What your prospects do each month can help you predict (and hit) your revenue goals.

Earlier this year, we discussed planning your marketing, advertising and the run up to promotions and events using a marketing calendar.

Today, let’s dive in a little deeper by adding metrics to the equation.

Got income goals?

Presumably you have a budget and as a part of it, income / revenue goals. How certain are you that you’ll hit them this month? How certain are you about hitting them seven months from now?

A few pieces of math might help, but it will require some data collection, or analysis of your existing sales / order data to get there. Keeping it simple, here’s the questions you’ll need to be able to answer:

• How many new leads did you get last month?
• Did any of these new leads come from special events or promotions?
• How many of the new leads who DIDN’T come from special events or promotions have already purchased something?
• How many of the new leads who DID come from special events or promotions have already purchased something?
• Was last month’s lead count typical for this month last year?
• Is your close rate from promotions and events different from other lead sources? If so, why?
• What’s the average order amount from a lead that comes to you via special promotions and/or events?
• What’s the average order amount from all other leads?
• How many leads does it take to close one order, on average? If this varies substantially for leads gained through promotions or events, make note of this.
• Can you track leads to the source of advertising that brought them in? If so, are the close rate and/or average order amount from any one lead source substantially different from other sources? (high or low)
• What’s the average number of days needed to close a sale? Is this number of days different for “regular” leads vs leads gained from promotions and/or events?
• Is the average number of days it takes to close a lead shorter for any particular lead source (or sources)? If any sources stand out as notably longer or shorter, make note of them

That should get you started. Gather this information and we’ll move on to the next step.

Making use of all that work

It will probably seem like a lot of work to gather (and keep gathering) all that info. It is, but solid order and advertising management systems can make it easier. Even if you’re doing it with a yellow pad or an Excel spreadsheet, it’ll be worth it.

Start with the amount of income you have budgeted for next month.

Given the numbers from the prior section, how many sales will you close next month? What about the month after?

If that number is below your budgeted revenue, how many more leads will it take to reach your revenue budget next month?

Given that number, how will you get that number of leads this month so that you can reach your revenue goals in future months, based on your close rate and the number of days it typically takes to close a sale?

Step back

Let’s change tracks for a bit and step back to why we’re doing all of this work and why you might feel a little uncomfortable at this point.

Do you regularly make your monthly revenue goals? Do you know why?

If “regularly” doesn’t describe your business’ achievement of revenue goals, I have more questions: Have you ever made your revenue goals? How did you arrive at them? Why did you make them? Do you make a push every month that sales appear to be coming in below budget? What does “a push” look like? Does that mean you advertise more? Hold more promotions and/or events? Pick up the phone and cold call more than usual?

Does it feel like you’d have a better shot at confidently predicting how next month is going to go, revenue-wise, if you were using your lead, order and marketing data in this way? Would you (and your employees) feel more confident if your achievement of revenue goals was more systematic and less arbitrary? How would it affect how your family feels about your business? Regardless of what retirement means to you, how would a systematic way of “controlling” revenue impact your ability to plan and eventually exit when you decide to retire?

Start simple, but start today.

Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site, contact him on Twitter, or email him at mriffey@flatheadbeacon.com.

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Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site, contact him on Twitter, or email him at mriffey@flatheadbeacon.com.  Check out the Flathead Beacon archive of all of Mark’s blogs.