Small Changes = Big Profits Part 1 Making a series of small changes, consistently and over time, is the one, sure-fire, guaranteed way to insure your business makes you rich. In this video post are some lightening case studies to get your juices flowing. Implement something new every week. Some little tweak or upgrade or new marketing partner or even a new channel or change to your website… Those kinds of things, and sometimes perhaps, a change that’s a bit larger: something strategic, a change to how you sell or a change to your thinking… Implement those as often as you can manage and you are guaranteed to grow… 24 Responses Randy August 30, 2010 Paul, I’m not positive but I believe the Japanese term for this series of continuous small tweaks is ‘Kaizen’. The premise being that these continual small changes add up (or multiply) and put you WAY out in front of any competition. Does thas sound right? Thank you. Reply Macy August 15, 2010 First time to read this blog and I know I realize the mistakes I did when I invested on my first venture. It did not take off as well as we expected and this blog post really helped me reflect on what we did wrong. Thanks! Reply Lorrette July 5, 2010 Hi Paul I guess this technique is akin to avoiding what is commonly termed as ‘shop blindness’ – many thanks for the video. Reply Stew Kelly June 3, 2010 Hi Paul, I appreciated your insight how small changes have an accumulative effect on productivity and the bottom-line. The other advantage is you can measure what the change achieves more accurately than with the big drastic changes. Reply Jurgen Wolff May 24, 2010 Great point–and often the best source of a small improvement comes from comments from customers–especially “throwaway” types of comments that are easy to let go by but that point to little improvements that would make the process easier for them. Reply Bruce Johnson May 24, 2010 Paul As usual, great material…great content! Bruce Reply marijke May 21, 2010 I like this idea very much, nice video, Paul! The same goes for Jeremy Reeve’s post, very good! The thing is one can use the idea in so many fields. Reply pl May 21, 2010 I think there are several key areas to focus on, taking on one at a time. Stronger margins More revenue per customer More leads Better conversion Higher, more consistent, productivity Reply Jeremy Reeves May 21, 2010 I love the idea of small changes over time. Personally I’m a “big” thinker so I’m always trying to hit those big breakthroughs – and a lot of times I do it (my latest was an increase of 162% to a clients salesletter) – but after a few of those big breakthroughs… they become a lot harder. A good idea for people to try is this. Create 3 categories: 1) Increase conversions 2) Increase traffic 3) Increase profit per customer Then… create 5-10 ideas in EACH of those 3 categories that you can use to increase profitability… then keep track and implement a minimum of 1 idea in each category per month. Works like a charm every time 🙂 Jeremy Reeves http://www.ReevesCopy.com Reply pl May 21, 2010 It definitely does and I gave a webinar just last night about key metrics and tied it into these three things. The problem for a lot of business owners is that they don’t know WHAT to do in each of these areas. I’m putting the finishing touches on a program that has a lot of this wrapped up for them. –pl Reply steve May 21, 2010 Hi Paul My first sales job saw one of my earliest and biggest successes because of a small change. Working for a car hire company I was tasked with selling our car hire services to businesses in London. I have always been curious about the world and especially the world of business. I noticed that our car mechanics were not always that busy and had spare time. Suggested that we start offering car servicing as well as car hire. People will sometimes hire a car if their car is off the road being repaired. At any rate, they finally agreed to my idea and asked me to implement it. Had some brochures printed which I delivered to our existing and potential new customers. We offered to service their car, pick it up in the morning, give them a hired car, valet their car and replace it at the end of the day. So easy to implement and resulted in doubling our profits within one year. Opportunities are everywhere if you keep your eyes peeled. All the best Steve Reply pl May 21, 2010 Steve – great story. -pl Reply Doug May 21, 2010 I could not agree more. Small changes are necessary so you don’t get stuck in rut. Some businesses fail because they continue to do the same familiar pattern over and over again, whether it’s sales, marketing, etc. They don’t explore or open their minds to changes that might be good for them, whether it’s new technology or the latest and successful strategy for their market. Changes