A laser-like focus on profit and operations will pay off big during the next economic spring. Not only will you be better positioned financially than your competition, you will develop the discipline to stay close to your core business.

While other companies will use the next boom to chase after any market or sell any product – your efforts now to pare down and narrow your focus will keep you from making the same mistakes in the future.

In addition to a changed mindset and business focus, you’ll need to commit to marketing at every level of your business.

This doesn’t mean buying high priced ads in newspapers or on TV. It means creating a marketing and sales oriented culture that runs your business – from how your team answers the phone, to how they greet customers and guide them through the sales process, to developing a solid customer data base.

While I’m sure you’ve heard all of this before, you’d be amazed how many owners don’t do the simplest things that could make them successful. For instance, ActionCoach has discovered only about seven percent of all business owners know what their breakeven is on a given day – let alone over the course of a month or year.

Do you know yours? Isn’t it time you found out?

Focus, marketing mastery and numbers mastery will be crucial if you want to ride out this downturn. Put another way – it’s not your competition that is forcing the game this time. It’s the market – and although the market’s judgment is harsh, in my experience it is always fair.

You simply can’t run a successful company without profit and without systemised ways to grow your customer base and keep them coming back.

Leverage, as many companies have brutally discovered, is great when the economic tide is rising and lifts all boats.

In a downturn, the squeeze of debt on business cash flow and overstretched operations can be ruinous.  Just take a look at the list of victims in the “destruction” part of the “creative destruction” equation and take note of the seemingly blue chip companies that don’t exist anymore – and you’ll understand the value of cash in this kind of environment.

The upside of all of this is that right now, the world’s economic stage is being set for the next big boom. When will it happen? Who knows?

The point is that now is the time to get your own basics right so when the economic recovery hits full swing, you’ll be ready to capture even greater profits and success. So start now and take the next few days to develop a new vision and plan for your company – based on what your customers, and the market, is telling you.

That feedback could be the foundation for some of the best (and most profitable) decisions you could ever make for your company.

It seemed all the work I was doing was going to pay me back later, but the problem was, when is later going to show up ...

Well, I've elearned since that it takes 7 years to grow a business, not cause it takes that long to do it, but it takes that long to learn it.

So, let's discuss what leverage is and how you use it ... or, how it will use you if you don't use it ...

Simple math definition ... divide to multiply ... divide a task up, fix each part and you multiply the results.

Simple definition ... ever more with ever less ... always be looking at how you can achieve better results with less work or less input ...

Best definition ... do the work once and get paid forever ... or at least long term ...

Read a book once, get a new customer once, buy an investment property once, write a book once, build a company once, create a marketing campaign once, write a system once and so on ...

How are you going to do some work today that will pay you back long term or possibly forever ... ?

Maybe even for longer than you are alive, that's old money my friend ...

All the Best

Brad