Hey there, wellness entrepreneur. Welcome back!
Today, I just got back from spring break with my family, the McLeans. We had an awesome time. We went out to the middle of nowhere to some mineral hot spring pools. It was really replenishing. We had a great time and now I’m energized and ready to get back to work.
And, this week we’re talking about numbers and sometimes we use numbers in our business to cause overwhelm or shame and that prevents us from taking time off because we feel that we’re behind or not doing well enough or we’ll celebrate or take a vacation when we actually create the revenue that we want to create and hit those bigger numbers.
But I’m here to remind you, this week we’re going to be talking about the numbers and how to work with those uncomfortable emotions and actually examine your numbers. And also want to remind you before we get into that, the importance of creating a sustainable schedule week to week and year to year where you are taking time off to replenish yourself and create precious memories and spend time with those that you care about. It’s so, so important.
You don’t want to look back three years from now, five years from now and have this business you love, that’s doing great, yes, and realize, “Oh my gosh, my kids’ going off to college and I missed all these years when they were home.” You want to be able to do both and tracking your numbers and knowing your numbers will give you more confidence to take more time off or plan for more time off.
So today we’re talking about a topic that many wellness entrepreneurs struggle with and rarely discuss openly. And that’s the fear of facing your numbers and how when we avoid our numbers or financial avoidance, it might be quietly sabotaging your business growth. And I don’t want that for you. So let’s take care of that today.
I know you didn’t get into the field because you love spreadsheets or accounting, or maybe you do. For me personally, I am not a detail-oriented person. Gimme the vision, gimme the dream. Talk about practitioner skills, energetics, human design, fitness tracking, house goals, diet, nutrition, all the things I can go on and on about those and visualizing. I can even go into details about macros and micros and diet and tracking VO two max and all that kind of stuff. But gimme a spreadsheet with numbers and details of that and my body literally goes inward. It cringes and becomes small and my brain, it goes into overwhelm. Like I’m not sure how to do this. I’m not sure how to track this.
So if you feel this way, I’ve got you and know that I look at my numbers twice a month, every month. And if I can do it, you can do it too. So we’re going to help you get through this.
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What Numbers Am I Talking About?
First, let’s clarify numbers. What numbers am I talking about? I’m actually talking about your bank account, your business bank account, as well as your personal expenses and being able to pay yourself. So your business profit, your business expenses, your personal expenses, the personal profit you want. I’m also talking about KPIs or key metrics in your business to track, which also inform you if your sales are on track, if you’re signing the number of clients that you really need to bring in to cover those expenses as well as is your audience growing, things like that.
So this is what I’m talking about when I’m talking about numbers and I look at all of those every month and my finances specifically twice a month.
So the first step is really becoming aware. Are you looking at your bank accounts, right? And do you have a separate checking account for your business and checking account for your personal? Are you looking at them regularly? Do you know what numbers actually matter in your business that are numbers you want to look at? That influence or as one of my coaches says, are the leverage that pull your revenue. Do you know the numbers to look at and measure in your business when your revenue is low? Do you feel a wave of shame that makes you avoid looking at the numbers altogether?
Or if you have no idea what numbers to track in regards to your marketing, do you know if your marketing is actually working? If you’re spending time in the right place, how are you tracking conversions? Or maybe you set income goals but have no system to monitor the progress towards them.
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What Happens If You Are Avoiding Looking at Your Numbers and Finances
When you are avoiding the numbers and your finances, it can create a dangerous cycle. When you don’t track your numbers, you can’t make informed business decisions.
Sometimes we think as wellness entrepreneurs, the decisions we should make in our business should always feel aligned or light us up. And that’s simply not true. There are always things in your business that you might not like or there are decisions that are the right decisions but are actually uncomfortable.
I’ve had to make “the right decision” in my business that I’ve gotten from coaching that I didn’t necessarily want to do or felt hard or uncomfortable with. But when I did it and implemented it, I was so glad I did. I went through my growth edge because that creates the business that I have right now. And knowing what the right decision is, it all comes from your numbers in combination with some of your strengths and your goals, the direction you want your business to go.
And when you can’t make informed decisions or you get stuck in indecisiveness, then your business stagnates. And when your business stagnates, you will probably feel even more shame about looking at the numbers or overwhelm.
And I’ve just seen this with so many wellness practitioners. In fact, I’ve had several clients come to me as a new client thinking that their six-figure goal was far off in the future because you know, they simply just weren’t tracking their revenue and their profit and knowing the numbers to track and their goals. And as soon as we tightened all that up and they had their plan of signing clients that was simple and doable, they ended up hitting their six-figure revenue goal within a few months.
So you might be closer to your goals than you realize, but you just don’t know because you don’t know your numbers.
