Issue #48 Without this, failure is guaranteed

Last week we had a conversation in Irresistible Sales and Marketing that blew my mind because it revealed to me the one thing a business cannot do without.

We’ve talked about it many times, but all of a sudden, it hit me like an anvil to the head of Wiley E Coyote (well, I guess, if I were a cartoon Coyote, but you know what I mean).

First, some updates:

👱🏽♀️ Are you a gotcha manager? A lack of alignment forces you into gotcha management, which makes retention very difficult.

⚙️ How to build a business machine, need I say more? Find it here. 

How to guarantee failure (or avoid it):

In the Irresistible Sales and Marketing course (ISM) we talked about niches and avatars, the scourge of all MSP owners everywhere.

The collective MSP ownership immune system was fighting against creating a niche as if it were as dangerous as Ebola… And then someone said,

“oh, it is like a machine, the gears have to line up, and the parts have to fit together, or it won’t work.”

Exactly.

It was only later, as I was going to sleep, that the anvil came out of nowhere:

I realized that was it. The one thing that all companies need, the one thing that tears down the most significant enterprises while snuffing out the spark of the most promising startups:

Alignment.

If a machine is out of alignment, it will work itself into pieces or do stupid things like these robots.

The same is true for your business. Without alignment, nothing works; your employees, contractors, and customers, nobody knows how to work with you, and you get stuck.

And there are three key core areas of alignment. Without these, your business will either fail or limp along painfully until you succumb to exhaustion and join a commune in Uruguay.

1. Align your solution to your customers.

When you know the problem you solve and for whom, your customers are happy. They get the results they expect and enjoy the experience. Your expertise comes through rather than your effort, and you add more value to everything you do.

2. Align your marketing.

The question we get all the time is: how do I get more traffic and awareness?

But the problem is rarely traffic and awareness; the problem is the message and the offer. You can buy traffic, but this is a waste of money if you don’t have an aligned marketing program that ensures your offer is the logical next step.

3: Align your team

If you are stuck in the spin cycle, your team is always playing catch-up. They get stuck figuring things out and working for themselves.

So you end up with islands of effort that don’t build on one another: this is expensive and ultimately counterproductive. Delegation is key to scaling, but alignment is key to delegation. (Related: How to hire a VA)

The popular lore is that companies die because they run out of capital. Still, they run out of capital because they haven’t aligned their actions to their resources. Bill Hewlett, the co-founder of Hewlett Packard, put it this way.  

“More companies die of indigestion than starvation.”

Please don’t let your business die of indigestion; build a business machine instead. And if you want to figure out how to align your sales better, marketing and products, learn more about our Irresistible Sales and Marketing Masterclass.

Want help building your machine?

You may be aligned in your head, but what does the rest of the world think? What you need is a team of people helping you figure out what your machine looks like, what it does, and how to keep it aligned. 

Well, we’ve got one waiting for you, getting started is free, start building an aligned business here, and stop working so hard for so little.

Want Irresistible Sales and Marketing?

Great stuff from around the web

• 😩 Five mistakes you absolutely should make well, once in your life at least; my favorite is “stealth mode” read more.
• 🤣 As a father, I have to ask a serious question: why are bad jokes called dad jokes? I dunno, but these are awful. I intend to use them frequently.
• 🧐 Finally found it: templates for social media posts so that you don’t have to remember image sizes

What do you think of this week’s report?

This week’s newsletter was full of links to both resources that we provide at Start Grow Manage and to other sources. We hope that the three tips for alignment empower you to continue to grow your organization. Let us know what other resources I can come up with so everyone can benefit.

Jeff.