How do you measure what matters in your business without getting stuck in analysis paralysis mode?

Do you start the year by looking at what you would like to generate in income and then break it down into small chunks so you can figure out how to get there?

For example, if you wanted to do 100K in sales, you can either close your eyes and pray that you get there… or you can break it down and figure out how to do $2,000 a week or $400 a day.

When you break something big down into a smaller chunk, it becomes easier because your mind can think of ways to accomplish smaller goals.  Right away when you read $400 you were already thinking of ways weren’t you?

[pullquote_left]What about the size of your network or list?  If you did $50K when your reach was about 1000 people, then if you double your reach size, the logic is your sales should double too right?   [/pullquote_left]

You can also look at all your social media numbers the same way – they give you feedback with respect to the size of my platform. If they are increasing each month, what you are doing is working. If they are not increasing, then you are not reaching a larger audience.

You can also do this with your website by taking a look at how much traffic you have.  Is it going up or down and what do you need to do to impact this number.  If you blog twice a week instead of once, does your list grow, does traffic increase?

There is a term called “moving the needle” and everything you do should be about moving the needle in all of your metrics.  If you do 10K in sales one month, you want to do that plus a bit more the next month. This is simple business planning that you need to do because you cannot build wealth if you do not get comfortable with numbers.  If you want to learn more about how to do this, the Pilot Project is a great place to start.

You also have to look at the breakdown of your sales.  Sometimes you may have a huge spike in sales because of something you did.  For example, in my business,  if I speak to an audience of about 300 people, usually I can generate close to 30K in sales. It is important to know what this number is if you want to use that data to help you move the needle.   Knowing this, if you were a speaker and were able to do the same, and you wanted to do 100K in sales, you would want to find at least 3 big audiences that you could speak to each year because these exceptions would help you fast track your revenues.

You can be really intelligent about how you move the needle if you take time to look at your number and understand them. This is critical when it comes to sales because it is how you learn to sell more and recognize what works and what doesn’t work.

If you can generate 30K when you speak, but you only generate 3K when I do a webinar what should you focus on more?

That depends on you.  If you don’t want to travel, then you need to focus on getting better at webinar sales, and getting more people to show up, or doing more of them so you can move the needle.

But here is the big message – if you do not look at your numbers and pay attention to what happens in your business you will never be able to predict or forecast where you are going and because of that, your business will always struggle.

You will be running a business on autopilot and your success or failure will be by accident.

How do you feel about that?

There is tremendous power and confidence in understanding your numbers, income, expenses, and in having grip on cash flow so you can design your business and your life a certain way.   These measurements are key to your ability to generate wealth, more free time and financial independence.

That’s what the Pilot Project is all about.  Is your business ready for a pilot progam to change things up?