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What Does A Healthy Relationship With Your Numbers Look Like?
It means creating a simple tracking system that doesn’t overwhelm you. And this is what I teach my one-to-one clients in the Awaken Business Coaching. You want to schedule regular money dates with yourself and review those key metrics.
For me, I review my business key metrics once a month, but I also have my finger on the pulse of my business weekly. So I’m always measuring certain things like my open rate and my emails, my click rate, my reels’ views, my conversions on consultations, and then each month I kind of go over those numbers. It doesn’t take a lot of time, truthfully, it takes 10 to 20 minutes to make sure that I’m tracking in the right direction.
You also want to be able to separate your self-worth from your business performance. You as a human being, your value is not determined by whether you’re having a great month in business or an off month in business. Because here’s the truth, every business if you’ve been in business long enough, will have off months and you as a person are still valuable and you’re still a valuable practitioner as well even if your business is having off months.
So it’s being able to separate yourself from this. It’s also understanding which numbers actually matter for your specific business model and your audience size. And it’s setting up automated tracking whenever possible to reduce the emotional labor so you don’t avoid looking at your numbers all completely.
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The Actual Goal and What Happens When You Develop Financial Awareness
Now the goal isn’t to become an accountant overnight, it’s to develop financial awareness that is empowering you to make better business decisions and be informed as your business. So that way when you get into the multiple six figures or higher, you have your finger on the pulse of your business and you always know what it needs and when you know what your business needs, you’re tracking your numbers.
So if your business does have an off month or is plateauing, this’ll reduce so much anxiety because you’ll know what problem to solve. Maybe it’ll be a leads problem to help you to get to that next phase. Or maybe it’s conversion off social media or conversion from your consultations for example.
Secondly, you’ll always see what’s actually working in your business. So for example, if you’re trying to double down on a specific social media platform, but you’re unsure of what to choose when you know your numbers. So for example, if you’ve been dabbling on YouTube, if you’ve been dabbling in LinkedIn and Instagram and even Facebook as well and kind of doing posts here or there throughout all of those and you’re not sure which social media platform to really spend the majority of your time, if you know your numbers then it becomes very easy. You just see where your consultations and your leads are coming from and then you double in on that platform for example.
Or in another example, if you have several workshop titles that you’ve been using throughout the past year and you want to simplify and just rinse and repeat three to five of those topics, but you’re unsure of what to choose, then it’s looking back and deciding, “Oh okay, when I taught at those studios, I got great conversions. When I taught these workshops, I got great conversions. I’ll repeat more of that.” That’s how I really dialed in on the three to five topics that I rinse and repeat. And that’s how I also chose the studios that I taught at consistently was based upon a lot of the numbers.
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The third reason is you can also predict cash flow issues before they become emergencies. So when you know your numbers, there’ll be no surprise tax bills are wondering if you could afford help or if you have a lot of reoccurring payments or clients on payment plans, which I do, then you know, “Oh okay, I have three clients dropping off with their payment plan next month. I better really be focusing on the future to get some more clients in the door so my reoccurring revenue doesn’t run completely dry.”
Or for me, for example, last year I had a big tax bill at the end of the year, which was somewhat a surprise because I ended up doing much better at the end of the year than both my accountant and I had predicted. So it was a surprise tax bill, but I was able to pay it no problem, which my accountant was very pleasantly surprised at because I had been tracking my numbers and saving from that based upon the revenue that was coming in from my business.
And so as I was telling a friend, even though it was heartbreaking to pay that tax bill and I was telling her, “My tax bill is trying to steal my joy from having such a great year,” it didn’t completely steal my joy because I was prepared for it and it didn’t have to leak into or flow over into 2025. I was able to enter 2025 having that bill taken care of and moving forward and maybe even for me learning from that a little bit where I actually this year I’m saving a little bit more because it was a little bit tied up the end of the year to pay that bill.
Another reason to track your numbers is you’ll develop pricing confidence when you know your exact expenses, when you know your conversion rates, then you can price your services profitably based upon your audience size and the goals and you know the exact rate that gets your clients amazing deals. So they feel like they’ve won the lottery, they’re getting all this great value for the price without second guessing yourself and it becomes less of an emotional decision and more of a business strategy decision.
And finally, you break the shame cycle. When you regularly face your numbers, they lose their power over you. A low revenue month becomes information rather than a reflection of your worth.
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How To Implement Getting More Involved and Seeing Your Numbers
Okay, so how do you implement getting more intimate with your numbers?
Strategy number one, set up a simple weekly money date or whatever recurring system works for you. As I mentioned, I did it twice a month. Once a month, paying myself felt too far in between. Every week was just too much. So twice a month works for me. And then I review some of the key metrics in my business, like my consultation conversion every month once a month. So some of my key metrics I measure once a month and then my business finances I do twice a month.
