Oh the New Year. It’s full of excitement and “what ifs” as we try to figure out what our ideal year looks like and how this is the year everything is going to finally happen in our biz and our life. If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent the last 2 weeks reading articles on the *best* way to set your goals and resolutions for success. You’ve read up on habit creation, you’ve mapped out your oh so perfect day and week, you’ve decided which things you’re trying to say no and yes to for the next 350 days.

And you’ve probably messed up already.

No? Am I the only one who actually hasn’t even worked out once yet? Oops.

While my fitness goals may not be quite on a roll just yet, one thing I am 100% certain will happen this year is that my business will be turning a profit, from day #1 through #365. So dive on in to my top 6 steps to make sure your business does the same.

 

  1. Take stock of what your business currently looks like

I know, you want to get on with the exciting dream setting and goal making already. However, history always repeats itself. So take a dive into 2017 and what you currently have on your plate. What does your client roster look like? How many sales did you do last year? Did you turn a profit last year as well? I sure hope so! By taking a look at what’s already on your plate, you can know how much more you need to add to hit the new goals. This is your starting point A.

It also gives you a chance to adjust what’s already there. Are all of your clients paying you enough? Are there other services or products they aren’t taking advantage of, which they should be? Your best new clients are the ones who have already purchased from you! So now you have other ideas of how to increase revenues by better serving your clients. Reach out to them and have a “beginning of the year touch base” to see how you can help them more. Oh, and don’t forget to ask for a referral for all the *amazing* skills you’ve shared with them in the last year!

Look at that, mo’ money is already on your way.

 

  1. Choose how much profit you want to take this year

Fun fact about being your own boss – if you want to take a profit, you get to decide that on your own. After reading the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz, I realized that I don’t have to just take the amount of profit that’s magically leftover after I’ve paid my expenses. Fun fact #2, you WILL spend as much money as you have. That’s just the law of expansion. So if you decide and take your profit first (see what I did there?) you’ll be guaranteed not to spend it on other things and then BOOM. You’ve turned a profit this year. So look at last year and pick a profit number and percentage that’s bigger than whatever that number was.

 

  1. Figure out how many new clients or sales you need to make your dream revenue number

Since we already know what’s in our hands based on step 1, and then we know how much we want to have from step 2, the next step is to figure out what’s in between. If you currently have 5 clients and you know you want to make 3x as much money, okay so 15 clients would probably be rad.

While you’re in this step, also be thinking about other changes you could make. Can you raise your prices? Can you offer a new higher value package? Maybe if you’re able to make more per service, you can take on 10 clients instead of 15 *yay time freedom*.

Make a map, use the chalkboard method, whatever works best for you to really visualize and put out into the universe what it is you’re going to act on to get you to this number.

 

  1. Break it down now *insert beat box noises*

Personally, I like to break down my goals into Quarterly goals. I think a quarter is long enough for massive action and changes to take place, but it’s short enough that every single day has to count or I won’t be able to hit those goals. Up to you on your preferred timeline though. But either way, a whole year is way too long, so we break it down. If you’ve never really known how to break this down, I’ll give you an example (or you can give me a call and we can do this together!)

Let’s say I currently have about $10,000 in revenue with my current client roster (step 1). I want to turn a profit of 15% this year and have that 15% be $5,000 (step 2). That means, I need bring in about $33,500 in total revenue this year. So, to be on the safe side, I would set myself at about $25k in additional clients for the year. That makes for about $9,000 total per quarter, which is $6,500 extra than what I have now. Break that down even further, I’m only shooting for about $2,200 extra per month. Way more attainable than a giant $33k number, right?

 

  1. The fun part!

The question now becomes – what do I need to do (sales, new clients, new services) to bring in an additional $6,500 per quarter? This is the fun part!

Get creative. Think so far outside of the box that it breaks. Keep a running list of ideas. Talk to people in your industry to see what they’re doing.

Right now, I challenge you to write 3 new ideas on how to increase your revenue per day, for the next 10 days. Good, bad, indifferent, out of those 30 new ideas, at least 2 of them have to be actionable. Then there you go, you now have the next plan.

 

  1. Do the work

In the wise words of one of my all-time favorite podcasts, Being Boss, Kathleen and Shannon always say “Do The Work”

At the end of the day, you can plan and strategize and vision board till you’re blue in the face. However, none of that is going to bring you money (unless you professionally vision board for other people. Hell yea, there’s an idea for your list)

Really though, none of these other steps matters if you don’t get up and do the work. Fun fact #3 – the work is going to be hard. Some days you’re gonna feel like you’re spinning your wheels and there’s no money coming in and like you’re *never* going to hit that new goal. The reason this works, though, is through the power of compounding interest, the 8th wonder of the world.

Every time you show up and do the work, you’re compounding on the last time you did it and the time before that. All of sudden, that compounding effect is just going to explode into results because it has to. That’s the way math works. I don’t make the rules, I just play by them*

 

So there you have it, how to turn a profit this year! Make a plan and then do the work. If your business turns a profit year over year, what other tips would you give to someone just starting out? When the year is over, come back and tell me how it went!

 

 

*them being only the rules that push me towards success, cus eff those other rules, they weren’t made for me or you.