Sales Forecasting Math

Let’s say you’re making $15K per month.

That’s 15,000*12 = 180,000.00/year

So how do you make $180,000 / month?

$180K per month = $2,160,000 per year.

Let’s say we shoot for $180,000/month and we’ll “settle” for ONLY $100K per month ?? ??

That’s $1,200,000 per year.

???????????? Raise your hand if you’d like to make $1.2MM Per year ????????????

So how will you do it?

Probably not the same way you’re making $15K per month, right?

I mean you could take what ever you’re doing to earn $15K based on volume and multiply that by 12. But is that practical, or would it take 12 of you to make that happen?

No, you have to scale, and scaling means systems. Systems means process and workflow design and automation (CTRL+click so you don't lose your place) as well as hiring people to do things that you don’t need to spend your time doing. And all of this means you need a plan.

How do you deliver $180,000/month worth of value?

What do you deliver? How much is it worth? How many times can you replicate it?

Can you add volume without increasing expenses?

Can you handle an increase in expenses (eg marketing) to increase volume?

These are the questions you need to ask so that you can model your business properly.

How much of an increase in marketing expenses will it take to increase revenues in a meaningful way?

And how long will it take for the response (the increase in revenue) to kick in?

Bring in more sales and control expenses

That’s what most KPIs that most people look at will translate into when you analyze them. And the reason for that is that most businesses who are seeking help need to do exactly that.

And there is a lot of validity to this. Most businesses should probably dispense with fancy KPI Dashboards and focus on the above; increase sales while controlling expenses. This is the best way to create sustainable positive cash flow, and good cash flow will solve most of your problems.

But if you really want to get down and dirty with some seriously useful KPIs, let’s focus on one (for starters) that is designed specifically to give you actionable insights that will help you accomplish the above.

Internet Marketing Spend vs Revenue

Imagine that?! Look at your ad spend curve and lay that down right on top of your revenue curve. We can even go broader than that into all Internet Marketing vs Revenue.

The most direct way to increase revenue is from marketing efforts. That can be paid ads as well as hiring a social media manager to do outreach and many more things.

Initially you want to look at the curve to see at a high level if an increase in marketing spend produces a clear trend of an increase in revenue. Of course there might be a delay, and then the impact might be immediate. This is what you need to see, and just looking at the numbers on a P&L won’t bring that to light as well as a nicely formatted chart will.

First you graph the totals. See if it shows the relationship you expect. If it doesn’t, dig deeper. Split the Internet marketing total up into it’s components.

This kind of analysis will help you identify what is and what isn’t working so you can see where to focus on changing things. Repeat that process until you get the curve you want to see in your analysis.

This is a simple analysis that is very easy to execute, yet it gives some really powerful and useful information clients can really use.