ReportWire

Tag: Growth Strategy

  • Employment, Industry Pricing, And Costing Challenges Hit Cintas Corp (CTAS) in Q3

    [ad_1]

    TimesSquare Capital Management, an equity investment management company, released its “U.S. Focus Growth Strategy” third-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the third quarter, all the major asset classes posted positive returns except fixed income assets outside the US. The strategy returned 4.00% (gross) and 3.78% (net) compared to a 2.78% return for the Russell Midcap Growth Index. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.

    In its third-quarter 2025 investor letter, TimesSquare Capital U.S. Focus Growth Strategy highlighted stocks such as Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS). Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) provides corporate identity uniforms and related business services. The one-month return of Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) was 2.05%, and its shares lost 11.46% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On December 12, 2025, Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) stock closed at $187.53 per share, with a market capitalization of $75.565 billion.

    TimesSquare Capital U.S. Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:

    “Many of our Industrial positions provide necessary business-to-business operational services, highly technical components, equipment enabling automation & efficiency improvements, or essential infrastructure services. Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) offers corporate identity uniforms and facilities services. Cintas reported better fiscal first quarter results against subdued expectations. The stock pulled back -8% due to concerns around employment, industry pricing, and cost pressures.”

    Jim Cramer Says Cintas (CTAS) Stock Being “Up Here” is a “Terrific Sign”

    Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 61 hedge fund portfolios held Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) at the end of the third quarter, which was 57 in the previous quarter. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, Cintas Corporation’s (NASDAQ:CTAS) total revenue grew 8.7% to $2.72 billion. While we acknowledge the potential of Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you’re looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

    In another article, we covered Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) and shared Renaissance Large Cap Growth Strategy’s views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • To Gain Impact, Leaders Must Forge a New Perspective

    [ad_1]

    When it comes to lasting impact, today’s leaders would be wise to remember two pivotal lessons. These lessons have the power to significantly raise their odds of achieving great impact.  

    Vital lessons for leaders

    The first might feel laughable: Remember that the world keeps changing. While seemingly obvious, leaders have an unconscious pattern of downshifting after overcoming change, as if change is a one-and-done thing. Even if unconsciously, they adopt a familiar mantra: “I was tested. I triumphed. Now, it’s safe to relax into a new status quo.” Then, it happens. Change comes once more. Yet, it is different than before and with an ample dose of the unfamiliar.  

    This perpetual cycle is worsened by the tendency of too many leaders to unwisely approach the new challenge in a DIY trial-and-error fashion, fueled by the desire to get quickly back to normal. The pattern is only amplified when change takes form as the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) kind that now dominates. 

    In such times, leaders quickly forget or conclude that while change may feel new to them, past leaders have often encountered something similar. Checking in with their stories is a powerfully simple way to avoid naively rerunning the learning-to-lead gauntlet.  

    This links to the second lesson leaders shouldn’t forget: One of the most potent sources for leadership insights lies in the nonobvious. What does nonobvious mean? Looking outside your network or sector for insights is one plainspoken form of it. Looking beyond your moment in time can also give perspective and distance that can be hard to come by in the heat of the immediate. Combining the lessons, in times of great change, leaders would be wise to look to the nonobvious sources of leadership lessons past.  

    Allow me to tell you a story that exemplifies both teachings. 

    A lesson in leadership past: Vital to the here and now 

    The story, a true one, is about an archaeologist in Northern Arizona, a leader in her field. Her decades-long work focused on ancient native American tribes, seeking to understand how they lived and thrived in the harshness of the desert southwest. Working deep within the labyrinth of the Grand Canyon, she’d come across previously unknown sites of past habitation, sites even current day elders of these ancient peoples were unaware of.  

    She wanted to share with these tribal leaders what she’d found. More precisely, she wanted to show them the pottery shards and arrowheads, the storage granaries and building foundations. In other words, the things archaeologists use to define how past people succeeded and thrived. So, she took the elders deep into the canyon to show them what she’d discovered. 

