If you only had one year to improve your
business, where would you start? History
already has the answer. These are the
moves that thousands of successful
businesses eventually make. Today, we're
counting down 10 business moves that
never fail. Welcome to Alux.
Number 10, raise your prices. If your
business needs to make more money, ask
your customers for more money. Shocker,
we know. Now, anyone who's ever sold
anything will know that raising prices
feels very uncomfortable. What if
customers leave? What if they get angry?
What if competitors undercut you? But
take a second and think about this. Your
favorite pub you hang out at is probably
more expensive than it was last year.
Your favorite food that you order is
probably more expensive than it was last
year. Every single paid app or product
you use is probably more expensive than
it was last year. You see, businesses
win because customers believe they're
worth the price. Now, this is how most
small business owners think pricing
works. They look at how much it costs to
make the thing, add a markup on their
costs, and that's the price. Very few
measure what customers are willing to
pay, and as a result, they spend years
delivering more value than they're
charging for. Now, obviously, this
doesn't mean you should randomly
increase prices tomorrow morning.
Hardly. Higher prices create a promise.
If you're charging more, customers
expect better service, better
communication, better reliability, and
better experience. And rightfully so.
Price and quality tend to move together.
A higher price forces your business to
improve. And here's a great exercise.
Whatever you're selling, imagine you
literally doubled the price. Now, what
would need to happen for that increase
of price to be justified? And once
you're earning more from every customer,
the next move isn't finding thousands of
new ones. It's deciding exactly which
customers you want more of. Number nine,
focus on one customer. Now, in business,
as in life, you simply cannot please
everyone. And even though more potential
customers should technically mean more
sales, in reality, the opposite happens.
And this is because when a business
tries to appeal to everyone, it usually
becomes memorable to no one. A
restaurant that becomes known as the
place for authentic Neapolitan pizza,
well, they usually outperform another
restaurant trying to serve pizza,
burgers, sushi, tacos, and pasta all
under one roof. A law firm that
specializes in helping startups often
grows faster than one promising to
handle every legal issue imaginable.
People buy products, sure, but they also
buy confidence. Specialists create
confidence because customers assume
they've solved that problem hundreds of
times before. And something else starts
happening once you narrow your focus.
Patterns begin to appear. You start
seeing the same 10 problems over and
over again. that repetition becomes an
advantage because every new customer
teaches you something that helps the
next one. The better you understand one
type of customer, the easier it becomes
to spot new opportunities. You learn
what they buy before they find you. You
notice the problems they complain about
after the sale. You discover adjacent
services they already pay somebody else
to provide. Eventually, you stop
reacting to customer needs and you start
anticipating them. Marketing becomes
easier because every advertisement
speaks to the same audience. Sales
becomes easier because you hear the same
objections every day and you know
exactly how to answer them. Hiring
becomes easier because the team learns
one type of customer instead of 10. Even
referrals improve. A business owner who
knows another startup founder
immediately knows who to recommend if
your firm has become the startup law
firm. A homeowner who loves your
landscaping company probably has
neighbors with similar homes and similar
budgets. This is why so many successful
companies begin by dominating a small
corner of the market before expanding.
Number eight, build a recurring revenue
stream. Now, predictability is one of
the most valuable assets a business can
own. Investors know it, banks know it,
business buyers know it. That's why
companies with recurring revenue sell
for much higher valuations than
businesses earning the same annual
profit through one-time sales. Future
cash flows are easier to estimate, which
makes the business less risky to own or
buy. Adobe stopped selling software once
every few years and moved to Creative
Cloud. Microsoft did the same with
Office 365. Even businesses that have
nothing to do with technology have
embraced the model. Car washes offer
unlimited monthly plans. Gyms sell
memberships. HVAC companies sell annual
maintenance contracts. Accountants move
clients onto monthly retainers. They're
all solving the same problem. They want
tomorrow's revenue to be a little more
predictable than today's. And almost
every business can do the same. A
consultant can replace one-off projects
with ongoing advisory packages. A
retailer can create a membership with
exclusive discounts. A cleaning company
can offer weekly or monthly services
instead of waiting for customers to call
again. The goal is to stop relying
entirely on finding the next customer
and start earning more from the
customers who already trust you. Because
every dollar of recurring revenue makes
tomorrow a little bit more predictable.
