It’s time to take a look at the data and run a health assessment on your biz.

 

Are you ready to take your online business to the next level and watch some explosive growth unfold over the coming months? Great.

Last week we talked about how planning is the secret sauce for success BUT… before you start to plot and plan what you want to do to make that happen… it’s important to stop and take a moment to look at where you’re at right now.

Let’s think about our businesses like our bodies for a minute. In order to know what supplements you need or  what essential oils to incorporate into your day you need to know what’s happening in your body at the moment.

Do you have great mental clarity but struggling with some gut issues – that info is good to know. So, consider this week a health assessment for your biz.

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.

This is also how you will be able to help assess your success down the road.

Let’s take a look at some of the things you want to record. First though, you should 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.

Now, let’s take a look at some common categories that you are going to want to establish a baseline for: 

Traffic – To grow you need to expand your reach. That means getting more traffic, but also engaging the people that come to your site by encouraging them to click around and read more. Good things to keep track of are total 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, and also unsubscribes. As you start to collect and review this data regularly, you’ll get a much better picture of your subscribers and will begin to have a clearer picture of who your audience is so you can make informed decisions about future content and offers. 

Customers – Subscribers are great, customers are better. Start by keeping track of how many total customers you have and how many purchases per day, week, and month. Other good numbers to look at are the total lifetime value of your average customer, repeat purchases, and refund rates. The goal in everything is conversion. 

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 profit for the month, but 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. If you want a template to get you started, head over to Buffer and check out the free templates they offer. 

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.

I suggest setting aside 15 minutes a week in your calendar to update your numbers.

Make it a habit to update the numbers regularly.

Spend some time this week really looking at your biz’s “health assessment” and highlight two or three areas where you feel like you have the most opportunity.

Then, tune in next week as we start to talk about how to increase your traffic and keep adding to your bottom line.