    At each site, she brought them straight to the artifacts. Each time she did, however, she caught the elders glancing not down at the items but up—up into the rock walls and side canyons. After this repeated at several sites, she confronted the elders. Why, she asked, were they looking up rather than down into the obvious answers she was placing right in front of them? Kindly, patiently and most of all knowingly, they gently smiled and told her. They were looking for water. The real insights, they were teaching her, came from looking up canyon. 

    The power of looking “up canyon” 

    The lesson was simple. Without the essential source of water, none of the rest would have come to pass. No innovative vessels for carrying or storage, no refined hunting tools suited to the terrain, no places of community, no life—nothing. In the desert, they knew, finding drinkable water isn’t obvious. You have to look deeper than you normally would. Instead, you must look in nonobvious places repeatedly. In other words, you must be in the habit of looking “up canyon,” not just where you are and what you do. Change is always present. 

    The truth is, in the business and busyness of today’s VUCA environment, leaders too rarely look “up canyon.” Instead, they obsess over the obvious at their feet, the well-worn and the familiar. However, there’s always a source to anything important that lies deeper.  

    The power of an “up canyon” view in business

    In a fast-moving modern world, this may seem like a distant story to your day-to-day leadership task. In truth, it’s central. Management guru, Peter Drucker, famously pointed to it as the key to long-term success. He boiled it down to a question he advised leaders to repeatedly ask: “What business are we in?”  

    It may sound like a question to which the answer is self-evident. However, an answer with an “up canyon view” is not. His version of looking “up canyon” was to advise leaders to answer the question not once, but five times over, revealing the most fundamental, powerful and important insight layer by layer. It was the unobvious answer, he knew, that reminds a leader where the power to succeed over the long-term actually comes from. It was the best answer, he believed, to guide them through times of change. 

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    [ad_2]

    Larry Robertson

    Source link

  • How Companies Are Turning No-Hire, More-Fire Into a Growth Strategy

    [ad_1]

    Job creation by U.S. companies has nearly flatlined since last spring, with most employers only hiring to replace departing staff members, or leaving those positions vacant. The bad news for people looking for work is that this trend may be gaining momentum as many businesses decide they can continue growing while either maintaining or cutting current headcounts.

    That thinking contrasts the conventional wisdom often cited to explain why hiring rates have fallen to a measly monthly average of 26,750 new jobs filled since May. Many analysts said that hesitation to recruit was based in large part on uncertainties employers faced about future economic growth. Other experts pointed to the still evolving effects that import tariffs, mass deportations, and relatively robust inflation are having on businesses.

    Another reason cited was the spreading effort by companies in adopting artificial intelligence(AI) to automate tasks that many employees previously performed. That move has provoked thousands of layoffs, while also fully taking over many entry-level positions that younger job seekers have habitually relied on.

    But while all those factors may be shaping the wider business community’s current aversion to hiring, other evidence suggests some companies recently made indefinitely freezing or decreasing their headcounts a central growth strategy.

    “We’re convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business,” Beth Galetti, Amazon senior vice president of people, experience, and technology wrote in a staff memo Tuesday announcing “an overall reduction in our corporate workforce of approximately 14,000 roles.”

    Similarly, on Tuesday UPS said it has already cut 48,000 jobs in 2025 alone in an effort to improve productivity. Other companies have also adopted the tactic.

    “By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, said in a memo obtained by Business Insider that announced last week’s 600 job cuts at the company’s Superintelligence Labs division.

    ‘Preemptively hold the line’

    Both Wang and Galetti noted their dramatic cuts would be followed by the creation of future, presumably far fewer jobs. But a recent Wall Street Journal report offered evidence that the trend to continually reduce net staffing levels is spreading across big U.S. businesses.

