The longer I go on coaching, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about their numbers, or indeed the importance they put on them. To a certain degree this is because most business owners simply don’t understand them, but also they don’t know how to analyse and use their figures to their advantage.

I can’t count the numbers of times I have said to my clients “Time spent on your figures is not wasted, in fact it is every bit as important as spending time on your sales, or having a key meeting with a new lead.” The reason I say this, is because time and time again when I sit with my clients to analyse their figures we find interesting facts, either to do with their break-even, their change in gross and net margins, or abnormal costs which have suddenly spring from nowhere. The thing is once we have seen the problem then we can put a strategy in place to change it.

For example in one instance we found that one of my clients was struggling to break-even, so we raised prices, and dropped the non-profitable market segments. In another example we found the margins being squeezed because too many discounts were being implemented, and at the same time supplier costs were rising, which once again was quickly rectified by raising prices and dropping discounts.

These are just two examples, but the point is, if the business owners had not been able to spend the time looking at their numbers, they would have kept going, getting busier and busier, but not necessarily making any more money. By analysing things and making good managerial decisions they were quickly able to increase their profits and margins, but without having to do any more (in fact in some instances the work load decreases).

So next time you make an excuse to avoid your figures, think again, it will probably be the best and most profitable way to spend an hour or two.