I want to talk to you about your numbers, aka business finances. Now don’t roll your eyes at me because numbers are hard!

I completely admit that I was the person running my own business with my head in the sand thinking “I don’t really need to know what money is coming in and going out as long as there’s money for new tutus, to keep the lights on and to pay the wages, then everything will be fine!”.

And that was me for the first couple of years of my business! So if that’s the place you are in now—just going from week to week or month to month hoping for the best—you’re not alone. 

It wasn’t until I got a fabulous business mentor that I truly pulled my head out of the sand and into reality!

The only way to get your head around all of the numbers is to really spend some time on them.

So I’m going to give you a list of the numbers I like to make sure I’m on top of in my business. 

Start by mapping out your customer journey. 

• What do you want your customers to do from the moment of their first touch point with you through to when they finish being a customer? 

• Do you have customers that you’re only ever going to see one time, or do you have customers that you want to have for a lifetime? 

• Do you have a series of products or services that can do them for a number of years, or is it just they’re coming in for a one hit wonder? 

Make sure you’ve mapped out your customer journey and THEN make sure you know the numbers around that. 

• How many years do you need to keep your customers in order to make sure you’re hitting your targets? 

• How much money do they need to spend when they do come in with you? 

• How much does it cost to acquire a customer? 

• If you’re doing lots of marketing, make sure you are measuring how much of that marketing is working. What is coming back to you in terms of your acquisition costs?

Next, you want to know what your numbers on retention are like. 

• How many people come into your store and then come back three weeks later? 

• How many don’t come back ever again? 

And then it’s time to focus on profit.

• What is your profit now, what is it projected to be, and how you can track how that will change as you tweak different things in your business?

• What income and revenue do you need to hit to make budget? 

• What are your overheads? (The fixed expenses that are non-negotiable.)

Lastly, consider your competitors

• What’s everyone else doing in the market? In business you do need to have your  blinkers on and not waste time looking at what everyone else is doing, but you also need to know who’s out there, what they’re doing, and how you are different. This allows you to differentiate yourself in the market and make sure your community knows it!

For me, this whole process is not just about knowing the answers to these above questions. It’s about consistently looking at these questions and figuring out what the numbers mean. 

The way I do that is with financial Fridays. Every Friday I put time aside to sit down and have a look at where the numbers are. 

I’d love you to do the same. If you don’t start now, years will go by and you’ll be in the same position you are now. So get some forward momentum. Don’t hold back. Put Financial Fridays in your diary and let me know how you go. 

HINT: Your first “Financial Friday” can be as simple as contacting your accountant and asking for help!