How Many Pillars Has Your Business?

When I say ‘pillars’ what I mean is, the number of different ways you have in your business of either bringing in new customers or getting previous customers to come back and buy from you again.

When you have lots of pillars, the roof (i.e. your revenue) is very, very secure. Even if one pillar falls down or crumbles, the roof doesn’t move – that’s why the Parthenon has remained standing for thousands of years – it had a lot of pillars.

However, if your roof is supported by only one or two or even three pillars then if anything happens to one of them, your revenue can tumble and your business will face dire issues. That’s why you need lots of pillars.

The most common theme when I do my 1:1′s with members of the Entrepreneur’s Circle is none of them have anything like enough pillars. As business owners they’re currently dependent on just a couple of ways of getting customers.

The good news is – it’s an easy fix. Building new pillars requires work and effort and thought but there’s nothing inherently difficult or complex about it.

Having plenty of pillars to support your marketing is especially smart when times are changing fast – like now. Things that worked historically start to wane, new opportunities emerge. The businesses with lots of pillars are the ones best equipped to thrive in situations like that…which is why this is so important.

I think it’s quite funny when people tell me that they’re just getting into email marketing, for instance. Now don’t get me wrong, email marketing can be hugely effective in most businesses and I absolutely recommend it as one of your pillars – preferably at least weekly and with every email part of a bigger campaign. But my wry chuckle is because email marketing is past its peak. It’s dying as a marketing medium.

The youth of today don’t have email accounts (other than to verify their logins for their social media profiles). they communicate via social media. It’s my prediction that by 2022 email marketing will be a niche medium used only to communicate with the over 50′s. See what I mean? (Yes it’s still an important pillar today – but you’d better have other pillars in place as well to provide ‘support’ when that one starts to crumble.

Broadly speaking, what I’m saying here, is that to be super-successful, you need to be well into double figures on your pillar count.

Anything less and you’re almost certainly leaving money on the table and placing your revenue in a less than stable position. Get building!

Nigel Botterill

Entrepreneurs Circle

http://nigelbotterill.com