How to prioritize ROI

Okay, today we are going to be talking about how to prioritize ROI, or return on investment in your business. And this is really key to be able to effectively run and grow your business right. If you're not prioritizing the strategies, the tasks, and the products or services or the revenue streams that have the biggest impact on your business that have the greatest return on investment for your business, you're not going to be able to effectively grow and run your business.

So what's really key here is recognizing when you are focusing on, and spending time on things that are easy, or things that you've always spent time on versus spending time on the things that are the most impactful, because in this instance return on investment, ROI might be an investment in terms of budget, investing in a web designer or virtual assistant or a social media manager or an ad manager right investment can also mean your time and your attention. And that is super super key and understanding that, because a lot of times we think of investment in terms of money, but we think that we have unlimited time to do things right, and that our time isn't a commodity. And then, and that we're not trading time for things that we're doing, and that's just not the case especially as a small business owner and especially if you're a solopreneur, right, your time is one of the most precious assets that you have. So really understanding where your time is going and making sure that you're using that time as effectively as possible, and working and focusing on things that are going to have the biggest impact on your business.

That is what is going to be really, really important. So how do we identify what we should prioritize that will give us the biggest ROI. Well the first thing is you want to get super clear on your overall business goals, right, what do you want from the business, and especially if you're starting or growing your business. What do you want to get out of the business in terms of what it means for your life because nobody wants to build a business that they hate and they don't like. Right. So, what are the goals of the business overall right how much money do you want to be making, do you want to have a team, do you want to be able to pull back and only work five hours a week. Do you want to be actively working in the business all the time? These are all questions you should be asking yourself, because they're going to help inform what the goals are for the business in terms of the really long term higher level goals, because that's where you are going to turn to and look to when you're developing your overall business strategy.

From there, you're going to develop your business strategy right what products and services are we focusing on are we selling are we promoting, at what price points is that going to give us the right profit margin, you know, what are our costs of goods or costs associated with creating that product or service or delivering that product or service, all of those things, so that you can start to look at. Okay, now what do I need to do to promote that product or service, what do I need to do to run this business what is going into that what tasks are going into that. As you get more and more clear on that, you're going to start to pretty naturally go into some planning, and some people do you know planning at the beginning of the year. Some people do planning twice per year. A lot of people do quarterly planning. Right, and that's always super helpful to kind of make sure that you're not going too far off course, And you're not investing time and resources into things that are actually moving you towards the bigger goals in your business, right, but then from there I really recommend it sitting down at the end of each month, and doing some monthly planning for the month ahead because a month feels like a long time. But as you'll discover as a business owner, a month can go by so quickly, right, a month is actually not really that much time, so I really recommend you do monthly planning, and look at, okay, what do we need to be focusing on over the next few weeks during this month.

And you know what's just on our list of things that we want to focus on and this is a great opportunity to just brain dump right big long list, anything that comes to mind, because then you're going to look go back and look at it in terms of, Okay, on this list, what things are urgent and important, that must get done what things are important but not urgent, and then what things are urgent but not important and that's going to help to help you to naturally start to prioritize those different tasks. And then in terms of what should we get, you know, prioritize first second third kind of thing. And then you can look at it through the lens of which of these things are going to give us the biggest return on investment, and which are going to be the most impactful in terms of getting us to our bigger term goals. So you want to sit down and do that on a monthly basis, because then from there what you're going to do is you're going to refer back to your monthly planning, every week, and you're going to so at the end of the week or, you know, Monday morning or whenever you start your week you're going to sit down and say, Okay, what do I need to do this week. That is going to move us forward closer to our bigger, larger goals, that is going to be the most impactful for my business, where can I spend my time energy attention money this week that are going to make the biggest impact on the business.

