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Why Most Businesses Fail to Fill Their Pipeline

If you want your business to succeed, there is one truth that overrides everything else: you must get enough profitable sales. It really is that simple. In my 31 years of working with over 10,000 small businesses, I have seen companies fail for many reasons — cash flow problems, operational issues, poor financial management. But at the root of almost every failure is the same thing: not enough sales coming through the door.

Michael Gerber captured this brilliantly in his book The E-Myth: Why Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. He identified three core departments in every business — marketing, operations, and finance. Most business owners are experts in operations. They are brilliant at what they do. But they know very little about marketing and sales, and that is where the pipeline runs dry.

Watch the Full Training

In this live session, I walk you through my complete framework for filling your pipeline — the same system I have used to help clients achieve an average of 45% growth within 12 months. Watch it now:

If you want to know more from me and you want to benefit from nearly 30 years of experience helping thousands of businesses in hundreds of industries all over the world and the time that I've spent learning from the worlds leading masters in the world of sales and marketing, the next step for you is to book a one-to-one meeting with me and you can do so by going to resultsmastery.com thanks very much for listening.

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Thanks for your interest in my podcast. For 30 years I’ve had a mission to help businesses to become more effective and I’m now using this podcast as a medium for achieving this. To find out more from me take a look at the links below.

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I've spent over 31 years as a business growth advisor, having worked with over 10,000 businesses and achieved an average growth margin of 45% within 12 months.

During this time, I've learned a lot of things, some of which worked and some of which didn't. I've selected my top five effective strategies that you need to know in 2026.

Watch this video and learn what I think is the difference between success and failure in business.

1. Lack of measurement - One of the biggest mistakes I see is a lack of measurement.
   
   I'm not talking about financial measurement, although I would say financial awareness is definitely a mistake made by 80+ percent of all small business owners. Rather, I'm talking about a lack of quantification and measurement of sales and marketing results.
   
   In this video, I discuss what you should be measuring and why you should be measuring it.
2. Testing - the three most important things in marketing and sales: testing, testing, and testing. Learn why by watching this video.
3. Better, more,
4. Better, more, new - This is one of the secrets to your success in business.
   
   The steps are:
   1. Improve your marketing by making it better
   2. Do more of it
   3. Introduce new marketing ideas
   
   You must follow this order and not do it the other way around.
5. The last of the five key areas is AI, or artificial intelligence – I'm not talking about ChatGPT. I'm talking about maximising your AI results by learning a few AI tools that really work and can make a massive difference in your business.
   
   I would estimate that 99% of small businesses that use AI are using less than 5% of the effectiveness of the individual AI resources.

Want to know more from me? Go to results-mastery.com and don't forget to subscribe to my podcast.

If you want to know more from me and you want to benefit from nearly 30 years of experience helping thousands of businesses in hundreds of industries all over the world and the time that I've spent learning from the worlds leading masters in the world of sales and marketing, the next step for you is to book a one-to-one meeting with me and you can do so by going to resultsmastery.com thanks very much for listening.

Support the show

Thanks for your interest in my podcast. For 30 years I’ve had a mission to help businesses to become more effective and I’m now using this podcast as a medium for achieving this. To find out more from me take a look at the links below.

Website

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How to Get Your Clients to Recomend You More Often

During this Podcast I am going to cover:

1. Why most referral strategies fail and why just asking doesn't work
2. The three conditions that must be in place before a client will refer you
3. How to build a referral system which runs without you having to chase it
4. The exact words to use when asking for a referral naturally and confidently
5. How to reward referrals in a way that encourages repeat behavior

Steve

If you want to know more from me and you want to benefit from nearly 30 years of experience helping thousands of businesses in hundreds of industries all over the world and the time that I've spent learning from the worlds leading masters in the world of sales and marketing, the next step for you is to book a one-to-one meeting with me and you can do so by going to resultsmastery.com thanks very much for listening.

Support the show

Thanks for your interest in my podcast. For 30 years I’ve had a mission to help businesses to become more effective and I’m now using this podcast as a medium for achieving this. To find out more from me take a look at the links below.

Website

Send us Fan Mail

Most businesses are not losing sales because they are generating the wrong leads. They are losing sales because they are giving up too soon.

