I often have people saying to me things like ‘I don’t like numbers, I am rubbish at adding up or I hated Maths at school’
Sound familiar?
The statistics for the failure of first time businesses are frightening. In the UK in the first year of trading one in five businesses will fail and this will increase to three in five by the end of the third year.
There has been a huge amount of research into the reasons behind these failures and out of the top five reasons only one is related to the product or service itself, the other four are all related to the ‘back office’ number crunching and planning.
However by joining me on this podcast and by putting in just a small amount of work you are on the first step of the road to ensure you are not going to become a statistic for all the wrong reasons.
Some of the reasons I discuss in this podcast include
1. Doing the numbers will help to give you the confidence in your business decisions
2. The figures will help you to analyse its performance. This might be financially through sales or through other figures such as social media posts and website traffic.
3. Someone else might want to see them. It might be a bank manager if you are looking for a loan or an investor if you are looking for investment to expand the business or it might even be a large customer.
Initially the numbers do not have to be complicated and look professionally presented (this can come later) – they need to be accurate and add up correctly and be able to provide you as the owner of the business some accurate information on which to make decisions.
Each month I like to have a morning blocked out as a financial meeting with myself. I take this time to review the previous months figures, see what went well and what didn’t work so well and analyse where the improvements could be.
I also review my financial records for the previous month and make sure I have got copies of all my receipts and sent all my invoices to clients. I then take the time to plan the following month – look at my budgets and cashflows along side my goals and predictions for the following month, quarter and year.
I meet lots of women who dream of setting up their own business but are finding it difficult to navigate those first steps and often don’t know where to start, what the priorities are or where to find the information they need.
Sometimes it is a business in a completely new area that they are passionate about or it might be a hobby they want to take professional and sometimes they just think that their dream business is really only a dream and there is no chance of it becoming reality.
I am lucky enough to have worked with women in this situation and while it is not always easy and they have put in some hard work and hours it has been a privilege to watch their businesses grow and flourish.
We all have at least one business in us and my free guide will help you work out what yours is. It is a tried and tested process and the exact one that I go through with my clients.
To download it go to www.emmamiddleton.co.
And finally if you like this podcast then please hit subscribe and share it with just one friend who you think might find it interesting or useful.
Subscribe on Spotify
Subscribe on iTunes
>>> Listen To The Next Episode Here