    The paper quoted a JPMorgan Chase executive’s observation that the bank now has a “very strong bias against” reflexively hiring people for needs it might fulfill otherwise. It also noted Goldman Sach’s stated intention to “constrain head count growth through the end of the year,” and Walmart’s similar objective of keeping overall staffing flat.

    In many cases it examined, the Journal said the increased use and performance of AI are allowing businesses to continue growing, innovating, and serving customers with fewer employees than previously required.

    “If people are getting more productive, you don’t need to hire more people,” Airbnb’s chief executive Brian Chesky told the paper, saying he plans to keep headcount stable at around 7,000 employees over the next year. “I see a lot of companies preemptively holding the line, forecasting, and hoping that they can have smaller workforces.”

    Yet there are also signs that in addition to hedging against economic uncertainties and reaping the efficiencies provided by AI, there may be another calculation in the current moves to freeze or cut staffing levels. That thinking may internalize the habitual approval of Wall Street investors to layoff announcements, as companies move to reduce their salary bases, increase efficiencies, and boost their bottom lines.

    “(H)istorically, if someone leaves, if Jane Doe leaves, I’ve got to backfill Jane,” Intuit chief financial officer Sandeep Aujla told the Journal. To weaken that that reflex, Aujla said, company managers are required to make convincing arguments for replacing departing employees to get approval, with new hiring now viewed as a last resort.

    As a result, Aujla said, both layoffs and voluntary quits encourage managers to ask, “Is there an opportunity for us to rethink how we staff?”

    ‘Companies do not want to hire’

    A similar reflection process in the opposite direction is now underway across social media platforms. A growing number of users are posting their beliefs that even companies that advertise job openings no longer have any intention of actually filling them.

    Whether commentators attribute that to continual downsizing strategies, AI as an opportunity for replacing employees, or the economic uncertainty that has reduced hiring levels since May, many online commentators now suspect the entire employment and recruitment process is broken, or even rigged.

    “Companies do not want to hire new employees,” posted JackReaper333 on a recent Reddit thread. “They want their current employees to (a) produce more and (b) do the work of any other employees that quit… Companies will only hire new employees when they are forced to do so, that is to say, things have gotten so bad that even the higher-ups have to finally admit that their current employees cannot produce anymore.”

    Some redditors sharing that view also interpret the abundance of job openings overlapping with flat or shrinking hiring rates as reflecting an ulterior motive behind recruitment notices. One thread claimed employers who are advertising opportunities, or even interviewing candidates, “are prospecting, not hiring.”

    “I have seen first hand, companies will just prospect without actually hiring anyone,” wrote thread initiator pastelpaintbrush. “They will post job listings, do interviews, and never hire. They just want to see what’s in the job pool.”

    Another redditor offered an alternative analysis that factors in the the increasing use of AI to automate the scanning and analysis of job applications.

    “They want to data mine our resumes and show their investors that they are ‘growing,’” said Feisty-Problem516. “Making job postings is a win-win. There is no intent to hire.”

    While those allegations are clearly too broad to apply to many, perhaps even most businesses recruiting people, they do reflect darkening public opinions about the health of the U.S. employment market. Those dim views aren’t likely to improve after redditors get a look at the Journal’s report quoting business leaders’ no-hire strategies seeming to confirm their fears.

    [ad_2]

    Bruce Crumley

    Source link

  • Strategic Objectives Alone Won’t Drive Change. Here’s the Value in Specific, Measurable Actions

    [ad_1]

    You’ve sat through those strategy presentations. The ones with the slick slides, the ambitious objectives, the carefully crafted mission statements. Leaders nod, teams take notes, and everyone leaves feeling…something. Inspired? Maybe. Perhaps, overwhelmed is a better description. Possibly confused. 

    Then, Monday happens. Someone asks, “So what does this actually mean for how I do my job?” And the room goes quiet. The problem is strategy documents are essentially wish lists without behavioral translation. 

