It’s not about revenue, it’s all about PROFIT!

BigMouth Media Inc.

Introduction

Most companies want to focus on traffic, sales, and revenue but what we want to talk about is profit. I have seen companies that generate millions in revenue and are still losing money! It’s important to know what your costs are, how much are your fixed costs, such as phones, rent, insurance and then look at your fluctuating costs such as marketing, hiring, and legal. This will help you to budget for growth. What is the cost for you to acquire a new customer? Do you make a profit on the first sale? Do you have additional products or services to offer? What is the lifetime value of that customer? We will go over how to optimize your sales cycle to maximize your profits over the coming articles.  

 

Traffic

Traffic is a necessary element for all businesses. Most of all we need to focus on the right traffic! The traffic that has proven to bring in the most profit! Today we have more and more tools such as SEO, social media marketing that enable us to target the customer that is the most interested, the most capable of buying our products or services. We are able to become sharpshooters as far as hitting our target market as opposed to spray and pray, hoping that we get someone to buy from us. This helps us to save time and money, allowing us to focus on and better serve our customers. By paying more attention to buyers we can increase the odds of them continuing to do business with us and tell more people like them (buyers) about our great products and services.  

Sales

We all think we want more sales and for the most part that is true, but what I have found that sometimes just to get a sale can be more of a headache than it is worth! Many times the customer that you have to battle for the sale, lowering your price, giving them extra attention, offering additional service/support can cost you more in time and opportunity than you will make in profit. Now sometimes I understand that you may be playing the long game and looking for bigger business down the road, before you do just weigh the cost and benefits carefully before committing too many resources. We like to find the right customers that want/need our products and services, they see the value and benefits in what we have to offer by using our services and are willing and able to pay a fair price! These are the customers that will stay with you for years and tell their friends and business partners about you. This will allow you to make a nice profit in which you can increase your employee benefits, therefore keeping them from switching jobs, maintaining a more positive and loyal workforce that is financially secure in their position.

Always be thinking of how you can create repeat sales, selling more of the same product or service to your customers! How to create additional sales with an added product or service. Sell more products and services to peers, friends or acquaintances of your customers by asking for referrals. Make sure that your staff is consistently trained on the latest techniques, benefits and features of your products and services that have received the most yield or the best return on investment of time and money. 

Revenue versus Profit

Revenue is always exciting and looked upon as the key to success! Yet many companies have found that they have great sales, great revenue but are still cash flow negative because they haven’t designed a business plan or a marketing plan that has a budget that works to accomplish their goals. If you are spending $500 to acquire a customer that returns a profit of $400 you are losing money! Once you have proven your concept and can show what your acquisition cost is versus your profit margin and you are in the black you can scale that business. Some concepts may lose money on the first sale but they know the lifetime value of the customer is worth the upfront loss and have the capital to wait for future sales. They build this into their sales cycle, it’s called a loss leader that grabs the customer with an irresistible offer knowing that a certain percentage will upsell or repeat purchase making the relationship profitable over time.  We have seen companies that have millions in sales but are operating in the red because they are spending more than they are bringing in. Watch your cost, know your numbers and the dollars will start adding up!