are good and changes are 100% necessary! Thanks for a good post. Reply Joe May 20, 2010 Listening to story like the “Hot Sauce” is what keeps me getting up everyday with a big smile and work on my business. Consistent with small changes definitely pay off. Reply Scott May 20, 2010 hi paul …I love your insights thank you, i have used them and they work! Reply pl May 21, 2010 Scott, thanks. Hey, made a small change and got the video fixed. –pl Reply Gary Schafer May 20, 2010 Dear Paul, Your player is distractingly slow to buffer. I have seen this style of player before and I will rarely sit through this sort of player; however, as a courtesy to you I am letting you know that a call to Andy Jenkins or myself will remedy this problem. Since Andy’s still on his honeymoon you will probably reach me first. 810-599-7002. Reply Crystal May 20, 2010 Small changes, several times a day…. I should be brilliantly rich by now! Thanks :)!! Reply Arnold Shields May 20, 2010 Make small changes on a regular basis. Every 3 to 6 months review with changes worked. Better still split test the changes and let your users/ customers decide. I was just thinking the other day the difference between a really successful website and an ordinary one may only be some small changes to layout, call to action etc. Thanks Reply Jaquone Jefferson May 20, 2010 You are your habits hum. We need to be disciplined on running our business in a professional manner. Thanks and jesus is blessing us, amen. Reply John Chancellor May 20, 2010 Very good message. I find when people try to make big changes, fear gets in the way. It is much easier to make the small changes and as you pointed out, when you make small changes the Law of Compounding works its magic. A good habit would be to try to make one small change per week. I’ll make that my goal for this month, make a small improvement each week. Reply Deb Augur May 20, 2010 Hi Paul, I totally agree! Making small changes on a consistent basis makes a big difference. And tracking those changes will also help you to know what’s working and what’s not. Reply Joe Troyer May 20, 2010 This is great. Most of our business comes from “partners” as well and we spend almost no time finding new partners. I love your tips Paul, small easy changes are the types of changes I like making! Reply Steve Bell May 20, 2010 Paul, great insight and how true. While creating the “big win” is not easy, I do product creation all the time and it’s really about finding the niche or what people want and then creating a program just for that. Granted it’s not just that easy, but I can create a custom digital or printed program for my clients in that short of time frame, and it then looks like a breakthrough but really, it’s simply a solution to the big picture. Keep the great work up and the videos are fantastic. Cheers, Steve Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Randy August 30, 2010 Paul, I’m not positive but I believe the Japanese term for this series of continuous small tweaks is ‘Kaizen’. The premise being that these continual small changes add up (or multiply) and put you WAY out in front of any competition. Does thas sound right? Thank you. Reply
Macy August 15, 2010 First time to read this blog and I know I realize the mistakes I did when I invested on my first venture. It did not take off as well as we expected and this blog post really helped me reflect on what we did wrong. Thanks! Reply
Lorrette July 5, 2010 Hi Paul I guess this technique is akin to avoiding what is commonly termed as ‘shop blindness’ – many thanks for the video. Reply
Stew Kelly June 3, 2010 Hi Paul, I appreciated your insight how small changes have an accumulative effect on productivity and the bottom-line. The other advantage is you can measure what the change achieves more accurately than with the big drastic changes. Reply
Jurgen Wolff May 24, 2010 Great point–and often the best source of a small improvement comes from comments from customers–especially “throwaway” types of comments that are easy to let go by but that point to little improvements that would make the process easier for them. Reply
marijke May 21, 2010 I like this idea very much, nice video, Paul! The same goes for Jeremy Reeve’s post, very good! The thing is one can use the idea in so many fields. Reply
pl May 21, 2010 I think there are several key areas to focus on, taking on one at a time. Stronger margins More revenue per customer More leads Better conversion Higher, more consistent, productivity Reply