And businesses with a predictable
revenue have the confidence to make
bigger decisions than businesses
constantly wondering where next month's
money is going to come from. Number
seven, build distribution before
building more features. Now, here's the
reality businesses are living in today.
Products are becoming easier to copy
every year. The moment someone launches
a product people actually want,
competitors start working on their own
version. Sometimes it takes years,
sometimes it takes months, increasingly
it takes weeks. If you somehow invent a
clever kitchen gadget, a phone
accessory, or a new beauty product that
solves a real problem at a good price,
there's a good chance manufacturers
around the world are already figuring
out how to produce something remarkably
similar for less. Building something has
become cheaper than ever. Building
attention hasn't. That's why some of the
most valuable businesses in the world
spend as much time building distribution
as they do building products. Because
distribution is much harder to copy.
Nobody can duplicate 10,000 real
customers who trust your brand
overnight. Nobody can instantly recreate
an email list that actually gets opened.
Nobody can manufacture years of customer
reviews, word of mouth, or a community
that keeps coming back. Those things
have to be earned and they become more
valuable every year.
Number six, productize your service.
Every service business starts the same
way. A customer calls, you ask a few
questions, prepare a custom proposal,
negotiate the price, and then get to
work. But after your 50th client, you
realize you're solving the same handful
of problems over and over again. The
conversations sound familiar, the
process barely changes, and the outcome
is usually the same. That's when you
move from we build websites to 90-day
website launch or from marketing
services to lead generation systems. The
work behind the scenes may still be
customized, but the buying experience
isn't. That single change makes the
business dramatically easier to run.
Sales becomes easier because customers
know exactly what they're buying.
Marketing becomes easier because every
campaign promotes the same offer. Hiring
becomes easier because employees follow
an existing process instead of
reinventing a new one every week.
Number five, systemize before you hire.
If your business is disorganized with
five employees, adding five more will
actually make things worse. Successful
businesses scale systems before they
scale people. McDonald's doesn't rely on
brilliant employees. It relies on a
process that tells employees exactly
what to do. Toyota became one of the
world's most efficient manufacturers by
documenting every step of production.
People enter the system, not the other
way around. Almost every repetitive task
inside your business should eventually
become a checklist, a document, or a
process. That way, the next employee
doesn't have to learn everything from
you. They can learn it from the
business. The biggest mistake people
make is believing growth comes from
hiring more people. In reality, growth
comes from building a business where
ordinary people can consistently produce
extraordinary results. Because hiring
doesn't fix broken businesses, it
usually just scales them. And this is
something we can give you some more
insights on through our coaching inside
the Alux app. We've got collections of
lessons all about optimizing and scaling
your business, plus some more niche
topics presented by industry experts.
The whole idea is to get you to your
goals in like half the time it would
take you on your own. You can take the
app for a 7-day free trial, but once you
realize how much value is on the inside,
come back and scan this QR code to get
25% off your membership. All right, back
to business, shall we? Number four,
double down on what already works. One
of the hardest decisions in business is
accepting that your customers may have a
better business plan than you do.
Imagine you open up a bakery. Your dream
is to bake artisan bread and pastries.
You spend months perfecting recipes,
testing ingredients, and designing the
display case. Almost as an afterthought,
you buy a decent espresso machine
because people usually drink coffee with
pastries. Then something unexpected
happens. Every morning there's a line
for coffee. People grab a latte on the
way to work and leave. The pastries sell
okayish, but the coffee flies off the
shelves and makes up for like 80% of
your revenue. So, what do you do? Do you
try fixing the bakery with new recipes,
more flavors, a bigger menu, and so on?
Or do you just accept that you are now a
coffee shop? Now, giving up on the
original vision will always feel
somewhat off. But from a business
perspective, following demand instead of
ego is usually the right play. You see,
business history is full of companies
that became famous for something they
never intended to become famous for.
Nintendo began as a playing card
company. YouTube was originally designed
as a dating website where people could
upload videos introducing themselves.
