So I have a New Year’s Eve tradition.
Every year, about one minute before the ball drops, I start to assess the previous year.
I think about the things that went right… and the crappy ones that went wrong… and then come up with a plan on how to fix them.
I develop 3 ways I’m going to accomplish this plan in the new year.
They aren’t “resolutions”. To be honest, I DESPISE the term “New Year’s Resolution”. Why? Because NO ONE ever actually continues their resolutions after January 31st.
Resolutions have become something we know we are going to fail at doing. And if I know I’m going to fail at doing something, I don’t do it. (Read Seth Godin’s “The Dip” and you’ll know what I mean.)
Your business shouldn’t be any different than my plan to better myself in 2020.
You should be assessing everything you did right, what failed, and where you need to go.
Doing this WILL GROW YOUR BUSINESS IN 2020.
You’ll get:
But in order to do this, you’ll need more than 60 seconds with Ryan Seacrest’s voice counting them down.
You need reports. (Preferably, from Service Autopilot’s Report Center.)
To be clear… the reports I’m about to recommend below can be pulled together and analyzed, IF you’ve kept good records throughout the year.
To be honest… it’ll be a whole lot easier if you have Service Autopilot, because you’ll have access to the Report Center. One click, and the full report flies to your fingertips.
In any event, you should pull the following reports to get the most comprehensive view of your business year and to gauge your success. Everything from...
And much more.
These are the numbers you ABSOLUTELY MUST KNOW to grow more in 2020.
Then, armed with this info, you’ll be able to develop a plan based on these three goals:
What does it do? Shows total profit after discounts and tax.
Also called an Income Statement, this report is crucial to your business health. It’ll show total revenue and expenses your business has ingested over the past year - AND tell you just how profitable you’ve been.
The goal is to have your revenue exceed your expenses.
What does it do? Shows all invoices in any defined time frame, what the service was, and the invoice total.
This report breaks down just about everything that’s on an invoice over a chosen date range (for our purposes, Jan 1 to Dec 31):
One caveat though… you won’t be able to see budgeted hours or the number of team members at each job. View the next report for that info.
What does it do? Shows any service within a defined timeframe, the status, and whether the actual man hours are more or less than what you budgeted.
This is a great report to view on a continuing basis for your business.
It’ll show you budgeted hours, actual hours, and $/Man Hr for each and every job.
PLUS - you can see which employee or crew was responsible for which jobs. This will be a great tool for you to look at when assessing each employee at the end of the year.
What does it do? Shows unpaid invoices for the current period and for the last 30, 60 and 90+ days so you can see how long they’ve been open (outstanding).
Cash flow can be a constant problem for smaller businesses due to slow and non-paying customers.
When that money gets tied up in invoices, that’s less money coming into your business. If you get too upside down, you won’t have the funds you need to actually run your business (i.e. money for travel and gas, supplies, equipment, chemicals, etc.).
If you can keep an eye on this report, you’ll know who those problematic customers are - and you just may have to kick them to the curb.
What does it do? Shows the sales tax collected in any defined time frame.
This is a GREAT report to pull for tax time.
Just keep in mind that if you’re using the Reports Center, this report is based on when payment is invoiced, not when service is rendered. And Prepayments won’t show up until the actual invoice is generated.
What does it do? Shows what a service has produced historically for quick comparison.
If you’ve ever wondered if a particular service that you offer is making you money… you need this report.
You’ll be able to view each service and see just how much revenue it brought in this year, month by month.
You’ll have to do some analysis on your own from here. For example:
Just remember, this report in Service Autopilot will pull by the job date not the invoice date.
What does it do? Shows how many services have been sold, and what percentage of your business it represents.
Much like the Revenue by Service Summary, this report will help you decide which services are most profitable.
Except, this one displays the number of clients that have purchased a service and the percentage of your business it represents. That’s extremely helpful because the percentage calculation is already done for you.
What does it do? Charts the monthly invoiced amount per client.
Use this report to assess which clients have been most profitable for you… and which ones you may need to pass on.
Sometimes you just need to let go of problematic, unprofitable clients - and that’s O.K.
This report should help you spot some trouble areas.
What does it do? Shows new clients in any defined time frame.
Break this report down month by month. Look at how many new clients you’ve added to the database.
Do you see a trend?
Are there certain months of the year that are more successful than others when it comes to finding new clients?
Now you have a game plan for next year! You know which months are most fruitful. Try to surpass those numbers next year.
What does it do? Shows emails that bounced (not deliverable) for the company.
Use this report to clean up your database and track down the correct email addresses for your clients.
You’ll want to have deliverable email addresses for two reasons:
What does it do? Shows by month: New Leads, Converted Leads, Terminated Clients, Client Total and Lead Total.
This is like the New Clients Report… on steroids.
It’ll show you the following numbers for each month:
You should be viewing this report every week once your marketing is up and running. Keep track of the number of leads coming in and how many are actually converting to sales. This will help you judge the success of your marketing campaigns.
What does it do? Shows revenue grouped by postal code.
While this is a financial report (because it shows some fancy numbers), I’m putting this particular report under Marketing.
Why?
Because you’re going to use this report as a gauge to see which neighborhoods are most profitable for you.
This is where your bread and butter clients are located so put your focus there.
And the less profitable neighborhoods? This report will help you figured out if they’re worth your time and efforts.
One caveat? If you’re using mostly contracts, remember that the postal code is based on billing code, not necessarily service code.
And, be on the lookout for the “1 big job”: you may have a postal code that on paper looks super profitable. Check to make sure it wasn’t just one big job or one big contract vs. several clients in that postal code.
Let’s review our three goals:
After you’ve reviewed the 12 reports listed above, you should be ready to tackle these plans.
But how do you start?
Like Jonathan Pototschnik, CEO and Co-Found of Service Autopilot, said at SA5:
And that really is the simplest way to get started.
Do something small… something that’s going to move that needle. Once you get going, you’ll see how easy it is for the rest to follow.
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Originally published Dec 13, 2018 10:57 AM, updated Nov 25, 2019 12:21 PM
Tags: Business Operation, Featured Post
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