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How To Calculate Projected Revenue
If you’ve taken my A Year in Preview Workshop, or done any kind of content planning with me, you know that I’m very passionate about ensuring that our business supports our lives, and not the other way around. And the first step I always have people take when mapping out their year is putting their personal calendar into their plans first. Holidays, vacations, birthdays, anniversaries, time off … all of that goes in first so that there aren’t accidental launches during your kid’s spring break.
But before we can even start putting things on the calendar, we need to know what we’re going to put on the calendar. And how do we do that? By learning how to calculate projected revenue. If you’ve ever wondered how you’re supposed to connect your content with your bottom line, this episode is for you.
Yes, it’s mid-February as this airs and you might be thinking why wasn’t this put out in December? But now that the planning frenzy is over and all of the excitement of the year is waning, I want us to take some time to check back in (or do it for the first time) with those revenue goals for the year and how we’re using them to plan our content.
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Use my Content Planner to help plan out your year’s projects, sales, and goals
- Are you looking to improve your content without spending a ton of time and mental energy doing so? Whether you’re looking for help knowing what to talk about, setting up content systems, or improving your launch strategy, the Chasing Simple Shop has something for you. From A Year of Content Prompts broken up by type of content, to my Launch Strategy Mini-Course – the Chasing Simple Shop is the quick and simple way to take your content to the next level. And you can get 10% off any item by using the code LISTENER at checkout! Just head to amandawarfield.com/shop/ and again, that code for 10% off is LISTENER!
- This week’s action step: It’s never too late to map out your revenue for the year. So even if you feel like you’ve got a plan in place, give it a try and see where you might need to make some adjustments in order to hit that revenue goal for this year!
- This week’s book recommendation: The New Edit by Caroline Hirons
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
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Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at hello@amandawarfield.com!
Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
If you’ve taken my a year in preview workshop or done any kind of content planning with me, you know that I’m very passionate about ensuring that our business supports our lives and not the other way around. And the first step I always have people take when mapping out their year is putting their personal calendar into their plans.
First holidays, vacations, birthdays, anniversaries, time off. All of that goes in first so that there aren’t accidental launches during your kids spring break or something like. . But before we can even start putting things on the calendar, well, we need to know what we’re going to put on the calendar and how do we do that By starting with our revenue.
If you ever wondered how you’re supposed to connect your content with your bottom line, this episode is for you. , and yes, it’s mid-February as this airs, and you might be thinking, why wasn’t this put out in December? But now that the planning frenzy is over and all the excitement of the year is waning, I want us to take some time to check back in or do it for the first time with those revenue goals for the year and how we’re using them to plan our content now that we have.
A clear head about what this year is gonna hold. So you’re listening to episode 147 of the Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. Let’s dive in.
Yes, we are talking all about revenue today, and in particular, how we can make sure our content aligns with our goals so that we can increase that bottom line. And if you are feeling the ick or you’re feeling cringey about whatever is going through your mind, maybe you’re feeling like it’s greedy and wanna bring in more revenue.
I’m not, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going through your mind right now, but if you’re having those, I would really encourage you to sit in that and think about that for a little bit. Why are you feeling those thoughts? Because I know that I’ve been there. I know that I used to feel so shameful around this idea of setting a revenue goal around wanting to make more money, and I really had to come to terms with the fact that I’m running a business.
yes, I wanna impact people, and that’s what I would hide behind, right? I would hide behind them. Well, I just wanna impact people and better their lives and help them with their business, and I do. I wouldn’t do all of the work of entrepreneurship, which is not easy in any capacity. I wouldn’t do all of that if I didn’t want to impact people and help people build their revenue as well, right?
I wouldn’t share all of these quote unquote secrets and all of this information I know and help you map out your revenue projections for this year. If I didn’t really wanna see you increase your bottom line, and I had to come to terms with the fact that while that’s true, a business needs revenue is also true.
A business is not a business without revenue. And the more revenue I make, the more I support my family, the more I support my community at large, the more I can support people and outsource to other business owners for their zone of geniuses, which they will then in turn. support their families and their communities and be able to outsource to other business owners.
And it’s a ripple effect, right? So if you’re feeling that shame, that ick, that cringe. I just want to encourage you that we’ve probably all been there and felt those things. , but your business needs revenue in order to be a business, okay? And when it comes to your content, well, your content’s purpose is to amplify your business, to get your business out there in front of more eyes so that you can bring in that revenue.
And if you want to ensure that your content is aligned with your goals, you’ve got to start by digging into the revenue numbers. . So like I said in the introduction, I’m gonna run you through some of the questions that are inside of the Chasing Simple Content Planner that are in the yearly planning section to help you do your revenue planning and your revenue mapping.
