Knowing your numbers and understanding the movement of cash in and out of your business, even on a very basic level, is essential to keep track of the health of your company. 

You are more informed, and so can make better decisions and plan with more confidence for the future.

You can spot opportunity, trends and wastage, and set realistic goals for sales, expenses and plan effective and targeted promotional activity. 

For example, a popular goal is to have a $1 million business in sales. 

$1,000,000 a year is about $80,000 a month, which is about $20,000 a week, which is about $3,400 a day six days a week.

When you break this number down, you can then look at what you will need to do to achieve it.

67 service calls a week at an average ticket of $300

34 service calls a week at an average ticket of $600

3 installs a week at an average sale of $7,500

2 installs a week at an average sale of $10,000

1 install a week at an average sale of $19,000

When you track your sales conversions, it is easy to see where to focus your attention to be able to drive your sales up - more on this later.

What would this look like across the entire year?  What would your business need to look like to deliver these numbers?  What about your pricing? Sales aids? Training?

Sales however are vanity, profit is sanity - but cash flow is reality.

Understanding your costs and direct expenses is also vital. Once you know your breakeven point, and your profit margins on each type of job you run, you can quickly work out how many jobs you need to do each month to before you start actually making money for yourself.

When you know how much it costs you to get to the front door of a customer before you have even done any work, you can make better decisions on your service call fee, and any promotions or referral programs you want to offer, as well as what guarantee or warranty you can afford to stand behind.

As a business owner, you should see yourself as a wealth and asset manager.  Your business is a wealth creation machine. Wealth is all about numbers - so you need to know yours to make sure your keep more of what you make.

Right now, how happy are you that you have this down, and what do you think it would be worth to you to get up to speed with your numbers and start to feel more in control of your biggest wealth generating asset?