    The strategy-execution chasm 

    Leadership teams invest months crafting strategic objectives. They debate every word, metric, and timeline. The final document is a masterpiece of corporate aspiration. However, they stop short of the most critical step—defining the specific mindsets and behaviors required to bring those objectives to life. You’ve shown them where to go, but not how to get there. 

    A financial services company I worked with had set a strategic objective to “become the most customer-centric bank in our region.” Beautiful sentiment. They measured it through NPS scores and customer retention rates. However, when you walked through their branches or called their service centers, you saw the disconnect immediately. 

    Employees were still being primarily evaluated on sales metrics and transaction speed. Their behaviors reflected what actually mattered to their performance reviews, not what the strategy document claimed mattered. When a customer had a complex issue, representatives rushed through scripted responses rather than taking time to understand the underlying need.  

    Why? Because their schedule allowed eight minutes per interaction, and their bonus was tied to how many products they could cross-sell. The objective said, “customer-centric.” The behaviors screamed, “transaction-focused.” Nobody had translated what customer-centricity actually looked like in specific, observable actions. 

    Why leaders skip the behavioral blueprint 

    The gap isn’t accidental. Leaders avoid behavioral translation for several reasons: 

    • It feels too prescriptive. There’s a belief that smart people should figure out how to execute strategy on their own. Defining specific behaviors feels like micromanagement. 
    • It’s genuinely difficult. Translating lofty objectives into concrete actions requires deep understanding of how work happens, not how you imagine it happens from the executive suite. 
    • It exposes philosophical divides. When you start defining what “innovation-driven” or “customer-obsessed” looks like behaviorally, disagreements that were hidden under vague language suddenly become visible. One leader thinks innovation means taking calculated risks. Another thinks it means following proven methodologies. 
    • It demands accountability. Once you’ve defined specific behaviors, you can measure whether they’re happening. That makes everyone uncomfortable, leaders included. 

    What translation looks like 

    For example, a common strategic objective is, “Drive innovation across the organization.” 

    Most companies stop there, maybe adding some metrics around new product launches or R&D investment. Then, they wonder why innovation doesn’t materialize. Here’s what the behavioral translation might include: 

    • Overall mindset shift
      From “don’t bring me problems without solutions” to “problems are opportunities for discovery.”  
    • Leadership behaviors that exemplify it
      When someone raises an issue without a solution, ask exploratory questions rather than dismissing the concern. Share stories of failures in leadership meetings, focusing on what was learned.  Allocate 10% of team meetings to discussing ideas that didn’t work and why. 
    • Employee behaviors that exemplify it
      Experiment with one new approach each quarter, documenting results. Spend time with customers outside formal feedback sessions. Propose improvements to existing processes, even small ones. Build on others’ ideas rather than immediately critiquing them. 
    • Supporting changes needed
      Adjust performance reviews to include “experiments conducted” as a metric. Create protected time for exploration that isn’t consumed by urgent tasks. Change approval processes to enable faster small-scale testing. 

    Notice the specificity. These aren’t suggestions but observable behaviors you can coach to, recognize, and measure. 

    The collaboration contradiction 

    A technology company client set an objective to “break down silos and increase cross-functional collaboration.” They reorganized into matrix structures. They implemented new collaboration software. They measured meeting attendance across departments. Eighteen months later, silos were stronger than ever. Why? Because the behaviors that actually got rewarded hadn’t changed. 

    Engineers were still evaluated entirely by their individual code contributions. Product managers owned success metrics for their product alone. When cross-functional conflicts arose, leaders sided with “their” team rather than solving for the company objective. What was missing was a mindset shift from “protect my function’s interests” to “optimize for the customer’s needs.” 

    Before proposing a solution, talk to at least two people from different functions that engage with customers. In disagreements, reframe debates around customer impact rather than functional preferences. Share credit explicitly when presenting work that involved multiple teams, framing around customer outcomes. 