And then from there, you can look at, you can do that same exact thing for each day, right, so you're starting with a brain dump list each day, week or month, and then you're prioritizing, with the tasks within that list, looking at what's urgent and what's important and what is going to give you the biggest ROI in any given day, any given week and then any given month. What you're going to then do is you're going to have an action plan right this is giving you an action plan, these are the things that I need to focus on for today. And that's going to put into really easy digestible context of, oh, okay, I have 10 things I need to focus on today that's too much. Right. And so then you'll be able, you'll be able to more quickly. See, where do I need to make adjustments do I need to get help. Do I need to Am I being a little bit too casting the net too wide. Are all these things actually making a really big impact on my business. Can we make any of these things take less time because what you're going to do is you're going to estimate the amount of time, each of those tasks are going to take on that list, and then you're going to track your time as you do them, so that you can see, okay, I estimated this was going to take an hour and ended up taking me three hours, is that because I underestimated how much time it was gonna take, or is that because I didn't go at it as effectively and efficiently as possible I kind of just let it take as much time as I allowed it to take, which means that you're not working as efficiently as you could be, which means you're not getting as big of a return on your time investment. So you're going to do time estimates, and then you're going to track your time to see how those time estimates compare to the actual time spent, then what you're going to do is you're going to do a daily review a weekly review and a monthly review your daily review. Did we get all the tasks done that we needed to get done that were going to make the biggest impact on the business and have the biggest ROI on the business day, anything that didn't get done.

Okay, why didn't it get done. Did I overestimate the amount of time I had today did something unexpected come up. That was maybe urgent but not important but I still gave it the time of day even though I shouldn't have. Right. Do any of these things need to be moved to tomorrow do some of these things needs to be moved to next week. Do I need to rejig my weekly priority list at all, you're going to do the same thing at the end of the week. What did we get done this week that was on the list. What didn't we get done. Do we need to make any adjustments moving forward this reflection is super super important because you're going to start to see. I'm not working efficiently enough. I need help. I'm spending way too much time on things that are important but I'm just allowing them to take too much time. Or, I'm really putting my focus in areas that I shouldn't be that we're not getting a good return on right, you're going to do that monthly as well. And then you're also going to have your goals check in where you're going to check in each month. With okay these are the things that we did, how have we gotten ourselves closer to those higher level, bigger goals. Right, so you're always staying connected and checked in with those higher level goals and you're not going off course, this is going to make you really effective, as a business owner and it's like, slicing through all the bullshit in business. So definitely, definitely start to implement this, right. One thing that I hear from a lot of people is this is too much, right, I started my own business to have freedom and flexibility and this is way too regimented.

You don't always have to do this process exactly as I've mapped out, but doing this process for at least a six months period is going to get you to be able to really see what's working, what's not working, where am I getting in my own way. Right where could I be better as a business owner, and then you can start to loosen the reins a little bit, but it's also going to put you in a habit of being a really effective business owner and a super high achiever. And what often happens and this is something that my coach Lacey says all the time, that, you know, because I've been definitely said well I want the freedom and the flexibility, she says, if you work really effectively within a certain container, what's going to happen is you're going to be able to get more done in less time, you're going to be able to get the more important things done in less time. So that's going to allow you to have more time to be flexible to have that freedom to go out and do other things that you want to do, right, so by being really effective in your business when you're working, you're actually going to gain more freedom and more flexibility, outside of that because you're likely going to be able to work less, a lower volume of hours. So if you're thinking, who I really don't think this is for me, I really challenge you to try this because I guarantee you are spending less than you think, that are not moving the needle forward that are not moving you towards those overall business goals. It's noise right you're spending too much time on bullshit things that are not impactful for your business, they're nice to haves they're not must haves and we don't really care about nice to haves right until your business is up and running and moving like a well oiled machine, we don't care about nice to have as much as we care about must haves, right, the things that are going to give you the biggest return on investment of your time of your budget of your energy of your attention.

So I hope this was really really helpful. And I'll see you next time. So I hope this was really really helpful if you have any questions about this, how do I implement this for my business, what should my priorities be, how can I prioritize these things. I really encourage you to book a digital strategy intensive, it's the best way for us to take a really deep dive into your business and for you to start learning the skills you need to be a more effective business owner because being a business owner is a skill set, and you need to, and oftentimes people don't think about it like that but that is the difference between people who can start any business and pretty much any business make it successful. And the people who are great at what they do, but they can't they they're, they just really struggle to get it off the ground, because they are not looking at the skills that they need to learn in order to become a more effective business owner, so check out the digital strategy intensives, they are.

You can learn more about them in book one on my website sam DiNicola digital.com And if you've been enjoying no fluff Small Business simplified, make sure you leave a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening this every single month we do a drawing. And we have one person who is winning a free coaching call with me. It's obviously the cheapest and, you know best way to get my eyes on your business, especially if you're starting out if you're struggling, if you don't have a ton of budget to invest, it's definitely a great investment of your time, right, take two seconds to leave a review and you might get a free coaching call with me, so make sure you leave a review if you haven't already and I will see you next time on no fluff Small Business simplified.