Jeremy Reeves May 21, 2010 I love the idea of small changes over time. Personally I’m a “big” thinker so I’m always trying to hit those big breakthroughs – and a lot of times I do it (my latest was an increase of 162% to a clients salesletter) – but after a few of those big breakthroughs… they become a lot harder. A good idea for people to try is this. Create 3 categories: 1) Increase conversions 2) Increase traffic 3) Increase profit per customer Then… create 5-10 ideas in EACH of those 3 categories that you can use to increase profitability… then keep track and implement a minimum of 1 idea in each category per month. Works like a charm every time 🙂 Jeremy Reeves http://www.ReevesCopy.com Reply
pl May 21, 2010 It definitely does and I gave a webinar just last night about key metrics and tied it into these three things. The problem for a lot of business owners is that they don’t know WHAT to do in each of these areas. I’m putting the finishing touches on a program that has a lot of this wrapped up for them. –pl Reply
steve May 21, 2010 Hi Paul My first sales job saw one of my earliest and biggest successes because of a small change. Working for a car hire company I was tasked with selling our car hire services to businesses in London. I have always been curious about the world and especially the world of business. I noticed that our car mechanics were not always that busy and had spare time. Suggested that we start offering car servicing as well as car hire. People will sometimes hire a car if their car is off the road being repaired. At any rate, they finally agreed to my idea and asked me to implement it. Had some brochures printed which I delivered to our existing and potential new customers. We offered to service their car, pick it up in the morning, give them a hired car, valet their car and replace it at the end of the day. So easy to implement and resulted in doubling our profits within one year. Opportunities are everywhere if you keep your eyes peeled. All the best Steve Reply
Doug May 21, 2010 I could not agree more. Small changes are necessary so you don’t get stuck in rut. Some businesses fail because they continue to do the same familiar pattern over and over again, whether it’s sales, marketing, etc. They don’t explore or open their minds to changes that might be good for them, whether it’s new technology or the latest and successful strategy for their market. Changes are good and changes are 100% necessary! Thanks for a good post. Reply
Joe May 20, 2010 Listening to story like the “Hot Sauce” is what keeps me getting up everyday with a big smile and work on my business. Consistent with small changes definitely pay off. Reply
Gary Schafer May 20, 2010 Dear Paul, Your player is distractingly slow to buffer. I have seen this style of player before and I will rarely sit through this sort of player; however, as a courtesy to you I am letting you know that a call to Andy Jenkins or myself will remedy this problem. Since Andy’s still on his honeymoon you will probably reach me first. 810-599-7002. Reply
Crystal May 20, 2010 Small changes, several times a day…. I should be brilliantly rich by now! Thanks :)!! Reply
Arnold Shields May 20, 2010 Make small changes on a regular basis. Every 3 to 6 months review with changes worked. Better still split test the changes and let your users/ customers decide. I was just thinking the other day the difference between a really successful website and an ordinary one may only be some small changes to layout, call to action etc. Thanks Reply
Jaquone Jefferson May 20, 2010 You are your habits hum. We need to be disciplined on running our business in a professional manner. Thanks and jesus is blessing us, amen. Reply
John Chancellor May 20, 2010 Very good message. I find when people try to make big changes, fear gets in the way. It is much easier to make the small changes and as you pointed out, when you make small changes the Law of Compounding works its magic. A good habit would be to try to make one small change per week. I’ll make that my goal for this month, make a small improvement each week. Reply
Deb Augur May 20, 2010 Hi Paul, I totally agree! Making small changes on a consistent basis makes a big difference. And tracking those changes will also help you to know what’s working and what’s not. Reply
Joe Troyer May 20, 2010 This is great. Most of our business comes from “partners” as well and we spend almost no time finding new partners. I love your tips Paul, small easy changes are the types of changes I like making! Reply
Steve Bell May 20, 2010 Paul, great insight and how true. While creating the “big win” is not easy, I do product creation all the time and it’s really about finding the niche or what people want and then creating a program just for that. Granted it’s not just that easy, but I can create a custom digital or printed program for my clients in that short of time frame, and it then looks like a breakthrough but really, it’s simply a solution to the big picture. Keep the great work up and the videos are fantastic. Cheers, Steve Reply