    Leaders should openly ask, “What did other functions contribute?” when reviewing accomplishments. They should make trade-offs based on holistic customer experience, not departmental lobbying. Also, they will include cross-functional and customer feedback in every performance evaluation. Lastly, they will model asking for input outside their domain of expertise. 

    The company eventually did this work, after a painful year of wondering why their reorganization had failed. Once behaviors were defined and reinforced, collaboration significantly improved. 

    The discipline of specificity 

    Translating strategy into behavior requires uncomfortable specificity. It means answering questions like: 

    • What does someone do differently tomorrow to be successful with this objective? 
    • What’s a meeting that would look fundamentally different? 
    • What would cause someone to hesitate or feel conflicted if they’re operating the old way? 
    • What would we see less of if this behavior is taking hold? 
    • What would customers notice before we told them anything changed? 
    • What metric would move in the first 90 days if behaviors actually shifted? 

    These questions feel tedious because they are. They’re also the only path from strategic aspiration to operational reality. The most effective leaders I’ve encountered don’t stop at defining objectives. Instead, they obsess over behavioral translation. They ask themselves, “If someone shadowed me for a day, would they see me modeling this?” They work with teams to identify what successful execution actually looks like in practice. 

    Your strategy is only as good as your behavioral clarity. 

    The next time you review a strategic plan, ask yourself, “Could someone use this document to change what they do tomorrow, not theoretically, but practically? Would they know what conversations to have differently? What old habits should we abandon?” 

    If the answer is no, you don’t have a strategy. You have aspirations, and aspirations without behavioral translation are just expensive wish lists that make everyone feel busy while changing nothing at all. The hard work isn’t writing the objective. It’s defining what living it actually looks like. 

    This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

    The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

    [ad_2]

    Andrea Olson

    Source link

  • How a Software Engineer’s Business Impacts Education | Entrepreneur

    [ad_1]

    As Brandon Bailey, founder and CEO of TutorD, built his career in software engineering, he came face-to-face with the “lack of diversity and inclusion” in tech — and he wanted to do something about it.

    Image Credit: Courtesy of TutorD. Brandon Bailey.

    Bailey worked at a consultancy in Chicago at the time, and as co-lead for one of the firm’s employee resource groups, he partnered with a couple of community-based organizations. One partnership was with a middle school in Bronzeville.

    The school was located about 15 minutes from Bailey’s home, but the students “had a totally different lived experience,” the founder recalls. Many of the kids had never been on an escalator or inside a skyscraper despite living just minutes from downtown.

    Related: Technology Opens the Door for Entrepreneurs to Achieve the Triple Bottom Line

    The program helped the students have those experiences and access internships and other opportunities. “That gave me this drive and passion for the educational experience and helping facilitate it,” Bailey says. “It changed my life. I know it changed [their lives].”

    But Bailey wanted to figure out how to reach even more people. He landed a job at an edtech startup in Los Angeles, California, and began to think about how he could bring together education, engineering and entrepreneurship.

    When considering the platform or tool that could accomplish that, Bailey noted one significant obstacle: There was an issue of connectivity for students who didn’t have access to computers in their homes. However, most students did have cellphones, so Bailey decided to meet the students where they were and build for those.

    Related: How DEI and Sustainability Can Grow Your Triple Bottom Line

    “We wanted to lead with providing value to the community first and gaining trust and buy-in.”

    Bailey officially founded TutorD, an edtech platform for teachers and tutors to enable distance learning, and TutorD Scholars, a nonprofit that teaches “urban youth in-demand 22nd century skills,” in 2019.

    “We wanted to lead with providing value to the community first and gaining trust and buy-in into what we were doing,” Bailey says. “So that’s why we led with the nonprofit TutorD Scholars first, while building out the software platform.”

    Teaching made it easier to figure out the specific tools students would need on the platform and how to tailor lessons to their unique learning styles.

