Over the next few posts, we’re going to talk about how to take a hard look at your current resources and get the most out of them. This can help your capital go further and increase your profit margin.

Today we’ll cover three different ways to maximize what you already have. These include:

• Recognize the obvious
• Unconventional breakthroughs
• Face the facts

Recognize the Obvious

Sometimes when you are too close to something, you can’t make out the big picture. You need to step back and really take a hard look at the resources you currently have in front of you. You are surrounded by opportunities that can boost your career and help your business become more successful.

Whip out your notepad and start listing out the following:

1. your business networks. These include all networking events you attended, your local business networks like BNI is an obvious one, but some hidden gems like your university alumni, the parenting group you joined, a trade association or anything like that.
2. all your suppliers.
3. your historical customer database
4. business or professional (local or national) Facebook groups

These are just some ideas of the abundant network resources you currently have. We all have them but many of us fail to utilise these resources. Once you list them out, you can then explore the opportunities presented here.

You can do the same with resources in other aspects of business, such as JV partnership potentials, your current product lines, potential new niche, etc. The main point here is you constantly stocktake what is within arm’s reach for you, because these are “the cheapest“ resources you can tap into.

Unconventional Breakthroughs

Don’t sit around waiting for breakthroughs you need to create them yourself. A breakthrough is merely a new way of doing things or finding a new thing to do for the same or better results. You should be having regular brainstorming sessions and encouraging your team to come forward with breakthroughs or ideas any time they have them.

Some great examples of breakthroughs are:

• A health and beauty company discovers a side effect of a product that can be re-marketed and sold.
• A company creates a roll-on deodorant inspired by the shape and size of a ballpoint pen.
• The founder of Nike poured rubber onto waffle iron and created the most innovative and successful running shoe ever.

When attracting or strategizing for a breakthrough there are some key objectives you need to keep in mind. They are:

1. Look for the hidden opportunity in every situation.
2. Look for at least one cash windfall for your business every three months.
3. The more value for your client, the better your breakthrough.
4. Create multiple streams of ideas to find the best breakthroughs.
5. Effective breakthroughs remove all risk or resistance.

Face the Facts

Before you can put your breakthroughs to work you need to face the facts of the processes and systems that are not working for you and work to correct or get rid of them. System analysis is a good way to do this. Once you have a listing of your strengths and weaknesses, you need to compare those to the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

There are some great questions you can present to you and your team to get a handle on where your business is right now. They are:

1. Why did I first start this business? Why am I in this industry?
2. What products/services did I offer then? Which were the most popular?
3. Why are my customers/clients buying from me right now?
4. How did I generate new customers/clients then?
5. Which of my marketing efforts were bringing in the best results?

Once you’ve got some answers to these questions, you’ll know better how to approach your weaknesses.

These three areas we’ve gone over give you a jumping-off point for how to utilize your current resources to their fullest potential. If you need any help with your strategic or systems analysis, try our FREE test drive to work with one of our amazing business coaches.