The most important numbers

There's lot of numbers that everybody involved in business are calculating daily. Gladly the most boring ones can be handed to your accountant. Yes to your accountant! Don't tell me that you're trying to do everything by yourself?! Yesterday I was talking about planning, so please plan something more efficient instead of trying to do everything yourself. Give the boring numbers to someone who takes care of them. It is not that expensive - your time is more valuable.

So, what are the most important numbers?

leads x conversion = CUSTOMERS
(you got to get lots of possible buyers and turn certain % of them to your customers)

customers x transactions = REVENUES
(those that buy, well we want them to buy more than once)

revenues x margins = PROFITS
(hopefully there's plenty of money in now, but it's not all ours so after margin % stays our sweet profit)

Simple and beautiful!

Christmas gift for your accountant

Planning is key to everything

I honestly believe that planning your stuff beforehand is key to much much more efficient working. Without planning I just jump around from one thing to another and nothing gets finished. Ok, now you might think that sure I plan my stuff so I'm doing it right. Not true. If you plan your things ahead, that's great but you got to take it to another level. You got to plan every day what you gonna do next day! Just before you go home from the office write down on your calendar all the things you will do next day.

When I first time started to get serious about the importance of planning was after reading maybe the best sales book ever written Frank Bettger's How I raised myself from failure to success in selling (what a long name for a book!). What our hero Frank did was that he invested couple of hours every saturday to plan his next week's tasks. That's fine and good manner, but I've found that things come up and during the week it gets quite a mess. Yes, you can stick with the plan as Frankie says and do the upcoming things the week after. If that's possible, ok, but it is not, at least in my case. Just can't cope with it. So that's why I plan now my days every day and that is just great  as you wake up in the morning and you know exactly what you got to do. You can also easily see what things are the most important and do them first.

This really is a key leverage to success in every aspect in this game we call life.

A great Australian entrepreneur Brad Sugars told me in one of his seminars in London couple of weeks ago the following pattern and I think Mr. Sugars has a point:
Dream : Goal : Plan : Action = Life

We have a dream what we want in a future and we really should write down the goals that we want to achieve. We got to plan every day our strategy how to move towards the goal and finally take the action and actually work the plan that we've created daily.

If you have people working for you it is absolutely necessary to make a plan for everyone. There's nothing more stupid than letting your worker wonder around without exact plans and goals in his precious work that he's doing for you to achieve again your personal dreams.

Invest in planning! Amen.

First leverage for your business

Right to the point, first leverage is FUN. You got to have fun at your business. I don't care if it's an accounting company, hardcore telly sales, women's underwear shop ;), or whatever - it has to be fun, fun, fun! It might sound simple but it is amazing how much you can boost your business with this simple ingredient. If it was Sir Richard Branson who basically based all his business ventures to this basic idea it can not go wrong to take this leverage and add it to your daily business attitude.

I want you to look at yourself (as I am doing with myself now) and think if you're having FUN at your business or are you a victim of every day routines and patterns. The answer might be that there could be definitely more fun. It always is! But hey, don't worry - it's easy to fix. Grab your paper calendar, open your outlook agenda, or whatever diary you're using  and do the following:

Write randomly in four different places during next eight weeks the question: "Am I having fun at my business right now?"

After that it's up to you if you want to add the fun leverage or not. I recommend doing something different every day and so changing your ways for good.

I'll have my lunch now and will SALUTE all people with big SMILE that I come across.