    Related: This Black Founder Stayed True to His Triple ‘Win’ Strategy to Build a $1 Billion Business

     ”We’re teaching [the students] in different ways,” Bailey says, “so using visual, auditory, reading and kinesthetic. [It’s] a very intentional approach.”

    Entrepreneur sat down with Bailey to learn more about how he’s grown TutorD into a successful business — and the role that Intuit’s IDEAS accelerator program has played.

    Intuit’s IDEAS accelerator program provides founders access to capital and the company’s AI-powered platform, service and experts, plus business coaching from the National Urban League and executive coaching from Zella Life to support their business and professional growth.

    Related: Over Half of Small Businesses Are Struggling to Grow, Intuit Survey Shows — But These 5 Solutions Can Help

    Learning the accounting fundamentals was a game changer

    Through the IDEAS program, Bailey got valuable exposure to the basic accounting fundamentals, like cash flow and profit and loss statements, that make or break a business.

    “That wasn’t something I had a lot of support with growing up, looking back at it,” Bailey says. “In our household, [and] it is common across Black and brown households, we didn’t have that training around finances.”

    Receiving that technical training helped Bailey and the TutorD team develop a clearer sense of where the business was headed and how its costs and sales projections would shape that trajectory, the founder notes.

    Related: Why Accounting Skills Are Indispensable for Entrepreneurs

    Streamlining the business’s messaging was also key

    TutorD used Intuit’s MailChimp, an email and marketing automation platform for growing businesses, to streamline its communications.

    Not only did the platform make it easier for people to get in touch with TutorD, but it also helped cultivate a sense of presence — making the business seem bigger than it was, Bailey says.

     ”We’re a team of five right now, and we’re dealing with other companies that are 200, 500 people strong,” Bailey explains. “And they have $20 million backed by different investors. [MailChimp] helped us appear bigger than we are to compete in the market and with other edtech companies.”

    Related: How to Streamline Your Company’s Internal Messaging and Communication

    Leaning on mentors helped during tough times

    The business coach that Bailey connected with through Zella Life also became an integral part of TutorD’s journey.

    Having a support system in place was invaluable as Bailey juggled the challenges of growing a business with major life events, he says.

    “My father passed away, and my baby came, and I had an injury, all in a three-month span,” Bailey says. “My coach had also lost his mother around that time, so we [had a] really deep connection, and he was able to help.”

    Related: How to Evolve From Manager to Mentor and Create a Lasting Impact in Your Organization

    Bailey says that the IDEAS program put TutorD in the position to scale — and gave him and his team the confidence to talk to people about their journey.

    Advice for young entrepreneurs

    Bailey encourages other young, aspiring entrepreneurs to never stop learning, seek out opportunities where there’s a need and ability to create value, connect with other founders who can serve as mentors, and leverage the community to help lay the foundation for business success.

    He’s also excited to see people embracing the “triple bottom line,” which tracks a business’s financial, social and environmental performance — and suggests anyone considering the leap to founder do the same.

    “ People are waking up to [the fact that] it’s not just about making money and some infinitely growing, making-money approach to entrepreneurship and capitalism in general, but really looking at it with a triple bottom line approach, generating sustainable profit or revenue for yourself, your family, business and shareholders, but also making an impact in the community,” Bailey says.

    Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the Level Up conference to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.

    [ad_2]

    Amanda Breen

    Source link

  • How to Collect Millions From Your Existing Business Structure | Entrepreneur

    How to Collect Millions From Your Existing Business Structure | Entrepreneur

    [ad_1]

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Over the years, I’ve partnered with many digital entrepreneurs in the six-to-eight-figure range to help them with their growth challenges. As a result, I noticed an interesting trend.

    Despite each being unique with companies of different sizes, when it comes to growing a business, everyone typically faces the same problems. Why? Because, as you’ll soon find out, growth leaks are very predictable.

    In this article, I’ll walk you through these growth leaks and show you how to overcome them so that you can collect millions from your existing business structure.

