How To Create A Profit-First Plan For Your Business

Most business owners have the best of intentions when starting or building their business. They believe that if they align their passion with their purpose, then the profits will naturally follow; they’re a given.

That’s where they have it wrong. If relying solely on noble objectives, many business owners see, at best, little growth. At worst, their business will fold.

As an entrepreneur, CPA and owner of multiple businesses, I speak from experience and suggest that you view your business and its operations through a completely different lens.

To maintain, grow, and support a strong business, you must start with profit. And to know your profit, you have to understand and analyze the key data that will optimize your business plan. 

At the top of this list stands the costs associated with the people who will provide your business with its revenue: your customers.  

Unfortunately, nine out of ten business owners have no idea what it costs to acquire, service, maintain and sustain customers.

Here’s a breakdown of what to analyze in each of those four key areas:

1. Business Development: Cost to acquire new clients 

When most business owners think about their customer acquisition cost, they naturally gravitate toward business development. This makes sense, given the focus on generating leads and engaging prospects. 

However, in this category, you also have to consider and differentiate your cost per lead versus your cost per customer. For instance, if a marketing campaign you spend $10,000 on produces 500 leads, your cost per lead is $20. However, if that same campaign results in only 2 of those leads converting to customers, your customer acquisition cost is $5,000!

To get a true sense of your cost to acquire new clients, you should factor in these expenses:

  • Marketing (social media, your website, email campaigns, newsletter, store displays, etc.)
  • Virtual vs. in-person meetings
  • Market research
  • Direct outreach
  • Partner programs where you provide referral fees
  • Dues for professional organizations and associations

Along with these expenses, don’t forget to analyze your labor costs. Though payroll is typically looked at as overhead, your personnel and their time spent on business development efforts can significantly impact your overall customer acquisition costs. For instance, a business owner may spend a third of her time running her company, a third of her time servicing and interfacing with clients, and a third of her time on business development. Each allotted minute is significant. Analyze your time and how it’s spent to become aware of how your time is helping—or hurting—your profits. And if it’s the latter, you can adjust your schedule to reallocate your time to where it matters most.

2. Operations: Cost to service the customer / Cost to manufacture the products

Once you have a customer, you’ll need to provide services to and/or products for them. In the operations bucket, you’ll analyze the cost to deliver your services or manufacture your products by analyzing the expenses associated with items such as:

  • Materials
  • Shipping and handling
  • Travel 

Again, you’ll want to examine your labor cost to understand the personnel time associated with it; then, you’ll factor this into your overall figure to determine your operations cost.

3. Quality Control or Client Engagement: Cost to maintain customers / Cost to ensure consistent product quality 

As any business owner will tell you, it’s far more cost-effective to retain an existing client than to find a new one. Thus, it makes sense to understand the costs associated with maintaining a client relationship and ensuring consistently good products.

To determine your customer retention and quality control costs, you must review the expenses associated with:

  • Training
  • Inspection
  • Communication and feedback mechanisms, including surveys and other ratings and reviews systems
  • Client gifts 

And like the other areas, payroll cost also factors into your overall costs, illuminating if personnel time is best served here or elsewhere in your business plan.

4. Innovation: Cost to sustain and grow business 

The last area of your business to re-examine is one I see many business owners forget about, yet it’s critical for long-term viability: innovation. Understanding the cost to sustain and grow your business means analyzing expenses related to:

  • Testing
  • Training
  • Market research 
  • Outside consultants and contractors

If you want your business to grow, you need to think through these costs to determine if you can afford to. The reality is that when you acquire new clients, your other costs—to service, maintain, and sustain those customers—will also increase. Remember: you can grow your business only when you have profit. 

By understanding and analyzing key data to put profit first while building your business plan, you’ll be able to maintain, grow, and support a strong business; now, and in the years to come.

 

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Wendy Nguyen

Wendy Nguyen is a CPA (Certified Public Accountant), CEO and Founder of TNC CPAs – specialized in operational and financial consulting. We have 4 offices surrounding Houston areas and team members residing in Texas and California. Most businesses are starting out from a great idea, is acquired of other business or inherited from the parents. There are usually lacking strategies and execution to grow the business or keep in survive. Failure rate of startup is over 90%. TNC is a business planning and operational, financial management consulting firm that helps businesses and nonprofit organizations use data to examine and grow successfully. At TNC, we strive to keep it simple by doing what’s right and having fun in the process. Firm’s website www.tnccpa.com.