which in many instances you will have much less control over. If you do not have a good system that your business follows, you will spend most of your time busy over non-important and little details that should have been covered by the process instead of focusing on what you should be doing. If you have a good business process, then nobody will be irreplaceable.

Conclusion

All 6 Ps are important for a sustainable and scalable business. My advice to you is to only start a business once you have a good 6Ps plan in place. These 6 processes can be done with enough research and effort.

Can you do business without the 6Ps? Of course, you can. However, then the outcome of your business will not be in your control. Having the 6Ps ensures that you have a solid foundation for your business and puts you in control of the outcomes that you want for your business.