5 Numbers Every Business Owner Must Know

Business owners - what are the 5 essential numbers to grow your business?  

Watch YouTube Video

1. What’s the value of your time?  This number gives you perspective on how and where to apply your talents.  It helps prioritize your tasks.  Will this task make you money or avoid losing money - how much?  Without this this number you feel at odds constantly trying to do everything and failing to be productive.
2. When do you break-even?  Knowing when your revenues exceed the fixed and variable costs gives you confidence you make a profit for your efforts.  Without it you don’t know whether you’re winning or losing.  You don’t know the score.  You feel anxious and hesitant on strategy because you don’t know where you stand financially.
3. What’s the acquisition cost of your customers?  What are you spending in marketing, sales and customer experience to attract and retain them.  Are you receiving a return on investment?  Without this number you don’t have a basis to decide how and where to apply your resources.  You feel perplexed and must guess on marketing and sales strategies.
4. What is your customer lifetime value?  When you add up what your customer buys year-over-year plus their referrals, what value does it provide the business?  With this number you’ll appreciate your customers more.  Without this number you’ll miss apply your time with low quality customers vs focusing on retaining your loyal raving fans.
5. Finally, what is the value of your business?  What if you transitioned out of the business today, tomorrow or in 3 years what value do you need it to be?  What are the leveragable variables impacting the value?  How do you best show sustainable increasing discretionary cashflow?  Avoid feeling disappointed when this pinnacle event occurs.    

Knowing these 5 numbers is important.  Knowing the direction and rate of change is equally important over time.

If you’re uncertain about what your numbers are and their trends then let’s talk.  We’ll discuss how to calculate these numbers and how to move them in the right direction.  This is a complementary session and you're guaranteed to leave with at least a half dozen implementable ideas to improve these numbers.

Call me at ph:  972 709 6776 or eMail:  StephenMarino@ActionCOACH.com

Let’s get started...know these numbers and we'll grow your business!

How to Determine Pay Mix for Sales Force - Commission vs Salary…

Which variable in your compensation package incentivizes your sales force to deliver the results desired - more clients, higher revenues and gross profits?  The consensus from sales teams globally is that it varies based on whether the salesman must find new customers or delight existing customers or both.  Since it takes at least six times more effort and expense to attract new business than it does to sell to your existing customers, the risk reward relationship favors compensation with a higher commission rate when they must seek new customers.  Here the commission rate range may vary between 50 to 70%.  For those sales consummated with existing customers, the salary percentage goes up and the commission rates goes down.  The salary rate may vary between 50 to 70%.

Of course this is only part of the sales compensation formula with further blogs coming.  If you're seeking to make your sales team perform better then let's have a discussion.  This is what ActionCOACH - Business Coaches do - accelerate your growth.

Call me at ph:  972 709 6776 or email:  StephenMarino@ActionCOACH.com

The 4 Business Principles as Powerful and Certain as Gravity...

The business-of-business has 4 timeless principles as powerful and certain as gravity.  Master them and you'll find successful, Ignore them and you'll perish.  It's that straightforward.  They work regardless of industry, size, intentions, geography, culture, economy, hard work, friendships, beliefs or intelligence.

1.   Money - what are the cash flow characteristics of the business, what is the cash gap between expenses and revenues and when and how do you break-even and make a profit?  

2.  Productivity - how effective and efficient are your systems and team delivering your products and services?  

3.  Delivery - how consistent is the business delivering your products and services on time, to spec and on budget after a sale is made? 

4.  Purpose - does the direction of the business and who it serves fulfill the vision, mission and values of the owner?

The good news is just like gravity we know how to master them.  If you are seeking faster ways to master these principles, then let's talk.

Call me at ph:  972 709 6776 or em:  StephenMarino@ActionCOACH.com

Let's get started giving you back control of your business, so you can earn more and work less... 

How to Measure Whether You are Busy vs. Productive...

There's not a business owner, operations manager, marketing or sales manager that doesn't tell me they are busy.  But the business-of-business is not busy-ness, it's productivity.  A better question is how productive are you?  And if the answer given is vague and not specific meaningful and valuable then how are you going to improve?

Here's a table of specific activities that count as productive depending upon your role.  How do you measure up?

Role		Productive Activities
Business Owner	Generating Revenue	Reducing Expenses	Improving the Team
Operations Manager	Producing and delivering products and services on time, to specification and on budget every time	Reducing Expenses	Seeking ways to systematize the routine and humanizing the exception
Marketing & Sales Managers	New customers:   Attracting, presenting and following up...	Existing Customers:  Increasing average dollar sale and number of transactions.  Increasing lifetime value of customer	Reduce the acquisition cost of a customer
Administration, Finance & Logistics	Delivering all back-office actions within budget, specifications and on-time every time	Systematizing the routine and humanizing the exception	Reducing overhead expense
Everyone	Create a customer experience such that they become Raving Fans

If you and your team are having questions about busy vs productive, then let's have a conversation.  This is one of the things ActionCOACH Business Coach's do  - improve productivity.  Call me at ph:  972 709 6776 em:  StephenMarino@ActionCOACH.com