Maisha’s Monday Motivation

It’s review time. It is time to look back at the goals I set for last year and review the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all! Looking back is really the beginning of moving forward and refreshing goals for 2024! All entrepreneurs need to do this even if they have an awesome business plan. To keep moving our business forward, we must not get scared to look back. Looking back is a chance to celebrate our successes, learn from our failures, and set a path to an even better year.

I met too many clients who had great ideas but didn’t take the time to put pen to paper and think strategically about how to accomplish these ideas. Even I’m guilty of going down the idea rabbit hole. The truth is most of us do not have a killer app that everyone loves and uses across all demographics and makes a million dollars out of the gate. Most of us start with an idea and work to make it a business. My advice is to have a plan for your ideas and define the metrics that help gauge whether the plan is working or not.

This year it is especially important to think strategically. We have been through months of uncertainty. The advantage of this time is that as we go forward into 2024 we are more able to predict the outcome. We know what it is like to move our businesses online, to network through Zoom, and to become more personally acquainted with our customers.

This post is my look back at my year and a look forward to the year ahead.

Metrics Are My Marketing Jam

Sales is the first metric of any plan. I believe all roads lead to it. My marketing philosophy is based on the fact that if you align your company to sales with a customer focus you will be successful.

I love metrics. It’s the only time in my life where I like to be measured. Back when I was in corporate America, metrics were how I got my raises. Most of my proposals have metrics that my team’s performance is measured against or as I call it here “Why you should pay me the big bucks!”

As a business owner, you need to set up the metrics that matter to your growth. You know the big ones:

• Revenue – Sales rule. Sales are validation that your product, concept, idea, strategy, etc. is working. It’s the beginning and end of where your company exists.
• Profit – Revenue is cool and necessary but this is my number one. If I can’t make enough money, I can’t take care of the other areas of my life. Profit is how you build and grow.
• Cash Flow – Cash flow didn’t become important until I didn’t understand why I needed predictability to grow the business.
• Gross Margin – This became important to me as I started to gather partners that allow me to deliver a full-service marketing agency. How much money did I need to charge to deliver quality services and be able to have the best team?

My Favorite Metrics in the Whole World

Did I say I love metrics? Well, these are the ones that make me happy when I beat them and sad when I don’t:

• Sales growth – I look at yearly, monthly, and weekly.
• Leads – A great measure of your sales strategy is how many leads are coming into your business. 
• Website Traffic – Along with leads, this measures your digital marketing efforts.
• Client Conversion Rate – Once you have leads in your system, do you have a process for converting them into sales?
• Social Media Engagement – Social media is now its own CRM platform so you have to measure the results and more importantly, the time you’re spending on getting engagement, leads and sales from each one.
• Email – Growth, opens and clicks. Email is not going away as one of the most effective ways to market your business. If you can hit the right prospect, at the right time you can achieve the metrics above!
• Hours worked per project – This was new in 2019. But, I had to get serious about pricing so I started to track my time with Toggl. This helped me understand why my margins per project was low.

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Mai 2023 Year: The Good, The Bad and The Ok

The Bad

For the first time in years, I didn’t beat last year’s numbers on any business! I know it was because I started a full-time job. I coulf never get the right balance of work, play, or entrepreneurship when I was only focused on growing businesses. Luckily, I was able to talk with a few women in business and staffers and realized that if they were able to, I can.

I accept this as the price for making strives. But as this blog is personal, if I don’t acknowledge what happened in the past year, I am destined to do it again. I don’t believe in going backward so off we go. Infinity and beyond!

I thank all who viewed and clicked this year on all my sites! We are off to a good start with January 2024 as one of the highest months in a few years.

The OKKKKK.

I started my business in a recession and started another during COVID. I have kept it going through some serious ups and downs and this year marked over 10 years as an entrepreneur. So while I consider myself a SUCCESS just for perserverance, I didn’t hit my revenue goals for any of my companies.

I also didn’t deliver on client revenue goals.  That’s harder to swallow. But the reality is that I have tried to do everything myself. With the advent of AI, new social media trends, focus on customer experiences, and digital marketing always evolving one person can’t do it all. It’s time to evolve my business model.

The Good?

I feel revitalized and ready to lean on my strengths of marketing and building. I also know that I can’t do this alone. REBUILD is my word for 2024 and this review of 2023

The Good to Be

So while 2023 was a bust as far as revenue I am not planning for the same for 2024! Here are the metrics I will be accountable for in 2024.

• Profitability- I have only lost money when customers didn’t pay me and I didn’t continually check cash flow. This year, I was profitable but I was also very conservative with spending.
• Leads – I need to add 10 Black-owned brands and their products to KUUBOB each month. My goal for marketing clients is still 3 per month but I am raising my retainer so the next metric might decrease.
• Proposals-to-Client Conversion Rate – I am having an interesting back and forth about proposals. Nate DuBois, CEO Legend Iniative, doesn’t believe in them and I’m not sure how you show that you understand the client’s unique needs and your ability to solve the challenge without one. My proposals-to-client or win rate was close to 100% for that reason.
• Website traffic – Thanking my digital marketing skills!
  • This site hit the 5000 mark in views and visitors in 2022. The goal for 2024 is to double that number!
  • Customer 1st Marketing had over 10,000 views in 2022 and thanks to my new chatbot caught leads every day! The goal for 2024 is to redesign or update the site. I love this site but it hasn’t changed in a while. 🙂
  • KUUBOB is already beating 2023 numbers but the goal of that site is sales!
• Social Media Engagement ( Liking, following, and sharing is caring!)
  • https://www.instagram.com/Kuubobmarketplace Up and up – I am loving all platforms now because of the insights so if I pay attention I will increase all social media metrics. But my shiny object is getting sales on KUUBOB’s IG. I can not wait for that conversion.

• Cost of leads and lead generation – Shopify has this cool cash flow tool that I use for each business. I absolutely recommend it for those of us who don’t have an accountant full-time. https://www.shopify.com/blog/cash-flow-management
• Keyword ranking – I will call in an expert to help with this. I have started to rise but I’m not being strategic with keyword ranking.

Resources for planning and metrics

The New Year is the perfect time to review and assess your new year. Even if you don’t think you have data, I am sure you have enough to measure. Start with your revenue and try to tell the story of how you arrived at that number. Was it one customer or multiple? Was it one platform and if so which one? The importance of setting and reviewing your goals metrics can not be overlooked. Now is the time to do it. Data moves your business from guessing why to knowing what needs to be changed for success.

• Marketing Metrics for Start-Ups
• 64 Important Business Metrics
• The Five Most Important Metrics to Measure Business Performance
• 10 Metrics Every Growing Business Must Keep an Eye On

Let’s Talk Marketing

Share your thoughts in the comments. How do you set your goals? What are the metrics you follow in your business? Want to talk more about business and marketing metrics? Schedule some time with me, https://meetings.hubspot.com/mhoye. 

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