What Works

In This Episode: * How Jordan Gill used data and experience to set competitive prices for her business operations firm* Why she focused on serving seasonal service-based businesses and how that impacts the way she delivers her service* The stat she used to figure out a new way to offer her services* What expenses Jordan accounts for in pricing her unusual offer Is your business financially sustainable? The answer to that question goes beyond how much revenue your business generates, how much you charge for your products or services, and or even how much you pay yourself. We tend to fixate on those measures of financial success because they’re pretty objective. I can check my P&L and spot how much revenue came in last month or last year. I can pat myself on the back for raising the prices on my offer. And I can enjoy a healthy salary or bask in my profit distribution… But none of those numbers really capture the financial sustainability of my business as a whole—and that can mean I might miss out on the opportunities for future growth or impact. In Episode 325, I defined financial sustainability as having a revenue model that supports the business’s operational evolution and the financial needs of the people involved. Let’s unpack that a bit. Your business’s revenue model—or your business model—is the system that you use to create, deliver, and exchange value. In other words, it’s what you sell, how you deliver it once it’s sold, and what you charge for it. Now, we often measure this sort of “in the moment.” Is the revenue model working right now? Is the business generating enough to cover my own pay and the business’s expenses? Am I working too hard today for the paycheck I’m getting tomorrow? Obviously, you want your business to work right now. But if all we ever do is set up our businesses to work right now, then we’re missing opportunities to build margin and resilience into our businesses for the future. Plus, we’re having to continually go in and recalculate–which creates the sort of precarity that leads to burnout. So maybe your revenue model is working today. But will it work tomorrow? As your needs and the needs of the business evolve, will the revenue model be able to keep up? I can almost guarantee you that your next financial opportunity comes from taking a longer view on your revenue model. I’m in the midst of this with a number of business owners right now. Taking a short-term view has helped them get their feet under them and find an impressive level of initial success! But now they’re feeling squeezed just trying to figure out how to eek out a little more growth. For me, the key here isn’t to consider what a little more growth could look like—that shorter-term view. But instead, to consider what a lot more growth could look like and take long-term view. Consider that your long-term, higher-level growth opportunity is rarely a matter of doing more. It takes a long, hard look at each revenue stream and weighing whether it can adapt to hold its weight in a business generating 2 or 3 times more re...