So there’s a two part series that we’re gonna do right here. You probably are gonna wanna have pen, paper, whatever. So first thing, revenue planning, you’re gonna ask yourself, what was your revenue last year? Write that number. . Then you’re gonna write down how much each stream of revenue that you have brought in.
So if you brought in 40,000 and you have one-to-one clients and you have a course, how much did each of those bring in? Then if you have the data, you are going to really wanna dive into how that came to be. . So for example, your one-to-one clients, let’s say of that 40,000, you brought in 30,000 with one to one clients, and on average the clients brought in X amount.
Maybe you have different packages, maybe you know, you raised prices, but on average what did they bring in last year individually? So let’s say you had 10 clients. 30,000, 3000. Is that right? Yes. Okay, so each client brought in roughly $3,000. You had 10 clients over the year. You brought in 3000. Okay, so you had 10 clients.
Well, how did you get those 10 clients? What number of inquiries did you have throughout the year? If you had a 50% close rate and you had 20 inquiries, okay, well, 20 50% gives you 10. You know your close rate, you know how many you needed. , you can take that number and go, okay, so next year if I want to make 50,000 on my clients and no, that math’s not gonna be good, let’s say 60,000.
I’m trying to do this in my head, 60,000 on clients, and they’re gonna bring in roughly 3000 each. Okay? So I need to bring in 20 clients next year. If I know I have a 50% average close rate, that means I need to focus on getting 40 increase throughout. , do you see how I worked myself backwards through with those numbers?
You’re gonna wanna figure that out for this year so you know exactly how many clients you need to hit your revenue goal so that you know exactly how many inquiries you need, and so that you can focus on bringing in the inquiries and not just sit there and go, why aren’t the clients coming in? So if you can dive into the numbers, great. If you’re listening to this and you are feeling overwhelmed because maybe your business didn’t bring in much this year and you just, you don’t have that data at all.
Or maybe you did bring him money, but you just didn’t think to, mark down that information. Well now, you know, moving forward what kind of information you need to be looking for and what kind of KPIs to be tracking for yourself, right? But if you just didn’t bring in the money and that’s why you’re feeling overwhelmed, I want you to ask yourself a few different questions, similar questions.
What did bring in money this year? Even if it was only a hundred dollars? What brought in money this year? How much did it bring? . And how did you get those sales? Did they come from word of mouth? Did they come from Google Analytics? Did they, or like people finding your website from Google search, I guess I should say, did they come from Instagram?
Where did they come from? And what you’re going to do is you’re going to plan for more of the same next year. and you’re going to build from there. It’s not a neat formula like the other example, and it is messy, but messy is completely normal in these early years. Okay? So don’t feel overwhelmed. Don’t feel lost.
Just what worked this year. Keep doing that. Get rid of the other stuff that didn’t work and keep doing what did work. Even if you only made a hundred dollars, you still made a hundred dollars, you still made some sales. . So then next part of revenue planning, you’re gonna write down what your yearly goals are.
Go ahead and write down all of your yearly goals, but in particular, what is that revenue goal? And if you have any goals that you’ve set surrounding how many clients you want or anything like that, write those down to for sure. The next question you’re gonna ask yourself is, what new offers, services, products do I plan to create?
Is there anything new that you’re planning to bring to the table this year? . Then the final question is for the revenue planning is what projects do I plan to undertake? So are there any backend things that you plan to do? Are you planning to update anything you already have? What projects do you have on your plate for the new year?
Now, all of these are not going to necessarily tie directly into your revenue mapping, but having them in mind as you’re doing your revenue mapping is going to be really important, which is why I want you to go ahead and write them down. So now we’re gonna move into revenue mapping. We’ve done the planning.
You know where your numbers came from, you know where you’re going in the new year. Now we’re gonna map it out. So create a list, maybe on a new piece of paper, create a list of all of your offers that you have, all of your different revenue streams down the page, and I want you to leave some room to the left and to the right..
then you’re gonna start projecting your revenue for the new year. So to the right, I would write out how many I plan to sell of something, or how much I plan to sell per month. So for example, I might write down five at 500 per month beside my one-to-one client space because I only take on five clients a year.
But for my shop, it’s not as precise because there are multiple products and I’m more worried about the shop’s overall bottom line than my, than I am each individual offer. So beside that, I might just write average $500 a month and if I make more some months, great. If I make less, that’s okay cuz I’m gonna make more other months and that’s fine.
