Knowing The Numbers is Like Turning on A Light in Your Business

When I was working for a start-up telecommunications company, we didn’t have any reporting setup in order to see what was happening in the business.

My boss came up to me one day and told me that I needed to set up reporting on everything we were doing. The moment is clear in my mind because it brought up two very different emotions for me: Excitement and intimidation.

The idea of getting regular reporting left me suddenly feeling exposed. What if I create reports & they say my work isn’t good enough?

When it comes to putting together the reports in your business you probably feel the same way, worried that once you see the results, the work just may not be good enough.

Are you too afraid to look over your numbers in your business? Your intuition is telling you that you won’t be happy with the results and you don’t want to go near the reports.

You may believe that you are not the business person you should be because you don’t understand how to interpret the numbers in your business.

I’ve worked with hundreds of business owners and the startling trend is that it’s the norm for business owners to avoid the numbers! It’s as if facing them would be a nightmare.

The numbers of your business should be easily at your fingertips.

Can you answer the following questions without hesitation?

• How much did your business do in sales last year?
• How are you doing compared to last year’s year to date sales?
• Your sales last month, were they up or down over the previous month?
• What’s your gross profit?
• What’s your net profit?
• What are your fixed monthly costs?
• How much, minimum, do you need to make just to break even?

If the questions above make you feel a bit squeamish, you’re not alone. This is the norm, not the exception.

Most people have never been taught how to track or interpret the numbers in their business. They are operating their business with a financial blindfold on.

You’ve heard the shocking statistics:

Most businesses fail within the first 5 years. Less than 5% of women earn over 100K a year and even less again over 1M.

This happens when you’re not immersed in the metrics when it comes to measuring success in your business.

A simple example is with social media. How can you measure the success of your efforts in social media marketing if you don’t know where you stand right now with your social media numbers?

When you learn to measure what matters in your business, you take back control. The next step becomes clear and obvious to you. The lights get turned on and you can clearly see what your reality is currently and the path to changing it.