Numbers Don’t Lie, But Are You Listening?

Conquer Your Finances in 2 Days

Last week, I led a financial planning session with a group of entrepreneurs. We spoke about the ABCs of finance, which to me include assessing, budgeting, and committing.

It’s that time of year. You should have your year-end financials around this time, and some of you will be celebrating what a great year it was, while others will be beating themselves up for how skinny or non-existent your profit margins are.

The Blame Game

Beating yourself up doesn’t change anything.

If you want change in your business, you have to change how you run it, and the first step is to get curious about why you’re in the situation you are in.

There are some years where your profits may be low for a specific reason—maybe you invested in something that ate up a chunk of your profit, or you gave yourself a bonus, or you made some poor calls. It happens to the best of us.

However, the only way you dig yourself out of a hole is to stop digging.

When it comes to numbers, they don’t lie. You need to look deeply at where you are spending your money to understand whether you have a sales, pricing, or spending issue.

Crafting Your Goals & Budgets

Once you have assessed why things are how they are, you next need to set sales goals and spending budgets.

Start by reverse engineering your profit number. What number do you want it to be at the end of this year? How much more do you need to sell, and how much less do you need to spend to get there?

Create a budget for yourself and then commit to reviewing that budget against your actuals monthly or quarterly at a minimum. By reviewing your numbers, you can take control of whatever activities you need to start or stop when it comes to marketing, selling, and spending.

Numbers are Your BFF

I love doing work like this because numbers don’t lie. They don’t have emotions, they can’t be defensive, they just are what they are.

When you approach them in a clinical manner and look for ways to change them, you can. If you continue to operate based on gut and emotion and all the feelings—I can promise you that you’ll likely be in the same spot again this time next year.

You still have time to make this year great if you choose to do the work.

Will you?

Ready to Dive In? Join the workshop!

Is this the type of workshop you’d like to participate in with me? I am craving more in-person events and I’m looking for ways to make more of them happen.

If you’re into a two-day workshop focused on knowing your numbers, email me at lisa@lisalarter.com and let me know.