Using product enhancement towards helping with your current mission statement, should help determine your business as a leading provider. For ex; if you're a plumber, you're not in the business of plumbing. If you're a carpet cleaner, you're not in the business of carpet cleaning. You're in the business of marketing plumbing or marketing carpet cleaning services.



Your mission statement is what is best for you. You can constantly measure all of your activities then to the mission of your company. You can further measure the success by the success of your clients or customers. The more successful your customers are in getting the benefits from you, the more successful you will be in growing your business.

If you're currently not generating the volume of business you want, your customers aren't purchasing as much as you want them to.

Here's an exercise that you should go through periodically to evaluate ways you can make your product or service better, and thereby either increase sales or extend your product or service life cycle.

Get out a piece of paper and answer the following questions.

1. Write down not what your product or service is, but the need or desire of your target market that you have perceived.

2. Brainstorm other ways to fulfill that need in ways other than through the use of your current product or service.

3. List all the obvious and not so-obvious features of your product or service.

4. Enhance your product or service with alternative ways to fulfill your customer's needs based on the ways you Brainstormed in #2.

5. Identify your USA versus your competitor's and any other alternative products or services.

6. Create five different front and back-end up sell scenarios for each product and service you intend to offer. You can encompass one of these attributes in each sale scenario that you come up with.

7. Determine how best to incorporate incentives for getting your prospects to buy. You want them to buy, buy now, and buy from you.

Don't limit yourself to the list below, but here are some additional ways you can begin. These are reasons customers typically patronize a certain business. Identify major sales advantages that you have over your competition.

Low price Top quality convenient location Friendly employees Knowledgeable employees Nice business surroundings Fair credit or return policy Good selection Convenient hours.

The important thing about running a small business is to know the direction in which you're heading; to know on a day-to-day basis your progress in that very direction; to be aware of what your competitors are doing and to practice good money management at all times. All this will prepare you to recognize potential problems before they arise.

In order to survive with a small business, regardless of the economic climate, it is essential to surround yourself with smart people, and practice sound business management at all times.