    What problems do most digital creators face today?

    One common problem I see often is that most digital entrepreneurs focus on social presence and sales (front-end), while they completely neglect existing buyers (back-end). Let me explain because this is critical. In marketing, you have two major focus areas: Front-end and back-end.

    The front-end is everything you do to capture the attention of non-buyers and convert them into buyers. The back-end is everything you do to keep these new buyers and get them to buy more from you.

    Although this is easy to understand, successfully combining the front-end and the back-end in your daily marketing efforts is a tricky task. That’s exactly where most entrepreneurs leave value behind.

    This value is not just in the form of sales. It’s mostly in the form of impact on their audience — impact these people want and need. And this is where the growth problems begin.

    Related: 5 Ways to Make a Strong Impression With Every Audience

    Your front-end is not your profit center

    Many entrepreneurs believe that the initial sale should drive profits. Unfortunately, that’s not the goal of your front-end efforts.

    Your front-end has two main objectives: Acquire relationships and create awareness.

    As you can see, the front-end is not about making money. That’s why I didn’t mention “getting customers.” Your front-end is about building relationships and creating awareness about yourself, your values and your business. The front-end exists so that people know more about you and understand how you can help them.

    The digital entrepreneur who can risk attracting people at a cost, and who is not going after immediate front-end profits, is the one who understands what the back-end stands for.

    The front-end is about lending money (not making money)

    The front-end is not about making profits, it’s about acquiring relationships and creating awareness. But you’re an entrepreneur, right? If you don’t make money, you’re just running a charity. This is exactly where the back-end becomes relevant.

    You acquire someone on your front-end and move them to your back-end where you’ll convert them into higher-value offers. That’s how to repeatedly make money. You can afford to acquire buyers at a loss as if you’re lending them money — this is your cost per acquisition.

    But you get that money back in droves once they engage with you on the back-end and get impacted by your higher-value offers. This is how every successful business is set up, and it is how you maximize your profits and secure the longevity of your company. That said, let’s see how you can implement or optimize this strategy in your business.

    Related: Maximize Profits by Using These 3 P’s

    The perfect business model for maximum impact and profits

    Whether you want to have a successful digital or brick-and-mortar business, the perfect business model for maximum impact and profits always consists of two phases.

    • Phase 1: Acquisition. In this phase, you combine building relationships with creating awareness about your business and what it stands for (lending).
    • Phase 2: Profits. In this phase, you build trust by capitalizing on those initial relationships (collecting).

    When my team and I work with our partners, we find most of their growth opportunities where the front-end merges with the back-end. This convergence point is where you can acquire relationships at a loss, knowing that you have the systems ready to collect that money back multiple times across time.

    Once the relationship is in place, you can tap into sales opportunities whenever you want. Why? Because people trust you. They trust that you can help them. They trust that you can deliver. And they trust that you have their best interest at heart. This is where infinite value comes from.

    As an entrepreneur, don’t ever forget that you want to build relationships and awareness first. You want to nurture those relationships to continuously sell your back-end products and services.

    Related: 7 Amazing Ways to Build Long-Term Relationships With Your Customers

    In our experience working with digital entrepreneurs, this is where my team and I see so many business owners leaving money on the table. Money that was there, waiting to be captured without any significant changes to their business structures.

    We’re talking about situations where we managed to collect an extra $1,000,000 in two months for one partner. Or where we helped another make $109,000 in two weeks (his best year ever was $350,000). We managed to collect these amounts from their existing business structures because we implemented exactly what I shared with you in this article.

    Related: How to Craft the Right Organizational Structure for Your Business

    The bottom Line

    The formula to generate more sales is this simple, three-step approach:

    • Build the relationships and create awareness (front-end).
    • Provide a wealth of value (frontier between front-end and back-end).
    • Drive deeper impact (back-end).

