Where Do You Stand With Your Business?

Do you know exactly where you stand in regards to your business goals? Even if you don’t have a business, how do you measure your progress? I’ve had this interesting dialogue going on in my head the other day, … yeah, I know, I do that a lot. I’m at a stage in my business where I have to go to the next level. But WHAT IS the next level? Good question.

We all have our own goals and the level by which we advance. For you it could relate to a position in a job, for me it is measured in the income I earn. Money is a great measuring tool to find out where exactly you stand at any given time. You can look back six months and see whether your income has grown, and if not you know as well as I do that you probably have been a little complacent.

It’s not hard to become complacent – we all do it at times. When things are going just fine, why should we struggle to market our business more aggressively, or go out in search of finding new clients. I totally understand.

But as it happens, there will come a time when business is slow and you need to be prepared for those moments. It could be today, tomorrow, or next year. Fact is that we all go through cycles. Life cycles, up and down cycles, good and bad cycles. Great stuff happens to us, then whoosh, all of a sudden the $hit hits the fan and we find ourselves in a bottomless pit with no way out. At least it feels that way in those moments.

So where exactly do you stand?

• Are you on a steep incline, busting your guts to make it up the hill alive?
• Are you on a plateau on a mountain high?
• Are you going downhill, advancing faster with every step?
• Or, are you exactly where you want to be?

As it happens our goals always stretch and change. It’s a human factor. Your want the fancy car, then when you have it, you want more.

How do you measure your progress?

• Do you take stock in terms of clients?
• Do you need a certain amount of sales each day?
• Do you target an hourly rate?
• Do you measure at all?

I’ve always measured my goals by the income I earn because money is a great metric. It tells me where I currently am and by knowing where I want to be I can pretty much work out what I HAVE TO DO to get there.

After my conversation with myself the other day I sat down and put pen to paper, what came out a result is a pretty good indication to where EXACTLY I stand right now and how much it will take for me to reach my next income goal. It’s a pretty liberating exercise, let me tell you.

Here is what I did:

Target income example (please note, this is not my target): $50,000 per year: 1000 billable hours (which relates to working 20 hours a week,) the rest is taken up by non-paid admin work like email, invoicing, etc.

Resulting hourly rate = $50 /This relates to earning $1000 per week with two weeks holiday (non paid.)

Let’s say you work 4 days a week or would ultimately like to. You already know your weekly income target is $1,000. Divide this by 4 (the days you intend to work) which means your daily income goal is $250 for each of those 4 days. Do you still follow?

So what will it take for you to earn $250 a day 4 days a week? How many sales, clients…?

If on the other hand you want to work 5 days, then it would relate to earning $200 a day.  In the end, this example shows how you can measure your goals, and where you stand right at this moment in regards to them.

If you are only just starting out in business, then perhaps you like to try this with smaller numbers. It is a lot more satisfying to reach a goal faster by setting smaller ones than trying to bust your guts aiming at the big numbers right from the start.

Monika

I hope this example is going to help you reach your goals and I would love to hear from you if you’d like to share whether this post has helped you in some ways. Also, if you have other ideas to measure progress, then by all means, feel free to share them here.