3 Crucial Questions Every Business Owner Should Answer

I have been going through my email archives for inspiration.

While doing so, I came across 3 questions I feel every business owner should be able to answer for themselves and their businesses.

These are foundational questions that define what your business does and how it serves customers. When you have clear answers to each of these questions, it makes marketing and selling your products much easier.

It makes your mission tangible to you and your team, and it helps you explain exactly what you do, quickly and easily.

So, here we go…

My 3 crucial questions you, as a business owner should answer, for yourself, your team, and for the sake of your business as a whole.

What Business Are You Really In?

A mentor of mine asked this question in a Q&A session.

His point was that we all have the business we claim we’re part of, but in reality, what we do may be entirely different.

His example was the real estate business. Real estate agents and brokers say they’re in the business of helping people buy and sell properties, which is true. That is what they do day in and day out.

However, the way to make money in the real estate business is to recruit a bunch of other real estate agents to work under you as the real estate broker, so you can supervise their transactions and earn a commission split on their sales.

So really, it’s not the real estate business, it’s the recruitment business.

This question made me stop and think about what I really do.

I am an email marketing consultant. I help businesses write and manage their email marketing, so they can connect with their ideal customers and make more sales.

But when I really look at what I do, I’m in the connection business.

I help my clients connect with their ideal customers, so those people can:

• Get to know my clients better.
• Build trust and confidence in my clients as a business.
• Demonstrate my clients’ expertise and dedication to their respective fields.
• Convince their ideal customers turn to them when they’re ready to buy.

That’s a lot more than just “I write your emails” or “I show you how to write your own emails.”

That’s what my mentor was getting at.

What are the things that you do that really matter to your bottom line, and to your customers’ bottom line?

These questions form the basis of the answer to the original question, “What business are you really in?” Knowing the answers helps you get to the heart of why you’re doing what you’re doing in the first place.

What Is the Transformation You Provide for Your Customers?

This comes from the same Q&A session I mentioned above.

I consider myself a spiritual person and one of my clients is a nonprofit in the transformational education space.

Because of this, the word “transformation” comes up a lot in my day-to-day writing. It can have a lot of different meanings, depending on the situation, so I try to use it appropriately.

In this case, I am talking about both internal and external transformation.

Like I said earlier, even though I say I’m in the email marketing business, I’m really in the connection business.

I help my one-on-one clients and Email Writing Accountability Group members connect with their ideal customers.

If you take this one step further and ask what transformation I provide, externally I help my customers serve their ideal customers on a more personal level. I help them show their ideal customers who they really are and what their businesses are offering as a solution to the customers’ problems.

This helps their ideal customers know, like, and trust them, and become actual customers. Then, my clients and EWAG members can welcome those people into their community and make them part of the “tribe.”

Internally, I help them express themselves authentically, so they can show their true selves to their ideal customers.

I encourage them to share their stories with their ideal customers, so their ideal customers know they understand what they’re going through, because they’ve had the same, or similar experiences.

And I help humanize everyone on both sides of the equation.

I remind my customers that they need to answer the ultimate question that every consumer asks, “What’s In It For Me.”

Also, that sharing these stories helps build their relationship with their ideal customers. It helps them see each other as “regular people.”

Because as I have said many times before, regardless of whether you consider your business B2B or B2C, all businesses are P2P or person to person.

I hope that I also provide this transformation for you, as you read the Email Marketing Ecosystem Newsletter and use this information to write to your own subscribers. Then, you can turn them into customers who know, like and trust you, and become evangelists for your business.

How Do You Explain What You Do?

Have you ever been in an elevator with someone and gotten the inevitable question,  “So, what do you do?”

Suddenly, you have to come up with an answer on the spot.

It can happen in any number of locations and situations, but the elevator scenario is the one that coined the catchy name, the “elevator speech.”

The idea is you have as long as it takes for an elevator to reach the floor that your questioner is getting off at to answer their question, “So, what do you do?”

Here’s what’s so sad about this situation…

Most people don’t have a quick, easy-to-understand response that shows how their business helps their ideal customers.

You may be wondering why this even matters. That person chatting with you in the elevator probably isn’t your ideal customer.

But what if they are?

Or what if they know your ideal customers?

Or what if they work for a company that also serves your ideal customers and they happen to need what you do as part of what they do, and you could form a partnership?

Having an elevator speech can open all sorts of doors you may never have known about, had you not been asked, “So, what do you do?”

Here’s a related but slightly different question: What do you say in this situation?

In other words, how do you come up with an elevator speech?

I’ve outlined how to do it and why it matters in this blog post.

I learned this framework from Pat Flynn, of SPI fame, years ago at a marketing conference. It’s great for creating your elevator speech and I hope it helps you come up with a catchy one.

Now that I’ve given you a lot to think about…

I Would Love to Hear Your Answers to These 3 Crucial Questions

Seriously. I want to know what you think of these questions and how you answer them for yourself and your business.

Tell me in the comments or send me an email here.

I hope your answers become good marketing material for your business, and good fodder for future emails.

Finally, I am home again, so this week, you get pictures of of my cats, Irusan, (the black short-hair) Nanner (the tabby), and Lugh and Arawn (the black long-hairs).

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