So you figure out what works for you and really it doesn’t have to be long, it can be 20 minutes and you’ll check your revenue for the week, your expenses for the week, new client consultation books, your consultation conversion rate, your conversion rate from social media and new leads coming in, cash flow projection for the next 30 days. These are just some examples of metrics and numbers that you can track. Put this in your calendar as a non-negotiable strategy.
Number two, create a metrics that matter dashboard. I had a coach that called this the cockpit because when you are the captain of flying the airline, you’re using the cockpit and all its styles to inform the decisions you’re making when you’re flying and you’re flying the plane. So I share with my clients my exact Excel spreadsheet so they can set up their own dashboard or cockpit to measure their metrics as well.
Some metrics that you want to consider tracking are your monthly revenue, your profit margin if you are paying for any leads such as Google ads or Facebook ads or boosting Instagram posts, you want to know your profit margin with those. And you also want to know your client acquisition cost, the lifetime client value, your consultation to client conversion ratio, marketing effectiveness and conversion. These are just some examples of the metrics that you will measure. Of course if you have team members, then there’ll be metrics with them to track their performance as well.
Strategy number three is automating when you can. So it’s setting up systems to track your numbers automatically. You can use accounting software like QuickBooks or Wave setting up Google Analytics to track website conversions using CRM to track client journey metrics. So being able to track a client from when they first go into your e-mail software system to when they can actually convert to become a paying client. Creating e-mail templates for follow ups.
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Now some people also have their business expenses and bank accounts set up and connected to their QuickBooks. So when money is withdrawn or when revenue comes in, it’s automatically put into QuickBooks. I don’t do that yet because I actually like to input and know exactly what money is coming in and what money is coming out because of the phase where my business is. I can do that.
However, it has been taking me longer this year I think especially. So I will be moving into automating that as well. But the thing with automation is to be careful of is you actually have to go in and check it and make sure that the automation is working and things weren’t missed and that you do know how much money is coming in and how much money is going out.
Strategy four might depend on your revenue or your relationship with numbers, but for sure you want to hire professionals that are needed. For example, I have an accountant. I am considering hiring a bookkeeper. Maybe eventually I’ve heard some benefits of hiring the bookkeepers of course is to save you time and your finances can be much more organized.
On the downside there’s been, I’ve heard some horror stories through the coaching world of bookkeepers not accurately tracking the numbers or it’s hard to get profit and loss statements, et cetera, where you lose track of the numbers and that relationship with the numbers. So I’m not quite ready for that yet and it’s not taking a huge amount of time for me to just do it myself. So I am just doing it myself right now.
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But if you really hated the numbers and never did them, then I would consider hiring a bookkeeper. So at least your books are organized and then you can just get a readout of your profit and lost and you know what offers are bringing in the money and being able to track, for example, workshop conversions and such. Then I would hire a bookkeeper to help with this. Definitely an accountant say will help with taxes and making sure that you don’t miss anything important for taxes. I highly recommend that.
And then strategy number five is reframing your relationship with numbers. Numbers aren’t again a judgment of your worth. They’re just feedback and data about how your business is doing. They’re areas of what’s working and what’s winning in your business and areas that you can improve upon. So when you see disappointing numbers, you can ask yourself, “What is this telling me about my business? Are there systems I can put in place this day and age?”
You can use AI to help with this. It’s a lifesaver. You can even put in, “This is my conversion for this, this is what I’m seeing here, how can I improve?” And you can use AI to help or a coach for example, when you can bring your data and your numbers to coaching call and you can figure out the leaky buckets or the buckets with holes in them where your revenue might be leaking out and you might be unaware of.
And when you can problem solve in this way, it brings so much hope and motivation and fire back to your business because you know what to fix, you know what to solve. And fixing that will help you move forward and grow instead of beating yourself up over disappointing numbers and saying, “I’m not cut out for this,” or, “I don’t know what’s wrong, I don’t understand, I’m confused, I’m overwhelmed, I can’t fix it, I don’t know what to fix. I feel like I’ve tried everything.” All of that type of energy keeps you stuck.
So if you’re feeling like you don’t have time to track all these numbers, just remember the time you spend tracking key metrics will save you countless of hours of ineffective marketing or teaching workshops that aren’t converting or not realizing when you thought you had a leads problem that you needed to grow your audience, but it actually was a sales conversion problem and it was your consultations that needed work. And just start small 10 minutes a week or 20 minutes bimonthly.