Slack started as an internal
communication tool built while its
founders were trying to create an online
game. Twitter came out of a podcasting
company. At the end of the day,
customers are voting with their wallets.
Every sale is information. If one
product consistently grows faster, has
happier customers, and produces better
margins than everything else, well then
trying to get the other products to do
the same level is usually a waste of
time.
Number three, increase switching costs.
Now, every business has essentially two
choices when it comes to keeping a
growing number of customers. Spend money
replacing the ones who leave or make
leaving less attractive. The latter is
usually the easiest one. Now, this is
what businesses call switching costs,
and it means how much does a customer
have to give up by choosing someone
else. Sometimes it's money, sometimes
it's time, sometimes it's convenience,
or all three. A couple of years ago, we
tried to cancel one of our Adobe
subscriptions because we simply weren't
using that particular product anymore.
During the cancellation process, Adobe
informed us there would be an almost
$1,000 cancellation fee, which was
absolutely ridiculous. So, we ended up
calling customer support, explained that
we were already paying for several other
Adobe subscriptions, and after a bit of
back and forth, they agreed to wave the
fee, which by the way is a good reminder
that almost anything is negotiable if
you're willing to ask. But here's the
interesting part. Even after that
experience, we're still Adobe customers
today. We've been using their software
for well over a decade. Every project,
template, font, preset, and workflow is
built around their ecosystem. Could we
switch? Absolutely. But the time it
would take to relearn new software,
migrate years of files, and rebuild our
entire workflow is far more expensive
than simply staying. That is switching
cost. Every customer who leaves has to
be replaced. And replacing customers
gets more expensive every year as
advertising costs rise and competition
increases. Every customer who stays
becomes easier to serve, more likely to
buy again, and far more likely to
recommend you to somebody else.
Number two, create a premium offer.
Apple sells the iPhone, then it sells
the Pro, then it sells Pro Max. Airlines
sell economy, then premium economy, then
business class, and then first class. A
car starts at a certain price, but the
fully kitted out option is almost double
that. So why do you think that is? The
premium option exists because a small
percentage of customers are willing to
spend significantly more for a better
experience. And those customers often
generate a disproportionate share of the
company's profits. First class might
only be six to 14 seats on a long haul
airplane, while economy can hold
hundreds. Yet, the premium cabin can
produce revenue close to the economy
cabin because each seat sells for
several times more. The same aircraft
takes off, the same pilots fly it, the
same route is served. But a tiny section
at the front can change the economics of
an entire flight. You see, the premium
offer isn't there to convince everyone
to spend more. No, it's there so your
best customers can spend what they
already wanted to spend. If 100
customers buy your standard offer and
just 10 buy a premium version that's
worth 10 times as much, those 10
customers can generate as much revenue
as the other 100 combined. That's why
almost every successful business
eventually builds a premium tier. And
number one, build a business that
doesn't need you. Now, in the beginning,
doing everything yourself is a massive
advantage. Nobody knows the product
better. Nobody cares as much as you do.
And nobody can sell with the same
conviction. So, you naturally become the
best salesperson, the best customer
support, and the best product owner,
which is exactly what a tiny business
needs at this stage. You create massive
value through your own execution. And
then the business starts working, which
is both a good thing for the business
and a bad thing for you personally. You
get more customers, more orders, more
emails, more decisions to make. And
since it's faster if you do it, and
you're the best to do it anyway, you
keep doing everything. But eventually,
every important decision flows through
one person. Need a refund? Ask the
founder. Need a discount? Ask the
founder. Need an approval? Ask the
founder. Customer complaint, founder.
Hiring, founder. Marketing, founder.
Suddenly, the company isn't limited by
demand, but by the founders's calendar.
Essentially, the founder has
accidentally become the scarcest
resource inside the company, and the
business can only grow if the founder
works more hours. That's why many
experienced entrepreneurs say their goal
is to make themselves replaceable. Every
successful life is built on a handful of
decisions that keep paying you back.
Today, we covered business. Last week,
it was money. What should we tackle
next? Let us know in the comments,
Aluxer, and we'll see you back here next
time. Until then, take care.