Research consistently shows that it takes between eight and twelve contacts to convert a prospect into a paying client. Yet the majority of business owners and salespeople give up after just two, three, or four attempts — and then wonder why their conversion rate is so low.

In this video, Steve Mills — business growth expert with 31 years of experience and over 10,000 clients — walks you through the exact system he uses to convert more leads into sales, predictably and consistently.

If you want to know more from me and you want to benefit from nearly 30 years of experience helping thousands of businesses in hundreds of industries all over the world and the time that I've spent learning from the worlds leading masters in the world of sales and marketing, the next step for you is to book a one-to-one meeting with me and you can do so by going to resultsmastery.com thanks very much for listening.

Support the show

Thanks for your interest in my podcast. For 30 years I’ve had a mission to help businesses to become more effective and I’m now using this podcast as a medium for achieving this. To find out more from me take a look at the links below.

Website

Send us Fan Mail

Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing channel available, and here's how to systematise it so it happens consistently.

Let me ask you something: how many of your clients have referred someone to you in the past? For most business owners, the answer is somewhere between one and three. And yet, if I asked those same clients whether they would recommend you to someone, the chances are most of them would say yes.

So, why is there such a gap between the willingness to refer and actually doing so?

The answer is simple:
1. You have not asked.
2. You have not made it easy.

Most clients will refer you, but most never do. They never do until and unless you get a system for acquiring those referrals at zero cost. In this podcast, I am going to show you how.

If you want to know more from me and you want to benefit from nearly 30 years of experience helping thousands of businesses in hundreds of industries all over the world and the time that I've spent learning from the worlds leading masters in the world of sales and marketing, the next step for you is to book a one-to-one meeting with me and you can do so by going to resultsmastery.com thanks very much for listening.

Support the show

Thanks for your interest in my podcast. For 30 years I’ve had a mission to help businesses to become more effective and I’m now using this podcast as a medium for achieving this. To find out more from me take a look at the links below.

Website

Send us Fan Mail

Let me ask you a question. And I want you to answer it honestly.

If I went out onto the high street today and stopped a hundred people at random — a hundred people who are exactly the kind of person you want as a client — how many of them would know your name? How many would know your business exists?

For most business owners, the answer is somewhere between zero and two.

And that is the real problem. Not your pricing. Not your product. Not your sales technique. The problem is obscurity. Nobody knows you exist.

I have been working with business owners for over 31 years. And in that time, I have seen brilliant people with brilliant products and services fail — not because they were not good enough, but because not enough people knew about them.

Here is the thing about obscurity. It is invisible. You cannot see it. You just feel the effects of it — the quiet phone, the empty diary, the month that ends with less in the bank than you hoped.

So today I want to give you the fastest, most affordable ways to fix it.

The Obscurity Equation

There is a simple equation I use with every client I work with. It goes like this:

Visibility plus credibility equals opportunity.

Visibility means the right people know you exist. Credibility means they believe you can help them. When you have both, opportunity follows naturally.

Most business owners focus almost entirely on credibility — they perfect their website, refine their offer, get more qualifications. And then they wonder why the phone is not ringing. The reason is that nobody is seeing all that credibility. You have built a beautiful shop in the middle of a forest.

The Five Fastest Ways to Overcome Obscurity

Let me give you five things you can start doing this week.

Number one: Build your database. Your email list is the most valuable asset in your business. Not your website. Not your social media following. Your email list. Because it is the one channel you own. Start building it today. Offer something valuable in exchange for an email address — a guide, a checklist, a free training. Every name on that list is a future client.

Number two: Show up consistently on one platform. Pick one social media platform where your ideal clients spend time. LinkedIn if you work with businesses. Facebook if you work with consumers. And show up there consistently — not once a week, not when you feel like it, but every single day. Post something useful. Comment on other people's posts. Be present. Visibility is a habit, not an event.

Number three: Ask every client for a referral. This is the most underused marketing strategy in the world. You have clients who love what you do. They know other people who need what you do. But they will not refer you unless you ask. So ask. Every time. Build it into your process. I will show you exactly how to do this in Module 8.

Number four: Speak in public. I do not mean TED Talks. I mean local business groups, networking events, webinars, podcasts. When you speak, you demonstrate expertise instantly. You become known. One speaking engagement can generate more leads than six months of social media posts.

