Business Fails: Ross McDaniel Shares What He Wish He Knew
Business Fails: Ross McDaniel Shares What He Wish He Knew
How can business owners scale lead generation beyond referrals?
One of the key things about our local growth formula—and how we work with our clients—is that we’re constantly refining it for ourselves as well. The local growth formula empowers businesses to move beyond relying solely on referrals for their sales pipeline. Referrals are great—they’re still the king and the most cost-effective way to get new business—but you can’t scale solely on referrals.
Our goal with this formula is to develop a consistent pipeline of both inbound and outbound leads that goes beyond the referral network. It's about building systems that allow for scalable, sustainable growth.
Why must business owners define their target audience before scaling sales?
Our discovery calls kept decreasing in quality because we weren’t clear on our target audience. We were just focused on volume, and we weren’t practicing what we preached. As a result, we wasted a lot of time and money. We might revisit it again, but entering into a new sales approach can be challenging because you're constantly trying to figure out what works.
How can systematizing and documenting processes improve business efficiency?
One of the best decisions was systematizing everything we do. Everything in a business has a system, but what matters is whether it's standardized. To standardize, you need to write it down, even if it's just on a piece of paper. That was the most impactful step we took—standardizing everything. While there are always some variances, especially in specific situations, when those variances become consistent, we document them too. This decision has had the biggest impact on our operations.
How can business owners eliminate unnecessary tasks for better efficiency?
In the process of writing things down, you realize how much unnecessary work exists in your business. Some tasks are unnecessary because the business owner shouldn't be doing them. Others are unnecessary because they bring no value to the client. A big realization for me was identifying tasks I hated doing that offered no value to the client—those were easy to eliminate.
*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.*
