Often, it’s our DECISIONS that hold our business back, it has NOTHING to do with the POTENTIAL of the business itself.

Growing a five, six-figure or seven figure ecommerce business is not just a goal, it’s a mindset.

A way of making business decisions that ALLOWS your business to grow.

The problem is, many people don’t recognize when they’re making decisions that are holding their business back.

Below I’ll show you six decision point areas that can change the course of your business this year…

1. Sourcing Decisions. Sourcing has changed in 2013. The sales cycle for products, especially new consumer goods is increasing rapidly. Products that used to be in demand for 12 months, may only have a six-month life cycle before they are replaced with a new model.

In order to stay nimble and competitive, you must source new inventory…

• More frequently
• With an eye towards product diversity
• In smaller quantities
• With frequent reorders

The last thing you want is to get stuck with a 100 units of Product A, when consumers are now buying Products B & C. Now, this doesn’t mean that buying depth-of-inventory is completely off the table. Quite the contrary.

But you have to know when to buy deep and when to buy shallow.

2. Operations Decisions -  Time = Growth.  Far too many solopreneurs run themselves ragged and limit their income because they can’t (or won’t) make the decision to outsource rote tasks in their business.

But the reality is, there are only so many hours in a day.

And to scale rapidly to a six figure+ business and grow to even a six-figure income, you need help in these areas…

• Automation software
• Order Fulfillment
• Sourcing/Market Research
• Listing Maintenance
• Basic Marketing tasks

One of the most popular training classes in the Strategic Biz Marketing program this year has been “How to Hire, Train and Retain a VA”.  Our guest teacher for this class is one of the members of our ‘six figure club’ (he comes from a previous corporate career in working with outsourcing teams). He went from $0 to selling $495,000+ on Amazon in one year. Nine months in he realized that the business couldn’t grow without some Virtual Assistant help. So he implemented this model successfully in his own business and then laid it out step-by-step in an exclusive training class for the SBM program.

There are many ways to outsource and it doesn’t need to be expensive. The decision of what and when to outsource  will free up your time to grow your business.

3. Money Decisions. Money decisions can make or break your business.

If you haven’t made the decision to hire a good bookkeeper and/or use a tool like Outright, and you have no financial numbers on which to base your sourcing decisions.

Many people want to invest in their business, but they don’t know where to invest first.  New inventory? Outsourcing? A better workspace so that you have room to expand?

These are all decisions that need to be made correctly to get the best results.

For example, Sharon, (who I recently wrote about) “The Face of Amazon FBA” has focused heavily on inventory expansion. But now the business is outgrowing her space and her team.  She has had to make strategic decisions this year in order to hit her next sales growth goal (going from a mid-six figure business to $750K this year).

No business has an unending supply of cash with which to grow. The decisions you make about what to do with your available cash, are the ones that will increase or stall your sales.

4. Marketing. Marketing is the lifeline to your business. Whether your customers are buying from you in a marketplace or on your website, making the right decisions about how to market and where to market your products are essential.

Many people decide they don’t have to market their products if they sell on Amazon or eBay. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, some products will fly off your virtual store shelves on their own. Most won’t.

Marketing is simply getting the word out about your business/products. And getting customers to take action on your sales messaging.

The decision about where to market, how to market and how much to market is where things get more complicated.

It’s when you know how to determine which marketing tactic is right for your business, that you can start to get some traction.

5. Mindset. “A big business is just a small business that did things right.”  (Thomas Watson Jr. (2nd) President of IBM Tripled revenues in six  years).

You need to make decisions in your business from where you want to be, but rooted from where you are today.

I often hear people say “I can’t do this because…” and they’ve already taken themselves out of the game.

By turning that question around and asking “How can I?” your mind goes to work on the solution day and night until it finds one.

6. Action. What stops people from taking action? Many things, really. Fear, uncertainty, procrastination, lack of clarity, no goals, lack of a plan to get there, not knowing what the right decisions are, being afraid to make the wrong decisions.

There are so many things that stop us from acting in the best interests of our business.

But the bottom line is that whatever is stopping you from taking action, affects the growth of your sales.

What’s Your Most Difficult Decision Area?

Each of us has a particular problem area(s) when it comes to making decisions. It’s nothing to feel bad about, it just means that you need to acknowledge that problem area that keeps you stuck and keep working at improving your decision making skills.

What’s your most difficult decision area?

Tell me below!

The SOMMMA Strategy

These six areas make up the acronym SOMMMA.

SOMMMA is…

• Sourcing
• Operations
• Money
• Marketing
• Mindset
• Action

The six fundamentals every successful ecommerce business is built on, and your daily arenas for decisions.

The SOMMMA Strategy is the infrastructure that the Strategic Biz Marketing program is built around.

It’s these areas that we work with our program members on… Month in and month out. When you improve your decisions in these areas you can change the course of your business.

*REMINDER: Less than 24 hours remain to save up to 31% on the Strategic Biz Marketing program.

If you have a year or so of selling experience and more than ready to take your business to the next level, get the program details here.

Yours in online selling success,

-Lisa

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