What is Working? What is Making Money? What is Not!

Running a business is such a multifaceted function. It is hard, it is rewarding, it is worth doing well. There are many reasons to figure out what is working. For example, business success can be achieved but you must figure out what is working. What is making money. What is not!

In order to run your business well and be profitable a regular review of all areas of your business is needed. Things to review are:

• Products
• Processes
• Finances
• Partnerships/Affiliate Associates
• Marketing
• Traffic Sources
• Customer Base

Tracking what is working is the easiest way to determine how to make your business more profitable.  Set up a spreadsheet with the sheets as noted above and enter all of the information in your business that pertains to these topics. Here is a free spreadsheet template if you would like to use it.

Of these pieces and parts, what is profitable? In other words, where is the profit in your business coming from? What traffic is the most profitable for your business?

Digging into this information and figuring out your ROI (Return on Investment) is essential for a healthy bottom line. Conducting this type of review on a quarterly basis is crucial. Some of these areas may benefit from closer scrutiny on a monthly basis. Either way, you will not be sorry you spent the time digging in and taking corrective action.

Products

Now, enter the date of when each item was implemented into your business. In the next columns list the months of the year. Then, in each column record the income that was brought in by that specific product. Set up columns for quarterly income and annual income so that you can see your revenue at a glance whenever you choose to.

On your spreadsheet, list out all the products you create/sell/give away, coaching that you do, digital offerings, or physical offerings. List anything and everything that brings money into your business.

The next thing is to figure out what the cost is to create and market the product/coaching service. Enter this number into your spreadsheet on the same row as the product but in the column after the year-to-date revenue column. Calculate the net profit for each product by subtracting the cost to produce and market each product from the income for each product in the column after the cost column. Do this for all products or coaching services offered.

Once you have all this information you will know which products or services that you need to revamp or increase production on can help you ensure business success.

Each product may include a series of processes to get the product to its final form. A regular review of each process will give you insight into where you can perhaps automate, delegate or outsource.

Processes

As your business grows you may find that processes that you were able to manage personally before are no longer manageable for you. This may mean that you find a way to automate creating your product – perhaps using a standard template for similar products. It also may mean that you delegate the process of product creation to an employee if you have an employee or you outsource the process.

This switch will be decided as you figure out whether the cost for you to continue to hold on to the process – does it cost more for you to do it yourself or is it more feasible to let someone else do it whose cost isn’t quite as high as your hourly rate.

Finances

Some items would include software purchases, course purchases, mastermind subscriptions, credit card fees, the percentage of the mortgage, electrical, heating, cooling, mileage, etc. This list is very limited here and your list will be very customized to your particular business. Business success will benefit from you inquiring about this information to a tax accountant or bookkeeper would be very advisable as tax laws vary by state/country.

Once you have all of your costs listed out you can begin to look for places to perhaps cut costs. For example, if you have a subscription for PowerPoint to create planners, journals, etc., it may be more financially prudent to look into purchasing a software program such as Affinity Publisher (I have no affiliate relationship with Affinity, I just love their products) for a one-time price rather than a month fee.

Partnerships/Affiliate Associations

If you have collaborations with others either in a partnership on a product or as an affiliate association, it is surely advisable to review them as well on a regular basis. Sometimes it is difficult to separate your business profitability from your loyalty to someone who you have worked with over a period of time.

In fact if you look at your bottom line regarding these relationships, you may find that they are indeed healthy and worth maintaining. However, it also may prove to not be profitable, and you will have to make a decision whether you continue on with the relationship or not. Your business success may depend on this decision.

Marketing

In business, success will be influenced by your marketing. What is your strategy? Do you have one? Is it working for you? Therefore, in order to get your products and services in front of your customers, marketing is necessary.

If you have a strategy, write it all out. How much does the strategy cost you? How much income does this strategy bring in for you?

If your marketing cost outweighs your income from those marketing efforts, it may be time to rethink your strategy. It could be a little bit complicated to find the actual income number due to the way that marketing strategies bring in buyers. You could set up a landing page for each product that you sell and have buyers tracked through your shop.

If you do not have a marketing strategy, it may be time to set one up. Of course, setting up the strategy and listing the cost for that strategy is the first step, then tracking the income from that strategy is next. Reviewing the net income for the strategy is a continual necessity in doing business.

Traffic

You have Google Analytics set up on your website, right? You have analytics for your Facebook Ads, Pinterest your affiliates, right?

Well, if you don’t, it is time to get those set up for all of your traffic sources. Knowing this information is critical to know where your most profitable traffic is coming from? These analytics will also tell you how they found you, what interests them at your site and what product funnel they flow through to become a profitable customer. Traffic profits are essential to business success.

Having the knowledge of where your most profitable traffic come from you can start to think outside the box about how to tap into that traffic more or find something similar to tap into.

Customer Base

Are your customers people that can’t get enough of your products? Do they sing your praises in their groups and circles of influence? These are the customers and prospects that you want to build on.

Where did these customers come from? Did they get on your list from a give away collaboration, a freebie from your blog, or a paid ad somewhere?

Your autoresponder or landing pages can give you this information. If you compare the customer data from your subscriber lists with your customer list, you will get a great sense of where your customers came from and how to glean more customers in the future.

Learning from your customers and subscribers is a great way to know which of your products are profitable. By knowing this information you know which to can expand on and which aren’t really of interest to them. Ask them. They are the ones you want to have more insight into. Email, Facebook groups, Instagram or Twitter are a great way to connect to prospective customers and learn about them.

The end goal is for you to know which of your demographic is the most profitable.  Then, how to put yourself in front of more of these people.

Your ultimate objective here is to track and tweak all of your business units to improve your bottom line. When you use all of this information, you may find you are more profitable this month than you were last month,

Keep tracking, tweaking and improving your bottom line. Finally, make it a goal to get more profitable this month than you were last month. Growing your business and your bottom line is the whole purpose you are in business. It is imperative to your business success.