A client once asked me if I could ‘make her profitable’. Of course, I couldn’t make her profitable unless she did the work; I could only guide her.
There’s a big difference between having revenue versus profit. Too often, business owners talk about having a 6 or 7-figure business but that means NOTHING if there is no money left over to pay themselves or to reinvest back into their business. Some big businesses have massive behind-the-scenes expenses leaving them with little or no profit.
There are only a couple of ways to increase profit. Here’s what I mean.
For the above client, a lawyer, there were a couple of things she needed to do to increase her profit margin, pay off debt and become profitable:
1. Become obsessed with her business numbers and cash flow!
2. Raise her prices for all services despite the fact that no one else in her industry charged that higher rate (by the way, she raised her prices and didn’t lose any clients).
3. Review her expenses to see if it was possible to reduce expenses (a review revealed there was very little that could be eliminated).
4. Her team needed to be more efficient with their time i.e. do more wills, or more real estate closings, or more consultants and this would increase revenue without a significant increase in expenses thereby increasing profits.
So how could her team become more efficient?
How could they do more work in the same amount of time?
SYSTEMS are the answer.
This client became obsessed with developing clear and concise systems, workflows and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for each of the teams thus increasing efficiencies. For her as the CEO, this also meant fewer interruptions and questions as processes and procedures reduced decision-making for team members.
These ‘systems’ were rinse and repeat so no matter if a new employee was onboarded or an employee replaced another for vacation, the work was done consistently and seamlessly.
The result …listen to episode 157 of Work Work Less PROFIT More business podcast, as I share this client’s profit journey and why it’s important to have documented systems BEFORE hiring more team members!
Be sure to listen, share and subscribe here!
YOU CAN DO THIS!
Diana
P.S. What would you do with an extra 4, 10 or 20 hours per week?
I know …. It probably seems totally impossible that you or any business owner could free up 4 to 20 hours per week in their schedule!
But if you could free up that time, what would you do?
- Go to the gym consistently?
- Treat yourself to a spa day, mani-pedi?
- Enjoy family time together?
- Work ON your business & do some big picture planning?
But if you are totally MAXXED out – then working less hours doesn’t seem possible.
There are 2 reasons that this continues to happen:
- you believe that you are the only one in your business that can do the things one your To-Do List;
- you are reluctant to set specific time in your calendar to do deep FOCUSED work and strategic planning
If you’re ready to go from Overwhelmed Chief Everything Officer to Overjoyed CEO, then it’s time to schedule a Business Breakthrough Session with Diana.
During this call, Diana will ask you a few key questions to pinpoint the gaps business – and then I’ll show you can free up an extra 4, 10 or 20 hours per week, while still earning a good profit.
