What about the numbers?

This morning I read a great message from Sandi Krakowski. The title was “It’s Just Numbers” and the line that really

stood out for me was

“Behind every call, behind every lead, behind every opt in and email that we have the privilege of serving is a life.”

In business it is about the numbers but those numbers always relate to something happening with people. Every transaction is based on one person giving another person something that they want. The exchange, whether in goods, service, money, an address, or a comment is based on the exchange.

The Numbers

You always need to watch the numbers in business but if you take care of people, the numbers should take care of themselves.

And yes, sometimes you can give more than you get in the short run.

It can be a challenge taking care of the numbers but without doing the accounting or keeping track of the expenses and the outcomes, you can lose control.

• You need to know the costs you must cover with your sales to stay in business. These are broken into 2 main categories:

Costs to have something to sell (production costs – goods and labour)

Costs to keep the operation going (rent, phone, internet, transportation, taxes, etc.)

•  You need to track that the money owing and owed is collected and paid
• You need to track your time, especially the time you promised to deliver in.
• You need to plan the actual ability to deliver. Without extra manpower you have only so many hours in any day to work.
• You need to monitor the time you spend doing a job to the number of hours you spend finding the next job.

Most people dislike numbers because they would rather just get on with their job. They believe that numbers complicate their job but…

• A chef uses numbers to figure out quantity needed to put quantity of goods on a plate at a price to serve to a client
• A fashion designer needs to work with the number of meters of fabric, notions and other bits that goes into a creation that will sell for a price
• A trades person works out the parts and the hours to quote to fix something.
• A manufacturer works out the the quantity of raw materials and labour they will need to produce the items to sell
• A retailer figures out the number of items they will sell and looks at things like size and colour too.

Roberta Budvietas