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Conclusion
If you feel that you’re not good with numbers, I’ve got you here. Just remember, you don’t need to be a math whiz. Most of the metrics involve simple addition, subtraction percentages. Again, you can use Excel spreadsheets to help. You can use AI to help. There are plenty of tools that can do the calculations for you. It’s just knowing how to interpret those numbers.
If you’re afraid of what you’ll discover, remember knowledge is power. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Knowing your reality allows you to change it. Not knowing it will keep you stuck and you will become a better wellness practitioner when you’re helping people and knowing your numbers. It does. Knowing your numbers does not equate to your obsession over money and revenue. Knowing your numbers makes you a successful and wise entrepreneur or CEO. And when you’re more profitable, this will allow you to help more people sustainably.
When your business thrives financially, you can serve from a place of abundance rather than depletion. And if you don’t know what numbers actually matter, start with the basic metrics I outlined above. As you grow more comfortable, you can refine and start to get more detailed on what you track based upon your goals and what intuitively you come back to.
So for example, I’m always tracking social media because I do spend a lot of time there. I track consultations because that’s what brings in clients. I track workshops because I do a lot of them. So for example, you’ll know your systems and your funnels and then you’ll just be able to track every step of the funnel. And the cost of waiting and avoiding that relationship with numbers could mean you’re not celebrating wins that you’ve already achieved.
I just remember I had one of my clients, she came to a consultation call thinking that she was really far off from hitting six figures that that was a goal for far down the road, yet she really wanted to achieve that. And then I was asking her about her numbers, how many patients and clients she saw a week what she was charging. And then I said, “Wait a minute, you are telling me that you’re seeing this number of patients a week and you’re charging this amount?” And she said yes. So I did the calculations right there on the consultation call and I said, “Well right, if you’re doing this consistently, you are already hitting six figures.” And that blew her mind. And she’s like, “Well where’s all the money?” And I was like, “I don’t know.”
So then we got into the details of how she brought in the revenue, was she using Stripe or Square? And eventually she got off the consultation call and she did hire me. And so on her very first call, she came and she says, “I just gave myself a raise. I found where my money was.” What ended up happening was she was charging her clients through Square using Square Reader, but her Square reader account was not attached to her bank account. So that money was not landing in her bank account. So she didn’t realize how much revenue she was actually making a month and she had a huge pile of money. I think it was close to $15,000 or more sitting in her Squarespace account. Now if she had not signed up for that consultation, who knows how long that money would’ve sat there. So knowing your numbers can save you from missing out on money because sometimes notifications change or accounts that were linked get unlinked.
I remember I had a client, she was on a payment plan and for some reason her credit card defaulted for two months and I was unaware of it. This was a while back and I didn’t realize, my clients typically pay me through Stripe and the Stripe notifications had changed. So I didn’t get a notification that her card hadn’t run properly. And so she missed her payment for two months. And it wasn’t until I was doing my bookkeeping and I was like, “My numbers are off, why are my numbers off?” And I finally was able to track that down and you know, it was kind of embarrassing for me to go to her and being like, “Hey, I missed two monthly payments.” And it was hard for her because now she had to catch up on two payments at the same time instead of having them split apart.
So even when you’re tracking numbers, sometimes, you know, for me, as I said, I’m not so great with numbers, I avoid it sometimes myself, but I’ve gotten so much better about catching these details. And it’s good for your business of course, because you can make sure that you are getting paid and revenue is coming in when it’s supposed to be coming in, but it’s also good for your clients so they don’t get hit with large builds either or money doesn’t go missing like my new client that had come in with the consultation.
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So this journey of avoiding your numbers to becoming empowered through the data and your numbers, it’s not always comfortable. Sometimes, especially in a hard month, it is hard to look at the numbers, but it’s so necessarily when you do have a hard month to understand what went wrong so you can get your business back on track sooner rather than later.
I had a client who was doing really well, hitting her goals, hitting 9 K months and then she had two lower back to back months. And I was watching her numbers, we were reviewing them together, together on a call and I knew exactly what was going on and I knew how she could turn it around and bring it back up. In fact, I said, “You know, just know that you’re going to have a big month soon, probably your biggest month.” And sure enough, after those two lower months, she hit her first five figure month.
But had she gotten stuck in the drama of the two lower months, that bigger five figure month might not have happened because she could have stopped marketing, she could have pulled back, she could have gotten really weird on consultations. So she might’ve unconsciously started sabotaging, but she kept going forward. We kept working on the areas that we knew that we could fix because we were tracking the metrics and that brought in that five figure month.
So start small, choose one metric to track this week, schedule your first 20-minute money date and take your first step to financial abundance and clarity. And of course, if you want my help with this or get my eyes on your business to know exactly what metrics to track, then your best next step is to schedule a free consultation call with me.
Alright, I’ll see you next week or on the call. Bye for now!
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