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Business Development: 9 Questions You Should Never Stop Asking as a Business Owner
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Business Development: 9 Questions You Should Never Stop

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Written By Brian Tracy | Business Success | September 20th, 2012 | 4 Comments

As a business owner, here are some questions that you need to ask over and over, as
your the market evolves and your strategic plan changes. Very often, the answers to
these business development questions will change in response to evolving conditions.
It is important that you change as well when it is necessary.

1. What business are you in? What business are you really in?
A typical business owner will answer this question by explaining the product or service
that they sell. But this is not the business that you are in. The business that you are in
is customer satisfaction. As a business owner, you must always define your business in terms of what your
products or service does to improve the life or work of your customers.
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In order to implement successful business development for your company, you must realize that customers
wants, needs, desires, hopes and expectations are constantly changing, and you must change with them, or your
sales, cash flow and profitability will suffer.

2. What business will you be in the future, based on current trends?

In business, the trends are everything. Which way is the market going for you today, and what changes do you
need to make in your strategic plan to move with the market?
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What business could you be in if you were to change your product or service offerings in some way? What
business should you be in if you want to be among the most successful and profitable businesses in your
industry?
Imagine that could wave a magic wand and make your business perfect in every way. What would it look like?
Especially, how would it be different from today? These are questions that you must answer over and over again
as a business owner. If you are wrong in any of these answers, your business can go sideways and your plan for
business development could fail.

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3. Who is your customer? Your ideal customer? Your perfect customer for what you sell?
You cant hit a target that you cant see. As the market changes, your ideal customer profile changes as well. You
can tell if you have properly identified the ideal customer for what you sell if you have high sales, cash flow and
profitability. If you do not, for any reason, you need to revisit this question. Who is my ideal customer?

4. What does your customer consider as value?

What does your customer want to enjoy or receive from your product or service more than anything else? What
must your customer be convinced of in order to buy your product or service rather than that of someone else?
The answer to this question is the core of your strategic plan for business development. It is the core of all of your
marketing, advertising and selling activities.

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5. What do you do especially well?

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In what areas do you excel? What is your competitive advantage? What makes your product or service superior to
that of any other competitive product being offered in your marketplace?

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11/16/12

Business Development: 9 Questions You Should Never Stop Asking as a Business Owner

As Jack Welch said, If you dont have competitive advantage, dont compete. As a business owner, your first
responsibility when you start your business, and throughout your business life, is to develop and maintain a
competitive advantage, an area of excellence in comparison with your competitors that your ideal customers
want, need and will pay for. What is yours?

6. What are your goals?

You know the importance of detailed, business development planning 12-18-24 months ahead. Before you create
a strategic plan of action, you must know the answers to the following questions: What are your sales goals for the
next year, broken down by month, or even week and day? What are your goals for profitability? How much do you

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need or want to earn from your business activities? What are your growth goals? What percentage of market do
you want to capture? The more specific and clear you are about your goals, the more likely it is that you will

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achieve them.

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Most of all, does everyone in your business who is responsible for achieving those goals know exactly what those

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goals are?

7. What are the constraints on your business today?

What is holding you back from achieving your goals of sales, cash flow, and profitability?

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Of all the factors that are holding you back from achieving successful business development, what is the biggest

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single factor, and what could you do to alleviate this constraint?

In every business, there are limiting factors that determine the speed at which you achieve your goals. You must
be absolutely clear about these constraints or limiting factors, and work continually to remove them. Sometimes
the constraint can be a lack of sales. Sometimes it is the lack of skilled, qualified people. Sometimes it is the lack of
capital for growth or expansion, or even operations.

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Here is one of those brutal questions that Jim Collins talks about: Why isnt your business already as profitable as
you want it to be? Whats the reason? Of all the reasons, what is the biggest single reason? Sometimes, asking and
answering this question can be the push you need to trigger business development success.

8. What are the 20% of your activities that can account for 80% of your results?
What are the 20% of your prospects that can account for 80% of your sales? What are the 20% of your customers
that account for 80% of your business? What are the 20% of things that you can do personally that can account for
80% of your results?

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You will always have limited resources of time, money and people. You must therefore allocate these resources
carefully in order to get greatest return on your investment.

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9. Based on your answers to above questions, what strategic plan of action should you take
immediately? What should you do now?
What should you stop doing? What should you discontinue altogether so that you have more time to work on
those few things that can make an enormous difference in your business?
Thank you for reading this post on the key business development questions you must answer to create a winning
strategic plan for success. Are you a business owner who has a successful tip you would like to share with others?
Please share and comment below!

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21 comments

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Add a comment...

Comment
Kenny Fabre
Top Commenter Owner at Kenny Fabre Marketing | Internet Marketing Teaching
Blog www.kfm24.com 108 subscribers
knowing your market and providing a solution http://www.kfm24.com/.
Reply

2 Like September 27 at 8:16am

Joy Maha Enya ABU Zaria

Growing a business is pretty much like raising a baby.you need to realise there will be teething
problems to attend to, the need to build trust and strengthen bonds between you and your
customers by being true to the core values behind your business and that's only the beggining.there
are different stages of growth just like babyhood to adulthood.
Reply

2 Like September 22 at 5:38am

Paul Van Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria

Very Useful piece of info. Thanks Sir
Reply

1 Like September 25 at 8:51am

Ismail Bin Hashim 167 subscribers

the most important thing is to satisfy your market and give extra added value for them.
Reply

1 Like September 22 at 7:15pm

Uma Shankar Bangalore University

This gives me lot of strength to think and act towards my new venture. Thank you.
Reply

1 Like September 21 at 9:23am

Rasheed Ameer Govt college trichur

A must read article for every business owner. Excellent!
Reply

1 Like September 20 at 12:11pm

Gideon Bassi Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna

Mind stipulating questions...
Reply

1 Like September 20 at 1:38pm

Qin Fen Zhou EIA at Amway

Merci beaucoup, trs utile...
Reply

4 Like September 20 at 10:17pm

Ioana Stoica Marinela

Top Commenter Galvanic Spa cat te costa sa nul ai. at Belleza Galvanic.

Thank you for sharing with us.Excellent as always.

Reply

3 Like September 20 at 2:02pm

at

\c7 c 7
Thank you for sharing this article with us!
Reply

2 Like September 20 at 2:57pm

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next post: Secret Habits of Self-Made Millionaires: How to Save Money and Achieve Financial Freedom
Tags: business development, business owner, strategic plan
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2012 at 9:02 am and is filed under Business Success.

4 Comments
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ADD COMMENT
Pablo Fonseca says on November 6, 2012 at 6:59 am:
Hi, Brian!
I realize, how with small things, likethese questions, can built big ideas and specifics target in
bussiness!
Thaks for share!
Michael Hall says on October 3, 2012 at 1:51 pm:
Excellent post Brian. Its amazing how the law of attraction works, i was only last night
contemplating exact metrics I wanted to aim for. Well actually i was watching one of your
youtube videos. I especially like point number 6: What are your sales goals for the next year,
broken down by month, or even week and day?
something im gonna work out right now, as i already know my ultimate goal, but this will
help me plan and check my progress down the month and day and date.
Chong Kok Sing says on September 26, 2012 at 5:11 pm:
This article to make me know about the business owner what needs to do . I like it. Chong

Barak says on September 22, 2012 at 1:48 am:

very good book for every one

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