Hey
there
owners who
earn
If you consider pausing or stopping trading time for money to work ON the business instead of IN the business,
does it feel like death?
The revenue will tank ↯. Scarcity will arrive.
Naturally, we go back to earning and keep the business management and development stuff on the backburner.
If you are reading this and you are essential to making money in your small business, but are unsure of how to fit in managing your business as well, this next bit is for you.
Knowing your numbers is not a skill taught to most entrepreneurs.
You’ve got a real sense of how to earn money with your skills and talents, that’s for sure, BUT, if you didn’t just get into business to buy yourself a job, becoming your own business manager is the ticket.
I have felt trapped in my business before for this very reason -
I felt like I couldn’t stop earning and contributing in order to build something out, or get intimate with my actual business performance. No time to look back. Keep working.
The trouble is, I also didn’t look up or ahead.
And I have the education and know-how to calculate my business position to boot.
Earning kept me focused on marketing and securing contracts.
What I needed was to awaken the business manager in me and focus on making a solid financial plan that would help me escape this trap.
It’s also what my most successful business development clients did. They came to me to determine that plan, make it real and learn to monitor and track for performance.
Business #
-
We developed a budget, sales targets, and staffing plan that would pay her all year and 60-days leave built right into the business model.
Business #
-
We built a road map of rules and limits to help everything stay on track without her needing to be asked each time spending was needed. Together, we built a budget and developed policies for how that budget is spent, including procedures and forms to support monitoring and compliance of that policy.
Business #
-
We had to determine the break-even point with her ideal income at the TOP, ensuring the prioritization of her feeling sufficient and fed by her efforts, literally. We then calculated margins, price-points and sales targets to reach that break even point. Add some creative marketing ideas and now she’s PAID and taking weekends OFF.
Business #
-
We had to figure out the rate to charge practitioners and the number of appointments each would need to book to break even and ensure the owner got paid and reserves we created for turnover and investment in brand growth.
M
oney
etrics
is a series of workshops for entrepreneurs in smaller communities who want to know their numbers and what numbers to watch in order to get what they what out of their business.
I teach first about overhead budgeting - making sure you know what it takes to keep the “lights on” each month and each year in your business.
This process leads us to determine one key metric - the breakeven point. (BEP)
The BEP is the amount of sales you need to bring in each week, month, or year, to be able to pay all your bills and make an income.
→If you are a service business
we learn how to position your services for the best sales outcome.
→If you are a product business
we learn how much each product contributes to the breakeven point and find the sweet spot of what to sell to maximize the return from your sales. Pricing and supplier controls are all a part of this process, too.
The last step is to learn what sales targets need to be reached in the products and/or services you sell in order to reach the breakeven point.
I also teach owners how to track and monitor their progress over time on their own, as their newest Business Manager on the team.
If you are ready to grow,
we then adjust to a growth model so that you can build up the reserves you need to reinvest and forecast the budgetary changes needed to afford the expansion.
If you are ready to sell,
we create the maximum profitability map so that you can capitalize on the sale as much as possible.
The clients I have helped with this are in one of three stages of business and are all owners who earn:
They are a small business with only themselves or 1-2 others helping out, and they are not paying themselves or not enough.
They are a small business with 3-10 staff members and they can’t seem to stop overworking each week.
They are a small business with more than 10 staff who can detect growth potential but are unsure how to expand while managing risk and the planning needed to do it.
I have helped them in five ways when considering which phase they are in:
Many of these steps are progressive in nature, making more than one needed to reach #3, #4 and #5
Develop the money metrics to get themselves paid, or paid well, and the marketing/sales plan to get there.
Analyze the way they earn and spend, taking a look at who they have on staff and suppliers, helping to balance expenses and revenues in efficient ways for maximizing profit and/or community impact.
Provide policies and team training to help staff groups take on more accountability to business management with the trust and monitoring in place to bring confidence about business decisions to the owner while they earn.
Help them obtain funding for their growth plan established from banks, government business lending agencies and investors.
Help them sell their business in the ideal state for a full exit.
