If you have a Business, then you need to be Doing This!

I can’t tell you how many times I come across business owners who want to grow their sales, yet they have no idea of the financial health of their business. They don’t even track their sales or have targets/goals they want to reach for the year.

This is something that was shocking to me, because in my corporate days when I managed over 300 million-dollar categories, I had to be accountable for the numbers. I could tell you how much our weekly sales were for the different categories, plus if sales were up and down, I knew why AND had a plan in place to overcome sales decline.

Yes, I got paid to do this, but as entrepreneurs it’s critical we treat our business the same way. You need to know your average monthly sales, your break-even number, your sales target, and your growth. I track my sales weekly to ensure that I’m on track to make my monthly goal.

If you have no idea where to start to set up a sales target for yourself, start with this:

•  Take the total amount you want to make in the year
• Divide it by 12 (12 months in the year)
• Once you get your monthly numbers, take into account possible seasonality in your business. If you need to reduce the amount in some months, make sure you increase it in another month, so the 12 months adds up to your yearly sales identified.
• Then take your sales target for each month and divide that number by the number of weeks in the month. Do this for each month of the year, so get your weekly sales for each month.

And there you have it; you have your weekly sales target. Look at this number weekly and check if you’ve hit those numbers. If not, what can you do the following week to make up for the shortfall?

Also, look at your monthly sales goals and identify how many units (can be physical goods or services) you need, in order to hit this number. Maybe that number puts you over capacity and that means your ability to scale is limited. Maybe there’s an opportunity to add other sources of income to your business.

You might want to consider doing a workshop (in person or online) to drive more sales. When you look at what’s needed to hit your sales target, it helps you be more proactive to grow your sales.

This is how you should be looking at your business. Many people are just practitioner in their business and if you want to increase sales and make the kind of money and impact you want, it’s time to throw on your ownership hat and gain control of your business.

This is all about awareness. The more aware you are in your business and know your numbers, you’re then able to be pro-active and find ways to minimize loss and drive more sales.