It inspired me to write a blog post series on the Habits, and to give you my slant on each of these, as it relates to being a small business owner.

Habit #1: Be Proactive

Being proactive is something that a lot of people talk about, but fewer people actually do.

When I talk to clients about being proactive, what I mean is that we will plan and strategize all of the tasks we do, with an end goal in mind. And we will monitor our results as we go along, to be sure we are achieving the results we want. If we are not, we will tweak the plan (or the goal, but usually the plan).

In concrete terms, this is being proactive instead of being reactive.

For example, let’s talk about your free gift on your website. You have put it together, you have set up your opt in and you are thrilled to see signups coming into your list. Your autoresponder delivers said free gift, and then your new person will receive your newsletter once a week or once a month or whatever, moving forward. That’s it.

You stop there with the correspondence because you’re not really sure what you want to send them after that (other than your newsletter).

That’s a reactive mindset. What should you be doing with those people as they come in? You know for sure that they wanted to receive your free gift (they are interested in that topic), so what are you doing with them after that? Nothing?

You should know how you want them to proceed through your marketing funnel. Have a plan for them – and put it into place right from the time they sign up.

That is being proactive!

When they sign up for your free gift, take advantage of that opportunity. Know where you want to lead them once they have expressed interest, and then lead them there. Don’t stop at one email ‘here’s your free gift’. Set up a series of emails that they can get, that will introduce them to you and your wealth of information. Marketing strategy tells us that frequent ‘touches’ will help you build the know-like-trust factor with your people, so be sure to plan that. Theme your follow up to match the very thing that they opted in for, and you will build a relationship with them quickly. Invite them to be responsive – email you or click on a link in your email, so you can track their interests, and follow up with them accordingly.

That’s a simple way to be proactive in your business instead of being reactive. However, it’s a step that is missed by many, many small business owners because they are only thinking about growing their list – getting names on their list … but not thinking further than that!

When we react to what happens around us, we go along at our regular pace, and we react to what our business or our life throws at us. There are times when this is okay, but for things like business planning and marketing, it is not effective to be reactive.

To be proactive is simply to be looking down the road further than you are right now, and anticipating what will come. Herein lies success – because of the PLAN!

You make choices based on what you want to happen, and you work with the consequences of those choices. How? Simply by tweaking the goals or the path up ahead. It’s not rocket science, but it’s not reactive.

By consciously being proactive in your business, you are taking responsibility for what comes your way, and you are able to steer your course much better.

By working with support staff (from assistants to business coaches) you are better equipped to make long term plans and really have a solid foundation for your business planning and strategy.

Are you being proactive in your business? If you are, congratulations! If you are not, ask yourself where you could implement a little bit of the suggestions from above.

I’d love for you to share your insights about being proactive on my Facebook page.

It introduced me to my ‘magic number’ – my conversion rate of prospects.

What does that mean? Well, simply put, that means how many people I actually convert to clients while on a sales call.

I realized that I was converting at about 40 per cent, which would mean that for every 10 people I talked to, 4 would actually sign on to work with me. (Note: that’s not a very good conversion rate!)

Think about it … if you are working at a 40 per cent conversion rate, and you need 10 clients to build your business to the level that you want it to be at, that means that you will need to have sales conversations with 25 people to get those 10 clients. This is your magic number.

Do you know what your magic number is?

It’s important to know this number for a couple of reasons. First, you need to know in order to accurately match your networking efforts with your client goals.

Second, by knowing this number, you can assess your efforts and figure out how to increase your odds of closing a client.

There are two ways of doing this:

1. Increase your networking efforts. Speak to more people and you will get more sales calls. So, if you need to speak with 50 people to get 10 sales calls, then you will need to ramp up your networking efforts so that you are actively connecting with those 50 people regularly, in order to move them to the next level … a call.

2. Increase your conversion rate.  In the example above, 40% is quite low. You can also assess your strategy on your sales calls to see why you are not converting clients at a higher rate. What are their objections? Why are they getting off the phone with you without signing the deal? What can you change about your conversations to increase your conversion rate?

Either way will be an effective way for you to increase your client conversions. It’s up to you which one is right for you, but with the limited time that everyone has for networking, it seems logical to try to increase your success so that you are closing at a higher rate. That way you can still talk to the same number of people as you are now, but you will get more clients from those calls.

Getting clients easily requires a carefully thought out strategy – make the connections, secure the sales calls, and convert the clients. Everything is better with a well-thought-out plan!

Here are a few questions to ask yourself. The answers might surprise you! If you decide that any of these areas needs change or ‘tweaking’ to keep you on the path to success, now is the time to get that done!

Do you analyze your billing when you send it out each month? When you put together your invoices or retainers for clients, do you stop to look at them to see how you spent your time? This can be a really good time to do some quick analysis of what is filling your days. If you see things in there that you don’t love to do, get a plan in place to move those things along to someone else, whether that means getting subcontractors or speaking with your client to keep your services limited to those you are great at and love to do. Remember, you are a business owner – McDonald’s does not sell fried chicken, simply because someone asks for it at the cash register.

Do you spend too much time filing or reading email, or is your inbox overrun? No matter which email system you use to process your email, you probably have folders set up to file things in various places. Whether you set up message rules to do this automatically or whether you do it manually, take note of those things that you are filing. Are they things you come back to look at on a regular basis or do they just pile up in folders? I have that syndrome … file it and forget it. I just deleted all of my ‘read later’ emails this weekend. Why? Because I didn’t read them. I decided that it’s time to start fresh again and really analyze whether I need the items coming to my email address. Now that it’s empty, I can analyze what comes in and decide whether I am getting value from it or whether I should unsubscribe.

Do you get distracted by social media, phone calls or email? What kinds of boundaries do you have set up for clients, family members and yourself? Do you allow yourself to get distracted by things that are not earning you money on a daily basis? How much time do you waste on personal distractions? You should be sure to set business hours (even if your business hours are only a few hours a day!) and stick to them. Be sure to do only billable work during that time, and you will ensure that your revenue increases. Focusing on bringing in money to your business is the only way to succeed.

How do you market yourself on a daily basis? In order to keep your business always growing and reaching ahead, you need to always be marketing. Whether you are trying to get new clients at this time or not, you should always be sure that you are marketing yourself through whatever channels you use. You never know who will find you, and certainly it’s important to keep cultivating relationships all the time, for that time when you are looking for someone new to work with. By marketing yourself every day, you can keep yourself ‘out there’ for when that time comes.

How many potential clients do you have in your pipeline right now? Do you have any? Or do you have just enough clients now? In my experience, you should always have potential clients in your pipeline – there are various stages of people’s readiness to work with you – it usually starts with your freebie, or your ezine, and can progress rapidly into your marketing funnel – from a small purchase or a project, to a more regular gig, to a full time retainer. It’s important to keep this pipeline busy and active. You never know when you are going to be looking for a new client (even if you don’t think you are now), and your pipeline is the first place to go!

Are you staying on track and in focus in your business? Ask yourself these questions, and make adjustments where necessary to ensure that you are!