“Nobody knows their numbers,” I said to my wife after, yet another, coaching session with a creative entrepreneur. Truly, I’m amazed at how many entrepreneurs (not just creatives) there are out there who have no clue of the data of their business. Truth be told, I didn’t have a very good handle on my business data until a couple years into growing my agency, so I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on people.
Before I go any further, here is your big takeaway from this message. YOU NEED TO TRACK AND ANALYZE YOUR BUSINESS DATA. ALL. THE. TIME. Running a profitable business is one of your primary, and most important, responsibilities as an entrepreneur.
Years ago, during a moment of slumping revenue at my agency, I took a good hard look at my sales conversion, revenue numbers and started to connect the dots between the two. I discovered that if I knew the following numbers, I could predict, with a fair bit of accuracy, the future revenue of my business. Here are the numbers you need to know…
- What is your average price per project?
- What is your win rate percentage?
- How much revenue do you want to generate each year?
At my agency, these three data points allowed me to estimate…
- The number of projects I had to win each year?
- The number of project opportunities I needed to have each year?
And once I new the annual numbers, I could track my sales performance on a monthly basis and predict the future revenue of my business. Imagine knowing in January the amount of money you will probably bill in March and April. Well, that is exactly what happens when you connect these data points! It is like having a crystal ball for your business!
Ok, I could go on and on about this in writing, but it is better if I just explain it to you in person. Last week I posted a new YouTube video that goes into deep detail about how to understand these data points and plan the future revenue of your business. Check it out…
How to Bill $100k as a Freelancer
This video breaks down how to understand the numbers I mentioned to empower you to plan and predict the future revenue of your business. I decided use an annual revenue goal of $100k because that seems like a milestone that many creatives are trying to hit. For those of you who haven’t yet hit that goal, let me tell you a couple things…
- It is totally feasible for you to do it from anywhere in the world (as long as you have access to the global marketplace).
- There are creatives out there, with a lot less talent than you, generating more than $100k per year in revenue. (I don’t say this to discourage you in anyway. On the contrary, if they can do it, so can you! Believe it.)
Anyway, here is the video to walk you through the numbers and help you set (and achieve) some bigger goals for your creative business.
