Running a business is hard, especially if you’re doing it all by yourself. Over the past 8 years, I’ve been slowly learning things here and there, but for the most part, I’ve just been shooting and editing. I’m not a business person, so I don’t know all the things I should be doing, and I never had the time anyway to do them. Well, not that I’m doing this full time, I’ve been looking for ways to improve my photography business. I was watching a business video today, and they talked about a 7 different ways to improve, and I’ll be sharing some of those ideas in the future. The first step in all of it, though, was knowing your numbers. I have no idea about any of my stats, so I’m going to start and you should start tracking your business numbers for future success, too.
Tracking Your Business Numbers For Future Success
This is such a common business skill that I feel bad saying I haven’t been doing it, but like I said before, I never had the time. I also was never that big on numbers. Stats and percentages always just seemed like a waste, but after seeing how much I could be making with a few changes, I’m all about the numbers.
Numbers Help You Track Progress
How do you know if you are being successful? Do you just guess and say you were? Did you just feel busier this year? Keeping track of your stats helps you see if you are making progress, staying the same, or going down. Without the numbers, you wouldn’t really know. How do you know if that new marketing technique is working? You check the numbers. Should you continue doing what you’re doing? Check the numbers. Before I was really just guessing on what I was doing. I’d try something and then try something else. I thought I knew if something was working, but I can’t be for sure. The numbers will be a guide to show you what works and what doesn’t.
Numbers Help You See Weak Spots
Looking at the numbers for your business can also help you see weak spots. For example, you might think it’s awesome that 5 people contacted you last month, but that doesn’t look that great when you find out that 1000 people visited your site. From there, you would know that a lot of people are going to your site, but they just aren’t contacting you. Then, you could fix that weak spot you didn’t even know about.
What Areas of Your Business Should You Track?
This is going to vary from business to business. For most businesses these days, a website is essential. I would think that everyone would want to know how many people visit their site. From there, you would probably want to know how many people contacted you or bought something after visiting your site. One really big thing that I haven’t been tracking is how many weddings I shoot each year. Yeah, I know, pretty simple stuff. After that, I’m going to calculate my average spent per wedding. There are several other areas as well.
If you’re not Tracking Your Business Numbers For Future Success, you probably aren’t going to have as much success as you could. We all have ways we can improve our business, but if we don’t look for them, we can’t fix them. This is something I should have done a long time ago, and I’m glad I’m finally getting to it.
