You Have To Know Where You’re At Right Now To Figure Out What You Should Be Working On
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Day 2
Today, we are going to figure out our starting point...
Are you an entrepreneur, a coach, a consultant, a service, or a product-based business ready to take your online business to the next level and watch some explosive growth unfold over the coming months?
If your answer is YES...Great...Read on!
Before you start to plot and plan what you want to do to make that happen, it’s important to stop and look at where you’re at right now.
Business planning for future success is all about data. You can work most efficiently and spend your time and money most effectively if you know exactly where you are starting from.
By recording data, you can start to see what’s working, what isn’t, and what trends are starting to play out.
And it all starts with recording where you’re at right now!
First, though, you need to decide how you want to record this information.
You can write it down by hand in a notebook,
Open up a word document to do it digitally, or use a spreadsheet.
I prefer a spreadsheet because I have the option to have it calculate fun additional information like weekly and monthly averages and even map it all out in graphics to help me get a clearer picture.
Another option is to use a Digital or Printable Planner. Have a look at these amazing Planners that I have created.
Let’s take a look at some of the things you want to record:
Traffic
In order to grow, you need to expand your reach. That means getting more traffic but also engaging those who come to your site by encouraging them to click around and read more.
Good things to keep track of are:
total number of visitors,
unique visitors,
bounce rate, and of course,
where the traffic is coming from.
List / Subscribers
Your next goal is always to get these people on your list.
Here you want to track the total number of:
subscribers,
conversion rates for each of your opt-in forms and pages,
open rates for your emails, as well as those who
unsubscribed.
As you start to collect and review this data regularly, you’ll get a much better picture of your subscribers.
If you haven't yet started to grow your email list, I highly suggest using either of these two - Mailerlite or Mailchimp.
These are the two that I personally use in my business. And by using my link for Mailerlite, you'll get $20.00 credit!
Customers
Subscribers are great, but customers are better!
Start by keeping track of how many total customers you have and how many purchases there are per day, week, and month.
Other numbers to look at are the total lifetime value of your average customer, repeat purchases, and refund rates.
Income & Expenses
Last but not least, look at your bottom line. This is your typical accounting data. You want to keep track of your income as well as your expenses. With those two sets of numbers, you can easily calculate your overall profit.
I find it helpful to look at my profit for the month, but I track income on a daily basis.
Yes, you can look at most of this data in various different places like Google Analytics, your shopping cart, and your autoresponder service, for example, but it’s important to have it all in one place.
This makes it much easier to connect the dots and see the relationships between the different sets of numbers.
Now that you have your initial data collection set up, make it a habit to update the numbers regularly so you can see what’s working, what isn’t, and how much you’re growing as you move through the coming months and years.
*In case you missed yesterday’s email and post, here it is: Day 1 - Why Business Planning Is The Secret To Success
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