You have two resources available to grow your business

As a female business owner, you have two resources available to make your magic and grow your business...

Time

+

Money.

Yes, you have your talent - your unique blend of expertise, experience, and passion that makes you, you - but to fully realize that in service of your vision, you need to effectively manage these two commodities.

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Here’s why knowing this matters.

1. It’s not possible to do everything at the same time — time and money are both constraints.

2. Given this reality, you need to make decisions about where to invest both resources and when.

3. This applies to every aspect of your business, from marketing and business development to operations and hiring.

4. You need to know what needs to be done first — what initial hire to make (and no, it’s always a VA) to help you increase revenue, marketing channels to pursue, and the kinds of business development activities that will move the needle.

5. Then, once your priorities are set and you’ve developed the right series of actions to take, you can measure your results and build on them to move towards your goal.

In other words, you need to create a strategic sequence of activities that leads to your desired results (aka “a roadmap”). This is possible.

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Here’s how you can create your custom roadmap.

Get the latest version of your monthly P&L and where you stand year-to-date, so you understand where you’re at. Look at these numbers:

* Total revenue by month, quarter, year

* Total expenses for the same

* Net profit (your bottom line)

* Net profit as a percentage of revenue

* Revenue by product and/or service offering

* Revenue by customer/client

* Total expenses in your top 2-3 expense categories

* And, where your business is coming from - percentage by source (networking, referral, speaking engagements, LinkedIn Instagram, etc.)

Establish your revenue goals:

* Set monthly, quarterly, and annual revenue goals.

* Which offerings/products will get you there? Do you have the right combination?

* How many clients do you need? Or purchasers at your target cart size?

Decide on the next right marketing and/or business development tactics:

* Start by assessing what has been working (you’ll know from the exercise above).

* Double down on those and remove activities/platforms that are not generating results.

* Revisit your understanding of where your customers/clients are, both online and off.

* Once you have this, add in one or two new tactics to test, and map out what you can add later based on the results of these tests.

Determine your sweet spot:

* Do an honest self-assessment to determine where you want to spend your time based on those things that come easily to you and you like, or at least don’t hate, doing (e.g. some founders love Canva, others love working on their financials in QuickBooks, and still others love writing captions, emails, and blog posts).

* With this assessment in mind, to free yourself up to focus on your high-value activities — those things only you can do for your business — determine where you can thoughtfully invest in outside resources now and where you can add later, once you’ve

Determine how much money you have available to spend and your anticipated timeframe to see a return on that investment in terms of revenue growth.

* Whether you’re investing in a person, membership, or a tool/platform, do your best to estimate the impact in terms of your time, revenue growth, and your bottom line.

* Measure your actual quarterly results (by month is not enough time) against your plan (anticipated results) to see where you are ahead of schedule and where you might be falling behind.

* Adjust your plan accordingly.

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Here’s what you get when you have a roadmap to follow.

A well-crafted, strategic series of activities that build on each other is the key to unlocking your business's potential.

A clear plan:

* Removes confusion and overwhelm.

* Helps you gain clarity and confidence in your decisions and the actions you take.

* Ensures your business remains on track and accountable to its objectives.

When you create your roadmap, you're able to navigate from where you are today (Point A) to where you envision your business in the future (Point B) in less time, with less stress and more enjoyment.

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If you need help, with Monthly Business Coaching we create your custom plan for profitable growth, and you get feedback, brainstorming, and accountability to keep you on track. Learn more here.

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