    When you improve in any of these three areas, you can drive consistent growth to your business. That’s it. Nothing fancy or complicated. Just a surefire way to collect millions from your existing customer base without making any significant changes, investing a lot of money in ads or wasting a lot of time.

    [ad_2]

    Svetoslav Dimitrov

    Source link

  • How to Go From Unknown to a Must-Have for Your Clients

    How to Go From Unknown to a Must-Have for Your Clients

    [ad_1]

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Going from unknown to must-have in your client acquisition process can be a challenging task. But it is not impossible. By following a few simple steps, you can increase your sales and become an authority in your industry. Below are three easy steps that anyone can follow to achieve this goal:

    1. Targeting

    When it comes to selling your product or service, choosing the right audience is crucial. It will help ensure that you’re offering a solution to a problem that your potential customers actually have. And it will also increase the chances of making a sale.

    First and foremost, it’s important to have a clear understanding of who your ideal customer is. This will require some research and analysis of your current customer base, as well as a deep dive into the needs and pain points of your target audience.

    Once you have a better understanding of who your ideal customer is, it’s time to start narrowing down your target audience even further. This can be done through a variety of methods, such as demographics, interests and behavior.

    Related: Personalization: A Perspective On The Future Of Targeting

    2. Messaging

    When crafting your messaging, it’s important to keep your target audience in mind. Catering your messaging to the stage of the buyer’s journey that your average customer is at is crucial. For example, your average customer doesn’t yet understand the problem that your product or service solves. Then it’s not effective to talk about how awesome your offering is. Instead, focus on educating and informing your audience about the problem and how your solution can help.

    Once you’ve honed in on the right messaging for your audience, it’s important to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Most businesses use similar phrasing, deliverables and outcomes when describing how they can help customers. By changing just one of these aspects, you can create an uneven playing field and tilt the odds in your favor. For example, offering a performance-based model or pay-on-completion pricing can set you apart from competitors and make you more attractive to potential customers.

    3. Leveraging press

    When it comes to marketing and growing a business, leveraging public relations can be one of the most effective strategies. Not only does it increase brand credibility, but if done right it has the potential for short- and long-term lead generation results. Boosting personal and company reputation attracts and converts qualified sales leads at an increased rate compared to competitors. Utilizing press with a well-oiled sales and marketing funnel is like adding the cherry on top to a gourmet cake.

    Boosting your personal and company reputation through press can attract and convert qualified sales leads at an increased rate compared to competitors. Utilizing press with a well-oiled sales and marketing funnel is like adding the cherry on top to a gourmet cake.

    So, how can you effectively leverage press within your business? Here are some tips:

    • Identify your target audience and develop a plan to reach them. This includes determining which publications and outlets your audience reads or watches, as well as identifying relevant journalists and influencers to target.

    • Create a press kit that includes all the necessary information about your business, such as your mission and vision, key differentiators and any recent accomplishments or newsworthy events. Make sure to include high-resolution photos and branding materials.

    • Develop a list of compelling story angles that showcase your business in a positive light and highlight the value you provide to your customers. These can include customer success stories, industry trends and expert insights from your team.

    • Reach out to journalists and influencers with a personalized pitch that outlines your story angle and the value it offers to their audience. Be sure to follow up with them to ensure they receive your press kit and to answer any questions they may have.

    • Monitor your press coverage and track its impact on your business. This will help you identify which outlets and stories are generating the most engagement and leads, and can inform future PR efforts.

    By following these tips, you can effectively leverage press to increase brand credibility and generate leads for your business. In today’s competitive landscape, standing out from the competition is crucial and leveraging press can be a powerful tool in achieving that goal.

    In conclusion, going from unknown to must-have in your client acquisition process requires a combination of targeted messaging, effective positioning, leveraging press and building a community. By following these steps, you can increase your sales and become an authority in your industry.

    Related: 5 Golden Benefits of PR

    [ad_2]

    Carson Spitzke

    Source link