First things first:  Profit is not a four-letter word.

Every business, no matter what size it may be, needs to turn a profit in order to stay in alive.

As an entrepreneur, you’re in business because you have a skill-set or talent that can solve someone else’s problem.

And because of that skill, you have the opportunity to create wealth for yourself by being profitable.

Naturally then, you should be doing what is necessary to accelerate the growth of your business and boost your profits.

Not sure where to start?

I put together this list of 5 things that every entrepreneur can do today to increase their profits.

#1 – Raise Your Prices And Charge What You’re Worth!

This strategy to increase your profits works incredibly well and is perhaps the easiest to implement.

Frankly, the most difficult part is having the guts to do it!

Charging what you’re worth involves changing your mind-set, and I find that this can often be more difficult than getting someone to implement a new marketing strategy.

There are plenty of entrepreneurs who have mental blocks about money and wealth that are still resonating from lessons they learned growing up.They agonize over raising their rates, and don’t feel comfortable charging clients for services that they have mastered over the years.

They agonize over raising their rates, and don’t feel comfortable charging clients for services that they have mastered over the years.

However, given the enormous investment of both time and resources that most entrepreneurs put out, it behooves them to do whatever they can to maximize their return on this investment.

As long as you play by the rules, don’t cheat, operate your business with integrity, and pay your taxes, then by all means step up to the plate, launch your business, and solve other people’s problems.

Cure their pain, and work to create a nice tidy profit for yourself.

Remember, you will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the marketplace.

So here’s the bottom line on this most important profit-boosting strategy:  The key to substantially boosting your profits is to always provide incredible value and world-class customer service, and then charge what your products or services are worth to your customers and clients.

This is how you grow your business and your bank account.

#2 – Build Trust With Your Customers

Lack of trust is probably the biggest obstacle between your company and a sale.

It’s rarely ever price.

The reason more of your customers or prospects don’t buy from you is that you haven’t done enough to build your customers’ trust in your products or services.

They might be wondering, “What if it doesn’t work?  What happens when it fails?  What if I don’t get the results I was expecting?”

Get rid of the “what if,” and you can close the deal.  It’s easy to do.  Easy?  Yup.  All you have to do is reverse the risk.

Risk reversal means that you, the business owner, assume all the risks associated with purchasing the product (or service), so it’s going to work to your customers’ satisfaction.

If they’re on the decision fence and have nothing to lose, they’re going to buy.

Let’s be clear—square one is that you must offer a high-quality product or service.  That’s a given.  It’s a no-brainer.

A super strong guarantee shows that you are supremely confident in your belief that your products and services do what you say they are going to do.

It should be paramount in whatever you sell in the first place.

So if that’s true, and if you are supremely confident, then give an ironclad guarantee.  You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain—sales and higher profits.

Your ironclad guarantee is just what your customers need to increase their trust and lose their fear of risk.

When they have nothing to fear and nothing to lose, they have no reason not to buy.

#3 – Set Yourself Apart From Your Competition

No matter what business you’re in, the last thing you want to be perceived as, is a commodity.

Why?

Because people buy commodities based on price alone, and that is the least profitable, most unrewarding arena to play in.

The name of the game to boost your profits and really grow your business is customer retention, and you’ll never score customer retention when you’re a commodity.

So how do you set yourself apart?

Figure out how you can add value to your service or product.  What do you offer (or what can you offer) that your competitors do not?

Zero in on that, and make it the focus of your message.

When you offer more value, you can increase your prices and elevate yourself above the price wars.

Your customers will be willing to pay more for greater value.

When you think in terms of how you can create more value, don’t think of how much more it is going to cost you.

I guarantee that what you spend on additional value will pay for itself on a continual basis.  It’s one of the best returns on investment you can get for your business.

Why?

Because you will go a long way to create customers for life when you add value.  Customers for life refer more and spend more.

Think of ways to set yourself apart, to make it more difficult for your customers to focus on price alone, so that your customers will come back over and over again.

#4 – Take Action

One of the entrepreneurs I coach posed a question to me once.

“Jim, how do you get so much done?  Sometimes I just feel so overwhelmed.”

My answer was pretty simple.

“It’s relentless, massive action, and constant implementation.  You just have to take action.”

Everybody’s got ideas, but what sets the successful entrepreneurs apart is action.  We all have so many things we want to implement that it can seem overwhelming at times.

Additionally, some of our ideas are so big that it’s very difficult to decide where to start.

I’m sure you’ve had that feeling yourself.  Bam!  A great idea hits you, and you start thinking about it, and then you get stuck trying to decide how to go about bringing it to fruition.

The more you think about it, the more overwhelming and confusing it seems.

You just can’t figure out where to start, so you never get started at all.

Here’s the answer: It doesn’t matter where you start.  The cure for feeling overwhelmed about your big idea, or the where your business is, is action.

Just take one step forward.

Break down your big idea, and figure out what’s one thing that you can do today, this afternoon, or in the next five minutes that gets your idea under way, no matter how big the idea is or how small your first step is.

Keep in mind that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Once you implement one, small part of even the most gigantic goal, you start to get this feeling of, “Wow. I’m really doing something. I feel good.”

Along with that comes a sense of accomplishment, and this becomes your momentum builder.

Just do it.

Take action on your idea, any action, to start moving it forward, and turning it from simply an idea into dollars in your bank account.

#5 – Work With A Coach

As entrepreneurs and small business owners, it’s vital that you have a coach or a mentor.  You need someone to guide you, someone who’s in your corner with your best interests at heart.

A good coach will push you, and sometimes you’ll hear things that challenge you and your normal way of thinking.  You will feel like you’re being pushed outside of your comfort zone.

Our typical reaction to this is to retreat to a safer environment.  It’s human nature.

Maybe we nod in agreement or try to change the subject.  Anything to get back into our safe comfort zone.

It’s the rare entrepreneur who will slap himself around.  That’s why having a coach or mentor is imperative to being successful.

You want a coach who will challenge you in addition to motivating you.  You want a coach who will really tell you like it is.

When your coach is right, he’s either nailing your particular weakness, or an area in which you’re not being bold enough.

That can certainly be painful, or at least difficult to hear.

A good coach will get in your face and call your attention to your weakness.  They’ll refocus you back to where you need to be by telling you what you need to hear.

I was very blessed early on in my business to have a mentor who challenged me and encouraged me to grow my business much larger than my original goals.

I thought I had set challenging goals.  He made me rethink them.

He showed me that I could explode them into something much bigger, and I credit him for helping me grow my business into what it is today.

No matter what the technique is, the power of a coach is that he or she can often see strengths and abilities in yourself that you don’t . . . or that you doubt.

They’ll help sell you and show you why your goals are not as big as they could be.

It’s all about accountability, and it’s more effective to be accountable to someone else than it is to yourself.  We’re all pretty good at letting ourselves off the hook.

A coach won’t do that.

Cap’t Jim’s Final Thoughts

As you see, you could substantially increase your profits with a few simple adjustments to your current operations.

Sometimes all it takes is a slightly different approach to your marketing or client-retention efforts, or perhaps a new focus on how to deliver “world-class service” to your customers, clients, and patients.

Implement these 5 strategies today to build a successful, profitable business that can provide you with freedom and financial security.

The bottom line, as I see it, is that if you’re going to start and run a business, you should make it as profitable as you can.