Number five: Write content that solves problems. A blog post, a LinkedIn article, a short video. When you publish content that answers the questions your ideal clients are already asking, you become findable. Google finds you. People share you. And you build credibility at scale without being in the room.

If you want to know more from me and you want to benefit from nearly 30 years of experience helping thousands of businesses in hundreds of industries all over the world and the time that I've spent learning from the worlds leading masters in the world of sales and marketing, the next step for you is to book a one-to-one meeting with me and you can do so by going to resultsmastery.com thanks very much for listening.

Support the show

Thanks for your interest in my podcast. For 30 years I’ve had a mission to help businesses to become more effective and I’m now using this podcast as a medium for achieving this. To find out more from me take a look at the links below.

Website

Send us Fan Mail

My name is Steve Mills and I want to share with you some tried, tested and proven ways to grow your business.

I don't have all the answers, but I do have some profound questions and some really powerful answers to many important sales, marketing and business growth questions.

These answers I have gleaned over the past 31 years by learning my craft from many of the world's leading experts in sales, marketing and business development.

In this video, I want to get you to take your business seriously. This session was recorded live by Steve Mills on YouTube and The Results Mastery Podcast.

The episode presents a focus on “getting serious” about business growth.

Let me tell you about something that happened to me this morning.

I had arranged a free training session on AI and WhatsApp automation for 18 of my clients. These are business owners who have invested in their own development. They knew the session was happening. They had it in their diaries. And yet, when the time came, only three of them showed up.

Fifteen no-shows. For a free session. On one of the most important topics in business right now.

I am not sharing this to embarrass anyone. I am sharing it because it perfectly illustrates the single biggest problem I see in small business today: a profound lack of seriousness.

The Difference Between an Amateur and a Professional

I played international table tennis for ten years. At that level, you quickly learn the difference between someone who plays and someone who is serious. The amateur turns up when it is convenient. The professional turns up when it is not. The amateur practises when they feel like it. The professional practises when they do not. The amateur makes excuses. The professional makes progress.

Business is no different.

The business owners who grow — consistently, measurably, predictably — are the ones who treat their growth like a professional discipline, not a hobby they pick up and put down depending on how busy they are that week.

The ones who struggle are the ones who attend free training only when nothing else comes up, who say they want to grow but will not invest an hour to learn how, who talk about change but never quite get around to implementing it.

There has never been a more important time to get serious than right now.

Quote "AI is not going to take your business, but somebody who knows how to use it effectively just might".

https://results-mastery.com/events/ai-mastery-summit

If you want to know more from me and you want to benefit from nearly 30 years of experience helping thousands of businesses in hundreds of industries all over the world and the time that I've spent learning from the worlds leading masters in the world of sales and marketing, the next step for you is to book a one-to-one meeting with me and you can do so by going to resultsmastery.com thanks very much for listening.

Support the show

Thanks for your interest in my podcast. For 30 years I’ve had a mission to help businesses to become more effective and I’m now using this podcast as a medium for achieving this. To find out more from me take a look at the links below.

Website

Send us Fan Mail

I've got something a little bit different for you today. Rather than my usual sales, marketing, and business growth videos, in this one I'm interviewing a good friend of mine and thoroughly nice guy with loads of knowledge and experience in his industry. His name is Joseph Mayanja.

Joseph says he's in the protection industry, but just to clarify, he's not a bouncer or running a protection racket; rather, he sells insurance. He is an expert who provides great advice to the small and medium-sized businesses and their business owners.

In this interview, he shares his thoughts regarding the mistakes that a lot of business owners make (particularly small business owners with limited budgets). He explains how they can end up in a really difficult situation when something goes wrong because they don't have the critical insurances in place.

I hope you enjoy the video, and any feedback is very welcome.

If you want to know more from me and you want to benefit from nearly 30 years of experience helping thousands of businesses in hundreds of industries all over the world and the time that I've spent learning from the worlds leading masters in the world of sales and marketing, the next step for you is to book a one-to-one meeting with me and you can do so by going to resultsmastery.com thanks very much for listening.

Support the show

Thanks for your interest in my podcast. For 30 years I’ve had a mission to help businesses to become more effective and I’m now using this podcast as a medium for achieving this. To find out more from me take a look at the links below.

Website