Business Planning: Recognizing the Right Time to Pivot

This Answer Key details three business planning techniques for shifting priorities to yield profitable results.

Have you ever felt like giving up on business?

But you hear your parental figure in the back of your head saying …

I didn’t raise a … [insert substitute word] … quitter!

Perhaps you're not ready to give up, but you're feeling disheartened by the slow progress in your business. Remember, every step forward is a step closer to your goals.

Strides to replace the income you miss from Corporate.

Strides to replenish your bank account from the $10,000 you pulled to bootstrap your business when you first started.

Or, maybe life’s good. But …

You miss the status quo of things being defined for you without having to wear thirty or more hats in a day!

Pro to pro …

I know this all too well.

Perhaps it's time to add pivoting to your business planning techniques.

Hi, I’m Renesha, and my clients call me The Legacy CPA™!

I’m a recovering boomerang Corporate girlie who loves the challenge of bookkeeping, accounting, and taxes!

I work full-time in my accounting practice as a CPA, helping Licensed Service Professionals solve Legacy Math™ for a living.

This article discusses Legacy Math's wealth activation and accumulation area for Law Firms, Wellness Practitioners, and Real Estate Investors.

I aim to focus on critical areas to predictably amass revenue and profit. Knowing how to predict revenue means being able to pivot when the business odds are not in your favor.

If you found the introduction of this Answer Key beneficial on your critical thinking journey as a licensed service professional woman, subscribe (button below) to join our community of like-minded professional women to reveal the rest of the manual on your millionaire journey!

To know when to pivot in business, there are three critical business goals to address:

What does success look like as a business owner?

Have you ever heard of fail to plan, then plan to fail?

Not having goals in mind is the rendition of this oxymoron. Most goals as an entrepreneur are defined as

“I want to make 100,000 in a year.”

But since when was six figures the goal?

Why 6-figures instead of 7-figures?

So, before you define arbitrary goals, consider what you fully need to meet your personal and business bills.

Critical Insight for Your Next Step

What are your revenue, payroll, and profitability goals by dollar amount with your personal and business NEEDS in mind?

Ensure your goals are clearly defined, not only with the what but also with the how.

Is your business profitable? If not, what should the profit be?

Believe it or not, your initial profit goals should be defined based on external data points around you.

Not the arbitrary ones that social media creates.

Then, once you have achieved external data points, go beyond business benchmarks to set retirement metrics accordingly.

As a sneak peek, your profit margin as a licensed service professional should be between 15% – 30%.

This range for profit margin is the percentage of revenue that remains after bills are paid for Medical Spas, Aesthetic practices, Law Firms, and Real Estate Investors.

So, again,

Your first goal is to break even by combining business and personal bills and adding 15 – 30%.

Before the accounting peeps start sounding off in the comments, I say to add “personal bills” because it’s the payroll line item solo practitioners NEED to consider for sustainable growth.

Now, listen.

Calculating 30% in any given “season” can be problematic to estimate. So, I encourage you to consult an Accounting or CPA professional for guidance.

Critical Insight for Your Next Step

Before you decide to set your business goals, first ask yourself …

Is your profitability average per competitive metrics in your local area? Google it or subscribe to Vertical IQ to learn about everything adjacent to your location within the industry you serve.

If your profit margins are higher than your peers, this might mean that you need to invest in additional resources to maximize your revenue and profit further.

Or, if your profit margin is less than your peers, it may mean you need to cut back on investments that don’t serve your immediate revenue goals.

Or, it could mean you must evaluate your service conditions and quality.

Continually evaluate to update your offer.

Another reason you may not be achieving your fullest profit potential is that you haven’t unleashed your fullest service potential.

As licensed service professionals where marketing isn’t our expertise, we desire to fully submit to the work required for excellence instead of the market research needed for sustainable growth.

This means marketing our services using conventional language to describe what we are good at.

In the past, I was guilty of this.  

That means fully submitting to the work required for market research to create and deliver excellence.

Leveraging all consultations as you have them to build on to the quality enhancements for the next person.

Committing to not stopping at the bare minimum.

Finally, we should avoid jumping to conclusions too quickly, as this can lead us to abandon our purpose and try something else too soon.

Instead, we should be tweaking the offer until it’s perfect.

Remember, a masterpiece isn’t designed overnight!

Critical Insight for Your Next Step

What are your clients saying about their overall client experience?

What is one thing that you need to improve and get support in executing that improvement?

If you found this Answer Key beneficial on your critical thinking journey as a licensed service professional woman, click here to join our Legacy Math Boot Camp for three days of free coaching!

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