Episode 72: Personal Numbers

In This Episode:

Ben explains how personal numbers might not seem connected to your business on the surface, but how we approach our productivity and personal finances can hold the business back or catapult it forward.

Show Notes:

Need Help? Book a Quick Call

And Be Sure to Follow @McAdamBen on Twitter!

Transcript:

[00:00:00] In recent episodes, I’ve been talking a lot about goals and planning. They’re really important for your business, I think you’d agree. But that’s just one of the six core areas to look at in your numbers. In this episode, we’re gonna talk about a different area. The one that surprises people when I talk about it, because it doesn’t seem to be about your business on the surface.

[00:00:19] Welcome to the Business Numbers podcast. I’m your host, Ben McAdam. I’ve helped over a thousand business owners with growth, profits, and clarity around their numbers, and I created this podcast to help you with that too.

[00:00:33] In recent episodes, I’ve been talking a lot about goals and planning. They’re really important for your business, I think you’d agree. But that’s just one of the six core areas to look at in your numbers.

[00:00:42] In this episode, we’re gonna talk about a different area. The one that surprises people when I talk about it, because it doesn’t seem to be about your business on the surface.

[00:00:52] I’m talking about the second core area. Personal numbers.

[00:00:57] Let me tell you about one of my favorite clients, Sean.

[00:01:00] Sean was a rockstar at operations, and that was why his business wasn’t growing.

[00:01:05] He was spending a lot of time on operations and very little on generating revenue. Then one question each week helped him go from 500K a year to a Million a year in revenue in seven months.

[00:01:18] I’ll tell you what that question was a little later in the episode. Sorry to tease you…

[00:01:25] How we spend our time, our personal productivity, can hold the business back or catapult it forward, and it’s similar with our personal finances. Together these are what I call personal numbers. I mean your personal productivity and your personal finances. Two of them together.

[00:01:44] If we don’t work on our personal numbers…

• We might have no time or energy to work on the important stuff.
• We might feel stressed and uncertain about personal finances.
• We might find time and money slipped through our fingers carelessly.
• We might even drain the business of money…
• And ultimately we might get stuck because we’re too busy and yet don’t have enough money to afford to hire help.

[00:02:10] If we work on our personal numbers,

• We’ll have abundant time and energy to get the important stuff done.
• We’ll have a comfortable amount of savings and be building wealth.
• We’ll have a light but expert grip on our time and money.
• We’ll have funds for business growth plus a healthy savings buffer..
• And overall have flexibility and calm.

[00:02:32] To do all this there’s a variety of projects and habits to implement over time. I cover them all in my program, but let me give you the two big ones today.

[00:02:43] Before I do that quick, FYI that I’m a twit now! I mean I’m on Twitter… Sorry for the bad joke.

[00:02:51] Follow me @McAdamBen for little nuggets about profits, growth, and the numbers throughout the week.

[00:03:02] Okay, so the two big ones for improving your personal numbers.

[00:03:08] For personal productivity, the most impactful project is a weekly review and planning session.

[00:03:14] How’d you spend your time last week? What worked, or didn’t? With that in mind? Plan your coming week so you make progress towards your goals while ticking off the daily to-do list.

[00:03:23] For Sean (the key question I teased earlier) the key question for his weekly review on planning was, “How can I remove operations time and add sales time?”

[00:03:36] The right question can make a big difference.

[00:03:40] For our personal finances, the main thing is to avoid pulling all the money out of the business because we’ve made poor decisions in our personal life.

[00:03:47] I had a client who didn’t control his spending, and so he pulled so much money out of the business that it couldn’t afford the critical hire he needed to free up his time for growth.

[00:03:59] This wasn’t Sean, by the way. Different client.

[00:04:03] There are different systems we can implement for managing personal finances as painlessly as possible, such as Mint or YNAB (That’s “You Need A Budget”)… What do you use?

[00:04:14] Which of these would be the most helpful for you in your business? Personal productivity or personal finances?

[00:04:20] For the clients in my program, we choose the priority areas at the beginning. And so far everyone has needed to work on personal productivity, personal finance, or both. So don’t be surprised if you are the same.

[00:04:34] Here’s the question of the day… What could you achieve if you managed your personal productivity better, or if you didn’t need to draw as much out of the business as you do now? I’d love to hear from you, so let me know.

[00:04:50] If you want me to go into a bit more detail about what the projects are that help you improve your personal productivity or your personal finances, let me know.

[00:04:59] Happy to do another episode about that or any other question that you have. For now, though, that’s everything I wanted to cover today.

[00:05:08] Thanks for listening.

[00:05:09] Thanks for listening. If this was helpful, please Subscribe, Follow, Rate, Like, Share, Comment… all the things.

[00:05:17] Show notes are at www.profitscollective.com/podcast or www.businessnumberspodcast.com.

If you want some help with growth, profits, and clarity around your numbers, go to www.profitscollective.com for more resources, or to book a quick chat about working together.