And I base these numbers on the previous year. and then what I’m thinking that my launches and my projects will be, which is where that comes back into play. So if I know that I’m going to do less promotion of one stream of revenue, I might project less for it than it made the year before. Or if I plan to put more effort into an office, I’ll raise it from the last year.
And make no mistake that this is a guessing game. You wanna consider what you did before and keep it realistic. but it’s also okay to dream here too. I know for a fact that I’m only taking on five ongoing one-to-one clients, but I also have launched v I P days where I help map out an entire launch strategy and marketing plan for clients.
And those I don’t know how many are gonna come in throughout the year, and that’s one where I’m dreaming a little bit because I don’t have a set number that I’m taking on and that I know I’m taking on. So that’s one where I might say, okay, well I. 10 next year, or I want five, whatever that may look like.
There are some that are a guessing game, so just know that it’s okay to dream as long as we’re also being realistic in using the, the numbers and the data that we have from last year to do that dreaming so that we’re not just pulling it out of thin air. So then once I’ve written out my projections to the right of each revenue stream, I’m gonna put the total projection.
Number for each one to the left of the offer. \
So the five clients at $500 a month, that’s 30,000. So I’m gonna write 30,000 to the left. , and it really doesn’t matter which direction you do this. This is just how I’m doing it and just kind of showcasing that for you. But I’m gonna write that number down to the left, and then after I’ve done that for each revenue stream, I’m gonna add them all up and see what that total number is.
You’re gonna compare that number to the revenue goal that you wrote down earlier. . Is it on the nose? Is it lower? Is it higher? This is where you start playing around with these numbers. So you’ve done the initial projections, the initial mapping of how much you wanna make per each revenue stream, per month, how many clients you wanna have, yada yada.
You’ve done the initial projection, the initial mapping. , you’ve gotta compare it to that number. Is it right on the nose of that number? Is it higher? Is it lower? If it’s really like a lot lower, well that might be an indicator that your goal isn’t realistic for next year. If it’s only slightly lower, you may just need to change where you plan to focus your energy next year.
Can you tweak some numbers like trying to fit in more high ticket offer clients or. in order to to raise yourself up to the goal number, or on the other hand, if it’s higher than your goal number, you might wanna consider raising your goal number personally. . I like to have my revenue mapping end up higher than the goal I’m trying to hit.
That way I’m still likely to hit my actual goal, even if I don’t end up with the projected sales and clients that I mapped out. But that’s really a personal preference. You may want it to be right on the nose. You may want, that’s kind of up to you, but I like to have it so that when I’ve mapped out my year, if I hit all of those numbers, I end up way beyond my projected goal.
If I don’t hit it, I will probably still hit my goal . So once you’ve gotten your numbers tweaked to where you like, you’ll know exactly how many clients you need for the year, how many sales you need to make within each revenue stream, and how you expect to hit that big revenue goal. Now you have to decide when you’re focusing on each revenue stream throughout the year, and that is going to inform your content plan.
making it so that your content is aligned with your goals and actually moving the needle in your business. Like I mentioned in the introduction of this episode, these questions are laid out inside of the Chasing Simple content planner, along with many others that are going to help you keep on track with aligning your content to your goals all year long.
You can grab your own copy over at amanda warfield.com/planner. And your action step for this week is that it’s never too late to map out your revenue for the year. So even if you feel like you’ve got a plan in place, give it a try and see where you might need to make some adjustments in order to hit that revenue goal for this year.
This week’s book recommendation might be totally out of left field for you, but it’s Skincare. The new edit by Caroline Herrons and I. did not know how to girl. I, I say that all the time, like I don’t know how to girl. I never learned how to do my makeup. I never learned how to do my hair. I never learned how to take care of my skin.
These are all things that I just like never learned, and I really wanted to start taking better care of my skin. I’m in my late twenties, like I should have been doing it a long time ago. I live in the south where the sun is just like beating on my face and my skin all the time, and. I was determined to figure out what it is that I needed to do, but then the more I researched, the more overwhelmed I got because there’s so much information out there and there’s so many different products, and I was so confused.
And then I got recommended this book and it was life changing for me. So if you know things about skincare, you may not like it. I don’t know. But if you’re, if you’re where I was and. Overwhelmed completely by skincare. I cannot recommend this book enough, like five stars. I will gift it to everyone. It explains all the different things and what they mean, but it also tells you how to create a routine and how to create routines based on your skin type and based on, you know, are you in your routines?
Are you in your early twenties? Are you in your late twenties, your mid thirties, forties, fifties, whatever. It’s got different routines in there. No matter what your skin type or your age, and all of that is so highly recommend skincare. The new edit by Caroline Herrons and until next time my friend, I hope that you’ll go out and uncomplicate your life in biz.
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